{"_index":"sire","_id":"122","_score":null,"_source":{"id":122,"authors_free":[{"id":148,"entry_id":122,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":3,"role_name":"translator"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J. ","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2269,"entry_id":122,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":62,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Simplicius ","free_first_name":"","free_last_name":"","norm_person":{"id":62,"first_name":"Cilicius","last_name":"Simplicius ","full_name":"Simplicius Cilicius","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/118642421","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2270,"entry_id":122,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J. ","free_first_name":"Henry J. ","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius: On Aristotle \u2018On the Soul 3.1\u20135\u2019","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius: On Aristotle \u2018On the Soul 3.1\u20135\u2019"},"abstract":"In On the Soul 3.1-5, Aristotle goes beyond the five sense to the general functions of sense perception, the imagination and the so-called active intellect, the of which was still a matter of controversy in the time of Thomas Aquinas.\r\nIn his commentary on Aristotle's text, 'Simplicius' insists that the intellect in question is not something transcendental but the human rational soul. He denies both Plotinus' view that a part of the soul has never descended from uninterrupted contemplation of the Platonic Forms, and Proclus' view that the soul cannot be changed in its substance through embodiment.\r\nHe also denies that imagination sees things as true or false, which requires awareness of one's own cognitions. He thinks that imagination works by projecting imprints. In the case of mathematics, it can make the imprints more like shapes taken on during sense perception or more like concepts, which calls for lines without breadth. He acknowledges that Aristotle would not agree to reify these concepts as substances, but thinks of mathematical entities as mere abstractions.\r\nAddressing the vexed question of authorship, H. J. Blumenthal concludes that the commentary was written neither by Simplicius nor Priscian. In a novel interpretation, he suggests that if Priscian had any hand in this commentary, it might have been as editor of notes from Simplicius' lectures. [offical abstract]","btype":1,"date":"2000","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/3B0pZxic5793Qw5","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":3,"role_name":"translator"}},{"id":62,"full_name":"Simplicius Cilicius","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":{"id":122,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Duckworth","series":"Ancient commentators on Aristotle","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null},"booksection":null,"article":null},"sort":[2000]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"895","_score":null,"_source":{"id":895,"authors_free":[{"id":1321,"entry_id":895,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Iamblichus as a Commentator","main_title":{"title":"Iamblichus as a Commentator"},"abstract":"Twenty-two years ago, when that growth in interest in Neoplatonism, which is a culmination of this conference, was only just getting underway, two large books appeared that will be familiar to all who are interested in Iamblichus. I am referring, of course, to J.M. Dillon's collection of the fragmentary remains of Iamblichus' commentaries on Plato's dialogues, supplied with an ample commentary to boot, and B. Dalsgaard Larsen's Jamblique de Chalcis: Ex\u00e9g\u00e8te et Philosophe, of which some 240 pages are devoted to his role as an exegete; a collection of exegetical fragments appeared as a 130-page appendix.\r\n\r\nLarsen's book covered the interpretation of both Plato and Aristotle and pre-empted a second volume of Dillon's, which was to deal with Aristotle. I mention these books because we are, inter alia, taking stock, and it is remarkable that not much attention has been paid since then to Iamblichus' role as a commentator. Perhaps they have had the same effect on the study of this aspect of Iamblichus as Proclus' work had on the interpretation of Plato at Alexandria.\r\n\r\nBe that as it may, I intend to look, not very originally, at Iamblichus' activities as a commentator on philosophical works\u2014and so I shall say nothing about the twenty-eight books or more of his lost commentary on the Chaldaean Oracles\u2014and also to say something, in the manner of core samples, about how his expositions compare with those of the later commentators.\r\n\r\nThough the process can be traced back in part to Porphyry, I think it is safe to say that Iamblichus was the first Neoplatonist, at least of those about whom we are reasonably well informed, to set out systematically to write commentaries on the major works of both Plato and\u2014in Iamblichus' case to a lesser extent\u2014Aristotle too.\r\n\r\nThe fact that he did both is noteworthy, since most of his successors seem to have specialized, more or less, in one or the other in their published works, if not in their lecture courses. We are, as ever in this area, faced with difficulties about deciding who wrote what, which often amounts to making difficult decisions about the implications of the usual imprecise references that are commonplace in ancient commentary.\r\n\r\nThe best we have are those references which Simplicius, in his Physics commentary, gives to specific books or even chapters of Iamblichus' Timaeus and Categories commentaries (cf. In Aristotelis Physica Commentaria 639.23\u201324; in the second chapter of book 5 of the commentary on the Timaeus 786.11\u201312; in the first book of the commentary on the Categories). But that Iamblichus did write commentaries on both Plato and Aristotle can be regarded as firmly established.\r\n\r\nIt is tempting to think, though there is no text which allows us to demonstrate this, that his doing so was connected with the fact that it seems to have been he who set up the thereafter traditional course in which certain works of Aristotle were read as propaedeutic to a selection of twelve\u2014or rather ten plus two\u2014Platonic dialogues, which culminated in the study of the Timaeus and Parmenides.[introduction p. 1-2]","btype":3,"date":"1997","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/3m984P11hlUhV1x","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":895,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Syllecta \tClassica","volume":"8","issue":"","pages":"1\u201313"}},"sort":[1997]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"927","_score":null,"_source":{"id":927,"authors_free":[{"id":1371,"entry_id":927,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2527,"entry_id":927,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The writings of the De anima commentators","main_title":{"title":"The writings of the De anima commentators"},"abstract":"So far we have discussed the work of our commentators as if it was \r\nsimply scholarship and philosophical exposition, whether of their own \r\nphilosophy or that of Aristotle which most of them held to be fundamen\u00ad\r\ntally the same. There is, however, another aspect of the commentaries \r\nwhich, while not prominent, should not be forgotten. That is the way in \r\nwhich doing such work was an integral part of a life aimed at the greatest \r\npossible degree of return to that higher reality from which the commenta\u00ad\r\ntors saw human life as a decline and separation. It is becoming \r\nincreasingly better understood that for the great majority of Greek philo\u00ad\r\nsophers, philosophy was not only a way of thinking but a way of life.70 The \r\nlate Neoplatonists seem to have gone even further, and regarded the \r\nproduction of commentaries as a kind of service to the divine, much as a \r\nChristian monk who engaged in scholarship would have seen it in that \r\nlight So we find at the end of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on the De caelo what \r\ncan only be described as a prayer: \u2018Oh lord and artificer of the universe \r\nand the simple bodies in it, to you and all that has been brought into being \r\nby you I offer this work as a hymn, being eager to see as a revelation the \r\nmagnitude of your works and to proclaim it to those who are worthy, so \r\nthat thinking no mean or mortal thoughts about you we may make \r\nobeisance to you in accordance with the high place you occupy in respect \r\nof all that is produced by you\u2019 (731.25-9). Those who think that ancient \r\nphilosophy ceased to be of interest some three and a half centuries before \r\nthese words were written and who may from time to time consult Sim\u00ad\r\nplicius for an opinion on the meaning of an Aristotelian text, are unlikely \r\never to see these words, or those that come at the end of the commentary \r\non the Enckeiridion (138.22-3). Without them they cannot fully under\u00ad\r\nstand the nature of works beyond whose surface they never penetrate, \r\nworks whose very composition could be seen as an act of reverence to the \r\ngods of paganism. [Conclusion, p. 71]","btype":2,"date":"1996","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/OwPB7ahnasyI8P2","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":927,"section_of":213,"pages":"53-71","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":213,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":1,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle