| Title | The school of Alexander? |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1990 |
| Published in | Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence |
| Pages | 83-111 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Sharples, Robert W. |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
| Alexander of Aphrodisias was appointed by the emperors as a public teacher of Aristotelian philosophy at some time between 198 and 209 AD. As a public teacher, it is likely that he had, in some sense, a school. But trying to establish what happened in that school and how it functioned is comparable to the task we would face if we had to determine what went on in a philosophy department in a modern university based on a selection of books by the professor, a confused collection of his papers, the notes from which he lectured, and the essays of his students, with no obvious indication of which was which. We know a considerable amount about the Neoplatonic schools of the fifth and sixth centuries AD and the study of Aristotle’s writings in them. We know the place they had in the curriculum, the order in which they were read, and we can compare the ways in which different commentators approached the question of the relationship between the works of Aristotle and those of Plato. We can trace relations between teachers and their pupils, and we are sometimes told that a particular text is a pupil’s record of his teacher’s utterances. The very organization of the commentaries sometimes reflects and clarifies the requirements of the teaching context—in the division of a commentary into separate lectures and the placing of a general summary of a section of argument before the discussion of particular points. For the medieval period, too, we have copious information on the organization of teaching and study. With Alexander, matters are very different. We know the names of some of his teachers, and his surviving works provide evidence for his disagreements with them. We also know something of his disagreements with other philosophers of his own generation or the generation before, and we can trace—however controversially—his influence on later thinkers. But we do not know the name of a single one of his immediate pupils, and for all that we can tell, the influence of other writers on him might have been largely, and his influence on other writers entirely, through the medium of writing rather than personal encounter. After all, we are explicitly told that Alexander’s commentaries were among those read in Plotinus’ school. It is, however, in principle unlikely that any thinker in the ancient world would have communicated entirely through the written, rather than the spoken, word. Some of the writings attributed to Alexander are most naturally seen in the context of his teaching activities or debates within his circle. These writings include commentaries on Aristotelian works, treatises or monographs on particular topics such as those On the Soul and On Fate, and numerous short discussions. Three books of these collected discussions are entitled phusikai skholikai aporiai kai luseis—‘School-discussion problems and solutions on nature’; a fourth is titled Problems on Ethics but sub-titled, no doubt in imitation of the preceding three books when it was united with them, skholikai êthikai aporiai kai luseis—‘School-discussion problems and solutions on ethics.’ A further collection was transmitted as the second book of Alexander’s treatise On the Soul and labeled mantissa or ‘makeweight’ by the Berlin editor Bruns. Other texts essentially similar to those in these collections survive in Arabic, though not in Greek, and there is evidence to suggest that there were other collections now lost. The circumstances in which these collections were put together are unclear; it was not always expertly done, and while some of the titles attached to particular pieces seem to preserve valuable additional information, others are inept or unhelpful. Nor is it clear at what date the collections were assembled. It is not my concern here to provide a full enumeration of the works attributed to Alexander or to classify them in detail. That has been done elsewhere by both myself and others. Rather, I will proceed to a discussion of what the works can tell us about the context in which they arose. It will be helpful to start with a consideration of the relation of Alexander’s works to those of his predecessors, teachers, and contemporaries. [introduction p. 83-85] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/wgzq8ffCF70YlYd |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"1027","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1027,"authors_free":[{"id":1551,"entry_id":1027,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":42,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sharples, Robert W.","free_first_name":"Robert W.","free_last_name":"Sharples","norm_person":{"id":42,"first_name":"Robert W.","last_name":"Sharples","full_name":"Sharples, Robert W.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/114269505","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1552,"entry_id":1027,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The school of Alexander?","main_title":{"title":"The school of Alexander?"},"abstract":"Alexander of Aphrodisias was appointed by the emperors as a public teacher of Aristotelian philosophy at some time between 198 and 209 AD.\r\nAs a public teacher, it is likely that he had, in some sense, a school. But trying to establish what happened in that school and how it functioned is comparable to the task we would face if we had to determine what went on in a philosophy department in a modern university based on a selection of books by the professor, a confused collection of his papers, the notes from which he lectured, and the essays of his students, with no obvious indication of which was which.\r\n\r\nWe know a considerable amount about the Neoplatonic schools of the fifth and sixth centuries AD and the study of Aristotle\u2019s writings in them. We know the place they had in the curriculum, the order in which they were read, and we can compare the ways in which different commentators approached the question of the relationship between the works of Aristotle and those of Plato. We can trace relations between teachers and their pupils, and we are sometimes told that a particular text is a pupil\u2019s record of his teacher\u2019s utterances. The very organization of the commentaries sometimes reflects and clarifies the requirements of the teaching context\u2014in the division of a commentary into separate lectures and the placing of a general summary of a section of argument before the discussion of particular points.\r\n\r\nFor the medieval period, too, we have copious information on the organization of teaching and study.\r\nWith Alexander, matters are very different. We know the names of some of his teachers, and his surviving works provide evidence for his disagreements with them. We also know something of his disagreements with other philosophers of his own generation or the generation before, and we can trace\u2014however controversially\u2014his influence on later thinkers.\r\n\r\nBut we do not know the name of a single one of his immediate pupils, and for all that we can tell, the influence of other writers on him might have been largely, and his influence on other writers entirely, through the medium of writing rather than personal encounter. After all, we are explicitly told that Alexander\u2019s commentaries were among those read in Plotinus\u2019 school.\r\n\r\nIt is, however, in principle unlikely that any thinker in the ancient world would have communicated entirely through the written, rather than the spoken, word. Some of the writings attributed to Alexander are most naturally seen in the context of his teaching activities or debates within his circle.\r\n\r\nThese writings include commentaries on Aristotelian works, treatises or monographs on particular topics such as those On the Soul and On Fate, and numerous short discussions. Three books of these collected discussions are entitled phusikai skholikai aporiai kai luseis\u2014\u2018School-discussion problems and solutions on nature\u2019; a fourth is titled Problems on Ethics but sub-titled, no doubt in imitation of the preceding three books when it was united with them, skholikai \u00eathikai aporiai kai luseis\u2014\u2018School-discussion problems and solutions on ethics.\u2019\r\n\r\nA further collection was transmitted as the second book of Alexander\u2019s treatise On the Soul and labeled mantissa or \u2018makeweight\u2019 by the Berlin editor Bruns. Other texts essentially similar to those in these collections survive in Arabic, though not in Greek, and there is evidence to suggest that there were other collections now lost.\r\n\r\nThe circumstances in which these collections were put together are unclear; it was not always expertly done, and while some of the titles attached to particular pieces seem to preserve valuable additional information, others are inept or unhelpful. Nor is it clear at what date the collections were assembled.\r\n\r\nIt is not my concern here to provide a full enumeration of the works attributed to Alexander or to classify them in detail. That has been done elsewhere by both myself and others. Rather, I will proceed to a discussion of what the works can tell us about the context in which they arose. It will be helpful to start with a consideration of the relation of Alexander\u2019s works to those of his predecessors, teachers, and contemporaries. [introduction p. 83-85]","btype":2,"date":"1990","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/wgzq8ffCF70YlYd","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":42,"full_name":"Sharples, Robert W.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1027,"section_of":1453,"pages":"83-111","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1453,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1990","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"This book brings together twenty articles giving a comprehensive view of the work of the Aristotelian commentators. First published in 1990, the collection is now brought up to date with a new introduction by Richard Sorabji. New generations of scholars will benefit from this reissuing of classic essays, including seminal works by major scholars, and the volume gives a comprehensive background to the work of the project on the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which has published over 100 volumes of translations since 1987 and has disseminated these crucial texts to scholars worldwide.\r\n\r\nThe importance of the commentators is partly that they represent the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools and partly that they provide a panorama of a thousand years of ancient Greek philosophy, revealing many original quotations from lost works. Even more significant is the profound influence - uncovered in some of the chapters of this book - that they exert on later philosophy, Islamic and Western. Not only did they preserve anti-Aristotelian material which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they present Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/M8lXuAdHpDW8tvu","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1453,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Duckworth","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1990]}
| Title | Themistius: the last Peripatetic commentator on Aristotle? |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1990 |
| Published in | Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence |
| Pages | 113-123 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
| [B]oth the content of Themistius’ works, and such evidence as we have of the commentators’ attitudes to him, show that he was predominantly a Peripatetic. In this he stood out against the tendencies of his time. His frequently expressed admiration for Plato does not invalidate this conclusion. Themistius may rightly claim to have been the last major figure in antiquity who was a genuine follower of Aristotle. For him, unlike his contemporaries, Plato does not surpass the master of those who know but he, and Socrates, ‘innanzi agli altri piu presso gli stanno’. [Conclusion, p. 123] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/j4M1Faq3An8bJ7v |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"875","_score":null,"_source":{"id":875,"authors_free":[{"id":1285,"entry_id":875,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1286,"entry_id":875,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Themistius: the last Peripatetic commentator on Aristotle?","main_title":{"title":"Themistius: the last Peripatetic commentator on Aristotle?"},"abstract":"[B]oth the content of Themistius\u2019 works, and such evidence as we \r\nhave of the commentators\u2019 attitudes to him, show that he was \r\npredominantly a Peripatetic. In this he stood out against the tendencies \r\nof his time. His frequently expressed admiration for Plato does not \r\ninvalidate this conclusion. Themistius may rightly claim to have been the \r\nlast major figure in antiquity who was a genuine follower of Aristotle. For \r\nhim, unlike his contemporaries, Plato does not surpass the master of \r\nthose who know but he, and Socrates, \u2018innanzi agli altri piu presso gli \r\nstanno\u2019. [Conclusion, p. 123]","btype":2,"date":"1990","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/j4M1Faq3An8bJ7v","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":875,"section_of":1453,"pages":"113-123","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1453,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1990","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"This book brings together twenty articles giving a comprehensive view of the work of the Aristotelian commentators. First published in 1990, the collection is now brought up to date with a new introduction by Richard Sorabji. New generations of scholars will benefit from this reissuing of classic essays, including seminal works by major scholars, and the volume gives a comprehensive background to the work of the project on the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which has published over 100 volumes of translations since 1987 and has disseminated these crucial texts to scholars worldwide.\r\n\r\nThe importance of the commentators is partly that they represent the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools and partly that they provide a panorama of a thousand years of ancient Greek philosophy, revealing many original quotations from lost works. Even more significant is the profound influence - uncovered in some of the chapters of this book - that they exert on later philosophy, Islamic and Western. Not only did they preserve anti-Aristotelian material which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they present Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/M8lXuAdHpDW8tvu","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1453,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Duckworth","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1990]}
| Title | Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence |
| Type | Edited Book |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1990 |
| Publication Place | London |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Edition No. | 2 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
| The story of the ancient commentators on Aristotle has not previously been told at book length. Here it is assembled for the fi rst time by drawing both on some of the classic articles translated into English or revised and on the very latest research. Some of the chapters will be making revisionary suggestions unfamiliar even to specialists in the fi eld. Th e philosophical interest of the commentators has been illustrated elsewhere. 1 Th e aim here is not so much to do this again as to set out the background of the commentary tradition against which further philosophical discussion and discussions of other kinds can take place. Th e importance of the commentators lies partly in their representing the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools, partly in the panorama they provide of the 1100 years of Ancient Greek philosophy, preserving as they do many original quotations from lost philosophical works. Still more signifi cant is their profound infl uence, uncovered in some of the chapters below, on subsequent philosophy, Islamic and European. Th is was due partly to their preserving anti-Aristotelian material which helped to inspire medieval and Renaissance science, but still more to their presenting an Aristotle transformed in ways which happened to make him acceptable to the Christian Church. It is not just Aristotle, but this Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators, that lies behind the views of later thinkers. [authors abstract] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/b7EaNXJNckqKKqB |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"200","_score":null,"_source":{"id":200,"authors_free":[{"id":2155,"entry_id":200,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence","main_title":{"title":"Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence"},"abstract":"The story of the ancient commentators on Aristotle has not previously been told \r\nat book length. Here it is assembled for the fi rst time by drawing both on some \r\nof the classic articles translated into English or revised and on the very latest \r\nresearch. Some of the chapters will be making revisionary suggestions unfamiliar \r\neven to specialists in the fi eld. Th e philosophical interest of the commentators \r\nhas been illustrated elsewhere. 1 Th e aim here is not so much to do this again as \r\nto set out the background of the commentary tradition against which further \r\nphilosophical discussion and discussions of other kinds can take place. \r\n Th e importance of the commentators lies partly in their representing the \r\nthought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools, \r\npartly in the panorama they provide of the 1100 years of Ancient Greek \r\nphilosophy, preserving as they do many original quotations from lost philosophical \r\nworks. Still more signifi cant is their profound infl uence, uncovered in some of the \r\nchapters below, on subsequent philosophy, Islamic and European. Th is was due \r\npartly to their preserving anti-Aristotelian material which helped to inspire \r\nmedieval and Renaissance science, but still more to their presenting an Aristotle \r\ntransformed in ways which happened to make him acceptable to the Christian \r\nChurch. It is not just Aristotle, but this Aristotle transformed and embedded in \r\nthe philosophy of the commentators, that lies behind the views of later thinkers. [authors abstract]","btype":4,"date":"1990","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/b7EaNXJNckqKKqB","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":{"id":200,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"2","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null},"booksection":null,"article":null},"sort":[1990]}
| Title | The development of Philoponus’ thought and its chronology |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1990 |
| Published in | Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence |
| Pages | 233-274 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Verrycken, Koenraad |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
| The position I should like to defend is to some extent intermediate between that of Gudeman and that of Ilvrard. I think Ilvrard is right in rejecting the hypothesis of Philoponus' conversion. But I also think Gudeman was right in assuming—more or less conjecturally—a duality in Philoponus’ philosophical work. Both Gudeman and Ilvrard, however, pose the problem wrongly in terms of ‘religious conviction’ only. If Philoponus did not develop a Christian philosophy in his first philosophical period, that does not show that he must have been a pagan at that time. And if he was born a Christian, that does not establish that his philosophy must always have been Christian in character. Philosophy is one thing, religion another. In my opinion, the problem should first be posed on the purely philosophical level: what does the author say? Only afterwards can one try to ‘project’ the results of the philosophical analysis onto the levels of biography and psychology. This is the method I employ. To start with, I shall outline very briefly the main characteristics of the philosophical systems of ‘Philoponus 1’ and ‘Philoponus 2’, as I shall call them. Then I shall try to piece together something of what can reasonably be said about Philoponus’ biography. Thirdly, I shall propose the first sketch of a new solution to the problem of the chronology of the author’s Aristotelian commentaries. I shall finish with some remarks on the development of Philoponus 2. [introduction p. 236] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/d1kiVpaSlWKa7uY |
