ABSTRACT
Aristotle was the systematic philosopher of ancient times. The break of the modern sciences with "arid scholasticism" from the seventeenth century on resulted in a long eclipse of Aristotelian philosophy. The more the philosophy of science advanced in its probing of contemporary problems, the more it asked itself what could have been the structure of a system that held men's minds for two millennia, and what held it together conceptually. Aristotle is represented by his works, now long a traditional corpus with a life and career of its own. The corpus of Aristotle's own works covers almost every major area of human inquiry. In Aquinas's time Aristotle represented the scientific pole of thought, and Aquinas's interpretations of Aristotle sought the reconciliation of science and Christianity. In the naturalistic and pragmatic philosophies that have flourished in the United States, the centrality of science moved Aristotelian studies to a different starting point.