and Neoplatonism in late antiquity: Interpretations of the \"De Anima\"","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Blumenthal1996a","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1996","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1996","abstract":"Steven Strange: Emory University Scholars have traditionally used the Aristotelian commentators as sources for lost philosophical works and occasionally also as aids to understanding Aristotle. In H. J. Blumenthal's view, however, the commentators often assumed that there was a Platonist philosophy to which not only they but Aristotle himself subscribed. Their expository writing usually expressed their versions of Neoplatonist philosophy. Blumenthal here places the commentators in their intellectual and historical contexts, identifies their philosophical views, and demonstrates their tendency to read Aristotle as if he were a member of their philosophical circle.This book focuses on the commentators' exposition of Aristotle's treatise De anima (On the Soul), because it is relatively well documented and because the concept of soul was so important in all Neoplatonic systems. Blumenthal explains how the Neoplatonizing of Aristotle's thought, as well as the widespread use of the commentators' works, influenced the understanding of Aristotle in both the Islamic and Judaeo-Christian traditions.H. J. Blumenthal is the author or coeditor of six previous books and is currently preparing a two-volume translation, with introduction and commentary, of Simplicius' Commentary on \"De anima\" for publication in Cornell's series Ancient Commentators on Aristotle.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/VOUUZIIp0rHNG0V","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":213,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Duckworth","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1996]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1449","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1449,"authors_free":[{"id":2431,"entry_id":1449,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2444,"entry_id":1449,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The commentators: their identity and their background","main_title":{"title":"The commentators: their identity and their background"},"abstract":"While in the previous chapter we have been looking at the overall similarity of the commentators\u2019 methods and assumptions, it is now time to try to say something about them as individuals and the work they produced. This is not an easy task. We may have lives of the most important philosophers, Plotinus and Proclus, and even of an apparent nonentity like Isidore, but for those who wrote commentaries on Aristotle, we can often do little more than establish places of activity and approximate dates.\r\n\r\nThe information most consistently available is the most useless\u2014an indication, sometimes no more than a manuscript tradition with all the doubts attaching to that, of the town or area a man came from or was known by: \u201cProclus the Lycian,\u201d \u201cSimplicius the Cilician,\u201d \u201cPriscian the Lydian.\u201d Those who operated in Alexandria are usually labeled \u201cAlexandrian,\u201d too consistently for the label to be anything more than an indication that that was where they worked or spent an important part of their careers. Thus, all we know, in most cases, is where some of the writers we are concerned with began their lives, and then only to the extent of knowing what part of the world it was in.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, some information on the commentators is provided by sources that tell us about them incidentally to their main aim. Damascius\u2019 reconstructed Life of Isidore is one such source: it deals in passing with those who were either personally or historically connected with the subject of the work. Much of the information about the relation between those who worked at Athens and Alexandria in the fifth and sixth centuries is derived from that source. In particular, most of the evidence about who studied with whom and where is to be found there.\r\n\r\nUnfortunately, by far the larger of two collections of excerpts in Photius (codd. 181 and 242), by whom most of the surviving contents have been preserved, comes from a particularly scrappy part of his work, so that we often do not know which snippets should be taken together, a point that affects, among other things, an important question about Ammonius.\r\n\r\nTwo works that do survive and give us some further help are Zacharias\u2019 Life of Severus, from which, though it concentrates on Christians, we can learn something about conditions in the schools of Alexandria as well as about their students and teachers, and the same writer\u2019s dialogue Ammonius, which provides rather less than its title might lead one to hope, being concerned primarily with matters in dispute between pagans and Christians, such as the eternity of the world and the creative activity of God. It tells us very little about Ammonius but does raise a question of some importance about his beliefs, with which we must deal below.\r\n\r\nAt an earlier period, Marinus\u2019 Life of Proclus, a document often distorted by the desire to fit biographical facts to philosophical notions, gives us some information about others who worked at Athens and are part of the story of Aristotelian commentary\u2014namely, Plutarch and Syrianus, who, Marinus tells us, were respectively master and pupil, as well as both being teachers of Proclus. In addition, he mentions persons about whom he gives us little or no other information, such as Plutarch\u2019s grandson Archiadas and Proclus\u2019 contemporary Domninus. Unfortunately, the Life does not proceed in chronological order because its structure depends on a framework of the Neoplatonic scale of virtues and Proclus\u2019 ascent to its summit.\r\n\r\nIn addition to what these sources provide, we have pieces of more or less incidental information from elsewhere, some of it not unimportant. Such are the dates infrequently given en passant in the commentaries and the occasional references to philosophy in both contemporary and later historians. Some of these references are notoriously difficult to interpret or even simply unreliable. In this category are the details of the exile of 529 and the possible return from it. In addition, there are entries in or from the lexica and other compilations so popular in late Classical antiquity and early Byzantine culture; some of these overlap both with each other and with the material found in Photius.\r\n\r\nThere are some figures in the tradition of Aristotelian commentary about whom we know almost nothing. Such are Asclepius, the editor of Ammonius\u2019 Metaphysics course, at least for Books A-Z, Olympiodorus in the next generation, and his presumed pupil Elias. His\u2014probably\u2014contemporary David is well known in the Armenian tradition but not in the Greek. The last three, as it happens, are all later than the last surviving Life of a philosopher.\r\n\r\nOne of the perversities of the distribution of information is that we are often better informed about those whose work has been lost but was clearly important in the tradition, like Plutarch, and even those whose work has been lost and may not have been important in the interpretation of either the Platonic or the Aristotelian writings in any case, like Isidore, than about the authors of considerable parts of our corpus of texts, like Ammonius and Simplicius.\r\n\r\nLet us now go back to the beginning and look at what we do know about those who contributed to the exposition of the De Anima, leaving aside Plotinus, whose contribution was the more general one of integrating Aristotelian psychology into Neoplatonic philosophy and about whose life we are reasonably well, if somewhat sporadically, informed.\r\n\r\nWe can say that Iamblichus, the initiator of the organization of the Neoplatonists\u2019 Aristotle and Plato course, and perhaps their Aristotle course as well, probably did not write a De Anima commentary, a matter we shall return to shortly, but Ps-Simplicius claims to follow the guidance he offered in his own treatise on the soul.\r\n\r\nSince, however, most of that has been lost, and Ps-Simplicius\u2019 De Anima commentary notoriously fails to provide the extensive documentation and specific attributions found in the other Simplicius commentaries, we can assess neither the real extent nor the specific details of Iamblichus\u2019 influence. That situation contrasts with what obtains in the case of their Categories commentaries: while in this case Iamblichus\u2019 commentary is lost, Simplicius refers to it constantly by name.\r\n\r\nIt is worth mentioning that Proclus does the same in his Timaeus commentary, showing that Iamblichus\u2019 lead was followed by at least some\u2014perhaps avoiding at this stage adding \"Athenians\"\u2014at both ends of the combined Aristotle and Plato course. Nevertheless, the combination of Ps-Simplicius\u2019 expression of intent in the De Anima commentary and what actually happens in other commentaries suggests that Iamblichus\u2019 influence on the exposition of the De Anima will not have been negligible.