How to Cite Aristotle & Plato

Citing Aristotle

Aristotle (385-323 BC) was the student of Plato; tutor of Alexander the Great; founder of the philosophical institution, the Lyceum; and the first truly scientific thinker in world history. He invented the scientific study of almost every discipline we recognize today from physics to biology to logic and metaphysics. Though, in the Hellenistic age and late antiquity, Aristotle's philosophical school, the "Peripatetics," were by not means the most prominent among the philosophical schools (e.g., Stoics, Epicureans, Platonists, etc.), his system of thought came to dominate Latin, Greek, and Arabic intellectual life in the Middle Ages. Though the Western intellectual tradition drifted away from Aristotle in the early modern period and late Middle Ages, his scientific method continued to exercise a powerful (if less acknowledged) influence. Since the second half of the twentieth century, the adherence of some of the leading Western philosophers to his system of thought has helped to rehabilitate his reputation as among the greatest (perhaps the greatest) philosopher(s) in history.

All of Aristotle's works, if they are read in print (and not online), regardless of the edition or translation you are using, will almost certainly have a the same standardized numbering system running along the margins of the text.

This numbering system is referred to as the "Bekker numbers," and it is named after the German scholar, August Immanuel Bekker (1785-1871), who came up with these numbers.

Bekker numbers are divided into three sections: a number, a letter, and then another number. Going from left to right, these numbers/letters become increasingly specific. For instance, "26b15" comes before "27a10" in the text of Aristotle even though "15" is a larger number than "10." Likewise, "26a15" also comes before "26b5" because "a" comes before "b."

If you are citing something from multiple lines, just give the line range. For instance, this quotation from Aristotle's Prior Analytics can be made and cited as follows: "Having drawn these distinctions we can now state by what means, and when, and how every syllogism is effected" (25b27-29).

If a work by Aristotle is divided into books and/or chapters, it is a good idea to place reference to these before the Bekker number in a citation if the reference isn't already obvious. For instance, instead of just writing, "(25b27-29)," I could write "(c. 4, 25b27-29)," using the abbreviation "c." to denote the chapter in which the Bekker number is found—namely, chapter 4, in this case. If I wanted to cite which book in which the chapter is found (since there are multiple "books" within Prior Analytics), I could do so as follows:

Aristotle, Prior Analytics I, c. 4, 25b27-29.

The capitalized Roman number "I," here, indicates that we are citing the first "book" of the work, Prior Analytics.

If you cite the Bekker number alone, feel free to make the citation a parenthetical citation within the text of your paper. If, on the other hand, you give a longer citation—for instance, including the book number and chapter number—put this citation in your footnotes, not in the text itself of your paper.

Aristotle's complete works are available in English in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. by Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).

An incomplete, but often better translated collection of Aristotle's works is available in the very affordable Modern Library edition: The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (1941; New York: Modern Library, 2001).

Aristotle's works were mostly translated from the original Greek into Latin in the Middle Ages, by translators, such as Boethius, James of Venice, and William of Moerbeke. Aristotle's technical vocabulary was, then, enshrined in the West in the Latin idiom of these translators and the vernacular translators who followed them. Unfortunately, many modern English translations of Aristotle obscure the connection between Aristotle's technical terminology and that of the medieval scholastics by choosing vernacular words that do not correspond to the Latin ones chosen by medieval translators. This translation practice cloaks the considerable continuity between medieval and Aristotelian thought, and it makes comparisons between Aristotle and his medieval scholastic or early modern disciples difficult. 

Fortunately, the William of Moerbeke Translation Series is working to produce new translations of Aristotle's works that overcome this obstacle, making for an easy transition from reading Aristotle to reading a medieval author, like Thomas Aquinas, and vice versa. These editions are well-formatted with large margins for taking notes. Moreover, they each come with a set of explanatory essays in the back, written by a scholar who has both absorbed the wisdom of Aristotle and mastered the art of presenting it to students.