| Title | Were Aristotle's Intentions in writing the De Anima Forgotten in Late Antiquity? |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1997 |
| Journal | Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale |
| Volume | 8 |
| Pages | 143–157 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| In general we have to conclude that while the whole "Philoponus” commentary may include a number of explicit references to the biological writings, and while the real Philoponus may often refer to medical and scientific issues, there is no systematic bias towards explaining the contents of the De anima in terms of them. There is, however, just as in the Ps-Simplicius commentary, enough said about such matters, and enough reference made to other parts of the biological corpus, to show that the commentators were still aware of the original intentions of the work — or, at the very least, behaved as if they were — even if they did not always feel bound by them. That awareness was to survive into the Middle Ages as well. [Conclusion, p. 157] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/IJsW8b6iPwteKXr |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"893","_score":null,"_source":{"id":893,"authors_free":[{"id":1316,"entry_id":893,"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":"Were Aristotle's Intentions in writing the De Anima Forgotten in Late Antiquity?","main_title":{"title":"Were Aristotle's Intentions in writing the De Anima Forgotten in Late Antiquity?"},"abstract":"In general we have to conclude that while the whole \"Philoponus\u201d commentary may include a number of explicit references to the biological writings, and while the real Philoponus may often refer to medical and scientific issues, there is no systematic bias towards explaining the contents of the De anima in terms of them. There is, however, just as in the Ps-Simplicius commentary, enough said about such matters, and \r\nenough reference made to other parts of the biological corpus, to show that the commentators were still aware of the original intentions of the work \u2014 or, at the very least, behaved as if they were \u2014 even if they did not always feel bound by them. That awareness was to survive into the Middle Ages as well. [Conclusion, p. 157]","btype":3,"date":"1997","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/IJsW8b6iPwteKXr","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":893,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale","volume":"8","issue":"","pages":"143\u2013157"}},"sort":[1997]}
| Title | Iamblichus as a Commentator |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1997 |
| Journal | Syllecta Classica |
| Volume | 8 |
| Pages | 1–13 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| 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: Exégète 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. Larsen'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. Be that as it may, I intend to look, not very originally, at Iamblichus' activities as a commentator on philosophical works—and so I shall say nothing about the twenty-eight books or more of his lost commentary on the Chaldaean Oracles—and also to say something, in the manner of core samples, about how his expositions compare with those of the later commentators. Though 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—in Iamblichus' case to a lesser extent—Aristotle too. The 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. The 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 639.23–24; in the second chapter of book 5 of the commentary on the Timaeus 786.11–12; 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. It 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—or rather ten plus two—Platonic dialogues, which culminated in the study of the Timaeus and Parmenides.[introduction p. 1-2] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/3m984P11hlUhV1x |
{"_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]}
| Title | Alexandria as a Center of Greek Philosophy in Later Classical Antiquity |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1993 |
| Journal | Illinois Classical Studies |
| Volume | 18 |
| Pages | 307-325 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| Any discussion of Greek Alexandria may properly take its starting point from the work of P. M. Fraser, even if only to dissent from it. In the preface to Ptolemaic Alexandria Fraser observes that philosophy was one of the “items” that “were not effectively transplanted to Alexandria.”1 In his chapter on philosophy, talking of the establishment of the main philosophical schools at Athens, Fraser writes that it “remained the centre of philosophical studies down to the closing of the schools by Justinian in A.D. 563.”2 The first of these statements is near enough the truth, since the Alexandria of the Ptolemies was not distinguished in philosophy as ifwas in literature or science, though even then some important things happened during that period too. But the implication that this situation continued during the Roman and early Byzantine periods is misleading, and by the end of the period simply false.3 The purpose of this paper is to examine some aspects of the considerable contribution that Alexandria made to the philosophical tradition that continued into the Islamic and Christian middle ages and beyond, and to show that it may lay claim to have been at least equal to that of Athens itself. [Introduction, p. 307] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/MGb8ujHWfXvghPD |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"898","_score":null,"_source":{"id":898,"authors_free":[{"id":1326,"entry_id":898,"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":"Alexandria as a Center of Greek Philosophy in Later Classical Antiquity","main_title":{"title":"Alexandria as a Center of Greek Philosophy in Later Classical Antiquity"},"abstract":"Any discussion of Greek Alexandria may properly take its starting point \r\nfrom the work of P. M. Fraser, even if only to dissent from it. In the preface \r\nto Ptolemaic Alexandria Fraser observes that philosophy was one of the \r\n\u201citems\u201d that \u201cwere not effectively transplanted to Alexandria.