\r\n\r\nIts extent may or may not have been greater because of his place early in the story: though his exact dates cannot be established, they fall in the second half of the third century and the beginning of the fourth, making it possible that he was actually a pupil of Porphyry, as later writers assert\u2014an assertion that must, however, be treated with some care because of the notorious habit of ancient biographers and doxographers of arranging philosophers in chains of master-pupil relations, a habit that affects the whole history of Greek philosophy from Thales to the end.\r\n\r\nAfter Iamblichus, there is a gap in the history of Platonism and also of Aristotelian exposition. The latter is, however, partly filled by the anomalous figure of Themistius, partly because of the very anomaly that consists in his being a Peripatetic and standing outside the mainstream of philosophical development, which was by now almost entirely Platonist.\r\n\r\nThemistius differs from the other commentators in another respect too. Most of them were, as far as we know, the equivalent of professional philosophers today, producing philosophical research while earning their living by teaching, subsidized perhaps, in the case of those Neoplatonists working at Athens, by the Academy\u2019s funds, from whatever source these came.\r\n\r\nThemistius, on the other hand, was a diplomat and politician whose interest in Aristotle might be thought of as loosely analogous to Gladstone\u2019s in Homer. The commentaries were written early in his life, and there is no evidence that he ever returned to actual study of Aristotle, nor that he ever taught philosophy. Nor is there any evidence that will withstand scrutiny that he ever wrote on Plato, great as his admiration for him was. [introduction p. 35-38]","btype":2,"date":"1996","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/GBYzMZ4X3Nt0hsI","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1449,"section_of":213,"pages":"35-51","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":213,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":1,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle and Neoplatonism in late antiquity: Interpretations of the \"De Anima\"","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Blumenthal1996a","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1996","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1996","abstract":"Steven Strange: Emory University Scholars have traditionally used the Aristotelian commentators as sources for lost philosophical works and occasionally also as aids to understanding Aristotle. In H. J. Blumenthal's view, however, the commentators often assumed that there was a Platonist philosophy to which not only they but Aristotle himself subscribed. Their expository writing usually expressed their versions of Neoplatonist philosophy. Blumenthal here places the commentators in their intellectual and historical contexts, identifies their philosophical views, and demonstrates their tendency to read Aristotle as if he were a member of their philosophical circle.This book focuses on the commentators' exposition of Aristotle's treatise De anima (On the Soul), because it is relatively well documented and because the concept of soul was so important in all Neoplatonic systems. Blumenthal explains how the Neoplatonizing of Aristotle's thought, as well as the widespread use of the commentators' works, influenced the understanding of Aristotle in both the Islamic and Judaeo-Christian traditions.H. J. Blumenthal is the author or coeditor of six previous books and is currently preparing a two-volume translation, with introduction and commentary, of Simplicius' Commentary on \"De anima\" for publication in Cornell's series Ancient Commentators on Aristotle.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/VOUUZIIp0rHNG0V","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":213,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Duckworth","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1996]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1126","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1126,"authors_free":[{"id":1701,"entry_id":1126,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2440,"entry_id":1126,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Platonism in late antiquity","main_title":{"title":"Platonism in late antiquity"},"abstract":"The Platonism of late antiquity is, of course, what we now call Neoplatonism. That term is a modern one. \u2018Neoplatonist\u2019 and \u2018Neoplatonic\u2019 first appeared in English and French in the 1830s. All the philosophers whose work comes under this heading thought of themselves simply as Platonists, and the doctrine they were expounding as the Platonic philosophy. For Plotinus, the man normally thought of as the founder of this type of philosophy, all that he might have to say had been said before, though it might not have been set out explicitly, and could be found in the text of Plato (cf. V 1.8.10-14). For Proclus in the 5th century, after two hundred years of this kind of thinking, the same view of what he was doing still stood, as it did for Simplicius and Damascius into the 6th. Thus, Proclus, in the preface to his Platonic Theology, could write of his whole enterprise, and that of his Neoplatonic predecessors, as the understanding and exposition of the truths in Plato.\r\n\r\nGiven our modern views of Plato and Aristotle, as working philosophers whose views developed and whose answers to questions were not always the same, it is important to realize that their ancient interpreters looked at them as creators of fixed systems: though they might recognize that they did not always say the same things about the same questions, they saw such apparent inconsistencies as problems about the relation of disparate statements to an assumed single doctrine rather than about how one different doctrine might relate to another.\r\n\r\nBefore going on, I should perhaps offer some explanations and an apology. The apology is to those who know a great deal, or even a little, about Neoplatonism to whom some of what I shall say is basic common knowledge. The explanations are two.\r\n\r\nFirst, that I am taking late antiquity to start in the 3rd century A.D., following an old Cambridge custom of taking ancient Greek philosophy to have ended with the death of Marcus Aurelius. The second is to say what I am going to do here. It relates to the first. When this view of the limits of classical antiquity still held, the study of Neoplatonism was regarded as rather disreputable, in the English-speaking world at least, and the few apparent exceptions\u2014Elements of Theology, still one of the great achievements of Neoplatonic scholarship, and the first modern commentary on a Neoplatonic work\u2014was seen not so much as evidence that there was here a rich field for new scholarly endeavor as an indication of that scholar\u2019s eccentricity. The common attitude found its expression in the preface to the first volume of W.K.C. Guthrie\u2019s History of Greek Philosophy, where he relegated Neoplatonism to the realms of the unphilosophical and the un-Greek:\r\n\r\n\"With Plotinus and his followers, as well as with their Christian contemporaries, there does seem to enter a new religious spirit which is not fundamentally Greek...\"\r\n\r\nThat was in 1962.\r\n\r\nWhat I want to do is to look at some of the characteristics of Neoplatonism and to see how the picture of this philosophy, or rather group of philosophies, has changed during the last three decades. I think most would now agree it is basically Greek. As to the importance of the religious and soteriological elements in it, which for many of its adherents was rather small in any case, that is arguable, and its significance depends on the extent to which one regards other forms of ancient philosophy as enquiries into how one should live the best life either in relation to one\u2019s own society or to the gods which that society recognized. What is important is that most of the Neoplatonic writings we have are clearly philosophical rather than religious or otherwise concerned with the supernatural. I shall therefore take it for granted that we are talking about philosophy, and not any of the other things with which Neoplatonism has sometimes been associated, and which may undoubtedly be found in some of its products.\r\n[introduction p. 1-2]","btype":2,"date":"1993","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/A5Y90b8NYMkY9Vs","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1126,"section_of":214,"pages":"1-27","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":214,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":1,"language":"en","title":"Soul and intellect: Studies in Plotinus and later Neoplatonism","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Blumenthal1993c","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1993","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1993","abstract":"This book presents a series of Dr. Blumenthal\u2019s studies on the history of Neoplatonism, from its founder Plotinus to the end of Classical Antiquity, relating especially to the Neoplatonists\u2019 doctrines about the soul. The work falls into two parts. The first deals with Plotinus and considers the soul both as part of the structure of the universe and in its capacity as the basis of the individual\u2019s vital and cognitive functions. The second part is concerned with the later history of Neoplatonism, including its end. Its main focus is the investigation of how Neoplatonic psychology was modified and developed by later philosophers, in particular the commentators on Aristotle, and used as the starting point for their Platonizing interpretations of his philosophy.