The Life and Works of Simplicius in Greek and Arabic Sources, 2016
By: Hadot, Ilsetraut, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title The Life and Works of Simplicius in Greek and Arabic Sources
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence
Pages 295-326
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hadot, Ilsetraut
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
Here, therefore, are the conclusions to which one might be led as regards Simplicius’ works. We have extant: the commentaries on Epictetus’ Encheiridion, on Aristotle’s De Caelo, Physics, Categories, and probably on his De Anima. Lost, though attested in a more or less certain fashion: a commentary on the first book of Euclid’s Elements, a commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, a commentary on Iamblichus’ work devoted to the Pythagorean sect, an epitome of Theophrastus’ Physics (if the commentary on the De Anima, where one finds a reference to this work, is authentic), and perhaps a commentary on Hermogenes’ Tekhnê. [conclusion p. 326]

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The Earliest Aristotelian Commentators, 2016
By: Gottschalk, Hans B., Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title The Earliest Aristotelian Commentators
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence
Pages 61-88
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gottschalk, Hans B.
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
In Chapter 3, Hans Gottschalk surveys the commentators on Aristotle from the fi rst century bc to late in the second century ad , and some of their Platonist opponents. He gives the most space to the fi rst of them, Andronicus, persuasively rguing that he worked in Athens without going to Rome, and telling something of Andronicus’ philosophical comments on Aristotle and of his editorial work on Aristotle’s school writings (as opposed to his works then better known, but now largely lost, for publication outside the school). He rightly says that Andronicus presented Aristotle as a system. As I indicated in commenting on Chapter 1 above, his younger contemporary in Athens, Boethus, stimulated enormous reaction from later commentators by his detailed and idiosyncratic interpretation of Aristotle, fragments of which they recorded. So the description ‘scholasticism’, insofar as it suggests to us something rather dry, is not a description we should now be likely to use, especially aft er the recent discovery of new fragments of Boethus. But Aristotle Re-Interpreted will include a contribution on some of Boethus’ achievement and further detail on the commentators aft er him is supplied in other recent works listed above in note 6. Th e only big matter of controversy concerns the two words ‘critical edition’ at the opening of Gottschalk’s chapter, which could be taken for granted in 1990. It was challenged by Jonathan Barnes in 1997. 9 A critical edition is produced by comparing diff erent copies of the original in order to discover more closely what the original may have said. Barnes argued powerfully that this is not what Andronicus did. Indeed, if he did not go to Rome to examine the manuscript there, it is even less likely that he did. One reaction was to think that this greatly reduced the importance of Andronicus. But a contribution in Aristotle Re- Interpreted will take up the other editorial activity including the presentation of Aristotle’s school writings as a system. It was far more valuable, according to this argument, to create a coherent canon of Aristotle’s voluminous school writings, by joining or separating pieces and arranging them in a coherent order for reading, than to seek the original wording in a critical edition. [Sorabji: Introduction to the Second Edition, p. xii]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"535","_score":null,"_source":{"id":535,"authors_free":[{"id":756,"entry_id":535,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":135,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Gottschalk, Hans B.","free_first_name":"Hans B.","free_last_name":"Gottschalk","norm_person":{"id":135,"first_name":"Hans B.","last_name":"Gottschalk","full_name":"Gottschalk, Hans B.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1161498559","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":757,"entry_id":535,"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 Earliest Aristotelian Commentators","main_title":{"title":"The Earliest Aristotelian Commentators"},"abstract":" In Chapter 3, Hans Gottschalk surveys the commentators on Aristotle from the \r\nfi rst century bc to late in the second century ad , and some of their Platonist \r\nopponents. He gives the most space to the fi rst of them, Andronicus, persuasively rguing that he worked in Athens without going to Rome, and telling something \r\nof Andronicus\u2019 philosophical comments on Aristotle and of his editorial work \r\non Aristotle\u2019s school writings (as opposed to his works then better known, but \r\nnow largely lost, for publication outside the school). He rightly says that \r\nAndronicus presented Aristotle as a system. As I indicated in commenting on \r\nChapter 1 above, his younger contemporary in Athens, Boethus, stimulated \r\nenormous reaction from later commentators by his detailed and idiosyncratic \r\ninterpretation of Aristotle, fragments of which they recorded. So the description \r\n\u2018scholasticism\u2019, insofar as it suggests to us something rather dry, is not a \r\ndescription we should now be likely to use, especially aft er the recent discovery \r\nof new fragments of Boethus. But Aristotle Re-Interpreted will include a \r\ncontribution on some of Boethus\u2019 achievement and further detail on the \r\ncommentators aft er him is supplied in other recent works listed above in note 6. \r\nTh e only big matter of controversy concerns the two words \u2018critical edition\u2019 at the \r\nopening of Gottschalk\u2019s chapter, which could be taken for granted in 1990. It was \r\nchallenged by Jonathan Barnes in 1997. 9 A critical edition is produced by \r\ncomparing diff erent copies of the original in order to discover more closely what \r\nthe original may have said. Barnes argued powerfully that this is not what \r\nAndronicus did. Indeed, if he did not go to Rome to examine the manuscript \r\nthere, it is even less likely that he did. One reaction was to think that this greatly \r\nreduced the importance of Andronicus. But a contribution in Aristotle Re-\r\nInterpreted will take up the other editorial activity including the presentation of \r\nAristotle\u2019s school writings as a system. It was far more valuable, according to this \r\nargument, to create a coherent canon of Aristotle\u2019s voluminous school writings, \r\nby joining or separating pieces and arranging them in a coherent order for \r\nreading, than to seek the original wording in a critical edition. [Sorabji: Introduction to the Second Edition, p. xii]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/nJ4WSAlewntt7lZ","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":135,"full_name":"Gottschalk, Hans B.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":535,"section_of":200,"pages":"61-88","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":200,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabji1990","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1990","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1990","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]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/b7EaNXJNckqKKqB","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":200,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"2","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2016]}

John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book of Aristotle’s De Anima, Wrongly Attributed to Stephanus, 2016
By: Golitsis, Pantelis, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book of Aristotle’s De Anima, Wrongly Attributed to Stephanus
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 393-412
Categories no categories
Author(s) Golitsis, Pantelis
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
Philoponus’ denial of the existence of unformed matter in his Contra Proclum, composed in 529, allows us to date the commentary on DA 3 before the Contra Proclum, since the existence of unformed matter is accepted in the former work. To conclude: we should discard Stephanus as a possible author of in DA 3, which is an attribution depending on a Byzantine addition to a manuscript with no title, and reassign this commentary to Philoponus on the grounds of self-reference, exegetical attitude, and general style. This commentary, possibly through the initiative of a pupil who recorded it, replaced Ammonius’ commentary on Book 3, as previously published by Philoponus, thus allowing two different editions to reach Byzantium: Philoponus’ edition of Ammonius’ lectures and the composite edition in which Ammonius’ lectures on Book 3 were replaced by those of Philoponus. The second edition was the one copied by D1, whereas D3 had access only to the first edition. [conclusion p. 412]

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This commentary, possibly through the initiative of a pupil who recorded it, replaced Ammonius\u2019 commentary on Book 3, as previously published by Philoponus, thus allowing two different editions to reach Byzantium: Philoponus\u2019 edition of Ammonius\u2019 lectures and the composite edition in which Ammonius\u2019 lectures on Book 3 were replaced by those of Philoponus. The second edition was the one copied by D1, whereas D3 had access only to the first edition. [conclusion p. 412]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/QH2oMIgPb9H8EAI","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":129,"full_name":"Golitsis, Pantelis","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1418,"section_of":1419,"pages":"393-412","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2016","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"This volume presents collected essays \u2013 some brand new, some republished, and others newly translated \u2013 on the ancient commentators on Aristotle and showcases the leading research of the last three decades. Through the work and scholarship inspired by Richard Sorabji in his series of translations of the commentators started in the 1980s, these ancient texts have become a key field within ancient philosophy. Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/thdAvlIvWl4EdKB","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2016]}

Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators, 2016
By: Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Type Edited Book
Language English
Date 2016
Publication Place New York
Publisher Bloomsbury Academic
Categories no categories
Author(s)
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
This volume presents collected essays – some brand new, some republished, and others newly translated – on the ancient commentators on Aristotle and showcases the leading research of the last three decades. Through the work and scholarship inspired by Richard Sorabji in his series of translations of the commentators started in the 1980s, these ancient texts have become a key field within ancient philosophy. Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as ‘a scholarly marvel’, ‘a truly breath-taking achievement’ and ‘one of the great scholarly achievements of our time’ and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field. With a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]

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Simplicius’ Corollary on Place: Method of Philosophising and Doctrines, 2016
By: Hoffmann, Philippe, Golitsis, Pantelis, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Simplicius’ Corollary on Place: Method of Philosophising and Doctrines
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 531–540
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hoffmann, Philippe , Golitsis, Pantelis
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
Simplicius’ Corollary on Place (Corollarium de loco) is not a doxographic text but a strictly Neoplatonic philosophical work, with its own philosophical method. It takes the form of a digression interrupting the continuity of Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (itself a written work intended for readers, hoi entugkhanontes, hoi enteuxomenoi), and its literary genre is that of a monograph treatise using dialectic and exegesis as its principal methods. The dialectical method consists in discussing the opinions of Simplicius’ predecessors, ancient and modern, mainly Aristotle and Proclus, to pave the way for the exposition of the truth, following the method inaugurated by Aristotle in the Topics and still very much alive. It also proceeds by puzzles and solutions (aporiai kai luseis). Th e exegetic method reappears even within a digression which breaks with the continuous commentary and Simplicius devotes sometimes long passages to quoting and commenting on texts from Aristotle, Theophrastus, Proclus, and Damascius, but also from the Chaldaean Oracles, Iamblichus, or Syrianus. Throughout this piece Simplicius maintains complete control over his material which includes the art of rhetoric, dialectical technique, and his philosophic intention. In it, he replaces the Aristotelian defi nition of place (‘the first unmoved boundary of the surrounding body’ (to tou periekhontos peras akinêton prôton), Phys . 4.4, 212a20–1) with a new defi nition taken from his master Damascius (place is the measure of the intrinsic positioning (metron tês theseôs) of the parts of a body, and of its right position in a greater surrounding whole), and he departs from Aristotle’s thought with a radical innovation which progressively works its way in. [introduction p. 531-532]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1508","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1508,"authors_free":[{"id":2619,"entry_id":1508,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"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":2620,"entry_id":1508,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":129,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Golitsis, Pantelis","free_first_name":"Pantelis","free_last_name":"Golitsis","norm_person":{"id":129,"first_name":"Pantelis","last_name":"Golitsis","full_name":"Golitsis, Pantelis","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2621,"entry_id":1508,"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\u2019 Corollary on Place: Method of Philosophising and Doctrines","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius\u2019 Corollary on Place: Method of Philosophising and Doctrines"},"abstract":"Simplicius\u2019 Corollary on Place (Corollarium de loco) is not a doxographic text but a strictly Neoplatonic philosophical work, with its own philosophical method. It takes the form of a digression interrupting the continuity of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics (itself a written work intended for readers, hoi entugkhanontes, hoi enteuxomenoi), and its literary genre is that of a monograph treatise using dialectic and exegesis as its principal methods. The dialectical method consists in discussing the opinions of Simplicius\u2019 predecessors, ancient and modern, mainly Aristotle and Proclus, to pave the way for the exposition of the truth, following the method inaugurated by Aristotle in the Topics and still very much alive. It also proceeds by puzzles and solutions (aporiai kai luseis). Th e exegetic method reappears even within a digression which breaks with the continuous commentary and Simplicius devotes sometimes long passages to quoting and commenting on texts from Aristotle, Theophrastus, Proclus, and Damascius, but also from the Chaldaean Oracles, Iamblichus, or Syrianus. Throughout this piece Simplicius maintains complete control over his material which includes the art of rhetoric, dialectical technique, and his philosophic intention. In it, he replaces the Aristotelian defi nition of place (\u2018the first unmoved boundary of the surrounding body\u2019 (to tou periekhontos peras akin\u00eaton pr\u00f4ton), Phys . 4.4, 212a20\u20131) with a new defi nition taken from his master Damascius (place is the measure of the intrinsic positioning (metron t\u00eas these\u00f4s) of the parts of a body, and of its right position in a greater surrounding whole), and he departs from Aristotle\u2019s thought with a radical innovation which progressively works its way in. [introduction p. 531-532]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/nyFqYhK3Z7baSF2","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":138,"full_name":"Hoffmann, Philippe ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":129,"full_name":"Golitsis, Pantelis","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1508,"section_of":1419,"pages":"531\u2013540","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabji2016","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2016","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"This volume presents collected essays \u2013 some brand new, some republished, and others newly translated \u2013 on the ancient commentators on Aristotle and showcases the leading research of the last three decades. Through the work and scholarship inspired by Richard Sorabji in his series of translations of the commentators started in the 1980s, these ancient texts have become a key field within ancient philosophy. Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2016]}

Dating of Philoponus’ Commentaries on Aristotle and of his Divergence from his Teacher Ammonius, 2016
By: Sorabji, Richard, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Dating of Philoponus’ Commentaries on Aristotle and of his Divergence from his Teacher Ammonius
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 367-392
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sorabji, Richard
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
There have been two major hypotheses since 1990, and much valuable discussion concerning the dating of Philoponus’ commentaries on Aristotle and of his divergence from Ammonius. In 1990, Koenraad Verrycken summarized in Aristotle Transformed his new datings for Philoponus’ work, drawing on apparent contradictions in his statements about the eternity or coming-into-being of the universe and its contents, about the nature of place, and about the possibility of vacuum and of motion in a vacuum. His earlier dissertation of 1985 also included Philoponus’ changing treatment of Aristotle’s prime matter. He suggested solving these problems by postulating a phase around 517 CE in which Philoponus accepted his teacher Ammonius’ Neoplatonism and interpretation of Aristotle as agreeing with Plato and with Neoplatonism, and a later phase in which he reverted to his Christian origins on the level of doctrine and repudiated the Neoplatonist and Aristotelian ideas, especially where, as with eternity or the Creation of the universe, they contradicted Christian ideas. This called for a second edition of some earlier commentaries on Aristotle after 529 CE. Verrycken was aware that his particular dating might not be accepted, and even that the appearance of a Neoplatonist or Aristotelian view might sometimes be due to the expository nature of commentary on Aristotle. This and other explanations have since been proffered, and the particular dating has received widespread criticism, which I have summarized elsewhere. Nonetheless, even if Philoponus does not juxtapose as often as suggested different viewpoints of his own, Verrycken’s citations establish that he does develop different viewpoints across a wide range of texts and topics, so that it remains necessary to consider his evidence in formulating any alternative dating. The second major hypothesis was offered in 2008 by Pantelis Golitsis, who exploited an underused source of evidence that bears on several questions. He has also been kind enough to discuss at two workshops his further work in preparation. I shall, however, refer to his 2008 publication, except where explicitly stated. Philoponus’ seven commentaries on Aristotle are divided into books, and four commentaries are, or at least some books in four commentaries are, described in their titles as being Philoponus’ commentarial (skholastikai) notes (aposêmeiôseis) from the meetings (sunousiai), i.e., seminar sessions, of Ammonius (his teacher), with Philoponus’ name or other designation coming first. The four are in An. Pr., in An. Post., in DA, and in GC. The last three of these four are described as containing further (critical) reflections (more below on the meaning of epistaseis) of his own (idiôn) by Philoponus. The remaining three of Philoponus’ commentaries on Aristotle are not ascribed to the seminars of Ammonius. Philoponus also refers twice to a commentary, now lost, on Porphyry’s Introduction (Isagôgê), his introduction that is, on one interpretation, to Aristotle’s logic. All this could have several important implications. First, although the titles of his commentaries were written in by successive scribes, Golitsis has sought out the best manuscripts and has taken them to represent Philoponus’ own description, and from this he has inferred quite a precise timetable for Philoponus’ commentaries on Aristotle. The commentaries whose book titles refer to Ammonius’ seminars were written first and commissioned as editions of Ammonius’ lectures as they were delivered in the order of the standard curriculum between 510 and 515. Philoponus’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, which contains a lecture dated to 517, is not connected in its book titles with Ammonius’ lectures in the modern edition of Vitelli under the general editorship of Diels, and moreover, it contains open disagreement with Ammonius. If that is right, the commentary will reflect courses that Philoponus himself was giving. However, Golitsis allows me to mention that in further work, he will now be taking seriously Trincavelli’s earlier alternative reading of the manuscript title, which does, at the beginning of the commentary on Physics Book One, mention both Ammonius’ seminars and Philoponus’ (critical) reflections, and he will be explaining the transformative consequences. Philoponus’ editions of Ammonius’ lectures will have included, again, Golitsis suggests, in the order of the standard curriculum: on Porphyry’s Isagôgê, and on Aristotle’s Categories, then on the eighth book of his Physics, which precedes the lecture of 517 on the Physics, whether or not the series includes more on the Physics. So far, Golitsis’ conclusion rightly observes the standard view that most commentaries on Aristotle reflect teaching classes. But, by way of exception, the commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorology is not connected by any titles to Ammonius, and Golitsis argues it does not appear to reflect teaching either, so was written after Philoponus had stopped teaching courses on Aristotle. The task now, as I see it, is to consider how far the new considerations about titles, combined with many others, including some highlighted by Verrycken, can enable us to confirm or disconfirm the details of dating and divergence and provide a modified picture. [introduction p. 367-369]

