Author 101
Simplicius on Empedocles: A note on his Commentary in Phys. 157.25–161.20, 2024
By: Anna Afonasina
Title Simplicius on Empedocles: A note on his Commentary in Phys. 157.25–161.20
Type Article
Language English
Date 2024
Journal Shagi/Steps
Volume 10
Issue 2
Pages 183-196
Categories no categories
Author(s) Anna Afonasina
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The present study attempts to show what influence a commentary can have on the formation of ideas about a preceding philosophical tradition. A case in point is Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s “Physics” and on fragments of Empedocles’ poem. The selected passage, though small in size, is quite remarkable in terms of content and the way Simplicius deals with it. With regard to content, we are dealing here with one of the fundamental problematic plots of Empedocles’ philosophy about the alternate rule of Love and Strife. But Simplicius adds to this his own view of Empedocles’ philosophy, dictated by his desire to harmonize the views of all the pagan philosophers and place them within a single consistent scheme. Simplicius wanted to counterpose something to Christianity, which was gaining in strength, and to show that all Greek philosophy developed along a certain path and contains no internal disagreements. On the one hand, Simplicius has preserved for us very valuable material — fairly lengthy sections of the text of Empedocles’ poem. On the other hand, wishing to implement his program, Simplicius chose those fragments of the poem that fit well into it. Therefore, the question arises whether we should take into account the context in which the fragments are quoted, or simply extract from the general body of the commentary those fragments of Empedocles’ poem that we need and consider them independently? [author's abstrac]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1580","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1580,"authors_free":[{"id":2761,"entry_id":1580,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Anna Afonasina","free_first_name":"Anna ","free_last_name":"Afonasina","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Simplicius on Empedocles: A note on his Commentary in Phys. 157.25\u2013161.20","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius on Empedocles: A note on his Commentary in Phys. 157.25\u2013161.20"},"abstract":"The present study attempts to show what influence a\r\ncommentary can have on the formation of ideas about a preceding\r\nphilosophical tradition. A case in point is Simplicius\u2019 commentary\r\non Aristotle\u2019s \u201cPhysics\u201d and on fragments of Empedocles\u2019 poem.\r\nThe selected passage, though small in size, is quite remarkable in\r\nterms of content and the way Simplicius deals with it. With regard\r\nto content, we are dealing here with one of the fundamental problematic\r\nplots of Empedocles\u2019 philosophy about the alternate rule of\r\nLove and Strife. But Simplicius adds to this his own view of Empedocles\u2019\r\nphilosophy, dictated by his desire to harmonize the views of\r\nall the pagan philosophers and place them within a single consistent\r\nscheme. Simplicius wanted to counterpose something to Christianity,\r\nwhich was gaining in strength, and to show that all Greek\r\nphilosophy developed along a certain path and contains no internal\r\ndisagreements. On the one hand, Simplicius has preserved for us\r\nvery valuable material \u2014 fairly lengthy sections of the text of Empedocles\u2019\r\npoem. On the other hand, wishing to implement his program,\r\nSimplicius chose those fragments of the poem that fit well\r\ninto it. Therefore, the question arises whether we should take into\r\naccount the context in which the fragments are quoted, or simply\r\nextract from the general body of the commentary those fragments\r\nof Empedocles\u2019 poem that we need and consider them independently? [author's abstrac]","btype":3,"date":"2024","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/GQwsce7zWyeDLxe","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1580,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Shagi\/Steps","volume":"10","issue":"2","pages":"183-196"}},"sort":[2024]}

Aristotle’s “Now” and the Definition of Time: Method and Exegesis in Simplicius’ Interpretation of Physics IV.10, 2024
By: Thomas Seissl
Title Aristotle’s “Now” and the Definition of Time: Method and Exegesis in Simplicius’ Interpretation of Physics IV.10
Type Article
Language English
Date 2024
Journal History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis
Volume 26
Issue 2
Pages 366-386
Categories no categories
Author(s) Thomas Seissl
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Physics IV.10 (217b30–218a30) is pivotal in Aristotle’s discussion of time, preceding his own account from IV.11 onward. Aristotle presents three puzzles about the existence of time with reference to the “Now”. Modern interpretations often view this section as an aporetic prelude with Aristotle’s failure to provide explicit solutions. This paper examines Simplicius’ alternative interpretation, which draws upon the theory of proof and the syllogistic model from the Posterior Analytics. Simplicius contends that the arguments’ failure lies in their inability to fit within the suitable syllogistic framework to establish a demonstrable definition of time, not in their aporetic nature. Every science has to prove the relation between (i) establishing whether X exists and (ii) showing what X is by establishing what the cause of X is. In evaluating Simplicius’ interpretation, this paper addresses two key aspects of the exegesis of IV.10: firstly, Simplicius can show why the “Now” is not part of the definition of time, and secondly, the ancient commentator underscores the close connection between the arguments in Physics IV.10 and the broader context of Aristotle’s discussion of time. Modern interpreters fail to address both of these issues. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1587","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1587,"authors_free":[{"id":2786,"entry_id":1587,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Thomas Seissl","free_first_name":"Thomas","free_last_name":"Seissl","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Aristotle\u2019s \u201cNow\u201d and the Definition of Time: Method and Exegesis in Simplicius\u2019 Interpretation of Physics IV.10","main_title":{"title":"Aristotle\u2019s \u201cNow\u201d and the Definition of Time: Method and Exegesis in Simplicius\u2019 Interpretation of Physics IV.10"},"abstract":"Physics IV.10 (217b30\u2013218a30) is pivotal in Aristotle\u2019s discussion of time, preceding his own account from IV.11 onward. Aristotle presents three puzzles about the existence of time with reference to the \u201cNow\u201d. Modern interpretations often view this section as an aporetic prelude with Aristotle\u2019s failure to provide explicit solutions. This paper examines Simplicius\u2019 alternative interpretation, which draws upon the theory of proof and the syllogistic model from the Posterior Analytics. Simplicius contends that the arguments\u2019 failure lies in their inability to fit within the suitable syllogistic framework to establish a demonstrable definition of time, not in their aporetic nature. Every science has to prove the relation between (i) establishing whether X exists and (ii) showing what X is by establishing what the cause of X is. In evaluating Simplicius\u2019 interpretation, this paper addresses two key aspects of the exegesis of IV.10: firstly, Simplicius can show why the \u201cNow\u201d is not part of the definition of time, and secondly, the ancient commentator underscores the close connection between the arguments in Physics IV.10 and the broader context of Aristotle\u2019s discussion of time. Modern interpreters fail to address both of these issues. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2024","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/mOkF4fvV0VKbyeR","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1587,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis ","volume":"26","issue":"2","pages":"366-386"}},"sort":[2024]}

Les conséquences tragiques pour Parménide d'une erreur d'Aristote, 2024
By: Nestor-Luis Cordero
Title Les conséquences tragiques pour Parménide d'une erreur d'Aristote
Type Article
Language French
Date 2024
Journal Journal of Ancient Philosophy
Volume 18
Issue 1
Pages 1-24
Categories no categories
Author(s) Nestor-Luis Cordero
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The difficulty of grasping the thought of Parmenides led interpreters already in antiquity to approach his philosophy according to later schemes of thought. This was the case of Aristotle, whose interpretation was inherited by his disciple Theophrastus and by his commentators, especially Simplicius. Simplicius, a Neoplatonist and Aristotelian at the same time, proposed an interpretation, strongly dualistic (dominated by the sensible/intelligible dichotomy), which is not found in the recovered quotations. The origin of this interpretation is an "error" of Aristotle, inherited by Simplicius, who attributed to Parmenides himself the paternity of the "opinions of mortals". In 1795 G.G.Fülleborn, inspired by Simplicius, proposed a division of the Poem into two "parts", unanimously accepted today, and which must be urgently revised and rejected. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1589","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1589,"authors_free":[{"id":2788,"entry_id":1589,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Nestor-Luis Cordero","free_first_name":"Nestor-Luis","free_last_name":"Cordero","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Les cons\u00e9quences tragiques pour Parm\u00e9nide d'une erreur d'Aristote","main_title":{"title":"Les cons\u00e9quences tragiques pour Parm\u00e9nide d'une erreur d'Aristote"},"abstract":"The difficulty of grasping the thought of Parmenides led interpreters already in antiquity to approach his philosophy according to later schemes of thought. This was the case of Aristotle, whose interpretation was inherited by his disciple Theophrastus and by his commentators, especially Simplicius. Simplicius, a Neoplatonist and Aristotelian at the same time, proposed an interpretation, strongly dualistic (dominated by the sensible\/intelligible dichotomy), which is not found in the recovered quotations. The origin of this interpretation is an \"error\" of Aristotle, inherited by Simplicius, who attributed to Parmenides himself the paternity of the \"opinions of mortals\". In 1795 G.G.F\u00fclleborn, inspired by Simplicius, proposed a division of the Poem into two \"parts\", unanimously accepted today, and which must be urgently revised and rejected. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2024","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/RcInmMNzff21NUZ","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1589,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Journal of Ancient Philosophy ","volume":"18","issue":"1","pages":"1-24"}},"sort":[2024]}

Not-Being, Contradiction and Difference. Simplicius vs. Alexander of Aphrodisias on Plato’s Conception of Not-Being, 2023
By: Roberto Granieri
Title Not-Being, Contradiction and Difference. Simplicius vs. Alexander of Aphrodisias on Plato’s Conception of Not-Being
Type Article
Language English
Date 2023
Journal Méthexis
Volume 35
Issue 1
Pages 185-200
Categories no categories
Author(s) Roberto Granieri
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In explicating a passage from Physics A 3, Simplicius reports a criticism by Alexander of Aphrodisias against Plato’s conception of not-being in the Sophist. Alexander deems this conception contradictory, because it posits that unqualified not-being is. Simplicius defends Plato and gives a diagnosis of what he regards as Alexander’s interpretative mistake in raising his objection. I unpack this debate and bring out ways in which it sheds light on important aspects of Plato’s project in the Sophist and of Simplicius’ own philosophical background, notably in Damascius’ De principiis. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1588","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1588,"authors_free":[{"id":2787,"entry_id":1588,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Roberto Granieri","free_first_name":"Roberto","free_last_name":"Granieri","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Not-Being, Contradiction and Difference. Simplicius vs. Alexander of Aphrodisias on Plato\u2019s Conception of Not-Being","main_title":{"title":"Not-Being, Contradiction and Difference. Simplicius vs. Alexander of Aphrodisias on Plato\u2019s Conception of Not-Being"},"abstract":"In explicating a passage from Physics A 3, Simplicius reports a criticism by Alexander of Aphrodisias against Plato\u2019s conception of not-being in the Sophist. Alexander deems this conception contradictory, because it posits that unqualified not-being is. Simplicius defends Plato and gives a diagnosis of what he regards as Alexander\u2019s interpretative mistake in raising his objection. I unpack this debate and bring out ways in which it sheds light on important aspects of Plato\u2019s project in the Sophist and of Simplicius\u2019 own philosophical background, notably in Damascius\u2019 De principiis. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2023","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/kxUtLJkrkZD05av","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1588,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"M\u00e9thexis","volume":"35","issue":"1","pages":"185-200"}},"sort":[2023]}

De Simplicius À Ḥunayn: La Transmission d'Une Doxographie Dans Les Résumés au Traité Sur Les Éléments de Galien, 2023
By: Mathilde Brémond
Title De Simplicius À Ḥunayn: La Transmission d'Une Doxographie Dans Les Résumés au Traité Sur Les Éléments de Galien
Type Article
Language French
Date 2023
Journal Arabic Sciences and Philosophy
Volume 33
Issue 1
Pages 1-23
Categories no categories
Author(s) Mathilde Brémond
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper examines two doxographies present in Ḥunayn’s summaries to Galen’s treatise On the Elements. We track the origin of these doxographies back, from Greek scolia to Galen’s treatise to Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, which we show to be the ultimate source. We also point out that Simplicius’ Commentary inspired an interpretation of Parmenides and Melissus that we find in Ḥunayn’s texts. This allows us to see remnants of Simplicius’ Commentary in the Arabic world and to shed some light on the production of these summaries to Galen’s work called Summaria Alexandrinorum. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1594","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1594,"authors_free":[{"id":2794,"entry_id":1594,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Mathilde Br\u00e9mond","free_first_name":"Mathilde","free_last_name":"Br\u00e9mond","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"De Simplicius \u00c0 \u1e24unayn: La Transmission d'Une Doxographie Dans Les R\u00e9sum\u00e9s au Trait\u00e9 Sur Les \u00c9l\u00e9ments de Galien","main_title":{"title":"De Simplicius \u00c0 \u1e24unayn: La Transmission d'Une Doxographie Dans Les R\u00e9sum\u00e9s au Trait\u00e9 Sur Les \u00c9l\u00e9ments de Galien"},"abstract":"This paper examines two doxographies present in \u1e24unayn\u2019s summaries to Galen\u2019s treatise On the Elements. We track the origin of these doxographies back, from Greek scolia to Galen\u2019s treatise to Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics, which we show to be the ultimate source. We also point out that Simplicius\u2019 Commentary inspired an interpretation of Parmenides and Melissus that we find in \u1e24unayn\u2019s texts. This allows us to see remnants of Simplicius\u2019 Commentary in the Arabic world and to shed some light on the production of these summaries to Galen\u2019s work called Summaria Alexandrinorum. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2023","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/zlN6Bivl0O6bw9q","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1594,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Arabic Sciences and Philosophy","volume":"33","issue":"1","pages":"1-23"}},"sort":[2023]}

Stoici e Peripatetici su agire, patire e movimento: la testimonianza di Simplicio, 2023
By: Giuseppe Nastasi
Title Stoici e Peripatetici su agire, patire e movimento: la testimonianza di Simplicio
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2023
Journal Elenchos: Rivista di Studi Sul Pensiero Antico
Volume 44
Issue 2
Pages 333-365
Categories no categories
Author(s) Giuseppe Nastasi
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories contains the most extended testimony about the Stoic conception of acting (ποιεῖν) and undergoing (πάσχειν). Simplicius ascribed to the Stoics the idea that acting and undergoing are to be reduced to the movement. To this opinion Simplicius opposed the Aristotelian view according to which acting and undergoing are two different categories. In this paper I intend to outline the original Stoic position comparing the reportage of Simplicius with other Stoic sources. Later, I will deal with Boethus’ defense of the distinction between the categories of acting and undergoing. I will argue that Boethus directly reacted against the Stoic opinion reformulating it in Aristotelian language. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1599","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1599,"authors_free":[{"id":2799,"entry_id":1599,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Giuseppe Nastasi","free_first_name":"Giuseppe","free_last_name":" Nastasi","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Stoici e Peripatetici su agire, patire e movimento: la testimonianza di Simplicio","main_title":{"title":"Stoici e Peripatetici su agire, patire e movimento: la testimonianza di Simplicio"},"abstract":"Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Categories contains the most extended testimony about the Stoic conception of acting (\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd) and undergoing (\u03c0\u03ac\u03c3\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd). Simplicius ascribed to the Stoics the idea that acting and undergoing are to be reduced to the movement. To this opinion Simplicius opposed the Aristotelian view according to which acting and undergoing are two different categories. In this paper I intend to outline the original Stoic position comparing the reportage of Simplicius with other Stoic sources. Later, I will deal with Boethus\u2019 defense of the distinction between the categories of acting and undergoing. I will argue that Boethus directly reacted against the Stoic opinion reformulating it in Aristotelian language. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2023","language":"Italian","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/8cin65Qpb0Uymcj","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1599,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Elenchos: Rivista di Studi Sul Pensiero Antico ","volume":"44","issue":"2","pages":"333-365"}},"sort":[2023]}

Neoplatonic Political Subjectivity? Prohairesis, to eph’ hēmīn, and Self-constitution in Simplicius’ Commentary on Epictetus’ Encheiridion , 2022
By: Tim Riggs
Title Neoplatonic Political Subjectivity? Prohairesis, to eph’ hēmīn, and Self-constitution in Simplicius’ Commentary on Epictetus’ Encheiridion
Type Article
Language English
Date 2022
Journal International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 18
Issue 2
Pages 152-177
Categories no categories
Author(s) Tim Riggs
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
I argue that in his commentary on Epictetus’ Encheiridion, Simplicius derives a method by which his students can enter into the process of self-constitution, which is only achieved through completion of the study of Plato’s dialogues. The result of following the method is the attainment of a perspective consonant with the level of political virtue, which I call ‘political subjectivity’. This is a speculative interpretation of the effect the student would. experience in following the method, accomplished through analyses of Simplicius’ interpretation of Epictetus’ concept of to eph’ hēmīn and the related prohairesis. I complement this with an analysis of the metaphysical foundation Simplicius gives the method in light of Charles Taylor’s notion of ‘strong evaluation’. In this way, I show how Simplicius adapts these concepts to his Neoplatonic psychology and virtue theory to make the method serve as preparation for the development of virtue prior to study of Plato. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1595","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1595,"authors_free":[{"id":2795,"entry_id":1595,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Tim Riggs","free_first_name":"Tim","free_last_name":"Riggs","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Neoplatonic Political Subjectivity? Prohairesis, to eph\u2019 h\u0113m\u012bn, and Self-constitution in Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Epictetus\u2019 Encheiridion ","main_title":{"title":"Neoplatonic Political Subjectivity? Prohairesis, to eph\u2019 h\u0113m\u012bn, and Self-constitution in Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Epictetus\u2019 Encheiridion "},"abstract":"I argue that in his commentary on Epictetus\u2019 Encheiridion, Simplicius derives a method by which his students can enter into the process of self-constitution, which is only achieved through completion of the study of Plato\u2019s dialogues. The result of following the method is the attainment of a perspective consonant with the level of political virtue, which I call \u2018political subjectivity\u2019. This is a speculative interpretation of the effect the student would. experience in following the method, accomplished through analyses of Simplicius\u2019 interpretation of Epictetus\u2019 concept of to eph\u2019 h\u0113m\u012bn and the related prohairesis. I complement this with an analysis of the metaphysical foundation Simplicius gives the method in light of Charles Taylor\u2019s notion of \u2018strong evaluation\u2019. In this way, I show how Simplicius adapts these concepts to his Neoplatonic psychology and virtue theory to make the method serve as preparation for the development of virtue prior to study of Plato. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2022","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/1aSuGa63BJmxeQ0","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1595,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"International Journal of the Platonic Tradition ","volume":"18","issue":"2","pages":"152-177"}},"sort":[2022]}

Wenn der Steuermann ruft..." (Epiktet, Encheiridion 7), 2022
By: Krämer, Benedikt
Title Wenn der Steuermann ruft..." (Epiktet, Encheiridion 7)
Type Article
Language German
Date 2022
Journal Hyperboreus
Volume 28
Issue 1
Pages 111-122
Categories no categories
Author(s) Krämer, Benedikt
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Die vorliegende Betrachtung hat eine Interpretation angeboten, die sich eng an den Wortlaut von Kapitel 7 des Encheiridion hält. Demnach beschreibt Epiktet in der Tat zwei verschiedene Lebenssituationen zweier Menschen (oder desselben Menschen in unterschiedlichen Lebensphasen). Im ersten Fall thematisiert Epiktet die schicksalsbedingte Veränderung der Peristasen, der man entweder freiwillig oder unter Zwang Folge leisten kann. Im zweiten Fall kündigt der Ruf des Steuermanns den bevorstehenden Tod an. Das verbindende Element der Lebensbeschreibungen ist die stoische Spannungslehre. Der tugendhafte Mensch richtet sich in allen Situationen und bei allen Entscheidungen auf Gott aus und erhöht so den Tonos seines seelischen Pneumas. Im zweiten Fall spricht Epiktet aus seiner eigenen persönlichen Religiosität heraus psychagogisch wirksam die persönliche Religiosität des Lesers an. Wer den seelischen Tonos und die aufmerksame Ausrichtung auf Gott auch im fortgeschrittenen Alter bewahrt, wird den Tod – für eine gewisse Zeit – überdauern und eine Gemeinschaft mit Gott erleben. [conclusion p. 120-121]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1555","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1555,"authors_free":[{"id":2718,"entry_id":1555,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Kr\u00e4mer, Benedikt","free_first_name":"Benedikt","free_last_name":"Kr\u00e4mer","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Wenn der Steuermann ruft...\" (Epiktet, Encheiridion 7)","main_title":{"title":"Wenn der Steuermann ruft...\" (Epiktet, Encheiridion 7)"},"abstract":"Die vorliegende Betrachtung hat eine Interpretation angeboten, die sich eng an den Wortlaut von Kapitel 7 des Encheiridion h\u00e4lt. Demnach beschreibt Epiktet in der Tat zwei verschiedene Lebenssituationen zweier Menschen (oder desselben Menschen in unterschiedlichen Lebensphasen).\r\n\r\nIm ersten Fall thematisiert Epiktet die schicksalsbedingte Ver\u00e4nderung der Peristasen, der man entweder freiwillig oder unter Zwang Folge leisten kann. Im zweiten Fall k\u00fcndigt der Ruf des Steuermanns den bevorstehenden Tod an.\r\n\r\nDas verbindende Element der Lebensbeschreibungen ist die stoische Spannungslehre. Der tugendhafte Mensch richtet sich in allen Situationen und bei allen Entscheidungen auf Gott aus und erh\u00f6ht so den Tonos seines seelischen Pneumas.\r\n\r\nIm zweiten Fall spricht Epiktet aus seiner eigenen pers\u00f6nlichen Religiosit\u00e4t heraus psychagogisch wirksam die pers\u00f6nliche Religiosit\u00e4t des Lesers an. Wer den seelischen Tonos und die aufmerksame Ausrichtung auf Gott auch im fortgeschrittenen Alter bewahrt, wird den Tod \u2013 f\u00fcr eine gewisse Zeit \u2013 \u00fcberdauern und eine Gemeinschaft mit Gott erleben.\r\n[conclusion p. 120-121]","btype":3,"date":"2022","language":"German","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/zHBaqqHklM9rLNZ","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1555,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Hyperboreus","volume":"28","issue":"1","pages":"111-122"}},"sort":[2022]}

El extraño criterio utilizado para crear "la Doxa" de Parménides, 2021
By: Néstor-Luis Cordero
Title El extraño criterio utilizado para crear "la Doxa" de Parménides
Type Article
Language Spanish
Date 2021
Journal Dianoia
Volume 66
Issue 87
Pages 141-151
Categories no categories
Author(s) Néstor-Luis Cordero
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In 1795 G.G. Fülleborn, a philologist of Kantian origin, grouped in two "parts" the recovered fragments of the Poem of Parmenides -"the Truth" and "the Doxa". With small modifications, this structure became classic and is accepted unanimously today. However, a reading of each fragment in an isolated way does not justify such division, which is based on an interpretation of Simplicius influenced by Aristotle, who finds already in Parmenides a sketch of the Platonic dualism between the "sensible" and the "intelligible", not actually present in the latter. This work analyzes critically the criterion used by Fülleborn, which is anachronistic in the case of a preplatonic thinker. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1592","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1592,"authors_free":[{"id":2792,"entry_id":1592,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"N\u00e9stor-Luis Cordero","free_first_name":"N\u00e9stor-Luis","free_last_name":"Cordero","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"El extra\u00f1o criterio utilizado para crear \"la Doxa\" de Parm\u00e9nides","main_title":{"title":"El extra\u00f1o criterio utilizado para crear \"la Doxa\" de Parm\u00e9nides"},"abstract":"In 1795 G.G. F\u00fclleborn, a philologist of Kantian origin, grouped in two \"parts\" the recovered fragments of the Poem of Parmenides -\"the Truth\" and \"the Doxa\". With small modifications, this structure became classic and is accepted unanimously today. However, a reading of each fragment in an isolated way does not justify such division, which is based on an interpretation of Simplicius influenced by Aristotle, who finds already in Parmenides a sketch of the Platonic dualism between the \"sensible\" and the \"intelligible\", not actually present in the latter. This work analyzes critically the criterion used by F\u00fclleborn, which is anachronistic in the case of a preplatonic thinker. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2021","language":"Spanish","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/MC7go0ESvT7PDWp","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1592,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Dianoia","volume":"66","issue":"87","pages":"141-151"}},"sort":[2021]}

Formal Argument and Olympiodorus’ Development as a Plato-Commentator, 2021
By: Tarrant, Harold
Title Formal Argument and Olympiodorus’ Development as a Plato-Commentator
Type Article
Language English
Date 2021
Journal History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis
Volume 24
Issue 1
Pages 210-241
Categories no categories
Author(s) Tarrant, Harold
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Olympiodorus led the Platonist school of philosophy at Alexandria for several decades in the sixth century, and both Platonic and Aristotelian commentaries ascribed to him survive. During this time the school’s attitude to the teaching of Aristotelian syllogistic, originally owing something to Ammonius, changed markedly, with an early tendency to reinforce the teaching of syllogistic even in Platonist lectures giving way to a greater awareness of its limitations. The vocabulary for arguments and their construction becomes far commoner than the language of syllogistic and syllogistic figures, and also of demonstration. I discuss the value of these changes for the dating of certain works, especially where the text lectured on does not demand different emphases. The commitment to argument rather than to authority continues, but a greater emphasis eventually falls on the establishment of the premises than on formal validity. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1464","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1464,"authors_free":[{"id":2537,"entry_id":1464,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":122,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Tarrant, Harold","free_first_name":"Harold","free_last_name":"Tarrant","norm_person":{"id":122,"first_name":"Harold ","last_name":"Tarrant","full_name":"Tarrant, Harold ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/132040077","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Formal Argument and Olympiodorus\u2019 Development as a Plato-Commentator","main_title":{"title":"Formal Argument and Olympiodorus\u2019 Development as a Plato-Commentator"},"abstract":"Olympiodorus led the Platonist school of philosophy at Alexandria for several decades in the sixth century,\r\nand both Platonic and Aristotelian commentaries ascribed to him survive. During this time the school\u2019s\r\nattitude to the teaching of Aristotelian syllogistic, originally owing something to Ammonius,\r\nchanged markedly, with an early tendency to reinforce the teaching of syllogistic even in Platonist\r\nlectures giving way to a greater awareness of its limitations. The vocabulary for arguments and their\r\nconstruction becomes far commoner than the language of syllogistic and syllogistic figures, and also of\r\ndemonstration. I discuss the value of these changes for the dating of certain works, especially where the\r\ntext lectured on does not demand different emphases. The commitment to argument rather than to authority\r\ncontinues, but a greater emphasis eventually falls on the establishment of the premises than on formal\r\nvalidity. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2021","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/F0bFT161R2MXdut","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":122,"full_name":"Tarrant, Harold ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1464,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis","volume":"24","issue":"1","pages":"210-241"}},"sort":[2021]}

Logic and Interpretation: Syllogistic Reconstructions in Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, 2021
By: Harari, Orna
Title Logic and Interpretation: Syllogistic Reconstructions in Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics
Type Article
Language English
Date 2021
Journal History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis
Volume 24
Issue 1
Pages 122-139
Categories no categories
Author(s) Harari, Orna
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this article I explain three puzzling features of Simplicius’ use of syllogistic reconstructions in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics: (1) Why does he reconstruct Aristotle’s non-argumentative remarks? (2) Why does he identify the syllogistic figure of an argument but does not explicitly present its reconstruction? (3) Why in certain lemmata does he present several reconstructions of the same argument? Addressing these questions, I argue that these puzzling features are an expression of Simplicius’ assumption that formal reasoning underlies Aristotle’s prose, hence they reflect his attempt to capture as faithfully as possible Aristotle’s actual mode of reasoning. I show further that, as a consequence of this seemingly descriptive use of syllogistic reconstructions, logic serves Simplicius not only as an expository and clarificatory tool of certain interpretations or philosophical views, but also motivates and shapes his exegetical stances and approach. [conclusion, p. 138]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1463","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1463,"authors_free":[{"id":2536,"entry_id":1463,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":169,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Harari, Orna","free_first_name":"Orna","free_last_name":"Harari","norm_person":{"id":169,"first_name":"Orna","last_name":"Harari","full_name":"Harari Orna","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Logic and Interpretation: Syllogistic Reconstructions in Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics","main_title":{"title":"Logic and Interpretation: Syllogistic Reconstructions in Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics"},"abstract":"In this article I explain three puzzling features of Simplicius\u2019 use of syllogistic reconstructions in his commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics: (1) Why does he reconstruct Aristotle\u2019s non-argumentative remarks? (2) Why does he identify the syllogistic figure of an argument but does not explicitly present its reconstruction? (3) Why in certain lemmata does he present several reconstructions of the same argument? Addressing these questions, I argue that these puzzling features are an expression of Simplicius\u2019 assumption that formal reasoning underlies Aristotle\u2019s prose, hence they reflect his attempt to capture as faithfully as possible Aristotle\u2019s actual mode of reasoning. I show further that, as a consequence of this seemingly descriptive use of syllogistic reconstructions, logic serves Simplicius not only as an expository and clarificatory tool of certain interpretations or philosophical views, but also motivates and shapes his exegetical stances and approach. [conclusion, p. 138]","btype":3,"date":"2021","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/agke78hkU27DIVu","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":169,"full_name":"Harari Orna","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1463,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis","volume":"24","issue":"1","pages":"122-139"}},"sort":[2021]}

Book Review: Ivan A. Licciardi (2017). Critica dell’apparente e critica apparente. Simplicio interprete di Parmenide nel Commentario al de Caelo di Aristotele, Saggio introduttivo, raccolta dei testi, traduzione e commentario (Symbolon 44). Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag. , 2020
By: Manfred Kraus
Title Book Review: Ivan A. Licciardi (2017). Critica dell’apparente e critica apparente. Simplicio interprete di Parmenide nel Commentario al de Caelo di Aristotele, Saggio introduttivo, raccolta dei testi, traduzione e commentario (Symbolon 44). Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag.
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2020
Journal Elenchos
Volume 41
Issue 1
Pages 201-207
Categories no categories
Author(s) Manfred Kraus
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
È fuori d ’ogni dubbio che i commentari di Simplicio alla Fisica e al De Caelo di Aristotele siano d’importanza primaria per la nostra conoscenza della filosofia di Parmenide, come anche –ed anzitutto –per la trasmissione di una gran parte dei frammenti. Nell’anno 2016 Ivan Licciardi ha pubblicato il suo libro intitolato Parmenide tràdito, Parmenide tradìto, in cui ha dedicato la sua analisi al commentario alla Fisica. Solo un anno dopo, Licciardi ha completato questo primo studio con un altro libro, anch’esso con un titolo provocante: Critica dell’apparente e critica apparente, dedicato al commentario al De Caelo. Ambedue i libri sono strettamente legati l’uno all’altro. Nella premessa, l’Autore dice che quando ha pubblicato il primo libro aveva già raccolto quasi tutti i materiali per il secondo. Ha deciso, tuttavia, di pubblicarli in due volumi separati, da un lato per ragioni di quantità (perché un solo libro avrebbe superato le mille pagine), ma anche per una ragione scientifica sostanziale, e cioè perché nei due commentari, secondo Licciardi, Simplicio contempla il pensiero parmenideo da prospettive diverse. Mentre nel commentario alla Fisica l’interpretazione è incentrata sul rapporto fra l’essere e l’uno, nell’altro commentario, invece, il Commentatore si occupa del rapporto fra essere sen- sibile ed essere intelligibile e quindi del problema della generazione e del divenire. [Introduction]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1583","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1583,"authors_free":[{"id":2778,"entry_id":1583,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Manfred Kraus","free_first_name":"Manfred","free_last_name":"Kraus","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Book Review: Ivan A. Licciardi (2017). Critica dell\u2019apparente e critica apparente. Simplicio interprete di Parmenide nel Commentario al de Caelo di Aristotele, Saggio introduttivo, raccolta dei testi, traduzione e commentario (Symbolon 44). Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag. ","main_title":{"title":"Book Review: Ivan A. Licciardi (2017). Critica dell\u2019apparente e critica apparente. Simplicio interprete di Parmenide nel Commentario al de Caelo di Aristotele, Saggio introduttivo, raccolta dei testi, traduzione e commentario (Symbolon 44). Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag. "},"abstract":"\u00c8 fuori d \u2019ogni dubbio che i commentari di Simplicio alla Fisica e al De Caelo di\r\nAristotele siano d\u2019importanza primaria per la nostra conoscenza della filosofia\r\ndi Parmenide, come anche \u2013ed anzitutto \u2013per la trasmissione di una gran\r\nparte dei frammenti. Nell\u2019anno 2016 Ivan Licciardi ha pubblicato il suo libro\r\nintitolato Parmenide tr\u00e0dito, Parmenide trad\u00ecto, in cui ha dedicato la sua\r\nanalisi al commentario alla Fisica. Solo un anno dopo, Licciardi ha completato\r\nquesto primo studio con un altro libro, anch\u2019esso con un titolo provocante: \r\nCritica dell\u2019apparente e critica apparente, dedicato al commentario al De Caelo.\r\nAmbedue i libri sono strettamente legati l\u2019uno all\u2019altro. Nella premessa,\r\nl\u2019Autore dice che quando ha pubblicato il primo libro aveva gi\u00e0 raccolto quasi \r\ntutti i materiali per il secondo. Ha deciso, tuttavia, di pubblicarli in due volumi\r\nseparati, da un lato per ragioni di quantit\u00e0 (perch\u00e9 un solo libro avrebbe\r\nsuperato le mille pagine), ma anche per una ragione scientifica sostanziale, e\r\ncio\u00e8 perch\u00e9 nei due commentari, secondo Licciardi, Simplicio contempla il\r\npensiero parmenideo da prospettive diverse. Mentre nel commentario alla\r\nFisica l\u2019interpretazione \u00e8 incentrata sul rapporto fra l\u2019essere e l\u2019uno, nell\u2019altro\r\ncommentario, invece, il Commentatore si occupa del rapporto fra essere sen-\r\nsibile ed essere intelligibile e quindi del problema della generazione e del\r\ndivenire. [Introduction]","btype":3,"date":"2020","language":"Italian","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/xCZ6vrIKvYZF5PU","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1583,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Elenchos","volume":"41","issue":"1","pages":"201-207"}},"sort":[2020]}

The Authorship of the Pseudo-Simplician Neoplatonic Commentary on the De Anima, 2020
By: Gabor, Gary
Title The Authorship of the Pseudo-Simplician Neoplatonic Commentary on the De Anima
Type Article
Language English
Date 2020
Journal Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy
Volume 35
Issue 1
Pages 1-22
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gabor, Gary
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The traditional ascription of the Neoplatonic commentary on the De Anima to Sim­plicius has prominently been disputed by Carlos Steel and Fernand Bossier, along with J.O. Urmson and Francesco Piccolomini, among others. Citing problems with terminology, diction, cross-references, doctrine, and other features, these authors have argued that the commentary cannot have been composed by Simplicius and that Priscian of Lydia is a favored alternative. In this paper, I present some new arguments for why the traditional attribution to Simplicius is, in fact, the correct one. In particular, while addressing some of the terminological facts that have also been discussed by Christina Luna, Peter Lautner, Patricia Huby, and Philippe Vallat, among others, I offer a more secure basis for identifying the author of the De Anima commentary with Simplicius than has so far been proposed. In place of the disputes regarding terminology, which the debate has largely centered upon, I argue that certain unique and characteristic interpretive procedures, which one only finds in the undisputed Simplician works, allow us to identify the authorship of the De Anima commentary with Simplicius securely. Further, comparison of these methodological features with the extant works of Priscian rules out the possibility of his authorship of the commentary. I also provide some suggestions for resolving a few remaining issues of cross-reference between the De Anima commentary and the rest of Simplicius’s work. Finally, I conclude with some words on how that particular form of harmonization pursued by Simplicius’s contemporaries differs from both that of the De Anima commentary as well as his other works. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1466","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1466,"authors_free":[{"id":2539,"entry_id":1466,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":106,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Gabor, Gary","free_first_name":"Gary","free_last_name":"Gabor","norm_person":{"id":106,"first_name":"Gary","last_name":"Gabor ","full_name":"Gabor, Gary ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The Authorship of the Pseudo-Simplician Neoplatonic Commentary on the De Anima","main_title":{"title":"The Authorship of the Pseudo-Simplician Neoplatonic Commentary on the De Anima"},"abstract":"The traditional ascription of the Neoplatonic commentary on the De Anima to Sim\u00adplicius has prominently been disputed by Carlos Steel and Fernand Bossier, along with J.O. Urmson and Francesco Piccolomini, among others. Citing problems with terminology, diction, cross-references, doctrine, and other features, these authors have argued that the commentary cannot have been composed by Simplicius and that Priscian of Lydia is a favored alternative. In this paper, I present some new arguments for why the traditional attribution to Simplicius is, in fact, the correct one. In particular, while addressing some of the terminological facts that have also been discussed by Christina Luna, Peter Lautner, Patricia Huby, and Philippe Vallat, among others, I offer a more secure basis for identifying the author of the De Anima commentary with Simplicius than has so far been proposed. In place of the disputes regarding terminology, which the debate has largely centered upon, I argue that certain unique and characteristic interpretive procedures, which one only finds in the undisputed Simplician works, allow us to identify the authorship of the De Anima commentary with Simplicius securely. Further, comparison of these methodological features with the extant works of Priscian rules out the possibility of his authorship of the commentary. I also provide some suggestions for resolving a few remaining issues of cross-reference between the De Anima commentary and the rest of Simplicius\u2019s work. Finally, I conclude with some words on how that particular form of harmonization pursued by Simplicius\u2019s contemporaries differs from both that of the De Anima commentary as well as his other works. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2020","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/pVUbfH8m3jQVsKw","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":106,"full_name":"Gabor, Gary ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1466,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy ","volume":"35","issue":"1","pages":"1-22"}},"sort":[2020]}

Commentary on Gabor: The Authorship of the Pseudo-Simplician Neoplatonic Commentary on the De Anima, 2020
By: Miller, Dana R.
Title Commentary on Gabor: The Authorship of the Pseudo-Simplician Neoplatonic Commentary on the De Anima
Type Article
Language English
Date 2020
Journal Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy
Volume 35
Issue 2
Pages 23-27
Categories no categories
Author(s) Miller, Dana R.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper gives a brief discussion of the problem of ascribing authorship to ancient philosophical texts when there is evidence both for and against traditional ascription. The case in point is tradition’s claim that Simplicius is the author of the De Anima commentary. It is argued here that, while Gabor provides new and important methodological evidence for Simplicius’s authorship, we should not expect certainty. It is suggested that, in cases where historical fact may never be ascertained, we will be better served by the notion of credences. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1467","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1467,"authors_free":[{"id":2540,"entry_id":1467,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":539,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Miller, Dana R.","free_first_name":"Dana R.","free_last_name":"Miller","norm_person":{"id":539,"first_name":"Dana R.","last_name":"Miller","full_name":"Miller, Dana R.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/128406704","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Commentary on Gabor: The Authorship of the Pseudo-Simplician Neoplatonic Commentary on the De Anima","main_title":{"title":"Commentary on Gabor: The Authorship of the Pseudo-Simplician Neoplatonic Commentary on the De Anima"},"abstract":"This paper gives a brief discussion of the problem of ascribing authorship to ancient philosophical texts when there is evidence both for and against traditional ascription. The case in point is tradition\u2019s claim that Simplicius is the author of the De Anima commentary. It is argued here that, while Gabor provides new and important methodological evidence for Simplicius\u2019s authorship, we should not expect certainty. It is suggested that, in cases where historical fact may never be ascertained, we will be better served by the notion of credences. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2020","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/3xAEvu1rDgjfUMU","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":539,"full_name":"Miller, Dana R.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1467,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy","volume":"35","issue":"2","pages":"23-27"}},"sort":[2020]}

Simplicius on the Individuation of Material Substances, 2019
By: Schwark, Marina
Title Simplicius on the Individuation of Material Substances
Type Article
Language English
Date 2019
Journal Elenchos
Volume 40
Issue 2
Pages 401-429
Categories no categories
Author(s) Schwark, Marina
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In his commentary on Physics I 9, Simplicius claims that individual forms individuate matter. Given that in the same text he calls the immanent form ‘universal,’it seems reasonable to conclude that the individual forms are individual instances of one universal species–form. However, Simplicius also mentions accidental properties that are peculiar to form rather than to matter. On the basis of Simplicius’ commentaries on the Categories and on the Physics, I argue that the individuating accidents are not part of the individual forms, but that each individual’s form coordinates the individual’s accidental features. By belonging to a certain species, the individual form sets limits as to which accidents a matter–form compound can assume. This approach enables Simplicius to combine hylomorphism with a theory of individuation through properties. Furthermore, in his commentary on De Caelo I 9 Simplicius explains the uniqueness of each individual’s conglomeration of properties in light of his Neoplatonic cosmology: each individual corresponds to an individual cosmic disposition that determines its characteristic features. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1377","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1377,"authors_free":[{"id":2121,"entry_id":1377,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":289,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Schwark, Marina","free_first_name":"Marina","free_last_name":"Schwark","norm_person":{"id":289,"first_name":"Marina","last_name":"Schwark","full_name":"Schwark, Marina","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius on the Individuation of Material Substances","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius on the Individuation of Material Substances"},"abstract":"In his commentary on Physics I 9, Simplicius claims that individual forms individuate matter. Given that in the same text he calls the immanent form \u2018universal,\u2019it seems reasonable to conclude that the individual forms are individual instances of one universal species\u2013form. However, Simplicius also mentions accidental properties that are peculiar to form rather than to matter. On the basis of Simplicius\u2019 commentaries on the Categories and on the Physics, I argue that the individuating\r\naccidents are not part of the individual forms, but that each individual\u2019s form coordinates the individual\u2019s accidental features. By belonging to a certain species, the individual form sets limits as to which accidents a matter\u2013form compound can\r\nassume. This approach enables Simplicius to combine hylomorphism with a theory\r\nof individuation through properties. Furthermore, in his commentary on De Caelo I 9 Simplicius explains the uniqueness of each individual\u2019s conglomeration of properties in light of his Neoplatonic cosmology: each individual corresponds to an individual cosmic disposition that determines its characteristic features. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2019","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/cpvCFatZj4VcLdC","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":289,"full_name":"Schwark, Marina","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1377,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Elenchos","volume":"40","issue":"2","pages":"401-429"}},"sort":[2019]}

Simplicius on the Principal Meaning of Physis in Aristotle's Physics II. 1-3, 2019
By: Mouzala, Melina G.
Title Simplicius on the Principal Meaning of Physis in Aristotle's Physics II. 1-3
Type Article
Language English
Date 2019
Journal Analogia
Volume 7
Issue Byzantine Aristotle
Pages 43-82
Categories no categories
Author(s) Mouzala, Melina G.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
At the beginning of his Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics II.2, Simplicius attempts to reveal the principal meaning of physis, that which in his view is preeminent above all others presented by Aristotle in Physics II.1. Through the arguments he uses to show what the principal meaning of physis is, we are also able to better understand the other meanings. These other meanings are, on the one hand, those which are discovered in the light of Simplicius’ insightful reading of it. Simplicius appears to recognize—or at least to be conscious of the fact—that this part of his Commentary constitutes an autonomous analysis and explanation of the different meanings of physis, which sets out to reveal its concealed principal meaning. My aim in this paper is to show that in his comments on Physics II.1, Simplicius is trying to offer an exegesis of the Aristotelian arguments, while in his comments regarding the beginning of Physics II.2, he proceeds to a bold reading of what Aristotle has said in chapter one. He does this by giving his own interpretation of the meaning of physis, within the frame which Aristotle had already sketched out in the previous chapter, but also by deviating to some extent from Aristotle. For Simplicius, the principal, albeit concealed, meaning of physis, within the Aristotelian philosophical framework, lies in the idea that nature is a sort of propensity for being moved and a sort of life, to wit, the lowest sort of life (eschatê zôê). [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1541","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1541,"authors_free":[{"id":2691,"entry_id":1541,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Mouzala, Melina G. ","free_first_name":"Melina G.","free_last_name":"Mouzala","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Simplicius on the Principal Meaning of Physis in Aristotle's Physics II. 1-3","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius on the Principal Meaning of Physis in Aristotle's Physics II. 1-3"},"abstract":"At the beginning of his Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics II.2, Simplicius attempts to reveal the principal meaning of physis, that which in his view is preeminent above all others presented by Aristotle in Physics II.1. Through the arguments he uses to show what the principal meaning of physis is, we are also able to better understand the other meanings. These other meanings are, on the one hand, those which are discovered in the light of Simplicius\u2019 insightful reading of it. Simplicius appears to recognize\u2014or at least to be conscious of the fact\u2014that this part of his Commentary constitutes an autonomous analysis and explanation of the different meanings of physis, which sets out to reveal its concealed principal meaning.\r\n\r\nMy aim in this paper is to show that in his comments on Physics II.1, Simplicius is trying to offer an exegesis of the Aristotelian arguments, while in his comments regarding the beginning of Physics II.2, he proceeds to a bold reading of what Aristotle has said in chapter one. He does this by giving his own interpretation of the meaning of physis, within the frame which Aristotle had already sketched out in the previous chapter, but also by deviating to some extent from Aristotle. For Simplicius, the principal, albeit concealed, meaning of physis, within the Aristotelian philosophical framework, lies in the idea that nature is a sort of propensity for being moved and a sort of life, to wit, the lowest sort of life (eschat\u00ea z\u00f4\u00ea). [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2019","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/BnCCI5k1m32XM47","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1541,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Analogia","volume":"7","issue":"Byzantine Aristotle","pages":"43-82"}},"sort":[2019]}

Sinfonia dei Presocratici. Su due παρεκβάσεις in Simplicio (in PHYS. 6.31–8.15 e 28.32–37.9), 2019
By: Licciardi, Ivan Adriano
Title Sinfonia dei Presocratici. Su due παρεκβάσεις in Simplicio (in PHYS. 6.31–8.15 e 28.32–37.9)
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2019
Journal Epekeina. International Journal of Ontology History and Critics
Volume 10
Issue 1
Pages 1-32
Categories no categories
Author(s) Licciardi, Ivan Adriano
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Osserviamo, a bilancio finale, quanto segue: Simplicio affida a due digressioni di In Physica I la sua veduta complessiva sui Presocratici. Mentre Aristotele, nella sua ricostruzione storico-dialettica, inserisce i predecessori dentro griglie concettuali nelle quali le posizioni vengono poste come contraddittorie fra di loro, Simplicio muove invece dal presupposto che la filosofia dei Presocratici nel suo complesso sia in realtà unitaria, armonica e coerente. Ma Simplicio, a differenza dello Stagirita, opera alla fine del mondo antico, e la sua necessità fu innanzitutto quella di tramandare ai posteri la tradizione antica affinché tale patrimonio non andasse disperso. Trattasi, qui, non di una necessità archeologica o erudita, bensì filosofica e ideologica a un tempo. Occorreva, peraltro, tramandare questo patrimonio come un che di armonico, unitario e intimamente coerente a un grado almeno paritetico rispetto a un’altra tradizione, quella cristiana, che dopo le incertezze e le transizioni che avevano caratterizzato il suo affacciarsi alla storia mondiale, aveva ormai consolidato il suo apparato dogmatico (specialmente dopo i concili di Efeso, Nicea e Calcedonia) e aveva dato concretezza strategica al suo piano di espansione e diffusione per il tramite di adeguati strumenti politici (editti di Milano e Tessalonica) atti a imporsi definitivamente quale visione dominante nell’Occidente alla fine del mondo antico. Lo strumentario di cui si serve Simplicio è un ampio ricorso alla citazione diretta dei predecessori, congiuntamente a un trattamento mirante a “limare” le differenze che intercorrono fra loro e ad accentuarne i tratti comuni. La cornice teorica che accoglie questo tipo di operazione, in buona sostanza una “platonizzazione” di tutti i Presocratici, è il neoplatonismo, della cui tradizione Simplicio è l’ultimo erede pagano. Vale la pena, a tal proposito, sottolineare un ultimo fatto: quando Simplicio fa riferimento a una tradizione filosofica unitaria e coerente, che dalle origini giunge fino al suo tempo, egli non qualifica siffatta tradizione come platonica, bensì come antica. Si tratta di un fatto che solo apparentemente contraddice quanto abbiamo asserito, e cioè che la teoria della συμφωνία dei Presocratici scaturisca da un’interpretazione, fondamentalmente, neoplatonica. Il riferirsi, da parte di Simplicio, a una tradizione indeterminata di veteres non andrà interpretato come uno sbiadimento della consapevolezza di possedere un’identità e un’eredità storica e filosofica ben determinata (che, fondamentalmente, è quella del neoplatonismo ateniese), bensì come testimonianza di un passaggio storico ormai avvenuto. Questo passaggio storico consiste in questo: Simplicio non opera in un contesto quale quello dell’età classica, in cui l’Accademia e il Peripato si contendevano l’egemonia filosofica e culturale ateniese, e non opera nemmeno, a seguire, in un contesto paragonabile al periodo successivo alla morte di Alessandro Magno, in cui il pensiero greco si trova disperso nei rivoli delle αἱρέσεις ellenistiche e in cui una delle cifre dominanti è costituita da un agonismo che non sembra avere mai fine. Il contesto storico in cui opera Simplicio è, diversamente, quello della fine di un mondo, quello pagano, a cui ne sta per subentrare un altro, quello della Christianitas. Non si tratta più, in sostanza, di affermare il primato di una scuola o di una tradizione di pensiero rispetto ad altre tradizioni che non appartengono a quella platonica, perché le priorità, adesso, sono mutate. In questo passaggio epocale, la proposta filosofica e culturale di Simplicio sembra consistere, in altre parole, in una sorta di panellenismo filosofico. Come Isocrate, al fine di proseguire la lotta contro i Persiani, aveva cercato di superare i contrasti fra le varie πόλεις, cercando di radunare le loro energie e di riunirle politicamente sotto l’egemonia ateniese, così Simplicio, al fine di proseguire la lotta contro i Cristiani, mira a superare i contrasti e le divergenze fra le varie tradizioni di pensiero, dichiarandoli apparenti, e teorizza, appunto, la loro συμφωνία, sotto l’egemonia platonica. L’ermeneutica che caratterizza il procedere di Simplicio è segnata, in particolare, dalla coppia concettuale “enigma/chiarezza”. Secondo il Commentatore, il secondo modulo espressivo appartiene in modo eminente a Platone (e in parte anche ad Aristotele), mentre il primo ai Presocratici, e in particolare a Parmenide, Empedocle e i Pitagorici. Sarebbe proprio la modalità espressiva enigmatica, per Simplicio, la causa principale dei fraintendimenti che avrebbero condotto alcuni a concepire i Presocratici in agonismo fra di loro, proprio come vorrebbe lasciar intendere certa dossografia cristiana. La classificazione simpliciana dei Presocratici (che, come si è visto, è una tripartizione) è funzionale, però, solo a una migliore comprensione delle ragioni della loro profonda unità. Conformemente all’uso tecnico e tardo settecentesco del termine «sinfonia», possiamo dire che nell’ottica di Simplicio la filosofia dei Presocratici fu una sinfonia nel senso di un brano composto da più movimenti – più propriamente una “sonata per orchestra”: ἡ παλαιὰ φιλοσοφία μένει ἀνέλεγκτος. [conclusion p. 29-32]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1554","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1554,"authors_free":[{"id":2717,"entry_id":1554,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Licciardi, Ivan Adriano","free_first_name":"Ivan Adriano","free_last_name":"Licciardi","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Sinfonia dei Presocratici. Su due \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b5\u03ba\u03b2\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 in Simplicio (in PHYS. 6.31\u20138.15 e 28.32\u201337.9)","main_title":{"title":"Sinfonia dei Presocratici. Su due \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b5\u03ba\u03b2\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 in Simplicio (in PHYS. 6.31\u20138.15 e 28.32\u201337.9)"},"abstract":"Osserviamo, a bilancio finale, quanto segue: Simplicio affida a due digressioni di In Physica I la sua veduta complessiva sui Presocratici. Mentre Aristotele, nella sua ricostruzione storico-dialettica, inserisce i predecessori dentro griglie concettuali nelle quali le posizioni vengono poste come contraddittorie fra di loro, Simplicio muove invece dal presupposto che la filosofia dei Presocratici nel suo complesso sia in realt\u00e0 unitaria, armonica e coerente. Ma Simplicio, a differenza dello Stagirita, opera alla fine del mondo antico, e la sua necessit\u00e0 fu innanzitutto quella di tramandare ai posteri la tradizione antica affinch\u00e9 tale patrimonio non andasse disperso.\r\n\r\nTrattasi, qui, non di una necessit\u00e0 archeologica o erudita, bens\u00ec filosofica e ideologica a un tempo. Occorreva, peraltro, tramandare questo patrimonio come un che di armonico, unitario e intimamente coerente a un grado almeno paritetico rispetto a un\u2019altra tradizione, quella cristiana, che dopo le incertezze e le transizioni che avevano caratterizzato il suo affacciarsi alla storia mondiale, aveva ormai consolidato il suo apparato dogmatico (specialmente dopo i concili di Efeso, Nicea e Calcedonia) e aveva dato concretezza strategica al suo piano di espansione e diffusione per il tramite di adeguati strumenti politici (editti di Milano e Tessalonica) atti a imporsi definitivamente quale visione dominante nell\u2019Occidente alla fine del mondo antico.\r\n\r\nLo strumentario di cui si serve Simplicio \u00e8 un ampio ricorso alla citazione diretta dei predecessori, congiuntamente a un trattamento mirante a \u201climare\u201d le differenze che intercorrono fra loro e ad accentuarne i tratti comuni. La cornice teorica che accoglie questo tipo di operazione, in buona sostanza una \u201cplatonizzazione\u201d di tutti i Presocratici, \u00e8 il neoplatonismo, della cui tradizione Simplicio \u00e8 l\u2019ultimo erede pagano. Vale la pena, a tal proposito, sottolineare un ultimo fatto: quando Simplicio fa riferimento a una tradizione filosofica unitaria e coerente, che dalle origini giunge fino al suo tempo, egli non qualifica siffatta tradizione come platonica, bens\u00ec come antica.\r\n\r\nSi tratta di un fatto che solo apparentemente contraddice quanto abbiamo asserito, e cio\u00e8 che la teoria della \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03af\u03b1 dei Presocratici scaturisca da un\u2019interpretazione, fondamentalmente, neoplatonica. Il riferirsi, da parte di Simplicio, a una tradizione indeterminata di veteres non andr\u00e0 interpretato come uno sbiadimento della consapevolezza di possedere un\u2019identit\u00e0 e un\u2019eredit\u00e0 storica e filosofica ben determinata (che, fondamentalmente, \u00e8 quella del neoplatonismo ateniese), bens\u00ec come testimonianza di un passaggio storico ormai avvenuto.\r\n\r\nQuesto passaggio storico consiste in questo: Simplicio non opera in un contesto quale quello dell\u2019et\u00e0 classica, in cui l\u2019Accademia e il Peripato si contendevano l\u2019egemonia filosofica e culturale ateniese, e non opera nemmeno, a seguire, in un contesto paragonabile al periodo successivo alla morte di Alessandro Magno, in cui il pensiero greco si trova disperso nei rivoli delle \u03b1\u1f31\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 ellenistiche e in cui una delle cifre dominanti \u00e8 costituita da un agonismo che non sembra avere mai fine.\r\n\r\nIl contesto storico in cui opera Simplicio \u00e8, diversamente, quello della fine di un mondo, quello pagano, a cui ne sta per subentrare un altro, quello della Christianitas. Non si tratta pi\u00f9, in sostanza, di affermare il primato di una scuola o di una tradizione di pensiero rispetto ad altre tradizioni che non appartengono a quella platonica, perch\u00e9 le priorit\u00e0, adesso, sono mutate.\r\n\r\nIn questo passaggio epocale, la proposta filosofica e culturale di Simplicio sembra consistere, in altre parole, in una sorta di panellenismo filosofico. Come Isocrate, al fine di proseguire la lotta contro i Persiani, aveva cercato di superare i contrasti fra le varie \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2, cercando di radunare le loro energie e di riunirle politicamente sotto l\u2019egemonia ateniese, cos\u00ec Simplicio, al fine di proseguire la lotta contro i Cristiani, mira a superare i contrasti e le divergenze fra le varie tradizioni di pensiero, dichiarandoli apparenti, e teorizza, appunto, la loro \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03af\u03b1, sotto l\u2019egemonia platonica.\r\n\r\nL\u2019ermeneutica che caratterizza il procedere di Simplicio \u00e8 segnata, in particolare, dalla coppia concettuale \u201cenigma\/chiarezza\u201d. Secondo il Commentatore, il secondo modulo espressivo appartiene in modo eminente a Platone (e in parte anche ad Aristotele), mentre il primo ai Presocratici, e in particolare a Parmenide, Empedocle e i Pitagorici.\r\n\r\nSarebbe proprio la modalit\u00e0 espressiva enigmatica, per Simplicio, la causa principale dei fraintendimenti che avrebbero condotto alcuni a concepire i Presocratici in agonismo fra di loro, proprio come vorrebbe lasciar intendere certa dossografia cristiana. La classificazione simpliciana dei Presocratici (che, come si \u00e8 visto, \u00e8 una tripartizione) \u00e8 funzionale, per\u00f2, solo a una migliore comprensione delle ragioni della loro profonda unit\u00e0.\r\n\r\nConformemente all\u2019uso tecnico e tardo settecentesco del termine \u00absinfonia\u00bb, possiamo dire che nell\u2019ottica di Simplicio la filosofia dei Presocratici fu una sinfonia nel senso di un brano composto da pi\u00f9 movimenti \u2013 pi\u00f9 propriamente una \u201csonata per orchestra\u201d: \u1f21 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03bf\u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03af\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b3\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2.\r\n[conclusion p. 29-32]","btype":3,"date":"2019","language":"Italian","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/d1OxzfD4Xu8EZnr","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1554,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Epekeina. International Journal of Ontology History and Critics","volume":"10","issue":"1","pages":"1-32"}},"sort":[2019]}

Andronicus and Boethus: Reflections on Michael Griffin’s Aristotle’s Categories in the Early Roman Empire, 2018
By: Menn, Stephen
Title Andronicus and Boethus: Reflections on Michael Griffin’s Aristotle’s Categories in the Early Roman Empire
Type Article
Language English
Date 2018
Journal Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale
Volume 29
Pages 13-43
Categories no categories
Author(s) Menn, Stephen
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Griffin, Rashed, and Chiaradonna have shown how we can use Simplicius’ Categories commentary to reconstruct much of Porphyry’s greater Categories commentary (also witnessed by the Archimedes Palimpsest), and then use this to reconstruct much of the work of Boethus, and to a lesser extent Andronicus, on the Categories. In some cases building on Griffin, in other cases disagreeing with him, I bring out some ways in which Andronicus and Boethus differ from most later interpreters; this can help us understand Alexander’s and Porphyry’s responses. I reconstruct (i) Andronicus’ interpretation of ‘in’ and ‘said of, which is based on Aristotle’s distinction between abstract nouns and paronymous concrete nouns, and avoids the metaphysical freight that later interpreters load onto the notion of ‘said o f; (ii) Boethus’ use of De Interpretation 1 to explain how a universal term can be synonymous without positing either universals in re or Stoic XeKid, and the consequences he draws for the different aims of the Categories and De Interpretation; and (iii) Boethus’ solution to the tension between Aristotle’s hylomorphism and the Categories’ account of substance. Boethus, unlike later interpreters, thinks the form is in the matter, and is therefore not a substance but (typically) a quality, but that it is nonetheless able to constitute the composite as a substance distinct from the matter. I bring out the Aristotelian basis for Boethus’ reading, connect it with Boethus’ accounts of differentiae and of the soul, and show how Boethus’ views help motivate Porphyry’s responses. In some cases Porphyry constructs his views by triangulating between Boethus and Alexander. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1141","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1141,"authors_free":[{"id":1715,"entry_id":1141,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":255,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Menn, Stephen","free_first_name":"Stephen","free_last_name":"Menn","norm_person":{"id":255,"first_name":"Stephen","last_name":"Menn","full_name":"Menn, Stephen","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/174092768","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Andronicus and Boethus: Reflections on Michael Griffin\u2019s Aristotle\u2019s Categories in the Early Roman Empire","main_title":{"title":"Andronicus and Boethus: Reflections on Michael Griffin\u2019s Aristotle\u2019s Categories in the Early Roman Empire"},"abstract":"Griffin, Rashed, and Chiaradonna have shown how we can use Simplicius\u2019 Categories commentary to reconstruct much of Porphyry\u2019s greater Categories commentary (also witnessed by the Archimedes Palimpsest), and then use this to reconstruct much of the work of Boethus, and to a lesser extent Andronicus, on the Categories. In some cases \r\nbuilding on Griffin, in other cases disagreeing with him, I bring out some ways in which Andronicus and Boethus differ from most later interpreters; this can help us understand Alexander\u2019s and Porphyry\u2019s responses. I reconstruct (i) Andronicus\u2019 interpretation of \u2018in\u2019 and \u2018said of, which is based on Aristotle\u2019s distinction between abstract nouns and paronymous concrete nouns, and avoids the metaphysical freight that later interpreters load onto the notion of \u2018said o f; (ii) Boethus\u2019 use of De Interpretation 1 to explain how \r\na universal term can be synonymous without positing either universals in re or Stoic \r\nXeKid, and the consequences he draws for the different aims of the Categories and De Interpretation; and (iii) Boethus\u2019 solution to the tension between Aristotle\u2019s hylomorphism and the Categories\u2019 account of substance. Boethus, unlike later interpreters, thinks the \r\nform is in the matter, and is therefore not a substance but (typically) a quality, but that it \r\nis nonetheless able to constitute the composite as a substance distinct from the matter. I bring out the Aristotelian basis for Boethus\u2019 reading, connect it with Boethus\u2019 accounts of differentiae and of the soul, and show how Boethus\u2019 views help motivate Porphyry\u2019s responses. In some cases Porphyry constructs his views by triangulating between Boethus and Alexander. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2018","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/QBnyRLAL62sCzX0","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":255,"full_name":"Menn, Stephen","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1141,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale","volume":"29","issue":"","pages":"13-43"}},"sort":[2018]}

Simplicius and Iamblichus on Shape (μορφή), 2018
By: Schwark, Marina
Title Simplicius and Iamblichus on Shape (μορφή)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2018
Journal Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale
Volume 29
Pages 59
Categories no categories
Author(s) Schwark, Marina
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The present article examines how Simplicius and Iamblichus conceive of the quality shape (μορφή) and its relation to other qualities. As Simplicius’ commentary on Categories 8 shows, Simplicius follows Iamblichus in almost all aspects of his analysis. In particular,Simplicius shares Iamblichus’ assumption that shape is ultimately caused by intelligibleprinciples. Yet, Simplicius departs from Iamblichus’ position by asserting that shape isconstituted by figure, color, and perhaps even other qualities. Iamblichus opposes thisview, presumably because he takes it to interfere with his own metaphysical explanationof shape. Simplicius, however, suggests that his claim is in accord with Iamblichus’assumptions. In his attempt to harmonize the ’constitution thesis with Iamblichus’theory of intelligible principles, Simplicius relies on the notion of σύλληψισς. He argues that shape as a common conjunction (κοινὴ σύλληψις) includes, the other qualities inquestion, albeit as its parts or elements different from itself. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1144","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1144,"authors_free":[{"id":1717,"entry_id":1144,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":289,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Schwark, Marina","free_first_name":"Marina","free_last_name":"Schwark","norm_person":{"id":289,"first_name":"Marina","last_name":"Schwark","full_name":"Schwark, Marina","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius and Iamblichus on Shape (\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u1f75)","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius and Iamblichus on Shape (\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u1f75)"},"abstract":"The present article examines how Simplicius and Iamblichus conceive of the quality shape (\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u1f75) and its relation to other qualities. As Simplicius\u2019 commentary on Categories 8 shows, Simplicius follows Iamblichus in almost all aspects of his analysis. In particular,Simplicius shares Iamblichus\u2019 assumption that shape is ultimately caused by intelligibleprinciples. Yet, Simplicius departs from Iamblichus\u2019 position by asserting that shape isconstituted by figure, color, and perhaps even other qualities. Iamblichus opposes thisview, presumably because he takes it to interfere with his own metaphysical explanationof shape. Simplicius, however, suggests that his claim is in accord with Iamblichus\u2019assumptions. In his attempt to harmonize the \u2019constitution thesis with Iamblichus\u2019theory of intelligible principles, Simplicius relies on the notion of \u03c3\u1f7b\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03c8\u03b9\u03c3\u03c2. He argues that shape as a common conjunction (\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u1f74 \u03c3\u1f7b\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03c8\u03b9\u03c2) includes, the other qualities inquestion, albeit as its parts or elements different from itself. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2018","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/vLFTw1MUlOcJyPx","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":289,"full_name":"Schwark, Marina","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1144,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale","volume":"29","issue":"","pages":"59"}},"sort":[2018]}

Porphyry's Isagoge and Early Greek Neoplatonism, 2018
By: Chiaradonna, Riccardo
Title Porphyry's Isagoge and Early Greek Neoplatonism
Type Article
Language English
Date 2018
Journal Medioevo. Rivista di storia della filosofia medieval
Volume 43
Pages 13-39
Categories no categories
Author(s) Chiaradonna, Riccardo
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper focuses on Porphyry’s Isagoge against the wider background of debates about genera and the hierarchy of being in early Neoplatonism from Plotinus to Iamblichus. Three works are considered: Porphyry’s Isagoge, Plotinus tripartite treatise On The Genera of Being (VI, 1-3 [42-44]), Iamblichus’ Reply to Porphyry (the so-called De Mysteriis). In addition to this, the discussion focuses on some passages on genus and predication from Porphyry’s and Iamblichus’ lost commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories preserved in Simplicius. In his account of genus, Porphyry draws on Aristotle and apparently claims that an amended version of the genus/species relation is able to express the hierarchy of different levels of being. This view is different from that of Plotinus, who instead argues that intelligible and sensible beings are homonymous, as well as from that of Iamblichus, who rejects the existence of a common genus above intelligible and sensible beings, while emphasising the analogy subsisting between different levels in the hierarchy. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1523","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1523,"authors_free":[{"id":2647,"entry_id":1523,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":49,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Chiaradonna, Riccardo","free_first_name":"Riccardo","free_last_name":"Chiaradonna","norm_person":{"id":49,"first_name":"Riccardo ","last_name":"Chiaradonna","full_name":"Chiaradonna, Riccardo ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1142403548","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Porphyry's Isagoge and Early Greek Neoplatonism","main_title":{"title":"Porphyry's Isagoge and Early Greek Neoplatonism"},"abstract":"This paper focuses on Porphyry\u2019s Isagoge against the wider background of debates about genera and the hierarchy of being in early Neoplatonism from Plotinus to Iamblichus. Three works are considered: Porphyry\u2019s Isagoge, Plotinus tripartite treatise On The Genera of Being (VI, 1-3 [42-44]), Iamblichus\u2019 Reply to Porphyry (the so-called De Mysteriis). In addition to this, the discussion focuses on some passages on genus and predication from Porphyry\u2019s and\r\nIamblichus\u2019 lost commentaries on Aristotle\u2019s Categories preserved in Simplicius. In his account of genus, Porphyry draws on Aristotle and apparently\r\nclaims that an amended version of the genus\/species relation is able to express the hierarchy of different levels of being. This view is different from that of Plotinus, who instead argues that intelligible and sensible beings are homonymous, as well as from that of Iamblichus, who rejects the existence of a common genus above intelligible and sensible beings, while emphasising the analogy subsisting between different levels in the hierarchy. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2018","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/duFoYG09YhVIWUx","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":49,"full_name":"Chiaradonna, Riccardo ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1523,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Medioevo. Rivista di storia della filosofia medieval","volume":"43","issue":"","pages":"13-39"}},"sort":[2018]}

Il male come "privazione". Simplicio e Filopono in difesa della materia, 2017
By: Cardullo, R. Loredana
Title Il male come "privazione". Simplicio e Filopono in difesa della materia
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2017
Journal PEITHO / EXAMINA ANTIQUA
Volume 1
Issue 8
Pages 391-408
Categories no categories
Author(s) Cardullo, R. Loredana
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The aim of this paper is to highlight the decisive contribution of Simplicius and Philoponus to the resolution of the problem of evil in Neoplatonism. A correct and faithful interpretation of the problem, which also had to agree with Plato’s texts, became particularly needed after Plotinus had identified evil with matter, threatening, thus, the dualistic position, which was absent in Plato. The first rectification was made by Proclus with the notion of parhypostasis, i.e., “parasitic” or “collateral” existence, which de-hypostasized evil, while at the same time challenging the Plotinian theory that turned evil into a principle that was ontologically opposed to good. In light of this, the last Neoplatonic exegetes, Simplicius and Philoponus, definitely clarified the “privative” role of kakon, finally relieving matter from the negative meaning given to it by Plotinus and restoring metaphysical monism. [Author's abstract]

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Zum Problem der Gattung des Seienden bei Marius Victorinus und im antiken Neuplatonismus, 2017
By: Němec, Václav
Title Zum Problem der Gattung des Seienden bei Marius Victorinus und im antiken Neuplatonismus
Type Article
Language German
Date 2017
Journal Rheinisches Museum für Philologie (Neue Folge)
Volume 160
Pages 161-193
Categories no categories
Author(s) Němec, Václav
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The article is concerned with the problem of the genus of being in Neoplatonism. Specifically, it focuses on Pierre Hadot’s hypothesis, according to which some Neoplatonic authors, such as Porphyry, and under his influence Marius Victorinus and Dexippus, presupposed a common genus of being or substance in the Aristotelian sense, encompassing various ontological levels of the Platonic universe, namely the intelligible and sensible being or substance. A comprehensive analysis of relevant texts of Neoplatonic interpreters of and commentators on Aristotle’s writings shows that Hadot’s hypothesis is not tenable. In fact, Neoplatonists from Plotinus to Porphyry and Dexippus to Simplicius presupposed one genus of intelligible substance, which is the source of being for every other substance, including the sensible substance. Nevertheless, the intelligible substance or being is the "highest genus" only in the sense of Plato’s Sophist, and not in the sense of Aristotle’s Categories. Accordingly, the relationship between the highest "genus" and other "arts" of substance is not regarded as one of synonymy but as one of homonymy. More precisely, this is not homonymy "by chance" but homonymy "by intention," which can be specified as homonymy "based on analogy," "based on derivation from a single source," or "based on relation to a single thing." Moreover, the author argues that the crucial passage from Victorinus’s Against Arius Ib, which Hadot considered the main basis for his hypothesis, allows an alternative reading that is fully in accordance with the Neoplatonic doctrine as reconstructed in the article. [author's abstract]

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Parmenide neoplatonico: intorno a un nuovo studio sulla presenza di Parmenide nel commento alla Fisica di Simplicio (Book discussion of: Ivan A. Licciardi, Parmenide tràdito, Parmenide tradìto nel commentario di Simplicio alla Fisica di Aristotele (Symbolon 42), Sankt Augustin, Academia Verlag, 2016), 2017
By: Hoine, Pieter d’
Title Parmenide neoplatonico: intorno a un nuovo studio sulla presenza di Parmenide nel commento alla Fisica di Simplicio (Book discussion of: Ivan A. Licciardi, Parmenide tràdito, Parmenide tradìto nel commentario di Simplicio alla Fisica di Aristotele (Symbolon 42), Sankt Augustin, Academia Verlag, 2016)
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2017
Journal Méthexis
Volume 29
Issue 1
Pages 188-198
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hoine, Pieter d’
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In conclusione, mi permetto ancora alcune osservazioni sulla forma di quest’opera. Benché Simplicio apprezzi la laconicità (cioè la famosa brachylogia) degli antichi, credo che nessuno abbia mai pensato che il commentatore tenti di imitarla. Anzi, i suoi commentari sono caratterizzati da una certa prolissità e da ripetizioni che non sempre sono necessitate da bisogni esegetici. Per di più, il filo conduttore delle sue analisi è spesso interrotto da discussioni dossografiche o da digressioni che sono sì interessanti, ma non sempre pertinenti all’esegesi del testo in considerazione. Temo che anche il commentario di Ivan Licciardi non sia del tutto privo di queste imperfezioni. Inoltre, penso che alcune scelte formali – come quella di presentare il greco non a fronte della traduzione, ma piuttosto di seguito, e quella di non usare note nella parte del commentario – non abbiano contribuito a rendere più facile la navigazione attraverso le ricche informazioni che questo libro offre. Sotto questi aspetti, il libro ha l’impronta di un’opera prima, ma va detto che nella sua premessa l’autore stesso se ne mostra ben conscio (p. 19). Esprimendo queste riserve, non ho l’intenzione di ridurre i meriti di questo studio né di sollevare dubbi sul contributo dato da questo libro alla nostra comprensione dei temi discussi. Il merito di questo libro è soprattutto quello di aver consentito una migliore comprensione del contesto storico e filosofico in cui e delle ragioni per cui Simplicio ci ha trasmesso Parmenide. Anche se questo libro può aiutare gli studiosi dei presocratici a contestualizzare la loro stessa interpretazione del filosofo di Elea, è soprattutto agli studi neoplatonici che l’autore contribuisce. Infatti, il Parmenide di Simplicio è innanzitutto un Parmenide neoplatonico. Il senso storico e critico moderno fanno sì che noi non abbiamo più a nostra disposizione quella chiave ermeneutica neoplatonica che consiste nel riferire contraddizioni apparenti a diversi piani della realtà presenti solo implicitamente nel pensiero degli autori che studiamo. Il nostro obiettivo non è più quello di difendere la fondamentale unità del pensiero antico contro i cristiani né quello di mostrare la verità eternamente infallibile del platonismo. Diversamente, pensiamo che sia più sensato rintracciare non solo i punti di accordo, ma anche le discordanze e le discontinuità nella storia del pensiero, in cui lo stesso Simplicio merita una posizione di rilievo. L’interpretazione simpliciana di Parmenide ha sì ‘salvato’ parecchie linee del Poema dall’oblio, ma il prezzo che l’Eleate ha pagato è stato quello di essere stato forzato, nelle parole di Licciardi, in una ‘griglia concettuale totalmente estranea alla logica del Poema’ (p. 43). L’ironia di questa vicenda è che sia stato proprio l’intento di Simplicio di coltivare l’amicizia con tutti i filosofi pagani ad averlo spinto, in fin dei conti, a tradire tutti. [conclusion p. 197-198]

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La critique aristotélicienne des Idées en Physique II 2 et l’interprétation de Simplicius, 2017
By: Golitsis, Pantelis
Title La critique aristotélicienne des Idées en Physique II 2 et l’interprétation de Simplicius
Type Article
Language French
Date 2017
Journal Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques
Volume 101
Pages 569-584
Categories no categories
Author(s) Golitsis, Pantelis
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In Physics II 2, 193b35–194a1, Aristotle criticizes in passing the partisans of the Ideas, comparing them to the mathematicians. The present article first attempts to specify the identity of the Academicians Aristotle has in view and to explain how their method resembles the mathematical one. In a second step, the article sheds light on Simplicius' manner of deflecting the Aristotelian critique, showing that, despite appearances, the Stagirite acknowledges that the forms of natural realities, after the fashion of mathematical realities, can be thought of separately, that is to say, without matter. The Neoplatonist's reflection casts new light on the notion of methexis, basically identical to that of phusikos logos or "form in itself," which is like intelligible Form. [author's abstract]

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The notion of ἐπιτηδειότης in Simplicius' discussion of quality, 2016
By: Hauer, Mareike
Title The notion of ἐπιτηδειότης in Simplicius' discussion of quality
Type Article
Language English
Date 2016
Journal Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale
Volume 27
Pages 65-83
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hauer, Mareike
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper deals with the meaning and function of epitêdeiotês in Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, particularly in chapter 8, the discussion of the category of quality. Based on the question as to whether Simplicius uses epitêdeiotês as a technical term or as a mere substitute for the Aristotelian notion of dynamis, different passages of chapter 8 will be analyzed and compared with Aristotle's discussion of dynamis. It will be argued that Simplicius distinguishes between two senses of epitêdeiotês, one of which can be associated with the Aristotelian notion of dynamis; the other sense, however, differs from the Aristotelian notion of dynamis and, instead, appears to be in agreement with the use of epitêdeiotês in the theory of participation established by Simplicius' Neoplatonic predecessors. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1150","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1150,"authors_free":[{"id":1725,"entry_id":1150,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":174,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Hauer, Mareike","free_first_name":"Mareike","free_last_name":"Hauer","norm_person":{"id":174,"first_name":"Mareike","last_name":"Hauer","full_name":"Hauer, Mareike","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The notion of \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c4\u03b7\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 in Simplicius' discussion of quality","main_title":{"title":"The notion of \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c4\u03b7\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 in Simplicius' discussion of quality"},"abstract":"This paper deals with the meaning and function of epit\u00eadeiot\u00eas in Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Categories, particularly in chapter 8, the discussion of the category of quality. Based on the question as to whether Simplicius uses epit\u00eadeiot\u00eas as a technical term or as a mere substitute for the Aristotelian notion of dynamis, different passages of chapter 8 will be analyzed and compared with Aristotle's discussion of dynamis. It will be argued that Simplicius distinguishes between two senses of epit\u00eadeiot\u00eas, one of which can be associated with the Aristotelian notion of dynamis; the other sense, however, differs from the Aristotelian notion of dynamis and, instead, appears to be in agreement with the use of epit\u00eadeiot\u00eas in the theory of participation established by Simplicius' Neoplatonic predecessors. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/uZGcu7N3ynTApz0","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":174,"full_name":"Hauer, Mareike","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1150,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale","volume":"27","issue":"","pages":"65-83"}},"sort":[2016]}

Simplicius on the Relation between Quality and Qualified, 2016
By: Hauer, Mareike
Title Simplicius on the Relation between Quality and Qualified
Type Article
Language English
Date 2016
Journal Méthexis
Volume 28
Pages 111-140
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hauer, Mareike
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Simplicius claims in his Commentary on Aristotle’s Categoriesthat quality is prior to the qualified according to nature. However, in an interesting passage in the same com­mentary, Simplicius describes the relation between quality and qualified in such a way that it strongly suggests an ontological simultaneity. The aim of this paper is to clarify Simplicius' notion of natural priority and to investigate the extent to which the as­sumption of a natural priority of the quality over the qualified is compatible with the assumption of a co-existence of quality and qualified. [Author's abstract]

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L'esperienza estetica fra logica e cosmologia nel Commentario alla Fisica di Simplicio, 2016
By: Licciardi, Ivan Adriano
Title L'esperienza estetica fra logica e cosmologia nel Commentario alla Fisica di Simplicio
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2016
Journal Athenaeum
Volume 104
Issue 1
Pages 186-200
Categories no categories
Author(s) Licciardi, Ivan Adriano
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this paper I will explain some passages of Simplicius, in Phys. 1, in which the Commentator discusses the Aristotelian expression pephyke de ek tôn gvorimoteron (Phys. 1.1, 184a. 16). Here Simplicius distinguishes ta gnorimotera from to autopiston, such as the def­initions and the immediate premises, and from the dianoetic knowledge, which is syllogistic and demonstrative. Notwithstanding the topic o f these passages is epistemological, here the Com­mentator, through a syllogism in which there is an evident reminiscence o f Plato’s Timaeus, cites the beauty o f the universe as an initial step to raise to the goodness o f die Demiurge. After an articulated investigation (in which are involved, as well, Aristotle’s Rhetoric and above all P osteriorA nalytics), Simplicius concludes that to kalon has the same statute of gnorimoteron hemîn (Arise. Phys. 1.1.184a.l6). The purpose o f the Commentator seems that to conciliate Plato and Aristotle, and the result is an original and creative, but at the same rime exact and careful, way to do the exegesis of Aristotle’s Physics. [Author's abstract]

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Rational Assent and Self-Reversion: A Neoplatonist Response to the Stoics, 2016
By: Coope, Ursula
Title Rational Assent and Self-Reversion: A Neoplatonist Response to the Stoics
Type Article
Language English
Date 2016
Journal Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy
Volume 50
Pages 237-288
Categories no categories
Author(s) Coope, Ursula
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this paper, we have seen how ps.-Simplicius draws upon the Neoplatonic notion of self-reversion to explain the nature of rational assent. I have argued that this account of assent provides a basis for explaining a fundamental difference between assenting and having impressions: the fact that we can assent for a reason but cannot (in the same sense) have an impression for a reason. Ps.-Simplicius' account thus suggests an interesting new view of the nature of assent, a view that combines elements of Aristotelian, Stoic, and Neoplatonist thought. From the Stoics, he inherits the view that believing involves assenting. He draws upon the Neoplatonist notion of self-reversion to explain the essentially self-reflexive nature of assent. This enables him to defend Aristotle's claim that we cannot believe at will. On this account, though we do not believe at will, we nevertheless have a kind of rational control over our beliefs: beliefs, by their very nature, are such as to be revised or maintained for reasons. This account thus provides an answer to the question we raised for the Stoics: what is it about the nature of assent that explains why you are responsible for assenting in a way in which you are not responsible for having impressions? You are responsible for assenting just because you can assent (or withhold assent) for reasons, and you can assent for reasons just because of the essentially self-reflexive nature of the act of assent. [conclusion p. 286]

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Review: Bowen, A.C., Simplicius on the Planets and Their Motions. In Defense of a Heresy, 2016
By: D'Ancona Costa, Cristina
Title Review: Bowen, A.C., Simplicius on the Planets and Their Motions. In Defense of a Heresy
Type Article
Language English
Date 2016
Journal Studia graeco-arabica
Volume 6
Pages 294-301
Categories no categories
Author(s) D'Ancona Costa, Cristina
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Within the history of the reception of ancient cosmology in later ages, Aristotle’s De Caelo plays an important role. Simplicius’ work on the planets and their motions is devoted to a specific point in the late antique exegesis of this Aristotelian treatise, namely the problem of planetary motions and the solution to it provided by Simplicius (d. 555 AD) in his commentary on De Caelo. Planetary motions indeed pose a problem for him: while throughout his commentary he is committed to showing that Aristotle’s description of the heavens is the correct one, on this particular issue he substitutes Ptolemy’s system for Aristotle’s (pp. 84-86). Bowen focuses on Simplicius’ “preference for post-Aristotelian planetary hypotheses” (p. 51) and questions the reason for this. For Bowen, the answer lies in the well-known debate on the nature of the heavens that arose in the first half of the 6th century between Simplicius and Philoponus. Challenged by Philoponus in a lost work—whose main, though not exclusive, source of knowledge for us is Simplicius himself—the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity and divinity of the heavens was defended by Simplicius in his commentary on De Caelo, where he also directed harsh criticisms at Philoponus. In Bowen’s book, four introductory chapters (pp. 27-93) precede the translation of Simplicius’ In De Caelo II, 10-12 (= pp. 470.29-510.35 Heiberg), followed by a series of comments on selected topics (pp. 201-98). Figures and tables are provided at the end of the introduction (pp. 22-25) and between the translation and the comments (pp. 181-97). Bowen frames much of his discussion against the backdrop of Simplicius’ struggle against Philoponus. Chapter One opens with the claim: “The great digression at the end of Simplicius’ In De Caelo 2.12 [492.25-510.35] is an apologia precipitated by Philoponus, the renegade Platonist, and his attack on Aristotle’s arguments for a fifth simple body, aether” (p. 27). Even though Philoponus’ rejection of Aristotelian cosmology is not explicitly mentioned in Simplicius’ commentary on De Caelo II, 10-12, Bowen considers it Simplicius’ real target. Philoponus’ attack on the theory of the aether and its movement lies in the background of what, at first glance, appears to be a highly specialized discussion of the difficulties in the homocentric theory and an excursus on their solutions. Bowen’s interpretation centers on the idea that Simplicius was well aware of the limitations of the homocentric theory. Faced with Philoponus’ objections, he sought a solution that was compatible with his own assumption of the circular and, consequently, eternal motion of the heavens. Philoponus’ main objection is as follows: if it were true that the entire cosmos rotates about its center, then the planets should not exhibit rotations about their own axes, nor should they have apogees and perigees—an argument that, according to Bowen, Simplicius could only agree with. In fact, this was precisely the reason he sided with Ptolemy. However, Simplicius could by no means endorse the general conclusion Philoponus drew from this, namely that there is no aether endowed with circular, eternal motion. Bowen argues that Philoponus’ criticism “brings to the fore two points against Aristotle,” namely the rotation of the planets about their axes and their apogees and perigees, “in which he sides with Philoponus.” The danger here is heresy: Simplicius is now obliged to show that his agreement with Philoponus does not lead to Philoponus’ blasphemous conclusion (p. 28), hence the subtitle of Bowen’s book, In Defense of a Heresy. This reconstruction hinges on linking Simplicius’ statements in his commentary on De Caelo II, 10-12—especially in the section labeled “digression”—to Philoponus. As Bowen puts it, “The digression is the apologia in full” (p. 64). As noted earlier, this long passage, which concludes Simplicius’ commentary on De Caelo II, 12, addresses difficulties in the cosmic model presented in Metaphysics XII 8, where all the spheres rotate around the Earth, the center of the universe (pp. 14, 92). However, Bowen maintains that, beyond its explicit content, the “digression” is in reality a response to Philoponus. The latter is not mentioned directly; instead, Simplicius presents Xenarchus’ objections and counters them with the arguments developed by Alexander of Aphrodisias. Only after addressing these objections, “long after Philoponus’ objections to the Aristotelian aether have been answered, does Simplicius again take up, without mentioning Philoponus, the question of the homocentric planetary theory (...). So the astronomical digression (παρέκβασις) at the close of In De Caelo 2.12 is, logically speaking, a part of Simplicius’ attempt to deal with Philoponus” (p. 15). [introduction p. 294-295]

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Simplicius\u2019 work on the planets and their motions is devoted to a specific point in the late antique exegesis of this Aristotelian treatise, namely the problem of planetary motions and the solution to it provided by Simplicius (d. 555 AD) in his commentary on De Caelo. Planetary motions indeed pose a problem for him: while throughout his commentary he is committed to showing that Aristotle\u2019s description of the heavens is the correct one, on this particular issue he substitutes Ptolemy\u2019s system for Aristotle\u2019s (pp. 84-86). Bowen focuses on Simplicius\u2019 \u201cpreference for post-Aristotelian planetary hypotheses\u201d (p. 51) and questions the reason for this.\r\n\r\nFor Bowen, the answer lies in the well-known debate on the nature of the heavens that arose in the first half of the 6th century between Simplicius and Philoponus. Challenged by Philoponus in a lost work\u2014whose main, though not exclusive, source of knowledge for us is Simplicius himself\u2014the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity and divinity of the heavens was defended by Simplicius in his commentary on De Caelo, where he also directed harsh criticisms at Philoponus.\r\n\r\nIn Bowen\u2019s book, four introductory chapters (pp. 27-93) precede the translation of Simplicius\u2019 In De Caelo II, 10-12 (= pp. 470.29-510.35 Heiberg), followed by a series of comments on selected topics (pp. 201-98). Figures and tables are provided at the end of the introduction (pp. 22-25) and between the translation and the comments (pp. 181-97). Bowen frames much of his discussion against the backdrop of Simplicius\u2019 struggle against Philoponus. Chapter One opens with the claim:\r\n\r\n \u201cThe great digression at the end of Simplicius\u2019 In De Caelo 2.12 [492.25-510.35] is an apologia precipitated by Philoponus, the renegade Platonist, and his attack on Aristotle\u2019s arguments for a fifth simple body, aether\u201d (p. 27).\r\n\r\nEven though Philoponus\u2019 rejection of Aristotelian cosmology is not explicitly mentioned in Simplicius\u2019 commentary on De Caelo II, 10-12, Bowen considers it Simplicius\u2019 real target. Philoponus\u2019 attack on the theory of the aether and its movement lies in the background of what, at first glance, appears to be a highly specialized discussion of the difficulties in the homocentric theory and an excursus on their solutions.\r\n\r\nBowen\u2019s interpretation centers on the idea that Simplicius was well aware of the limitations of the homocentric theory. Faced with Philoponus\u2019 objections, he sought a solution that was compatible with his own assumption of the circular and, consequently, eternal motion of the heavens. Philoponus\u2019 main objection is as follows: if it were true that the entire cosmos rotates about its center, then the planets should not exhibit rotations about their own axes, nor should they have apogees and perigees\u2014an argument that, according to Bowen, Simplicius could only agree with. In fact, this was precisely the reason he sided with Ptolemy. However, Simplicius could by no means endorse the general conclusion Philoponus drew from this, namely that there is no aether endowed with circular, eternal motion.\r\n\r\nBowen argues that Philoponus\u2019 criticism \u201cbrings to the fore two points against Aristotle,\u201d namely the rotation of the planets about their axes and their apogees and perigees, \u201cin which he sides with Philoponus.\u201d The danger here is heresy: Simplicius is now obliged to show that his agreement with Philoponus does not lead to Philoponus\u2019 blasphemous conclusion (p. 28), hence the subtitle of Bowen\u2019s book, In Defense of a Heresy.\r\n\r\nThis reconstruction hinges on linking Simplicius\u2019 statements in his commentary on De Caelo II, 10-12\u2014especially in the section labeled \u201cdigression\u201d\u2014to Philoponus. As Bowen puts it, \u201cThe digression is the apologia in full\u201d (p. 64). As noted earlier, this long passage, which concludes Simplicius\u2019 commentary on De Caelo II, 12, addresses difficulties in the cosmic model presented in Metaphysics XII 8, where all the spheres rotate around the Earth, the center of the universe (pp. 14, 92). However, Bowen maintains that, beyond its explicit content, the \u201cdigression\u201d is in reality a response to Philoponus. The latter is not mentioned directly; instead, Simplicius presents Xenarchus\u2019 objections and counters them with the arguments developed by Alexander of Aphrodisias.\r\n\r\nOnly after addressing these objections, \u201clong after Philoponus\u2019 objections to the Aristotelian aether have been answered, does Simplicius again take up, without mentioning Philoponus, the question of the homocentric planetary theory (...). So the astronomical digression (\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ad\u03ba\u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2) at the close of In De Caelo 2.12 is, logically speaking, a part of Simplicius\u2019 attempt to deal with Philoponus\u201d (p. 15). [introduction p. 294-295]","btype":3,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/PxYyMRyYuxV6BPl","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":60,"full_name":"D'Ancona Costa, Cristina","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1410,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Studia graeco-arabica","volume":"6","issue":"","pages":"294-301"}},"sort":[2016]}

Book review: Simplicius on Aristotle Physics 8.1-5, written by Istvan Bodnár, Michael Chase and Michael Share, 2015
By: Hatzistavrou, Antony
Title Book review: Simplicius on Aristotle Physics 8.1-5, written by Istvan Bodnár, Michael Chase and Michael Share
Type Article
Language English
Date 2015
Journal The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 9
Issue 1
Pages 124 –125
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hatzistavrou, Antony
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This is a fine addition to the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, which is under the general editorship of Richard Sorabji. The volume contains a translation of Simplicius’ commentary on the first five chapters of the eighth book of Aristotle’s Physics. The translators are Michael Chase (who has been involved in the translation of most of the chapters), Istvan Bodnár, and Michael Slate. The translation is accompanied by a series of notes. Some of the notes identify the ancient texts Simplicius refers to in his commentary, while others are primarily of philological interest. There is also a number of exegetical notes that are particularly useful in helping the reader understand the logic of Simplicius’ arguments and in elucidating the conceptual apparatus of his commentary. The volume also includes: A preface by Richard Sorabji, which explains the importance of the commentary for scholarship on the ancient commentators on Aristotle. An introduction by Michael Chase, which focuses on Simplicius’ polemic against Philoponus. A list of departures of the translation from Diels’ edition of Simplicius’ commentary. An English-Greek glossary. A Greek-English index. A subject index. A bibliography. The volume is clearly designed with the needs of the specialist scholar in mind and aims to become the primary reference text in English for the study of Simplicius’ commentary. Where does the importance of Simplicius’ commentary lie? It is instructive that both Sorabji, in his preface, and Chase, in his introduction, focus on its importance for the history of philosophy in late antiquity. First, it sheds light on an aspect of the philosophical and ideological debate between pagan and Christian thinkers at the end of antiquity concerning the intelligibility of the creation of the world. In Physics 8.1, Aristotle argues that time and motion are eternal. For any arbitrarily chosen moment in time or motion in space, one will always be able to identify a preceding and a subsequent moment or motion. This means that the world as a whole is eternal. Philoponus understood Aristotle’s arguments for the eternity of the universe to pose problems for a creationist account of the world, as advocated by the Judeo-Christian religion. In his polemic Against Aristotle On the Eternity of the World, Philoponus undertakes the task of defending a creationist account of the world by attacking Aristotle’s arguments for the eternity of motion and time. In his commentary, Simplicius attacks Philoponus, accusing him, among other things, of failing to understand and thus misrepresenting Aristotle’s position. A primary aim of his commentary on Physics 8.1 is, on the one hand, to identify and correct what he takes to be Philoponus’ distortions of Aristotle’s arguments and, on the other hand, to vindicate the cogency of Aristotle’s theory against Philoponus’ polemic. Simplicius makes no attempt to conceal his disdain for Philoponus’ scholarly abilities and intellectual integrity, describing his arguments as "garbage" and accusing him of being motivated by his "zeal for contradicting." In his introduction, Michael Chase clarifies that Simplicius’ attack is not restricted to issues concerning the proper interpretation of Aristotle’s theory but has a wider scope. It is meant as an attack on Philoponus’ Christian faith. In this attack, Simplicius occasionally reveals himself to be conversant with intricate Christian theological debates, such as the debate concerning the nature of Christ (i.e., whether Christ was begotten or made). Second, as Richard Sorabji mentions in his preface, Simplicius’ commentary reports and makes extensive use of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ lost commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. On Sorabji’s view, Simplicius, on the whole, reports Alexander’s views accurately. Furthermore, despite occasional disagreements about the interpretation of Aristotle’s philosophy, Simplicius shows respect for Alexander’s abilities as a commentator and values his intellectual integrity. Simplicius’ attitude towards Alexander is thus sharply contrasted with his attitude towards Philoponus. Scholars interested in the debate between pagan and Christian philosophers at the end of antiquity and in the history of the ancient commentators on Aristotle will welcome the translation into English of Simplicius’ commentary. They may also find much material in the notes to the translation to grapple with. The volume will also appeal to anyone interested in Aristotle’s natural philosophy and, more specifically, in Aristotle’s views about the eternity of the world and the prime mover. The detailed English-Greek glossary and the indices make the volume a significant research tool likely to become a reference point in relevant scholarship. In addition, the volume is nicely produced. [the entire review]

