{"_index":"sire","_id":"1520","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1520,"authors_free":[{"id":2638,"entry_id":1520,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":146,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Helmig, Christoph","free_first_name":"Christoph","free_last_name":"Helmig","norm_person":{"id":146,"first_name":"Christoph","last_name":"Helmig","full_name":"Helmig, Christoph","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1107028760","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2641,"entry_id":1520,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":565,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Lammer, Andreas","free_first_name":"Andreas","free_last_name":"Lammer","norm_person":{"id":565,"first_name":"Andreas","last_name":"Lammer","full_name":"Lammer, Andreas","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"https:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1031936807","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2642,"entry_id":1520,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":564,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Jas, Mareike ","free_first_name":"Mareike","free_last_name":"Jas","norm_person":{"id":564,"first_name":"Mareike","last_name":"Jas","full_name":"Jas, Mareike ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"https:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/116742073X","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Interpreting Parmenides of Elea in Antiquity: From Plato\u2019s Parmenides to Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics","main_title":{"title":"Interpreting Parmenides of Elea in Antiquity: From Plato\u2019s Parmenides to Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics"},"abstract":"The aim of my paper was to contrast ancient doxographical approaches towards the Presocratic Parmenides of Elea and to shed some light on the peculiarities of the ancient exegetical tradition in the form of a case study. As a rule, ancient and late ancient interpreters seem to pursue a much more selective approach compared to modern scholars. In the ancient reception of Parmenides\u2019 poem, we are able to distinguish several branches. What binds them together is the prominent focus on the thesis that Being is One, first formulated explicitly in Plato. I have suggested above to differentiate readers of Parmenides according to their attitude towards the Presocratic philosopher. Here, the two antipodes, as it were, are Plato and Aristotle.\r\n\r\nPlato aimed at further developing Eleatic conceptions of being in a creative way and prefigured a Platonizing account of Parmenides\u2019 poem. An explicit Platonizing reading of Parmenides can be traced back to the Middle Platonist Plutarch of Chaeronea and was taken up by several Neoplatonists such as Plotinus, Proclus, Damascius, and Simplicius. For both Plato and the Platonic tradition, Parmenides was an authoritative figure. Notwithstanding this continuity in attitude, a notable shift from Plato to the Platonic tradition can be observed. While Plato, as we have said, tried to elaborate on specific key terms of Parmenides\u2019 philosophy such as being, non-being, knowledge, etc., Platonists rather tried to bring Parmenides\u2019 philosophy in agreement with that of Plato, or rather, with what they considered the philosophy of Plato.\r\n\r\nAristotle, on the other hand, who is followed by Alexander of Aphrodisias, was eager to challenge Parmenides\u2019 account of being and to prove him wrong. Although several attempts have been made to read Aristotle\u2019s account in Physics I.2\u20133 in a more constructive way, it is doubtful whether they are successful. He just does not seem to be very coherent when it comes to presenting Parmenides\u2019 doctrines. Rather, his strategy is essentially polemical.\r\n\r\nIn several respects, Simplicius obtains a special role in the history of the reading of Parmenides and hence in the doxographical tradition. He is a rather peculiar kind of doxographer, a doxographer that serves a much broader agenda than just making sense of Parmenides\u2019 philosophy or simply preserving the views of an author. It seems to be a kind of context- or genre-dependent, polyphonic, multilevel doxography that has the capacity to integrate other authors or commentators in order to demonstrate the essential unity (symph\u00f4nia) of ancient Hellenic wisdom. Commenting on Aristotle\u2019s Physics, Simplicius definitely did more than he had to, for he brings in much more material, especially from Parmenides\u2019 poem and Plato\u2019s dialogues, than he found in Aristotle or what is needed to comment on Aristotle. As a doxographer, he is eager to interpret, harmonize, and preserve.\r\n\r\nSimplicius\u2019 art of doxography is, I would suggest, not primarily devised to understand an author better, but to promote a certain reading of a text or an author in a well-defined ideological manner. In our case, the guiding principles of Simplicius are the harmony of Plato and Aristotle and the unity of the Greek philosophical tradition. Ivan Adriano Licciardi, contrasting Aristotle and Simplicius, aptly attributes to Aristotle a storiografia dialettica, while Simplicius champions a storiografia sinfonica.\r\n\r\nThe context in which the doxa of a certain author are transmitted is also quite crucial. In the case of Parmenides, we do not know of any running commentary written in Antiquity. It is important to emphasize that Simplicius too, although he is quoting a good bit from the poem firsthand, does not comment on it line by line as he does in the case of Aristotle. Rather, he is clever enough to select certain words or phrases and interpret them according to his guidelines. As we have seen, it is significant that Simplicius discusses Parmenides\u2019 philosophy in the context of Aristotle\u2019s criticism and against the background of Plato\u2019s exegesis, first and foremost in the Sophist. It is certainly this context or genre that clearly influences the way Parmenides is interpreted. As far as the whole Platonic tradition is concerned, it seems safer not to talk of the reception of Parmenides, but of the reception of Plato\u2019s version of Parmenides.\r\n[conclusion p. 200-202]","btype":2,"date":"2022","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Qox4YDBhtebTWK3","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":146,"full_name":"Helmig, Christoph","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":565,"full_name":"Lammer, Andreas","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":564,"full_name":"Jas, Mareike ","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1520,"section_of":1521,"pages":"175-206","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1521,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Received Opinions: Doxography in Antiquity and the Islamic World","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Lammer-Jas_2022","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2022","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"This volume\u2014the proceedings of a 2018 conference at LMU Munich funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation\u2014brings together, for the first time, experts on Greek, Syriac, and Arabic traditions of doxography. Fourteen contributions provide new insight into state-of-the-art contemporary research on the widespread phenomenon of doxography. Together, they demonstrate how Greek, Syriac, and Arabic forms of doxography share common features and raise related questions that benefit interdisciplinary exchange among colleagues from various disciplines, such as classics, Arabic studies, and the history of philosophy. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/XdQoRcGvPjnpUca","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1521,"pubplace":"Leiden \u2013 Boston","publisher":"Brill","series":"Philosophia Antiqua","volume":"160","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Interpreting Parmenides of Elea in Antiquity: From Plato\u2019s Parmenides to Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics"]}