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In 1990, Koenraad Verrycken summarized in Aristotle Transformed his new datings for Philoponus\u2019 work, drawing on apparent contradictions in his statements about the eternity or coming-into-being of the universe and its contents, about the nature of place, and about the possibility of vacuum and of motion in a vacuum. His earlier dissertation of 1985 also included Philoponus\u2019 changing treatment of Aristotle\u2019s prime matter. He suggested solving these problems by postulating a phase around 517 CE in which Philoponus accepted his teacher Ammonius\u2019 Neoplatonism and interpretation of Aristotle as agreeing with Plato and with Neoplatonism, and a later phase in which he reverted to his Christian origins on the level of doctrine and repudiated the Neoplatonist and Aristotelian ideas, especially where, as with eternity or the Creation of the universe, they contradicted Christian ideas. This called for a second edition of some earlier commentaries on Aristotle after 529 CE. Verrycken was aware that his particular dating might not be accepted, and even that the appearance of a Neoplatonist or Aristotelian view might sometimes be due to the expository nature of commentary on Aristotle. This and other explanations have since been proffered, and the particular dating has received widespread criticism, which I have summarized elsewhere. Nonetheless, even if Philoponus does not juxtapose as often as suggested different viewpoints of his own, Verrycken\u2019s citations establish that he does develop different viewpoints across a wide range of texts and topics, so that it remains necessary to consider his evidence in formulating any alternative dating.\r\n\r\nThe second major hypothesis was offered in 2008 by Pantelis Golitsis, who exploited an underused source of evidence that bears on several questions. He has also been kind enough to discuss at two workshops his further work in preparation. I shall, however, refer to his 2008 publication, except where explicitly stated. Philoponus\u2019 seven commentaries on Aristotle are divided into books, and four commentaries are, or at least some books in four commentaries are, described in their titles as being Philoponus\u2019 commentarial (skholastikai) notes (apos\u00eamei\u00f4seis) from the meetings (sunousiai), i.e., seminar sessions, of Ammonius (his teacher), with Philoponus\u2019 name or other designation coming first. The four are in An. Pr., in An. Post., in DA, and in GC. The last three of these four are described as containing further (critical) reflections (more below on the meaning of epistaseis) of his own (idi\u00f4n) by Philoponus. The remaining three of Philoponus\u2019 commentaries on Aristotle are not ascribed to the seminars of Ammonius. Philoponus also refers twice to a commentary, now lost, on Porphyry\u2019s Introduction (Isag\u00f4g\u00ea), his introduction that is, on one interpretation, to Aristotle\u2019s logic. All this could have several important implications.\r\n\r\nFirst, although the titles of his commentaries were written in by successive scribes, Golitsis has sought out the best manuscripts and has taken them to represent Philoponus\u2019 own description, and from this he has inferred quite a precise timetable for Philoponus\u2019 commentaries on Aristotle. The commentaries whose book titles refer to Ammonius\u2019 seminars were written first and commissioned as editions of Ammonius\u2019 lectures as they were delivered in the order of the standard curriculum between 510 and 515. Philoponus\u2019 commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics, which contains a lecture dated to 517, is not connected in its book titles with Ammonius\u2019 lectures in the modern edition of Vitelli under the general editorship of Diels, and moreover, it contains open disagreement with Ammonius. If that is right, the commentary will reflect courses that Philoponus himself was giving.\r\n\r\nHowever, Golitsis allows me to mention that in further work, he will now be taking seriously Trincavelli\u2019s earlier alternative reading of the manuscript title, which does, at the beginning of the commentary on Physics Book One, mention both Ammonius\u2019 seminars and Philoponus\u2019 (critical) reflections, and he will be explaining the transformative consequences. Philoponus\u2019 editions of Ammonius\u2019 lectures will have included, again, Golitsis suggests, in the order of the standard curriculum: on Porphyry\u2019s Isag\u00f4g\u00ea, and on Aristotle\u2019s Categories, then on the eighth book of his Physics, which precedes the lecture of 517 on the Physics, whether or not the series includes more on the Physics.\r\n\r\nSo far, Golitsis\u2019 conclusion rightly observes the standard view that most commentaries on Aristotle reflect teaching classes. But, by way of exception, the commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Meteorology is not connected by any titles to Ammonius, and Golitsis argues it does not appear to reflect teaching either, so was written after Philoponus had stopped teaching courses on Aristotle. The task now, as I see it, is to consider how far the new considerations about titles, combined with many others, including some highlighted by Verrycken, can enable us to confirm or disconfirm the details of dating and divergence and provide a modified picture. [introduction p. 367-369]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/6Gmj6C363y2Apg8","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":1531,"section_of":1419,"pages":"367-392","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. 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Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2016]}

Smoothing over the Differences: Proclus and Ammonius on Plato’s Cratylus and Aristotle’s De Interpretatione, 2016
By: van den Berg, Robbert Maarten , Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Smoothing over the Differences: Proclus and Ammonius on Plato’s Cratylus and Aristotle’s De Interpretatione
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 353-366
Categories no categories
Author(s) van den Berg, Robbert Maarten
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
Ammonius, the son of Hermeias († between 517 and 526), was not a prolific author, unlike his teacher Proclus (412–485). Whereas the latter wrote up to seven hundred lines a day, the only large work that Ammonius ever wrote was his commentary on Aristotle’s De Interpretatione. Remarkably enough, for someone whose entire reputation rests on his study of Aristotle, he does not claim any credit for its content. His work, he writes at the beginning, is a record of the interpretations of his divine teacher Proclus. If he too is able to add anything to the clarification of the book, he ‘owes a great thanks to the god of eloquence.’ How much did the god of eloquence allow Ammonius to add? No other sources of Proclus’ course on the Int. survive. Yet in one case we are able to study Ammonius’ originality or the lack of it: his discussion of Aristotle’s views on onomata, a group of words that corresponds roughly speaking to our nouns and which I shall refer to as ‘names’ in this paper. One of the major issues in Greek linguistic thought throughout Antiquity was the relation between names and their objects. Does there exist some sort of natural relation between names and their objects, or are names just a matter of convention? Plato had discussed the question in his Cratylus, in which he had made a certain Hermogenes the spokesman of the conventionalist position and the eponymous character Cratylus an adherent of the naturalist position. In the end, Socrates forces both Hermogenes and Cratylus to admit that names are partly by nature and partly by convention, hence that they are both right and wrong. Many scholars, both ancient and modern, believe that in the first chapters of Int. Aristotle responded at least in part to the views expressed in the Cratylus. As it so happens, an excerpt of Proclus’ lecture notes on that Platonic dialogue has survived. A first reading of the two commentaries seems indeed to suggest that there is a substantial overlap between them on the relevant issue, even though Proclus may at times be critical of Aristotle. As we shall see, this apparent correspondence has even inspired an attempt to emend Proclus’ text at one point on the basis of Ammonius’ commentary. In this paper, I will argue that in fact Ammonius’ concept of onoma is significantly different from that of Proclus. As Proclus had observed, but as Ammonius tried to downplay, Aristotle had been arguing against Plato. For Proclus, this did not pose any particular problem. Like all Neoplatonists, Ammonius included, he was convinced that the divinely inspired Plato had to be right. If Aristotle chose to deviate from Plato and the truth, that was his problem. Proclus sets Socrates up as a judge (in Crat. §10, p. 4,12) between the conventionalist Hermogenes and the naturalist Cratylus, a judge who shows that they are both right and wrong. Aristotle is explicitly counted among the partisans of Hermogenes. On the whole, one can say that Proclus is very critical of Aristotle in in Crat. Ammonius, on the other hand, wanted to show that Plato and Aristotle were in complete harmony with each other, even where this is not evident. He too presents Socrates as a mediator between Hermogenes and Cratylus (in Int. 37,1), but this time Aristotle is not grouped together with Hermogenes but presented as being of the same mind as Socrates. As we shall see, Ammonius, when discussing the nature of names, takes his point of departure from Aristotle. Since Aristotle’s idea of what a name is differs from Plato’s, Ammonius will arrive at a concept of name that is fundamentally different from that of Proclus, who takes Plato as his starting point. On the assumption that Proclus, who for the most part appears to be quite consistent throughout his enormous œuvre, did not radically change his views when lecturing on Int., we may thus infer from this that Ammonius was not slavishly following Proclus. This becomes all the more apparent in the case of Ammonius’ interpretation of Cratylus’ position in the dialogue. In order to harmonize Plato with Aristotle, Ammonius offers a rather original, albeit not very convincing, reading of that position. Once we have established the fundamental difference between the two of them, we will be better able to explain a phenomenon to which Richard Sorabji has recently drawn attention: the absence of any interest in divine names in Ammonius’ commentary. Finally, this case study will allow us to make a more general observation about the relation between the Athenian and Alexandrian commentators. [introduction p. 353-355]

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Whereas the latter wrote up to seven hundred lines a day, the only large work that Ammonius ever wrote was his commentary on Aristotle\u2019s De Interpretatione. Remarkably enough, for someone whose entire reputation rests on his study of Aristotle, he does not claim any credit for its content. His work, he writes at the beginning, is a record of the interpretations of his divine teacher Proclus. If he too is able to add anything to the clarification of the book, he \u2018owes a great thanks to the god of eloquence.\u2019\r\n\r\nHow much did the god of eloquence allow Ammonius to add? No other sources of Proclus\u2019 course on the Int. survive. Yet in one case we are able to study Ammonius\u2019 originality or the lack of it: his discussion of Aristotle\u2019s views on onomata, a group of words that corresponds roughly speaking to our nouns and which I shall refer to as \u2018names\u2019 in this paper.\r\n\r\nOne of the major issues in Greek linguistic thought throughout Antiquity was the relation between names and their objects. Does there exist some sort of natural relation between names and their objects, or are names just a matter of convention? Plato had discussed the question in his Cratylus, in which he had made a certain Hermogenes the spokesman of the conventionalist position and the eponymous character Cratylus an adherent of the naturalist position. In the end, Socrates forces both Hermogenes and Cratylus to admit that names are partly by nature and partly by convention, hence that they are both right and wrong. Many scholars, both ancient and modern, believe that in the first chapters of Int. Aristotle responded at least in part to the views expressed in the Cratylus. As it so happens, an excerpt of Proclus\u2019 lecture notes on that Platonic dialogue has survived. A first reading of the two commentaries seems indeed to suggest that there is a substantial overlap between them on the relevant issue, even though Proclus may at times be critical of Aristotle. As we shall see, this apparent correspondence has even inspired an attempt to emend Proclus\u2019 text at one point on the basis of Ammonius\u2019 commentary.\r\n\r\nIn this paper, I will argue that in fact Ammonius\u2019 concept of onoma is significantly different from that of Proclus. As Proclus had observed, but as Ammonius tried to downplay, Aristotle had been arguing against Plato. For Proclus, this did not pose any particular problem. Like all Neoplatonists, Ammonius included, he was convinced that the divinely inspired Plato had to be right. If Aristotle chose to deviate from Plato and the truth, that was his problem. Proclus sets Socrates up as a judge (in Crat. \u00a710, p. 4,12) between the conventionalist Hermogenes and the naturalist Cratylus, a judge who shows that they are both right and wrong. Aristotle is explicitly counted among the partisans of Hermogenes. On the whole, one can say that Proclus is very critical of Aristotle in in Crat.\r\n\r\nAmmonius, on the other hand, wanted to show that Plato and Aristotle were in complete harmony with each other, even where this is not evident. He too presents Socrates as a mediator between Hermogenes and Cratylus (in Int. 37,1), but this time Aristotle is not grouped together with Hermogenes but presented as being of the same mind as Socrates. As we shall see, Ammonius, when discussing the nature of names, takes his point of departure from Aristotle. Since Aristotle\u2019s idea of what a name is differs from Plato\u2019s, Ammonius will arrive at a concept of name that is fundamentally different from that of Proclus, who takes Plato as his starting point. On the assumption that Proclus, who for the most part appears to be quite consistent throughout his enormous \u0153uvre, did not radically change his views when lecturing on Int., we may thus infer from this that Ammonius was not slavishly following Proclus. This becomes all the more apparent in the case of Ammonius\u2019 interpretation of Cratylus\u2019 position in the dialogue. In order to harmonize Plato with Aristotle, Ammonius offers a rather original, albeit not very convincing, reading of that position.\r\n\r\nOnce we have established the fundamental difference between the two of them, we will be better able to explain a phenomenon to which Richard Sorabji has recently drawn attention: the absence of any interest in divine names in Ammonius\u2019 commentary. Finally, this case study will allow us to make a more general observation about the relation between the Athenian and Alexandrian commentators. [introduction p. 353-355]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/U7I3LYIXJL83A4Y","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1532,"section_of":1419,"pages":"353-366","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabji2016","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2016","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"This volume presents collected essays \u2013 some brand new, some republished, and others newly translated \u2013 on the ancient commentators on Aristotle and showcases the leading research of the last three decades. Through the work and scholarship inspired by Richard Sorabji in his series of translations of the commentators started in the 1980s, these ancient texts have become a key field within ancient philosophy. Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2016]}

