What is this?

These divisions are summarized in Rufus' commentary on Aristotle's De Anima. They organize Aristotle's text according to a hierarchical division structure: each division is further divided into 2-5 subdivisions. The division scheme goes over twenty levels deep in places, resulting in about 300 divisions in total. The exact purpose of the divisions is not known — only that such division schemes were common to 13th century (and later) commentaries. Possible uses include the use of divisions to help aid students' understanding of Aristotle's arguments, as a mnemonic aid, and as a tool for organizing lectures.

How does the site work?

Because of the division scheme's unwieldy size, it is difficult to present in its full form on the printed page, or even on a traditional website. Fully expanded, the division scheme is extremely long and quickly becomes overwhelming to the eye. Most printed summaries of such schemes therefore show only the first few levels of depth. This dynamic website allows users to navigate the divisions in an expandable/collapsible format, and therefore gives one the ability to view as much or as little of the full division scheme as desired.

How do I use it?

Divisions are named by the lemma Rufus uses to introduce them, and by the Bekker numbers of the text they represent in the De Anima. If a given division is preceded by a symbol, clicking on the icon will display its immediate subdivisions. (Collapsed divisions also feature bold text.) If a division is preceded by a symbol, clicking the icon will "collapse" the division such that all displayed subdivisions of that section are hidden. (They can be revealed again easily, since the site will remember which subdivisions you had previously displayed.) If a division is preceded by a symbol, it is an "atomic" division: it represents an undivided block of text — usually only a few lines.