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I think Ilvrard is right in rejecting the hypothesis of Philoponus' conversion. But I also think Gudeman was right in assuming\u2014more or less conjecturally\u2014a duality in Philoponus\u2019 philosophical work. Both Gudeman and Ilvrard, however, pose the problem wrongly in terms of \u2018religious conviction\u2019 only. If Philoponus did not develop a Christian philosophy in his first philosophical period, that does not show that he must have been a pagan at that time. And if he was born a Christian, that does not establish that his philosophy must always have been Christian in character. Philosophy is one thing, religion another.\r\n\r\nIn my opinion, the problem should first be posed on the purely philosophical level: what does the author say? Only afterwards can one try to \u2018project\u2019 the results of the philosophical analysis onto the levels of biography and psychology. This is the method I employ.\r\n\r\nTo start with, I shall outline very briefly the main characteristics of the philosophical systems of \u2018Philoponus 1\u2019 and \u2018Philoponus 2\u2019, as I shall call them. Then I shall try to piece together something of what can reasonably be said about Philoponus\u2019 biography. Thirdly, I shall propose the first sketch of a new solution to the problem of the chronology of the author\u2019s Aristotelian commentaries. I shall finish with some remarks on the development of Philoponus 2. [introduction p. 236]","btype":2,"date":"1990","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/d1kiVpaSlWKa7uY","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":347,"full_name":"Verrycken, Koenraad","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":449,"section_of":1453,"pages":"233-274","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1453,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1990","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"This book brings together twenty articles giving a comprehensive view of the work of the Aristotelian commentators. 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Not only did they preserve anti-Aristotelian material which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they present Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/M8lXuAdHpDW8tvu","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1453,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Duckworth","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1990]}
| Title | Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence |
| Type | Edited Book |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1990 |
| Publication Place | London |
| Publisher | Duckworth |
| Edition No. | 1 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
| This book brings together twenty articles giving a comprehensive view of the work of the Aristotelian commentators. First published in 1990, the collection is now brought up to date with a new introduction by Richard Sorabji. New generations of scholars will benefit from this reissuing of classic essays, including seminal works by major scholars, and the volume gives a comprehensive background to the work of the project on the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which has published over 100 volumes of translations since 1987 and has disseminated these crucial texts to scholars worldwide. The importance of the commentators is partly that they represent the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools and partly that they provide a panorama of a thousand years of ancient Greek philosophy, revealing many original quotations from lost works. Even more significant is the profound influence - uncovered in some of the chapters of this book - that they exert on later philosophy, Islamic and Western. Not only did they preserve anti-Aristotelian material which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they present Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers. [author's abstract] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/b7EaNXJNckqKKqB |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"1453","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1453,"authors_free":[{"id":2457,"entry_id":1453,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence","main_title":{"title":"Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence"},"abstract":"This book brings together twenty articles giving a comprehensive view of the work of the Aristotelian commentators. First published in 1990, the collection is now brought up to date with a new introduction by Richard Sorabji. New generations of scholars will benefit from this reissuing of classic essays, including seminal works by major scholars, and the volume gives a comprehensive background to the work of the project on the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which has published over 100 volumes of translations since 1987 and has disseminated these crucial texts to scholars worldwide.\r\n\r\nThe importance of the commentators is partly that they represent the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools and partly that they provide a panorama of a thousand years of ancient Greek philosophy, revealing many original quotations from lost works. Even more significant is the profound influence - uncovered in some of the chapters of this book - that they exert on later philosophy, Islamic and Western. Not only did they preserve anti-Aristotelian material which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they present Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers. [author's abstract]","btype":4,"date":"1990","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/b7EaNXJNckqKKqB","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":{"id":1453,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Duckworth","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null},"booksection":null,"article":null},"sort":[1990]}
| Title | Matter, Space, and Motion. Theories in Antiquity and Their Sequel |
| Type | Monograph |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1988 |
| Publication Place | London |
| Publisher | Duckworth |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| The nature of matter was as intriguing a question for ancient philosophers as it is for contemporary physicists, and Matter, Space, and Motion presents a fresh and illuminating account of the rich legacy of the physical theories of the Greeks from the fifth century B.C. to the late sixth century A.D. [a.a] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/UMwsdcucXfrqkbZ |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"5","_score":null,"_source":{"id":5,"authors_free":[{"id":5,"entry_id":5,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Matter, Space, and Motion. Theories in Antiquity and Their Sequel","main_title":{"title":"Matter, Space, and Motion. Theories in Antiquity and Their Sequel"},"abstract":"The nature of matter was as intriguing a question for ancient philosophers as it is for contemporary physicists, and Matter, Space, and Motion presents a fresh and illuminating account of the rich legacy of the physical theories of the Greeks from the fifth century B.C. to the late sixth century A.D. [a.a]","btype":1,"date":"1988","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/UMwsdcucXfrqkbZ","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":{"id":5,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Duckworth","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":null,"valid_from":null,"valid_until":null},"booksection":null,"article":null},"sort":[1988]}
| Title | Simplicius' polemics. Some aspects of Simplicius‘ polemical writings against John Philoponus: From invective to a reaffirmation of the transcendence of the heavens |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition |
| Pages | 97-123 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Hoffmann, Philippe |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
| I am not entirely comfortable finding myself introducing a discordant note into a collection intended to celebrate the refreshing originality of Philoponus’ ideas. I shall, however, be speaking for Simplicius, vindictive pagan that he was, and shall hope to be an effective counterweight to what is said in other chapters. I shall be talking within the framework of a general interpretation of Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s De caelo. The commentary is an exegetical work undertaken as a paean to the Creator or ‘Demiurge.’ Its basic theory on the physical structure of celestial matter is that this matter is a combination of the superior parts (akrotêtes) of the four elements, dominated by the purely luminous superior part of fire. My aim will be to show how this theory can be seen as a reaction to the theories of John Philoponus. Philoponus had turned to the Timaeus for support in his Contra Aristotelem and had attacked the Aristotelian doctrine that the heavens are made of a fifth element and that the world is eternal. Well before Copernicus, Philoponus denied that there was any substantial difference between the heavens and the sublunary world. In his reply to the Contra Aristotelem, Simplicius reaffirms the divinity, the transcendence, and the eternal nature of the heavens. His exegesis aims to connect, rather than contrast, Plato’s Timaeus and Aristotle’s De caelo. It is, moreover, a religious act, a spiritual exercise designed to turn the soul (both Simplicius’ and his reader’s) towards the Demiurge. This conversion is our initiation into the grandeur of the universe and of the heavens, and his description of the physical nature of the heavens is one of the most valuable aspects of the revelation. Those readers still under Philoponus’ spell cannot achieve this revelation until they have undergone a preliminary act of purification, which is the refutation of the arguments of Philoponus’ Contra Aristotelem. In this way, Simplicius’ attack is directed at a target that is simultaneously philosophical and religious. A correct reading and interpretation of Aristotle’s De caelo leads not only to the acquisition of intellectual knowledge but also, and above all, to our elevation through thought (a thought that we live) to the whole universe and to the Demiurge. It is a form of prayer addressed to them. The sacrilegious blasphemy of the Christian Philoponus is countered by the Neoplatonist liturgy, a rightful celebration of their God. [introduction p. 97-98] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/RJi3pyBneebP54s |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"712","_score":null,"_source":{"id":712,"authors_free":[{"id":1062,"entry_id":712,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":138,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Hoffmann, Philippe","free_first_name":"Philippe","free_last_name":"Hoffmann","norm_person":{"id":138,"first_name":"Philippe ","last_name":"Hoffmann","full_name":"Hoffmann, Philippe ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/189361905","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2012,"entry_id":712,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius' polemics. Some aspects of Simplicius\u2018 polemical writings against John Philoponus: From invective to a reaffirmation of the transcendence of the heavens","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius' polemics. Some aspects of Simplicius\u2018 polemical writings against John Philoponus: From invective to a reaffirmation of the transcendence of the heavens"},"abstract":"I am not entirely comfortable finding myself introducing a discordant note into a collection intended to celebrate the refreshing originality of Philoponus\u2019 ideas. I shall, however, be speaking for Simplicius, vindictive pagan that he was, and shall hope to be an effective counterweight to what is said in other chapters. I shall be talking within the framework of a general interpretation of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on Aristotle\u2019s De caelo. The commentary is an exegetical work undertaken as a paean to the Creator or \u2018Demiurge.\u2019 Its basic theory on the physical structure of celestial matter is that this matter is a combination of the superior parts (akrot\u00eates) of the four elements, dominated by the purely luminous superior part of fire.\r\n\r\nMy aim will be to show how this theory can be seen as a reaction to the theories of John Philoponus. Philoponus had turned to the Timaeus for support in his Contra Aristotelem and had attacked the Aristotelian doctrine that the heavens are made of a fifth element and that the world is eternal. Well before Copernicus, Philoponus denied that there was any substantial difference between the heavens and the sublunary world. In his reply to the Contra Aristotelem, Simplicius reaffirms the divinity, the transcendence, and the eternal nature of the heavens. His exegesis aims to connect, rather than contrast, Plato\u2019s Timaeus and Aristotle\u2019s De caelo.\r\n\r\nIt is, moreover, a religious act, a spiritual exercise designed to turn the soul (both Simplicius\u2019 and his reader\u2019s) towards the Demiurge. This conversion is our initiation into the grandeur of the universe and of the heavens, and his description of the physical nature of the heavens is one of the most valuable aspects of the revelation. Those readers still under Philoponus\u2019 spell cannot achieve this revelation until they have undergone a preliminary act of purification, which is the refutation of the arguments of Philoponus\u2019 Contra Aristotelem. In this way, Simplicius\u2019 attack is directed at a target that is simultaneously philosophical and religious.\r\n\r\nA correct reading and interpretation of Aristotle\u2019s De caelo leads not only to the acquisition of intellectual knowledge but also, and above all, to our elevation through thought (a thought that we live) to the whole universe and to the Demiurge. It is a form of prayer addressed to them. The sacrilegious blasphemy of the Christian Philoponus is countered by the Neoplatonist liturgy, a rightful celebration of their God. [introduction p. 97-98]","btype":2,"date":"1987","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/RJi3pyBneebP54s","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":138,"full_name":"Hoffmann, Philippe ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":712,"section_of":184,"pages":"97-123","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":184,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabji1987c","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2010","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1987","abstract":"Richard Sorabji is the editor of a vast and growing number of translations of ancient\r\ncommentaries on Aristotle and the editor of several excellent collections of studies on the\r\nAristotelian tradition. Philoponus, a 6th century Christian thinker who was originally trained as\r\na Neoplatonist, is best remembered today for his attack on Aristotle's 'physics'; his influence on\r\nlater philosophers and scientists and his role in the reevaluation of Aristotelian science and\r\nnatural philosophy are indeed remarkable. The second edition of Philoponus and the Rejection\r\nof Aristotelian Science includes a new two-part introduction which offers a survey of the\r\nrapidly expanding scholarship on Philoponus and of recent archeological discoveries (such as\r\nthe lecture rooms of the 6th century Alexandrian school), as well as new insights into the\r\ninteraction between Greek paganism and Christianity in connection with Philoponus and his\r\nmilieu. The twelve chapters included in this collection are written by very prominent scholars\r\nand tackle topics such as Philoponus' corollaries on space and time, the differences between his\r\ntheological views (e.g. on the three hypostases) and the prevailing dogmas of the time, the\r\nrelation between his theory about impetus and later treatments of impetus and related\r\nconcepts in a number of Arab thinkers and in Galileo. This collection is one of the most reliable\r\nand wide-ranging introductions to Philoponus' views and influence, and those interested in late\r\nancient philosophy and its interactions with Christian thought will find this to be a most\r\nvaluable resource. [Review by Tiberiu Popa]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/CJSIbOOK7lIAB00","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":184,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London","series":"BICS Supplement","volume":"103","edition_no":"2","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1987]}
| Title | Philoponus and the Rise of Preclassical Dynamics |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science |
| Pages | 84-120 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Wolff, Michael |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
| If we are prepared to assume that the basic presuppositions of impetus theory can be traced back not to observational experience which Aristotle missed, but rather to a certain concept of man and to certain ethical principles, we need not attempt to explain the emergence of the theory solely by reference to new observations of falling bodies and the like. Is it not more appropriate to ask about the origin and kind of ethical problem to which impetus theory originally helped to provide an answer? The experience that forces are exhausted in all physical activities of human beings could have been just such a problem. Earlier society, which had left this experience chiefly to slaves, could not really have had such a problem. But, by the close of Antiquity, times were changing. [Conclusion p. 120] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/L1tFbjfO8UrPnAp |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"720","_score":null,"_source":{"id":720,"authors_free":[{"id":1073,"entry_id":720,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":364,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Wolff, Michael","free_first_name":"Michael","free_last_name":"Wolff","norm_person":{"id":364,"first_name":"Michael","last_name":"Wolff","full_name":"Wolff, Michael","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/131523120","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1074,"entry_id":720,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Philoponus and the Rise of Preclassical Dynamics","main_title":{"title":"Philoponus and the Rise of Preclassical Dynamics"},"abstract":"If we are prepared to assume that the basic presuppositions of impetus theory \r\ncan be traced back not to observational experience which Aristotle missed, \r\nbut rather to a certain concept of man and to certain ethical principles, we \r\nneed not attempt to explain the emergence of the theory solely by reference to \r\nnew observations of falling bodies and the like. Is it not more appropriate to \r\nask about the origin and kind of ethical problem to which impetus theory \r\noriginally helped to provide an answer? The experience that forces are \r\nexhausted in all physical activities of human beings could have been just such \r\na problem. Earlier society, which had left this experience chiefly to slaves, \r\ncould not really have had such a problem. But, by the close of Antiquity, \r\ntimes were changing. [Conclusion p. 120]","btype":2,"date":"1987","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/L1tFbjfO8UrPnAp","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":364,"full_name":"Wolff, Michael","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":720,"section_of":1383,"pages":"84-120","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1383,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"bibliography","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabij1987d","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1987","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"All the chapters in this book are new, except for the inaugural lecture (Chapter 9), which I apologise for reprinting virtually unrevised and with the original lecture context still apparent. It seemed desirable, however, that so crucial a part ofthe controversy should be represented. The collection originated in a conference on Philoponus held at the Institute of Classical Studies in London in June 1983, which provided an opportunity for interested parties to pool knowledge from the many different disciplines that are relevant to his work. Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 6 are drawn from the conference, while two other conference papers, those of Henry Blumenthal and Richard Sorabji, are being incorporated into books in preparation (see Bibliography). Sorabji's main suggestions, however, are included in Chapter I in the discussion of matter and extension (pp 18 and 23). The remairnng chapters, apart from the inaugural lecture, were solicited or written for the volume, two of them (5 and 12) having been delivered first at a seminar on Ancient Science at the Institute of Classical Studies. [preface, p. ix-x]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/buhMZZl0djmIx9v","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1383,"pubplace":"Ithaca, New York","publisher":"Cornell University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1987]}