Mixture in Philoponus: An Encounter with a Third Kind of Potentiality, 2016
By: de Haas, Frans A. J., Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Mixture in Philoponus: An Encounter with a Third Kind of Potentiality
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 413-436
Categories no categories
Author(s) de Haas, Frans A. J.
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
In this study, I have tried to show that Philoponus’ commentary on Aristotle’s account of mixture has to be understood against the background of a discussion between three views of mixture that dominated the Aristotelian tradition as a whole. The starting point was Zabarella’s classification of solutions to the main problem of mixture: how to interpret Aristotle’s claim that the ingredients are preserved in the mixture in potentiality. In a sense, Proclus and Simplicius belong with Avicenna because they accept the preservation of the elements in actuality, along with reduced actuality and interaction in the realm of qualities. However, since they reject Aristotelian mixture and discuss the problem in terms of body vs. qualities rather than forms vs. qualities, they are best regarded as belonging to a different school altogether. Alexander is probably the main source of the influential account of Averroes. Philoponus belongs with the fourth group due to his criticism of Aristotle (or rather Alexander). He accepts the corruption of the ingredients while only their qualities are preserved in reduced actuality. It remains to be seen whether his influence on the medieval authors that subscribe to a similar view can be established. Zabarella’s reports on his sources should be handled with care. His summaries of Alexander are inadequate, his understanding of Philoponus is wrong. He himself claims that his ‘true’ interpretation of Averroes was not followed by any Averroist (see e.g. 465A, 466B), which should give us pause as well. Moreover, I fail to see how he can believe that his complicated interpretation of Averroes can be backed up by his interpretation of Alexander and Philoponus: they seem to represent three quite different doctrines indeed. Although a quick glance at Zabarella’s other medieval sources seems to confirm his classification of them, it cannot be ruled out that closer inspection will yield some surprises, as it did with Philoponus. The details of Zabarella’s own theory of mixture still await further investigation. To conclude on a more general note: in charting the commentary tradition on Aristotle’s work from Late Antiquity through Arabic, Latin Medieval, and Renaissance authors, it is tempting to assume we are dealing with a single line of tradition. However, it is still far from clear which ancient commentaries were available (in Greek or in Arabic, Syrian, or Latin translation) at what date. But even if this can be established, we cannot be sure that a particular commentator actually used his predecessors’ commentaries, even when he refers to them by name: perhaps he merely copied a reference from another commentary. In this way, Zabarella’s mistake may have arisen. More importantly, every commentator who analyzes the problem of the potentiality of the ingredients in a mixture as it is presented in Aristotle’s texts in On Generation and Corruption is faced with a limited number of possible solutions. Every commentator, then, is perfectly capable of re-inventing the wheel. However, the application of the third kind of potentiality in the context of mixture seems to have been invented for the first time by John Philoponus. [conclusion p. 434-435]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1528","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1528,"authors_free":[{"id":2661,"entry_id":1528,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"de Haas, Frans A. J.","free_first_name":"Frans A. J.","free_last_name":"de Haas","norm_person":null},{"id":2662,"entry_id":1528,"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":"Mixture in Philoponus: An Encounter with a Third Kind of Potentiality","main_title":{"title":"Mixture in Philoponus: An Encounter with a Third Kind of Potentiality"},"abstract":"In this study, I have tried to show that Philoponus\u2019 commentary on Aristotle\u2019s account of mixture has to be understood against the background of a discussion between three views of mixture that dominated the Aristotelian tradition as a whole. The starting point was Zabarella\u2019s classification of solutions to the main problem of mixture: how to interpret Aristotle\u2019s claim that the ingredients are preserved in the mixture in potentiality. In a sense, Proclus and Simplicius belong with Avicenna because they accept the preservation of the elements in actuality, along with reduced actuality and interaction in the realm of qualities. However, since they reject Aristotelian mixture and discuss the problem in terms of body vs. qualities rather than forms vs. qualities, they are best regarded as belonging to a different school altogether. Alexander is probably the main source of the influential account of Averroes. Philoponus belongs with the fourth group due to his criticism of Aristotle (or rather Alexander). He accepts the corruption of the ingredients while only their qualities are preserved in reduced actuality. It remains to be seen whether his influence on the medieval authors that subscribe to a similar view can be established.\r\n\r\nZabarella\u2019s reports on his sources should be handled with care. His summaries of Alexander are inadequate, his understanding of Philoponus is wrong. He himself claims that his \u2018true\u2019 interpretation of Averroes was not followed by any Averroist (see e.g. 465A, 466B), which should give us pause as well. Moreover, I fail to see how he can believe that his complicated interpretation of Averroes can be backed up by his interpretation of Alexander and Philoponus: they seem to represent three quite different doctrines indeed. Although a quick glance at Zabarella\u2019s other medieval sources seems to confirm his classification of them, it cannot be ruled out that closer inspection will yield some surprises, as it did with Philoponus. The details of Zabarella\u2019s own theory of mixture still await further investigation.\r\n\r\nTo conclude on a more general note: in charting the commentary tradition on Aristotle\u2019s work from Late Antiquity through Arabic, Latin Medieval, and Renaissance authors, it is tempting to assume we are dealing with a single line of tradition. However, it is still far from clear which ancient commentaries were available (in Greek or in Arabic, Syrian, or Latin translation) at what date. But even if this can be established, we cannot be sure that a particular commentator actually used his predecessors\u2019 commentaries, even when he refers to them by name: perhaps he merely copied a reference from another commentary. In this way, Zabarella\u2019s mistake may have arisen. More importantly, every commentator who analyzes the problem of the potentiality of the ingredients in a mixture as it is presented in Aristotle\u2019s texts in On Generation and Corruption is faced with a limited number of possible solutions. Every commentator, then, is perfectly capable of re-inventing the wheel. However, the application of the third kind of potentiality in the context of mixture seems to have been invented for the first time by John Philoponus.\r\n[conclusion p. 434-435]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/ldUX6hfn5ClzTTs","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1528,"section_of":1419,"pages":"413-436","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. 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Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2016]}

Rediscovered Categories Commentary: Porphyry(?) with Fragments of Boethus, 2016
By: Chiaradonna, Riccardo, Rashed, Marwan, Sedley, David N., Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Rediscovered Categories Commentary: Porphyry(?) with Fragments of Boethus
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 231-262
Categories no categories
Author(s) Chiaradonna, Riccardo , Rashed, Marwan , Sedley, David N.
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
The celebrated Archimedes Palimpsest has turned out to include not only seminal works of Archimedes but also two speeches by Hyperides and—identified as recently as 2005—fourteen pages of an otherwise unknown commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, in a copy written around 900 CE. Even if it contained nothing else, the citations that this last manuscript preserves from named earlier commentators—Andronicus, Boethus, Nicostratus, and Herminus—would be enough to make it an important addition to our knowledge of the Categories tradition. Its new evidence on the first-century BCE Aristotelian Boethus is especially significant. Two of the three citations from him (3,19–22; 14,4–12) probably embody his words more or less verbatim, to judge from the combination of direct speech and peculiarly crabbed language, very unlike the author’s usual style. In addition, the author mentions a group of anonymous commentators already criticized by Boethus, thus giving further unexpected insights into the early reception of Aristotle’s work. But the author’s own contributions are rich and fascinating too. If his date and identity could be established, the new text would make an even greater impact on our present state of understanding. In this article, it will be argued that the new fragment is, to all appearances, a remnant of the most important of all the ancient Categories commentaries, Porphyry’s lost Ad Gedalium. The grounds for such an attribution will be set out in this introduction. There will then follow a translation of the passage, and finally a commentary on the commentary. Our aim is not, in the space of a single article, to settle all the interpretative questions but, on the contrary, to initiate discussion, to develop our proposal regarding authorship, and, above all, to bring the already published text to the attention of interested scholars in the field of ancient philosophy. The commentary consists of seven consecutive folios, recto and verso, each with thirty lines per side and around forty letters per line. For ease of reference, we have renumbered the sides into a simple consecutive run, 1–14. Despite its severely damaged state, it has proved possible to decipher much of the greater part of the text on these fourteen pages. In what follows, we start with a brief description, then turn to the question of authorship. The entire fourteen pages deal, incompletely, with just two consecutive lemmata from the Categories. The passage already under discussion when the text opens is 1a20-b15, a strikingly long lemma, especially given that the same passage is divided into three lemmata by Ammonius and into five by Simplicius. The commentator has by this point already dealt, presumably at some length, with Aristotle’s well-known distinction there between properties that are ‘said of a subject’ and those that are ‘in a subject.’ As the text opens, he is discussing the later part of the lemma, 1b10–15, where Aristotle explains a principle of transitivity according to which when predicate B is said of subject A, and predicate C is said of subject B, then predicate C is said of subject A. Various aspects of this theorem, and problems arising from it, occupy the commentator from 1,1 to 7,8. But he then returns (7,8–9,30) to the opening part of the main lemma, its fourfold division of predicates (1a20-b9), which he presents as applying a neglected Aristotelian method of division, one that can also, as he proceeds to illustrate, be used effectively in the doxographical mapping out of philosophical theories. At 9,30–10,12, we encounter the transition to a new lemma, Categories 1b16–24, where Aristotle explains his thesis that any two different genera, such as animal and knowledge, which are not subordinated one to the other, will normally be divided by two specifically (tôi eidei) different sets of differentiae. The commentator takes the opportunity here to explain the basic vocabulary of genus, species, and differentia, as befits the opening pages of a work that was itself placed first in the Aristotelian corpus. Otherwise, his discussion, as for the preceding lemma, is largely taken up with the resolution of the exegetical problems raised by his predecessors. The Categories was the earliest Aristotelian treatise to attract commentaries and critiques from the first century BCE onwards. The numerous exegetes, of whose work only a small proportion has survived, included not only Aristotelians but also Platonists, Stoics, and others of uncertain philosophical allegiance. The surviving commentaries are in fact all the work of Neoplatonists, starting with the short question-and-answer commentary by Porphyry (third century CE), but they contain plentiful reports of the views of earlier commentators and critics. Since our commentary repeatedly cites previous commentators from the first century BCE to the second century CE but none later than that, we can be confident that it was written in the Roman imperial era, not earlier than the time of Alexander of Aphrodisias (c. 200), whose teacher Herminus is the latest commentator cited, and probably not very much later either. This enables us to set about searching for its author’s identity systematically, since we are fortunate, in the case of this particular Aristotelian treatise, to have from Simplicius (in Cat. 1,9–2,29 Kalbfleisch) a detailed survey of the commentary tradition down to the beginning of the sixth century. [introduction p. 231-233]

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There will then follow a translation of the passage, and finally a commentary on the commentary. Our aim is not, in the space of a single article, to settle all the interpretative questions but, on the contrary, to initiate discussion, to develop our proposal regarding authorship, and, above all, to bring the already published text to the attention of interested scholars in the field of ancient philosophy.\r\n\r\nThe commentary consists of seven consecutive folios, recto and verso, each with thirty lines per side and around forty letters per line. For ease of reference, we have renumbered the sides into a simple consecutive run, 1\u201314.\r\n\r\nDespite its severely damaged state, it has proved possible to decipher much of the greater part of the text on these fourteen pages. In what follows, we start with a brief description, then turn to the question of authorship.\r\n\r\nThe entire fourteen pages deal, incompletely, with just two consecutive lemmata from the Categories. The passage already under discussion when the text opens is 1a20-b15, a strikingly long lemma, especially given that the same passage is divided into three lemmata by Ammonius and into five by Simplicius. The commentator has by this point already dealt, presumably at some length, with Aristotle\u2019s well-known distinction there between properties that are \u2018said of a subject\u2019 and those that are \u2018in a subject.\u2019 As the text opens, he is discussing the later part of the lemma, 1b10\u201315, where Aristotle explains a principle of transitivity according to which when predicate B is said of subject A, and predicate C is said of subject B, then predicate C is said of subject A. Various aspects of this theorem, and problems arising from it, occupy the commentator from 1,1 to 7,8. But he then returns (7,8\u20139,30) to the opening part of the main lemma, its fourfold division of predicates (1a20-b9), which he presents as applying a neglected Aristotelian method of division, one that can also, as he proceeds to illustrate, be used effectively in the doxographical mapping out of philosophical theories.\r\n\r\nAt 9,30\u201310,12, we encounter the transition to a new lemma, Categories 1b16\u201324, where Aristotle explains his thesis that any two different genera, such as animal and knowledge, which are not subordinated one to the other, will normally be divided by two specifically (t\u00f4i eidei) different sets of differentiae. The commentator takes the opportunity here to explain the basic vocabulary of genus, species, and differentia, as befits the opening pages of a work that was itself placed first in the Aristotelian corpus. Otherwise, his discussion, as for the preceding lemma, is largely taken up with the resolution of the exegetical problems raised by his predecessors.\r\n\r\nThe Categories was the earliest Aristotelian treatise to attract commentaries and critiques from the first century BCE onwards. The numerous exegetes, of whose work only a small proportion has survived, included not only Aristotelians but also Platonists, Stoics, and others of uncertain philosophical allegiance. The surviving commentaries are in fact all the work of Neoplatonists, starting with the short question-and-answer commentary by Porphyry (third century CE), but they contain plentiful reports of the views of earlier commentators and critics.\r\n\r\nSince our commentary repeatedly cites previous commentators from the first century BCE to the second century CE but none later than that, we can be confident that it was written in the Roman imperial era, not earlier than the time of Alexander of Aphrodisias (c. 200), whose teacher Herminus is the latest commentator cited, and probably not very much later either. This enables us to set about searching for its author\u2019s identity systematically, since we are fortunate, in the case of this particular Aristotelian treatise, to have from Simplicius (in Cat. 1,9\u20132,29 Kalbfleisch) a detailed survey of the commentary tradition down to the beginning of the sixth century.\r\n[introduction p. 231-233]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/boTHRcfBsw3NuBU","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":49,"full_name":"Chiaradonna, Riccardo ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":194,"full_name":"Rashed, Marwan","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":298,"full_name":"Sedley, David N.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1535,"section_of":1419,"pages":"231-262","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. 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Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2016]}

Iamblichus’ Noera Theôria of Aristotle’s Categories, 2016
By: Dillon, John, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Iamblichus’ Noera Theôria of Aristotle’s Categories
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 313-326
Categories no categories
Author(s) Dillon, John
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
It will be seen that it is Iamblichus’ purpose to salvage Aristotle, reconciling him both with his perceived doctrine elsewhere (as, for example, in the Metaphysics and the Physics), and with that of Plato and the Pythagoreans. The aim is to establish a metaphysical framework for the interpretation of the Categories, revealing the hidden levels of truth inherent in it. This is achieved, of course, at the cost of ignoring what seems to us the essentially anti-metaphysical, as well as tentative and exploratory, nature of the Categories, but it would be somewhat anachronistic to condemn Iamblichus too severely for that. The text of the Categories had been a battleground for at least three hundred years before his time, from the period of Andronicus, Ariston, and Eudorus of Alexandria, and the Stoic Apollodorus of Tarsus in the first century BCE, through that of the Platonists Lucius and Nicostratus, and then Atticus, and the Stoic Cornutus, and lastly Alexander of Aphrodisias in the first and second centuries CE, down to Plotinus and Porphyry in his own day, with every phrase and word of the text liable to challenge and requiring defense. Iamblichus’ distinctive contribution is to take the Categories as a coherent description of reality in the Neoplatonic sense, and that, bizarre as it may seem to us, is not really all that more perverse than many of the various ways in which the work had been treated in the centuries before him. [conclusion p. 324-325]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1533","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1533,"authors_free":[{"id":2671,"entry_id":1533,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":97,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Dillon, John","free_first_name":"","free_last_name":"","norm_person":{"id":97,"first_name":"John","last_name":"Dillon","full_name":"Dillon, John","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/123498058","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2672,"entry_id":1533,"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":"","free_last_name":"","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":"Iamblichus\u2019 Noera The\u00f4ria of Aristotle\u2019s Categories","main_title":{"title":"Iamblichus\u2019 Noera The\u00f4ria of Aristotle\u2019s Categories"},"abstract":"It will be seen that it is Iamblichus\u2019 purpose to salvage Aristotle, reconciling him both with his perceived doctrine elsewhere (as, for example, in the Metaphysics and the Physics), and with that of Plato and the Pythagoreans. The aim is to establish a metaphysical framework for the interpretation of the Categories, revealing the hidden levels of truth inherent in it. This is achieved, of course, at the cost of ignoring what seems to us the essentially anti-metaphysical, as well as tentative and exploratory, nature of the Categories, but it would be somewhat anachronistic to condemn Iamblichus too severely for that. The text of the Categories had been a battleground for at least three hundred years before his time, from the period of Andronicus, Ariston, and Eudorus of Alexandria, and the Stoic Apollodorus of Tarsus in the first century BCE, through that of the Platonists Lucius and Nicostratus, and then Atticus, and the Stoic Cornutus, and lastly Alexander of Aphrodisias in the first and second centuries CE, down to Plotinus and Porphyry in his own day, with every phrase and word of the text liable to challenge and requiring defense. Iamblichus\u2019 distinctive contribution is to take the Categories as a coherent description of reality in the Neoplatonic sense, and that, bizarre as it may seem to us, is not really all that more perverse than many of the various ways in which the work had been treated in the centuries before him. [conclusion p. 324-325]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/d9iiR3Sr5aRY9S7","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":97,"full_name":"Dillon, John","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1533,"section_of":1419,"pages":"313-326","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. 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Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2016]}