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Hj2vOznXoMqSzco","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":214,"pubplace":"Aldershot (Hampshire)","publisher":"Variorum","series":"Variorum collected studies series","volume":"426","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1993]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"896","_score":null,"_source":{"id":896,"authors_free":[{"id":1322,"entry_id":896,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2442,"entry_id":896,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Soul Vehicles in Simplicius","main_title":{"title":"Soul Vehicles in Simplicius"},"abstract":"There has been a not inconsiderable amount of discussion of the nature and function of the och\u00eama\u2014or och\u00eamata\u2014the body or bodies made of not quite bodily substance, which served as an intermediary between body and soul in various Neoplatonisms from Porphyry, or even arguably Plotinus, down to and including Proclus. Rather less attention, and in Simplicius\u2019 case virtually none, has been paid to the nature and role of such intermediary vehicles in the Neoplatonist commentators on Aristotle.\r\n\r\nThe purpose of the following pages will be to examine the use of the concept in Simplicius. In particular, it will seek to establish:\r\n\r\n How many such vehicles there were.\r\n What they were made of.\r\n What was their function, and, related to this:\r\n What was their life expectancy.\r\n Were they simply such as one would expect to find in the work of a Neoplatonist at this time, or are they in some way modified by the commentary context?\r\n\r\nIn considering these matters, special attention will be paid to the vocabulary used to discuss them. It should not, however, come as a surprise to discover that it is not significantly, if at all, different from that of those Neoplatonists who did not concentrate their endeavors on the exposition of Aristotle. [introduction p. 173]","btype":2,"date":"1993","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/iFGbdffl8v5SpA9","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":896,"section_of":214,"pages":"173-188","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":214,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":1,"language":"en","title":"Soul and intellect: Studies in Plotinus and later Neoplatonism","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Blumenthal1993c","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1993","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1993","abstract":"This book presents a series of Dr. Blumenthal\u2019s studies on the history of Neoplatonism, from its founder Plotinus to the end of Classical Antiquity, relating especially to the Neoplatonists\u2019 doctrines about the soul. The work falls into two parts. The first deals with Plotinus and considers the soul both as part of the structure of the universe and in its capacity as the basis of the individual\u2019s vital and cognitive functions. The second part is concerned with the later history of Neoplatonism, including its end. Its main focus is the investigation of how Neoplatonic psychology was modified and developed by later philosophers, in particular the commentators on Aristotle, and used as the starting point for their Platonizing interpretations of his philosophy.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Hj2vOznXoMqSzco","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":214,"pubplace":"Aldershot (Hampshire)","publisher":"Variorum","series":"Variorum collected studies series","volume":"426","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1993]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"214","_score":null,"_source":{"id":214,"authors_free":[{"id":273,"entry_id":214,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Soul and intellect: Studies in Plotinus and later Neoplatonism","main_title":{"title":"Soul and intellect: Studies in Plotinus and later Neoplatonism"},"abstract":"This book presents a series of Dr. Blumenthal\u2019s studies on the history of Neoplatonism, from its founder Plotinus to the end of Classical Antiquity, relating especially to the Neoplatonists\u2019 doctrines about the soul. The work falls into two parts. The first deals with Plotinus and considers the soul both as part of the structure of the universe and in its capacity as the basis of the individual\u2019s vital and cognitive functions. The second part is concerned with the later history of Neoplatonism, including its end. Its main focus is the investigation of how Neoplatonic psychology was modified and developed by later philosophers, in particular the commentators on Aristotle, and used as the starting point for their Platonizing interpretations of his philosophy.","btype":1,"date":"1993","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Hj2vOznXoMqSzco","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":{"id":214,"pubplace":"Aldershot (Hampshire)","publisher":"Variorum","series":"Variorum collected studies series","volume":"426","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null},"booksection":null,"article":null},"sort":[1993]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1021","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1021,"authors_free":[{"id":1537,"entry_id":1021,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":43,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sheppard, Anne D.","free_first_name":"Anne D.","free_last_name":"Sheppard","norm_person":{"id":43,"first_name":"Anne D.","last_name":"Sheppard","full_name":"Sheppard, Anne D.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1158024592","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1538,"entry_id":1021,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J. ","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1539,"entry_id":1021,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":139,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Robinson, Howard","free_first_name":"Howard","free_last_name":"Robinson","norm_person":{"id":139,"first_name":"Robinson","last_name":"Howard ","full_name":"Robinson, Howard ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/172347122","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Phantasia and Mental Images: Neoplatonist Interpretations of De Anima, 3.3","main_title":{"title":"Phantasia and Mental Images: Neoplatonist Interpretations of De Anima, 3.3"},"abstract":"Aristotle\u2019s treatment of phantasia in De anima 3.3 is both suggestive and tantalizing: suggestive because Aristotle seems to be trying to describe a capacity of the mind that cannot be identified either with sense-perception or with rational thought\u2014a capacity which, if it is not the same as what we call \"imagination,\" at least has much in common with it. It is tantalizing because the chapter flits from one point to another and is difficult to interpret as a consistent whole. There have been several recent attempts to make sense of the chapter and relate it to Aristotle\u2019s other remarks about phantasia elsewhere. I shall briefly discuss three of these, which all make some use of modern discussions of imagination. In all three cases, the way they interpret Aristotle\u2019s position is influenced by the account of imagination they themselves favor.\r\n\r\nIt used to be taken for granted that imagination involves having mental images, but this assumption was among the many challenged in the works of Wittgenstein and in Gilbert Ryle\u2019s The Concept of Mind. It is now more fashionable to analyze propositions of the form \"I imagine that P\" than to inquire into hypothetical pictures in the mind. Accordingly, some current interpreters of Aristotle claim that he is interested in the logic of the verb phainesthai, or in a power that interprets the data of perception, rather than in mental images.\r\n\r\nFor example, Malcolm Schofield claims that Aristotle is concerned with the verb phainesthai and the sense in which it expresses a non-committal attitude toward the veridical character of sensory or quasi-sensory experiences. According to Schofield, Aristotle is concerned with \"non-paradigmatic sensory experiences\"\u2014phenomena that make one say cautiously phainetai (\"It looks like an X\"). Mental imagery is only one type of such experience and is not Aristotle\u2019s main concern. Martha Nussbaum also emphasizes the connection with the verb phainesthai and explicitly attacks the view that mental images are central to either Aristotelian phantasia or our notion of imagination. Nussbaum claims that Aristotle has a very general interest in how things appear to living creatures. She examines Aristotle\u2019s account of the role of phantasia in animal movement and its relationship to aisthesis and argues that, for Aristotle, aisthesis is simply the passive reception of sense-impressions, while the role of phantasia is to interpret such impressions.\r\n\r\nMore recently, Deborah Modrak has argued for an interpretation of Aristotelian phantasia that once again makes mental images important. She argues against Nussbaum\u2019s interpretation of aisthesis as purely passive and describes phantasia as \"the awareness of a sensory content under conditions that are not conducive to veridical perception.