| Title | Forms, Souls, and Embryos: Neoplatonists on Human Reproduction |
| Type | Monograph |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2016 |
| Publication Place | London – New York |
| Publisher | Routledge |
| Series | Issues in ancient philosophy |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Wilberding, James |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| Forms, Souls, and Embryos allows readers coming from different backgrounds to appreciate the depth and originality with which the Neoplatonists engaged with and responded to a number of philosophical questions central to human reproduction, including: What is the causal explanation of the embryo’s formation? How and to what extent are Platonic Forms involved? In what sense is a fetus ‘alive,’ and when does it become a human being? Where does the embryo’s soul come from, and how is it connected to its body? This is the first full-length study in English of this fascinating subject, and is a must-read for anyone interested in Neoplatonism or the history of medicine and embryology. |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/pFINi0kWts6jqtF |
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| Title | Neoplatonists on the causes of vegetative life |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2015 |
| Published in | Causation and Creation in Late Antiquity |
| Pages | 171-185 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Wilberding, James |
| Editor(s) | Marmodoro, Anna , Prince, Brian |
| Translator(s) |
| In the Neoplatonism of late antiquity, there was an exciting and revolutionary development in the understanding of the aetiology involved in the generation of living things. Here, it will be argued that this extended all the way to the Neoplatonic understanding of the causes of vegetative life. In a way, this should come as no surprise. Hippocratics, Aristotle, and Galen all viewed the processes involved in the generation of plants as analogous to those in the generation of embryos. In fact, the embryo was commonly held to have the life-status of a plant, with the mother taking on the role of the earth, at least at the earliest stages of its generation. As a result, these thinkers saw the same causal models that govern the generation of embryos at work in the generation of plants. Indeed, Galen even advises those who wish to investigate the formation of embryos to begin by looking into the generation of plants. The above-mentioned analogy is certainly part of the motivation behind Galen’s counsel, but equally important is that plants are simpler, in terms of both their physiology and their psychology, and thus more perspicuous objects of study. This is what gives us "hope to discover among the plants [biological] administration in its pure and unadulterated form." What is surprising is the conception of vegetative generation and life that results for Neoplatonists. As I shall show here, they ultimately concluded that the vegetative souls of individual plants are not self-sufficient. That is to say, the dependence of individual plants on the earth, in terms of both their generation and their preservation, extends beyond mere nutritive needs into the psychological domain of their life activities. In order to see how they arrived at this surprising conclusion, it will be necessary to begin with a brief sketch of Neoplatonic embryological theory, as it can be found across a wide range of core Neoplatonic authors and texts. This theory may be encapsulated into four theses: (i) First, all Neoplatonists are one-seed theorists: there is no female seed. In this, the Neoplatonists were in full agreement with Peripatetic embryology and in opposition to the two-seed theories advanced by the Hippocratics and Galen, though this opposition remains only implicit, as they never even acknowledge the possibility of a female seed. (ii) Second, Neoplatonists universally understand the seed to be a collection of form-principles (logoi) corresponding to individual parts of the father (and by extension of the offspring). Since these form-principles are immaterial, they are wholly present in every part of the seed, allowing the seed to be completely homoiomerous. (iii) Third, these seminal form-principles are in a state of potentiality. (iv) Fourth, they must be led to a state of actuality by an external cause that possesses these same principles in actuality. This cause is generally identified with the nature of the mother, who is additionally responsible for supplying the matter in the form of menses. It is these final two theses that establish the Neoplatonic theory as an exciting new development in ancient embryology. On Aristotle’s one-seed theory, by contrast, the male seed serves as the formal and efficient cause of embryological development, requiring only matter from the female. Aristotle establishes the self-sufficiency of the male seed as an efficient cause by attributing actual motion to it. Even on Galen’s two-seed theory, where one might have expected the female to be granted greater causal efficacy in the embryological process, the male seed remains the sole efficient cause, with the female seed more or less demoted to serving as nourishment for the male seed. What is revolutionary, therefore, in the Neoplatonic account of embryology is its placing the female on equal footing with the male in terms of their causal contributions in embryology. This new conceptualization of the respective contributions of the male and female should be seen as resulting from the application of the Neoplatonic metaphysical framework of procession and reversion to embryology. Within this framework, the creation of an offspring consists of two distinct causal moments. In the first moment, procession, an inchoate offspring is generated that is a likeness of its progenitor but in a state of potentiality. The procession from the One, for example, results in the generation of the Pre-Intellect, which is still only potentially the Intellect. The second moment, reversion, is what accounts for this potentiality being led to a state of activity: by reversion, the Pre-Intellect becomes the genuine Intellect. When this framework is applied to embryology, the theses (iii) and (iv) above follow. The male’s emission of a seed is likened to procession, with the form-principles in the seed still being in a state of potentiality. This potentiality is led to actuality by the mother at conception and throughout the process of gestation. Thus, the male and the female are on a par insofar as each corresponds to one of the two moments of the One’s creative activity. [introduction p. 171-174] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/ElblvTuFCEVCpgN |
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Here, it will be argued that this extended all the way to the Neoplatonic understanding of the causes of vegetative life. In a way, this should come as no surprise. Hippocratics, Aristotle, and Galen all viewed the processes involved in the generation of plants as analogous to those in the generation of embryos. In fact, the embryo was commonly held to have the life-status of a plant, with the mother taking on the role of the earth, at least at the earliest stages of its generation. As a result, these thinkers saw the same causal models that govern the generation of embryos at work in the generation of plants. Indeed, Galen even advises those who wish to investigate the formation of embryos to begin by looking into the generation of plants. The above-mentioned analogy is certainly part of the motivation behind Galen\u2019s counsel, but equally important is that plants are simpler, in terms of both their physiology and their psychology, and thus more perspicuous objects of study. This is what gives us \"hope to discover among the plants [biological] administration in its pure and unadulterated form.\"\r\n\r\nWhat is surprising is the conception of vegetative generation and life that results for Neoplatonists. As I shall show here, they ultimately concluded that the vegetative souls of individual plants are not self-sufficient. That is to say, the dependence of individual plants on the earth, in terms of both their generation and their preservation, extends beyond mere nutritive needs into the psychological domain of their life activities. In order to see how they arrived at this surprising conclusion, it will be necessary to begin with a brief sketch of Neoplatonic embryological theory, as it can be found across a wide range of core Neoplatonic authors and texts. This theory may be encapsulated into four theses:\r\n\r\n(i) First, all Neoplatonists are one-seed theorists: there is no female seed. In this, the Neoplatonists were in full agreement with Peripatetic embryology and in opposition to the two-seed theories advanced by the Hippocratics and Galen, though this opposition remains only implicit, as they never even acknowledge the possibility of a female seed.\r\n\r\n(ii) Second, Neoplatonists universally understand the seed to be a collection of form-principles (logoi) corresponding to individual parts of the father (and by extension of the offspring). Since these form-principles are immaterial, they are wholly present in every part of the seed, allowing the seed to be completely homoiomerous.\r\n\r\n(iii) Third, these seminal form-principles are in a state of potentiality.\r\n\r\n(iv) Fourth, they must be led to a state of actuality by an external cause that possesses these same principles in actuality. This cause is generally identified with the nature of the mother, who is additionally responsible for supplying the matter in the form of menses.\r\n\r\nIt is these final two theses that establish the Neoplatonic theory as an exciting new development in ancient embryology. On Aristotle\u2019s one-seed theory, by contrast, the male seed serves as the formal and efficient cause of embryological development, requiring only matter from the female. Aristotle establishes the self-sufficiency of the male seed as an efficient cause by attributing actual motion to it. Even on Galen\u2019s two-seed theory, where one might have expected the female to be granted greater causal efficacy in the embryological process, the male seed remains the sole efficient cause, with the female seed more or less demoted to serving as nourishment for the male seed.