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The volume contains a translation of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on the first five chapters of the eighth book of Aristotle\u2019s Physics. The translators are Michael Chase (who has been involved in the translation of most of the chapters), Istvan Bodn\u00e1r, and Michael Slate. The translation is accompanied by a series of notes. Some of the notes identify the ancient texts Simplicius refers to in his commentary, while others are primarily of philological interest. There is also a number of exegetical notes that are particularly useful in helping the reader understand the logic of Simplicius\u2019 arguments and in elucidating the conceptual apparatus of his commentary. The volume also includes:\r\n\r\n A preface by Richard Sorabji, which explains the importance of the commentary for scholarship on the ancient commentators on Aristotle.\r\n An introduction by Michael Chase, which focuses on Simplicius\u2019 polemic against Philoponus.\r\n A list of departures of the translation from Diels\u2019 edition of Simplicius\u2019 commentary.\r\n An English-Greek glossary.\r\n A Greek-English index.\r\n A subject index.\r\n A bibliography.\r\n\r\nThe volume is clearly designed with the needs of the specialist scholar in mind and aims to become the primary reference text in English for the study of Simplicius\u2019 commentary.\r\n\r\nWhere does the importance of Simplicius\u2019 commentary lie? It is instructive that both Sorabji, in his preface, and Chase, in his introduction, focus on its importance for the history of philosophy in late antiquity. First, it sheds light on an aspect of the philosophical and ideological debate between pagan and Christian thinkers at the end of antiquity concerning the intelligibility of the creation of the world. In Physics 8.1, Aristotle argues that time and motion are eternal. For any arbitrarily chosen moment in time or motion in space, one will always be able to identify a preceding and a subsequent moment or motion. This means that the world as a whole is eternal. Philoponus understood Aristotle\u2019s arguments for the eternity of the universe to pose problems for a creationist account of the world, as advocated by the Judeo-Christian religion. In his polemic Against Aristotle On the Eternity of the World, Philoponus undertakes the task of defending a creationist account of the world by attacking Aristotle\u2019s arguments for the eternity of motion and time.\r\n\r\nIn his commentary, Simplicius attacks Philoponus, accusing him, among other things, of failing to understand and thus misrepresenting Aristotle\u2019s position. A primary aim of his commentary on Physics 8.1 is, on the one hand, to identify and correct what he takes to be Philoponus\u2019 distortions of Aristotle\u2019s arguments and, on the other hand, to vindicate the cogency of Aristotle\u2019s theory against Philoponus\u2019 polemic. Simplicius makes no attempt to conceal his disdain for Philoponus\u2019 scholarly abilities and intellectual integrity, describing his arguments as \"garbage\" and accusing him of being motivated by his \"zeal for contradicting.\" In his introduction, Michael Chase clarifies that Simplicius\u2019 attack is not restricted to issues concerning the proper interpretation of Aristotle\u2019s theory but has a wider scope. It is meant as an attack on Philoponus\u2019 Christian faith. In this attack, Simplicius occasionally reveals himself to be conversant with intricate Christian theological debates, such as the debate concerning the nature of Christ (i.e., whether Christ was begotten or made).\r\n\r\nSecond, as Richard Sorabji mentions in his preface, Simplicius\u2019 commentary reports and makes extensive use of Alexander of Aphrodisias\u2019 lost commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics. On Sorabji\u2019s view, Simplicius, on the whole, reports Alexander\u2019s views accurately. Furthermore, despite occasional disagreements about the interpretation of Aristotle\u2019s philosophy, Simplicius shows respect for Alexander\u2019s abilities as a commentator and values his intellectual integrity. Simplicius\u2019 attitude towards Alexander is thus sharply contrasted with his attitude towards Philoponus.\r\n\r\nScholars interested in the debate between pagan and Christian philosophers at the end of antiquity and in the history of the ancient commentators on Aristotle will welcome the translation into English of Simplicius\u2019 commentary. They may also find much material in the notes to the translation to grapple with. The volume will also appeal to anyone interested in Aristotle\u2019s natural philosophy and, more specifically, in Aristotle\u2019s views about the eternity of the world and the prime mover. The detailed English-Greek glossary and the indices make the volume a significant research tool likely to become a reference point in relevant scholarship. In addition, the volume is nicely produced. [the entire review]","btype":3,"date":"2015","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/um5b6staCmgDtbZ","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":173,"full_name":"Hatzistavrou, Antony","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1014,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition","volume":"9","issue":"1","pages":"124 \u2013125"}},"sort":[2015]}

Review of: Ph. Soulier, Simplicius et l'infini, préface par Ph. Hoffmann, 2015
By: Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Title Review of: Ph. Soulier, Simplicius et l'infini, préface par Ph. Hoffmann
Type Article
Language French
Date 2015
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 33
Pages 115-128
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Ajoutons que Ph. Soulier donne en annexe un résumé analytique du texte de Simplicius. À défaut d’une traduction complète (qui est annoncée aux éditions des Belles Lettres), il s’agit là d’un formidable support pour suivre les analyses aussi denses que rigoureuses. Simplicius n’a ni le prestige d’un Proclus ni l’audace philosophique d’un Damascius. Sans doute son rôle de Commentateur d’Aristote est à la fois la cause de sa relégation et le cœur de son originalité. Contraint de suivre la logique d’un texte différent de celle du système qui lui sert de grille d’analyse, il tire de cette lecture systématique des éléments qu’il doit harmoniser avec l’orthodoxie néoplatonicienne. À cet égard, la question de l’infini est symptomatique de sa méthode, puisqu’elle montre de quelle façon se construit une doctrine originale sur la base du texte aristotélicien et de la toile de fond néoplatonicienne : Simplicius évince l’ἄπειρον du sensible, pour le réserver à l’intelligible, mais il retient un procès à l’infini, τὸ ἐπ᾽ ἄπειρον, et lui attribue une assise ontologique. Autrement dit, il n’admet pas simplement un « bon » et un « mauvais » infini, l’un qui vaudrait dans l’intelligible, l’autre qui en serait l’image sensible et dégradée. Il pose plutôt une forme positive de l’infinité dans le sensible même. On peut dès lors remercier Ph. Soulier d’avoir fait la pleine lumière sur la revalorisation du sensible dans les dernières pages du néoplatonisme tardo-antique, c’est-à-dire d’avoir exposé avec une telle minutie comment l’analyse de la Physique permettait de déployer les propriétés de l’infini qui étaient caractéristiques du sensible, en accord avec la thèse néoplatonicienne la plus autorisée. [conclusion p. 127-128]

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Simplicius on Predication, 2015
By: Hauer, Mareike
Title Simplicius on Predication
Type Article
Language English
Date 2015
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 33
Issue 2
Pages 173-200
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hauer, Mareike
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper deals with Simplicius’ discussion of Aristotle’s account of predication in his Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories. Of particular interest is the relation between synonymous predication and essential predication. In Aristotle, as well as in Simplicius, both kinds of predication are closely connected. It has been argued in Aristotelian scholarship that, for Aristotle, synonymous predication yields essential predication. It has been equally argued that this assumption is compatible with Aristotle’s theoretical framework, but if applied to Plato, would pose a problem for Plato. Simplicius’ extensive discussion of both synonymous predication and essential predication suggests that he was aware of the deeper problem raised by the assumption that synonymous predication yields essential predication. In this paper, I will argue that Simplicius, by means of an original interpretation of the predicate, not only turns the assumption that synonymous predication yields essential predication into a supposition that is less problematic for Plato, but also creates a framework for a possible harmonization of Plato and Aristotle. [Author's abstract]

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Le σκοπός du traité aristotélicien Du Ciel selon Simplicius. Exégèse, dialectique, théologie, 2015
By: Hoffmann, Philippe
Title Le σκοπός du traité aristotélicien Du Ciel selon Simplicius. Exégèse, dialectique, théologie
Type Article
Language French
Date 2015
Journal Studia graeco-arabica
Volume 5
Pages 27-51
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hoffmann, Philippe
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
A six-page Prologue introduces the commentary on Aristotle’s De Caelo written by Simplicius after 529 AD. As usual in the exegeses typical of the Neoplatonic schools of late Antiquity, this Prologue addresses a series of preliminary questions that are meant to steer the interpretation in its entirety, as well as to frame the text to be commented upon within the reading canon of the Aristotelian works, which were intended to provide the propaedeutics to the reading canon of Plato’s dialogues. Simplicius addresses the question of the scope of De Caelo, discussing the interpretations advanced by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Iamblichus, and Syrianus. According to Alexander, this treatise deals with the universe as a whole, as well as with the five simple bodies contained in it. It was with Iamblichus, who advocated the idea that for each Platonic dialogue there was only one skopos, that the unity of a philosophical work was raised to the rank of a general rule. According to Iamblichus, the skopos of the De Caelo is the divine body of heaven. As a consequence, the primary elements that depend upon the heavens are included in the treatise. Syrianus deepens the theological tendency implied in Iamblichus’ interpretation: for him, the skopos of the De Caelo is primarily the divine body of heaven, and only secondarily the set of sublunar elements. Simplicius treasures the commentary by Alexander; nevertheless, he questions the skopos assigned by him: Alexander underestimated the importance of the unity of the treatise, even though his intention to account for each and every question raised by Aristotle was laudable. Contrarily, Syrianus was right in emphasizing the theological vein of the De Caelo, but focussed only on the section on the divine body of heaven, playing down books III and IV as if they were only ancillary, thus forgetting that the skopos must account for the whole of the treatise at hand. Between the two positions, Simplicius advocates the idea of a synthetical skopos, following in the footsteps of Iamblichus’ interpretation, but taking systematically into account the best of Alexander’s. The skopos of the De Caelo is the divine heaven, that “communicates” its perfections to the entire universe. Simplicius’ position is revealed to be very different with respect to that of other commentators like Ammonius and Philoponus, who both considered that the title was self-evident and required no special investigation. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"581","_score":null,"_source":{"id":581,"authors_free":[{"id":824,"entry_id":581,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":138,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Hoffmann, Philippe","free_first_name":"Philippe","free_last_name":"Hoffmann","norm_person":{"id":138,"first_name":"Philippe ","last_name":"Hoffmann","full_name":"Hoffmann, Philippe ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/189361905","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Le \u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03cc\u03c2 du trait\u00e9 aristot\u00e9licien Du Ciel selon Simplicius. Ex\u00e9g\u00e8se, dialectique, th\u00e9ologie","main_title":{"title":"Le \u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03cc\u03c2 du trait\u00e9 aristot\u00e9licien Du Ciel selon Simplicius. Ex\u00e9g\u00e8se, dialectique, th\u00e9ologie"},"abstract":"A six-page Prologue introduces the commentary on Aristotle\u2019s De Caelo written by Simplicius after 529 AD. As usual in the exegeses typical of the Neoplatonic schools of late Antiquity, this Prologue addresses a series of preliminary \r\nquestions that are meant to steer the interpretation in its entirety, as well as to frame the text to be commented upon within the reading canon of the Aristotelian works, which were intended to provide the propaedeutics to the reading canon of Plato\u2019s dialogues. Simplicius addresses the question of the scope of De Caelo, discussing the interpretations advanced by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Iamblichus, and Syrianus. According to Alexander, this treatise deals with the universe as a whole, as well as with the five simple bodies contained in it. It was with Iamblichus, who advocated the idea that for each Platonic dialogue there was only one skopos, that the unity of a philosophical work was raised \r\nto the rank of a general rule. According to Iamblichus, the skopos of the De Caelo is the divine body of heaven. As a consequence, the primary elements that depend upon the heavens are included in the treatise. Syrianus deepens \r\nthe theological tendency implied in Iamblichus\u2019 interpretation: for him, the skopos of the De Caelo is primarily the divine body of heaven, and only secondarily the set of sublunar elements. Simplicius treasures the commentary by \r\nAlexander; nevertheless, he questions the skopos assigned by him: Alexander underestimated the importance of the unity of the treatise, even though his intention to account for each and every question raised by Aristotle was laudable. Contrarily, Syrianus was right in emphasizing the theological vein of the De Caelo, but focussed only on the section on the divine body of heaven, playing down books III and IV as if they were only ancillary, thus forgetting that the skopos must account for the whole of the treatise at hand. Between the two positions, Simplicius advocates the idea of a synthetical skopos, following in the footsteps of Iamblichus\u2019 interpretation, but taking systematically into account the best of Alexander\u2019s. The skopos of the De Caelo is the divine heaven, that \u201ccommunicates\u201d its perfections to the \r\nentire universe. Simplicius\u2019 position is revealed to be very different with respect to that of other commentators like Ammonius and Philoponus, who both considered that the title was self-evident and required no special investigation. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2015","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/IkThMj3dyL4pqPR","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":138,"full_name":"Hoffmann, Philippe ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":581,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Studia graeco-arabica","volume":"5","issue":"","pages":"27-51"}},"sort":[2015]}

Review of: I. Hadot, Le néoplatonicien Simplicius à la lumière des recherches contemporaines, 2015
By: Chemi, Germana
Title Review of: I. Hadot, Le néoplatonicien Simplicius à la lumière des recherches contemporaines
Type Article
Language French
Date 2015
Journal Studia graeco-arabica
Volume 5
Pages 385-388
Categories no categories
Author(s) Chemi, Germana
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
L’A. présente en ce volume un bilan raisonné des recherches contemporaines concernant la vie et l’œuvre du néoplatonicien Simplicius, ainsi que des études sur sa réception dans le monde arabe. Le volume contient aussi deux contributions de Ph. Vallat portant respectivement sur la biographie de Simplicius (p. 102-129) et sur la réception arabe de son commentaire aux Catégories d’Aristote (p. 241-264). La première section (Biographie, p. 13-134), qui fait suite à la préface (p. 11-12), concerne la biographie de Simplicius. Cette partie du volume aborde les sujets suivants : le nom de Simplicius (p. 13-14), son origine et sa formation (p. 14-16), le milieu culturel d’Alexandrie à l’époque de ses études avec Ammonius (p. 16-17), le départ d’Athènes (p. 17-19), l’exil en Perse (p. 23-24) et la question du lieu où Simplicius et ses collègues se seraient rendus après avoir quitté la cour de Chosroès Ier (p. 25-129). Cette section s’achève par un sommaire général (p. 130-133) et trois épigrammes que l’A. attribue à Simplicius (p. 133-134). La deuxième section (Les œuvres conservées sauf In Phys. et In De Caelo, p. 135-266) concerne les commentaires de Simplicius sur le Manuel d’Épictète (p. 148-181), sur le De Anima (p. 182-228) et sur les Catégories d’Aristote (p. 228-266). L’A. introduit son analyse de ces trois ouvrages par un aperçu général sur la datation des commentaires de Simplicius (p. 135-148) : conformément à la thèse déjà avancée dans ses travaux antérieurs, elle considère les commentaires de Simplicius comme ayant tous été écrits après l’exil en Perse. La troisième section (Les œuvres partiellement ou entièrement perdues, p. 267-283) a pour objet les textes suivants, que l’A. attribue à Simplicius : un commentaire aux Éléments d’Euclide, un commentaire sur le Phédon (p. 267-269), un épitomé de la Physique de Théophraste (p. 269), un commentaire sur la Métaphysique d’Aristote (p. 269-277), un commentaire sur La secte pythagoricienne de Jamblique (p. 277-278), un commentaire sur les Météorologiques d’Aristote (p. 279-280), un commentaire sur l’Ars oratoria d’Hermogène (p. 280-282) et un traité sur les syllogismes (p. 282). Suivent enfin un Épilogue (p. 285-288) et une bibliographie (p. 289-311). [introduction p. 385]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1310","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1310,"authors_free":[{"id":1936,"entry_id":1310,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":99,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Chemi, Germana","free_first_name":"Germana","free_last_name":"Chemi","norm_person":{"id":99,"first_name":"Germana","last_name":"Chemi","full_name":"Chemi, Germana","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Review of: I. Hadot, Le n\u00e9oplatonicien Simplicius \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re des recherches contemporaines","main_title":{"title":"Review of: I. Hadot, Le n\u00e9oplatonicien Simplicius \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re des recherches contemporaines"},"abstract":"L\u2019A. pr\u00e9sente en ce volume un bilan raisonn\u00e9 des recherches contemporaines concernant la vie et l\u2019\u0153uvre du n\u00e9oplatonicien Simplicius, ainsi que des \u00e9tudes sur sa r\u00e9ception dans le monde arabe. Le volume contient aussi deux contributions de Ph. Vallat portant respectivement sur la biographie de Simplicius (p. 102-129) et sur la r\u00e9ception arabe de son commentaire aux Cat\u00e9gories d\u2019Aristote (p. 241-264).\r\n\r\nLa premi\u00e8re section (Biographie, p. 13-134), qui fait suite \u00e0 la pr\u00e9face (p. 11-12), concerne la biographie de Simplicius. Cette partie du volume aborde les sujets suivants : le nom de Simplicius (p. 13-14), son origine et sa formation (p. 14-16), le milieu culturel d\u2019Alexandrie \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9poque de ses \u00e9tudes avec Ammonius (p. 16-17), le d\u00e9part d\u2019Ath\u00e8nes (p. 17-19), l\u2019exil en Perse (p. 23-24) et la question du lieu o\u00f9 Simplicius et ses coll\u00e8gues se seraient rendus apr\u00e8s avoir quitt\u00e9 la cour de Chosro\u00e8s Ier (p. 25-129). Cette section s\u2019ach\u00e8ve par un sommaire g\u00e9n\u00e9ral (p. 130-133) et trois \u00e9pigrammes que l\u2019A. attribue \u00e0 Simplicius (p. 133-134).\r\n\r\nLa deuxi\u00e8me section (Les \u0153uvres conserv\u00e9es sauf In Phys. et In De Caelo, p. 135-266) concerne les commentaires de Simplicius sur le Manuel d\u2019\u00c9pict\u00e8te (p. 148-181), sur le De Anima (p. 182-228) et sur les Cat\u00e9gories d\u2019Aristote (p. 228-266). L\u2019A. introduit son analyse de ces trois ouvrages par un aper\u00e7u g\u00e9n\u00e9ral sur la datation des commentaires de Simplicius (p. 135-148) : conform\u00e9ment \u00e0 la th\u00e8se d\u00e9j\u00e0 avanc\u00e9e dans ses travaux ant\u00e9rieurs, elle consid\u00e8re les commentaires de Simplicius comme ayant tous \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9crits apr\u00e8s l\u2019exil en Perse.\r\n\r\nLa troisi\u00e8me section (Les \u0153uvres partiellement ou enti\u00e8rement perdues, p. 267-283) a pour objet les textes suivants, que l\u2019A. attribue \u00e0 Simplicius : un commentaire aux \u00c9l\u00e9ments d\u2019Euclide, un commentaire sur le Ph\u00e9don (p. 267-269), un \u00e9pitom\u00e9 de la Physique de Th\u00e9ophraste (p. 269), un commentaire sur la M\u00e9taphysique d\u2019Aristote (p. 269-277), un commentaire sur La secte pythagoricienne de Jamblique (p. 277-278), un commentaire sur les M\u00e9t\u00e9orologiques d\u2019Aristote (p. 279-280), un commentaire sur l\u2019Ars oratoria d\u2019Hermog\u00e8ne (p. 280-282) et un trait\u00e9 sur les syllogismes (p. 282).\r\n\r\nSuivent enfin un \u00c9pilogue (p. 285-288) et une bibliographie (p. 289-311).\r\n[introduction p. 385]","btype":3,"date":"2015","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/dB50Tmjq5TVAe1v","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":99,"full_name":"Chemi, Germana","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1310,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Studia graeco-arabica","volume":"5","issue":"","pages":"385-388"}},"sort":[2015]}

On Simplicius’ Life and Works: A Response to Hadot, 2015
By: Golitsis, Pantelis
Title On Simplicius’ Life and Works: A Response to Hadot
Type Article
Language English
Date 2015
Journal Aestimatio
Volume 12
Pages 56-82
Categories no categories
Author(s) Golitsis, Pantelis
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This text is a response to Ilsetraut Hadot's book, "Le néoplatonicien Simplicius à la lumière des recherches contem¬poraines. Un bilan critique," which provides a critical overview of scholarly research on the Neoplatonist Simplicius. The author critiques Hadot's approach, arguing that her use of the Neoplatonic curriculum and medieval testimonies is an unsafe guide for assessing Simplicius' life and works. The article concludes by thanking Hadot for her previous work on Simplicius and acknowledging the value of her contributions to the field. [introduction/conclusion]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1322","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1322,"authors_free":[{"id":1956,"entry_id":1322,"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}}],"entry_title":"On Simplicius\u2019 Life and Works: A Response to Hadot","main_title":{"title":"On Simplicius\u2019 Life and Works: A Response to Hadot"},"abstract":"This text is a response to Ilsetraut Hadot's book, \"Le n\u00e9oplatonicien Simplicius \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re des recherches contem\u00acporaines. Un bilan critique,\" which provides a critical overview of scholarly research on the Neoplatonist Simplicius. The author critiques Hadot's approach, arguing that her use of the Neoplatonic curriculum and medieval testimonies is an unsafe guide for assessing Simplicius' life and works. The article concludes by thanking Hadot for her previous work on Simplicius and acknowledging the value of her contributions to the field. [introduction\/conclusion]","btype":3,"date":"2015","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/iph5X72ry3ZiZ9P","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":129,"full_name":"Golitsis, Pantelis","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1322,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Aestimatio","volume":"12","issue":"","pages":"56-82"}},"sort":[2015]}

Collation but not contamination: On some textual problems of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Kappa 1065a 25sqq, 2015
By: Golitsis, Pantelis
Title Collation but not contamination: On some textual problems of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Kappa 1065a 25sqq
Type Article
Language English
Date 2015
Journal Revue d’histoire des textes, nouvelle série
Volume 10
Pages 1-23
Categories no categories
Author(s) Golitsis, Pantelis
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
One of the less felicitous terms in textual criticism, despite its being amply used in modern scholarship, is the term « contamination » (Kontamination), which Paul Maas first coined in his famous Textkritik. By modern-day standards the term is supposed to account, roughly, for two phenomena : (1) the phenomenon of having variant readings in margine or inter lineas of a text, which is an obvious sign that, next to the principal model, at least one other manuscript has been at some point involved in the copying of the text ; (2) the more complicated phenomenon of detecting in the body of the text readings that are not expected to be found there. What we detect in (2) is in principle the result of what has happened in (1). Any scholar acquainted with Byzantine manuscripts produced from the ninth century down to the Fall of Constantinople should know that cases like those described above were frequent in Byzantium’s Buchwesen, provided that an adequately circulating text was concerned. As Byzantine scribes and scholars mostly worked and studied in significant libraries that owned several copies of the same text, the idea of comparing them in order to verify dubious readings and to produce a more satisfying text would naturally occur to their mind. Scribes and scholars in Byzantium were well aware that material damages and copyist errors could happen. And as we nowadays do, they tried to counter such textual problems by collating different manuscripts – not by contaminating them. If we leave aside copies made purely for commercial purposes, we can reasonably say that collation of at least two manuscripts before producing a new copy of a text was something of a rule in Byzantium. I shall henceforth call this rule « the principle of collation » ; it can be formulated like this : « Unless otherwise proved, each Byzantine copy of an adequately circulating text is the product of collation of at least two different manuscripts. » [introduction]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1417","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1417,"authors_free":[{"id":2218,"entry_id":1417,"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}}],"entry_title":"Collation but not contamination: On some textual problems of Aristotle\u2019s Metaphysics Kappa 1065a 25sqq","main_title":{"title":"Collation but not contamination: On some textual problems of Aristotle\u2019s Metaphysics Kappa 1065a 25sqq"},"abstract":"One of the less felicitous terms in textual criticism, despite its being amply used in modern scholarship, is the term \u00ab contamination \u00bb (Kontamination), which Paul Maas first coined in his famous Textkritik. By modern-day standards the term is supposed to account, roughly, for two phenomena : (1) the phenomenon of having variant readings in margine or inter lineas of a text, which is an obvious sign that, next to the principal model, at least one other manuscript has been at some point involved in the copying of the text ; (2) the more complicated phenomenon of detecting in the body of the text readings that are not expected to be found there. What we detect in (2) is in principle the result of what has happened in (1). Any scholar acquainted with Byzantine manuscripts produced from the ninth century down to the Fall of Constantinople should know that cases like those described above were frequent in Byzantium\u2019s Buchwesen, provided that an adequately circulating text was concerned. As Byzantine scribes and scholars mostly worked and studied in significant libraries that owned several copies of the same text, the idea of comparing them in order to verify dubious readings and to produce a more satisfying text would naturally occur to their mind. Scribes and scholars in Byzantium were well aware that material damages and copyist errors could happen. And as we nowadays do, they tried to counter such textual problems by collating different manuscripts \u2013 not by contaminating them. If we leave aside copies made purely for commercial purposes, we can reasonably say that collation of at least two manuscripts before producing a new copy of a text was something of a rule in Byzantium. I shall henceforth call this rule \u00ab the principle of collation \u00bb ; it can be formulated like this : \u00ab Unless otherwise proved, each Byzantine copy of an adequately circulating text is the product of \r\ncollation of at least two different manuscripts. \u00bb [introduction]","btype":3,"date":"2015","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/HitzMXpWqjAaGGB","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":129,"full_name":"Golitsis, Pantelis","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1417,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Revue d\u2019histoire des textes, nouvelle s\u00e9rie","volume":"10","issue":"","pages":"1-23"}},"sort":[2015]}

Simplikios: Wstęp do Komentarza do Encheiridionu Epikteta (wybór), 2014
By: Łapiński, Krzysztof
Title Simplikios: Wstęp do Komentarza do Encheiridionu Epikteta (wybór)
Type Article
Language Polish
Date 2014
Journal Przegląd Filozoficzno-Literacki
Volume 40
Issue 3-4
Pages 45-49
Categories no categories
Author(s) Łapiński, Krzysztof
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The translation includes an introduction to the Simplicius’ commentary on Epictetus’ Enchiridion. The author of the commentary explains to whom is the work of Epictetus addressed, what is the scope o f the Enchiridion, the meaning of the title and the literary genre to which it belongs. The supposed audience is the reader who wants to live in accordance with reason on the level of ethical and political virtues. Such a reader ought to internalize Epictetus’ teaching and appeal to it in the challenging moments of life. The Stoic content has been enriched with the Platonic teaching drawn from Alcibiades I about relationship between the soul and the body. The first Polish translation of Simplicius’ text has been based on the Ilsetraut Hadot’s edition. [author's abstract]

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Simplikios, czytelnik Epikteta, 2014
By: Łapiński, Krzysztof
Title Simplikios, czytelnik Epikteta
Type Article
Language Polish
Date 2014
Journal Przegląd Filozoficzno-Literacki
Volume 40
Issue 3-4
Pages 35-43
Categories no categories
Author(s) Łapiński, Krzysztof
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Simplicius, the Neoplatonic philosopher, and commentator from late antiquity, devoted one of his commentaries to Epictetus’ Enchiridion. In the article, the author posed the question about the place of the text by the Stoic writer within the whole Neoplatonic education system. In addition, he asked to what extent the act of commenting on Epictetus’ work could be conceived by Simplicius as a kind of spiritual exercise. In the second part of the article, the hypothesis by M. Tardieu and I. Hadot is presented, suggesting that the city of Harran could be regarded as the possible place of exile where the group of philosophers settled after the Platonic Academy had been closed. [Author's abstract]

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El testimonio de Aristóteles sobre Zenòn de Elea como un detractor de "lo uno", 2014
By: Gardella, Mariana
Title El testimonio de Aristóteles sobre Zenòn de Elea como un detractor de "lo uno"
Type Article
Language Spanish
Date 2014
Journal Eidos: Revista de Filosofía de la Universidad del Norte
Volume 23
Pages 157-181
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gardella, Mariana
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The aim of this paper is to discuss the traditional interpretation according to which the arguments of Zeno of Elea against multiplicity constitute a defense of monism. I will try to prove that Zeno’s objections on plurality suppose a previous critique to the existence of the one. Therefore Zeno is neither a monist nor a pluralist but a philosopher who criticizes metaphysical theories that consider being in numerical terms, i. e. as many or as one. I will focus on the analysis of the interpretation of Zeno’s philosophy developed by Aristotle. I will consider some passages from Physics, Sophistical Re­futations and mainly Metaphysics Hi. 4. 1001b7-I3 (DK 29 A 21). I will also include some testimonies from Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, where he discusses the interpretations of Eudemus of Rhodes and Alexander of Aphrodisias that support the Aristotelian point of view on Zeno’s philosophy (In Ph. 99.7-18, DK 29 A 21; 138. 3-6, DK 29 A 22). [Author's abstract]

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Review of Baltussen, H., Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator, 2014
By: Sellars, J. T.
Title Review of Baltussen, H., Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sellars, J. T.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This book is the first monograph in English (or any other language) devoted to the Late Platonic commentator Simplicius. Its focus is on Simplicius' methodology as a commentator. It deals at length with Simplicius' engagements with other ancient philosophers, from the earliest Presocratics, through the Peripatetic tradition (Theophrastus, Alexander), to contemporaries such as John Philoponus. Who was Simplicius? He was a Neoplatonist working in the first decades of the sixth century AD under whose name five commentaries have come down to us from antiquity. These commentaries are on Aristotle's Physics, Categories, De Caelo, and De Anima, and the Enchiridion of Epictetus, although his authorship of the commentary on the De Anima has been a subject of scholarly debate. In these often lengthy commentaries, Simplicius quotes from a wide range of philosophical texts where he thinks it relevant to his discussion of Aristotle's text and, in the process, preserves fragments from a number of otherwise lost works. Simplicius' chief claim to fame, then, is that he has become a vital source for our knowledge of Presocratic philosophy. Without Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics, our knowledge of early Greek philosophy would be significantly reduced. This is the standard line. We should all be thankful to Simplicius for his habit of quoting texts in full rather than merely naming them in passing. We are thankful. But is there any more to him? Is Simplicius himself an interesting or significant philosopher? Is there anything more to him beyond his role as a doxographical source? Baltussen, in devoting a monograph to him, thinks there is, but he is conscious many will not share that view. Consequently, his book opens with an apologetic and slightly defensive introduction in which he tries to make the case for reading Simplicius as more than merely a quarry from which to extract quotations. Part of the task includes a defense of Late Platonism (Baltussen deliberately avoids the usual label "Neoplatonism"), to which Simplicius adhered. We are encouraged to put our reservations to one side and reassess Simplicius afresh. The opening chapter introduces Simplicius' method and practice as a commentator. His commentaries differ from many other examples from late antiquity to the extent that they don't seem to be straightforward records of oral lectures taken "from the voice of" (apo phônês) the author. Instead, they are extended written works, conceived as textbooks for pagan teachers explicitly designed to preserve as much as possible of the pagan philosophical tradition—hence the extensive quotations. In these often lengthy texts, Simplicius explicitly rejects originality, but Baltussen argues that we ought not to take this at face value and that these expressions of modesty are, in part, made out of respect for his teachers. The second chapter deals with Simplicius' role as a source for the Presocratics. Baltussen welcomes Catherine Osborne's approach of reading fragments of the Presocratics within their doxographical context, as this adds to Simplicius' potential significance. What is important, of course, is to gain a sense of the motive and agenda of the doxographer. According to Baltussen, Simplicius' aim is to locate all of the Presocratics within a Late Platonic framework that emphasizes unity within the pagan philosophical tradition conceived as "a single venerable and ancient message." This may be so up to a point, but to what extent would Simplicius welcome Democritus (or Epicurus) into this unified tradition? It would have been interesting to hear more about those thinkers who don't neatly fit within this syncretized history of philosophy, precisely because the points of disagreement might help to bring Simplicius' own position into sharper focus. Baltussen raises the question of whether Simplicius had access to the works of Presocratics directly or merely to collections of excerpts but doesn't draw any firm conclusions either way. The third chapter turns to Simplicius' use of early Peripatetics such as Theophrastus and Eudemus. Baltussen argues that Simplicius took the early Peripatetics—and especially Theophrastus—very seriously in his exegeses of Aristotle because Theophrastus would have known Aristotle personally, giving his glosses an added authority. This is a departure from the attitudes of previous Platonic commentators on Aristotle. Although Simplicius shares the wider Late Platonic desire to harmonize Plato and Aristotle, there is also a strong desire to get Aristotle right, and no one is more likely to help in that task than Theophrastus. Baltussen suggests that we conceive Theophrastus himself as part of the Platonic commentary tradition, given his own comments on the Timaeus, but philosophical engagement with a previous author is not quite the same thing as commentary. The Peripatetic theme continues in the fourth chapter, which is devoted to Alexander of Aphrodisias. Baltussen offers a detailed and slightly labored analysis of the motivations behind Simplicius' regular and extensive quotation from Alexander, but the question seems relatively straightforward. Why did Simplicius make use of Alexander's commentaries on Aristotle in his own commentaries on Aristotle? Because Alexander has lots of interesting things to say about Aristotle. The focus here again is on form rather than content, methodology rather than philosophy. The fifth chapter examines the Platonic commentary tradition before Simplicius and discusses Simplicius' use of Plotinus and the Post-Plotinian tradition of harmonizing commentaries from Porphyry onwards. Simplicius' immediate teacher Ammonius is discussed briefly but deserves more attention. For instance, we were told in the opening chapter that Simplicius' rejection of originality was mere self-deprecation, but presumably that claim could be tested to some degree via a comparison between his own views and those of his teacher. The same goes for his later mentor Damascius. The final chapter turns to the theme of polemic and focuses its attention on Simplicius' exchanges with his arch-rival John Philoponus, another Platonic commentator, but also a Christian. Baltussen prefaces his discussion with an account of the tensions and hostilities between Christians and pagans in late antiquity. Once again, Simplicius is presented as the defender of an embattled pagan philosophical tradition, taking Philoponus to task for his attacks against Proclus and Aristotle in De Aeternitate Mundi Contra Proclum. Baltussen highlights the rhetorical aspects of Simplicius' polemics rather than the content of the dispute, so once more methodology is the principal focus. The intensity of Simplicius' personal references to Philoponus ("raving swine") is contrasted with his sober and respectful references to Alexander. An epilogue sums up the proceedings. One of the central themes to emerge from the book as a whole is the claim that, in order to understand what Simplicius is doing in his commentaries, we must take into account his commitment to pagan religion as well as philosophy. We should see the commentaries not merely as "scholarly schoolbooks" but rather as steps on a long road toward a more existential transformation. This religious dimension of Late Platonism should not be overlooked, Baltussen argues, if we want to understand properly what Simplicius is trying to achieve. The commentaries are his attempt to preserve the entire pagan philosophical and religious tradition within an increasingly hostile Christian world. On this final point, as well as a number of others, Baltussen sketches a broad context within which to think about what Simplicius is doing but there is much less in the way of detailed analysis of what he actually did do, what he argued for, or what philosophical positions he himself held. This is in part simply a reflection of the sheer length of the commentaries themselves and no one could offer a detailed analysis of their contents within the covers of a single volume. I said at the outset that five commentaries have come down to us under the name of Simplicius. Baltussen discusses only three of them. He puts to one side the De Anima commentary and he may well be right to do so, but it would have been nice to have seen a fuller discussion of the text and the question of its authorship.[2] He also more or less ignores the commentary on the Enchiridion of Epictetus. Although it does get the occasional mention (e.g. p. 43) Baltussen proceeds as if it doesn't exist, at one point writing 'all three extant commentaries' (p. 34). In his interesting attempt to reconstruct 'the library of Simplicius' (pp. 211-15), neither Epictetus nor Arrian get a mention. This is a great shame for a number of reasons. The in Ench. is unique as the only surviving commentary on a Stoic text to come down to us. Moreover, it is a commentary by a Late Platonist, and as a rule Late Platonists only wrote commentaries on Plato and Aristotle.[3] The way in which Late Platonists brought Aristotle into their curriculum is a well-worn subject, but the desire to bring in a Stoic text is quite unusual. It complicates Simplicius' activity as a commentator in a number of interesting and significant ways. Presumably Baltussen would argue that this is part of Simplicius' desire to unite and then preserve the entire pagan philosophical tradition in an increasingly hostile Christian world, but if that is the case then the in Ench. would form a potentially significant piece of evidence for Baltussen's thesis, one that has sadly been left out of the account. There is much in Baltussen's book that is of interest, but I'm not sure how far it goes in fleshing out a more rounded portrait of Simplicius. The focus of the volume throughout is squarely on Simplicius' use of other authors—i.e., his quotations—rather than Simplicius as an author or a philosopher in his own right. Baltussen consciously avoids discussing Simplicius qua philosopher on the basis that this has been done by others elsewhere. This is true to an extent, but what would be nice is a more synthetic volume that brings these discussions together in order to give us a complete picture. This book doesn't do that, although, to be fair, it doesn't ever claim to be trying to. What remains a desideratum, then, is a monograph that might combine Baltussen's methodological researches with an account of what is philosophically valuable in Simplicius. Most of my critical comments above have been asking for more discussion on various points, and no author can do everything in just one volume. I certainly hope that this book will encourage further work on Simplicius by both Baltussen and others that will help us to gain a fuller portrait of this still relatively neglected philosopher. [the entire review]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"904","_score":null,"_source":{"id":904,"authors_free":[{"id":1335,"entry_id":904,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":299,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sellars, J. T.","free_first_name":"J. T.","free_last_name":"Sellars","norm_person":{"id":299,"first_name":"J. T.","last_name":"Sellars","full_name":"Sellars, J. T.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1011826046","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Review of Baltussen, H., Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator","main_title":{"title":"Review of Baltussen, H., Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator"},"abstract":"This book is the first monograph in English (or any other language) devoted to the Late Platonic commentator Simplicius. Its focus is on Simplicius' methodology as a commentator. It deals at length with Simplicius' engagements with other ancient philosophers, from the earliest Presocratics, through the Peripatetic tradition (Theophrastus, Alexander), to contemporaries such as John Philoponus.\r\n\r\nWho was Simplicius? He was a Neoplatonist working in the first decades of the sixth century AD under whose name five commentaries have come down to us from antiquity. These commentaries are on Aristotle's Physics, Categories, De Caelo, and De Anima, and the Enchiridion of Epictetus, although his authorship of the commentary on the De Anima has been a subject of scholarly debate. In these often lengthy commentaries, Simplicius quotes from a wide range of philosophical texts where he thinks it relevant to his discussion of Aristotle's text and, in the process, preserves fragments from a number of otherwise lost works.\r\n\r\nSimplicius' chief claim to fame, then, is that he has become a vital source for our knowledge of Presocratic philosophy. Without Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics, our knowledge of early Greek philosophy would be significantly reduced.\r\n\r\nThis is the standard line. We should all be thankful to Simplicius for his habit of quoting texts in full rather than merely naming them in passing. We are thankful. But is there any more to him? Is Simplicius himself an interesting or significant philosopher? Is there anything more to him beyond his role as a doxographical source? Baltussen, in devoting a monograph to him, thinks there is, but he is conscious many will not share that view. Consequently, his book opens with an apologetic and slightly defensive introduction in which he tries to make the case for reading Simplicius as more than merely a quarry from which to extract quotations. Part of the task includes a defense of Late Platonism (Baltussen deliberately avoids the usual label \"Neoplatonism\"), to which Simplicius adhered. We are encouraged to put our reservations to one side and reassess Simplicius afresh.\r\n\r\nThe opening chapter introduces Simplicius' method and practice as a commentator. His commentaries differ from many other examples from late antiquity to the extent that they don't seem to be straightforward records of oral lectures taken \"from the voice of\" (apo ph\u00f4n\u00eas) the author. Instead, they are extended written works, conceived as textbooks for pagan teachers explicitly designed to preserve as much as possible of the pagan philosophical tradition\u2014hence the extensive quotations. In these often lengthy texts, Simplicius explicitly rejects originality, but Baltussen argues that we ought not to take this at face value and that these expressions of modesty are, in part, made out of respect for his teachers.\r\n\r\nThe second chapter deals with Simplicius' role as a source for the Presocratics. Baltussen welcomes Catherine Osborne's approach of reading fragments of the Presocratics within their doxographical context, as this adds to Simplicius' potential significance. What is important, of course, is to gain a sense of the motive and agenda of the doxographer. According to Baltussen, Simplicius' aim is to locate all of the Presocratics within a Late Platonic framework that emphasizes unity within the pagan philosophical tradition conceived as \"a single venerable and ancient message.\" This may be so up to a point, but to what extent would Simplicius welcome Democritus (or Epicurus) into this unified tradition? It would have been interesting to hear more about those thinkers who don't neatly fit within this syncretized history of philosophy, precisely because the points of disagreement might help to bring Simplicius' own position into sharper focus. Baltussen raises the question of whether Simplicius had access to the works of Presocratics directly or merely to collections of excerpts but doesn't draw any firm conclusions either way.\r\n\r\nThe third chapter turns to Simplicius' use of early Peripatetics such as Theophrastus and Eudemus. Baltussen argues that Simplicius took the early Peripatetics\u2014and especially Theophrastus\u2014very seriously in his exegeses of Aristotle because Theophrastus would have known Aristotle personally, giving his glosses an added authority. This is a departure from the attitudes of previous Platonic commentators on Aristotle. Although Simplicius shares the wider Late Platonic desire to harmonize Plato and Aristotle, there is also a strong desire to get Aristotle right, and no one is more likely to help in that task than Theophrastus. Baltussen suggests that we conceive Theophrastus himself as part of the Platonic commentary tradition, given his own comments on the Timaeus, but philosophical engagement with a previous author is not quite the same thing as commentary.\r\n\r\nThe Peripatetic theme continues in the fourth chapter, which is devoted to Alexander of Aphrodisias. Baltussen offers a detailed and slightly labored analysis of the motivations behind Simplicius' regular and extensive quotation from Alexander, but the question seems relatively straightforward. Why did Simplicius make use of Alexander's commentaries on Aristotle in his own commentaries on Aristotle? Because Alexander has lots of interesting things to say about Aristotle. The focus here again is on form rather than content, methodology rather than philosophy.\r\n\r\nThe fifth chapter examines the Platonic commentary tradition before Simplicius and discusses Simplicius' use of Plotinus and the Post-Plotinian tradition of harmonizing commentaries from Porphyry onwards. Simplicius' immediate teacher Ammonius is discussed briefly but deserves more attention. For instance, we were told in the opening chapter that Simplicius' rejection of originality was mere self-deprecation, but presumably that claim could be tested to some degree via a comparison between his own views and those of his teacher. The same goes for his later mentor Damascius.\r\n\r\nThe final chapter turns to the theme of polemic and focuses its attention on Simplicius' exchanges with his arch-rival John Philoponus, another Platonic commentator, but also a Christian. Baltussen prefaces his discussion with an account of the tensions and hostilities between Christians and pagans in late antiquity. Once again, Simplicius is presented as the defender of an embattled pagan philosophical tradition, taking Philoponus to task for his attacks against Proclus and Aristotle in De Aeternitate Mundi Contra Proclum. Baltussen highlights the rhetorical aspects of Simplicius' polemics rather than the content of the dispute, so once more methodology is the principal focus. The intensity of Simplicius' personal references to Philoponus (\"raving swine\") is contrasted with his sober and respectful references to Alexander.\r\n\r\nAn epilogue sums up the proceedings. One of the central themes to emerge from the book as a whole is the claim that, in order to understand what Simplicius is doing in his commentaries, we must take into account his commitment to pagan religion as well as philosophy. We should see the commentaries not merely as \"scholarly schoolbooks\" but rather as steps on a long road toward a more existential transformation. This religious dimension of Late Platonism should not be overlooked, Baltussen argues, if we want to understand properly what Simplicius is trying to achieve. The commentaries are his attempt to preserve the entire pagan philosophical and religious tradition within an increasingly hostile Christian world. On this final point, as well as a number of others, Baltussen sketches a broad context within which to think about what Simplicius is\r\ndoing but there is much less in the way of detailed analysis of what he actually did do, what he argued for, or what philosophical\r\npositions he himself held. This is in part simply a reflection of the sheer length of the commentaries themselves and no one could\r\noffer a detailed analysis of their contents within the covers of a single volume.\r\nI said at the outset that five commentaries have come down to us under the name of Simplicius. Baltussen discusses only three of\r\nthem. He puts to one side the De Anima commentary and he may well be right to do so, but it would have been nice to have seen a\r\nfuller discussion of the text and the question of its authorship.[2] He also more or less ignores the commentary on the Enchiridion of\r\nEpictetus. Although it does get the occasional mention (e.g. p. 43) Baltussen proceeds as if it doesn't exist, at one point writing 'all\r\nthree extant commentaries' (p. 34). In his interesting attempt to reconstruct 'the library of Simplicius' (pp. 211-15), neither\r\nEpictetus nor Arrian get a mention. This is a great shame for a number of reasons. The in Ench. is unique as the only surviving\r\ncommentary on a Stoic text to come down to us. Moreover, it is a commentary by a Late Platonist, and as a rule Late Platonists only\r\nwrote commentaries on Plato and Aristotle.[3] The way in which Late Platonists brought Aristotle into their curriculum is a\r\nwell-worn subject, but the desire to bring in a Stoic text is quite unusual. It complicates Simplicius' activity as a commentator in a\r\nnumber of interesting and significant ways. Presumably Baltussen would argue that this is part of Simplicius' desire to unite and\r\nthen preserve the entire pagan philosophical tradition in an increasingly hostile Christian world, but if that is the case then the in\r\nEnch. would form a potentially significant piece of evidence for Baltussen's thesis, one that has sadly been left out of the account. There is much in Baltussen's book that is of interest, but I'm not sure how far it goes in fleshing out a more rounded portrait of Simplicius. The focus of the volume throughout is squarely on Simplicius' use of other authors\u2014i.e., his quotations\u2014rather than Simplicius as an author or a philosopher in his own right. Baltussen consciously avoids discussing Simplicius qua philosopher on the basis that this has been done by others elsewhere. This is true to an extent, but what would be nice is a more synthetic volume that brings these discussions together in order to give us a complete picture. This book doesn't do that, although, to be fair, it doesn't ever claim to be trying to.\r\n\r\nWhat remains a desideratum, then, is a monograph that might combine Baltussen's methodological researches with an account of what is philosophically valuable in Simplicius. Most of my critical comments above have been asking for more discussion on various points, and no author can do everything in just one volume. I certainly hope that this book will encourage further work on Simplicius by both Baltussen and others that will help us to gain a fuller portrait of this still relatively neglected philosopher. [the entire review]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/MiDP9FxKLHavo2S","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":299,"full_name":"Sellars, J. T.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":904,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews","volume":"","issue":"","pages":""}},"sort":[2014]}

The Justification and Derivation of Aristotle’s Categories in Ammonius and Simplicius, 2014
By: Gabor, Gary
Title The Justification and Derivation of Aristotle’s Categories in Ammonius and Simplicius
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Quaestiones Disputatae
Volume 4
Issue 2
Pages 99-112
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gabor, Gary
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Susanne Bobzien recently described “the volumes of the Greek commentators on Aristotle’s logical works” as “monumental” but “rarely creative.” While to a certain degree accurate, Bobzien’s assessment obscures the occasional flashes of innovation in these works. I intend to explore one such example here—the question of what justification, if any, late ancient philosophers gave for Aristotle’s ten categories. This topic would also animate later interpreters of Aristotle, sometimes with positive and sometimes more critical results. Kant, for instance, rejected Aristotle’s list for what he perceived as its capricious and arbitrary nature, arguing that Aristotle “had no principle” and merely “rounded them up as he stumbled upon them.” In fact, Kant was neither the first nor the last to perceive that Aristotle’s account of the categories needed some sort of justification. The existence of rival categorial schemes, in particular, demands it. In the ancient world, the Stoics provided a fourfold series of categories, and Plato provided a fivefold set of greatest kinds in the Sophist. More recently, E. J. Lowe has defended another fourfold Aristotelian-inspired ontology as fundamental. For Platonists of late antiquity, the question of justification for Aristotle’s categories had special force following Plotinus’s analysis and critique of them, along with the Stoic, Platonic, and other accounts in Enneads 6.1–2. Plotinus’s student Porphyry later defended and commented on Aristotle’s Categories, and Iamblichus reinterpreted and included the Categories in the philosophical curriculum that was to remain standard in the Neoplatonic schools for several centuries. For the Neoplatonic commentators working in these schools, one of the first questions raised in their commentaries was the justification that could be given to Aristotle’s tenfold scheme. I shall examine two such justifications: those given by Ammonius Hermiae, scholarch of the Platonist school in Alexandria, Egypt, during the second half of the fifth century AD, and his student Simplicius, the last great commentator in the Athenian Academy before its closure by Emperor Justinian in AD 529. Ammonius’s account of the categories is relatively simple, while Simplicius’s is more complex. Both, however, argue for a justification of the ten categories presented by Aristotle as in some sense a correct list. By comparing the two accounts, one can discern a distinct development in Neoplatonic justifications of Aristotle’s categories. [introduction p. 99-101]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"918","_score":null,"_source":{"id":918,"authors_free":[{"id":1357,"entry_id":918,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":106,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Gabor, Gary","free_first_name":"Gary","free_last_name":"Gabor","norm_person":{"id":106,"first_name":"Gary","last_name":"Gabor ","full_name":"Gabor, Gary ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The Justification and Derivation of Aristotle\u2019s Categories in Ammonius and Simplicius","main_title":{"title":"The Justification and Derivation of Aristotle\u2019s Categories in Ammonius and Simplicius"},"abstract":"Susanne Bobzien recently described \u201cthe volumes of the Greek commentators on Aristotle\u2019s logical works\u201d as \u201cmonumental\u201d but \u201crarely creative.\u201d While to a certain degree accurate, Bobzien\u2019s assessment obscures the occasional flashes of innovation in these works. I intend to explore one such example here\u2014the question of what justification, if any, late ancient philosophers gave for Aristotle\u2019s ten categories.\r\n\r\nThis topic would also animate later interpreters of Aristotle, sometimes with positive and sometimes more critical results. Kant, for instance, rejected Aristotle\u2019s list for what he perceived as its capricious and arbitrary nature, arguing that Aristotle \u201chad no principle\u201d and merely \u201crounded them up as he stumbled upon them.\u201d In fact, Kant was neither the first nor the last to perceive that Aristotle\u2019s account of the categories needed some sort of justification. The existence of rival categorial schemes, in particular, demands it. In the ancient world, the Stoics provided a fourfold series of categories, and Plato provided a fivefold set of greatest kinds in the Sophist. More recently, E. J. Lowe has defended another fourfold Aristotelian-inspired ontology as fundamental.\r\n\r\nFor Platonists of late antiquity, the question of justification for Aristotle\u2019s categories had special force following Plotinus\u2019s analysis and critique of them, along with the Stoic, Platonic, and other accounts in Enneads 6.1\u20132. Plotinus\u2019s student Porphyry later defended and commented on Aristotle\u2019s Categories, and Iamblichus reinterpreted and included the Categories in the philosophical curriculum that was to remain standard in the Neoplatonic schools for several centuries.\r\n\r\nFor the Neoplatonic commentators working in these schools, one of the first questions raised in their commentaries was the justification that could be given to Aristotle\u2019s tenfold scheme. I shall examine two such justifications: those given by Ammonius Hermiae, scholarch of the Platonist school in Alexandria, Egypt, during the second half of the fifth century AD, and his student Simplicius, the last great commentator in the Athenian Academy before its closure by Emperor Justinian in AD 529.\r\n\r\nAmmonius\u2019s account of the categories is relatively simple, while Simplicius\u2019s is more complex. Both, however, argue for a justification of the ten categories presented by Aristotle as in some sense a correct list. By comparing the two accounts, one can discern a distinct development in Neoplatonic justifications of Aristotle\u2019s categories. [introduction p. 99-101]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/mg1q6H4L6heepIU","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":106,"full_name":"Gabor, Gary ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":918,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Quaestiones Disputatae","volume":"4","issue":"2","pages":"99-112"}},"sort":[2014]}

Pseudo-Simplicius (Review on Simplicius’: On Aristotle On the Soul 3.6–13.), 2014
By: Van Dusen, David
Title Pseudo-Simplicius (Review on Simplicius’: On Aristotle On the Soul 3.6–13.)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal The Classical Review
Volume 64
Issue 2
Pages 436-437
Categories no categories
Author(s) Van Dusen, David
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In Inferno IV, when Dante catches sight of him in a mild foyer to the spiraling pit of hell, Averroes is simply described as “he who made the great Comment.” But in Convivio IV, the only other place where Dante references him, Averroes is specifically “the Commentator on Aristotle’s De Anima III.” Dante wrote this in the first decade of the fourteenth century, when Averroes was still, in effect, the commentator on De Anima 3. But by the last decades of the fifteenth century, a Simplicius commentary on the De Anima was being circulated in Italy by émigrés from Constantinople. This commentary rapidly exerted an influence on figures like Pico della Mirandola and Agostino Nifo. It saw its first Greek edition in Venice in 1527, with a complete Latin translation appearing in 1543, also in Venice. As its first translator pointed out in his prefatory letter, Averroes now had a contender in this De Anima commentary. The title of a 1553 Latin translation left no doubt: Commentaria Simplicii Profundissimi & Acutissimi Philosophi in Tres Libros De Anima Aristotelis. By the end of the sixteenth century, this commentary had inspired a vocal coterie in Italy—the so-called sectatores Simplicii. Despite the fervor of these sectatores Simplicii, there is now a stable consensus that their De Anima commentary is pseudo-Simplician. S. has long been convinced that the work should be attributed to Priscian of Lydia; in this, he is preceded by Francesco Piccolomini, a sixteenth-century opponent of the simpliciani, who also put Priscian forward as the commentator. I. Hadot fiercely criticized this re-attribution in a 2002 article in Mnemosyne, “Simplicius or Priscianus? On the Author of the Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima”, and S. refers to the dispute in his introduction. He is sanguine: “As no other scholar apparently shares Hadot’s view, there is no need for further polemics” (p. 32 n. 6). Regardless of attribution, it is agreed that this De Anima commentary originated in Simplicius’ circles, that it represents “an original and personal engagement with Aristotle’s text” (p. 4), and that the commentator “uses various philological strategies to make sense of an obscure text” (p. 7). On this last point, S. is effusive: “Modern commentators could learn with profit from his attempts ‘to set right’ a difficult text ...without intervening with conjectures” (p. 7). The manuscript basis of S.’s translation is broader than that of M. Hayduck’s semi-critical Greek edition (1882), which has been faulted for collating only a single fourteenth-century manuscript (Laurentianus 85.21) and a single sixteenth-century edition of the commentary (Aldina). In preparing his translation, S. consulted another fourteenth-century manuscript (which shows emendations and annotations by Cardinal Bessarion) and a mid-fifteenth-century manuscript. Nevertheless, he is generous: “Hayduck was basically right: it is indeed possible to constitute a critical text with the Laurentianus and the Aldina” (p. 149). A concise list of S.’s proposed corrections to the Greek and reconstructions of outstanding lacunae is included at the back of the volume. S.’s is the final volume of the first-ever English translation of this De Anima commentary and gives us ps.-Simplicius on De Anima 3.6–13. The translation is nuanced and reliable, though at places the syntax could be smoothed out (“That also oysters have maturity and decline, all agree ...”, p. 101). The volume’s apparatus, credited to Arnis Ritups, is ample. And while ps.-Simplicius has never had English-speaking sectaries, his De Anima commentary was cited once by Bishop Berkeley and repeatedly by Lord Monboddo in the eighteenth century, while Thomas Taylor incorporated excerpts into the notes to his 1808 English translation of De Anima. In short, ps.-Simplicius’ Greek commentary has a place in the modern British reception of De Anima. The present translation should similarly inform contemporary work on De Anima and the Neoplatonists’ appropriation and transmission of Aristotle. Ps.-Simplicius’ text is, of course, too dense to reprise here, but there is much of interest in his negotiation of time-statements in the last pages of De Anima, since it is in these pages—not the last paragraphs of Physics 4—that Aristotle investigates the problematic link of “time” to the “soul.” (And when Plotinus takes up the question of time in Enneads 3.7, he—like contemporary philosophers—turns to Physics 4, not De Anima 3.) Those interested in Neoplatonic conceptions of time—and, more generally, in the concept of time in Late Antiquity—would do well to consult this commentary and the other surviving Greek commentaries on De Anima 3. There is a single, colorful passage that indicates how ps.-Simplicius’ commentary on the soul also opens onto the terrain of the body—sexuality, and so on—in Late Antiquity. In De Anima 3.9, Aristotle writes that “the heart” is moved when we think of menacing things, whereas “if the object is pleasant, some other part” is moved. It is a pleasure, then, to see ps.-Simplicius’ gloss: “The heart, for instance, may be set in movement among fearful things, and the generative organs (γεννητικὰ μόρια) upon the thought of sexual pleasure (ἀφροδισιαστικῶν ἡδονῶν)” (p. 102). This is doubtless the sense of Aristotle’s euphemistic text, and ps.-Simplicius sees the deeper import of sexual excitation with perfect clarity: “The intellect is not wholly master (οὐ τὸ ὅλον κύριος) of the movement of the living being” (p. 102). How far removed are we here from Augustine’s discussion of post-paradisiacal arousal in City of God against the Pagans? Or from Proclus’ refusal of a disciple who was “pursuing philosophy, but at the same time devoting his life to the pleasures below the belly (τὰς ὑπογαστρίους ἡδονάς),” as Damascius reports? The early modern sectatores Simplicii likely misattributed their De Anima commentary, but in this, they were correct: Averroes is not “the Commentator on Aristotle’s De Anima III.” Ps.-Simplicius’ reading of the book is still challenging and, at places, suddenly illuminating. And it is no small thing for us to now have access—in conscientious English and in full—to this methodical, lexically sensitive commentary on the soul from the immediate circle of the last representatives of a “Platonic succession” in Athens. [the entire review]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1294","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1294,"authors_free":[{"id":1884,"entry_id":1294,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":74,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Van Dusen, David","free_first_name":"David","free_last_name":"Van Dusen","norm_person":{"id":74,"first_name":"David ","last_name":"Van Dusen","full_name":"Van Dusen, David ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1066385637","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Pseudo-Simplicius (Review on Simplicius\u2019: On Aristotle On the Soul 3.6\u201313.)","main_title":{"title":"Pseudo-Simplicius (Review on Simplicius\u2019: On Aristotle On the Soul 3.6\u201313.)"},"abstract":"In Inferno IV, when Dante catches sight of him in a mild foyer to the spiraling pit of hell, Averroes is simply described as \u201che who made the great Comment.\u201d But in Convivio IV, the only other place where Dante references him, Averroes is specifically \u201cthe Commentator on Aristotle\u2019s De Anima III.\u201d Dante wrote this in the first decade of the fourteenth century, when Averroes was still, in effect, the commentator on De Anima 3. But by the last decades of the fifteenth century, a Simplicius commentary on the De Anima was being circulated in Italy by \u00e9migr\u00e9s from Constantinople. This commentary rapidly exerted an influence on figures like Pico della Mirandola and Agostino Nifo. It saw its first Greek edition in Venice in 1527, with a complete Latin translation appearing in 1543, also in Venice. As its first translator pointed out in his prefatory letter, Averroes now had a contender in this De Anima commentary. The title of a 1553 Latin translation left no doubt: Commentaria Simplicii Profundissimi & Acutissimi Philosophi in Tres Libros De Anima Aristotelis. By the end of the sixteenth century, this commentary had inspired a vocal coterie in Italy\u2014the so-called sectatores Simplicii.\r\n\r\nDespite the fervor of these sectatores Simplicii, there is now a stable consensus that their De Anima commentary is pseudo-Simplician. S. has long been convinced that the work should be attributed to Priscian of Lydia; in this, he is preceded by Francesco Piccolomini, a sixteenth-century opponent of the simpliciani, who also put Priscian forward as the commentator. I. Hadot fiercely criticized this re-attribution in a 2002 article in Mnemosyne, \u201cSimplicius or Priscianus? On the Author of the Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s De Anima\u201d, and S. refers to the dispute in his introduction. He is sanguine: \u201cAs no other scholar apparently shares Hadot\u2019s view, there is no need for further polemics\u201d (p. 32 n. 6). Regardless of attribution, it is agreed that this De Anima commentary originated in Simplicius\u2019 circles, that it represents \u201can original and personal engagement with Aristotle\u2019s text\u201d (p. 4), and that the commentator \u201cuses various philological strategies to make sense of an obscure text\u201d (p. 7). On this last point, S. is effusive: \u201cModern commentators could learn with profit from his attempts \u2018to set right\u2019 a difficult text ...without intervening with conjectures\u201d (p. 7).\r\n\r\nThe manuscript basis of S.\u2019s translation is broader than that of M. Hayduck\u2019s semi-critical Greek edition (1882), which has been faulted for collating only a single fourteenth-century manuscript (Laurentianus 85.21) and a single sixteenth-century edition of the commentary (Aldina). In preparing his translation, S. consulted another fourteenth-century manuscript (which shows emendations and annotations by Cardinal Bessarion) and a mid-fifteenth-century manuscript. Nevertheless, he is generous: \u201cHayduck was basically right: it is indeed possible to constitute a critical text with the Laurentianus and the Aldina\u201d (p. 149). A concise list of S.\u2019s proposed corrections to the Greek and reconstructions of outstanding lacunae is included at the back of the volume.\r\n\r\nS.\u2019s is the final volume of the first-ever English translation of this De Anima commentary and gives us ps.-Simplicius on De Anima 3.6\u201313. The translation is nuanced and reliable, though at places the syntax could be smoothed out (\u201cThat also oysters have maturity and decline, all agree ...\u201d, p. 101). The volume\u2019s apparatus, credited to Arnis Ritups, is ample. And while ps.-Simplicius has never had English-speaking sectaries, his De Anima commentary was cited once by Bishop Berkeley and repeatedly by Lord Monboddo in the eighteenth century, while Thomas Taylor incorporated excerpts into the notes to his 1808 English translation of De Anima. In short, ps.-Simplicius\u2019 Greek commentary has a place in the modern British reception of De Anima. The present translation should similarly inform contemporary work on De Anima and the Neoplatonists\u2019 appropriation and transmission of Aristotle.\r\n\r\nPs.-Simplicius\u2019 text is, of course, too dense to reprise here, but there is much of interest in his negotiation of time-statements in the last pages of De Anima, since it is in these pages\u2014not the last paragraphs of Physics 4\u2014that Aristotle investigates the problematic link of \u201ctime\u201d to the \u201csoul.\u201d (And when Plotinus takes up the question of time in Enneads 3.7, he\u2014like contemporary philosophers\u2014turns to Physics 4, not De Anima 3.) Those interested in Neoplatonic conceptions of time\u2014and, more generally, in the concept of time in Late Antiquity\u2014would do well to consult this commentary and the other surviving Greek commentaries on De Anima 3.\r\n\r\nThere is a single, colorful passage that indicates how ps.-Simplicius\u2019 commentary on the soul also opens onto the terrain of the body\u2014sexuality, and so on\u2014in Late Antiquity. In De Anima 3.9, Aristotle writes that \u201cthe heart\u201d is moved when we think of menacing things, whereas \u201cif the object is pleasant, some other part\u201d is moved. It is a pleasure, then, to see ps.-Simplicius\u2019 gloss: \u201cThe heart, for instance, may be set in movement among fearful things, and the generative organs (\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u1f70 \u03bc\u03cc\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1) upon the thought of sexual pleasure (\u1f00\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03b4\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f21\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u1ff6\u03bd)\u201d (p. 102). This is doubtless the sense of Aristotle\u2019s euphemistic text, and ps.-Simplicius sees the deeper import of sexual excitation with perfect clarity: \u201cThe intellect is not wholly master (\u03bf\u1f50 \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f45\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2) of the movement of the living being\u201d (p. 102). How far removed are we here from Augustine\u2019s discussion of post-paradisiacal arousal in City of God against the Pagans? Or from Proclus\u2019 refusal of a disciple who was \u201cpursuing philosophy, but at the same time devoting his life to the pleasures below the belly (\u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03b3\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u1f21\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03ac\u03c2),\u201d as Damascius reports?\r\n\r\nThe early modern sectatores Simplicii likely misattributed their De Anima commentary, but in this, they were correct: Averroes is not \u201cthe Commentator on Aristotle\u2019s De Anima III.\u201d Ps.-Simplicius\u2019 reading of the book is still challenging and, at places, suddenly illuminating. And it is no small thing for us to now have access\u2014in conscientious English and in full\u2014to this methodical, lexically sensitive commentary on the soul from the immediate circle of the last representatives of a \u201cPlatonic succession\u201d in Athens. [the entire review]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/PvqFfr47EAUaMIW","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":74,"full_name":"Van Dusen, David ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1294,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical Review","volume":"64","issue":"2","pages":"436-437"}},"sort":[2014]}

Categories and Subcategories, 2014
By: Tegtmeier, Erwin
Title Categories and Subcategories
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Anuario Filosófico
Volume 47
Issue 2
Pages 395-411
Categories no categories
Author(s) Tegtmeier, Erwin
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Starting from the traditional distinction between the minimal and the maximal division, the role of subcategories in Aristotle, as well as that of the highest categories, is discussed. The need for categorial properties which determine categories is pointed out. It is argued that an existent cannot have two such essential properties and that only the lowest subcategories have simple categorial properties. Furthermore, it is emphasised that categories and subcategories must form a tree because they belong to a theory of categories which requires unity. By contrast, it is held that the hierarchy of all concepts need not form a tree. The difficulties Porphyrius and Simplicius find in Aristotle’s minimal and maximal division are analysed. Finally, Aristotle’s way of avoiding categorial properties by referring to an abstraction is criticised. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"471","_score":null,"_source":{"id":471,"authors_free":[{"id":636,"entry_id":471,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":332,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Tegtmeier, Erwin","free_first_name":"Erwin","free_last_name":"Tegtmeier","norm_person":{"id":332,"first_name":"Erwin","last_name":"Tegtmeier","full_name":"Tegtmeier, Erwin","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/172413745","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Categories and Subcategories","main_title":{"title":"Categories and Subcategories"},"abstract":"Starting from the traditional distinction between the minimal and the maximal division, the role of subcategories in Aristotle, as well as that of the highest categories, is discussed. The need for categorial properties which determine categories is pointed out. It is argued that an existent cannot have two such essential properties and that only the lowest subcategories have simple categorial properties. Furthermore, it is emphasised that categories and subcategories must form a tree because they belong to a theory of categories which requires unity. By contrast, it is held that the hierarchy of all concepts need not form a tree. The difficulties Porphyrius and Simplicius find in Aristotle\u2019s minimal and maximal division are analysed. Finally, Aristotle\u2019s way of avoiding categorial properties by referring to an abstraction is criticised. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/IN81x5WTB9e5jh5","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":332,"full_name":"Tegtmeier, Erwin","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":471,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Anuario Filos\u00f3fico","volume":"47","issue":"2","pages":"395-411"}},"sort":[2014]}

‘Simplicius’ (Review of: On Aristotle Physics 1.5-9, translated by Hans Baltussen, Michael Atkinson, Michael Share and Ian Mueller), 2014
By: Fleet, Barrie
Title ‘Simplicius’ (Review of: On Aristotle Physics 1.5-9, translated by Hans Baltussen, Michael Atkinson, Michael Share and Ian Mueller)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 8
Issue 1
Pages 113-114
Categories no categories
Author(s) Fleet, Barrie
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
At the outset of Physics 1, Aristotle states that systematic knowledge of natural things and their changing character derives from a group of "principles (arkhai), causes (aitia), or elements (stoikheiai)." In this first book, he does not formally distinguish between these three terms, focusing instead on principles, although later commentators went to great lengths to formalize distinctions among them. Books 1 and 2 of Physics are devoted to seeking out the principles of change within the realm of natural science. Aristotle begins with commonly accepted propositions, “constantly appealing to what is ordinarily said or thought” (W. Charlton, Aristotle’s Physics I, II, Oxford, 1970, xi). Aristotle posits axiomatically that the principles of change in natural bodies are inherent in what comes into being from them, that they do not arise from one another or from external things, but that all things originate from these principles. He seeks to identify the rationally distinguishable factors inherent in the world of physical change. In chapters 1–4, he briefly reviews earlier theorists, such as Parmenides and Melissus, who posited a single principle and denied qualitative change, thereby placing themselves outside the scope of Aristotle’s inquiry. Aristotle concludes that principles must be multiple, either finite or infinite in number. The Neoplatonists, in general, prioritize Aristotle for questions of natural science and Plato for metaphysics. Book 1 of Physics straddles these two domains, and Simplicius, a 6th-century AD commentator, is eager throughout to demonstrate the harmony between Plato and Aristotle. Simplicius appeals particularly to Phaedo, Sophist, Philebus, Phaedrus, and Timaeus to suggest that many of Aristotle’s ideas were anticipated by Plato. In chapter 5, Aristotle asserts that everyone agrees the opposites (ta enantia) are principles, though there is considerable variation regarding what these opposites, as primary principles of physical change, are. Aristotle's approach differs from Plato’s Argument from Opposites in Phaedo. He reduces physical change to an underlying matter and, rather than a pair of opposites, considers the presence or absence of an opposite. The absence is redefined as "privation" (sterêsis) of a form, with a possible critique of John Philoponus—though this is contested by Sorabji (Introduction, pp. 4–7). Simplicius provides a detailed analysis of Aristotle’s arguments, distinguishing between primary and secondary principles, substance and contraries, per accidens and per se, and potential and actual—though M. suggests (n. 16) that at least once “Simplicius has no clue.” Simplicius draws parallels between Aristotelian matter and Plato’s Receptacle in Timaeus and the great-and-small in Philebus. He defines matter explicitly at 230,22 and finds congruence between Plato and Aristotle regarding the distinction between the first form, which is genuinely separate, and the natural form immanent in individual compound objects, which perishes with the compound. Simplicius uses Aristotle’s discussion of privation in chapters 7–9 to defend Plato against the charge of giving undue credence to Parmenides' unitary concept of Being. He extensively quotes Sophist to show that Plato recognized but did not emphasize privation, opting instead to discuss the presence or absence of form. Where Aristotle uses privation, Plato prefers the concept of "the other." Simplicius concludes that Plato and Aristotle are not in conflict regarding principles: Plato sought the per se causes of being that are elemental and inherent, while Aristotle sought causes of change, including privation as a per accidens cause. Simplicius frequently cites other commentators, especially Alexander of Aphrodisias, offering a dense and complex analysis that illuminates not only Aristotle’s text but also its reception by a Neoplatonist of the 6th century AD. This edition, translated by four contributors with glossaries by Sebastian Gertz and editorial notes by Richard Sorabji, provides accurate and fluent translations with minimal errors, despite being a collective effort. However, a more detailed note on logos, often left untranslated, would be valuable. Note 252 on p. 155 repeats paragraph 3 of the Introduction (p. 11). Overall, this translation is a significant contribution to Aristotelian studies. [The entire review p. 113-114]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"594","_score":null,"_source":{"id":594,"authors_free":[{"id":845,"entry_id":594,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":117,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Fleet, Barrie","free_first_name":"Barrie","free_last_name":"Fleet","norm_person":{"id":117,"first_name":"Barrie","last_name":"Fleet","full_name":"Fleet, Barrie","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/172866235","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"\u2018Simplicius\u2019 (Review of: On Aristotle Physics 1.5-9, translated by Hans Baltussen, Michael Atkinson, Michael Share and Ian Mueller)","main_title":{"title":"\u2018Simplicius\u2019 (Review of: On Aristotle Physics 1.5-9, translated by Hans Baltussen, Michael Atkinson, Michael Share and Ian Mueller)"},"abstract":"At the outset of Physics 1, Aristotle states that systematic knowledge of natural things and their changing character derives from a group of \"principles (arkhai), causes (aitia), or elements (stoikheiai).\" In this first book, he does not formally distinguish between these three terms, focusing instead on principles, although later commentators went to great lengths to formalize distinctions among them. Books 1 and 2 of Physics are devoted to seeking out the principles of change within the realm of natural science. Aristotle begins with commonly accepted propositions, \u201cconstantly appealing to what is ordinarily said or thought\u201d (W. Charlton, Aristotle\u2019s Physics I, II, Oxford, 1970, xi).\r\n\r\nAristotle posits axiomatically that the principles of change in natural bodies are inherent in what comes into being from them, that they do not arise from one another or from external things, but that all things originate from these principles. He seeks to identify the rationally distinguishable factors inherent in the world of physical change. In chapters 1\u20134, he briefly reviews earlier theorists, such as Parmenides and Melissus, who posited a single principle and denied qualitative change, thereby placing themselves outside the scope of Aristotle\u2019s inquiry. Aristotle concludes that principles must be multiple, either finite or infinite in number.\r\n\r\nThe Neoplatonists, in general, prioritize Aristotle for questions of natural science and Plato for metaphysics. Book 1 of Physics straddles these two domains, and Simplicius, a 6th-century AD commentator, is eager throughout to demonstrate the harmony between Plato and Aristotle. Simplicius appeals particularly to Phaedo, Sophist, Philebus, Phaedrus, and Timaeus to suggest that many of Aristotle\u2019s ideas were anticipated by Plato.\r\n\r\nIn chapter 5, Aristotle asserts that everyone agrees the opposites (ta enantia) are principles, though there is considerable variation regarding what these opposites, as primary principles of physical change, are. Aristotle's approach differs from Plato\u2019s Argument from Opposites in Phaedo. He reduces physical change to an underlying matter and, rather than a pair of opposites, considers the presence or absence of an opposite. The absence is redefined as \"privation\" (ster\u00easis) of a form, with a possible critique of John Philoponus\u2014though this is contested by Sorabji (Introduction, pp. 4\u20137). Simplicius provides a detailed analysis of Aristotle\u2019s arguments, distinguishing between primary and secondary principles, substance and contraries, per accidens and per se, and potential and actual\u2014though M. suggests (n. 16) that at least once \u201cSimplicius has no clue.\u201d\r\n\r\nSimplicius draws parallels between Aristotelian matter and Plato\u2019s Receptacle in Timaeus and the great-and-small in Philebus. He defines matter explicitly at 230,22 and finds congruence between Plato and Aristotle regarding the distinction between the first form, which is genuinely separate, and the natural form immanent in individual compound objects, which perishes with the compound.\r\n\r\nSimplicius uses Aristotle\u2019s discussion of privation in chapters 7\u20139 to defend Plato against the charge of giving undue credence to Parmenides' unitary concept of Being. He extensively quotes Sophist to show that Plato recognized but did not emphasize privation, opting instead to discuss the presence or absence of form. Where Aristotle uses privation, Plato prefers the concept of \"the other.\" Simplicius concludes that Plato and Aristotle are not in conflict regarding principles: Plato sought the per se causes of being that are elemental and inherent, while Aristotle sought causes of change, including privation as a per accidens cause.\r\n\r\nSimplicius frequently cites other commentators, especially Alexander of Aphrodisias, offering a dense and complex analysis that illuminates not only Aristotle\u2019s text but also its reception by a Neoplatonist of the 6th century AD.\r\n\r\nThis edition, translated by four contributors with glossaries by Sebastian Gertz and editorial notes by Richard Sorabji, provides accurate and fluent translations with minimal errors, despite being a collective effort. However, a more detailed note on logos, often left untranslated, would be valuable. Note 252 on p. 155 repeats paragraph 3 of the Introduction (p. 11). Overall, this translation is a significant contribution to Aristotelian studies. [The entire review p. 113-114]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/nqkDsZcyl8kNw0V","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":117,"full_name":"Fleet, Barrie","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":594,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition","volume":"8","issue":"1","pages":"113-114"}},"sort":[2014]}

Stoicism and Byzantine philosophy: Proairesis in Epictetus and Nicephorus Blemmydes, 2014
By: Sotiria Triantari
Title Stoicism and Byzantine philosophy: Proairesis in Epictetus and Nicephorus Blemmydes
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch Fur Antike Und Mittelalter
Volume 17
Issue 1
Pages 85-98
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sotiria Triantari
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Was the Byzantine thinker Nicephorus Blemmydes directly influenced in his views about human “proairesis” by the Stoic Epictetus or did he take over his views from the Neoplatonic Simplicius? After exploring Blemmydes’ reception of Epictetus, one can say that Blemmydes drew elements in a brief treatise under the title “De virtute et ascesi” from the mainly Neoplatonic Simplicius, who commented on the handbook by the Stoic Epictetus. Blemmydes, following Simplicius identifies “φ’ μν” with “aftexousion” and he designates “proairesis” as an activity, which emanates from “aftexousion”. Blemmydes shows the moral power of “proairesis” as a transforming factor of human existence and the mediatory factor to the dialectical relation between man and God. For the completion of the study, the following sources have been used: Blemmydes’ De virtute et ascesi, Epictetus’ Handbook, and Neoplatonic Simplicius’ commentaries on the Handbook. I specifically focus on the views of Aristotle, Epictetus, and Neoplatonic Simplicius about “proairesis” and compare the views of Blemmydes to Simplicius’ ideas. I conclude that Blemmydes drew ideas from Simplicius, with regard to human “proairesis” and in the context of the practising and cultivating virtues in everyday life. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1596","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1596,"authors_free":[{"id":2796,"entry_id":1596,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sotiria Triantari","free_first_name":"Sotiria","free_last_name":"Triantari","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Stoicism and Byzantine philosophy: Proairesis in Epictetus and Nicephorus Blemmydes","main_title":{"title":"Stoicism and Byzantine philosophy: Proairesis in Epictetus and Nicephorus Blemmydes"},"abstract":"Was the Byzantine thinker Nicephorus Blemmydes directly influenced in his views about human \u201cproairesis\u201d by the Stoic Epictetus or did he take over his views from the Neoplatonic Simplicius? After exploring Blemmydes\u2019 reception of Epictetus, one can say that Blemmydes drew elements in a brief treatise under the title \u201cDe virtute et ascesi\u201d from the mainly Neoplatonic Simplicius, who commented on the handbook by the Stoic Epictetus. Blemmydes, following Simplicius identifies \u201c\u03c6\u2019 \u03bc\u03bd\u201d with \u201caftexousion\u201d and he designates \u201cproairesis\u201d as an activity, which emanates from \u201caftexousion\u201d. Blemmydes shows the moral power of \u201cproairesis\u201d as a transforming factor of human existence and the mediatory factor to the dialectical relation between man and God. For the completion of the study, the following sources have been used: Blemmydes\u2019 De virtute et ascesi, Epictetus\u2019 Handbook, and Neoplatonic Simplicius\u2019 commentaries on the Handbook. I specifically focus on the views of Aristotle, Epictetus, and Neoplatonic Simplicius about \u201cproairesis\u201d and compare the views of Blemmydes to Simplicius\u2019 ideas. I conclude that Blemmydes drew ideas from Simplicius, with regard to human \u201cproairesis\u201d and in the context of the practising and cultivating virtues in everyday life. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/L5aG4m1stEAka7L","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1596,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch Fur Antike Und Mittelalter","volume":"17","issue":"1","pages":"85-98"}},"sort":[2014]}

Simplicius et le “lieu”. À propos d’une nouvelle édition du Corollarium de loco, 2014
By: Golitsis, Pantelis, Hoffmann, Philippe
Title Simplicius et le “lieu”. À propos d’une nouvelle édition du Corollarium de loco
Type Article
Language French
Date 2014
Journal Revue des Études Grecques
Volume 127
Issue 1
Pages 119-175
Categories no categories
Author(s) Golitsis, Pantelis , Hoffmann, Philippe
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The digression labelled “Corollarium de loco” by Hermann Diels in his edition of Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, IX, Berlin 1882) is a key text in the debate - often referred to by specialists as magna quaestio - generated by an apparent lack of consistency between Aristotle’s definition of ‘place’ (topos) as “the first unmoved boundary of the surrounding body” (Phys. IV, 4, 212 a 20-21) and his assertion that the Heaven moves in a circle while not being ‘somewhere’, since it is not surrounded by any body that would be exterior to it. Following the steps of his master Damascius, and at the end of a long discussion initiated by Neoplatonists after Plotinus (principally by Iamblichus, Proclus and Syrianus), Simplicius replaces Aristotle’s definition with a new definition of place as a “gathering (or uniting) measure” (metron sunagôgon), which is one of the four “measures” (number, size, place, time) or gathering powers that protect the intelligible and sensible entities against the dangers of the dispersion related to the procession of reality. This doctrine places physics in a decidedly theological perspective since, in last analysis, these uniting powers derive from the One or Good per se. Our under­standing of this crucial text for our knowledge of the Neoplatonic philosophy of Nature will be improved thanks to a new critical edition (with French translation and notes), to be published soon in the collection “Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca and Byzantina” (by Walter de Gruyter) under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences of Bcrlin-Brandenburg. The new edition is based not only on a fresh collation of the two manuscripts used by Diels (Marciani graeci 227 and 229) but also on a Moscow manuscript (Mosquensis Muz. 3649) unknown to the Ger­man scholar, since it belonged during the nineteenth century to a private Russian collection. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1321","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1321,"authors_free":[{"id":1955,"entry_id":1321,"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":2378,"entry_id":1321,"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}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius et le \u201clieu\u201d. \u00c0 propos d\u2019une nouvelle \u00e9dition du Corollarium de loco","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius et le \u201clieu\u201d. \u00c0 propos d\u2019une nouvelle \u00e9dition du Corollarium de loco"},"abstract":"The digression labelled \u201cCorollarium de loco\u201d by Hermann Diels in his edition of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, IX, Berlin 1882) is a key text in the debate - often referred to by specialists as magna quaestio - generated by an apparent lack of consistency between Aristotle\u2019s definition of \u2018place\u2019 (topos) as \u201cthe first unmoved boundary \r\nof the surrounding body\u201d (Phys. IV, 4, 212 a 20-21) and his assertion that the Heaven moves in a circle while not being \u2018somewhere\u2019, since it is not surrounded by any body that would be exterior to it. Following the steps of his master Damascius, and at the end of a long discussion initiated by Neoplatonists after Plotinus (principally by Iamblichus, Proclus and Syrianus), Simplicius replaces Aristotle\u2019s definition with a new definition of place as a \u201cgathering (or uniting) measure\u201d (metron sunag\u00f4gon), which is one of the four \u201cmeasures\u201d (number, size, place, time) or gathering powers that protect the intelligible and sensible \r\nentities against the dangers of the dispersion related to the procession of reality. This doctrine places physics in a decidedly theological perspective since, in last analysis, these uniting powers derive from the One or Good per se. Our under\u00adstanding of this crucial text for our knowledge of the Neoplatonic philosophy of \r\nNature will be improved thanks to a new critical edition (with French translation and notes), to be published soon in the collection \u201cCommentaria in Aristotelem Graeca and Byzantina\u201d (by Walter de Gruyter) under the auspices of the Academy \r\nof Sciences of Bcrlin-Brandenburg. The new edition is based not only on a fresh collation of the two manuscripts used by Diels (Marciani graeci 227 and 229) but also on a Moscow manuscript (Mosquensis Muz. 3649) unknown to the Ger\u00adman scholar, since it belonged during the nineteenth century to a private Russian \r\ncollection. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/CopNdLIRs5QEoZb","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":129,"full_name":"Golitsis, Pantelis","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":138,"full_name":"Hoffmann, Philippe ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1321,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Revue des \u00c9tudes Grecques ","volume":"127","issue":"1","pages":"119-175"}},"sort":[2014]}

The text of Simplicius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics and the question of supralinear omicron in Greek manuscripts, 2014
By: Tarán, Leonardo
Title The text of Simplicius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics and the question of supralinear omicron in Greek manuscripts
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Revue d’histoire des textes
Volume 9
Pages 351-358
Categories no categories
Author(s) Tarán, Leonardo
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper tries to establish that supralinear omicron is not, as most elementary introductions to Greek paleography have it, a simple abbreviation for the ending omicron-sigma. Rather, it was originally a symbol for suspension that later medieval scribes used also for other subordinated purposes which are impossible to classify. Some examples will be given in what follows. For a long time this interpretation had seemed so obvious to me that during a 1985 colloquium on Simplicius in Paris, it surprised me that some members of the audience objected that supralinear omicron is simply an abbreviation for omicron-sigma. As this occurred during my discussion of a passage of Simplicius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, and as several of my examples come from that work, it is convenient to give a list of the manuscripts used by Diels and also of additional prim ary witnesses either rejected by, or not known to him. [introduction]

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Aristotle’s Topics in the Greek Neoplatonic Commentaries on the Categories, 2014
By: Militello, Chiara
Title Aristotle’s Topics in the Greek Neoplatonic Commentaries on the Categories
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal PEITHO / EXAMINA ANTIQUA
Volume 1
Issue 5
Pages 91-117
Categories no categories
Author(s) Militello, Chiara
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper lists and examines the explicit references to Aristotle’s Topics in the Greek Neoplatonic commentaries on the Categories. The references to the Topics by Porphyry, Dexippus, Ammonius, Simplicius, Olympiodorus, Philoponus and David (Elias) are listed according the usual prolegomena to Aristotle’s works. In particular, the paper reconstructs David (Elias)’s original thesis about the proponents of the title Pre-Topics for the Categories and compares Ammonius’, Simplicius’ and Olympiodorus’ doxographies about the postpraedicamenta. Moreover, the study identifies two general trends. The first one is that all the commentators after Proclus share the same general view about: the authenticity of the Topics, Aristotle’s writing style in them, the part of philosophy to which they belong, their purpose, their usefulness and their place in the reading order. The second one is that whereas Porphyry, Dexippus and Simplicius use the Topics as an aid to understanding the Categories, Ammonius, Olympiodorus and David (Elias) do not. [author's abstract]

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Simplicius on Categories 1a16–17 and 1b25–27: An Examination of the Interests of Ancient and Modern Commentary on the Categories, 2014
By: Almeida, Joseph
Title Simplicius on Categories 1a16–17 and 1b25–27: An Examination of the Interests of Ancient and Modern Commentary on the Categories
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Quaestiones Disputatae
Volume 4
Issue 2
Pages 73-99
Categories no categories
Author(s) Almeida, Joseph
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
We may gather these observations into several points. First, Simplicius’s commentary on the Categories shows, not surprisingly, the influence of the great Neoplatonic spiritual odyssey of return to first principles. The final prayer offered at the termination of his commentary is a stunning testimony to the power which this spiritual program exerted on the ancient commentators: "I stop my discourse, invoking the Guardians of the Logoi to grant me a more accurate understanding of these matters and to favor me with this understanding as a viaticum toward higher contemplations and to provide me leisure from the distractions of life." For Simplicius, commentary on Aristotle could never be wholly separated from this overarching spiritual purpose. In at least one of the passages considered above, this influence manifested itself in an attempt to elucidate Aristotle’s text as the lesser mysteries on route to the higher. As this program and its consequences are central to the business of Neoplatonic commentary on the Categories, so it is, in its central impetus, irrelevant to the interests of the modern program of solving the problem of the Categories. Second, Simplicius was a happy heir of a long tradition, part of which conditioned commentators to see the Categories as a text for beginners in philosophy. Embracing this teaching, Simplicius does not hesitate to deflect certain difficulties presented by the text with appeal to the elementary nature of the Categories, content to leave a real solution to more advanced speculations elsewhere. When modern interest is focused on just such a problem, such a treatment is of little value. Third, the same tradition obligates Simplicius to harmonize Aristotle with Plato. At least in the example considered above, the reconciliation can involve certain abstruse points of Neoplatonic philosophy. Such commentary is no doubt of great value to students of Neoplatonism but will generally miss the mark set by the interests of modern inquiry. These three points appear relatively secure and of universal application to the body of ancient commentary on the Categories. There is, however, a fourth point, to be stated cautiously because of the limited data examined. When Simplicius spoke directly to the passages in question in Cat. 1a16–17 and 1b25–27, he did not seem to appreciate the issues which interested modern readers of the Categories—namely, that the doctrine of simple expressions presents a philosophical theory in need of expansion and illumination, a problem to be solved in relation to a theory of categories in general rather than a solution to be applied to questions concerning the identity and nature of the Aristotelian categories in particular. This is not to say that a modern reader will never find anywhere in Simplicius a discussion corresponding to his interest, but that in all likelihood it would be serendipitous and peripheral to Simplicius’s own primary interest in the Categories. These observations warrant the conclusion that there is indeed a separation between the interests of the ancient and modern commentators on the Categories. In its strong form, the conclusion is that the separation is absolute. This is in accord with Praechter’s position in his classic review of the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (i.e., that the commentaries will prove to be essentially of historic value): “[They will be] invaluable for the history of the Greek language, for the lexicon as well as for the grammar”; “[They will be invaluable] for understanding how ancient philosophy was able to fulfill the vast cultural mission which befell it in antiquity as sovereign in the realm of Weltanschauung, and in the Middle Ages as the ‘handmaiden of theology.’” Even Sorabji, who seems to regard the independent philosophical value of the commentaries more highly than Praechter, recommends them to students of Aristotle with a note of caution: “The distorting Neoplatonist context... does not prevent the commentaries from being incomparable guides to Aristotle. The commentators... have minutely detailed knowledge of the entire Aristotelian corpus... Moreover, commentators are enjoined neither to accept nor to reject what Aristotle says too readily, but to consider it in depth and without partiality. The commentaries draw one’s attention to hundreds of phrases, sentences, and ideas in Aristotle which one could easily have passed over... The scholar who makes the right allowance for the distorting context will learn far more about Aristotle than he would on his own.” Although this is a more positive view of the substantive content of the commentaries, the illumination of sentences and ideas still does not address the needs of the kind of modern inquiry exemplified in our discussion. Because the conclusion is drawn from limited data—namely, a close reading of about sixty pages of the Berlin text of Simplicius on the Categories—it must remain tentative and provisional. However, truth to be told, the tremendous effort involved in reading even cursorily just one of the ancient commentaries on the Categories, let alone with an eye to the intersection between Neoplatonic and modern interest, may leave the matter open for quite some time. [conclusion p. 97-99]