\u201d1 In his \r\nchapter on philosophy, talking of the establishment of the main \r\nphilosophical schools at Athens, Fraser writes that it \u201cremained the centre of \r\nphilosophical studies down to the closing of the schools by Justinian in A.D. \r\n563.\u201d2 The first of these statements is near enough the truth, since the \r\nAlexandria of the Ptolemies was not distinguished in philosophy as ifwas in \r\nliterature or science, though even then some important things happened \r\nduring that period too. But the implication that this situation continued \r\nduring the Roman and early Byzantine periods is misleading, and by the end \r\nof the period simply false.3 The purpose of this paper is to examine some \r\naspects of the considerable contribution that Alexandria made to the \r\nphilosophical tradition that continued into the Islamic and Christian middle \r\nages and beyond, and to show that it may lay claim to have been at least \r\nequal to that of Athens itself. [Introduction, p. 307]","btype":3,"date":"1993","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/MGb8ujHWfXvghPD","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":898,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Illinois Classical Studies","volume":"18","issue":"","pages":"307-325"}},"sort":[1993]}
| Title | John Philoponus: Alexandrian Platonist? |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1986 |
| Journal | Hermes |
| Volume | 114 |
| Pages | 314–335 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| What, in the end, can we say about Philoponus’ position as a Platonist, bearing in mind that our conclusions must still in some respects be provisional? That he was a Neoplatonist is indisputable. Since, however, few if any, of his differences with other Neoplatonists seem to arise from the adoption of a specifically Alexandrian philosophical point of view, we must attribute them to his own philosophical - and theological - orientation. It turns out that, in his case, »Alexandrian Platonist« may mean little more than a man whose philosophy was Neoplatonic, and who worked at Alexandria, though one might observe that there would not have been a warm welcome at Athens for a Christian Neoplatonist, however closely his views might conform to those codified by Proclus and developed by Damascius. One could go on to say that, apart from the concentration on Aristotle, his differences from other Alexandrians were greater than theirs from the Athenians. In this connection we should notice Philoponus’ frequent appeals to Plato against Aristotle in the passages Simplicius singles out for complaint, and his relatively frequent reservations about the agreement, symphônia, of Plato and Aristotle, which most others eagerly sought to demonstrate. And since we started with a critique of P r a e c h t e r , who did so much to initiate the serious study of the Aristotelian commentators, it might be appropriate to end with his characteri sation of Philoponus in the De aeternitate mundi: »es ist der gelehrte Platoniker der spricht«. [conclusion, p. 334-335] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/cP5twq2fWJQvBVn |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"628","_score":null,"_source":{"id":628,"authors_free":[{"id":888,"entry_id":628,"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":"John Philoponus: Alexandrian Platonist?","main_title":{"title":"John Philoponus: Alexandrian Platonist?"},"abstract":"What, in the end, can we say about Philoponus\u2019 position as a Platonist, bearing in mind that our conclusions must still in some respects be provision\u00adal? That he was a Neoplatonist is indisputable. Since, however, few if any, of \r\nhis differences with other Neoplatonists seem to arise from the adoption of a specifically Alexandrian philosophical point of view, we must attribute them to his own philosophical - and theological - orientation. It turns out that, in \r\nhis case, \u00bbAlexandrian Platonist\u00ab may mean little more than a man whose philosophy was Neoplatonic, and who worked at Alexandria, though one might observe that there would not have been a warm welcome at Athens for a \r\nChristian Neoplatonist, however closely his views might conform to those codified by Proclus and developed by Damascius. One could go on to say \r\nthat, apart from the concentration on Aristotle, his differences from other Alexandrians were greater than theirs from the Athenians. In this connection \r\nwe should notice Philoponus\u2019 frequent appeals to Plato against Aristotle in the passages Simplicius singles out for complaint, and his relatively frequent reservations about the agreement, symph\u00f4nia, of Plato and Aristotle, which \r\nmost others eagerly sought to demonstrate. And since we started with a critique of P r a e c h t e r , who did so much to initiate the serious study of the \r\nAristotelian commentators, it might be appropriate to end with his characteri\u00ad\r\nsation of Philoponus in the De aeternitate mundi: \u00bbes ist der gelehrte Platoniker der spricht\u00ab. [conclusion, p. 334-335]\r\n","btype":3,"date":"1986","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/cP5twq2fWJQvBVn","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":628,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Hermes","volume":"114","issue":"","pages":"314\u2013335"}},"sort":[1986]}