\r\n\r\nWhat is revolutionary, therefore, in the Neoplatonic account of embryology is its placing the female on equal footing with the male in terms of their causal contributions in embryology. This new conceptualization of the respective contributions of the male and female should be seen as resulting from the application of the Neoplatonic metaphysical framework of procession and reversion to embryology. Within this framework, the creation of an offspring consists of two distinct causal moments. In the first moment, procession, an inchoate offspring is generated that is a likeness of its progenitor but in a state of potentiality. The procession from the One, for example, results in the generation of the Pre-Intellect, which is still only potentially the Intellect. The second moment, reversion, is what accounts for this potentiality being led to a state of activity: by reversion, the Pre-Intellect becomes the genuine Intellect.\r\n\r\nWhen this framework is applied to embryology, the theses (iii) and (iv) above follow. The male\u2019s emission of a seed is likened to procession, with the form-principles in the seed still being in a state of potentiality. This potentiality is led to actuality by the mother at conception and throughout the process of gestation. Thus, the male and the female are on a par insofar as each corresponds to one of the two moments of the One\u2019s creative activity. [introduction p. 171-174]","btype":2,"date":"2015","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/ElblvTuFCEVCpgN","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":257,"full_name":"Wilberding, James","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":47,"full_name":"Marmodoro, Anna","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":48,"full_name":"Prince, Brian","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":913,"section_of":155,"pages":"171-185","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":155,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Causation and Creation in Late Antiquity","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Marmodoro\/Prince2015","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2015","edition_no":null,"free_date":"2015","abstract":"Written by a group of leading scholars, this unique collection of essays investigates the views of both pagan and Christian philosophers on causation and the creation of the cosmos. Structured in two parts, the volume first looks at divine agency and how late antique thinkers, including the Stoics, Plotinus, Porphyry, Simplicius, Philoponus and Gregory of Nyssa, tackled questions such as: is the cosmos eternal? Did it come from nothing or from something pre-existing? How was it caused to come into existence? Is it material or immaterial? The second part looks at questions concerning human agency and responsibility, including the problem of evil and the nature of will, considering thinkers such as Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus and Augustine. Highlighting some of the most important and interesting aspects of these philosophical debates, the volume will be of great interest to upper-level students and scholars of philosophy, classics, theology and ancient history. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/lpl3CeEXUUAj1hP","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":155,"pubplace":"Cambridge","publisher":"Cambridge University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":null,"valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2015]}
| Title | In defence of geometric atomism: Explaining elemental properties |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2012 |
| Published in | Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature |
| Pages | 147-173 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Opsomer, Jan |
| Editor(s) | Wilberding, James , Horn, Christoph |
| Translator(s) |
| Plato introduces what is nowadays called geometric atomism in his Timaeus—more precisely, in the second part of the physical account where he examines the cosmos under the aspect of what he calls ‘necessity’. This resurfaces again in the final part, which is devoted to what comes about from the cooperation of reason and necessity, where he regularly invokes the triangles and polyhedra in order to explain various biochemical processes of the human body. The introduction of geometric atomism is preceded by the infamously obscure description of the receptacle. This mysterious entity is presented as that in which qualities and shapes appear but also appears to provide the stuff out of which things are made. I will not here enter into the debates about what the receptacle is supposed to be; it suffices to note that the text in some passages may suggest to readers familiar with the later conception of matter that matter is exactly what Plato means. Since this is certainly what Aristotle and, in his wake, all ancient commentators took it to be, we need not for our present purposes consider other readings. Prior to the intervention of the demiurge, the precosmic mass already contained traces of the elements (ichnê, 53b2): it was fiery here, watery there, and so on. Yet it did not have elements with a stable identity. The use of the definite demonstrative pronouns this or that would therefore be inaccurate. So what is fire in the precosmic state is not to be called a this, but rather a such, or that which is always such and such. In order to bring about some stability, the craftsman set out to impart a distinct configuration to the precosmic mass by means of shapes and numbers (dieschêmatisato eidesi te kai arithmois, 53b4-5). Timaeus constructs the elements out of primary triangles. Of all the possible kinds, he selects two basic types: the 30-60-90 scalene triangle—that is, a half-equilateral triangle (Type A)—and the right isosceles triangle—a half-square (Type B). These triangles are combined to form larger shapes, called ‘surfaces’ (epiphaneia) by the commentators. For the sake of convenience, I shall call ‘surfaces’ the composite shapes formed out of the basic triangles; the latter I shall just call ‘triangles’. (One of the surfaces happens to be a triangle too, and it is a matter of dispute among the commentators whether the surfaces are really just two-dimensional planes.) Six triangles of Type A can be put together in such a way that they make up an equilateral triangle; four Type B triangles form a square. These surfaces are then combined into stereometric figures (congruent convex regular polyhedra): from the equilateral triangular surfaces can be formed the tetrahedron (that is, a pyramid), the octahedron, and the icosahedron, consisting of four, eight, and twenty faces, respectively; six squares are combined into a hexahedron (that is, a cube). These polyhedra are then assigned to the traditional four elements (henceforth referred to as EWAFs): The tetrahedron provides the shape of fire. The octahedron that of air. The icosahedron that of water. The hexahedron that of earth. This model of Plato’s geometric atoms can be completed by adding two more levels—one at the bottom and the other at the top. At one end, we might add the mixtures into which EWAFs enter, and at the foundational level, we must add a level even prior to the basic triangles, since Plato acknowledges that there are ‘even higher principles’ that are known only to god and privileged humans (53d6-7). [introduction p. 147-148] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/q3J2ENiGHB1LmYR |
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This resurfaces again in the final part, which is devoted to what comes about from the cooperation of reason and necessity, where he regularly invokes the triangles and polyhedra in order to explain various biochemical processes of the human body.\r\n\r\nThe introduction of geometric atomism is preceded by the infamously obscure description of the receptacle. This mysterious entity is presented as that in which qualities and shapes appear but also appears to provide the stuff out of which things are made. I will not here enter into the debates about what the receptacle is supposed to be; it suffices to note that the text in some passages may suggest to readers familiar with the later conception of matter that matter is exactly what Plato means. Since this is certainly what Aristotle and, in his wake, all ancient commentators took it to be, we need not for our present purposes consider other readings.\r\n\r\nPrior to the intervention of the demiurge, the precosmic mass already contained traces of the elements (ichn\u00ea, 53b2): it was fiery here, watery there, and so on. Yet it did not have elements with a stable identity. The use of the definite demonstrative pronouns this or that would therefore be inaccurate. So what is fire in the precosmic state is not to be called a this, but rather a such, or that which is always such and such.\r\n\r\nIn order to bring about some stability, the craftsman set out to impart a distinct configuration to the precosmic mass by means of shapes and numbers (diesch\u00eamatisato eidesi te kai arithmois, 53b4-5). Timaeus constructs the elements out of primary triangles. Of all the possible kinds, he selects two basic types: the 30-60-90 scalene triangle\u2014that is, a half-equilateral triangle (Type A)\u2014and the right isosceles triangle\u2014a half-square (Type B). These triangles are combined to form larger shapes, called \u2018surfaces\u2019 (epiphaneia) by the commentators.\r\n\r\nFor the sake of convenience, I shall call \u2018surfaces\u2019 the composite shapes formed out of the basic triangles; the latter I shall just call \u2018triangles\u2019. (One of the surfaces happens to be a triangle too, and it is a matter of dispute among the commentators whether the surfaces are really just two-dimensional planes.)\r\n\r\nSix triangles of Type A can be put together in such a way that they make up an equilateral triangle; four Type B triangles form a square. These surfaces are then combined into stereometric figures (congruent convex regular polyhedra): from the equilateral triangular surfaces can be formed the tetrahedron (that is, a pyramid), the octahedron, and the icosahedron, consisting of four, eight, and twenty faces, respectively; six squares are combined into a hexahedron (that is, a cube).\r\n\r\nThese polyhedra are then assigned to the traditional four elements (henceforth referred to as EWAFs):\r\n\r\n The tetrahedron provides the shape of fire.\r\n The octahedron that of air.\r\n The icosahedron that of water.\r\n The hexahedron that of earth.