| Title | Philoponus' Commentary on Aristotle's Physics in the Sixtheenth Century |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition |
| Pages | 210-230 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Schmitt, Charles Bernard |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
| As it is generally accepted, the term ‘Renaissance’ refers to a historical period in which there was a revival of interest in the literature, styles, and forms of Classical Antiquity. Though the ‘revival’ is usually understood to refer specifically to ancient ‘literary’ texts, there can be no doubt that the specialized technical treatises of philosophy, natural science, mathematics, and medicine played a role equally important, if not more important, in the cultural and intellectual life of the Renaissance. In addition to the rediscovery of the integral texts of Homer and the Greek dramatists, Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, Quintilian, and Lucretius, the fifteenth century also saw the recovery of much of Galen, Theophrastus, Plato, Plotinus, and Proclus, Pappus, Diogenes Laertius, and Sextus Empiricus, as well as many additional classical authors of specialized literature. Indeed, the ‘Renaissance’ was a revival of the technical knowledge bequeathed by Antiquity as much as of works of recognized literary and rhetorical quality. One aspect of the influence of ancient literature on the Renaissance which has received little attention until fairly recently is the role of the Greek commentators on Aristotle. In that vast corpus, most of which is conveniently assembled for us in the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, there is a wealth of interpretative and supplementary material, which is of great use not only for an understanding of the Aristotelian text itself but also for understanding its historical context and the philosophical positions that were in competition with those of Aristotle in antiquity. A certain number of the Greek commentaries were known in the Middle Ages, both in the Islamic and in the Christian worlds, but such knowledge was very fragmentary. Only a small portion of the extant commentaries was available in Latin before the sixteenth century. Some of these attained a degree of importance and played a central role in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century discussions of the soul, for example. These medieval versions are presently being edited in a critical fashion by a group of scholars at Louvain; this series should take its place alongside the Greek texts produced in the last century by the Berlin Academy of Sciences. So far, editions of commentaries by Themistius, Ammonius, Philoponus, Simplicius, Alexander, and Eustratius have appeared. But it remained for the sixteenth century to make accessible most of the material. For example, less than half of the works attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias contained in the CAG and Supplementum Aristotelicum were available in the Middle Ages, and, among the expositions of Philoponus, only the commentary on the De Anima was available. The need for a comprehensive publication of all of the Greek commentaries on Aristotle was already noted and made a program for the future in Aldo Manuzio’s prefatory letter to the first volume of his editio princeps of Aristotle in 1495. Although Aldo himself did not live to achieve his aim, he did initiate it, and between that date and 1540 nearly the entire Greek corpus was made available to European scholars. Parallel with the publication of the Greek texts—and generally delayed by only a few years—was the publication of Latin translations of the same texts, thus making the material accessible to a much wider readership than the rather restricted group who could cope effectively with the Greek text of the commentators. Most of the Greek editions themselves, as well as the majority of the translations, issued from Venetian presses, though Paris and Lyon served as secondary publication centers. By mid-century essentially everything could be read in Latin, and the impact of the new material can be traced in the Aristotelian literature of the period. In reading the many commentaries on Aristotle and other philosophical works of the sixteenth century, one clearly discerns the rising tide of interest in these expositions across a spectrum of philosophical and scientific topics. Hitherto, the impact of these new sources of information has only imperfectly been charted, primarily with regard to discussions of the soul. Nardi’s fundamental work on Simplicius, the more recent studies on Alexander by Cranz, and on the general Neoplatonism of the commentaries by Mahoney have served to draw attention to the rich vein of material there to be mined. The range of the impact—in logic, natural philosophy, metaphysics, and psychology—has scarcely been charted, nor has the interplay between Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and medieval and Renaissance Latin interpretations of Aristotle been evaluated and analyzed. During the second half of the sixteenth century, those who wanted to understand Aristotle—which for them meant philosophy tout court—frequently tried to relate the text of the Stagirite to the varying interpretations of Philoponus, Simplicius, Averroes (1126–98), Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–74), John of Jandun (died 1328), Pomponazzi (1462–1525), and Soto (1494/5–1560), among many others. Particularly little studied has been the impact of the newly available Greek commentators on the Physics. Here is meant primarily Simplicius and Philoponus, both of whom left behind extensive and detailed expositions of that work, neither of which was known directly to Latin writers of the Middle Ages but which were to become available in the sixteenth century. As long ago as Wohlwill and Duhem, it has been known that some of the criticisms and alternative positions put forward in the commentaries on the Physics by the two sixth-century writers later attained importance in the history of the development of physical thought. Moreover, it was also realized by the same historians that the critiques of Aristotle put forward by Simplicius and Philoponus were very similar to some of the positions that became central in the formulation of the ‘new science’ of the seventeenth century. Thus far, however, there has been little systematic attempt to consider the reaction of the sixteenth century as a whole to the reorientation made possible by the availability of Simplicius and Philoponus. The story is not simple, and it cannot be covered comprehensively here, though I hope to be able to indicate some lines further research might take. What I shall do is to focus upon Philoponus, whose significance in the story is possibly less than that of Simplicius, but without a full story of the fortune of the Physics of both authors a valid conclusion regarding their relative merits is not possible. Before turning to a consideration of the impact of the Grammarian’s partial commentary on the Physics (only the first four books are integrally extant), I should like to deal briefly with two other points. First, I should like to sketch a portrait of Philoponus as a commentator, emphasizing why what he had to say was of potential importance for the sixteenth century. Secondly, I shall say something general about the recovery and assimilation of his philosophical works in the West down to the sixteenth century. [introduction p. 210-213] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/Ub0AryY729JHN5w |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"1037","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1037,"authors_free":[{"id":1571,"entry_id":1037,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":284,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Schmitt, Charles Bernard","free_first_name":"Charles Bernard","free_last_name":"Schmitt","norm_person":{"id":284,"first_name":"Charles Bernard","last_name":"Schmitt","full_name":"Schmitt, Charles Bernard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/118846744","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1572,"entry_id":1037,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Philoponus' Commentary on Aristotle's Physics in the Sixtheenth Century","main_title":{"title":"Philoponus' Commentary on Aristotle's Physics in the Sixtheenth Century"},"abstract":"As it is generally accepted, the term \u2018Renaissance\u2019 refers to a historical period in which there was a revival of interest in the literature, styles, and forms of Classical Antiquity. Though the \u2018revival\u2019 is usually understood to refer specifically to ancient \u2018literary\u2019 texts, there can be no doubt that the specialized technical treatises of philosophy, natural science, mathematics, and medicine played a role equally important, if not more important, in the cultural and intellectual life of the Renaissance. In addition to the rediscovery of the integral texts of Homer and the Greek dramatists, Cicero\u2019s Letters to Atticus, Quintilian, and Lucretius, the fifteenth century also saw the recovery of much of Galen, Theophrastus, Plato, Plotinus, and Proclus, Pappus, Diogenes Laertius, and Sextus Empiricus, as well as many additional classical authors of specialized literature. Indeed, the \u2018Renaissance\u2019 was a revival of the technical knowledge bequeathed by Antiquity as much as of works of recognized literary and rhetorical quality.\r\n\r\nOne aspect of the influence of ancient literature on the Renaissance which has received little attention until fairly recently is the role of the Greek commentators on Aristotle. In that vast corpus, most of which is conveniently assembled for us in the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, there is a wealth of interpretative and supplementary material, which is of great use not only for an understanding of the Aristotelian text itself but also for understanding its historical context and the philosophical positions that were in competition with those of Aristotle in antiquity. A certain number of the Greek commentaries were known in the Middle Ages, both in the Islamic and in the Christian worlds, but such knowledge was very fragmentary. Only a small portion of the extant commentaries was available in Latin before the sixteenth century. Some of these attained a degree of importance and played a central role in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century discussions of the soul, for example. These medieval versions are presently being edited in a critical fashion by a group of scholars at Louvain; this series should take its place alongside the Greek texts produced in the last century by the Berlin Academy of Sciences. So far, editions of commentaries by Themistius, Ammonius, Philoponus, Simplicius, Alexander, and Eustratius have appeared.\r\n\r\nBut it remained for the sixteenth century to make accessible most of the material. For example, less than half of the works attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias contained in the CAG and Supplementum Aristotelicum were available in the Middle Ages, and, among the expositions of Philoponus, only the commentary on the De Anima was available.\r\n\r\nThe need for a comprehensive publication of all of the Greek commentaries on Aristotle was already noted and made a program for the future in Aldo Manuzio\u2019s prefatory letter to the first volume of his editio princeps of Aristotle in 1495. Although Aldo himself did not live to achieve his aim, he did initiate it, and between that date and 1540 nearly the entire Greek corpus was made available to European scholars. Parallel with the publication of the Greek texts\u2014and generally delayed by only a few years\u2014was the publication of Latin translations of the same texts, thus making the material accessible to a much wider readership than the rather restricted group who could cope effectively with the Greek text of the commentators. Most of the Greek editions themselves, as well as the majority of the translations, issued from Venetian presses, though Paris and Lyon served as secondary publication centers. By mid-century essentially everything could be read in Latin, and the impact of the new material can be traced in the Aristotelian literature of the period.\r\n\r\nIn reading the many commentaries on Aristotle and other philosophical works of the sixteenth century, one clearly discerns the rising tide of interest in these expositions across a spectrum of philosophical and scientific topics. Hitherto, the impact of these new sources of information has only imperfectly been charted, primarily with regard to discussions of the soul. Nardi\u2019s fundamental work on Simplicius, the more recent studies on Alexander by Cranz, and on the general Neoplatonism of the commentaries by Mahoney have served to draw attention to the rich vein of material there to be mined. The range of the impact\u2014in logic, natural philosophy, metaphysics, and psychology\u2014has scarcely been charted, nor has the interplay between Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and medieval and Renaissance Latin interpretations of Aristotle been evaluated and analyzed.\r\n\r\nDuring the second half of the sixteenth century, those who wanted to understand Aristotle\u2014which for them meant philosophy tout court\u2014frequently tried to relate the text of the Stagirite to the varying interpretations of Philoponus, Simplicius, Averroes (1126\u201398), Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225\u201374), John of Jandun (died 1328), Pomponazzi (1462\u20131525), and Soto (1494\/5\u20131560), among many others.\r\n\r\nParticularly little studied has been the impact of the newly available Greek commentators on the Physics. Here is meant primarily Simplicius and Philoponus, both of whom left behind extensive and detailed expositions of that work, neither of which was known directly to Latin writers of the Middle Ages but which were to become available in the sixteenth century. As long ago as Wohlwill and Duhem, it has been known that some of the criticisms and alternative positions put forward in the commentaries on the Physics by the two sixth-century writers later attained importance in the history of the development of physical thought. Moreover, it was also realized by the same historians that the critiques of Aristotle put forward by Simplicius and Philoponus were very similar to some of the positions that became central in the formulation of the \u2018new science\u2019 of the seventeenth century.\r\n\r\nThus far, however, there has been little systematic attempt to consider the reaction of the sixteenth century as a whole to the reorientation made possible by the availability of Simplicius and Philoponus. The story is not simple, and it cannot be covered comprehensively here, though I hope to be able to indicate some lines further research might take. What I shall do is to focus upon Philoponus, whose significance in the story is possibly less than that of Simplicius, but without a full story of the fortune of the Physics of both authors a valid conclusion regarding their relative merits is not possible.\r\n\r\nBefore turning to a consideration of the impact of the Grammarian\u2019s partial commentary on the Physics (only the first four books are integrally extant), I should like to deal briefly with two other points. First, I should like to sketch a portrait of Philoponus as a commentator, emphasizing why what he had to say was of potential importance for the sixteenth century. Secondly, I shall say something general about the recovery and assimilation of his philosophical works in the West down to the sixteenth century. [introduction p. 210-213]","btype":2,"date":"1987","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Ub0AryY729JHN5w","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":284,"full_name":"Schmitt, Charles Bernard","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1037,"section_of":184,"pages":"210-230","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":184,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabji1987c","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2010","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1987","abstract":"Richard Sorabji is the editor of a vast and growing number of translations of ancient\r\ncommentaries on Aristotle and the editor of several excellent collections of studies on the\r\nAristotelian tradition. Philoponus, a 6th century Christian thinker who was originally trained as\r\na Neoplatonist, is best remembered today for his attack on Aristotle's 'physics'; his influence on\r\nlater philosophers and scientists and his role in the reevaluation of Aristotelian science and\r\nnatural philosophy are indeed remarkable. The second edition of Philoponus and the Rejection\r\nof Aristotelian Science includes a new two-part introduction which offers a survey of the\r\nrapidly expanding scholarship on Philoponus and of recent archeological discoveries (such as\r\nthe lecture rooms of the 6th century Alexandrian school), as well as new insights into the\r\ninteraction between Greek paganism and Christianity in connection with Philoponus and his\r\nmilieu. The twelve chapters included in this collection are written by very prominent scholars\r\nand tackle topics such as Philoponus' corollaries on space and time, the differences between his\r\ntheological views (e.g. on the three hypostases) and the prevailing dogmas of the time, the\r\nrelation between his theory about impetus and later treatments of impetus and related\r\nconcepts in a number of Arab thinkers and in Galileo. This collection is one of the most reliable\r\nand wide-ranging introductions to Philoponus' views and influence, and those interested in late\r\nancient philosophy and its interactions with Christian thought will find this to be a most\r\nvaluable resource. [Review by Tiberiu Popa]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/CJSIbOOK7lIAB00","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":184,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London","series":"BICS Supplement","volume":"103","edition_no":"2","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1987]}
| Title | Prolegomena to the Study of Philoponus' contra Aristotelem |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science |
| Pages | 197-209 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Wildberg, Christian |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