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The final prayer offered at the termination of his commentary is a stunning testimony to the power which this spiritual program exerted on the ancient commentators:\r\n\r\n \"I stop my discourse, invoking the Guardians of the Logoi to grant me a more accurate understanding of these matters and to favor me with this understanding as a viaticum toward higher contemplations and to provide me leisure from the distractions of life.\"\r\n\r\nFor Simplicius, commentary on Aristotle could never be wholly separated from this overarching spiritual purpose. In at least one of the passages considered above, this influence manifested itself in an attempt to elucidate Aristotle\u2019s text as the lesser mysteries on route to the higher. As this program and its consequences are central to the business of Neoplatonic commentary on the Categories, so it is, in its central impetus, irrelevant to the interests of the modern program of solving the problem of the Categories.\r\n\r\nSecond, Simplicius was a happy heir of a long tradition, part of which conditioned commentators to see the Categories as a text for beginners in philosophy. Embracing this teaching, Simplicius does not hesitate to deflect certain difficulties presented by the text with appeal to the elementary nature of the Categories, content to leave a real solution to more advanced speculations elsewhere. When modern interest is focused on just such a problem, such a treatment is of little value.\r\n\r\nThird, the same tradition obligates Simplicius to harmonize Aristotle with Plato. At least in the example considered above, the reconciliation can involve certain abstruse points of Neoplatonic philosophy. Such commentary is no doubt of great value to students of Neoplatonism but will generally miss the mark set by the interests of modern inquiry.\r\n\r\nThese three points appear relatively secure and of universal application to the body of ancient commentary on the Categories. There is, however, a fourth point, to be stated cautiously because of the limited data examined. When Simplicius spoke directly to the passages in question in Cat. 1a16\u201317 and 1b25\u201327, he did not seem to appreciate the issues which interested modern readers of the Categories\u2014namely, that the doctrine of simple expressions presents a philosophical theory in need of expansion and illumination, a problem to be solved in relation to a theory of categories in general rather than a solution to be applied to questions concerning the identity and nature of the Aristotelian categories in particular.\r\n\r\nThis is not to say that a modern reader will never find anywhere in Simplicius a discussion corresponding to his interest, but that in all likelihood it would be serendipitous and peripheral to Simplicius\u2019s own primary interest in the Categories.\r\n\r\nThese observations warrant the conclusion that there is indeed a separation between the interests of the ancient and modern commentators on the Categories. In its strong form, the conclusion is that the separation is absolute. This is in accord with Praechter\u2019s position in his classic review of the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (i.e., that the commentaries will prove to be essentially of historic value):\r\n\r\n \u201c[They will be] invaluable for the history of the Greek language, for the lexicon as well as for the grammar\u201d;\r\n \u201c[They will be invaluable] for understanding how ancient philosophy was able to fulfill the vast cultural mission which befell it in antiquity as sovereign in the realm of Weltanschauung, and in the Middle Ages as the \u2018handmaiden of theology.\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\nEven Sorabji, who seems to regard the independent philosophical value of the commentaries more highly than Praechter, recommends them to students of Aristotle with a note of caution:\r\n\r\n \u201cThe distorting Neoplatonist context... does not prevent the commentaries from being incomparable guides to Aristotle. The commentators... have minutely detailed knowledge of the entire Aristotelian corpus... Moreover, commentators are enjoined neither to accept nor to reject what Aristotle says too readily, but to consider it in depth and without partiality. The commentaries draw one\u2019s attention to hundreds of phrases, sentences, and ideas in Aristotle which one could easily have passed over... The scholar who makes the right allowance for the distorting context will learn far more about Aristotle than he would on his own.\u201d\r\n\r\nAlthough this is a more positive view of the substantive content of the commentaries, the illumination of sentences and ideas still does not address the needs of the kind of modern inquiry exemplified in our discussion.\r\n\r\nBecause the conclusion is drawn from limited data\u2014namely, a close reading of about sixty pages of the Berlin text of Simplicius on the Categories\u2014it must remain tentative and provisional. However, truth to be told, the tremendous effort involved in reading even cursorily just one of the ancient commentaries on the Categories, let alone with an eye to the intersection between Neoplatonic and modern interest, may leave the matter open for quite some time.\r\n[conclusion p. 97-99]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/OzmApALBY8ZdgnX","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":557,"full_name":"Almeida, Joseph","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1499,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Quaestiones Disputatae","volume":"4","issue":"2","pages":"73-99"}},"sort":[2014]}

The Aristotelian Commentaries and Platonism, 2014
By: Gerson, Lloyd P.
Title The Aristotelian Commentaries and Platonism
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Quaestiones Disputatae
Volume 2
Issue 4
Pages 7-23
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gerson, Lloyd P.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
All students of the history of philosophy are apt to be seduced by linearity. What I mean is this. Naturally, we read the texts of the history of philosophy in the chronological order in which they were written. So, for example, we read Aristotle after we read Plato. And we read the supposedly later works of Plato after the earlier ones. Perfectly reasonable. But in pursuing the task of trying to figure out the meaning of what we have read, we tend to seek out or suppose the “influence” of the earlier philosopher on the later or the “development” of the philosopher’s views. The employment of these two seemingly innocuous and certainly ubiquitous terms is in fact rarely edifying. An easy means of seeing why this is so is to ask what sort of Aristotelian cause influence and development are supposed to indicate. Since we are talking about temporal succession, presumably we would have in mind efficient or moving causes. But it only requires a moment’s reflection to realize that the views of one philosopher never stand in relation to the views of another as efficient cause to effect. Thus, for example, it is not because Plato believed that nominalism is false that Aristotle believed that nominalism is false, even if it is indeed the case that Aristotle accepted Platonic arguments to this effect. If, however, we loosen the connection between Plato and Aristotle and agree that the views of the former did not cause the views of the latter, what is the influence supposed to amount to? Indeed, why claim that Aristotle is influenced by Plato, with whom he happened to agree on many issues, and not by, say, Democritus, with whom he happened to disagree? Surely, one can be inspired to embrace a position that is exactly the opposite of that which one hears from another. Consider “development.” The perfectly anodyne sense of this term—namely, that according to which the sequence of writings in an author indicates the progress or course of his thought—is quite useless. But as soon as you try to gin up this weak sense of development into something more portentous, you get into serious trouble. If, for example, you say that Plato’s thought developed in the sense that his later dialogues represent an advancement in, or even a change from, his earlier thought—apart from cases of outright contradiction of which there are few or none—you have to specify what the development is a development of; that is, to use Aristotelian terminology once again, what is the underlying substrate for the development? But this underlying substrate will be the locus of continuity throughout the putative development; continuity that may be far more important than any change. I am not suggesting that Plato or any other philosopher never changed his mind. I am suggesting that the changes cannot ever be viewed uncritically as going from false to true or wrong to right. Consider someone who believes that the high point of Plato’s thinking occurred in the early or middle dialogues. Someone like this would not consider the middle or late dialogues developments in any sense but the anodyne one mentioned above. Some scholars, looking at the identical texts, believe that Aristotle developed from a Platonist to something like an anti-Platonist, while others believe that his anti-Platonism was only a “phase” after which he developed into a Platonist once again. None of this is very helpful. The reason I bring it up is that the Platonists of late antiquity who introduced the philosophical curriculum wherein the commentaries played such an important role were mostly impervious to the siren song of linearity. As we know from the accounts of the philosophical curriculum, perhaps introduced by Iamblichus or Porphyry in the late third century, students were obliged to study Aristotle before studying Plato. Studying Aristotle, or at least some of the works of Aristotle, was thought to be the most suitable preparation for studying Plato. The reason for this is quite simple: the Platonists were aiming at truth rather than what we might like to think of as an “objective and unbiased” account of the “development” of the history of philosophy. But we still should want to ask why the study of Aristotle was supposed to be conducive to understanding the truth as it is revealed in Plato and articulated by the man whom Proclus called “the exegete of the Platonic revelation,” namely, Plotinus. Simplicius provides a preliminary answer to this question when he says in his Physics commentary that Aristotle was authoritative for the sensible world as Plato was for the intelligible world. Beginning the study of philosophy “in” the sensible world, in accord with Aristotle’s remark in Physics—that we start with things more intelligible to us and move to things more intelligible by nature—puts the student in a better position to appreciate the more difficult insights found in the two works that comprise the culmination of philosophical study: namely, Timaeus and Parmenides. Let us be quite specific. The study of Categories is supposed to assist the student in preparing for the study of the intelligible world. Initially, this seems far-fetched. Indeed, it is not uncommon for contemporary Aristotle scholars to take Categories as in a way programmatic for an anti-Platonic Aristotelian philosophy, the focus of which is the individual sensible substance. So, on this showing, Iamblichus was naive to think that he was molding disciples of Platonism by having the students read Categories even before they encountered a dialogue of Plato. As I have argued elsewhere, Iamblichus and Simplicius and many other prominent Platonists of late antiquity believed that Aristotle’s philosophy was in harmony with Platonism. The way I characterized harmony was to argue that Aristotle’s philosophy stood to Platonism analogous to the way that Newtonian mechanics stood to quantum mechanics. I was and am not altogether happy with letting my argument rest on an analogy in part because, in trying to explore further the details of harmony, one soon runs up against the limitations of the analogy. Instead, I would like to pursue a different approach here. I would like to argue that what underlies the claims of harmony is a set of shared principles; shared not only by self-proclaimed Platonists and by Aristotle, but by virtually all philosophers from at least 200 CE until perhaps the beginning of the seventeenth century, with only a few notable exceptions. It will become clear as I proceed why I have cast my net so widely. And I hope it will also become clear why the Aristotelian commentary tradition remains a critical component in the larger Platonic project. [introduction p. 7-9]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1510","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1510,"authors_free":[{"id":2623,"entry_id":1510,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":46,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Gerson, Lloyd P.","free_first_name":"Lloyd P.","free_last_name":"Gerson","norm_person":{"id":46,"first_name":"Lloyd P.","last_name":"Gerson","full_name":"Gerson, Lloyd P.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/131525573","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The Aristotelian Commentaries and Platonism","main_title":{"title":"The Aristotelian Commentaries and Platonism"},"abstract":"All students of the history of philosophy are apt to be seduced by linearity. What I mean is this. Naturally, we read the texts of the history of philosophy in the chronological order in which they were written. So, for example, we read Aristotle after we read Plato. And we read the supposedly later works of Plato after the earlier ones. Perfectly reasonable. But in pursuing the task of trying to figure out the meaning of what we have read, we tend to seek out or suppose the \u201cinfluence\u201d of the earlier philosopher on the later or the \u201cdevelopment\u201d of the philosopher\u2019s views.\r\n\r\nThe employment of these two seemingly innocuous and certainly ubiquitous terms is in fact rarely edifying. An easy means of seeing why this is so is to ask what sort of Aristotelian cause influence and development are supposed to indicate. Since we are talking about temporal succession, presumably we would have in mind efficient or moving causes. But it only requires a moment\u2019s reflection to realize that the views of one philosopher never stand in relation to the views of another as efficient cause to effect.\r\n\r\nThus, for example, it is not because Plato believed that nominalism is false that Aristotle believed that nominalism is false, even if it is indeed the case that Aristotle accepted Platonic arguments to this effect. If, however, we loosen the connection between Plato and Aristotle and agree that the views of the former did not cause the views of the latter, what is the influence supposed to amount to? Indeed, why claim that Aristotle is influenced by Plato, with whom he happened to agree on many issues, and not by, say, Democritus, with whom he happened to disagree? Surely, one can be inspired to embrace a position that is exactly the opposite of that which one hears from another.\r\n\r\nConsider \u201cdevelopment.\u201d The perfectly anodyne sense of this term\u2014namely, that according to which the sequence of writings in an author indicates the progress or course of his thought\u2014is quite useless. But as soon as you try to gin up this weak sense of development into something more portentous, you get into serious trouble. If, for example, you say that Plato\u2019s thought developed in the sense that his later dialogues represent an advancement in, or even a change from, his earlier thought\u2014apart from cases of outright contradiction of which there are few or none\u2014you have to specify what the development is a development of; that is, to use Aristotelian terminology once again, what is the underlying substrate for the development? But this underlying substrate will be the locus of continuity throughout the putative development; continuity that may be far more important than any change.\r\n\r\nI am not suggesting that Plato or any other philosopher never changed his mind. I am suggesting that the changes cannot ever be viewed uncritically as going from false to true or wrong to right. Consider someone who believes that the high point of Plato\u2019s thinking occurred in the early or middle dialogues. Someone like this would not consider the middle or late dialogues developments in any sense but the anodyne one mentioned above. Some scholars, looking at the identical texts, believe that Aristotle developed from a Platonist to something like an anti-Platonist, while others believe that his anti-Platonism was only a \u201cphase\u201d after which he developed into a Platonist once again. None of this is very helpful.\r\n\r\nThe reason I bring it up is that the Platonists of late antiquity who introduced the philosophical curriculum wherein the commentaries played such an important role were mostly impervious to the siren song of linearity. As we know from the accounts of the philosophical curriculum, perhaps introduced by Iamblichus or Porphyry in the late third century, students were obliged to study Aristotle before studying Plato. Studying Aristotle, or at least some of the works of Aristotle, was thought to be the most suitable preparation for studying Plato.\r\n\r\nThe reason for this is quite simple: the Platonists were aiming at truth rather than what we might like to think of as an \u201cobjective and unbiased\u201d account of the \u201cdevelopment\u201d of the history of philosophy. But we still should want to ask why the study of Aristotle was supposed to be conducive to understanding the truth as it is revealed in Plato and articulated by the man whom Proclus called \u201cthe exegete of the Platonic revelation,\u201d namely, Plotinus.\r\n\r\nSimplicius provides a preliminary answer to this question when he says in his Physics commentary that Aristotle was authoritative for the sensible world as Plato was for the intelligible world. Beginning the study of philosophy \u201cin\u201d the sensible world, in accord with Aristotle\u2019s remark in Physics\u2014that we start with things more intelligible to us and move to things more intelligible by nature\u2014puts the student in a better position to appreciate the more difficult insights found in the two works that comprise the culmination of philosophical study: namely, Timaeus and Parmenides.\r\n\r\nLet us be quite specific. The study of Categories is supposed to assist the student in preparing for the study of the intelligible world. Initially, this seems far-fetched. Indeed, it is not uncommon for contemporary Aristotle scholars to take Categories as in a way programmatic for an anti-Platonic Aristotelian philosophy, the focus of which is the individual sensible substance. So, on this showing, Iamblichus was naive to think that he was molding disciples of Platonism by having the students read Categories even before they encountered a dialogue of Plato.\r\n\r\nAs I have argued elsewhere, Iamblichus and Simplicius and many other prominent Platonists of late antiquity believed that Aristotle\u2019s philosophy was in harmony with Platonism. The way I characterized harmony was to argue that Aristotle\u2019s philosophy stood to Platonism analogous to the way that Newtonian mechanics stood to quantum mechanics. I was and am not altogether happy with letting my argument rest on an analogy in part because, in trying to explore further the details of harmony, one soon runs up against the limitations of the analogy.\r\n\r\nInstead, I would like to pursue a different approach here. I would like to argue that what underlies the claims of harmony is a set of shared principles; shared not only by self-proclaimed Platonists and by Aristotle, but by virtually all philosophers from at least 200 CE until perhaps the beginning of the seventeenth century, with only a few notable exceptions. It will become clear as I proceed why I have cast my net so widely. And I hope it will also become clear why the Aristotelian commentary tradition remains a critical component in the larger Platonic project. [introduction p. 7-9]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/fH9zEC1gXGTy5tA","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":46,"full_name":"Gerson, Lloyd P.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1510,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Quaestiones Disputatae","volume":"2","issue":"4","pages":"7-23"}},"sort":[2014]}

Boéthos de Sidon sur les relatifs, 2013
By: Luna, Concetta
Title Boéthos de Sidon sur les relatifs
Type Article
Language French
Date 2013
Journal Studia greaco-arabica
Volume 3
Pages 1-35
Categories no categories
Author(s) Luna, Concetta
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The Peripatetic philosopher Boethus of Sidon (mid-first century BC), a pupil of Andronicus of Rhodes, is well-known for his commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, whose fragments are transmitted by later commentators together with testimonia about it. In his exegesis of the Categories, Boethus especially focused on the category of relation (Cat. 7), on which he wrote a speci!c treatise, arguing against the Stoics for the unity of the category of relation. The present paper o"ers a translation and analysis of Boethus’ fragments on relation, all of which are preserved in Simplicius’ commentary on the Categories. [Author's abstract]

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Un commentario alessandrino al «De caelo» di Aristotele, 2013
By: Rescigno, Andrea
Title Un commentario alessandrino al «De caelo» di Aristotele
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2013
Journal Athenaeum: Studi di letteratura e Storia dell'antichità
Volume 101
Issue 2
Pages 479-516
Categories no categories
Author(s) Rescigno, Andrea
Editor(s)
Translator(s)

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Which ‘Athenodorus’ commented on Aristotle's "Categories"?, 2013
By: Griffin, Michael J.
Title Which ‘Athenodorus’ commented on Aristotle's "Categories"?
Type Article
Language English
Date 2013
Journal The Classical Quarterly
Volume 63
Issue 1
Pages 199-208
Categories no categories
Author(s) Griffin, Michael J.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The principate of Augustus coincided with a surge of interest in the short Aristotelian treatise which we now entitle Categories, contributing to its later installation at the outset of the philosophical curriculum and its traditional function as an introduction to logic. Thanks in part to remarks made by Plutarch (Sulla 26.1–2) and Porphyry (Vita Plotini 24.7), the origin of this interest has often been traced to Andronicus of Rhodes: his catalogue (πίνακες) and publication of the Aristotelian corpus began with the Categories and may have drawn fresh attention to a previously obscure treatise. But the later Neoplatonic sources name several other philosophers who also discussed the Categories and played an important role in crafting its interpretation during the first centuries of our era. For example, the Neoplatonist Simplicius discusses the views of Stoics and Platonists who questioned the Categories’ value as a treatment of grammar or ontology, while others defended its usefulness as an introduction to logic. These early debates, as these later sources suggest, exercised a lasting influence on the shape of subsequent philosophy and philosophical education within and beyond the Aristotelian tradition. In this note, I would like to revisit the identity of one of the Categories’ earliest critics, a Stoic identified only as ‘Athenodorus’ in the pages of Dexippus, Porphyry, and Simplicius. There is a strong consensus identifying this ‘Athenodorus’ with Athenodorus Calvus, a tutor of Octavian and correspondent of Cicero, roughly contemporary with Andronicus of Rhodes. I want to suggest several reasons for reconsidering this identification. In particular, I want to argue that a certain Athenodorus mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (7.68) is, on philosophical grounds, a compelling candidate for identification with the critic of the Categories, and that Diogenes’ Athenodorus is relatively unlikely to be Calvus. As an alternative to Calvus, I tentatively advance the possibility that our Athenodorus may belong to a generation of Stoic philosophers who conducted work on the Categories in the Hellenistic period, prior to the activity of Andronicus in the first century, and under the title Before the Topics (see Simpl. in Cat. 379.9, who observes that Andronicus of Rhodes was aware of this title and rejected it). Such a story runs counter to the older consensus, now considerably less certain, that Andronicus was the first philosopher to draw serious attention to the Categories after it had languished for centuries out of circulation. Instead, we might regard Andronicus’ relocation of the text to the outset of the Aristotelian curriculum under the new title Categories as a relatively late chapter in an ongoing tradition of commentary and polemic. In what follows, I suggest some possible motives for Andronicus’ relocation of the Categories, if it can be viewed as a response to earlier criticism. [introduction p. 199-200]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"821","_score":null,"_source":{"id":821,"authors_free":[{"id":1222,"entry_id":821,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":148,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Griffin, Michael J.","free_first_name":"Michael J.","free_last_name":"Griffin","norm_person":{"id":148,"first_name":"Michael J.","last_name":"Griffin","full_name":"Griffin, Michael J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1065676603","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Which \u2018Athenodorus\u2019 commented on Aristotle's \"Categories\"?","main_title":{"title":"Which \u2018Athenodorus\u2019 commented on Aristotle's \"Categories\"?"},"abstract":"The principate of Augustus coincided with a surge of interest in the short Aristotelian treatise which we now entitle Categories, contributing to its later installation at the outset of the philosophical curriculum and its traditional function as an introduction to logic. Thanks in part to remarks made by Plutarch (Sulla 26.1\u20132) and Porphyry (Vita Plotini 24.7), the origin of this interest has often been traced to Andronicus of Rhodes: his catalogue (\u03c0\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2) and publication of the Aristotelian corpus began with the Categories and may have drawn fresh attention to a previously obscure treatise. But the later Neoplatonic sources name several other philosophers who also discussed the Categories and played an important role in crafting its interpretation during the first centuries of our era. For example, the Neoplatonist Simplicius discusses the views of Stoics and Platonists who questioned the Categories\u2019 value as a treatment of grammar or ontology, while others defended its usefulness as an introduction to logic. These early debates, as these later sources suggest, exercised a lasting influence on the shape of subsequent philosophy and philosophical education within and beyond the Aristotelian tradition.\r\n\r\nIn this note, I would like to revisit the identity of one of the Categories\u2019 earliest critics, a Stoic identified only as \u2018Athenodorus\u2019 in the pages of Dexippus, Porphyry, and Simplicius. There is a strong consensus identifying this \u2018Athenodorus\u2019 with Athenodorus Calvus, a tutor of Octavian and correspondent of Cicero, roughly contemporary with Andronicus of Rhodes. I want to suggest several reasons for reconsidering this identification. In particular, I want to argue that a certain Athenodorus mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (7.68) is, on philosophical grounds, a compelling candidate for identification with the critic of the Categories, and that Diogenes\u2019 Athenodorus is relatively unlikely to be Calvus. As an alternative to Calvus, I tentatively advance the possibility that our Athenodorus may belong to a generation of Stoic philosophers who conducted work on the Categories in the Hellenistic period, prior to the activity of Andronicus in the first century, and under the title Before the Topics (see Simpl. in Cat. 379.9, who observes that Andronicus of Rhodes was aware of this title and rejected it).\r\n\r\nSuch a story runs counter to the older consensus, now considerably less certain, that Andronicus was the first philosopher to draw serious attention to the Categories after it had languished for centuries out of circulation. Instead, we might regard Andronicus\u2019 relocation of the text to the outset of the Aristotelian curriculum under the new title Categories as a relatively late chapter in an ongoing tradition of commentary and polemic. In what follows, I suggest some possible motives for Andronicus\u2019 relocation of the Categories, if it can be viewed as a response to earlier criticism. [introduction p. 199-200]","btype":3,"date":"2013","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/IbfU0uOFgfzLjDG","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":148,"full_name":"Griffin, Michael J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":821,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical Quarterly","volume":"63","issue":"1","pages":"199-208"}},"sort":[2013]}

Mathematical Explanation and the Philosphy of Nature in Late Ancient Philosophy: Astronomy and the Theory of the Elements, 2012
By: Opsomer, Jan
Title Mathematical Explanation and the Philosphy of Nature in Late Ancient Philosophy: Astronomy and the Theory of the Elements
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale
Volume 23
Pages 65-106
Categories no categories
Author(s) Opsomer, Jan
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Late ancient Platonists discuss two theories in which geometric entities explain natural phenomena : the regular polyhedra of geometric atomism and the eccentrics and epicycles of astronomy. Simplicius explicitly compares the status of the first to the hypotheses of the astronomers. The point of comparison is the fallibility of both theories, not the (lack of) reality of the entities postulated. Simplicius has strong realist commitments as far as astronomy is concerned. Syrianus and Proclus too do not consider the polyhedra as devoid of physical reality. Proclus rejects epicycles and eccentrics, but accepts the reality of material homocentric spheres, moved by their own souls. The spheres move the astral objects contained in them, which, however, add motions caused by their own souls. The epicyclical and eccntric hypotheses are useful, as they help us to understand the complex motions resulting from the interplay of spherical motions and volitional motions of the planets. Yet astral souls do not think in accordance with human theoretical constructs, but rather grasp the complex patterns of their motions directly. Our understanding of astronomy depends upon our own cognition of intelligible patterns and their mathematical images. [Author's abstract]

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What does Aristotle categorize? Semantics and the early peripatetic reading of the "Categories", 2012
By: Griffin, Michael J.
Title What does Aristotle categorize? Semantics and the early peripatetic reading of the "Categories"
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
Volume 55
Issue 1
Pages 69-108
Categories no categories
Author(s) Griffin, Michael J.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Through this sketch of the evidence, I hope to have suggested that there is, in any case, more to the bipartite theory than a compendious treatment or compression of the tripartite material by Porphyry, and that attention should be drawn to it as a separate and distinct layer of the tradition. I have also explored some of the ways in which both layers may be seen as predating Porphyry, while Porphyry’s approach to the Categories in the shorter commentary could be seen as building on an earlier source. As to our first mystery—the role of the Categories in the harmony of Plato and Aristotle, both first-century and Neoplatonic—I would like to offer a few concluding reflections on the theory itself. To be significant, a verbal expression must have an extension that qualifies as ὄν (Porph. In Cat. 90,30-91,12 – T17; as this passage shows, the extension might be infinite). If Busse is right to read ἕκαστον κατὰ ἀριθμὸν σημαίνει <ἕν> τῶν ὄντων (“each numerically distinct expression signifies one of the beings”) around 58,5-15 (T9), I think we are not merely dealing with the Stoic view that there are “somethings” that do not subsist—occasionally compared to Meinong's distinction of bestehen and existieren as represented by Bertrand Russell—but an even stronger view, akin to Owen’s positive reading of the Parmenidean maxim that “what can be spoken and thought must exist” (B2). That sort of intuition, though pre-Platonic, was always part of the Platonic tradition. Perhaps it is not so surprising, then, that we find friendly Platonist and Neopythagorean treatments in the earliest layer of the exegetical stratigraphy of the Categories, and that Porphyry should find it a suitable cornerstone around which to build later Neoplatonic ontology. The bipartite theory that I have described looks like an extensional theory of signification—as Porphyry’s language in T17 might seem to suggest, the meaning of a predicate F amounts to the set of objects said to be F. We might call this kind of view nominalist, and not very much in the spirit of Platonism as we usually conceive it. But there are also examples in the Arabic tradition that draw on the Posterior Analytics for a kind of Platonic view about the existence of eternal natures. For example (see Adamson, “Knowledge of Universals”), the tenth-century logician Ibn ʿAdī maintained that (1) terms in syllogisms directly refer (have some existing extension), (2) following the Post. An., demonstrative knowledge is never of the transient, unlimited particulars, and (3) nonetheless, demonstrative knowledge occurs; from these points, he was led to maintain that there are eternal, unchanging objects of reference. If this conclusion could be referred to as essential Platonism, then as Adamson puts it, “to some extent, Aristotle’s own words invited the Platonizing.” It seems to me compatible with Alexander’s view, if I understand his De anima rightly (especially around p. 90), that there are eternal natures that may or may not be predicated of many particulars, a view about which Sharples has also written. My suggestion here, then, is just that the interpretation of the Organon that facilitates this line of thinking goes back to a very early layer of commentary on the Categories. Modern philosophy arguably also provides examples of how a theory of direct reference can inspire different flavors of almost Platonic realism, especially when the observable infinity of particular objects of acquaintance is coupled with the observed feasibility of human knowledge. Bertrand Russell in 1945 criticized Porphyry’s work on the Categories (which he had, I suppose, indirectly) by wielding the same weapons that had served against his interpretation of Meinong in 1904. Russell credited Porphyry’s alleged misreading of Aristotle with the excessively “metaphysical” temper of subsequent logic (HWP 1945:472), including entrenched realism about genera and species and “endless bad metaphysics about unity” (198). But it was the early Russell himself who, in 1903, made every denoting phrase directly denote an existing entity and argued that “anything that can be mentioned is sure to be a term...” that has unity and in some sense exists (43). In fact, Russell was led by his pre-1905 account of denoting to frame the problem of knowledge in terms strikingly similar to our bipartite theory (see T27a): the “inmost secret of our power to deal with infinity” lies in the fact that “an infinitely complex object... can certainly not be manipulated by the human intelligence; but infinite collections, owing to the notion of denoting, can be manipulated.” Russell later eliminated (what he took to be) the Meinongian plurality of denoted beings implied by his own earlier logical realism, using his theory of descriptions as an instrument; thus the later Russell, who still maintained that “we could not acquire knowledge of absolute particulars,” came to hold that our words denote just adjectives or relations (T27b). Porphyry—and arguably many Peripatetics before him—took an analogous temperament in precisely the opposite direction. Both held, in their own way, that an ideal language would carve nature at the joints; and the semantic building blocks of Porphyry's ideal language, as I have suggested here, were rooted in a long tradition of Peripatetic thought about what Aristotle’s Categories categorize, and in particular how unity could be imposed on plurality to make sense of the world. But whereas Russell’s language ultimately aimed to talk about, and gain certainty about, a Moorean world of common sense and acquaintance, Porphyry’s categorical language aimed to talk about, and gain certainty about, the world of the Enneads and the existence of some eternal natures. Peripatetic and Porphyrian logicism was not Russell’s, and a similar interest in the ontological implications of their logical apparatus led to very different results at the dawn of analytic philosophy and at the dawn of Neoplatonism: by dispensing with several components of Aristotle’s theory of predication that Porphyry had held to be central, Russell had toppled the giant from whose shoulders Porphyry had spied (and at any rate hoped to teach his pupils to spy) Plotinus’s ontology. [conclusion p. 90-92]

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Semantics and the early peripatetic reading of the \"Categories\""},"abstract":"Through this sketch of the evidence, I hope to have suggested that there is, in any case, more to the bipartite theory than a compendious treatment or compression of the tripartite material by Porphyry, and that attention should be drawn to it as a separate and distinct layer of the tradition. I have also explored some of the ways in which both layers may be seen as predating Porphyry, while Porphyry\u2019s approach to the Categories in the shorter commentary could be seen as building on an earlier source.\r\nAs to our first mystery\u2014the role of the Categories in the harmony of Plato and Aristotle, both first-century and Neoplatonic\u2014I would like to offer a few concluding reflections on the theory itself. To be significant, a verbal expression must have an extension that qualifies as \u1f44\u03bd (Porph. In Cat. 90,30-91,12 \u2013 T17; as this passage shows, the extension might be infinite). If Busse is right to read \u1f15\u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u1f00\u03c1\u03b9\u03b8\u03bc\u1f78\u03bd \u03c3\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9 <\u1f15\u03bd> \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd (\u201ceach numerically distinct expression signifies one of the beings\u201d) around 58,5-15 (T9), I think we are not merely dealing with the Stoic view that there are \u201csomethings\u201d that do not subsist\u2014occasionally compared to Meinong's distinction of bestehen and existieren as represented by Bertrand Russell\u2014but an even stronger view, akin to Owen\u2019s positive reading of the Parmenidean maxim that \u201cwhat can be spoken and thought must exist\u201d (B2). That sort of intuition, though pre-Platonic, was always part of the Platonic tradition.\r\nPerhaps it is not so surprising, then, that we find friendly Platonist and Neopythagorean treatments in the earliest layer of the exegetical stratigraphy of the Categories, and that Porphyry should find it a suitable cornerstone around which to build later Neoplatonic ontology.\r\nThe bipartite theory that I have described looks like an extensional theory of signification\u2014as Porphyry\u2019s language in T17 might seem to suggest, the meaning of a predicate F amounts to the set of objects said to be F. We might call this kind of view nominalist, and not very much in the spirit of Platonism as we usually conceive it. But there are also examples in the Arabic tradition that draw on the Posterior Analytics for a kind of Platonic view about the existence of eternal natures.\r\nFor example (see Adamson, \u201cKnowledge of Universals\u201d), the tenth-century logician Ibn \u02bfAd\u012b maintained that (1) terms in syllogisms directly refer (have some existing extension), (2) following the Post. An., demonstrative knowledge is never of the transient, unlimited particulars, and (3) nonetheless, demonstrative knowledge occurs; from these points, he was led to maintain that there are eternal, unchanging objects of reference. If this conclusion could be referred to as essential Platonism, then as Adamson puts it, \u201cto some extent, Aristotle\u2019s own words invited the Platonizing.\u201d\r\nIt seems to me compatible with Alexander\u2019s view, if I understand his De anima rightly (especially around p. 90), that there are eternal natures that may or may not be predicated of many particulars, a view about which Sharples has also written. My suggestion here, then, is just that the interpretation of the Organon that facilitates this line of thinking goes back to a very early layer of commentary on the Categories.\r\nModern philosophy arguably also provides examples of how a theory of direct reference can inspire different flavors of almost Platonic realism, especially when the observable infinity of particular objects of acquaintance is coupled with the observed feasibility of human knowledge.\r\nBertrand Russell in 1945 criticized Porphyry\u2019s work on the Categories (which he had, I suppose, indirectly) by wielding the same weapons that had served against his interpretation of Meinong in 1904. Russell credited Porphyry\u2019s alleged misreading of Aristotle with the excessively \u201cmetaphysical\u201d temper of subsequent logic (HWP 1945:472), including entrenched realism about genera and species and \u201cendless bad metaphysics about unity\u201d (198).\r\nBut it was the early Russell himself who, in 1903, made every denoting phrase directly denote an existing entity and argued that \u201canything that can be mentioned is sure to be a term...\u201d that has unity and in some sense exists (43).\r\nIn fact, Russell was led by his pre-1905 account of denoting to frame the problem of knowledge in terms strikingly similar to our bipartite theory (see T27a): the \u201cinmost secret of our power to deal with infinity\u201d lies in the fact that \u201can infinitely complex object... can certainly not be manipulated by the human intelligence; but infinite collections, owing to the notion of denoting, can be manipulated.\u201d\r\nRussell later eliminated (what he took to be) the Meinongian plurality of denoted beings implied by his own earlier logical realism, using his theory of descriptions as an instrument; thus the later Russell, who still maintained that \u201cwe could not acquire knowledge of absolute particulars,\u201d came to hold that our words denote just adjectives or relations (T27b).\r\nPorphyry\u2014and arguably many Peripatetics before him\u2014took an analogous temperament in precisely the opposite direction. Both held, in their own way, that an ideal language would carve nature at the joints; and the semantic building blocks of Porphyry's ideal language, as I have suggested here, were rooted in a long tradition of Peripatetic thought about what Aristotle\u2019s Categories categorize, and in particular how unity could be imposed on plurality to make sense of the world.\r\nBut whereas Russell\u2019s language ultimately aimed to talk about, and gain certainty about, a Moorean world of common sense and acquaintance, Porphyry\u2019s categorical language aimed to talk about, and gain certainty about, the world of the Enneads and the existence of some eternal natures.\r\nPeripatetic and Porphyrian logicism was not Russell\u2019s, and a similar interest in the ontological implications of their logical apparatus led to very different results at the dawn of analytic philosophy and at the dawn of Neoplatonism: by dispensing with several components of Aristotle\u2019s theory of predication that Porphyry had held to be central, Russell had toppled the giant from whose shoulders Porphyry had spied (and at any rate hoped to teach his pupils to spy) Plotinus\u2019s ontology.\r\n [conclusion p. 90-92]","btype":3,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/0V3z3uBVFDC712w","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":148,"full_name":"Griffin, Michael J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1148,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies","volume":"55","issue":"1","pages":"69-108"}},"sort":[2012]}

Simplicius on Tekmeriodic Proofs, 2012
By: Harari, Orna
Title Simplicius on Tekmeriodic Proofs
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Volume 43
Pages 366-375
Categories no categories
Author(s) Harari, Orna
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this study I examine the sole detailed evidence we have for Simplicius’ view of sign-based, i.e. tekmeriodic proofs, thereby questing the widespread assumption that he espouses Phiioponus' account of these proofs. Specifically. I argue that (1) it is more plausible to understand the signs on which Simplicius bases his tekmeriodic proofs as refutable, (2) he grounds the epistemic worth of these proofs in the evidential strength of their premises rather than in their validity, (3) unlike Phiioponus, he conceives of the argu­ment that leads to the principles of natural philosophy, which tekmeriodic proofs are aimed to prove, as inductive, and (4) he evaluates these proofs against Plato’s un-hypothetical science, hence denying natural philosophy the autonomy from metaphysics that Phiioponus’ account of tekmeriodic proofs grants. [Author's abstract]

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Alexander on Physics 2.9, 2012
By: Sharples, Robert W.
Title Alexander on Physics 2.9
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
Volume 55
Issue 1
Pages 19-30
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sharples, Robert W.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
I want to draw your attention today to a report of Alexander in Simplicius’s Physics commentary which, as far as I can tell, has escaped the notice of everyone, myself included—and I have rather less excuse than most, for, as we shall see, the report connects directly with issues about which I have written in other contexts. That was concerned with On Coming-to-Be and Passing-Away [hereafter GC] 2.11, with Philoponus’s commentary thereon, and with Alexander’s discussion in some of the Quaestiones; the present paper, with Simplicius’s help, extends the discussion to Physics 2.9. Alexander’s GC commentary and the relevant part of his Physics commentary are lost. The text that will chiefly concern us is (3) (2) in the appendix, where Simplicius says: "For my part, I do not understand why Alexander says that unqualified necessity excludes what is for the sake of something." Perhaps indeed he does understand why Alexander says this, and this is a disingenuous way of introducing a problem; but the problem may be real nonetheless. If my story has a moral, it is, I suppose, that those who have an interest in Alexander should be more proactive than I confess I have myself been in looking up the later commentaries on passages of Aristotle that are of interest in the context of Alexander, in order to see whether Alexander is recorded as having had interesting comments to make. Or, if that is a counsel of perfection, I think it shows that we need a collection of the reports of Alexander by name in later Greek commentaries on the Physics, rather like Andrea Rescigno’s recent edition of the fragments of the De Caelo commentary. We already have the fragments of the Physics commentary preserved in Arabic, and the fragments in Greek identified by Marwan Rashed; there may be scope, if copyright and other issues can be overcome, for a compendium assembling all this material in the order of the passages of Aristotle commented upon. This would indeed in a way be assistance for the lazy, making nothing available that individual scholars could not find for themselves in published sources, but it might be useful nonetheless. In Physics 2.9, Aristotle continues his polemic against those who explain nature in terms of necessitating material interactions, arguing that necessity is present in all things that have goal-directedness, if I may so translate “the for-the-sake-of-something,” but that the necessity of matter is not the cause or explanation of what comes about. There is, by the way, in my view a systematic ambiguity in the terminology commonly used here; necessity can be conditional either on a future goal or on some past event, but the custom has developed of using “conditional” or “hypothetical” necessity to indicate that which relates to the future, “absolute” to indicate that which is conditional on past events—presumably because there is no longer anything hypothetical about these. But, especially in the ancient Peripatetic context where, as Patzig pointed out, qualifications attach to predicates rather than to whole propositions, this could be misleading from the point of view of logical analysis. Building a house necessarily requires bricks; but the fact that you, or the builder, purchased a pile of bricks from the builders’ merchant is not an explanation of why you now have a house. (It could be an explanation of why you have a brick house, or more strictly of why, given that you have a house, it is a brick one; but that is a different point.) To be sure, Aristotle’s argument in 2.9 is open to challenge in that he takes his examples from human goal-directed activity, and the extrapolation from these to natural processes is open to question. David Sedley well suggests that the self-building wall may be a parody of atomist cosmogony. A human being requires human flesh and human bones; but, Aristotle’s view would seem to imply, human flesh does not self-assemble into a human being—perhaps because it cannot even be human flesh, except homonymously, if it is not part of a human being. There are well-known problems here about how the final cause of embryonic development can also be the efficient cause, but I do not propose to pursue them now. For, more important in the present context, is a distinction indicated by the example I have just used. The fact that you, or the builder, purchased a pile of bricks from the builders’ merchant is not an explanation of why you now have a house. Why not? Well, presumably, because sitting looking at the pile of bricks will not give you a house; you, or the builder, need to do something with them. Bricks not only do not explain the coming-to-be of a brick house (let us call this “thesis A”); they do not necessarily lead to it, either (let us call this “thesis B”). In more formal language, they are necessary but not sufficient conditions. For the Presocratic natural philosophers whom Aristotle is attacking, on the other hand, material interactions are both sufficient conditions for, and explanations of, natural phenomena. Normally, an explanation will be a sufficient condition, or at least that one of a number of jointly sufficient conditions that is relevant in the explanatory context. Consequently, to say that material actions may necessitate, i.e., may be sufficient for, but may not explain, some event, or in the contexts with which we are concerned the coming-to-be of something, is to raise the specter of over-determination. If natural comings-to-be are necessitated by matter and its interactions—what some call “absolute” necessity—is there any room left in which to argue that they are explained by the purposes or goals for which they are necessary means? [introduction p. 19-20]

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That was concerned with On Coming-to-Be and Passing-Away [hereafter GC] 2.11, with Philoponus\u2019s commentary thereon, and with Alexander\u2019s discussion in some of the Quaestiones; the present paper, with Simplicius\u2019s help, extends the discussion to Physics 2.9. Alexander\u2019s GC commentary and the relevant part of his Physics commentary are lost. The text that will chiefly concern us is (3) (2) in the appendix, where Simplicius says:\r\n\r\n \"For my part, I do not understand why Alexander says that unqualified necessity excludes what is for the sake of something.\"\r\n\r\nPerhaps indeed he does understand why Alexander says this, and this is a disingenuous way of introducing a problem; but the problem may be real nonetheless.\r\n\r\nIf my story has a moral, it is, I suppose, that those who have an interest in Alexander should be more proactive than I confess I have myself been in looking up the later commentaries on passages of Aristotle that are of interest in the context of Alexander, in order to see whether Alexander is recorded as having had interesting comments to make. Or, if that is a counsel of perfection, I think it shows that we need a collection of the reports of Alexander by name in later Greek commentaries on the Physics, rather like Andrea Rescigno\u2019s recent edition of the fragments of the De Caelo commentary. We already have the fragments of the Physics commentary preserved in Arabic, and the fragments in Greek identified by Marwan Rashed; there may be scope, if copyright and other issues can be overcome, for a compendium assembling all this material in the order of the passages of Aristotle commented upon. This would indeed in a way be assistance for the lazy, making nothing available that individual scholars could not find for themselves in published sources, but it might be useful nonetheless.\r\n\r\nIn Physics 2.9, Aristotle continues his polemic against those who explain nature in terms of necessitating material interactions, arguing that necessity is present in all things that have goal-directedness, if I may so translate \u201cthe for-the-sake-of-something,\u201d but that the necessity of matter is not the cause or explanation of what comes about. There is, by the way, in my view a systematic ambiguity in the terminology commonly used here; necessity can be conditional either on a future goal or on some past event, but the custom has developed of using \u201cconditional\u201d or \u201chypothetical\u201d necessity to indicate that which relates to the future, \u201cabsolute\u201d to indicate that which is conditional on past events\u2014presumably because there is no longer anything hypothetical about these. But, especially in the ancient Peripatetic context where, as Patzig pointed out, qualifications attach to predicates rather than to whole propositions, this could be misleading from the point of view of logical analysis.\r\n\r\nBuilding a house necessarily requires bricks; but the fact that you, or the builder, purchased a pile of bricks from the builders\u2019 merchant is not an explanation of why you now have a house. (It could be an explanation of why you have a brick house, or more strictly of why, given that you have a house, it is a brick one; but that is a different point.) To be sure, Aristotle\u2019s argument in 2.9 is open to challenge in that he takes his examples from human goal-directed activity, and the extrapolation from these to natural processes is open to question. David Sedley well suggests that the self-building wall may be a parody of atomist cosmogony. A human being requires human flesh and human bones; but, Aristotle\u2019s view would seem to imply, human flesh does not self-assemble into a human being\u2014perhaps because it cannot even be human flesh, except homonymously, if it is not part of a human being. There are well-known problems here about how the final cause of embryonic development can also be the efficient cause, but I do not propose to pursue them now.\r\n\r\nFor, more important in the present context, is a distinction indicated by the example I have just used. The fact that you, or the builder, purchased a pile of bricks from the builders\u2019 merchant is not an explanation of why you now have a house. Why not? Well, presumably, because sitting looking at the pile of bricks will not give you a house; you, or the builder, need to do something with them. Bricks not only do not explain the coming-to-be of a brick house (let us call this \u201cthesis A\u201d); they do not necessarily lead to it, either (let us call this \u201cthesis B\u201d). In more formal language, they are necessary but not sufficient conditions. For the Presocratic natural philosophers whom Aristotle is attacking, on the other hand, material interactions are both sufficient conditions for, and explanations of, natural phenomena.\r\n\r\nNormally, an explanation will be a sufficient condition, or at least that one of a number of jointly sufficient conditions that is relevant in the explanatory context. Consequently, to say that material actions may necessitate, i.e., may be sufficient for, but may not explain, some event, or in the contexts with which we are concerned the coming-to-be of something, is to raise the specter of over-determination. If natural comings-to-be are necessitated by matter and its interactions\u2014what some call \u201cabsolute\u201d necessity\u2014is there any room left in which to argue that they are explained by the purposes or goals for which they are necessary means?\r\n[introduction p. 19-20]","btype":3,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/RKYRiSGUGVV8cTg","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":42,"full_name":"Sharples, Robert W.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1172,"section_of":1171,"pages":"19-30","is_catalog":null,"book":null},"article":{"id":1172,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies","volume":"55","issue":"1","pages":"19-30"}},"sort":[2012]}

Intelligibles = Sinnliches? Simplikios' differenzierter Umgang mit Aristoteles' Parmenides-Kritik, 2012
By: Drews, Friedemann
Title Intelligibles = Sinnliches? Simplikios' differenzierter Umgang mit Aristoteles' Parmenides-Kritik
Type Article
Language German
Date 2012
Journal Rheinisches Museum für Philologie
Volume 155
Issue 3/4
Pages 389-412
Categories no categories
Author(s) Drews, Friedemann
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Simplikios nimmt Parmenides sowohl vor dem potentiellen Vorwurf, er würde nicht hinreichend zwischen Intelligiblem und Sinnlichem unterscheiden, in Schutz als auch integriert er Aristoteles' Kritik im Sinne einer potentiellen Missverständnissen vor beugenden Vorsichtsmaßnahme in seine neuplatonische Parmeni des-Interpretation und weist ihr so einen berechtigten Platz zu. Simplikios' Gründe dafür erscheinen vor dem Hintergrund seines neuplatonischen Denkens plausibel. Ob seine Parmenides-Interpretation als solche dem Eleaten gerecht wird, ist eine andere Frage; zumindest würde Simplikios gegenüber einer Deutung des parmenideischen Seins-Begriffs in dem Sinne, dass „jeder Gegenstand, den wir untersuchen, existieren muß", wohl einwenden wollen, dass dies einer Reduktion von Parmenides' το έόν auf ein abstraktes Erkenntniskriterium gleichkäme, dessen eigene, nur für das νοεΐν erkennbare Seinsfülle dann aus dem Blick geraten wäre. Auch erschiene es in dieser Perspektive fraglich, warum zum Erschließen eines allgemeinen Existenz-Postulats ein Weg „fernab der Menschen" eingeschlagen werden musste oder gar eine göttliche Offenbarung des „unerschütterlichen Herzens der wohlüberzeugenden Wahrheit", von der Parmenides schreibt, nötig war. [conclusion, p. 410-411]

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Self-motion according to Iamblichus, 2012
By: Opsomer, Jan
Title Self-motion according to Iamblichus
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Elenchos
Volume 33
Issue 2
Pages 259-290
Categories no categories
Author(s) Opsomer, Jan
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Iamblichus' theory of self-motion has to be pieced together from various texts and passing remarks. Ever since Aristotle's critique, Plato's concept of the self-motive soul was felt to be problematic. Taking his lead from Plotinus, Iamblichus counters Aristotle's criticism by claiming that true self-motion transcends the opposition between activity and passivity. He moreover argues that it does not involve motion that is spatially extended. Hence it is non-physical. Primary self-motion is the reversion of the soul to itself, by which the soul constitutes itself, i.e. imparts life to itself. This motion is located at the level of essence or substance. The bestowal of life upon the body derives from this fundamental motion. As a result, animals are derivatively self-motive. Secondary self-motions are acts of thought in the broad sense. Contrary to the unmoved motion of intellect, the self-motion of the soul is not beyond time. This somehow fits Iamblichus' theory of the “changing self”. Iamblichus anticipates much of the later Platonic accounts of self-motion. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1093","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1093,"authors_free":[{"id":1651,"entry_id":1093,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":211,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Opsomer, Jan","free_first_name":"Jan","free_last_name":"Opsomer","norm_person":{"id":211,"first_name":"Jan","last_name":"Opsomer","full_name":"Opsomer, Jan","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1120966310","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Self-motion according to Iamblichus","main_title":{"title":"Self-motion according to Iamblichus"},"abstract":"Iamblichus' theory of self-motion has to be pieced together from various texts and passing remarks. Ever since Aristotle's critique, Plato's concept of the self-motive soul was felt to be problematic. Taking his lead from Plotinus, Iamblichus counters Aristotle's criticism by claiming that true self-motion transcends the opposition between activity and passivity. He moreover argues that it does not involve motion that is spatially extended. Hence it is non-physical. Primary self-motion is the reversion of the soul to itself, by which the soul constitutes itself, i.e. imparts life to itself. This motion is located at the level of essence or substance. The bestowal of life upon the body derives from this fundamental motion. As a result, animals are derivatively self-motive. Secondary self-motions are acts of thought in the broad sense. Contrary to the unmoved motion of intellect, the self-motion of the soul is not beyond time. This somehow fits Iamblichus' theory of the \u201cchanging self\u201d. Iamblichus anticipates much of the later Platonic accounts of self-motion. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/1Kioea09D5a6jXo","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":211,"full_name":"Opsomer, Jan","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1093,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Elenchos","volume":"33","issue":"2","pages":"259-290"}},"sort":[2012]}

Megaric Metaphysics, 2012
By: Bailey, Dominic
Title Megaric Metaphysics
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Ancient philosophy
Volume 32
Issue 2
Pages 303-321
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bailey, Dominic
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
I have attempted to show that, with some imaginative reconstruction, there is a good deal more to Megaricism than meets the eye. While the position is doubtless false, there are nevertheless reasons for being sympathetic to its conjuncts, especially if one has, as some philosophers still do, a fetish for the actual and a perplexity about the indefinite, whether the indefiniteness of the modal or that of the non-particular. I have shown how anti-Platonism about common nouns of the kind evinced by Stilpo makes M2 seem better considered than at first. And I have shown how skepticism about possibility without actuality, from which later logicians such as Diodorus and Philo felt they could not stray too far (see Bobzien 1993, 1998), makes M1 seem better considered than at first. Moreover, I have demonstrated the impressive coherence of Megaricism, insofar as its conjuncts, as I interpret them, are both mutually entailing and, each in their ways, both Parmenidean and Protagorean. Megaricism is wrong, but sufficiently intriguing and well-integrated to make it worthy of serious consideration. [conclusion p. 320]

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Un philosophe plus poète (Simplicius, "Com. in Ar. Phys." 24, 20 / DK 12 A 9), 2012
By: Santoro, Fernando
Title Un philosophe plus poète (Simplicius, "Com. in Ar. Phys." 24, 20 / DK 12 A 9)
Type Article
Language French
Date 2012
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 30
Issue 1
Pages 3-22
Categories no categories
Author(s) Santoro, Fernando
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper is about the meaning and implications for Presocratics' modern exegesis of a comment made by Simplicius about the vocabulary of a passage from Anaximander, which he has just quoted. Simplicius says that Anaximander wrote his sentence about the nature of beings in more poetic terms: ποιητικωτέροις οὕτως ὀνόμασιν αὐτά λέγων. In their remarks on the passage, Nietzsche and Heidegger not only drew attention to the words and thought of Anaximander but also made us look at that simple comment, that "hiccup" of thought in Simplicius. What is it for a philosopher to speak in a more poetic way? We propose to understand that it does not imply the use of images or allegories but a very original way of interacting and thinking in universal terms. [author's abstract]

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What Has Aristotelian Dialectic to Offer a Neoplatonist? A Possible Sample of Iamblichus at Simplicius on the Categories 12,10-13,12, 2012
By: Griffin, Michael J.
Title What Has Aristotelian Dialectic to Offer a Neoplatonist? A Possible Sample of Iamblichus at Simplicius on the Categories 12,10-13,12
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 6
Pages 173-185
Categories no categories
Author(s) Griffin, Michael J.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Simplicius in Cat. 12,10-13,12 presents an interesting justifijication for the study of Aristotle’s Categories, based in Neoplatonic psychology and metaphysics. I suggest that this passage could be regarded as a testimonium to Iamblichus’ reasons for endorsing Porphyry’s selection of the Categories as an introductory text of Platonic philosophy. These Iamblichean arguments, richly grounded in Neoplatonic metaphysics and psychology, may have exercised an influence comparable to Porphyry’s. [authors abstract]

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“Creatio ex nihilo”: A genuinely philosophical insight derived from Plato and Aristotle? Some notes on the treatise on the Harmony between the two sages, 2012
By: Gleede, Benjamin
Title “Creatio ex nihilo”: A genuinely philosophical insight derived from Plato and Aristotle? Some notes on the treatise on the Harmony between the two sages
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Arabic Sciences and Philosophy
Volume 22
Pages 91-117
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gleede, Benjamin
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The article aims at demonstrating that in attributing the creatio ex nihilo to both Plato and Aristotle as their unanimous philosophical conviction the Treatise on the Harmony between the Two Sages deeply depends upon the Neoplatonic reading of those two philosophers. The main obstacles for such a view in the works of the two sages are Plato’s assumption of a precosmic chaos in the Timaeus and Aristotle’s denial of any efficient causality to the unmoved mover in the Metaphysics. Both of these points had been, however, done away with by the Neoplatonist commentators already, especially by Ammonius in his lost treatise on efficient and final causality in Aristotle the use of which in the Harmony is shown by a comparison with Simplicius. Christian and Muslim readers just had to transfer those arguments and hermeneutical techniques into an anti-eternalist context in order to make the two philosophers agree with one of the basic tenents of their face, a hermeneutical technique considerably different from the one employed by al-Fārābī in his exposition of Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophy which is compared to the Harmony in a briefly sketched concluding section.

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Review of Huby, Taylor 2011: Simplicius, On Aristotle Physics 1.3–4, 2012
By: Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Title Review of Huby, Taylor 2011: Simplicius, On Aristotle Physics 1.3–4
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal The Classical Review
Volume 62
Issue 2
Pages 465-467
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Thanks to the Ancient Commentators project, almost all of Simplicius' commentaries are now translated. This volume completes the gigantic On Aristotle's Physics. Within this monument, Book 1 must be the most read by scholars today because Aristotle's criticism of several physical theories leads Simplicius to multiply quotations of his forerunners and to preserve for his contemporaries (as well as for us) much Presocratic material (by Simplicius' time much of this had already become very rare: see In Phys. 144.25-9 on Parmenides). In Chapter 1.3, Aristotle discusses the unity of Being he ascribes to the Eleatic philosophers. Simplicius comments abundantly. Citing Theophrastus, Alexander, and Porphyry, he reproduces the 'Eleatic syllogism,' which affirms Being and excludes not-Being, so as to prove Parmenides' thesis that Being is one and to assert, via Plato's Sophist, that Parmenides recognizes the existence of not-Being. Moreover, he assigns this reading to Aristotle himself, considering his criticism as an expression of later conceptual and linguistic refinements. In Chapter 1.4, Aristotle discusses Anaximander, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles. Here again, Simplicius contributes to the debate by his numerous quotations and by his analysis of rival commentators (Theophrastus, Alexander, Porphyry, and Nicolaus of Damascus). He considers how Anaxagoras and Empedocles can say that their principles are both one and many. Then, confronted with Aristotle's criticism of homoiomeria and nous, he gives a non-physical reading of Anaxagoras' account, explaining that it talks figuratively about a level of reality exceeding our mental capacities. In other words, in both these chapters, he attempts to reconcile Aristotle's physics with Presocratic philosophy so as to build a coherent system from the whole pagan tradition. This volume could be said to consist of two books. Each translation is due to a different author; there are two introductions, two translations, and two selections of notes, and only the index and bibliography are in common. There are only minor differences in the style of the translations, but greater ones occur elsewhere. I shall discuss them separately. As to H.'s introduction, two things must be noted. First, she contributes to the fierce debate by proposing a stimulating hypothesis about the place where such a large commentary could have been written: discrepancies, sometimes substantial, occurring in Simplicius' treatment of his sources are the result of his having written in various places. However, they could also be explained by the difficulty at that time of keeping every useful book constantly at hand: scholars were often compelled to write from memory. Second, H. summarizes the treatment Simplicius gives of Melissus and Parmenides, moving abruptly from one episode to the other. She perfectly communicates the sometimes confusing character of Simplicius' text. Her notes provide useful documentation rather than an explanatory commentary: she mentions parallels and justifies her translation but avoids going into detail about the philosophical issues. T. opts to draw a clear map of the text, insisting on its structure and summing up its main arguments. Moreover, most of the references are given within the translation (in brackets), while end-notes (fewer but longer) are devoted to explaining the contents of and issues in Simplicius' commentary (i.e., his reading of the Presocratic fragments). The translation is remarkably successful in rendering the stylistic variations in Simplicius' text, which constantly moves from paraphrase to quotation or philosophical commentary. The Greek text largely follows H. Diels' edition (1882), sometimes as emended by later editors of the Presocratic fragments (DK inter alios). Now for some points of detail. In this Neoplatonic context, H. first suggests translating noeros as 'thinker' (and related words), 'because neither "mental" nor "intellectual" have the grammatical flexibility required' (p. 100 on In Phys. 143.18-19). Nevertheless, a little further on (p. 57 = In Phys. 147.26) she translates en tois noerois as 'in the mental area.' Another point concerns T.'s translation of Anaxagoras' vovs as 'Mind' (pp. 81-4). My intention here is not to contest this translation for interpreting Anaxagoras but to remind the reader that Simplicius must have connected this concept with his Neoplatonic vocabulary so that 'Intellect' seems a better translation. Otherwise, it becomes very problematic to translate the following: kai diakekritai oun kai hênôtai kata Anaxagoran ta eidê kai amphô dia ton noun echei. T. writes: 'In Anaxagoras' view, the kinds owe both their separation and their unity to Mind' (p. 84 = In Phys. 176.31-2); but it is difficult to exclude the likelihood that Simplicius, with his Neoplatonic background, was reading these words with reference to Intellect and Forms. H. translates to on hen men esti, polla de ouk estin as 'Being is one and not many' (p. 37 = In Phys. 126.8). Since Simplicius has just referred to the Sophist and next opposes Being to rest and motion, it would be preferable to translate as 'is not many things.' Further (p. 46 = In Phys. 135.24), H. emends a quotation from the Sophist, turning tou ontos into tou mê ontos, following Plato's manuscripts. However, the text given by Simplicius makes sense and ought not to be altered (see my Simplicius lecteur du Sophiste (2007), pp. 140-1). One could wonder why both authors have chosen, as is often done in this collection, to give the full lemmas from Aristotle's Physics, while Simplicius' manuscripts and Diels' edition give only a shortened version (i.e., 'from ... to ...'). Although it is risky to translate a text that possibly was not the one read by Simplicius, the decision should at least have been made explicit. Finally, the bibliography. On Simplicius, H. and T. refer only to two recent books: H. Baltussen, Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius (2008), and P. Golitsis, Les Commentaires de Simplicius et de Jean Philopon à la Physique d'Aristote (2008). The remainder of the short bibliography concerns the Presocratics and Aristotle. One would expect at least to find reference to a book and a paper written by A. Stevens: Postérité de l'Être. Simplicius interprète de Parménide (1989) and 'La Physique d'Empédocle selon Simplicius,' RBPh (1989), 65-74. They provide commentaries on and (partial) translations of the chapters studied here. With its English-Greek glossary, Greek-English index, subject index, and index of passages, this book is an extraordinarily useful tool for scholars. It provides an up-to-date translation of some of the richest pages about Presocratic philosophy. Now we can dream about a new edition of this commentary to replace the often misleading version of Diels. [author's abstract]

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Moreover, he assigns this reading to Aristotle himself, considering his criticism as an expression of later conceptual and linguistic refinements.\r\nIn Chapter 1.4, Aristotle discusses Anaximander, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles. Here again, Simplicius contributes to the debate by his numerous quotations and by his analysis of rival commentators (Theophrastus, Alexander, Porphyry, and Nicolaus of Damascus). He considers how Anaxagoras and Empedocles can say that their principles are both one and many. Then, confronted with Aristotle's criticism of homoiomeria and nous, he gives a non-physical reading of Anaxagoras' account, explaining that it talks figuratively about a level of reality exceeding our mental capacities. In other words, in both these chapters, he attempts to reconcile Aristotle's physics with Presocratic philosophy so as to build a coherent system from the whole pagan tradition.\r\nThis volume could be said to consist of two books. Each translation is due to a different author; there are two introductions, two translations, and two selections of notes, and only the index and bibliography are in common. There are only minor differences in the style of the translations, but greater ones occur elsewhere. I shall discuss them separately.\r\nAs to H.'s introduction, two things must be noted. First, she contributes to the fierce debate by proposing a stimulating hypothesis about the place where such a large commentary could have been written: discrepancies, sometimes substantial, occurring in Simplicius' treatment of his sources are the result of his having written in various places. However, they could also be explained by the difficulty at that time of keeping every useful book constantly at hand: scholars were often compelled to write from memory. Second, H. summarizes the treatment Simplicius gives of Melissus and Parmenides, moving abruptly from one episode to the other. She perfectly communicates the sometimes confusing character of Simplicius' text. Her notes provide useful documentation rather than an explanatory commentary: she mentions parallels and justifies her translation but avoids going into detail about the philosophical issues.\r\nT. opts to draw a clear map of the text, insisting on its structure and summing up its main arguments. Moreover, most of the references are given within the translation (in brackets), while end-notes (fewer but longer) are devoted to explaining the contents of and issues in Simplicius' commentary (i.e., his reading of the Presocratic fragments).\r\nThe translation is remarkably successful in rendering the stylistic variations in Simplicius' text, which constantly moves from paraphrase to quotation or philosophical commentary. The Greek text largely follows H. Diels' edition (1882), sometimes as emended by later editors of the Presocratic fragments (DK inter alios).\r\nNow for some points of detail. In this Neoplatonic context, H. first suggests translating noeros as 'thinker' (and related words), 'because neither \"mental\" nor \"intellectual\" have the grammatical flexibility required' (p. 100 on In Phys. 143.18-19). Nevertheless, a little further on (p. 57 = In Phys. 147.26) she translates en tois noerois as 'in the mental area.' Another point concerns T.'s translation of Anaxagoras' vovs as 'Mind' (pp. 81-4). My intention here is not to contest this translation for interpreting Anaxagoras but to remind the reader that Simplicius must have connected this concept with his Neoplatonic vocabulary so that 'Intellect' seems a better translation. Otherwise, it becomes very problematic to translate the following: kai diakekritai oun kai h\u00ean\u00f4tai kata Anaxagoran ta eid\u00ea kai amph\u00f4 dia ton noun echei. T. writes: 'In Anaxagoras' view, the kinds owe both their separation and their unity to Mind' (p. 84 = In Phys. 176.31-2); but it is difficult to exclude the likelihood that Simplicius, with his Neoplatonic background, was reading these words with reference to Intellect and Forms.\r\nH. translates to on hen men esti, polla de ouk estin as 'Being is one and not many' (p. 37 = In Phys. 126.8). Since Simplicius has just referred to the Sophist and next opposes Being to rest and motion, it would be preferable to translate as 'is not many things.' Further (p. 46 = In Phys. 135.24), H. emends a quotation from the Sophist, turning tou ontos into tou m\u00ea ontos, following Plato's manuscripts. However, the text given by Simplicius makes sense and ought not to be altered (see my Simplicius lecteur du Sophiste (2007), pp. 140-1).\r\nOne could wonder why both authors have chosen, as is often done in this collection, to give the full lemmas from Aristotle's Physics, while Simplicius' manuscripts and Diels' edition give only a shortened version (i.e., 'from ... to ...'). Although it is risky to translate a text that possibly was not the one read by Simplicius, the decision should at least have been made explicit.\r\nFinally, the bibliography. On Simplicius, H. and T. refer only to two recent books: H. Baltussen, Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius (2008), and P. Golitsis, Les Commentaires de Simplicius et de Jean Philopon \u00e0 la Physique d'Aristote (2008). The remainder of the short bibliography concerns the Presocratics and Aristotle. One would expect at least to find reference to a book and a paper written by A. Stevens: Post\u00e9rit\u00e9 de l'\u00catre. Simplicius interpr\u00e8te de Parm\u00e9nide (1989) and 'La Physique d'Emp\u00e9docle selon Simplicius,' RBPh (1989), 65-74. They provide commentaries on and (partial) translations of the chapters studied here.\r\nWith its English-Greek glossary, Greek-English index, subject index, and index of passages, this book is an extraordinarily useful tool for scholars. It provides an up-to-date translation of some of the richest pages about Presocratic philosophy. Now we can dream about a new edition of this commentary to replace the often misleading version of Diels.\r\n[author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/fltNdJ3NAIOLUAG","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":125,"full_name":"Gavray, Marc-Antoine","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1465,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical Review","volume":"62","issue":"2","pages":"465-467"}},"sort":[2012]}

Zu Aristoteles’ Rezeption der vorsokratischen Prinzipienlehren (Ph. I 4, 187 a 12-26). Teil 2 (Themistios, Philoponos, Simplikios), 2012
By: Marcinkowska-Rosół, Maria
Title Zu Aristoteles’ Rezeption der vorsokratischen Prinzipienlehren (Ph. I 4, 187 a 12-26). Teil 2 (Themistios, Philoponos, Simplikios)
Type Article
Language German
Date 2012
Journal EOS
Volume 99
Pages 67-89
Categories no categories
Author(s) Marcinkowska-Rosół, Maria
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The paper presents an examination of the Aristotelian classification of the natural philosophers in Ph. I 4, 187 a 12-26. It focuses on the exgesis of this passage found in the commentarys on the Physics by Themsitios (In Ph. 5,2. 13. 9-28), Philoponus (In Ph. 86. 19-94. 16) and Simplicius (In Ph. 148. 25-161. 20). The ancient interpretations are discussed, evaluated and compared with the modern readings of the Aristotelian text. [author's abstract]

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Doctrine, Anecdote, and Action: Reconsidering the Social History of the Last Platonists (c. 430–c. 550 C.E.), 2011
By: Watts, Edward Jay
Title Doctrine, Anecdote, and Action: Reconsidering the Social History of the Last Platonists (c. 430–c. 550 C.E.)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2011
Journal Classical Philology
Volume 106
Issue 3
Pages 226-244
Categories no categories
Author(s) Watts, Edward Jay
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Two Parallel narratives have tended to dominate modern recon- structions of the final century and a half of Platonism’s long ancient history. The first ties the dramatic intersection of pagan-Christian conflict, imperial policy, and philosophical principles to the end of Platonic teaching in the Eastern Roman Empire. 1 A second, distinct narrative analyzes Latin philosophical writings and traces the gradual unraveling of the ties that bound Latin philosophical culture and its Greek counterpart. 2 Each of these narratives has its own unique way of viewing and understanding Platonism. The first story culminates with the emperor Justinian’s closing of the Athe- nian Platonic school. It tends to present the affected philosophers as a small, isolated group of pagan intellectuals whose conflict with an increasingly as- sertive Christian political order pushed them to the empire’s margins. The second narrative ends with Boethius and Cassiodorus and stresses how their philosophical efforts both underlined Graeco-Latin philosophical separation and planted the seeds of medieval scholasticism. It sees Platonism primarily as a movement held together by scholastic practices and doctrinal continuities in which Latin writers participated only at some remove. This paper proposes a different, more expansive way to think about late antique philosophical life. Ancient philosophical culture was not defined ex- clusively by religious concerns and doctrinal ties. Beginning with the Old Academy of Xenocrates, Platonists shaped themselves into an intellectual community held together by doctrinal commonalities, a shared history, and defined personal relationships. 3 As the Hellenistic world developed and Platonism spread beyond its Athenian center, doctrine, history, and social ties stopped being conterminous. Platonists remained connected by a shared intellectual genealogy, but Platonism’s social and doctrinal aspects became decentralized as individual schools with their own interests grew up in vari- ous cities. 4 Although no direct institutional connection joined them to the Academy, late antique Platonists saw themselves as part of an old philosophi- cal lineage that reached back to Plato. 5 In their schools, the history of an individual circle’s past mingled with that of the larger intellectual tradition it claimed to have inherited. This amalgamated tradition was handed down from teachers to students in personal conversations that had a number of important, community-building effects. They attracted students to Platonic philosophy, encouraged them to identify with the movement’s past leaders, and influ- enced their ideas and actions once they joined a specific group. As this paper will show, the Platonic circles that these men and women formed were then defined as much by the relationships they formed and by the behaviors they exhibited as by the doctrines they espoused. [introduction p. 226-227]

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OMOΣE XΩΡEIN: Simplicius, Corollarium de loco 601.26–8 (Diels), 2011
By: Gregoric, Pavel, Helmig, Christoph
Title OMOΣE XΩΡEIN: Simplicius, Corollarium de loco 601.26–8 (Diels)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2011
Journal Classical Quarterly
Volume 61
Issue 2
Pages 722-730
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gregoric, Pavel , Helmig, Christoph
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The upshot of this article is that the treatment of the phrase ὁμόσε χωρεῖν in LSJ can be supplemented as far as later (Neoplatonic) authors are concerned. We have seen that the translation ‘to come to issue’ for the metaphorical meaning of the phrase is ambiguous and needs to be qualified according to the context. While the expression usually betrays an adversative connotation – to counter or refute an argument – later (Neoplatonic) authors also used it in a more neutral sense (‘to come to grips with an argument’). More to the point, the phrase can also have a concessive connotation, implying a concession or acceptance. It is precisely this latter connotation that we find in Simplicius’ Corollary on Place 601.26–8. [conclusion, p. 730]

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Confronter les Idées. Un exemple de conciliation litigieuse chez Simplicius, 2011
By: Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Title Confronter les Idées. Un exemple de conciliation litigieuse chez Simplicius
Type Article
Language French
Date 2011
Journal Études platoniciennes
Volume 8
Pages 145-160
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Dans ce lemme, Simplicius n’emploie pas la méthode à laquelle il recourt habituellement pour concilier des doctrines. Entre Aristote et Platon, le problème ne provient pas d’une différence d'expression (lexis), derrière laquelle le sens fondamental (nous) serait identique. Chacun ne parle pas d’un problème semblable en des termes différents, pas plus que chacun ne traite d’une question différente mais en recourant à des termes similaires. Sans être formulée ici par Simplicius de façon explicite, la divergence apparaît à la première lecture : lorsqu’Aristote s’en prend à la doctrine des Idées, il ne peut pas, d’une certaine façon, viser le divin Platon, qui fut le premier à la soutenir. D’emblée, Simplicius élude le problème en redirigeant l’attaque contre d’autres adversaires. Concilier impose en effet de comprendre tout d’abord la véritable cible de l’objection, avant qu’il devienne possible d’en mesurer l’apport à l’égard de la doctrine générale des Idées. La conciliation des doctrines au cœur de l’exégèse d’Aristote suit un parcours précis. Dans un premier temps, Simplicius propose une lecture littérale de la Physique, expliquant chacun des arguments contenus dans le lemme. Toutefois, de façon surprenante pour nous, il souligne une tournure qui va lui permettre de retourner la position d’Aristote contre elle-même : en faire non plus un adversaire de la théorie des Idées séparées, mais l’auteur d’un critère de validité de la séparation. Dans un deuxième temps, notre exégète s’emploie à montrer la teneur authentiquement aristotélicienne de cette doctrine des Idées séparées. Il isole d’abord les caractères reconnus aux Idées, avant de démontrer qu’ils sont admis au sein même de la pensée d’Aristote. De plus, étant donné que l’enjeu de la tentative de conciliation consiste à trouver chez Aristote la double caractérisation des Idées que leur attribuent leurs partisans – être à la fois des causes et des modèles semblables pour les réalités naturelles –, il répertorie les passages du corpus aristotelicum qui abondent dans ce sens, les combine et insère des éléments provenant de la tradition néoplatonicienne. Enfin, il utilise la critique pour poser une limite claire au sein de la nature entre les réalités qui admettent des Formes séparées et celles qui n’en admettent pas. Comme souvent chez Simplicius, l’examen aboutit à l’énoncé d’un critère net et précis. Il doit permettre ici de démarquer l’homonymie vulgaire des Idées de l’éponymie légitime. La première résulte d’un dépouillement de la forme en dehors de la matière, mais qui continue à raisonner à partir d’ici-bas : elle cherche des Idées séparées pour des formes naturelles qui ne peuvent jamais être complètement abstraites de la matière à laquelle elles sont liées. La seconde reconnaît que certains noms sont propres aux composés ici-bas et, par conséquent, ne correspondent à aucune réalité là-bas. En revanche, elle pose des Idées, à la fois causes et modèles des composés ici-bas, qui possèdent une subsistance séparée. Si le travail exégétique de Simplicius ne brille pas toujours par son génie philosophique, il s’emploie à chercher des solutions à certains des problèmes les plus complexes de la tradition platonicienne. Comme souvent, la solution qu’il propose, en dépit du bricolage doctrinal sur lequel elle se fonde, lève la difficulté d’une façon nette et précise. Il offre une nouvelle fois aux commentateurs que nous sommes une leçon à méditer. [conclusion p. 159-160]

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Entre Aristote et Platon, le probl\u00e8me ne provient pas d\u2019une diff\u00e9rence d'expression (lexis), derri\u00e8re laquelle le sens fondamental (nous) serait identique. Chacun ne parle pas d\u2019un probl\u00e8me semblable en des termes diff\u00e9rents, pas plus que chacun ne traite d\u2019une question diff\u00e9rente mais en recourant \u00e0 des termes similaires. Sans \u00eatre formul\u00e9e ici par Simplicius de fa\u00e7on explicite, la divergence appara\u00eet \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re lecture : lorsqu\u2019Aristote s\u2019en prend \u00e0 la doctrine des Id\u00e9es, il ne peut pas, d\u2019une certaine fa\u00e7on, viser le divin Platon, qui fut le premier \u00e0 la soutenir. D\u2019embl\u00e9e, Simplicius \u00e9lude le probl\u00e8me en redirigeant l\u2019attaque contre d\u2019autres adversaires. Concilier impose en effet de comprendre tout d\u2019abord la v\u00e9ritable cible de l\u2019objection, avant qu\u2019il devienne possible d\u2019en mesurer l\u2019apport \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9gard de la doctrine g\u00e9n\u00e9rale des Id\u00e9es.\r\n\r\nLa conciliation des doctrines au c\u0153ur de l\u2019ex\u00e9g\u00e8se d\u2019Aristote suit un parcours pr\u00e9cis. Dans un premier temps, Simplicius propose une lecture litt\u00e9rale de la Physique, expliquant chacun des arguments contenus dans le lemme. Toutefois, de fa\u00e7on surprenante pour nous, il souligne une tournure qui va lui permettre de retourner la position d\u2019Aristote contre elle-m\u00eame : en faire non plus un adversaire de la th\u00e9orie des Id\u00e9es s\u00e9par\u00e9es, mais l\u2019auteur d\u2019un crit\u00e8re de validit\u00e9 de la s\u00e9paration. Dans un deuxi\u00e8me temps, notre ex\u00e9g\u00e8te s\u2019emploie \u00e0 montrer la teneur authentiquement aristot\u00e9licienne de cette doctrine des Id\u00e9es s\u00e9par\u00e9es. Il isole d\u2019abord les caract\u00e8res reconnus aux Id\u00e9es, avant de d\u00e9montrer qu\u2019ils sont admis au sein m\u00eame de la pens\u00e9e d\u2019Aristote. De plus, \u00e9tant donn\u00e9 que l\u2019enjeu de la tentative de conciliation consiste \u00e0 trouver chez Aristote la double caract\u00e9risation des Id\u00e9es que leur attribuent leurs partisans \u2013 \u00eatre \u00e0 la fois des causes et des mod\u00e8les semblables pour les r\u00e9alit\u00e9s naturelles \u2013, il r\u00e9pertorie les passages du corpus aristotelicum qui abondent dans ce sens, les combine et ins\u00e8re des \u00e9l\u00e9ments provenant de la tradition n\u00e9oplatonicienne. Enfin, il utilise la critique pour poser une limite claire au sein de la nature entre les r\u00e9alit\u00e9s qui admettent des Formes s\u00e9par\u00e9es et celles qui n\u2019en admettent pas.\r\n\r\nComme souvent chez Simplicius, l\u2019examen aboutit \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9nonc\u00e9 d\u2019un crit\u00e8re net et pr\u00e9cis. Il doit permettre ici de d\u00e9marquer l\u2019homonymie vulgaire des Id\u00e9es de l\u2019\u00e9ponymie l\u00e9gitime. La premi\u00e8re r\u00e9sulte d\u2019un d\u00e9pouillement de la forme en dehors de la mati\u00e8re, mais qui continue \u00e0 raisonner \u00e0 partir d\u2019ici-bas : elle cherche des Id\u00e9es s\u00e9par\u00e9es pour des formes naturelles qui ne peuvent jamais \u00eatre compl\u00e8tement abstraites de la mati\u00e8re \u00e0 laquelle elles sont li\u00e9es. La seconde reconna\u00eet que certains noms sont propres aux compos\u00e9s ici-bas et, par cons\u00e9quent, ne correspondent \u00e0 aucune r\u00e9alit\u00e9 l\u00e0-bas. En revanche, elle pose des Id\u00e9es, \u00e0 la fois causes et mod\u00e8les des compos\u00e9s ici-bas, qui poss\u00e8dent une subsistance s\u00e9par\u00e9e.\r\n\r\nSi le travail ex\u00e9g\u00e9tique de Simplicius ne brille pas toujours par son g\u00e9nie philosophique, il s\u2019emploie \u00e0 chercher des solutions \u00e0 certains des probl\u00e8mes les plus complexes de la tradition platonicienne. Comme souvent, la solution qu\u2019il propose, en d\u00e9pit du bricolage doctrinal sur lequel elle se fonde, l\u00e8ve la difficult\u00e9 d\u2019une fa\u00e7on nette et pr\u00e9cise. Il offre une nouvelle fois aux commentateurs que nous sommes une le\u00e7on \u00e0 m\u00e9diter. [conclusion p. 159-160]","btype":3,"date":"2011","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/ihW4uaycr2RFg3O","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":125,"full_name":"Gavray, Marc-Antoine","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1313,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"\u00c9tudes platoniciennes","volume":"8","issue":"","pages":"145-160"}},"sort":[2011]}

Archytas lu par Simplicius. Un art de la conciliation, 2011
By: Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Title Archytas lu par Simplicius. Un art de la conciliation
Type Article
Language French
Date 2011
Journal The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 5
Issue 1
Pages 85-158
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Intent upon harmonizing doctrines of their predecessors, some Neoplatonic com-mentators are faced with a problem of resolving doctrinal discrepancies so as to restore the συμφωνία in the history of philosophy. This article considers a parti-cular example of this attempt ats harmonization: how Simplicius reconciles Aris-totle’s Categories with the Neopythagorean doctrine of the Pseudo-Archytas. The chronological inversion introduced by the counterfeiter produces remarkable effects on the late Platonic doctrine about general terms, to the extent that a commentator such as Simplicius works to reduce the dissonance between Archytas’ and Aristotle’s words. This paper has three aims: to restore the general grid that Simplicius uses for reading and commenting on Archytas through Aristotle; to identify the exegeti-cal strategies aimed at a doctrinal reconciliation; to consider a specific case, pro-vided by the doctrine of weight, which engenders a new physical theory by Simplicius. [Author's abstract]

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Discussions on the Eternity of the world in Late Antiquity, 2011
By: Chase, Michael
Title Discussions on the Eternity of the world in Late Antiquity
Type Article
Language English
Date 2011
Journal ΣΧΟΛΗ. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition
Volume 5
Issue 2
Pages 111-173
Categories no categories
Author(s) Chase, Michael
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This article studies the debate between the Neoplatonist philosophers Simplicius and John Philoponus on the question of the eternity of the world. The first part consists in a historical introduction situating their debate within the context of the conflict between Christians and Pa- gan in the Byzantine Empire of the first half of the sixth century. Particular attention is paid to the attitudes of these two thinkers to Aristotle's attempted proofs of the eternity of motion and time in Physics 8.1. The second part traces the origins, structure and function of a particular argument used by Philoponus to argue for the world's creation within time. Philoponus takes advantage of a tension inherent in Aristotle's theory of motion, between his standard view that all motion and change is continuous and takes place in time, and his occasional admission that at least some kinds of motion and change are instantaneous. For Philoponus, God's creation of the world is precisely such an instantaneous change: it is not a motion on the part of the Creator, but is analo- gous to the activation of a state (hexis), which is timeless and implies no change on the part of the agent. The various transformations of this doctrine at the hands of Peripatetic, Neoplatonic, and Islamic commentators are studied (Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, al-Kindi, al-Farabi), as is Philoponus' use of it in his debate against Proclus. [author's abstract]

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Parmenides B8.38 and Cornford’s Fragment, 2010
By: McKirahan, Richard D.
Title Parmenides B8.38 and Cornford’s Fragment
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal Ancient Philosophy
Volume 30
Issue 1
Pages 1-14
Categories no categories
Author(s) McKirahan, Richard D.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Having established the attributes of τὸ ἐόν in a series of arguments that end at B8.33, in the following eight lines Parmenides goes on to explore implications of his earlier claim that ‘you cannot know what is not...nor can you declare it’ (B2.7-8) in the light of the results obtained so far in B8. He begins by stating (B8.34) that ‘what is to be thought of is the same as that on account of which the thought is’ and goes on to give an argument for that claim (B8.35-38a). He then (B8.38b-41) states as a consequence of the claim, that ‘it (that is, τὸ ἐόν) has been named all things that mortals, persuaded that they are real, have posited both to be generated and to perish, both to be and not, and to change place and alter bright color’. His treatment of these issues, which concern the relations among reality, thought, and language, is one of the most philosophically important parts of his work; it is arguably the very heart of his philosophy. It is also one of the most obscure. The philosophical difficulties are compounded by the facts that the Greek text is uncertain and its grammatical structure is hard to make out. One of the principal issues in dispute is the relation between a line quoted in two ancient sources (Plato’s Theaetetus and a commentary on that work by an unknown author) and B8.38. Do those sources contain the true version of B8.38, an incorrect version of that line—a misquotation of the true version, or an altogether different line? B8.38 is a pivotal line in the passage B8.34-41; as indicated above, I believe that it contains the end of the first part of the passage and the beginning of the second, although it is commonly understood differently. The first step towards understanding the passage is to establish the text of B8.38. Ideally such a text would have substantial support in the ancient sources, it would be a line of the dactylic hexameter verse in which Parmenides wrote, it would make grammatical sense, it would give a good philosophical sense in the place where it occurs, it would suit Parmenides’ manner of presenting his ideas and arguments, and it would make sense in relation to the rest of his philosophy. In part I, I survey the evidence for B8.38 and argue that if the version reported by Plato and his commentator is accepted as a separate fragment, then one of the metrically acceptable versions of the line preserved in the manuscripts of Simplicius is more strongly supported than has previously been thought and, in fact, from this point of view it becomes the leading candidate. In part II, I argue that this version can be read in a way that is philologically unobjectionable, and I propose a way of reading it that fits well with its context, is characteristic of Parmenides’ philosophical style, and gives at least as good philosophical sense as previous construals do. I also defend my interpretation against recent claims by Kingsley, Vlastos, and Mourelatos. Finally, in part III, I take up the question of Cornford’s fragment (as the line quoted by Plato and his commentator is known). I boost the alleged fragment’s claim to authenticity by proposing a new way to understand the text that makes the line metrically and philologically unobjectionable and presenting two ways of construing it that make philosophical sense and make claims that do not repeat what Parmenides says elsewhere but accord well with his views. [introduction p. 1-2]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"989","_score":null,"_source":{"id":989,"authors_free":[{"id":1490,"entry_id":989,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":253,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"McKirahan, Richard D.","free_first_name":"Richard D.","free_last_name":"McKirahan","norm_person":{"id":253,"first_name":"Richard D.","last_name":"McKirahan","full_name":"McKirahan, Richard D.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/131702254","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Parmenides B8.38 and Cornford\u2019s Fragment","main_title":{"title":"Parmenides B8.38 and Cornford\u2019s Fragment"},"abstract":"Having established the attributes of \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f10\u03cc\u03bd in a series of arguments that end at B8.33, in the following eight lines Parmenides goes on to explore implications of his earlier claim that \u2018you cannot know what is not...nor can you declare it\u2019 (B2.7-8) in the light of the results obtained so far in B8. He begins by stating (B8.34) that \u2018what is to be thought of is the same as that on account of which the thought is\u2019 and goes on to give an argument for that claim (B8.35-38a). He then (B8.38b-41) states as a consequence of the claim, that \u2018it (that is, \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f10\u03cc\u03bd) has been named all things that mortals, persuaded that they are real, have posited both to be generated and to perish, both to be and not, and to change place and alter bright color\u2019. His treatment of these issues, which concern the relations among reality, thought, and language, is one of the most philosophically important parts of his work; it is arguably the very heart of his philosophy. It is also one of the most obscure. The philosophical difficulties are compounded by the facts that the Greek text is uncertain and its grammatical structure is hard to make out.\r\n\r\nOne of the principal issues in dispute is the relation between a line quoted in two ancient sources (Plato\u2019s Theaetetus and a commentary on that work by an unknown author) and B8.38. Do those sources contain the true version of B8.38, an incorrect version of that line\u2014a misquotation of the true version, or an altogether different line? B8.38 is a pivotal line in the passage B8.34-41; as indicated above, I believe that it contains the end of the first part of the passage and the beginning of the second, although it is commonly understood differently.\r\n\r\nThe first step towards understanding the passage is to establish the text of B8.38. Ideally such a text would have substantial support in the ancient sources, it would be a line of the dactylic hexameter verse in which Parmenides wrote, it would make grammatical sense, it would give a good philosophical sense in the place where it occurs, it would suit Parmenides\u2019 manner of presenting his ideas and arguments, and it would make sense in relation to the rest of his philosophy.\r\n\r\nIn part I, I survey the evidence for B8.38 and argue that if the version reported by Plato and his commentator is accepted as a separate fragment, then one of the metrically acceptable versions of the line preserved in the manuscripts of Simplicius is more strongly supported than has previously been thought and, in fact, from this point of view it becomes the leading candidate. In part II, I argue that this version can be read in a way that is philologically unobjectionable, and I propose a way of reading it that fits well with its context, is characteristic of Parmenides\u2019 philosophical style, and gives at least as good philosophical sense as previous construals do. I also defend my interpretation against recent claims by Kingsley, Vlastos, and Mourelatos.\r\n\r\nFinally, in part III, I take up the question of Cornford\u2019s fragment (as the line quoted by Plato and his commentator is known). I boost the alleged fragment\u2019s claim to authenticity by proposing a new way to understand the text that makes the line metrically and philologically unobjectionable and presenting two ways of construing it that make philosophical sense and make claims that do not repeat what Parmenides says elsewhere but accord well with his views. [introduction p. 1-2]","btype":3,"date":"2010","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/SqC5oF6JPgbuN3v","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":253,"full_name":"McKirahan, Richard D.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":989,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Ancient Philosophy","volume":"30","issue":"1","pages":"1-14"}},"sort":[2010]}

Cosmología, cosmogonía y teogonía en el poema de Parménides, 2010
By: Bredlow, Luis-Andrés
Title Cosmología, cosmogonía y teogonía en el poema de Parménides
Type Article
Language Spanish
Date 2010
Journal Emerita: Revista de Lingüística y Filología Clasíca
Volume 78
Issue 2
Pages 275-297
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bredlow, Luis-Andrés
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The aim of this paper is to offer a fresh reconstruction of Parmenides’ system of the physical world, duly distinguishing the cosmological, cosmogonic and theogonic moments of the theory, whose confusion has been a main source of misunderstanding in earlier interpretations. In particular, the system of wreaths or bands of B 12 and A 37 does not represent the present order of the universe, but the general structure of matter, as well as the initial stage of the cosmogony (section 1), as can be substantiated also from Simplicius’ reading of the fragments (section 2). This distinction will allow a tentative reconstruction of Parmenides’ cosmogony (section 3) and cosmology, whose most striking feature is the position of the fixed stars below the sun and the moon, paralleled in Anaximander and – as I will try to show – in the cosmology of the orphic Derveni Papyrus (section 4). [author's abstract]

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I "Cadaveri" di Eraclito (Fr. 96 D.-K.) e la Polemica Neoplatonica di Simplicio, 2010
By: Saudelli, Lucia
Title I "Cadaveri" di Eraclito (Fr. 96 D.-K.) e la Polemica Neoplatonica di Simplicio
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2010
Journal Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica
Volume 96
Issue 3
Pages 127-137
Categories no categories
Author(s) Saudelli, Lucia
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This article focuses on an unpublished allusion to Heraclitus' fragment 96 D.-K. After an analytic study of the ancient preserved testimonia, I have presented the evidence of the Neoplatonist Simplicius, who uses Heraclitus' dictum about corpses in his personal polemic against Christianity. Then I have tried to explain the probable original signification of Heraclitus' fragment in comparison with other Presocratic texts and according to the Ionian philosophical and religious background of the 5th century B.C. [Author’s abstract]

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Did Theophrastus Reject Aristotle's Account of Place?, 2010
By: Morison, Benjamin
Title Did Theophrastus Reject Aristotle's Account of Place?
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal Phronesis
Volume 55
Issue 1
Pages 68-103
Categories no categories
Author(s) Morison, Benjamin
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
It is commonly held that Theophrastus criticized or rejected Aristotle's account of place. The evidence that scholars put forward for this view, from Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics, comes in two parts: (1) Simplicius reports some aporiai that Theophras tus found for Aristotle's account; (2) Simplicius cites a passage of Theophrastus which is said to 'bear witness' to the theory of place which Simplicius himself adopts (that of his teacher Damascius) - a theory which is utterly different from Aristotle's. But the aporiai have relatively straightforward solutions, and we have no reason to suppose that Theophras tus didn't avail himself of them (and some reason to think that he did). Moreover, the text which Simplicius cites as bearing witness to Damascius' view on closer inspection does not seem to be inconsistent with Aristotle's account of place or natural motion. [author's abstract]

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Simplicius and the Subversion of Authority, 2010
By: Baltussen, Han
Title Simplicius and the Subversion of Authority
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal Antiquorum Philosophial
Volume 3
Pages 121-136
Categories no categories
Author(s) Baltussen, Han
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this paper, I have made the case for the position that Simplicius is more independent as a philosophical writer than modern scholarship has allowed. As soon as he became used as a source for Presocratic philosophy, attention was deflected from his own contributions to the philosophical debate. In broad terms, Simplicius remains loyal to his teachers, but it would be wrong to see him as a mindless copyist or a slavish collector of doxai. This means that there is room for changing our view of him. Late Platonism may have formed a united front, but this does not preclude critical reading and assessment of previous views and disagreements among themselves. I have attempted to illustrate the extent to which Simplicius found fault with and criticized his fellow Platonists and other commentators. That this was not always done by head-on confrontation may be explained by the historical situation he found himself in: firstly, he had to cope with an immensely learned and copious tradition, a task which he took on with considerable courage and resourcefulness; secondly, he was forced to choose a defensive line of argument with respect to the presentation of pagan philosophy in a world that had been taken over by Christianity. This circumstance contributed importantly to his predicament and the ensuing strategy. As I concluded in my summing up of his methodology: "In trying to defend the Platonist point of view in contradistinction to the Christian outlook, he uses polemic to persuade and refute, and comprehensive exegesis to clarify and proselytize." The extent to which he is seen to dissent would need further confirmation, but the preliminary evidence suggests that it is in proportion to the difficult balancing act forced upon him by his historical position. Philosophically, he is a seventh-generation Platonist since Plotinus taught his new doctrine, and ideologically, he finds himself "surrounded" by an increasingly hostile world. Given the sheer amount of material canvassed and processed, it is a miracle he managed to express a personal view at all. As the works stand, he does so cautiously and judiciously. In his modus operandi, he comes close to the ideal commentator outlined in In Cat. 7.23–32, with the added bonus that he offers quotations to support his arguments. A partial explanation for his "cautious" comments, offered as muted disagreement, could be that criticizing fellow Platonists too strongly might weaken one’s overall position. A final peculiarity also hints at his ability to take a more objective stance: Simplicius occasionally adopts a detached view of the Platonists, referring to them as "the Platonists do this or that," as if he were not to be counted among them. This coincides with his unusually comprehensive scope of source analysis, an approach which was bound to produce tensions and hence difficulties in presenting a unified picture of the philosophical tradition, whether it was meant to be Greek (a wide perspective) or Platonist (a narrow perspective). It can be concluded, therefore, that respect for authority can go hand in hand with criticism and dissent in Simplicius, without jeopardizing the fundamental tenets of Platonism. [conclusion p. 133]