\" Such awareness, she argues, can perfectly well take the form of a mental image.\r\n\r\nMy concern here is not so much to adjudicate among these rival modern interpretations of Aristotle as to inquire what light the Neoplatonist commentators on the De anima throw on the issues raised. It might be thought that this is a futile enterprise, given the very different presuppositions with which the ancient commentators approached Aristotle. Henry Blumenthal has demonstrated in a number of articles that these commentators read Aristotle through Platonizing spectacles and that their interpretation of his psychology is colored by their Platonist assumptions. Nevertheless, if we examine the discussions of De anima 3.3 by the Neoplatonists, some interesting light is cast on the question of whether phantasia involves mental images.\r\n\r\nIn this paper, I shall confine myself to the two Neoplatonist commentaries on the De anima\u2014those attributed to Simplicius and Philoponus. (Themistius, who was not a Neoplatonist, would require separate discussion.) Both commentaries raise problems of authorship, although these do not significantly affect the present inquiry. F. Bossier and C. Steel have argued that the commentary ascribed to Simplicius is not by him but by his contemporary Priscianus Lydus. Whether this is correct or not, the commentary is a product of sixth-century Athenian Neoplatonism. Book 3 of the Greek version of Philoponus\u2019 commentary has been much more conclusively demonstrated to be by the later Alexandrian commentator Stephanus. Part of a Latin translation of Philoponus\u2019 own work on De anima 3 survives, but his comments on 3.3 are not preserved. Those I shall be discussing are by Stephanus. (Where it is possible to compare the two commentators, the views of Stephanus are sometimes quite close to those of Philoponus, so it is likely that Philoponus\u2019 views on 3.3 were not very different from those we find in Stephanus.) [introduction p. 165-167]","btype":2,"date":"1991","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/lzX0JUImw1D2csY","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":43,"full_name":"Sheppard, Anne D.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":139,"full_name":"Robinson, Howard ","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1021,"section_of":354,"pages":"165-173","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":354,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Supplementary volume: Aristotle and the Later Tradition","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Blumenthal\/Robinson1991","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1991","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1991","abstract":"This volume contains papers by a group of leading experts on Aristotle and the later Aristotelian tradition of Neoplatonism. The discussion ranges from Aristotle's treatment of Parmenides, the most important pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, to Neoplatonic and medieval use of Aristotle, for which Aristotle himself set guidelines in his discussions of his predecessors. Traces of these guidelines can be seen in the work of Plotinus, and that of the later Greek commentators on Aristotle. The study of these commentators, and the recognition of the philosophical interest and importance of the ideas which they expressed in their commentaries, is an exciting new development in ancient philosophy to which this book makes a unique and distinguished contribution.[official abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/jxVlK6YghFkMcPK","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":354,"pubplace":"Oxford","publisher":"Clarendon Press","series":"Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1991]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"894","_score":null,"_source":{"id":894,"authors_free":[{"id":1317,"entry_id":894,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1319,"entry_id":894,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1320,"entry_id":894,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":139,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Robinson, Howard","free_first_name":"Howard","free_last_name":"Robinson","norm_person":{"id":139,"first_name":"Robinson","last_name":"Howard ","full_name":"Robinson, Howard ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/172347122","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Nous path\u00eatikos in later Greek philosophy","main_title":{"title":"Nous path\u00eatikos in later Greek philosophy"},"abstract":"In 1911 H. Kurfess obtained a doctorate from the University of \r\nT\u00fcbingen with a dissertation on the history of the interpretation of nous \r\npoietikos and nous pathetikos} Notoriously the expression nous poietikos \r\nnever occurs in the text of Aristotle, but its derivation from De mim. \r\n430*11-12 is an easy step, and when philosophers and commentators \r\nsubsequently discuss it, we know what it is that they are talking about, \r\neven if its nature and status remained, and remain, controversial. \r\nSimilarly nouspathetikos, or rather ho pathetikos nous, occurs only once in \r\nthe pages of Aristotle, but appears often, if less frequently than nous \r\npoietikos, in the texts of his successors and interpreters. In its case, \r\nhowever, though the expression occurs in Aristotle\u2019s De anima, its \r\nreference is unclear. To aggravate matters, nous pathetikos quite often \r\nappears in his successors in contexts which seem to have nothing to do \r\nwith the intellect. Yet while nous poietikos has generated an enormous \r\nliterature from the ancient world up until today, the phrase nous \r\npathetikos has received nothing like the attention of its partner. This \r\npaper will examine some of its uses in both commentators and Neo- \r\nplatonist philosophers in the hope of explaining its appearance and \r\nclarifying its meaning. [Introduction, p. 191]","btype":2,"date":"1991","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Di0rd034eeOOHeY","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":139,"full_name":"Robinson, Howard ","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":894,"section_of":354,"pages":"191-205","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":354,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Supplementary volume: Aristotle and the Later Tradition","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Blumenthal\/Robinson1991","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1991","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1991","abstract":"This volume contains papers by a group of leading experts on Aristotle and the later Aristotelian tradition of Neoplatonism. The discussion ranges from Aristotle's treatment of Parmenides, the most important pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, to Neoplatonic and medieval use of Aristotle, for which Aristotle himself set guidelines in his discussions of his predecessors. Traces of these guidelines can be seen in the work of Plotinus, and that of the later Greek commentators on Aristotle. The study of these commentators, and the recognition of the philosophical interest and importance of the ideas which they expressed in their commentaries, is an exciting new development in ancient philosophy to which this book makes a unique and distinguished contribution.[official abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/jxVlK6YghFkMcPK","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":354,"pubplace":"Oxford","publisher":"Clarendon Press","series":"Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1991]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"875","_score":null,"_source":{"id":875,"authors_free":[{"id":1285,"entry_id":875,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1286,"entry_id":875,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Themistius: the last Peripatetic commentator on Aristotle?","main_title":{"title":"Themistius: the last Peripatetic commentator on Aristotle?"},"abstract":"[B]oth the content of Themistius\u2019 works, and such evidence as we \r\nhave of the commentators\u2019 attitudes to him, show that he was \r\npredominantly a Peripatetic. In this he stood out against the tendencies \r\nof his time. His frequently expressed admiration for Plato does not \r\ninvalidate this conclusion. Themistius may rightly claim to have been the \r\nlast major figure in antiquity who was a genuine follower of Aristotle. For \r\nhim, unlike his contemporaries, Plato does not surpass the master of \r\nthose who know but he, and Socrates, \u2018innanzi agli altri piu presso gli \r\nstanno\u2019. [Conclusion, p. 123]","btype":2,"date":"1990","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/j4M1Faq3An8bJ7v","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":875,"section_of":1453,"pages":"113-123","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1453,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1990","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"This book brings together twenty articles giving a comprehensive view of the work of the Aristotelian commentators. First published in 1990, the collection is now brought up to date with a new introduction by Richard Sorabji. New generations of scholars will benefit from this reissuing of classic essays, including seminal works by major scholars, and the volume gives a comprehensive background to the work of the project on the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which has published over 100 volumes of translations since 1987 and has disseminated these crucial texts to scholars worldwide.