| Judging from the number and content of his commentaries, Philoponus was a thinker in the Aristotelian tradition. One of his major achievements lies in the fact that as a commentator he accepted and developed the heritage of his teacher Ammonius. For that reason alone it is remarkable that he composed a treatise which attacked vital topics of Aristotle’s philosophy with little compromise. Although it is true that throughout Antiquity many philosophers ventured to criticise the great Aristotle, one may agree that Philoponus did so, as Cesare Cremonini put it in 1616, ‘more sharply than anyone’ (acerrime omnium).' Where does this attack fit into the context of Philoponus’doctrinal development? No doubt his outspoken critique of Aristotle in the de Aetemitate Mundi contra Aristotelem somehow swayed Philoponus to desert the philosophical and join the theological camp. But the story is probably more complex. The general point of dissent was, as the title indicates, the doctrine of the eternity of the world. Being a Christian, Philoponus perhaps possessed a particular motivation for launching his attack - as a feat of praeparatio evangélica. This fact has been sufficiently recognised and appreciated. Less appreciated and studied, however, has been the philosophical side, i.e. the actual argument and structure of the treatise in question. Since it has not survived the content must be reconstructed from a number of substantial fragments found mainly in the commentaries of Philoponus’ adversary Simplicius. An adequate treatment of the double controversy Simplicius v Philoponus v Aristotle would fill a volume on its own and cannot be the subject of this chapter.2 Instead, I will attempt to revise apparently firmly established views about the treatise, in particular its composition and date. This, it is hoped, may lead to a revised view of that treatise and at the same time encourage a more advanced study of Philoponus’ doctrinal development in general. [introduction p. 197-198] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/dbFxqr9z9aZi48i |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"430","_score":null,"_source":{"id":430,"authors_free":[{"id":580,"entry_id":430,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":360,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Wildberg, Christian","free_first_name":"Christian","free_last_name":"Wildberg","norm_person":{"id":360,"first_name":"Christian","last_name":"Wildberg","full_name":"Wildberg, Christian","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/139018964","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":581,"entry_id":430,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Prolegomena to the Study of Philoponus' contra Aristotelem","main_title":{"title":"Prolegomena to the Study of Philoponus' contra Aristotelem"},"abstract":"Judging from the number and content of his commentaries, Philoponus was a thinker in the Aristotelian tradition. One of his major achievements lies in \r\nthe fact that as a commentator he accepted and developed the heritage of his teacher Ammonius. For that reason alone it is remarkable that he composed a treatise which attacked vital topics of Aristotle\u2019s philosophy with little compromise. Although it is true that throughout Antiquity many philosophers ventured to criticise the great Aristotle, one may agree that Philoponus did so, as Cesare Cremonini put it in 1616, \u2018more sharply than anyone\u2019 (acerrime omnium).' Where does this attack fit into the context of Philoponus\u2019doctrinal development? No doubt his outspoken critique of Aristotle in the de Aetemitate Mundi contra Aristotelem somehow swayed Philoponus to desert the philosophical and join the theological camp. But the story is probably more complex. The general point of dissent was, as the title indicates, the doctrine of the eternity of the world. Being a Christian, Philoponus perhaps possessed a \r\nparticular motivation for launching his attack - as a feat of praeparatio evang\u00e9lica. This fact has been sufficiently recognised and appreciated. Less appreciated and studied, however, has been the philosophical side, i.e. the actual argument and structure of the treatise in question. Since it has not survived the content must be reconstructed from a number of substantial fragments found mainly in the commentaries of Philoponus\u2019 adversary Simplicius. An adequate treatment of the double controversy Simplicius v Philoponus v Aristotle would fill a volume on its own and cannot be the subject of this chapter.2 Instead, I will attempt to revise apparently firmly established views about the treatise, in particular its composition and date. This, it is hoped, may lead to a revised view of that treatise and at the same time encourage a more advanced study of Philoponus\u2019 doctrinal development in general. [introduction p. 197-198]","btype":2,"date":"1987","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/dbFxqr9z9aZi48i","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":360,"full_name":"Wildberg, Christian","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":430,"section_of":1383,"pages":"197-209","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1383,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"bibliography","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabij1987d","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1987","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"All the chapters in this book are new, except for the inaugural lecture (Chapter 9), which I apologise for reprinting virtually unrevised and with the original lecture context still apparent. It seemed desirable, however, that so crucial a part ofthe controversy should be represented. The collection originated in a conference on Philoponus held at the Institute of Classical Studies in London in June 1983, which provided an opportunity for interested parties to pool knowledge from the many different disciplines that are relevant to his work. Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 6 are drawn from the conference, while two other conference papers, those of Henry Blumenthal and Richard Sorabji, are being incorporated into books in preparation (see Bibliography). Sorabji's main suggestions, however, are included in Chapter I in the discussion of matter and extension (pp 18 and 23). The remairnng chapters, apart from the inaugural lecture, were solicited or written for the volume, two of them (5 and 12) having been delivered first at a seminar on Ancient Science at the Institute of Classical Studies. [preface, p. ix-x]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/buhMZZl0djmIx9v","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1383,"pubplace":"Ithaca, New York","publisher":"Cornell University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1987]}
| Title | Simplicius: Prime Matter as Extension |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Simplicius. Sa vie, son œuvre, sa survie: Actes du colloque international de Paris 28 sept. - 1er oct. 1985 |
| Pages | 148-165 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Editor(s) | Hadot, Ilsetraut |
| Translator(s) |
| What conclusions can now be drawn? It is time to say that I do not think Aristotle reached the point of consciously thinking that extension would play the role of prime matter. It took the Neoplatonist Simplicius to interpret him that way, motivated by reasons of his own. The diffuseness of extension will have seemed important to Simplicius because it puts prime matter where it should be, at the opposite extreme from the unity of the One. He knew that Plato had been taken as identifying prime matter with space or with other kinds of extension, and, although he disagreed, he thought he found the justification for such an interpretation of Aristotle at least in Phys. 4,2, if not in the Metaphysics as well. But even if Simplicius' interpretation does not represent Aristotle's conscious thought, it opens new vistas. For one thing, I believe that extension would fit with Aristotle's conception of prime matter, and fit better than anything else that has been proposed. Furthermore, in considering how it would fit, we have been forced to consider a network of interlocking parts of Aristotle's philosophy. Some of the parts would require modification if extension were to be openly acknowledged as playing the role of prime matter, but the resulting modifications would yield a coherent view. Finally, views of the same general sort, which treat body as some kind of extension endowed with properties, have recurred through the ages, for example in Descartes, in Newton, and in twentieth-century physics. [conclusion p. 162-163] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/h6HONd1UnE1D8Vw |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"487","_score":null,"_source":{"id":487,"authors_free":[{"id":665,"entry_id":487,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":666,"entry_id":487,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":4,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","free_first_name":"Ilsetraut","free_last_name":"Hadot","norm_person":{"id":4,"first_name":"Ilsetraut","last_name":"Hadot","full_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/107415011","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius: Prime Matter as Extension","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius: Prime Matter as Extension"},"abstract":"What conclusions can now be drawn? It is time to say that I do not think Aristotle reached the point of consciously thinking that extension would play the role of prime matter. It took the Neoplatonist Simplicius to interpret him that way, motivated by reasons of his own.\r\n\r\nThe diffuseness of extension will have seemed important to Simplicius because it puts prime matter where it should be, at the opposite extreme from the unity of the One. He knew that Plato had been taken as identifying prime matter with space or with other kinds of extension, and, although he disagreed, he thought he found the justification for such an interpretation of Aristotle at least in Phys. 4,2, if not in the Metaphysics as well.\r\n\r\nBut even if Simplicius' interpretation does not represent Aristotle's conscious thought, it opens new vistas. For one thing, I believe that extension would fit with Aristotle's conception of prime matter, and fit better than anything else that has been proposed. Furthermore, in considering how it would fit, we have been forced to consider a network of interlocking parts of Aristotle's philosophy.\r\n\r\nSome of the parts would require modification if extension were to be openly acknowledged as playing the role of prime matter, but the resulting modifications would yield a coherent view. Finally, views of the same general sort, which treat body as some kind of extension endowed with properties, have recurred through the ages, for example in Descartes, in Newton, and in twentieth-century physics. [conclusion p. 162-163]","btype":2,"date":"1987","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/h6HONd1UnE1D8Vw","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":4,"full_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":487,"section_of":171,"pages":"148-165","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":171,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"fr","title":"Simplicius. Sa vie, son \u0153uvre, sa survie: Actes du colloque international de Paris 28 sept. - 1er oct. 1985","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Hadot1987","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1987","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1987","abstract":"Depuis une quinzaine d'ann\u00e9es, on assiste en Allemagne, en Angleterre, en Am\u00e9rique et en France \u00e0 un renouveau des \u00e9tudes sur Simplicius. Diff\u00e9rents chercheurs, partis de probl\u00e9matiques et de pr\u00e9occupations diff\u00e9rentes, se sont rencontr\u00e9s dans ce domaine de recherche d'une importance capitale pour l'histoire de toute la philosophie antique. C'\u00e9tait donc pour faciliter une \u00e9tude coordonn\u00e9e et syst\u00e9matique \u00e0 la fois du texte et de la pens\u00e9e de Simplicius que la Recherche Coop\u00e9rative Programm\u00e9e 739 \"Recherches sur les \u0153uvres et la pens\u00e9e de Simplicius\" fut fond\u00e9e en 1982 dans le cadre du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (C.N.R.S., Paris). Depuis cette date, ses recherches se d\u00e9roulent en \u00e9troite collaboration avec l'\u00e9quipe anglo-am\u00e9ricaine de recherche du professeur Richard Sorabji, intitul\u00e9e \"Ancient Commentators on Aristotle\", et avec l'Aristoteles-Archiv de la Freie Universit\u00e4t de Berlin-Ouest dirig\u00e9 par le professeur Dieter Harlfinger.\r\n\r\nPour permettre aux diff\u00e9rents membres de la R.C.P., dont plusieurs habitent \u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger, ainsi qu'\u00e0 d'autres savants int\u00e9ress\u00e9s par les \u00e9tudes sur Simplicius, d'entrer en contact personnel, de r\u00e9soudre oralement des questions diverses se rapportant \u00e0 l'organisation du travail, d'\u00e9changer entre eux les tout derniers r\u00e9sultats de leurs recherches et d'engager une discussion sur des probl\u00e8mes difficiles, j'ai organis\u00e9, dans le cadre de la R.C.P. 739, un colloque international qui s'est tenu \u00e0 Paris, \u00e0 la Fondation Hugot, du 28 septembre au 1er octobre 1985. Ce colloque a \u00e9t\u00e9 enti\u00e8rement financ\u00e9 par la Fondation Hugot du Coll\u00e8ge de France, \u00e0 laquelle j'exprime toute ma gratitude. Je tiens aussi \u00e0 remercier M. et Mme de Morant pour la sollicitude et la bienveillance avec laquelle ils ont accueilli les membres du colloque et veill\u00e9 \u00e0 leur procurer un merveilleux confort.\r\n\r\nLe Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique a subventionn\u00e9 la parution des Actes du Colloque, et je remercie le professeur Dr. H. Wenzel d'avoir rendu possible leur parution dans la s\u00e9rie prestigieuse des Peripatoi de la maison d'\u00e9dition De Gruyter. [Pr\u00e9face]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/45BIqsODQJTdHmt","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":171,"pubplace":"Berlin \u2013 New York","publisher":"de Gruyter","series":"Peripatoi. Philologisch-historische Studien zum Aristotelismus","volume":"15","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1987]}
| Title | John Philoponus |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science |
| Pages | 1-40 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
| This chapter delves into the life and intellectual contributions of John Philoponus, a pivotal figure bridging Neoplatonism and Christianity. It explores his relationship with Ammonius and examines how his Christian faith influenced his philosophical and scientific endeavors. The text covers Philoponus' critique of the Aristotelian worldview, focusing on key topics such as the creation of the universe, the impetus theory of dynamics, and the concept of velocity in a vacuum. It also addresses his innovative ideas about vacuum and space, his challenges to Aristotle's notions of natural place, and his interpretation of matter as extension. Philoponus is recognized for disrupting Aristotle's categorical framework, rejecting the fifth element, and presenting novel theories about the directionality of light. The chapter reflects on his attacks on Aristotle in retrospect, highlighting the interplay between his scientific theories and Christian doctrines, including Christ, the Trinity, resurrection, and the soul. Additionally, the chapter examines his influence on later thought, tracing his intellectual antecedents and the chronology of his writings. [Derived from the entire text] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/FDyWUVJUOYpvtvb |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"488","_score":null,"_source":{"id":488,"authors_free":[{"id":667,"entry_id":488,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":668,"entry_id":488,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"John Philoponus","main_title":{"title":"John Philoponus"},"abstract":"This chapter delves into the life and intellectual contributions of John Philoponus, a pivotal figure bridging Neoplatonism and Christianity. It explores his relationship with Ammonius and examines how his Christian faith influenced his philosophical and scientific endeavors. The text covers Philoponus' critique of the Aristotelian worldview, focusing on key topics such as the creation of the universe, the impetus theory of dynamics, and the concept of velocity in a vacuum. It also addresses his innovative ideas about vacuum and space, his challenges to Aristotle's notions of natural place, and his interpretation of matter as extension.\r\n\r\nPhiloponus is recognized for disrupting Aristotle's categorical framework, rejecting the fifth element, and presenting novel theories about the directionality of light. The chapter reflects on his attacks on Aristotle in retrospect, highlighting the interplay between his scientific theories and Christian doctrines, including Christ, the Trinity, resurrection, and the soul. Additionally, the chapter examines his influence on later thought, tracing his intellectual antecedents and the chronology of his writings. [Derived from the entire text]","btype":2,"date":"1987","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/FDyWUVJUOYpvtvb","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":488,"section_of":1383,"pages":"1-40","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1383,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"bibliography","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabij1987d","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1987","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"All the chapters in this book are new, except for the inaugural lecture (Chapter 9), which I apologise for reprinting virtually unrevised and with the original lecture context still apparent. It seemed desirable, however, that so crucial a part ofthe controversy should be represented. The collection originated in a conference on Philoponus held at the Institute of Classical Studies in London in June 1983, which provided an opportunity for interested parties to pool knowledge from the many different disciplines that are relevant to his work. Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 6 are drawn from the conference, while two other conference papers, those of Henry Blumenthal and Richard Sorabji, are being incorporated into books in preparation (see Bibliography). Sorabji's main suggestions, however, are included in Chapter I in the discussion of matter and extension (pp 18 and 23). The remairnng chapters, apart from the inaugural lecture, were solicited or written for the volume, two of them (5 and 12) having been delivered first at a seminar on Ancient Science at the Institute of Classical Studies. [preface, p. ix-x]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/buhMZZl0djmIx9v","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1383,"pubplace":"Ithaca, New York","publisher":"Cornell University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1987]}
| Title | Infinity and the Creation |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science |
| Pages | 164-178 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
| The arguments of Philoponus on which I want to focus concern the Christian view that the universe had a beginning. But here already I must draw a distinction. For in talking of the universe beginning, I am not talking merely of the present orderly arrangement of the earth, sun, moon, and stars. Many pagans would have accepted that the present arrangement of matter had a beginning. What, with very few exceptions, they all thought absurd was that matter itself should have had a beginning. Indeed, Jews and Christians themselves were embarrassed about this doctrine and were by no means unanimous in accepting it. It has been suggested that the oldest references to creation in the Old Testament come in Job, and that there God is envisaged as imposing order on pre-existing matter, not as creating matter itself. It has further been doubted whether there is any clear statement in the Bible of creation out of nothing. The opinion of Philo the Jew, in the first century A.D., is a matter of controversy, but I believe that he takes different sides in different works. A little later, Hermogenes and others offered a surprising reason for denying matter a beginning. They pointed to the use of the word "was" in the opening of Genesis, where it is said that the earth was without form and void, and they took the use of the past tense to show that earth, or matter, was already in existence when the Creator began work. It is often held, although I am not inclined to agree myself, that Boethius endorsed the Neoplatonist view of a beginningless universe at the end of his Consolation of Philosophy. What I would acknowledge is that other Christians in these centuries, such as Synesius and Elias, did deny the universe a beginning or end under the influence of Platonism. If we skip to the thirteenth century, we find Thomas Aquinas and his teacher Albert the Great saying that it cannot be established by philosophy one way or the other whether the universe had a beginning. It is only Scripture which reveals that it did. Two slightly younger contemporaries in Paris went a step further—indeed, a step too far. Boethius of Dacia (the Dane, not the sixth-century Roman) and Siger of Brabant maintained that philosophical argument showed the universe to be beginningless, but that nonetheless, reason must bow to revelation. They had to flee Paris in the condemnation of 1277, and there is a tradition that Siger was murdered. [introduction p. 165-167] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/RDC5FI7QaO4jMjf |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"489","_score":null,"_source":{"id":489,"authors_free":[{"id":669,"entry_id":489,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":670,"entry_id":489,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Infinity and the Creation","main_title":{"title":"Infinity and the Creation"},"abstract":"The arguments of Philoponus on which I want to focus concern the Christian view that the universe had a beginning. But here already I must draw a distinction. For in talking of the universe beginning, I am not talking merely of the present orderly arrangement of the earth, sun, moon, and stars. Many pagans would have accepted that the present arrangement of matter had a beginning. What, with very few exceptions, they all thought absurd was that matter itself should have had a beginning.