So, my title is escaping the epistemic trap, problematized literature and astrological

prognostication. By the early 17th century, a great intellectual tradition imposing and

rich in texts had begun to disappear. I refer to the tradition of the so-called problems,

sometimes also called problems of Aristotle, problemata, problemata, Aristoteles, you know,

other designations, which had been widely disseminated in the West during the Middle

Ages and until the end of the 16th century, but which by the early 17th century began to

disappear, never to return from the world of intellectual tradition in the West. The tradition

of problemata attributed to Aristotle and more generally the literary and discursive

genre of problemata has obvious intersections with other many other areas of knowledge.

And therefore, remembering and making a fast recall of the current state of research on

this type of texts has interest by itself. But a deeper reflection on the meaning of

this intellectual tradition and the roots of its popularity, which is a topic that interests

me, has not, in my opinion, been done with you care. And that is what I try to bring

here, at least, you know, in a very preliminary manner. The problemata, these texts were never

unknown to historians and they are well inscribed in the Aristotelian corpus for a long time.

You know, in the canonical Becker edition, Aristotelian texts, they're there. But they

were almost ignored by historiography for many decades. In the 19th century, there is

very little to record about of interest about this topic. And only at the beginning of the

20th century, and especially by a study, because of a study by the distinguished classicist

E. S. Forster in 1928, some interest on the problemata Aristotelis started to appear.

However, the situation has changed considerably in the last 20 years, during which an important

body of studies and editions have been published. The three volume edition of the problems in

the French famous collection, Belle Lettre, published between 1991 and 1994, deserves

a special mention. And then in 1999, the Harvard historian Anne Blair published two important

studies on the topic that in a certain way relaunched the discussion and the research

on the topic. Finally, in 2006, a collection of studies called, we titled Aristotel's problemata

in different times and tongues, edited by Peter Lemans and Michail Gojans, was released

to the public. And this, I think it's the most up to date, you know, collection of studies

on the topic. These were the central, sorry, these were the central studies recent, but

around them, a number of other papers and discussions have been published lately. From

a more general point of view, the question that interests me is the following. What does

the diffusion and the popularity of this text teach us about the trajectory of European

science? More specifically, can we learn something about the ways in which scientific knowledge

and in particular, but not only medical knowledge has been built by, has been constructed by

examining the tradition of problems, of Aristotelian problems. To begin with, what exactly are

the problems attributed to Aristotle? Let me summarize by, you know, quoting from paraphrasing

from the text by Forster that I've just mentioned. The problem, the problems is a compilation

of almost 900 questions or problems grouped into 38 thematic sections or books. Books

1 through 9 deal with medical and physiological issues. Here you can find, you know, discuss

topics as diverse as medicine, sweating, drunkenness, sexual relations, fatigue, etc. Books 12 to

13 deal with odours, if they're pleasant or unpleasant. Book 14 deals with temperament.

The themes then vary considerably in the following books. Book 15 treats a little bit of mathematics.

16 and 17, the animate and inanimate things. In book 18, issues of literature are analyzed.

And in book 19, music. Books 20 to 22 deal with botany and 23 to 26 deal with physical,

diverse physical issues such as, you know, the nature of salt, water, hot air, wind,

etc. Books 27 to 30 treat moral qualities, fear and courage, temperance or intemperance,

justice, etc. And finally, there is a group of books 31 to 38 that deal with different

parts of the body. In sum, it is a large collection of subjects, but with a clear predominance

for topics about medicine, biology and natural history, we could say so. The authorship of

the text that has come down to us raises some problems. That is to say, there is no doubt