{"_index":"sire","_id":"1499","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1499,"authors_free":[{"id":2602,"entry_id":1499,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":557,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Almeida, Joseph","free_first_name":"Joseph","free_last_name":"Almeida","norm_person":{"id":557,"first_name":"Joseph","last_name":"Almeida","full_name":"Almeida, Joseph","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius on Categories 1a16\u201317 and 1b25\u201327: An Examination of the Interests of Ancient and Modern Commentary on the Categories","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius on Categories 1a16\u201317 and 1b25\u201327: An Examination of the Interests of Ancient and Modern Commentary on the Categories"},"abstract":"We may gather these observations into several points.\r\n\r\nFirst, Simplicius\u2019s commentary on the Categories shows, not surprisingly, the influence of the great Neoplatonic spiritual odyssey of return to first principles. The final prayer offered at the termination of his commentary is a stunning testimony to the power which this spiritual program exerted on the ancient commentators:\r\n\r\n \"I stop my discourse, invoking the Guardians of the Logoi to grant me a more accurate understanding of these matters and to favor me with this understanding as a viaticum toward higher contemplations and to provide me leisure from the distractions of life.\"\r\n\r\nFor Simplicius, commentary on Aristotle could never be wholly separated from this overarching spiritual purpose. In at least one of the passages considered above, this influence manifested itself in an attempt to elucidate Aristotle\u2019s text as the lesser mysteries on route to the higher. As this program and its consequences are central to the business of Neoplatonic commentary on the Categories, so it is, in its central impetus, irrelevant to the interests of the modern program of solving the problem of the Categories.\r\n\r\nSecond, Simplicius was a happy heir of a long tradition, part of which conditioned commentators to see the Categories as a text for beginners in philosophy. Embracing this teaching, Simplicius does not hesitate to deflect certain difficulties presented by the text with appeal to the elementary nature of the Categories, content to leave a real solution to more advanced speculations elsewhere. When modern interest is focused on just such a problem, such a treatment is of little value.\r\n\r\nThird, the same tradition obligates Simplicius to harmonize Aristotle with Plato. At least in the example considered above, the reconciliation can involve certain abstruse points of Neoplatonic philosophy. Such commentary is no doubt of great value to students of Neoplatonism but will generally miss the mark set by the interests of modern inquiry.\r\n\r\nThese three points appear relatively secure and of universal application to the body of ancient commentary on the Categories. There is, however, a fourth point, to be stated cautiously because of the limited data examined. When Simplicius spoke directly to the passages in question in Cat. 1a16\u201317 and 1b25\u201327, he did not seem to appreciate the issues which interested modern readers of the Categories\u2014namely, that the doctrine of simple expressions presents a philosophical theory in need of expansion and illumination, a problem to be solved in relation to a theory of categories in general rather than a solution to be applied to questions concerning the identity and nature of the Aristotelian categories in particular.\r\n\r\nThis is not to say that a modern reader will never find anywhere in Simplicius a discussion corresponding to his interest, but that in all likelihood it would be serendipitous and peripheral to Simplicius\u2019s own primary interest in the Categories.\r\n\r\nThese observations warrant the conclusion that there is indeed a separation between the interests of the ancient and modern commentators on the Categories. In its strong form, the conclusion is that the separation is absolute. This is in accord with Praechter\u2019s position in his classic review of the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (i.e., that the commentaries will prove to be essentially of historic value):\r\n\r\n \u201c[They will be] invaluable for the history of the Greek language, for the lexicon as well as for the grammar\u201d;\r\n \u201c[They will be invaluable] for understanding how ancient philosophy was able to fulfill the vast cultural mission which befell it in antiquity as sovereign in the realm of Weltanschauung, and in the Middle Ages as the \u2018handmaiden of theology.\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\nEven Sorabji, who seems to regard the independent philosophical value of the commentaries more highly than Praechter, recommends them to students of Aristotle with a note of caution:\r\n\r\n \u201cThe distorting Neoplatonist context... does not prevent the commentaries from being incomparable guides to Aristotle. The commentators... have minutely detailed knowledge of the entire Aristotelian corpus... Moreover, commentators are enjoined neither to accept nor to reject what Aristotle says too readily, but to consider it in depth and without partiality. The commentaries draw one\u2019s attention to hundreds of phrases, sentences, and ideas in Aristotle which one could easily have passed over... The scholar who makes the right allowance for the distorting context will learn far more about Aristotle than he would on his own.\u201d\r\n\r\nAlthough this is a more positive view of the substantive content of the commentaries, the illumination of sentences and ideas still does not address the needs of the kind of modern inquiry exemplified in our discussion.\r\n\r\nBecause the conclusion is drawn from limited data\u2014namely, a close reading of about sixty pages of the Berlin text of Simplicius on the Categories\u2014it must remain tentative and provisional. However, truth to be told, the tremendous effort involved in reading even cursorily just one of the ancient commentaries on the Categories, let alone with an eye to the intersection between Neoplatonic and modern interest, may leave the matter open for quite some time.\r\n[conclusion p. 97-99]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/OzmApALBY8ZdgnX","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":557,"full_name":"Almeida, Joseph","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1499,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Quaestiones Disputatae","volume":"4","issue":"2","pages":"73-99"}},"sort":["Simplicius on Categories 1a16\u201317 and 1b25\u201327: An Examination of the Interests of Ancient and Modern Commentary on the Categories"]}