\r\n\r\nIndeed, Jews and Christians themselves were embarrassed about this doctrine and were by no means unanimous in accepting it. It has been suggested that the oldest references to creation in the Old Testament come in Job, and that there God is envisaged as imposing order on pre-existing matter, not as creating matter itself. It has further been doubted whether there is any clear statement in the Bible of creation out of nothing. The opinion of Philo the Jew, in the first century A.D., is a matter of controversy, but I believe that he takes different sides in different works.\r\n\r\nA little later, Hermogenes and others offered a surprising reason for denying matter a beginning. They pointed to the use of the word \"was\" in the opening of Genesis, where it is said that the earth was without form and void, and they took the use of the past tense to show that earth, or matter, was already in existence when the Creator began work. It is often held, although I am not inclined to agree myself, that Boethius endorsed the Neoplatonist view of a beginningless universe at the end of his Consolation of Philosophy.\r\n\r\nWhat I would acknowledge is that other Christians in these centuries, such as Synesius and Elias, did deny the universe a beginning or end under the influence of Platonism. If we skip to the thirteenth century, we find Thomas Aquinas and his teacher Albert the Great saying that it cannot be established by philosophy one way or the other whether the universe had a beginning. It is only Scripture which reveals that it did.\r\n\r\nTwo slightly younger contemporaries in Paris went a step further\u2014indeed, a step too far. Boethius of Dacia (the Dane, not the sixth-century Roman) and Siger of Brabant maintained that philosophical argument showed the universe to be beginningless, but that nonetheless, reason must bow to revelation. They had to flee Paris in the condemnation of 1277, and there is a tradition that Siger was murdered. [introduction p. 165-167]","btype":2,"date":"1987","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/RDC5FI7QaO4jMjf","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":489,"section_of":1383,"pages":"164-178","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1383,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"bibliography","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabij1987d","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1987","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"All the chapters in this book are new, except for the inaugural lecture (Chapter 9), which I apologise for reprinting virtually unrevised and with the original lecture context still apparent. It seemed desirable, however, that so crucial a part ofthe controversy should be represented. The collection originated in a conference on Philoponus held at the Institute of Classical Studies in London in June 1983, which provided an opportunity for interested parties to pool knowledge from the many different disciplines that are relevant to his work. Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 6 are drawn from the conference, while two other conference papers, those of Henry Blumenthal and Richard Sorabji, are being incorporated into books in preparation (see Bibliography). Sorabji's main suggestions, however, are included in Chapter I in the discussion of matter and extension (pp 18 and 23). The remairnng chapters, apart from the inaugural lecture, were solicited or written for the volume, two of them (5 and 12) having been delivered first at a seminar on Ancient Science at the Institute of Classical Studies. [preface, p. ix-x]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/buhMZZl0djmIx9v","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1383,"pubplace":"Ithaca, New York","publisher":"Cornell University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1987]}
| Title | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science |
| Type | Edited Book |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Publication Place | Ithaca, New York |
| Publisher | Cornell University Press |
| Edition No. | 1 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
| All the chapters in this book are new, except for the inaugural lecture (Chapter 9), which I apologise for reprinting virtually unrevised and with the original lecture context still apparent. It seemed desirable, however, that so crucial a part ofthe controversy should be represented. The collection originated in a conference on Philoponus held at the Institute of Classical Studies in London in June 1983, which provided an opportunity for interested parties to pool knowledge from the many different disciplines that are relevant to his work. Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 6 are drawn from the conference, while two other conference papers, those of Henry Blumenthal and Richard Sorabji, are being incorporated into books in preparation (see Bibliography). Sorabji's main suggestions, however, are included in Chapter I in the discussion of matter and extension (pp 18 and 23). The remairnng chapters, apart from the inaugural lecture, were solicited or written for the volume, two of them (5 and 12) having been delivered first at a seminar on Ancient Science at the Institute of Classical Studies. [preface, p. ix-x] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/CJSIbOOK7lIAB00 |
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| Title | The Presidential Address: Analyses of Matter, Ancient and Modern |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1985 |
| Journal | Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series |
| Volume | 86 |
| Pages | 1-22 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| I want to draw attention to two recurrent themes in the analysis of matter or body. The first theme is the idea that body is extension endowed with properties. To explain this, I shall go back as far as a famous text in Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book 7, Chapter 3. Aristotle is here discussing matter in a rather special sense. He does not mean by 'matter' what we might mean, namely, body. He means rather the subject of the properties in a body. The table in front of me may be made of wood. From one point of view, the wood might be thought of as a subject which carries the properties of the table—its rectilinearity, its hardness, its brownness. But according to one persuasive interpretation, Aristotle is looking for the most fundamental subject of properties in a body. He calls it the first subject (hupokeimenon proton, 1029a1-2). The wood of the table is made up of the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—and these might be thought of as a more fundamental subject carrying the properties of the wood. But the most fundamental subject would be one which carried the properties of the four elements: hot, cold, fluid, and dry. This first subject is referred to by commentators as first or prime matter. [introduction p. 1] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/Dk2wV9MF91LwVgZ |
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| Title | Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence |
| Type | Edited Book |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1990 |
| Publication Place | London |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Edition No. | 2 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
The story of the ancient commentators on Aristotle has not previously been told at book length. Here it is assembled for the fi rst time by drawing both on some of the classic articles translated into English or revised and on the very latest research. Some of the chapters will be making revisionary suggestions unfamiliar even to specialists in the fi eld. Th e philosophical interest of the commentators has been illustrated elsewhere. 1 Th e aim here is not so much to do this again as to set out the background of the commentary tradition against which further philosophical discussion and discussions of other kinds can take place. Th e importance of the commentators lies partly in their representing the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools, partly in the panorama they provide of the 1100 years of Ancient Greek philosophy, preserving as they do many original quotations from lost philosophical works. Still more signifi cant is their profound infl uence, uncovered in some of the chapters below, on subsequent philosophy, Islamic and European. Th is was due partly to their preserving anti-Aristotelian material which helped to inspire medieval and Renaissance science, but still more to their presenting an Aristotle transformed in ways which happened to make him acceptable to the Christian Church. It is not just Aristotle, but this Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators, that lies behind the views of later thinkers. [authors abstract] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/b7EaNXJNckqKKqB |
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| Title | Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence |
| Type | Edited Book |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1990 |
| Publication Place | London |
| Publisher | Duckworth |
| Edition No. | 1 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
This book brings together twenty articles giving a comprehensive view of the work of the Aristotelian commentators. First published in 1990, the collection is now brought up to date with a new introduction by Richard Sorabji. New generations of scholars will benefit from this reissuing of classic essays, including seminal works by major scholars, and the volume gives a comprehensive background to the work of the project on the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which has published over 100 volumes of translations since 1987 and has disseminated these crucial texts to scholars worldwide. The importance of the commentators is partly that they represent the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools and partly that they provide a panorama of a thousand years of ancient Greek philosophy, revealing many original quotations from lost works. Even more significant is the profound influence - uncovered in some of the chapters of this book - that they exert on later philosophy, Islamic and Western. Not only did they preserve anti-Aristotelian material which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they present Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers. [author's abstract] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/b7EaNXJNckqKKqB |
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| Title | Infinity and the Creation |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science |
| Pages | 164-178 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
The arguments of Philoponus on which I want to focus concern the Christian view that the universe had a beginning. But here already I must draw a distinction. For in talking of the universe beginning, I am not talking merely of the present orderly arrangement of the earth, sun, moon, and stars. Many pagans would have accepted that the present arrangement of matter had a beginning. What, with very few exceptions, they all thought absurd was that matter itself should have had a beginning. Indeed, Jews and Christians themselves were embarrassed about this doctrine and were by no means unanimous in accepting it. It has been suggested that the oldest references to creation in the Old Testament come in Job, and that there God is envisaged as imposing order on pre-existing matter, not as creating matter itself. It has further been doubted whether there is any clear statement in the Bible of creation out of nothing. The opinion of Philo the Jew, in the first century A.D., is a matter of controversy, but I believe that he takes different sides in different works. A little later, Hermogenes and others offered a surprising reason for denying matter a beginning. They pointed to the use of the word "was" in the opening of Genesis, where it is said that the earth was without form and void, and they took the use of the past tense to show that earth, or matter, was already in existence when the Creator began work. It is often held, although I am not inclined to agree myself, that Boethius endorsed the Neoplatonist view of a beginningless universe at the end of his Consolation of Philosophy. What I would acknowledge is that other Christians in these centuries, such as Synesius and Elias, did deny the universe a beginning or end under the influence of Platonism. If we skip to the thirteenth century, we find Thomas Aquinas and his teacher Albert the Great saying that it cannot be established by philosophy one way or the other whether the universe had a beginning. It is only Scripture which reveals that it did. Two slightly younger contemporaries in Paris went a step further—indeed, a step too far. Boethius of Dacia (the Dane, not the sixth-century Roman) and Siger of Brabant maintained that philosophical argument showed the universe to be beginningless, but that nonetheless, reason must bow to revelation. They had to flee Paris in the condemnation of 1277, and there is a tradition that Siger was murdered. [introduction p. 165-167] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/RDC5FI7QaO4jMjf |
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But here already I must draw a distinction. For in talking of the universe beginning, I am not talking merely of the present orderly arrangement of the earth, sun, moon, and stars. Many pagans would have accepted that the present arrangement of matter had a beginning. What, with very few exceptions, they all thought absurd was that matter itself should have had a beginning.\r\n\r\nIndeed, Jews and Christians themselves were embarrassed about this doctrine and were by no means unanimous in accepting it. It has been suggested that the oldest references to creation in the Old Testament come in Job, and that there God is envisaged as imposing order on pre-existing matter, not as creating matter itself. It has further been doubted whether there is any clear statement in the Bible of creation out of nothing. The opinion of Philo the Jew, in the first century A.D., is a matter of controversy, but I believe that he takes different sides in different works.\r\n\r\nA little later, Hermogenes and others offered a surprising reason for denying matter a beginning. They pointed to the use of the word \"was\" in the opening of Genesis, where it is said that the earth was without form and void, and they took the use of the past tense to show that earth, or matter, was already in existence when the Creator began work. It is often held, although I am not inclined to agree myself, that Boethius endorsed the Neoplatonist view of a beginningless universe at the end of his Consolation of Philosophy.\r\n\r\nWhat I would acknowledge is that other Christians in these centuries, such as Synesius and Elias, did deny the universe a beginning or end under the influence of Platonism. If we skip to the thirteenth century, we find Thomas Aquinas and his teacher Albert the Great saying that it cannot be established by philosophy one way or the other whether the universe had a beginning. It is only Scripture which reveals that it did.\r\n\r\nTwo slightly younger contemporaries in Paris went a step further\u2014indeed, a step too far. Boethius of Dacia (the Dane, not the sixth-century Roman) and Siger of Brabant maintained that philosophical argument showed the universe to be beginningless, but that nonetheless, reason must bow to revelation. They had to flee Paris in the condemnation of 1277, and there is a tradition that Siger was murdered. 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It seemed desirable, however, that so crucial a part ofthe controversy should be represented. The collection originated in a conference on Philoponus held at the Institute of Classical Studies in London in June 1983, which provided an opportunity for interested parties to pool knowledge from the many different disciplines that are relevant to his work. Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 6 are drawn from the conference, while two other conference papers, those of Henry Blumenthal and Richard Sorabji, are being incorporated into books in preparation (see Bibliography). Sorabji's main suggestions, however, are included in Chapter I in the discussion of matter and extension (pp 18 and 23). The remairnng chapters, apart from the inaugural lecture, were solicited or written for the volume, two of them (5 and 12) having been delivered first at a seminar on Ancient Science at the Institute of Classical Studies. [preface, p. ix-x]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/buhMZZl0djmIx9v","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1383,"pubplace":"Ithaca, New York","publisher":"Cornell University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Infinity and the Creation"]}
| Title | John Philoponus |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science |
| Pages | 1-40 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
This chapter delves into the life and intellectual contributions of John Philoponus, a pivotal figure bridging Neoplatonism and Christianity. It explores his relationship with Ammonius and examines how his Christian faith influenced his philosophical and scientific endeavors. The text covers Philoponus' critique of the Aristotelian worldview, focusing on key topics such as the creation of the universe, the impetus theory of dynamics, and the concept of velocity in a vacuum. It also addresses his innovative ideas about vacuum and space, his challenges to Aristotle's notions of natural place, and his interpretation of matter as extension. Philoponus is recognized for disrupting Aristotle's categorical framework, rejecting the fifth element, and presenting novel theories about the directionality of light. The chapter reflects on his attacks on Aristotle in retrospect, highlighting the interplay between his scientific theories and Christian doctrines, including Christ, the Trinity, resurrection, and the soul. Additionally, the chapter examines his influence on later thought, tracing his intellectual antecedents and the chronology of his writings. [Derived from the entire text] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/FDyWUVJUOYpvtvb |
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| Title | Matter, Space, and Motion. Theories in Antiquity and Their Sequel |
| Type | Monograph |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1988 |
| Publication Place | London |
| Publisher | Duckworth |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
The nature of matter was as intriguing a question for ancient philosophers as it is for contemporary physicists, and Matter, Space, and Motion presents a fresh and illuminating account of the rich legacy of the physical theories of the Greeks from the fifth century B.C. to the late sixth century A.D. [a.a] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/UMwsdcucXfrqkbZ |
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| Title | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science |
| Type | Edited Book |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Publication Place | Ithaca, New York |
| Publisher | Cornell University Press |
| Edition No. | 1 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
All the chapters in this book are new, except for the inaugural lecture (Chapter 9), which I apologise for reprinting virtually unrevised and with the original lecture context still apparent. It seemed desirable, however, that so crucial a part ofthe controversy should be represented. The collection originated in a conference on Philoponus held at the Institute of Classical Studies in London in June 1983, which provided an opportunity for interested parties to pool knowledge from the many different disciplines that are relevant to his work. Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 6 are drawn from the conference, while two other conference papers, those of Henry Blumenthal and Richard Sorabji, are being incorporated into books in preparation (see Bibliography). Sorabji's main suggestions, however, are included in Chapter I in the discussion of matter and extension (pp 18 and 23). The remairnng chapters, apart from the inaugural lecture, were solicited or written for the volume, two of them (5 and 12) having been delivered first at a seminar on Ancient Science at the Institute of Classical Studies. [preface, p. ix-x] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/CJSIbOOK7lIAB00 |
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| Title | Philoponus and the Rise of Preclassical Dynamics |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science |
| Pages | 84-120 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Wolff, Michael |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