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Simplicius on the "Theaetetus" ("In Physica" 17,38-18,23 Diels), 2010
By: Menn, Stephen
Title Simplicius on the "Theaetetus" ("In Physica" 17,38-18,23 Diels)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal Phronesis
Volume 55
Issue 3
Pages 255-270
Categories no categories
Author(s) Menn, Stephen
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Aristotle in Physics 1,1 says some strange-sounding things about how we come to know wholes and parts, universals and particulars. In explicating these, Simplicius distinguishes an initial rough cognition of a thing as a whole, an intermediate "cognition according to the definition and through the elements," and a final cognition of how the thing's many elements are united: only this last is ἐπιστήμη. Simplicius refers to the Theaetetus for the point about what is needed for ἐπιστήμη and the ways that cognition according to the definition and through the elements falls short. By unpacking this reference I try to recon struct Simplicius' reading of "Socrates' Dream," its place in the Theaetetus larger argument, and its harmony with other Platonic and Aristotelian texts. But this reconstruction depends on undoing some catastrophic emendations in Diels's text of Simplicius. Diels's emendations arise from his assumptions about definitions and elements, in Socrates' Dream and elsewhere, and rethinking the Simplicius passage may help us rethink those assumptions. [author's abstract]

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Review of: Baltussen: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator, 2010
By: Menn, Stephen
Title Review of: Baltussen: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal The Classical World
Volume 104
Issue 1
Pages 117-118
Categories no categories
Author(s) Menn, Stephen
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Most people who have heard of Simplicius know two things about him: he was a very learned man who included many quotations and reports of others' views in his writing, thus becoming one of our main sources for the pre-Socratics; but, unfortunately, he was a Neoplatonist, and his testimony is therefore to some degree suspect. So Simplicius has been studied more for the sake of assessing testimony about earlier philosophers than for his own sake; this is the first full-scale monograph on Simplicius in English, although virtually simultaneous with Pantelis Golitsis' Les commentaires de Simplicius et de Jean Philopon à la "Physique" d'Aristote: tradition et innovation (Berlin, 2008). Simplicius, however, is not so neglected or undervalued as this might suggest: his projects of harmonizing Plato and Aristotle (and sometimes other philosophers), and of defending pagan philosophy against Christian attacks (leading to his polemics against Philoponus), have been much studied both by Anglophone scholars around Richard Sorabji and by Francophone scholars around Ilsetraut Hadot and Philippe Hoffmann. "Neoplatonist" is no longer an insult, and it now seems normal that in later antiquity reading and commenting on Plato and Aristotle should also be a way of doing philosophy. If Simplicius' religious and harmonistic aims, and his scholarly methods, are not ours, we are interested in alternatives to our own way of doing things. But we have lacked a systematic study of Simplicius' methods in his commentaries, and of his strategies for using authors besides Plato and Aristotle (not just the pre-Socratics, but also Theophrastus and Eudemus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Porphyry, and Proclus and his school, whom Baltussen discusses in turn). Baltussen's aims are laudable, but his book is not a safe guide; Golitsis, while not comprehensive, is much better. Baltussen pursues some good questions: why does Simplicius quote so much (just to save the texts from the wave of Christian barbarism?), what are his sources, and how does he handle so much information? (Actually, Simplicius discusses no more writers than Proclus, but he cites verbatim much more, and tries to go beyond secondary sources.) Baltussen needlessly defends Simplicius against the bizarre idea that he knew the pre-Socratics only through Alexander of Aphrodisias. However, it is true that Simplicius sometimes uses secondary sources, and also that Alexander was very important for him. Baltussen says that "overall Simplicius considered [Alexander a] reliable guide and interpreter... Disagreement is expressed in muted form and head-on confrontation is rare" (192). This both understates and overstates Simplicius' relation to Alexander and misses his method as a commentator. Simplicius' Physics and De Caelo commentaries are in effect metacommentaries on Alexander's lost commentaries (his Categories commentary starts instead from Porphyry and Iamblichus). One important hermeneutic principle for Simplicius is that each treatise must have a single primary object (skopos), such that everything else it discusses is discussed on account of some relation to that object. Baltussen discusses this principle but misleadingly. On p. 117, he has Simplicius attribute to Alexander (top of the page) the view that the skopos of the De Caelo is the world, and (lower down) the view that it is the four elements; attribute to Iamblichus the view that it is the universe; and Simplicius himself endorse the view that it is "both the universe... and the four elements." In fact, Simplicius attributes to Iamblichus the view that it is only the fifth (heavenly) body, and to Alexander the view that it is both the world and the five simple bodies. Simplicius himself says that the skopos is just the five simple bodies. The mistake is particularly serious because Baltussen suggests that Simplicius does not really make up his mind and opts for plural skopoi, when Simplicius emphatically insists that each treatise must have a single skopos and criticizes Alexander for breaking that rule. (On p. 36, Baltussen seems to suggest that Simplicius took the single-skopos rule from Alexander, but in the passage he cites Simplicius is criticizing Alexander.) On p. 23 and 158, Syrianus (died ca. 437 A.D.) is listed among Simplicius' teachers. On p. 81, the inset translation of In Physica 161.23-162.2 turns the text into nonsense, taking proéchthēsan (from proagō) as if it were from a compound of achthomai ("am grieved") and misunderstanding Simplicius' term proéchthēsan ("charitable interpretation"). (Baltussen doesn't usually quote the Greek, so the reader must be on guard.) On p. 190 (and 175), he turns Simplicius' comments on constructing an equilateral triangle into a discussion of the first postulate, to draw a straight line. He notes skeptically that Simplicius "mentions a work 'On Prayer' by Aristotle... in which he claims that Aristotle knew of a transcendent intellect" (182), but On Prayer is well-attested, and of course Aristotle believed in a transcendent intellect; Simplicius' audacious claim in this passage is that Aristotle, like Plato, believed in a divine first principle above intellect and being. Baltussen's discussions of Philoponus and Christianity are particularly misleading. On p. 185, he cites Leslie MacCoull as putting some of Philoponus' arguments in the context of "the theological debate among Arrianists [sic]", but Philoponus was a Monophysite, the Arians had nothing to do with it, and MacCoull does not say they did. Baltussen also speaks here of Philoponus' aims in his "polemic with Simplicius," but there seems to be no evidence that Philoponus knew of Simplicius' existence. [the entire review]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"978","_score":null,"_source":{"id":978,"authors_free":[{"id":1477,"entry_id":978,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":255,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Menn, Stephen","free_first_name":"Stephen","free_last_name":"Menn","norm_person":{"id":255,"first_name":"Stephen","last_name":"Menn","full_name":"Menn, Stephen","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/174092768","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Review of: Baltussen: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator","main_title":{"title":"Review of: Baltussen: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator"},"abstract":"Most people who have heard of Simplicius know two things about him: he was a very learned man who included many quotations and reports of others' views in his writing, thus becoming one of our main sources for the pre-Socratics; but, unfortunately, he was a Neoplatonist, and his testimony is therefore to some degree suspect. So Simplicius has been studied more for the sake of assessing testimony about earlier philosophers than for his own sake; this is the first full-scale monograph on Simplicius in English, although virtually simultaneous with Pantelis Golitsis' Les commentaires de Simplicius et de Jean Philopon \u00e0 la \"Physique\" d'Aristote: tradition et innovation (Berlin, 2008).\r\n\r\nSimplicius, however, is not so neglected or undervalued as this might suggest: his projects of harmonizing Plato and Aristotle (and sometimes other philosophers), and of defending pagan philosophy against Christian attacks (leading to his polemics against Philoponus), have been much studied both by Anglophone scholars around Richard Sorabji and by Francophone scholars around Ilsetraut Hadot and Philippe Hoffmann. \"Neoplatonist\" is no longer an insult, and it now seems normal that in later antiquity reading and commenting on Plato and Aristotle should also be a way of doing philosophy. If Simplicius' religious and harmonistic aims, and his scholarly methods, are not ours, we are interested in alternatives to our own way of doing things. But we have lacked a systematic study of Simplicius' methods in his commentaries, and of his strategies for using authors besides Plato and Aristotle (not just the pre-Socratics, but also Theophrastus and Eudemus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Porphyry, and Proclus and his school, whom Baltussen discusses in turn).\r\n\r\nBaltussen's aims are laudable, but his book is not a safe guide; Golitsis, while not comprehensive, is much better. Baltussen pursues some good questions: why does Simplicius quote so much (just to save the texts from the wave of Christian barbarism?), what are his sources, and how does he handle so much information? (Actually, Simplicius discusses no more writers than Proclus, but he cites verbatim much more, and tries to go beyond secondary sources.) Baltussen needlessly defends Simplicius against the bizarre idea that he knew the pre-Socratics only through Alexander of Aphrodisias. However, it is true that Simplicius sometimes uses secondary sources, and also that Alexander was very important for him. Baltussen says that \"overall Simplicius considered [Alexander a] reliable guide and interpreter... Disagreement is expressed in muted form and head-on confrontation is rare\" (192). This both understates and overstates Simplicius' relation to Alexander and misses his method as a commentator.\r\n\r\nSimplicius' Physics and De Caelo commentaries are in effect metacommentaries on Alexander's lost commentaries (his Categories commentary starts instead from Porphyry and Iamblichus). One important hermeneutic principle for Simplicius is that each treatise must have a single primary object (skopos), such that everything else it discusses is discussed on account of some relation to that object. Baltussen discusses this principle but misleadingly. On p. 117, he has Simplicius attribute to Alexander (top of the page) the view that the skopos of the De Caelo is the world, and (lower down) the view that it is the four elements; attribute to Iamblichus the view that it is the universe; and Simplicius himself endorse the view that it is \"both the universe... and the four elements.\"\r\n\r\nIn fact, Simplicius attributes to Iamblichus the view that it is only the fifth (heavenly) body, and to Alexander the view that it is both the world and the five simple bodies. Simplicius himself says that the skopos is just the five simple bodies. The mistake is particularly serious because Baltussen suggests that Simplicius does not really make up his mind and opts for plural skopoi, when Simplicius emphatically insists that each treatise must have a single skopos and criticizes Alexander for breaking that rule. (On p. 36, Baltussen seems to suggest that Simplicius took the single-skopos rule from Alexander, but in the passage he cites Simplicius is criticizing Alexander.)\r\n\r\nOn p. 23 and 158, Syrianus (died ca. 437 A.D.) is listed among Simplicius' teachers. On p. 81, the inset translation of In Physica 161.23-162.2 turns the text into nonsense, taking pro\u00e9chth\u0113san (from proag\u014d) as if it were from a compound of achthomai (\"am grieved\") and misunderstanding Simplicius' term pro\u00e9chth\u0113san (\"charitable interpretation\"). (Baltussen doesn't usually quote the Greek, so the reader must be on guard.)\r\n\r\nOn p. 190 (and 175), he turns Simplicius' comments on constructing an equilateral triangle into a discussion of the first postulate, to draw a straight line. He notes skeptically that Simplicius \"mentions a work 'On Prayer' by Aristotle... in which he claims that Aristotle knew of a transcendent intellect\" (182), but On Prayer is well-attested, and of course Aristotle believed in a transcendent intellect; Simplicius' audacious claim in this passage is that Aristotle, like Plato, believed in a divine first principle above intellect and being.\r\n\r\nBaltussen's discussions of Philoponus and Christianity are particularly misleading. On p. 185, he cites Leslie MacCoull as putting some of Philoponus' arguments in the context of \"the theological debate among Arrianists [sic]\", but Philoponus was a Monophysite, the Arians had nothing to do with it, and MacCoull does not say they did. Baltussen also speaks here of Philoponus' aims in his \"polemic with Simplicius,\" but there seems to be no evidence that Philoponus knew of Simplicius' existence. [the entire review]","btype":3,"date":"2010","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/nycXB8DgJkcMbQt","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":255,"full_name":"Menn, Stephen","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":978,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical World","volume":"104","issue":"1","pages":"117-118"}},"sort":[2010]}

Nous and Two Kinds of Epistêmê in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, 2010
By: Zeev Perelmuter
Title Nous and Two Kinds of Epistêmê in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal Phronesis
Volume 55
Issue 3
Pages 228-254
Categories no categories
Author(s) Zeev Perelmuter
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Aristotle in Physics I,1 says some strange-sounding things about how we come to know wholes and parts, universals and particulars. In explicating these, Simplicius distinguishes an initial rough cognition of a thing as a whole, an intermediate “cognition according to the definition and through the elements,” and a final cognition of how the thing's many elements are united: only this last is πιστήμη. Simplicius refers to the Theaetetus for the point about what is needed for πιστήμη and the ways that cognition according to the definition and through the elements falls short. By unpacking this reference I try to reconstruct Simplicius' reading of “Socrates' Dream,” its place in the Theaetetus ' larger argument, and its harmony with other Platonic and Aristotelian texts. But this reconstruction depends on undoing some catastrophic emendations in Diels's text of Simplicius. Diels's emendations arise from his assumptions about definitions and elements, in Socrates' Dream and elsewhere, and rethinking the Simplicius passage may help us rethink those assumptions. [author's abstract]

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Review of: Han Baltussen, Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator. London, Duckworth, 2008, 2010
By: Janssens, Jules L.
Title Review of: Han Baltussen, Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator. London, Duckworth, 2008
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal Tijdschrift voor Filosofie
Volume 72
Issue 1
Pages 193
Categories no categories
Author(s) Janssens, Jules L.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Simplicius van Silicia (ong. 480-540 n.Chr.) is de laatste der antieke 'commentatoren'. Zijn oeuvre wordt vooral (om niet te zeggen haast uitsluitend) gewaardeerd als bron voor de kennis van vroegere Griekse denkers (van wie de werken niet zelden verloren gegaan zijn en enkel Simplicius getuigenis aflegt). Dit wekt de indruk dat Simplicius geen echt filosofisch project had. Op magistrale wijze toont Baltussen aan dat dit geenszins zo is. Het belang van Simplicius' commentaren overschrijdt ruim de functie van kennisgeving van het vroegere Griekse denken. Zij getuigen immers van een speciale exegetische en didactische werkwijze. Bovendien vertegenwoordigen zij een bijzondere fase in de interpretatie van Plato en Aristoteles. Ook vormen zij de overgang van de oudheid naar de middeleeuwen. Deze basiskenmerken worden grondig uitgewerkt in het boek. Een goed idee van de uitzonderlijke rijkdom aan geciteerde bronnen in Simplicius' diverse werken krijgt de lezer dankzij een overzichtstabel (p. 30). De vijf beginselen van Simplicius' exegetische methode (zoals door hemzelf verwoord in zijn commentaar op de Categorieën) worden nader toegelicht (met onder meer aandacht voor het kritisch vergelijken van handschriften en voor de diverse wijzen van citeren). In Simplicius' opvatting is de studie van Aristoteles duidelijk propedeutisch aan die van Plato (enkel deze laatste laat toe de goddelijke waarheid te bereiken). Tot slot verschijnt Simplicius als de laatste verwoorder van een heidense theologie; in die zin is zijn verwerping van Philoponus niet zozeer het resultaat van een polemische ingesteldheid, maar veeleer de uitdrukking van een godsdienstige motivatie. Van groot belang is ook dat Simplicius' werken losstaan van enige onderwijsopdracht en dat de synthese tussen de verschillende bronnen die hij opstelt, gevoerd wordt in propria voce, niet apo phonis. Deze grondideeën worden rijkelijk geïllustreerd via een overzicht van Simplicius' interpretatie van de Griekse filosofie vóór hem (hoofdstukken 2-5). Achtereenvolgens worden de presocratici, de peripatetici, Alexander van Afrodisias en de platonische commentatoren behandeld. Van de vele belangwekkende gedachten die Baltussen formuleert, vermeld ik graag de volgende: het Griekse denken wordt volgens Simplicius gekenmerkt door één grote eenheid (betekenisvol hiervoor is zijn karakterisering van de presocratici als platonici avant la lettre); Simplicius vertoont duidelijk syncretistische neigingen; Alexander van Afrodisias is een belangrijke externe stem voor het uitdiepen van het harmonisatieproces tussen Aristoteles' en Plato's denken, dat zo kenmerkend is voor het latere platonisme; filosoferen betekent voor Simplicius geen zoektocht naar originaliteit, maar het beantwoorden van teksten, waaraan een autoriteitswaarde werd toegekend; de mogelijkheid dat Simplicius rechtstreeks toegang had tot Plotinus' Enneaden, maar waarschijnlijk niet tot Syrianus' werk. Het lijdt geen twijfel dat Baltussen met zijn studie baanbrekend werk heeft geleverd. Hij toont op overtuigende wijze aan dat Simplicius meer was dan een 'archivaris'. Hij was daadwerkelijk een 'filosoof met een project'. De grote lijnen hiervan worden in dit boek meesterlijk uitgetekend. [the entire review]

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The Stoic Ontology of Geometrical Limits, 2009
By: Eunyoung Ju, Anna
Title The Stoic Ontology of Geometrical Limits
Type Article
Language English
Date 2009
Journal Phronesis
Volume 54
Issue 4/5
Pages 371-389
Categories no categories
Author(s) Eunyoung Ju, Anna
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Scholars have long recognised the interest of the Stoics' thought on geometrical limits, both as a specific topic in their physics and within the context of the school's ontological taxonomy. Unfortunately, insufficient textual evidence remains for us to reconstruct their discussion fully. The sources we do have on Stoic geometrical themes are highly polemical, tending to reveal a disagreement as to whether limit is to be understood as a mere concept, as a body or as an incorporeal. In my view, this disagreement held among the historical Stoics, rather than simply reflecting a doxographical divergence in transmission. This apparently Stoic disagreement has generated extensive debate, in which there is still no consensus as to a standard Stoic doctrine of limit. The evidence is thin, and little of it refers in detail to specific texts, especially from the school's founders. But in its overall features the evidence suggests that Posidonius and Cleomedes differed from their Stoic precursors on this topic. There are also grounds for believing that some degree of disagreement obtained between the early Stoics over the metaphysical status of shape. Assuming the Stoics did so disagree, the principal question in the scholarship on Stoic ontology is whether there were actually positions that might be called "standard" within Stoicism on the topic of limit. In attempting to answer this question, my discussion initially sets out to illuminate certain features of early Stoic thinking about limit, and then takes stock of the views offered by late Stoics, notably Posidonius and Cleomedes. Attention to Stoic arguments suggests that the school's founders developed two accounts of shape: on the one hand, as a thought-construct, and, on the other, as a body. In an attempt to resolve the crux bequeathed to them, the school's successors suggested that limits are incorporeal. While the authorship of this last notion cannot be securely identified on account of the absence of direct evidence, it may be traced back to Posidonius, and it went on to have subsequent influence on Stoic thinking, namely in Cleomedes' astronomy. [Author’s abstract]

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Simplicius: Commentary, Harmony, and Authority, 2009
By: Barney, Rachel
Title Simplicius: Commentary, Harmony, and Authority
Type Article
Language English
Date 2009
Journal Antiquorum Philosophia
Volume 3
Pages 101-119
Categories no categories
Author(s) Barney, Rachel
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
I have tried to make the case for two claims. First, we can do better than to speak of Simplicius as simply being committed to "the" Neoplatonic project of harmonizing Plato and Aristotle. Simplicius’ project is a very distinctive one, and, properly speaking, it is not to harmonize Plato and Aristotle. Nor, on the other hand, is it to harmonize the whole of pagan wisdom, or even the whole of Greek philosophy. Rather, it is to vindicate the unity of a certain dominant, broadly Platonic philosophical tradition, which importantly includes Aristotle, the Presocratics, and, to a lesser extent, the Stoics, in order to better defend that tradition against Christian attack. The scope, methods, and spirit of this project are all modeled on Aristotle’s own treatment of his predecessors, including an expansive but not unreasonable version of the principle of charity. Second, I have tried to bring out that projects of harmonization in philosophy have a perennial attraction for philosophers and interpreters alike, and not only for those who are antecedently committed to a canon of conflicting authorities. Projects of harmonization come in many guises and range across a spectrum from the primarily philosophical to the purely exegetical. Simplicius comes close to the latter extreme: his persona and methods are, in fact, strikingly close to those of a familiar sort of modern scholar, notwithstanding the strong philosophical commitments that inform his project. Finally, I would suggest that this self-appointed role as exegete is, more than anything else, an expression of Simplicius’ self-conscious belatedness. With a few exceptions, such as the residual puzzles about place and time addressed in the Corollaries, Simplicius’ work shows us what it is like to do philosophy after all the philosophical problems have been solved. All that remains open to him is the essentially interpretive work of showing how the correct solutions fit together. [conclusion p. 117-118]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"825","_score":null,"_source":{"id":825,"authors_free":[{"id":1226,"entry_id":825,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":418,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Barney, Rachel","free_first_name":"Rachel","free_last_name":"Barney","norm_person":{"id":418,"first_name":"Rachel","last_name":"Barney","full_name":"Barney, Rachel","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/17355959X","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius: Commentary, Harmony, and Authority","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius: Commentary, Harmony, and Authority"},"abstract":"I have tried to make the case for two claims. First, we can do better than to speak of Simplicius as simply being committed to \"the\" Neoplatonic project of harmonizing Plato and Aristotle. Simplicius\u2019 project is a very distinctive one, and, properly speaking, it is not to harmonize Plato and Aristotle. Nor, on the other hand, is it to harmonize the whole of pagan wisdom, or even the whole of Greek philosophy. Rather, it is to vindicate the unity of a certain dominant, broadly Platonic philosophical tradition, which importantly includes Aristotle, the Presocratics, and, to a lesser extent, the Stoics, in order to better defend that tradition against Christian attack. The scope, methods, and spirit of this project are all modeled on Aristotle\u2019s own treatment of his predecessors, including an expansive but not unreasonable version of the principle of charity.\r\n\r\nSecond, I have tried to bring out that projects of harmonization in philosophy have a perennial attraction for philosophers and interpreters alike, and not only for those who are antecedently committed to a canon of conflicting authorities. Projects of harmonization come in many guises and range across a spectrum from the primarily philosophical to the purely exegetical. Simplicius comes close to the latter extreme: his persona and methods are, in fact, strikingly close to those of a familiar sort of modern scholar, notwithstanding the strong philosophical commitments that inform his project. Finally, I would suggest that this self-appointed role as exegete is, more than anything else, an expression of Simplicius\u2019 self-conscious belatedness. With a few exceptions, such as the residual puzzles about place and time addressed in the Corollaries, Simplicius\u2019 work shows us what it is like to do philosophy after all the philosophical problems have been solved. All that remains open to him is the essentially interpretive work of showing how the correct solutions fit together. [conclusion p. 117-118]","btype":3,"date":"2009","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/bBLV4U0YGAzXs7u","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":418,"full_name":"Barney, Rachel","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":825,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Antiquorum Philosophia","volume":"3","issue":"","pages":"101-119"}},"sort":[2009]}

Plotin und Simplikios über die Kategorie des Wo, 2009
By: Strobel, Benedikt
Title Plotin und Simplikios über die Kategorie des Wo
Type Article
Language German
Date 2009
Journal Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte
Volume 51
Pages 7-33
Categories no categories
Author(s) Strobel, Benedikt
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Wir haben im vorhergehenden drei semantische Interpretationen von Lokativen – als Ortsbezeichnungen, als Bezeichnungen von einem in einem anderen und als Ausdrücke von Relationen – kennengelernt, mit denen Plotin in VI 1 [42] 14 gegen die aristotelische Annahme der Kategorie des Wo (πού) argumentiert und die drei verschiedene Bestimmungen des Wo einschließen: als Ort (τόπος), als eines in einem anderen (ἄλλο ἐν ἄλλῳ) und als Beziehung zu einem Ort (σχέσις πρὸς τόπον). Dabei hat sich unter anderem gezeigt: (i) Weder diese Interpretationen noch die auf ihnen beruhenden Argumente überzeugen völlig, und Simplikios' Verteidigung der aristotelischen Annahme der Kategorie des Wo ist weitgehend erfolgreich, weist jedoch mit der These, dass Lokative nicht-reziproke Relationen ausdrücken, eine Schwachstelle auf. (ii) Plotins drittes, auf der Interpretation von Lokativen als Ausdrücke von Relationen beruhendes Argument überzeugt zwar letztlich nicht, weist jedoch auf ein ernsthaftes Problem für Aristoteles hin. (iii) Die in der antiken Philosophie weitverbreitete Auffassung, an einem Ort zu sein bedeute, von einem Körper umfasst zu werden, gründet in einem bestimmten Verständnis von Lokativen der Form ἐν τινι (z. B. ἐν Λύκειον und ἐν Ἀκαδημίᾳ). Dies bestätigt die zu Beginn aufgestellte These, dass die semantische Analyse von Lokativen Konsequenzen hat für die Wahl der Antwort darauf, was es heißt, an einem Ort zu sein, und was es heißt, der Ort von etwas zu sein. [introduction p. 30-31]

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Simplicius and James of Viterbo on Propensities, 2009
By: Côté, Antoine
Title Simplicius and James of Viterbo on Propensities
Type Article
Language English
Date 2009
Journal Vivarium
Volume 47
Issue 1
Pages 24-53
Categories no categories
Author(s) Côté, Antoine
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The paper examines Simplicius's doctrine of propensities (epitedeioteis ) in his commen- tary on Aristotles Categories and follows its application by the late thirteenth century theologian and philosopher James of Viterbo to problems relating to the causes of volition, intellection and natural change. Although he uses Aristotelian terminology and means his doctrine to conflict minimally with those of Aristode, James s doctrine of propensities really constitutes an attempt to provide a technically rigorous dressing to his Augustinián and Boethian convictions. Central to Jamess procedure is his rejection, following Henry of Ghent, of the principle that "everything that is moved is moved by another". James uses Simplicius' doctrine of propensities as a means of extending the rejection of that principle, which Henry had limited to the case of the will, to cognitive operations and natural change. The result is a theory of cognition and volition that sees the soul as the principal cause of its own acts, and a theory of natural change that minimizes the causal impact of external agents. [Author's abstract]

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Review of Baltussen 2008: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator, 2009
By: Dillon, John
Title Review of Baltussen 2008: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator
Type Article
Language English
Date 2009
Journal The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 3
Issue 2
Pages 158 –160
Categories no categories
Author(s) Dillon, John
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This is a most welcome book, by a scholar who has had much to do with Simplicius over the last decade or so, as part of the great Ancient Commentators on Aristotle project, initiated by Richard Sorabji (indeed it is to Sorabji that the book is dedicated). The fruits of this experience are evidenced on more or less every page. As B. remarks, it has not been customary hitherto to focus on the personality or methods of Simplicius himself, as opposed to his value as a source for previous figures, both commentators and original authors, such as the Presocratics—such would have been the attitude of the great Hermann Diels, for example, who edited the Physics Commentary, as well as making so much use of him for his Fragmente der Vorsokratiker and Doxographi Graeci. But undoubtedly, Simplicius merits some attention for himself. The book consists of six chapters, with an introduction and an epilogue. The introduction sets out the parameters of the problem: what should one expect in the way of philosophical attitudes from a late antique Platonist such as Simplicius, and how B. himself proposes to proceed in evaluating him. He emphasises that there are many ways in which this is something of a "work in progress," but he certainly provides enough material to give us a good idea of what Simplicius is up to. Above all, learned though he is, and copiously though he quotes his predecessors, we should not expect Simplicius to be in any anachronistic way an "objective" scholar. He is a Platonist, and his purpose is to assimilate Aristotle (and indeed the Presocratic philosophers) into the Platonist system. Ch. 1, ‘The Scholar and his Books’, introduces us to what is known of Simplicius’ life and education (with Ammonius in Alexandria and Damascius in Athens, in the early decades of the sixth century) and addresses the major problem of the location and circumstances in which he composed his vast commentaries—necessarily after the official closing of the Academy in 529, and the return of the philosophers, of whom he was one, from Persia in 531. The Harran hypothesis of Tardieu runs into the great problem of the availability of source materials in such a relatively outlying place, and B. is inclined to reject it. The alternative is a return to Athens, or possibly Alexandria, where at least there were good libraries. For one salient aspect of Simplicius’ work is his extraordinary range of reading, and his willingness to provide us with verbatim quotations from this, extending from Presocratics such as Parmenides, Melissus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras, through immediate followers of Aristotle, such as Theophrastus and Eudemus, and then the great second-century A.D. Aristotelian commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias, down to his Neoplatonic predecessors Porphyry, Iamblichus, Syrianus, and Proclus, and his own teacher Damascius. B. devotes separate chapters to each of these categories of predecessor. Ch. 2, ‘Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy? Origins of Ancient Wisdom’, looks at his use of Parmenides, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras in particular, and makes various suggestions about his overall purposes in this. It is certainly notable that Simplicius favours verbatim quotation even of prose authors—in contrast, for example, to such a figure as Proclus, who prefers to paraphrase prose authors at least—but I think that I would rest content with Simplicius’ own explanation (and apologies for over-quotation!), that he was concerned to preserve as much as he could of sources that were becoming increasingly rare in his day. It does not mean that he is not prepared to distort their meaning in a Neoplatonic direction. Ch. 3, ‘Towards a Canon: The Early Peripatetics’, turns to a study of Theophrastus and Eudemus, and in particular their comments on, and adaptations of, Aristotle’s Physics. It is here, I fear, that one begins to realise that this is the sort of book that is best appreciated if one has the original works it is discussing at one’s elbow, as one generally does not—in this case, chiefly Simplicius’ vast Commentary on the Physics. However, B. undoubtedly gives a good account of how Simplicius uses Theophrastus, and particularly Eudemus, whom he actually refers to far more (132 references as against 37!), for the clarification of Aristotle’s doctrine. Ch. 4, ‘Ghost in the Machine? The Role of Alexander of Aphrodisias’, deals with Alexander, who is indeed Simplicius’ chief authority—quoted or mentioned in all fully 1200 times, of which around 700 are in the Physics Commentary. Alexander is, for Simplicius, simply "the commentator," and is of basic importance to him. After giving a useful account of Alexander's own exegetical achievements, B. tries to draw up something of a typology of ways in which he is used by Simplicius (4.3): first, he can be used as simply a helpful source for understanding Aristotle; secondly, he can be quoted and criticised, on a matter of interpretation or doctrine; thirdly, he can be quoted in connection with a variant in the manuscript tradition. Of all these, he gives examples, emphasising how central Alexander is to the whole commentary tradition. Ch. 5, ‘Platonist Commentators: Sources and Inspiration’, takes us through the later Platonist tradition of commentary, with a glance at the Middle Platonists, but focusing chiefly on Porphyry and Iamblichus, and the establishing of the "harmonising" interpretation of Aristotle of which Simplicius is the heir. The use of these Platonist predecessors is particularly notable in the case of the Categories Commentary, but it affects the others as well. Lastly, in Ch. 6, ‘Polemic and Exegesis in Simplicius: Defending Pagan Theology’, he deals with Simplicius’ fierce controversy with his Christian contemporary John Philoponus, as well as with his more civil criticisms of Alexander. The bitterness of his assaults on Philoponus does, as B. argues, bring home to us how far Simplicius is a heroic and tragic figure, trying to preserve and synthesise the whole of the Hellenic (I do wish we could give up the term "pagan"!) philosophical tradition in face of the ever more insistent Christian challenge, and composing his vast commentaries for a now largely imaginary coterie of students. An Epilogue resumes all these findings, and B. appends some useful appendices, including one listing the probable contents of Simplicius’ library, which certainly brings it home to us that these great works of his could not have been composed while wandering about the Syrian desert on the back of a camel. He really must have been back in Athens, with some access to the library of the Platonic School. At any rate, with this study, B. at last gives Simplicius something of his due as a scholar as well as a commentator. [the entire review p. 158-160]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"601","_score":null,"_source":{"id":601,"authors_free":[{"id":852,"entry_id":601,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":97,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Dillon, John","free_first_name":"John","free_last_name":"Dillon","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}}],"entry_title":"Review of Baltussen 2008: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator","main_title":{"title":"Review of Baltussen 2008: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator"},"abstract":"This is a most welcome book, by a scholar who has had much to do with Simplicius over the last decade or so, as part of the great Ancient Commentators on Aristotle project, initiated by Richard Sorabji (indeed it is to Sorabji that the book is dedicated). The fruits of this experience are evidenced on more or less every page. As B. remarks, it has not been customary hitherto to focus on the personality or methods of Simplicius himself, as opposed to his value as a source for previous figures, both commentators and original authors, such as the Presocratics\u2014such would have been the attitude of the great Hermann Diels, for example, who edited the Physics Commentary, as well as making so much use of him for his Fragmente der Vorsokratiker and Doxographi Graeci. But undoubtedly, Simplicius merits some attention for himself.\r\n\r\nThe book consists of six chapters, with an introduction and an epilogue. The introduction sets out the parameters of the problem: what should one expect in the way of philosophical attitudes from a late antique Platonist such as Simplicius, and how B. himself proposes to proceed in evaluating him. He emphasises that there are many ways in which this is something of a \"work in progress,\" but he certainly provides enough material to give us a good idea of what Simplicius is up to. Above all, learned though he is, and copiously though he quotes his predecessors, we should not expect Simplicius to be in any anachronistic way an \"objective\" scholar. He is a Platonist, and his purpose is to assimilate Aristotle (and indeed the Presocratic philosophers) into the Platonist system.\r\n\r\nCh. 1, \u2018The Scholar and his Books\u2019, introduces us to what is known of Simplicius\u2019 life and education (with Ammonius in Alexandria and Damascius in Athens, in the early decades of the sixth century) and addresses the major problem of the location and circumstances in which he composed his vast commentaries\u2014necessarily after the official closing of the Academy in 529, and the return of the philosophers, of whom he was one, from Persia in 531. The Harran hypothesis of Tardieu runs into the great problem of the availability of source materials in such a relatively outlying place, and B. is inclined to reject it. The alternative is a return to Athens, or possibly Alexandria, where at least there were good libraries.\r\n\r\nFor one salient aspect of Simplicius\u2019 work is his extraordinary range of reading, and his willingness to provide us with verbatim quotations from this, extending from Presocratics such as Parmenides, Melissus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras, through immediate followers of Aristotle, such as Theophrastus and Eudemus, and then the great second-century A.D. Aristotelian commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias, down to his Neoplatonic predecessors Porphyry, Iamblichus, Syrianus, and Proclus, and his own teacher Damascius. B. devotes separate chapters to each of these categories of predecessor.\r\n\r\nCh. 2, \u2018Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy? Origins of Ancient Wisdom\u2019, looks at his use of Parmenides, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras in particular, and makes various suggestions about his overall purposes in this. It is certainly notable that Simplicius favours verbatim quotation even of prose authors\u2014in contrast, for example, to such a figure as Proclus, who prefers to paraphrase prose authors at least\u2014but I think that I would rest content with Simplicius\u2019 own explanation (and apologies for over-quotation!), that he was concerned to preserve as much as he could of sources that were becoming increasingly rare in his day. It does not mean that he is not prepared to distort their meaning in a Neoplatonic direction.\r\n\r\nCh. 3, \u2018Towards a Canon: The Early Peripatetics\u2019, turns to a study of Theophrastus and Eudemus, and in particular their comments on, and adaptations of, Aristotle\u2019s Physics. It is here, I fear, that one begins to realise that this is the sort of book that is best appreciated if one has the original works it is discussing at one\u2019s elbow, as one generally does not\u2014in this case, chiefly Simplicius\u2019 vast Commentary on the Physics. However, B. undoubtedly gives a good account of how Simplicius uses Theophrastus, and particularly Eudemus, whom he actually refers to far more (132 references as against 37!), for the clarification of Aristotle\u2019s doctrine.\r\n\r\nCh. 4, \u2018Ghost in the Machine? The Role of Alexander of Aphrodisias\u2019, deals with Alexander, who is indeed Simplicius\u2019 chief authority\u2014quoted or mentioned in all fully 1200 times, of which around 700 are in the Physics Commentary. Alexander is, for Simplicius, simply \"the commentator,\" and is of basic importance to him. After giving a useful account of Alexander's own exegetical achievements, B. tries to draw up something of a typology of ways in which he is used by Simplicius (4.3): first, he can be used as simply a helpful source for understanding Aristotle; secondly, he can be quoted and criticised, on a matter of interpretation or doctrine; thirdly, he can be quoted in connection with a variant in the manuscript tradition. Of all these, he gives examples, emphasising how central Alexander is to the whole commentary tradition.\r\n\r\nCh. 5, \u2018Platonist Commentators: Sources and Inspiration\u2019, takes us through the later Platonist tradition of commentary, with a glance at the Middle Platonists, but focusing chiefly on Porphyry and Iamblichus, and the establishing of the \"harmonising\" interpretation of Aristotle of which Simplicius is the heir. The use of these Platonist predecessors is particularly notable in the case of the Categories Commentary, but it affects the others as well.\r\n\r\nLastly, in Ch. 6, \u2018Polemic and Exegesis in Simplicius: Defending Pagan Theology\u2019, he deals with Simplicius\u2019 fierce controversy with his Christian contemporary John Philoponus, as well as with his more civil criticisms of Alexander. The bitterness of his assaults on Philoponus does, as B. argues, bring home to us how far Simplicius is a heroic and tragic figure, trying to preserve and synthesise the whole of the Hellenic (I do wish we could give up the term \"pagan\"!) philosophical tradition in face of the ever more insistent Christian challenge, and composing his vast commentaries for a now largely imaginary coterie of students.\r\n\r\nAn Epilogue resumes all these findings, and B. appends some useful appendices, including one listing the probable contents of Simplicius\u2019 library, which certainly brings it home to us that these great works of his could not have been composed while wandering about the Syrian desert on the back of a camel. He really must have been back in Athens, with some access to the library of the Platonic School.\r\n\r\nAt any rate, with this study, B. at last gives Simplicius something of his due as a scholar as well as a commentator. [the entire review p. 158-160]","btype":3,"date":"2009","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/p1cPjdejj6J9LSt","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":97,"full_name":"Dillon, John","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":601,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition","volume":"3","issue":"2","pages":"158 \u2013160"}},"sort":[2009]}

Defending Alexander of Aphrodisias in the Age of the Counter-Reformation: Iacopo Zabarella on the Mortality of the Soul according to Aristotle, 2009
By: Branko Mitrovic
Title Defending Alexander of Aphrodisias in the Age of the Counter-Reformation: Iacopo Zabarella on the Mortality of the Soul according to Aristotle
Type Article
Language English
Date 2009
Journal Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie
Volume 91
Issue 3
Pages 330-354
Categories no categories
Author(s) Branko Mitrovic
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The work of the Paduan Aristotelian philosopher Iacopo Zabarella (1533– 1589) has attracted the attention of historians of philosophy mainly for his contributions to logic, scientific methodology and because of his possible influence on Galileo. At the same time, Zabarella’s views on Aristotelian psychology have been little studied so far; even those historians of Renaissance philosophy who have discussed them, have based their analysis mainly on the psychological essays included in Zabarella’s De rebus naturalibus, but have avoided Zabarella’s commentary on Aristotle’s De anima. This has led to an inaccurate, but widespread, understanding of Zabarella’s views. The intention of this article is to provide a systematic analysis of Zabarella’s arguments about the (im)mortality of the soul in the context of Aristotelian psychology. Zabarella’s view that the soul is mortal according to Aristotle is remarkable for his time, while his elaboration of this position is far more comprehensive than that of Pietro Pomponazzi, the other significant Renaissance thinker who shared the same view. [author's abstract]

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Albert le Grand sur la dérivation des formes géométriques: Un témoignage de l'influence de Simplicius par le biais des Arabes?, 2008
By: Chase, Michael
Title Albert le Grand sur la dérivation des formes géométriques: Un témoignage de l'influence de Simplicius par le biais des Arabes?
Type Article
Language French
Date 2008
Categories no categories
Author(s) Chase, Michael
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Faisons donc le bilan de ce parcours qui nous a menés du IVe siècle av. J.-C. au Moyen Âge latin. L'argumentation présentée par Albert dans son De quinque universalibus provient d'une ambiance intellectuelle qui baignait dans des influences de la philosophie arabe : al-Fārābī, al-Ghazālī, Averroès, mais surtout Avicenne. Elle est marquée par l'utilisation du schéma de la dérivation des formes géométriques élémentaires — point, ligne, surface, corps — à partir du mouvement en flux générateur de chacun de ces éléments. Or, ce schéma de dérivation géométrique joue un rôle assez important dans la pensée d'Albert, qui l'attribue à Platon. Cette attribution ne semble pas si farfelue que cela, même si la dérivation des formes géométriques à partir du flux du point semble provenir de Speusippe plutôt que de son oncle Platon. Il n'en reste pas moins que, du moins selon l'interprétation de l'École de Tübingen, le schéma de dérivation point/nombre-ligne-surface-corps est d'une importance tout à fait fondamentale pour l'ontologie ésotérique de Platon. Sans accès aux Dialogues de Platon, Albert le Grand finit donc, quelles qu'aient été ses sources prochaines et lointaines pour les doctrines platoniciennes, par défendre une image de Platon qui correspond, dans une large mesure, à celle de l'École de Tübingen. Quant à la question de ses sources et de la voie de transmission de ces doctrines, Albert a pu trouver chez la plus importante d'entre elles — la pensée d'Avicenne — de quoi nourrir une réflexion approfondie sur cette question de la dérivation des formes géométriques. Cependant, le commentaire d'Albert aux Éléments d'Euclide montre qu'à cette influence avicennienne est venue s'ajouter une autre, indépendante : la doctrine géométrique de Simplicius, véhiculée par la traduction latine du commentaire euclidien d'al-Nairīzī. Qu'en est-il de la relation entre Simplicius et Avicenne ? Nous avons vu que certains éléments du schéma simplicien de la dérivation des formes géométriques se retrouvent déjà dans l'École de Bagdad, autour de Yaḥyā ibn ‘Adī. G. Freudenthal, pour sa part, avait conclu de son étude de la géométrie d'al-Fārābī qu'« il est fort probable qu'al-Fārābī connaissait soit les ouvrages de Simplicius auxquels an-Nairīzī avait accès, soit seulement la brève citation [p. 2, 19-23 Curze] contenue dans le commentaire d'an-Nairīzī ». Quoi qu'il en soit, il semble difficile d'éviter la conclusion qu'Avicenne connaissait bien la doctrine géométrique de Simplicius, du moins telle que transmise par le commentaire d'al-Nairīzī, soit par l'intermédiaire de l'École de Bagdad, soit par ses lectures propres. De Platon à Speusippe, en passant par des sources hellénistiques telles que Sextus Empiricus, la doctrine de la dérivation des formes géométriques a fini, au VIe siècle apr. J.-C., par faire partie intégrante du bagage intellectuel des derniers néoplatoniciens tels que Philopon et Simplicius. C'est, semble-t-il, la pensée géométrique de ce dernier qui, traduite en arabe et préservée dans le commentaire euclidien d'al-Nairīzī, contribue à former la pensée d'Avicenne au premier quart du XIe siècle, avant d'arriver, quelque deux siècles plus tard, sous les yeux de ce lecteur omnivore qu'était Albert le Grand. Pour expliquer cet itinéraire de la pensée, il n'est sans doute pas nécessaire de postuler que, comme le soutient Mme Hadot, Simplicius ait rédigé son Commentaire d'Euclide à Harran. Mais rien n'exclut cette hypothèse non plus, et quand on pense aux éléments de preuve rassemblés par Mme Hadot et d'autres concernant l'importance du legs de l'École mathématique de Simplicius dans le monde arabe, on peut estimer que le cas du schéma de la dérivation des formes géométriques à partir du point ne fait qu'ajouter une brique de plus à l'édifice des preuves témoignant en faveur de l'hypothèse de l'« École néoplatonicienne de Harran ». [conclusion p. 28-29]

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J.-C. au Moyen \u00c2ge latin. L'argumentation pr\u00e9sent\u00e9e par Albert dans son De quinque universalibus provient d'une ambiance intellectuelle qui baignait dans des influences de la philosophie arabe : al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, al-Ghaz\u0101l\u012b, Averro\u00e8s, mais surtout Avicenne. Elle est marqu\u00e9e par l'utilisation du sch\u00e9ma de la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques \u00e9l\u00e9mentaires \u2014 point, ligne, surface, corps \u2014 \u00e0 partir du mouvement en flux g\u00e9n\u00e9rateur de chacun de ces \u00e9l\u00e9ments.\r\n\r\nOr, ce sch\u00e9ma de d\u00e9rivation g\u00e9om\u00e9trique joue un r\u00f4le assez important dans la pens\u00e9e d'Albert, qui l'attribue \u00e0 Platon. Cette attribution ne semble pas si farfelue que cela, m\u00eame si la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques \u00e0 partir du flux du point semble provenir de Speusippe plut\u00f4t que de son oncle Platon. Il n'en reste pas moins que, du moins selon l'interpr\u00e9tation de l'\u00c9cole de T\u00fcbingen, le sch\u00e9ma de d\u00e9rivation point\/nombre-ligne-surface-corps est d'une importance tout \u00e0 fait fondamentale pour l'ontologie \u00e9sot\u00e9rique de Platon.\r\n\r\nSans acc\u00e8s aux Dialogues de Platon, Albert le Grand finit donc, quelles qu'aient \u00e9t\u00e9 ses sources prochaines et lointaines pour les doctrines platoniciennes, par d\u00e9fendre une image de Platon qui correspond, dans une large mesure, \u00e0 celle de l'\u00c9cole de T\u00fcbingen.\r\n\r\nQuant \u00e0 la question de ses sources et de la voie de transmission de ces doctrines, Albert a pu trouver chez la plus importante d'entre elles \u2014 la pens\u00e9e d'Avicenne \u2014 de quoi nourrir une r\u00e9flexion approfondie sur cette question de la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques. Cependant, le commentaire d'Albert aux \u00c9l\u00e9ments d'Euclide montre qu'\u00e0 cette influence avicennienne est venue s'ajouter une autre, ind\u00e9pendante : la doctrine g\u00e9om\u00e9trique de Simplicius, v\u00e9hicul\u00e9e par la traduction latine du commentaire euclidien d'al-Nair\u012bz\u012b.\r\n\r\nQu'en est-il de la relation entre Simplicius et Avicenne ? Nous avons vu que certains \u00e9l\u00e9ments du sch\u00e9ma simplicien de la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques se retrouvent d\u00e9j\u00e0 dans l'\u00c9cole de Bagdad, autour de Ya\u1e25y\u0101 ibn \u2018Ad\u012b. G. Freudenthal, pour sa part, avait conclu de son \u00e9tude de la g\u00e9om\u00e9trie d'al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b qu'\u00ab il est fort probable qu'al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b connaissait soit les ouvrages de Simplicius auxquels an-Nair\u012bz\u012b avait acc\u00e8s, soit seulement la br\u00e8ve citation [p. 2, 19-23 Curze] contenue dans le commentaire d'an-Nair\u012bz\u012b \u00bb.\r\n\r\nQuoi qu'il en soit, il semble difficile d'\u00e9viter la conclusion qu'Avicenne connaissait bien la doctrine g\u00e9om\u00e9trique de Simplicius, du moins telle que transmise par le commentaire d'al-Nair\u012bz\u012b, soit par l'interm\u00e9diaire de l'\u00c9cole de Bagdad, soit par ses lectures propres.\r\n\r\nDe Platon \u00e0 Speusippe, en passant par des sources hell\u00e9nistiques telles que Sextus Empiricus, la doctrine de la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques a fini, au VIe si\u00e8cle apr. J.-C., par faire partie int\u00e9grante du bagage intellectuel des derniers n\u00e9oplatoniciens tels que Philopon et Simplicius.\r\n\r\nC'est, semble-t-il, la pens\u00e9e g\u00e9om\u00e9trique de ce dernier qui, traduite en arabe et pr\u00e9serv\u00e9e dans le commentaire euclidien d'al-Nair\u012bz\u012b, contribue \u00e0 former la pens\u00e9e d'Avicenne au premier quart du XIe si\u00e8cle, avant d'arriver, quelque deux si\u00e8cles plus tard, sous les yeux de ce lecteur omnivore qu'\u00e9tait Albert le Grand.\r\n\r\nPour expliquer cet itin\u00e9raire de la pens\u00e9e, il n'est sans doute pas n\u00e9cessaire de postuler que, comme le soutient Mme Hadot, Simplicius ait r\u00e9dig\u00e9 son Commentaire d'Euclide \u00e0 Harran. Mais rien n'exclut cette hypoth\u00e8se non plus, et quand on pense aux \u00e9l\u00e9ments de preuve rassembl\u00e9s par Mme Hadot et d'autres concernant l'importance du legs de l'\u00c9cole math\u00e9matique de Simplicius dans le monde arabe, on peut estimer que le cas du sch\u00e9ma de la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques \u00e0 partir du point ne fait qu'ajouter une brique de plus \u00e0 l'\u00e9difice des preuves t\u00e9moignant en faveur de l'hypoth\u00e8se de l'\u00ab \u00c9cole n\u00e9oplatonicienne de Harran \u00bb. [conclusion p. 28-29]","btype":3,"date":"2008","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/mVjTC4EIjO2Aggg","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":25,"full_name":"Chase, Michael ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":null},"sort":[2008]}

Habent sua fata libelli: Aristotle’s Categories in the First Century BC, 2008
By: Sharples, Robert W.
Title Habent sua fata libelli: Aristotle’s Categories in the First Century BC
Type Article
Language English
Date 2008
Journal Acta Antiqua
Volume 48
Issue 1-2
Pages 273-287
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sharples, Robert W.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
A re-examination of the question of why, during the revival of interest in Aristotle’s esoteric works in the first century BC, the Categories played such a prominent role. The answers suggested are that the work aroused interest precisely because it did not easily fit into the standard Hellenistic divisions of philosophy and their usual agendas, and that, more than Aristotle’s other works—with the possible exception of the Metaphysics—it revealed aspects of Aristotle’s thought that had become unfamiliar during the Hellenistic period. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1023","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1023,"authors_free":[{"id":1542,"entry_id":1023,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":42,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sharples, Robert W.","free_first_name":"Robert W.","free_last_name":"Sharples","norm_person":{"id":42,"first_name":"Robert W.","last_name":"Sharples","full_name":"Sharples, Robert W.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/114269505","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Habent sua fata libelli: Aristotle\u2019s Categories in the First Century BC","main_title":{"title":"Habent sua fata libelli: Aristotle\u2019s Categories in the First Century BC"},"abstract":"A re-examination of the question of why, during the revival of interest in Aristotle\u2019s esoteric works in the first century BC, the Categories played such a prominent role. The answers suggested are that the work aroused interest precisely because it did not easily fit into the standard Hellenistic divisions of philosophy and their usual agendas, and that, more than Aristotle\u2019s other works\u2014with the possible exception of the Metaphysics\u2014it revealed aspects of Aristotle\u2019s thought that had become unfamiliar during the Hellenistic period. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2008","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/9elANNxfsrgxsis","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":42,"full_name":"Sharples, Robert W.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1023,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Acta Antiqua","volume":"48","issue":"1-2","pages":"273-287"}},"sort":[2008]}

Empedokleův sfairos v pohledech antických interpretů, 2008
By: Hladký, Vojtech
Title Empedokleův sfairos v pohledech antických interpretů
Type Article
Language Czech
Date 2008
Journal Listy filologické / Folia philologica
Volume 131
Issue 3/4
Pages 379-439
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hladký, Vojtech
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Tento text si klade za cíl prozkoumat způsob, jakým recipují a reinterpretují Empedokleovu koncepci či spíše představu Sfairu pozdější antičtí autoři. Navazuje přitom na naši předchozí práci, ve které jsme se pokusili – především na základě textů Empedoklea samého – tento moment Empedokleova rozvrhu světa rekonstruovat.² V něm, jak známo, čtyři základní a věčné prvky-živly (oheň, vzduch, vodu, zemi) přetvářejí, navzájem slučují a rozlučují dvě formující síly – Láska a Svár. Působením Lásky tak z původně jednoduchých prvků vznikají vyšší a složitější organismy a vůbec všechny věci, naproti tomu působením Sváru dochází k jejich rozkladu a návratu prvků do jejich původní čisté podoby. Podle závěru našeho předchozího článku je Sfairos, vzniklý v okamžiku největšího vzepětí Lásky, ve skutečnosti jakýsi obrovský organismus, zahrnující do sebe všechny předtím vzniklé věci. Ty se dohromady spojí buď tak, že doslova fyzicky srostou, či přinejmenším dohromady vytvoří harmonický svět, v němž Láska zaručuje mírumilovné soužití a soubytí všeho, co předtím ze základních prvků vytvořila. Navíc je snad možné ztotožnit Sfairos se „svatou a nadlidskou myslí (φρην ιερή και άθέσφατος)“, o níž tento autor mluví ve svém zlomku B 134. Jsme si přitom vědomi, že tato interpretace Empedokleova Sfairu je dosti neobvyklá. Vzhledem k tomu, že se nám báseň velkého Akragantťana nezachovala v úplnosti a její přesné filozofické sdělení bylo na mnoha místech ne zcela jasné patrně již pro antického čtenáře, musíme se bohužel o mnoha aspektech nauky, kterou hlásá, pouze dohadovat. V předchozí práci jsme se pokusili rekonstruovat Sfairos na základě rozboru zachovaného Empedokleova textu doplněného o starověká svědectví. Snažíme-li se nyní provést rozbor výkladů Sfairu, které podávají Empedokleovi filozofičtí následovníci, činíme tak rovněž proto, abychom naši poněkud nezvyklou interpretaci dále nepřímo podpořili a zároveň poukázali na vliv, jaký Empedoklés – zejména pak v případě Platónových dialogů Tímaia, Politika a Symposia – mohl mít. Projdeme-li v detailu ohlasy Empedoklea u pozdějších autorů, které jsou možná někdy poněkud překvapivé, můžeme si pak na konci našeho zkoumání znovu položit otázku, zda by nemohly vrhnout nové světlo na jeho bohužel jen velmi torzovitě zachované dílo. [introduction p. 379-381] Übersetzung: Dieser Text zielt darauf ab, die Art und Weise zu untersuchen, wie spätere antike Autoren Empedokles’ Konzept oder eher die Vorstellung des Sphairos aufnehmen und reinterpretieren. Dabei knüpft er an unsere vorherige Arbeit an, in der wir versucht haben – vor allem auf der Grundlage von Empedokles’ eigenen Texten – diesen Aspekt von Empedokles’ Weltentwurf zu rekonstruieren.² Darin, wie bekannt, formen, verbinden und trennen sich die vier grundlegenden und ewigen Elemente (Feuer, Luft, Wasser, Erde) durch das Wirken von zwei gestaltenden Kräften – Liebe und Streit. Durch die Wirkung der Liebe entstehen aus den ursprünglich einfachen Elementen höhere und komplexere Organismen und überhaupt alle Dinge, während durch die Wirkung des Streits deren Zerfall und die Rückkehr der Elemente in ihre ursprüngliche reine Form erfolgt. Laut dem Schluss unserer vorherigen Arbeit ist der Sphairos, der im Moment des höchsten Wirkens der Liebe entsteht, tatsächlich eine Art riesiger Organismus, der alle zuvor entstandenen Dinge in sich vereint. Diese verbinden sich entweder dadurch, dass sie buchstäblich physisch miteinander verschmelzen, oder zumindest gemeinsam eine harmonische Welt schaffen, in der die Liebe ein friedliches Zusammenleben und Mitsein all dessen garantiert, was zuvor aus den grundlegenden Elementen erschaffen wurde. Darüber hinaus ist es vielleicht möglich, den Sphairos mit dem „heiligen und übermenschlichen Geist (φρην ιερή και άθέσφατος)“ zu identifizieren, von dem dieser Autor in seinem Fragment B 134 spricht. Wir sind uns dabei bewusst, dass diese Interpretation des Sphairos von Empedokles recht ungewöhnlich ist. Da das Gedicht des großen Akragantinischen Dichters nicht vollständig erhalten ist und seine genaue philosophische Aussage wohl schon für die antiken Leser an vielen Stellen nicht völlig klar war, müssen wir uns leider in vielen Aspekten der Lehre, die er verkündet, nur auf Vermutungen stützen. In der vorherigen Arbeit haben wir versucht, den Sphairos auf der Grundlage der Analyse des erhaltenen Textes von Empedokles, ergänzt durch antike Zeugnisse, zu rekonstruieren. Wenn wir nun versuchen, die Auslegungen des Sphairos zu analysieren, die von den philosophischen Nachfolgern des Empedokles gegeben wurden, tun wir dies auch, um unsere etwas ungewöhnliche Interpretation indirekt weiter zu stützen und zugleich auf den Einfluss hinzuweisen, den Empedokles – insbesondere im Fall der platonischen Dialoge Timaios, Politikos und Symposion – möglicherweise hatte. Wenn wir die Rezeptionen von Empedokles bei späteren Autoren im Detail durchgehen, die manchmal vielleicht etwas überraschend sind, können wir uns am Ende unserer Untersuchung erneut die Frage stellen, ob diese nicht ein neues Licht auf sein leider nur sehr fragmentarisch erhaltenes Werk werfen könnten.

{"_index":"sire","_id":"778","_score":null,"_source":{"id":778,"authors_free":[{"id":1142,"entry_id":778,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":180,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Hladk\u00fd, Vojtech ","free_first_name":"Vojtech","free_last_name":"Hladk\u00fd","norm_person":{"id":180,"first_name":"Vojt\u011bch","last_name":"Hladk\u00fd","full_name":"Hladk\u00fd, Vojt\u011bch","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Empedokle\u016fv sfairos v pohledech antick\u00fdch interpret\u016f","main_title":{"title":"Empedokle\u016fv sfairos v pohledech antick\u00fdch interpret\u016f"},"abstract":"Tento text si klade za c\u00edl prozkoumat zp\u016fsob, jak\u00fdm recipuj\u00ed a reinterpretuj\u00ed Empedokleovu koncepci \u010di sp\u00ed\u0161e p\u0159edstavu Sfairu pozd\u011bj\u0161\u00ed anti\u010dt\u00ed auto\u0159i. Navazuje p\u0159itom na na\u0161i p\u0159edchoz\u00ed pr\u00e1ci, ve kter\u00e9 jsme se pokusili \u2013 p\u0159edev\u0161\u00edm na z\u00e1klad\u011b text\u016f Empedoklea sam\u00e9ho \u2013 tento moment Empedokleova rozvrhu sv\u011bta rekonstruovat.\u00b2 V n\u011bm, jak zn\u00e1mo, \u010dty\u0159i z\u00e1kladn\u00ed a v\u011b\u010dn\u00e9 prvky-\u017eivly (ohe\u0148, vzduch, vodu, zemi) p\u0159etv\u00e1\u0159ej\u00ed, navz\u00e1jem slu\u010duj\u00ed a rozlu\u010duj\u00ed dv\u011b formuj\u00edc\u00ed s\u00edly \u2013 L\u00e1ska a Sv\u00e1r. P\u016fsoben\u00edm L\u00e1sky tak z p\u016fvodn\u011b jednoduch\u00fdch prvk\u016f vznikaj\u00ed vy\u0161\u0161\u00ed a slo\u017eit\u011bj\u0161\u00ed organismy a v\u016fbec v\u0161echny v\u011bci, naproti tomu p\u016fsoben\u00edm Sv\u00e1ru doch\u00e1z\u00ed k jejich rozkladu a n\u00e1vratu prvk\u016f do jejich p\u016fvodn\u00ed \u010dist\u00e9 podoby.\r\n\r\nPodle z\u00e1v\u011bru na\u0161eho p\u0159edchoz\u00edho \u010dl\u00e1nku je Sfairos, vznikl\u00fd v okam\u017eiku nejv\u011bt\u0161\u00edho vzep\u011bt\u00ed L\u00e1sky, ve skute\u010dnosti jak\u00fdsi obrovsk\u00fd organismus, zahrnuj\u00edc\u00ed do sebe v\u0161echny p\u0159edt\u00edm vznikl\u00e9 v\u011bci. Ty se dohromady spoj\u00ed bu\u010f tak, \u017ee doslova fyzicky srostou, \u010di p\u0159inejmen\u0161\u00edm dohromady vytvo\u0159\u00ed harmonick\u00fd sv\u011bt, v n\u011bm\u017e L\u00e1ska zaru\u010duje m\u00edrumilovn\u00e9 sou\u017eit\u00ed a soubyt\u00ed v\u0161eho, co p\u0159edt\u00edm ze z\u00e1kladn\u00edch prvk\u016f vytvo\u0159ila. Nav\u00edc je snad mo\u017en\u00e9 ztoto\u017enit Sfairos se \u201esvatou a nadlidskou mysl\u00ed (\u03c6\u03c1\u03b7\u03bd \u03b9\u03b5\u03c1\u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03b8\u03ad\u03c3\u03c6\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2)\u201c, o n\u00ed\u017e tento autor mluv\u00ed ve sv\u00e9m zlomku B 134.\r\n\r\nJsme si p\u0159itom v\u011bdomi, \u017ee tato interpretace Empedokleova Sfairu je dosti neobvykl\u00e1. Vzhledem k tomu, \u017ee se n\u00e1m b\u00e1se\u0148 velk\u00e9ho Akragant\u0165ana nezachovala v \u00faplnosti a jej\u00ed p\u0159esn\u00e9 filozofick\u00e9 sd\u011blen\u00ed bylo na mnoha m\u00edstech ne zcela jasn\u00e9 patrn\u011b ji\u017e pro antick\u00e9ho \u010dten\u00e1\u0159e, mus\u00edme se bohu\u017eel o mnoha aspektech nauky, kterou hl\u00e1s\u00e1, pouze dohadovat. V p\u0159edchoz\u00ed pr\u00e1ci jsme se pokusili rekonstruovat Sfairos na z\u00e1klad\u011b rozboru zachovan\u00e9ho Empedokleova textu dopln\u011bn\u00e9ho o starov\u011bk\u00e1 sv\u011bdectv\u00ed.\r\n\r\nSna\u017e\u00edme-li se nyn\u00ed prov\u00e9st rozbor v\u00fdklad\u016f Sfairu, kter\u00e9 pod\u00e1vaj\u00ed Empedokleovi filozofi\u010dt\u00ed n\u00e1sledovn\u00edci, \u010din\u00edme tak rovn\u011b\u017e proto, abychom na\u0161i pon\u011bkud nezvyklou interpretaci d\u00e1le nep\u0159\u00edmo podpo\u0159ili a z\u00e1rove\u0148 pouk\u00e1zali na vliv, jak\u00fd Empedokl\u00e9s \u2013 zejm\u00e9na pak v p\u0159\u00edpad\u011b Plat\u00f3nov\u00fdch dialog\u016f T\u00edmaia, Politika a Symposia \u2013 mohl m\u00edt. Projdeme-li v detailu ohlasy Empedoklea u pozd\u011bj\u0161\u00edch autor\u016f, kter\u00e9 jsou mo\u017en\u00e1 n\u011bkdy pon\u011bkud p\u0159ekvapiv\u00e9, m\u016f\u017eeme si pak na konci na\u0161eho zkoum\u00e1n\u00ed znovu polo\u017eit ot\u00e1zku, zda by nemohly vrhnout nov\u00e9 sv\u011btlo na jeho bohu\u017eel jen velmi torzovit\u011b zachovan\u00e9 d\u00edlo. [introduction p. 379-381] \u00dcbersetzung: Dieser Text zielt darauf ab, die Art und Weise zu untersuchen, wie sp\u00e4tere antike Autoren Empedokles\u2019 Konzept oder eher die Vorstellung des Sphairos aufnehmen und reinterpretieren. Dabei kn\u00fcpft er an unsere vorherige Arbeit an, in der wir versucht haben \u2013 vor allem auf der Grundlage von Empedokles\u2019 eigenen Texten \u2013 diesen Aspekt von Empedokles\u2019 Weltentwurf zu rekonstruieren.\u00b2 Darin, wie bekannt, formen, verbinden und trennen sich die vier grundlegenden und ewigen Elemente (Feuer, Luft, Wasser, Erde) durch das Wirken von zwei gestaltenden Kr\u00e4ften \u2013 Liebe und Streit. Durch die Wirkung der Liebe entstehen aus den urspr\u00fcnglich einfachen Elementen h\u00f6here und komplexere Organismen und \u00fcberhaupt alle Dinge, w\u00e4hrend durch die Wirkung des Streits deren Zerfall und die R\u00fcckkehr der Elemente in ihre urspr\u00fcngliche reine Form erfolgt.\r\n\r\nLaut dem Schluss unserer vorherigen Arbeit ist der Sphairos, der im Moment des h\u00f6chsten Wirkens der Liebe entsteht, tats\u00e4chlich eine Art riesiger Organismus, der alle zuvor entstandenen Dinge in sich vereint. Diese verbinden sich entweder dadurch, dass sie buchst\u00e4blich physisch miteinander verschmelzen, oder zumindest gemeinsam eine harmonische Welt schaffen, in der die Liebe ein friedliches Zusammenleben und Mitsein all dessen garantiert, was zuvor aus den grundlegenden Elementen erschaffen wurde. Dar\u00fcber hinaus ist es vielleicht m\u00f6glich, den Sphairos mit dem \u201eheiligen und \u00fcbermenschlichen Geist (\u03c6\u03c1\u03b7\u03bd \u03b9\u03b5\u03c1\u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03b8\u03ad\u03c3\u03c6\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2)\u201c zu identifizieren, von dem dieser Autor in seinem Fragment B 134 spricht.\r\n\r\nWir sind uns dabei bewusst, dass diese Interpretation des Sphairos von Empedokles recht ungew\u00f6hnlich ist. Da das Gedicht des gro\u00dfen Akragantinischen Dichters nicht vollst\u00e4ndig erhalten ist und seine genaue philosophische Aussage wohl schon f\u00fcr die antiken Leser an vielen Stellen nicht v\u00f6llig klar war, m\u00fcssen wir uns leider in vielen Aspekten der Lehre, die er verk\u00fcndet, nur auf Vermutungen st\u00fctzen. In der vorherigen Arbeit haben wir versucht, den Sphairos auf der Grundlage der Analyse des erhaltenen Textes von Empedokles, erg\u00e4nzt durch antike Zeugnisse, zu rekonstruieren.\r\n\r\nWenn wir nun versuchen, die Auslegungen des Sphairos zu analysieren, die von den philosophischen Nachfolgern des Empedokles gegeben wurden, tun wir dies auch, um unsere etwas ungew\u00f6hnliche Interpretation indirekt weiter zu st\u00fctzen und zugleich auf den Einfluss hinzuweisen, den Empedokles \u2013 insbesondere im Fall der platonischen Dialoge Timaios, Politikos und Symposion \u2013 m\u00f6glicherweise hatte. Wenn wir die Rezeptionen von Empedokles bei sp\u00e4teren Autoren im Detail durchgehen, die manchmal vielleicht etwas \u00fcberraschend sind, k\u00f6nnen wir uns am Ende unserer Untersuchung erneut die Frage stellen, ob diese nicht ein neues Licht auf sein leider nur sehr fragmentarisch erhaltenes Werk werfen k\u00f6nnten.","btype":3,"date":"2008","language":"Czech","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/DoW1OJgnzqLFDXs","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":180,"full_name":"Hladk\u00fd, Vojt\u011bch","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":778,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Listy filologick\u00e9 \/ Folia philologica","volume":"131","issue":"3\/4","pages":"379-439"}},"sort":[2008]}

Methods in examining sense-perception: John Philoponus and Ps.-Simplicius, 2008
By: Lautner, Peter
Title Methods in examining sense-perception: John Philoponus and Ps.-Simplicius
Type Article
Language English
Date 2008
Journal Laval théologique et philosophique
Volume 64
Issue 3
Pages 651-661
Categories no categories
Author(s) Lautner, Peter
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The paper discusses the methods applied by Philoponus and Pseudo-Simplicius in commenting on Aristotle’s theory of sense-perception, and indicates their differences. Philoponus frequently employs medical theories and empirical material, mostly taken from Aristotle, to highlight not only the activities of the particular senses, but also a certain kind of awareness and the way we experience our inner states. By contrast, his Athenian contemporary Pseudo-Simplicius disregards such aspects altogether. His method is deductive: He relies on some general thesis, partly taken from Iamblichus, from which to derive theses on sense-perception. The emphasis falls on Philoponus’ doctrine since his reliance on medical views leads to an interesting blend of Platonic and medical/empirical theories. [Author’s abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"820","_score":null,"_source":{"id":820,"authors_free":[{"id":1221,"entry_id":820,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":236,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Lautner, Peter","free_first_name":"Peter","free_last_name":"Lautner","norm_person":{"id":236,"first_name":"Peter","last_name":"Lautner","full_name":"Lautner, Peter","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1157740766","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Methods in examining sense-perception: John Philoponus and Ps.-Simplicius","main_title":{"title":"Methods in examining sense-perception: John Philoponus and Ps.-Simplicius"},"abstract":"The paper discusses the methods applied by Philoponus and Pseudo-Simplicius in commenting on Aristotle\u2019s theory of sense-perception, and indicates their differences. Philoponus frequently employs medical theories and empirical material, mostly taken from Aristotle, to highlight not only the activities of the particular senses, but also a certain kind of awareness and the way we experience our inner states. By contrast, his Athenian contemporary Pseudo-Simplicius disregards such aspects altogether. His method is deductive: He relies on some general thesis, partly taken from Iamblichus, from which to derive theses on sense-perception. The emphasis falls on Philoponus\u2019 doctrine since his reliance on medical views leads to an interesting blend of Platonic and medical\/empirical theories. [Author\u2019s abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2008","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Hp3HmG57KFdbOQW","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":236,"full_name":"Lautner, Peter","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":820,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Laval th\u00e9ologique et philosophique","volume":"64","issue":"3","pages":"651-661"}},"sort":[2008]}

Nicolas, l'auteur du Sommaire de la philosophie d'Aristote : doutes sur son identité, sa datation, son origine, 2008
By: Fazzo, Silvia
Title Nicolas, l'auteur du Sommaire de la philosophie d'Aristote : doutes sur son identité, sa datation, son origine
Type Article
Language French
Date 2008
Journal Revue des Études Grecques
Volume 121
Issue 1
Pages 99-126
Categories no categories
Author(s) Fazzo, Silvia
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The paper discusses the attribution of the compendium De Philosophia Aristotelis to Nicolaus of Damascus the general historian (fl.: end 1st c. BC). By contrast, there are reasons to believe that the work was written by a Peripatetic Nicolaus between the 3rd and the 6th century, most likely from Syria in the 4th c. AD. Among the consequences: one piece of evidence for interest in a wide range of Aristotle's works already in the 1st century BC-lst century AD is removed; the supposedly earliest evidence for Metaphysics as the title of Aristotle's work is moved to a later date; the idea that Peripatetic activity more or less ceased with Alexander, Thémistius being the only exception, is weakened by another counter-example. On the contrary, a distinctively Peripatetic culture must have been still alive in Themistius' and Nicolas' time, when special tools were produced both for teaching activity and for the transmission of Aristotle's philosophy to later eras. [Author’s abstract]

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Metaphysicizing the Aristotelian Categories. Two References to the Parmenides in Simplicius’ Commentary on the Categories (Simplicius, In Categorias 4 [CAG 8, 75,6 Kalbfleisch] and In Categorias 8 [291,2 K.]), 2008
By: Bechtle, Gerald
Title Metaphysicizing the Aristotelian Categories. Two References to the Parmenides in Simplicius’ Commentary on the Categories (Simplicius, In Categorias 4 [CAG 8, 75,6 Kalbfleisch] and In Categorias 8 [291,2 K.])
Type Article
Language English
Date 2008
Journal Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum
Volume 12
Issue 1
Pages 150-165
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bechtle, Gerald
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Der Artikel geht der Frage nach, inwiefern die aristotelische Kategorienschrift im Neuplatonismus zur Deutung der ersten Prinzipien genutzt und dadurch selbst als Teil metaphysischer Überlegungen etabliert wurde. Dadurch stellt sich die Frage, ob eine Verbindung mit der Rezeption von Platons Parmenides besteht, der für die Deutung der höchsten Prinzipien grundlegend war. Dies wird exemplarisch an Simplicius und dessen Kategorienkommentar untersucht. In diesem geht Simplicius an zwei Stellen explizit auf Platons Parmenides ein. Beide Stellen werden analysiert. Es zeigt sich, dass Simplicius die Terminologie der Kategorien durchaus auf Gott, das Gute oder das Eine anwendet, auch wenn an der weit verbreiteten Ansicht, die Kategorien könnten sich nur auf sprachlich ausdrückbare, also wahrnehmbare Dinge beziehen, nicht gerüttelt wird. Hiervon ist jedoch die Position des Iamblichus zu unterscheiden, der die Kategorien auch für den noetischen Bereich annehmen konnte. In eine ähnliche Richtung weist die zweite explizite Bezugnahme auf Platons Parmenides in Simplicius’ Kategorienkommentar, die sich mit dem Ausschluss von Mehr-Weniger beschäftigt. [author's abstract]

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La Brillance de Nestis (Empédocle, fr. 96), 2008
By: Picot, Jean-Claude
Title La Brillance de Nestis (Empédocle, fr. 96)
Type Article
Language French
Date 2008
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 26
Issue 1
Pages 75-100
Categories no categories
Author(s) Picot, Jean-Claude
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Dans le De l'âme, Aristote illustre l'importance de la proportion (λόγος) et de la combinaison (σύνθεσις) des éléments entre eux par rapport à ce que sont les éléments ; pour ce faire, il rapporte trois vers d'Empédocle (410 a 4-6) relatifs à la composition de l'os. Simplicius rapporte les mêmes vers et en ajoute un sur l'action d'Harmonie ; il précise avoir tiré sa citation du premier livre de la Physique d'Empédocle. Ce sont ces quatre vers que Diels a recueillis sous le fr. 96 : ἤ δὲ χθὼν ἐπίηρος ἐν εὐτύκτοις χοάνοισι τώ δύο τῶν ὀκτὼ μερέων λάχε Νήστιδος αἴγλης, τέσσαρα δ' Ἡφαίστοιο· τὰ δ' ὀστέα λευκὰ γένοντο Ἁρμονίης κόλληισιν ἀρηρότα θεσπεσίηισιν. Traduction : Et la terre serviable en ses creusets bien façonnés Reçut deux parts sur huit de la brillance de Nestis, Et quatre d'Héphaïstos ; et ces choses-là devinrent les os blancs, Tenus ensemble par les colles divines d'Harmonie. L'os serait composé de deux parts de la « brillance de Nestis » (δύο τῶν ὀκτὼ μερέων [...] Νήστιδος αἴγλης) – où l'on s'accorde à reconnaître l'eau sous le nom de Nestis –, de quatre parts de feu – puisque Héphaïstos désigne traditionnellement le feu (τέσσαρα δ' Ἡφαίστοιο) – et de deux parts de terre (ἤ δὲ χθὼν ἐπίηρος) pour parvenir à huit parts au total. Dans le présent article, je voudrais analyser le texte du fr. 96 pour prendre position sur la question suivante : quel est le sens à donner à l'expression Νήστιδος αἴγλης, c’est-à-dire « la brillance de Nestis » ? La brillance de Nestis désigne-t-elle l'eau, ou bien un mélange d'air et d'eau ? Certaines questions divisent les commentateurs actuels d'Empédocle, mais la question de la brillance de Nestis n'en fait pas partie. En effet, tout le monde ou presque s'accorde pour dire que la brillance de Nestis désigne l'eau et rien d'autre. Pourquoi alors s'interroger sur quelque chose qui ne divise point ? Parce que le consensus est parfois trompeur. Il peut se fixer sur la solution simple, celle qui ne nécessite presque pas ou peu d'explication. Mais à l'analyse, l'objet peut se révéler complexe, et le consensus sur le simple avoir fait fausse route. J'espère parvenir à montrer au fil de cet article que la brillance de Nestis est un mélange d'air et d'eau, et non pas simplement de l'eau. Si Empédocle n'avait pas introduit la brillance (αἴγλη), aucun doute n'aurait été permis pour comprendre que τῶ δύο τῶν ὀκτὼ μερέων [...] Νήστιδος signifie deux parts sur huit d'eau. Mais la brillance pose problème. Elle pose d'autant plus problème que la tournure τῶ δύο τῶν ὀκτὼ μερέων [...] Νήστιδος αἴγλης insiste sur le fait que les deux parts en question sont des parts de la brillance et non pas directement des parts de Nestis. Peut-on spontanément dire que pour Empédocle, Nestis apparaît brillante, tout comme Apollon est brillant (αἰγλήτης), tout comme Artémis et Hécate sont dispensatrices de lumière (φωσφόρος) ? Si la brillance n'ajoutait rien à la compréhension de Nestis, la « brillance de Nestis » se réduirait à une façon poétique de dire Nestis. Si, au contraire, la brillance ajoutait quelque chose à Nestis, l'élément qui n'est pas nommé dans le fr. 96, à savoir l'air, pourrait être sous-entendu dans la brillance de Nestis. Nous avons formulé une interprétation en faveur de l'air dans la composition de l'os. La conclusion n'en serait que renforcée si nous pouvions nous appuyer sur un témoignage ancien, différent de celui du Pseudo-Simplicius, voire de Philopon, qu'il est facile de mettre en doute. Ce témoignage existe. Il a été jusqu'ici traité avec indifférence et parfois dévalorisé. C'est celui de Théophraste. Théophraste, critiquant Empédocle, dit que chez cet auteur les os et les poils devraient avoir des sensations puisqu'ils sont formés de tous les éléments (De sensibus, ΧΧΙΠ = A86.23). En d'autres termes, selon Théophraste, les os sont formés des quatre éléments, et les poils de même. Les modernes n'ont pas jugé bon de partir de Théophraste pour contredire Aétius et pour affirmer que l'os doit être composé des quatre éléments. Il n'y a guère de doute que pour Empédocle, il existe des mélanges qui ne comportent pas les quatre éléments. Prenons quelques exemples : le bronze produit par l'alliage de l'étain et du cuivre (fr. 92), le vin mélangé à de l'eau (fr. 91), les couleurs résultant d'un mélange des couleurs de base (fr. 23), la pâte servant à faire le pain (fr. 34), la boue ou la pâte de poterie (fr. 73), l'eau salée de la mer (fr. 55, 56), etc. Mais quand il s'agit des êtres vivant sur terre, il est permis de penser que Philotès fait chaque mélange sans exclure aucun élément, à l'instar du sang et des chairs (fr. 98). En effet, l'œuvre de l'Amour réalisée dans ces êtres éphémères semble préfigurer le grand vivant, composé des quatre éléments, qu'est le Sphairos. Pour les êtres vivants et éphémères, les parts pourraient être inégales dans chaque organe, mais tous les éléments être néanmoins présents. Tout cela, certes, n'est que pure hypothèse. Aucun texte n'affirme que pour Empédocle, toutes les parties des vivants sont un mélange des quatre éléments. Une certitude demeure : on ne peut déconsidérer la parole de Théophraste sur l'os, ce même Théophraste qui disait que pour Empédocle, l'eau est noire. [introduction p. 75-77/conclusion p. 99-100]

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Simplicius rapporte les m\u00eames vers et en ajoute un sur l'action d'Harmonie ; il pr\u00e9cise avoir tir\u00e9 sa citation du premier livre de la Physique d'Emp\u00e9docle. Ce sont ces quatre vers que Diels a recueillis sous le fr. 96 :\r\n\r\n \u1f24 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c7\u03b8\u1f7c\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03af\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bd \u03b5\u1f50\u03c4\u03cd\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c7\u03bf\u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9\r\n \u03c4\u03ce \u03b4\u03cd\u03bf \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03ba\u03c4\u1f7c \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd \u03bb\u03ac\u03c7\u03b5 \u039d\u03ae\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f34\u03b3\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2,\r\n \u03c4\u03ad\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b4' \u1f29\u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u00b7 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03b4' \u1f40\u03c3\u03c4\u03ad\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u1f70 \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\r\n \u1f09\u03c1\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03af\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03cc\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03b7\u03c1\u03cc\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03c0\u03b5\u03c3\u03af\u03b7\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd.\r\n\r\nTraduction :\r\n\r\n Et la terre serviable en ses creusets bien fa\u00e7onn\u00e9s\r\n Re\u00e7ut deux parts sur huit de la brillance de Nestis,\r\n Et quatre d'H\u00e9pha\u00efstos ; et ces choses-l\u00e0 devinrent les os blancs,\r\n Tenus ensemble par les colles divines d'Harmonie.\r\n\r\nL'os serait compos\u00e9 de deux parts de la \u00ab brillance de Nestis \u00bb (\u03b4\u03cd\u03bf \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03ba\u03c4\u1f7c \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd [...] \u039d\u03ae\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f34\u03b3\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2) \u2013 o\u00f9 l'on s'accorde \u00e0 reconna\u00eetre l'eau sous le nom de Nestis \u2013, de quatre parts de feu \u2013 puisque H\u00e9pha\u00efstos d\u00e9signe traditionnellement le feu (\u03c4\u03ad\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b4' \u1f29\u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf) \u2013 et de deux parts de terre (\u1f24 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c7\u03b8\u1f7c\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03af\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2) pour parvenir \u00e0 huit parts au total.\r\n\r\nDans le pr\u00e9sent article, je voudrais analyser le texte du fr. 96 pour prendre position sur la question suivante : quel est le sens \u00e0 donner \u00e0 l'expression \u039d\u03ae\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f34\u03b3\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2, c\u2019est-\u00e0-dire \u00ab la brillance de Nestis \u00bb ? La brillance de Nestis d\u00e9signe-t-elle l'eau, ou bien un m\u00e9lange d'air et d'eau ?\r\n\r\nCertaines questions divisent les commentateurs actuels d'Emp\u00e9docle, mais la question de la brillance de Nestis n'en fait pas partie. En effet, tout le monde ou presque s'accorde pour dire que la brillance de Nestis d\u00e9signe l'eau et rien d'autre. Pourquoi alors s'interroger sur quelque chose qui ne divise point ? Parce que le consensus est parfois trompeur. Il peut se fixer sur la solution simple, celle qui ne n\u00e9cessite presque pas ou peu d'explication. Mais \u00e0 l'analyse, l'objet peut se r\u00e9v\u00e9ler complexe, et le consensus sur le simple avoir fait fausse route.\r\n\r\nJ'esp\u00e8re parvenir \u00e0 montrer au fil de cet article que la brillance de Nestis est un m\u00e9lange d'air et d'eau, et non pas simplement de l'eau.\r\n\r\nSi Emp\u00e9docle n'avait pas introduit la brillance (\u03b1\u1f34\u03b3\u03bb\u03b7), aucun doute n'aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 permis pour comprendre que \u03c4\u1ff6 \u03b4\u03cd\u03bf \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03ba\u03c4\u1f7c \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd [...] \u039d\u03ae\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 signifie deux parts sur huit d'eau. Mais la brillance pose probl\u00e8me. Elle pose d'autant plus probl\u00e8me que la tournure \u03c4\u1ff6 \u03b4\u03cd\u03bf \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03ba\u03c4\u1f7c \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd [...] \u039d\u03ae\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f34\u03b3\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2 insiste sur le fait que les deux parts en question sont des parts de la brillance et non pas directement des parts de Nestis. Peut-on spontan\u00e9ment dire que pour Emp\u00e9docle, Nestis appara\u00eet brillante, tout comme Apollon est brillant (\u03b1\u1f30\u03b3\u03bb\u03ae\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2), tout comme Art\u00e9mis et H\u00e9cate sont dispensatrices de lumi\u00e8re (\u03c6\u03c9\u03c3\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2) ?\r\n\r\nSi la brillance n'ajoutait rien \u00e0 la compr\u00e9hension de Nestis, la \u00ab brillance de Nestis \u00bb se r\u00e9duirait \u00e0 une fa\u00e7on po\u00e9tique de dire Nestis. Si, au contraire, la brillance ajoutait quelque chose \u00e0 Nestis, l'\u00e9l\u00e9ment qui n'est pas nomm\u00e9 dans le fr. 96, \u00e0 savoir l'air, pourrait \u00eatre sous-entendu dans la brillance de Nestis.\r\n\r\nNous avons formul\u00e9 une interpr\u00e9tation en faveur de l'air dans la composition de l'os. La conclusion n'en serait que renforc\u00e9e si nous pouvions nous appuyer sur un t\u00e9moignage ancien, diff\u00e9rent de celui du Pseudo-Simplicius, voire de Philopon, qu'il est facile de mettre en doute. Ce t\u00e9moignage existe. Il a \u00e9t\u00e9 jusqu'ici trait\u00e9 avec indiff\u00e9rence et parfois d\u00e9valoris\u00e9. C'est celui de Th\u00e9ophraste.\r\n\r\nTh\u00e9ophraste, critiquant Emp\u00e9docle, dit que chez cet auteur les os et les poils devraient avoir des sensations puisqu'ils sont form\u00e9s de tous les \u00e9l\u00e9ments (De sensibus, \u03a7\u03a7\u0399\u03a0 = A86.23). En d'autres termes, selon Th\u00e9ophraste, les os sont form\u00e9s des quatre \u00e9l\u00e9ments, et les poils de m\u00eame. Les modernes n'ont pas jug\u00e9 bon de partir de Th\u00e9ophraste pour contredire A\u00e9tius et pour affirmer que l'os doit \u00eatre compos\u00e9 des quatre \u00e9l\u00e9ments.\r\n\r\nIl n'y a gu\u00e8re de doute que pour Emp\u00e9docle, il existe des m\u00e9langes qui ne comportent pas les quatre \u00e9l\u00e9ments. Prenons quelques exemples : le bronze produit par l'alliage de l'\u00e9tain et du cuivre (fr. 92), le vin m\u00e9lang\u00e9 \u00e0 de l'eau (fr. 91), les couleurs r\u00e9sultant d'un m\u00e9lange des couleurs de base (fr. 23), la p\u00e2te servant \u00e0 faire le pain (fr. 34), la boue ou la p\u00e2te de poterie (fr. 73), l'eau sal\u00e9e de la mer (fr. 55, 56), etc.\r\n\r\nMais quand il s'agit des \u00eatres vivant sur terre, il est permis de penser que Philot\u00e8s fait chaque m\u00e9lange sans exclure aucun \u00e9l\u00e9ment, \u00e0 l'instar du sang et des chairs (fr. 98). En effet, l'\u0153uvre de l'Amour r\u00e9alis\u00e9e dans ces \u00eatres \u00e9ph\u00e9m\u00e8res semble pr\u00e9figurer le grand vivant, compos\u00e9 des quatre \u00e9l\u00e9ments, qu'est le Sphairos. Pour les \u00eatres vivants et \u00e9ph\u00e9m\u00e8res, les parts pourraient \u00eatre in\u00e9gales dans chaque organe, mais tous les \u00e9l\u00e9ments \u00eatre n\u00e9anmoins pr\u00e9sents.\r\n\r\nTout cela, certes, n'est que pure hypoth\u00e8se. Aucun texte n'affirme que pour Emp\u00e9docle, toutes les parties des vivants sont un m\u00e9lange des quatre \u00e9l\u00e9ments. Une certitude demeure : on ne peut d\u00e9consid\u00e9rer la parole de Th\u00e9ophraste sur l'os, ce m\u00eame Th\u00e9ophraste qui disait que pour Emp\u00e9docle, l'eau est noire.\r\n[introduction p. 75-77\/conclusion p. 99-100]","btype":3,"date":"2008","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Kn8BmLiIsvQZnjb","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":291,"full_name":"Picot, Jean-Claude","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":863,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Revue de Philosophie Ancienne","volume":"26","issue":"1","pages":"75-100"}},"sort":[2008]}

Review of Baltussen, Han: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commen­tator, 2008
By: Todd, Robert B.
Title Review of Baltussen, Han: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commen­tator
Type Article
Language English
Date 2008
Journal Aestimatio
Volume 5
Pages 210–224
Categories no categories
Author(s) Todd, Robert B.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In Philosophy and Exegesis in Simpliciusf a preparatory study for a history of the ancient philosophical commentary [224nnl0, 13], Han Baltussen addresses the ‘methodology’ of pagan antiquity’s last ma­ jor Platonist and its greatest philosophical scholar, Simplicius of Cili­ cia (AD ca 480- ca 540). What ‘methodology’ means can be best appreciated if the book’s general conclusions are first summarized. [introduction p. 210]

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Eudorus and the Early Platonist Interpretation of the "Categories", 2008
By: Tarrant, Harold
Title Eudorus and the Early Platonist Interpretation of the "Categories"
Type Article
Language English
Date 2008
Journal Laval théologique et philosophique
Volume 64
Issue 3
Pages 583-595
Categories no categories
Author(s) Tarrant, Harold
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The hermeneutic tradition concerning Aristotle’s Categories goes back to Eudorus and his contemporaries in the first century BC. Initially a perplexing text, it forces the Platonist to consider a variety of new dialectical questions. The criticisms of Eudorus demonstrate the desire for orderly arrangements, and pose questions that the hermeneutic tradition, culminating in the magnificent commentary of Simplicius, would try to answer. His pursuit of a critical agenda does not warrant the label “anti-Aristotelian” or “polemical”, but it does show why he preferred to be known as an Academic than as a Peripatetic. [Author's abstract]

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Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 2, 2008
By: Bowen, Alan C., Simplicius
Title Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 2
Type Article
Language English
Date 2008
Journal SCIAMVS: Sources and Commentaries in Exact Sciences
Volume 9
Pages 25-131
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bowen, Alan C. , Simplicius
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This completes my translation of the narrowly astronomical sections of Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s De caelo, which first appeared in SCIAMVS 4 (2003), 23–58. Its aim, as before, is to provide the reader with a suitably annotated rendering of Simplicius’ text that will facilitate addressing critical questions regarding the nature, construction, and historical value of Simplicius’ commentary, especially as it pertains to the history of earlier Greek astronomical theorizing. In completing this project, I have relied strictly on modern editions of Aristotle’s De caelo in presenting the lemmata in full and have relegated comments about any differences with Simplicius’ abbreviated lemmata to footnotes. After all, given that we have only Simplicius’ lemmata and not the full text of the De caelo that he used, there seems little sense in presenting Aristotle’s text in full while combining it with readings from Simplicius’ text, thereby implying a text that does not exist. At the same time, I have preserved the fact that the text quoted or paraphrased in the commentary proper sometimes differs from the text found in the lemmata. Thus, the lemmata presented here differ from those offered by Ian Mueller (2005), since he revises the received text of the De caelo in light of Simplicius’ text and removes any differences between Simplicius’ lemmata and his quotations and paraphrases. For the modern text of Aristotle’s De caelo, my primary source is Paul Moraux’s edition, as it makes extensive use of the indirect tradition in establishing Aristotle’s text. Moreover, as before, I have used Heiberg’s 1894 edition for the text of Simplicius’ commentary. However, caveat lector: this edition has recently been criticized for its reliance on the 1540 edition of the Latin translation of In De caelo made by William of Moerbeke in the 13th century. Additionally, arguments have been made for the importance of the recently discovered translation of De caelo 2 and related passages from Simplicius by Robert Grosseteste in establishing Simplicius’ text. Regrettably, there is only a proper edition thus far of Moerbeke’s translation of Simplicius’ commentary on De caelo 1; and, though it has certainly proved useful, we must all await the publication of the edition of Moerbeke’s version of Simplicius’ In De caelo 2. This forthcoming edition, as I understand, will account for both of Moerbeke’s translations of Simplicius’ astronomical digression in his commentary on 2.12. As for Grosseteste’s translation, though there is apparently a typescript edition by the late Fernand Bossier, it seems to be privately circulated, and so far, I have been unable to obtain a copy. Next, in interpreting the syntax and meaning of Simplicius’ Greek, I have used terminology that remains faithful to our ancient sources while also being familiar to historians of science, ensuring an accurate rendering of the technical language that Simplicius employs (and sometimes misuses) in the course of his philosophical and astronomical interpretations. As before, the line numbers in the margins of the translation indicate the line in which the first word of the corresponding line in Heiberg’s text appears. The result is not exact in terms of the actual line count, but it should suffice to allow readers to move between my translation and Simplicius’ text if they so wish. Finally, I have supplied extensive footnotes and comments to explicate the many issues that readers should understand in order to assess the nature of Simplicius’ commentary on De caelo 2.12. Readers may well disagree with my claims and arguments; however, I trust that this annotation will at least help them avoid missteps—mine included. What I have not done, however, is address the voluminous literature offering reconstructions of the system of homocentric spheres that Simplicius describes in the great astronomical digression concluding his commentary on 2.12. As in Part 1, my overriding aim is to provide only such annotation as allows readers to engage with Simplicius’ testimony directly, without obscuring it beneath layers of learned interpretation and speculation. My hope is that this approach will encourage readers to assess such reconstructions critically. Admittedly, this aim aligns with my own conclusion that such reconstructions, which trace back to Schiaparelli in the 19th century and were largely codified by Heath (1913), must today be seen as an egregious example of how scholars and their communities project their own perspectives onto the past. Moreover, this approach fits with my conviction that Simplicius’ commentary on De caelo 2.10–12 is historically significant in its own right as a witness to concerns in late antiquity about the nature and foundations of astronomical knowledge. Accordingly, I have limited my remarks on these reconstructions to instances where proponents make claims about the meaning of Simplicius’ Greek or critique his interpretations. For the most part, I have set aside alternative reconstructions proposed by Maula (1974), Heglmeier (1996), Mendell (1998, 2000), and Yavetz (1998, 2001, 2003). For further details on the principles underlying this translation and the format of its presentation, I urge the reader to consult Part 1, especially pages 25–26. [introduction p. 25-27]

