Title | Andronicus and Boethus: Reflections on Michael Griffin’s Aristotle’s Categories in the Early Roman Empire |
Type | Article |
Language | English |
Date | 2018 |
Journal | Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale |
Volume | 29 |
Pages | 13-43 |
Categories | no categories |
Author(s) | Menn, Stephen |
Editor(s) | |
Translator(s) |
Griffin, Rashed, and Chiaradonna have shown how we can use Simplicius’ Categories commentary to reconstruct much of Porphyry’s greater Categories commentary (also witnessed by the Archimedes Palimpsest), and then use this to reconstruct much of the work of Boethus, and to a lesser extent Andronicus, on the Categories. In some cases building on Griffin, in other cases disagreeing with him, I bring out some ways in which Andronicus and Boethus differ from most later interpreters; this can help us understand Alexander’s and Porphyry’s responses. I reconstruct (i) Andronicus’ interpretation of ‘in’ and ‘said of, which is based on Aristotle’s distinction between abstract nouns and paronymous concrete nouns, and avoids the metaphysical freight that later interpreters load onto the notion of ‘said o f; (ii) Boethus’ use of De Interpretation 1 to explain how a universal term can be synonymous without positing either universals in re or Stoic XeKid, and the consequences he draws for the different aims of the Categories and De Interpretation; and (iii) Boethus’ solution to the tension between Aristotle’s hylomorphism and the Categories’ account of substance. Boethus, unlike later interpreters, thinks the form is in the matter, and is therefore not a substance but (typically) a quality, but that it is nonetheless able to constitute the composite as a substance distinct from the matter. I bring out the Aristotelian basis for Boethus’ reading, connect it with Boethus’ accounts of differentiae and of the soul, and show how Boethus’ views help motivate Porphyry’s responses. In some cases Porphyry constructs his views by triangulating between Boethus and Alexander. [Author's abstract] |
Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/f40u6koKhn1exfj |
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Title | Self-motion and reflection: Hermias and Proclus on the harmony of Plato and Aristotle on the soul |
Type | Book Section |
Language | English |
Date | 2012 |
Published in | Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature |
Pages | 44-67 |
Categories | no categories |
Author(s) | Menn, Stephen |
Editor(s) | Horn, Christoph , Wilberding, James |
Translator(s) |
A central puzzle of recent scholarship on late Neoplatonism has been to understand how what Richard Sorabji has called a ‘perfectly crazy position', the thesis of die harmony of Plato and Aristode, nonetheless ‘proved philosophically fruitful' — whereas, for instance, the same philosophers' perfectly crazy thesis of the harmony of Plato and Homer did not. In this chapter, starting from Hermias' commentary on a passage of the Phaedrus which poses a difficulty for harmonization, I hope to shed some light on what the late Neoplatonists were asserting when they asserted the harmony of Plato and Aristotle, in general or on some particular issue (here the immortality of soul); on why they were inclined to make such assertions o f harmony, and what they saw themselves as needing to do in order to defend them: and on why,in the process of defending them, they were led to conceptual clarifications which were in some cases of longstanding benefit to the conceptual stoic of philosophy. I will point to a sur prising case of such a conceptual benefit resulting from Neoplatonic interpretations of this Pimdtus passage and its parallels in the Timaeus. While my central example will be from Hermias, the themes I am interested in ate not peculiar to him, and I will also make use of other late Neoplatonic authors, especially Proclus. Hermias, and Produs, to recall, were both students of Syrianus;at one point in Hermias' commentary 'our companion Proclus' raises an aporia, and ‘the philosopher'— that is, ‘the professor — replies (92,6-10 Couvrcur), which seems to imply that the commentary in general was drawn by Hermias from Syrianus lectures. [Introduction, pp. 44 f.] |
Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/x0FYbwRgOdH8WM2 |