If we are prepared to assume that the basic presuppositions of impetus theory can be traced back not to observational experience which Aristotle missed, but rather to a certain concept of man and to certain ethical principles, we need not attempt to explain the emergence of the theory solely by reference to new observations of falling bodies and the like. Is it not more appropriate to ask about the origin and kind of ethical problem to which impetus theory originally helped to provide an answer? The experience that forces are exhausted in all physical activities of human beings could have been just such a problem. Earlier society, which had left this experience chiefly to slaves, could not really have had such a problem. But, by the close of Antiquity, times were changing. [Conclusion p. 120] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/L1tFbjfO8UrPnAp |
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| Title | Philoponus' Commentary on Aristotle's Physics in the Sixtheenth Century |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition |
| Pages | 210-230 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Schmitt, Charles Bernard |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
As it is generally accepted, the term ‘Renaissance’ refers to a historical period in which there was a revival of interest in the literature, styles, and forms of Classical Antiquity. Though the ‘revival’ is usually understood to refer specifically to ancient ‘literary’ texts, there can be no doubt that the specialized technical treatises of philosophy, natural science, mathematics, and medicine played a role equally important, if not more important, in the cultural and intellectual life of the Renaissance. In addition to the rediscovery of the integral texts of Homer and the Greek dramatists, Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, Quintilian, and Lucretius, the fifteenth century also saw the recovery of much of Galen, Theophrastus, Plato, Plotinus, and Proclus, Pappus, Diogenes Laertius, and Sextus Empiricus, as well as many additional classical authors of specialized literature. Indeed, the ‘Renaissance’ was a revival of the technical knowledge bequeathed by Antiquity as much as of works of recognized literary and rhetorical quality. One aspect of the influence of ancient literature on the Renaissance which has received little attention until fairly recently is the role of the Greek commentators on Aristotle. In that vast corpus, most of which is conveniently assembled for us in the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, there is a wealth of interpretative and supplementary material, which is of great use not only for an understanding of the Aristotelian text itself but also for understanding its historical context and the philosophical positions that were in competition with those of Aristotle in antiquity. A certain number of the Greek commentaries were known in the Middle Ages, both in the Islamic and in the Christian worlds, but such knowledge was very fragmentary. Only a small portion of the extant commentaries was available in Latin before the sixteenth century. Some of these attained a degree of importance and played a central role in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century discussions of the soul, for example. These medieval versions are presently being edited in a critical fashion by a group of scholars at Louvain; this series should take its place alongside the Greek texts produced in the last century by the Berlin Academy of Sciences. So far, editions of commentaries by Themistius, Ammonius, Philoponus, Simplicius, Alexander, and Eustratius have appeared. But it remained for the sixteenth century to make accessible most of the material. For example, less than half of the works attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias contained in the CAG and Supplementum Aristotelicum were available in the Middle Ages, and, among the expositions of Philoponus, only the commentary on the De Anima was available. The need for a comprehensive publication of all of the Greek commentaries on Aristotle was already noted and made a program for the future in Aldo Manuzio’s prefatory letter to the first volume of his editio princeps of Aristotle in 1495. Although Aldo himself did not live to achieve his aim, he did initiate it, and between that date and 1540 nearly the entire Greek corpus was made available to European scholars. Parallel with the publication of the Greek texts—and generally delayed by only a few years—was the publication of Latin translations of the same texts, thus making the material accessible to a much wider readership than the rather restricted group who could cope effectively with the Greek text of the commentators. Most of the Greek editions themselves, as well as the majority of the translations, issued from Venetian presses, though Paris and Lyon served as secondary publication centers. By mid-century essentially everything could be read in Latin, and the impact of the new material can be traced in the Aristotelian literature of the period. In reading the many commentaries on Aristotle and other philosophical works of the sixteenth century, one clearly discerns the rising tide of interest in these expositions across a spectrum of philosophical and scientific topics. Hitherto, the impact of these new sources of information has only imperfectly been charted, primarily with regard to discussions of the soul. Nardi’s fundamental work on Simplicius, the more recent studies on Alexander by Cranz, and on the general Neoplatonism of the commentaries by Mahoney have served to draw attention to the rich vein of material there to be mined. The range of the impact—in logic, natural philosophy, metaphysics, and psychology—has scarcely been charted, nor has the interplay between Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and medieval and Renaissance Latin interpretations of Aristotle been evaluated and analyzed. During the second half of the sixteenth century, those who wanted to understand Aristotle—which for them meant philosophy tout court—frequently tried to relate the text of the Stagirite to the varying interpretations of Philoponus, Simplicius, Averroes (1126–98), Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–74), John of Jandun (died 1328), Pomponazzi (1462–1525), and Soto (1494/5–1560), among many others. Particularly little studied has been the impact of the newly available Greek commentators on the Physics. Here is meant primarily Simplicius and Philoponus, both of whom left behind extensive and detailed expositions of that work, neither of which was known directly to Latin writers of the Middle Ages but which were to become available in the sixteenth century. As long ago as Wohlwill and Duhem, it has been known that some of the criticisms and alternative positions put forward in the commentaries on the Physics by the two sixth-century writers later attained importance in the history of the development of physical thought. Moreover, it was also realized by the same historians that the critiques of Aristotle put forward by Simplicius and Philoponus were very similar to some of the positions that became central in the formulation of the ‘new science’ of the seventeenth century. Thus far, however, there has been little systematic attempt to consider the reaction of the sixteenth century as a whole to the reorientation made possible by the availability of Simplicius and Philoponus. The story is not simple, and it cannot be covered comprehensively here, though I hope to be able to indicate some lines further research might take. What I shall do is to focus upon Philoponus, whose significance in the story is possibly less than that of Simplicius, but without a full story of the fortune of the Physics of both authors a valid conclusion regarding their relative merits is not possible. Before turning to a consideration of the impact of the Grammarian’s partial commentary on the Physics (only the first four books are integrally extant), I should like to deal briefly with two other points. First, I should like to sketch a portrait of Philoponus as a commentator, emphasizing why what he had to say was of potential importance for the sixteenth century. Secondly, I shall say something general about the recovery and assimilation of his philosophical works in the West down to the sixteenth century. [introduction p. 210-213] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/Ub0AryY729JHN5w |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"1037","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1037,"authors_free":[{"id":1571,"entry_id":1037,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":284,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Schmitt, Charles Bernard","free_first_name":"Charles Bernard","free_last_name":"Schmitt","norm_person":{"id":284,"first_name":"Charles Bernard","last_name":"Schmitt","full_name":"Schmitt, Charles Bernard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/118846744","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1572,"entry_id":1037,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Philoponus' Commentary on Aristotle's Physics in the Sixtheenth Century","main_title":{"title":"Philoponus' Commentary on Aristotle's Physics in the Sixtheenth Century"},"abstract":"As it is generally accepted, the term \u2018Renaissance\u2019 refers to a historical period in which there was a revival of interest in the literature, styles, and forms of Classical Antiquity. Though the \u2018revival\u2019 is usually understood to refer specifically to ancient \u2018literary\u2019 texts, there can be no doubt that the specialized technical treatises of philosophy, natural science, mathematics, and medicine played a role equally important, if not more important, in the cultural and intellectual life of the Renaissance. In addition to the rediscovery of the integral texts of Homer and the Greek dramatists, Cicero\u2019s Letters to Atticus, Quintilian, and Lucretius, the fifteenth century also saw the recovery of much of Galen, Theophrastus, Plato, Plotinus, and Proclus, Pappus, Diogenes Laertius, and Sextus Empiricus, as well as many additional classical authors of specialized literature. Indeed, the \u2018Renaissance\u2019 was a revival of the technical knowledge bequeathed by Antiquity as much as of works of recognized literary and rhetorical quality.\r\n\r\nOne aspect of the influence of ancient literature on the Renaissance which has received little attention until fairly recently is the role of the Greek commentators on Aristotle. In that vast corpus, most of which is conveniently assembled for us in the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, there is a wealth of interpretative and supplementary material, which is of great use not only for an understanding of the Aristotelian text itself but also for understanding its historical context and the philosophical positions that were in competition with those of Aristotle in antiquity. A certain number of the Greek commentaries were known in the Middle Ages, both in the Islamic and in the Christian worlds, but such knowledge was very fragmentary. Only a small portion of the extant commentaries was available in Latin before the sixteenth century. Some of these attained a degree of importance and played a central role in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century discussions of the soul, for example. These medieval versions are presently being edited in a critical fashion by a group of scholars at Louvain; this series should take its place alongside the Greek texts produced in the last century by the Berlin Academy of Sciences. So far, editions of commentaries by Themistius, Ammonius, Philoponus, Simplicius, Alexander, and Eustratius have appeared.\r\n\r\nBut it remained for the sixteenth century to make accessible most of the material. For example, less than half of the works attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias contained in the CAG and Supplementum Aristotelicum were available in the Middle Ages, and, among the expositions of Philoponus, only the commentary on the De Anima was available.\r\n\r\nThe need for a comprehensive publication of all of the Greek commentaries on Aristotle was already noted and made a program for the future in Aldo Manuzio\u2019s prefatory letter to the first volume of his editio princeps of Aristotle in 1495. Although Aldo himself did not live to achieve his aim, he did initiate it, and between that date and 1540 nearly the entire Greek corpus was made available to European scholars. Parallel with the publication of the Greek texts\u2014and generally delayed by only a few years\u2014was the publication of Latin translations of the same texts, thus making the material accessible to a much wider readership than the rather restricted group who could cope effectively with the Greek text of the commentators. Most of the Greek editions themselves, as well as the majority of the translations, issued from Venetian presses, though Paris and Lyon served as secondary publication centers. By mid-century essentially everything could be read in Latin, and the impact of the new material can be traced in the Aristotelian literature of the period.\r\n\r\nIn reading the many commentaries on Aristotle and other philosophical works of the sixteenth century, one clearly discerns the rising tide of interest in these expositions across a spectrum of philosophical and scientific topics. Hitherto, the impact of these new sources of information has only imperfectly been charted, primarily with regard to discussions of the soul. Nardi\u2019s fundamental work on Simplicius, the more recent studies on Alexander by Cranz, and on the general Neoplatonism of the commentaries by Mahoney have served to draw attention to the rich vein of material there to be mined. The range of the impact\u2014in logic, natural philosophy, metaphysics, and psychology\u2014has scarcely been charted, nor has the interplay between Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and medieval and Renaissance Latin interpretations of Aristotle been evaluated and analyzed.\r\n\r\nDuring the second half of the sixteenth century, those who wanted to understand Aristotle\u2014which for them meant philosophy tout court\u2014frequently tried to relate the text of the Stagirite to the varying interpretations of Philoponus, Simplicius, Averroes (1126\u201398), Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225\u201374), John of Jandun (died 1328), Pomponazzi (1462\u20131525), and Soto (1494\/5\u20131560), among many others.\r\n\r\nParticularly little studied has been the impact of the newly available Greek commentators on the Physics. Here is meant primarily Simplicius and Philoponus, both of whom left behind extensive and detailed expositions of that work, neither of which was known directly to Latin writers of the Middle Ages but which were to become available in the sixteenth century. As long ago as Wohlwill and Duhem, it has been known that some of the criticisms and alternative positions put forward in the commentaries on the Physics by the two sixth-century writers later attained importance in the history of the development of physical thought. Moreover, it was also realized by the same historians that the critiques of Aristotle put forward by Simplicius and Philoponus were very similar to some of the positions that became central in the formulation of the \u2018new science\u2019 of the seventeenth century.\r\n\r\nThus far, however, there has been little systematic attempt to consider the reaction of the sixteenth century as a whole to the reorientation made possible by the availability of Simplicius and Philoponus. The story is not simple, and it cannot be covered comprehensively here, though I hope to be able to indicate some lines further research might take. What I shall do is to focus upon Philoponus, whose significance in the story is possibly less than that of Simplicius, but without a full story of the fortune of the Physics of both authors a valid conclusion regarding their relative merits is not possible.\r\n\r\nBefore turning to a consideration of the impact of the Grammarian\u2019s partial commentary on the Physics (only the first four books are integrally extant), I should like to deal briefly with two other points. First, I should like to sketch a portrait of Philoponus as a commentator, emphasizing why what he had to say was of potential importance for the sixteenth century. Secondly, I shall say something general about the recovery and assimilation of his philosophical works in the West down to the sixteenth century. [introduction p. 210-213]","btype":2,"date":"1987","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Ub0AryY729JHN5w","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":284,"full_name":"Schmitt, Charles Bernard","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1037,"section_of":184,"pages":"210-230","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":184,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabji1987c","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2010","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1987","abstract":"Richard Sorabji is the editor of a vast and growing number of translations of ancient\r\ncommentaries on Aristotle and the editor of several excellent collections of studies on the\r\nAristotelian tradition. Philoponus, a 6th century Christian thinker who was originally trained as\r\na Neoplatonist, is best remembered today for his attack on Aristotle's 'physics'; his influence on\r\nlater philosophers and scientists and his role in the reevaluation of Aristotelian science and\r\nnatural philosophy are indeed remarkable. The second edition of Philoponus and the Rejection\r\nof Aristotelian Science includes a new two-part introduction which offers a survey of the\r\nrapidly expanding scholarship on Philoponus and of recent archeological discoveries (such as\r\nthe lecture rooms of the 6th century Alexandrian school), as well as new insights into the\r\ninteraction between Greek paganism and Christianity in connection with Philoponus and his\r\nmilieu. The twelve chapters included in this collection are written by very prominent scholars\r\nand tackle topics such as Philoponus' corollaries on space and time, the differences between his\r\ntheological views (e.g. on the three hypostases) and the prevailing dogmas of the time, the\r\nrelation between his theory about impetus and later treatments of impetus and related\r\nconcepts in a number of Arab thinkers and in Galileo. This collection is one of the most reliable\r\nand wide-ranging introductions to Philoponus' views and influence, and those interested in late\r\nancient philosophy and its interactions with Christian thought will find this to be a most\r\nvaluable resource. [Review by Tiberiu Popa]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/CJSIbOOK7lIAB00","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":184,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London","series":"BICS Supplement","volume":"103","edition_no":"2","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Philoponus' Commentary on Aristotle's Physics in the Sixtheenth Century"]}
| Title | Prolegomena to the Study of Philoponus' contra Aristotelem |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science |
| Pages | 197-209 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Wildberg, Christian |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
