THEOPHRASTUS. - Peripatetic philosopher and scientist, b. at Eresos on Lesbos, between 372-68 B.C., d. between 288-85. He succeeded Aristotle as head of the school from 323-22 and promoted the development of the school (for which he procured the possession of a plot of land).
He wrote numerous works on various subjects, of which two volumes of botany survive, namely the Περὶ φυτῶν ἱστορίας in 9 books (which describe and classify plants) and the Περὶ φυτῶν αἰτῶν (plant biology), a treatise Περὶ αἰσθήσεως καὶ αἰσθητῶν (a remnant of the Φυσικῶν δόξαι), some other brief scientific writing, a small collection of metaphysical problems (Θεοφράστου τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά), the celebrated Ἠθικοὶ χαρακτήρες (vivid descriptions of thirty human types), and for the rest only fragments. Among the lost works are to be remembered the aforementioned Opinions of the Physicists (with which T. founded the history of philosophy and supplied material to all later doxography), the Φυσικά, the Περὶ ζώων, the Περὶ φιλίας, the Περὶ εὐσεβείας, the Περὶ λέξεως, the Περὶ νόμων, etc.
T. was of greater importance as a scientist (he deserves the title of father of botany) than as a philosopher in the strict sense. On the whole he accepted the metaphysics, cosmology, anthropology and ethics of Aristotle (v.), showing nevertheless in his speculation a certain personal naturalistic tendency. He admitted, however, as it seems, unlike his materialist fellow-pupils Dicaearchus and Aristoxenus, the autonomy and therefore the immortality of the human intellect. (Themistius, De an., 91; Simplicius Phys., 225 a; cf. O. Regenbogen, s. v. in Pauly-Wissowa, Suppl., VII, col. 1548). Noteworthy is his thesis that the νός does indeed enter man from outside, but already at the moment of birth (Themistius, De an., 107). In ethics he exalted the contemplative life as the supreme ideal (while Dicaearchus preferred the πρακτικός βίος (cf. Cicero, Ad Att., II, 76) and on the other hand he gave moral value to the possession of external goods (id., Tusc., V, 9; Acad. post., I, 9). As a transmitter of Aristotelian thought, T. had great influence. The Characters too were highly appreciated in the modern age, and they inspired La Bruyère.
Bibliography6 works
Raffaello Del Re