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In this chapter, starting from Hermias' commentary on a passage of the Phaedrus which poses a difficulty for harmonization, I hope to shed some light on what the late Neoplatonists were asserting when they asserted the harmony \r\nof Plato and Aristotle, in general or on some particular issue (here the immortality of soul); on why they were inclined to make such assertions o f harmony, and what they saw themselves as needing to do in order to defend them: and on why,in the process of defending them, they were led to conceptual clarifications which were in some cases of longstanding benefit to the conceptual stoic of philosophy. I will point to a sur\u00ad\r\nprising case of such a conceptual benefit resulting from Neoplatonic interpretations of this Pimdtus passage and its parallels in the Timaeus. While my central example will be from Hermias, the themes I am interested in ate not peculiar to him, and I will also \r\nmake use of other late Neoplatonic authors, especially Proclus. Hermias, and Produs, to recall, were both students of Syrianus;at one point in Hermias' commentary 'our companion Proclus' raises an aporia, and \u2018the philosopher'\u2014 that is, \u2018the professor \u2014 replies (92,6-10 Couvrcur), which seems to imply that the commentary in general was drawn by Hermias from Syrianus lectures. [Introduction, pp. 44 f.]","btype":2,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/x0FYbwRgOdH8WM2","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":255,"full_name":"Menn, Stephen","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":256,"full_name":"Horn, Christoph","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":257,"full_name":"Wilberding, James","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1164,"section_of":299,"pages":"44-67","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":299,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Horn\/Wilberding2012","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2012","edition_no":null,"free_date":"2012","abstract":"Despite Platonism\u2019s unquestioned claim to being one of the most influential movements in the history of philosophy, for a long time the conventional wisdom was that Platonists of late antiquity\u2014or Neoplatonists\u2014were so focused on other-worldly metaphysics that they simply neglected any serious study of the sensible world, which after all is \u2018merely\u2019 an image of the intelligible world, and only recently has this conventional wisdom begun to be dispelled. In fact, precisely because these thinkers did see the sensible world as an image of the intelligible world, they devoted much time and energy to understanding its inner workings. Thus we find Neoplatonists writing on embryology, physiology, meteorology, astronomy, and much else. This volume collects essays by leading international scholars in the field that shed new light on how these thinkers sought to understand and explain nature and natural phenomena. It is thematically divided into two parts, with the first part\u2014\u2018The general metaphysics of Nature\u2019\u2014directed at the explication of central Neoplatonic metaphysical doctrines and their relation to the natural world, and the second part\u2014\u2019Platonic approaches to individual sciences\u2019\u2014showing how these same doctrines play out in individual natural sciences such as elemental physics, geography, and biology. Together these essays show that a serious examination of Neoplatonic natural philosophy has far-reaching consequences for our general understanding of the metaphysics of Platonism, as well as for our evaluation of their place in the history of science.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/xHUG6gdrtjMT7K4","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":299,"pubplace":"Oxford","publisher":"Oxford University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":null,"valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2012]}
Title | Review of: Baltussen: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator |
Type | Article |
Language | English |
Date | 2010 |
Journal | The Classical World |
Volume | 104 |
Issue | 1 |
Pages | 117-118 |
Categories | no categories |
Author(s) | Menn, Stephen |
Editor(s) | |
Translator(s) |
Review of: an Baltussen. Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator. London: Duckworth, 2008. Pp. xii, 292. $80.00. ISBN 978-0-7156-350 |
Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/kyq7dKtLUkqGVRs |
{"_index":"sire","_type":"_doc","_id":"978","_score":null,"_source":{"id":978,"authors_free":[{"id":1477,"entry_id":978,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":255,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Menn, Stephen","free_first_name":"Stephen","free_last_name":"Menn","norm_person":{"id":255,"first_name":"Stephen","last_name":"Menn","full_name":"Menn, Stephen","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/174092768","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Review of: Baltussen: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator","main_title":{"title":"Review of: Baltussen: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator"},"abstract":"Review of: an Baltussen. Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology \r\nof a Commentator. London: Duckworth, 2008. Pp. xii, 292. $80.00. ISBN \r\n978-0-7156-350","btype":3,"date":"2010","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/kyq7dKtLUkqGVRs","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":255,"full_name":"Menn, Stephen","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":978,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical World","volume":"104","issue":"1","pages":"117-118"}},"sort":[2010]}