Judging from the number and content of his commentaries, Philoponus was a thinker in the Aristotelian tradition. One of his major achievements lies in the fact that as a commentator he accepted and developed the heritage of his teacher Ammonius. For that reason alone it is remarkable that he composed a treatise which attacked vital topics of Aristotle’s philosophy with little compromise. Although it is true that throughout Antiquity many philosophers ventured to criticise the great Aristotle, one may agree that Philoponus did so, as Cesare Cremonini put it in 1616, ‘more sharply than anyone’ (acerrime omnium).' Where does this attack fit into the context of Philoponus’doctrinal development? No doubt his outspoken critique of Aristotle in the de Aetemitate Mundi contra Aristotelem somehow swayed Philoponus to desert the philosophical and join the theological camp. But the story is probably more complex. The general point of dissent was, as the title indicates, the doctrine of the eternity of the world. Being a Christian, Philoponus perhaps possessed a particular motivation for launching his attack - as a feat of praeparatio evangélica. This fact has been sufficiently recognised and appreciated. Less appreciated and studied, however, has been the philosophical side, i.e. the actual argument and structure of the treatise in question. Since it has not survived the content must be reconstructed from a number of substantial fragments found mainly in the commentaries of Philoponus’ adversary Simplicius. An adequate treatment of the double controversy Simplicius v Philoponus v Aristotle would fill a volume on its own and cannot be the subject of this chapter.2 Instead, I will attempt to revise apparently firmly established views about the treatise, in particular its composition and date. This, it is hoped, may lead to a revised view of that treatise and at the same time encourage a more advanced study of Philoponus’ doctrinal development in general. [introduction p. 197-198] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/dbFxqr9z9aZi48i |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"430","_score":null,"_source":{"id":430,"authors_free":[{"id":580,"entry_id":430,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":360,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Wildberg, Christian","free_first_name":"Christian","free_last_name":"Wildberg","norm_person":{"id":360,"first_name":"Christian","last_name":"Wildberg","full_name":"Wildberg, Christian","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/139018964","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":581,"entry_id":430,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Prolegomena to the Study of Philoponus' contra Aristotelem","main_title":{"title":"Prolegomena to the Study of Philoponus' contra Aristotelem"},"abstract":"Judging from the number and content of his commentaries, Philoponus was a thinker in the Aristotelian tradition. One of his major achievements lies in \r\nthe fact that as a commentator he accepted and developed the heritage of his teacher Ammonius. For that reason alone it is remarkable that he composed a treatise which attacked vital topics of Aristotle\u2019s philosophy with little compromise. Although it is true that throughout Antiquity many philosophers ventured to criticise the great Aristotle, one may agree that Philoponus did so, as Cesare Cremonini put it in 1616, \u2018more sharply than anyone\u2019 (acerrime omnium).' Where does this attack fit into the context of Philoponus\u2019doctrinal development? No doubt his outspoken critique of Aristotle in the de Aetemitate Mundi contra Aristotelem somehow swayed Philoponus to desert the philosophical and join the theological camp. But the story is probably more complex. The general point of dissent was, as the title indicates, the doctrine of the eternity of the world. Being a Christian, Philoponus perhaps possessed a \r\nparticular motivation for launching his attack - as a feat of praeparatio evang\u00e9lica. This fact has been sufficiently recognised and appreciated. Less appreciated and studied, however, has been the philosophical side, i.e. the actual argument and structure of the treatise in question. Since it has not survived the content must be reconstructed from a number of substantial fragments found mainly in the commentaries of Philoponus\u2019 adversary Simplicius. An adequate treatment of the double controversy Simplicius v Philoponus v Aristotle would fill a volume on its own and cannot be the subject of this chapter.2 Instead, I will attempt to revise apparently firmly established views about the treatise, in particular its composition and date. This, it is hoped, may lead to a revised view of that treatise and at the same time encourage a more advanced study of Philoponus\u2019 doctrinal development in general. [introduction p. 197-198]","btype":2,"date":"1987","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/dbFxqr9z9aZi48i","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":360,"full_name":"Wildberg, Christian","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":430,"section_of":1383,"pages":"197-209","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1383,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"bibliography","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabij1987d","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1987","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"All the chapters in this book are new, except for the inaugural lecture (Chapter 9), which I apologise for reprinting virtually unrevised and with the original lecture context still apparent. It seemed desirable, however, that so crucial a part ofthe controversy should be represented. The collection originated in a conference on Philoponus held at the Institute of Classical Studies in London in June 1983, which provided an opportunity for interested parties to pool knowledge from the many different disciplines that are relevant to his work. Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 6 are drawn from the conference, while two other conference papers, those of Henry Blumenthal and Richard Sorabji, are being incorporated into books in preparation (see Bibliography). Sorabji's main suggestions, however, are included in Chapter I in the discussion of matter and extension (pp 18 and 23). The remairnng chapters, apart from the inaugural lecture, were solicited or written for the volume, two of them (5 and 12) having been delivered first at a seminar on Ancient Science at the Institute of Classical Studies. [preface, p. ix-x]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/buhMZZl0djmIx9v","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1383,"pubplace":"Ithaca, New York","publisher":"Cornell University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Prolegomena to the Study of Philoponus' contra Aristotelem"]}
| Title | Simplicius' polemics. Some aspects of Simplicius‘ polemical writings against John Philoponus: From invective to a reaffirmation of the transcendence of the heavens |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition |
| Pages | 97-123 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Hoffmann, Philippe |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
I am not entirely comfortable finding myself introducing a discordant note into a collection intended to celebrate the refreshing originality of Philoponus’ ideas. I shall, however, be speaking for Simplicius, vindictive pagan that he was, and shall hope to be an effective counterweight to what is said in other chapters. I shall be talking within the framework of a general interpretation of Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s De caelo. The commentary is an exegetical work undertaken as a paean to the Creator or ‘Demiurge.’ Its basic theory on the physical structure of celestial matter is that this matter is a combination of the superior parts (akrotêtes) of the four elements, dominated by the purely luminous superior part of fire. My aim will be to show how this theory can be seen as a reaction to the theories of John Philoponus. Philoponus had turned to the Timaeus for support in his Contra Aristotelem and had attacked the Aristotelian doctrine that the heavens are made of a fifth element and that the world is eternal. Well before Copernicus, Philoponus denied that there was any substantial difference between the heavens and the sublunary world. In his reply to the Contra Aristotelem, Simplicius reaffirms the divinity, the transcendence, and the eternal nature of the heavens. His exegesis aims to connect, rather than contrast, Plato’s Timaeus and Aristotle’s De caelo. It is, moreover, a religious act, a spiritual exercise designed to turn the soul (both Simplicius’ and his reader’s) towards the Demiurge. This conversion is our initiation into the grandeur of the universe and of the heavens, and his description of the physical nature of the heavens is one of the most valuable aspects of the revelation. Those readers still under Philoponus’ spell cannot achieve this revelation until they have undergone a preliminary act of purification, which is the refutation of the arguments of Philoponus’ Contra Aristotelem. In this way, Simplicius’ attack is directed at a target that is simultaneously philosophical and religious. A correct reading and interpretation of Aristotle’s De caelo leads not only to the acquisition of intellectual knowledge but also, and above all, to our elevation through thought (a thought that we live) to the whole universe and to the Demiurge. It is a form of prayer addressed to them. The sacrilegious blasphemy of the Christian Philoponus is countered by the Neoplatonist liturgy, a rightful celebration of their God. [introduction p. 97-98] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/RJi3pyBneebP54s |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"712","_score":null,"_source":{"id":712,"authors_free":[{"id":1062,"entry_id":712,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":138,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Hoffmann, Philippe","free_first_name":"Philippe","free_last_name":"Hoffmann","norm_person":{"id":138,"first_name":"Philippe ","last_name":"Hoffmann","full_name":"Hoffmann, Philippe ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/189361905","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2012,"entry_id":712,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius' polemics. Some aspects of Simplicius\u2018 polemical writings against John Philoponus: From invective to a reaffirmation of the transcendence of the heavens","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius' polemics. Some aspects of Simplicius\u2018 polemical writings against John Philoponus: From invective to a reaffirmation of the transcendence of the heavens"},"abstract":"I am not entirely comfortable finding myself introducing a discordant note into a collection intended to celebrate the refreshing originality of Philoponus\u2019 ideas. I shall, however, be speaking for Simplicius, vindictive pagan that he was, and shall hope to be an effective counterweight to what is said in other chapters. I shall be talking within the framework of a general interpretation of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on Aristotle\u2019s De caelo. The commentary is an exegetical work undertaken as a paean to the Creator or \u2018Demiurge.\u2019 Its basic theory on the physical structure of celestial matter is that this matter is a combination of the superior parts (akrot\u00eates) of the four elements, dominated by the purely luminous superior part of fire.\r\n\r\nMy aim will be to show how this theory can be seen as a reaction to the theories of John Philoponus. Philoponus had turned to the Timaeus for support in his Contra Aristotelem and had attacked the Aristotelian doctrine that the heavens are made of a fifth element and that the world is eternal. Well before Copernicus, Philoponus denied that there was any substantial difference between the heavens and the sublunary world. In his reply to the Contra Aristotelem, Simplicius reaffirms the divinity, the transcendence, and the eternal nature of the heavens. His exegesis aims to connect, rather than contrast, Plato\u2019s Timaeus and Aristotle\u2019s De caelo.\r\n\r\nIt is, moreover, a religious act, a spiritual exercise designed to turn the soul (both Simplicius\u2019 and his reader\u2019s) towards the Demiurge. This conversion is our initiation into the grandeur of the universe and of the heavens, and his description of the physical nature of the heavens is one of the most valuable aspects of the revelation. Those readers still under Philoponus\u2019 spell cannot achieve this revelation until they have undergone a preliminary act of purification, which is the refutation of the arguments of Philoponus\u2019 Contra Aristotelem. In this way, Simplicius\u2019 attack is directed at a target that is simultaneously philosophical and religious.\r\n\r\nA correct reading and interpretation of Aristotle\u2019s De caelo leads not only to the acquisition of intellectual knowledge but also, and above all, to our elevation through thought (a thought that we live) to the whole universe and to the Demiurge. It is a form of prayer addressed to them. The sacrilegious blasphemy of the Christian Philoponus is countered by the Neoplatonist liturgy, a rightful celebration of their God. [introduction p. 97-98]","btype":2,"date":"1987","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/RJi3pyBneebP54s","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":138,"full_name":"Hoffmann, Philippe ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":712,"section_of":184,"pages":"97-123","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":184,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabji1987c","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2010","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1987","abstract":"Richard Sorabji is the editor of a vast and growing number of translations of ancient\r\ncommentaries on Aristotle and the editor of several excellent collections of studies on the\r\nAristotelian tradition. Philoponus, a 6th century Christian thinker who was originally trained as\r\na Neoplatonist, is best remembered today for his attack on Aristotle's 'physics'; his influence on\r\nlater philosophers and scientists and his role in the reevaluation of Aristotelian science and\r\nnatural philosophy are indeed remarkable. The second edition of Philoponus and the Rejection\r\nof Aristotelian Science includes a new two-part introduction which offers a survey of the\r\nrapidly expanding scholarship on Philoponus and of recent archeological discoveries (such as\r\nthe lecture rooms of the 6th century Alexandrian school), as well as new insights into the\r\ninteraction between Greek paganism and Christianity in connection with Philoponus and his\r\nmilieu. The twelve chapters included in this collection are written by very prominent scholars\r\nand tackle topics such as Philoponus' corollaries on space and time, the differences between his\r\ntheological views (e.g. on the three hypostases) and the prevailing dogmas of the time, the\r\nrelation between his theory about impetus and later treatments of impetus and related\r\nconcepts in a number of Arab thinkers and in Galileo. This collection is one of the most reliable\r\nand wide-ranging introductions to Philoponus' views and influence, and those interested in late\r\nancient philosophy and its interactions with Christian thought will find this to be a most\r\nvaluable resource. [Review by Tiberiu Popa]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/CJSIbOOK7lIAB00","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":184,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London","series":"BICS Supplement","volume":"103","edition_no":"2","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Simplicius' polemics. Some aspects of Simplicius\u2018 polemical writings against John Philoponus: From invective to a reaffirmation of the transcendence of the heavens"]}
| Title | Simplicius: Prime Matter as Extension |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1987 |
| Published in | Simplicius. Sa vie, son œuvre, sa survie: Actes du colloque international de Paris 28 sept. - 1er oct. 1985 |
| Pages | 148-165 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Editor(s) | Hadot, Ilsetraut |
| Translator(s) |
What conclusions can now be drawn? It is time to say that I do not think Aristotle reached the point of consciously thinking that extension would play the role of prime matter. It took the Neoplatonist Simplicius to interpret him that way, motivated by reasons of his own. The diffuseness of extension will have seemed important to Simplicius because it puts prime matter where it should be, at the opposite extreme from the unity of the One. He knew that Plato had been taken as identifying prime matter with space or with other kinds of extension, and, although he disagreed, he thought he found the justification for such an interpretation of Aristotle at least in Phys. 4,2, if not in the Metaphysics as well. But even if Simplicius' interpretation does not represent Aristotle's conscious thought, it opens new vistas. For one thing, I believe that extension would fit with Aristotle's conception of prime matter, and fit better than anything else that has been proposed. Furthermore, in considering how it would fit, we have been forced to consider a network of interlocking parts of Aristotle's philosophy. Some of the parts would require modification if extension were to be openly acknowledged as playing the role of prime matter, but the resulting modifications would yield a coherent view. Finally, views of the same general sort, which treat body as some kind of extension endowed with properties, have recurred through the ages, for example in Descartes, in Newton, and in twentieth-century physics. [conclusion p. 162-163] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/h6HONd1UnE1D8Vw |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"487","_score":null,"_source":{"id":487,"authors_free":[{"id":665,"entry_id":487,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":666,"entry_id":487,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":4,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","free_first_name":"Ilsetraut","free_last_name":"Hadot","norm_person":{"id":4,"first_name":"Ilsetraut","last_name":"Hadot","full_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/107415011","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius: Prime Matter as Extension","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius: Prime Matter as Extension"},"abstract":"What conclusions can now be drawn? It is time to say that I do not think Aristotle reached the point of consciously thinking that extension would play the role of prime matter. It took the Neoplatonist Simplicius to interpret him that way, motivated by reasons of his own.\r\n\r\nThe diffuseness of extension will have seemed important to Simplicius because it puts prime matter where it should be, at the opposite extreme from the unity of the One. He knew that Plato had been taken as identifying prime matter with space or with other kinds of extension, and, although he disagreed, he thought he found the justification for such an interpretation of Aristotle at least in Phys. 4,2, if not in the Metaphysics as well.\r\n\r\nBut even if Simplicius' interpretation does not represent Aristotle's conscious thought, it opens new vistas. For one thing, I believe that extension would fit with Aristotle's conception of prime matter, and fit better than anything else that has been proposed. Furthermore, in considering how it would fit, we have been forced to consider a network of interlocking parts of Aristotle's philosophy.\r\n\r\nSome of the parts would require modification if extension were to be openly acknowledged as playing the role of prime matter, but the resulting modifications would yield a coherent view. Finally, views of the same general sort, which treat body as some kind of extension endowed with properties, have recurred through the ages, for example in Descartes, in Newton, and in twentieth-century physics. [conclusion p. 162-163]","btype":2,"date":"1987","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/h6HONd1UnE1D8Vw","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":4,"full_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":487,"section_of":171,"pages":"148-165","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":171,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"fr","title":"Simplicius. Sa vie, son \u0153uvre, sa survie: Actes du colloque international de Paris 28 sept. - 1er oct. 1985","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Hadot1987","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1987","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1987","abstract":"Depuis une quinzaine d'ann\u00e9es, on assiste en Allemagne, en Angleterre, en Am\u00e9rique et en France \u00e0 un renouveau des \u00e9tudes sur Simplicius. Diff\u00e9rents chercheurs, partis de probl\u00e9matiques et de pr\u00e9occupations diff\u00e9rentes, se sont rencontr\u00e9s dans ce domaine de recherche d'une importance capitale pour l'histoire de toute la philosophie antique. C'\u00e9tait donc pour faciliter une \u00e9tude coordonn\u00e9e et syst\u00e9matique \u00e0 la fois du texte et de la pens\u00e9e de Simplicius que la Recherche Coop\u00e9rative Programm\u00e9e 739 \"Recherches sur les \u0153uvres et la pens\u00e9e de Simplicius\" fut fond\u00e9e en 1982 dans le cadre du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (C.N.R.S., Paris). Depuis cette date, ses recherches se d\u00e9roulent en \u00e9troite collaboration avec l'\u00e9quipe anglo-am\u00e9ricaine de recherche du professeur Richard Sorabji, intitul\u00e9e \"Ancient Commentators on Aristotle\", et avec l'Aristoteles-Archiv de la Freie Universit\u00e4t de Berlin-Ouest dirig\u00e9 par le professeur Dieter Harlfinger.\r\n\r\nPour permettre aux diff\u00e9rents membres de la R.C.P., dont plusieurs habitent \u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger, ainsi qu'\u00e0 d'autres savants int\u00e9ress\u00e9s par les \u00e9tudes sur Simplicius, d'entrer en contact personnel, de r\u00e9soudre oralement des questions diverses se rapportant \u00e0 l'organisation du travail, d'\u00e9changer entre eux les tout derniers r\u00e9sultats de leurs recherches et d'engager une discussion sur des probl\u00e8mes difficiles, j'ai organis\u00e9, dans le cadre de la R.C.P. 739, un colloque international qui s'est tenu \u00e0 Paris, \u00e0 la Fondation Hugot, du 28 septembre au 1er octobre 1985. Ce colloque a \u00e9t\u00e9 enti\u00e8rement financ\u00e9 par la Fondation Hugot du Coll\u00e8ge de France, \u00e0 laquelle j'exprime toute ma gratitude. Je tiens aussi \u00e0 remercier M. et Mme de Morant pour la sollicitude et la bienveillance avec laquelle ils ont accueilli les membres du colloque et veill\u00e9 \u00e0 leur procurer un merveilleux confort.\r\n\r\nLe Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique a subventionn\u00e9 la parution des Actes du Colloque, et je remercie le professeur Dr. H. Wenzel d'avoir rendu possible leur parution dans la s\u00e9rie prestigieuse des Peripatoi de la maison d'\u00e9dition De Gruyter. [Pr\u00e9face]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/45BIqsODQJTdHmt","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":171,"pubplace":"Berlin \u2013 New York","publisher":"de Gruyter","series":"Peripatoi. Philologisch-historische Studien zum Aristotelismus","volume":"15","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Simplicius: Prime Matter as Extension"]}
