The Clarendon Aristotle Series is designed for both students and professionals. It provides accurate translations of selected Aristotelian texts, accompanied by incisive commentaries that focus on philosophical problems and issues. The volumes in the series have been widely welcomed and favourably reviewed. Important new titles are being added to the series, and a number of well-established volumes are being reissued with revisions and/or supplementary material. This volume presents a new translation by Annamaria Schiaparelli of Aristotle's Topics Book VI, accompanied by a detailed commentary and textual notes providing insight into the history of the transmission of the text with its variants. In the Topics, Aristotle aims at developing his dialectical method. He introduces the four predicables (property, genus, accident, and definition) which are necessary for the classification and application of the topoi, or commonplaces. Book VI of the Topics is entirely devoted to the discussion of definition, the most extended and refined discussion of this subject handed down to us from the classical period.

The concept of definition plays a central role not only in Aristotle's logic but also in his ontology. Issues connected with definitions emerge constantly throughout his works. Moreover, definitions are at the centre of Platonie philosophy and sparked a lively discussion in philosophy of the Heilenistic and late classical periods.