Peripatetics

It makes a difference whether the word 'peripatetic' - IPA: /,pɛrɪpə'tɛtɪk/ - is spelt with or without an initial capital letter.

• Spelt with an initial capital letter, 'Peripatetic' may be either an adjective or a noun. As an adjective it is used to describe the teachings or the followers of the philosopher Aristotle. So we may say, e.g., that the philosophers Theophrastus and Andronicus contributed to the development of Peripatetic doctrine or were members of the Peripatetic School, i.e., the Lyceum, the school or research institute which Aristotle founded in Athens in the 330s BCE. As a noun, a Peripatetic is a follower of Aristotle. So we may say that Theophrastus and Andronicus were Peripatetics.

• Spelt without an initial capital letter, 'peripatetic' means: travelling from one place to another or, more particularly, working in more than one place and travelling between them. For example, a music teacher who works in several schools (perhaps spending a day in each) could be said to be a peripatetic music teacher.

Whether spelt with or without an initial capital letter, the word 'peripatetic' comes from the Greek word peripatetikos (περιπατητικός), an adjective from the verb peripatein (περιπατεῖν), which means: to walk up and down or to walk about. In the case of 'peripatetic' without an initial capital the etymological story is obvious, but in the case of 'Peripatetic' with an initial capital it is less so: what is the connection between being a follower of Aristotle and walking up and down or walking about? It has often been said that followers of Aristotle are called Peripatetics because Aristotle himself, when he lectured, did so walking up and down. However, recent scholarship has tended to doubt this explanation, and the preferred explanation is that Aristotle's school, the Lyceum, had a covered walking place or peripatos (περίπατος), and it is this that led to the adjective peripatetikos being applied to the School and its members.

See further Aristotle.