| Title | Review of Erwin Sonderegger: Simplikios: Über die Zeit |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1983 |
| Journal | The Classical Review, New Series |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 337-338 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| 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. Sonderegger'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 über 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. 38–139), 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 356.8–25, which contains in nuce much of the thought of CdT. Sonderegger 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 (773.12–14): one recalls uneasily the project of expounding the De anima while following Iamblichus (In De an. 1.18–20). Sonderegger perhaps underestimates the extent to which Simplicius saw himself as engaged in the same enterprise as Aristotle—and Plato. Though 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. The extent of Proclus' influence is thoroughly documented by I. Hadot, Le Problème du Néoplatonisme Alexandrin: Hiéroclès et Simplicius (Paris, 1978), cited on p. 26 n. 51. I cannot understand the arguments here (29–35) 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. On 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 (69–74) shows. If 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 theôrmenos (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). The 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] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/ZCYOjLO9LGrxQNt |
{"_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]}
| Title | 529 and its Sequel: What Happened to the Academy? |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1978 |
| Journal | Byzantion |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 369–385 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| 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. The 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. Cameron 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. Olympiodorus' 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—some 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. A 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—he was not well-off—and 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: τῶν δὲ διαδόχων οὐσία οὐκ ὡς οἱ πολλοὶ νομίζουσι Πλάτωνος ἦν τὸ ἀνέκαθεν. 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. If, 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—or his source—has 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—whether 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—or because nothing was any longer happening at Athens, or for some other reason, that would be sufficient to explain such an error. To 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: "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] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/8waAtP8ixbo8cmC |
{"_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]}
| Title | Neoplatonic Interpretations of Aristotle on "Phantasia" |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1977 |
| Journal | The Review of Metaphysics |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 242-257 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| The ancient commentaries on Aristotle have for the most part remained in that strange kind of no-man's land between Classical and Medieval studies that even now holds so many of the productions of later antiquity. On the whole it would be true to say that students of Neoplatonism?for the commentators were usually Neoplatonists ?prefer to occupy themselves with openly Neoplatonic writings. Modern Aristotelian scholars, on the other hand, tend to take very little account of the opinions of their ancient predecessors. In this way they differ from the Medie vals, both Christian and Moslem: as is well known, Aquinas instigated the translation of many of these commentaries by his fellow Dominican, William of Moerbeke, while a century before, Averroes, the greatest of the Arabic commentators, had made ample use of at least the earlier Greek expositions. [Introduction, p. 242] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/xdGhkQhUkY7sWbE |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"877","_score":null,"_source":{"id":877,"authors_free":[{"id":1288,"entry_id":877,"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 Interpretations of Aristotle on \"Phantasia\"","main_title":{"title":"Neoplatonic Interpretations of Aristotle on \"Phantasia\""},"abstract":"The ancient commentaries on Aristotle have for the most part \r\nremained in that strange kind of no-man's land between Classical \r\nand Medieval studies that even now holds so many of the productions \r\nof later antiquity. On the whole it would be true to say that students \r\nof Neoplatonism?for the commentators were usually Neoplatonists \r\n?prefer to occupy themselves with openly Neoplatonic writings. \r\nModern Aristotelian scholars, on the other hand, tend to take very \r\nlittle account of the opinions of their ancient predecessors. In this \r\nway they differ from the Medie vals, both Christian and Moslem: as \r\nis well known, Aquinas instigated the translation of many of these \r\ncommentaries by his fellow Dominican, William of Moerbeke, while a \r\ncentury before, Averroes, the greatest of the Arabic commentators, \r\nhad made ample use of at least the earlier Greek expositions. [Introduction, p. 242]","btype":3,"date":"1977","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/xdGhkQhUkY7sWbE","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":877,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Review of Metaphysics","volume":"31","issue":"2","pages":"242-257"}},"sort":[1977]}