Boethus’ Aristotelian Ontology, 2016
By: Rashed, Marwan, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Boethus’ Aristotelian Ontology
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 103-124
Categories no categories
Author(s) Rashed, Marwan
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
Boethus is surely one of the most important thinkers of the first century BCE. Though only a few testimonies, and no clear fragment, remain, their number and content are sufficient to show how insightful he was in commenting upon Aristotle. It is not just that he was typical of this first generation of commentators who have struck modern historians by their free spirit towards Aristotle’s text. Boethus’ fragments on substance testify to more than a free attitude towards the Philosopher: it is also possible to recognize, through the many layers of the tradition—Alexander, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Simplicius—a coherent and unitary doctrine. His doctrine, of course, is not un-Aristotelian; it does not even stand somewhere halfway between Aristotle and other thinkers of Antiquity, the Stoics in particular (even if it is obviously inspired by a general Stoic atmosphere). Boethus has consciously built, out of some rare Aristotelian indications, a certain kind of Aristotelianism among other possible ones. This doctrinal approach is probably both the cause and the effect of a cultural fact: the Peripatos’ nearly exclusive focus, in the first century BCE, on the Categories. For sure, the treatise of the Categories, by itself, does not necessarily produce a definite account of the world. But by contrast with what is the case with other parts of the Aristotelian corpus, its basic ontological features seem naturally at home in the framework of a doctrine holding the primacy of the individual material substance. [introduction p. 103-104]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1536","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1536,"authors_free":[{"id":2679,"entry_id":1536,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":194,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Rashed, Marwan","free_first_name":"","free_last_name":"","norm_person":{"id":194,"first_name":"Marwan","last_name":"Rashed","full_name":"Rashed, Marwan","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1054568634","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2680,"entry_id":1536,"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":"","free_last_name":"","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":"Boethus\u2019 Aristotelian Ontology","main_title":{"title":"Boethus\u2019 Aristotelian Ontology"},"abstract":"Boethus is surely one of the most important thinkers of the first century BCE. Though only a few testimonies, and no clear fragment, remain, their number and content are sufficient to show how insightful he was in commenting upon Aristotle. It is not just that he was typical of this first generation of commentators who have struck modern historians by their free spirit towards Aristotle\u2019s text. Boethus\u2019 fragments on substance testify to more than a free attitude towards the Philosopher: it is also possible to recognize, through the many layers of the tradition\u2014Alexander, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Simplicius\u2014a coherent and unitary doctrine.\r\n\r\nHis doctrine, of course, is not un-Aristotelian; it does not even stand somewhere halfway between Aristotle and other thinkers of Antiquity, the Stoics in particular (even if it is obviously inspired by a general Stoic atmosphere). Boethus has consciously built, out of some rare Aristotelian indications, a certain kind of Aristotelianism among other possible ones. This doctrinal approach is probably both the cause and the effect of a cultural fact: the Peripatos\u2019 nearly exclusive focus, in the first century BCE, on the Categories.\r\n\r\nFor sure, the treatise of the Categories, by itself, does not necessarily produce a definite account of the world. But by contrast with what is the case with other parts of the Aristotelian corpus, its basic ontological features seem naturally at home in the framework of a doctrine holding the primacy of the individual material substance.\r\n[introduction p. 103-104]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/xYH889DSksf6EXe","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":194,"full_name":"Rashed, Marwan","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1536,"section_of":1419,"pages":"103-124","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. 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Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2016]}

The Texts of Plato and Aristotle in the First Century BCE: Andronicus’ Canon, 2016
By: Hatzimichali, Myrto, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title The Texts of Plato and Aristotle in the First Century BCE: Andronicus’ Canon
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 81-102
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hatzimichali, Myrto
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
If we recall at this point the information gathered on the state of Plato’s text in the first century BCE, we can see that by comparison the study of Aristotle’s text was indeed revolutionized. In the case of the Aristotelian corpus, our sources tell a story of true peripeteia, with the appearance of new texts or at least new copies with special claims of antiquity and pedigree, and with the standardization and ordering of the canon in Andronicus’ Pinakes. A scrutiny of our sources has shown that it was the processes of cataloging, canon formation, and corpus organization that had the greatest impact on the texts we now read, and not the appearance of new ‘editions’ and text-critical initiatives. If this appears counterintuitive, we should remember that judgments about the importance or otherwise of ancient editorial activity can be misleading if they are too dependent on modern experiences and expectations. [conclusion p. 102]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1537","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1537,"authors_free":[{"id":2681,"entry_id":1537,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Hatzimichali, Myrto","free_first_name":"Myrto","free_last_name":"Hatzimichali","norm_person":null},{"id":2682,"entry_id":1537,"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":"","free_last_name":"","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 Texts of Plato and Aristotle in the First Century BCE: Andronicus\u2019 Canon","main_title":{"title":"The Texts of Plato and Aristotle in the First Century BCE: Andronicus\u2019 Canon"},"abstract":"If we recall at this point the information gathered on the state of Plato\u2019s text in the first century BCE, we can see that by comparison the study of Aristotle\u2019s text was indeed revolutionized. In the case of the Aristotelian corpus, our sources tell a story of true peripeteia, with the appearance of new texts or at least new copies with special claims of antiquity and pedigree, and with the standardization and ordering of the canon in Andronicus\u2019 Pinakes.\r\n\r\nA scrutiny of our sources has shown that it was the processes of cataloging, canon formation, and corpus organization that had the greatest impact on the texts we now read, and not the appearance of new \u2018editions\u2019 and text-critical initiatives. If this appears counterintuitive, we should remember that judgments about the importance or otherwise of ancient editorial activity can be misleading if they are too dependent on modern experiences and expectations. [conclusion p. 102]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/hzJ6JONomuuLaQX","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1537,"section_of":1419,"pages":"81-102","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabji2016","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2016","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"This volume presents collected essays \u2013 some brand new, some republished, and others newly translated \u2013 on the ancient commentators on Aristotle and showcases the leading research of the last three decades. Through the work and scholarship inspired by Richard Sorabji in his series of translations of the commentators started in the 1980s, these ancient texts have become a key field within ancient philosophy. Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2016]}

Introduction to the Second Edition: New findings on Philoponus, 2010
By: Sorabji, Richard
Title Introduction to the Second Edition: New findings on Philoponus
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2010
Published in Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition
Pages 1-40
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sorabji, Richard
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Since 1987, when the first edition of this book appeared, there have been new findings both about Philoponus' thought and about his milieu. In this Introduction to the second edition, I will start with the milieu. There has been a major archaeological discovery, nothing less than the lecture rooms of the Alexandrian school. It was announced in 2004 that the Polish archaeological team under Grzegorz Majcherek had identified the lecture rooms of the 6th-century Alexandrian school, surprisingly well preserved. Although the first few rooms had been excavated 25 years earlier, the identification had become possible only now. By 2008, 20 rooms had been excavated. 20 is the number of rooms reported by a 12th-century source writing in Arabic, Abd el-Latif, but there may be more. [introduction p. 1]

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Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition, 2010
By: Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition
Type Edited Book
Language English
Date 2010
Publication Place London
Publisher Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
Series BICS Supplement
Volume 103
Edition No. 2
Categories no categories
Author(s)
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
Richard Sorabji is the editor of a vast and growing number of translations of ancient commentaries on Aristotle and the editor of several excellent collections of studies on the Aristotelian tradition. Philoponus, a 6th century Christian thinker who was originally trained as a Neoplatonist, is best remembered today for his attack on Aristotle's 'physics'; his influence on later philosophers and scientists and his role in the reevaluation of Aristotelian science and natural philosophy are indeed remarkable. The second edition of Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science includes a new two-part introduction which offers a survey of the rapidly expanding scholarship on Philoponus and of recent archeological discoveries (such as the lecture rooms of the 6th century Alexandrian school), as well as new insights into the interaction between Greek paganism and Christianity in connection with Philoponus and his milieu. The twelve chapters included in this collection are written by very prominent scholars and tackle topics such as Philoponus' corollaries on space and time, the differences between his theological views (e.g. on the three hypostases) and the prevailing dogmas of the time, the relation between his theory about impetus and later treatments of impetus and related concepts in a number of Arab thinkers and in Galileo. This collection is one of the most reliable and wide-ranging introductions to Philoponus' views and influence, and those interested in late ancient philosophy and its interactions with Christian thought will find this to be a most valuable resource. [Review by Tiberiu Popa]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"184","_score":null,"_source":{"id":184,"authors_free":[{"id":1830,"entry_id":184,"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":"Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition","main_title":{"title":"Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition"},"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]","btype":4,"date":"2010","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/CJSIbOOK7lIAB00","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"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},"booksection":null,"article":null},"sort":[2010]}

The Transformation of Plato and Aristotle, 2006
By: Sorabji, Richard, Tarrant, Harold (Ed.), Baltzly, Dirk (Ed.)
Title The Transformation of Plato and Aristotle
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2006
Published in Reading Plato in antiquity
Pages 185-193
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sorabji, Richard
Editor(s) Tarrant, Harold , Baltzly, Dirk
Translator(s)
In Neoplatonism, though not in Aristotelianism, Plato and Aristotle are transformed in a variety of different ways. The transformation is partly driven by a wish to harmonize Plato and Aristotle, but only partly. There is less effort to harmonize the two in some commentators than in others, and on some issues, as we shall see, there is less harmonization among our commentators than there was in the Middle Platonism of an earlier period. Further, the transformation of views is driven by other factors besides harmonization. Harmonization is most marked in Porphyry and Ammonius. It seems to be least favored by Syrianus and Proclus. Simplicius says that the good commentator should find Plato and Aristotle in harmony on most points (In Cat. 7.23–32). The presumption for a Neoplatonist is that, in the case of disharmony, Plato will be right. However, this presumption is reversed by a late commentator, Olympiodorus, who backs Aristotle against Plato on the definition of relatives (In Cat. 112.19ff). As an example of harmonization, Porphyry, on the standard interpretation, defended Aristotle’s categories from Plotinus’ objections in Enneads VI.1–3. Plotinus accepted only four of Aristotle’s ten categories for classifying the world perceived by the senses, and even then with heavy qualifications. He complained that Aristotle’s categories left out the world of intelligible Forms from which the perceptible world derived. Sensible qualities, for example, are only shadows of the activities of intelligible Forms. Porphyry replied (In Cat. 57.7–8, 58.5–7, and 91.19–27) that Aristotle’s categories are not meant to be exhaustive. They are only intended to distinguish words insofar as they signify things, and words are chiefly used to speak about sensibles. For that limited task, the categories are to be valued. Porphyry thus made Aristotle’s categories forever acceptable to Platonism. Hereafter, it became increasingly useful to reinforce what I regard as the myth of harmony in the face of Christian charges that pagan philosophers contradicted each other. There was an irony in this, because the harmonization—whose motive was thus partly anti-Christian—ended in the thirteenth century by helping Thomas Aquinas present Aristotle as safe for Christianity. This assimilation to Plato had turned Aristotle’s God from a thinker into a Creator and Aristotle’s human soul into an immortal one. There can, however, be more than one approach toward the harmonization of Plato and Aristotle. Lloyd Gerson, in this volume, offers the most thoroughgoing modern attempt to argue that it is basically correct. If, as I have supposed, it is not, the question arises whether pressure toward a false harmonization would be bad for philosophy. Having to convince Christians that Plato and Aristotle agreed with each other on almost everything would surely lead to a loss of their wonderful insights. But in fact, it gave a distinctive character, interesting in its own right, to Neoplatonism. Curiously, it also led to an even closer reading of the texts of Plato and Aristotle, because their texts had to be read very closely indeed if one was going to argue that what they really meant was something different from what might first appear. In fact, the pressure to harmonize proved a valuable stimulus to the imagination in the Greek Neoplatonist commentators. They took Plato to postulate a changeless and timeless world of divine Platonic Forms, and they had to think out how such a world would relate to the temporal, changing world described by Aristotle. I should now like to look at some examples of what happened to the views of Plato and Aristotle in Neoplatonism. I shall ask what factors besides harmonization are at work, whether Plato is transformed in the process as much as Aristotle, whether the harmonizations are hostile or friendly to Aristotle, and where the transformations proved important for subsequent philosophy. [introduction p. 185-186]

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The transformation is partly driven by a wish to harmonize Plato and Aristotle, but only partly. There is less effort to harmonize the two in some commentators than in others, and on some issues, as we shall see, there is less harmonization among our commentators than there was in the Middle Platonism of an earlier period. Further, the transformation of views is driven by other factors besides harmonization.\r\n\r\nHarmonization is most marked in Porphyry and Ammonius. It seems to be least favored by Syrianus and Proclus. Simplicius says that the good commentator should find Plato and Aristotle in harmony on most points (In Cat. 7.23\u201332). The presumption for a Neoplatonist is that, in the case of disharmony, Plato will be right. However, this presumption is reversed by a late commentator, Olympiodorus, who backs Aristotle against Plato on the definition of relatives (In Cat. 112.19ff).\r\n\r\nAs an example of harmonization, Porphyry, on the standard interpretation, defended Aristotle\u2019s categories from Plotinus\u2019 objections in Enneads VI.1\u20133. Plotinus accepted only four of Aristotle\u2019s ten categories for classifying the world perceived by the senses, and even then with heavy qualifications. He complained that Aristotle\u2019s categories left out the world of intelligible Forms from which the perceptible world derived. Sensible qualities, for example, are only shadows of the activities of intelligible Forms. Porphyry replied (In Cat. 57.7\u20138, 58.5\u20137, and 91.19\u201327) that Aristotle\u2019s categories are not meant to be exhaustive. They are only intended to distinguish words insofar as they signify things, and words are chiefly used to speak about sensibles. For that limited task, the categories are to be valued. Porphyry thus made Aristotle\u2019s categories forever acceptable to Platonism. Hereafter, it became increasingly useful to reinforce what I regard as the myth of harmony in the face of Christian charges that pagan philosophers contradicted each other. There was an irony in this, because the harmonization\u2014whose motive was thus partly anti-Christian\u2014ended in the thirteenth century by helping Thomas Aquinas present Aristotle as safe for Christianity. This assimilation to Plato had turned Aristotle\u2019s God from a thinker into a Creator and Aristotle\u2019s human soul into an immortal one.\r\n\r\nThere can, however, be more than one approach toward the harmonization of Plato and Aristotle. Lloyd Gerson, in this volume, offers the most thoroughgoing modern attempt to argue that it is basically correct. If, as I have supposed, it is not, the question arises whether pressure toward a false harmonization would be bad for philosophy. Having to convince Christians that Plato and Aristotle agreed with each other on almost everything would surely lead to a loss of their wonderful insights. But in fact, it gave a distinctive character, interesting in its own right, to Neoplatonism. Curiously, it also led to an even closer reading of the texts of Plato and Aristotle, because their texts had to be read very closely indeed if one was going to argue that what they really meant was something different from what might first appear.\r\n\r\nIn fact, the pressure to harmonize proved a valuable stimulus to the imagination in the Greek Neoplatonist commentators. They took Plato to postulate a changeless and timeless world of divine Platonic Forms, and they had to think out how such a world would relate to the temporal, changing world described by Aristotle.\r\n\r\nI should now like to look at some examples of what happened to the views of Plato and Aristotle in Neoplatonism. I shall ask what factors besides harmonization are at work, whether Plato is transformed in the process as much as Aristotle, whether the harmonizations are hostile or friendly to Aristotle, and where the transformations proved important for subsequent philosophy. 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Reflecting their devotion to a common theme, the essays have been carefully edited and are presented with a composite bibliography and indices.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/PFetB36hpbaF0VD","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":196,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2006]}

The Philosophy of the Commentators 200–600 AD: A Sourcebook; I: Psychology (with Ethics and Religion); II: Physics; III: Logic and Metaphysics, 2005
By: Sorabji, Richard
Title The Philosophy of the Commentators 200–600 AD: A Sourcebook; I: Psychology (with Ethics and Religion); II: Physics; III: Logic and Metaphysics
Type Monograph
Language English
Date 2005
Publication Place London
Publisher Duckworth
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sorabji, Richard
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This is the first work to draw on the four hundred years of transition from ancient Greek philosophy to the medieval philosophy of Islam and the West. During this period, philosophy was often written in the form of commentaries on the works of Plato and Aristotle. Many ideas wrongly credited to the Middle Ages derive from these centuries, such as that of impetus in dynamics and intentional objects in philosophy of mind. The later Neoplatonist commentators fought a losing battle with Christianity, but inadvertently made Aristotle acceptable to Christians by ascribing to him belief in a Creator God and human immortality. The commentators provide a panorama of up to a thousand years of Greek philosophy, much of which would otherwise be lost. They also serve as the missing link essential for understanding the subsequent history of Western philosophy. Volume 1 deals with psychology, which for the Neoplatonist commentators was the gateway to metaphysics and theology. It was the subject on which Plato and Aristotle disagreed most, and on which the commentators went furthest beyond them in their search for synthesis. Ethics and religious practice fall naturally under psychology and are included in this volume. All sources appear in English translation and are carefully linked and cross-referenced by editorial comment and explanation. Bibliographies are provided throughout.