\r\n\r\nThis model of Plato\u2019s geometric atoms can be completed by adding two more levels\u2014one at the bottom and the other at the top. At one end, we might add the mixtures into which EWAFs enter, and at the foundational level, we must add a level even prior to the basic triangles, since Plato acknowledges that there are \u2018even higher principles\u2019 that are known only to god and privileged humans (53d6-7). [introduction p. 147-148]","btype":2,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/q3J2ENiGHB1LmYR","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":211,"full_name":"Opsomer, Jan","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":257,"full_name":"Wilberding, James","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":256,"full_name":"Horn, Christoph","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1095,"section_of":299,"pages":"147-173","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":299,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Horn\/Wilberding2012","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2012","edition_no":null,"free_date":"2012","abstract":"Despite Platonism\u2019s unquestioned claim to being one of the most influential movements in the history of philosophy, for a long time the conventional wisdom was that Platonists of late antiquity\u2014or Neoplatonists\u2014were so focused on other-worldly metaphysics that they simply neglected any serious study of the sensible world, which after all is \u2018merely\u2019 an image of the intelligible world, and only recently has this conventional wisdom begun to be dispelled. In fact, precisely because these thinkers did see the sensible world as an image of the intelligible world, they devoted much time and energy to understanding its inner workings. Thus we find Neoplatonists writing on embryology, physiology, meteorology, astronomy, and much else. This volume collects essays by leading international scholars in the field that shed new light on how these thinkers sought to understand and explain nature and natural phenomena. It is thematically divided into two parts, with the first part\u2014\u2018The general metaphysics of Nature\u2019\u2014directed at the explication of central Neoplatonic metaphysical doctrines and their relation to the natural world, and the second part\u2014\u2019Platonic approaches to individual sciences\u2019\u2014showing how these same doctrines play out in individual natural sciences such as elemental physics, geography, and biology. Together these essays show that a serious examination of Neoplatonic natural philosophy has far-reaching consequences for our general understanding of the metaphysics of Platonism, as well as for our evaluation of their place in the history of science. [official abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/eoRoURIG3JhMB6J","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":299,"pubplace":"Oxford","publisher":"Oxford University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":null,"valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2012]}
| Title | Self-motion and reflection: Hermias and Proclus on the harmony of Plato and Aristotle on the soul |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2012 |
| Published in | Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature |
| Pages | 44-67 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Menn, Stephen |
| Editor(s) | Horn, Christoph , Wilberding, James |
| Translator(s) |
| A central puzzle of recent scholarship on late Neoplatonism has been to understand how what Richard Sorabji has called a ‘perfectly crazy position', the thesis of die harmony of Plato and Aristode, nonetheless ‘proved philosophically fruitful' — whereas, for instance, the same philosophers' perfectly crazy thesis of the harmony of Plato and Homer did not. In this chapter, starting from Hermias' commentary on a passage of the Phaedrus which poses a difficulty for harmonization, I hope to shed some light on what the late Neoplatonists were asserting when they asserted the harmony of Plato and Aristotle, in general or on some particular issue (here the immortality of soul); on why they were inclined to make such assertions o f harmony, and what they saw themselves as needing to do in order to defend them: and on why,in the process of defending them, they were led to conceptual clarifications which were in some cases of longstanding benefit to the conceptual stoic of philosophy. I will point to a sur prising case of such a conceptual benefit resulting from Neoplatonic interpretations of this Pimdtus passage and its parallels in the Timaeus. While my central example will be from Hermias, the themes I am interested in ate not peculiar to him, and I will also make use of other late Neoplatonic authors, especially Proclus. Hermias, and Produs, to recall, were both students of Syrianus;at one point in Hermias' commentary 'our companion Proclus' raises an aporia, and ‘the philosopher'— that is, ‘the professor — replies (92,6-10 Couvrcur), which seems to imply that the commentary in general was drawn by Hermias from Syrianus lectures. [Introduction, pp. 44 f.] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/EgP6g0IaubwrLcL |
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In this chapter, starting from Hermias' commentary on a passage of the Phaedrus which poses a difficulty for harmonization, I hope to shed some light on what the late Neoplatonists were asserting when they asserted the harmony \r\nof Plato and Aristotle, in general or on some particular issue (here the immortality of soul); on why they were inclined to make such assertions o f harmony, and what they saw themselves as needing to do in order to defend them: and on why,in the process of defending them, they were led to conceptual clarifications which were in some cases of longstanding benefit to the conceptual stoic of philosophy. I will point to a sur\u00ad\r\nprising case of such a conceptual benefit resulting from Neoplatonic interpretations of this Pimdtus passage and its parallels in the Timaeus. While my central example will be from Hermias, the themes I am interested in ate not peculiar to him, and I will also \r\nmake use of other late Neoplatonic authors, especially Proclus. Hermias, and Produs, to recall, were both students of Syrianus;at one point in Hermias' commentary 'our companion Proclus' raises an aporia, and \u2018the philosopher'\u2014 that is, \u2018the professor \u2014 replies (92,6-10 Couvrcur), which seems to imply that the commentary in general was drawn by Hermias from Syrianus lectures. 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In fact, precisely because these thinkers did see the sensible world as an image of the intelligible world, they devoted much time and energy to understanding its inner workings. Thus we find Neoplatonists writing on embryology, physiology, meteorology, astronomy, and much else. This volume collects essays by leading international scholars in the field that shed new light on how these thinkers sought to understand and explain nature and natural phenomena. It is thematically divided into two parts, with the first part\u2014\u2018The general metaphysics of Nature\u2019\u2014directed at the explication of central Neoplatonic metaphysical doctrines and their relation to the natural world, and the second part\u2014\u2019Platonic approaches to individual sciences\u2019\u2014showing how these same doctrines play out in individual natural sciences such as elemental physics, geography, and biology. Together these essays show that a serious examination of Neoplatonic natural philosophy has far-reaching consequences for our general understanding of the metaphysics of Platonism, as well as for our evaluation of their place in the history of science. [official abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/eoRoURIG3JhMB6J","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":299,"pubplace":"Oxford","publisher":"Oxford University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":null,"valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2012]}
| Title | Aristotelian objections and post-Aristotelian responses to Plato's elemental theory |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2012 |
| Published in | Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature |
| Pages | 129-146 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Mueller, Ian |
| Editor(s) | Wilberding, James , Horn, Christoph |
| Translator(s) |
| Aristotle and Plato advanced very different theories of the traditional four elements. Whereas Plato in his Timaeus proposes a geometrical theory of these elements, Aristotle in his On the Heavens (and On Generation and Corruption) offers a qualitative analysis and offers a series of objections to Plato’s theory. These objections provided later Platonists with the opportunity to defend Plato against and possibly harmonize him with Aristotle. This paper explores Simplicius’ responses to Aristotle one by one, paying particular attention to the brand of scientific discourse that he engages in with Proclus, and to how different commitments to harmonization affect their responses to these objections. [Author’s abstract] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/nEraa8dkGyuG6Zy |
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[Author\u2019s abstract]","btype":2,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/nEraa8dkGyuG6Zy","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":270,"full_name":"Mueller, Ian","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":257,"full_name":"Wilberding, James","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":256,"full_name":"Horn, Christoph","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":812,"section_of":299,"pages":"129-146","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":299,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Horn\/Wilberding2012","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2012","edition_no":null,"free_date":"2012","abstract":"Despite Platonism\u2019s unquestioned claim to being one of the most influential movements in the history of philosophy, for a long time the conventional wisdom was that Platonists of late antiquity\u2014or Neoplatonists\u2014were so focused on other-worldly metaphysics that they simply neglected any serious study of the sensible world, which after all is \u2018merely\u2019 an image of the intelligible world, and only recently has this conventional wisdom begun to be dispelled. In fact, precisely because these thinkers did see the sensible world as an image of the intelligible world, they devoted much time and energy to understanding its inner workings. Thus we find Neoplatonists writing on embryology, physiology, meteorology, astronomy, and much else. This volume collects essays by leading international scholars in the field that shed new light on how these thinkers sought to understand and explain nature and natural phenomena. It is thematically divided into two parts, with the first part\u2014\u2018The general metaphysics of Nature\u2019\u2014directed at the explication of central Neoplatonic metaphysical doctrines and their relation to the natural world, and the second part\u2014\u2019Platonic approaches to individual sciences\u2019\u2014showing how these same doctrines play out in individual natural sciences such as elemental physics, geography, and biology. Together these essays show that a serious examination of Neoplatonic natural philosophy has far-reaching consequences for our general understanding of the metaphysics of Platonism, as well as for our evaluation of their place in the history of science. [official abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/eoRoURIG3JhMB6J","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":299,"pubplace":"Oxford","publisher":"Oxford University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":null,"valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2012]}