| Title | Neoplatonic Elements in the "de Anima" Commentaries |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1976 |
| Journal | Phronesis |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 64-87 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| 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. Shortly 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. That 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—Ross, 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. Those 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—as they would by that in Philoponus' as well—material 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. This 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 (640.27–32) that Aristotle's criticisms of Plato are directed not against Plato himself but against those who failed to grasp Plato's real meaning. In 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. 7.29–32). Here we have two expressions of the normal Neoplatonic view that Plato and Aristotle were usually trying to say the same thing. This 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). Philoponus, 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 29.2–8 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. By 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] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/3j2gfRYnCCVhtJC |
{"_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]}
| Title | Did Iamblichus Write a Commentary on the De Anima? |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1974 |
| Journal | Hermes |
| Volume | 102 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 540–556 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| Bearing in mind the reservations already made, what conclusions can we draw? In the first place, it is fair to say that the evidence from Simplicius does, taken overall, suggest that Iamblichus did not write a commentary on the de Anima. Consideration of Stephanus' commentary on de Anima G points in the same direction, but it must not be forgotten that that commentary contains a reference to Iamblichus' that looks more like a quotation from a de Anima commentary than any other that we have. Philoponus is less helpful, as are other members of the Alexandrian school. He certainly gives no positive indication that Iamblichus wrote a commentary, but for the reasons that we have given, the lack of such positive evidence in his case does not amount to anything like conclusive negative evidence. We cannot entirely rule out the possibility that Iamblichus did write a commentary, either on the de Anima as a whole, or on some extended part of it, but it seems probably that he did not. If he did it would certainly be fair to say that his commentary was probably of no great importance. Discussions of isolated texts of Aristotle are another matter: they are only to be expected in the work of any Neoplatonist. [conclusion, p. 556] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/sl42R04H6zbpEIJ |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"569","_score":null,"_source":{"id":569,"authors_free":[{"id":808,"entry_id":569,"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":"Did Iamblichus Write a Commentary on the De Anima?","main_title":{"title":"Did Iamblichus Write a Commentary on the De Anima?"},"abstract":"Bearing in mind the reservations already made, what conclusions can we draw? In the first place, it is fair to say that the evidence from Simplicius does, taken overall, suggest that Iamblichus did not write a commentary on the de Anima. Consideration of Stephanus' commentary on de Anima G points in the same direction, but it must not be forgotten that that commentary contains \r\na reference to Iamblichus' that looks more like a quotation from a de Anima commentary than any other that we have. Philoponus is less helpful, as are other members of the Alexandrian school. He certainly gives no positive indication that Iamblichus wrote a commentary, but for the reasons that we have given, the lack of such positive evidence in his case does not amount to \r\nanything like conclusive negative evidence. We cannot entirely rule out the possibility that Iamblichus did write a commentary, either on the de Anima as a whole, or on some extended part of it, but it seems probably that he did \r\nnot. If he did it would certainly be fair to say that his commentary was probably of no great importance. Discussions of isolated texts of Aristotle are another matter: they are only to be expected in the work of any Neoplatonist. [conclusion, p. 556]","btype":3,"date":"1974","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/sl42R04H6zbpEIJ","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":569,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Hermes","volume":"102","issue":"4","pages":"540\u2013556"}},"sort":[1974]}
| Title | 529 and its Sequel: What Happened to the Academy? |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1978 |
| Journal | Byzantion |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 369–385 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