| Title | The Presidential Address: Analyses of Matter, Ancient and Modern |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1985 |
| Journal | Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series |
| Volume | 86 |
| Pages | 1-22 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
I want to draw attention to two recurrent themes in the analysis of matter or body. The first theme is the idea that body is extension endowed with properties. To explain this, I shall go back as far as a famous text in Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book 7, Chapter 3. Aristotle is here discussing matter in a rather special sense. He does not mean by 'matter' what we might mean, namely, body. He means rather the subject of the properties in a body. The table in front of me may be made of wood. From one point of view, the wood might be thought of as a subject which carries the properties of the table—its rectilinearity, its hardness, its brownness. But according to one persuasive interpretation, Aristotle is looking for the most fundamental subject of properties in a body. He calls it the first subject (hupokeimenon proton, 1029a1-2). The wood of the table is made up of the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—and these might be thought of as a more fundamental subject carrying the properties of the wood. But the most fundamental subject would be one which carried the properties of the four elements: hot, cold, fluid, and dry. This first subject is referred to by commentators as first or prime matter. [introduction p. 1] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/Dk2wV9MF91LwVgZ |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"490","_score":null,"_source":{"id":490,"authors_free":[{"id":671,"entry_id":490,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The Presidential Address: Analyses of Matter, Ancient and Modern","main_title":{"title":"The Presidential Address: Analyses of Matter, Ancient and Modern"},"abstract":"I want to draw attention to two recurrent themes in the analysis of matter or body. The first theme is the idea that body is extension endowed with properties. To explain this, I shall go back as far as a famous text in Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book 7, Chapter 3.\r\n\r\nAristotle is here discussing matter in a rather special sense. He does not mean by 'matter' what we might mean, namely, body. He means rather the subject of the properties in a body. The table in front of me may be made of wood. From one point of view, the wood might be thought of as a subject which carries the properties of the table\u2014its rectilinearity, its hardness, its brownness.\r\n\r\nBut according to one persuasive interpretation, Aristotle is looking for the most fundamental subject of properties in a body. He calls it the first subject (hupokeimenon proton, 1029a1-2). The wood of the table is made up of the four elements\u2014earth, air, fire, and water\u2014and these might be thought of as a more fundamental subject carrying the properties of the wood.\r\n\r\nBut the most fundamental subject would be one which carried the properties of the four elements: hot, cold, fluid, and dry. This first subject is referred to by commentators as first or prime matter. [introduction p. 1]","btype":3,"date":"1985","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Dk2wV9MF91LwVgZ","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":490,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series","volume":"86","issue":"","pages":"1-22"}},"sort":["The Presidential Address: Analyses of Matter, Ancient and Modern"]}
| Title | The development of Philoponus’ thought and its chronology |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1990 |
| Published in | Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence |
| Pages | 233-274 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Verrycken, Koenraad |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
The position I should like to defend is to some extent intermediate between that of Gudeman and that of Ilvrard. I think Ilvrard is right in rejecting the hypothesis of Philoponus' conversion. But I also think Gudeman was right in assuming—more or less conjecturally—a duality in Philoponus’ philosophical work. Both Gudeman and Ilvrard, however, pose the problem wrongly in terms of ‘religious conviction’ only. If Philoponus did not develop a Christian philosophy in his first philosophical period, that does not show that he must have been a pagan at that time. And if he was born a Christian, that does not establish that his philosophy must always have been Christian in character. Philosophy is one thing, religion another. In my opinion, the problem should first be posed on the purely philosophical level: what does the author say? Only afterwards can one try to ‘project’ the results of the philosophical analysis onto the levels of biography and psychology. This is the method I employ. To start with, I shall outline very briefly the main characteristics of the philosophical systems of ‘Philoponus 1’ and ‘Philoponus 2’, as I shall call them. Then I shall try to piece together something of what can reasonably be said about Philoponus’ biography. Thirdly, I shall propose the first sketch of a new solution to the problem of the chronology of the author’s Aristotelian commentaries. I shall finish with some remarks on the development of Philoponus 2. [introduction p. 236] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/d1kiVpaSlWKa7uY |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"449","_score":null,"_source":{"id":449,"authors_free":[{"id":601,"entry_id":449,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":347,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Verrycken, Koenraad","free_first_name":"Koenraad","free_last_name":"Verrycken","norm_person":{"id":347,"first_name":"Koenraad","last_name":"Verrycken","full_name":"Verrycken, Koenraad","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1048689964","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":602,"entry_id":449,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The development of Philoponus\u2019 thought and its chronology","main_title":{"title":"The development of Philoponus\u2019 thought and its chronology"},"abstract":"The position I should like to defend is to some extent intermediate between that of Gudeman and that of Ilvrard. I think Ilvrard is right in rejecting the hypothesis of Philoponus' conversion. But I also think Gudeman was right in assuming\u2014more or less conjecturally\u2014a duality in Philoponus\u2019 philosophical work. Both Gudeman and Ilvrard, however, pose the problem wrongly in terms of \u2018religious conviction\u2019 only. If Philoponus did not develop a Christian philosophy in his first philosophical period, that does not show that he must have been a pagan at that time. And if he was born a Christian, that does not establish that his philosophy must always have been Christian in character. Philosophy is one thing, religion another.\r\n\r\nIn my opinion, the problem should first be posed on the purely philosophical level: what does the author say? Only afterwards can one try to \u2018project\u2019 the results of the philosophical analysis onto the levels of biography and psychology. This is the method I employ.\r\n\r\nTo start with, I shall outline very briefly the main characteristics of the philosophical systems of \u2018Philoponus 1\u2019 and \u2018Philoponus 2\u2019, as I shall call them. Then I shall try to piece together something of what can reasonably be said about Philoponus\u2019 biography. Thirdly, I shall propose the first sketch of a new solution to the problem of the chronology of the author\u2019s Aristotelian commentaries. I shall finish with some remarks on the development of Philoponus 2. [introduction p. 236]","btype":2,"date":"1990","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/d1kiVpaSlWKa7uY","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":347,"full_name":"Verrycken, Koenraad","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":449,"section_of":1453,"pages":"233-274","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1453,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1990","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"This book brings together twenty articles giving a comprehensive view of the work of the Aristotelian commentators. First published in 1990, the collection is now brought up to date with a new introduction by Richard Sorabji. New generations of scholars will benefit from this reissuing of classic essays, including seminal works by major scholars, and the volume gives a comprehensive background to the work of the project on the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which has published over 100 volumes of translations since 1987 and has disseminated these crucial texts to scholars worldwide.\r\n\r\nThe importance of the commentators is partly that they represent the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools and partly that they provide a panorama of a thousand years of ancient Greek philosophy, revealing many original quotations from lost works. Even more significant is the profound influence - uncovered in some of the chapters of this book - that they exert on later philosophy, Islamic and Western. Not only did they preserve anti-Aristotelian material which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they present Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/M8lXuAdHpDW8tvu","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1453,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Duckworth","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["The development of Philoponus\u2019 thought and its chronology"]}
| Title | The school of Alexander? |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1990 |
| Published in | Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence |
| Pages | 83-111 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Sharples, Robert W. |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
Alexander of Aphrodisias was appointed by the emperors as a public teacher of Aristotelian philosophy at some time between 198 and 209 AD. As a public teacher, it is likely that he had, in some sense, a school. But trying to establish what happened in that school and how it functioned is comparable to the task we would face if we had to determine what went on in a philosophy department in a modern university based on a selection of books by the professor, a confused collection of his papers, the notes from which he lectured, and the essays of his students, with no obvious indication of which was which. We know a considerable amount about the Neoplatonic schools of the fifth and sixth centuries AD and the study of Aristotle’s writings in them. We know the place they had in the curriculum, the order in which they were read, and we can compare the ways in which different commentators approached the question of the relationship between the works of Aristotle and those of Plato. We can trace relations between teachers and their pupils, and we are sometimes told that a particular text is a pupil’s record of his teacher’s utterances. The very organization of the commentaries sometimes reflects and clarifies the requirements of the teaching context—in the division of a commentary into separate lectures and the placing of a general summary of a section of argument before the discussion of particular points. For the medieval period, too, we have copious information on the organization of teaching and study. With Alexander, matters are very different. We know the names of some of his teachers, and his surviving works provide evidence for his disagreements with them. We also know something of his disagreements with other philosophers of his own generation or the generation before, and we can trace—however controversially—his influence on later thinkers. But we do not know the name of a single one of his immediate pupils, and for all that we can tell, the influence of other writers on him might have been largely, and his influence on other writers entirely, through the medium of writing rather than personal encounter. After all, we are explicitly told that Alexander’s commentaries were among those read in Plotinus’ school. It is, however, in principle unlikely that any thinker in the ancient world would have communicated entirely through the written, rather than the spoken, word. Some of the writings attributed to Alexander are most naturally seen in the context of his teaching activities or debates within his circle. These writings include commentaries on Aristotelian works, treatises or monographs on particular topics such as those On the Soul and On Fate, and numerous short discussions. Three books of these collected discussions are entitled phusikai skholikai aporiai kai luseis—‘School-discussion problems and solutions on nature’; a fourth is titled Problems on Ethics but sub-titled, no doubt in imitation of the preceding three books when it was united with them, skholikai êthikai aporiai kai luseis—‘School-discussion problems and solutions on ethics.’ A further collection was transmitted as the second book of Alexander’s treatise On the Soul and labeled mantissa or ‘makeweight’ by the Berlin editor Bruns. Other texts essentially similar to those in these collections survive in Arabic, though not in Greek, and there is evidence to suggest that there were other collections now lost. The circumstances in which these collections were put together are unclear; it was not always expertly done, and while some of the titles attached to particular pieces seem to preserve valuable additional information, others are inept or unhelpful. Nor is it clear at what date the collections were assembled. It is not my concern here to provide a full enumeration of the works attributed to Alexander or to classify them in detail. That has been done elsewhere by both myself and others. Rather, I will proceed to a discussion of what the works can tell us about the context in which they arose. It will be helpful to start with a consideration of the relation of Alexander’s works to those of his predecessors, teachers, and contemporaries. [introduction p. 83-85] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/wgzq8ffCF70YlYd |
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But trying to establish what happened in that school and how it functioned is comparable to the task we would face if we had to determine what went on in a philosophy department in a modern university based on a selection of books by the professor, a confused collection of his papers, the notes from which he lectured, and the essays of his students, with no obvious indication of which was which.\r\n\r\nWe know a considerable amount about the Neoplatonic schools of the fifth and sixth centuries AD and the study of Aristotle\u2019s writings in them. We know the place they had in the curriculum, the order in which they were read, and we can compare the ways in which different commentators approached the question of the relationship between the works of Aristotle and those of Plato. We can trace relations between teachers and their pupils, and we are sometimes told that a particular text is a pupil\u2019s record of his teacher\u2019s utterances. The very organization of the commentaries sometimes reflects and clarifies the requirements of the teaching context\u2014in the division of a commentary into separate lectures and the placing of a general summary of a section of argument before the discussion of particular points.\r\n\r\nFor the medieval period, too, we have copious information on the organization of teaching and study.\r\nWith Alexander, matters are very different. We know the names of some of his teachers, and his surviving works provide evidence for his disagreements with them. We also know something of his disagreements with other philosophers of his own generation or the generation before, and we can trace\u2014however controversially\u2014his influence on later thinkers.\r\n\r\nBut we do not know the name of a single one of his immediate pupils, and for all that we can tell, the influence of other writers on him might have been largely, and his influence on other writers entirely, through the medium of writing rather than personal encounter. After all, we are explicitly told that Alexander\u2019s commentaries were among those read in Plotinus\u2019 school.\r\n\r\nIt is, however, in principle unlikely that any thinker in the ancient world would have communicated entirely through the written, rather than the spoken, word. Some of the writings attributed to Alexander are most naturally seen in the context of his teaching activities or debates within his circle.\r\n\r\nThese writings include commentaries on Aristotelian works, treatises or monographs on particular topics such as those On the Soul and On Fate, and numerous short discussions. Three books of these collected discussions are entitled phusikai skholikai aporiai kai luseis\u2014\u2018School-discussion problems and solutions on nature\u2019; a fourth is titled Problems on Ethics but sub-titled, no doubt in imitation of the preceding three books when it was united with them, skholikai \u00eathikai aporiai kai luseis\u2014\u2018School-discussion problems and solutions on ethics.\u2019\r\n\r\nA further collection was transmitted as the second book of Alexander\u2019s treatise On the Soul and labeled mantissa or \u2018makeweight\u2019 by the Berlin editor Bruns. Other texts essentially similar to those in these collections survive in Arabic, though not in Greek, and there is evidence to suggest that there were other collections now lost.\r\n\r\nThe circumstances in which these collections were put together are unclear; it was not always expertly done, and while some of the titles attached to particular pieces seem to preserve valuable additional information, others are inept or unhelpful. Nor is it clear at what date the collections were assembled.\r\n\r\nIt is not my concern here to provide a full enumeration of the works attributed to Alexander or to classify them in detail. That has been done elsewhere by both myself and others. Rather, I will proceed to a discussion of what the works can tell us about the context in which they arose. It will be helpful to start with a consideration of the relation of Alexander\u2019s works to those of his predecessors, teachers, and contemporaries. 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Not only did they preserve anti-Aristotelian material which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they present Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/M8lXuAdHpDW8tvu","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1453,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Duckworth","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["The school of Alexander?"]}
| Title | Themistius: the last Peripatetic commentator on Aristotle? |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1990 |
| Published in | Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence |
| Pages | 113-123 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | Sorabji, Richard |
| Translator(s) |
[B]oth the content of Themistius’ works, and such evidence as we have of the commentators’ attitudes to him, show that he was predominantly a Peripatetic. In this he stood out against the tendencies of his time. His frequently expressed admiration for Plato does not invalidate this conclusion. Themistius may rightly claim to have been the last major figure in antiquity who was a genuine follower of Aristotle. For him, unlike his contemporaries, Plato does not surpass the master of those who know but he, and Socrates, ‘innanzi agli altri piu presso gli stanno’. [Conclusion, p. 123] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/j4M1Faq3An8bJ7v |
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