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Theophrastus report will briefly talk about the life of the ancient Greek philosopher, music theorist and naturalist. Also from this message you will learn why Theophrastus is called the father of botany.

Message about Theophrastus

Theophrastus or Theophrastus (c. 370 BC - 288 BC or 285 BC) was a versatile scientist, philosopher. He is put along with Aristotle, considering the ancient Greek naturalist the founder of geography and plant botany.

Theophrastus short biography

The future scientist Theophrastus was born in the city of Erez around 370 (371) BC. Even in his youth, he moved to Athens, where he became a student of famous philosophers: at first Leucippus, after that he was a student of Plato's Academy, a student of the Aristotelian Lyceum. Various sources testify that the ancient Greek philosopher at birth was given the name Tirtham, but Aristotle gave him the nickname Theophrastus, which meant "possessor of divine speech", "divine speaker". He was the most beloved student of Aristotle and after his death he left all the manuscripts and the accumulated library to Theophrastus. He also led the Peripatetic school. The number of students was 2000 people, and the name of Theophrastus was known far beyond the borders of the country. During his life, he wrote 227 compositions, of which not many have survived to this day. The scientist lived for 85 years and was buried in Athens with honors.

Why is Theophrastus the father of botany?
Theophrastus is rightly called the "father of botany". He is the founder of botany as an independent science. Theophrastus' works are considered as an introduction to the system of medicine, practitioners Agriculture. In addition to describing where plants can be used in medicine and the economy, the philosopher considered theoretical issues. In his works "The Natural History of Plants", "On the Causes of Plants" or "On the Vital Phenomena in Plants", he outlined the basics of the classification and physiology of plants, and also described about 500 plant species.
Theophrastus' merit is that he, albeit not entirely scientifically, outlined the main problems of plant scientific physiology. The scientist posed a number of questions of interest to him:
What is the difference between plants and animals?
What organs do plants have?
What is the activity of leaves, roots, fruits, stems?
What effect do cold and heat, dryness and humidity, climate and soil have on vegetable world?
Why do plants get sick?
Can plants spawn randomly?
Can a plant change from one species to another?

In addition, Theophrastus accurately described the technology of growing cane and making canes for aulos from it.
Other merits of Theophrastus
In the works “Ethical Characters” and “On the Properties of Human Morals”, he described 30 types of a person (flatterer, talker, braggart, proud, incredulous, grumbler), which he described with vivid situations of their manifestation.
The two-volume treatise "On Music" has preserved a fragment in which the philosopher argues with the Pythagorean-Platonic representation of music. Theophrastus viewed the melody as a sequence of intervals. He believed that the nature of music lies in the movement of the soul, which, through experience, got rid of evil. In the essay "On the syllable" he outlined his theories of oratory.
We hope that the talk about Theophrastus helped you prepare for the lesson and that you learned a lot. useful information about the life of the ancient Greek philosopher, his merits. And your short story about Theophrastus you can leave through the comment form below.

Theophrastus, or Theophrastus, (ancient Greek, lat. Theophrastos Eresios; born c. 370 BC, in the city of Eres, the island of Lesbos - died between 288 BC and 285 BC, in Athens) - an ancient Greek philosopher, naturalist, music theorist.

Versatile scientist; is, along with Aristotle, the founder of botany and plant geography. Thanks to the historical part of his doctrine of nature, he acts as the founder of the history of philosophy (especially psychology and the theory of knowledge).

Biography

Born in the family of fuller Melantha in Lesvos. At birth, he had the name Tirtam. Theophrastus ("Godful") he was nicknamed later. He studied in Athens with Plato, and then with Aristotle and became his closest friend, and in 323 BC. e. - successor as head of the school of peripatetics (Lyceum). Among his students was the comedian Menander. Theophrastus was received by the Macedonian king Cassander, the founder of the Alexandria Museum, Demetrius of Phaler, and his successor as head of the Lyceum, Straton. He lived for 85 years and was buried with honors in Athens.

