The authorship of Aristotle's works has been a subject of scholarly debate, with proponents of both early and late authorship views. On the contrary, it's a dynamical area of research, I'll try to give a birds-eye view here. But first I'd like to comment the problem.
On the Aristotelian Noumenon.
We can never know what exactly the essence of Aristotle was, we always have to read his texts through the filter of an era, a culture.
A basic term like Eudaimonia can refer to a Daimon that was a power of some God, to a "good spirit" or to a motivation, depending on the culture of the time.
Starting from the very term God, which in Greek polytheism was just the inflection of Zeus, a completely different concept from what is understood by God throughout a historical process of abstraction.
What has been written
Wolt states that there is no clear consensus among scholars about the dynamic authenticity of the Magna Moralia. (Wolt, 2021). Many texts we have today appear to be class notes from Aristotle's students, such as the two Ethics, which appear to be two notes from the same course, perhaps given on different occasions. Kenny (2016) suggests that some works attributed to Aristotle may have been written by a late student based on courses taught by Aristotle towards the end of his life (Wolt, 2021). This uncertainty surrounding authorship authenticity highlights the importance of authorship authentication in attributing texts correctly (Al-Ayyoub et al., 2017).
Kirby (2022) brings an interesting view about MM (I recommend reading his paper):
The authorship of the Magna Moralia (MM) is one of the great unsolved
mysteries of the Aristotelian corpus. There is a variety of views
about where the work came from, which can be roughly divided into two
camps. The first, which I shall call the early authorship view, holds
either that the work was written by Aristotle or one of his students,
perhaps as notes from a lecture course. On this The authorship of the
Magna Moralia (MM) is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the
Aristotelian corpus. There is a variety of views about where the work
came from, which can be roughly divided into two camps. The first,
which I shall call the early authorship view, holds either that the
work was written by Aristotle or one of his students, perhaps as notes
from a lecture course.
In the realm of authorship authentication, various methods and techniques have been developed, such as using classifiers and features for verifying the legitimacy of authors in text, which can be particularly relevant in addressing security concerns in online social networks (Li et al., 2016). Additionally, the use of learning models and statistical analysis has been proposed to authenticate authors and their writings (Taha et al., 2021).
The concept of authenticity in authorship extends beyond just verifying the author of a text; it also involves understanding the interconnectedness of perceptual and non-perceptual features in relation to authorship and authenticity (Selleri, 2013). This complexity is further compounded by the evolving nature of authorship in the digital age, where issues of attribution and ownership are becoming increasingly important (Rabbianty, 2023).
In the context of ancient texts, like those attributed to Aristotle, the challenge of authenticating writings is not unique. Scholars have grappled with similar issues in works like those of Julius Caesar, emphasizing the importance of robust methods for authorship verification (Kestemont et al., 2016). These methods often involve analyzing linguistic and computational characteristics of texts to determine authorship (Iqbal et al., 2013).
Overall, the authenticity and authorship of texts, especially those of historical significance like Aristotle's works, require meticulous analysis and scholarly rigor to ensure accurate attribution and understanding of the origins of these texts.
Bibliography
Al-Ayyoub, M., Alwajeeh, A., & Hmeidi, I. (2017). An extensive study of authorship authentication of arabic articles. International Journal of Web Information Systems, 13(1), 85-104. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijwis-03-2016-0011
Iqbal, F., Binsalleeh, H., Fung, B., & Debbabi, M. (2013). A unified data mining solution for authorship analysis in anonymous textual communications. Information Sciences, 231, 98-112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2011.03.006
Kenny, Anthony. (2016). The Aristotelian Ethics. A Study of the Relationship between the Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. 2nd ed. Oxford.
Kestemont, M., Stover, J., Koppel, M., Karsdorp, F., & Daelemans, W. (2016). Authenticating the writings of julius caesar. Expert Systems With Applications, 63, 86-96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2016.06.029
Kirby, John, T., (2022). Authorship, Authenticity, Authority: Evaluating Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Poetics. Rhetorica-a Journal of The History of Rhetoric, doi: 10.1525/rh.2022.40.2.111
Li, J., Chen, L., Monaco, J., Singh, P., & Tappert, C. (2016). A comparison of classifiers and features for authorship authentication of social networking messages. Concurrency and Computation Practice and Experience, 29(14). https://doi.org/10.1002/cpe.3918
Rabbianty, E. (2023). Ai in academic writing: assessing current usage and future implications. Insania Jurnal Pemikiran Alternatif Kependidikan, 28(1a), 14-35. https://doi.org/10.24090/insania.v28i1a.9278
Selleri, A. (2013). Authorship, authenticity and the perceptual/non-perceptual divide. Journal of Literary Theory, 7(1-2). https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2013-0007
Taha, A., Khalil, H., & El-Shishtawy, T. (2021). A two level learning model for authorship authentication. Plos One, 16(8), e0255661. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255661
Wolt, D. (2021). Energeia in the magna moralia. Mnemosyne, 76(1), 65-94. https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-bja10079