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  • PAGE 1 OF 1
Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators, 2016
By: Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Type Edited Book
Language English
Date 2016
Publication Place New York
Publisher Bloomsbury Academic
Categories no categories
Author(s)
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
This volume presents collected essays – some brand new, some republished, and others newly translated – on the ancient commentators on Aristotle and showcases the leading research of the last three decades. Through the work and scholarship inspired by Richard Sorabji in his series of translations of the commentators started in the 1980s, these ancient texts have become a key field within ancient philosophy. Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as ‘a scholarly marvel’, ‘a truly breath-taking achievement’ and ‘one of the great scholarly achievements of our time’ and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.

With a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]

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Boethus’ Aristotelian Ontology, 2016
By: Rashed, Marwan, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Boethus’ Aristotelian Ontology
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 103-124
Categories no categories
Author(s) Rashed, Marwan
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
Boethus is surely one of the most important thinkers of the first century BCE. Though only a few testimonies, and no clear fragment, remain, their number and content are sufficient to show how insightful he was in commenting upon Aristotle. It is not just that he was typical of this first generation of commentators who have struck modern historians by their free spirit towards Aristotle’s text. Boethus’ fragments on substance testify to more than a free attitude towards the Philosopher: it is also possible to recognize, through the many layers of the tradition—Alexander, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Simplicius—a coherent and unitary doctrine.

His doctrine, of course, is not un-Aristotelian; it does not even stand somewhere halfway between Aristotle and other thinkers of Antiquity, the Stoics in particular (even if it is obviously inspired by a general Stoic atmosphere). Boethus has consciously built, out of some rare Aristotelian indications, a certain kind of Aristotelianism among other possible ones. This doctrinal approach is probably both the cause and the effect of a cultural fact: the Peripatos’ nearly exclusive focus, in the first century BCE, on the Categories.

For sure, the treatise of the Categories, by itself, does not necessarily produce a definite account of the world. But by contrast with what is the case with other parts of the Aristotelian corpus, its basic ontological features seem naturally at home in the framework of a doctrine holding the primacy of the individual material substance.
[introduction p. 103-104]

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Though only a few testimonies, and no clear fragment, remain, their number and content are sufficient to show how insightful he was in commenting upon Aristotle. It is not just that he was typical of this first generation of commentators who have struck modern historians by their free spirit towards Aristotle\u2019s text. Boethus\u2019 fragments on substance testify to more than a free attitude towards the Philosopher: it is also possible to recognize, through the many layers of the tradition\u2014Alexander, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Simplicius\u2014a coherent and unitary doctrine.\r\n\r\nHis doctrine, of course, is not un-Aristotelian; it does not even stand somewhere halfway between Aristotle and other thinkers of Antiquity, the Stoics in particular (even if it is obviously inspired by a general Stoic atmosphere). Boethus has consciously built, out of some rare Aristotelian indications, a certain kind of Aristotelianism among other possible ones. This doctrinal approach is probably both the cause and the effect of a cultural fact: the Peripatos\u2019 nearly exclusive focus, in the first century BCE, on the Categories.\r\n\r\nFor sure, the treatise of the Categories, by itself, does not necessarily produce a definite account of the world. But by contrast with what is the case with other parts of the Aristotelian corpus, its basic ontological features seem naturally at home in the framework of a doctrine holding the primacy of the individual material substance.\r\n[introduction p. 103-104]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/xYH889DSksf6EXe","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":194,"full_name":"Rashed, Marwan","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1536,"section_of":1419,"pages":"103-124","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. 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Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Boethus\u2019 Aristotelian Ontology"]}

Dating of Philoponus’ Commentaries on Aristotle and of his Divergence from his Teacher Ammonius, 2016
By: Sorabji, Richard, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Dating of Philoponus’ Commentaries on Aristotle and of his Divergence from his Teacher Ammonius
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 367-392
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sorabji, Richard
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
There have been two major hypotheses since 1990, and much valuable discussion concerning the dating of Philoponus’ commentaries on Aristotle and of his divergence from Ammonius. In 1990, Koenraad Verrycken summarized in Aristotle Transformed his new datings for Philoponus’ work, drawing on apparent contradictions in his statements about the eternity or coming-into-being of the universe and its contents, about the nature of place, and about the possibility of vacuum and of motion in a vacuum. His earlier dissertation of 1985 also included Philoponus’ changing treatment of Aristotle’s prime matter. He suggested solving these problems by postulating a phase around 517 CE in which Philoponus accepted his teacher Ammonius’ Neoplatonism and interpretation of Aristotle as agreeing with Plato and with Neoplatonism, and a later phase in which he reverted to his Christian origins on the level of doctrine and repudiated the Neoplatonist and Aristotelian ideas, especially where, as with eternity or the Creation of the universe, they contradicted Christian ideas. This called for a second edition of some earlier commentaries on Aristotle after 529 CE. Verrycken was aware that his particular dating might not be accepted, and even that the appearance of a Neoplatonist or Aristotelian view might sometimes be due to the expository nature of commentary on Aristotle. This and other explanations have since been proffered, and the particular dating has received widespread criticism, which I have summarized elsewhere. Nonetheless, even if Philoponus does not juxtapose as often as suggested different viewpoints of his own, Verrycken’s citations establish that he does develop different viewpoints across a wide range of texts and topics, so that it remains necessary to consider his evidence in formulating any alternative dating.

The second major hypothesis was offered in 2008 by Pantelis Golitsis, who exploited an underused source of evidence that bears on several questions. He has also been kind enough to discuss at two workshops his further work in preparation. I shall, however, refer to his 2008 publication, except where explicitly stated. Philoponus’ seven commentaries on Aristotle are divided into books, and four commentaries are, or at least some books in four commentaries are, described in their titles as being Philoponus’ commentarial (skholastikai) notes (aposêmeiôseis) from the meetings (sunousiai), i.e., seminar sessions, of Ammonius (his teacher), with Philoponus’ name or other designation coming first. The four are in An. Pr., in An. Post., in DA, and in GC. The last three of these four are described as containing further (critical) reflections (more below on the meaning of epistaseis) of his own (idiôn) by Philoponus. The remaining three of Philoponus’ commentaries on Aristotle are not ascribed to the seminars of Ammonius. Philoponus also refers twice to a commentary, now lost, on Porphyry’s Introduction (Isagôgê), his introduction that is, on one interpretation, to Aristotle’s logic. All this could have several important implications.

First, although the titles of his commentaries were written in by successive scribes, Golitsis has sought out the best manuscripts and has taken them to represent Philoponus’ own description, and from this he has inferred quite a precise timetable for Philoponus’ commentaries on Aristotle. The commentaries whose book titles refer to Ammonius’ seminars were written first and commissioned as editions of Ammonius’ lectures as they were delivered in the order of the standard curriculum between 510 and 515. Philoponus’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, which contains a lecture dated to 517, is not connected in its book titles with Ammonius’ lectures in the modern edition of Vitelli under the general editorship of Diels, and moreover, it contains open disagreement with Ammonius. If that is right, the commentary will reflect courses that Philoponus himself was giving.

However, Golitsis allows me to mention that in further work, he will now be taking seriously Trincavelli’s earlier alternative reading of the manuscript title, which does, at the beginning of the commentary on Physics Book One, mention both Ammonius’ seminars and Philoponus’ (critical) reflections, and he will be explaining the transformative consequences. Philoponus’ editions of Ammonius’ lectures will have included, again, Golitsis suggests, in the order of the standard curriculum: on Porphyry’s Isagôgê, and on Aristotle’s Categories, then on the eighth book of his Physics, which precedes the lecture of 517 on the Physics, whether or not the series includes more on the Physics.

So far, Golitsis’ conclusion rightly observes the standard view that most commentaries on Aristotle reflect teaching classes. But, by way of exception, the commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorology is not connected by any titles to Ammonius, and Golitsis argues it does not appear to reflect teaching either, so was written after Philoponus had stopped teaching courses on Aristotle. The task now, as I see it, is to consider how far the new considerations about titles, combined with many others, including some highlighted by Verrycken, can enable us to confirm or disconfirm the details of dating and divergence and provide a modified picture. [introduction p. 367-369]

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In 1990, Koenraad Verrycken summarized in Aristotle Transformed his new datings for Philoponus\u2019 work, drawing on apparent contradictions in his statements about the eternity or coming-into-being of the universe and its contents, about the nature of place, and about the possibility of vacuum and of motion in a vacuum. His earlier dissertation of 1985 also included Philoponus\u2019 changing treatment of Aristotle\u2019s prime matter. He suggested solving these problems by postulating a phase around 517 CE in which Philoponus accepted his teacher Ammonius\u2019 Neoplatonism and interpretation of Aristotle as agreeing with Plato and with Neoplatonism, and a later phase in which he reverted to his Christian origins on the level of doctrine and repudiated the Neoplatonist and Aristotelian ideas, especially where, as with eternity or the Creation of the universe, they contradicted Christian ideas. This called for a second edition of some earlier commentaries on Aristotle after 529 CE. Verrycken was aware that his particular dating might not be accepted, and even that the appearance of a Neoplatonist or Aristotelian view might sometimes be due to the expository nature of commentary on Aristotle. This and other explanations have since been proffered, and the particular dating has received widespread criticism, which I have summarized elsewhere. Nonetheless, even if Philoponus does not juxtapose as often as suggested different viewpoints of his own, Verrycken\u2019s citations establish that he does develop different viewpoints across a wide range of texts and topics, so that it remains necessary to consider his evidence in formulating any alternative dating.\r\n\r\nThe second major hypothesis was offered in 2008 by Pantelis Golitsis, who exploited an underused source of evidence that bears on several questions. He has also been kind enough to discuss at two workshops his further work in preparation. I shall, however, refer to his 2008 publication, except where explicitly stated. Philoponus\u2019 seven commentaries on Aristotle are divided into books, and four commentaries are, or at least some books in four commentaries are, described in their titles as being Philoponus\u2019 commentarial (skholastikai) notes (apos\u00eamei\u00f4seis) from the meetings (sunousiai), i.e., seminar sessions, of Ammonius (his teacher), with Philoponus\u2019 name or other designation coming first. The four are in An. Pr., in An. Post., in DA, and in GC. The last three of these four are described as containing further (critical) reflections (more below on the meaning of epistaseis) of his own (idi\u00f4n) by Philoponus. The remaining three of Philoponus\u2019 commentaries on Aristotle are not ascribed to the seminars of Ammonius. Philoponus also refers twice to a commentary, now lost, on Porphyry\u2019s Introduction (Isag\u00f4g\u00ea), his introduction that is, on one interpretation, to Aristotle\u2019s logic. All this could have several important implications.\r\n\r\nFirst, although the titles of his commentaries were written in by successive scribes, Golitsis has sought out the best manuscripts and has taken them to represent Philoponus\u2019 own description, and from this he has inferred quite a precise timetable for Philoponus\u2019 commentaries on Aristotle. The commentaries whose book titles refer to Ammonius\u2019 seminars were written first and commissioned as editions of Ammonius\u2019 lectures as they were delivered in the order of the standard curriculum between 510 and 515. Philoponus\u2019 commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics, which contains a lecture dated to 517, is not connected in its book titles with Ammonius\u2019 lectures in the modern edition of Vitelli under the general editorship of Diels, and moreover, it contains open disagreement with Ammonius. If that is right, the commentary will reflect courses that Philoponus himself was giving.\r\n\r\nHowever, Golitsis allows me to mention that in further work, he will now be taking seriously Trincavelli\u2019s earlier alternative reading of the manuscript title, which does, at the beginning of the commentary on Physics Book One, mention both Ammonius\u2019 seminars and Philoponus\u2019 (critical) reflections, and he will be explaining the transformative consequences. Philoponus\u2019 editions of Ammonius\u2019 lectures will have included, again, Golitsis suggests, in the order of the standard curriculum: on Porphyry\u2019s Isag\u00f4g\u00ea, and on Aristotle\u2019s Categories, then on the eighth book of his Physics, which precedes the lecture of 517 on the Physics, whether or not the series includes more on the Physics.\r\n\r\nSo far, Golitsis\u2019 conclusion rightly observes the standard view that most commentaries on Aristotle reflect teaching classes. But, by way of exception, the commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Meteorology is not connected by any titles to Ammonius, and Golitsis argues it does not appear to reflect teaching either, so was written after Philoponus had stopped teaching courses on Aristotle. The task now, as I see it, is to consider how far the new considerations about titles, combined with many others, including some highlighted by Verrycken, can enable us to confirm or disconfirm the details of dating and divergence and provide a modified picture. [introduction p. 367-369]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/6Gmj6C363y2Apg8","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":1531,"section_of":1419,"pages":"367-392","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. 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Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Dating of Philoponus\u2019 Commentaries on Aristotle and of his Divergence from his Teacher Ammonius"]}