Works

Botanical works

Theophrastus is called the "father of botany". The botanical works of Theophrastus can be considered as a compilation into a single system of knowledge of practitioners of agriculture, medicine and the work of scientists of the ancient world in this area. Theophrastus was the founder of botany as an independent science: along with a description of the use of plants in the economy and medicine, he considered theoretical issues. The influence of the works of Theophrastus on the subsequent development of botany for many centuries was enormous, since scientists ancient world did not rise above him either in understanding the nature of plants, or in describing their forms. In accordance with his contemporary level of knowledge, certain provisions of Theophrastus were naive and not scientific. Scientists of that time did not yet have a high research technique, there were no scientific experiments. But with all this, the level of knowledge achieved by the "father of botany" was very significant.

He wrote two books about plants: "History of Plants" (ancient Greek, lat. Historia plantarum) and "Causes of Plants" (ancient Greek, lat. De causis plantarum), which give the basics of plant classification and physiology, described about 500 plant species, and which were subjected to many comments and often reprinted. Despite the fact that Theophrastus in his "botanical" works does not adhere to any special methods, he introduced ideas into the study of plants that were completely free from the prejudices of that time and assumed, like a true naturalist, that nature acts according to its own purposes, and not for the purpose be useful to man. He outlined with insight major problems scientific plant physiology. How are plants different from animals? What organs do plants have? What is the activity of the root, stem, leaves, fruits? Why do plants get sick? What effect do heat and cold, humidity and dryness, soil and climate have on the plant world? Can a plant arise by itself (spawn spontaneously)? Can one type of plant change into another? These are the questions that interested Theophrastus' mind; for the most part, these are the same questions that are still of interest to naturalists. In the very setting of them - the enormous merit of the Greek botanist. As for the answers, in that period of time, in the absence of the necessary factual material, it was impossible to give them with proper accuracy and scientific character.

Along with observations of a general nature, the "History of Plants" contains recommendations for the practical application of plants. In particular, Theophrastus accurately describes the technology of growing a special type of cane and making canes from it for aulos.

Other notable works

The most famous is his work "Ethical Characters" (other Greek; Russian translation "On the Properties of Human Morals", 1772, or "Characteristics", St. Petersburg, 1888), a collection of 30 essays on human types, which depicts a flatterer, talker , braggart, proud, grouchy, incredulous, etc., each masterfully depicted by vivid situations in which this type manifests itself. So, when the collection of donations begins, the miser, without saying a word, leaves the meeting. Being the captain of the ship, he goes to bed on the helmsman's mattress, and on the feast of the Muses (when it was customary to send a reward to the teacher), he leaves the children at home. Often they talk about the mutual influence of the Characters of Theophrastus and the characters of the new Greek comedy. Undoubtedly his influence on all modern literature. It was by starting with translations of Theophrastus that the French moralist La Bruyère created his Characters, or Morals of Our Age (1688). From Theophrastus originates a literary portrait, an integral part of any European novel.

From the two-volume treatise On Music, a valuable fragment has been preserved (included by Porfiry in his commentary on Ptolemy's Harmonica), in which the philosopher, on the one hand, argues with the Pythagorean-Platonic presentation of music as another - sounding - "incarnation" of numbers. On the other hand, he considers the thesis of harmonics (and possibly Aristoxenus) to be of little importance, considering the melody as a sequence of discrete values - intervals (gaps between pitches). The nature of music, concludes Theophrastus, is not in interval movement and not in numbers, but in “the movement of the soul, which gets rid of evil through experience (ancient Greek). Without this movement, there would be no essence of music.”

Theophrastus also owns the (not extant) essay “On the Syllabus” (or “On the Style”;), which, according to M. L. Gasparov, in its significance for the entire ancient theory of oratory, is almost higher than “Rhetoric” Aristotle. It is repeatedly mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Demetrius of Phaler and others.

Memory

In 1973, the International Astronomical Union named Theophrastus crater on the visible side of the Moon.