Title | Simplicius on the "Theaetetus" ("In Physica" 17,38-18,23 Diels) |
Type | Article |
Language | English |
Date | 2010 |
Journal | Phronesis |
Volume | 55 |
Issue | 3 |
Pages | 255-270 |
Categories | no categories |
Author(s) | Menn, Stephen |
Editor(s) | |
Translator(s) |
Aristotle in Physics 1,1 says some strange-sounding things about how we come to know wholes and parts, universals and particulars. In explicating these, Simplicius distinguishes an initial rough cognition of a thing as a whole, an intermediate "cognition according to the definition and through the elements," and a final cognition of how the thing's many elements are united: only this last is ἐπιστήμη. Simplicius refers to the Theaetetus for the point about what is needed for ἐπιστήμη and the ways that cognition according to the definition and through the elements falls short. By unpacking this reference I try to recon struct Simplicius' reading of "Socrates' Dream," its place in the Theaetetus larger argument, and its harmony with other Platonic and Aristotelian texts. But this reconstruction depends on undoing some catastrophic emendations in Diels's text of Simplicius. Diels's emendations arise from his assumptions about definitions and elements, in Socrates' Dream and elsewhere, and rethinking the Simplicius passage may help us rethink those assumptions. |
Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/hFUY0I2JzLFnSQG |
{"_index":"sire","_type":"_doc","_id":"977","_score":null,"_source":{"id":977,"authors_free":[{"id":1476,"entry_id":977,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":255,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Menn, Stephen","free_first_name":"Stephen","free_last_name":"Menn","norm_person":{"id":255,"first_name":"Stephen","last_name":"Menn","full_name":"Menn, Stephen","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/174092768","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius on the \"Theaetetus\" (\"In Physica\" 17,38-18,23 Diels)","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius on the \"Theaetetus\" (\"In Physica\" 17,38-18,23 Diels)"},"abstract":"Aristotle in Physics 1,1 says some strange-sounding things about how we come to know wholes and parts, universals and particulars. In explicating these, Simplicius distinguishes an initial rough cognition of a thing as a whole, an intermediate \"cognition according to the definition and through the elements,\" and a final cognition of how the thing's many elements are united: only this last is \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7. Simplicius refers to the Theaetetus for the point about what is needed for \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7 and the ways that cognition according to the definition and through the elements falls short. By unpacking this reference I try to recon struct Simplicius' reading of \"Socrates' Dream,\" its place in the Theaetetus larger argument, and its harmony with other Platonic and Aristotelian texts. But this reconstruction depends on undoing some catastrophic emendations in Diels's text of Simplicius. Diels's emendations arise from his assumptions about definitions and elements, in Socrates' Dream and elsewhere, and rethinking the Simplicius passage may help us rethink those assumptions. ","btype":3,"date":"2010","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/hFUY0I2JzLFnSQG","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":255,"full_name":"Menn, Stephen","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":977,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Phronesis","volume":"55","issue":"3","pages":"255-270"}},"sort":[2010]}
Title | Andronicus and Boethus: Reflections on Michael Griffin’s Aristotle’s Categories in the Early Roman Empire |
Type | Article |
Language | English |
Date | 2018 |
Journal | Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale |
Volume | 29 |
Pages | 13-43 |
Categories | no categories |
Author(s) | Menn, Stephen |
Editor(s) | |
Translator(s) |