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Its aim, as before, is to provide the reader with a suitably annotated rendering of Simplicius\u2019 text that will facilitate addressing critical questions regarding the nature, construction, and historical value of Simplicius\u2019 commentary, especially as it pertains to the history of earlier Greek astronomical theorizing.\r\n\r\nIn completing this project, I have relied strictly on modern editions of Aristotle\u2019s De caelo in presenting the lemmata in full and have relegated comments about any differences with Simplicius\u2019 abbreviated lemmata to footnotes. After all, given that we have only Simplicius\u2019 lemmata and not the full text of the De caelo that he used, there seems little sense in presenting Aristotle\u2019s text in full while combining it with readings from Simplicius\u2019 text, thereby implying a text that does not exist. At the same time, I have preserved the fact that the text quoted or paraphrased in the commentary proper sometimes differs from the text found in the lemmata. Thus, the lemmata presented here differ from those offered by Ian Mueller (2005), since he revises the received text of the De caelo in light of Simplicius\u2019 text and removes any differences between Simplicius\u2019 lemmata and his quotations and paraphrases.\r\n\r\nFor the modern text of Aristotle\u2019s De caelo, my primary source is Paul Moraux\u2019s edition, as it makes extensive use of the indirect tradition in establishing Aristotle\u2019s text. Moreover, as before, I have used Heiberg\u2019s 1894 edition for the text of Simplicius\u2019 commentary. However, caveat lector: this edition has recently been criticized for its reliance on the 1540 edition of the Latin translation of In De caelo made by William of Moerbeke in the 13th century. Additionally, arguments have been made for the importance of the recently discovered translation of De caelo 2 and related passages from Simplicius by Robert Grosseteste in establishing Simplicius\u2019 text. Regrettably, there is only a proper edition thus far of Moerbeke\u2019s translation of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on De caelo 1; and, though it has certainly proved useful, we must all await the publication of the edition of Moerbeke\u2019s version of Simplicius\u2019 In De caelo 2. This forthcoming edition, as I understand, will account for both of Moerbeke\u2019s translations of Simplicius\u2019 astronomical digression in his commentary on 2.12.\r\n\r\nAs for Grosseteste\u2019s translation, though there is apparently a typescript edition by the late Fernand Bossier, it seems to be privately circulated, and so far, I have been unable to obtain a copy.\r\n\r\nNext, in interpreting the syntax and meaning of Simplicius\u2019 Greek, I have used terminology that remains faithful to our ancient sources while also being familiar to historians of science, ensuring an accurate rendering of the technical language that Simplicius employs (and sometimes misuses) in the course of his philosophical and astronomical interpretations. As before, the line numbers in the margins of the translation indicate the line in which the first word of the corresponding line in Heiberg\u2019s text appears. The result is not exact in terms of the actual line count, but it should suffice to allow readers to move between my translation and Simplicius\u2019 text if they so wish.\r\n\r\nFinally, I have supplied extensive footnotes and comments to explicate the many issues that readers should understand in order to assess the nature of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on De caelo 2.12. Readers may well disagree with my claims and arguments; however, I trust that this annotation will at least help them avoid missteps\u2014mine included. What I have not done, however, is address the voluminous literature offering reconstructions of the system of homocentric spheres that Simplicius describes in the great astronomical digression concluding his commentary on 2.12.\r\n\r\nAs in Part 1, my overriding aim is to provide only such annotation as allows readers to engage with Simplicius\u2019 testimony directly, without obscuring it beneath layers of learned interpretation and speculation. My hope is that this approach will encourage readers to assess such reconstructions critically. Admittedly, this aim aligns with my own conclusion that such reconstructions, which trace back to Schiaparelli in the 19th century and were largely codified by Heath (1913), must today be seen as an egregious example of how scholars and their communities project their own perspectives onto the past.\r\n\r\nMoreover, this approach fits with my conviction that Simplicius\u2019 commentary on De caelo 2.10\u201312 is historically significant in its own right as a witness to concerns in late antiquity about the nature and foundations of astronomical knowledge. Accordingly, I have limited my remarks on these reconstructions to instances where proponents make claims about the meaning of Simplicius\u2019 Greek or critique his interpretations. For the most part, I have set aside alternative reconstructions proposed by Maula (1974), Heglmeier (1996), Mendell (1998, 2000), and Yavetz (1998, 2001, 2003).\r\n\r\nFor further details on the principles underlying this translation and the format of its presentation, I urge the reader to consult Part 1, especially pages 25\u201326. [introduction p. 25-27]","btype":3,"date":"2008","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/bK5nxtsNqCbstdI","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":16,"full_name":"Bowen, Alan C. ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":62,"full_name":"Simplicius Cilicius","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1480,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"SCIAMVS: Sources and Commentaries in Exact Sciences","volume":"9","issue":"","pages":"25-131"}},"sort":[2008]}

Remarque complémentaire à mon article “Dans quel lieu le néoplatonicien Simplicius a-t-il fondé son école de mathémathiques, et où a pu avoir lieu son entretien avec un manichéen?”, 2007
By: Hadot, Ilsetraut
Title Remarque complémentaire à mon article “Dans quel lieu le néoplatonicien Simplicius a-t-il fondé son école de mathémathiques, et où a pu avoir lieu son entretien avec un manichéen?”
Type Article
Language French
Date 2007
Journal The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 1
Pages 263-269
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hadot, Ilsetraut
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Concerning the book by R. Arnzen Abū l-‘Abbās an-Nayrīzīs Exzerpte aus (Ps.-?) Simplicius’ Kommentar zu den Definitionen, Postulaten und Axiomen in Euclids Elementa I, the present paper off ers a survey of the way the late Neoplatonists used to conceive and compose their commentaries. Far from trying to be original, each commentary is largely based on the works of predecessors. [Author's abstract]

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Aperçu de la réception de la doctrine stoïcienne du mélange total dans le néoplatonisme après Plotin, 2007
By: Cohen, Daniel
Title Aperçu de la réception de la doctrine stoïcienne du mélange total dans le néoplatonisme après Plotin
Type Article
Language French
Date 2007
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 25
Issue 2
Pages 67-100
Categories no categories
Author(s) Cohen, Daniel
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Aux niveaux les plus inférieurs, où prédomine la multiplicité et la division, le mélange peut se manifester selon deux modes : Ou bien les composants d'une totalité préservent leur identité au détriment de l'unité du produit du mélange (il ne s'agit alors pas à proprement parler d'un mélange mais plutôt d'un « assemblage » dans lequel les éléments sont simplement juxtaposés : il s'agit plutôt de la παράθεσις stoïcienne ou de la σύνθεσις d'Aristote). Ou bien le produit du mélange forme une véritable totalité unifiée, mais alors cette unité est réalisée au détriment de l'identité des composantes, qui s'altèrent et se confondent pour former une entité nouvelle (il s'agit alors de la σύγχυσις stoïcienne ou du véritable mélange au sens aristotélicien). Au niveau des réalités immatérielles, c'est sur le modèle stoïcien du mélange total que les Néoplatoniciens envisagent cette paradoxale « fusion sans confusion » qui unifie toute multiplicité sur le mode de la totalité antérieure à la dispersion de ses parties au sein de la matière. Dans la mesure où les jugements que les Néoplatoniciens portent sur l'héritage philosophique des doctrines anciennes se présentent la plupart du temps comme une confrontation avec la perspective qui est supposée être celle de Platon, on peut dire que la réception néoplatonicienne des physiques du mélange d'Aristote et des Stoïciens aboutit à la conclusion suivante : Les Stoïciens se trompent parce qu'ils rendent les causes immanentes et donc mélangées à la matière. Aristote a raison, mais il se limite à rendre compte des phénomènes sensibles. Aristote et les Stoïciens font partie de ce que Proclus qualifiera de « crème des disputeurs qui, pour avoir observé quelque petite portion de la nature, pensent pouvoir déchirer Platon ». Ce n'est donc pas le moindre des paradoxes si les représentants du Néoplatonisme, après avoir rejeté les lois de la physique aristotélicienne comme n'ayant de validité qu'au seul niveau sensible, et après avoir vigoureusement critiqué le matérialisme stoïcien, ont transposé la donnée la plus fondamentale de la physique stoïcienne — celle qui permettait aux Stoïciens de justifier l'immanence intégrale de la causalité divine (et donc le matérialisme corporaliste le plus radical) — aux niveaux les plus élevés, comme régissant les relations entre les réalités immatérielles et incorporelles. Comme l'a bien montré Pierre Hadot, cette transfiguration doctrinale, qui deviendra typique de la démarche néoplatonicienne, a été amorcée dans le cadre de la synthèse réalisée par Porphyre. En ce sens, écrivait-il, « c'est précisément une des caractéristiques de la doctrine porphyrienne (...) de montrer que le Stoïcisme n'est vrai que dans la transposition néoplatonicienne, la physique stoïcienne devenant ainsi une métaphysique », de sorte que « la théorie des mélanges élaborée par les Stoïciens ne découvre sa vérité que sur le plan intelligible ». Nous avons vu cependant que cette vérité se découvre avant même d'envisager le mélange proprement noétique, Porphyre lui-même ayant déjà fait intervenir la krasis stoïcienne dans le contexte d'un exposé sur l'embryologie, et les Néoplatoniciens ultérieurs dans cet ordre intermédiaire, négligé par Plotin, où se tiennent les « corps immatériels » non qualifiés. La conception stoïcienne du mélange total s'est finalement imposée au sein de la métaphysique néoplatonicienne au prix d'un double réaménagement doctrinal, ayant eu pour résultat : La synthèse de la doctrine stoïcienne de l'interpénétration totale sans confusion avec les élaborations aristotéliciennes de l'acte et de la puissance. La transposition du domaine des réalités matérielles à celui des réalités corporelles non encore engagées dans la matière première. [conclusion p. 99-100]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1273","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1273,"authors_free":[{"id":1863,"entry_id":1273,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":51,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Cohen, Daniel","free_first_name":"Daniel","free_last_name":"Cohen","norm_person":{"id":51,"first_name":"Daniel","last_name":"Cohen","full_name":"Cohen, Daniel","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1024876659","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Aper\u00e7u de la r\u00e9ception de la doctrine sto\u00efcienne du m\u00e9lange total dans le n\u00e9oplatonisme apr\u00e8s Plotin","main_title":{"title":"Aper\u00e7u de la r\u00e9ception de la doctrine sto\u00efcienne du m\u00e9lange total dans le n\u00e9oplatonisme apr\u00e8s Plotin"},"abstract":"Aux niveaux les plus inf\u00e9rieurs, o\u00f9 pr\u00e9domine la multiplicit\u00e9 et la division, le m\u00e9lange peut se manifester selon deux modes :\r\n\r\n Ou bien les composants d'une totalit\u00e9 pr\u00e9servent leur identit\u00e9 au d\u00e9triment de l'unit\u00e9 du produit du m\u00e9lange (il ne s'agit alors pas \u00e0 proprement parler d'un m\u00e9lange mais plut\u00f4t d'un \u00ab assemblage \u00bb dans lequel les \u00e9l\u00e9ments sont simplement juxtapos\u00e9s : il s'agit plut\u00f4t de la \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 sto\u00efcienne ou de la \u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 d'Aristote).\r\n Ou bien le produit du m\u00e9lange forme une v\u00e9ritable totalit\u00e9 unifi\u00e9e, mais alors cette unit\u00e9 est r\u00e9alis\u00e9e au d\u00e9triment de l'identit\u00e9 des composantes, qui s'alt\u00e8rent et se confondent pour former une entit\u00e9 nouvelle (il s'agit alors de la \u03c3\u03cd\u03b3\u03c7\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 sto\u00efcienne ou du v\u00e9ritable m\u00e9lange au sens aristot\u00e9licien).\r\n\r\nAu niveau des r\u00e9alit\u00e9s immat\u00e9rielles, c'est sur le mod\u00e8le sto\u00efcien du m\u00e9lange total que les N\u00e9oplatoniciens envisagent cette paradoxale \u00ab fusion sans confusion \u00bb qui unifie toute multiplicit\u00e9 sur le mode de la totalit\u00e9 ant\u00e9rieure \u00e0 la dispersion de ses parties au sein de la mati\u00e8re.\r\n\r\nDans la mesure o\u00f9 les jugements que les N\u00e9oplatoniciens portent sur l'h\u00e9ritage philosophique des doctrines anciennes se pr\u00e9sentent la plupart du temps comme une confrontation avec la perspective qui est suppos\u00e9e \u00eatre celle de Platon, on peut dire que la r\u00e9ception n\u00e9oplatonicienne des physiques du m\u00e9lange d'Aristote et des Sto\u00efciens aboutit \u00e0 la conclusion suivante :\r\n\r\n Les Sto\u00efciens se trompent parce qu'ils rendent les causes immanentes et donc m\u00e9lang\u00e9es \u00e0 la mati\u00e8re.\r\n Aristote a raison, mais il se limite \u00e0 rendre compte des ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes sensibles.\r\n\r\nAristote et les Sto\u00efciens font partie de ce que Proclus qualifiera de \u00ab cr\u00e8me des disputeurs qui, pour avoir observ\u00e9 quelque petite portion de la nature, pensent pouvoir d\u00e9chirer Platon \u00bb.\r\n\r\nCe n'est donc pas le moindre des paradoxes si les repr\u00e9sentants du N\u00e9oplatonisme, apr\u00e8s avoir rejet\u00e9 les lois de la physique aristot\u00e9licienne comme n'ayant de validit\u00e9 qu'au seul niveau sensible, et apr\u00e8s avoir vigoureusement critiqu\u00e9 le mat\u00e9rialisme sto\u00efcien, ont transpos\u00e9 la donn\u00e9e la plus fondamentale de la physique sto\u00efcienne \u2014 celle qui permettait aux Sto\u00efciens de justifier l'immanence int\u00e9grale de la causalit\u00e9 divine (et donc le mat\u00e9rialisme corporaliste le plus radical) \u2014 aux niveaux les plus \u00e9lev\u00e9s, comme r\u00e9gissant les relations entre les r\u00e9alit\u00e9s immat\u00e9rielles et incorporelles.\r\n\r\nComme l'a bien montr\u00e9 Pierre Hadot, cette transfiguration doctrinale, qui deviendra typique de la d\u00e9marche n\u00e9oplatonicienne, a \u00e9t\u00e9 amorc\u00e9e dans le cadre de la synth\u00e8se r\u00e9alis\u00e9e par Porphyre. En ce sens, \u00e9crivait-il, \u00ab c'est pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment une des caract\u00e9ristiques de la doctrine porphyrienne (...) de montrer que le Sto\u00efcisme n'est vrai que dans la transposition n\u00e9oplatonicienne, la physique sto\u00efcienne devenant ainsi une m\u00e9taphysique \u00bb, de sorte que \u00ab la th\u00e9orie des m\u00e9langes \u00e9labor\u00e9e par les Sto\u00efciens ne d\u00e9couvre sa v\u00e9rit\u00e9 que sur le plan intelligible \u00bb.\r\n\r\nNous avons vu cependant que cette v\u00e9rit\u00e9 se d\u00e9couvre avant m\u00eame d'envisager le m\u00e9lange proprement no\u00e9tique, Porphyre lui-m\u00eame ayant d\u00e9j\u00e0 fait intervenir la krasis sto\u00efcienne dans le contexte d'un expos\u00e9 sur l'embryologie, et les N\u00e9oplatoniciens ult\u00e9rieurs dans cet ordre interm\u00e9diaire, n\u00e9glig\u00e9 par Plotin, o\u00f9 se tiennent les \u00ab corps immat\u00e9riels \u00bb non qualifi\u00e9s.\r\n\r\nLa conception sto\u00efcienne du m\u00e9lange total s'est finalement impos\u00e9e au sein de la m\u00e9taphysique n\u00e9oplatonicienne au prix d'un double r\u00e9am\u00e9nagement doctrinal, ayant eu pour r\u00e9sultat :\r\n\r\n La synth\u00e8se de la doctrine sto\u00efcienne de l'interp\u00e9n\u00e9tration totale sans confusion avec les \u00e9laborations aristot\u00e9liciennes de l'acte et de la puissance.\r\n La transposition du domaine des r\u00e9alit\u00e9s mat\u00e9rielles \u00e0 celui des r\u00e9alit\u00e9s corporelles non encore engag\u00e9es dans la mati\u00e8re premi\u00e8re. [conclusion p. 99-100]","btype":3,"date":"2007","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/T9kWS2QRZ2oeq7V","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":51,"full_name":"Cohen, Daniel","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1273,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Revue de Philosophie Ancienne","volume":"25 ","issue":"2","pages":"67-100"}},"sort":[2007]}

Die philosophischen Kommentare aus der Antike. Ein Überblick mit ausgewählten Literaturangaben, 2007
By: Perkams, Matthias
Title Die philosophischen Kommentare aus der Antike. Ein Überblick mit ausgewählten Literaturangaben
Type Article
Language German
Date 2007
Journal Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie
Volume 32
Issue 1
Pages 51-79
Categories no categories
Author(s) Perkams, Matthias
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Ein typisches Beispiel für einen systematisch anspruchsvoll argumentierenden Kommentar, auf den viele der hier genannten Merkmale zutreffen, ist der De anima-Kommentar des Neuplatonikers Priskian von Lydien, eines Zeitgenossen und Bekannten des Damaskios und Simplikios um 530. Der Autor setzt es sich zu Beginn seines Kommentars ausdrücklich zum Ziel, sich bei der Auslegung des aristotelischen Textes und der Klärung der hierbei bestehenden Zweifel nach Möglichkeit an die sachliche Wahrheit (alētheia tōn pragmatōn) zu halten. Dabei will er diese nicht einfach aus dem Text ableiten, sondern orientiert sich bewusst an der Seelenlehre Jamblichs (3. Jh.), des eigentlichen Begründers des spätneuplatonischen Systems (1, 18–20). Diese Zugangsweise stellt den Kommentator freilich vor schwierige inhaltliche Probleme: Zum einen gilt es, Aristoteles’ Seelenlehre richtig zu verstehen, die davon ausgeht, dass die Seele schlichtweg das Lebensprinzip des menschlichen Körpers und eben dadurch definiert ist. Andererseits muss Priskian den Intentionen Jamblichs gerecht werden, dessen Neuplatonismus der Transzendenz auch des menschlichen Geistes und damit einer Art Leib-Seele-Dualismus verpflichtet bleibt. Um beiden Ansprüchen genügen zu können, entwickelt der Kommentator eine komplexe Theorie der menschlichen Seele, die das neuplatonische Menschenbild nicht unwesentlich variiert und verfeinert: Erstens führt Priskian in den für Aristoteles’ Seelenlehre zentralen Begriff der Entelechie bzw. Formursache eine Unterscheidung zwischen einer Formursächlichkeit als Gestaltprinzip des leib-seelischen Wesens und einer Formursächlichkeit als dessen Bewegungsprinzip ein (4,12–5,5). Das letztere Prinzip findet Priskian in Aristoteles’ Aussage, der Geist könne möglicherweise auch so im Körper sein wie ein Schiffer auf einem Schiff (De anima II 1, 413a 6–9). Für Priskian gibt es die Unterschiedenheit zwischen formender und bewegender Entelechie jedoch nicht nur (und nicht in erster Linie, wie noch deutlich werden wird) auf der Ebene der rationalen Seele bzw. des menschlichen Nous, sondern auch auf den Seelenstufen des Vegetativen und des Sensitiven, wobei beim Vegetativen der formende Charakter stark überwiegt. Für die Ebene des Nous reicht diese Differenzierung jedoch nicht aus; denn auch ein Bewegungsprinzip ist nach neuplatonischer Vorstellung als solches notwendig mit dem Körper verbunden, während es für den aristotelischen Nous ganz unangemessen ist, dass er überhaupt in irgendeiner notwendigen Verbindung zum Körper steht (227,6–32). Priskian antwortet mit einer feingliedrigen Differenzierung des Nous-Begriffs, wobei die Einheit und Vielheit der verschiedenen unterschiedenen Stufen mit Hilfe der neuplatonischen Idee einer triadischen Dynamik des Geistigen verstanden werden muss. Grundlegend ist der Gedanke, dass der Nous im Menschen, verstanden als sein alltägliches, gleichsam empirisches Selbst, sich entweder ganz von der Verbindung mit Körperlichem lösen und sich dem bloßen Denken zuwenden oder aber durch die eingegangene Verbindung mit dem Körper nur potentiell zu einem derartigen Denken befähigt sein kann. Priskian schildert diesen Gegensatz jedoch nicht nur, wie andere Neuplatoniker, als eine bloße Wahlmöglichkeit der rationalen Seele zwischen einer Wendung nach oben – zum Geistigen – oder nach unten – zum Körperlichen –, sondern er stellt ihn als eine Zuwendung der Seele zu ihrem eigentlichen, idealen Selbst dar, das als transzendentales Subjekt ihres Denkens zu gelten hat und damit das Denken eigentlich erst „bewirkt“ (das ist seine Interpretation des aristotelischen aktiven Geistes). Dieses ideale Selbst ist aber nicht, wie Plotin annimmt, völlig konstant, sondern es entwickelt und verändert sich zusammen mit der Ebene unseres alltäglichen Denkens, das erst durch eine Rückwendung zum Geistigen auch eine volle Wiederherstellung seines transzendentalen Selbst bewirken kann (220,2–25; 240,2–241,26). Unser Geist ist daher „von sich selbst entfremdet“ (allotriōthen heautou; 223,26), und unser Leben eine dauerhafte Suche nach der Wiedergewinnung der Einheit von empirischem und idealem Selbst. Diese kann erreicht werden durch eine Selbsterkenntnis, bei der sich das empirische Selbst als sein ideales Selbst erkennt und zu diesem wird; um diesen Prozess zu erklären, wendet Priskian die neuplatonische Idee einer geistigen Bewegung aus Bleiben, Hervorgehen und Zurückkehren (monē, prohodos, epistrophē) auf den menschlichen Geist an, was hier nicht im Detail nachvollzogen werden kann. Dieser sehr grobe Überblick über einen ebenso scharfsinnigen wie schwierigen und voraussetzungsreichen Text zeigt in besonders extremer Form, mit welchen systematischen Interessen nicht wenige Kommentatoren an ihre Texte herantraten; häufig lässt sich im kommentierten Text allenfalls der Anlass erkennen, der den Kommentator dazu führt, seine eigenen systematischen Fragen am autoritativ verstandenen Vorlagetext abzuhandeln, was entweder zu einem besseren Verständnis des Textes oder – wie im gerade diskutierten Fall – zu einer Bereicherung der zeitgenössischen Diskussion führt, von der auch der heutige Leser profitieren kann, wenn er bereit ist, den häufig mühsamen Weg zum Verständnis eines Kommentators zu gehen. [introduction p. 52-53]

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Ein \u00dcberblick mit ausgew\u00e4hlten Literaturangaben"},"abstract":"Ein typisches Beispiel f\u00fcr einen systematisch anspruchsvoll argumentierenden Kommentar, auf den viele der hier genannten Merkmale zutreffen, ist der De anima-Kommentar des Neuplatonikers Priskian von Lydien, eines Zeitgenossen und Bekannten des Damaskios und Simplikios um 530. Der Autor setzt es sich zu Beginn seines Kommentars ausdr\u00fccklich zum Ziel, sich bei der Auslegung des aristotelischen Textes und der Kl\u00e4rung der hierbei bestehenden Zweifel nach M\u00f6glichkeit an die sachliche Wahrheit (al\u0113theia t\u014dn pragmat\u014dn) zu halten. Dabei will er diese nicht einfach aus dem Text ableiten, sondern orientiert sich bewusst an der Seelenlehre Jamblichs (3. Jh.), des eigentlichen Begr\u00fcnders des sp\u00e4tneuplatonischen Systems (1, 18\u201320).\r\n\r\nDiese Zugangsweise stellt den Kommentator freilich vor schwierige inhaltliche Probleme: Zum einen gilt es, Aristoteles\u2019 Seelenlehre richtig zu verstehen, die davon ausgeht, dass die Seele schlichtweg das Lebensprinzip des menschlichen K\u00f6rpers und eben dadurch definiert ist. Andererseits muss Priskian den Intentionen Jamblichs gerecht werden, dessen Neuplatonismus der Transzendenz auch des menschlichen Geistes und damit einer Art Leib-Seele-Dualismus verpflichtet bleibt.\r\n\r\nUm beiden Anspr\u00fcchen gen\u00fcgen zu k\u00f6nnen, entwickelt der Kommentator eine komplexe Theorie der menschlichen Seele, die das neuplatonische Menschenbild nicht unwesentlich variiert und verfeinert: Erstens f\u00fchrt Priskian in den f\u00fcr Aristoteles\u2019 Seelenlehre zentralen Begriff der Entelechie bzw. Formursache eine Unterscheidung zwischen einer Formurs\u00e4chlichkeit als Gestaltprinzip des leib-seelischen Wesens und einer Formurs\u00e4chlichkeit als dessen Bewegungsprinzip ein (4,12\u20135,5). Das letztere Prinzip findet Priskian in Aristoteles\u2019 Aussage, der Geist k\u00f6nne m\u00f6glicherweise auch so im K\u00f6rper sein wie ein Schiffer auf einem Schiff (De anima II 1, 413a 6\u20139).\r\n\r\nF\u00fcr Priskian gibt es die Unterschiedenheit zwischen formender und bewegender Entelechie jedoch nicht nur (und nicht in erster Linie, wie noch deutlich werden wird) auf der Ebene der rationalen Seele bzw. des menschlichen Nous, sondern auch auf den Seelenstufen des Vegetativen und des Sensitiven, wobei beim Vegetativen der formende Charakter stark \u00fcberwiegt.\r\n\r\nF\u00fcr die Ebene des Nous reicht diese Differenzierung jedoch nicht aus; denn auch ein Bewegungsprinzip ist nach neuplatonischer Vorstellung als solches notwendig mit dem K\u00f6rper verbunden, w\u00e4hrend es f\u00fcr den aristotelischen Nous ganz unangemessen ist, dass er \u00fcberhaupt in irgendeiner notwendigen Verbindung zum K\u00f6rper steht (227,6\u201332). Priskian antwortet mit einer feingliedrigen Differenzierung des Nous-Begriffs, wobei die Einheit und Vielheit der verschiedenen unterschiedenen Stufen mit Hilfe der neuplatonischen Idee einer triadischen Dynamik des Geistigen verstanden werden muss.\r\n\r\nGrundlegend ist der Gedanke, dass der Nous im Menschen, verstanden als sein allt\u00e4gliches, gleichsam empirisches Selbst, sich entweder ganz von der Verbindung mit K\u00f6rperlichem l\u00f6sen und sich dem blo\u00dfen Denken zuwenden oder aber durch die eingegangene Verbindung mit dem K\u00f6rper nur potentiell zu einem derartigen Denken bef\u00e4higt sein kann. Priskian schildert diesen Gegensatz jedoch nicht nur, wie andere Neuplatoniker, als eine blo\u00dfe Wahlm\u00f6glichkeit der rationalen Seele zwischen einer Wendung nach oben \u2013 zum Geistigen \u2013 oder nach unten \u2013 zum K\u00f6rperlichen \u2013, sondern er stellt ihn als eine Zuwendung der Seele zu ihrem eigentlichen, idealen Selbst dar, das als transzendentales Subjekt ihres Denkens zu gelten hat und damit das Denken eigentlich erst \u201ebewirkt\u201c (das ist seine Interpretation des aristotelischen aktiven Geistes).\r\n\r\nDieses ideale Selbst ist aber nicht, wie Plotin annimmt, v\u00f6llig konstant, sondern es entwickelt und ver\u00e4ndert sich zusammen mit der Ebene unseres allt\u00e4glichen Denkens, das erst durch eine R\u00fcckwendung zum Geistigen auch eine volle Wiederherstellung seines transzendentalen Selbst bewirken kann (220,2\u201325; 240,2\u2013241,26). Unser Geist ist daher \u201evon sich selbst entfremdet\u201c (allotri\u014dthen heautou; 223,26), und unser Leben eine dauerhafte Suche nach der Wiedergewinnung der Einheit von empirischem und idealem Selbst.\r\n\r\nDiese kann erreicht werden durch eine Selbsterkenntnis, bei der sich das empirische Selbst als sein ideales Selbst erkennt und zu diesem wird; um diesen Prozess zu erkl\u00e4ren, wendet Priskian die neuplatonische Idee einer geistigen Bewegung aus Bleiben, Hervorgehen und Zur\u00fcckkehren (mon\u0113, prohodos, epistroph\u0113) auf den menschlichen Geist an, was hier nicht im Detail nachvollzogen werden kann.\r\n\r\nDieser sehr grobe \u00dcberblick \u00fcber einen ebenso scharfsinnigen wie schwierigen und voraussetzungsreichen Text zeigt in besonders extremer Form, mit welchen systematischen Interessen nicht wenige Kommentatoren an ihre Texte herantraten; h\u00e4ufig l\u00e4sst sich im kommentierten Text allenfalls der Anlass erkennen, der den Kommentator dazu f\u00fchrt, seine eigenen systematischen Fragen am autoritativ verstandenen Vorlagetext abzuhandeln, was entweder zu einem besseren Verst\u00e4ndnis des Textes oder \u2013 wie im gerade diskutierten Fall \u2013 zu einer Bereicherung der zeitgen\u00f6ssischen Diskussion f\u00fchrt, von der auch der heutige Leser profitieren kann, wenn er bereit ist, den h\u00e4ufig m\u00fchsamen Weg zum Verst\u00e4ndnis eines Kommentators zu gehen. [introduction p. 52-53]","btype":3,"date":"2007","language":"German","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/pSf0FMkBh5xKMAw","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":283,"full_name":"Perkams, Matthias","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1085,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Allgemeine Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Philosophie","volume":"32","issue":"1","pages":"51-79"}},"sort":[2007]}

Semence, vertu formatrice et intellect agent chez Nicolò Leoniceno entre la tradition arabo-latine et la renaissance des commentateurs grecs, 2007
By: Hiro, Harai
Title Semence, vertu formatrice et intellect agent chez Nicolò Leoniceno entre la tradition arabo-latine et la renaissance des commentateurs grecs
Type Article
Language French
Date 2007
Journal Early Science and Medicine
Volume 12
Issue 2
Pages 134-165
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hiro, Harai
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The treatise On Formative Power (Venice, 1506) of Ferrara's emblematic medical humanist, Nicolo Leoniceno (1428-1524), is the one of the first embryological monographs of the Renaissance. It shows, at the same time, the continuity of medi eval Arabo-Latin tradition and the new elements brought by Renaissance medical humanism, namely through the use of the ancient Greek commentators of Aristotle like Simplicius. Thus this treatise stands at the crossroad of these two currents. The present study analyses the range of Leoniceno's philosophical discussion, determines its exact sources and brings to light premises for the early modern development of the concept of formative force, which will end up in the theory of "plastic nature" at the heart of the Scientific Revolution. [Author’s abstract]

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From Polemic to Exegesis: The Ancient Philosophical Commentary, 2007
By: Baltussen, Han
Title From Polemic to Exegesis: The Ancient Philosophical Commentary
Type Article
Language English
Date 2007
Journal Poetics Today
Volume 28
Issue 2
Pages 247–281
Categories no categories
Author(s) Baltussen, Han
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Commentary was an important vehicle for philosophical debate in late antiquity. Its antecedents lie in the rise of rational argumentation, polemical rivalry, literacy, and the canonization of texts. This essay aims to give a historical and typological outline of philosophical exegesis in antiquity, from the earliest alle­gorizing readings of Homer to the full-blown “running commentary” in the Pla­tonic tradition (fourth to sixth centuries CE). Running commentaries are mostly on authoritative thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle. Yet they are never mere scholarly enterprises but, rather, springboards for syncretistic clarification, elaboration, and creative interpretation. Two case studies (Galen 129-219 CE, Simplicius ca. 530 CE) will illustrate the range of exegetical tools available at the end of a long tradition in medical science and in reading Aristotle through Neoplatonic eyes, respectively. [author's abstract]

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Porphyry and Iamblichus on Universals and Synonymous Predication, 2007
By: Chiaradonna, Riccardo
Title Porphyry and Iamblichus on Universals and Synonymous Predication
Type Article
Language English
Date 2007
Journal Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale
Volume 18
Pages 123-140
Categories no categories
Author(s) Chiaradonna, Riccardo
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Porphyry’s interpretation of Aristotle’s theories of genus and substantial predication is based on two related assumptions: That a clear separation exists between logic and metaphysics (= doctrine of transcendent realities). That there is a close relation between logic and physics. Since Porphyry’s physics is part of his ontology, logic and ontology (i.e., the logic and the ontology of the physical world) stand in close relation with each other. Porphyry only makes very partial references to metaphysics in his logical works. What I have argued is that Porphyry’s conception of genus in the Isagoge reflects the Platonic theory of the hierarchy of beings, since Porphyry presents his genus as an aph’ henos hierarchical relation. This, on the other hand, does not imply that Porphyry’s treatment of genus in the Isagoge refers to transcendent ante rem principles. Porphyry carefully introduces a doctrine in the Isagoge, the complete significance of which emerges in a different context: the ‘Porphyrean tree’ is thus a mere analogon of the Platonic hierarchy of beings. The presence of physical doctrines is far more essential to Porphyry’s views of universals and predication. Physical entities such as bodiless immanent forms provide real correlates for Porphyry’s universal predicates: Aristotle’s substantial predication ‘mirrors’ the relation between a particular and its immanent form. Physical forms are not outside the scope of logic; rather, they provide the ‘real’ foundation for Porphyry’s views on predication. Such a foundation is presented in an introductory way in Porphyry’s logical writings and is only made explicit in his more ‘systematic’ works. Iamblichus’ attitude is different in that his Platonizing of Aristotle’s logic is more direct and pervasive. Consequently, Iamblichus offers a Platonizing reading of the Aristotelian theory of substantial predication, which refers to ante rem genera and to the metaphysical relation of participation. Iamblichus is well aware that an ante rem form cannot be a universal synonymous predicate of its particular instantiations, and he conceives of substantial predication as a paronymous relation. Neither Porphyry nor Iamblichus believe that an ante rem form can be predicated synonymously of corporeal individuals. [conclusion p. 17-18]

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Francesco Patrizi da Cherso's Criticism of Aristotle's Logic, 2007
By: Deitz, Luc
Title Francesco Patrizi da Cherso's Criticism of Aristotle's Logic
Type Article
Language English
Date 2007
Journal Vivarum
Volume 45
Issue 1
Pages 113-124
Categories no categories
Author(s) Deitz, Luc
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Francesco Patrizi da Chersos Discussiones peripateticae (1581) are one of the most com- prehensive analyses of the whole of Aristotelian philosophy to be published before Werner Jaeger s Aristoteles . The main thrust of the argument in the Discussiones is that whatever Aristotle had said that was true was not new, and that whatever he had said that was new was not true. The article shows how Patrizi proves this with respect to the Organon , and deals with the implications for the history of ancient philosophy in general implied by his stance. [Author's abstract]

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Un commentaire perpétuel de Georges Pachymère à la Physique d'Aristote, faussement attribué à Michel Psellos, 2007
By: Golitsis, Pantelis
Title Un commentaire perpétuel de Georges Pachymère à la Physique d'Aristote, faussement attribué à Michel Psellos
Type Article
Language French
Date 2007
Journal Byzantinische Zeitschrift
Volume 100
Issue 2
Pages 637-676
Categories no categories
Author(s) Golitsis, Pantelis
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Récapitulons l'essentiel des raisonnements philologiques qui nous ont permis de restituer le véritable auteur du commentaire, qui dorénavant doit être attribué à Georges Pachymère. Nous avons vu que l'ensemble de la tradition manuscrite qui attribue le commentaire à Psellos descend d'un ancêtre commun, l'Ambrosianus H 44 sup., écrit à la fin du XIVᵉ siècle. Celui-ci remonte pourtant à un archétype, écrit vers l'an 1300 et aujourd'hui perdu (l'Escorialensis D. IV. 24), dans lequel le commentaire figurait sous le nom de Pachymère, ainsi que nous avons pu le montrer grâce au Vindobonensis phil. gr. 248 et à des témoignages du XVIᵉ siècle. Cet archétype de l'ensemble de la tradition manuscrite du commentaire a été copié sur le Laurentianus plut. 87,5, autographe stricto sensu de Pachymère, dont il se servait pour assurer son enseignement de la Physique. [Conclusion, p. 676]

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Addenda Eudemea, 2006
By: Baltussen, Han
Title Addenda Eudemea
Type Article
Language English
Date 2006
Journal Leeds International Classical Studies
Volume 5
Issue 1
Pages 1-28
Categories no categories
Author(s) Baltussen, Han
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper presents 16 fragments of the Peripatetic philosopher Eudemus (c. 350-290 BC), which were not printed in the (still) standard edition of Wehrli (1955; revised 1969), but which had been signalled in passing by De Lacy (1957) and Gottschalk (1973). The aim is to provide a text with translation and brief annotation, to be included in a future edition, and to argue that context can add to our understanding of these passages. Their importance lies in bringing greater comprehensiveness to the collection, offering at least five additional (near) quotations, and illustrating the new trend in fragment studies to contextualize fragments on several levels in order to gain further insight into their value and reception. [Author's abstract]

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Il De caelo di Aristotele e alcuni suoi commentatori: Simplicio, Averroè e Pietro d'Alvernia, 2006
By: Musatti, Cesare Alberto
Title Il De caelo di Aristotele e alcuni suoi commentatori: Simplicio, Averroè e Pietro d'Alvernia
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2006
Journal Quaestio
Volume 6
Pages 524–549
Categories no categories
Author(s) Musatti, Cesare Alberto
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In aggiunta a questi va almeno ricordata l’edizione della traduzione latina dello pseudo-avicenniano Liber de caelo et mundo, parafrasi di alcune parti dei primi due libri del De caelo, tradotta in latino da Domenico Gundissalino e Giovanni di Spagna nel terzo quarto del XII secolo. Inizialmente confuso con lo stesso De caelo di Aristotele, il testo nel XIII secolo (all’incirca dal 1240 in poi) è stato attribuito quasi sempre ad Avicenna. Oggi invece, in virtù soprattutto della testimonianza del Catalogo (Kitāb al-Fihrist) di Ibn al-Nadīm, viene fatto il nome del celebre medico e traduttore Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn come suo possibile autore. In merito a questa attribuzione bisogna tuttavia tenere presenti le osservazioni di Gutman (pp. XIII-XVII dell’introduzione all’edizione), il quale ha editato il testo sotto il nome dello Pseudo-Avicenna. Per quanto riguarda il commento di Simplicio sul De caelo, nel Medioevo si sono avute due traduzioni latine: una parziale (II libro e prologo del III) ad opera di Roberto Grossatesta, che Bossier data tra il 1235 e il 1253, e una completa di Guglielmo di Moerbeke, conclusa nel 1271. La traduzione di Grossatesta ci è conservata in un solo manoscritto (Oxford, Balliol College 99), e non sembra avere avuto un’ampia diffusione, mentre della traduzione completa di Guglielmo di Moerbeke attualmente sono conosciuti con certezza sei manoscritti. Se sembra da escludere qualsiasi ipotesi di una revisione da parte di Moerbeke della traduzione di Grossatesta del commento di Simplicio, ancora non definitivamente risolta è invece la questione se la traduzione moerbekana del De caelo di Aristotele sia o meno una revisione di quella incompleta del Grossatesta (II libro e prologo del III) che è presente in forma di lemmi nello stesso manoscritto che contiene il commento di Simplicio. Bossier considera «plus probable» l’opinione di D. J. Allan, secondo cui la traduzione di Moerbeke è indipendente da quella del Grossatesta, mentre Lacombe e Franceschini hanno ritenuto trattarsi di una revisione. L’esistenza di un manoscritto (Vat. lat. 2088) nel quale la traduzione del De caelo di Moerbeke risulta contaminata con quella di Grossatesta anche per alcune parti del primo libro lascia supporre che il Lincolniensis abbia tradotto anche quest’ultimo libro, e non solo il II e l’inizio del III. È stato infine ipotizzato che Grossatesta abbia tradotto anche il primo libro del commento di Simplicio. La traduzione del vescovo di Lincoln del II libro del De caelo è ora consultabile nell’Aristoteles Latinus Database, così come il testo della seconda recensione della traduzione di Guglielmo di Moerbeke al De caelo di Aristotele. Di quest’ultima traduzione esistono infatti tre recensioni differenti, di cui la seconda è la cosiddetta recensio vulgata. Il commento di Simplicio sul De caelo è stato scritto probabilmente intorno al 540. Prima di lui almeno due altri autori avevano dedicato un commento al testo aristotelico: Alessandro di Afrodisia e Temistio. Il commento di Alessandro di Afrodisia è andato perduto sia nel testo greco che nella traduzione araba di Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus. Molte notizie le possiamo trarre però dal commento di Simplicio, di cui il testo di Alessandro costituisce la fonte principale. Il commento di Alessandro viene citato anche nella parafrasi sul De caelo scritta da Temistio. Come per Alessandro di Afrodisia, il testo di Temistio è anch’esso andato perduto sia nell’originale greco che nella traduzione araba di Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. Si è salvato soltanto nella traduzione ebraica di quest’ultima compiuta nel 1284 da Zerahyah ben Isaac ben Shealtiel Gracian, e nella successiva versione latina del testo ebraico ad opera di Mosé Alatino nel 1574. È opportuno ricordare che, a differenza dei commenti di Alessandro di Afrodisia e di Temistio, il commento di Simplicio sul De caelo non è stato conosciuto dal mondo arabo. [introduction p. 525-526]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"617","_score":null,"_source":{"id":617,"authors_free":[{"id":873,"entry_id":617,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":274,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Musatti, Cesare Alberto","free_first_name":"Cesare Alberto","free_last_name":"Musatti","norm_person":{"id":274,"first_name":"Cesare Alberto","last_name":"Musatti","full_name":"Musatti, Cesare Alberto","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Il De caelo di Aristotele e alcuni suoi commentatori: Simplicio, Averro\u00e8 e Pietro d'Alvernia","main_title":{"title":"Il De caelo di Aristotele e alcuni suoi commentatori: Simplicio, Averro\u00e8 e Pietro d'Alvernia"},"abstract":"In aggiunta a questi va almeno ricordata l\u2019edizione della traduzione latina dello pseudo-avicenniano Liber de caelo et mundo, parafrasi di alcune parti dei primi due libri del De caelo, tradotta in latino da Domenico Gundissalino e Giovanni di Spagna nel terzo quarto del XII secolo. Inizialmente confuso con lo stesso De caelo di Aristotele, il testo nel XIII secolo (all\u2019incirca dal 1240 in poi) \u00e8 stato attribuito quasi sempre ad Avicenna. Oggi invece, in virt\u00f9 soprattutto della testimonianza del Catalogo (Kit\u0101b al-Fihrist) di Ibn al-Nad\u012bm, viene fatto il nome del celebre medico e traduttore Is\u1e25\u0101q ibn \u1e24unayn come suo possibile autore.\r\n\r\nIn merito a questa attribuzione bisogna tuttavia tenere presenti le osservazioni di Gutman (pp. XIII-XVII dell\u2019introduzione all\u2019edizione), il quale ha editato il testo sotto il nome dello Pseudo-Avicenna.\r\n\r\nPer quanto riguarda il commento di Simplicio sul De caelo, nel Medioevo si sono avute due traduzioni latine: una parziale (II libro e prologo del III) ad opera di Roberto Grossatesta, che Bossier data tra il 1235 e il 1253, e una completa di Guglielmo di Moerbeke, conclusa nel 1271.\r\n\r\nLa traduzione di Grossatesta ci \u00e8 conservata in un solo manoscritto (Oxford, Balliol College 99), e non sembra avere avuto un\u2019ampia diffusione, mentre della traduzione completa di Guglielmo di Moerbeke attualmente sono conosciuti con certezza sei manoscritti.\r\n\r\nSe sembra da escludere qualsiasi ipotesi di una revisione da parte di Moerbeke della traduzione di Grossatesta del commento di Simplicio, ancora non definitivamente risolta \u00e8 invece la questione se la traduzione moerbekana del De caelo di Aristotele sia o meno una revisione di quella incompleta del Grossatesta (II libro e prologo del III) che \u00e8 presente in forma di lemmi nello stesso manoscritto che contiene il commento di Simplicio.\r\n\r\nBossier considera \u00abplus probable\u00bb l\u2019opinione di D. J. Allan, secondo cui la traduzione di Moerbeke \u00e8 indipendente da quella del Grossatesta, mentre Lacombe e Franceschini hanno ritenuto trattarsi di una revisione.\r\n\r\nL\u2019esistenza di un manoscritto (Vat. lat. 2088) nel quale la traduzione del De caelo di Moerbeke risulta contaminata con quella di Grossatesta anche per alcune parti del primo libro lascia supporre che il Lincolniensis abbia tradotto anche quest\u2019ultimo libro, e non solo il II e l\u2019inizio del III. \u00c8 stato infine ipotizzato che Grossatesta abbia tradotto anche il primo libro del commento di Simplicio.\r\n\r\nLa traduzione del vescovo di Lincoln del II libro del De caelo \u00e8 ora consultabile nell\u2019Aristoteles Latinus Database, cos\u00ec come il testo della seconda recensione della traduzione di Guglielmo di Moerbeke al De caelo di Aristotele. Di quest\u2019ultima traduzione esistono infatti tre recensioni differenti, di cui la seconda \u00e8 la cosiddetta recensio vulgata.\r\n\r\nIl commento di Simplicio sul De caelo \u00e8 stato scritto probabilmente intorno al 540. Prima di lui almeno due altri autori avevano dedicato un commento al testo aristotelico: Alessandro di Afrodisia e Temistio.\r\n\r\nIl commento di Alessandro di Afrodisia \u00e8 andato perduto sia nel testo greco che nella traduzione araba di Ab\u016b Bishr Matt\u0101 ibn Y\u016bnus. Molte notizie le possiamo trarre per\u00f2 dal commento di Simplicio, di cui il testo di Alessandro costituisce la fonte principale.\r\n\r\nIl commento di Alessandro viene citato anche nella parafrasi sul De caelo scritta da Temistio. Come per Alessandro di Afrodisia, il testo di Temistio \u00e8 anch\u2019esso andato perduto sia nell\u2019originale greco che nella traduzione araba di Ya\u1e25y\u0101 ibn \u02bfAd\u012b. Si \u00e8 salvato soltanto nella traduzione ebraica di quest\u2019ultima compiuta nel 1284 da Zerahyah ben Isaac ben Shealtiel Gracian, e nella successiva versione latina del testo ebraico ad opera di Mos\u00e9 Alatino nel 1574.\r\n\r\n\u00c8 opportuno ricordare che, a differenza dei commenti di Alessandro di Afrodisia e di Temistio, il commento di Simplicio sul De caelo non \u00e8 stato conosciuto dal mondo arabo. [introduction p. 525-526]","btype":3,"date":"2006","language":"Italian","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/vE3O8oovZ2S3BG7","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":274,"full_name":"Musatti, Cesare Alberto","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":617,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Quaestio","volume":"6","issue":"","pages":"524\u2013549"}},"sort":[2006]}

Positioning Heaven: The Infidelity of a Faithful Aristotelian, 2006
By: McGinnis, Jon
Title Positioning Heaven: The Infidelity of a Faithful Aristotelian
Type Article
Language English
Date 2006
Journal Phronesis
Volume 51
Issue 2
Pages 140-161
Categories no categories
Author(s) McGinnis, Jon
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Aristotle's account of place in terms of an innermost limit of a containing body was to generate serious discussion and controversy among Aristotle's later commentators, especially when it was applied to the cosmos as a whole. The problem was that since there is nothing outside of the cosmos that could contain it, the cosmos apparently could not have a place according to Aristotle's definition; however, if the cosmos does not have a place, then it is not clear that it could move, but it was thought to move, namely, in its daily revolution, which was viewed as a kind of natural locomotion and so required the cosmos to have a place. The study briefly outlines Aristotle's account of place and then considers its fate, particularly with respect to the cosmos and its motion, at the hands of later commentators. To this end, it begins with Theophrastus' puzzles concerning Aristotle's account of place, and how later Greek commentators, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius and others, attempted to address these problems in what can only be described as ad hoc ways. It then considers Philoponus' exploitation of these problems as a means to replace Aristotle's account of place with his own account of place understood in terms of extension. The study concludes with the Arabic Neoplatonizing Aristotelian Avicenna and his novel intro- duction of a new category of motion, namely, motion in the category of position. Briefly, Avicenna denies that the cosmos has a place, and so claims that it moves not with respect to place, but with respect to position. [Author’s abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"729","_score":null,"_source":{"id":729,"authors_free":[{"id":1092,"entry_id":729,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":252,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"McGinnis, Jon","free_first_name":"Jon","free_last_name":"McGinnis","norm_person":{"id":252,"first_name":"Jon","last_name":"McGinnis","full_name":"McGinnis, Jon","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/141369248","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Positioning Heaven: The Infidelity of a Faithful Aristotelian","main_title":{"title":"Positioning Heaven: The Infidelity of a Faithful Aristotelian"},"abstract":"Aristotle's account of place in terms of an innermost limit of a containing body was to generate serious discussion and controversy among Aristotle's later commentators, especially when it was applied to the cosmos as a whole. The problem was that since there is nothing outside of the cosmos that could contain it, the cosmos apparently could not have a place according to Aristotle's definition; however, if the cosmos does not have a place, then it is not clear that it could move, but it was thought to move, namely, in its daily revolution, which was viewed as a kind of natural locomotion and so required the cosmos to have a place. The study briefly outlines Aristotle's account of place and then considers its fate, particularly with respect to the cosmos and its motion, at the hands of later commentators. To this end, it begins with Theophrastus' puzzles concerning Aristotle's account of place, and how later Greek commentators, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius and others, attempted to address these problems in what can only be described as ad hoc ways. It then considers Philoponus' exploitation of these problems as a means to replace Aristotle's account of place with his own account of place understood in terms of extension. The study concludes with the Arabic Neoplatonizing Aristotelian Avicenna and his novel intro- duction of a new category of motion, namely, motion in the category of position. Briefly, Avicenna denies that the cosmos has a place, and so claims that it moves not with respect to place, but with respect to position. [Author\u2019s abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2006","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/EODvwNwP7DcvnBH","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":252,"full_name":"McGinnis, Jon","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":729,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Phronesis","volume":"51","issue":"2","pages":"140-161"}},"sort":[2006]}

Aristotle on Space, Form, and Matter ("Physics" IV:2, 209 B 17–32), 2006
By: Fritsche, Johannes
Title Aristotle on Space, Form, and Matter ("Physics" IV:2, 209 B 17–32)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2006
Journal Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte
Volume 48
Pages 45-63
Categories no categories
Author(s) Fritsche, Johannes
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In Physics IV.2, Aristotle argues for private Space of a body as its form (209 b 1-6) and as its matter (209 b 6-11) to conclude that Plato maintains that χώρα, matter, and space are the same (209 b 11-17). Subsequently, he réfutés both possibilities of conceiving Space (209 b 17-28). In a paper on 209 b 6-17,1 have tried to show that his view of Plato is right.1 In this paper, I would like to show that in his réfutation of both possibilities Aristotle argues dialectically in the proper sense; that is, he does not use any assumption that is peculiar to his own theory and not shared by his Opponent. For this purpose I présent (I.) Aristotle's différent usages of (ού) χωρίζεται/χωριστός (»[not] separated/separable«) and (II.) the three différent interprétations of 209 b 22-28 in Philoponus, Simplicius, and Sorabji, and I rule out Sorabji's interprétation. Thereafter, I will give three reasons for Simplicius's interprétation. The first relates to (III.) the issue of prin ciples as the main topic of the Physics in général. Secondly, (IV.) Philoponus's interprétation of 209 b 22-28 contradicts Aristotle's own définition of Space. Thirdly, (V.) only in Simplicius's interprétation is the argument dialectically va lid. Thereafter, I will show (VI.) that the argument in Simplicius's interprétation is conclusive against Plato's reasoning in the Timaeus to finish with (VII.) some général remarks on this paper and the paper on 209 b 1-17. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"592","_score":null,"_source":{"id":592,"authors_free":[{"id":843,"entry_id":592,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":102,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Fritsche, Johannes ","free_first_name":"Johannes","free_last_name":"Fritsche","norm_person":{"id":102,"first_name":"Johannes ","last_name":"Fritsche","full_name":"Fritsche, Johannes ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1204083266","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Aristotle on Space, Form, and Matter (\"Physics\" IV:2, 209 B 17\u201332)","main_title":{"title":"Aristotle on Space, Form, and Matter (\"Physics\" IV:2, 209 B 17\u201332)"},"abstract":"In Physics IV.2, Aristotle argues for private Space of a body as its form (209 b 1-6) and as its matter (209 b 6-11) to conclude that Plato maintains that \u03c7\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1, matter, and space are the same (209 b 11-17). Subsequently, he r\u00e9fut\u00e9s both possibilities of conceiving Space (209 b 17-28). In a paper on 209 b 6-17,1 have tried to show that his view of Plato is right.1 In this paper, I would like to show that in his r\u00e9futation of both possibilities Aristotle argues dialectically in the proper sense; that is, he does not use any assumption that is peculiar to his own theory and not shared by his Opponent. For this purpose I pr\u00e9sent (I.) Aristotle's diff\u00e9rent usages of (\u03bf\u03cd) \u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\/\u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 (\u00bb[not] separated\/separable\u00ab) and (II.) the three diff\u00e9rent interpr\u00e9tations of 209 b 22-28 in Philoponus, Simplicius, and Sorabji, and I rule out Sorabji's interpr\u00e9tation. Thereafter, I will give three reasons for Simplicius's interpr\u00e9tation. The first relates to (III.) the issue of prin ciples as the main topic of the Physics in g\u00e9n\u00e9ral. Secondly, (IV.) Philoponus's interpr\u00e9tation of 209 b 22-28 contradicts Aristotle's own d\u00e9finition of Space. Thirdly, (V.) only in Simplicius's interpr\u00e9tation is the argument dialectically va lid. Thereafter, I will show (VI.) that the argument in Simplicius's interpr\u00e9tation is conclusive against Plato's reasoning in the Timaeus to finish with (VII.) some g\u00e9n\u00e9ral remarks on this paper and the paper on 209 b 1-17. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2006","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/We3uupXlF3bVzh0","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":102,"full_name":"Fritsche, Johannes ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":592,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Archiv f\u00fcr Begriffsgeschichte","volume":"48","issue":"","pages":"45-63"}},"sort":[2006]}

The Presocratics in the doxographical tradition. Sources, controversies, and current research, 2005
By: Baltussen, Han
Title The Presocratics in the doxographical tradition. Sources, controversies, and current research
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Studia Humaniora Tartuensia
Volume 6
Issue 6
Pages 1-26
Categories no categories
Author(s) Baltussen, Han
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this paper I present a synthetic overview of recent and ongoing research in the field of doxography, that is, the study of the nature, transmission and interrelations of sources for ancient Greek philosophy. The latest revisions of the theory of Hermann Diels (Doxographi Graeci 1879) regarding the historiography ought to be known more widely, as they still influence our understanding of the Presocratics and their reception. The scholarly study on the compilations of Greek philosophical views from Hellenistic and later periods has received a major boost by the first of a projected three-volume study by Mansfeld and Runia (1997). Taking their work as a firm basis I also describe my own work in this area and how it can be related to, and fitted into, this trend by outlining how two important sources for the historiography of Greek philosophy, Theo-phrastus (4th–3rd c. BCE) and Simplicius (early 6th c. AD) stand in a special relation to each other and form an important strand in the doxographical tradition. [Author's abstract]

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Copernicus's Doctrine of Gravity and the Natural Circular Motion of the Elements, 2005
By: Knox, Dilwyn
Title Copernicus's Doctrine of Gravity and the Natural Circular Motion of the Elements
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
Volume 68
Pages 157-211
Categories no categories
Author(s) Knox, Dilwyn
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
What do these ideas tell us about Copernicus the philosopher? He drew on Stoic and, perhaps unknowingly at times, Platonic doctrines of the elements, but he avoided their metaphysical implications. There would have been little point, even if he had been so inclined, in compromising his heliocentric hypothesis, contentious as he knew it was, with suspect doctrines of, say, spiritus and cosmic animation. For three centuries, scholastic theologians and philosophers, despite Aristotle's statements to the contrary, had done their best to de-animate the heavens. Nor, for the same reason, should we think that Neoplatonic sun symbolism was important to him. His brief references to sun symbolism and Hermes Trismegistus take up no more than five or so lines and derive mostly from standard classical sources, including Pliny in a passage immediately following the latter's discussion of gravity. The main problem facing Copernicus was to make the earth move, not to explain why the sun stood at the center. He also consulted doxographical works explaining the many and divergent views of ancient thinkers, for instance, pseudo-Plutarch's Placita philosophorum, Bessarion's In calumniatorem Platonis, and Giorgio Valla's De expetendis. He consulted classical Latin authors like Pliny and Cicero, who, through the endeavors of Renaissance humanists and the agency of the printing press, had become better known during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. His extensive use of Pliny's Natural History, Book II, exemplifies the way in which the latter became a popular source for alternatives to Aristotelian or scholastic natural philosophy during the sixteenth century. The greatest debt, in other words, that Copernicus the cosmologist owed was not to Renaissance Platonism or a revamped Aristotelianism. It was rather to the variety of ancient learning promoted by Renaissance humanists during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To them he owed not just the wherewithal and encouragement to consult a much wider library of classical authors than his scholastic predecessors were wont to do but also the intellectual flexibility to regard his sources as no more than that—sources for ideas rather than authorities. In this, Copernicus was typical of many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century "scientific" thinkers, Galileo included. But Renaissance humanism left its mark in another important respect. Copernicus set himself the task of learning Greek, and this provided him, if the evidence above is to be trusted, with one of his most important cosmological doctrines. [conclusion p. 210-211]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"736","_score":null,"_source":{"id":736,"authors_free":[{"id":1099,"entry_id":736,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":217,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Knox, Dilwyn","free_first_name":"Dilwyn","free_last_name":"Knox","norm_person":{"id":217,"first_name":"Dilwyn","last_name":"Knox","full_name":"Knox, Dilwyn","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1048420108","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Copernicus's Doctrine of Gravity and the Natural Circular Motion of the Elements","main_title":{"title":"Copernicus's Doctrine of Gravity and the Natural Circular Motion of the Elements"},"abstract":"What do these ideas tell us about Copernicus the philosopher? He drew on Stoic and, perhaps unknowingly at times, Platonic doctrines of the elements, but he avoided their metaphysical implications. There would have been little point, even if he had been so inclined, in compromising his heliocentric hypothesis, contentious as he knew it was, with suspect doctrines of, say, spiritus and cosmic animation. For three centuries, scholastic theologians and philosophers, despite Aristotle's statements to the contrary, had done their best to de-animate the heavens.\r\n\r\nNor, for the same reason, should we think that Neoplatonic sun symbolism was important to him. His brief references to sun symbolism and Hermes Trismegistus take up no more than five or so lines and derive mostly from standard classical sources, including Pliny in a passage immediately following the latter's discussion of gravity. The main problem facing Copernicus was to make the earth move, not to explain why the sun stood at the center.\r\n\r\nHe also consulted doxographical works explaining the many and divergent views of ancient thinkers, for instance, pseudo-Plutarch's Placita philosophorum, Bessarion's In calumniatorem Platonis, and Giorgio Valla's De expetendis. He consulted classical Latin authors like Pliny and Cicero, who, through the endeavors of Renaissance humanists and the agency of the printing press, had become better known during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. His extensive use of Pliny's Natural History, Book II, exemplifies the way in which the latter became a popular source for alternatives to Aristotelian or scholastic natural philosophy during the sixteenth century.\r\n\r\nThe greatest debt, in other words, that Copernicus the cosmologist owed was not to Renaissance Platonism or a revamped Aristotelianism. It was rather to the variety of ancient learning promoted by Renaissance humanists during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To them he owed not just the wherewithal and encouragement to consult a much wider library of classical authors than his scholastic predecessors were wont to do but also the intellectual flexibility to regard his sources as no more than that\u2014sources for ideas rather than authorities.\r\n\r\nIn this, Copernicus was typical of many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century \"scientific\" thinkers, Galileo included. But Renaissance humanism left its mark in another important respect. Copernicus set himself the task of learning Greek, and this provided him, if the evidence above is to be trusted, with one of his most important cosmological doctrines. [conclusion p. 210-211]","btype":3,"date":"2005","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/x8JGitPSYOT3L0a","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":217,"full_name":"Knox, Dilwyn","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":736,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes","volume":"68","issue":"","pages":"157-211"}},"sort":[2005]}

Time, Perpetuity and Eternity in Late Antique Platonism, 2005
By: Siniossoglou, Nikētas
Title Time, Perpetuity and Eternity in Late Antique Platonism
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal KronoScope
Volume 5
Issue 2
Pages 213-235
Categories no categories
Author(s) Siniossoglou, Nikētas
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper focuses on the late antique conception of time, eternity and perpetual duration and examines the relation between these concepts and Plato’s cosmology. By exploring the controversy between pagan philosophers (Proclus, Ammonius, Simplicius, Olympiodorus) and Christian writers (Aeneas of Gaza, Zacharias of Mytilene, Philoponus) in respect to the interpretation of Plato’s Timaeus, I argue that the Neoplatonic doctrine of the perpetuity (ἀïδιότης) of the world derives from a) the intellectual paradigm presupposed by the conceptual framework of late antiquity and b) the commentators’ principal concern for a coherent conception of Platonic cosmology essentially free from internal contradictions. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1017","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1017,"authors_free":[{"id":1533,"entry_id":1017,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":319,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Siniossoglou, Nik\u0113tas","free_first_name":"Nik\u0113tas","free_last_name":"Siniossoglou","norm_person":{"id":319,"first_name":"Nik\u0113tas","last_name":"Siniossoglou","full_name":"Siniossoglou, Nik\u0113tas","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1116027585","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Time, Perpetuity and Eternity in Late Antique Platonism","main_title":{"title":"Time, Perpetuity and Eternity in Late Antique Platonism"},"abstract":"This paper focuses on the late antique conception of time, eternity and perpetual duration and examines the relation between these concepts and Plato\u2019s cosmology. By exploring the controversy between pagan philosophers (Proclus, Ammonius, Simplicius, Olympiodorus) and Christian writers (Aeneas of Gaza, Zacharias of Mytilene, Philoponus) in respect to the interpretation of Plato\u2019s Timaeus, I argue that the Neoplatonic doctrine of the perpetuity (\u1f00\u00ef\u03b4\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2) of the world derives from a) the intellectual paradigm presupposed by the conceptual framework of late antiquity and b) the commentators\u2019 principal concern for a coherent conception of Platonic cosmology essentially free from internal contradictions. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2005","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/a8bG1lq3yiz1Bl1","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":319,"full_name":"Siniossoglou, Nik\u0113tas","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1017,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"KronoScope","volume":"5","issue":"2","pages":"213-235"}},"sort":[2005]}

Unbeachtete Zitate und doxographische Nachrichten in der Schrift De Aeternitate Mundi des Johannes Philoponos, 2005
By: Scholten, Clemens
Title Unbeachtete Zitate und doxographische Nachrichten in der Schrift De Aeternitate Mundi des Johannes Philoponos
Type Article
Language German
Date 2005
Journal Rheinisches Museum für Philologie
Volume 148
Issue 2
Pages 202-219
Categories no categories
Author(s) Scholten, Clemens
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In der Schrift De Aeternitate Mundi (aetm.) des Johannes Philoponos aus der Zeit bald nach 529 n. Chr. gibt es, über eine Reihe von bereits näher beleuchteten Quellen und doxographischen Nachrichten hinaus, eine größere Anzahl von bisher unbeachteten doxographischen Materialien, Paraphrasen und/oder Zitaten aus verlorenen Schriften antiker Autoren. Unter quellenkritischen und doxographischen Gesichtspunkten im engeren Sinn ist aetm. noch nicht eigens untersucht worden. Das wird sicherlich damit zu tun haben, dass die Erforschung der doxographischen Überlieferung vor gut hundert Jahren ihren Schwerpunkt auf die vorplatonische Tradition setzte und unter diesem Gesichtspunkt aetm. offenbar zu vernachlässigen glaubte, zumal H. Rabe als Herausgeber von aetm. in seinen Fußnoten die Textnachweise aus den großen Dichtern und Philosophen wie Homer, Platon, Aristoteles, Plotin usw., soweit möglich, zuverlässig geführt hat. Möglicherweise ist daran auch die Einschätzung des letzten Rezensenten der Rabeschen Edition aus dem Jahre 1901 nicht unbeteiligt, der aetm. für unergiebig im Hinblick auf verlorene Quellen hielt und meinte, aetm. habe lediglich bekanntes Material zu bieten. Aber es gab damals schon andere Stimmen. Bemerkenswerterweise hatte ein Jahr zuvor Wendland in seiner Rezension anders geurteilt. Ebenso forderte Gudeman in seinem RE-Artikel „Johannes Philoponos“ aus dem Jahre 1915 die Aufarbeitung der Quellenfrage. Bei diesem Desiderat ist es allerdings bis heute geblieben. In größerem Umfang sind lediglich die Teile des Quellenmaterials aus aetm. behandelt worden, die für die Timaios-Kommentierung in der Zeit vor Proklos von Belang sind. Es handelt sich besonders um Texte aus den Timaios-Kommentaren des Calvisios Tauros und Porphyrios, die im Rahmen der Sichtung der erhaltenen Stücke aus dem Timaios-Kommentar des Porphyrios zusammengestellt wurden oder bei der Untersuchung der Weltentstehungslehren, wie sie im Rahmen der Exegese des Timaios entwickelt wurden, behandelt worden sind. Auf Proklos-Texte hat Beutler in seinem RE-Artikel hingewiesen, allerdings einiges übersehen. Bereits verifiziert sind ein Zitat aus dem fünften Buch des Timaios-Kommentars des Proklos in aetm. 9,11 (364,5–365,3), die von Johannes Philoponos häufig erwähnte, paraphrasierte oder zitierte Schrift des Proklos Untersuchung der Einwände des Aristoteles gegen den platonischen Timaios (Ἐπἱσκέψις τῶν πρὸς τὸν Πλάτωνος Τίμαιον ὑπὸ Ἀριστοτέλους ἀντιρρηθέντων oder Ὁ ὑπὲρ τοῦ Τιμαίου πρὸς Ἀριστοτέλην λόγος), die Proklos in seinem Timaios-Kommentar selbst erwähnt und die daher älter als der Kommentar sein dürfte, sowie die Proklos-Schrift Zehn Aporien hinsichtlich der Vorsehung, die Beutler als erster kurz vorgestellt hat und die Boese, Dornseiff und Feldbusch zu größeren Teilen in Texten späterer Autoren wiedergefunden haben. Ein längeres Zitat aus Galens Schrift Über den Beweis ist schon zwei Jahre, bevor Rabe aetm. ediert hat, notiert worden. Eine vollständige Sichtung und Zusammenstellung aller in aetm. benutzten Quellen und doxographischen Nachrichten gibt es bis jetzt nicht. Die unbeachteten Quellenstücke und doxographischen Nachrichten, die bei der Arbeit an der Übersetzung von aetm. auffielen, sollen im Folgenden vorgestellt werden. [introduction p. 202-204]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1034","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1034,"authors_free":[{"id":1565,"entry_id":1034,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":286,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Scholten, Clemens","free_first_name":"Clemens","free_last_name":"Scholten","norm_person":{"id":286,"first_name":"Clemens","last_name":"Scholten","full_name":"Scholten, Clemens","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/115572538","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Unbeachtete Zitate und doxographische Nachrichten in der Schrift De Aeternitate Mundi des Johannes Philoponos","main_title":{"title":"Unbeachtete Zitate und doxographische Nachrichten in der Schrift De Aeternitate Mundi des Johannes Philoponos"},"abstract":"In der Schrift De Aeternitate Mundi (aetm.) des Johannes Philoponos aus der Zeit bald nach 529 n. Chr. gibt es, \u00fcber eine Reihe von bereits n\u00e4her beleuchteten Quellen und doxographischen Nachrichten hinaus, eine gr\u00f6\u00dfere Anzahl von bisher unbeachteten doxographischen Materialien, Paraphrasen und\/oder Zitaten aus verlorenen Schriften antiker Autoren. Unter quellenkritischen und doxographischen Gesichtspunkten im engeren Sinn ist aetm. noch nicht eigens untersucht worden. Das wird sicherlich damit zu tun haben, dass die Erforschung der doxographischen \u00dcberlieferung vor gut hundert Jahren ihren Schwerpunkt auf die vorplatonische Tradition setzte und unter diesem Gesichtspunkt aetm. offenbar zu vernachl\u00e4ssigen glaubte, zumal H. Rabe als Herausgeber von aetm. in seinen Fu\u00dfnoten die Textnachweise aus den gro\u00dfen Dichtern und Philosophen wie Homer, Platon, Aristoteles, Plotin usw., soweit m\u00f6glich, zuverl\u00e4ssig gef\u00fchrt hat.\r\n\r\nM\u00f6glicherweise ist daran auch die Einsch\u00e4tzung des letzten Rezensenten der Rabeschen Edition aus dem Jahre 1901 nicht unbeteiligt, der aetm. f\u00fcr unergiebig im Hinblick auf verlorene Quellen hielt und meinte, aetm. habe lediglich bekanntes Material zu bieten.\r\n\r\nAber es gab damals schon andere Stimmen. Bemerkenswerterweise hatte ein Jahr zuvor Wendland in seiner Rezension anders geurteilt. Ebenso forderte Gudeman in seinem RE-Artikel \u201eJohannes Philoponos\u201c aus dem Jahre 1915 die Aufarbeitung der Quellenfrage. Bei diesem Desiderat ist es allerdings bis heute geblieben.\r\n\r\nIn gr\u00f6\u00dferem Umfang sind lediglich die Teile des Quellenmaterials aus aetm. behandelt worden, die f\u00fcr die Timaios-Kommentierung in der Zeit vor Proklos von Belang sind. Es handelt sich besonders um Texte aus den Timaios-Kommentaren des Calvisios Tauros und Porphyrios, die im Rahmen der Sichtung der erhaltenen St\u00fccke aus dem Timaios-Kommentar des Porphyrios zusammengestellt wurden oder bei der Untersuchung der Weltentstehungslehren, wie sie im Rahmen der Exegese des Timaios entwickelt wurden, behandelt worden sind.\r\n\r\nAuf Proklos-Texte hat Beutler in seinem RE-Artikel hingewiesen, allerdings einiges \u00fcbersehen. Bereits verifiziert sind ein Zitat aus dem f\u00fcnften Buch des Timaios-Kommentars des Proklos in aetm. 9,11 (364,5\u2013365,3), die von Johannes Philoponos h\u00e4ufig erw\u00e4hnte, paraphrasierte oder zitierte Schrift des Proklos Untersuchung der Einw\u00e4nde des Aristoteles gegen den platonischen Timaios (\u1f18\u03c0\u1f31\u03c3\u03ba\u03ad\u03c8\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03a0\u03bb\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03a4\u03af\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u1f51\u03c0\u1f78 \u1f08\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03c1\u03c1\u03b7\u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd oder \u1f49 \u1f51\u03c0\u1f72\u03c1 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03a4\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f08\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7\u03bd \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2), die Proklos in seinem Timaios-Kommentar selbst erw\u00e4hnt und die daher \u00e4lter als der Kommentar sein d\u00fcrfte, sowie die Proklos-Schrift Zehn Aporien hinsichtlich der Vorsehung, die Beutler als erster kurz vorgestellt hat und die Boese, Dornseiff und Feldbusch zu gr\u00f6\u00dferen Teilen in Texten sp\u00e4terer Autoren wiedergefunden haben.\r\n\r\nEin l\u00e4ngeres Zitat aus Galens Schrift \u00dcber den Beweis ist schon zwei Jahre, bevor Rabe aetm. ediert hat, notiert worden. Eine vollst\u00e4ndige Sichtung und Zusammenstellung aller in aetm. benutzten Quellen und doxographischen Nachrichten gibt es bis jetzt nicht.\r\n\r\nDie unbeachteten Quellenst\u00fccke und doxographischen Nachrichten, die bei der Arbeit an der \u00dcbersetzung von aetm. auffielen, sollen im Folgenden vorgestellt werden. [introduction p. 202-204]","btype":3,"date":"2005","language":"German","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/9laXIov8GbXAA3T","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":286,"full_name":"Scholten, Clemens","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1034,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Rheinisches Museum f\u00fcr Philologie","volume":"148","issue":"2","pages":"202-219"}},"sort":[2005]}

Priscian of Lydia, Commentator on the "de Anima" in the Tradition of Iamblichus, 2005
By: Perkams, Matthias
Title Priscian of Lydia, Commentator on the "de Anima" in the Tradition of Iamblichus
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Mnemosyne, Fourth Series
Volume 58
Issue 4
Pages 510-530
Categories no categories
Author(s) Perkams, Matthias
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
It has been argued that Priscian of Lydia (around 530), to whom the manuscripts ascribe only two short treatises, is the author of an extended com- mentary on the De anima, which is transmitted under the name of Simplicius. Our analysis confirms this: Priscian's Metaphrase of Theophrastus' Physics is the text which the commentator mentions as his own work. Consequently, its author, Priscian, also wrote the De anima commentary. The parallels between both texts show that the commentator sometimes does not quote Iamblichus directly, but borrowed Iamblichean formulations from the Metaphrase. As for the dating of his works, a comparison with Damascius' writings makes it probable that his On principks is a terminus post quem for the De anima commentary and a terminus ante quern for the Metaphrase. It is likely that both works were composed before 529. [Author's abstract]

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L'écriture et les Présocratiques: Analyse de l'interprétation de Eric Havelock, 2005
By: Palù, Chiara
Title L'écriture et les Présocratiques: Analyse de l'interprétation de Eric Havelock
Type Article
Language French
Date 2005
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 23
Issue 2
Pages 75-92
Categories no categories
Author(s) Palù, Chiara
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
L'interprétation de Havelock situe les penseurs présocratiques, ou plutôt pré-platoniciens, dans un milieu qu'il définit comme étant antérieur à la diffusion de l'écriture (pre-literacy). Cette interprétation provient de sa thèse générale, qui concerne la question du passage entre l'oralité et l'écriture en Grèce ancienne. Si l'introduction de l'alphabet phénicien, à l'époque archaïque, entraîne l'abandon des systèmes de communication orale, fondés sur l'écoute et la mémorisation, au profit de nouveaux systèmes fondés sur la circulation et la lecture individuelle de textes écrits, ce passage ne s'effectue cependant pas d'un seul coup. En dépit de l'introduction de l'écriture, continuent de subsister, pendant presque toute l'époque archaïque, des mécanismes de performance orale, tandis que l'écriture, à son début, n'avait qu'une seule fonction, celle de fixer la parole. Havelock, pour soutenir sa thèse, s'appuie initialement sur le Phèdre de Platon. La réflexion de Platon, qui, du reste, n'est pas isolée, est perçue comme une sorte de prise de conscience de problématiques préexistantes, au terme d'un processus de mutation culturelle dans lequel l'écriture joue un rôle déterminant. La critique de l'écriture, en effet, peut être définie comme une dernière défense de la parole orale à une époque où l'écrit prédomine désormais. C'est en un second temps que Havelock s'est tourné vers les textes des présocratiques eux-mêmes. Il est vrai que dans la tradition pré-platonicienne, il n'existe pas de texte comme le Phèdre, qui thématise la question de l'écriture, mais, d'après Havelock, on peut repérer, dans les textes des présocratiques, les traces des structures orales qui avaient caractérisé la phase précédant la réintroduction de l'écriture. Havelock souligne surtout l'adoption de la métrique et du rythme dans les poèmes d'Empédocle, Xénophane et Parménide, et le recours à une prose poétique dans le discours d'Héraclite, en tant qu'éléments qui devaient faciliter la mémorisation pour un public d'auditeurs. Mais l'approche de Havelock n'est pas seulement stylistique. La diffusion progressive, à l'époque archaïque, de la literacy aux dépens de l'oralité requiert l'adoption d'un nouveau langage, qui prend ses distances par rapport au langage mythique et détermine ainsi l'émergence de la philosophie elle-même. Selon Havelock, c'est justement cette relation que Platon n'a pas vue, et c'est de là que provient le caractère contradictoire de sa critique à l'égard de l'écriture. La thèse de Havelock n'a pas manqué de susciter des réactions parmi les interprètes, en produisant, ces dernières années, une quantité remarquable d'études consacrées à ce sujet. En général, les interprètes ont analysé surtout la relation supposée entre le langage des présocratiques et l'écriture, d'une part, et celle entre l'écriture et l'émergence de la philosophie, d'autre part. La réflexion sur le langage devrait, en effet, renforcer la thèse de Havelock à l'égard de la permanence de structures orales dans les textes des présocratiques, et cette permanence devrait, à son tour, renforcer le rapport reconstitué par Havelock entre écriture et émergence de la philosophie. Mais l'analyse stylistique, à elle seule, ne permet pas de conclure à la permanence de structures orales, et ces dernières sont tout aussi peu concluantes en tant qu'arguments à l'appui du rapport supposé entre écriture et émergence de la philosophie. [introduction p. 75-77]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1091","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1091,"authors_free":[{"id":1649,"entry_id":1091,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":281,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Pal\u00f9, Chiara","free_first_name":"Chiara","free_last_name":"Pal\u00f9","norm_person":{"id":281,"first_name":"Chiara","last_name":"Pal\u00f9","full_name":"Pal\u00f9, Chiara","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"L'\u00e9criture et les Pr\u00e9socratiques: Analyse de l'interpr\u00e9tation de Eric Havelock","main_title":{"title":"L'\u00e9criture et les Pr\u00e9socratiques: Analyse de l'interpr\u00e9tation de Eric Havelock"},"abstract":"L'interpr\u00e9tation de Havelock situe les penseurs pr\u00e9socratiques, ou plut\u00f4t pr\u00e9-platoniciens, dans un milieu qu'il d\u00e9finit comme \u00e9tant ant\u00e9rieur \u00e0 la diffusion de l'\u00e9criture (pre-literacy). Cette interpr\u00e9tation provient de sa th\u00e8se g\u00e9n\u00e9rale, qui concerne la question du passage entre l'oralit\u00e9 et l'\u00e9criture en Gr\u00e8ce ancienne.\r\n\r\nSi l'introduction de l'alphabet ph\u00e9nicien, \u00e0 l'\u00e9poque archa\u00efque, entra\u00eene l'abandon des syst\u00e8mes de communication orale, fond\u00e9s sur l'\u00e9coute et la m\u00e9morisation, au profit de nouveaux syst\u00e8mes fond\u00e9s sur la circulation et la lecture individuelle de textes \u00e9crits, ce passage ne s'effectue cependant pas d'un seul coup. En d\u00e9pit de l'introduction de l'\u00e9criture, continuent de subsister, pendant presque toute l'\u00e9poque archa\u00efque, des m\u00e9canismes de performance orale, tandis que l'\u00e9criture, \u00e0 son d\u00e9but, n'avait qu'une seule fonction, celle de fixer la parole.\r\n\r\nHavelock, pour soutenir sa th\u00e8se, s'appuie initialement sur le Ph\u00e8dre de Platon. La r\u00e9flexion de Platon, qui, du reste, n'est pas isol\u00e9e, est per\u00e7ue comme une sorte de prise de conscience de probl\u00e9matiques pr\u00e9existantes, au terme d'un processus de mutation culturelle dans lequel l'\u00e9criture joue un r\u00f4le d\u00e9terminant. La critique de l'\u00e9criture, en effet, peut \u00eatre d\u00e9finie comme une derni\u00e8re d\u00e9fense de la parole orale \u00e0 une \u00e9poque o\u00f9 l'\u00e9crit pr\u00e9domine d\u00e9sormais.\r\n\r\nC'est en un second temps que Havelock s'est tourn\u00e9 vers les textes des pr\u00e9socratiques eux-m\u00eames. Il est vrai que dans la tradition pr\u00e9-platonicienne, il n'existe pas de texte comme le Ph\u00e8dre, qui th\u00e9matise la question de l'\u00e9criture, mais, d'apr\u00e8s Havelock, on peut rep\u00e9rer, dans les textes des pr\u00e9socratiques, les traces des structures orales qui avaient caract\u00e9ris\u00e9 la phase pr\u00e9c\u00e9dant la r\u00e9introduction de l'\u00e9criture.\r\n\r\nHavelock souligne surtout l'adoption de la m\u00e9trique et du rythme dans les po\u00e8mes d'Emp\u00e9docle, X\u00e9nophane et Parm\u00e9nide, et le recours \u00e0 une prose po\u00e9tique dans le discours d'H\u00e9raclite, en tant qu'\u00e9l\u00e9ments qui devaient faciliter la m\u00e9morisation pour un public d'auditeurs. Mais l'approche de Havelock n'est pas seulement stylistique.\r\n\r\nLa diffusion progressive, \u00e0 l'\u00e9poque archa\u00efque, de la literacy aux d\u00e9pens de l'oralit\u00e9 requiert l'adoption d'un nouveau langage, qui prend ses distances par rapport au langage mythique et d\u00e9termine ainsi l'\u00e9mergence de la philosophie elle-m\u00eame. Selon Havelock, c'est justement cette relation que Platon n'a pas vue, et c'est de l\u00e0 que provient le caract\u00e8re contradictoire de sa critique \u00e0 l'\u00e9gard de l'\u00e9criture.\r\n\r\nLa th\u00e8se de Havelock n'a pas manqu\u00e9 de susciter des r\u00e9actions parmi les interpr\u00e8tes, en produisant, ces derni\u00e8res ann\u00e9es, une quantit\u00e9 remarquable d'\u00e9tudes consacr\u00e9es \u00e0 ce sujet.\r\n\r\nEn g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, les interpr\u00e8tes ont analys\u00e9 surtout la relation suppos\u00e9e entre le langage des pr\u00e9socratiques et l'\u00e9criture, d'une part, et celle entre l'\u00e9criture et l'\u00e9mergence de la philosophie, d'autre part. La r\u00e9flexion sur le langage devrait, en effet, renforcer la th\u00e8se de Havelock \u00e0 l'\u00e9gard de la permanence de structures orales dans les textes des pr\u00e9socratiques, et cette permanence devrait, \u00e0 son tour, renforcer le rapport reconstitu\u00e9 par Havelock entre \u00e9criture et \u00e9mergence de la philosophie.\r\n\r\nMais l'analyse stylistique, \u00e0 elle seule, ne permet pas de conclure \u00e0 la permanence de structures orales, et ces derni\u00e8res sont tout aussi peu concluantes en tant qu'arguments \u00e0 l'appui du rapport suppos\u00e9 entre \u00e9criture et \u00e9mergence de la philosophie. [introduction p. 75-77]","btype":3,"date":"2005","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/qlp5mJ4QSDQl1a0","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":281,"full_name":"Pal\u00f9, Chiara","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1091,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Revue de Philosophie Ancienne","volume":"23","issue":"2","pages":"75-92"}},"sort":[2005]}

Échelle de la nature et division des mouvements chez Aristote et les stoïciens, 2005
By: Bénatoui͏̈l, Thomas
Title Échelle de la nature et division des mouvements chez Aristote et les stoïciens
Type Article
Language French
Date 2005
Journal Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale
Volume 4
Pages 537-556
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bénatoui͏̈l, Thomas
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The stoic scala naturae was based, among other things, on a division of natural movements, which this paper studies in order to understand the way in which stoicism approached Nature and its empirical diversity. First, I argue against David Hahm's interpretation that movement «through» (dia) oneself is not on a par with the other natural movements: far from being specific to stones or elements, it designates the movement which is specifically produced by the nature of a thing or being. The aristotelian and stoic analysis of self-movement are then shown to share their basic principles but to lead to diverging approaches of Nature: whereas Aristotle looks for the origin and causes of natural movements, the Stoics offer a taxonomy of visible movements. [Author’s abstract]

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Aristotle, Plotinus, and Simplicius on the Relation of the Changer to the Changed, 2005
By: Wilberding, James
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]

{"_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]}

Where to Live the Philosophical Life in the Sixth Century? Damascius, Simplicius, and the Return from Persia, 2005
By: Watts, Edward Jay
Title Where to Live the Philosophical Life in the Sixth Century? Damascius, Simplicius, and the Return from Persia
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
Volume 45
Issue 3
Pages 285-315
Categories no categories
Author(s) Watts, Edward Jay
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The closing of the Neoplatonic school in Athens by Justinian in 532 was not the end of classical philosophy, for when they returned to the Empire from Persia two years later the philosophers did not need to reconstitute the school at Harran or at any particular city in order to continue their philosophical activities. [author's abstract]

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Review of Rescigno, A. 2004: Alessandro di Afrodisia: Commentario al De Caelo di Aristotele, Frammenti del Primo Libro, 2005
By: Todd, Robert B.
Title Review of Rescigno, A. 2004: Alessandro di Afrodisia: Commentario al De Caelo di Aristotele, Frammenti del Primo Libro
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Volume 10
Issue 38
Pages 750
Categories no categories
Author(s) Todd, Robert B.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
It is a sure sign that a field in classical studies is maturing when the fragments of its authors come in for close scrutiny. Where the Greek Aristotelian commentators are concerned, the way was pointed, in this as in so many other areas, by the late Paul Moraux, who in his early and epochal study of Alexander of Aphrodisias's psychological works included an appendix of selected fragments of this commentator's lost exegesis of Aristotle's De animaJ Later he reconstructed thefragments of the same philosopher's treatment of the Posterior Analytics.2 More recently, Arabists in particular have worked on fragments of Alexander's commentaries on the Physics and De generatione et corruptione, while Moraux in the posthumously published third volume of his Aristotelismus surveyed the fragments of several of the lost commentaries.3 One of these was the commentary on the De caelo, the first part of which Andrea Rescigno, in the first of two projected volumes, has now treated exhaustively in his edition of the fragments of the commentary on Book 1. [introduction p. 1]

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Embryological Models in Ancient Philosophy, 2005
By: Henry, Devin
Title Embryological Models in Ancient Philosophy
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Phronesis
Volume 50
Issue 1
Pages 1-42
Categories no categories
Author(s) Henry, Devin
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Historically embryogenesis has been among the most philosophically intriguing phenomena. In this paper I focus on one aspect of biological development that was particularly perplexing to the ancients: self-organisation. For many ancients, the fact that an organism determines the important features of its own develop­ment required a special model for understanding how this was possible. This was especially true for Aristotle, Alexander, and Simplicius, who all looked to con­temporary technology to supply that model. However, they did not all agree on what kind of device should be used. In this paper I explore the way these ancients made use of technology as a model for the developing embryo. I argue that their different choices of device reveal fundamental differences in the way each thinker understood the nature of biological development itself. In the final section of the paper I challenge the traditional view (dating back to Alexander’s interpretation of Aristotle) that the use of automata in GA can simply be read off from their use in the de motu. [Author's abstract]

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What is Platonism?, 2005
By: Gerson, Lloyd P.
Title What is Platonism?
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Journal of the History of Philosophy
Volume 43
Issue 3
Pages 253-276
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gerson, Lloyd P.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
My main conclusion is that we should understand Platonism historically as consisting in fidelity to the principles of “top-downism.” So understanding it, we havea relatively sharp critical tool for deciding who was and who was not a Platonist despite their silence or protestations to the contrary. Unquestionably, the most important figure in this regard is Aristotle. I would not like to end this historical inquiry, however, without suggesting a philosophical moral. The moral is that there are at least some reasons for claiming that a truly anti-Platonic Aristotelianism is not philosophically in the cards, so to speak. Thus, if one rigorously and honestly seeks to remove the principles of Platonism from a putatively Aristotelian position, what would remain would be incoherent and probably indefensible. Thus, an Aristotelian ontology of the sensible world that excluded the ontological priority of the supersensible is probably unsustainable. And an Aristotelian psychology that did not recognize the priority and irreducibility of intellect to soul would be similarly beyond repair.89 What contemporary exponents of versions of Platonism or Aristotelianism should perhaps conclude from a study of the history is that, rather than standing in opposition to each other, merger, or at least synergy, ought to be the order of the day.[conclusion, p. 276]

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The Perils of Self-Perception: Explanations of Apperception in the Greek Commentaries on Aristotle, 2005
By: Hubler, J. Noel
Title The Perils of Self-Perception: Explanations of Apperception in the Greek Commentaries on Aristotle
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal The Review of Metaphysics
Volume 59
Issue 2
Pages 287-311
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hubler, J. Noel
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle's brief consideration of self-perception engaged in an extensive discussion of the problem, offering various interpretations of apperception from the second to sixth century. The commentators modeled their explanation of self-awareness in perception on their understanding of the nature of knowledge in general and their notion of what the core meaning of truth was. [introduction]

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Simplicius, in Cat., p. 1,3-3,17 Kalbfleisch: An Important Contribution to the History of the Ancient, 2004
By: Hadot, Ilsetraut
Title Simplicius, in Cat., p. 1,3-3,17 Kalbfleisch: An Important Contribution to the History of the Ancient
Type Article
Language English
Date 2004
Journal Rheinisches Museum für Philologie
Volume 147
Issue 3/4
Pages 408-420
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hadot, Ilsetraut
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In the first place, the survey of the commentaries on the Categories with which Simplicius provides us, as well as the examination undertaken by J. M. Dillon of the fragments of Iamblichus’ commentaries on Plato’s dialogues, show as clearly as possible that the form of the continuous commentary was utilized by the Neoplatonists right from the start, and that it therefore was not introduced by Syrianus. Secondly, an attentive comparison between those Neoplatonic commentaries on the Categories that have come down to us proves that a genuine doctrinal continuity existed from Porphyry to Simplicius. In addition, I consider it likely that an analogous continuity with regard to the tendency to harmonize the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle also existed in the Neoplatonic commentaries on the Metaphysics, of which only that of Syrianus (partial), and that of Asclepius-Ammonius (partial) have come down to us, whereas those of Porphyry and Iamblichus are lost, but attested, and that Syrianus’ attitude, which he manifests in the introduction to his commentary on book My the Metaphysics, is therefore no more original than his use of the form of the continuous commentary. In conclusion, Syrianus was certainly a great philosopher, but, as far as the precise points dealt with in this article are concerned, he was not the innovator he has been made out to be. [conclusion, p. 419-420]

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La pensée s'exprime «grâce» à l'être (Parménide, fr. 8.35), 2004
By: Cordero, Néstor-Luis
Title La pensée s'exprime «grâce» à l'être (Parménide, fr. 8.35)
Type Article
Language French
Date 2004
Journal Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Étranger
Volume 194
Issue 1
Pages 5-13
Categories no categories
Author(s) Cordero, Néstor-Luis
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Peu de temps après la mort de son père spirituel, Platon n'hésite pas à rendre un hommage appuyé au « vénérable et redoutable » Parménide ; mais, en même temps, il ne peut pas s'empêcher d'avouer : étant donné sa profondeur (bathos), « je crains tout à la fois que ses paroles, nous ne les comprenions pas, et que ce qu'il pensait en les prononçant nous dépasse beaucoup plus ». Mais ce que Platon ne dit pas, c'est que cette difficulté l'a poussé à essayer de déchiffrer le logos parménidien. Vingt-cinq siècles après, Marcel Conche en a fait autant, et c'est sur le chemin de Parménide que j'ai eu la chance et le grand honneur de faire sa connaissance. Et je peux témoigner que Platon avait raison : la pensée de Parménide nous a tellement dépassés qu'elle a pu être à l'origine d'interprétations très diverses et, même si l'Éléate était surpris d'apprendre qu'il était à la fois un et multiple, il faut admettre que le chemin de recherche qu'il a inauguré reste ouvert, car sa richesse est inépuisable. Le dialogue que je voudrais entamer avec Marcel Conche concerne l'un des passages les plus controversés du Poème, l'énigmatique vers 8.35. Nous nous sommes occupés de ce texte dans notre travail Les deux chemins de Parménide, et Marcel Conche a commenté avec perspicacité notre interprétation, mais il n'a pas été convaincu par le texte que nous proposons de suivre à la place du texte traditionnel. Je voudrais renforcer les arguments donnés il y a quelques années dans le travail cité ci-dessus, car les échos de la lecture (il ne s'agit pas d'une conjecture) que nous proposons n'ont été que très restreints, malgré les points obscurs que notre solution permet d'éclairer. Regardons donc le contexte de ce passage. [introduction p. 5-6]