Russian translators

Polenov, Alexey Yakovlevich
Sergeenko, Maria Efimovna
Stratanovsky, Georgy Andreevich

(371-286 BC) - the famous Greek scientist, called the father of botany, originally from the island of Lesbos from the city of Erez, hence the nickname - Theophrastos Eresios. He first listened to Leucippus in his native city, then to Plato, and after his death he switched to Aristotle, with whom he did not part anymore, until the great philosopher left Athens forever. T.'s life passed relatively calmly and happily. He was an intelligent, richly gifted man, at the same time kind, humane, with a sympathetic soul. He was an excellent orator and, according to legend, for his eloquence received from Aristotle the nickname " Theophrastos", which means "divine speaker"; it replaced his original name - Tyrtamos. Whether it was really so or not, in any case, T. was the most prominent and most beloved student of Aristotle, inherited from him his entire library, all manuscripts, and after the death of the teacher became the head of the Peripatetic school. The number of his disciples, according to the testimony of the ancients, reached 2000 people, and his fame spread far beyond the borders of Greece. He is credited with 227 compositions; most of them have been lost, and not a single one has been completely preserved without suffering from time and scribes. Two large botanical works of T. have come down to us; one called "History", or, better, in meaning - "The Natural History of Plants" (Θεοφραστου περί ωυτών ίστορίαι), the other "On the Causes of Plants" (θ. περί αιτιών φυτικών) - a treatise on the vital phenomena in plants . The natural history of plants consists of 9 books and corresponds in content to our morphology, anatomy and taxonomy of plants. It deals primarily with the main parts of plants, and T. distinguishes between external and internal parts. External - roots, stems, branches and shoots, leaves, flowers, fruits. Seed T. considers, like his predecessors, for the "egg" of plants, but what is the relationship between the seed and the flower - T. did not know. Internal components - bark, wood And core, which in turn consist of juice, fibers, lived And meat. What T. meant by this is not entirely clear. Juice is in some cases milky juice, in others something else, for example. resin or gum. The fibers and strands are undoubtedly named by their resemblance to the corresponding parts of animals. T.'s fibers are bundles of thick-walled bast, but in other cases, apparently, vascular bundles, for example. in the leaves. The fibers do not branch. Veins - branched tubes filled with juice: milkers, resin channels, etc., and again vascular bundles. It is curious that botanists still talk about the "veins" and "nerves" of leaves: an interesting experience of terms that have lost their direct meaning, interesting echoes of scientific antiquity. Finally, the meat is located between the fibers and veins and is characterized by the fact that it is divisible in all directions, while the fibers, for example, are split only along. Combining in various ways, these 4 main, or primary, parts form the core, wood and bark. The external parts of plants are characterized by examples and in some detail. The classification and system of T. plants is very simple; he first divides the entire plant kingdom into 4 divisions: trees, bushes, perennials And herbs, and in each department distinguishes between two groups: wild and cultivated plants. Then he describes trees and shrubs, mostly Greek, but also foreign, while touching on many important theoretical and practical issues, talks about the natural and artificial propagation of plants, about wood from a technical point of view, about the methods of dispersal of seeds, even about artificial pollination, talks about about the duration of life, about diseases and death of plants. When it comes to perennials, T. first describes the wild ones (there are 2 categories - “with thorns” and “without thorns”), then cultivated: “plants for wreaths”, that is, garden “flowers” and ornamental plants. This group included T. and roses (and therefore shrubs) and annual herbs. Two books of the essay are devoted to herbs, mainly cereals, legumes, vegetables, etc. In total, 400 plants were known to a greater or lesser extent, including spore plants: ferns, fungi, and algae. It can be seen from the text, by the way, that he knew not only Mediterranean algae, but also large forms from the Atlantic, apparently kelp (Book 4, Chapter VII). IN general description The descriptions of plants in T. are brief and not clear enough, so in most cases it is not easy to guess which plant is being referred to. The last (9th) book of "Natural History", considered by some to be a special work of T., treats of specific juices and the healing powers of the roots. It is much weaker than others, of a narrowly applied nature, and in terms of its content and presentation, it is a work of the type of those "materia medica" that for many centuries after T. were the only and miserable representatives of botanical knowledge. The second work of T. - "On the Causes of Plants", or, more correctly in meaning, "On the Vital Phenomena in Plants" - is, as it were, a processing of the same factual material, but from a different point of view; content is theoretical and applied plant physiology. The whole essay consists of 6 books and begins with a description of the methods of occurrence, reproduction and growth of plants. T. allows spontaneous generation of plants, as was allowed earlier and for many centuries after it. “Samogenerate,” he says, “those plants that are smaller and mainly annual and herbaceous (book 1, ch. V). Admitting this method as primary, T., nevertheless, considers the reproduction of plants by seeds and other he analyzes in detail the influence of external conditions on plants, mainly trees - heat, cold, winds and soil, and the changes that plants undergo both under the influence of external factors and under the influence of culture .Further, speaks of cultivation various plants, starting with trees and ending with cereals and vegetables, talks in detail about plant propagation by seeds, grafting, budding, and other applied issues of gardening and agriculture. A whole book (5th) is devoted to abnormal phenomena in the life of plants; interesting chapters on diseases, natural and artificial death of plants. The last (sixth) book, as in the first work, is much weaker than the others; she talks about the taste and smell of plants. Such are the botanical works of T. Quickly