\r\n\r\nThe importance of the commentators is partly that they represent the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools and partly that they provide a panorama of a thousand years of ancient Greek philosophy, revealing many original quotations from lost works. Even more significant is the profound influence - uncovered in some of the chapters of this book - that they exert on later philosophy, Islamic and Western. Not only did they preserve anti-Aristotelian material which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they present Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/M8lXuAdHpDW8tvu","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1453,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Duckworth","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1990]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"805","_score":null,"_source":{"id":805,"authors_free":[{"id":1191,"entry_id":805,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Alexander of Aphrodisias in the later Greek commentaries on Aristotle\u2019s De Anima","main_title":{"title":"Alexander of Aphrodisias in the later Greek commentaries on Aristotle\u2019s De Anima"},"abstract":"These are a few examples of how the Neoplatonist commenta\u00ad\r\ntors confronted Alexander on matters where differences could \r\nhardly fail to arise. What happens is clear enough. But it would be \r\nwrong to think that these principles of interpretation are not applied \r\nat other points in the work. Let us take an apparently innocuous \r\nissue like the section where Aristotle discusses locomotion under the \r\nstimulus of the appetitive faculty (433 b 8sqq.). Alexander, giving a \r\nclearly Aristotelian explanation, said that the faculty was moved \r\naccidentally. Plutarch differed, and said that the activity of the \r\nappetitive faculty is movement: this Simplicius describes as a Pla\u00ad\r\ntonic explanation, and prefers it (302,23-30).44 On the other hand, a \r\nfew pages below Simplicius prefers Alexander to Plutarch on the \r\nquestion whether moving but ungenerated entities have sense-per\u00ad\r\nception (320,33-34): we have already looked at his and Stephanus\u2019 account of this passage.45 As we indicated, Stephanus there quotes \r\nAlexander only to disagree with him, and here we have at least one \r\npiece of evidence to show that Neoplatonist commentators could \r\ntake a different view of the same passage. If we had more examples \r\nof texts where Alexander\u2019s views of the De anima were discussed by \r\nmore than one of his successors, we should be able to form a clearer \r\npicture of how far the different commentators were prepared to \r\naccept them, and thus incidentally of the precise differences between \r\nthese commentators themselves on the points at issue. [conclusion p. 105-106]","btype":2,"date":"1987","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/yyFedFSkP8qo8dn","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":805,"section_of":189,"pages":"90-106","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":189,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"de","title":"Aristoteles - Werk und Wirkung. Paul Moraux gewidmet. Bd. 2: Kommentierung, \u00dcberlieferung, Nachleben","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Wiesner\/Lulofs\/Kollesch\/Nutton1987","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1987","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1987","abstract":"Kommentierung, Uberlieferung und Nachleben des Aristoteles sind das Thema dieses Bandes. Mit der Aristotelesrenaissance des 1. Jh. v.Chr. einsetzend, vermitteln die Beitr\u00e4ge, unter acht Hauptkapiteln zusammengefa\u00dft, ein eindrucksvolles Bild von der Rezeption zweier Jahrtausende. D a \u00df diese Rezeption kontinuierlich in ihren wichtigen Phasen illustriert werden kann, ist - wie schon im ersten Band - der freundlichen Kooperation der beteiligten Autoren zu verdanken. Als besonderer Gl\u00fccksfall mag gelten, da\u00df einige Beitr\u00e4ge sich in idealer Weise erg\u00e4nzen. So wird der Leser in zwei auf einanderfolgenden Artikeln die Interpretationsgeschichte der zentralen Kapitel Metaphysik \u039b 7 und 9 von Plotin und Themistios \u00fcber Maimonides und Gersonides bis Hegel verfolgen k\u00f6nnen. Dieses Bem\u00fchen um Aristoteles von der Antike bis in die Neuzeit ist etwa f\u00fcr De anima bei Alexander von Aphrodisias und Leibniz, f\u00fcr die \r\nKategorien bei Plotin und Peirce dokumentiert, wobei die Erstver\u00f6ffentlichung der Ubersetzung von Cat. 1 - 4 durch den bedeutenden amerikanischen Philosophen mit besonderer Freude angezeigt werden darf. \r\nVon den Autoren dieses Bandes weilen Paul Henry und Charles B. Schmitt nicht mehr unter uns. In ein Buch \u00fcber Plotins Entretiens sollte der hier ver\u00f6ffentlichte Beitrag von Paul Henry sp\u00e4ter einmal integriert werden; daraus erkl\u00e4ren sich gelegentliche Hinweise auf geplante Teile dieses nun nicht mehr vollendeten Werkes. Die Studie von Charles B.Schmitt \u00fcber die Aristoteles-Florilegien der Renaissance bietet die erste Gesamtdarstellung zu diesem Thema und enth\u00e4lt im Anhang ein Verzeichnis mit wichtigen Erg\u00e4nzungen zu seiner grundlegenden \u201eBibliography of Aristotle Editions, 1501-1600\". [Vorwort p. V-VI]\r\n","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Q1P6OhIp8zaE99c","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":189,"pubplace":"Berlin \u2013 New York","publisher":"de Gruyter","series":"Aristoteles - Werk und Wirkung. Paul Moraux gewidmet","volume":"2","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1987]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"770","_score":null,"_source":{"id":770,"authors_free":[{"id":1134,"entry_id":770,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Review of Erwin Sonderegger: Simplikios: \u00dcber die Zeit","main_title":{"title":"Review of Erwin Sonderegger: Simplikios: \u00dcber die Zeit"},"abstract":"Like a well-trained Neoplatonist commentator, Sonderegger outlines the skopos of his book on the first page. It is to consider Simplicius' thought about time and make it available to a wider audience (an audience that would, however, need to know Greek). His basis is the 28-page excursus at the end of Simplicius' commentary on Physics 4, known as the Corollarium de Tempore (hereafter, with S., CdT), to which, in the main body of the book, he attends with the minimum of excursions. This is partly dictated by his announced interest in Simplicius himself rather than his relation to other thinkers: as he rightly says, that cannot be treated until it is clear what Simplicius himself thought. In the present state of work on late Neoplatonism, this is not a trivial point.\r\n\r\nSonderegger's aims have produced a very different book from the little-noticed work of H. Meyer, Das Corollarium de Tempore des Simplikios und die Aporien des Aristoteles \u00fcber die Zeit (Meisenheim am Glan, 1969). Meyer's book is more philosophical and also differs in that his purpose was primarily to understand Aristotle, with no notion of being exoteric. Of this book, Sonderegger takes virtually no account, on the grounds that its presuppositions are very different from his own. What Sonderegger has given us is a very detailed and careful descriptive analysis of CdT, with special attention to the organization of the discussions (pp. 38\u2013139), preceded by an introduction on Simplicius' Physics commentary, his excursuses, and Neoplatonism in general, and followed by some 30 pages of translation and 20 of appendices. These include a table of the uses and contexts of key terms in CdT, examinations of the extent and authenticity of quotations from Ps.-Archytas, Iamblichus, and Damascius, and a translation of Simplicius In Categorias 356.8\u201325, which contains in nuce much of the thought of CdT.\r\n\r\nSonderegger is clearly aware that Simplicius wrote commentaries to expound his own philosophy, yet he tends to exaggerate the difference in thought rather than merely presentation, which might be expected in CdT and the analogous digressions on chance and place, as opposed to those parts of the commentary that start from specific lemmata. Even if CdT is more connected, it still proceeds largely by discussing quoted texts, and, as Sonderegger reminds us, Simplicius' aim is always to arrive at his own view of time. That, he claims, will help us to understand Aristotle (773.12\u201314): one recalls uneasily the project of expounding the De anima while following Iamblichus (In De an. 1.18\u201320). Sonderegger perhaps underestimates the extent to which Simplicius saw himself as engaged in the same enterprise as Aristotle\u2014and Plato.