| Title | Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature |
| Type | Edited Book |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2012 |
| Publication Place | Oxford |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | |
| Editor(s) | Horn, Christoph , Wilberding, James |
| Translator(s) |
| Despite Platonism’s unquestioned claim to being one of the most influential movements in the history of philosophy, for a long time the conventional wisdom was that Platonists of late antiquity—or Neoplatonists—were so focused on other-worldly metaphysics that they simply neglected any serious study of the sensible world, which after all is ‘merely’ an image of the intelligible world, and only recently has this conventional wisdom begun to be dispelled. In fact, precisely because these thinkers did see the sensible world as an image of the intelligible world, they devoted much time and energy to understanding its inner workings. Thus we find Neoplatonists writing on embryology, physiology, meteorology, astronomy, and much else. This volume collects essays by leading international scholars in the field that shed new light on how these thinkers sought to understand and explain nature and natural phenomena. It is thematically divided into two parts, with the first part—‘The general metaphysics of Nature’—directed at the explication of central Neoplatonic metaphysical doctrines and their relation to the natural world, and the second part—’Platonic approaches to individual sciences’—showing how these same doctrines play out in individual natural sciences such as elemental physics, geography, and biology. Together these essays show that a serious examination of Neoplatonic natural philosophy has far-reaching consequences for our general understanding of the metaphysics of Platonism, as well as for our evaluation of their place in the history of science. [official abstract] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/eoRoURIG3JhMB6J |
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| Title | Aristotle, Plotinus, and Simplicius on the Relation of the Changer to the Changed |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2005 |
| Journal | The Classical Quarterly |
| Volume | 55 (New Series) |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 447–454 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Wilberding, James |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| As we have seen above, Plotinus' hesitation with respect to (1) probably derived from his theory of double activity, and so Simplicius' willingness to agree to (1) suggests that he did not adopt this theory. Indeed, I suspect this was the case. It is true that the structure of Neoplatonic metaphysics that one encounters in Simplicius bears many similarities to that of Plotinus, including much of the language of procession. Both, for example, speak of lower substances "proceeding (προιέναι)" from and "enjoying" (ἀπολαμβάνειν) "radiation" (ἀπαύγασις or περιλάμπσις) from their priors. But nowhere, I claim, does Simplicius explain procession by means of Plotinus' theory of double activity. There is, of course, no great proof stone for such negative claims. Nevertheless, this claim can be partially verified by checking to see what Simplicius has to say about Plotinus' favourite examples of double activity—light, heat, and the images in mirrors—as well as by searching the Simplician corpus to see if he uses the designations for internal and external activity that Plotinus uses. Investigation shows that Simplicius does not make use of Plotinus' designations. The closest we get is a passage in his commentary on the Physics where he provides a long quotation of Damascius in which the theory seems to appear. Otherwise, we find only some discussion of the Aristotelian distinction between first and second actuality. But Simplicius does not distinguish the activity τῆς οὐσίας from that ἐκ (or ἀπὸ) τῆς οὐσίας, nor that πρὸς τὸ ἄνω from that πρὸς τὸ κάτω, nor that ἐν αὐτῇ (or αὐτῇ) from that ἐξ (or παρ’) αὐτῆς. Moreover, we can see that none of Plotinus' three examples is employed by Simplicius to explain double activity. Regarding the nature of light, Simplicius is even rather non-committal at times. As for heat, even when Simplicius discusses the distinction between the heat that is proper to fire (that is, the internal activity) and the heat that fire produces in another thing (that is, the external activity), he does so without using the language of the double activity theory. And Simplicius simply does not make much use of mirrors. All of this, I believe, points to the conclusion that Simplicius does not employ Plotinus' distinction between internal and external activity. If this is right, it perhaps does not imply that Simplicius' views on the metaphysics of procession are all that different from Plotinus', but at the very least, it would show that there is sometimes a considerable difference in the way he goes about describing those views. [conclusion p. 453-454] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/2vgk7grGxbqIV3p |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"431","_score":null,"_source":{"id":431,"authors_free":[{"id":582,"entry_id":431,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":257,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Wilberding, James","free_first_name":"James","free_last_name":"Wilberding","norm_person":{"id":257,"first_name":"James","last_name":"Wilberding","full_name":"Wilberding, James","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/143517465","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Aristotle, Plotinus, and Simplicius on the Relation of the Changer to the Changed","main_title":{"title":"Aristotle, Plotinus, and Simplicius on the Relation of the Changer to the Changed"},"abstract":"As we have seen above, Plotinus' hesitation with respect to (1) probably derived from his theory of double activity, and so Simplicius' willingness to agree to (1) suggests that he did not adopt this theory. Indeed, I suspect this was the case. It is true that the structure of Neoplatonic metaphysics that one encounters in Simplicius bears many similarities to that of Plotinus, including much of the language of procession. Both, for example, speak of lower substances \"proceeding (\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9)\" from and \"enjoying\" (\u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03b2\u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd) \"radiation\" (\u1f00\u03c0\u03b1\u03cd\u03b3\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 or \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03c0\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2) from their priors. But nowhere, I claim, does Simplicius explain procession by means of Plotinus' theory of double activity.\r\n\r\nThere is, of course, no great proof stone for such negative claims. Nevertheless, this claim can be partially verified by checking to see what Simplicius has to say about Plotinus' favourite examples of double activity\u2014light, heat, and the images in mirrors\u2014as well as by searching the Simplician corpus to see if he uses the designations for internal and external activity that Plotinus uses. Investigation shows that Simplicius does not make use of Plotinus' designations. The closest we get is a passage in his commentary on the Physics where he provides a long quotation of Damascius in which the theory seems to appear. Otherwise, we find only some discussion of the Aristotelian distinction between first and second actuality. But Simplicius does not distinguish the activity \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 from that \u1f10\u03ba (or \u1f00\u03c0\u1f78) \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03c2, nor that \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f04\u03bd\u03c9 from that \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03ba\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9, nor that \u1f10\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1fc7 (or \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1fc7) from that \u1f10\u03be (or \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u2019) \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2.\r\n\r\nMoreover, we can see that none of Plotinus' three examples is employed by Simplicius to explain double activity. Regarding the nature of light, Simplicius is even rather non-committal at times. As for heat, even when Simplicius discusses the distinction between the heat that is proper to fire (that is, the internal activity) and the heat that fire produces in another thing (that is, the external activity), he does so without using the language of the double activity theory. And Simplicius simply does not make much use of mirrors. All of this, I believe, points to the conclusion that Simplicius does not employ Plotinus' distinction between internal and external activity.\r\n\r\nIf this is right, it perhaps does not imply that Simplicius' views on the metaphysics of procession are all that different from Plotinus', but at the very least, it would show that there is sometimes a considerable difference in the way he goes about describing those views. [conclusion p. 453-454]","btype":3,"date":"2005","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/2vgk7grGxbqIV3p","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":257,"full_name":"Wilberding, James","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":431,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical Quarterly","volume":"55 (New Series)","issue":"2","pages":"447\u2013454"}},"sort":[2005]}
| Title | Aristotelian objections and post-Aristotelian responses to Plato's elemental theory |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2012 |
| Published in | Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature |
| Pages | 129-146 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Mueller, Ian |
| Editor(s) | Wilberding, James , Horn, Christoph |
| Translator(s) |