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Neue Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus (1995-2003). Teil II, 2004
By: Steel, Carlos, Helmig, Christoph
Title Neue Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus (1995-2003). Teil II
Type Article
Language German
Date 2004
Journal Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie
Volume 29
Pages 225-247
Categories no categories
Author(s) Steel, Carlos , Helmig, Christoph
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Dieser Artikel berichtete über weniger als zehn Jahre Forschung im Bereich des Neuplatonismus. Und doch ist es erfreulich festzustellen, wie viel seit Mitte der 90er Jahre zustande gekommen ist, auch wenn es für die Zukunft noch viel zu tun gibt. Die Aufgabe stellt sich in doppelter Hinsicht: philologisch und philosophisch. In erster Linie ist es notwendig, das so rasant angewachsene Interesse für die neuplatonische Philosophie dahingehend zu nutzen, dass die Editionen und kommentierten Übersetzungen wichtiger Texte weitergeführt werden. Das ist eine intensive, mühevolle und oft undankbare Arbeit, weil so etwas im heutigen „Forschungsklima“ nicht immer in ausreichendem Maße gewürdigt wird. Und dennoch bleibt es eine der drängendsten Aufgaben, und das umso mehr, weil wir befürchten müssen, dass die Kenntnis der alten Sprachen immer weiter zurückgeht. Wie im Mittelalter die antike Philosophie nur überleben und neuen Einfluss gewinnen konnte durch massive Übersetzungsaktivitäten (ins Arabische und Lateinische), so werden in diesem Jahrhundert – ob man es nun bedauert oder nicht – viele neuplatonische Autoren nur noch in Reihen wie „The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle“ oder in anderen Übersetzungen gelesen werden. Darum ist es wichtig, dass die Übersetzungen zuverlässig sind und auf guten Editionen fußen. Es wäre daher wünschenswert, dass gerade auch in Deutschland vermehrt zentrale Texte aus dem späteren Neuplatonismus übersetzt und kommentiert würden. Aber neben dieser Editions- und Übersetzungsarbeit sollte das eigentliche Ziel der Forschung eine philosophische Annäherung sein an diese große Tradition der Geistesgeschichte mit ihren vielfachen kulturellen Verzweigungen im Mittelalter (von Syrien über den Irak und Andalusien bis nach Köln), in der Renaissance und in der Neuzeit. Dabei müssen wir uns aber davor hüten, den Neuplatonismus allzu leicht mit Schwärmerei oder einer Art von Esoterik in Verbindung zu bringen. Er ist und bleibt vor allem eine Philosophie, auch wenn er eine Philosophie ist, die rational die Grenzen der Rationalität einsieht. Gerade in der deutschsprachigen Forschung haben wir schöne Beispiele für ein fruchtbares Zusammengehen von philologischer akribeia und philosophischer Annäherung. Ein Paradigma einer solchen Forschung am Neuplatonismus bleiben für uns die zahlreichen philosophisch anregenden Arbeiten von Werner Beierwaltes. [p. 246-247]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"481","_score":null,"_source":{"id":481,"authors_free":[{"id":651,"entry_id":481,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":14,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Steel, Carlos","free_first_name":"Carlos","free_last_name":"Steel","norm_person":{"id":14,"first_name":"Carlos ","last_name":"Steel","full_name":"Steel, Carlos ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/122963083","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":652,"entry_id":481,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":146,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Helmig, Christoph","free_first_name":"Christoph","free_last_name":"Helmig","norm_person":{"id":146,"first_name":"Christoph","last_name":"Helmig","full_name":"Helmig, Christoph","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1107028760","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Neue Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus (1995-2003). Teil II","main_title":{"title":"Neue Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus (1995-2003). Teil II"},"abstract":"Dieser Artikel berichtete \u00fcber weniger als zehn Jahre Forschung im Bereich des Neuplatonismus. Und doch ist es erfreulich festzustellen, wie viel seit Mitte der 90er Jahre zustande gekommen ist, auch wenn es f\u00fcr die Zukunft noch viel zu tun gibt. Die Aufgabe stellt sich in doppelter Hinsicht: philologisch und philosophisch.\r\n\r\nIn erster Linie ist es notwendig, das so rasant angewachsene Interesse f\u00fcr die neuplatonische Philosophie dahingehend zu nutzen, dass die Editionen und kommentierten \u00dcbersetzungen wichtiger Texte weitergef\u00fchrt werden. Das ist eine intensive, m\u00fchevolle und oft undankbare Arbeit, weil so etwas im heutigen \u201eForschungsklima\u201c nicht immer in ausreichendem Ma\u00dfe gew\u00fcrdigt wird. Und dennoch bleibt es eine der dr\u00e4ngendsten Aufgaben, und das umso mehr, weil wir bef\u00fcrchten m\u00fcssen, dass die Kenntnis der alten Sprachen immer weiter zur\u00fcckgeht.\r\n\r\nWie im Mittelalter die antike Philosophie nur \u00fcberleben und neuen Einfluss gewinnen konnte durch massive \u00dcbersetzungsaktivit\u00e4ten (ins Arabische und Lateinische), so werden in diesem Jahrhundert \u2013 ob man es nun bedauert oder nicht \u2013 viele neuplatonische Autoren nur noch in Reihen wie \u201eThe Ancient Commentators on Aristotle\u201c oder in anderen \u00dcbersetzungen gelesen werden. Darum ist es wichtig, dass die \u00dcbersetzungen zuverl\u00e4ssig sind und auf guten Editionen fu\u00dfen.\r\n\r\nEs w\u00e4re daher w\u00fcnschenswert, dass gerade auch in Deutschland vermehrt zentrale Texte aus dem sp\u00e4teren Neuplatonismus \u00fcbersetzt und kommentiert w\u00fcrden. Aber neben dieser Editions- und \u00dcbersetzungsarbeit sollte das eigentliche Ziel der Forschung eine philosophische Ann\u00e4herung sein an diese gro\u00dfe Tradition der Geistesgeschichte mit ihren vielfachen kulturellen Verzweigungen im Mittelalter (von Syrien \u00fcber den Irak und Andalusien bis nach K\u00f6ln), in der Renaissance und in der Neuzeit.\r\n\r\nDabei m\u00fcssen wir uns aber davor h\u00fcten, den Neuplatonismus allzu leicht mit Schw\u00e4rmerei oder einer Art von Esoterik in Verbindung zu bringen. Er ist und bleibt vor allem eine Philosophie, auch wenn er eine Philosophie ist, die rational die Grenzen der Rationalit\u00e4t einsieht.\r\n\r\nGerade in der deutschsprachigen Forschung haben wir sch\u00f6ne Beispiele f\u00fcr ein fruchtbares Zusammengehen von philologischer akribeia und philosophischer Ann\u00e4herung. Ein Paradigma einer solchen Forschung am Neuplatonismus bleiben f\u00fcr uns die zahlreichen philosophisch anregenden Arbeiten von Werner Beierwaltes. [p. 246-247]","btype":3,"date":"2004","language":"German","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/J1gdFPhAmlKlP6l","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":14,"full_name":"Steel, Carlos ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":146,"full_name":"Helmig, Christoph","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":481,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Allgemeine Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Philosophie","volume":"29","issue":"","pages":"225-247"}},"sort":[2004]}

Quelques exemples de scholies dans la tradition arabe des "Éléments" d'Euclide, 2003
By: Djebbar, Ahmed
Title Quelques exemples de scholies dans la tradition arabe des "Éléments" d'Euclide
Type Article
Language French
Date 2003
Journal Revue d'histoire des sciences
Volume 56
Issue 2
Pages 293-321
Categories no categories
Author(s) Djebbar, Ahmed
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
After describing two important sources of scholia, the manuscripts Teherán Malik 3586 and Leiden Or. 399/1, this article analyzes the different kinds of scholia found in these texts as well as in other mathematical writings of the Arab tradition of Euclid's Elements. The second part of the article provides a modern edition and French translation of some of these previously unpublished scholia. [author's abstract]

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Why Does Plato's Element Theory Conflict With Mathematics (Arist. Cael. 299a2-6)?, 2003
By: Kouremenos, Theokritos
Title Why Does Plato's Element Theory Conflict With Mathematics (Arist. Cael. 299a2-6)?
Type Article
Language English
Date 2003
Journal Rheinisches Museum für Philologie
Volume 146
Issue 3/4
Pages 328-345
Categories no categories
Author(s) Kouremenos, Theokritos
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In Cael. 3.1 Aristotle argues against those who posit that all bodies are generated because they are made from, and dissolve into, planes, namely Plato and perhaps other members of the Academy who subscribed to the Timaeus physics (cf. Simplicius, In Cael. 561,8-11 [Heiberg]). In his Timaeus Plato assigns to each of the traditional Empedoclean elements a regular polyhedron: the tetrahedron or pyramid to fire, the cube to earth, the octahedron to air, and the icosahedron to water. Each regular polyhedron can be anachronistically called a molecule of the element in question, and, as is suggested by the analogy between the regular solids and molecules, Plato also posits that the regular polyhedra are made from 'atoms': the faces of the tetrahedron, octahedron, and icosahedron are made from scalene right-angled triangles, whose hypotenuses are double the length of the smaller sides, whereas the faces of the cube consist of isosceles right-angled triangles. Since fire, air, and water consist of polyhedral molecules whose elementary constituents are of the same type, they can freely change into one another. Any of these three elements turns into another when its molecules break down into their elementary constituents, and these building blocks recombine into molecules of another element. Aristotle has in mind the reshuffling of elementary triangles when he refers to all bodies being made from, and dissolving into, planes. His first objection to this fundamental assumption in Plato's element theory is set out in Cael. 299a2-6: as is easily seen, constructing bodies from planes runs counter to mathematics whose 'hypotheses' should be accepted, unless one comes up with something more convincing. Contrary to Aristotle's claim, it is not easy to see why Plato's element theory runs counter to mathematics because it constructs the polyhedral molecules from the triangular planes in the faces of these molecules. Aristotle presumably implies that this violates some mathematical 'hypotheses' which should be better left as they stand but does not explain what the 'hypotheses' in question are. Nor is it any clearer whether Plato commits himself to the rejection of these 'hypotheses' or some aspect of Plato's element theory entails their rejection by Aristotle's own lights. I will attempt to answer these questions after a critique of Simplicius who identifies the hypotheses in Cael. 299a2-6 with the Euclidean definitions of point, line, and plane but also thinks that Aristotle sets out further mathematical objections to Plato's element theory in Cael. 299a6-11: contrary to the commentator, there is only one such objection in Cael. 299a6-11, namely that Plato's element theory introduces indivisible lines, and, as is suggested by an allusion to Cael. 299a2-6 in the treatise On Indivisible Lines, the same objection is also implicit in Cael. 299a2-6. That in this passage Plato's element theory is said to conflict with mathematics because it entails the existence of indivisible lines is borne out not only by Cael. 299a6-11 but also by 299a13-17. After interpreting the 'hypotheses' in Cael. 299a2-6 consistently with this fact, I will show that, when Aristotle charges Plato with introducing various sorts of indivisibles in his element theory, he actually brings out the untenability of this theory by arguing that Plato ought to introduce such entities which are, though, ruled out by mathematics. Aristotle's implicit objection in Cael. 299a2-6 follows from a similar argument which I will attempt to reconstruct in the final sections of this paper. [introduction p. 328-329]

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Doppelte Entelecheia: Das Menschen­bild in “Simplikios”’ Kommentar zu Aristoteles’ De anima, 2003
By: Perkams, Matthias
Title Doppelte Entelecheia: Das Menschen­bild in “Simplikios”’ Kommentar zu Aristoteles’ De anima
Type Article
Language German
Date 2003
Journal Elenchos
Volume 24
Issue 1
Pages 57-91
Categories no categories
Author(s) Perkams, Matthias
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Der Durchgang durch „Simplikios’“ Text hat gezeigt, dass dieser Kommentator mit seiner Theorie der doppelten Formursächlichkeit der Seele bzw. ihres doppelten entelecheia-Seins die funktionale Beziehung der Seele zum Körper in ihren verschiedenen Stufen nach einem einheitlichen Schema erklärt. Immer ist es ein seelisch definiertes Organ, zu dem die Seele in Beziehung tritt. Das anthropologische Ergebnis ist kein Dreischritt Körper-Leib-Seele, sondern eine systematisch durchdachte Definition des Verhältnisses zwischen Körper und Seele: Auf der einen Seite steht nicht ein Stück Materie, sondern ein Lebewesen in der Art eines belebten Körpers, bei dessen Formung Körperliches und Seelisches bereits eine Einheit eingegangen sind, auf der anderen Seite eine Seele, die als die, die sie ist, wesentlich auf die Benutzung dieses Leibes ausgerichtet ist. Dabei ist der Leib von der bloßen Materie ebenso verschieden wie die bewegende Seele vom transzendenten nous, in dem sie ursprünglich wurzelt. Erst im Tod gewinnen nous und Materie wieder ihre Selbständigkeit zurück. Diese Darstellung zeigt, wie „Simplikios“ systematisch mit Aristoteles umgeht: Die Terminologie des Stagiriten integriert er nicht nur in seine eigene philosophische Konzeption, sondern er kann mithilfe dieser Terminologie eine logisch und sachlich konsistente und gut nachvollziehbare Fassung der neuplatonischen Seelenlehre entwickeln. Damit erweist sich die Auseinandersetzung mit Aristoteles für den neuplatonischen Autor als fruchtbar, ohne dass er sachlich die Grenzen des Neuplatonismus überschreitet. Im neuplatonischen Kontext ist es besonders interessant, dass „Simplikios“ in den beiden Formen von entelecheia durchgehende Charakteristika des Seelischen in der Art sieht, dass jede einzelne Seelenart den Leib in der genannten doppelten Weise verwirklicht. Denn mit der Annahme zweier Arten der Einwirkung der Seele auf den Körper entspricht er einer Struktur, die sich bereits bei Plotin entfaltet findet: Der Leib, mit dem sich die Seele vereinigt, ist bereits durch eine Spur oder ein Bild der Seele auf deren Aufnahme vorbereitet. Bei der Interpretation dieser Stellen wird meistens angenommen, dass dieses „Bild“ der vegetativen Seele entspricht, die von der höheren Seele verschieden ist. Diese Identifizierung wurde jüngst von Ch. Tornau unter Verweis auf Enn. IV 4, 20, 22–5; VI 4, 15, 15 in Zweifel gezogen. Bei „Simplikios“ zeigt sich nun klar, dass dieses Seelenbild ebenso wie die bewegende Formursache, die eigentliche Seele, in jeder einzelnen Seelenart vorhanden ist. Damit wird Tornaus Vermutung zumindest für einen neuplatonischen Autor bestätigt. An diesem Punkt, der für die Systematik des neuplatonischen Menschenbildes überhaupt von Bedeutung ist, ist weitere Forschung nötig, um zu mehr Klarheit über die im Neuplatonismus übliche Lehre und die Abweichungen davon zu gelangen. Das von „Simplikios“ entworfene Bild zeigt, dass die menschliche Seele im späten Neuplatonismus nicht als unsystematische Nebeneinanderstellung verschiedener, mehr oder weniger zwanghaft triadisch geordneter Schichten zu verstehen ist, sondern dass die Philosophen dieser Zeit im Rahmen der Voraussetzungen, die sie für selbstverständlich hielten, ein klares Bild der gegenseitigen Bezogenheit von Seele und Leib entwickeln konnten. Die Einheit zwischen Körper und Seele, wie „Simplikios“ sie schildert, ist keineswegs so locker, wie es manche Überblickswerke zum Neuplatonismus nahelegen: Die Seele, die in der materiellen Welt wirkt und erkennt, ist wesentlich mit dem Körper verbunden und kann ohne diese Verbindung nicht existieren. [conclusion p. 90-91]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1087","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1087,"authors_free":[{"id":1643,"entry_id":1087,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":283,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Perkams, Matthias","free_first_name":"Matthias","free_last_name":"Perkams","norm_person":{"id":283,"first_name":"Matthias","last_name":"Perkams","full_name":"Perkams, Matthias","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/123439760","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Doppelte Entelecheia: Das Menschen\u00adbild in \u201cSimplikios\u201d\u2019 Kommentar zu Aristoteles\u2019 De anima","main_title":{"title":"Doppelte Entelecheia: Das Menschen\u00adbild in \u201cSimplikios\u201d\u2019 Kommentar zu Aristoteles\u2019 De anima"},"abstract":"Der Durchgang durch \u201eSimplikios\u2019\u201c Text hat gezeigt, dass dieser Kommentator mit seiner Theorie der doppelten Formurs\u00e4chlichkeit der Seele bzw. ihres doppelten entelecheia-Seins die funktionale Beziehung der Seele zum K\u00f6rper in ihren verschiedenen Stufen nach einem einheitlichen Schema erkl\u00e4rt. Immer ist es ein seelisch definiertes Organ, zu dem die Seele in Beziehung tritt. Das anthropologische Ergebnis ist kein Dreischritt K\u00f6rper-Leib-Seele, sondern eine systematisch durchdachte Definition des Verh\u00e4ltnisses zwischen K\u00f6rper und Seele:\r\n\r\nAuf der einen Seite steht nicht ein St\u00fcck Materie, sondern ein Lebewesen in der Art eines belebten K\u00f6rpers, bei dessen Formung K\u00f6rperliches und Seelisches bereits eine Einheit eingegangen sind, auf der anderen Seite eine Seele, die als die, die sie ist, wesentlich auf die Benutzung dieses Leibes ausgerichtet ist. Dabei ist der Leib von der blo\u00dfen Materie ebenso verschieden wie die bewegende Seele vom transzendenten nous, in dem sie urspr\u00fcnglich wurzelt. Erst im Tod gewinnen nous und Materie wieder ihre Selbst\u00e4ndigkeit zur\u00fcck.\r\n\r\nDiese Darstellung zeigt, wie \u201eSimplikios\u201c systematisch mit Aristoteles umgeht: Die Terminologie des Stagiriten integriert er nicht nur in seine eigene philosophische Konzeption, sondern er kann mithilfe dieser Terminologie eine logisch und sachlich konsistente und gut nachvollziehbare Fassung der neuplatonischen Seelenlehre entwickeln. Damit erweist sich die Auseinandersetzung mit Aristoteles f\u00fcr den neuplatonischen Autor als fruchtbar, ohne dass er sachlich die Grenzen des Neuplatonismus \u00fcberschreitet.\r\n\r\nIm neuplatonischen Kontext ist es besonders interessant, dass \u201eSimplikios\u201c in den beiden Formen von entelecheia durchgehende Charakteristika des Seelischen in der Art sieht, dass jede einzelne Seelenart den Leib in der genannten doppelten Weise verwirklicht. Denn mit der Annahme zweier Arten der Einwirkung der Seele auf den K\u00f6rper entspricht er einer Struktur, die sich bereits bei Plotin entfaltet findet:\r\n\r\nDer Leib, mit dem sich die Seele vereinigt, ist bereits durch eine Spur oder ein Bild der Seele auf deren Aufnahme vorbereitet. Bei der Interpretation dieser Stellen wird meistens angenommen, dass dieses \u201eBild\u201c der vegetativen Seele entspricht, die von der h\u00f6heren Seele verschieden ist. Diese Identifizierung wurde j\u00fcngst von Ch. Tornau unter Verweis auf Enn. IV 4, 20, 22\u20135; VI 4, 15, 15 in Zweifel gezogen.\r\n\r\nBei \u201eSimplikios\u201c zeigt sich nun klar, dass dieses Seelenbild ebenso wie die bewegende Formursache, die eigentliche Seele, in jeder einzelnen Seelenart vorhanden ist. Damit wird Tornaus Vermutung zumindest f\u00fcr einen neuplatonischen Autor best\u00e4tigt. An diesem Punkt, der f\u00fcr die Systematik des neuplatonischen Menschenbildes \u00fcberhaupt von Bedeutung ist, ist weitere Forschung n\u00f6tig, um zu mehr Klarheit \u00fcber die im Neuplatonismus \u00fcbliche Lehre und die Abweichungen davon zu gelangen.\r\n\r\nDas von \u201eSimplikios\u201c entworfene Bild zeigt, dass die menschliche Seele im sp\u00e4ten Neuplatonismus nicht als unsystematische Nebeneinanderstellung verschiedener, mehr oder weniger zwanghaft triadisch geordneter Schichten zu verstehen ist, sondern dass die Philosophen dieser Zeit im Rahmen der Voraussetzungen, die sie f\u00fcr selbstverst\u00e4ndlich hielten, ein klares Bild der gegenseitigen Bezogenheit von Seele und Leib entwickeln konnten.\r\n\r\nDie Einheit zwischen K\u00f6rper und Seele, wie \u201eSimplikios\u201c sie schildert, ist keineswegs so locker, wie es manche \u00dcberblickswerke zum Neuplatonismus nahelegen: Die Seele, die in der materiellen Welt wirkt und erkennt, ist wesentlich mit dem K\u00f6rper verbunden und kann ohne diese Verbindung nicht existieren. [conclusion p. 90-91]","btype":3,"date":"2003","language":"German","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/egqTFHmjZlWVg7v","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":283,"full_name":"Perkams, Matthias","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1087,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Elenchos","volume":"24","issue":"1","pages":"57-91"}},"sort":[2003]}

Der philosophische Unterrichtsbetrieb in der römischen Kaiserzeit, 2003
By: Hadot, Ilsetraut
Title Der philosophische Unterrichtsbetrieb in der römischen Kaiserzeit
Type Article
Language German
Date 2003
Journal Rhein. Museum
Volume 146
Issue 1
Pages 49–71
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hadot, Ilsetraut
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Der Text beschreibt den Zustand des philosophischen Unterrichts während der römischen Kaiserzeit. Obwohl die bekannten Philosophenschulen in Athen nicht mehr existierten, hatten die vier philosophischen Richtungen des Hellenismus dennoch Verbreitung gefunden und wurden in privaten Schulen unterrichtet. Diese Schulen waren jedoch meist kurzlebig und hingen vom Erfolg des Lehrers ab. Philosophie wurde an den griechischen Gymnasien nicht gelehrt, stattdessen konzentrierte man sich auf Grammatik und Rhetorik. Im lateinischen Bereich führten enge Beziehungen führender Römer zu stoischen Philosophen zur Verbreitung der Lehren. Der Philosophieunterricht begann meist erst nach der Pubertät, und das Alter spielte eine wichtige Rolle bei der Seelenleitung. Das Greisenalter wurde als optimal angesehen, da der körperliche Verfall der freien Betätigung des Geistes entgegenkomme. Das Bild des philosophischen Unterrichtsbetriebes in der Kaiserzeit war somit sehr komplex. [introduction/conclusion]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1334","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1334,"authors_free":[{"id":1967,"entry_id":1334,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":4,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","free_first_name":"Ilsetraut","free_last_name":"Hadot","norm_person":{"id":4,"first_name":"Ilsetraut","last_name":"Hadot","full_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/107415011","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Der philosophische Unterrichtsbetrieb in der r\u00f6mischen Kaiserzeit","main_title":{"title":"Der philosophische Unterrichtsbetrieb in der r\u00f6mischen Kaiserzeit"},"abstract":"Der Text beschreibt den Zustand des philosophischen Unterrichts w\u00e4hrend der r\u00f6mischen Kaiserzeit. Obwohl die bekannten Philosophenschulen in Athen nicht mehr existierten, hatten die vier philosophischen Richtungen des Hellenismus dennoch Verbreitung gefunden und wurden in privaten Schulen unterrichtet. Diese Schulen waren jedoch meist kurzlebig und hingen vom Erfolg des Lehrers ab. Philosophie wurde an den griechischen Gymnasien nicht gelehrt, stattdessen konzentrierte man sich auf Grammatik und Rhetorik. Im lateinischen Bereich f\u00fchrten enge Beziehungen f\u00fchrender R\u00f6mer zu stoischen Philosophen zur Verbreitung der Lehren. Der Philosophieunterricht begann meist erst nach der Pubert\u00e4t, und das Alter spielte eine wichtige Rolle bei der Seelenleitung. Das Greisenalter wurde als optimal angesehen, da der k\u00f6rperliche Verfall der freien Bet\u00e4tigung des Geistes entgegenkomme. Das Bild des philosophischen Unterrichtsbetriebes in der Kaiserzeit war somit sehr komplex. [introduction\/conclusion]","btype":3,"date":"2003","language":"German","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/bCAQ9Hlrduneobp","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":4,"full_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1334,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Rhein. Museum","volume":"146","issue":"1","pages":"49\u201371"}},"sort":[2003]}

Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 1, 2003
By: Bowen, Alan C., Simplicius
Title Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 1
Type Article
Language English
Date 2003
Journal SCIAMVS: Sources and Commentaries in Exact Sciences
Volume 4
Pages 23-58
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bowen, Alan C. , Simplicius
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
If there is a single text that has proven to be the bedrock for the modern understanding of early Greek astronomy, it is Simplicius’ commentary on Book 2, Chapter 12 of Aristotle’s treatise De caelo. Simplicius’ remarks, which are effectively an elaboration of what he supposes Aristotle to mean in Metaphysics Λ 8, are almost always accepted as gospel in their broad outlines. Take any recent history of early Greek astronomy you please, and you will find that its author immediately turns to Simplicius as the source clarifying what Aristotle writes in this chapter of his Metaphysics. Indeed, the main challenge scholars perceive in Simplicius’ commentary is to tease out and reconstruct the underlying mathematical theory that would make it all ‘true.’ Such naïveté is breathtaking. Few who read Simplicius and understand his historiographical project—a search for a truth that Aristotle’s text is supposed to embody rather than a study of the text itself on its own terms—would elevate him to a position of such unquestioned authority. And those who have reflected on the often intractable problems in assessing the truth of ancient reports or testimonia in the sciences will quite naturally decline to take Simplicius at his word in this matter. I recognize, of course, that it is customary to detect errors in Simplicius’ account and to attribute them either to Aristotle or to Simplicius; but this, I fear, typically amounts to little more than a demonstration that we moderns can be speciously clever while taking what Simplicius writes for granted. I have written at length elsewhere that Simplicius’ comments on De caelo 2.12 do not constitute an account of what Aristotle meant in Metaphysics Λ 8 that we should accept today as properly historical. There is, after all, no extant Greek or Latin text written before the late second century BCE that shows any knowledge of the planetary phenomena of station and retrogradation, which are so central to Simplicius’ commentary. There are also ample signs that Simplicius’ remarks about the history of early astronomy are not a report but a reconstruction occasioned by what Aristotle writes in Metaphysics Λ 8 and the need to explain why the homocentric planetary theory outlined there was later abandoned by Aristotelians. Moreover, Metaphysics Λ 8 is itself underdetermined so far as its presentation of this homocentric theory goes. Indeed, there are other interpretations of this presentation that fit far better than Simplicius’ with what we can find elsewhere in Aristotle’s writings and in documents by other writers of the fourth century. That scholars today persist in reading Metaphysics Λ 8 and other early texts as indicating knowledge of the planetary stations and retrogradations is a puzzle. One only wishes, when these scholars have elaborated their interpretations of Metaphysics Λ 8 and of the other related texts written before the late second century that concern planetary motions, that they would not stop here as if their work as historians were done. Obviously, it will not be enough if they simply adduce relevant testimonia by later ancient writers. Not only are these testimonia few in number and dated to a time after the characteristic planetary motions were duly understood, they typically prove on critical examination to be either ambiguous or anachronistic in the same way as Simplicius’ account is. Consequently, any appeal to such testimonia without critical argument in defense of their historical validity is pointless. Indeed, the burden must fall on these scholars to demonstrate that Metaphysics Λ 8 and the other early texts must be read in this way. For, absent such proof, all one has is the fallacy of imputing to a writer the perceived consequences of what he writes. Of course, making such a proof will be hard work. Even those sharing the general view that the Greeks of the fourth century were aware of planetary stations and retrogradations do not agree about how these phenomena were understood or explained. In addition, there are my own arguments not only that these texts may be read without supposing such knowledge but also that they should be read without such a supposition, given the contemporaneous evidence of astronomical theory. And finally, there is the largely unrecognized problem that, even if Simplicius’ history of astronomy in Aristotle’s time is anachronistic, it has a simpler interpretation than the one first propounded in the 19th century by Schiaparelli and elaborated to this day. Granted, these scholars may wish to excuse themselves from the charge of wrongly imputing to Simplicius what they perceive as the real meaning of his text, by claiming that Simplicius is preserving material from earlier sources that he does not understand. But should historians today assent to reading an ancient commentary in a way that makes the commentator irrelevant, and should they do this in the expectation that the interpretation offered reflects the thought of some putative source from whom nothing survives for confirmation? My own view is that compounding such a misreading of an ancient literary genre with such untestable faith—or, if you will, unassailable credulity—may have numerous outcomes, but historical knowledge will not be one of them. Few modern historians have examined what Simplicius actually writes—the great tendency is to rely on some learned summary such as that supplied by Heath, who makes accessible in English the pioneering work of Schiaparelli. Accordingly, I here present Simplicius’ account of Metaphysics Λ 8 so that readers may begin to get their own sense of what is at issue. To this end, I have translated Heiberg’s edition of Simplicius’ commentary on the three narrowly astronomical chapters of the De caelo and have supplied my translation with annotation intended primarily to clarify the technical, scientific meaning. Given the exigencies of publication, this annotated translation will come in two parts. The first, presented here, is devoted to Simplicius’ commentary on De caelo 2.10–11. These chapters in the De caelo raise stock issues in astronomy; and it is valuable, I think, for readers interested in Simplicius’ account of planetary theory in 2.12 to see and assess just how he deals with them. Indeed, not only does Simplicius’ commentary on 2.10–11 show him drawing on a tradition of technical writing for novices and philosophers that goes back to Geminus and Cleomedes, it also shows him going astray on fundamental points in elementary mathematics. And this is surely important for our interpretation of his commentary on 2.12. The annotation itself is, as I have said, intended to assist the reader with information that may be needed to make sense of the text. My main aim is to allow access to Simplicius that is as little encumbered by my interpretative intrusion as is feasible, since my hope in this publication is that the reader will confront Simplicius for himself, by himself, so far as this is possible in a translation. Thus, I do not engage in the details of the interpretations offered by those who assume that the early Greeks were aware of the planetary phenomena so central to Simplicius’ account of Metaphysics Λ 8. Still, there is a question about just how much annotation is needed by readers of this journal, and I hope that I have not erred too much in following my natural disposition to say less. Simplicius’ Greek is typical of scholastic commentary: elliptical, crabbed, and technical. I have tried to deal with this by supplying in square brackets what is missing whenever this seemed necessary or likely to make the meaning easier for the reader to grasp. At the same time, I have tried, so far as is reasonable and within my ability, to capture Simplicius’ technical vocabulary and to preserve the logical structure of his sentences. This translation has benefited greatly from the generous criticism of earlier versions offered by Bernard R. Goldstein and Robert B. Todd: they have saved me from numerous mistakes and infelicities, and I am most pleased to acknowledge this. Finally, I am very pleased to record my gratitude to Ken Saito, the Managing Editor of SCIAMVS, for his unflagging interest in this project and his encouragement as I pursued it. That my annotated translation appears in SCIAMVS is ample proof of his very kind support and his patience with a historian whose sense of time seems limited to the past. [introduction p. 23-26]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1479","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1479,"authors_free":[{"id":2560,"entry_id":1479,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":16,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Bowen, Alan C.","free_first_name":"Alan C.","free_last_name":"Bowen","norm_person":{"id":16,"first_name":"Bowen C.","last_name":"Bowen","full_name":"Bowen, Alan C. ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/140052720","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2601,"entry_id":1479,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":62,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Simplicius","free_first_name":"","free_last_name":"","norm_person":{"id":62,"first_name":"Cilicius","last_name":"Simplicius ","full_name":"Simplicius Cilicius","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/118642421","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 1","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 1"},"abstract":"If there is a single text that has proven to be the bedrock for the modern understanding of early Greek astronomy, it is Simplicius\u2019 commentary on Book 2, Chapter 12 of Aristotle\u2019s treatise De caelo. Simplicius\u2019 remarks, which are effectively an elaboration of what he supposes Aristotle to mean in Metaphysics \u039b 8, are almost always accepted as gospel in their broad outlines. Take any recent history of early Greek astronomy you please, and you will find that its author immediately turns to Simplicius as the source clarifying what Aristotle writes in this chapter of his Metaphysics.\r\n\r\nIndeed, the main challenge scholars perceive in Simplicius\u2019 commentary is to tease out and reconstruct the underlying mathematical theory that would make it all \u2018true.\u2019 Such na\u00efvet\u00e9 is breathtaking. Few who read Simplicius and understand his historiographical project\u2014a search for a truth that Aristotle\u2019s text is supposed to embody rather than a study of the text itself on its own terms\u2014would elevate him to a position of such unquestioned authority. And those who have reflected on the often intractable problems in assessing the truth of ancient reports or testimonia in the sciences will quite naturally decline to take Simplicius at his word in this matter.\r\n\r\nI recognize, of course, that it is customary to detect errors in Simplicius\u2019 account and to attribute them either to Aristotle or to Simplicius; but this, I fear, typically amounts to little more than a demonstration that we moderns can be speciously clever while taking what Simplicius writes for granted.\r\n\r\nI have written at length elsewhere that Simplicius\u2019 comments on De caelo 2.12 do not constitute an account of what Aristotle meant in Metaphysics \u039b 8 that we should accept today as properly historical. There is, after all, no extant Greek or Latin text written before the late second century BCE that shows any knowledge of the planetary phenomena of station and retrogradation, which are so central to Simplicius\u2019 commentary. There are also ample signs that Simplicius\u2019 remarks about the history of early astronomy are not a report but a reconstruction occasioned by what Aristotle writes in Metaphysics \u039b 8 and the need to explain why the homocentric planetary theory outlined there was later abandoned by Aristotelians. Moreover, Metaphysics \u039b 8 is itself underdetermined so far as its presentation of this homocentric theory goes. Indeed, there are other interpretations of this presentation that fit far better than Simplicius\u2019 with what we can find elsewhere in Aristotle\u2019s writings and in documents by other writers of the fourth century.\r\n\r\nThat scholars today persist in reading Metaphysics \u039b 8 and other early texts as indicating knowledge of the planetary stations and retrogradations is a puzzle. One only wishes, when these scholars have elaborated their interpretations of Metaphysics \u039b 8 and of the other related texts written before the late second century that concern planetary motions, that they would not stop here as if their work as historians were done. Obviously, it will not be enough if they simply adduce relevant testimonia by later ancient writers. Not only are these testimonia few in number and dated to a time after the characteristic planetary motions were duly understood, they typically prove on critical examination to be either ambiguous or anachronistic in the same way as Simplicius\u2019 account is. Consequently, any appeal to such testimonia without critical argument in defense of their historical validity is pointless.\r\n\r\nIndeed, the burden must fall on these scholars to demonstrate that Metaphysics \u039b 8 and the other early texts must be read in this way. For, absent such proof, all one has is the fallacy of imputing to a writer the perceived consequences of what he writes. Of course, making such a proof will be hard work. Even those sharing the general view that the Greeks of the fourth century were aware of planetary stations and retrogradations do not agree about how these phenomena were understood or explained. In addition, there are my own arguments not only that these texts may be read without supposing such knowledge but also that they should be read without such a supposition, given the contemporaneous evidence of astronomical theory.\r\n\r\nAnd finally, there is the largely unrecognized problem that, even if Simplicius\u2019 history of astronomy in Aristotle\u2019s time is anachronistic, it has a simpler interpretation than the one first propounded in the 19th century by Schiaparelli and elaborated to this day. Granted, these scholars may wish to excuse themselves from the charge of wrongly imputing to Simplicius what they perceive as the real meaning of his text, by claiming that Simplicius is preserving material from earlier sources that he does not understand. But should historians today assent to reading an ancient commentary in a way that makes the commentator irrelevant, and should they do this in the expectation that the interpretation offered reflects the thought of some putative source from whom nothing survives for confirmation?\r\n\r\nMy own view is that compounding such a misreading of an ancient literary genre with such untestable faith\u2014or, if you will, unassailable credulity\u2014may have numerous outcomes, but historical knowledge will not be one of them.\r\n\r\nFew modern historians have examined what Simplicius actually writes\u2014the great tendency is to rely on some learned summary such as that supplied by Heath, who makes accessible in English the pioneering work of Schiaparelli. Accordingly, I here present Simplicius\u2019 account of Metaphysics \u039b 8 so that readers may begin to get their own sense of what is at issue.\r\n\r\nTo this end, I have translated Heiberg\u2019s edition of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on the three narrowly astronomical chapters of the De caelo and have supplied my translation with annotation intended primarily to clarify the technical, scientific meaning.\r\n\r\nGiven the exigencies of publication, this annotated translation will come in two parts. The first, presented here, is devoted to Simplicius\u2019 commentary on De caelo 2.10\u201311. These chapters in the De caelo raise stock issues in astronomy; and it is valuable, I think, for readers interested in Simplicius\u2019 account of planetary theory in 2.12 to see and assess just how he deals with them. Indeed, not only does Simplicius\u2019 commentary on 2.10\u201311 show him drawing on a tradition of technical writing for novices and philosophers that goes back to Geminus and Cleomedes, it also shows him going astray on fundamental points in elementary mathematics. And this is surely important for our interpretation of his commentary on 2.12.\r\n\r\nThe annotation itself is, as I have said, intended to assist the reader with information that may be needed to make sense of the text. My main aim is to allow access to Simplicius that is as little encumbered by my interpretative intrusion as is feasible, since my hope in this publication is that the reader will confront Simplicius for himself, by himself, so far as this is possible in a translation.\r\n\r\nThus, I do not engage in the details of the interpretations offered by those who assume that the early Greeks were aware of the planetary phenomena so central to Simplicius\u2019 account of Metaphysics \u039b 8. Still, there is a question about just how much annotation is needed by readers of this journal, and I hope that I have not erred too much in following my natural disposition to say less.\r\n\r\nSimplicius\u2019 Greek is typical of scholastic commentary: elliptical, crabbed, and technical. I have tried to deal with this by supplying in square brackets what is missing whenever this seemed necessary or likely to make the meaning easier for the reader to grasp. At the same time, I have tried, so far as is reasonable and within my ability, to capture Simplicius\u2019 technical vocabulary and to preserve the logical structure of his sentences.\r\n\r\nThis translation has benefited greatly from the generous criticism of earlier versions offered by Bernard R. Goldstein and Robert B. Todd: they have saved me from numerous mistakes and infelicities, and I am most pleased to acknowledge this.\r\n\r\nFinally, I am very pleased to record my gratitude to Ken Saito, the Managing Editor of SCIAMVS, for his unflagging interest in this project and his encouragement as I pursued it. That my annotated translation appears in SCIAMVS is ample proof of his very kind support and his patience with a historian whose sense of time seems limited to the past. [introduction p. 23-26]","btype":3,"date":"2003","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/skKbEWtOO6LigIs","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":16,"full_name":"Bowen, Alan C. ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":62,"full_name":"Simplicius Cilicius","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1479,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"SCIAMVS: Sources and Commentaries in Exact Sciences","volume":"4","issue":"","pages":"23-58"}},"sort":[2003]}

The Ṣābians of Ḥarrān and the Classical Tradition, 2002
By: Pingree, David
Title The Ṣābians of Ḥarrān and the Classical Tradition
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal International Journal of the Classical Tradition
Volume 9
Issue 1
Pages 8-35
Categories no categories
Author(s) Pingree, David
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This article addresses questions concerning the characteristics of the paganism of Harran, its eclectic sources, and its development by examining the relationships - real, possible, and fictitious - of various personalities with the city of Harran from Assyrian times till the Mongol attack in 1271. It is suggested that the Sabians used Neoplatonism, which, if Tardieu's analysis is correct, they originally learned from Simplicius, to develop, explain, and justify their practice of astral magic, and that their interest in the Greek astronomy and astrology that astral magic required served to maintain the study and to preserve the texts of these sciences during the centuries in which they were ignored in Byzantium. It is further shown that the Greek philosophical and scientific material available to them was mingled with elements from ancient Mesopotamia, India, Iran, Judaism, and Egypt to form a syncretic system of belief that they could claim to be mankind's original and authentic religion. [Author's abstract]

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Simplicius or Priscianus? On the Author of the Commentary on Aristotle's "De Anima" (CAG XI) : A Methodological Study, 2002
By: Hadot, Ilsetraut
Title Simplicius or Priscianus? On the Author of the Commentary on Aristotle's "De Anima" (CAG XI) : A Methodological Study
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Mnemosyne, Fourth Series
Volume 55
Issue 2
Pages 159–199
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hadot, Ilsetraut
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This article represents a new contribution to the author's debate with C. Steel as to the authenticity of the Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima, attributed by the manuscripts to the 6th-century A.D. Neoplatonist philosopher Simplicius. On the basis of what he claims are stylistic and doctrinal differences between the In DA and Simplicius' other commentaries, Steel has argued that the In DA cannot be by Simplicius, but is instead to be attributed to his contemporary Priscian of Lydia. In the present article, it is argued (1) that the alleged stylistic differences between the In DA and Simplicius' other commentaries can be explained by other considerations: in particular, the vocabulary and style of the Neoplatonist commentators is largely determined by the text commented upon, as well as the level of studies of the audience for whom each commentary is intended. (2) The alleged doctrinal differences between the In DA and Simplicius' other com- mentaries simply do not exist. Careful examination of Steel's arguments shows that they suffer from serious methodological flaws, including the failure to take into consideration Simplicius' Commentary on the Manual of Epictetus, and the ambiguity of Neoplatonic philosophical terminology. It is concluded that in the whole of Steel's argumentation, there is not one decisive argument which would allow us to conclude that the commentary on the De Anima, attributed by direct and indirect tradition to Simplicius, is inauthentic. [Author's abstract]

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Alternatives to Alternatives: Approaches to Aristotle's Arguments per impossibile, 2002
By: Kukkonen, Taneli
Title Alternatives to Alternatives: Approaches to Aristotle's Arguments per impossibile
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Vivarium
Volume 40
Issue 2
Pages 137-173
Categories no categories
Author(s) Kukkonen, Taneli
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
When arguing from impossible premises, what was Aristotle's rationale? Is there a way to salvage all of these purported arguments "through the impossible"? In this article, I wish to examine some of the answers offered by commentators on Aristotle ranging from Alexander to Buridan. We shall see that within the discussion, a more systematic picture of Aristotle's intentions slowly emerged. Whether this picture accurately represents Aristotle is arguable. Because the cited examples arose in connection with some of Aristotle's universally held natural principles, the discussion was seen to tie in with cosmological issues of central importance. The various solutions put forward therefore serve to reveal what the discussants took to be the limits to the world's conceptualization. It is not quite a case of assessing "possible worlds"; this systematic notion only enters the discussion in the early 14th century. Rather, what is at stake is what the possible features of the one and only world are. [p. 141]

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Review of Hadot, I.: Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d'Épictète, Tome I, 2002
By: Sheppard, Anne D.
Title Review of Hadot, I.: Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d'Épictète, Tome I
Type Article
Language French
Date 2002
Journal The Classical Review, New Series
Volume 52
Issue 2
Pages 377-378
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sheppard, Anne D.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In 1996, Ilsetraut Hadot published the first-ever full critical edition of the Greek text of Simplicius' commentary on Epictetus' Encheiridion (I. Hadot, Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d'Epictète [Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1996]). The volume reviewed here is the first half of an editio minor of that text. It also contains a largely new introduction, written for a more general audience than the detailed scholarly introduction of the editio maior, and a translation equipped with notes. These notes follow the format of recent Budé editions of Neoplatonic texts, offering much helpful explanation with useful references to parallel passages in other Neoplatonic authors but inconveniently divided between the bottom of the page and the end of the volume. All Neoplatonic commentaries are discursive, and those of Simplicius are among the most discursive. It takes 130 pages of this volume for Simplicius to reach Chapter 20 of Epictetus' short work. However, as with many Neoplatonic commentaries, the interest of this one does not lie in what it tells us about Epictetus—whose philosophy Simplicius misunderstood in some important respects, as Hadot points out in her introduction (pp. ci–cxvii). Rather, it is worth reading for what it tells us about Simplicius' own philosophical views. It is unusual among Neoplatonic commentaries in dealing with an ethical text, and the discussions of τὰ Ἐφ' ἡμῖν (what is within our power) and the spiritual exercises recommended by Epictetus are of considerable interest. Hadot's introduction offers an updated version of her views on Simplicius' life, work, and philosophical system; a chapter on the Commentary's place in Neoplatonic teaching; an account of Simplicius' reception of Stoic doctrines; and a short history of the text. Finally, there is an appendix on Fate, Providence, and human freedom in Neoplatonism, which covers Porphyry, Iamblichus, Hierocles, and Proclus, as well as Simplicius. Of these, the account of Simplicius' reception of Stoic doctrines and the appendix are entirely new, while the chapter on the Commentary's place in Neoplatonic teaching is an updated and lightly revised version of a chapter from her book, Le problème du néoplatonisme alexandrin. Hiéroclès et Simplicius (Paris, 1978). The first two chapters of the introduction repeat, in a clear and accessible form, views she has already published elsewhere and is well known for. She reiterates her now largely accepted demonstration that Simplicius' philosophical system is essentially the same as that of Damascius—not, as Praechter thought, a simplified Alexandrian system—and, more controversially, continues to maintain, with Tardieu, that his commentaries were written in Harran after 532. The chapter on the history of the text abbreviates the longer account in the editio maior and explains the principles of the editio minor, acknowledging the help of Concetta Luna in simplifying the apparatus. A small number of readings that differ from those of the editio maior are indicated in a footnote on p. cxxvi. Hadot's translation is divided into sections with helpful headings and subheadings, and, together with her full notes, provides a great deal of assistance in understanding Simplicius' text. This volume deserves a warm welcome as a further installment in the enormous contribution Hadot has made to the understanding of Simplicius over many years. It is to be hoped that it will not be too long before the second volume appears to complement it. [the entire review]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1020","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1020,"authors_free":[{"id":1536,"entry_id":1020,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":43,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sheppard, Anne D.","free_first_name":"Anne D.","free_last_name":"Sheppard","norm_person":{"id":43,"first_name":"Anne D.","last_name":"Sheppard","full_name":"Sheppard, Anne D.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1158024592","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Review of Hadot, I.: Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d'\u00c9pict\u00e8te, Tome I","main_title":{"title":"Review of Hadot, I.: Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d'\u00c9pict\u00e8te, Tome I"},"abstract":"In 1996, Ilsetraut Hadot published the first-ever full critical edition of the Greek text of Simplicius' commentary on Epictetus' Encheiridion (I. Hadot, Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d'Epict\u00e8te [Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1996]). The volume reviewed here is the first half of an editio minor of that text. It also contains a largely new introduction, written for a more general audience than the detailed scholarly introduction of the editio maior, and a translation equipped with notes. These notes follow the format of recent Bud\u00e9 editions of Neoplatonic texts, offering much helpful explanation with useful references to parallel passages in other Neoplatonic authors but inconveniently divided between the bottom of the page and the end of the volume.\r\n\r\nAll Neoplatonic commentaries are discursive, and those of Simplicius are among the most discursive. It takes 130 pages of this volume for Simplicius to reach Chapter 20 of Epictetus' short work. However, as with many Neoplatonic commentaries, the interest of this one does not lie in what it tells us about Epictetus\u2014whose philosophy Simplicius misunderstood in some important respects, as Hadot points out in her introduction (pp. ci\u2013cxvii). Rather, it is worth reading for what it tells us about Simplicius' own philosophical views. It is unusual among Neoplatonic commentaries in dealing with an ethical text, and the discussions of \u03c4\u1f70 \u1f18\u03c6' \u1f21\u03bc\u1fd6\u03bd (what is within our power) and the spiritual exercises recommended by Epictetus are of considerable interest.\r\n\r\nHadot's introduction offers an updated version of her views on Simplicius' life, work, and philosophical system; a chapter on the Commentary's place in Neoplatonic teaching; an account of Simplicius' reception of Stoic doctrines; and a short history of the text. Finally, there is an appendix on Fate, Providence, and human freedom in Neoplatonism, which covers Porphyry, Iamblichus, Hierocles, and Proclus, as well as Simplicius. Of these, the account of Simplicius' reception of Stoic doctrines and the appendix are entirely new, while the chapter on the Commentary's place in Neoplatonic teaching is an updated and lightly revised version of a chapter from her book, Le probl\u00e8me du n\u00e9oplatonisme alexandrin. Hi\u00e9rocl\u00e8s et Simplicius (Paris, 1978).\r\n\r\nThe first two chapters of the introduction repeat, in a clear and accessible form, views she has already published elsewhere and is well known for. She reiterates her now largely accepted demonstration that Simplicius' philosophical system is essentially the same as that of Damascius\u2014not, as Praechter thought, a simplified Alexandrian system\u2014and, more controversially, continues to maintain, with Tardieu, that his commentaries were written in Harran after 532. The chapter on the history of the text abbreviates the longer account in the editio maior and explains the principles of the editio minor, acknowledging the help of Concetta Luna in simplifying the apparatus. A small number of readings that differ from those of the editio maior are indicated in a footnote on p. cxxvi.\r\n\r\nHadot's translation is divided into sections with helpful headings and subheadings, and, together with her full notes, provides a great deal of assistance in understanding Simplicius' text. This volume deserves a warm welcome as a further installment in the enormous contribution Hadot has made to the understanding of Simplicius over many years. It is to be hoped that it will not be too long before the second volume appears to complement it. [the entire review]","btype":3,"date":"2002","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/lwxAqvhdfMDm8ss","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":43,"full_name":"Sheppard, Anne D.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1020,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical Review, New Series","volume":"52","issue":"2","pages":"377-378"}},"sort":[2002]}

Leucippus, Democritus and the οὐ μᾶλλον Principle: An Examination of Theophrastus Phys.Op. Fr. 8, 2002
By: Schofield, Malcom
Title Leucippus, Democritus and the οὐ μᾶλλον Principle: An Examination of Theophrastus Phys.Op. Fr. 8
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Phronesis
Volume 47
Issue 3
Pages 253–263
Categories no categories
Author(s) Schofield, Malcom
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper is a piece of detective work. Starting from an obvious excrescence inthe transmitted text of Simplicius's treatment of the foundations of Presocraticatomism near the beginning of his Physicscommentary, it excavates a Theophrasteancorrection to Aristotle's tendency to lump Leucippus and Democritus together: Theophrastus made application of the οὐ μᾶλλον principle in the sphere of ontol-ogy an innovation by Democritus. Along the way it shows Simplicius reorderinghis Theophrastean source in his efforts to nd material which will strengthen thecontrast between Leucippus's atomism and Eleatic metaphysics. And it arguesthat in doing so he all but obliterates TheophrastusÕs attempt to point up theDemocritean credentials of the οὐ μᾶλλον principle. [author's abstract]

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Much Ado About 'Nothing': μηδέν and τὸ μὴ ἐόν in Parmenides, 2002
By: Sanders, Katie R.
Title Much Ado About 'Nothing': μηδέν and τὸ μὴ ἐόν in Parmenides
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Apeiron
Volume 35
Issue 2
Pages 87–104
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sanders, Katie R.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
It is, to my knowledge, a universally accepted assumption among contemporary commentators that μηδέν, 'nothing,' and το μη ἔον, 'what-is-not,' function as synonyms in Parmenides' poem. In this paper, I focus primarily on the central role this supposed semantic equivalence plays in arguments supporting an emendation in line 12 of fragment B8. Despite this scholarly unanimity regarding the synonymy of these two Greek terms and the popularity of the emendation, I contend that we can make the best sense of Parmenides' argument in this and the surrounding lines precisely by retaining the manuscript reading and recognizing the difference in meaning between 'nothing' and 'what-is-not.' This claim, of course, also has broader implications for the interpretation of Parmenides' poem generally. [introduction p. 87-88]

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La fin du Néoplatonisme Hellénique. Mise au point sur la question, 2002
By: Saihi, Sofian
Title La fin du Néoplatonisme Hellénique. Mise au point sur la question
Type Article
Language French
Date 2002
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 20
Issue 2
Pages 83-110
Categories no categories
Author(s) Saihi, Sofian
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
À ce stade de notre exposé, il est temps de dresser un bilan récapitulatif des travaux de M. Tardieu. Pour ce dernier, après avoir quitté Athènes, nos philosophes néoplatoniciens se sont rendus à Harrân. Cette cité nous est plus familière sous sa dénomination latine : Carrhae. Il s'agit d'une ville romaine de langue gréco-syriaque, toute proche de la frontière perse, à trente kilomètres au sud-est d'Édesse. Si nous avons dit qu'elle nous est familière, en voici la raison : en 53 avant notre ère, Crassus, membre du premier triumvirat avec Pompée et César, dirige une expédition en Perse. Richissime mais sans gloire militaire, il part à la recherche d'un exploit contre les Parthes. Or, ces derniers le mettent en déroute à Carrhae, où il se fait assassiner. C'est dans cette même ville que, quatre siècles plus tard, l'empereur Julien a effectué ses dernières dévotions avant de tomber sous les coups de Sâbuhr II. D'après M. Tardieu, donc, c'est également là que Simplicius, son maître Damascius, et les autres auraient définitivement élu domicile. Accueillis au sein, ou à l'origine eux-mêmes, d'une école néoplatonicienne, ils auraient continué à vivre, travailler et enseigner ensemble à Harrân. Ils auraient été, en somme, chez eux parmi des populations encore attachées au paganisme. Ils s'y seraient sentis bien et auraient décidé d'y rester. Au vu de ses propres déductions, Ilsetraut Hadot n'a pu rester indifférente aux résultats des travaux de Michel Tardieu. Elle le suit et le soutient ardemment. Et des chercheurs comme Pierre Chuvin, Lambros Couloubaritsis ou Alain de Libéra se sont rangés de leur côté. Par ailleurs, peu de critiques sont venues réfuter ses travaux. Certes, Luc Brisson, Paul Foulkes et, plus sérieusement, Simone Van Riet les ont mis en question. Mais Ilsetraut Hadot a su dissiper leurs doutes sans trop de difficulté. Par conséquent, bien que l'hypothèse de Michel Tardieu reste encore à asseoir plus solidement, si nous admettons avec lui que Damascius et ses compagnons ont emporté les pénates du néoplatonisme à Harrân, nous devrions retrouver les vestiges d'un tel foyer. Nous insinuons par là que si ces lieux ont bel et bien abrité une école néoplatonicienne, il doit nécessairement en subsister des traces tangibles. Une empreinte que nous pourrions peut-être relever dans la pensée philosophique musulmane et dont il faudrait établir les rapports avec la doctrine des Sâbiens. À cette fin, il semble primordial de se pencher sur la première philosophie en terre d'Islam. Par une telle élucidation, nous serions alors en mesure de dégager les structures profondes du néoplatonisme qui y subsistent et, pourquoi pas, déterminer par quelle voie oblique cette doctrine a bien pu cheminer entre l'Antiquité tardive et le Moyen Âge. [conclusion p. 108-110]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1052","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1052,"authors_free":[{"id":1597,"entry_id":1052,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":307,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Saihi, Sofian","free_first_name":"Sofian","free_last_name":"Saihi","norm_person":{"id":307,"first_name":"Sofian","last_name":"Saihi","full_name":"Saihi, Sofian","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"La fin du N\u00e9oplatonisme Hell\u00e9nique. Mise au point sur la question","main_title":{"title":"La fin du N\u00e9oplatonisme Hell\u00e9nique. Mise au point sur la question"},"abstract":"\u00c0 ce stade de notre expos\u00e9, il est temps de dresser un bilan r\u00e9capitulatif des travaux de M. Tardieu. Pour ce dernier, apr\u00e8s avoir quitt\u00e9 Ath\u00e8nes, nos philosophes n\u00e9oplatoniciens se sont rendus \u00e0 Harr\u00e2n. Cette cit\u00e9 nous est plus famili\u00e8re sous sa d\u00e9nomination latine : Carrhae. Il s'agit d'une ville romaine de langue gr\u00e9co-syriaque, toute proche de la fronti\u00e8re perse, \u00e0 trente kilom\u00e8tres au sud-est d'\u00c9desse. Si nous avons dit qu'elle nous est famili\u00e8re, en voici la raison : en 53 avant notre \u00e8re, Crassus, membre du premier triumvirat avec Pomp\u00e9e et C\u00e9sar, dirige une exp\u00e9dition en Perse. Richissime mais sans gloire militaire, il part \u00e0 la recherche d'un exploit contre les Parthes. Or, ces derniers le mettent en d\u00e9route \u00e0 Carrhae, o\u00f9 il se fait assassiner. C'est dans cette m\u00eame ville que, quatre si\u00e8cles plus tard, l'empereur Julien a effectu\u00e9 ses derni\u00e8res d\u00e9votions avant de tomber sous les coups de S\u00e2buhr II.\r\n\r\nD'apr\u00e8s M. Tardieu, donc, c'est \u00e9galement l\u00e0 que Simplicius, son ma\u00eetre Damascius, et les autres auraient d\u00e9finitivement \u00e9lu domicile. Accueillis au sein, ou \u00e0 l'origine eux-m\u00eames, d'une \u00e9cole n\u00e9oplatonicienne, ils auraient continu\u00e9 \u00e0 vivre, travailler et enseigner ensemble \u00e0 Harr\u00e2n. Ils auraient \u00e9t\u00e9, en somme, chez eux parmi des populations encore attach\u00e9es au paganisme. Ils s'y seraient sentis bien et auraient d\u00e9cid\u00e9 d'y rester.\r\n\r\nAu vu de ses propres d\u00e9ductions, Ilsetraut Hadot n'a pu rester indiff\u00e9rente aux r\u00e9sultats des travaux de Michel Tardieu. Elle le suit et le soutient ardemment. Et des chercheurs comme Pierre Chuvin, Lambros Couloubaritsis ou Alain de Lib\u00e9ra se sont rang\u00e9s de leur c\u00f4t\u00e9. Par ailleurs, peu de critiques sont venues r\u00e9futer ses travaux. Certes, Luc Brisson, Paul Foulkes et, plus s\u00e9rieusement, Simone Van Riet les ont mis en question. Mais Ilsetraut Hadot a su dissiper leurs doutes sans trop de difficult\u00e9.\r\n\r\nPar cons\u00e9quent, bien que l'hypoth\u00e8se de Michel Tardieu reste encore \u00e0 asseoir plus solidement, si nous admettons avec lui que Damascius et ses compagnons ont emport\u00e9 les p\u00e9nates du n\u00e9oplatonisme \u00e0 Harr\u00e2n, nous devrions retrouver les vestiges d'un tel foyer. Nous insinuons par l\u00e0 que si ces lieux ont bel et bien abrit\u00e9 une \u00e9cole n\u00e9oplatonicienne, il doit n\u00e9cessairement en subsister des traces tangibles. Une empreinte que nous pourrions peut-\u00eatre relever dans la pens\u00e9e philosophique musulmane et dont il faudrait \u00e9tablir les rapports avec la doctrine des S\u00e2biens. \u00c0 cette fin, il semble primordial de se pencher sur la premi\u00e8re philosophie en terre d'Islam. Par une telle \u00e9lucidation, nous serions alors en mesure de d\u00e9gager les structures profondes du n\u00e9oplatonisme qui y subsistent et, pourquoi pas, d\u00e9terminer par quelle voie oblique cette doctrine a bien pu cheminer entre l'Antiquit\u00e9 tardive et le Moyen \u00c2ge. [conclusion p. 108-110]","btype":3,"date":"2002","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/dUsC8Irj8dUfNHy","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":307,"full_name":"Saihi, Sofian","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1052,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Revue de Philosophie Ancienne","volume":"20","issue":"2","pages":"83-110"}},"sort":[2002]}

Simplicius and the Early History of Greek Planetary Theory , 2002
By: Bowen, Alan C.
Title Simplicius and the Early History of Greek Planetary Theory
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Perspectives on Science
Volume 10
Issue 2
Pages 155–167
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bowen, Alan C.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In earlier work, Bernard R. Goldstein and the present author have intro- duced a procedural rule for historical inquiry, which requires that one take pains to establish the credibility of any citation of ancient thought by later writers in antiquity through a process of veriªcation. In this paper, I shall apply what I call the Rule of Ancient Citations to Simplicius’ interpretation of Aristotle’s remarks in Meta . 8, which is the primary point of departure for the modern understanding of Greek planetary theory. I ªrst sketch several lines of argument that lead me to conclude that Simplicius’ interpretation should not be accepted because it assumes a concern with planetary phenomena unknown to the Greeks before the late 2nd and early 1st centuries bc. Then, after showing that there is a fairly well deªned range of readings of Aris- totle’s remarks more in keeping with what we actually know of astronomy in the 5th and 4th centuries bc, I conclude that neither Aristotle’s report about the Eudoxan and Callippan accounts of the celestial motions nor Simplicius’ interpretation of this report is a good starting point for our understanding of early Greek planetary theory. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1073","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1073,"authors_free":[{"id":1627,"entry_id":1073,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":16,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Bowen, Alan C. ","free_first_name":"Alan C. ","free_last_name":"Bowen","norm_person":{"id":16,"first_name":"Bowen C.","last_name":"Bowen","full_name":"Bowen, Alan C. ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/140052720","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius and the Early History of Greek Planetary Theory ","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius and the Early History of Greek Planetary Theory "},"abstract":"In earlier work, Bernard R. Goldstein and the present author have intro-\r\nduced a procedural rule for historical inquiry, which requires that one take\r\npains to establish the credibility of any citation of ancient thought by later\r\nwriters in antiquity through a process of veri\u00aacation. In this paper, I shall\r\napply what I call the Rule of Ancient Citations to Simplicius\u2019 interpretation\r\nof Aristotle\u2019s remarks in Meta \u0001. 8, which is the primary point of departure\r\nfor the modern understanding of Greek planetary theory. I \u00aarst sketch several\r\nlines of argument that lead me to conclude that Simplicius\u2019 interpretation\r\nshould not be accepted because it assumes a concern with planetary phenomena\r\nunknown to the Greeks before the late 2nd and early 1st centuries bc. Then,\r\nafter showing that there is a fairly well de\u00aaned range of readings of Aris-\r\ntotle\u2019s remarks more in keeping with what we actually know of astronomy in\r\nthe 5th and 4th centuries bc, I conclude that neither Aristotle\u2019s report about\r\nthe Eudoxan and Callippan accounts of the celestial motions nor Simplicius\u2019\r\ninterpretation of this report is a good starting point for our understanding of\r\nearly Greek planetary theory. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2002","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/nWG5h8vz9dCXgZc","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":16,"full_name":"Bowen, Alan C. ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1073,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Perspectives on Science","volume":"10","issue":"2","pages":"155\u2013167"}},"sort":[2002]}

Note sulla chiusura della Scuola neoplatonica di Atene, 2002
By: Napoli, Valerio
Title Note sulla chiusura della Scuola neoplatonica di Atene
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2002
Journal Schede Medievali
Volume 42
Pages 53-95
Categories no categories
Author(s) Napoli, Valerio
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Secondo la lettura di Alain De Libera, l’“esilio” dei filosofi in Persia non segna la chiusura del conflitto tra l’ellenismo e il cristianesimo né la fine della filosofia («la filosofia è tutt'altro che morta a quest’epoca»), ma, al contrario, rappresenta l’evento che dà avvio a un movimento di trasferimento o di transfert della scienza – una traslazione degli studi o dei centri di studio – che durerà fino alla fine del Medioevo. L’esilio in questione, con cui la filosofia emigra – o pensa di emigrare – dall’Impero bizantino all’Impero sassanide per poi ritornare nell’Impero bizantino (in una translatio da Atene in Persia e dalla Persia a Harràn), costituisce una delle varie translations studiorum che si verificano tra l’antichità e il Medioevo e segna il perdurare, nella città di Harràn, in territorio bizantino, della filosofia pagana. In ogni caso, è possibile notare che, con i filosofi menzionati da Agazia (e forse con altri della stessa epoca non coinvolti nell’avventura persiana), ci troviamo di fronte all’ultima generazione di spicco dei filosofi pagani. Qualunque sia stata l’attività filosofica svolta dai neoplatonici dopo il loro ritorno dalla Persia, a Harràn o in qualche altra località, si può comunque constatare che Damascio (il quale probabilmente scrisse le sue opere prima del 529) e, se si vuole, qualche altro pensatore contemporaneo costituiscono gli ultimi filosofi pagani di rilievo. «[...] De fait – dichiara con decisione Henri Dominique Saffrey – après l’époque de Justinien, il n’y a plus eu de philosophes païens. Simplicius et les quelques-uns de la génération qui le suit, furent les derniers». Il pensiero pagano continuerà a vivere – al di là della possibile attività della comunità neoplatonica harraniana – in Oriente e in Occidente, in una complessa e intricata trama di ricezioni, influssi, fruizioni, letture, trasformazioni e suggestioni, nell’ambito del pensiero successivo nelle sue articolazioni arabo-islamica, greco-bizantina, latino-occidentale e altre. [conclusion p. 94-95]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"949","_score":null,"_source":{"id":949,"authors_free":[{"id":1425,"entry_id":949,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":522,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Napoli, Valerio","free_first_name":"Valerio","free_last_name":"Napoli","norm_person":{"id":522,"first_name":"Valerio","last_name":"Napoli","full_name":"Napoli, Valerio","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Note sulla chiusura della Scuola neoplatonica di Atene","main_title":{"title":"Note sulla chiusura della Scuola neoplatonica di Atene"},"abstract":"Secondo la lettura di Alain De Libera, l\u2019\u201cesilio\u201d dei filosofi in Persia non segna la chiusura del conflitto tra l\u2019ellenismo e il cristianesimo n\u00e9 la fine della filosofia (\u00abla filosofia \u00e8 tutt'altro che morta a quest\u2019epoca\u00bb), ma, al contrario, rappresenta l\u2019evento che d\u00e0 avvio a un movimento di trasferimento o di transfert della scienza \u2013 una traslazione degli studi o dei centri di studio \u2013 che durer\u00e0 fino alla fine del Medioevo.\r\n\r\nL\u2019esilio in questione, con cui la filosofia emigra \u2013 o pensa di emigrare \u2013 dall\u2019Impero bizantino all\u2019Impero sassanide per poi ritornare nell\u2019Impero bizantino (in una translatio da Atene in Persia e dalla Persia a Harr\u00e0n), costituisce una delle varie translations studiorum che si verificano tra l\u2019antichit\u00e0 e il Medioevo e segna il perdurare, nella citt\u00e0 di Harr\u00e0n, in territorio bizantino, della filosofia pagana.\r\n\r\nIn ogni caso, \u00e8 possibile notare che, con i filosofi menzionati da Agazia (e forse con altri della stessa epoca non coinvolti nell\u2019avventura persiana), ci troviamo di fronte all\u2019ultima generazione di spicco dei filosofi pagani. Qualunque sia stata l\u2019attivit\u00e0 filosofica svolta dai neoplatonici dopo il loro ritorno dalla Persia, a Harr\u00e0n o in qualche altra localit\u00e0, si pu\u00f2 comunque constatare che Damascio (il quale probabilmente scrisse le sue opere prima del 529) e, se si vuole, qualche altro pensatore contemporaneo costituiscono gli ultimi filosofi pagani di rilievo.\r\n\r\n\u00ab[...] De fait \u2013 dichiara con decisione Henri Dominique Saffrey \u2013 apr\u00e8s l\u2019\u00e9poque de Justinien, il n\u2019y a plus eu de philosophes pa\u00efens. Simplicius et les quelques-uns de la g\u00e9n\u00e9ration qui le suit, furent les derniers\u00bb. Il pensiero pagano continuer\u00e0 a vivere \u2013 al di l\u00e0 della possibile attivit\u00e0 della comunit\u00e0 neoplatonica harraniana \u2013 in Oriente e in Occidente, in una complessa e intricata trama di ricezioni, influssi, fruizioni, letture, trasformazioni e suggestioni, nell\u2019ambito del pensiero successivo nelle sue articolazioni arabo-islamica, greco-bizantina, latino-occidentale e altre. [conclusion p. 94-95]","btype":3,"date":"2002","language":"Italian","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/UFh3Gu1utmqf1sN","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":522,"full_name":"Napoli, Valerio","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":949,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Schede Medievali","volume":"42","issue":"","pages":"53-95"}},"sort":[2002]}

What goes up: Proclus against Aristotle on the fifth element, 2002
By: Baltzly, Dirk
Title What goes up: Proclus against Aristotle on the fifth element
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Australasian Journal of Philosophy
Volume 80
Issue 3
Pages 261-287
Categories no categories
Author(s) Baltzly, Dirk
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this paper, I consider Proclus’ arguments against Aristotle on the composition of the heavens from the fifth element, the aether. Proclus argues for the Platonic view (Timaeus 40a) that the heavenly bodies are composed of all four elements, with fire predominating. I think that his discussion exhibits all the methodological features that we find admirable in Aristotle’s largely a priori proto-science. Proclus’ treatment of the question in his commentary on Plato’s Timaeus also provides the fullest statement of a neoplatonic alternative to the Aristotelian theory of the elements. As such, it forms a significant part of a still largely underappreciated neoplatonic legacy to the history of science. [authors abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"962","_score":null,"_source":{"id":962,"authors_free":[{"id":1444,"entry_id":962,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":107,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Baltzly, Dirk","free_first_name":"Dirk","free_last_name":"Baltzly","norm_person":{"id":107,"first_name":"Dirk","last_name":"Baltzly","full_name":"Baltzly, Dirk","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1150414960","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"What goes up: Proclus against Aristotle on the fifth element","main_title":{"title":"What goes up: Proclus against Aristotle on the fifth element"},"abstract":"In this paper, I consider Proclus\u2019 arguments against Aristotle on the composition of the \r\nheavens from the fifth element, the aether. Proclus argues for the Platonic view (Timaeus \r\n40a) that the heavenly bodies are composed of all four elements, with fire predominating. \r\nI think that his discussion exhibits all the methodological features that we find admirable \r\nin Aristotle\u2019s largely a priori proto-science. Proclus\u2019 treatment of the question in his \r\ncommentary on Plato\u2019s Timaeus also provides the fullest statement of a neoplatonic \r\nalternative to the Aristotelian theory of the elements. As such, it forms a significant part of \r\na still largely underappreciated neoplatonic legacy to the history of science. [authors abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2002","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/tOMemjPbvEoCytl","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":107,"full_name":"Baltzly, Dirk","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":962,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Australasian Journal of Philosophy","volume":"80","issue":"3","pages":"261-287"}},"sort":[2002]}

The Limits of Late Antiquity: Philosophy between Rome and Iran, 2002
By: Walker, Joel Thomas
Title The Limits of Late Antiquity: Philosophy between Rome and Iran
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Ancient World
Volume 33
Issue 1
Pages 45–69
Categories no categories
Author(s) Walker, Joel Thomas
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
As a series of recent retrospectives makes clear, the study of late antiquity has witnessed dramatic growth during the past twenty years, with increasing signs of formal recognition during the 1990s. This rapid expansion has been accompanied by an implicit debate over the most useful chronological and geographical boundaries for the emergent field. Although the "world of late antiquity" ostensibly includes the whole of the Sasanian and early Islamic Near East, the current shape of the field, as defined especially by conferences and publications, remains heavily weighted towards the Mediterranean world of the Roman Empire and its successor states in western Europe. Many recent discussions of the "late antique world" are, in fact, studies of late Roman history that make little attempt to incorporate regions east of the Euphrates. Integrating the Sasanian Empire into the study of late antiquity will be a difficult task. A variety of obstacles, outlined in section II above, beset the study of Sasanian history, and substantial linguistic barriers limit access to the Sasanian world for scholars trained in the Greco-Roman sources. Modern political geography has also proved to be a major barrier for historians and archaeologists interested in regions "east of Byzantium." In the current gap between Sasanian and late Roman history, however, lies also much potential for future research. To develop a more interdisciplinary vision of late antiquity, scholars will need to explore more closely the connections and contrasts between the worlds of Byzantium and Sasanian Iran. Some progress in this direction has been made in the fields of military, diplomatic, and economic history; far more work needs to be done in the areas of cultural and intellectual history, not least the history of philosophy. The recent collapse of the Soviet Union during the late 1980s has reminded us how quickly changes in contemporary geography can lead to comparable shifts in the conceptualization of historical geography. The world of late antiquity may also look very different, if and when more scholars have greater access to travel, teach, and again conduct archaeological fieldwork in Iraq, Iran, and neighboring countries. The emergence of the field of late antiquity represents a major opportunity for Sasanian history, precisely because it invites us to look across the traditional disciplinary division between Mediterranean and Near Eastern history. Modern interpretations of the philosophers’ journey to the court of Khosrow Anoshirvan in 531/532 C.E. reveal how often this disciplinary division has obscured the richness of intellectual life at the late Sasanian court, as well as the intensity of its contacts with Greek and Syrian intellectuals. From Gibbon through Bury and down to Alan Cameron’s influential article on the "Closing of the Academy," there has been a strong tendency among Greco-Roman historians to give too much credence to Agathias’ hostile depiction of Sasanian philhellenism. Near Eastern historians, such as Rawlinson and Christensen, and the occasional Byzantinist such as Jean-François Duneau, have offered more optimistic readings of Khosrow’s philosophical patronage, but without sufficient attention to the tensions involved in the Sasanian encounter with Hellenism. The task that lies ahead, building on the work of Michel Tardieu, is to explain the precise quality of Sasanian Hellenism, its social and political context, cultural milieu, and intellectual legacy. The career of Uranius, and the modern debate over the peregrinations of Damascius, prove that this investigation must include not only Athens, Alexandria, and Constantinople, but also Ctesiphon, Harran, and Gondishapur. Khosrow’s patronage of Greek philosophers thus reveals the advantages, indeed the necessity, of a world of late antiquity that includes the whole of the Sasanian and early Islamic Near East. [conclusion p. 67-69]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"446","_score":null,"_source":{"id":446,"authors_free":[{"id":598,"entry_id":446,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":355,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Walker, Joel Thomas","free_first_name":"Joel Thomas","free_last_name":"Walker","norm_person":{"id":355,"first_name":"Joel Thomas","last_name":"Walker","full_name":"Walker, Joel Thomas","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/131718118","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The Limits of Late Antiquity: Philosophy between Rome and Iran","main_title":{"title":"The Limits of Late Antiquity: Philosophy between Rome and Iran"},"abstract":"As a series of recent retrospectives makes clear, the study of late antiquity has witnessed dramatic growth during the past twenty years, with increasing signs of formal recognition during the 1990s. This rapid expansion has been accompanied by an implicit debate over the most useful chronological and geographical boundaries for the emergent field. Although the \"world of late antiquity\" ostensibly includes the whole of the Sasanian and early Islamic Near East, the current shape of the field, as defined especially by conferences and publications, remains heavily weighted towards the Mediterranean world of the Roman Empire and its successor states in western Europe. Many recent discussions of the \"late antique world\" are, in fact, studies of late Roman history that make little attempt to incorporate regions east of the Euphrates.\r\n\r\nIntegrating the Sasanian Empire into the study of late antiquity will be a difficult task. A variety of obstacles, outlined in section II above, beset the study of Sasanian history, and substantial linguistic barriers limit access to the Sasanian world for scholars trained in the Greco-Roman sources. Modern political geography has also proved to be a major barrier for historians and archaeologists interested in regions \"east of Byzantium.\" In the current gap between Sasanian and late Roman history, however, lies also much potential for future research. To develop a more interdisciplinary vision of late antiquity, scholars will need to explore more closely the connections and contrasts between the worlds of Byzantium and Sasanian Iran. Some progress in this direction has been made in the fields of military, diplomatic, and economic history; far more work needs to be done in the areas of cultural and intellectual history, not least the history of philosophy. The recent collapse of the Soviet Union during the late 1980s has reminded us how quickly changes in contemporary geography can lead to comparable shifts in the conceptualization of historical geography. The world of late antiquity may also look very different, if and when more scholars have greater access to travel, teach, and again conduct archaeological fieldwork in Iraq, Iran, and neighboring countries.\r\n\r\nThe emergence of the field of late antiquity represents a major opportunity for Sasanian history, precisely because it invites us to look across the traditional disciplinary division between Mediterranean and Near Eastern history. Modern interpretations of the philosophers\u2019 journey to the court of Khosrow Anoshirvan in 531\/532 C.E. reveal how often this disciplinary division has obscured the richness of intellectual life at the late Sasanian court, as well as the intensity of its contacts with Greek and Syrian intellectuals. From Gibbon through Bury and down to Alan Cameron\u2019s influential article on the \"Closing of the Academy,\" there has been a strong tendency among Greco-Roman historians to give too much credence to Agathias\u2019 hostile depiction of Sasanian philhellenism. Near Eastern historians, such as Rawlinson and Christensen, and the occasional Byzantinist such as Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Duneau, have offered more optimistic readings of Khosrow\u2019s philosophical patronage, but without sufficient attention to the tensions involved in the Sasanian encounter with Hellenism. The task that lies ahead, building on the work of Michel Tardieu, is to explain the precise quality of Sasanian Hellenism, its social and political context, cultural milieu, and intellectual legacy. The career of Uranius, and the modern debate over the peregrinations of Damascius, prove that this investigation must include not only Athens, Alexandria, and Constantinople, but also Ctesiphon, Harran, and Gondishapur. Khosrow\u2019s patronage of Greek philosophers thus reveals the advantages, indeed the necessity, of a world of late antiquity that includes the whole of the Sasanian and early Islamic Near East. [conclusion p. 67-69]","btype":3,"date":"2002","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/AVLAM9PVkGxCgRz","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":355,"full_name":"Walker, Joel Thomas","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":446,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Ancient World","volume":"33","issue":"1","pages":"45\u201369"}},"sort":[2002]}

Xenarchus, Alexander, and Simplicius on Simple Motions, Bodies and Magnitudes, 2002
By: Hankinson, Robert J.
Title Xenarchus, Alexander, and Simplicius on Simple Motions, Bodies and Magnitudes
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
Volume 46
Pages 19-42
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hankinson, Robert J.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Aristotle accounted for the fundamental dynamics of the cosmos in terms of the tendencies of the various elements to distinct types of natural motions, and (in the case of the sublunary elements) to rest in their natural places. In so doing, he introduced a fifth element, the ether, with a natural and unceasing tendency to revolve, as the matter for the heavenly bodies. This paper deals with some of the objections raised to this model, and to its conceptual underpinnings, raised by Xenarchus of Seleuceia, an unorthodox Peripatetic of the 1 st century BC, and of the attempts of later philosophers to rebut them. In so doing it casts light on a little-known, but historically important and interesting, episode in the development of physical dynamics. [Author's abstract]

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Thomas' Neoplatonic Histories: His following of Simplicius, 2002
By: Hankey, Wayne J.
Title Thomas' Neoplatonic Histories: His following of Simplicius
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Dionysius
Volume 20
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hankey, Wayne J.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Following Simplicius, Thomas set up the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophical viae as complementary oppositions each of which contributed to the truth. Thomas also followed Simplicius in discerning differences between the hermeneutic methods of the two great schools. He reproduced the history of philosophy of Simplicius as soon as he had his commentaries, agreed with many of his conciliating judgments, and used the same reconciling logical figures. He does not identify himself as a Peripatetic or as a Platonist. However, when he agrees that Aristotle’s way of reasoning, per viam motus, to the existence of separate substances is manifestior et certior, he is sitting in judgment with, not against, Simplicius. For both the sixth and the thirteenth century commentators, Plato and Aristotle are assimilated to each other in various ways, and the real possibility of any beginning except that from the sensible is excluded. Thomas’ hermeneutic is that of the Platonic tradition in late Antiquity – Thomas certainly thought that the truth was veiled under poetic and symbolic language and judged this to be essential for revealing the truth to humans. Consistently with this approach, in the exposition of the De Caelo, Aquinas goes so far with Simplicius as to find “something divine (fabula aliquid divinum continet)” in the myth that Atlas holds up the heavens.106 He would seem, thus, to be on his way to the reconciliation of religious as well as of philosophical traditions. If this should, in fact, be his intent, Thomas would be following Simplicius and his Neoplatonic predecessors in their deepest purposes. This Christian priest, friar, and saint would have placed himself with the “divine” Proclus among the successors of Plato. [Conclusion]

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Review of: Thiel 1999: Simplikios und das Ende der neuplatonischen Schule in Athen, 2001
By: Luna, Concetta
Title Review of: Thiel 1999: Simplikios und das Ende der neuplatonischen Schule in Athen
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Mnemosyne
Volume 54
Issue 4
Pages 482–500
Categories no categories
Author(s) Luna, Concetta
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This is an extensive review of R. Thiel’s monograph Simplikios und das Ende der neuplatonischen Schule in Athen. The author of the review, C. Luna, reproduces the book’s discussion of the location where Neoplatonic philosophers settled after leaving Athens due to the ban on pagan philosophy in 529 AD. They went to Persia and later returned to the Byzantine Empire after the peace treaty was signed. The only known historical account of their location is from Agathias, who states that they were attracted to the wisdom of King Chosroes and stayed at his court. However, they eventually left and, using a clause in the peace treaty, returned to the Byzantine Empire without having to renounce their philosophical or religious beliefs. The text examines two hypotheses as to where they went: Athens or Alexandria, but a new hypothesis is presented based on Simplicius' texts that the philosophers settled in Harran, a city close to the Persian border. The text also discusses the possibility of Simplicius returning to Athens, Alexandria, or Harran. Thiel, believes it is unlikely the philosophers went to Alexandria because the patriarch of the city would not have allowed them to continue their philosophical and anti-Christian activities. [introduction]

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Did Plotinus and Porphyry Disagree on Aristotle's "Categories"?, 2001
By: Haas, Frans A. J. de
Title Did Plotinus and Porphyry Disagree on Aristotle's "Categories"?
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Phronesis
Volume 46
Issue 4
Pages 492-526
Categories no categories
Author(s) Haas, Frans A. J. de
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this paper I propose a reading of Plotinus Enneads VI.1-3 [41-43] On the genera of being which regards this treatise as a coherent whole in which Aristotle's Categories is explored in a way that turns it into a decisive contribution to Plotinus' Platonic ontology. In addition, I claim that Porphyry's Isagoge and commentaries on the Categories start by adopting Plotinus' point of view, including his notion of genus, and proceed by explaining its consequences for a more detailed reading of the Categories. After Plotinus' integration of the Categories into the Platonic frame of thought Porphyry saw the possibilities of exploiting the Peripatetic tradition both as a means to support the Platonic interpretation of the Categories and as a source for solutions to traditional questions. His allegiance to a division of being into ten, and his emphasis on semantics rather than ontology can be explained from this orientation. In the light of our investigation the alleged disagreement between Plotinus and Porphyry on the Categories changes its appearance completely. There are differences, but these can be best explained as confirmation and extension of Plotinus' perspective on the Categories and its role in Platonism. [Author’s abstract]

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Aquinas and Simplicius on Dispositions – A Question in Fundamental Moral Theory, 2001
By: Boland, Vivian
Title Aquinas and Simplicius on Dispositions – A Question in Fundamental Moral Theory
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal New Blackfriars
Volume 82
Issue 968
Pages 467-478
Categories no categories
Author(s) Boland, Vivian
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
One of the areas on which Fergus Kerr has kept a wise eye and to which he has made valued contributions over many years is moral philosophy. In fact, he had the task of teaching moral theology in the early years of his career but quickly moved on. He was quite relieved to do so, he told me once, not least because he found Shakespeare more relevant to morality than the geography of the fallopian tubes. Leaving behind moral theology in that sense did not mean his leaving behind a concern with moral questions. On the contrary, he has maintained great interest in developments in fundamental moral theory and in the centrality of morality for all theology. In this, he is faithful to Aquinas who, as Leonard Boyle has argued, envisaged Summa Theologiae as a work in which the moral is central. If, as Kerr himself has been arguing recently, beatitudo is a key to the unity of the Summa, then this is further support for what Boyle argued on historical and palaeographical grounds. This is not to claim that what Aquinas had in mind was anything like what moral theology came to describe later on, when a strict distinction and even separation of dogma and moral came to prevail, especially in seminary training. Aquinas belongs to an earlier world, from which contemporary moral philosophers continue to learn, in which these later distinctions did not apply. The inherent difficulty in separating them is clear if one tries to answer the question of whether the theology of grace belongs to dogma or to moral. One of the key areas in which Aquinas continues to contribute to debates in moral philosophy is in relation to virtue-theory. Anglo-Saxon moral philosophy has contributed with distinction to the revival of interest in the notion of virtue, as mentioning the names Anscombe, Foot, and MacIntyre is enough to show. A crucial building block in Aquinas's moral theory is the notion of habitus or disposition since, for him, following Aristotle, a virtue is a kind of disposition. But this more philosophical part of his account of virtue has received little enough direct attention in recent times for reasons that may become clearer as we proceed. What I want to do in this paper is to look again at those questions in the Summa where Aquinas explains this notion of habitus or disposition. It is important for his understanding of the human being as a moral agent as well as for his account of grace, and in particular of those gifts of faith, hope, and what Christian tradition calls theological virtues. It is a text whose examination will lead us into a number of central and current questions about the nature of Aquinas's theological synthesis and about whether or not we may consider any of his work as purely philosophical, i.e., philosophical as distinct from theological. [introduction p. 467-468]

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Three Thêtas in the "Empédocle de Strasbourg", 2001
By: Algra, Keimpe A., Mansfeld, Jaap
Title Three Thêtas in the "Empédocle de Strasbourg"
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Mnemosyne, Fourth Series
Volume 54
Issue 1
Pages 78-84
Categories no categories
Author(s) Algra, Keimpe A. , Mansfeld, Jaap
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
We conclude that we cannot, merely on the basis of the Strasbourg fragments, confidently assign to the physical poem the gruesome fragment (now plus its new context) Stein and Diels assigned to the Purifications. Until further evidence turns up, only a non liquet is feasible, and we should keep open the possibility that we are dealing with "Zwei Empedocle de Strasbourg." The 6s in the papyrus fragments discussed above are simply wrong. The slightly bizarre interpretation based on them may be abandoned. [conclusion p. 81]

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A New Role for the Hippopede of Eudoxus, 2001
By: Yavetz, Ido
Title A New Role for the Hippopede of Eudoxus
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Archive for History of Exact Sciences
Volume 56
Issue 1
Pages 69-93
Categories no categories
Author(s) Yavetz, Ido
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The geometry of the alternative reconstruction of Eudoxan planetary theory is studied. It is shown that in this framework the hippopede acquires an analytical role, consolidating the theory's geometrical underpinnings. This removes the main point of incompatibility between the alternative reconstruction and Simplicius's account of Eudoxan planetary astronomy. The analysis also suggests a compass and straight-edge procedure for drawing a point by point outline of the retrograde loop created by any given arrangement of the three inner spheres. [Author’s abstract]

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Proclus vs Plotinus on Matter ("De mal. subs." 30-7), 2001
By: Opsomer, Jan
Title Proclus vs Plotinus on Matter ("De mal. subs." 30-7)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Phronesis
Volume 46
Issue 2
Pages 154-188
Categories no categories
Author(s) Opsomer, Jan
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In De malorum subsistentia chapters 30–37, Proclus criticizes the view that evil is to be identified with matter. His main target is Plotinus' account in Enn. 1.8 [51]. Proclus denies that matter is the cause of evil in the soul, and that it is evil or a principle of evil. According to Proclus, matter is good because it is produced by the One. Plotinus' doctrine of matter as evil is the result of a different conception of emanation, according to which matter does not revert to its principle. Proclus claims that positing a principle of evil either amounts to a coarse dualism or makes the Good ultimately responsible for evil. Plotinus does not seem to escape the latter consequence if he is to remain committed to the Neoplatonic conception of causation. Plotinus equated matter with privation and said it is a kind of non-being that is the contrary of substance, thus violating fundamental Aristotelian principles. Proclus reinstates Aristotelian orthodoxy, as does Simplicius in his Commentary on the Categories. It is possible that Iamblichus was the source of both Proclus and Simplicius, and that he was the originator of the parhypostasis theory and the inventor of the anti-Plotinian arguments. [author's abstract]

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Augustin, «Confessions» 4, 16, 28-29, «Soliloques» 2, 20, 34-36 et les «Commentaires des catégories», 2001
By: Doucet, Dominique
Title Augustin, «Confessions» 4, 16, 28-29, «Soliloques» 2, 20, 34-36 et les «Commentaires des catégories»
Type Article
Language French
Date 2001
Journal Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica
Volume 93
Issue 3
Pages 372-392
Categories no categories
Author(s) Doucet, Dominique
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Au terme de cette étude montrant les points de consonance entre les thèmes développés dans les derniers paragraphes des Soliloques et les problématiques mises en œuvre dans les commentaires des Catégories, deux conclusions principales se présentent. Premièrement, l'antériorité des écrits d'Augustin sur la rédaction de la plus grande partie des commentaires des Catégories oblige à considérer un seul et même auteur ou une seule et même source, tant pour Augustin que pour les auteurs des commentaires ultérieurs. La place que reçoit le commentaire de Porphyre dans les autres commentaires et l'importance de cet auteur dans l'élaboration des schémas de pensée augustiniens conduisent naturellement à la conclusion que c'est dans une œuvre porphyrienne qu'Augustin a pu rencontrer l'essentiel de cette argumentation. Il reste alors à tenter de déterminer laquelle. Le peu d'intérêt qu'Augustin accorde aux lectures des magistri eruditissimi qu'il évoque dans les Confessions semble écarter l'hypothèse qu'il garderait un vif souvenir des conversations de son adolescence. Autrement, il n'aurait pas oublié à ce point d'en mentionner l'importance, comme il le fait pour sa lecture de l'Hortensius et pour celle des libri platonicorum, qui eurent une influence déterminante sur l'évolution de sa pensée. Il semble alors plus probable de considérer qu'Augustin a rencontré une argumentation identique à celle qui se trouve dans les commentaires ultérieurs des Catégories, celle de Porphyre en son propre commentaire, qu'Augustin a pu rencontrer soit dans un texte du dossier des libri platonicorum, soit inséré dans un autre écrit comme le De regressu animae ou encore le Zêtêma sur l'immortalité de l'âme, dont nous savons qu'il prit connaissance. Il serait même tentant de considérer que la progression même des Soliloques suit en parallèle l'essentiel de la progression qui pourrait être celle du De regressu. Cette hypothèse nous amène directement au second volet de cette conclusion. Si Augustin emprunte un certain nombre de thèmes à l'univers néoplatonicien et porphyrien, il ne manque pas de les transformer profondément. Nous avons déjà signalé, dans une lecture de Sol. 2, 18, 32, la manière dont Augustin reprend les degrés de la hiérarchie des êtres du néoplatonisme et la transforme en une hiérarchie des degrés du vrai. En effet, la hiérarchie de Marius Victorinus (uere sunt, quae sunt, non uere non sunt, uere non sunt) se retrouve en partie chez Augustin sous la forme : uere uerum (ueritas), uerum, tendit esse et non est. Cette transformation de la hiérarchie des êtres en une hiérarchie des degrés du vrai s'explique assez bien par le projet même des Soliloques : connaître Dieu et l'âme, et par la démonstration de l'immortalité de l'âme qui s'y trouve. C'est par la présence en l'âme de l'immortelle Vérité que l'âme est assurée de son immortalité, et cette preuve, dans l'esprit d'Augustin, est supérieure à celle, classique, de l'auto-motricité de l'âme. Dans les paragraphes 34 à 36 de la fin des Soliloques, c'est une semblable hiérarchie des degrés du vrai que nous rencontrons. Il est donc nécessaire sur ce point de conclure que tout en s'inspirant des thèmes néoplatoniciens et en particulier porphyriens, Augustin leur fait subir un déplacement notable et développe, plutôt qu'une ontologie, une métaphysique du vrai qui lui permet de connaître son âme, d'accéder à la certitude de son immortalité, et de progresser dans sa recherche de Dieu, recherche dont il résumera l'essentiel de la progression dans les Confessions et dont il dressera les harmoniques dans le De Trinitate. [conclusion p 390-392]

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Premi\u00e8rement, l'ant\u00e9riorit\u00e9 des \u00e9crits d'Augustin sur la r\u00e9daction de la plus grande partie des commentaires des Cat\u00e9gories oblige \u00e0 consid\u00e9rer un seul et m\u00eame auteur ou une seule et m\u00eame source, tant pour Augustin que pour les auteurs des commentaires ult\u00e9rieurs. La place que re\u00e7oit le commentaire de Porphyre dans les autres commentaires et l'importance de cet auteur dans l'\u00e9laboration des sch\u00e9mas de pens\u00e9e augustiniens conduisent naturellement \u00e0 la conclusion que c'est dans une \u0153uvre porphyrienne qu'Augustin a pu rencontrer l'essentiel de cette argumentation.\r\n\r\nIl reste alors \u00e0 tenter de d\u00e9terminer laquelle. Le peu d'int\u00e9r\u00eat qu'Augustin accorde aux lectures des magistri eruditissimi qu'il \u00e9voque dans les Confessions semble \u00e9carter l'hypoth\u00e8se qu'il garderait un vif souvenir des conversations de son adolescence. Autrement, il n'aurait pas oubli\u00e9 \u00e0 ce point d'en mentionner l'importance, comme il le fait pour sa lecture de l'Hortensius et pour celle des libri platonicorum, qui eurent une influence d\u00e9terminante sur l'\u00e9volution de sa pens\u00e9e.\r\n\r\nIl semble alors plus probable de consid\u00e9rer qu'Augustin a rencontr\u00e9 une argumentation identique \u00e0 celle qui se trouve dans les commentaires ult\u00e9rieurs des Cat\u00e9gories, celle de Porphyre en son propre commentaire, qu'Augustin a pu rencontrer soit dans un texte du dossier des libri platonicorum, soit ins\u00e9r\u00e9 dans un autre \u00e9crit comme le De regressu animae ou encore le Z\u00eat\u00eama sur l'immortalit\u00e9 de l'\u00e2me, dont nous savons qu'il prit connaissance.\r\n\r\nIl serait m\u00eame tentant de consid\u00e9rer que la progression m\u00eame des Soliloques suit en parall\u00e8le l'essentiel de la progression qui pourrait \u00eatre celle du De regressu.\r\n\r\nCette hypoth\u00e8se nous am\u00e8ne directement au second volet de cette conclusion. Si Augustin emprunte un certain nombre de th\u00e8mes \u00e0 l'univers n\u00e9oplatonicien et porphyrien, il ne manque pas de les transformer profond\u00e9ment. Nous avons d\u00e9j\u00e0 signal\u00e9, dans une lecture de Sol. 2, 18, 32, la mani\u00e8re dont Augustin reprend les degr\u00e9s de la hi\u00e9rarchie des \u00eatres du n\u00e9oplatonisme et la transforme en une hi\u00e9rarchie des degr\u00e9s du vrai. En effet, la hi\u00e9rarchie de Marius Victorinus (uere sunt, quae sunt, non uere non sunt, uere non sunt) se retrouve en partie chez Augustin sous la forme : uere uerum (ueritas), uerum, tendit esse et non est.\r\n\r\nCette transformation de la hi\u00e9rarchie des \u00eatres en une hi\u00e9rarchie des degr\u00e9s du vrai s'explique assez bien par le projet m\u00eame des Soliloques : conna\u00eetre Dieu et l'\u00e2me, et par la d\u00e9monstration de l'immortalit\u00e9 de l'\u00e2me qui s'y trouve. C'est par la pr\u00e9sence en l'\u00e2me de l'immortelle V\u00e9rit\u00e9 que l'\u00e2me est assur\u00e9e de son immortalit\u00e9, et cette preuve, dans l'esprit d'Augustin, est sup\u00e9rieure \u00e0 celle, classique, de l'auto-motricit\u00e9 de l'\u00e2me.\r\n\r\nDans les paragraphes 34 \u00e0 36 de la fin des Soliloques, c'est une semblable hi\u00e9rarchie des degr\u00e9s du vrai que nous rencontrons. Il est donc n\u00e9cessaire sur ce point de conclure que tout en s'inspirant des th\u00e8mes n\u00e9oplatoniciens et en particulier porphyriens, Augustin leur fait subir un d\u00e9placement notable et d\u00e9veloppe, plut\u00f4t qu'une ontologie, une m\u00e9taphysique du vrai qui lui permet de conna\u00eetre son \u00e2me, d'acc\u00e9der \u00e0 la certitude de son immortalit\u00e9, et de progresser dans sa recherche de Dieu, recherche dont il r\u00e9sumera l'essentiel de la progression dans les Confessions et dont il dressera les harmoniques dans le De Trinitate. [conclusion p 390-392]","btype":3,"date":"2001","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/ilXNYhEQOhMEPLW","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":70,"full_name":"Doucet, Dominique ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":600,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica","volume":"93","issue":"3","pages":"372-392"}},"sort":[2001]}

Zeno of Elea's Argument from Bisection: Newly Discovered Evidence in a Hebrew Translation of Averroes, 2001
By: Glasner, Ruth
Title Zeno of Elea's Argument from Bisection: Newly Discovered Evidence in a Hebrew Translation of Averroes
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Aleph
Volume 1
Pages 285-293
Categories no categories
Author(s) Glasner, Ruth
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
To conclude, in the Hebrew version of Averroes' long commentary on the Physics, comment 1.30, we find what seems to be Alexander's version of Zeno's argument ek tes dichotomias against plurality. Averroes interprets Zeno's argument as contradicting Parmenides', thus drawing attention to a problem that is latent in Simplicius' commentary. [conclusion, p. 293]

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Review of: Dorotheus, Guilelmus (trans.), Simplicius Commentarium in decem Categorias Aristotelis (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. Versiones Latinae temporis resuscitatarum litterarum, Bd. 8), 2001
By: Summerell, Orrin Finn
Title Review of: Dorotheus, Guilelmus (trans.), Simplicius Commentarium in decem Categorias Aristotelis (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. Versiones Latinae temporis resuscitatarum litterarum, Bd. 8)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Bochumer philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter
Volume 5
Issue 1
Pages 262-263
Categories no categories
Author(s) Summerell, Orrin Finn
Editor(s)
Translator(s)

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  • PAGE 1 OF 1
“Creatio ex nihilo”: A genuinely philosophical insight derived from Plato and Aristotle? Some notes on the treatise on the Harmony between the two sages, 2012
By: Gleede, Benjamin
Title “Creatio ex nihilo”: A genuinely philosophical insight derived from Plato and Aristotle? Some notes on the treatise on the Harmony between the two sages
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Arabic Sciences and Philosophy
Volume 22
Pages 91-117
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gleede, Benjamin
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The article aims at demonstrating that in attributing the creatio ex nihilo to both Plato and Aristotle as their unanimous philosophical conviction the Treatise on the Harmony between the Two Sages deeply depends upon the Neoplatonic reading of those two philosophers. The main obstacles for such a view in the works of the two sages are Plato’s assumption of a precosmic chaos in the Timaeus and Aristotle’s denial of any efficient causality to the unmoved mover in the Metaphysics. Both of these points had been, however, done away with by the Neoplatonist commentators already, especially by Ammonius in his lost treatise on efficient and final causality in Aristotle the use of which in the Harmony is shown by a comparison with Simplicius. Christian and Muslim readers just had to transfer those arguments and hermeneutical techniques into an anti-eternalist context in order to make the two philosophers agree with one of the basic tenents of their face, a hermeneutical technique considerably different from the one employed by al-Fārābī in his exposition of Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophy which is compared to the Harmony in a briefly sketched concluding section.