\r\n\r\nThough he can cite texts for Simplicius' awareness of the difference between what he and Aristotle say, it does not always follow that Simplicius saw the difference between what he and Aristotle think. The texts Sonderegger quotes at p. 25 n.50 rather point out that Aristotle's intentions are the same, even if his language is not. Thus, 356.31 ff. clearly shows that Simplicius thinks the views on time (chronos) of Aristotle and hoi Neoteroi (the Neoplatonists) are not different. Conversely, in his sketch of the Neoplatonist background, which, as he says, constantly appears in Simplicius' commentary, Sonderegger is inclined to underplay divergences. It is only in the broadest sense true that the outlines of Simplicius' Neoplatonism were determined by Plotinus. The qualification that he liked to attach himself to Iamblichus and used terminology that can be traced back to Proclus is more important.\r\n\r\nThe extent of Proclus' influence is thoroughly documented by I. Hadot, Le Probl\u00e8me du N\u00e9oplatonisme Alexandrin: Hi\u00e9rocl\u00e8s et Simplicius (Paris, 1978), cited on p. 26 n. 51. I cannot understand the arguments here (29\u201335) that, for Simplicius, the hypostases are somehow unreal. This is conducted in terms drawn from Husserl and Heidegger, which, to an English-speaking reader, are not immediately illuminating. Incidentally, diakrisis is not an entity. To treat it as if it were is a kind of hyper-Neoplatonic realism: the meaning of \"differentiation\" is normally adequate.\r\n\r\nOn time itself, there is a major difference between Plotinus and his post-Iamblichean successors on a point which concerns Sonderegger throughout: the invention of a further type of time that almost becomes a separate hypostasis. This is the psychic time that Simplicius calls protos chronos, as opposed to ordinary physical time on the one hand and aion on the other. The exposition and defense of this first time is the main aim of CdT. It is even more clearly a product of late Neoplatonic triadic thinking than Sonderegger's discussion (69\u201374) shows.\r\n\r\nIf there is a triad of things permanent and ungenerated, permanent and generated, impermanent and generated, a mediating time is required for the second member of the triad. That this is Simplicius' thinking is shown by the way he has opposed aion as adiakritos and physical time as ho en ti thesei the\u00f4rmenos (784.34 ff.), a relation justifying, if not requiring, a higher time. The most notable recasting of Aristotle in Neoplatonist terms is the transformation of his definition into metron tou kata to einai rhontos (not quite \"Mass des Seins des Physischen\"), which, for all his concern to show that Simplicius distinguishes between Aristotle's views and his own, Sonderegger seems inclined to accept (cf. esp. 43 f. and 138).\r\n\r\nThe translation aims at utility rather than elegance. Its value is greater at a time when interest in the thought of late antiquity is spreading among the wholly or nearly Greekless. Translations are increasingly called for. But who would translate the 1,366 pages of Simplicius' Physics commentary, or, indeed, publish the translation? [the entire review]","btype":3,"date":"1983","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/ZCYOjLO9LGrxQNt","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":770,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical Review, New Series","volume":"33","issue":"2","pages":"337-338"}},"sort":[1983]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"873","_score":null,"_source":{"id":873,"authors_free":[{"id":1282,"entry_id":873,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1283,"entry_id":873,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":403,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Markus, R. A.","free_first_name":"R. A.","free_last_name":"Markus","norm_person":{"id":403,"first_name":"R. A.","last_name":"Markus","full_name":"Markus, R. A.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/121838862","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2229,"entry_id":873,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Plotinus in later Platonism","main_title":{"title":"Plotinus in later Platonism"},"abstract":"We have seen, then, that in some areas later Neoplatonists introduced Plotinus\u2019 views to corroborate their own. This was equally true of his opinions as a Platonist and, as they understood him, as an interpreter of Aristotle. These agreements are most often found in relatively uncontroversial areas of their thought.\r\n\r\nHowever, at the extremes of the metaphysical world and in those other areas where difficulties were likely to arise, we do find substantial differences. We must, however, be cautious about interpreting these differences in terms of chronological changes. The later Neoplatonists continued to disagree among themselves, and the process we have examined was not one of linear development away from Plotinus. [conclusion p. 220]","btype":2,"date":"1981","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/ydcrCuFuFOAFW6r","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":403,"full_name":"Markus, R. A.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":873,"section_of":131,"pages":"212-222","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":131,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Neoplatonism and early Christian thought: Essays in honour of A.H. Armstrong","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Blumenthal\/Markus1981a","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1981","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1981","abstract":"The studies collected in this book are all concerned with aspects of the Platonic tradition, either in its own internal development in the Hellenistic age and the period of the Roman Empire, or with the influence of Platonism, in one or other of its forms, on other spiritual traditions, especially that of Christianity. [offical abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/PcJka3NQUzhA8jZ","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":131,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Variorum","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1981]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"876","_score":null,"_source":{"id":876,"authors_free":[{"id":1287,"entry_id":876,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"529 and its Sequel: What Happened to the Academy?","main_title":{"title":"529 and its Sequel: What Happened to the Academy?"},"abstract":"In an excellent and already well-known article, Professor Alan Cameron has made a strong case for the thesis that, notwithstanding the evidence of Malalas and a long-established tradition, Justinian did not succeed in finally closing the Platonic Academy in 529, and that its activities continued after a short interruption. The purpose of this paper is, firstly, to argue that some of the evidence usually adduced in favor of the view that the Academy was closed may not be applicable, but that it seems nevertheless to have succumbed to some form of imperial pressure, and, secondly, to question the view that philosophy continued to be taught, or even studied, at Athens from 532 until the Slavs sacked the city nearly fifty years later.\r\n\r\nThe most important piece of evidence for the continued existence of the Academy is a passage from Olympiodorus' commentary on Plato's 1st Alcibiades which says, \"Perhaps Plato made a practice of taking no fees because he was well-off. That is why the diadochika have lasted till now, in spite of many confiscations.\" Diadochika is left untranslated since its meaning is by no means certain. It could refer to the salary of the Head of the Academy. It could also, however, be a term for the Academy's endowments in general. A third meaning, suggested by J. Whittaker, is spiritual rather than material heritage, but despite arguments, it is unlikely that the word in its context does not refer to some form of funding. To this point, we must return shortly.\r\n\r\nCameron argues convincingly that this passage was written somewhere around 560, on the grounds that it refers to an incident in the career of a grammaticus called Anatolius, dateable to the late 540s, as one that his readers can no longer be expected to remember. He infers from this that the Academy was still operating at that time and, moreover, in possession of substantial funds some thirty years after its alleged closure and expropriation. At about the same time, Whittaker, apparently writing before the appearance of Cameron's paper and arguing against Westerink, questioned whether the text adduced provided evidence either for confiscations at the time when Olympiodorus was writing or for the continued availability of material resources.\r\n\r\nOlympiodorus' report certainly raises some serious problems. The first relates to the confiscations. Cameron has discussed a number of possible occasions between 529 and the date of the composition of Olympiodorus' commentary about 560. If Academy funds were being confiscated during that period, then clearly there must have been a conspicuous Academy to be subject to the confiscations. But, as Whittaker has pointed out, the reference of the present participle stating that there were confiscations could be to any time during the reference of the main verb, that is, to the whole period between Plato and the time of writing. One possible inference is that the funds had been subjected to confiscations even before 529 but still survived in the hands of the scholarchs after that date. Justinian's edict is quite likely not to have been new but, like much of his legislation, a re-enactment of former decrees\u2014some of which were in any case disregarded. Nevertheless, it is difficult to find a suitable earlier occasion, or occasions, to be the time of the confiscations in question.