Aristotle and Plato advanced very different theories of the traditional four elements. Whereas Plato in his Timaeus proposes a geometrical theory of these elements, Aristotle in his On the Heavens (and On Generation and Corruption) offers a qualitative analysis and offers a series of objections to Plato’s theory. These objections provided later Platonists with the opportunity to defend Plato against and possibly harmonize him with Aristotle. This paper explores Simplicius’ responses to Aristotle one by one, paying particular attention to the brand of scientific discourse that he engages in with Proclus, and to how different commitments to harmonization affect their responses to these objections. [Author’s abstract] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/nEraa8dkGyuG6Zy |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"812","_score":null,"_source":{"id":812,"authors_free":[{"id":1202,"entry_id":812,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":270,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Mueller, Ian","free_first_name":"Ian","free_last_name":"Mueller","norm_person":{"id":270,"first_name":"Ian","last_name":"Mueller","full_name":"Mueller, Ian","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1203,"entry_id":812,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":257,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Wilberding, James","free_first_name":"James","free_last_name":"Wilberding","norm_person":{"id":257,"first_name":"James","last_name":"Wilberding","full_name":"Wilberding, James","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/143517465","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1204,"entry_id":812,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":256,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Horn, Christoph","free_first_name":"Cristoph","free_last_name":"Horn","norm_person":{"id":256,"first_name":"Christoph","last_name":"Horn","full_name":"Horn, Christoph","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/115589406","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Aristotelian objections and post-Aristotelian responses to Plato's elemental theory","main_title":{"title":"Aristotelian objections and post-Aristotelian responses to Plato's elemental theory"},"abstract":"Aristotle and Plato advanced very different theories of the traditional four elements. Whereas Plato in his Timaeus proposes a geometrical theory of these elements, Aristotle in his On the Heavens (and On Generation and Corruption) offers a qualitative analysis and offers a series of objections to Plato\u2019s theory. These objections provided later Platonists with the opportunity to defend Plato against and possibly harmonize him with Aristotle. This paper explores Simplicius\u2019 responses to Aristotle one by one, paying particular attention to the brand of scientific discourse that he engages in with Proclus, and to how different commitments to harmonization affect their responses to these objections. [Author\u2019s abstract]","btype":2,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/nEraa8dkGyuG6Zy","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":270,"full_name":"Mueller, Ian","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":257,"full_name":"Wilberding, James","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":256,"full_name":"Horn, Christoph","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":812,"section_of":299,"pages":"129-146","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":299,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Horn\/Wilberding2012","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2012","edition_no":null,"free_date":"2012","abstract":"Despite Platonism\u2019s unquestioned claim to being one of the most influential movements in the history of philosophy, for a long time the conventional wisdom was that Platonists of late antiquity\u2014or Neoplatonists\u2014were so focused on other-worldly metaphysics that they simply neglected any serious study of the sensible world, which after all is \u2018merely\u2019 an image of the intelligible world, and only recently has this conventional wisdom begun to be dispelled. In fact, precisely because these thinkers did see the sensible world as an image of the intelligible world, they devoted much time and energy to understanding its inner workings. Thus we find Neoplatonists writing on embryology, physiology, meteorology, astronomy, and much else. This volume collects essays by leading international scholars in the field that shed new light on how these thinkers sought to understand and explain nature and natural phenomena. It is thematically divided into two parts, with the first part\u2014\u2018The general metaphysics of Nature\u2019\u2014directed at the explication of central Neoplatonic metaphysical doctrines and their relation to the natural world, and the second part\u2014\u2019Platonic approaches to individual sciences\u2019\u2014showing how these same doctrines play out in individual natural sciences such as elemental physics, geography, and biology. Together these essays show that a serious examination of Neoplatonic natural philosophy has far-reaching consequences for our general understanding of the metaphysics of Platonism, as well as for our evaluation of their place in the history of science. [official abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/eoRoURIG3JhMB6J","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":299,"pubplace":"Oxford","publisher":"Oxford University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":null,"valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Aristotelian objections and post-Aristotelian responses to Plato's elemental theory"]}
| Title | Aristotle, Plotinus, and Simplicius on the Relation of the Changer to the Changed |
| Type | Article |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2005 |
| Journal | The Classical Quarterly |
| Volume | 55 (New Series) |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 447–454 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Wilberding, James |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
As we have seen above, Plotinus' hesitation with respect to (1) probably derived from his theory of double activity, and so Simplicius' willingness to agree to (1) suggests that he did not adopt this theory. Indeed, I suspect this was the case. It is true that the structure of Neoplatonic metaphysics that one encounters in Simplicius bears many similarities to that of Plotinus, including much of the language of procession. Both, for example, speak of lower substances "proceeding (προιέναι)" from and "enjoying" (ἀπολαμβάνειν) "radiation" (ἀπαύγασις or περιλάμπσις) from their priors. But nowhere, I claim, does Simplicius explain procession by means of Plotinus' theory of double activity. There is, of course, no great proof stone for such negative claims. Nevertheless, this claim can be partially verified by checking to see what Simplicius has to say about Plotinus' favourite examples of double activity—light, heat, and the images in mirrors—as well as by searching the Simplician corpus to see if he uses the designations for internal and external activity that Plotinus uses. Investigation shows that Simplicius does not make use of Plotinus' designations. The closest we get is a passage in his commentary on the Physics where he provides a long quotation of Damascius in which the theory seems to appear. Otherwise, we find only some discussion of the Aristotelian distinction between first and second actuality. But Simplicius does not distinguish the activity τῆς οὐσίας from that ἐκ (or ἀπὸ) τῆς οὐσίας, nor that πρὸς τὸ ἄνω from that πρὸς τὸ κάτω, nor that ἐν αὐτῇ (or αὐτῇ) from that ἐξ (or παρ’) αὐτῆς. Moreover, we can see that none of Plotinus' three examples is employed by Simplicius to explain double activity. Regarding the nature of light, Simplicius is even rather non-committal at times. As for heat, even when Simplicius discusses the distinction between the heat that is proper to fire (that is, the internal activity) and the heat that fire produces in another thing (that is, the external activity), he does so without using the language of the double activity theory. And Simplicius simply does not make much use of mirrors. All of this, I believe, points to the conclusion that Simplicius does not employ Plotinus' distinction between internal and external activity. If this is right, it perhaps does not imply that Simplicius' views on the metaphysics of procession are all that different from Plotinus', but at the very least, it would show that there is sometimes a considerable difference in the way he goes about describing those views. [conclusion p. 453-454] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/2vgk7grGxbqIV3p |
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| Title | Forms, Souls, and Embryos: Neoplatonists on Human Reproduction |
| Type | Monograph |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2016 |
| Publication Place | London – New York |
| Publisher | Routledge |
| Series | Issues in ancient philosophy |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Wilberding, James |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
Forms, Souls, and Embryos allows readers coming from different backgrounds to appreciate the depth and originality with which the Neoplatonists engaged with and responded to a number of philosophical questions central to human reproduction, including: What is the causal explanation of the embryo’s formation? How and to what extent are Platonic Forms involved? In what sense is a fetus ‘alive,’ and when does it become a human being? Where does the embryo’s soul come from, and how is it connected to its body? This is the first full-length study in English of this fascinating subject, and is a must-read for anyone interested in Neoplatonism or the history of medicine and embryology. |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/pFINi0kWts6jqtF |
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| Title | In defence of geometric atomism: Explaining elemental properties |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2012 |
| Published in | Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature |
| Pages | 147-173 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Opsomer, Jan |
| Editor(s) | Wilberding, James , Horn, Christoph |
| Translator(s) |
Plato introduces what is nowadays called geometric atomism in his Timaeus—more precisely, in the second part of the physical account where he examines the cosmos under the aspect of what he calls ‘necessity’. This resurfaces again in the final part, which is devoted to what comes about from the cooperation of reason and necessity, where he regularly invokes the triangles and polyhedra in order to explain various biochemical processes of the human body.