Iamblichus’ Noera Theôria of Aristotle’s Categories, 2016
By: Dillon, John, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Iamblichus’ Noera Theôria of Aristotle’s Categories
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 313-326
Categories no categories
Author(s) Dillon, John
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
It will be seen that it is Iamblichus’ purpose to salvage Aristotle, reconciling him both with his perceived doctrine elsewhere (as, for example, in the Metaphysics and the Physics), and with that of Plato and the Pythagoreans. The aim is to establish a metaphysical framework for the interpretation of the Categories, revealing the hidden levels of truth inherent in it. This is achieved, of course, at the cost of ignoring what seems to us the essentially anti-metaphysical, as well as tentative and exploratory, nature of the Categories, but it would be somewhat anachronistic to condemn Iamblichus too severely for that. The text of the Categories had been a battleground for at least three hundred years before his time, from the period of Andronicus, Ariston, and Eudorus of Alexandria, and the Stoic Apollodorus of Tarsus in the first century BCE, through that of the Platonists Lucius and Nicostratus, and then Atticus, and the Stoic Cornutus, and lastly Alexander of Aphrodisias in the first and second centuries CE, down to Plotinus and Porphyry in his own day, with every phrase and word of the text liable to challenge and requiring defense. Iamblichus’ distinctive contribution is to take the Categories as a coherent description of reality in the Neoplatonic sense, and that, bizarre as it may seem to us, is not really all that more perverse than many of the various ways in which the work had been treated in the centuries before him. [conclusion p. 324-325]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1533","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1533,"authors_free":[{"id":2671,"entry_id":1533,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":97,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Dillon, John","free_first_name":"","free_last_name":"","norm_person":{"id":97,"first_name":"John","last_name":"Dillon","full_name":"Dillon, John","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/123498058","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2672,"entry_id":1533,"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":"","free_last_name":"","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":"Iamblichus\u2019 Noera The\u00f4ria of Aristotle\u2019s Categories","main_title":{"title":"Iamblichus\u2019 Noera The\u00f4ria of Aristotle\u2019s Categories"},"abstract":"It will be seen that it is Iamblichus\u2019 purpose to salvage Aristotle, reconciling him both with his perceived doctrine elsewhere (as, for example, in the Metaphysics and the Physics), and with that of Plato and the Pythagoreans. The aim is to establish a metaphysical framework for the interpretation of the Categories, revealing the hidden levels of truth inherent in it. This is achieved, of course, at the cost of ignoring what seems to us the essentially anti-metaphysical, as well as tentative and exploratory, nature of the Categories, but it would be somewhat anachronistic to condemn Iamblichus too severely for that. The text of the Categories had been a battleground for at least three hundred years before his time, from the period of Andronicus, Ariston, and Eudorus of Alexandria, and the Stoic Apollodorus of Tarsus in the first century BCE, through that of the Platonists Lucius and Nicostratus, and then Atticus, and the Stoic Cornutus, and lastly Alexander of Aphrodisias in the first and second centuries CE, down to Plotinus and Porphyry in his own day, with every phrase and word of the text liable to challenge and requiring defense. Iamblichus\u2019 distinctive contribution is to take the Categories as a coherent description of reality in the Neoplatonic sense, and that, bizarre as it may seem to us, is not really all that more perverse than many of the various ways in which the work had been treated in the centuries before him. [conclusion p. 324-325]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/d9iiR3Sr5aRY9S7","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":97,"full_name":"Dillon, John","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1533,"section_of":1419,"pages":"313-326","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. 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Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Iamblichus\u2019 Noera The\u00f4ria of Aristotle\u2019s Categories"]}

Introduction to the Second Edition: New findings on Philoponus, 2010
By: Sorabji, Richard
Title Introduction to the Second Edition: New findings on Philoponus
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2010
Published in Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition
Pages 1-40
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sorabji, Richard
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Since 1987, when the first edition of this book appeared, there have been new findings both about Philoponus' thought and about his milieu. In this Introduction to the second edition, I will start with the milieu. There has been a major archaeological discovery, nothing less than the lecture rooms of the Alexandrian school. It was announced in 2004 that the Polish archaeological team under Grzegorz Majcherek had identified the lecture rooms of the 6th-century Alexandrian school, surprisingly well preserved. Although the first few rooms had been excavated 25 years earlier, the identification had become possible only now. By 2008, 20 rooms had been excavated. 20 is the number of rooms reported by a 12th-century source writing in Arabic, Abd el-Latif, but there may be more. [introduction p. 1]

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John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book of Aristotle’s De Anima, Wrongly Attributed to Stephanus, 2016
By: Golitsis, Pantelis, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book of Aristotle’s De Anima, Wrongly Attributed to Stephanus
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 393-412
Categories no categories
Author(s) Golitsis, Pantelis
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
Philoponus’ denial of the existence of unformed matter in his Contra Proclum, composed in 529, allows us to date the commentary on DA 3 before the Contra Proclum, since the existence of unformed matter is accepted in the former work.

To conclude: we should discard Stephanus as a possible author of in DA 3, which is an attribution depending on a Byzantine addition to a manuscript with no title, and reassign this commentary to Philoponus on the grounds of self-reference, exegetical attitude, and general style. This commentary, possibly through the initiative of a pupil who recorded it, replaced Ammonius’ commentary on Book 3, as previously published by Philoponus, thus allowing two different editions to reach Byzantium: Philoponus’ edition of Ammonius’ lectures and the composite edition in which Ammonius’ lectures on Book 3 were replaced by those of Philoponus. The second edition was the one copied by D1, whereas D3 had access only to the first edition. [conclusion p. 412]

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This commentary, possibly through the initiative of a pupil who recorded it, replaced Ammonius\u2019 commentary on Book 3, as previously published by Philoponus, thus allowing two different editions to reach Byzantium: Philoponus\u2019 edition of Ammonius\u2019 lectures and the composite edition in which Ammonius\u2019 lectures on Book 3 were replaced by those of Philoponus. The second edition was the one copied by D1, whereas D3 had access only to the first edition. 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Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. 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Mixture in Philoponus: An Encounter with a Third Kind of Potentiality, 2016
By: de Haas, Frans A. J., Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Mixture in Philoponus: An Encounter with a Third Kind of Potentiality
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 413-436
Categories no categories
Author(s) de Haas, Frans A. J.
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
In this study, I have tried to show that Philoponus’ commentary on Aristotle’s account of mixture has to be understood against the background of a discussion between three views of mixture that dominated the Aristotelian tradition as a whole. The starting point was Zabarella’s classification of solutions to the main problem of mixture: how to interpret Aristotle’s claim that the ingredients are preserved in the mixture in potentiality. In a sense, Proclus and Simplicius belong with Avicenna because they accept the preservation of the elements in actuality, along with reduced actuality and interaction in the realm of qualities. However, since they reject Aristotelian mixture and discuss the problem in terms of body vs. qualities rather than forms vs. qualities, they are best regarded as belonging to a different school altogether. Alexander is probably the main source of the influential account of Averroes. Philoponus belongs with the fourth group due to his criticism of Aristotle (or rather Alexander). He accepts the corruption of the ingredients while only their qualities are preserved in reduced actuality. It remains to be seen whether his influence on the medieval authors that subscribe to a similar view can be established.

Zabarella’s reports on his sources should be handled with care. His summaries of Alexander are inadequate, his understanding of Philoponus is wrong. He himself claims that his ‘true’ interpretation of Averroes was not followed by any Averroist (see e.g. 465A, 466B), which should give us pause as well. Moreover, I fail to see how he can believe that his complicated interpretation of Averroes can be backed up by his interpretation of Alexander and Philoponus: they seem to represent three quite different doctrines indeed. Although a quick glance at Zabarella’s other medieval sources seems to confirm his classification of them, it cannot be ruled out that closer inspection will yield some surprises, as it did with Philoponus. The details of Zabarella’s own theory of mixture still await further investigation.

To conclude on a more general note: in charting the commentary tradition on Aristotle’s work from Late Antiquity through Arabic, Latin Medieval, and Renaissance authors, it is tempting to assume we are dealing with a single line of tradition. However, it is still far from clear which ancient commentaries were available (in Greek or in Arabic, Syrian, or Latin translation) at what date. But even if this can be established, we cannot be sure that a particular commentator actually used his predecessors’ commentaries, even when he refers to them by name: perhaps he merely copied a reference from another commentary. In this way, Zabarella’s mistake may have arisen. More importantly, every commentator who analyzes the problem of the potentiality of the ingredients in a mixture as it is presented in Aristotle’s texts in On Generation and Corruption is faced with a limited number of possible solutions. Every commentator, then, is perfectly capable of re-inventing the wheel. However, the application of the third kind of potentiality in the context of mixture seems to have been invented for the first time by John Philoponus.
[conclusion p. 434-435]

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The starting point was Zabarella\u2019s classification of solutions to the main problem of mixture: how to interpret Aristotle\u2019s claim that the ingredients are preserved in the mixture in potentiality. In a sense, Proclus and Simplicius belong with Avicenna because they accept the preservation of the elements in actuality, along with reduced actuality and interaction in the realm of qualities. However, since they reject Aristotelian mixture and discuss the problem in terms of body vs. qualities rather than forms vs. qualities, they are best regarded as belonging to a different school altogether. Alexander is probably the main source of the influential account of Averroes. Philoponus belongs with the fourth group due to his criticism of Aristotle (or rather Alexander). He accepts the corruption of the ingredients while only their qualities are preserved in reduced actuality. 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The details of Zabarella\u2019s own theory of mixture still await further investigation.\r\n\r\nTo conclude on a more general note: in charting the commentary tradition on Aristotle\u2019s work from Late Antiquity through Arabic, Latin Medieval, and Renaissance authors, it is tempting to assume we are dealing with a single line of tradition. However, it is still far from clear which ancient commentaries were available (in Greek or in Arabic, Syrian, or Latin translation) at what date. But even if this can be established, we cannot be sure that a particular commentator actually used his predecessors\u2019 commentaries, even when he refers to them by name: perhaps he merely copied a reference from another commentary. In this way, Zabarella\u2019s mistake may have arisen. 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Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition, 2010
By: Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science. Second Edition
Type Edited Book
Language English
Date 2010
Publication Place London
Publisher Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
Series BICS Supplement
Volume 103
Edition No. 2
Categories no categories
Author(s)
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
Richard Sorabji is the editor of a vast and growing number of translations of ancient
commentaries on Aristotle and the editor of several excellent collections of studies on the
Aristotelian tradition. Philoponus, a 6th century Christian thinker who was originally trained as
a Neoplatonist, is best remembered today for his attack on Aristotle's 'physics'; his influence on
later philosophers and scientists and his role in the reevaluation of Aristotelian science and
natural philosophy are indeed remarkable. The second edition of Philoponus and the Rejection
of Aristotelian Science includes a new two-part introduction which offers a survey of the
rapidly expanding scholarship on Philoponus and of recent archeological discoveries (such as
the lecture rooms of the 6th century Alexandrian school), as well as new insights into the
interaction between Greek paganism and Christianity in connection with Philoponus and his
milieu. The twelve chapters included in this collection are written by very prominent scholars
and tackle topics such as Philoponus' corollaries on space and time, the differences between his
theological views (e.g. on the three hypostases) and the prevailing dogmas of the time, the
relation between his theory about impetus and later treatments of impetus and related
concepts in a number of Arab thinkers and in Galileo. This collection is one of the most reliable
and wide-ranging introductions to Philoponus' views and influence, and those interested in late
ancient philosophy and its interactions with Christian thought will find this to be a most
valuable resource. [Review by Tiberiu Popa]

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Rediscovered Categories Commentary: Porphyry(?) with Fragments of Boethus, 2016
By: Chiaradonna, Riccardo, Rashed, Marwan, Sedley, David N., Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Rediscovered Categories Commentary: Porphyry(?) with Fragments of Boethus
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 231-262
Categories no categories
Author(s) Chiaradonna, Riccardo , Rashed, Marwan , Sedley, David N.
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
The celebrated Archimedes Palimpsest has turned out to include not only seminal works of Archimedes but also two speeches by Hyperides and—identified as recently as 2005—fourteen pages of an otherwise unknown commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, in a copy written around 900 CE.

Even if it contained nothing else, the citations that this last manuscript preserves from named earlier commentators—Andronicus, Boethus, Nicostratus, and Herminus—would be enough to make it an important addition to our knowledge of the Categories tradition. Its new evidence on the first-century BCE Aristotelian Boethus is especially significant. Two of the three citations from him (3,19–22; 14,4–12) probably embody his words more or less verbatim, to judge from the combination of direct speech and peculiarly crabbed language, very unlike the author’s usual style. In addition, the author mentions a group of anonymous commentators already criticized by Boethus, thus giving further unexpected insights into the early reception of Aristotle’s work.

But the author’s own contributions are rich and fascinating too. If his date and identity could be established, the new text would make an even greater impact on our present state of understanding. In this article, it will be argued that the new fragment is, to all appearances, a remnant of the most important of all the ancient Categories commentaries, Porphyry’s lost Ad Gedalium.

The grounds for such an attribution will be set out in this introduction. There will then follow a translation of the passage, and finally a commentary on the commentary. Our aim is not, in the space of a single article, to settle all the interpretative questions but, on the contrary, to initiate discussion, to develop our proposal regarding authorship, and, above all, to bring the already published text to the attention of interested scholars in the field of ancient philosophy.

The commentary consists of seven consecutive folios, recto and verso, each with thirty lines per side and around forty letters per line. For ease of reference, we have renumbered the sides into a simple consecutive run, 1–14.

Despite its severely damaged state, it has proved possible to decipher much of the greater part of the text on these fourteen pages. In what follows, we start with a brief description, then turn to the question of authorship.

The entire fourteen pages deal, incompletely, with just two consecutive lemmata from the Categories. The passage already under discussion when the text opens is 1a20-b15, a strikingly long lemma, especially given that the same passage is divided into three lemmata by Ammonius and into five by Simplicius. The commentator has by this point already dealt, presumably at some length, with Aristotle’s well-known distinction there between properties that are ‘said of a subject’ and those that are ‘in a subject.’ As the text opens, he is discussing the later part of the lemma, 1b10–15, where Aristotle explains a principle of transitivity according to which when predicate B is said of subject A, and predicate C is said of subject B, then predicate C is said of subject A. Various aspects of this theorem, and problems arising from it, occupy the commentator from 1,1 to 7,8. But he then returns (7,8–9,30) to the opening part of the main lemma, its fourfold division of predicates (1a20-b9), which he presents as applying a neglected Aristotelian method of division, one that can also, as he proceeds to illustrate, be used effectively in the doxographical mapping out of philosophical theories.

At 9,30–10,12, we encounter the transition to a new lemma, Categories 1b16–24, where Aristotle explains his thesis that any two different genera, such as animal and knowledge, which are not subordinated one to the other, will normally be divided by two specifically (tôi eidei) different sets of differentiae. The commentator takes the opportunity here to explain the basic vocabulary of genus, species, and differentia, as befits the opening pages of a work that was itself placed first in the Aristotelian corpus. Otherwise, his discussion, as for the preceding lemma, is largely taken up with the resolution of the exegetical problems raised by his predecessors.

The Categories was the earliest Aristotelian treatise to attract commentaries and critiques from the first century BCE onwards. The numerous exegetes, of whose work only a small proportion has survived, included not only Aristotelians but also Platonists, Stoics, and others of uncertain philosophical allegiance. The surviving commentaries are in fact all the work of Neoplatonists, starting with the short question-and-answer commentary by Porphyry (third century CE), but they contain plentiful reports of the views of earlier commentators and critics.