looking through them, you are involuntarily amazed at the richness of the content, the extraordinary variety and importance of the problems raised. When you delve into the text, you feel disappointed and again you are involuntarily surprised at the discrepancy between the grandiosity of tasks and questions and miserable answers to them, between the extraordinary, truly "divine" inquisitiveness of the mind and its wretched, dull satisfaction. Critical and impartial assessment of T. is not easy. It is not easy because the text of his writings has not come down to us in complete safety, and secondly, because in general little is known about the development and history of scientific thought in Ancient Greece. First of all, we do not know what belongs to T. himself and what to his teacher, Aristotle. Aristotle's work on plants (θεωρία περί φυτών) is lost. T. inherited the library, the manuscripts of his teacher, among which, very likely, there were still unpublished works, perhaps draft notes containing his thoughts, notes, and facts selected by him. Perhaps T. is more than the publisher of the works of Aristotle, a preacher of his ideas, than an independent thinker and scientist. At the very least, he drew abundantly and did not hesitate from this source. All the more confidence grows in this that he does not quote Aristotle anywhere, even when he literally repeats some passages from his writings. It is possible, as some admirers of T. want, that he did so with the consent and even at the will of Aristotle himself, but this does not change the essence of the matter: we do not know what belongs to him and what is not his. In any case, the great influence of Aristotle is evident. T.'s plant anatomy is undoubtedly an imitation of Aristotle's animal anatomy; this affects both the general idea and the details. He tries to apply the principles, the theory worked out by Aristotle regarding the organization of animals, to the structure of plants, and this preconceived desire could not but bring him into dissonance with the facts. Theory reigns, and there is little concern for the reliability of facts. In general, T.'s actual information about the plant kingdom did not rise much above the current opinions developed by everyday life, above what farmers, gatherers and sellers knew. medicinal herbs, merchants. T.'s credulity in the stories of these people is extremely great, and his own observations, his direct acquaintance with the plant world was extremely limited, and in this respect, as well as in clarity and certainty of presentation, T. is much inferior to his teacher, Aristotle. Sprengel rightly emphasizes the frequent in T. "so they say" or "so they say the Arcadians." He is no less right in pointing out that T., apparently, except for Attica, Euboea and Lesbos, was hardly anywhere, even in Greece, although in his time this could be done with complete convenience. Meyer's attempt to eliminate this reproach by suggesting that T. collected materials - "at least for the most part while traveling" - has no factual basis. From the description of many plants it is clear that T. knew them only by hearsay. According to the ancients, T. arranged a botanical garden - perhaps, but we do not know what grew in it and what T. did in it. In T., like in most of the prominent scientists of the ancient world, we see tremendous erudition, great and noble desire for truth, a fiery thirst to penetrate the secrets of nature and along with this - a complete inability to scientifically study this nature, moreover - dislike, dislike for painstaking, but necessary work establishing and studying the facts; it is left behind, as something insignificant, base, and all talent, all energy goes into the area of abstract reasoning, and often with amazing wit and impeccable logic, a harmonious, but completely false idea of the physical phenomena of nature is created, in other cases it comes out just a play on words , it turns out, as it were, an illusion of knowledge, but in fact only self-deception. All this makes one more cautious and objective in regard to t., and at the same time to everything that classical antiquity gave to botany, especially since the value of t. is usually overestimated and treated with exaggerated enthusiasm. The name "father of botany" has become a walking term. Ferdinand Kohn calls him the "father of scientific botany", apparently fascinated by the variety and depth of the affected T. questions. In this regard, the merit of T. is undeniable. But the point is that answers T. imperfect, vague, naive and far from what is called "scientific". There is still very little "science" in T.'s work, and botanical "science" is not a child of T. Two other historians of botany, E. Meyer and K. Jessen, were also inclined to exaggerate the value of T. and sometimes, in order to maintain the brightness of his halo, they embarked on subjective, unlikely assumptions. K. Sprengel and in a short note - Yu. Vizner treated him more strictly. So, the botanical works of T. cannot be called scientific V strict sense this word. This is a collection of observations and information about plants, reliable to varying degrees, diligently collected, sometimes successfully compared, often useful for practical life. It was the best collection of information about the plant kingdom in all antiquity and for many centuries after T. This is a respectable and useful work. It awakened thought, pointed out great problems to it, aroused interest in the plant world, and this is its great, undeniable significance. Finally, for us it is a precious monument of ancient Greek culture, ancient thought with all its positive and negative sides. T. was first translated from Greek into Latin by Theodore Gaza and published in Treviso in 1483: "Theophrasti de historia et de causis plantarum libros ut latinos legeremus", Theodoras Gaza (folio). This is the first edition, there have been many since then, for a detailed list see Pritzel, "Thesaurus literaturae botanicae" (1851); for details on T., see: Kurt Sprengel, "Geschichte der Botanik" (I h., 1817) and "Theophrast" s Naturgeschichte der Gewächse, übersetzt und erläutert von K. Sprengel "(I-II, 1822); E. Meyer , "Geschichte der Botanik" (vol. I, 1854); "K. Jessen, "Botanik der Gegenwart und Vorzeit in culturhistorischer Entwickelung" (1864); J. Wiesner, "Biologie der Pflanzen. Mit einem Anhang: die historische Entwicklung der Botanik" (1889, there is a Russian translation); F. Cohn, "Die Pflanze. Vortrage aus dem Gebiete der Botanik" (vol. I, 1896, translated into Russian).