The introduction of geometric atomism is preceded by the infamously obscure description of the receptacle. This mysterious entity is presented as that in which qualities and shapes appear but also appears to provide the stuff out of which things are made. I will not here enter into the debates about what the receptacle is supposed to be; it suffices to note that the text in some passages may suggest to readers familiar with the later conception of matter that matter is exactly what Plato means. Since this is certainly what Aristotle and, in his wake, all ancient commentators took it to be, we need not for our present purposes consider other readings.
Prior to the intervention of the demiurge, the precosmic mass already contained traces of the elements (ichnê, 53b2): it was fiery here, watery there, and so on. Yet it did not have elements with a stable identity. The use of the definite demonstrative pronouns this or that would therefore be inaccurate. So what is fire in the precosmic state is not to be called a this, but rather a such, or that which is always such and such.
In order to bring about some stability, the craftsman set out to impart a distinct configuration to the precosmic mass by means of shapes and numbers (dieschêmatisato eidesi te kai arithmois, 53b4-5). Timaeus constructs the elements out of primary triangles. Of all the possible kinds, he selects two basic types: the 30-60-90 scalene triangle—that is, a half-equilateral triangle (Type A)—and the right isosceles triangle—a half-square (Type B). These triangles are combined to form larger shapes, called ‘surfaces’ (epiphaneia) by the commentators.
For the sake of convenience, I shall call ‘surfaces’ the composite shapes formed out of the basic triangles; the latter I shall just call ‘triangles’. (One of the surfaces happens to be a triangle too, and it is a matter of dispute among the commentators whether the surfaces are really just two-dimensional planes.)
Six triangles of Type A can be put together in such a way that they make up an equilateral triangle; four Type B triangles form a square. These surfaces are then combined into stereometric figures (congruent convex regular polyhedra): from the equilateral triangular surfaces can be formed the tetrahedron (that is, a pyramid), the octahedron, and the icosahedron, consisting of four, eight, and twenty faces, respectively; six squares are combined into a hexahedron (that is, a cube).
These polyhedra are then assigned to the traditional four elements (henceforth referred to as EWAFs):
The tetrahedron provides the shape of fire.
The octahedron that of air.
The icosahedron that of water.
The hexahedron that of earth.
This model of Plato’s geometric atoms can be completed by adding two more levels—one at the bottom and the other at the top. At one end, we might add the mixtures into which EWAFs enter, and at the foundational level, we must add a level even prior to the basic triangles, since Plato acknowledges that there are ‘even higher principles’ that are known only to god and privileged humans (53d6-7). [introduction p. 147-148] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/q3J2ENiGHB1LmYR |
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This resurfaces again in the final part, which is devoted to what comes about from the cooperation of reason and necessity, where he regularly invokes the triangles and polyhedra in order to explain various biochemical processes of the human body.\r\n\r\nThe introduction of geometric atomism is preceded by the infamously obscure description of the receptacle. This mysterious entity is presented as that in which qualities and shapes appear but also appears to provide the stuff out of which things are made. I will not here enter into the debates about what the receptacle is supposed to be; it suffices to note that the text in some passages may suggest to readers familiar with the later conception of matter that matter is exactly what Plato means. Since this is certainly what Aristotle and, in his wake, all ancient commentators took it to be, we need not for our present purposes consider other readings.\r\n\r\nPrior to the intervention of the demiurge, the precosmic mass already contained traces of the elements (ichn\u00ea, 53b2): it was fiery here, watery there, and so on. Yet it did not have elements with a stable identity. The use of the definite demonstrative pronouns this or that would therefore be inaccurate. So what is fire in the precosmic state is not to be called a this, but rather a such, or that which is always such and such.\r\n\r\nIn order to bring about some stability, the craftsman set out to impart a distinct configuration to the precosmic mass by means of shapes and numbers (diesch\u00eamatisato eidesi te kai arithmois, 53b4-5). Timaeus constructs the elements out of primary triangles. Of all the possible kinds, he selects two basic types: the 30-60-90 scalene triangle\u2014that is, a half-equilateral triangle (Type A)\u2014and the right isosceles triangle\u2014a half-square (Type B). These triangles are combined to form larger shapes, called \u2018surfaces\u2019 (epiphaneia) by the commentators.\r\n\r\nFor the sake of convenience, I shall call \u2018surfaces\u2019 the composite shapes formed out of the basic triangles; the latter I shall just call \u2018triangles\u2019. (One of the surfaces happens to be a triangle too, and it is a matter of dispute among the commentators whether the surfaces are really just two-dimensional planes.)\r\n\r\nSix triangles of Type A can be put together in such a way that they make up an equilateral triangle; four Type B triangles form a square. These surfaces are then combined into stereometric figures (congruent convex regular polyhedra): from the equilateral triangular surfaces can be formed the tetrahedron (that is, a pyramid), the octahedron, and the icosahedron, consisting of four, eight, and twenty faces, respectively; six squares are combined into a hexahedron (that is, a cube).\r\n\r\nThese polyhedra are then assigned to the traditional four elements (henceforth referred to as EWAFs):\r\n\r\n The tetrahedron provides the shape of fire.\r\n The octahedron that of air.\r\n The icosahedron that of water.\r\n The hexahedron that of earth.\r\n\r\nThis model of Plato\u2019s geometric atoms can be completed by adding two more levels\u2014one at the bottom and the other at the top. At one end, we might add the mixtures into which EWAFs enter, and at the foundational level, we must add a level even prior to the basic triangles, since Plato acknowledges that there are \u2018even higher principles\u2019 that are known only to god and privileged humans (53d6-7). [introduction p. 147-148]","btype":2,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/q3J2ENiGHB1LmYR","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":211,"full_name":"Opsomer, Jan","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":257,"full_name":"Wilberding, James","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":256,"full_name":"Horn, Christoph","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1095,"section_of":299,"pages":"147-173","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":299,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Horn\/Wilberding2012","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2012","edition_no":null,"free_date":"2012","abstract":"Despite Platonism\u2019s unquestioned claim to being one of the most influential movements in the history of philosophy, for a long time the conventional wisdom was that Platonists of late antiquity\u2014or Neoplatonists\u2014were so focused on other-worldly metaphysics that they simply neglected any serious study of the sensible world, which after all is \u2018merely\u2019 an image of the intelligible world, and only recently has this conventional wisdom begun to be dispelled. In fact, precisely because these thinkers did see the sensible world as an image of the intelligible world, they devoted much time and energy to understanding its inner workings. Thus we find Neoplatonists writing on embryology, physiology, meteorology, astronomy, and much else. This volume collects essays by leading international scholars in the field that shed new light on how these thinkers sought to understand and explain nature and natural phenomena. It is thematically divided into two parts, with the first part\u2014\u2018The general metaphysics of Nature\u2019\u2014directed at the explication of central Neoplatonic metaphysical doctrines and their relation to the natural world, and the second part\u2014\u2019Platonic approaches to individual sciences\u2019\u2014showing how these same doctrines play out in individual natural sciences such as elemental physics, geography, and biology. Together these essays show that a serious examination of Neoplatonic natural philosophy has far-reaching consequences for our general understanding of the metaphysics of Platonism, as well as for our evaluation of their place in the history of science. [official abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/eoRoURIG3JhMB6J","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":299,"pubplace":"Oxford","publisher":"Oxford University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":null,"valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["In defence of geometric atomism: Explaining elemental properties"]}
| Title | Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature |
| Type | Edited Book |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2012 |
| Publication Place | Oxford |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | |
| Editor(s) | Horn, Christoph , Wilberding, James |
| Translator(s) |
Despite Platonism’s unquestioned claim to being one of the most influential movements in the history of philosophy, for a long time the conventional wisdom was that Platonists of late antiquity—or Neoplatonists—were so focused on other-worldly metaphysics that they simply neglected any serious study of the sensible world, which after all is ‘merely’ an image of the intelligible world, and only recently has this conventional wisdom begun to be dispelled. In fact, precisely because these thinkers did see the sensible world as an image of the intelligible world, they devoted much time and energy to understanding its inner workings. Thus we find Neoplatonists writing on embryology, physiology, meteorology, astronomy, and much else. This volume collects essays by leading international scholars in the field that shed new light on how these thinkers sought to understand and explain nature and natural phenomena. It is thematically divided into two parts, with the first part—‘The general metaphysics of Nature’—directed at the explication of central Neoplatonic metaphysical doctrines and their relation to the natural world, and the second part—’Platonic approaches to individual sciences’—showing how these same doctrines play out in individual natural sciences such as elemental physics, geography, and biology. Together these essays show that a serious examination of Neoplatonic natural philosophy has far-reaching consequences for our general understanding of the metaphysics of Platonism, as well as for our evaluation of their place in the history of science. [official abstract] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/eoRoURIG3JhMB6J |
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| Title | Neoplatonists on the causes of vegetative life |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2015 |
| Published in | Causation and Creation in Late Antiquity |
| Pages | 171-185 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Wilberding, James |
| Editor(s) | Marmodoro, Anna , Prince, Brian |
| Translator(s) |
In the Neoplatonism of late antiquity, there was an exciting and revolutionary development in the understanding of the aetiology involved in the generation of living things. Here, it will be argued that this extended all the way to the Neoplatonic understanding of the causes of vegetative life. In a way, this should come as no surprise. Hippocratics, Aristotle, and Galen all viewed the processes involved in the generation of plants as analogous to those in the generation of embryos. In fact, the embryo was commonly held to have the life-status of a plant, with the mother taking on the role of the earth, at least at the earliest stages of its generation. As a result, these thinkers saw the same causal models that govern the generation of embryos at work in the generation of plants. Indeed, Galen even advises those who wish to investigate the formation of embryos to begin by looking into the generation of plants. The above-mentioned analogy is certainly part of the motivation behind Galen’s counsel, but equally important is that plants are simpler, in terms of both their physiology and their psychology, and thus more perspicuous objects of study. This is what gives us "hope to discover among the plants [biological] administration in its pure and unadulterated form." What is surprising is the conception of vegetative generation and life that results for Neoplatonists. As I shall show here, they ultimately concluded that the vegetative souls of individual plants are not self-sufficient. That is to say, the dependence of individual plants on the earth, in terms of both their generation and their preservation, extends beyond mere nutritive needs into the psychological domain of their life activities. In order to see how they arrived at this surprising conclusion, it will be necessary to begin with a brief sketch of Neoplatonic embryological theory, as it can be found across a wide range of core Neoplatonic authors and texts. This theory may be encapsulated into four theses: (i) First, all Neoplatonists are one-seed theorists: there is no female seed. In this, the Neoplatonists were in full agreement with Peripatetic embryology and in opposition to the two-seed theories advanced by the Hippocratics and Galen, though this opposition remains only implicit, as they never even acknowledge the possibility of a female seed. (ii) Second, Neoplatonists universally understand the seed to be a collection of form-principles (logoi) corresponding to individual parts of the father (and by extension of the offspring). Since these form-principles are immaterial, they are wholly present in every part of the seed, allowing the seed to be completely homoiomerous. (iii) Third, these seminal form-principles are in a state of potentiality. (iv) Fourth, they must be led to a state of actuality by an external cause that possesses these same principles in actuality. This cause is generally identified with the nature of the mother, who is additionally responsible for supplying the matter in the form of menses. It is these final two theses that establish the Neoplatonic theory as an exciting new development in ancient embryology. On Aristotle’s one-seed theory, by contrast, the male seed serves as the formal and efficient cause of embryological development, requiring only matter from the female. Aristotle establishes the self-sufficiency of the male seed as an efficient cause by attributing actual motion to it. Even on Galen’s two-seed theory, where one might have expected the female to be granted greater causal efficacy in the embryological process, the male seed remains the sole efficient cause, with the female seed more or less demoted to serving as nourishment for the male seed. What is revolutionary, therefore, in the Neoplatonic account of embryology is its placing the female on equal footing with the male in terms of their causal contributions in embryology. This new conceptualization of the respective contributions of the male and female should be seen as resulting from the application of the Neoplatonic metaphysical framework of procession and reversion to embryology. Within this framework, the creation of an offspring consists of two distinct causal moments. In the first moment, procession, an inchoate offspring is generated that is a likeness of its progenitor but in a state of potentiality. The procession from the One, for example, results in the generation of the Pre-Intellect, which is still only potentially the Intellect. The second moment, reversion, is what accounts for this potentiality being led to a state of activity: by reversion, the Pre-Intellect becomes the genuine Intellect. When this framework is applied to embryology, the theses (iii) and (iv) above follow. The male’s emission of a seed is likened to procession, with the form-principles in the seed still being in a state of potentiality. This potentiality is led to actuality by the mother at conception and throughout the process of gestation. Thus, the male and the female are on a par insofar as each corresponds to one of the two moments of the One’s creative activity. [introduction p. 171-174] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/ElblvTuFCEVCpgN |
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Here, it will be argued that this extended all the way to the Neoplatonic understanding of the causes of vegetative life. In a way, this should come as no surprise. Hippocratics, Aristotle, and Galen all viewed the processes involved in the generation of plants as analogous to those in the generation of embryos. In fact, the embryo was commonly held to have the life-status of a plant, with the mother taking on the role of the earth, at least at the earliest stages of its generation. As a result, these thinkers saw the same causal models that govern the generation of embryos at work in the generation of plants. Indeed, Galen even advises those who wish to investigate the formation of embryos to begin by looking into the generation of plants. The above-mentioned analogy is certainly part of the motivation behind Galen\u2019s counsel, but equally important is that plants are simpler, in terms of both their physiology and their psychology, and thus more perspicuous objects of study. This is what gives us \"hope to discover among the plants [biological] administration in its pure and unadulterated form.\"\r\n\r\nWhat is surprising is the conception of vegetative generation and life that results for Neoplatonists. As I shall show here, they ultimately concluded that the vegetative souls of individual plants are not self-sufficient. That is to say, the dependence of individual plants on the earth, in terms of both their generation and their preservation, extends beyond mere nutritive needs into the psychological domain of their life activities. In order to see how they arrived at this surprising conclusion, it will be necessary to begin with a brief sketch of Neoplatonic embryological theory, as it can be found across a wide range of core Neoplatonic authors and texts. This theory may be encapsulated into four theses:\r\n\r\n(i) First, all Neoplatonists are one-seed theorists: there is no female seed. In this, the Neoplatonists were in full agreement with Peripatetic embryology and in opposition to the two-seed theories advanced by the Hippocratics and Galen, though this opposition remains only implicit, as they never even acknowledge the possibility of a female seed.