Griffin, Rashed, and Chiaradonna have shown how we can use Simplicius’ Categories commentary to reconstruct much of Porphyry’s greater Categories commentary (also witnessed by the Archimedes Palimpsest), and then use this to reconstruct much of the work of Boethus, and to a lesser extent Andronicus, on the Categories. In some cases building on Griffin, in other cases disagreeing with him, I bring out some ways in which Andronicus and Boethus differ from most later interpreters; this can help us understand Alexander’s and Porphyry’s responses. I reconstruct (i) Andronicus’ interpretation of ‘in’ and ‘said of, which is based on Aristotle’s distinction between abstract nouns and paronymous concrete nouns, and avoids the metaphysical freight that later interpreters load onto the notion of ‘said o f; (ii) Boethus’ use of De Interpretation 1 to explain how a universal term can be synonymous without positing either universals in re or Stoic XeKid, and the consequences he draws for the different aims of the Categories and De Interpretation; and (iii) Boethus’ solution to the tension between Aristotle’s hylomorphism and the Categories’ account of substance. Boethus, unlike later interpreters, thinks the form is in the matter, and is therefore not a substance but (typically) a quality, but that it is nonetheless able to constitute the composite as a substance distinct from the matter. I bring out the Aristotelian basis for Boethus’ reading, connect it with Boethus’ accounts of differentiae and of the soul, and show how Boethus’ views help motivate Porphyry’s responses. In some cases Porphyry constructs his views by triangulating between Boethus and Alexander. [Author's abstract] |
Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/f40u6koKhn1exfj |
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Title | Review of: Baltussen: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator |
Type | Article |
Language | English |
Date | 2010 |
Journal | The Classical World |
Volume | 104 |
Issue | 1 |
Pages | 117-118 |
Categories | no categories |
Author(s) | Menn, Stephen |
Editor(s) | |
Translator(s) |
Review of: an Baltussen. Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator. London: Duckworth, 2008. Pp. xii, 292. $80.00. ISBN 978-0-7156-350 |
Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/kyq7dKtLUkqGVRs |
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Title | Self-motion and reflection: Hermias and Proclus on the harmony of Plato and Aristotle on the soul |
Type | Book Section |
Language | English |
Date | 2012 |
Published in | Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature |
Pages | 44-67 |
Categories | no categories |
Author(s) | Menn, Stephen |
Editor(s) | Horn, Christoph , Wilberding, James |
Translator(s) |
A central puzzle of recent scholarship on late Neoplatonism has been to understand how what Richard Sorabji has called a ‘perfectly crazy position', the thesis of die harmony of Plato and Aristode, nonetheless ‘proved philosophically fruitful' — whereas, for instance, the same philosophers' perfectly crazy thesis of the harmony of Plato and Homer did not. In this chapter, starting from Hermias' commentary on a passage of the Phaedrus which poses a difficulty for harmonization, I hope to shed some light on what the late Neoplatonists were asserting when they asserted the harmony of Plato and Aristotle, in general or on some particular issue (here the immortality of soul); on why they were inclined to make such assertions o f harmony, and what they saw themselves as needing to do in order to defend them: and on why,in the process of defending them, they were led to conceptual clarifications which were in some cases of longstanding benefit to the conceptual stoic of philosophy. I will point to a sur prising case of such a conceptual benefit resulting from Neoplatonic interpretations of this Pimdtus passage and its parallels in the Timaeus. While my central example will be from Hermias, the themes I am interested in ate not peculiar to him, and I will also make use of other late Neoplatonic authors, especially Proclus. Hermias, and Produs, to recall, were both students of Syrianus;at one point in Hermias' commentary 'our companion Proclus' raises an aporia, and ‘the philosopher'— that is, ‘the professor — replies (92,6-10 Couvrcur), which seems to imply that the commentary in general was drawn by Hermias from Syrianus lectures. [Introduction, pp. 44 f.] |
Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/x0FYbwRgOdH8WM2 |
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In this chapter, starting from Hermias' commentary on a passage of the Phaedrus which poses a difficulty for harmonization, I hope to shed some light on what the late Neoplatonists were asserting when they asserted the harmony \r\nof Plato and Aristotle, in general or on some particular issue (here the immortality of soul); on why they were inclined to make such assertions o f harmony, and what they saw themselves as needing to do in order to defend them: and on why,in the process of defending them, they were led to conceptual clarifications which were in some cases of longstanding benefit to the conceptual stoic of philosophy. I will point to a sur\u00ad\r\nprising case of such a conceptual