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A New Role for the Hippopede of Eudoxus, 2001
By: Yavetz, Ido
Title A New Role for the Hippopede of Eudoxus
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Archive for History of Exact Sciences
Volume 56
Issue 1
Pages 69-93
Categories no categories
Author(s) Yavetz, Ido
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The geometry of the alternative reconstruction of Eudoxan planetary theory is studied. It is 
shown that in this framework the hippopede acquires an analytical role, consolidating the theory's geometrical underpinnings. This removes the main point of incompatibility between the alternative reconstruction and Simplicius's account of Eudoxan planetary astronomy. The analysis also suggests a compass and straight-edge procedure for drawing a point by point outline of the retrograde loop created by any given arrangement of the three inner spheres. [Author’s abstract]

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Addenda Eudemea, 2006
By: Baltussen, Han
Title Addenda Eudemea
Type Article
Language English
Date 2006
Journal Leeds International Classical Studies
Volume 5
Issue 1
Pages 1-28
Categories no categories
Author(s) Baltussen, Han
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This  paper  presents  16  fragments  of  the  Peripatetic  philosopher  Eudemus  (c. 350-290 BC), which were not printed in the (still) standard edition of Wehrli (1955; revised  1969),  but  which  had  been  signalled  in  passing  by  De  Lacy  (1957)  and  Gottschalk (1973). The aim is to provide a text with translation and brief annotation, to be included in a future edition, and to argue that context can add to our understanding of these  passages.  Their  importance  lies  in  bringing  greater  comprehensiveness  to  the  collection,  offering  at  least  five  additional  (near)  quotations,  and  illustrating  the  new  trend  in  fragment  studies  to  contextualize  fragments  on  several  levels  in  order  to  gain  further insight into their value and reception. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1119","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1119,"authors_free":[{"id":1692,"entry_id":1119,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":39,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Baltussen, Han","free_first_name":"Han","free_last_name":"Baltussen","norm_person":{"id":39,"first_name":"Han","last_name":"Baltussen","full_name":"Baltussen, Han","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/136236456","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Addenda Eudemea","main_title":{"title":"Addenda Eudemea"},"abstract":"This paper presents 16 fragments of the Peripatetic philosopher Eudemus (c. 350-290 BC), which were not printed in the (still) standard edition of Wehrli (1955; revised 1969), but which had been signalled in passing by De Lacy (1957) and Gottschalk (1973). The aim is to provide a text with translation and brief annotation, to be included in a future edition, and to argue that context can add to our understanding of these passages. Their importance lies in bringing greater comprehensiveness to the collection, offering at least five additional (near) quotations, and illustrating the new trend in fragment studies to contextualize fragments on several levels in order to gain further insight into their value and reception. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2006","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/HRE0ldIrfqIxrEE","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":39,"full_name":"Baltussen, Han","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1119,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Leeds International Classical Studies","volume":"5","issue":"1","pages":"1-28"}},"sort":["Addenda Eudemea"]}

Albert le Grand sur la dérivation des formes géométriques: Un témoignage de l'influence de Simplicius par le biais des Arabes?, 2008
By: Chase, Michael
Title Albert le Grand sur la dérivation des formes géométriques: Un témoignage de l'influence de Simplicius par le biais des Arabes?
Type Article
Language French
Date 2008
Categories no categories
Author(s) Chase, Michael
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Faisons donc le bilan de ce parcours qui nous a menés du IVe siècle av. J.-C. au Moyen Âge latin. L'argumentation présentée par Albert dans son De quinque universalibus provient d'une ambiance intellectuelle qui baignait dans des influences de la philosophie arabe : al-Fārābī, al-Ghazālī, Averroès, mais surtout Avicenne. Elle est marquée par l'utilisation du schéma de la dérivation des formes géométriques élémentaires — point, ligne, surface, corps — à partir du mouvement en flux générateur de chacun de ces éléments.

Or, ce schéma de dérivation géométrique joue un rôle assez important dans la pensée d'Albert, qui l'attribue à Platon. Cette attribution ne semble pas si farfelue que cela, même si la dérivation des formes géométriques à partir du flux du point semble provenir de Speusippe plutôt que de son oncle Platon. Il n'en reste pas moins que, du moins selon l'interprétation de l'École de Tübingen, le schéma de dérivation point/nombre-ligne-surface-corps est d'une importance tout à fait fondamentale pour l'ontologie ésotérique de Platon.

Sans accès aux Dialogues de Platon, Albert le Grand finit donc, quelles qu'aient été ses sources prochaines et lointaines pour les doctrines platoniciennes, par défendre une image de Platon qui correspond, dans une large mesure, à celle de l'École de Tübingen.

Quant à la question de ses sources et de la voie de transmission de ces doctrines, Albert a pu trouver chez la plus importante d'entre elles — la pensée d'Avicenne — de quoi nourrir une réflexion approfondie sur cette question de la dérivation des formes géométriques. Cependant, le commentaire d'Albert aux Éléments d'Euclide montre qu'à cette influence avicennienne est venue s'ajouter une autre, indépendante : la doctrine géométrique de Simplicius, véhiculée par la traduction latine du commentaire euclidien d'al-Nairīzī.

Qu'en est-il de la relation entre Simplicius et Avicenne ? Nous avons vu que certains éléments du schéma simplicien de la dérivation des formes géométriques se retrouvent déjà dans l'École de Bagdad, autour de Yaḥyā ibn ‘Adī. G. Freudenthal, pour sa part, avait conclu de son étude de la géométrie d'al-Fārābī qu'« il est fort probable qu'al-Fārābī connaissait soit les ouvrages de Simplicius auxquels an-Nairīzī avait accès, soit seulement la brève citation [p. 2, 19-23 Curze] contenue dans le commentaire d'an-Nairīzī ».

Quoi qu'il en soit, il semble difficile d'éviter la conclusion qu'Avicenne connaissait bien la doctrine géométrique de Simplicius, du moins telle que transmise par le commentaire d'al-Nairīzī, soit par l'intermédiaire de l'École de Bagdad, soit par ses lectures propres.

De Platon à Speusippe, en passant par des sources hellénistiques telles que Sextus Empiricus, la doctrine de la dérivation des formes géométriques a fini, au VIe siècle apr. J.-C., par faire partie intégrante du bagage intellectuel des derniers néoplatoniciens tels que Philopon et Simplicius.

C'est, semble-t-il, la pensée géométrique de ce dernier qui, traduite en arabe et préservée dans le commentaire euclidien d'al-Nairīzī, contribue à former la pensée d'Avicenne au premier quart du XIe siècle, avant d'arriver, quelque deux siècles plus tard, sous les yeux de ce lecteur omnivore qu'était Albert le Grand.

Pour expliquer cet itinéraire de la pensée, il n'est sans doute pas nécessaire de postuler que, comme le soutient Mme Hadot, Simplicius ait rédigé son Commentaire d'Euclide à Harran. Mais rien n'exclut cette hypothèse non plus, et quand on pense aux éléments de preuve rassemblés par Mme Hadot et d'autres concernant l'importance du legs de l'École mathématique de Simplicius dans le monde arabe, on peut estimer que le cas du schéma de la dérivation des formes géométriques à partir du point ne fait qu'ajouter une brique de plus à l'édifice des preuves témoignant en faveur de l'hypothèse de l'« École néoplatonicienne de Harran ». [conclusion p. 28-29]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1259","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1259,"authors_free":[{"id":1838,"entry_id":1259,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":25,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Chase, Michael ","free_first_name":"Michael","free_last_name":"Chase","norm_person":{"id":25,"first_name":"Michael ","last_name":"Chase","full_name":"Chase, Michael ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1031917152","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Albert le Grand sur la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques: Un t\u00e9moignage de l'influence de Simplicius par le biais des Arabes?","main_title":{"title":"Albert le Grand sur la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques: Un t\u00e9moignage de l'influence de Simplicius par le biais des Arabes?"},"abstract":"Faisons donc le bilan de ce parcours qui nous a men\u00e9s du IVe si\u00e8cle av. J.-C. au Moyen \u00c2ge latin. L'argumentation pr\u00e9sent\u00e9e par Albert dans son De quinque universalibus provient d'une ambiance intellectuelle qui baignait dans des influences de la philosophie arabe : al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, al-Ghaz\u0101l\u012b, Averro\u00e8s, mais surtout Avicenne. Elle est marqu\u00e9e par l'utilisation du sch\u00e9ma de la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques \u00e9l\u00e9mentaires \u2014 point, ligne, surface, corps \u2014 \u00e0 partir du mouvement en flux g\u00e9n\u00e9rateur de chacun de ces \u00e9l\u00e9ments.\r\n\r\nOr, ce sch\u00e9ma de d\u00e9rivation g\u00e9om\u00e9trique joue un r\u00f4le assez important dans la pens\u00e9e d'Albert, qui l'attribue \u00e0 Platon. Cette attribution ne semble pas si farfelue que cela, m\u00eame si la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques \u00e0 partir du flux du point semble provenir de Speusippe plut\u00f4t que de son oncle Platon. Il n'en reste pas moins que, du moins selon l'interpr\u00e9tation de l'\u00c9cole de T\u00fcbingen, le sch\u00e9ma de d\u00e9rivation point\/nombre-ligne-surface-corps est d'une importance tout \u00e0 fait fondamentale pour l'ontologie \u00e9sot\u00e9rique de Platon.\r\n\r\nSans acc\u00e8s aux Dialogues de Platon, Albert le Grand finit donc, quelles qu'aient \u00e9t\u00e9 ses sources prochaines et lointaines pour les doctrines platoniciennes, par d\u00e9fendre une image de Platon qui correspond, dans une large mesure, \u00e0 celle de l'\u00c9cole de T\u00fcbingen.\r\n\r\nQuant \u00e0 la question de ses sources et de la voie de transmission de ces doctrines, Albert a pu trouver chez la plus importante d'entre elles \u2014 la pens\u00e9e d'Avicenne \u2014 de quoi nourrir une r\u00e9flexion approfondie sur cette question de la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques. Cependant, le commentaire d'Albert aux \u00c9l\u00e9ments d'Euclide montre qu'\u00e0 cette influence avicennienne est venue s'ajouter une autre, ind\u00e9pendante : la doctrine g\u00e9om\u00e9trique de Simplicius, v\u00e9hicul\u00e9e par la traduction latine du commentaire euclidien d'al-Nair\u012bz\u012b.\r\n\r\nQu'en est-il de la relation entre Simplicius et Avicenne ? Nous avons vu que certains \u00e9l\u00e9ments du sch\u00e9ma simplicien de la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques se retrouvent d\u00e9j\u00e0 dans l'\u00c9cole de Bagdad, autour de Ya\u1e25y\u0101 ibn \u2018Ad\u012b. G. Freudenthal, pour sa part, avait conclu de son \u00e9tude de la g\u00e9om\u00e9trie d'al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b qu'\u00ab il est fort probable qu'al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b connaissait soit les ouvrages de Simplicius auxquels an-Nair\u012bz\u012b avait acc\u00e8s, soit seulement la br\u00e8ve citation [p. 2, 19-23 Curze] contenue dans le commentaire d'an-Nair\u012bz\u012b \u00bb.\r\n\r\nQuoi qu'il en soit, il semble difficile d'\u00e9viter la conclusion qu'Avicenne connaissait bien la doctrine g\u00e9om\u00e9trique de Simplicius, du moins telle que transmise par le commentaire d'al-Nair\u012bz\u012b, soit par l'interm\u00e9diaire de l'\u00c9cole de Bagdad, soit par ses lectures propres.\r\n\r\nDe Platon \u00e0 Speusippe, en passant par des sources hell\u00e9nistiques telles que Sextus Empiricus, la doctrine de la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques a fini, au VIe si\u00e8cle apr. J.-C., par faire partie int\u00e9grante du bagage intellectuel des derniers n\u00e9oplatoniciens tels que Philopon et Simplicius.\r\n\r\nC'est, semble-t-il, la pens\u00e9e g\u00e9om\u00e9trique de ce dernier qui, traduite en arabe et pr\u00e9serv\u00e9e dans le commentaire euclidien d'al-Nair\u012bz\u012b, contribue \u00e0 former la pens\u00e9e d'Avicenne au premier quart du XIe si\u00e8cle, avant d'arriver, quelque deux si\u00e8cles plus tard, sous les yeux de ce lecteur omnivore qu'\u00e9tait Albert le Grand.\r\n\r\nPour expliquer cet itin\u00e9raire de la pens\u00e9e, il n'est sans doute pas n\u00e9cessaire de postuler que, comme le soutient Mme Hadot, Simplicius ait r\u00e9dig\u00e9 son Commentaire d'Euclide \u00e0 Harran. Mais rien n'exclut cette hypoth\u00e8se non plus, et quand on pense aux \u00e9l\u00e9ments de preuve rassembl\u00e9s par Mme Hadot et d'autres concernant l'importance du legs de l'\u00c9cole math\u00e9matique de Simplicius dans le monde arabe, on peut estimer que le cas du sch\u00e9ma de la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques \u00e0 partir du point ne fait qu'ajouter une brique de plus \u00e0 l'\u00e9difice des preuves t\u00e9moignant en faveur de l'hypoth\u00e8se de l'\u00ab \u00c9cole n\u00e9oplatonicienne de Harran \u00bb. [conclusion p. 28-29]","btype":3,"date":"2008","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/mVjTC4EIjO2Aggg","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":25,"full_name":"Chase, Michael ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":null},"sort":["Albert le Grand sur la d\u00e9rivation des formes g\u00e9om\u00e9triques: Un t\u00e9moignage de l'influence de Simplicius par le biais des Arabes?"]}

Alexander on Physics 2.9, 2012
By: Sharples, Robert W.
Title Alexander on Physics 2.9
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
Volume 55
Issue 1
Pages 19-30
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sharples, Robert W.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
I want to draw your attention today to a report of Alexander in Simplicius’s Physics commentary which, as far as I can tell, has escaped the notice of everyone, myself included—and I have rather less excuse than most, for, as we shall see, the report connects directly with issues about which I have written in other contexts. That was concerned with On Coming-to-Be and Passing-Away [hereafter GC] 2.11, with Philoponus’s commentary thereon, and with Alexander’s discussion in some of the Quaestiones; the present paper, with Simplicius’s help, extends the discussion to Physics 2.9. Alexander’s GC commentary and the relevant part of his Physics commentary are lost. The text that will chiefly concern us is (3) (2) in the appendix, where Simplicius says:

    "For my part, I do not understand why Alexander says that unqualified necessity excludes what is for the sake of something."

Perhaps indeed he does understand why Alexander says this, and this is a disingenuous way of introducing a problem; but the problem may be real nonetheless.

If my story has a moral, it is, I suppose, that those who have an interest in Alexander should be more proactive than I confess I have myself been in looking up the later commentaries on passages of Aristotle that are of interest in the context of Alexander, in order to see whether Alexander is recorded as having had interesting comments to make. Or, if that is a counsel of perfection, I think it shows that we need a collection of the reports of Alexander by name in later Greek commentaries on the Physics, rather like Andrea Rescigno’s recent edition of the fragments of the De Caelo commentary. We already have the fragments of the Physics commentary preserved in Arabic, and the fragments in Greek identified by Marwan Rashed; there may be scope, if copyright and other issues can be overcome, for a compendium assembling all this material in the order of the passages of Aristotle commented upon. This would indeed in a way be assistance for the lazy, making nothing available that individual scholars could not find for themselves in published sources, but it might be useful nonetheless.

In Physics 2.9, Aristotle continues his polemic against those who explain nature in terms of necessitating material interactions, arguing that necessity is present in all things that have goal-directedness, if I may so translate “the for-the-sake-of-something,” but that the necessity of matter is not the cause or explanation of what comes about. There is, by the way, in my view a systematic ambiguity in the terminology commonly used here; necessity can be conditional either on a future goal or on some past event, but the custom has developed of using “conditional” or “hypothetical” necessity to indicate that which relates to the future, “absolute” to indicate that which is conditional on past events—presumably because there is no longer anything hypothetical about these. But, especially in the ancient Peripatetic context where, as Patzig pointed out, qualifications attach to predicates rather than to whole propositions, this could be misleading from the point of view of logical analysis.

Building a house necessarily requires bricks; but the fact that you, or the builder, purchased a pile of bricks from the builders’ merchant is not an explanation of why you now have a house. (It could be an explanation of why you have a brick house, or more strictly of why, given that you have a house, it is a brick one; but that is a different point.) To be sure, Aristotle’s argument in 2.9 is open to challenge in that he takes his examples from human goal-directed activity, and the extrapolation from these to natural processes is open to question. David Sedley well suggests that the self-building wall may be a parody of atomist cosmogony. A human being requires human flesh and human bones; but, Aristotle’s view would seem to imply, human flesh does not self-assemble into a human being—perhaps because it cannot even be human flesh, except homonymously, if it is not part of a human being. There are well-known problems here about how the final cause of embryonic development can also be the efficient cause, but I do not propose to pursue them now.

For, more important in the present context, is a distinction indicated by the example I have just used. The fact that you, or the builder, purchased a pile of bricks from the builders’ merchant is not an explanation of why you now have a house. Why not? Well, presumably, because sitting looking at the pile of bricks will not give you a house; you, or the builder, need to do something with them. Bricks not only do not explain the coming-to-be of a brick house (let us call this “thesis A”); they do not necessarily lead to it, either (let us call this “thesis B”). In more formal language, they are necessary but not sufficient conditions. For the Presocratic natural philosophers whom Aristotle is attacking, on the other hand, material interactions are both sufficient conditions for, and explanations of, natural phenomena.

Normally, an explanation will be a sufficient condition, or at least that one of a number of jointly sufficient conditions that is relevant in the explanatory context. Consequently, to say that material actions may necessitate, i.e., may be sufficient for, but may not explain, some event, or in the contexts with which we are concerned the coming-to-be of something, is to raise the specter of over-determination. If natural comings-to-be are necessitated by matter and its interactions—what some call “absolute” necessity—is there any room left in which to argue that they are explained by the purposes or goals for which they are necessary means?
[introduction p. 19-20]

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That was concerned with On Coming-to-Be and Passing-Away [hereafter GC] 2.11, with Philoponus\u2019s commentary thereon, and with Alexander\u2019s discussion in some of the Quaestiones; the present paper, with Simplicius\u2019s help, extends the discussion to Physics 2.9. Alexander\u2019s GC commentary and the relevant part of his Physics commentary are lost. The text that will chiefly concern us is (3) (2) in the appendix, where Simplicius says:\r\n\r\n \"For my part, I do not understand why Alexander says that unqualified necessity excludes what is for the sake of something.\"\r\n\r\nPerhaps indeed he does understand why Alexander says this, and this is a disingenuous way of introducing a problem; but the problem may be real nonetheless.\r\n\r\nIf my story has a moral, it is, I suppose, that those who have an interest in Alexander should be more proactive than I confess I have myself been in looking up the later commentaries on passages of Aristotle that are of interest in the context of Alexander, in order to see whether Alexander is recorded as having had interesting comments to make. Or, if that is a counsel of perfection, I think it shows that we need a collection of the reports of Alexander by name in later Greek commentaries on the Physics, rather like Andrea Rescigno\u2019s recent edition of the fragments of the De Caelo commentary. We already have the fragments of the Physics commentary preserved in Arabic, and the fragments in Greek identified by Marwan Rashed; there may be scope, if copyright and other issues can be overcome, for a compendium assembling all this material in the order of the passages of Aristotle commented upon. This would indeed in a way be assistance for the lazy, making nothing available that individual scholars could not find for themselves in published sources, but it might be useful nonetheless.\r\n\r\nIn Physics 2.9, Aristotle continues his polemic against those who explain nature in terms of necessitating material interactions, arguing that necessity is present in all things that have goal-directedness, if I may so translate \u201cthe for-the-sake-of-something,\u201d but that the necessity of matter is not the cause or explanation of what comes about. There is, by the way, in my view a systematic ambiguity in the terminology commonly used here; necessity can be conditional either on a future goal or on some past event, but the custom has developed of using \u201cconditional\u201d or \u201chypothetical\u201d necessity to indicate that which relates to the future, \u201cabsolute\u201d to indicate that which is conditional on past events\u2014presumably because there is no longer anything hypothetical about these. But, especially in the ancient Peripatetic context where, as Patzig pointed out, qualifications attach to predicates rather than to whole propositions, this could be misleading from the point of view of logical analysis.\r\n\r\nBuilding a house necessarily requires bricks; but the fact that you, or the builder, purchased a pile of bricks from the builders\u2019 merchant is not an explanation of why you now have a house. (It could be an explanation of why you have a brick house, or more strictly of why, given that you have a house, it is a brick one; but that is a different point.) To be sure, Aristotle\u2019s argument in 2.9 is open to challenge in that he takes his examples from human goal-directed activity, and the extrapolation from these to natural processes is open to question. David Sedley well suggests that the self-building wall may be a parody of atomist cosmogony. A human being requires human flesh and human bones; but, Aristotle\u2019s view would seem to imply, human flesh does not self-assemble into a human being\u2014perhaps because it cannot even be human flesh, except homonymously, if it is not part of a human being. There are well-known problems here about how the final cause of embryonic development can also be the efficient cause, but I do not propose to pursue them now.\r\n\r\nFor, more important in the present context, is a distinction indicated by the example I have just used. The fact that you, or the builder, purchased a pile of bricks from the builders\u2019 merchant is not an explanation of why you now have a house. Why not? Well, presumably, because sitting looking at the pile of bricks will not give you a house; you, or the builder, need to do something with them. Bricks not only do not explain the coming-to-be of a brick house (let us call this \u201cthesis A\u201d); they do not necessarily lead to it, either (let us call this \u201cthesis B\u201d). In more formal language, they are necessary but not sufficient conditions. For the Presocratic natural philosophers whom Aristotle is attacking, on the other hand, material interactions are both sufficient conditions for, and explanations of, natural phenomena.\r\n\r\nNormally, an explanation will be a sufficient condition, or at least that one of a number of jointly sufficient conditions that is relevant in the explanatory context. Consequently, to say that material actions may necessitate, i.e., may be sufficient for, but may not explain, some event, or in the contexts with which we are concerned the coming-to-be of something, is to raise the specter of over-determination. If natural comings-to-be are necessitated by matter and its interactions\u2014what some call \u201cabsolute\u201d necessity\u2014is there any room left in which to argue that they are explained by the purposes or goals for which they are necessary means?\r\n[introduction p. 19-20]","btype":3,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/RKYRiSGUGVV8cTg","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":42,"full_name":"Sharples, Robert W.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1172,"section_of":1171,"pages":"19-30","is_catalog":null,"book":null},"article":{"id":1172,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies","volume":"55","issue":"1","pages":"19-30"}},"sort":["Alexander on Physics 2.9"]}

Alternatives to Alternatives: Approaches to Aristotle's Arguments per impossibile, 2002
By: Kukkonen, Taneli
Title Alternatives to Alternatives: Approaches to Aristotle's Arguments per impossibile
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Vivarium
Volume 40
Issue 2
Pages 137-173
Categories no categories
Author(s) Kukkonen, Taneli
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
When arguing from impossible premises, what was Aristotle's rationale? Is there a way to salvage all of these purported arguments "through the impossible"? In this article, I wish to examine some of the answers offered by commentators on Aristotle ranging from Alexander to Buridan. We shall see that within the discussion, a more systematic picture of Aristotle's intentions slowly emerged. Whether this picture accurately represents Aristotle is arguable. Because the cited examples arose in connection with some of Aristotle's universally held natural principles, the discussion was seen to tie in with cosmological issues of central importance. The various solutions put forward therefore serve to reveal what the discussants took to be the limits to the world's conceptualization. It is not quite a case of assessing "possible worlds"; this systematic notion only enters the discussion in the early 14th century. Rather, what is at stake is what the possible features of the one and only world are. [p. 141]

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Andronicus and Boethus: Reflections on Michael Griffin’s Aristotle’s Categories in the Early Roman Empire, 2018
By: Menn, Stephen
Title Andronicus and Boethus: Reflections on Michael Griffin’s Aristotle’s Categories in the Early Roman Empire
Type Article
Language English
Date 2018
Journal Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale
Volume 29
Pages 13-43
Categories no categories
Author(s) Menn, Stephen
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Griffin, Rashed, and Chiaradonna have shown how we can use Simplicius’ Categories commentary to  reconstruct much  of Porphyry’s  greater  Categories commentary  (also witnessed by the Archimedes Palimpsest), and then use this to reconstruct much of the work of Boethus, and to  a lesser  extent Andronicus,  on the Categories. In  some cases 
building on Griffin, in other cases disagreeing with him, I bring out some ways in which Andronicus and Boethus differ from most later interpreters; this can help us understand Alexander’s  and Porphyry’s responses.  I  reconstruct (i) Andronicus’ interpretation of ‘in’ and ‘said of, which is based on Aristotle’s distinction between abstract nouns and paronymous concrete nouns, and avoids the metaphysical freight that later interpreters load onto the notion of ‘said o f; (ii) Boethus’ use of De Interpretation 1 to explain how 
a universal term can be synonymous without positing either universals in re or  Stoic 
XeKid, and the  consequences he draws for the different aims  of the  Categories and De Interpretation; and (iii) Boethus’ solution to the tension between Aristotle’s hylomorphism and the Categories’ account of substance. Boethus, unlike later interpreters, thinks the 
form is in the matter, and is therefore not a substance but (typically) a quality, but that it 
is nonetheless able to constitute the composite as a substance distinct from the matter. I bring out the Aristotelian basis for Boethus’ reading, connect it with Boethus’ accounts of differentiae and of the soul, and show how Boethus’ views help motivate Porphyry’s responses.  In  some  cases  Porphyry  constructs  his  views  by  triangulating  between Boethus and Alexander. [Author's abstract]

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Aperçu de la réception de la doctrine stoïcienne du mélange total dans le néoplatonisme après Plotin, 2007
By: Cohen, Daniel
Title Aperçu de la réception de la doctrine stoïcienne du mélange total dans le néoplatonisme après Plotin
Type Article
Language French
Date 2007
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 25
Issue 2
Pages 67-100
Categories no categories
Author(s) Cohen, Daniel
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Aux niveaux les plus inférieurs, où prédomine la multiplicité et la division, le mélange peut se manifester selon deux modes :

    Ou bien les composants d'une totalité préservent leur identité au détriment de l'unité du produit du mélange (il ne s'agit alors pas à proprement parler d'un mélange mais plutôt d'un « assemblage » dans lequel les éléments sont simplement juxtaposés : il s'agit plutôt de la παράθεσις stoïcienne ou de la σύνθεσις d'Aristote).
    Ou bien le produit du mélange forme une véritable totalité unifiée, mais alors cette unité est réalisée au détriment de l'identité des composantes, qui s'altèrent et se confondent pour former une entité nouvelle (il s'agit alors de la σύγχυσις stoïcienne ou du véritable mélange au sens aristotélicien).

Au niveau des réalités immatérielles, c'est sur le modèle stoïcien du mélange total que les Néoplatoniciens envisagent cette paradoxale « fusion sans confusion » qui unifie toute multiplicité sur le mode de la totalité antérieure à la dispersion de ses parties au sein de la matière.

Dans la mesure où les jugements que les Néoplatoniciens portent sur l'héritage philosophique des doctrines anciennes se présentent la plupart du temps comme une confrontation avec la perspective qui est supposée être celle de Platon, on peut dire que la réception néoplatonicienne des physiques du mélange d'Aristote et des Stoïciens aboutit à la conclusion suivante :

    Les Stoïciens se trompent parce qu'ils rendent les causes immanentes et donc mélangées à la matière.
    Aristote a raison, mais il se limite à rendre compte des phénomènes sensibles.

Aristote et les Stoïciens font partie de ce que Proclus qualifiera de « crème des disputeurs qui, pour avoir observé quelque petite portion de la nature, pensent pouvoir déchirer Platon ».

Ce n'est donc pas le moindre des paradoxes si les représentants du Néoplatonisme, après avoir rejeté les lois de la physique aristotélicienne comme n'ayant de validité qu'au seul niveau sensible, et après avoir vigoureusement critiqué le matérialisme stoïcien, ont transposé la donnée la plus fondamentale de la physique stoïcienne — celle qui permettait aux Stoïciens de justifier l'immanence intégrale de la causalité divine (et donc le matérialisme corporaliste le plus radical) — aux niveaux les plus élevés, comme régissant les relations entre les réalités immatérielles et incorporelles.

Comme l'a bien montré Pierre Hadot, cette transfiguration doctrinale, qui deviendra typique de la démarche néoplatonicienne, a été amorcée dans le cadre de la synthèse réalisée par Porphyre. En ce sens, écrivait-il, « c'est précisément une des caractéristiques de la doctrine porphyrienne (...) de montrer que le Stoïcisme n'est vrai que dans la transposition néoplatonicienne, la physique stoïcienne devenant ainsi une métaphysique », de sorte que « la théorie des mélanges élaborée par les Stoïciens ne découvre sa vérité que sur le plan intelligible ».

Nous avons vu cependant que cette vérité se découvre avant même d'envisager le mélange proprement noétique, Porphyre lui-même ayant déjà fait intervenir la krasis stoïcienne dans le contexte d'un exposé sur l'embryologie, et les Néoplatoniciens ultérieurs dans cet ordre intermédiaire, négligé par Plotin, où se tiennent les « corps immatériels » non qualifiés.

La conception stoïcienne du mélange total s'est finalement imposée au sein de la métaphysique néoplatonicienne au prix d'un double réaménagement doctrinal, ayant eu pour résultat :

    La synthèse de la doctrine stoïcienne de l'interpénétration totale sans confusion avec les élaborations aristotéliciennes de l'acte et de la puissance.
    La transposition du domaine des réalités matérielles à celui des réalités corporelles non encore engagées dans la matière première. [conclusion p. 99-100]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1273","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1273,"authors_free":[{"id":1863,"entry_id":1273,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":51,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Cohen, Daniel","free_first_name":"Daniel","free_last_name":"Cohen","norm_person":{"id":51,"first_name":"Daniel","last_name":"Cohen","full_name":"Cohen, Daniel","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1024876659","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Aper\u00e7u de la r\u00e9ception de la doctrine sto\u00efcienne du m\u00e9lange total dans le n\u00e9oplatonisme apr\u00e8s Plotin","main_title":{"title":"Aper\u00e7u de la r\u00e9ception de la doctrine sto\u00efcienne du m\u00e9lange total dans le n\u00e9oplatonisme apr\u00e8s Plotin"},"abstract":"Aux niveaux les plus inf\u00e9rieurs, o\u00f9 pr\u00e9domine la multiplicit\u00e9 et la division, le m\u00e9lange peut se manifester selon deux modes :\r\n\r\n Ou bien les composants d'une totalit\u00e9 pr\u00e9servent leur identit\u00e9 au d\u00e9triment de l'unit\u00e9 du produit du m\u00e9lange (il ne s'agit alors pas \u00e0 proprement parler d'un m\u00e9lange mais plut\u00f4t d'un \u00ab assemblage \u00bb dans lequel les \u00e9l\u00e9ments sont simplement juxtapos\u00e9s : il s'agit plut\u00f4t de la \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 sto\u00efcienne ou de la \u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 d'Aristote).\r\n Ou bien le produit du m\u00e9lange forme une v\u00e9ritable totalit\u00e9 unifi\u00e9e, mais alors cette unit\u00e9 est r\u00e9alis\u00e9e au d\u00e9triment de l'identit\u00e9 des composantes, qui s'alt\u00e8rent et se confondent pour former une entit\u00e9 nouvelle (il s'agit alors de la \u03c3\u03cd\u03b3\u03c7\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 sto\u00efcienne ou du v\u00e9ritable m\u00e9lange au sens aristot\u00e9licien).\r\n\r\nAu niveau des r\u00e9alit\u00e9s immat\u00e9rielles, c'est sur le mod\u00e8le sto\u00efcien du m\u00e9lange total que les N\u00e9oplatoniciens envisagent cette paradoxale \u00ab fusion sans confusion \u00bb qui unifie toute multiplicit\u00e9 sur le mode de la totalit\u00e9 ant\u00e9rieure \u00e0 la dispersion de ses parties au sein de la mati\u00e8re.\r\n\r\nDans la mesure o\u00f9 les jugements que les N\u00e9oplatoniciens portent sur l'h\u00e9ritage philosophique des doctrines anciennes se pr\u00e9sentent la plupart du temps comme une confrontation avec la perspective qui est suppos\u00e9e \u00eatre celle de Platon, on peut dire que la r\u00e9ception n\u00e9oplatonicienne des physiques du m\u00e9lange d'Aristote et des Sto\u00efciens aboutit \u00e0 la conclusion suivante :\r\n\r\n Les Sto\u00efciens se trompent parce qu'ils rendent les causes immanentes et donc m\u00e9lang\u00e9es \u00e0 la mati\u00e8re.\r\n Aristote a raison, mais il se limite \u00e0 rendre compte des ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes sensibles.\r\n\r\nAristote et les Sto\u00efciens font partie de ce que Proclus qualifiera de \u00ab cr\u00e8me des disputeurs qui, pour avoir observ\u00e9 quelque petite portion de la nature, pensent pouvoir d\u00e9chirer Platon \u00bb.\r\n\r\nCe n'est donc pas le moindre des paradoxes si les repr\u00e9sentants du N\u00e9oplatonisme, apr\u00e8s avoir rejet\u00e9 les lois de la physique aristot\u00e9licienne comme n'ayant de validit\u00e9 qu'au seul niveau sensible, et apr\u00e8s avoir vigoureusement critiqu\u00e9 le mat\u00e9rialisme sto\u00efcien, ont transpos\u00e9 la donn\u00e9e la plus fondamentale de la physique sto\u00efcienne \u2014 celle qui permettait aux Sto\u00efciens de justifier l'immanence int\u00e9grale de la causalit\u00e9 divine (et donc le mat\u00e9rialisme corporaliste le plus radical) \u2014 aux niveaux les plus \u00e9lev\u00e9s, comme r\u00e9gissant les relations entre les r\u00e9alit\u00e9s immat\u00e9rielles et incorporelles.\r\n\r\nComme l'a bien montr\u00e9 Pierre Hadot, cette transfiguration doctrinale, qui deviendra typique de la d\u00e9marche n\u00e9oplatonicienne, a \u00e9t\u00e9 amorc\u00e9e dans le cadre de la synth\u00e8se r\u00e9alis\u00e9e par Porphyre. En ce sens, \u00e9crivait-il, \u00ab c'est pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment une des caract\u00e9ristiques de la doctrine porphyrienne (...) de montrer que le Sto\u00efcisme n'est vrai que dans la transposition n\u00e9oplatonicienne, la physique sto\u00efcienne devenant ainsi une m\u00e9taphysique \u00bb, de sorte que \u00ab la th\u00e9orie des m\u00e9langes \u00e9labor\u00e9e par les Sto\u00efciens ne d\u00e9couvre sa v\u00e9rit\u00e9 que sur le plan intelligible \u00bb.\r\n\r\nNous avons vu cependant que cette v\u00e9rit\u00e9 se d\u00e9couvre avant m\u00eame d'envisager le m\u00e9lange proprement no\u00e9tique, Porphyre lui-m\u00eame ayant d\u00e9j\u00e0 fait intervenir la krasis sto\u00efcienne dans le contexte d'un expos\u00e9 sur l'embryologie, et les N\u00e9oplatoniciens ult\u00e9rieurs dans cet ordre interm\u00e9diaire, n\u00e9glig\u00e9 par Plotin, o\u00f9 se tiennent les \u00ab corps immat\u00e9riels \u00bb non qualifi\u00e9s.\r\n\r\nLa conception sto\u00efcienne du m\u00e9lange total s'est finalement impos\u00e9e au sein de la m\u00e9taphysique n\u00e9oplatonicienne au prix d'un double r\u00e9am\u00e9nagement doctrinal, ayant eu pour r\u00e9sultat :\r\n\r\n La synth\u00e8se de la doctrine sto\u00efcienne de l'interp\u00e9n\u00e9tration totale sans confusion avec les \u00e9laborations aristot\u00e9liciennes de l'acte et de la puissance.\r\n La transposition du domaine des r\u00e9alit\u00e9s mat\u00e9rielles \u00e0 celui des r\u00e9alit\u00e9s corporelles non encore engag\u00e9es dans la mati\u00e8re premi\u00e8re. [conclusion p. 99-100]","btype":3,"date":"2007","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/T9kWS2QRZ2oeq7V","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":51,"full_name":"Cohen, Daniel","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1273,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Revue de Philosophie Ancienne","volume":"25 ","issue":"2","pages":"67-100"}},"sort":["Aper\u00e7u de la r\u00e9ception de la doctrine sto\u00efcienne du m\u00e9lange total dans le n\u00e9oplatonisme apr\u00e8s Plotin"]}

Aquinas and Simplicius on Dispositions – A Question in Fundamental Moral Theory, 2001
By: Boland, Vivian
Title Aquinas and Simplicius on Dispositions – A Question in Fundamental Moral Theory
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal New Blackfriars
Volume 82
Issue 968
Pages 467-478
Categories no categories
Author(s) Boland, Vivian
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
One of the areas on which Fergus Kerr has kept a wise eye and to which he has made valued contributions over many years is moral philosophy. In fact, he had the task of teaching moral theology in the early years of his career but quickly moved on. He was quite relieved to do so, he told me once, not least because he found Shakespeare more relevant to morality than the geography of the fallopian tubes.

Leaving behind moral theology in that sense did not mean his leaving behind a concern with moral questions. On the contrary, he has maintained great interest in developments in fundamental moral theory and in the centrality of morality for all theology. In this, he is faithful to Aquinas who, as Leonard Boyle has argued, envisaged Summa Theologiae as a work in which the moral is central. If, as Kerr himself has been arguing recently, beatitudo is a key to the unity of the Summa, then this is further support for what Boyle argued on historical and palaeographical grounds.

This is not to claim that what Aquinas had in mind was anything like what moral theology came to describe later on, when a strict distinction and even separation of dogma and moral came to prevail, especially in seminary training. Aquinas belongs to an earlier world, from which contemporary moral philosophers continue to learn, in which these later distinctions did not apply. The inherent difficulty in separating them is clear if one tries to answer the question of whether the theology of grace belongs to dogma or to moral.

One of the key areas in which Aquinas continues to contribute to debates in moral philosophy is in relation to virtue-theory. Anglo-Saxon moral philosophy has contributed with distinction to the revival of interest in the notion of virtue, as mentioning the names Anscombe, Foot, and MacIntyre is enough to show. A crucial building block in Aquinas's moral theory is the notion of habitus or disposition since, for him, following Aristotle, a virtue is a kind of disposition.

But this more philosophical part of his account of virtue has received little enough direct attention in recent times for reasons that may become clearer as we proceed. What I want to do in this paper is to look again at those questions in the Summa where Aquinas explains this notion of habitus or disposition. It is important for his understanding of the human being as a moral agent as well as for his account of grace, and in particular of those gifts of faith, hope, and what Christian tradition calls theological virtues.

It is a text whose examination will lead us into a number of central and current questions about the nature of Aquinas's theological synthesis and about whether or not we may consider any of his work as purely philosophical, i.e., philosophical as distinct from theological. [introduction p. 467-468]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1081","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1081,"authors_free":[{"id":1636,"entry_id":1081,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":9,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Boland, Vivian","free_first_name":"Vivian","free_last_name":"Boland","norm_person":{"id":9,"first_name":"Vivian","last_name":"Boland","full_name":"Boland, Vivian","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/94637645X","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Aquinas and Simplicius on Dispositions \u2013 A Question in Fundamental Moral Theory","main_title":{"title":"Aquinas and Simplicius on Dispositions \u2013 A Question in Fundamental Moral Theory"},"abstract":"One of the areas on which Fergus Kerr has kept a wise eye and to which he has made valued contributions over many years is moral philosophy. In fact, he had the task of teaching moral theology in the early years of his career but quickly moved on. He was quite relieved to do so, he told me once, not least because he found Shakespeare more relevant to morality than the geography of the fallopian tubes.\r\n\r\nLeaving behind moral theology in that sense did not mean his leaving behind a concern with moral questions. On the contrary, he has maintained great interest in developments in fundamental moral theory and in the centrality of morality for all theology. In this, he is faithful to Aquinas who, as Leonard Boyle has argued, envisaged Summa Theologiae as a work in which the moral is central. If, as Kerr himself has been arguing recently, beatitudo is a key to the unity of the Summa, then this is further support for what Boyle argued on historical and palaeographical grounds.\r\n\r\nThis is not to claim that what Aquinas had in mind was anything like what moral theology came to describe later on, when a strict distinction and even separation of dogma and moral came to prevail, especially in seminary training. Aquinas belongs to an earlier world, from which contemporary moral philosophers continue to learn, in which these later distinctions did not apply. The inherent difficulty in separating them is clear if one tries to answer the question of whether the theology of grace belongs to dogma or to moral.\r\n\r\nOne of the key areas in which Aquinas continues to contribute to debates in moral philosophy is in relation to virtue-theory. Anglo-Saxon moral philosophy has contributed with distinction to the revival of interest in the notion of virtue, as mentioning the names Anscombe, Foot, and MacIntyre is enough to show. A crucial building block in Aquinas's moral theory is the notion of habitus or disposition since, for him, following Aristotle, a virtue is a kind of disposition.\r\n\r\nBut this more philosophical part of his account of virtue has received little enough direct attention in recent times for reasons that may become clearer as we proceed. What I want to do in this paper is to look again at those questions in the Summa where Aquinas explains this notion of habitus or disposition. It is important for his understanding of the human being as a moral agent as well as for his account of grace, and in particular of those gifts of faith, hope, and what Christian tradition calls theological virtues.\r\n\r\nIt is a text whose examination will lead us into a number of central and current questions about the nature of Aquinas's theological synthesis and about whether or not we may consider any of his work as purely philosophical, i.e., philosophical as distinct from theological. [introduction p. 467-468]","btype":3,"date":"2001","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/zuaVu4YEsILwhuu","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":9,"full_name":"Boland, Vivian","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1081,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"New Blackfriars","volume":"82","issue":"968","pages":"467-478"}},"sort":["Aquinas and Simplicius on Dispositions \u2013 A Question in Fundamental Moral Theory"]}

Archytas lu par Simplicius. Un art de la conciliation, 2011
By: Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Title Archytas lu par Simplicius. Un art de la conciliation
Type Article
Language French
Date 2011
Journal The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 5
Issue 1
Pages 85-158
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Intent upon harmonizing doctrines of their predecessors, some Neoplatonic com-mentators are faced with a problem of resolving doctrinal discrepancies so as to restore the συμφωνία in the history of philosophy. This article considers a parti-cular example of this attempt ats harmonization:  how Simplicius reconciles Aris-totle’s Categories with the Neopythagorean doctrine of the Pseudo-Archytas. The chronological  inversion  introduced  by  the  counterfeiter  produces  remarkable  effects  on  the  late  Platonic  doctrine  about  general  terms,  to  the  extent  that  a  commentator  such  as  Simplicius  works  to  reduce  the  dissonance  between   Archytas’ and Aristotle’s words. This paper has three aims:  to restore the general grid that Simplicius uses for reading and commenting on Archytas through Aristotle; to identify the exegeti-cal strategies aimed at a doctrinal reconciliation; to consider a specific case, pro-vided  by  the  doctrine  of  weight,  which  engenders  a  new  physical  theory  by  Simplicius. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1312","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1312,"authors_free":[{"id":1946,"entry_id":1312,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":125,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Gavray, Marc-Antoine","free_first_name":"Marc-Antoine","free_last_name":"Gavray","norm_person":{"id":125,"first_name":"Marc-Antoine","last_name":"Gavray","full_name":"Gavray, Marc-Antoine","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1078511411","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Archytas lu par Simplicius. Un art de la conciliation","main_title":{"title":"Archytas lu par Simplicius. Un art de la conciliation"},"abstract":"Intent upon harmonizing doctrines of their predecessors, some Neoplatonic com-mentators are faced with a problem of resolving doctrinal discrepancies so as to restore the \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03af\u03b1 in the history of philosophy. This article considers a parti-cular example of this attempt ats harmonization: how Simplicius reconciles Aris-totle\u2019s Categories with the Neopythagorean doctrine of the Pseudo-Archytas. The chronological inversion introduced by the counterfeiter produces remarkable effects on the late Platonic doctrine about general terms, to the extent that a commentator such as Simplicius works to reduce the dissonance between Archytas\u2019 and Aristotle\u2019s words. This paper has three aims: to restore the general grid that Simplicius uses for reading and commenting on Archytas through Aristotle; to identify the exegeti-cal strategies aimed at a doctrinal reconciliation; to consider a specific case, pro-vided by the doctrine of weight, which engenders a new physical theory by Simplicius. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2011","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/CcW2PJaT6w7pONA","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":125,"full_name":"Gavray, Marc-Antoine","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1312,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition","volume":"5","issue":"1","pages":"85-158"}},"sort":["Archytas lu par Simplicius. Un art de la conciliation"]}

Aristotle on Space, Form, and Matter ("Physics" IV:2, 209 B 17–32), 2006
By: Fritsche, Johannes
Title Aristotle on Space, Form, and Matter ("Physics" IV:2, 209 B 17–32)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2006
Journal Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte
Volume 48
Pages 45-63
Categories no categories
Author(s) Fritsche, Johannes
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In Physics IV.2, Aristotle argues for private Space of a body as its form (209 b 1-6) and as its matter (209 b 6-11) to conclude that Plato maintains that χώρα, matter, and space are the same (209 b 11-17). Subsequently, he réfutés both possibilities of conceiving Space (209 b 17-28). In a paper on 209 b 6-17,1 have tried to show that his view of Plato is right.1 In this paper, I would like to show that in his réfutation of both possibilities Aristotle argues dialectically in the proper sense; that is, he does not use any assumption that is peculiar to  his own theory and not shared by his Opponent. For this purpose I présent (I.) Aristotle's différent usages of (ού) χωρίζεται/χωριστός (»[not] separated/separable«) and (II.) the three différent interprétations of 209 b 22-28 in Philoponus, Simplicius, and Sorabji, and I rule out Sorabji's interprétation. Thereafter, I will give three reasons for Simplicius's interprétation. The first relates to (III.) the issue of prin ciples as the main topic of the Physics in général. Secondly, (IV.) Philoponus's interprétation of 209 b 22-28 contradicts Aristotle's own définition of Space. Thirdly, (V.) only in Simplicius's interprétation is the argument dialectically va lid. Thereafter, I will show (VI.) that the argument in Simplicius's interprétation is  conclusive against Plato's reasoning in the Timaeus to finish with (VII.) some général remarks on  this paper and the paper on  209 b  1-17. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"592","_score":null,"_source":{"id":592,"authors_free":[{"id":843,"entry_id":592,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":102,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Fritsche, Johannes ","free_first_name":"Johannes","free_last_name":"Fritsche","norm_person":{"id":102,"first_name":"Johannes ","last_name":"Fritsche","full_name":"Fritsche, Johannes ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1204083266","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Aristotle on Space, Form, and Matter (\"Physics\" IV:2, 209 B 17\u201332)","main_title":{"title":"Aristotle on Space, Form, and Matter (\"Physics\" IV:2, 209 B 17\u201332)"},"abstract":"In Physics IV.2, Aristotle argues for private Space of a body as its form (209 b 1-6) and as its matter (209 b 6-11) to conclude that Plato maintains that \u03c7\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1, matter, and space are the same (209 b 11-17). Subsequently, he r\u00e9fut\u00e9s both possibilities of conceiving Space (209 b 17-28). In a paper on 209 b 6-17,1 have tried to show that his view of Plato is right.1 In this paper, I would like to show that in his r\u00e9futation of both possibilities Aristotle argues dialectically in the proper sense; that is, he does not use any assumption that is peculiar to his own theory and not shared by his Opponent. For this purpose I pr\u00e9sent (I.) Aristotle's diff\u00e9rent usages of (\u03bf\u03cd) \u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\/\u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 (\u00bb[not] separated\/separable\u00ab) and (II.) the three diff\u00e9rent interpr\u00e9tations of 209 b 22-28 in Philoponus, Simplicius, and Sorabji, and I rule out Sorabji's interpr\u00e9tation. Thereafter, I will give three reasons for Simplicius's interpr\u00e9tation. The first relates to (III.) the issue of prin ciples as the main topic of the Physics in g\u00e9n\u00e9ral. Secondly, (IV.) Philoponus's interpr\u00e9tation of 209 b 22-28 contradicts Aristotle's own d\u00e9finition of Space. Thirdly, (V.) only in Simplicius's interpr\u00e9tation is the argument dialectically va lid. Thereafter, I will show (VI.) that the argument in Simplicius's interpr\u00e9tation is conclusive against Plato's reasoning in the Timaeus to finish with (VII.) some g\u00e9n\u00e9ral remarks on this paper and the paper on 209 b 1-17. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2006","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/We3uupXlF3bVzh0","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":102,"full_name":"Fritsche, Johannes ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":592,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Archiv f\u00fcr Begriffsgeschichte","volume":"48","issue":"","pages":"45-63"}},"sort":["Aristotle on Space, Form, and Matter (\"Physics\" IV:2, 209 B 17\u201332)"]}

Aristotle, Plotinus, and Simplicius on the Relation of the Changer to the Changed, 2005
By: Wilberding, James
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]

{"_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":["Aristotle, Plotinus, and Simplicius on the Relation of the Changer to the Changed"]}

Aristotle’s Topics in the Greek Neoplatonic Commentaries on the Categories, 2014
By: Militello, Chiara
Title Aristotle’s Topics in the Greek Neoplatonic Commentaries on the Categories
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal PEITHO / EXAMINA ANTIQUA
Volume 1
Issue 5
Pages 91-117
Categories no categories
Author(s) Militello, Chiara
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper lists and examines the explicit references to Aristotle’s Topics in the Greek Neoplatonic commentaries on the Categories. The references to the Topics by Porphyry, Dexippus, Ammonius, Simplicius, Olympiodorus, Philoponus and David (Elias) are listed according the usual prolegomena to Aristotle’s works. In particular, the paper reconstructs David (Elias)’s original thesis about the proponents of the title Pre-Topics for the Categories and compares Ammonius’, Simplicius’ and Olympiodorus’ doxographies about the postpraedicamenta. Moreover, the study identifies two general trends. The first one is that all the commentators after Proclus share the same general view about: the authenticity of the Topics, Aristotle’s writing style in them, the part of philosophy to which they belong, their purpose, their usefulness and their place in the reading order. The second one is that whereas Porphyry, Dexippus and Simplicius use the Topics as an aid to understanding the Categories, Ammonius, Olympiodorus and David (Elias) do not. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1485","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1485,"authors_free":[{"id":2570,"entry_id":1485,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":2,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Militello, Chiara","free_first_name":"Chiara","free_last_name":"Militello","norm_person":{"id":2,"first_name":"Chiara ","last_name":"Militello ","full_name":"Militello, Chiara ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/13666461X","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Aristotle\u2019s Topics in the Greek Neoplatonic Commentaries on the Categories","main_title":{"title":"Aristotle\u2019s Topics in the Greek Neoplatonic Commentaries on the Categories"},"abstract":"This paper lists and examines the explicit references to Aristotle\u2019s Topics in the Greek Neoplatonic commentaries on the Categories. The references to the Topics by Porphyry, Dexippus, Ammonius, Simplicius, Olympiodorus, Philoponus and David (Elias) are listed according the usual prolegomena to Aristotle\u2019s works. In particular, the paper reconstructs David (Elias)\u2019s original thesis about the proponents of the title Pre-Topics for the Categories and compares Ammonius\u2019, Simplicius\u2019 and Olympiodorus\u2019 doxographies about the postpraedicamenta. Moreover, the study identifies two general trends. The first one is that all the commentators after Proclus share the same general view about: the authenticity of the Topics, Aristotle\u2019s writing style in them, the part of philosophy to which they belong, their purpose, their usefulness and their place in the reading order. The second one is that whereas Porphyry, Dexippus and Simplicius use the Topics as an aid to understanding the Categories, Ammonius, Olympiodorus and David (Elias) do not. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/62qOZqwQ9rtCf7S","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":2,"full_name":"Militello, Chiara ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1485,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"PEITHO \/ EXAMINA ANTIQUA","volume":"1","issue":"5","pages":"91-117"}},"sort":["Aristotle\u2019s Topics in the Greek Neoplatonic Commentaries on the Categories"]}

Aristotle’s “Now” and the Definition of Time: Method and Exegesis in Simplicius’ Interpretation of Physics IV.10, 2024
By: Thomas Seissl
Title Aristotle’s “Now” and the Definition of Time: Method and Exegesis in Simplicius’ Interpretation of Physics IV.10
Type Article
Language English
Date 2024
Journal History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis
Volume 26
Issue 2
Pages 366-386
Categories no categories
Author(s) Thomas Seissl
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Physics IV.10 (217b30–218a30) is pivotal in Aristotle’s discussion of time, preceding his own account from IV.11 onward. Aristotle presents three puzzles about the existence of time with reference to the “Now”. Modern interpretations often view this section as an aporetic prelude with Aristotle’s failure to provide explicit solutions. This paper examines Simplicius’ alternative interpretation, which draws upon the theory of proof and the syllogistic model from the Posterior Analytics. Simplicius contends that the arguments’ failure lies in their inability to fit within the suitable syllogistic framework to establish a demonstrable definition of time, not in their aporetic nature. Every science has to prove the relation between (i) establishing whether X exists and (ii) showing what X is by establishing what the cause of X is. In evaluating Simplicius’ interpretation, this paper addresses two key aspects of the exegesis of IV.10: firstly, Simplicius can show why the “Now” is not part of the definition of time, and secondly, the ancient commentator underscores the close connection between the arguments in Physics IV.10 and the broader context of Aristotle’s discussion of time. Modern interpreters fail to address both of these issues. [author's abstract]

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Augustin, «Confessions» 4, 16, 28-29, «Soliloques» 2, 20, 34-36 et les «Commentaires des catégories», 2001
By: Doucet, Dominique
Title Augustin, «Confessions» 4, 16, 28-29, «Soliloques» 2, 20, 34-36 et les «Commentaires des catégories»
Type Article
Language French
Date 2001
Journal Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica
Volume 93
Issue 3
Pages 372-392
Categories no categories
Author(s) Doucet, Dominique
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Au terme de cette étude montrant les points de consonance entre les thèmes développés dans les derniers paragraphes des Soliloques et les problématiques mises en œuvre dans les commentaires des Catégories, deux conclusions principales se présentent. Premièrement, l'antériorité des écrits d'Augustin sur la rédaction de la plus grande partie des commentaires des Catégories oblige à considérer un seul et même auteur ou une seule et même source, tant pour Augustin que pour les auteurs des commentaires ultérieurs. La place que reçoit le commentaire de Porphyre dans les autres commentaires et l'importance de cet auteur dans l'élaboration des schémas de pensée augustiniens conduisent naturellement à la conclusion que c'est dans une œuvre porphyrienne qu'Augustin a pu rencontrer l'essentiel de cette argumentation.

Il reste alors à tenter de déterminer laquelle. Le peu d'intérêt qu'Augustin accorde aux lectures des magistri eruditissimi qu'il évoque dans les Confessions semble écarter l'hypothèse qu'il garderait un vif souvenir des conversations de son adolescence. Autrement, il n'aurait pas oublié à ce point d'en mentionner l'importance, comme il le fait pour sa lecture de l'Hortensius et pour celle des libri platonicorum, qui eurent une influence déterminante sur l'évolution de sa pensée.

Il semble alors plus probable de considérer qu'Augustin a rencontré une argumentation identique à celle qui se trouve dans les commentaires ultérieurs des Catégories, celle de Porphyre en son propre commentaire, qu'Augustin a pu rencontrer soit dans un texte du dossier des libri platonicorum, soit inséré dans un autre écrit comme le De regressu animae ou encore le Zêtêma sur l'immortalité de l'âme, dont nous savons qu'il prit connaissance.

Il serait même tentant de considérer que la progression même des Soliloques suit en parallèle l'essentiel de la progression qui pourrait être celle du De regressu.

Cette hypothèse nous amène directement au second volet de cette conclusion. Si Augustin emprunte un certain nombre de thèmes à l'univers néoplatonicien et porphyrien, il ne manque pas de les transformer profondément. Nous avons déjà signalé, dans une lecture de Sol. 2, 18, 32, la manière dont Augustin reprend les degrés de la hiérarchie des êtres du néoplatonisme et la transforme en une hiérarchie des degrés du vrai. En effet, la hiérarchie de Marius Victorinus (uere sunt, quae sunt, non uere non sunt, uere non sunt) se retrouve en partie chez Augustin sous la forme : uere uerum (ueritas), uerum, tendit esse et non est.

Cette transformation de la hiérarchie des êtres en une hiérarchie des degrés du vrai s'explique assez bien par le projet même des Soliloques : connaître Dieu et l'âme, et par la démonstration de l'immortalité de l'âme qui s'y trouve. C'est par la présence en l'âme de l'immortelle Vérité que l'âme est assurée de son immortalité, et cette preuve, dans l'esprit d'Augustin, est supérieure à celle, classique, de l'auto-motricité de l'âme.

Dans les paragraphes 34 à 36 de la fin des Soliloques, c'est une semblable hiérarchie des degrés du vrai que nous rencontrons. Il est donc nécessaire sur ce point de conclure que tout en s'inspirant des thèmes néoplatoniciens et en particulier porphyriens, Augustin leur fait subir un déplacement notable et développe, plutôt qu'une ontologie, une métaphysique du vrai qui lui permet de connaître son âme, d'accéder à la certitude de son immortalité, et de progresser dans sa recherche de Dieu, recherche dont il résumera l'essentiel de la progression dans les Confessions et dont il dressera les harmoniques dans le De Trinitate. [conclusion p 390-392]

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Premi\u00e8rement, l'ant\u00e9riorit\u00e9 des \u00e9crits d'Augustin sur la r\u00e9daction de la plus grande partie des commentaires des Cat\u00e9gories oblige \u00e0 consid\u00e9rer un seul et m\u00eame auteur ou une seule et m\u00eame source, tant pour Augustin que pour les auteurs des commentaires ult\u00e9rieurs. La place que re\u00e7oit le commentaire de Porphyre dans les autres commentaires et l'importance de cet auteur dans l'\u00e9laboration des sch\u00e9mas de pens\u00e9e augustiniens conduisent naturellement \u00e0 la conclusion que c'est dans une \u0153uvre porphyrienne qu'Augustin a pu rencontrer l'essentiel de cette argumentation.\r\n\r\nIl reste alors \u00e0 tenter de d\u00e9terminer laquelle. Le peu d'int\u00e9r\u00eat qu'Augustin accorde aux lectures des magistri eruditissimi qu'il \u00e9voque dans les Confessions semble \u00e9carter l'hypoth\u00e8se qu'il garderait un vif souvenir des conversations de son adolescence. Autrement, il n'aurait pas oubli\u00e9 \u00e0 ce point d'en mentionner l'importance, comme il le fait pour sa lecture de l'Hortensius et pour celle des libri platonicorum, qui eurent une influence d\u00e9terminante sur l'\u00e9volution de sa pens\u00e9e.\r\n\r\nIl semble alors plus probable de consid\u00e9rer qu'Augustin a rencontr\u00e9 une argumentation identique \u00e0 celle qui se trouve dans les commentaires ult\u00e9rieurs des Cat\u00e9gories, celle de Porphyre en son propre commentaire, qu'Augustin a pu rencontrer soit dans un texte du dossier des libri platonicorum, soit ins\u00e9r\u00e9 dans un autre \u00e9crit comme le De regressu animae ou encore le Z\u00eat\u00eama sur l'immortalit\u00e9 de l'\u00e2me, dont nous savons qu'il prit connaissance.\r\n\r\nIl serait m\u00eame tentant de consid\u00e9rer que la progression m\u00eame des Soliloques suit en parall\u00e8le l'essentiel de la progression qui pourrait \u00eatre celle du De regressu.\r\n\r\nCette hypoth\u00e8se nous am\u00e8ne directement au second volet de cette conclusion. Si Augustin emprunte un certain nombre de th\u00e8mes \u00e0 l'univers n\u00e9oplatonicien et porphyrien, il ne manque pas de les transformer profond\u00e9ment. Nous avons d\u00e9j\u00e0 signal\u00e9, dans une lecture de Sol. 2, 18, 32, la mani\u00e8re dont Augustin reprend les degr\u00e9s de la hi\u00e9rarchie des \u00eatres du n\u00e9oplatonisme et la transforme en une hi\u00e9rarchie des degr\u00e9s du vrai. En effet, la hi\u00e9rarchie de Marius Victorinus (uere sunt, quae sunt, non uere non sunt, uere non sunt) se retrouve en partie chez Augustin sous la forme : uere uerum (ueritas), uerum, tendit esse et non est.\r\n\r\nCette transformation de la hi\u00e9rarchie des \u00eatres en une hi\u00e9rarchie des degr\u00e9s du vrai s'explique assez bien par le projet m\u00eame des Soliloques : conna\u00eetre Dieu et l'\u00e2me, et par la d\u00e9monstration de l'immortalit\u00e9 de l'\u00e2me qui s'y trouve. C'est par la pr\u00e9sence en l'\u00e2me de l'immortelle V\u00e9rit\u00e9 que l'\u00e2me est assur\u00e9e de son immortalit\u00e9, et cette preuve, dans l'esprit d'Augustin, est sup\u00e9rieure \u00e0 celle, classique, de l'auto-motricit\u00e9 de l'\u00e2me.\r\n\r\nDans les paragraphes 34 \u00e0 36 de la fin des Soliloques, c'est une semblable hi\u00e9rarchie des degr\u00e9s du vrai que nous rencontrons. Il est donc n\u00e9cessaire sur ce point de conclure que tout en s'inspirant des th\u00e8mes n\u00e9oplatoniciens et en particulier porphyriens, Augustin leur fait subir un d\u00e9placement notable et d\u00e9veloppe, plut\u00f4t qu'une ontologie, une m\u00e9taphysique du vrai qui lui permet de conna\u00eetre son \u00e2me, d'acc\u00e9der \u00e0 la certitude de son immortalit\u00e9, et de progresser dans sa recherche de Dieu, recherche dont il r\u00e9sumera l'essentiel de la progression dans les Confessions et dont il dressera les harmoniques dans le De Trinitate. [conclusion p 390-392]","btype":3,"date":"2001","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/ilXNYhEQOhMEPLW","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":70,"full_name":"Doucet, Dominique ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":600,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica","volume":"93","issue":"3","pages":"372-392"}},"sort":["Augustin, \u00abConfessions\u00bb 4, 16, 28-29, \u00abSoliloques\u00bb 2, 20, 34-36 et les \u00abCommentaires des cat\u00e9gories\u00bb"]}

Book Review: Ivan A. Licciardi (2017). Critica dell’apparente e critica apparente. Simplicio interprete di Parmenide nel Commentario al de Caelo di Aristotele, Saggio introduttivo, raccolta dei testi, traduzione e commentario (Symbolon 44). Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag. , 2020
By: Manfred Kraus
Title Book Review: Ivan A. Licciardi (2017). Critica dell’apparente e critica apparente. Simplicio interprete di Parmenide nel Commentario al de Caelo di Aristotele, Saggio introduttivo, raccolta dei testi, traduzione e commentario (Symbolon 44). Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag.
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2020
Journal Elenchos
Volume 41
Issue 1
Pages 201-207
Categories no categories
Author(s) Manfred Kraus
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
È fuori d ’ogni dubbio che i commentari di Simplicio alla Fisica e al De Caelo di
Aristotele siano d’importanza primaria per la nostra conoscenza della filosofia
di Parmenide, come anche –ed anzitutto –per la trasmissione di una gran
parte dei frammenti. Nell’anno 2016 Ivan Licciardi ha pubblicato il suo libro
intitolato Parmenide tràdito, Parmenide tradìto, in cui ha dedicato la sua
analisi al commentario alla Fisica. Solo un anno dopo, Licciardi ha completato
questo primo studio con un altro libro, anch’esso con un titolo provocante: 
Critica dell’apparente e critica apparente, dedicato al commentario al De Caelo.
Ambedue i libri sono strettamente legati l’uno all’altro. Nella premessa,
l’Autore dice che quando ha pubblicato il primo libro aveva già raccolto quasi 
tutti i materiali per il secondo. Ha deciso, tuttavia, di pubblicarli in due volumi
separati, da un lato per ragioni di quantità (perché un solo libro avrebbe
superato le mille pagine), ma anche per una ragione scientifica sostanziale, e
cioè perché nei due commentari, secondo Licciardi, Simplicio contempla il
pensiero parmenideo da prospettive diverse. Mentre nel commentario alla
Fisica l’interpretazione è incentrata sul rapporto fra l’essere e l’uno, nell’altro
commentario, invece, il Commentatore si occupa del rapporto fra essere sen-
sibile ed essere intelligibile e quindi del problema della generazione e del
divenire. [Introduction]

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Book review: Simplicius on Aristotle Physics 8.1-5, written by Istvan Bodnár, Michael Chase and Michael Share, 2015
By: Hatzistavrou, Antony
Title Book review: Simplicius on Aristotle Physics 8.1-5, written by Istvan Bodnár, Michael Chase and Michael Share
Type Article
Language English
Date 2015
Journal The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 9
Issue 1
Pages 124 –125
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hatzistavrou, Antony
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This is a fine addition to the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, which is under the general editorship of Richard Sorabji. The volume contains a translation of Simplicius’ commentary on the first five chapters of the eighth book of Aristotle’s Physics. The translators are Michael Chase (who has been involved in the translation of most of the chapters), Istvan Bodnár, and Michael Slate. The translation is accompanied by a series of notes. Some of the notes identify the ancient texts Simplicius refers to in his commentary, while others are primarily of philological interest. There is also a number of exegetical notes that are particularly useful in helping the reader understand the logic of Simplicius’ arguments and in elucidating the conceptual apparatus of his commentary. The volume also includes:

    A preface by Richard Sorabji, which explains the importance of the commentary for scholarship on the ancient commentators on Aristotle.
    An introduction by Michael Chase, which focuses on Simplicius’ polemic against Philoponus.
    A list of departures of the translation from Diels’ edition of Simplicius’ commentary.
    An English-Greek glossary.
    A Greek-English index.
    A subject index.
    A bibliography.

The volume is clearly designed with the needs of the specialist scholar in mind and aims to become the primary reference text in English for the study of Simplicius’ commentary.

Where does the importance of Simplicius’ commentary lie? It is instructive that both Sorabji, in his preface, and Chase, in his introduction, focus on its importance for the history of philosophy in late antiquity. First, it sheds light on an aspect of the philosophical and ideological debate between pagan and Christian thinkers at the end of antiquity concerning the intelligibility of the creation of the world. In Physics 8.1, Aristotle argues that time and motion are eternal. For any arbitrarily chosen moment in time or motion in space, one will always be able to identify a preceding and a subsequent moment or motion. This means that the world as a whole is eternal. Philoponus understood Aristotle’s arguments for the eternity of the universe to pose problems for a creationist account of the world, as advocated by the Judeo-Christian religion. In his polemic Against Aristotle On the Eternity of the World, Philoponus undertakes the task of defending a creationist account of the world by attacking Aristotle’s arguments for the eternity of motion and time.

In his commentary, Simplicius attacks Philoponus, accusing him, among other things, of failing to understand and thus misrepresenting Aristotle’s position. A primary aim of his commentary on Physics 8.1 is, on the one hand, to identify and correct what he takes to be Philoponus’ distortions of Aristotle’s arguments and, on the other hand, to vindicate the cogency of Aristotle’s theory against Philoponus’ polemic. Simplicius makes no attempt to conceal his disdain for Philoponus’ scholarly abilities and intellectual integrity, describing his arguments as "garbage" and accusing him of being motivated by his "zeal for contradicting." In his introduction, Michael Chase clarifies that Simplicius’ attack is not restricted to issues concerning the proper interpretation of Aristotle’s theory but has a wider scope. It is meant as an attack on Philoponus’ Christian faith. In this attack, Simplicius occasionally reveals himself to be conversant with intricate Christian theological debates, such as the debate concerning the nature of Christ (i.e., whether Christ was begotten or made).

Second, as Richard Sorabji mentions in his preface, Simplicius’ commentary reports and makes extensive use of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ lost commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. On Sorabji’s view, Simplicius, on the whole, reports Alexander’s views accurately. Furthermore, despite occasional disagreements about the interpretation of Aristotle’s philosophy, Simplicius shows respect for Alexander’s abilities as a commentator and values his intellectual integrity. Simplicius’ attitude towards Alexander is thus sharply contrasted with his attitude towards Philoponus.

Scholars interested in the debate between pagan and Christian philosophers at the end of antiquity and in the history of the ancient commentators on Aristotle will welcome the translation into English of Simplicius’ commentary. They may also find much material in the notes to the translation to grapple with. The volume will also appeal to anyone interested in Aristotle’s natural philosophy and, more specifically, in Aristotle’s views about the eternity of the world and the prime mover. The detailed English-Greek glossary and the indices make the volume a significant research tool likely to become a reference point in relevant scholarship. In addition, the volume is nicely produced. [the entire review]

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The volume contains a translation of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on the first five chapters of the eighth book of Aristotle\u2019s Physics. The translators are Michael Chase (who has been involved in the translation of most of the chapters), Istvan Bodn\u00e1r, and Michael Slate. The translation is accompanied by a series of notes. Some of the notes identify the ancient texts Simplicius refers to in his commentary, while others are primarily of philological interest. There is also a number of exegetical notes that are particularly useful in helping the reader understand the logic of Simplicius\u2019 arguments and in elucidating the conceptual apparatus of his commentary. The volume also includes:\r\n\r\n A preface by Richard Sorabji, which explains the importance of the commentary for scholarship on the ancient commentators on Aristotle.\r\n An introduction by Michael Chase, which focuses on Simplicius\u2019 polemic against Philoponus.\r\n A list of departures of the translation from Diels\u2019 edition of Simplicius\u2019 commentary.\r\n An English-Greek glossary.\r\n A Greek-English index.\r\n A subject index.\r\n A bibliography.\r\n\r\nThe volume is clearly designed with the needs of the specialist scholar in mind and aims to become the primary reference text in English for the study of Simplicius\u2019 commentary.\r\n\r\nWhere does the importance of Simplicius\u2019 commentary lie? It is instructive that both Sorabji, in his preface, and Chase, in his introduction, focus on its importance for the history of philosophy in late antiquity. First, it sheds light on an aspect of the philosophical and ideological debate between pagan and Christian thinkers at the end of antiquity concerning the intelligibility of the creation of the world. In Physics 8.1, Aristotle argues that time and motion are eternal. For any arbitrarily chosen moment in time or motion in space, one will always be able to identify a preceding and a subsequent moment or motion. This means that the world as a whole is eternal. Philoponus understood Aristotle\u2019s arguments for the eternity of the universe to pose problems for a creationist account of the world, as advocated by the Judeo-Christian religion. In his polemic Against Aristotle On the Eternity of the World, Philoponus undertakes the task of defending a creationist account of the world by attacking Aristotle\u2019s arguments for the eternity of motion and time.\r\n\r\nIn his commentary, Simplicius attacks Philoponus, accusing him, among other things, of failing to understand and thus misrepresenting Aristotle\u2019s position. A primary aim of his commentary on Physics 8.1 is, on the one hand, to identify and correct what he takes to be Philoponus\u2019 distortions of Aristotle\u2019s arguments and, on the other hand, to vindicate the cogency of Aristotle\u2019s theory against Philoponus\u2019 polemic. Simplicius makes no attempt to conceal his disdain for Philoponus\u2019 scholarly abilities and intellectual integrity, describing his arguments as \"garbage\" and accusing him of being motivated by his \"zeal for contradicting.\" In his introduction, Michael Chase clarifies that Simplicius\u2019 attack is not restricted to issues concerning the proper interpretation of Aristotle\u2019s theory but has a wider scope. It is meant as an attack on Philoponus\u2019 Christian faith. In this attack, Simplicius occasionally reveals himself to be conversant with intricate Christian theological debates, such as the debate concerning the nature of Christ (i.e., whether Christ was begotten or made).\r\n\r\nSecond, as Richard Sorabji mentions in his preface, Simplicius\u2019 commentary reports and makes extensive use of Alexander of Aphrodisias\u2019 lost commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics. On Sorabji\u2019s view, Simplicius, on the whole, reports Alexander\u2019s views accurately. Furthermore, despite occasional disagreements about the interpretation of Aristotle\u2019s philosophy, Simplicius shows respect for Alexander\u2019s abilities as a commentator and values his intellectual integrity. Simplicius\u2019 attitude towards Alexander is thus sharply contrasted with his attitude towards Philoponus.\r\n\r\nScholars interested in the debate between pagan and Christian philosophers at the end of antiquity and in the history of the ancient commentators on Aristotle will welcome the translation into English of Simplicius\u2019 commentary. They may also find much material in the notes to the translation to grapple with. The volume will also appeal to anyone interested in Aristotle\u2019s natural philosophy and, more specifically, in Aristotle\u2019s views about the eternity of the world and the prime mover. The detailed English-Greek glossary and the indices make the volume a significant research tool likely to become a reference point in relevant scholarship. In addition, the volume is nicely produced. [the entire review]","btype":3,"date":"2015","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/um5b6staCmgDtbZ","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":173,"full_name":"Hatzistavrou, Antony","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1014,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition","volume":"9","issue":"1","pages":"124 \u2013125"}},"sort":["Book review: Simplicius on Aristotle Physics 8.1-5, written by Istvan Bodn\u00e1r, Michael Chase and Michael Share"]}

Boéthos de Sidon sur les relatifs, 2013
By: Luna, Concetta
Title Boéthos de Sidon sur les relatifs
Type Article
Language French
Date 2013
Journal Studia greaco-arabica
Volume 3
Pages 1-35
Categories no categories
Author(s) Luna, Concetta
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The Peripatetic philosopher Boethus of Sidon (mid-first century BC), a pupil of Andronicus of Rhodes, is well-known for his commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, whose fragments are transmitted by later commentators together with testimonia about it. In his exegesis of the Categories, Boethus especially focused on the category of relation (Cat. 7), on which he wrote a speci!c treatise, arguing against the Stoics for the unity of the category of relation. The present paper o"ers a translation and analysis of Boethus’ fragments on relation, all of which are preserved in Simplicius’ commentary on the Categories. [Author's abstract]

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Categories and Subcategories, 2014
By: Tegtmeier, Erwin
Title Categories and Subcategories
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Anuario Filosófico
Volume 47
Issue 2
Pages 395-411
Categories no categories
Author(s) Tegtmeier, Erwin
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Starting from the traditional distinction between the minimal and the maximal division, the role of subcategories in Aristotle, as well as that of the highest categories, is discussed. The need for categorial properties which determine categories is pointed out. It is argued that an existent cannot have two such essential properties and that only the lowest subcategories have simple categorial properties. Furthermore, it is emphasised that categories and subcategories must form a tree because they belong to a theory of categories which requires unity. By contrast, it is held that the hierarchy of all concepts need not form a tree. The difficulties Porphyrius and Simplicius find in Aristotle’s minimal and maximal division are analysed. Finally, Aristotle’s way of avoiding categorial properties by referring to an abstraction is criticised. [Author's abstract]

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Collation but not contamination: On some textual problems of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Kappa 1065a 25sqq, 2015
By: Golitsis, Pantelis
Title Collation but not contamination: On some textual problems of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Kappa 1065a 25sqq
Type Article
Language English
Date 2015
Journal Revue d’histoire des textes, nouvelle série
Volume 10
Pages 1-23
Categories no categories
Author(s) Golitsis, Pantelis
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
One of the less felicitous terms in textual criticism, despite its being amply used in modern scholarship, is the term « contamination » (Kontamination), which Paul Maas first coined in his famous Textkritik.  By modern-day standards the term is supposed to account, roughly, for two phenomena : (1) the phenomenon of having variant readings in margine or inter lineas of a text, which is an obvious sign that, next to the principal model, at least one other manuscript has been at some point involved in the copying of the text ; (2) the more complicated phenomenon of detecting in the body of the text readings that are not expected to be found there. What we detect in (2) is in principle the result of what has happened in (1). Any scholar acquainted with Byzantine manuscripts produced from the ninth century down to the Fall of Constantinople should know that cases like those described above were frequent in Byzantium’s Buchwesen, provided that an adequately circulating text was concerned. As Byzantine scribes and scholars mostly worked and studied in significant libraries that owned several copies of the same text, the idea of comparing them in order to verify dubious readings and to produce a more satisfying text would naturally occur to their mind. Scribes and scholars in Byzantium were well aware that material damages and copyist errors could happen. And as we nowadays do, they tried to counter such textual problems by collating different manuscripts – not by contaminating them. If we leave aside copies made purely for commercial purposes, we can reasonably say that collation of at least two manuscripts before producing a new copy of a text was something of a rule in Byzantium. I shall henceforth call this rule « the principle of collation » ; it can be formulated like this : « Unless otherwise proved, each Byzantine copy of an adequately circulating text is the product of 
collation of at least two different manuscripts. » [introduction]

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Commentary on Gabor: The Authorship of the Pseudo-Simplician Neoplatonic Commentary on the De Anima, 2020
By: Miller, Dana R.
Title Commentary on Gabor: The Authorship of the Pseudo-Simplician Neoplatonic Commentary on the De Anima
Type Article
Language English
Date 2020
Journal Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy
Volume 35
Issue 2
Pages 23-27
Categories no categories
Author(s) Miller, Dana R.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper gives a brief discussion of the problem of ascribing authorship to ancient philosophical texts when there is evidence both for and against traditional ascription. The case in point is tradition’s claim that Simplicius is the author of the De Anima commentary. It is argued here that, while Gabor provides new and important methodological evidence for Simplicius’s authorship, we should not expect certainty. It is suggested that, in cases where historical fact may never be ascertained, we will be better served by the notion of credences. [author's abstract]

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Confronter les Idées. Un exemple de conciliation litigieuse chez Simplicius, 2011
By: Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Title Confronter les Idées. Un exemple de conciliation litigieuse chez Simplicius
Type Article
Language French
Date 2011
Journal Études platoniciennes
Volume 8
Pages 145-160
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Dans ce lemme, Simplicius n’emploie pas la méthode à laquelle il recourt habituellement pour concilier des doctrines. Entre Aristote et Platon, le problème ne provient pas d’une différence d'expression (lexis), derrière laquelle le sens fondamental (nous) serait identique. Chacun ne parle pas d’un problème semblable en des termes différents, pas plus que chacun ne traite d’une question différente mais en recourant à des termes similaires. Sans être formulée ici par Simplicius de façon explicite, la divergence apparaît à la première lecture : lorsqu’Aristote s’en prend à la doctrine des Idées, il ne peut pas, d’une certaine façon, viser le divin Platon, qui fut le premier à la soutenir. D’emblée, Simplicius élude le problème en redirigeant l’attaque contre d’autres adversaires. Concilier impose en effet de comprendre tout d’abord la véritable cible de l’objection, avant qu’il devienne possible d’en mesurer l’apport à l’égard de la doctrine générale des Idées.

La conciliation des doctrines au cœur de l’exégèse d’Aristote suit un parcours précis. Dans un premier temps, Simplicius propose une lecture littérale de la Physique, expliquant chacun des arguments contenus dans le lemme. Toutefois, de façon surprenante pour nous, il souligne une tournure qui va lui permettre de retourner la position d’Aristote contre elle-même : en faire non plus un adversaire de la théorie des Idées séparées, mais l’auteur d’un critère de validité de la séparation. Dans un deuxième temps, notre exégète s’emploie à montrer la teneur authentiquement aristotélicienne de cette doctrine des Idées séparées. Il isole d’abord les caractères reconnus aux Idées, avant de démontrer qu’ils sont admis au sein même de la pensée d’Aristote. De plus, étant donné que l’enjeu de la tentative de conciliation consiste à trouver chez Aristote la double caractérisation des Idées que leur attribuent leurs partisans – être à la fois des causes et des modèles semblables pour les réalités naturelles –, il répertorie les passages du corpus aristotelicum qui abondent dans ce sens, les combine et insère des éléments provenant de la tradition néoplatonicienne. Enfin, il utilise la critique pour poser une limite claire au sein de la nature entre les réalités qui admettent des Formes séparées et celles qui n’en admettent pas.

Comme souvent chez Simplicius, l’examen aboutit à l’énoncé d’un critère net et précis. Il doit permettre ici de démarquer l’homonymie vulgaire des Idées de l’éponymie légitime. La première résulte d’un dépouillement de la forme en dehors de la matière, mais qui continue à raisonner à partir d’ici-bas : elle cherche des Idées séparées pour des formes naturelles qui ne peuvent jamais être complètement abstraites de la matière à laquelle elles sont liées. La seconde reconnaît que certains noms sont propres aux composés ici-bas et, par conséquent, ne correspondent à aucune réalité là-bas. En revanche, elle pose des Idées, à la fois causes et modèles des composés ici-bas, qui possèdent une subsistance séparée.

Si le travail exégétique de Simplicius ne brille pas toujours par son génie philosophique, il s’emploie à chercher des solutions à certains des problèmes les plus complexes de la tradition platonicienne. Comme souvent, la solution qu’il propose, en dépit du bricolage doctrinal sur lequel elle se fonde, lève la difficulté d’une façon nette et précise. Il offre une nouvelle fois aux commentateurs que nous sommes une leçon à méditer. [conclusion p. 159-160]

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Entre Aristote et Platon, le probl\u00e8me ne provient pas d\u2019une diff\u00e9rence d'expression (lexis), derri\u00e8re laquelle le sens fondamental (nous) serait identique. Chacun ne parle pas d\u2019un probl\u00e8me semblable en des termes diff\u00e9rents, pas plus que chacun ne traite d\u2019une question diff\u00e9rente mais en recourant \u00e0 des termes similaires. Sans \u00eatre formul\u00e9e ici par Simplicius de fa\u00e7on explicite, la divergence appara\u00eet \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re lecture : lorsqu\u2019Aristote s\u2019en prend \u00e0 la doctrine des Id\u00e9es, il ne peut pas, d\u2019une certaine fa\u00e7on, viser le divin Platon, qui fut le premier \u00e0 la soutenir. D\u2019embl\u00e9e, Simplicius \u00e9lude le probl\u00e8me en redirigeant l\u2019attaque contre d\u2019autres adversaires. Concilier impose en effet de comprendre tout d\u2019abord la v\u00e9ritable cible de l\u2019objection, avant qu\u2019il devienne possible d\u2019en mesurer l\u2019apport \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9gard de la doctrine g\u00e9n\u00e9rale des Id\u00e9es.\r\n\r\nLa conciliation des doctrines au c\u0153ur de l\u2019ex\u00e9g\u00e8se d\u2019Aristote suit un parcours pr\u00e9cis. Dans un premier temps, Simplicius propose une lecture litt\u00e9rale de la Physique, expliquant chacun des arguments contenus dans le lemme. Toutefois, de fa\u00e7on surprenante pour nous, il souligne une tournure qui va lui permettre de retourner la position d\u2019Aristote contre elle-m\u00eame : en faire non plus un adversaire de la th\u00e9orie des Id\u00e9es s\u00e9par\u00e9es, mais l\u2019auteur d\u2019un crit\u00e8re de validit\u00e9 de la s\u00e9paration. Dans un deuxi\u00e8me temps, notre ex\u00e9g\u00e8te s\u2019emploie \u00e0 montrer la teneur authentiquement aristot\u00e9licienne de cette doctrine des Id\u00e9es s\u00e9par\u00e9es. Il isole d\u2019abord les caract\u00e8res reconnus aux Id\u00e9es, avant de d\u00e9montrer qu\u2019ils sont admis au sein m\u00eame de la pens\u00e9e d\u2019Aristote. De plus, \u00e9tant donn\u00e9 que l\u2019enjeu de la tentative de conciliation consiste \u00e0 trouver chez Aristote la double caract\u00e9risation des Id\u00e9es que leur attribuent leurs partisans \u2013 \u00eatre \u00e0 la fois des causes et des mod\u00e8les semblables pour les r\u00e9alit\u00e9s naturelles \u2013, il r\u00e9pertorie les passages du corpus aristotelicum qui abondent dans ce sens, les combine et ins\u00e8re des \u00e9l\u00e9ments provenant de la tradition n\u00e9oplatonicienne. Enfin, il utilise la critique pour poser une limite claire au sein de la nature entre les r\u00e9alit\u00e9s qui admettent des Formes s\u00e9par\u00e9es et celles qui n\u2019en admettent pas.\r\n\r\nComme souvent chez Simplicius, l\u2019examen aboutit \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9nonc\u00e9 d\u2019un crit\u00e8re net et pr\u00e9cis. Il doit permettre ici de d\u00e9marquer l\u2019homonymie vulgaire des Id\u00e9es de l\u2019\u00e9ponymie l\u00e9gitime. La premi\u00e8re r\u00e9sulte d\u2019un d\u00e9pouillement de la forme en dehors de la mati\u00e8re, mais qui continue \u00e0 raisonner \u00e0 partir d\u2019ici-bas : elle cherche des Id\u00e9es s\u00e9par\u00e9es pour des formes naturelles qui ne peuvent jamais \u00eatre compl\u00e8tement abstraites de la mati\u00e8re \u00e0 laquelle elles sont li\u00e9es. La seconde reconna\u00eet que certains noms sont propres aux compos\u00e9s ici-bas et, par cons\u00e9quent, ne correspondent \u00e0 aucune r\u00e9alit\u00e9 l\u00e0-bas. En revanche, elle pose des Id\u00e9es, \u00e0 la fois causes et mod\u00e8les des compos\u00e9s ici-bas, qui poss\u00e8dent une subsistance s\u00e9par\u00e9e.\r\n\r\nSi le travail ex\u00e9g\u00e9tique de Simplicius ne brille pas toujours par son g\u00e9nie philosophique, il s\u2019emploie \u00e0 chercher des solutions \u00e0 certains des probl\u00e8mes les plus complexes de la tradition platonicienne. Comme souvent, la solution qu\u2019il propose, en d\u00e9pit du bricolage doctrinal sur lequel elle se fonde, l\u00e8ve la difficult\u00e9 d\u2019une fa\u00e7on nette et pr\u00e9cise. Il offre une nouvelle fois aux commentateurs que nous sommes une le\u00e7on \u00e0 m\u00e9diter. [conclusion p. 159-160]","btype":3,"date":"2011","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/ihW4uaycr2RFg3O","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":125,"full_name":"Gavray, Marc-Antoine","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1313,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"\u00c9tudes platoniciennes","volume":"8","issue":"","pages":"145-160"}},"sort":["Confronter les Id\u00e9es. Un exemple de conciliation litigieuse chez Simplicius"]}

Copernicus's Doctrine of Gravity and the Natural Circular Motion of the Elements, 2005
By: Knox, Dilwyn
Title Copernicus's Doctrine of Gravity and the Natural Circular Motion of the Elements
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
Volume 68
Pages 157-211
Categories no categories
Author(s) Knox, Dilwyn
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
What do these ideas tell us about Copernicus the philosopher? He drew on Stoic and, perhaps unknowingly at times, Platonic doctrines of the elements, but he avoided their metaphysical implications. There would have been little point, even if he had been so inclined, in compromising his heliocentric hypothesis, contentious as he knew it was, with suspect doctrines of, say, spiritus and cosmic animation. For three centuries, scholastic theologians and philosophers, despite Aristotle's statements to the contrary, had done their best to de-animate the heavens.