Bust of Theophrastus

Theophrastus, or Theophrastus, or Tirtamos, or Tirtam an ancient Greek philosopher, naturalist, music theorist.

Versatile scientist; is, along with Aristotle, the founder of botany and plant geography. Thanks to the historical part of his doctrine of nature, he acts as the founder of the history of philosophy.

A native of Eres on the island of Lesvos. He studied in Athens with Plato, and then with Aristotle and became his closest friend, and in 323 BC. e. successor as head of the Peripatetic school.

Works

Frontispiece of an illustrated edition of the Historia Plantarum, Amsterdam, 1644

Botanical works

He wrote two books about plants: "History of Plants" and "Causes of Plants", which give the basics of plant classification and physiology, describe about 500 plant species, and which were subjected to many comments and often reprinted. Despite the fact that Theophrastus in his "botanical" works does not adhere to any special methods, he introduced into the study of plants ideas that are completely free from the prejudices of that time and assumed, like a true naturalist, that nature acts according to its own purposes, and not for the purpose be useful to a person. With his characteristic foresight, he outlined the main problems of scientific plant physiology. How are plants different from animals? What organs do plants have? What is the activity of the root, stem, leaves, fruits? Why do plants get sick? What effect do heat and cold, humidity and dryness, soil and climate have on the plant world? Can a plant grow by itself? Can one type of plant change into another? These are the questions that interested Theophrastus' inquisitive mind; for the most part, these are the same questions that are still of interest to naturalists. The great merit of the great Greek botanist is in the very staging of them. As for the answers, in that period of time, in the absence of the necessary factual material, it was impossible to give them with proper accuracy and scientific character.