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. The 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. Cameron 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. Olympiodorus' 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—some 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. A 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—he was not well-off—and 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: τῶν δὲ διαδόχων οὐσία οὐκ ὡς οἱ πολλοὶ νομίζουσι Πλάτωνος ἦν τὸ ἀνέκαθεν. 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. If, 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—or his source—has 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—whether 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—or because nothing was any longer happening at Athens, or for some other reason, that would be sufficient to explain such an error. To 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: "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] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/8waAtP8ixbo8cmC |
{"_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":["529 and its Sequel: What Happened to the Academy?"]}
| Title | Alexandria as a Center of Greek Philosophy in Later Classical Antiquity |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1993 |
| Journal | Illinois Classical Studies |
| Volume | 18 |
| Pages | 307-325 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
Any discussion of Greek Alexandria may properly take its starting point from the work of P. M. Fraser, even if only to dissent from it. In the preface to Ptolemaic Alexandria Fraser observes that philosophy was one of the “items” that “were not effectively transplanted to Alexandria.”1 In his chapter on philosophy, talking of the establishment of the main philosophical schools at Athens, Fraser writes that it “remained the centre of philosophical studies down to the closing of the schools by Justinian in A.D. 563.”2 The first of these statements is near enough the truth, since the Alexandria of the Ptolemies was not distinguished in philosophy as ifwas in literature or science, though even then some important things happened during that period too. But the implication that this situation continued during the Roman and early Byzantine periods is misleading, and by the end of the period simply false.3 The purpose of this paper is to examine some aspects of the considerable contribution that Alexandria made to the philosophical tradition that continued into the Islamic and Christian middle ages and beyond, and to show that it may lay claim to have been at least equal to that of Athens itself. [Introduction, p. 307] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/MGb8ujHWfXvghPD |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"898","_score":null,"_source":{"id":898,"authors_free":[{"id":1326,"entry_id":898,"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":"Alexandria as a Center of Greek Philosophy in Later Classical Antiquity","main_title":{"title":"Alexandria as a Center of Greek Philosophy in Later Classical Antiquity"},"abstract":"Any discussion of Greek Alexandria may properly take its starting point \r\nfrom the work of P. M. Fraser, even if only to dissent from it. In the preface \r\nto Ptolemaic Alexandria Fraser observes that philosophy was one of the \r\n\u201citems\u201d that \u201cwere not effectively transplanted to Alexandria.\u201d1 In his \r\nchapter on philosophy, talking of the establishment of the main \r\nphilosophical schools at Athens, Fraser writes that it \u201cremained the centre of \r\nphilosophical studies down to the closing of the schools by Justinian in A.D. \r\n563.\u201d2 The first of these statements is near enough the truth, since the \r\nAlexandria of the Ptolemies was not distinguished in philosophy as ifwas in \r\nliterature or science, though even then some important things happened \r\nduring that period too. But the implication that this situation continued \r\nduring the Roman and early Byzantine periods is misleading, and by the end \r\nof the period simply false.3 The purpose of this paper is to examine some \r\naspects of the considerable contribution that Alexandria made to the \r\nphilosophical tradition that continued into the Islamic and Christian middle \r\nages and beyond, and to show that it may lay claim to have been at least \r\nequal to that of Athens itself. [Introduction, p. 307]","btype":3,"date":"1993","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/MGb8ujHWfXvghPD","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":898,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Illinois Classical Studies","volume":"18","issue":"","pages":"307-325"}},"sort":["Alexandria as a Center of Greek Philosophy in Later Classical Antiquity"]}
| Title | Did Iamblichus Write a Commentary on the De Anima? |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1974 |
| Journal | Hermes |
| Volume | 102 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 540–556 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
