THEOPHRASTUS. – Peripatetic philosopher and scientist, born in Eresus in Lesbos between 372-68 BC, died between 288-85. Succeeded Aristotle as head of the school in 323-22 BC and promoted its development (securing for it a plot of land).
He wrote numerous works on various subjects, of which two volumes on botany survive: *Περὶ φυτῶν ἱστορίας* in 9 books (describing and classifying plants) and *Περὶ φυτῶν αἰτιῶν* (plant biology), as well as a treatise *Περὶ αἰσθήσεως καὶ αἰσθητῶν* (a remnant of the *Φυσικὰ δόξαι*), some other brief scientific writings, a small collection of metaphysical problems (*Θεοφράστου τὰ φυσικὰ*), the celebrated *Ἠθικοὶ χαρακτήρες* (vivid sketches of thirty human types), and for the rest only fragments. Among the lost works are the aforementioned *Opinions of the Physicists* (with which T. founded the history of philosophy and provided material for all later doxography), the *Φυσικά*, *Περὶ ζώων*, *Περὶ φύλαξ*, *Περὶ σύσκεψις*, *Περὶ λέξεως*, *Περὶ νόμων*, etc.
T. was more important as a scientist (he is regarded as the father of botany) than as a philosopher in the strict sense. On the whole he accepted Aristotle’s metaphysics, cosmology, anthropology, and ethics (v.), though in his own speculation he showed a certain personal naturalistic tendency. He seems, however, to have admitted—unlike his materialist contemporaries Dicaearchus and Aristoxenus—the autonomy and hence 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). Notable is his thesis that the intellect enters man from without, yet at the moment of birth (Themistius, *De an.*, 107). In ethics he exalted the contemplative life as the ideal (whereas Dicaearchus preferred the *πρακτικὸς βίος* [cf. Cicero, *Ad Att.*, I, 76]), while at the same time assigning moral value to the possession of external goods (id., *Tusc.*, V, 9; *Acad. post.*, I, 9). As a transmitter of Aristotelian thought, T. exercised great influence. His *Characters* were highly esteemed even in modern times and inspired La Bruyère.