Since its translation from Greek into Latin in the 13th century, the phenomenon of incorporation of Aristotelian political lexicon into the Latin context raises issues regarding which terminology was left out and which one was taken in. These questions are raised not only concerning the translation of the Politics by William of Moerbeke, but also the first commentaries on the Aristotelian Latin text by Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, as well as the possible reverberation of those new Moerbekian political vocables in some readers of the Politics in the 14th century. This is neither only about verifying who has used or not used certain vocabulary nor about pronouncing judgments on these practices in order to stick a label on a thinker. Rather, this is about trying to specify the beginning of a new way of thinking and to understand that domain of human life that is its public dimension, or rather, its political dimension from the use of vocables. More specifically, this paper intends to understand how a new conceptual framework emerges from the Latin translation of the Politics, i.e., the political sphere. It is granted that the translation of the Politics by Moerbeke sets a new vocabulary and a new conceptual framework that will be among the grounds of the political thinking from then on.
Politics; Aristotle; Moerbeke; translation; reception