Since our commentary repeatedly cites previous commentators from the first century BCE to the second century CE but none later than that, we can be confident that it was written in the Roman imperial era, not earlier than the time of Alexander of Aphrodisias (c. 200), whose teacher Herminus is the latest commentator cited, and probably not very much later either. This enables us to set about searching for its author’s identity systematically, since we are fortunate, in the case of this particular Aristotelian treatise, to have from Simplicius (in Cat. 1,9–2,29 Kalbfleisch) a detailed survey of the commentary tradition down to the beginning of the sixth century.
[introduction p. 231-233]

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Its new evidence on the first-century BCE Aristotelian Boethus is especially significant. Two of the three citations from him (3,19\u201322; 14,4\u201312) probably embody his words more or less verbatim, to judge from the combination of direct speech and peculiarly crabbed language, very unlike the author\u2019s usual style. In addition, the author mentions a group of anonymous commentators already criticized by Boethus, thus giving further unexpected insights into the early reception of Aristotle\u2019s work.\r\n\r\nBut the author\u2019s own contributions are rich and fascinating too. If his date and identity could be established, the new text would make an even greater impact on our present state of understanding. In this article, it will be argued that the new fragment is, to all appearances, a remnant of the most important of all the ancient Categories commentaries, Porphyry\u2019s lost Ad Gedalium.\r\n\r\nThe grounds for such an attribution will be set out in this introduction. There will then follow a translation of the passage, and finally a commentary on the commentary. Our aim is not, in the space of a single article, to settle all the interpretative questions but, on the contrary, to initiate discussion, to develop our proposal regarding authorship, and, above all, to bring the already published text to the attention of interested scholars in the field of ancient philosophy.\r\n\r\nThe commentary consists of seven consecutive folios, recto and verso, each with thirty lines per side and around forty letters per line. For ease of reference, we have renumbered the sides into a simple consecutive run, 1\u201314.\r\n\r\nDespite its severely damaged state, it has proved possible to decipher much of the greater part of the text on these fourteen pages. In what follows, we start with a brief description, then turn to the question of authorship.\r\n\r\nThe entire fourteen pages deal, incompletely, with just two consecutive lemmata from the Categories. The passage already under discussion when the text opens is 1a20-b15, a strikingly long lemma, especially given that the same passage is divided into three lemmata by Ammonius and into five by Simplicius. The commentator has by this point already dealt, presumably at some length, with Aristotle\u2019s well-known distinction there between properties that are \u2018said of a subject\u2019 and those that are \u2018in a subject.\u2019 As the text opens, he is discussing the later part of the lemma, 1b10\u201315, where Aristotle explains a principle of transitivity according to which when predicate B is said of subject A, and predicate C is said of subject B, then predicate C is said of subject A. Various aspects of this theorem, and problems arising from it, occupy the commentator from 1,1 to 7,8. But he then returns (7,8\u20139,30) to the opening part of the main lemma, its fourfold division of predicates (1a20-b9), which he presents as applying a neglected Aristotelian method of division, one that can also, as he proceeds to illustrate, be used effectively in the doxographical mapping out of philosophical theories.\r\n\r\nAt 9,30\u201310,12, we encounter the transition to a new lemma, Categories 1b16\u201324, where Aristotle explains his thesis that any two different genera, such as animal and knowledge, which are not subordinated one to the other, will normally be divided by two specifically (t\u00f4i eidei) different sets of differentiae. The commentator takes the opportunity here to explain the basic vocabulary of genus, species, and differentia, as befits the opening pages of a work that was itself placed first in the Aristotelian corpus. Otherwise, his discussion, as for the preceding lemma, is largely taken up with the resolution of the exegetical problems raised by his predecessors.\r\n\r\nThe Categories was the earliest Aristotelian treatise to attract commentaries and critiques from the first century BCE onwards. The numerous exegetes, of whose work only a small proportion has survived, included not only Aristotelians but also Platonists, Stoics, and others of uncertain philosophical allegiance. The surviving commentaries are in fact all the work of Neoplatonists, starting with the short question-and-answer commentary by Porphyry (third century CE), but they contain plentiful reports of the views of earlier commentators and critics.\r\n\r\nSince our commentary repeatedly cites previous commentators from the first century BCE to the second century CE but none later than that, we can be confident that it was written in the Roman imperial era, not earlier than the time of Alexander of Aphrodisias (c. 200), whose teacher Herminus is the latest commentator cited, and probably not very much later either. This enables us to set about searching for its author\u2019s identity systematically, since we are fortunate, in the case of this particular Aristotelian treatise, to have from Simplicius (in Cat. 1,9\u20132,29 Kalbfleisch) a detailed survey of the commentary tradition down to the beginning of the sixth century.\r\n[introduction p. 231-233]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/boTHRcfBsw3NuBU","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":49,"full_name":"Chiaradonna, Riccardo ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":194,"full_name":"Rashed, Marwan","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":298,"full_name":"Sedley, David N.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1535,"section_of":1419,"pages":"231-262","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabji2016","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2016","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"This volume presents collected essays \u2013 some brand new, some republished, and others newly translated \u2013 on the ancient commentators on Aristotle and showcases the leading research of the last three decades. Through the work and scholarship inspired by Richard Sorabji in his series of translations of the commentators started in the 1980s, these ancient texts have become a key field within ancient philosophy. Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Rediscovered Categories Commentary: Porphyry(?) with Fragments of Boethus"]}

Simplicius’ Corollary on Place: Method of Philosophising and Doctrines, 2016
By: Hoffmann, Philippe, Golitsis, Pantelis, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Simplicius’ Corollary on Place: Method of Philosophising and Doctrines
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 531–540
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hoffmann, Philippe , Golitsis, Pantelis
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
Simplicius’ Corollary on Place (Corollarium de loco) is not a doxographic text but a strictly Neoplatonic philosophical work, with its own philosophical method. It takes the form of a digression interrupting the continuity of Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (itself a written work intended for readers, hoi entugkhanontes, hoi enteuxomenoi), and its literary genre is that of a monograph treatise using dialectic and exegesis as its principal methods. The dialectical method consists in discussing the opinions of Simplicius’ predecessors, ancient and modern, mainly Aristotle and Proclus, to pave the way for the exposition of the truth, following the method inaugurated by Aristotle in the Topics and still very much alive. It also proceeds by puzzles and solutions (aporiai kai luseis). Th e exegetic method reappears even within a digression which breaks with the continuous commentary and Simplicius devotes sometimes long passages to quoting and commenting on texts from Aristotle, Theophrastus, Proclus, and Damascius, but also from the Chaldaean Oracles, Iamblichus, or Syrianus. Throughout this piece Simplicius maintains complete control over his material which includes the art of rhetoric, dialectical technique, and his philosophic intention. In it, he replaces the Aristotelian defi nition of place (‘the first unmoved boundary of the surrounding body’ (to tou periekhontos peras akinêton prôton), Phys . 4.4, 212a20–1) with a new defi nition taken from his master Damascius (place is the measure of the intrinsic positioning (metron tês theseôs) of the parts of a body, and of its right position in a greater surrounding whole), and he departs from Aristotle’s thought with a radical innovation which progressively works its way in. [introduction p. 531-532]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1508","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1508,"authors_free":[{"id":2619,"entry_id":1508,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"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":2620,"entry_id":1508,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":129,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Golitsis, Pantelis","free_first_name":"Pantelis","free_last_name":"Golitsis","norm_person":{"id":129,"first_name":"Pantelis","last_name":"Golitsis","full_name":"Golitsis, Pantelis","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2621,"entry_id":1508,"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\u2019 Corollary on Place: Method of Philosophising and Doctrines","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius\u2019 Corollary on Place: Method of Philosophising and Doctrines"},"abstract":"Simplicius\u2019 Corollary on Place (Corollarium de loco) is not a doxographic text but a strictly Neoplatonic philosophical work, with its own philosophical method. It takes the form of a digression interrupting the continuity of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics (itself a written work intended for readers, hoi entugkhanontes, hoi enteuxomenoi), and its literary genre is that of a monograph treatise using dialectic and exegesis as its principal methods. The dialectical method consists in discussing the opinions of Simplicius\u2019 predecessors, ancient and modern, mainly Aristotle and Proclus, to pave the way for the exposition of the truth, following the method inaugurated by Aristotle in the Topics and still very much alive. It also proceeds by puzzles and solutions (aporiai kai luseis). Th e exegetic method reappears even within a digression which breaks with the continuous commentary and Simplicius devotes sometimes long passages to quoting and commenting on texts from Aristotle, Theophrastus, Proclus, and Damascius, but also from the Chaldaean Oracles, Iamblichus, or Syrianus. Throughout this piece Simplicius maintains complete control over his material which includes the art of rhetoric, dialectical technique, and his philosophic intention. In it, he replaces the Aristotelian defi nition of place (\u2018the first unmoved boundary of the surrounding body\u2019 (to tou periekhontos peras akin\u00eaton pr\u00f4ton), Phys . 4.4, 212a20\u20131) with a new defi nition taken from his master Damascius (place is the measure of the intrinsic positioning (metron t\u00eas these\u00f4s) of the parts of a body, and of its right position in a greater surrounding whole), and he departs from Aristotle\u2019s thought with a radical innovation which progressively works its way in. [introduction p. 531-532]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/nyFqYhK3Z7baSF2","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":138,"full_name":"Hoffmann, Philippe ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":129,"full_name":"Golitsis, Pantelis","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1508,"section_of":1419,"pages":"531\u2013540","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. 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Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Simplicius\u2019 Corollary on Place: Method of Philosophising and Doctrines"]}

Smoothing over the Differences: Proclus and Ammonius on Plato’s Cratylus and Aristotle’s De Interpretatione, 2016
By: van den Berg, Robbert Maarten , Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title Smoothing over the Differences: Proclus and Ammonius on Plato’s Cratylus and Aristotle’s De Interpretatione
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 353-366
Categories no categories
Author(s) van den Berg, Robbert Maarten
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
Ammonius, the son of Hermeias († between 517 and 526), was not a prolific author, unlike his teacher Proclus (412–485). Whereas the latter wrote up to seven hundred lines a day, the only large work that Ammonius ever wrote was his commentary on Aristotle’s De Interpretatione. Remarkably enough, for someone whose entire reputation rests on his study of Aristotle, he does not claim any credit for its content. His work, he writes at the beginning, is a record of the interpretations of his divine teacher Proclus. If he too is able to add anything to the clarification of the book, he ‘owes a great thanks to the god of eloquence.’

How much did the god of eloquence allow Ammonius to add? No other sources of Proclus’ course on the Int. survive. Yet in one case we are able to study Ammonius’ originality or the lack of it: his discussion of Aristotle’s views on onomata, a group of words that corresponds roughly speaking to our nouns and which I shall refer to as ‘names’ in this paper.

One of the major issues in Greek linguistic thought throughout Antiquity was the relation between names and their objects. Does there exist some sort of natural relation between names and their objects, or are names just a matter of convention? Plato had discussed the question in his Cratylus, in which he had made a certain Hermogenes the spokesman of the conventionalist position and the eponymous character Cratylus an adherent of the naturalist position. In the end, Socrates forces both Hermogenes and Cratylus to admit that names are partly by nature and partly by convention, hence that they are both right and wrong. Many scholars, both ancient and modern, believe that in the first chapters of Int. Aristotle responded at least in part to the views expressed in the Cratylus. As it so happens, an excerpt of Proclus’ lecture notes on that Platonic dialogue has survived. A first reading of the two commentaries seems indeed to suggest that there is a substantial overlap between them on the relevant issue, even though Proclus may at times be critical of Aristotle. As we shall see, this apparent correspondence has even inspired an attempt to emend Proclus’ text at one point on the basis of Ammonius’ commentary.

In this paper, I will argue that in fact Ammonius’ concept of onoma is significantly different from that of Proclus. As Proclus had observed, but as Ammonius tried to downplay, Aristotle had been arguing against Plato. For Proclus, this did not pose any particular problem. Like all Neoplatonists, Ammonius included, he was convinced that the divinely inspired Plato had to be right. If Aristotle chose to deviate from Plato and the truth, that was his problem. Proclus sets Socrates up as a judge (in Crat. §10, p. 4,12) between the conventionalist Hermogenes and the naturalist Cratylus, a judge who shows that they are both right and wrong. Aristotle is explicitly counted among the partisans of Hermogenes. On the whole, one can say that Proclus is very critical of Aristotle in in Crat.

Ammonius, on the other hand, wanted to show that Plato and Aristotle were in complete harmony with each other, even where this is not evident. He too presents Socrates as a mediator between Hermogenes and Cratylus (in Int. 37,1), but this time Aristotle is not grouped together with Hermogenes but presented as being of the same mind as Socrates. As we shall see, Ammonius, when discussing the nature of names, takes his point of departure from Aristotle. Since Aristotle’s idea of what a name is differs from Plato’s, Ammonius will arrive at a concept of name that is fundamentally different from that of Proclus, who takes Plato as his starting point. On the assumption that Proclus, who for the most part appears to be quite consistent throughout his enormous œuvre, did not radically change his views when lecturing on Int., we may thus infer from this that Ammonius was not slavishly following Proclus. This becomes all the more apparent in the case of Ammonius’ interpretation of Cratylus’ position in the dialogue. In order to harmonize Plato with Aristotle, Ammonius offers a rather original, albeit not very convincing, reading of that position.

Once we have established the fundamental difference between the two of them, we will be better able to explain a phenomenon to which Richard Sorabji has recently drawn attention: the absence of any interest in divine names in Ammonius’ commentary. Finally, this case study will allow us to make a more general observation about the relation between the Athenian and Alexandrian commentators. [introduction p. 353-355]

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Whereas the latter wrote up to seven hundred lines a day, the only large work that Ammonius ever wrote was his commentary on Aristotle\u2019s De Interpretatione. Remarkably enough, for someone whose entire reputation rests on his study of Aristotle, he does not claim any credit for its content. His work, he writes at the beginning, is a record of the interpretations of his divine teacher Proclus. If he too is able to add anything to the clarification of the book, he \u2018owes a great thanks to the god of eloquence.\u2019\r\n\r\nHow much did the god of eloquence allow Ammonius to add? No other sources of Proclus\u2019 course on the Int. survive. Yet in one case we are able to study Ammonius\u2019 originality or the lack of it: his discussion of Aristotle\u2019s views on onomata, a group of words that corresponds roughly speaking to our nouns and which I shall refer to as \u2018names\u2019 in this paper.\r\n\r\nOne of the major issues in Greek linguistic thought throughout Antiquity was the relation between names and their objects. Does there exist some sort of natural relation between names and their objects, or are names just a matter of convention? Plato had discussed the question in his Cratylus, in which he had made a certain Hermogenes the spokesman of the conventionalist position and the eponymous character Cratylus an adherent of the naturalist position. In the end, Socrates forces both Hermogenes and Cratylus to admit that names are partly by nature and partly by convention, hence that they are both right and wrong. Many scholars, both ancient and modern, believe that in the first chapters of Int. Aristotle responded at least in part to the views expressed in the Cratylus. As it so happens, an excerpt of Proclus\u2019 lecture notes on that Platonic dialogue has survived. A first reading of the two commentaries seems indeed to suggest that there is a substantial overlap between them on the relevant issue, even though Proclus may at times be critical of Aristotle. As we shall see, this apparent correspondence has even inspired an attempt to emend Proclus\u2019 text at one point on the basis of Ammonius\u2019 commentary.\r\n\r\nIn this paper, I will argue that in fact Ammonius\u2019 concept of onoma is significantly different from that of Proclus. As Proclus had observed, but as Ammonius tried to downplay, Aristotle had been arguing against Plato. For Proclus, this did not pose any particular problem. Like all Neoplatonists, Ammonius included, he was convinced that the divinely inspired Plato had to be right. If Aristotle chose to deviate from Plato and the truth, that was his problem. Proclus sets Socrates up as a judge (in Crat. \u00a710, p. 4,12) between the conventionalist Hermogenes and the naturalist Cratylus, a judge who shows that they are both right and wrong. Aristotle is explicitly counted among the partisans of Hermogenes. On the whole, one can say that Proclus is very critical of Aristotle in in Crat.\r\n\r\nAmmonius, on the other hand, wanted to show that Plato and Aristotle were in complete harmony with each other, even where this is not evident. He too presents Socrates as a mediator between Hermogenes and Cratylus (in Int. 37,1), but this time Aristotle is not grouped together with Hermogenes but presented as being of the same mind as Socrates. As we shall see, Ammonius, when discussing the nature of names, takes his point of departure from Aristotle. Since Aristotle\u2019s idea of what a name is differs from Plato\u2019s, Ammonius will arrive at a concept of name that is fundamentally different from that of Proclus, who takes Plato as his starting point. On the assumption that Proclus, who for the most part appears to be quite consistent throughout his enormous \u0153uvre, did not radically change his views when lecturing on Int., we may thus infer from this that Ammonius was not slavishly following Proclus. This becomes all the more apparent in the case of Ammonius\u2019 interpretation of Cratylus\u2019 position in the dialogue. In order to harmonize Plato with Aristotle, Ammonius offers a rather original, albeit not very convincing, reading of that position.\r\n\r\nOnce we have established the fundamental difference between the two of them, we will be better able to explain a phenomenon to which Richard Sorabji has recently drawn attention: the absence of any interest in divine names in Ammonius\u2019 commentary. Finally, this case study will allow us to make a more general observation about the relation between the Athenian and Alexandrian commentators. [introduction p. 353-355]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/U7I3LYIXJL83A4Y","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1532,"section_of":1419,"pages":"353-366","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1419,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabji2016","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2016","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"This volume presents collected essays \u2013 some brand new, some republished, and others newly translated \u2013 on the ancient commentators on Aristotle and showcases the leading research of the last three decades. Through the work and scholarship inspired by Richard Sorabji in his series of translations of the commentators started in the 1980s, these ancient texts have become a key field within ancient philosophy. Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as \u2018a scholarly marvel\u2019, \u2018a truly breath-taking achievement\u2019 and \u2018one of the great scholarly achievements of our time\u2019 and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.\r\n\r\nWith a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/gZ0ZaTAlMe0PYrI","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1419,"pubplace":"New York","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Smoothing over the Differences: Proclus and Ammonius on Plato\u2019s Cratylus and Aristotle\u2019s De Interpretatione"]}