Bearing in mind the reservations already made, what conclusions can we draw? In the first place, it is fair to say that the evidence from Simplicius does, taken overall, suggest that Iamblichus did not write a commentary on the de Anima. Consideration of Stephanus' commentary on de Anima G points in the same direction, but it must not be forgotten that that commentary contains a reference to Iamblichus' that looks more like a quotation from a de Anima commentary than any other that we have. Philoponus is less helpful, as are other members of the Alexandrian school. He certainly gives no positive indication that Iamblichus wrote a commentary, but for the reasons that we have given, the lack of such positive evidence in his case does not amount to anything like conclusive negative evidence. We cannot entirely rule out the possibility that Iamblichus did write a commentary, either on the de Anima as a whole, or on some extended part of it, but it seems probably that he did not. If he did it would certainly be fair to say that his commentary was probably of no great importance. Discussions of isolated texts of Aristotle are another matter: they are only to be expected in the work of any Neoplatonist. [conclusion, p. 556] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/sl42R04H6zbpEIJ |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"569","_score":null,"_source":{"id":569,"authors_free":[{"id":808,"entry_id":569,"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":"Did Iamblichus Write a Commentary on the De Anima?","main_title":{"title":"Did Iamblichus Write a Commentary on the De Anima?"},"abstract":"Bearing in mind the reservations already made, what conclusions can we draw? In the first place, it is fair to say that the evidence from Simplicius does, taken overall, suggest that Iamblichus did not write a commentary on the de Anima. Consideration of Stephanus' commentary on de Anima G points in the same direction, but it must not be forgotten that that commentary contains \r\na reference to Iamblichus' that looks more like a quotation from a de Anima commentary than any other that we have. Philoponus is less helpful, as are other members of the Alexandrian school. He certainly gives no positive indication that Iamblichus wrote a commentary, but for the reasons that we have given, the lack of such positive evidence in his case does not amount to \r\nanything like conclusive negative evidence. We cannot entirely rule out the possibility that Iamblichus did write a commentary, either on the de Anima as a whole, or on some extended part of it, but it seems probably that he did \r\nnot. If he did it would certainly be fair to say that his commentary was probably of no great importance. Discussions of isolated texts of Aristotle are another matter: they are only to be expected in the work of any Neoplatonist. [conclusion, p. 556]","btype":3,"date":"1974","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/sl42R04H6zbpEIJ","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":569,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Hermes","volume":"102","issue":"4","pages":"540\u2013556"}},"sort":["Did Iamblichus Write a Commentary on the De Anima?"]}
| Title | Iamblichus as a Commentator |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1997 |
| Journal | Syllecta Classica |
| Volume | 8 |
| Pages | 1–13 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
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: Exégète 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. Larsen'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. Be that as it may, I intend to look, not very originally, at Iamblichus' activities as a commentator on philosophical works—and so I shall say nothing about the twenty-eight books or more of his lost commentary on the Chaldaean Oracles—and also to say something, in the manner of core samples, about how his expositions compare with those of the later commentators. Though 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—in Iamblichus' case to a lesser extent—Aristotle too. The 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. The 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 639.23–24; in the second chapter of book 5 of the commentary on the Timaeus 786.11–12; 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. It 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—or rather ten plus two—Platonic dialogues, which culminated in the study of the Timaeus and Parmenides.[introduction p. 1-2] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/3m984P11hlUhV1x |
{"_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":["Iamblichus as a Commentator"]}
| Title | John Philoponus: Alexandrian Platonist? |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1986 |
| Journal | Hermes |
| Volume | 114 |
| Pages | 314–335 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
What, in the end, can we say about Philoponus’ position as a Platonist, bearing in mind that our conclusions must still in some respects be provisional? That he was a Neoplatonist is indisputable. Since, however, few if any, of his differences with other Neoplatonists seem to arise from the adoption of a specifically Alexandrian philosophical point of view, we must attribute them to his own philosophical - and theological - orientation. It turns out that, in his case, »Alexandrian Platonist« may mean little more than a man whose philosophy was Neoplatonic, and who worked at Alexandria, though one might observe that there would not have been a warm welcome at Athens for a Christian Neoplatonist, however closely his views might conform to those codified by Proclus and developed by Damascius. One could go on to say that, apart from the concentration on Aristotle, his differences from other Alexandrians were greater than theirs from the Athenians. In this connection we should notice Philoponus’ frequent appeals to Plato against Aristotle in the passages Simplicius singles out for complaint, and his relatively frequent reservations about the agreement, symphônia, of Plato and Aristotle, which most others eagerly sought to demonstrate. And since we started with a critique of P r a e c h t e r , who did so much to initiate the serious study of the Aristotelian commentators, it might be appropriate to end with his characteri sation of Philoponus in the De aeternitate mundi: »es ist der gelehrte Platoniker der spricht«. [conclusion, p. 334-335] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/cP5twq2fWJQvBVn |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"628","_score":null,"_source":{"id":628,"authors_free":[{"id":888,"entry_id":628,"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":"John Philoponus: Alexandrian Platonist?","main_title":{"title":"John Philoponus: Alexandrian Platonist?"