\r\n\r\nA second, and more basic, problem attaches to the funds themselves. There is no other evidence, except a report in the Suda article on Plato, and a parallel text in Photius, which attributes any of the late Academy's resources, or those of its office-holders, to inheritance from Plato. This Suda article, which is based on Damascius' Life of Isidore, tells us that only the Academy garden had been Plato's\u2014he was not well-off\u2014and that there were large accretions of funds in the fifth century. We know that most of the major buildings in Athens were destroyed by the Heruls in 267. Damascius, moreover, in the extract provided by Photius, made a point of denying what he says was a commonly held view that the resources of the Academy went back to Plato himself: \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b4\u03cc\u03c7\u03c9\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1 \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f61\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f31 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u1f76 \u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9 \u03a0\u03bb\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f26\u03bd \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ad\u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd. This summary too continues with the points that Plato was not rich, that only the garden was his, and that there were large additions through bequests later. From this text, we may infer that Olympiodorus' diadochika must have been school resources under the control of the school's head: Damascius is talking about sums of money, and the garden could hardly have been part of the scholarch's salary.\r\n\r\nIf, then, such funds as were available to the Academy in the 5th and 6th centuries were not the product of Plato's own endowments, Olympiodorus\u2014or his source\u2014has wrongly inferred from the Academy's current, or recent, wealth, and Plato's aristocratic background and refusal to take fees, that Plato himself was responsible for the endowments. Damascius' disclaimer shows that he was not the first to do so. And if Olympiodorus was wrong about that, then he might also, though less obviously, have been wrong in saying that the funds existed in his own day. His information could have been some thirty years out of date, a period for the survival of obsolete information by no means inconceivable even with modern methods of disseminating information. We need look no further than the reputations of university departments in our own times. If the close relation between Athenian and Alexandrian philosophers that had obtained in the fifth century were by now a thing of the past\u2014whether because of odium academicum, as manifested in the bitter attacks launched by Philoponus on the views of Proclus in a previous generation, and Simplicius in his own, the latter being furiously reciprocated\u2014or because nothing was any longer happening at Athens, or for some other reason, that would be sufficient to explain such an error.\r\n\r\nTo return to the question of a re-endowment in the 5th century. There are a number of indications that this happened. In the first place, negatively, there is little if any evidence that the Academy, or any but insignificant Platonists, were active at Athens in the preceding period. Positively, we have a report from Synesius that he went to Athens and found nothing going on at all:\r\n\r\n\"It is like a sacrificial victim at the end of the proceedings, with only the skin left as a token of the animal that once was. So philosophy has moved its home, and all that is left for a visitor is to wander around looking at the Academy, the Lyceum, and, yes, the Stoa Poikile...\" [introduction p. 369-372]","btype":3,"date":"1978","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/8waAtP8ixbo8cmC","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":876,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Byzantion","volume":"48","issue":"2","pages":"369\u2013385"}},"sort":[1978]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"612","_score":null,"_source":{"id":612,"authors_free":[{"id":867,"entry_id":612,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Neoplatonic Elements in the \"de Anima\" Commentaries","main_title":{"title":"Neoplatonic Elements in the \"de Anima\" Commentaries"},"abstract":"Most scholars who refer to the Greek commentators for help in the understanding of difficult Aristotelian texts seem to expect straightforward scholarly treatment of their problems. Not infrequently they are disappointed and complain about the irrelevance of the commentary they read, or inveigh against the incompetence of the commentators. Only Alexander is generally exempt from such censure, and that in itself is significant. For he is the only major commentator whose work survives in any considerable quantity who wrote before Neoplatonism.\r\n\r\nShortly after Alexander, the kind of thought that is conveniently described by this label came to dominate Greek philosophy, and nearly all pagan philosophy and philosophical scholarship was pursued under its influence, if not by its active adherents. It is the purpose of this paper to argue that these facts are not trivial items of background interest but are fundamental to a proper assessment of the later commentators' opinions on points of Aristotelian scholarship. It is necessary to take account of the ideas and purpose of these commentators if one is to make any serious critical use of their work, and this cannot be done if one merely dips into their voluminous works in the hope of occasional enlightenment.\r\n\r\nThat these men were swayed by their own opinions and preconceptions is perhaps obvious once stated. Even Simplicius, notwithstanding his reputation for careful scholarship, is no exception. Simplicius may have done us a great service by preserving fragments of the pre-Socratics, but he was nevertheless a man who entertained ideas which were not likely to lead to the correct interpretation of Aristotle, as Hicks for one saw\u2014Ross, it seems, did not. In fact, one might go so far as to say that Simplicius was less well-fitted than some of the other commentators to give a good account of his subject.\r\n\r\nThose whose immediate reaction to such a statement is that it is grossly unfair to so fine a scholar might be disturbed by some of the material in the preface to Simplicius' De Anima commentary\u2014as they would by that in Philoponus' as well\u2014material which often escapes notice for the simple reason that one normally refers to these works for help with specific passages and does not read them as a whole.\r\n\r\nThis is not to say that there are no obvious signs of what is going on in the body of the commentaries, for there certainly are. A case in point is Simplicius' claim in the De Caelo commentary (640.27\u201332) that Aristotle's criticisms of Plato are directed not against Plato himself but against those who failed to grasp Plato's real meaning.\r\n\r\nIn the preface to the commentary on the Categories, Simplicius goes further and says that in dealing with Aristotle's attacks on Plato, one should not consider only the philosophers' language and complain about their discord, but rather one should concentrate on their thought and seek out their accord on most matters (In Cat. 7.29\u201332). Here we have two expressions of the normal Neoplatonic view that Plato and Aristotle were usually trying to say the same thing.\r\n\r\nThis view can, of course, be traced back to the revival of positive teaching in the New Academy. This is not to say that no Neoplatonist was aware of the differences, and certain Aristotelian doctrines remained unacceptable. In the passage we have just mentioned, Simplicius talks about he en tois pleistois symphonia, and elsewhere he shows that he is alive to differences (e.g., In De Caelo 454.23 ff.), even if he does regard Aristotle as Plato's truest pupil (ib. 378.20 f.) or his best interpreter (In De An. 245.12).\r\n\r\nPhiloponus, moreover, actually protested against the view that Aristotle's attacks on Plato's ideas were not directed at Plato himself, a view that seems to have had some currency (cf. De Aet. M. II.2 29.2\u20138 R). None the less, ever since Plotinus, whose adoption of much Aristotelian thought would be clear enough without Porphyry's explicit statement on the point (Vita Plot. 14.4 ff.), the new Platonism had been more or less Aristotelianized: the controversies about whether or not Aristotelian views could be accepted by Platonists which had been current in the Middle Platonic period were no longer live.\r\n\r\nBy the time Simplicius and Philoponus composed their commentaries, Aristotle's philosophy had been used as the standard introduction to Plato for at least two centuries. The tendency among certain modern scholars to see Aristotle simply as a Platonist has a precedent in the activities of the Neoplatonists: in both cases, it depends on a somewhat special understanding of Plato. [introduction 64-66]","btype":3,"date":"1976","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/3j2gfRYnCCVhtJC","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":612,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Phronesis","volume":"21","issue":"1","pages":"64-87"}},"sort":[1976]}