\r\n\r\n(ii) Second, Neoplatonists universally understand the seed to be a collection of form-principles (logoi) corresponding to individual parts of the father (and by extension of the offspring). Since these form-principles are immaterial, they are wholly present in every part of the seed, allowing the seed to be completely homoiomerous.\r\n\r\n(iii) Third, these seminal form-principles are in a state of potentiality.\r\n\r\n(iv) Fourth, they must be led to a state of actuality by an external cause that possesses these same principles in actuality. This cause is generally identified with the nature of the mother, who is additionally responsible for supplying the matter in the form of menses.\r\n\r\nIt is these final two theses that establish the Neoplatonic theory as an exciting new development in ancient embryology. On Aristotle\u2019s one-seed theory, by contrast, the male seed serves as the formal and efficient cause of embryological development, requiring only matter from the female. Aristotle establishes the self-sufficiency of the male seed as an efficient cause by attributing actual motion to it. Even on Galen\u2019s two-seed theory, where one might have expected the female to be granted greater causal efficacy in the embryological process, the male seed remains the sole efficient cause, with the female seed more or less demoted to serving as nourishment for the male seed.\r\n\r\nWhat is revolutionary, therefore, in the Neoplatonic account of embryology is its placing the female on equal footing with the male in terms of their causal contributions in embryology. This new conceptualization of the respective contributions of the male and female should be seen as resulting from the application of the Neoplatonic metaphysical framework of procession and reversion to embryology. Within this framework, the creation of an offspring consists of two distinct causal moments. In the first moment, procession, an inchoate offspring is generated that is a likeness of its progenitor but in a state of potentiality. The procession from the One, for example, results in the generation of the Pre-Intellect, which is still only potentially the Intellect. The second moment, reversion, is what accounts for this potentiality being led to a state of activity: by reversion, the Pre-Intellect becomes the genuine Intellect.\r\n\r\nWhen this framework is applied to embryology, the theses (iii) and (iv) above follow. The male\u2019s emission of a seed is likened to procession, with the form-principles in the seed still being in a state of potentiality. This potentiality is led to actuality by the mother at conception and throughout the process of gestation. Thus, the male and the female are on a par insofar as each corresponds to one of the two moments of the One\u2019s creative activity. 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Structured in two parts, the volume first looks at divine agency and how late antique thinkers, including the Stoics, Plotinus, Porphyry, Simplicius, Philoponus and Gregory of Nyssa, tackled questions such as: is the cosmos eternal? Did it come from nothing or from something pre-existing? How was it caused to come into existence? Is it material or immaterial? The second part looks at questions concerning human agency and responsibility, including the problem of evil and the nature of will, considering thinkers such as Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus and Augustine. Highlighting some of the most important and interesting aspects of these philosophical debates, the volume will be of great interest to upper-level students and scholars of philosophy, classics, theology and ancient history. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/lpl3CeEXUUAj1hP","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":155,"pubplace":"Cambridge","publisher":"Cambridge University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":null,"valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Neoplatonists on the causes of vegetative life"]}
| Title | Self-motion and reflection: Hermias and Proclus on the harmony of Plato and Aristotle on the soul |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2012 |
| Published in | Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature |
| Pages | 44-67 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Menn, Stephen |
| Editor(s) | Horn, Christoph , Wilberding, James |
| Translator(s) |
A central puzzle of recent scholarship on late Neoplatonism has been to understand how what Richard Sorabji has called a ‘perfectly crazy position', the thesis of die harmony of Plato and Aristode, nonetheless ‘proved philosophically fruitful' — whereas, for instance, the same philosophers' perfectly crazy thesis of the harmony of Plato and Homer did not. In this chapter, starting from Hermias' commentary on a passage of the Phaedrus which poses a difficulty for harmonization, I hope to shed some light on what the late Neoplatonists were asserting when they asserted the harmony of Plato and Aristotle, in general or on some particular issue (here the immortality of soul); on why they were inclined to make such assertions o f harmony, and what they saw themselves as needing to do in order to defend them: and on why,in the process of defending them, they were led to conceptual clarifications which were in some cases of longstanding benefit to the conceptual stoic of philosophy. I will point to a sur prising case of such a conceptual benefit resulting from Neoplatonic interpretations of this Pimdtus passage and its parallels in the Timaeus. While my central example will be from Hermias, the themes I am interested in ate not peculiar to him, and I will also make use of other late Neoplatonic authors, especially Proclus. Hermias, and Produs, to recall, were both students of Syrianus;at one point in Hermias' commentary 'our companion Proclus' raises an aporia, and ‘the philosopher'— that is, ‘the professor — replies (92,6-10 Couvrcur), which seems to imply that the commentary in general was drawn by Hermias from Syrianus lectures. [Introduction, pp. 44 f.] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/EgP6g0IaubwrLcL |
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In this chapter, starting from Hermias' commentary on a passage of the Phaedrus which poses a difficulty for harmonization, I hope to shed some light on what the late Neoplatonists were asserting when they asserted the harmony \r\nof Plato and Aristotle, in general or on some particular issue (here the immortality of soul); on why they were inclined to make such assertions o f harmony, and what they saw themselves as needing to do in order to defend them: and on why,in the process of defending them, they were led to conceptual clarifications which were in some cases of longstanding benefit to the conceptual stoic of philosophy. I will point to a sur\u00ad\r\nprising case of such a conceptual benefit resulting from Neoplatonic interpretations of this Pimdtus passage and its parallels in the Timaeus. While my central example will be from Hermias, the themes I am interested in ate not peculiar to him, and I will also \r\nmake use of other late Neoplatonic authors, especially Proclus. Hermias, and Produs, to recall, were both students of Syrianus;at one point in Hermias' commentary 'our companion Proclus' raises an aporia, and \u2018the philosopher'\u2014 that is, \u2018the professor \u2014 replies (92,6-10 Couvrcur), which seems to imply that the commentary in general was drawn by Hermias from Syrianus lectures. 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In fact, precisely because these thinkers did see the sensible world as an image of the intelligible world, they devoted much time and energy to understanding its inner workings. Thus we find Neoplatonists writing on embryology, physiology, meteorology, astronomy, and much else. This volume collects essays by leading international scholars in the field that shed new light on how these thinkers sought to understand and explain nature and natural phenomena. It is thematically divided into two parts, with the first part\u2014\u2018The general metaphysics of Nature\u2019\u2014directed at the explication of central Neoplatonic metaphysical doctrines and their relation to the natural world, and the second part\u2014\u2019Platonic approaches to individual sciences\u2019\u2014showing how these same doctrines play out in individual natural sciences such as elemental physics, geography, and biology. Together these essays show that a serious examination of Neoplatonic natural philosophy has far-reaching consequences for our general understanding of the metaphysics of Platonism, as well as for our evaluation of their place in the history of science. [official abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/eoRoURIG3JhMB6J","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":299,"pubplace":"Oxford","publisher":"Oxford University Press","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":null,"valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Self-motion and reflection: Hermias and Proclus on the harmony of Plato and Aristotle on the soul"]}