benefit resulting from Neoplatonic interpretations of this Pimdtus passage and its parallels in the Timaeus. While my central example will be from Hermias, the themes I am interested in ate not peculiar to him, and I will also \r\nmake use of other late Neoplatonic authors, especially Proclus. Hermias, and Produs, to recall, were both students of Syrianus;at one point in Hermias' commentary 'our companion Proclus' raises an aporia, and \u2018the philosopher'\u2014 that is, \u2018the professor \u2014 replies (92,6-10 Couvrcur), which seems to imply that the commentary in general was drawn by Hermias from Syrianus lectures. [Introduction, pp. 44 f.]","btype":2,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/x0FYbwRgOdH8WM2","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":255,"full_name":"Menn, Stephen","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":256,"full_name":"Horn, Christoph","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":257,"full_name":"Wilberding, James","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1164,"section_of":299,"pages":"44-67","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":299,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Horn\/Wilberding2012","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2012","edition_no":null,"free_date":"2012","abstract":"Despite Platonism\u2019s unquestioned claim to being one of the most influential movements in the history of philosophy, for a long time the conventional wisdom was that Platonists of late antiquity\u2014or Neoplatonists\u2014were so focused on other-worldly metaphysics that they simply neglected any serious study of the sensible world, which after all is \u2018merely\u2019 an image of the intelligible world, and only recently has this conventional wisdom begun to be dispelled. In fact, precisely because these thinkers did see the sensible world as an image of the intelligible world, they devoted much time and energy to understanding its inner workings. Thus we find Neoplatonists writing on embryology, physiology, meteorology, astronomy, and much else. This volume collects essays by leading international scholars in the field that shed new light on how these thinkers sought to understand and explain nature and natural phenomena. It is thematically divided into two parts, with the first part\u2014\u2018The general metaphysics of Nature\u2019\u2014directed at the explication of central Neoplatonic metaphysical doctrines and their relation to the natural world, and the second part\u2014\u2019Platonic approaches to individual sciences\u2019\u2014showing how these same doctrines play out in individual natural sciences such as elemental physics, geography, and biology. Together these essays show that a serious examination of Neoplatonic natural philosophy has far-reaching consequences for our general understanding of the metaphysics of Platonism, as well as for our evaluation of their place in the history of science.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/xHUG6gdrtjMT7K4","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":299,"pubplace":"Oxford","publisher":"Oxford University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":null,"valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Self-motion and reflection: Hermias and Proclus on the harmony of Plato and Aristotle on the soul"]}
Title | Simplicius on the "Theaetetus" ("In Physica" 17,38-18,23 Diels) |
Type | Article |
Language | English |
Date | 2010 |
Journal | Phronesis |
Volume | 55 |
Issue | 3 |
Pages | 255-270 |
Categories | no categories |
Author(s) | Menn, Stephen |
Editor(s) | |
Translator(s) |
Aristotle in Physics 1,1 says some strange-sounding things about how we come to know wholes and parts, universals and particulars. In explicating these, Simplicius distinguishes an initial rough cognition of a thing as a whole, an intermediate "cognition according to the definition and through the elements," and a final cognition of how the thing's many elements are united: only this last is ἐπιστήμη. Simplicius refers to the Theaetetus for the point about what is needed for ἐπιστήμη and the ways that cognition according to the definition and through the elements falls short. By unpacking this reference I try to recon struct Simplicius' reading of "Socrates' Dream," its place in the Theaetetus larger argument, and its harmony with other Platonic and Aristotelian texts. But this reconstruction depends on undoing some catastrophic emendations in Diels's text of Simplicius. Diels's emendations arise from his assumptions about definitions and elements, in Socrates' Dream and elsewhere, and rethinking the Simplicius passage may help us rethink those assumptions. |
Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/hFUY0I2JzLFnSQG |
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