},"abstract":"What, in the end, can we say about Philoponus\u2019 position as a Platonist, bearing in mind that our conclusions must still in some respects be provision\u00adal? That he was a Neoplatonist is indisputable. Since, however, few if any, of \r\nhis differences with other Neoplatonists seem to arise from the adoption of a specifically Alexandrian philosophical point of view, we must attribute them to his own philosophical - and theological - orientation. It turns out that, in \r\nhis case, \u00bbAlexandrian Platonist\u00ab may mean little more than a man whose philosophy was Neoplatonic, and who worked at Alexandria, though one might observe that there would not have been a warm welcome at Athens for a \r\nChristian Neoplatonist, however closely his views might conform to those codified by Proclus and developed by Damascius. One could go on to say \r\nthat, apart from the concentration on Aristotle, his differences from other Alexandrians were greater than theirs from the Athenians. In this connection \r\nwe should notice Philoponus\u2019 frequent appeals to Plato against Aristotle in the passages Simplicius singles out for complaint, and his relatively frequent reservations about the agreement, symph\u00f4nia, of Plato and Aristotle, which \r\nmost others eagerly sought to demonstrate. And since we started with a critique of P r a e c h t e r , who did so much to initiate the serious study of the \r\nAristotelian commentators, it might be appropriate to end with his characteri\u00ad\r\nsation of Philoponus in the De aeternitate mundi: \u00bbes ist der gelehrte Platoniker der spricht\u00ab. [conclusion, p. 334-335]\r\n","btype":3,"date":"1986","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/cP5twq2fWJQvBVn","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":628,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Hermes","volume":"114","issue":"","pages":"314\u2013335"}},"sort":["John Philoponus: Alexandrian Platonist?"]}
| Title | Neoplatonic Elements in the "de Anima" Commentaries |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1976 |
| Journal | Phronesis |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 64-87 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
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. Shortly 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. That 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—Ross, 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. Those 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—as they would by that in Philoponus' as well—material 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. This 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 (640.27–32) that Aristotle's criticisms of Plato are directed not against Plato himself but against those who failed to grasp Plato's real meaning. In 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. 7.29–32). Here we have two expressions of the normal Neoplatonic view that Plato and Aristotle were usually trying to say the same thing. This 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). Philoponus, 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 29.2–8 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. By 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] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/3j2gfRYnCCVhtJC |
{"_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":["Neoplatonic Elements in the \"de Anima\" Commentaries"]}
| Title | Neoplatonic Interpretations of Aristotle on "Phantasia" |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1977 |
| Journal | The Review of Metaphysics |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 242-257 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
The ancient commentaries on Aristotle have for the most part remained in that strange kind of no-man's land between Classical and Medieval studies that even now holds so many of the productions of later antiquity. On the whole it would be true to say that students of Neoplatonism?for the commentators were usually Neoplatonists ?prefer to occupy themselves with openly Neoplatonic writings. Modern Aristotelian scholars, on the other hand, tend to take very little account of the opinions of their ancient predecessors. In this way they differ from the Medie vals, both Christian and Moslem: as is well known, Aquinas instigated the translation of many of these commentaries by his fellow Dominican, William of Moerbeke, while a century before, Averroes, the greatest of the Arabic commentators, had made ample use of at least the earlier Greek expositions. [Introduction, p. 242] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/xdGhkQhUkY7sWbE |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"877","_score":null,"_source":{"id":877,"authors_free":[{"id":1288,"entry_id":877,"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 Interpretations of Aristotle on \"Phantasia\"","main_title":{"title":"Neoplatonic Interpretations of