Are there copies of the Aristole and Plato’s original writings? What remains of the theri original writing. How sure are we of the exact words used in their writing?
What about Aritstole’s nads?
nad = and
theri = their
The OP contains two questions. I’m going to answer based in what I know generally. A deep investigation would necessitate going over each specific text. Alternatively there are several studies you could read. The Loeb editions of Plato and Aristotle always mention in the introduction on which manuscripts they are based. I’ve checked a few.
- Are there copies of the Aristole and Plato’s original writings?
Umm, sure, I’ve got several in my bookcase. Or do you mean an original manuscript? No, these don’t exist anymore AFAIK. All we have are copies made of copies made of … In the old days the only way to make a copy was to copy it by hand. What we have are mostly manuscripts made in the middle ages (9th-15 century). Some are older, though: the text of the Athenian Constitution was retrieved from a copy made A.D. 100.
BTW it is not even certain whether there is an original manuscript. In classical Greece manual labor was mainly considered to be work for slaves or the lower classes. It could well be that Plato hired someone for writing out what they said. With respect to Aristotle’s works, it is debated whether he wrote them himself or whether they are lecture notes taken by his students (see Ross, p. 16-17).
- What remains of the their original writing. How sure are we of the exact words used in their writing?
What remains is the copies we have currently, made centuries after their authors died. The only evidence of their authenticity we have is from secondary sources. There are a lot of lesser-known classical authors who discuss the works of Plato and Aristotle, refer to specific works and quote parts of it. Examples are Sextus Empiricus, or the Lives of the philosophers by Diogenes Laertius. Since these persons lived only a few centuries after Plato and Aristotle, when there still was a thriving academic debate, these would be reliable witnesses. By comparison of the works, and because we have several manuscripts of the same works from independent sources which are very much alike, we feel confident that we have the original works.
There are two provisos.
First, of some works the authenticity is still very much the subject of debate. There are a number of spurious dialogues by Plato, as well as some texts by Aristotle of which the authenticity is questionable. The precise consensus shifts over time. Arguments are often derived from knowledge about writing style in different ages, and philosophic content.
Second, even with the works that are accepted as genuine, the method of copying invariably introduces errors. So most manuscripts differ at lots of tiny points. Furthermore, some passages do not make much sense, which again points to errors. Translators and editors of these texts debate about this as well. If you open a serious translation/edition of Plato or Aristotle you will find lots of footnotes saying that a certain passage has been amended, or that the text of one manuscript was followed. See the Loeb editions for an example.
If you really want to go into it, there are some works refered to in the Loeb edition which go into more detail than you’d ever want to know. I’ll just copy them; I haven’t read those.
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H. Alline, Histoire du texte de Platon, Paris 1915.
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H. Unsener, Unser Platontext, in: Kleine schriften vol. II.
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M. Schanz, Studien zur Geschichte des platonischen Textes, Wurzburg 1874.
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W.D. Ross, Aristotle, London 1964 (orig. 1923), p. 7-19 has a readable discussion about the origins and authenticity of Aristotle’s works.