{"_index":"sire","_type":"_doc","_id":"66","_score":null,"_source":{"id":66,"authors_free":[{"id":74,"entry_id":66,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":441,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Meyer, Hubert\u00a0","free_first_name":"Hubert","free_last_name":"Meyer","norm_person":{"id":441,"first_name":"Hubert","last_name":"Meyer","full_name":"Meyer, Hubert\u00a0","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Das Corollarium de Tempore des Simplikios und die Aporien des Aristoteles zur Zeit","main_title":{"title":"Das Corollarium de Tempore des Simplikios und die Aporien des Aristoteles zur Zeit"},"abstract":"Review: In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the period of Greek philosophy after Aristotle. Since ancient Greek thought exhibits unbroken continuity, the commentaries on Aristotle from late antiquity retain an authenticity and value for the study of Aristotle himself, which have not always been sufficiently recognized. This extensive and learned work is a study of time as presented by Simplicius in his commentary on Aristotle's Physics and in the Doubts and Solutions of Simplicius' teacher, Damascius. It sheds new light not only on the Neoplatonic philosophy of time but also on the notorious \"difficulties\" of Aristotle regarding time.\r\nThe work presents a significant amount of philosophical argument, often complex and subtle. Therefore, some oversimplification is necessary. Damascius and Simplicius utilize materials from two different philosophies of time: Aristotle's and Plotinus'. Aristotle's view is that time is the number of motion according to before and after, based on the phenomenon of regular and endless physical motion. Although number, in Aristotle, is a mathematical abstraction, time, being a number, is not merely ideal or mathematical but is actually verified in the physical world. Soul or mind is needed to make the before-and-after of physical motion actually numbered. The \"matter\" of time, the endless motion of nature (especially the heavens), is real, not merely ideal or mathematical. The form of time is determined by the real relation of before and after, making time a real category, one of the modes of being. Time is the way of being whose being consists in becoming.\r\nThe other philosophy of time influencing Damascius and Simplicius is the more \"idealist\" Neoplatonic one, which bases time on the soul. According to Plotinus, the number of motion is an applied number. Eternity is the life of mind (nous), and time is the life of the world-soul. Numbers exist in the realm of mind or being or ideal forms, the second hypostasis of Plotinus. When mind descends into body, constituting soul or the third hypostasis, the life of mind or eternity becomes an activity of soul or time. Time is a psychic measuring, corresponding to Augustine's definition of time as a disrensio animae.\r\nSimplicius, like other ancient and medieval commentators, aims not only at a scholarly reconstruction of Aristotle's \"difficulties\" but at a real solution to the philosophical problem of time. The commentator's new and original philosophy emerges during the exposition of Aristotle's text. Simplicius' thesis is that the reality of time is the present moment, or now, or point of time, which is endlessly repeated. However, this cannot be a correct commentary on Aristotle, for whom time is solidly based on real physical motion. Simplicius' view of time is more abstract since he overlooks the reality of motion.\r\nThe central part of Meyer's book examines in detail the philosophy of time in the Greek text of the Corollarium. Simplicius' view is that time is in becoming, not in being or eternity. Time's being is in becoming, and the only being in becoming is the \"now,\" which makes time the \"now.\" Simplicius contrasts this with his more Platonic teacher, Damascius, for whom eternity, to aei, or the realm of being, contains a form of time, a supra-temporal whole-time, or time-number, or mathematical \"time,\" the unenfolded structure of number, which, in turn, contains time or continual becoming.\r\nSimplicius replies in a more Aristotelian fashion, arguing that Damascius' region of the \"always\" or \"ever\" of time, or time as a whole, is entirely unnecessary. Time flows infinitely, an always-becoming, but this infinity of time is not an actual whole. Time flows into infinity, but there is no actual infinite or eternal whole, as personified by Damascius' Demiourgos.\r\nSimplicius' interpretation is part of the wider movement of thought in later antiquity when time as the number of motion is forgotten and replaced by a more abstract definition.\r\nThe interest in these thinkers, Damascius and Simplicius, lies in their providing us with variants or subspecies of the two great masters, Plato and Aristotle. Meyer's learned work makes these obscure texts widely accessible, and his interpretations of the rich material are cautious and sound. The presentation is not [iir die Menge; and, it is sometimes not very clear just what Greek distinctions are being noted by certain G e r m a n distinctions. There are misprints in French, G e r m a n, and Greek. The work is a fine contribution to scholarship.\r\nPAUL J. W. MILLER\r\n","btype":1,"date":"1969","language":"German","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/f9MAopVd91xU5pu","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":441,"full_name":"Meyer, Hubert\u00a0","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":{"id":66,"pubplace":"Meisenheim am Glan","publisher":"Anton Hain","series":"Monographien zur Naturphilosophie","volume":"8","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null},"booksection":null,"article":null},"sort":["Das Corollarium de Tempore des Simplikios und die Aporien des Aristoteles zur Zeit"]}