Aristotle on \"Phantasia\""},"abstract":"The ancient commentaries on Aristotle have for the most part \r\nremained in that strange kind of no-man's land between Classical \r\nand Medieval studies that even now holds so many of the productions \r\nof later antiquity. On the whole it would be true to say that students \r\nof Neoplatonism?for the commentators were usually Neoplatonists \r\n?prefer to occupy themselves with openly Neoplatonic writings. \r\nModern Aristotelian scholars, on the other hand, tend to take very \r\nlittle account of the opinions of their ancient predecessors. In this \r\nway they differ from the Medie vals, both Christian and Moslem: as \r\nis well known, Aquinas instigated the translation of many of these \r\ncommentaries by his fellow Dominican, William of Moerbeke, while a \r\ncentury before, Averroes, the greatest of the Arabic commentators, \r\nhad made ample use of at least the earlier Greek expositions. [Introduction, p. 242]","btype":3,"date":"1977","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/xdGhkQhUkY7sWbE","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":877,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Review of Metaphysics","volume":"31","issue":"2","pages":"242-257"}},"sort":["Neoplatonic Interpretations of Aristotle on \"Phantasia\""]}
| Title | Review of Erwin Sonderegger: Simplikios: Über die Zeit |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1983 |
| Journal | The Classical Review, New Series |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 337-338 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
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. Sonderegger'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 über 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. 38–139), 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 356.8–25, which contains in nuce much of the thought of CdT. Sonderegger 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 (773.12–14): one recalls uneasily the project of expounding the De anima while following Iamblichus (In De an. 1.18–20). Sonderegger perhaps underestimates the extent to which Simplicius saw himself as engaged in the same enterprise as Aristotle—and Plato. Though 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. The extent of Proclus' influence is thoroughly documented by I. Hadot, Le Problème du Néoplatonisme Alexandrin: Hiéroclès et Simplicius (Paris, 1978), cited on p. 26 n. 51. I cannot understand the arguments here (29–35) 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. On 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 (69–74) shows. If 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 theôrmenos (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). The 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] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/ZCYOjLO9LGrxQNt |
{"_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":["Review of Erwin Sonderegger: Simplikios: \u00dcber die Zeit"]}
| Title | Were Aristotle's Intentions in writing the De Anima Forgotten in Late Antiquity? |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1997 |
| Journal | Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale |
| Volume | 8 |
| Pages | 143–157 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
In general we have to conclude that while the whole "Philoponus” commentary may include a number of explicit references to the biological writings, and while the real Philoponus may often refer to medical and scientific issues, there is no systematic bias towards explaining the contents of the De anima in terms of them. There is, however, just as in the Ps-Simplicius commentary, enough said about such matters, and enough reference made to other parts of the biological corpus, to show that the commentators were still aware of the original intentions of the work — or, at the very least, behaved as if they were — even if they did not always feel bound by them. That awareness was to survive into the Middle Ages as well. [Conclusion, p. 157] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/IJsW8b6iPwteKXr |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"893","_score":null,"_source":{"id":893,"authors_free":[{"id":1316,"entry_id":893,"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":"Were Aristotle's Intentions in writing the De Anima Forgotten in Late Antiquity?","main_title":{"title":"Were Aristotle's Intentions in writing the De Anima Forgotten in Late Antiquity?"},"abstract":"In general we have to conclude that while the whole \"Philoponus\u201d commentary may include a number of explicit references to the biological writings, and while the real Philoponus may often refer to medical and scientific issues, there is no systematic bias towards explaining the contents of the De anima in terms of them. There is, however, just as in the Ps-Simplicius commentary, enough said about such matters, and \r\nenough reference made to other parts of the biological corpus, to show that the commentators were still aware of the original intentions of the work \u2014 or, at the very least, behaved as if they were \u2014 even if they did not always feel bound by them. That awareness was to survive into the Middle Ages as well. [Conclusion, p. 157]","btype":3,"date":"1997","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/IJsW8b6iPwteKXr","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":893,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale","volume":"8","issue":"","pages":"143\u2013157"}},"sort":["Were Aristotle's Intentions in writing the De Anima Forgotten in Late Antiquity?"]}