Other notable works

The most famous is his essay "Ethical Characters", a collection of 30 essays on human types, which depicts a flatterer, talker, bluster, arrogant, grumpy, incredulous, etc., each masterfully depicted by vivid situations in which this type manifests itself. So, when the collection of donations begins, the miser, without saying a word, leaves the meeting. Being the captain of the ship, he goes to bed on the helmsman's mattress, and leaves the children at home on the feast of the Muses. Often they talk about the mutual influence of the Characters of Theophrastus and the characters of the new Greek comedy. Undoubtedly his influence on all modern literature. It was by starting with translations of Theophrastus that the French moralist La Bruyère created his "Characters, or the Morals of Our Age". From Theophrastus originates a literary portrait, an integral part of any European novel.

From the two-volume treatise “On Music”, a valuable fragment has been preserved in which the philosopher, on the one hand, argues with the Pythagorean-Platonic presentation of music as another “sounding” “incarnation” of numbers. On the other hand, he considers the thesis of harmonics, which considered the melody as a sequence of discrete quantities intervals, to be of little importance. The nature of music, concludes Theophrastus, is not in interval movement and not in numbers, but in “the movement of the soul, which gets rid of evil through experience. Without this movement, there would be no essence of music.”

Theophrastus also owns the essay “On the Syllable”, which, according to M.L. Gasparov, in terms of its significance for the entire ancient theory of oratory, is almost higher than Aristotle's Rhetoric. It is repeatedly mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Demetrius of Phaler and others.

Theophrastus (c. 370, Eres on Lesbos, between 288 and 285 BC, Athens), other Greek. philosopher and scientist, the largest representative of the peripatetic school. Friend, collaborator and successor of Aristotle, from 322 until the end of his life the scholararch of Lekey. Biography T. ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

THEOPHRAST- THEOPHRAST (Θ€ωφραστος) of Eres (c. 370, Eres, island of Lesbos between 288 and 285 BC, Athens), Greek philosopher, the largest representative of the Peripatetic school. Friend, student and collaborator of Aristotle, his successor in leadership of the Lyceum. ... ... ancient philosophy

THEOPHRAST Dictionary-reference book on Ancient Greece and Rome, on mythology

THEOPHRAST- (c. 370 288 BC) A Greek philosopher from Eres (Lesbos), a student and friend of Aristotle, after his death, headed the peripatetic school. Of his vast legacy, only a small part of a few short scientific works and two great works on ... ... List of ancient Greek names

Modern Encyclopedia

- (Theophrastus) (real name Tirtam) (372 287 BC) ancient Greek naturalist and philosopher, one of the first botanists of antiquity. Pupil and friend of Aristotle, after his death the head of the peripatetic school. The author of St. 200 works in natural science ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Theophrastus (Theophrastus) (real name Tirtam; 372–287 BC) - ancient Greek. naturalist and philosopher. One of the first botanists of antiquity. Student and friend of Aristotle; after his death, the head of the Peripatetic. schools. Author of over 200 papers on ... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Nicknames

- (371 286 BC) the famous Greek scientist, called the father of botany, originally from the island of Lesbos from the city of Erez, hence the nickname Theophrastos Eresios. He first listened to Leucippe in his native city, then to Plato, and after his death he moved on to ... ...

He left a large number of works, of which only a few have come down to us. Not a few more or less large excerpts from the writings are given by various ancient doxographers. Reached us: 1) 9 books about plants and their principles ... ... Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron

Theophrastus- (Theophrastus) (real name Tirtam) (372 287 BC, ancient Greek naturalist, philosopher, one of the first botanists of antiquity. A student and friend of Aristotle, after his death the head of the peripatetic school. Author of over 200 works on ... ... Illustrated encyclopedic Dictionary

Books

while Freud slept. Encyclopedia of human vices, Nikulin Nikolai. Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, wrote a treatise in the 4th century BC under the uncomplicated title "Characters", where he described 30 types of human personality: a talker, a pretender, a braggart, a coward, etc. ...
While Freud was sleeping Encyclopedia of human vices, Nikulin N .. Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, in the 4th century BC wrote a treatise under the uncomplicated title "Characters", where he described 30 types of human personality: chatterer, pretender, braggart, coward, etc. ...