The Earliest Aristotelian Commentators, 2016
By: Gottschalk, Hans B., Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title The Earliest Aristotelian Commentators
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence
Pages 61-88
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gottschalk, Hans B.
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
 In Chapter 3, Hans Gottschalk surveys the commentators on Aristotle from the 
fi rst  century   bc   to  late  in  the  second  century   ad ,  and  some  of  their  Platonist  
opponents. He gives the most space to the fi rst of them, Andronicus, persuasively rguing that he worked in Athens without going to Rome, and telling something 
of Andronicus’  philosophical  comments  on Aristotle  and  of  his  editorial  work  
on Aristotle’s school writings (as opposed to his works then better known, but 
now  largely  lost,  for  publication  outside  the  school).  He  rightly  says  that  
Andronicus  presented Aristotle  as  a  system. As  I  indicated  in  commenting  on  
Chapter  1  above,  his  younger  contemporary  in  Athens,  Boethus,  stimulated  
enormous  reaction  from  later  commentators  by  his  detailed  and  idiosyncratic  
interpretation of Aristotle, fragments of which they recorded. So the description 
‘scholasticism’, insofar as it suggests to us something rather dry, is not a 
description we should now be likely to use, especially aft er the recent discovery 
of new fragments of Boethus. But  Aristotle Re-Interpreted  will include a 
contribution on some of Boethus’ achievement and further detail on the 
commentators aft er him is supplied in other recent works listed above in note 6. 
Th e only big matter of controversy concerns the two words ‘critical edition’ at the 
opening of Gottschalk’s chapter, which could be taken for granted in 1990. It was 
challenged  by  Jonathan  Barnes  in  1997.   9    A  critical  edition  is  produced  by  
comparing diff erent copies of the original in order to discover more closely what 
the  original  may  have  said.  Barnes  argued  powerfully  that  this  is  not  what  
Andronicus  did.  Indeed,  if  he  did  not  go  to  Rome  to  examine  the  manuscript  
there, it is even less likely that he did. One reaction was to think that this greatly 
reduced  the  importance  of  Andronicus.  But  a  contribution  in    Aristotle  Re-
Interpreted  will take up the other editorial activity including the presentation of 
Aristotle’s school writings as a system. It was far more valuable, according to this 
argument, to create a coherent canon of Aristotle’s voluminous school writings, 
by  joining  or  separating  pieces  and  arranging  them  in  a  coherent  order  for  
reading, than to seek the original wording in a critical edition. [Sorabji: Introduction to the Second Edition, p. xii]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"535","_score":null,"_source":{"id":535,"authors_free":[{"id":756,"entry_id":535,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":135,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Gottschalk, Hans B.","free_first_name":"Hans B.","free_last_name":"Gottschalk","norm_person":{"id":135,"first_name":"Hans B.","last_name":"Gottschalk","full_name":"Gottschalk, Hans B.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1161498559","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":757,"entry_id":535,"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 Earliest Aristotelian Commentators","main_title":{"title":"The Earliest Aristotelian Commentators"},"abstract":" In Chapter 3, Hans Gottschalk surveys the commentators on Aristotle from the \r\nfi rst century bc to late in the second century ad , and some of their Platonist \r\nopponents. He gives the most space to the fi rst of them, Andronicus, persuasively rguing that he worked in Athens without going to Rome, and telling something \r\nof Andronicus\u2019 philosophical comments on Aristotle and of his editorial work \r\non Aristotle\u2019s school writings (as opposed to his works then better known, but \r\nnow largely lost, for publication outside the school). He rightly says that \r\nAndronicus presented Aristotle as a system. As I indicated in commenting on \r\nChapter 1 above, his younger contemporary in Athens, Boethus, stimulated \r\nenormous reaction from later commentators by his detailed and idiosyncratic \r\ninterpretation of Aristotle, fragments of which they recorded. So the description \r\n\u2018scholasticism\u2019, insofar as it suggests to us something rather dry, is not a \r\ndescription we should now be likely to use, especially aft er the recent discovery \r\nof new fragments of Boethus. But Aristotle Re-Interpreted will include a \r\ncontribution on some of Boethus\u2019 achievement and further detail on the \r\ncommentators aft er him is supplied in other recent works listed above in note 6. \r\nTh e only big matter of controversy concerns the two words \u2018critical edition\u2019 at the \r\nopening of Gottschalk\u2019s chapter, which could be taken for granted in 1990. It was \r\nchallenged by Jonathan Barnes in 1997. 9 A critical edition is produced by \r\ncomparing diff erent copies of the original in order to discover more closely what \r\nthe original may have said. Barnes argued powerfully that this is not what \r\nAndronicus did. Indeed, if he did not go to Rome to examine the manuscript \r\nthere, it is even less likely that he did. One reaction was to think that this greatly \r\nreduced the importance of Andronicus. But a contribution in Aristotle Re-\r\nInterpreted will take up the other editorial activity including the presentation of \r\nAristotle\u2019s school writings as a system. It was far more valuable, according to this \r\nargument, to create a coherent canon of Aristotle\u2019s voluminous school writings, \r\nby joining or separating pieces and arranging them in a coherent order for \r\nreading, than to seek the original wording in a critical edition. [Sorabji: Introduction to the Second Edition, p. xii]","btype":2,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/nJ4WSAlewntt7lZ","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":135,"full_name":"Gottschalk, Hans B.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":535,"section_of":200,"pages":"61-88","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":200,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Sorabji1990","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1990","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1990","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]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/b7EaNXJNckqKKqB","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":200,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Bloomsbury Academic","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"2","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["The Earliest Aristotelian Commentators"]}

The Life and Works of Simplicius in Greek and Arabic Sources, 2016
By: Hadot, Ilsetraut, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title The Life and Works of Simplicius in Greek and Arabic Sources
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence
Pages 295-326
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hadot, Ilsetraut
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
Here, therefore, are the conclusions to which one might be led as regards Simplicius’ works. We have extant: the commentaries on Epictetus’ Encheiridion, on Aristotle’s De Caelo, Physics, Categories, and probably on his De Anima. Lost, though attested in a more or less certain fashion: a commentary on the first book of Euclid’s Elements, a commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, a commentary on Iamblichus’ work devoted to the Pythagorean sect, an epitome of Theophrastus’ Physics (if the commentary on the De Anima, where one finds a reference to this work, is authentic), and perhaps a commentary on Hermogenes’ Tekhnê. [conclusion p. 326]

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The Philosophy of the Commentators 200–600 AD: A Sourcebook; I: Psychology (with Ethics and Religion); II: Physics; III: Logic and Metaphysics, 2005
By: Sorabji, Richard
Title The Philosophy of the Commentators 200–600 AD: A Sourcebook; I: Psychology (with Ethics and Religion); II: Physics; III: Logic and Metaphysics
Type Monograph
Language English
Date 2005
Publication Place London
Publisher Duckworth
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sorabji, Richard
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This is the first work to draw on the four hundred years of transition from ancient Greek philosophy to the medieval philosophy of Islam and the West. During this period, philosophy was often written in the form of commentaries on the works of Plato and Aristotle. Many ideas wrongly credited to the Middle Ages derive from these centuries, such as that of impetus in dynamics and intentional objects in philosophy of mind.

The later Neoplatonist commentators fought a losing battle with Christianity, but inadvertently made Aristotle acceptable to Christians by ascribing to him belief in a Creator God and human immortality. The commentators provide a panorama of up to a thousand years of Greek philosophy, much of which would otherwise be lost. They also serve as the missing link essential for understanding the subsequent history of Western philosophy.

Volume 1 deals with psychology, which for the Neoplatonist commentators was the gateway to metaphysics and theology. It was the subject on which Plato and Aristotle disagreed most, and on which the commentators went furthest beyond them in their search for synthesis. Ethics and religious practice fall naturally under psychology and are included in this volume.

All sources appear in English translation and are carefully linked and cross-referenced by editorial comment and explanation. Bibliographies are provided throughout.

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The Texts of Plato and Aristotle in the First Century BCE: Andronicus’ Canon, 2016
By: Hatzimichali, Myrto, Sorabji, Richard (Ed.)
Title The Texts of Plato and Aristotle in the First Century BCE: Andronicus’ Canon
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2016
Published in Aristotle Re-Interpreted. New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators
Pages 81-102
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hatzimichali, Myrto
Editor(s) Sorabji, Richard
Translator(s)
If we recall at this point the information gathered on the state of Plato’s text in the first century BCE, we can see that by comparison the study of Aristotle’s text was indeed revolutionized. In the case of the Aristotelian corpus, our sources tell a story of true peripeteia, with the appearance of new texts or at least new copies with special claims of antiquity and pedigree, and with the standardization and ordering of the canon in Andronicus’ Pinakes.

A scrutiny of our sources has shown that it was the processes of cataloging, canon formation, and corpus organization that had the greatest impact on the texts we now read, and not the appearance of new ‘editions’ and text-critical initiatives. If this appears counterintuitive, we should remember that judgments about the importance or otherwise of ancient editorial activity can be misleading if they are too dependent on modern experiences and expectations. [conclusion p. 102]

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The Transformation of Plato and Aristotle, 2006
By: Sorabji, Richard, Tarrant, Harold (Ed.), Baltzly, Dirk (Ed.)
Title The Transformation of Plato and Aristotle
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2006
Published in Reading Plato in antiquity
Pages 185-193
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sorabji, Richard
Editor(s) Tarrant, Harold , Baltzly, Dirk
Translator(s)
In Neoplatonism, though not in Aristotelianism, Plato and Aristotle are transformed in a variety of different ways. The transformation is partly driven by a wish to harmonize Plato and Aristotle, but only partly. There is less effort to harmonize the two in some commentators than in others, and on some issues, as we shall see, there is less harmonization among our commentators than there was in the Middle Platonism of an earlier period. Further, the transformation of views is driven by other factors besides harmonization.

Harmonization is most marked in Porphyry and Ammonius. It seems to be least favored by Syrianus and Proclus. Simplicius says that the good commentator should find Plato and Aristotle in harmony on most points (In Cat. 7.23–32). The presumption for a Neoplatonist is that, in the case of disharmony, Plato will be right. However, this presumption is reversed by a late commentator, Olympiodorus, who backs Aristotle against Plato on the definition of relatives (In Cat. 112.19ff).

As an example of harmonization, Porphyry, on the standard interpretation, defended Aristotle’s categories from Plotinus’ objections in Enneads VI.1–3. Plotinus accepted only four of Aristotle’s ten categories for classifying the world perceived by the senses, and even then with heavy qualifications. He complained that Aristotle’s categories left out the world of intelligible Forms from which the perceptible world derived. Sensible qualities, for example, are only shadows of the activities of intelligible Forms. Porphyry replied (In Cat. 57.7–8, 58.5–7, and 91.19–27) that Aristotle’s categories are not meant to be exhaustive. They are only intended to distinguish words insofar as they signify things, and words are chiefly used to speak about sensibles. For that limited task, the categories are to be valued. Porphyry thus made Aristotle’s categories forever acceptable to Platonism. Hereafter, it became increasingly useful to reinforce what I regard as the myth of harmony in the face of Christian charges that pagan philosophers contradicted each other. There was an irony in this, because the harmonization—whose motive was thus partly anti-Christian—ended in the thirteenth century by helping Thomas Aquinas present Aristotle as safe for Christianity. This assimilation to Plato had turned Aristotle’s God from a thinker into a Creator and Aristotle’s human soul into an immortal one.

There can, however, be more than one approach toward the harmonization of Plato and Aristotle. Lloyd Gerson, in this volume, offers the most thoroughgoing modern attempt to argue that it is basically correct. If, as I have supposed, it is not, the question arises whether pressure toward a false harmonization would be bad for philosophy. Having to convince Christians that Plato and Aristotle agreed with each other on almost everything would surely lead to a loss of their wonderful insights. But in fact, it gave a distinctive character, interesting in its own right, to Neoplatonism. Curiously, it also led to an even closer reading of the texts of Plato and Aristotle, because their texts had to be read very closely indeed if one was going to argue that what they really meant was something different from what might first appear.

In fact, the pressure to harmonize proved a valuable stimulus to the imagination in the Greek Neoplatonist commentators. They took Plato to postulate a changeless and timeless world of divine Platonic Forms, and they had to think out how such a world would relate to the temporal, changing world described by Aristotle.

I should now like to look at some examples of what happened to the views of Plato and Aristotle in Neoplatonism. I shall ask what factors besides harmonization are at work, whether Plato is transformed in the process as much as Aristotle, whether the harmonizations are hostile or friendly to Aristotle, and where the transformations proved important for subsequent philosophy. [introduction p. 185-186]

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The transformation is partly driven by a wish to harmonize Plato and Aristotle, but only partly. There is less effort to harmonize the two in some commentators than in others, and on some issues, as we shall see, there is less harmonization among our commentators than there was in the Middle Platonism of an earlier period. Further, the transformation of views is driven by other factors besides harmonization.\r\n\r\nHarmonization is most marked in Porphyry and Ammonius. It seems to be least favored by Syrianus and Proclus. Simplicius says that the good commentator should find Plato and Aristotle in harmony on most points (In Cat. 7.23\u201332). The presumption for a Neoplatonist is that, in the case of disharmony, Plato will be right. 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For that limited task, the categories are to be valued. Porphyry thus made Aristotle\u2019s categories forever acceptable to Platonism. Hereafter, it became increasingly useful to reinforce what I regard as the myth of harmony in the face of Christian charges that pagan philosophers contradicted each other. There was an irony in this, because the harmonization\u2014whose motive was thus partly anti-Christian\u2014ended in the thirteenth century by helping Thomas Aquinas present Aristotle as safe for Christianity. This assimilation to Plato had turned Aristotle\u2019s God from a thinker into a Creator and Aristotle\u2019s human soul into an immortal one.\r\n\r\nThere can, however, be more than one approach toward the harmonization of Plato and Aristotle. Lloyd Gerson, in this volume, offers the most thoroughgoing modern attempt to argue that it is basically correct. 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