Nor, for the same reason, should we think that Neoplatonic sun symbolism was important to him. His brief references to sun symbolism and Hermes Trismegistus take up no more than five or so lines and derive mostly from standard classical sources, including Pliny in a passage immediately following the latter's discussion of gravity. The main problem facing Copernicus was to make the earth move, not to explain why the sun stood at the center.

He also consulted doxographical works explaining the many and divergent views of ancient thinkers, for instance, pseudo-Plutarch's Placita philosophorum, Bessarion's In calumniatorem Platonis, and Giorgio Valla's De expetendis. He consulted classical Latin authors like Pliny and Cicero, who, through the endeavors of Renaissance humanists and the agency of the printing press, had become better known during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. His extensive use of Pliny's Natural History, Book II, exemplifies the way in which the latter became a popular source for alternatives to Aristotelian or scholastic natural philosophy during the sixteenth century.

The greatest debt, in other words, that Copernicus the cosmologist owed was not to Renaissance Platonism or a revamped Aristotelianism. It was rather to the variety of ancient learning promoted by Renaissance humanists during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To them he owed not just the wherewithal and encouragement to consult a much wider library of classical authors than his scholastic predecessors were wont to do but also the intellectual flexibility to regard his sources as no more than that—sources for ideas rather than authorities.

In this, Copernicus was typical of many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century "scientific" thinkers, Galileo included. But Renaissance humanism left its mark in another important respect. Copernicus set himself the task of learning Greek, and this provided him, if the evidence above is to be trusted, with one of his most important cosmological doctrines. [conclusion p. 210-211]

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Cosmología, cosmogonía y teogonía en el poema de Parménides, 2010
By: Bredlow, Luis-Andrés
Title Cosmología, cosmogonía y teogonía en el poema de Parménides
Type Article
Language Spanish
Date 2010
Journal Emerita: Revista de Lingüística y Filología Clasíca
Volume 78
Issue 2
Pages 275-297
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bredlow, Luis-Andrés
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The aim of this paper is to offer a fresh reconstruction of Parmenides’ system of the physical world, duly distinguishing the cosmological, cosmogonic and theogonic moments of the theory, whose confusion has been a main source of misunderstanding in earlier interpretations. In particular, the system of wreaths or bands of B 12 and A 37 does not represent the present order of the universe, but the general structure of matter, as well as the initial stage of the cosmogony (section 1), as can be substantiated also from Simplicius’ reading of the fragments (section 2). This distinction will allow a tentative reconstruction of Parmenides’ cosmogony (section 3) and cosmology, whose most striking feature is the position of the fixed stars below the sun and the moon, paralleled in Anaximander and – as I will try to show – in the cosmology of the orphic Derveni Papyrus (section 4). [author's abstract]

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De Simplicius À Ḥunayn: La Transmission d'Une Doxographie Dans Les Résumés au Traité Sur Les Éléments de Galien, 2023
By: Mathilde Brémond
Title De Simplicius À Ḥunayn: La Transmission d'Une Doxographie Dans Les Résumés au Traité Sur Les Éléments de Galien
Type Article
Language French
Date 2023
Journal Arabic Sciences and Philosophy
Volume 33
Issue 1
Pages 1-23
Categories no categories
Author(s) Mathilde Brémond
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper examines two doxographies present in Ḥunayn’s summaries to Galen’s treatise On the Elements. We track the origin of these doxographies back, from Greek scolia to Galen’s treatise to Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, which we show to be the ultimate source. We also point out that Simplicius’ Commentary inspired an interpretation of Parmenides and Melissus that we find in Ḥunayn’s texts. This allows us to see remnants of Simplicius’ Commentary in the Arabic world and to shed some light on the production of these summaries to Galen’s work called Summaria Alexandrinorum. [author's abstract]

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Defending Alexander of Aphrodisias in the Age of the Counter-Reformation: Iacopo Zabarella on the Mortality of the Soul according to Aristotle, 2009
By: Branko Mitrovic
Title Defending Alexander of Aphrodisias in the Age of the Counter-Reformation: Iacopo Zabarella on the Mortality of the Soul according to Aristotle
Type Article
Language English
Date 2009
Journal Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie
Volume 91
Issue 3
Pages 330-354
Categories no categories
Author(s) Branko Mitrovic
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The work of the Paduan Aristotelian philosopher Iacopo Zabarella (1533–
1589) has attracted the attention of historians of philosophy mainly for his contributions to logic, scientific methodology and because of his possible influence on Galileo.
At the same time, Zabarella’s views on Aristotelian psychology have been little studied so far; even those historians of Renaissance philosophy who have discussed them, have based their analysis mainly on the psychological essays included in Zabarella’s De rebus naturalibus, but have avoided Zabarella’s commentary on Aristotle’s De anima. This has led to an inaccurate, but widespread, understanding of Zabarella’s views. The intention of this article is to provide a systematic analysis of Zabarella’s arguments about the (im)mortality of the soul in the context of Aristotelian psychology. Zabarella’s view that the soul is mortal according to Aristotle is remarkable for his time, while his elaboration of this position is far more comprehensive than that of Pietro Pomponazzi, the other significant Renaissance thinker who shared the same view. [author's abstract]

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Der philosophische Unterrichtsbetrieb in der römischen Kaiserzeit, 2003
By: Hadot, Ilsetraut
Title Der philosophische Unterrichtsbetrieb in der römischen Kaiserzeit
Type Article
Language German
Date 2003
Journal Rhein. Museum
Volume 146
Issue 1
Pages 49–71
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hadot, Ilsetraut
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Der Text beschreibt den Zustand des philosophischen Unterrichts während der römischen Kaiserzeit. Obwohl die bekannten Philosophenschulen in Athen nicht mehr existierten, hatten die vier philosophischen Richtungen des Hellenismus dennoch Verbreitung gefunden und wurden in privaten Schulen unterrichtet. Diese Schulen waren jedoch meist kurzlebig und hingen vom Erfolg des Lehrers ab. Philosophie wurde an den griechischen Gymnasien nicht gelehrt, stattdessen konzentrierte man sich auf Grammatik und Rhetorik. Im lateinischen Bereich führten enge Beziehungen führender Römer zu stoischen Philosophen zur Verbreitung der Lehren. Der Philosophieunterricht begann meist erst nach der Pubertät, und das Alter spielte eine wichtige Rolle bei der Seelenleitung. Das Greisenalter wurde als optimal angesehen, da der körperliche Verfall der freien Betätigung des Geistes entgegenkomme. Das Bild des philosophischen Unterrichtsbetriebes in der Kaiserzeit war somit sehr komplex. [introduction/conclusion]

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Did Plotinus and Porphyry Disagree on Aristotle's "Categories"?, 2001
By: Haas, Frans A. J. de
Title Did Plotinus and Porphyry Disagree on Aristotle's "Categories"?
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Phronesis
Volume 46
Issue 4
Pages 492-526
Categories no categories
Author(s) Haas, Frans A. J. de
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this paper I propose a reading of Plotinus Enneads VI.1-3 [41-43] On the genera of being which regards this treatise as a coherent whole in which Aristotle's Categories is explored in a way that turns it into a decisive contribution to Plotinus' Platonic ontology. In addition, I claim that Porphyry's Isagoge and commentaries on the Categories start by adopting Plotinus' point of view, including his notion of genus, and proceed by explaining its consequences for a more detailed reading of the Categories. After Plotinus' integration of the Categories into the Platonic frame of thought Porphyry saw the possibilities of exploiting the Peripatetic tradition both as a means to support the Platonic interpretation of the Categories and as a source for solutions to traditional questions. His allegiance to a division of being into ten, and his emphasis on semantics rather than ontology can be explained from this orientation. In the light of our investigation the alleged disagreement between Plotinus and Porphyry on the Categories changes its appearance completely. There are differences, but these can be best explained as confirmation and extension of Plotinus' perspective on the Categories and its role in Platonism. [Author’s abstract]

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Did Theophrastus Reject Aristotle's Account of Place?, 2010
By: Morison, Benjamin
Title Did Theophrastus Reject Aristotle's Account of Place?
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal Phronesis
Volume 55
Issue 1
Pages 68-103
Categories no categories
Author(s) Morison, Benjamin
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
It is commonly held that Theophrastus criticized or rejected Aristotle's account of place. The evidence that scholars put forward for this view, from Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics, comes in two parts: (1) Simplicius reports some aporiai that Theophras tus found for Aristotle's account; (2) Simplicius cites a passage of Theophrastus which is said to 'bear witness' to the theory of place which Simplicius himself adopts (that of his teacher Damascius) - a theory which is utterly different from Aristotle's. But the aporiai have relatively straightforward solutions, and we have no  reason to suppose that Theophras tus didn't avail himself of  them (and some reason to think that he did). Moreover, the text which Simplicius cites as bearing witness to Damascius' view on closer inspection does not seem to be inconsistent with Aristotle's account of place or natural motion. [author's abstract]

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Die philosophischen Kommentare aus der Antike. Ein Überblick mit ausgewählten Literaturangaben, 2007
By: Perkams, Matthias
Title Die philosophischen Kommentare aus der Antike. Ein Überblick mit ausgewählten Literaturangaben
Type Article
Language German
Date 2007
Journal Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie
Volume 32
Issue 1
Pages 51-79
Categories no categories
Author(s) Perkams, Matthias
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Ein typisches Beispiel für einen systematisch anspruchsvoll argumentierenden Kommentar, auf den viele der hier genannten Merkmale zutreffen, ist der De anima-Kommentar des Neuplatonikers Priskian von Lydien, eines Zeitgenossen und Bekannten des Damaskios und Simplikios um 530. Der Autor setzt es sich zu Beginn seines Kommentars ausdrücklich zum Ziel, sich bei der Auslegung des aristotelischen Textes und der Klärung der hierbei bestehenden Zweifel nach Möglichkeit an die sachliche Wahrheit (alētheia tōn pragmatōn) zu halten. Dabei will er diese nicht einfach aus dem Text ableiten, sondern orientiert sich bewusst an der Seelenlehre Jamblichs (3. Jh.), des eigentlichen Begründers des spätneuplatonischen Systems (1, 18–20).

Diese Zugangsweise stellt den Kommentator freilich vor schwierige inhaltliche Probleme: Zum einen gilt es, Aristoteles’ Seelenlehre richtig zu verstehen, die davon ausgeht, dass die Seele schlichtweg das Lebensprinzip des menschlichen Körpers und eben dadurch definiert ist. Andererseits muss Priskian den Intentionen Jamblichs gerecht werden, dessen Neuplatonismus der Transzendenz auch des menschlichen Geistes und damit einer Art Leib-Seele-Dualismus verpflichtet bleibt.

Um beiden Ansprüchen genügen zu können, entwickelt der Kommentator eine komplexe Theorie der menschlichen Seele, die das neuplatonische Menschenbild nicht unwesentlich variiert und verfeinert: Erstens führt Priskian in den für Aristoteles’ Seelenlehre zentralen Begriff der Entelechie bzw. Formursache eine Unterscheidung zwischen einer Formursächlichkeit als Gestaltprinzip des leib-seelischen Wesens und einer Formursächlichkeit als dessen Bewegungsprinzip ein (4,12–5,5). Das letztere Prinzip findet Priskian in Aristoteles’ Aussage, der Geist könne möglicherweise auch so im Körper sein wie ein Schiffer auf einem Schiff (De anima II 1, 413a 6–9).

Für Priskian gibt es die Unterschiedenheit zwischen formender und bewegender Entelechie jedoch nicht nur (und nicht in erster Linie, wie noch deutlich werden wird) auf der Ebene der rationalen Seele bzw. des menschlichen Nous, sondern auch auf den Seelenstufen des Vegetativen und des Sensitiven, wobei beim Vegetativen der formende Charakter stark überwiegt.

Für die Ebene des Nous reicht diese Differenzierung jedoch nicht aus; denn auch ein Bewegungsprinzip ist nach neuplatonischer Vorstellung als solches notwendig mit dem Körper verbunden, während es für den aristotelischen Nous ganz unangemessen ist, dass er überhaupt in irgendeiner notwendigen Verbindung zum Körper steht (227,6–32). Priskian antwortet mit einer feingliedrigen Differenzierung des Nous-Begriffs, wobei die Einheit und Vielheit der verschiedenen unterschiedenen Stufen mit Hilfe der neuplatonischen Idee einer triadischen Dynamik des Geistigen verstanden werden muss.

Grundlegend ist der Gedanke, dass der Nous im Menschen, verstanden als sein alltägliches, gleichsam empirisches Selbst, sich entweder ganz von der Verbindung mit Körperlichem lösen und sich dem bloßen Denken zuwenden oder aber durch die eingegangene Verbindung mit dem Körper nur potentiell zu einem derartigen Denken befähigt sein kann. Priskian schildert diesen Gegensatz jedoch nicht nur, wie andere Neuplatoniker, als eine bloße Wahlmöglichkeit der rationalen Seele zwischen einer Wendung nach oben – zum Geistigen – oder nach unten – zum Körperlichen –, sondern er stellt ihn als eine Zuwendung der Seele zu ihrem eigentlichen, idealen Selbst dar, das als transzendentales Subjekt ihres Denkens zu gelten hat und damit das Denken eigentlich erst „bewirkt“ (das ist seine Interpretation des aristotelischen aktiven Geistes).

Dieses ideale Selbst ist aber nicht, wie Plotin annimmt, völlig konstant, sondern es entwickelt und verändert sich zusammen mit der Ebene unseres alltäglichen Denkens, das erst durch eine Rückwendung zum Geistigen auch eine volle Wiederherstellung seines transzendentalen Selbst bewirken kann (220,2–25; 240,2–241,26). Unser Geist ist daher „von sich selbst entfremdet“ (allotriōthen heautou; 223,26), und unser Leben eine dauerhafte Suche nach der Wiedergewinnung der Einheit von empirischem und idealem Selbst.

Diese kann erreicht werden durch eine Selbsterkenntnis, bei der sich das empirische Selbst als sein ideales Selbst erkennt und zu diesem wird; um diesen Prozess zu erklären, wendet Priskian die neuplatonische Idee einer geistigen Bewegung aus Bleiben, Hervorgehen und Zurückkehren (monē, prohodos, epistrophē) auf den menschlichen Geist an, was hier nicht im Detail nachvollzogen werden kann.

Dieser sehr grobe Überblick über einen ebenso scharfsinnigen wie schwierigen und voraussetzungsreichen Text zeigt in besonders extremer Form, mit welchen systematischen Interessen nicht wenige Kommentatoren an ihre Texte herantraten; häufig lässt sich im kommentierten Text allenfalls der Anlass erkennen, der den Kommentator dazu führt, seine eigenen systematischen Fragen am autoritativ verstandenen Vorlagetext abzuhandeln, was entweder zu einem besseren Verständnis des Textes oder – wie im gerade diskutierten Fall – zu einer Bereicherung der zeitgenössischen Diskussion führt, von der auch der heutige Leser profitieren kann, wenn er bereit ist, den häufig mühsamen Weg zum Verständnis eines Kommentators zu gehen. [introduction p. 52-53]

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Ein \u00dcberblick mit ausgew\u00e4hlten Literaturangaben"},"abstract":"Ein typisches Beispiel f\u00fcr einen systematisch anspruchsvoll argumentierenden Kommentar, auf den viele der hier genannten Merkmale zutreffen, ist der De anima-Kommentar des Neuplatonikers Priskian von Lydien, eines Zeitgenossen und Bekannten des Damaskios und Simplikios um 530. Der Autor setzt es sich zu Beginn seines Kommentars ausdr\u00fccklich zum Ziel, sich bei der Auslegung des aristotelischen Textes und der Kl\u00e4rung der hierbei bestehenden Zweifel nach M\u00f6glichkeit an die sachliche Wahrheit (al\u0113theia t\u014dn pragmat\u014dn) zu halten. Dabei will er diese nicht einfach aus dem Text ableiten, sondern orientiert sich bewusst an der Seelenlehre Jamblichs (3. Jh.), des eigentlichen Begr\u00fcnders des sp\u00e4tneuplatonischen Systems (1, 18\u201320).\r\n\r\nDiese Zugangsweise stellt den Kommentator freilich vor schwierige inhaltliche Probleme: Zum einen gilt es, Aristoteles\u2019 Seelenlehre richtig zu verstehen, die davon ausgeht, dass die Seele schlichtweg das Lebensprinzip des menschlichen K\u00f6rpers und eben dadurch definiert ist. Andererseits muss Priskian den Intentionen Jamblichs gerecht werden, dessen Neuplatonismus der Transzendenz auch des menschlichen Geistes und damit einer Art Leib-Seele-Dualismus verpflichtet bleibt.\r\n\r\nUm beiden Anspr\u00fcchen gen\u00fcgen zu k\u00f6nnen, entwickelt der Kommentator eine komplexe Theorie der menschlichen Seele, die das neuplatonische Menschenbild nicht unwesentlich variiert und verfeinert: Erstens f\u00fchrt Priskian in den f\u00fcr Aristoteles\u2019 Seelenlehre zentralen Begriff der Entelechie bzw. Formursache eine Unterscheidung zwischen einer Formurs\u00e4chlichkeit als Gestaltprinzip des leib-seelischen Wesens und einer Formurs\u00e4chlichkeit als dessen Bewegungsprinzip ein (4,12\u20135,5). Das letztere Prinzip findet Priskian in Aristoteles\u2019 Aussage, der Geist k\u00f6nne m\u00f6glicherweise auch so im K\u00f6rper sein wie ein Schiffer auf einem Schiff (De anima II 1, 413a 6\u20139).\r\n\r\nF\u00fcr Priskian gibt es die Unterschiedenheit zwischen formender und bewegender Entelechie jedoch nicht nur (und nicht in erster Linie, wie noch deutlich werden wird) auf der Ebene der rationalen Seele bzw. des menschlichen Nous, sondern auch auf den Seelenstufen des Vegetativen und des Sensitiven, wobei beim Vegetativen der formende Charakter stark \u00fcberwiegt.\r\n\r\nF\u00fcr die Ebene des Nous reicht diese Differenzierung jedoch nicht aus; denn auch ein Bewegungsprinzip ist nach neuplatonischer Vorstellung als solches notwendig mit dem K\u00f6rper verbunden, w\u00e4hrend es f\u00fcr den aristotelischen Nous ganz unangemessen ist, dass er \u00fcberhaupt in irgendeiner notwendigen Verbindung zum K\u00f6rper steht (227,6\u201332). Priskian antwortet mit einer feingliedrigen Differenzierung des Nous-Begriffs, wobei die Einheit und Vielheit der verschiedenen unterschiedenen Stufen mit Hilfe der neuplatonischen Idee einer triadischen Dynamik des Geistigen verstanden werden muss.\r\n\r\nGrundlegend ist der Gedanke, dass der Nous im Menschen, verstanden als sein allt\u00e4gliches, gleichsam empirisches Selbst, sich entweder ganz von der Verbindung mit K\u00f6rperlichem l\u00f6sen und sich dem blo\u00dfen Denken zuwenden oder aber durch die eingegangene Verbindung mit dem K\u00f6rper nur potentiell zu einem derartigen Denken bef\u00e4higt sein kann. Priskian schildert diesen Gegensatz jedoch nicht nur, wie andere Neuplatoniker, als eine blo\u00dfe Wahlm\u00f6glichkeit der rationalen Seele zwischen einer Wendung nach oben \u2013 zum Geistigen \u2013 oder nach unten \u2013 zum K\u00f6rperlichen \u2013, sondern er stellt ihn als eine Zuwendung der Seele zu ihrem eigentlichen, idealen Selbst dar, das als transzendentales Subjekt ihres Denkens zu gelten hat und damit das Denken eigentlich erst \u201ebewirkt\u201c (das ist seine Interpretation des aristotelischen aktiven Geistes).\r\n\r\nDieses ideale Selbst ist aber nicht, wie Plotin annimmt, v\u00f6llig konstant, sondern es entwickelt und ver\u00e4ndert sich zusammen mit der Ebene unseres allt\u00e4glichen Denkens, das erst durch eine R\u00fcckwendung zum Geistigen auch eine volle Wiederherstellung seines transzendentalen Selbst bewirken kann (220,2\u201325; 240,2\u2013241,26). Unser Geist ist daher \u201evon sich selbst entfremdet\u201c (allotri\u014dthen heautou; 223,26), und unser Leben eine dauerhafte Suche nach der Wiedergewinnung der Einheit von empirischem und idealem Selbst.\r\n\r\nDiese kann erreicht werden durch eine Selbsterkenntnis, bei der sich das empirische Selbst als sein ideales Selbst erkennt und zu diesem wird; um diesen Prozess zu erkl\u00e4ren, wendet Priskian die neuplatonische Idee einer geistigen Bewegung aus Bleiben, Hervorgehen und Zur\u00fcckkehren (mon\u0113, prohodos, epistroph\u0113) auf den menschlichen Geist an, was hier nicht im Detail nachvollzogen werden kann.\r\n\r\nDieser sehr grobe \u00dcberblick \u00fcber einen ebenso scharfsinnigen wie schwierigen und voraussetzungsreichen Text zeigt in besonders extremer Form, mit welchen systematischen Interessen nicht wenige Kommentatoren an ihre Texte herantraten; h\u00e4ufig l\u00e4sst sich im kommentierten Text allenfalls der Anlass erkennen, der den Kommentator dazu f\u00fchrt, seine eigenen systematischen Fragen am autoritativ verstandenen Vorlagetext abzuhandeln, was entweder zu einem besseren Verst\u00e4ndnis des Textes oder \u2013 wie im gerade diskutierten Fall \u2013 zu einer Bereicherung der zeitgen\u00f6ssischen Diskussion f\u00fchrt, von der auch der heutige Leser profitieren kann, wenn er bereit ist, den h\u00e4ufig m\u00fchsamen Weg zum Verst\u00e4ndnis eines Kommentators zu gehen. 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Discussions on the Eternity of the world in Late Antiquity, 2011
By: Chase, Michael
Title Discussions on the Eternity of the world in Late Antiquity
Type Article
Language English
Date 2011
Journal ΣΧΟΛΗ. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition
Volume 5
Issue 2
Pages 111-173
Categories no categories
Author(s) Chase, Michael
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This article studies the debate between the Neoplatonist philosophers Simplicius and John Philoponus on the question of the eternity of the world. The first part consists in a historical introduction situating their debate within the context of the conflict between Christians and Pa- gan in the Byzantine Empire of the first half of the sixth century. Particular attention is paid to the attitudes of these two thinkers to Aristotle's attempted proofs of the eternity of motion and time in Physics 8.1. The second part traces the origins, structure and function of a particular argument used by Philoponus to argue for the world's creation within time. Philoponus takes advantage of a tension inherent in Aristotle's theory of motion, between his standard view that all motion and change is continuous and takes place in time, and his occasional admission that at least some kinds of motion and change are instantaneous. For Philoponus, God's creation of the world is precisely such an instantaneous change: it is not a motion on the part of the Creator, but is analo- gous to the activation of a state (hexis), which is timeless and implies no change on the part of the agent. The various transformations of this doctrine at the hands of Peripatetic, Neoplatonic, and Islamic commentators are studied (Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, al-Kindi, al-Farabi), as is Philoponus' use of it in his debate against Proclus. [author's abstract]

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Doctrine, Anecdote, and Action: Reconsidering the Social History of the Last Platonists (c. 430–c. 550 C.E.), 2011
By: Watts, Edward Jay
Title Doctrine, Anecdote, and Action: Reconsidering the Social History of the Last Platonists (c. 430–c. 550 C.E.)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2011
Journal Classical Philology
Volume 106
Issue 3
Pages 226-244
Categories no categories
Author(s) Watts, Edward Jay
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Two  Parallel  narratives  have  tended  to  dominate  modern  recon-
structions  of  the  final  century  and  a  half  of  Platonism’s  long  ancient  
history.  The  first  ties  the  dramatic  intersection  of  pagan-Christian  
conflict, imperial policy, and philosophical principles to the end of Platonic 
teaching in the Eastern Roman Empire. 1 A second, distinct narrative analyzes 
Latin philosophical writings and traces the gradual unraveling of the ties that 
bound Latin philosophical culture and its Greek counterpart. 2 Each of these 
narratives has its own unique way of viewing and understanding Platonism. 
The  first  story  culminates  with  the  emperor  Justinian’s  closing  of  the  Athe-
nian Platonic school. It tends to present the affected philosophers as a small, 
isolated group of pagan intellectuals whose conflict with an increasingly as-
sertive  Christian  political  order  pushed  them  to  the  empire’s  margins.  The  
second narrative ends with Boethius and Cassiodorus and stresses how their 
philosophical  efforts  both  underlined  Graeco-Latin  philosophical  separation  
and planted the seeds of medieval scholasticism. It sees Platonism primarily 
as a movement held together by scholastic practices and doctrinal continuities 
in which Latin writers participated only at some remove.
This  paper  proposes  a  different,  more  expansive  way  to  think  about  late  
antique philosophical life. Ancient philosophical culture was not defined ex-
clusively  by  religious  concerns  and  doctrinal  ties.  Beginning  with  the  Old  

Academy  of  Xenocrates,  Platonists  shaped  themselves  into  an  intellectual  
community  held  together  by  doctrinal  commonalities,  a  shared  history,  and  
defined  personal  relationships. 3  As  the  Hellenistic  world  developed  and  
Platonism  spread  beyond  its  Athenian  center,  doctrine,  history,  and  social  
ties stopped being conterminous. Platonists remained connected by a shared 
intellectual  genealogy,  but  Platonism’s  social  and  doctrinal  aspects  became  decentralized as individual schools with their own interests grew up in vari-
ous  cities. 4  Although  no  direct  institutional  connection  joined  them  to  the  
Academy, late antique Platonists saw themselves as part of an old philosophi-
cal  lineage  that  reached  back  to  Plato. 5  In  their  schools,  the  history  of  an  
individual circle’s past mingled with that of the larger intellectual tradition it 
claimed to have inherited. This amalgamated tradition was handed down from 
teachers to students in personal conversations that had a number of important, 
community-building  effects.  They  attracted  students  to  Platonic  philosophy,  
encouraged  them  to  identify  with  the  movement’s  past  leaders,  and  influ-
enced their ideas and actions once they joined a specific group. As this paper 
will show, the Platonic circles that these men and women formed were then 
defined as much by the relationships they formed and by the behaviors they 
exhibited as by the doctrines they espoused. [introduction p. 226-227]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"443","_score":null,"_source":{"id":443,"authors_free":[{"id":595,"entry_id":443,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":357,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Watts, Edward Jay","free_first_name":"Edward Jay","free_last_name":"Watts","norm_person":{"id":357,"first_name":"Edward Jay","last_name":"Watts","full_name":"Watts, Edward Jay","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/131826530","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Doctrine, Anecdote, and Action: Reconsidering the Social History of the Last Platonists (c. 430\u2013c. 550 C.E.)","main_title":{"title":"Doctrine, Anecdote, and Action: Reconsidering the Social History of the Last Platonists (c. 430\u2013c. 550 C.E.)"},"abstract":"Two Parallel narratives have tended to dominate modern recon-\r\nstructions of the final century and a half of Platonism\u2019s long ancient \r\nhistory. The first ties the dramatic intersection of pagan-Christian \r\nconflict, imperial policy, and philosophical principles to the end of Platonic \r\nteaching in the Eastern Roman Empire. 1 A second, distinct narrative analyzes \r\nLatin philosophical writings and traces the gradual unraveling of the ties that \r\nbound Latin philosophical culture and its Greek counterpart. 2 Each of these \r\nnarratives has its own unique way of viewing and understanding Platonism. \r\nThe first story culminates with the emperor Justinian\u2019s closing of the Athe-\r\nnian Platonic school. It tends to present the affected philosophers as a small, \r\nisolated group of pagan intellectuals whose conflict with an increasingly as-\r\nsertive Christian political order pushed them to the empire\u2019s margins. The \r\nsecond narrative ends with Boethius and Cassiodorus and stresses how their \r\nphilosophical efforts both underlined Graeco-Latin philosophical separation \r\nand planted the seeds of medieval scholasticism. It sees Platonism primarily \r\nas a movement held together by scholastic practices and doctrinal continuities \r\nin which Latin writers participated only at some remove.\r\nThis paper proposes a different, more expansive way to think about late \r\nantique philosophical life. Ancient philosophical culture was not defined ex-\r\nclusively by religious concerns and doctrinal ties. Beginning with the Old \r\n\r\nAcademy of Xenocrates, Platonists shaped themselves into an intellectual \r\ncommunity held together by doctrinal commonalities, a shared history, and \r\ndefined personal relationships. 3 As the Hellenistic world developed and \r\nPlatonism spread beyond its Athenian center, doctrine, history, and social \r\nties stopped being conterminous. Platonists remained connected by a shared \r\nintellectual genealogy, but Platonism\u2019s social and doctrinal aspects became decentralized as individual schools with their own interests grew up in vari-\r\nous cities. 4 Although no direct institutional connection joined them to the \r\nAcademy, late antique Platonists saw themselves as part of an old philosophi-\r\ncal lineage that reached back to Plato. 5 In their schools, the history of an \r\nindividual circle\u2019s past mingled with that of the larger intellectual tradition it \r\nclaimed to have inherited. This amalgamated tradition was handed down from \r\nteachers to students in personal conversations that had a number of important, \r\ncommunity-building effects. They attracted students to Platonic philosophy, \r\nencouraged them to identify with the movement\u2019s past leaders, and influ-\r\nenced their ideas and actions once they joined a specific group. As this paper \r\nwill show, the Platonic circles that these men and women formed were then \r\ndefined as much by the relationships they formed and by the behaviors they \r\nexhibited as by the doctrines they espoused. [introduction p. 226-227]","btype":3,"date":"2011","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/rilfF7I9t8ywGlp","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":357,"full_name":"Watts, Edward Jay","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":443,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Classical Philology","volume":"106","issue":"3","pages":"226-244"}},"sort":["Doctrine, Anecdote, and Action: Reconsidering the Social History of the Last Platonists (c. 430\u2013c. 550 C.E.)"]}

Doppelte Entelecheia: Das Menschen­bild in “Simplikios”’ Kommentar zu Aristoteles’ De anima, 2003
By: Perkams, Matthias
Title Doppelte Entelecheia: Das Menschen­bild in “Simplikios”’ Kommentar zu Aristoteles’ De anima
Type Article
Language German
Date 2003
Journal Elenchos
Volume 24
Issue 1
Pages 57-91
Categories no categories
Author(s) Perkams, Matthias
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Der Durchgang durch „Simplikios’“ Text hat gezeigt, dass dieser Kommentator mit seiner Theorie der doppelten Formursächlichkeit der Seele bzw. ihres doppelten entelecheia-Seins die funktionale Beziehung der Seele zum Körper in ihren verschiedenen Stufen nach einem einheitlichen Schema erklärt. Immer ist es ein seelisch definiertes Organ, zu dem die Seele in Beziehung tritt. Das anthropologische Ergebnis ist kein Dreischritt Körper-Leib-Seele, sondern eine systematisch durchdachte Definition des Verhältnisses zwischen Körper und Seele:

Auf der einen Seite steht nicht ein Stück Materie, sondern ein Lebewesen in der Art eines belebten Körpers, bei dessen Formung Körperliches und Seelisches bereits eine Einheit eingegangen sind, auf der anderen Seite eine Seele, die als die, die sie ist, wesentlich auf die Benutzung dieses Leibes ausgerichtet ist. Dabei ist der Leib von der bloßen Materie ebenso verschieden wie die bewegende Seele vom transzendenten nous, in dem sie ursprünglich wurzelt. Erst im Tod gewinnen nous und Materie wieder ihre Selbständigkeit zurück.

Diese Darstellung zeigt, wie „Simplikios“ systematisch mit Aristoteles umgeht: Die Terminologie des Stagiriten integriert er nicht nur in seine eigene philosophische Konzeption, sondern er kann mithilfe dieser Terminologie eine logisch und sachlich konsistente und gut nachvollziehbare Fassung der neuplatonischen Seelenlehre entwickeln. Damit erweist sich die Auseinandersetzung mit Aristoteles für den neuplatonischen Autor als fruchtbar, ohne dass er sachlich die Grenzen des Neuplatonismus überschreitet.

Im neuplatonischen Kontext ist es besonders interessant, dass „Simplikios“ in den beiden Formen von entelecheia durchgehende Charakteristika des Seelischen in der Art sieht, dass jede einzelne Seelenart den Leib in der genannten doppelten Weise verwirklicht. Denn mit der Annahme zweier Arten der Einwirkung der Seele auf den Körper entspricht er einer Struktur, die sich bereits bei Plotin entfaltet findet:

Der Leib, mit dem sich die Seele vereinigt, ist bereits durch eine Spur oder ein Bild der Seele auf deren Aufnahme vorbereitet. Bei der Interpretation dieser Stellen wird meistens angenommen, dass dieses „Bild“ der vegetativen Seele entspricht, die von der höheren Seele verschieden ist. Diese Identifizierung wurde jüngst von Ch. Tornau unter Verweis auf Enn. IV 4, 20, 22–5; VI 4, 15, 15 in Zweifel gezogen.

Bei „Simplikios“ zeigt sich nun klar, dass dieses Seelenbild ebenso wie die bewegende Formursache, die eigentliche Seele, in jeder einzelnen Seelenart vorhanden ist. Damit wird Tornaus Vermutung zumindest für einen neuplatonischen Autor bestätigt. An diesem Punkt, der für die Systematik des neuplatonischen Menschenbildes überhaupt von Bedeutung ist, ist weitere Forschung nötig, um zu mehr Klarheit über die im Neuplatonismus übliche Lehre und die Abweichungen davon zu gelangen.

Das von „Simplikios“ entworfene Bild zeigt, dass die menschliche Seele im späten Neuplatonismus nicht als unsystematische Nebeneinanderstellung verschiedener, mehr oder weniger zwanghaft triadisch geordneter Schichten zu verstehen ist, sondern dass die Philosophen dieser Zeit im Rahmen der Voraussetzungen, die sie für selbstverständlich hielten, ein klares Bild der gegenseitigen Bezogenheit von Seele und Leib entwickeln konnten.

Die Einheit zwischen Körper und Seele, wie „Simplikios“ sie schildert, ist keineswegs so locker, wie es manche Überblickswerke zum Neuplatonismus nahelegen: Die Seele, die in der materiellen Welt wirkt und erkennt, ist wesentlich mit dem Körper verbunden und kann ohne diese Verbindung nicht existieren. [conclusion p. 90-91]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1087","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1087,"authors_free":[{"id":1643,"entry_id":1087,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":283,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Perkams, Matthias","free_first_name":"Matthias","free_last_name":"Perkams","norm_person":{"id":283,"first_name":"Matthias","last_name":"Perkams","full_name":"Perkams, Matthias","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/123439760","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Doppelte Entelecheia: Das Menschen\u00adbild in \u201cSimplikios\u201d\u2019 Kommentar zu Aristoteles\u2019 De anima","main_title":{"title":"Doppelte Entelecheia: Das Menschen\u00adbild in \u201cSimplikios\u201d\u2019 Kommentar zu Aristoteles\u2019 De anima"},"abstract":"Der Durchgang durch \u201eSimplikios\u2019\u201c Text hat gezeigt, dass dieser Kommentator mit seiner Theorie der doppelten Formurs\u00e4chlichkeit der Seele bzw. ihres doppelten entelecheia-Seins die funktionale Beziehung der Seele zum K\u00f6rper in ihren verschiedenen Stufen nach einem einheitlichen Schema erkl\u00e4rt. Immer ist es ein seelisch definiertes Organ, zu dem die Seele in Beziehung tritt. Das anthropologische Ergebnis ist kein Dreischritt K\u00f6rper-Leib-Seele, sondern eine systematisch durchdachte Definition des Verh\u00e4ltnisses zwischen K\u00f6rper und Seele:\r\n\r\nAuf der einen Seite steht nicht ein St\u00fcck Materie, sondern ein Lebewesen in der Art eines belebten K\u00f6rpers, bei dessen Formung K\u00f6rperliches und Seelisches bereits eine Einheit eingegangen sind, auf der anderen Seite eine Seele, die als die, die sie ist, wesentlich auf die Benutzung dieses Leibes ausgerichtet ist. Dabei ist der Leib von der blo\u00dfen Materie ebenso verschieden wie die bewegende Seele vom transzendenten nous, in dem sie urspr\u00fcnglich wurzelt. Erst im Tod gewinnen nous und Materie wieder ihre Selbst\u00e4ndigkeit zur\u00fcck.\r\n\r\nDiese Darstellung zeigt, wie \u201eSimplikios\u201c systematisch mit Aristoteles umgeht: Die Terminologie des Stagiriten integriert er nicht nur in seine eigene philosophische Konzeption, sondern er kann mithilfe dieser Terminologie eine logisch und sachlich konsistente und gut nachvollziehbare Fassung der neuplatonischen Seelenlehre entwickeln. Damit erweist sich die Auseinandersetzung mit Aristoteles f\u00fcr den neuplatonischen Autor als fruchtbar, ohne dass er sachlich die Grenzen des Neuplatonismus \u00fcberschreitet.\r\n\r\nIm neuplatonischen Kontext ist es besonders interessant, dass \u201eSimplikios\u201c in den beiden Formen von entelecheia durchgehende Charakteristika des Seelischen in der Art sieht, dass jede einzelne Seelenart den Leib in der genannten doppelten Weise verwirklicht. Denn mit der Annahme zweier Arten der Einwirkung der Seele auf den K\u00f6rper entspricht er einer Struktur, die sich bereits bei Plotin entfaltet findet:\r\n\r\nDer Leib, mit dem sich die Seele vereinigt, ist bereits durch eine Spur oder ein Bild der Seele auf deren Aufnahme vorbereitet. Bei der Interpretation dieser Stellen wird meistens angenommen, dass dieses \u201eBild\u201c der vegetativen Seele entspricht, die von der h\u00f6heren Seele verschieden ist. Diese Identifizierung wurde j\u00fcngst von Ch. Tornau unter Verweis auf Enn. IV 4, 20, 22\u20135; VI 4, 15, 15 in Zweifel gezogen.\r\n\r\nBei \u201eSimplikios\u201c zeigt sich nun klar, dass dieses Seelenbild ebenso wie die bewegende Formursache, die eigentliche Seele, in jeder einzelnen Seelenart vorhanden ist. Damit wird Tornaus Vermutung zumindest f\u00fcr einen neuplatonischen Autor best\u00e4tigt. An diesem Punkt, der f\u00fcr die Systematik des neuplatonischen Menschenbildes \u00fcberhaupt von Bedeutung ist, ist weitere Forschung n\u00f6tig, um zu mehr Klarheit \u00fcber die im Neuplatonismus \u00fcbliche Lehre und die Abweichungen davon zu gelangen.\r\n\r\nDas von \u201eSimplikios\u201c entworfene Bild zeigt, dass die menschliche Seele im sp\u00e4ten Neuplatonismus nicht als unsystematische Nebeneinanderstellung verschiedener, mehr oder weniger zwanghaft triadisch geordneter Schichten zu verstehen ist, sondern dass die Philosophen dieser Zeit im Rahmen der Voraussetzungen, die sie f\u00fcr selbstverst\u00e4ndlich hielten, ein klares Bild der gegenseitigen Bezogenheit von Seele und Leib entwickeln konnten.\r\n\r\nDie Einheit zwischen K\u00f6rper und Seele, wie \u201eSimplikios\u201c sie schildert, ist keineswegs so locker, wie es manche \u00dcberblickswerke zum Neuplatonismus nahelegen: Die Seele, die in der materiellen Welt wirkt und erkennt, ist wesentlich mit dem K\u00f6rper verbunden und kann ohne diese Verbindung nicht existieren. [conclusion p. 90-91]","btype":3,"date":"2003","language":"German","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/egqTFHmjZlWVg7v","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":283,"full_name":"Perkams, Matthias","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1087,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Elenchos","volume":"24","issue":"1","pages":"57-91"}},"sort":["Doppelte Entelecheia: Das Menschen\u00adbild in \u201cSimplikios\u201d\u2019 Kommentar zu Aristoteles\u2019 De anima"]}

El extraño criterio utilizado para crear "la Doxa" de Parménides, 2021
By: Néstor-Luis Cordero
Title El extraño criterio utilizado para crear "la Doxa" de Parménides
Type Article
Language Spanish
Date 2021
Journal Dianoia
Volume 66
Issue 87
Pages 141-151
Categories no categories
Author(s) Néstor-Luis Cordero
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In 1795 G.G. Fülleborn, a philologist of Kantian origin, grouped in two "parts" the recovered fragments of the Poem of Parmenides -"the Truth" and "the Doxa". With small modifications, this structure became classic and is accepted unanimously today. However, a reading of each fragment in an isolated way does not justify such division, which is based on an interpretation of Simplicius influenced by Aristotle, who finds already in Parmenides a sketch of the Platonic dualism between the "sensible" and the "intelligible", not actually present in the latter. This work analyzes critically the criterion used by Fülleborn, which is anachronistic in the case of a preplatonic thinker. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1592","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1592,"authors_free":[{"id":2792,"entry_id":1592,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"N\u00e9stor-Luis Cordero","free_first_name":"N\u00e9stor-Luis","free_last_name":"Cordero","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"El extra\u00f1o criterio utilizado para crear \"la Doxa\" de Parm\u00e9nides","main_title":{"title":"El extra\u00f1o criterio utilizado para crear \"la Doxa\" de Parm\u00e9nides"},"abstract":"In 1795 G.G. F\u00fclleborn, a philologist of Kantian origin, grouped in two \"parts\" the recovered fragments of the Poem of Parmenides -\"the Truth\" and \"the Doxa\". With small modifications, this structure became classic and is accepted unanimously today. However, a reading of each fragment in an isolated way does not justify such division, which is based on an interpretation of Simplicius influenced by Aristotle, who finds already in Parmenides a sketch of the Platonic dualism between the \"sensible\" and the \"intelligible\", not actually present in the latter. This work analyzes critically the criterion used by F\u00fclleborn, which is anachronistic in the case of a preplatonic thinker. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2021","language":"Spanish","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/MC7go0ESvT7PDWp","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1592,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Dianoia","volume":"66","issue":"87","pages":"141-151"}},"sort":["El extra\u00f1o criterio utilizado para crear \"la Doxa\" de Parm\u00e9nides"]}

El testimonio de Aristóteles sobre Zenòn de Elea como un detractor de "lo uno", 2014
By: Gardella, Mariana
Title El testimonio de Aristóteles sobre Zenòn de Elea como un detractor de "lo uno"
Type Article
Language Spanish
Date 2014
Journal Eidos: Revista de Filosofía de la Universidad del Norte
Volume 23
Pages 157-181
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gardella, Mariana
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The aim of this paper is to discuss the traditional interpretation according to which the arguments of Zeno of Elea against multiplicity constitute a defense of monism. I will try to prove that Zeno’s objections on plurality suppose a previous critique to the existence of the one. Therefore Zeno is neither a monist nor a pluralist but a philosopher who criticizes metaphysical theories that consider being in numerical terms, i. e. as many or as one. I will focus on the analysis of the interpretation of Zeno’s philosophy developed by Aristotle. I will consider some passages from Physics, Sophistical Re­futations and mainly Metaphysics Hi. 4. 1001b7-I3 (DK 29 A 21). I will also include some testimonies from Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, where he discusses the interpretations of Eudemus of Rhodes and Alexander of Aphrodisias that support the Aristotelian point of view on Zeno’s philosophy (In Ph. 99.7-18, DK 29 A 21; 138. 3-6, DK 29 A 22). [Author's abstract]

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Embryological Models in Ancient Philosophy, 2005
By: Henry, Devin
Title Embryological Models in Ancient Philosophy
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Phronesis
Volume 50
Issue 1
Pages 1-42
Categories no categories
Author(s) Henry, Devin
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Historically embryogenesis has been among the most philosophically intriguing phenomena. In this paper I focus on one aspect of biological development that was particularly perplexing to the ancients: self-organisation. For many ancients, the fact that an organism determines the important features of its own develop­ment required a special model for understanding how this was possible. This was especially true for Aristotle, Alexander, and Simplicius, who all looked to con­temporary technology to supply that model. However, they did not all agree on what kind of device should be used. In this paper I explore the way these ancients made use of technology as a model for the developing embryo. I argue that their different choices of device reveal fundamental differences in the way each thinker understood the nature of biological development itself. In the final section of the paper I challenge the traditional view (dating back to Alexander’s interpretation of Aristotle) that the use of automata in GA can simply be read off from their use in the de motu. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"512","_score":null,"_source":{"id":512,"authors_free":[{"id":711,"entry_id":512,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":1,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Henry, Devin","free_first_name":"Devin","free_last_name":"Henry","norm_person":{"id":1,"first_name":"Devin ","last_name":"Henry","full_name":"Henry, Devin ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1071377922","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Embryological Models in Ancient Philosophy","main_title":{"title":"Embryological Models in Ancient Philosophy"},"abstract":"Historically embryogenesis has been among the most philosophically intriguing phenomena. In this paper I focus on one aspect of biological development that was particularly perplexing to the ancients: self-organisation. For many ancients, the fact that an organism determines the important features of its own develop\u00adment required a special model for understanding how this was possible. This was especially true for Aristotle, Alexander, and Simplicius, who all looked to con\u00adtemporary technology to supply that model. However, they did not all agree on what kind of device should be used. In this paper I explore the way these ancients made use of technology as a model for the developing embryo. I argue that their different choices of device reveal fundamental differences in the way each thinker understood the nature of biological development itself. In the final section of the paper I challenge the traditional view (dating back to Alexander\u2019s interpretation of Aristotle) that the use of automata in GA can simply be read off from their use in the de motu. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2005","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/1E80hY0xXEIYf7e","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":1,"full_name":"Henry, Devin ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":512,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Phronesis","volume":"50","issue":"1","pages":"1-42"}},"sort":["Embryological Models in Ancient Philosophy"]}

Empedokleův sfairos v pohledech antických interpretů, 2008
By: Hladký, Vojtech
Title Empedokleův sfairos v pohledech antických interpretů
Type Article
Language Czech
Date 2008
Journal Listy filologické / Folia philologica
Volume 131
Issue 3/4
Pages 379-439
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hladký, Vojtech
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Tento text si klade za cíl prozkoumat způsob, jakým recipují a reinterpretují Empedokleovu koncepci či spíše představu Sfairu pozdější antičtí autoři. Navazuje přitom na naši předchozí práci, ve které jsme se pokusili – především na základě textů Empedoklea samého – tento moment Empedokleova rozvrhu světa rekonstruovat.² V něm, jak známo, čtyři základní a věčné prvky-živly (oheň, vzduch, vodu, zemi) přetvářejí, navzájem slučují a rozlučují dvě formující síly – Láska a Svár. Působením Lásky tak z původně jednoduchých prvků vznikají vyšší a složitější organismy a vůbec všechny věci, naproti tomu působením Sváru dochází k jejich rozkladu a návratu prvků do jejich původní čisté podoby.

Podle závěru našeho předchozího článku je Sfairos, vzniklý v okamžiku největšího vzepětí Lásky, ve skutečnosti jakýsi obrovský organismus, zahrnující do sebe všechny předtím vzniklé věci. Ty se dohromady spojí buď tak, že doslova fyzicky srostou, či přinejmenším dohromady vytvoří harmonický svět, v němž Láska zaručuje mírumilovné soužití a soubytí všeho, co předtím ze základních prvků vytvořila. Navíc je snad možné ztotožnit Sfairos se „svatou a nadlidskou myslí (φρην ιερή και άθέσφατος)“, o níž tento autor mluví ve svém zlomku B 134.

Jsme si přitom vědomi, že tato interpretace Empedokleova Sfairu je dosti neobvyklá. Vzhledem k tomu, že se nám báseň velkého Akragantťana nezachovala v úplnosti a její přesné filozofické sdělení bylo na mnoha místech ne zcela jasné patrně již pro antického čtenáře, musíme se bohužel o mnoha aspektech nauky, kterou hlásá, pouze dohadovat. V předchozí práci jsme se pokusili rekonstruovat Sfairos na základě rozboru zachovaného Empedokleova textu doplněného o starověká svědectví.

Snažíme-li se nyní provést rozbor výkladů Sfairu, které podávají Empedokleovi filozofičtí následovníci, činíme tak rovněž proto, abychom naši poněkud nezvyklou interpretaci dále nepřímo podpořili a zároveň poukázali na vliv, jaký Empedoklés – zejména pak v případě Platónových dialogů Tímaia, Politika a Symposia – mohl mít. Projdeme-li v detailu ohlasy Empedoklea u pozdějších autorů, které jsou možná někdy poněkud překvapivé, můžeme si pak na konci našeho zkoumání znovu položit otázku, zda by nemohly vrhnout nové světlo na jeho bohužel jen velmi torzovitě zachované dílo. [introduction p. 379-381] Übersetzung: Dieser Text zielt darauf ab, die Art und Weise zu untersuchen, wie spätere antike Autoren Empedokles’ Konzept oder eher die Vorstellung des Sphairos aufnehmen und reinterpretieren. Dabei knüpft er an unsere vorherige Arbeit an, in der wir versucht haben – vor allem auf der Grundlage von Empedokles’ eigenen Texten – diesen Aspekt von Empedokles’ Weltentwurf zu rekonstruieren.² Darin, wie bekannt, formen, verbinden und trennen sich die vier grundlegenden und ewigen Elemente (Feuer, Luft, Wasser, Erde) durch das Wirken von zwei gestaltenden Kräften – Liebe und Streit. Durch die Wirkung der Liebe entstehen aus den ursprünglich einfachen Elementen höhere und komplexere Organismen und überhaupt alle Dinge, während durch die Wirkung des Streits deren Zerfall und die Rückkehr der Elemente in ihre ursprüngliche reine Form erfolgt.

Laut dem Schluss unserer vorherigen Arbeit ist der Sphairos, der im Moment des höchsten Wirkens der Liebe entsteht, tatsächlich eine Art riesiger Organismus, der alle zuvor entstandenen Dinge in sich vereint. Diese verbinden sich entweder dadurch, dass sie buchstäblich physisch miteinander verschmelzen, oder zumindest gemeinsam eine harmonische Welt schaffen, in der die Liebe ein friedliches Zusammenleben und Mitsein all dessen garantiert, was zuvor aus den grundlegenden Elementen erschaffen wurde. Darüber hinaus ist es vielleicht möglich, den Sphairos mit dem „heiligen und übermenschlichen Geist (φρην ιερή και άθέσφατος)“ zu identifizieren, von dem dieser Autor in seinem Fragment B 134 spricht.

Wir sind uns dabei bewusst, dass diese Interpretation des Sphairos von Empedokles recht ungewöhnlich ist. Da das Gedicht des großen Akragantinischen Dichters nicht vollständig erhalten ist und seine genaue philosophische Aussage wohl schon für die antiken Leser an vielen Stellen nicht völlig klar war, müssen wir uns leider in vielen Aspekten der Lehre, die er verkündet, nur auf Vermutungen stützen. In der vorherigen Arbeit haben wir versucht, den Sphairos auf der Grundlage der Analyse des erhaltenen Textes von Empedokles, ergänzt durch antike Zeugnisse, zu rekonstruieren.

Wenn wir nun versuchen, die Auslegungen des Sphairos zu analysieren, die von den philosophischen Nachfolgern des Empedokles gegeben wurden, tun wir dies auch, um unsere etwas ungewöhnliche Interpretation indirekt weiter zu stützen und zugleich auf den Einfluss hinzuweisen, den Empedokles – insbesondere im Fall der platonischen Dialoge Timaios, Politikos und Symposion – möglicherweise hatte. Wenn wir die Rezeptionen von Empedokles bei späteren Autoren im Detail durchgehen, die manchmal vielleicht etwas überraschend sind, können wir uns am Ende unserer Untersuchung erneut die Frage stellen, ob diese nicht ein neues Licht auf sein leider nur sehr fragmentarisch erhaltenes Werk werfen könnten.

{"_index":"sire","_id":"778","_score":null,"_source":{"id":778,"authors_free":[{"id":1142,"entry_id":778,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":180,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Hladk\u00fd, Vojtech ","free_first_name":"Vojtech","free_last_name":"Hladk\u00fd","norm_person":{"id":180,"first_name":"Vojt\u011bch","last_name":"Hladk\u00fd","full_name":"Hladk\u00fd, Vojt\u011bch","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Empedokle\u016fv sfairos v pohledech antick\u00fdch interpret\u016f","main_title":{"title":"Empedokle\u016fv sfairos v pohledech antick\u00fdch interpret\u016f"},"abstract":"Tento text si klade za c\u00edl prozkoumat zp\u016fsob, jak\u00fdm recipuj\u00ed a reinterpretuj\u00ed Empedokleovu koncepci \u010di sp\u00ed\u0161e p\u0159edstavu Sfairu pozd\u011bj\u0161\u00ed anti\u010dt\u00ed auto\u0159i. Navazuje p\u0159itom na na\u0161i p\u0159edchoz\u00ed pr\u00e1ci, ve kter\u00e9 jsme se pokusili \u2013 p\u0159edev\u0161\u00edm na z\u00e1klad\u011b text\u016f Empedoklea sam\u00e9ho \u2013 tento moment Empedokleova rozvrhu sv\u011bta rekonstruovat.\u00b2 V n\u011bm, jak zn\u00e1mo, \u010dty\u0159i z\u00e1kladn\u00ed a v\u011b\u010dn\u00e9 prvky-\u017eivly (ohe\u0148, vzduch, vodu, zemi) p\u0159etv\u00e1\u0159ej\u00ed, navz\u00e1jem slu\u010duj\u00ed a rozlu\u010duj\u00ed dv\u011b formuj\u00edc\u00ed s\u00edly \u2013 L\u00e1ska a Sv\u00e1r. P\u016fsoben\u00edm L\u00e1sky tak z p\u016fvodn\u011b jednoduch\u00fdch prvk\u016f vznikaj\u00ed vy\u0161\u0161\u00ed a slo\u017eit\u011bj\u0161\u00ed organismy a v\u016fbec v\u0161echny v\u011bci, naproti tomu p\u016fsoben\u00edm Sv\u00e1ru doch\u00e1z\u00ed k jejich rozkladu a n\u00e1vratu prvk\u016f do jejich p\u016fvodn\u00ed \u010dist\u00e9 podoby.\r\n\r\nPodle z\u00e1v\u011bru na\u0161eho p\u0159edchoz\u00edho \u010dl\u00e1nku je Sfairos, vznikl\u00fd v okam\u017eiku nejv\u011bt\u0161\u00edho vzep\u011bt\u00ed L\u00e1sky, ve skute\u010dnosti jak\u00fdsi obrovsk\u00fd organismus, zahrnuj\u00edc\u00ed do sebe v\u0161echny p\u0159edt\u00edm vznikl\u00e9 v\u011bci. Ty se dohromady spoj\u00ed bu\u010f tak, \u017ee doslova fyzicky srostou, \u010di p\u0159inejmen\u0161\u00edm dohromady vytvo\u0159\u00ed harmonick\u00fd sv\u011bt, v n\u011bm\u017e L\u00e1ska zaru\u010duje m\u00edrumilovn\u00e9 sou\u017eit\u00ed a soubyt\u00ed v\u0161eho, co p\u0159edt\u00edm ze z\u00e1kladn\u00edch prvk\u016f vytvo\u0159ila. Nav\u00edc je snad mo\u017en\u00e9 ztoto\u017enit Sfairos se \u201esvatou a nadlidskou mysl\u00ed (\u03c6\u03c1\u03b7\u03bd \u03b9\u03b5\u03c1\u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03b8\u03ad\u03c3\u03c6\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2)\u201c, o n\u00ed\u017e tento autor mluv\u00ed ve sv\u00e9m zlomku B 134.\r\n\r\nJsme si p\u0159itom v\u011bdomi, \u017ee tato interpretace Empedokleova Sfairu je dosti neobvykl\u00e1. Vzhledem k tomu, \u017ee se n\u00e1m b\u00e1se\u0148 velk\u00e9ho Akragant\u0165ana nezachovala v \u00faplnosti a jej\u00ed p\u0159esn\u00e9 filozofick\u00e9 sd\u011blen\u00ed bylo na mnoha m\u00edstech ne zcela jasn\u00e9 patrn\u011b ji\u017e pro antick\u00e9ho \u010dten\u00e1\u0159e, mus\u00edme se bohu\u017eel o mnoha aspektech nauky, kterou hl\u00e1s\u00e1, pouze dohadovat. V p\u0159edchoz\u00ed pr\u00e1ci jsme se pokusili rekonstruovat Sfairos na z\u00e1klad\u011b rozboru zachovan\u00e9ho Empedokleova textu dopln\u011bn\u00e9ho o starov\u011bk\u00e1 sv\u011bdectv\u00ed.\r\n\r\nSna\u017e\u00edme-li se nyn\u00ed prov\u00e9st rozbor v\u00fdklad\u016f Sfairu, kter\u00e9 pod\u00e1vaj\u00ed Empedokleovi filozofi\u010dt\u00ed n\u00e1sledovn\u00edci, \u010din\u00edme tak rovn\u011b\u017e proto, abychom na\u0161i pon\u011bkud nezvyklou interpretaci d\u00e1le nep\u0159\u00edmo podpo\u0159ili a z\u00e1rove\u0148 pouk\u00e1zali na vliv, jak\u00fd Empedokl\u00e9s \u2013 zejm\u00e9na pak v p\u0159\u00edpad\u011b Plat\u00f3nov\u00fdch dialog\u016f T\u00edmaia, Politika a Symposia \u2013 mohl m\u00edt. Projdeme-li v detailu ohlasy Empedoklea u pozd\u011bj\u0161\u00edch autor\u016f, kter\u00e9 jsou mo\u017en\u00e1 n\u011bkdy pon\u011bkud p\u0159ekvapiv\u00e9, m\u016f\u017eeme si pak na konci na\u0161eho zkoum\u00e1n\u00ed znovu polo\u017eit ot\u00e1zku, zda by nemohly vrhnout nov\u00e9 sv\u011btlo na jeho bohu\u017eel jen velmi torzovit\u011b zachovan\u00e9 d\u00edlo. [introduction p. 379-381] \u00dcbersetzung: Dieser Text zielt darauf ab, die Art und Weise zu untersuchen, wie sp\u00e4tere antike Autoren Empedokles\u2019 Konzept oder eher die Vorstellung des Sphairos aufnehmen und reinterpretieren. Dabei kn\u00fcpft er an unsere vorherige Arbeit an, in der wir versucht haben \u2013 vor allem auf der Grundlage von Empedokles\u2019 eigenen Texten \u2013 diesen Aspekt von Empedokles\u2019 Weltentwurf zu rekonstruieren.\u00b2 Darin, wie bekannt, formen, verbinden und trennen sich die vier grundlegenden und ewigen Elemente (Feuer, Luft, Wasser, Erde) durch das Wirken von zwei gestaltenden Kr\u00e4ften \u2013 Liebe und Streit. Durch die Wirkung der Liebe entstehen aus den urspr\u00fcnglich einfachen Elementen h\u00f6here und komplexere Organismen und \u00fcberhaupt alle Dinge, w\u00e4hrend durch die Wirkung des Streits deren Zerfall und die R\u00fcckkehr der Elemente in ihre urspr\u00fcngliche reine Form erfolgt.\r\n\r\nLaut dem Schluss unserer vorherigen Arbeit ist der Sphairos, der im Moment des h\u00f6chsten Wirkens der Liebe entsteht, tats\u00e4chlich eine Art riesiger Organismus, der alle zuvor entstandenen Dinge in sich vereint. Diese verbinden sich entweder dadurch, dass sie buchst\u00e4blich physisch miteinander verschmelzen, oder zumindest gemeinsam eine harmonische Welt schaffen, in der die Liebe ein friedliches Zusammenleben und Mitsein all dessen garantiert, was zuvor aus den grundlegenden Elementen erschaffen wurde. Dar\u00fcber hinaus ist es vielleicht m\u00f6glich, den Sphairos mit dem \u201eheiligen und \u00fcbermenschlichen Geist (\u03c6\u03c1\u03b7\u03bd \u03b9\u03b5\u03c1\u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03b8\u03ad\u03c3\u03c6\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2)\u201c zu identifizieren, von dem dieser Autor in seinem Fragment B 134 spricht.\r\n\r\nWir sind uns dabei bewusst, dass diese Interpretation des Sphairos von Empedokles recht ungew\u00f6hnlich ist. Da das Gedicht des gro\u00dfen Akragantinischen Dichters nicht vollst\u00e4ndig erhalten ist und seine genaue philosophische Aussage wohl schon f\u00fcr die antiken Leser an vielen Stellen nicht v\u00f6llig klar war, m\u00fcssen wir uns leider in vielen Aspekten der Lehre, die er verk\u00fcndet, nur auf Vermutungen st\u00fctzen. In der vorherigen Arbeit haben wir versucht, den Sphairos auf der Grundlage der Analyse des erhaltenen Textes von Empedokles, erg\u00e4nzt durch antike Zeugnisse, zu rekonstruieren.\r\n\r\nWenn wir nun versuchen, die Auslegungen des Sphairos zu analysieren, die von den philosophischen Nachfolgern des Empedokles gegeben wurden, tun wir dies auch, um unsere etwas ungew\u00f6hnliche Interpretation indirekt weiter zu st\u00fctzen und zugleich auf den Einfluss hinzuweisen, den Empedokles \u2013 insbesondere im Fall der platonischen Dialoge Timaios, Politikos und Symposion \u2013 m\u00f6glicherweise hatte. Wenn wir die Rezeptionen von Empedokles bei sp\u00e4teren Autoren im Detail durchgehen, die manchmal vielleicht etwas \u00fcberraschend sind, k\u00f6nnen wir uns am Ende unserer Untersuchung erneut die Frage stellen, ob diese nicht ein neues Licht auf sein leider nur sehr fragmentarisch erhaltenes Werk werfen k\u00f6nnten.","btype":3,"date":"2008","language":"Czech","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/DoW1OJgnzqLFDXs","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":180,"full_name":"Hladk\u00fd, Vojt\u011bch","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":778,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Listy filologick\u00e9 \/ Folia philologica","volume":"131","issue":"3\/4","pages":"379-439"}},"sort":["Empedokle\u016fv sfairos v pohledech antick\u00fdch interpret\u016f"]}

Eudorus and the Early Platonist Interpretation of the "Categories", 2008
By: Tarrant, Harold
Title Eudorus and the Early Platonist Interpretation of the "Categories"
Type Article
Language English
Date 2008
Journal Laval théologique et philosophique
Volume 64
Issue 3
Pages 583-595
Categories no categories
Author(s) Tarrant, Harold
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The hermeneutic tradition concerning Aristotle’s Categories goes back to Eudorus and his contemporaries in the first century BC. Initially a perplexing text, it forces the Platonist to consider a variety of new dialectical questions. The criticisms of Eudorus demonstrate the desire for orderly arrangements, and pose questions that the hermeneutic tradition, culminating in the magnificent commentary of Simplicius, would try to answer. His pursuit of a critical agenda does not warrant the label “anti-Aristotelian” or “polemical”, but it does show why he preferred to be known as an Academic than as a Peripatetic. [Author's abstract]

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Formal Argument and Olympiodorus’ Development as a Plato-Commentator, 2021
By: Tarrant, Harold
Title Formal Argument and Olympiodorus’ Development as a Plato-Commentator
Type Article
Language English
Date 2021
Journal History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis
Volume 24
Issue 1
Pages 210-241
Categories no categories
Author(s) Tarrant, Harold
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Olympiodorus led the Platonist school of philosophy at Alexandria for several decades in the sixth century,
and both Platonic and Aristotelian commentaries ascribed to him survive. During this time the school’s
attitude to the teaching of Aristotelian syllogistic, originally owing something to Ammonius,
changed markedly, with an early tendency to reinforce the teaching of syllogistic even in Platonist
lectures giving way to a greater awareness of its limitations. The vocabulary for arguments and their
construction becomes far commoner than the language of syllogistic and syllogistic figures, and also of
demonstration. I discuss the value of these changes for the dating of certain works, especially where the
text lectured on does not demand different emphases. The commitment to argument rather than to authority
continues, but a greater emphasis eventually falls on the establishment of the premises than on formal
validity. [author's abstract]

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Francesco Patrizi da Cherso's Criticism of Aristotle's Logic, 2007
By: Deitz, Luc
Title Francesco Patrizi da Cherso's Criticism of Aristotle's Logic
Type Article
Language English
Date 2007
Journal Vivarum
Volume 45
Issue 1
Pages 113-124
Categories no categories
Author(s) Deitz, Luc
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Francesco Patrizi da Chersos Discussiones peripateticae (1581) are one of the most com- prehensive analyses of the whole of Aristotelian philosophy to be published before Werner Jaeger s Aristoteles . The main thrust of the argument in the Discussiones is that whatever Aristotle had said that was true was not new, and that whatever he had said that was new was not true. The article shows how Patrizi proves this with respect to the Organon , and deals with the implications for the history of ancient philosophy in general implied by his stance. [Author's abstract]

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From Polemic to Exegesis: The Ancient Philosophical Commentary, 2007
By: Baltussen, Han
Title From Polemic to Exegesis: The Ancient Philosophical Commentary
Type Article
Language English
Date 2007
Journal Poetics Today
Volume 28
Issue 2
Pages 247–281
Categories no categories
Author(s) Baltussen, Han
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Commentary  was  an  important  vehicle  for  philosophical  debate  in late  antiquity.  Its  antecedents  lie in  the rise  of rational  argumentation,  polemical rivalry, literacy,  and the canonization of texts. This essay aims to give a historical and typological outline of philosophical exegesis in antiquity, from the earliest alle­gorizing readings  of Homer to  the  full-blown “running commentary” in the  Pla­tonic tradition (fourth to sixth centuries CE). Running commentaries are mostly on authoritative thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle. Yet they are never mere scholarly enterprises but, rather,  springboards for syncretistic clarification, elaboration,  and creative interpretation. Two case studies (Galen 129-219 CE, Simplicius ca. 530 CE) will illustrate the range of exegetical tools available at the end of a long tradition in medical science and in reading Aristotle through Neoplatonic eyes, respectively. [author's abstract]

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Habent sua fata libelli: Aristotle’s Categories in the First Century BC, 2008
By: Sharples, Robert W.
Title Habent sua fata libelli: Aristotle’s Categories in the First Century BC
Type Article
Language English
Date 2008
Journal Acta Antiqua
Volume 48
Issue 1-2
Pages 273-287
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sharples, Robert W.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
A re-examination of the question of why, during the revival of interest in Aristotle’s esoteric works in the first century BC, the Categories played such a prominent role. The answers suggested are that the work aroused interest precisely because it did not easily fit into the standard Hellenistic divisions of philosophy and their usual agendas, and that, more than Aristotle’s other works—with the possible exception of the Metaphysics—it revealed aspects of Aristotle’s thought that had become unfamiliar during the Hellenistic period. [author's abstract]

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I "Cadaveri" di Eraclito (Fr. 96 D.-K.) e la Polemica Neoplatonica di Simplicio, 2010
By: Saudelli, Lucia
Title I "Cadaveri" di Eraclito (Fr. 96 D.-K.) e la Polemica Neoplatonica di Simplicio
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2010
Journal Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica
Volume 96
Issue 3
Pages 127-137
Categories no categories
Author(s) Saudelli, Lucia
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This article focuses on an unpublished allusion to Heraclitus' fragment 96 D.-K. After an analytic study of the ancient preserved testimonia, I have presented the evidence of the Neoplatonist Simplicius, who uses Heraclitus' dictum about corpses in his personal polemic against Christianity. Then I have tried to explain the probable original signification of Heraclitus' fragment in comparison with other Presocratic texts and according to the Ionian philosophical and religious background of the 5th century B.C. [Author’s abstract]

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Il De caelo di Aristotele e alcuni suoi commentatori: Simplicio, Averroè e Pietro d'Alvernia, 2006
By: Musatti, Cesare Alberto
Title Il De caelo di Aristotele e alcuni suoi commentatori: Simplicio, Averroè e Pietro d'Alvernia
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2006
Journal Quaestio
Volume 6
Pages 524–549
Categories no categories
Author(s) Musatti, Cesare Alberto
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In aggiunta a questi va almeno ricordata l’edizione della traduzione latina dello pseudo-avicenniano Liber de caelo et mundo, parafrasi di alcune parti dei primi due libri del De caelo, tradotta in latino da Domenico Gundissalino e Giovanni di Spagna nel terzo quarto del XII secolo. Inizialmente confuso con lo stesso De caelo di Aristotele, il testo nel XIII secolo (all’incirca dal 1240 in poi) è stato attribuito quasi sempre ad Avicenna. Oggi invece, in virtù soprattutto della testimonianza del Catalogo (Kitāb al-Fihrist) di Ibn al-Nadīm, viene fatto il nome del celebre medico e traduttore Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn come suo possibile autore.

In merito a questa attribuzione bisogna tuttavia tenere presenti le osservazioni di Gutman (pp. XIII-XVII dell’introduzione all’edizione), il quale ha editato il testo sotto il nome dello Pseudo-Avicenna.

Per quanto riguarda il commento di Simplicio sul De caelo, nel Medioevo si sono avute due traduzioni latine: una parziale (II libro e prologo del III) ad opera di Roberto Grossatesta, che Bossier data tra il 1235 e il 1253, e una completa di Guglielmo di Moerbeke, conclusa nel 1271.

La traduzione di Grossatesta ci è conservata in un solo manoscritto (Oxford, Balliol College 99), e non sembra avere avuto un’ampia diffusione, mentre della traduzione completa di Guglielmo di Moerbeke attualmente sono conosciuti con certezza sei manoscritti.

Se sembra da escludere qualsiasi ipotesi di una revisione da parte di Moerbeke della traduzione di Grossatesta del commento di Simplicio, ancora non definitivamente risolta è invece la questione se la traduzione moerbekana del De caelo di Aristotele sia o meno una revisione di quella incompleta del Grossatesta (II libro e prologo del III) che è presente in forma di lemmi nello stesso manoscritto che contiene il commento di Simplicio.

Bossier considera «plus probable» l’opinione di D. J. Allan, secondo cui la traduzione di Moerbeke è indipendente da quella del Grossatesta, mentre Lacombe e Franceschini hanno ritenuto trattarsi di una revisione.

L’esistenza di un manoscritto (Vat. lat. 2088) nel quale la traduzione del De caelo di Moerbeke risulta contaminata con quella di Grossatesta anche per alcune parti del primo libro lascia supporre che il Lincolniensis abbia tradotto anche quest’ultimo libro, e non solo il II e l’inizio del III. È stato infine ipotizzato che Grossatesta abbia tradotto anche il primo libro del commento di Simplicio.

La traduzione del vescovo di Lincoln del II libro del De caelo è ora consultabile nell’Aristoteles Latinus Database, così come il testo della seconda recensione della traduzione di Guglielmo di Moerbeke al De caelo di Aristotele. Di quest’ultima traduzione esistono infatti tre recensioni differenti, di cui la seconda è la cosiddetta recensio vulgata.

Il commento di Simplicio sul De caelo è stato scritto probabilmente intorno al 540. Prima di lui almeno due altri autori avevano dedicato un commento al testo aristotelico: Alessandro di Afrodisia e Temistio.

Il commento di Alessandro di Afrodisia è andato perduto sia nel testo greco che nella traduzione araba di Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus. Molte notizie le possiamo trarre però dal commento di Simplicio, di cui il testo di Alessandro costituisce la fonte principale.

Il commento di Alessandro viene citato anche nella parafrasi sul De caelo scritta da Temistio. Come per Alessandro di Afrodisia, il testo di Temistio è anch’esso andato perduto sia nell’originale greco che nella traduzione araba di Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. Si è salvato soltanto nella traduzione ebraica di quest’ultima compiuta nel 1284 da Zerahyah ben Isaac ben Shealtiel Gracian, e nella successiva versione latina del testo ebraico ad opera di Mosé Alatino nel 1574.

È opportuno ricordare che, a differenza dei commenti di Alessandro di Afrodisia e di Temistio, il commento di Simplicio sul De caelo non è stato conosciuto dal mondo arabo. [introduction p. 525-526]

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Inizialmente confuso con lo stesso De caelo di Aristotele, il testo nel XIII secolo (all\u2019incirca dal 1240 in poi) \u00e8 stato attribuito quasi sempre ad Avicenna. Oggi invece, in virt\u00f9 soprattutto della testimonianza del Catalogo (Kit\u0101b al-Fihrist) di Ibn al-Nad\u012bm, viene fatto il nome del celebre medico e traduttore Is\u1e25\u0101q ibn \u1e24unayn come suo possibile autore.\r\n\r\nIn merito a questa attribuzione bisogna tuttavia tenere presenti le osservazioni di Gutman (pp. XIII-XVII dell\u2019introduzione all\u2019edizione), il quale ha editato il testo sotto il nome dello Pseudo-Avicenna.\r\n\r\nPer quanto riguarda il commento di Simplicio sul De caelo, nel Medioevo si sono avute due traduzioni latine: una parziale (II libro e prologo del III) ad opera di Roberto Grossatesta, che Bossier data tra il 1235 e il 1253, e una completa di Guglielmo di Moerbeke, conclusa nel 1271.\r\n\r\nLa traduzione di Grossatesta ci \u00e8 conservata in un solo manoscritto (Oxford, Balliol College 99), e non sembra avere avuto un\u2019ampia diffusione, mentre della traduzione completa di Guglielmo di Moerbeke attualmente sono conosciuti con certezza sei manoscritti.\r\n\r\nSe sembra da escludere qualsiasi ipotesi di una revisione da parte di Moerbeke della traduzione di Grossatesta del commento di Simplicio, ancora non definitivamente risolta \u00e8 invece la questione se la traduzione moerbekana del De caelo di Aristotele sia o meno una revisione di quella incompleta del Grossatesta (II libro e prologo del III) che \u00e8 presente in forma di lemmi nello stesso manoscritto che contiene il commento di Simplicio.\r\n\r\nBossier considera \u00abplus probable\u00bb l\u2019opinione di D. J. Allan, secondo cui la traduzione di Moerbeke \u00e8 indipendente da quella del Grossatesta, mentre Lacombe e Franceschini hanno ritenuto trattarsi di una revisione.\r\n\r\nL\u2019esistenza di un manoscritto (Vat. lat. 2088) nel quale la traduzione del De caelo di Moerbeke risulta contaminata con quella di Grossatesta anche per alcune parti del primo libro lascia supporre che il Lincolniensis abbia tradotto anche quest\u2019ultimo libro, e non solo il II e l\u2019inizio del III. \u00c8 stato infine ipotizzato che Grossatesta abbia tradotto anche il primo libro del commento di Simplicio.\r\n\r\nLa traduzione del vescovo di Lincoln del II libro del De caelo \u00e8 ora consultabile nell\u2019Aristoteles Latinus Database, cos\u00ec come il testo della seconda recensione della traduzione di Guglielmo di Moerbeke al De caelo di Aristotele. Di quest\u2019ultima traduzione esistono infatti tre recensioni differenti, di cui la seconda \u00e8 la cosiddetta recensio vulgata.\r\n\r\nIl commento di Simplicio sul De caelo \u00e8 stato scritto probabilmente intorno al 540. Prima di lui almeno due altri autori avevano dedicato un commento al testo aristotelico: Alessandro di Afrodisia e Temistio.\r\n\r\nIl commento di Alessandro di Afrodisia \u00e8 andato perduto sia nel testo greco che nella traduzione araba di Ab\u016b Bishr Matt\u0101 ibn Y\u016bnus. Molte notizie le possiamo trarre per\u00f2 dal commento di Simplicio, di cui il testo di Alessandro costituisce la fonte principale.\r\n\r\nIl commento di Alessandro viene citato anche nella parafrasi sul De caelo scritta da Temistio. Come per Alessandro di Afrodisia, il testo di Temistio \u00e8 anch\u2019esso andato perduto sia nell\u2019originale greco che nella traduzione araba di Ya\u1e25y\u0101 ibn \u02bfAd\u012b. Si \u00e8 salvato soltanto nella traduzione ebraica di quest\u2019ultima compiuta nel 1284 da Zerahyah ben Isaac ben Shealtiel Gracian, e nella successiva versione latina del testo ebraico ad opera di Mos\u00e9 Alatino nel 1574.\r\n\r\n\u00c8 opportuno ricordare che, a differenza dei commenti di Alessandro di Afrodisia e di Temistio, il commento di Simplicio sul De caelo non \u00e8 stato conosciuto dal mondo arabo. [introduction p. 525-526]","btype":3,"date":"2006","language":"Italian","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/vE3O8oovZ2S3BG7","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":274,"full_name":"Musatti, Cesare Alberto","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":617,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Quaestio","volume":"6","issue":"","pages":"524\u2013549"}},"sort":["Il De caelo di Aristotele e alcuni suoi commentatori: Simplicio, Averro\u00e8 e Pietro d'Alvernia"]}

Il male come "privazione". Simplicio e Filopono in difesa della materia, 2017
By: Cardullo, R. Loredana
Title Il male come "privazione". Simplicio e Filopono in difesa della materia
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2017
Journal PEITHO / EXAMINA ANTIQUA
Volume 1
Issue 8
Pages 391-408
Categories no categories
Author(s) Cardullo, R. Loredana
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The aim of this paper is to highlight the decisive contribution of Simplicius and Philoponus to the resolution of the problem of evil in Neoplatonism. A correct and faithful interpretation of the problem, which also had to agree with Plato’s texts, became particularly needed after Plotinus had identified evil with matter, threatening, thus, the dualistic position, which was absent in Plato. The first rectification was made by Proclus with the notion of parhypostasis, i.e., “parasitic” or “collateral” existence, which de-hypostasized evil, while at the same time challenging the Plotinian theory that turned evil into a principle that was ontologically opposed to good. In light of this, the last Neoplatonic exegetes, Simplicius and Philoponus, definitely clarified the “privative” role of kakon, finally relieving matter from the negative meaning given to it by Plotinus and restoring metaphysical monism. [Author's abstract]

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Intelligibles = Sinnliches? Simplikios' differenzierter Umgang mit Aristoteles' Parmenides-Kritik, 2012
By: Drews, Friedemann
Title Intelligibles = Sinnliches? Simplikios' differenzierter Umgang mit Aristoteles' Parmenides-Kritik
Type Article
Language German
Date 2012
Journal Rheinisches Museum für Philologie
Volume 155
Issue 3/4
Pages 389-412
Categories no categories
Author(s) Drews, Friedemann
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Simplikios nimmt Parmenides sowohl vor dem potentiellen Vorwurf, er würde nicht hinreichend zwischen Intelligiblem und Sinnlichem unterscheiden, in Schutz als auch integriert er Aristoteles' Kritik im Sinne einer potentiellen Missverständnissen vor beugenden Vorsichtsmaßnahme in seine neuplatonische Parmeni des-Interpretation und weist ihr so einen berechtigten Platz zu. Simplikios' Gründe dafür erscheinen vor dem Hintergrund seines neuplatonischen Denkens plausibel. Ob seine Parmenides-Interpretation als solche dem Eleaten gerecht wird, ist eine andere Frage; zumindest würde Simplikios gegenüber einer Deutung des parmenideischen Seins-Begriffs in dem Sinne, dass „jeder Gegenstand, den wir untersuchen, existieren muß", wohl einwenden wollen, dass dies einer Reduktion von Parmenides' το έόν auf ein abstraktes Erkenntniskriterium gleichkäme, dessen eigene, nur für das νοεΐν erkennbare Seinsfülle dann aus dem Blick geraten wäre. Auch erschiene es in dieser Perspektive fraglich, warum zum Erschließen eines allgemeinen Existenz-Postulats ein Weg „fernab der Menschen" eingeschlagen werden musste oder gar eine göttliche Offenbarung des „unerschütterlichen Herzens der wohlüberzeugenden Wahrheit", von der Parmenides schreibt, nötig war. [conclusion, p. 410-411]

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L'esperienza estetica fra logica e cosmologia nel Commentario alla Fisica di Simplicio, 2016
By: Licciardi, Ivan Adriano
Title L'esperienza estetica fra logica e cosmologia nel Commentario alla Fisica di Simplicio
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2016
Journal Athenaeum
Volume 104
Issue 1
Pages 186-200
Categories no categories
Author(s) Licciardi, Ivan Adriano
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In  this  paper  I  will  explain  some  passages  of Simplicius, in   Phys.  1,  in  which  the Commentator discusses  the Aristotelian  expression pephyke de ek tôn gvorimoteron (Phys.  1.1, 184a. 16).  Here Simplicius  distinguishes  ta gnorimotera  from  to autopiston,  such  as the  def­initions  and  the  immediate  premises,  and  from  the  dianoetic  knowledge,  which  is  syllogistic and demonstrative. Notwithstanding the topic o f these passages is epistemological, here the Com­mentator, through a syllogism in which there is an evident reminiscence o f Plato’s Timaeus, cites the  beauty o f the universe as an  initial  step  to  raise to  the  goodness o f die Demiurge. After an articulated investigation  (in which are involved, as well, Aristotle’s Rhetoric and above all P osteriorA nalytics), Simplicius concludes that to kalon has  the same statute of gnorimoteron hemîn (Arise. Phys.  1.1.184a.l6). The purpose o f the Commentator seems that to conciliate Plato and Aristotle, and the result is an original and creative,  but at the same rime exact and careful, way  to do the exegesis  of Aristotle’s Physics. [Author's abstract]

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L'écriture et les Présocratiques: Analyse de l'interprétation de Eric Havelock, 2005
By: Palù, Chiara
Title L'écriture et les Présocratiques: Analyse de l'interprétation de Eric Havelock
Type Article
Language French
Date 2005
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 23
Issue 2
Pages 75-92
Categories no categories
Author(s) Palù, Chiara
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
L'interprétation de Havelock situe les penseurs présocratiques, ou plutôt pré-platoniciens, dans un milieu qu'il définit comme étant antérieur à la diffusion de l'écriture (pre-literacy). Cette interprétation provient de sa thèse générale, qui concerne la question du passage entre l'oralité et l'écriture en Grèce ancienne.

Si l'introduction de l'alphabet phénicien, à l'époque archaïque, entraîne l'abandon des systèmes de communication orale, fondés sur l'écoute et la mémorisation, au profit de nouveaux systèmes fondés sur la circulation et la lecture individuelle de textes écrits, ce passage ne s'effectue cependant pas d'un seul coup. En dépit de l'introduction de l'écriture, continuent de subsister, pendant presque toute l'époque archaïque, des mécanismes de performance orale, tandis que l'écriture, à son début, n'avait qu'une seule fonction, celle de fixer la parole.

Havelock, pour soutenir sa thèse, s'appuie initialement sur le Phèdre de Platon. La réflexion de Platon, qui, du reste, n'est pas isolée, est perçue comme une sorte de prise de conscience de problématiques préexistantes, au terme d'un processus de mutation culturelle dans lequel l'écriture joue un rôle déterminant. La critique de l'écriture, en effet, peut être définie comme une dernière défense de la parole orale à une époque où l'écrit prédomine désormais.

C'est en un second temps que Havelock s'est tourné vers les textes des présocratiques eux-mêmes. Il est vrai que dans la tradition pré-platonicienne, il n'existe pas de texte comme le Phèdre, qui thématise la question de l'écriture, mais, d'après Havelock, on peut repérer, dans les textes des présocratiques, les traces des structures orales qui avaient caractérisé la phase précédant la réintroduction de l'écriture.

Havelock souligne surtout l'adoption de la métrique et du rythme dans les poèmes d'Empédocle, Xénophane et Parménide, et le recours à une prose poétique dans le discours d'Héraclite, en tant qu'éléments qui devaient faciliter la mémorisation pour un public d'auditeurs. Mais l'approche de Havelock n'est pas seulement stylistique.

La diffusion progressive, à l'époque archaïque, de la literacy aux dépens de l'oralité requiert l'adoption d'un nouveau langage, qui prend ses distances par rapport au langage mythique et détermine ainsi l'émergence de la philosophie elle-même. Selon Havelock, c'est justement cette relation que Platon n'a pas vue, et c'est de là que provient le caractère contradictoire de sa critique à l'égard de l'écriture.

La thèse de Havelock n'a pas manqué de susciter des réactions parmi les interprètes, en produisant, ces dernières années, une quantité remarquable d'études consacrées à ce sujet.

En général, les interprètes ont analysé surtout la relation supposée entre le langage des présocratiques et l'écriture, d'une part, et celle entre l'écriture et l'émergence de la philosophie, d'autre part. La réflexion sur le langage devrait, en effet, renforcer la thèse de Havelock à l'égard de la permanence de structures orales dans les textes des présocratiques, et cette permanence devrait, à son tour, renforcer le rapport reconstitué par Havelock entre écriture et émergence de la philosophie.

Mais l'analyse stylistique, à elle seule, ne permet pas de conclure à la permanence de structures orales, et ces dernières sont tout aussi peu concluantes en tant qu'arguments à l'appui du rapport supposé entre écriture et émergence de la philosophie. [introduction p. 75-77]

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Cette interpr\u00e9tation provient de sa th\u00e8se g\u00e9n\u00e9rale, qui concerne la question du passage entre l'oralit\u00e9 et l'\u00e9criture en Gr\u00e8ce ancienne.\r\n\r\nSi l'introduction de l'alphabet ph\u00e9nicien, \u00e0 l'\u00e9poque archa\u00efque, entra\u00eene l'abandon des syst\u00e8mes de communication orale, fond\u00e9s sur l'\u00e9coute et la m\u00e9morisation, au profit de nouveaux syst\u00e8mes fond\u00e9s sur la circulation et la lecture individuelle de textes \u00e9crits, ce passage ne s'effectue cependant pas d'un seul coup. En d\u00e9pit de l'introduction de l'\u00e9criture, continuent de subsister, pendant presque toute l'\u00e9poque archa\u00efque, des m\u00e9canismes de performance orale, tandis que l'\u00e9criture, \u00e0 son d\u00e9but, n'avait qu'une seule fonction, celle de fixer la parole.\r\n\r\nHavelock, pour soutenir sa th\u00e8se, s'appuie initialement sur le Ph\u00e8dre de Platon. La r\u00e9flexion de Platon, qui, du reste, n'est pas isol\u00e9e, est per\u00e7ue comme une sorte de prise de conscience de probl\u00e9matiques pr\u00e9existantes, au terme d'un processus de mutation culturelle dans lequel l'\u00e9criture joue un r\u00f4le d\u00e9terminant. La critique de l'\u00e9criture, en effet, peut \u00eatre d\u00e9finie comme une derni\u00e8re d\u00e9fense de la parole orale \u00e0 une \u00e9poque o\u00f9 l'\u00e9crit pr\u00e9domine d\u00e9sormais.\r\n\r\nC'est en un second temps que Havelock s'est tourn\u00e9 vers les textes des pr\u00e9socratiques eux-m\u00eames. Il est vrai que dans la tradition pr\u00e9-platonicienne, il n'existe pas de texte comme le Ph\u00e8dre, qui th\u00e9matise la question de l'\u00e9criture, mais, d'apr\u00e8s Havelock, on peut rep\u00e9rer, dans les textes des pr\u00e9socratiques, les traces des structures orales qui avaient caract\u00e9ris\u00e9 la phase pr\u00e9c\u00e9dant la r\u00e9introduction de l'\u00e9criture.\r\n\r\nHavelock souligne surtout l'adoption de la m\u00e9trique et du rythme dans les po\u00e8mes d'Emp\u00e9docle, X\u00e9nophane et Parm\u00e9nide, et le recours \u00e0 une prose po\u00e9tique dans le discours d'H\u00e9raclite, en tant qu'\u00e9l\u00e9ments qui devaient faciliter la m\u00e9morisation pour un public d'auditeurs. Mais l'approche de Havelock n'est pas seulement stylistique.\r\n\r\nLa diffusion progressive, \u00e0 l'\u00e9poque archa\u00efque, de la literacy aux d\u00e9pens de l'oralit\u00e9 requiert l'adoption d'un nouveau langage, qui prend ses distances par rapport au langage mythique et d\u00e9termine ainsi l'\u00e9mergence de la philosophie elle-m\u00eame. Selon Havelock, c'est justement cette relation que Platon n'a pas vue, et c'est de l\u00e0 que provient le caract\u00e8re contradictoire de sa critique \u00e0 l'\u00e9gard de l'\u00e9criture.\r\n\r\nLa th\u00e8se de Havelock n'a pas manqu\u00e9 de susciter des r\u00e9actions parmi les interpr\u00e8tes, en produisant, ces derni\u00e8res ann\u00e9es, une quantit\u00e9 remarquable d'\u00e9tudes consacr\u00e9es \u00e0 ce sujet.\r\n\r\nEn g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, les interpr\u00e8tes ont analys\u00e9 surtout la relation suppos\u00e9e entre le langage des pr\u00e9socratiques et l'\u00e9criture, d'une part, et celle entre l'\u00e9criture et l'\u00e9mergence de la philosophie, d'autre part. La r\u00e9flexion sur le langage devrait, en effet, renforcer la th\u00e8se de Havelock \u00e0 l'\u00e9gard de la permanence de structures orales dans les textes des pr\u00e9socratiques, et cette permanence devrait, \u00e0 son tour, renforcer le rapport reconstitu\u00e9 par Havelock entre \u00e9criture et \u00e9mergence de la philosophie.\r\n\r\nMais l'analyse stylistique, \u00e0 elle seule, ne permet pas de conclure \u00e0 la permanence de structures orales, et ces derni\u00e8res sont tout aussi peu concluantes en tant qu'arguments \u00e0 l'appui du rapport suppos\u00e9 entre \u00e9criture et \u00e9mergence de la philosophie. [introduction p. 75-77]","btype":3,"date":"2005","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/qlp5mJ4QSDQl1a0","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":281,"full_name":"Pal\u00f9, Chiara","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1091,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Revue de Philosophie Ancienne","volume":"23","issue":"2","pages":"75-92"}},"sort":["L'\u00e9criture et les Pr\u00e9socratiques: Analyse de l'interpr\u00e9tation de Eric Havelock"]}

La Brillance de Nestis (Empédocle, fr. 96), 2008
By: Picot, Jean-Claude
Title La Brillance de Nestis (Empédocle, fr. 96)
Type Article
Language French
Date 2008
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 26
Issue 1
Pages 75-100
Categories no categories
Author(s) Picot, Jean-Claude
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Dans le De l'âme, Aristote illustre l'importance de la proportion (λόγος) et de la combinaison (σύνθεσις) des éléments entre eux par rapport à ce que sont les éléments ; pour ce faire, il rapporte trois vers d'Empédocle (410 a 4-6) relatifs à la composition de l'os. Simplicius rapporte les mêmes vers et en ajoute un sur l'action d'Harmonie ; il précise avoir tiré sa citation du premier livre de la Physique d'Empédocle. Ce sont ces quatre vers que Diels a recueillis sous le fr. 96 :

    ἤ δὲ χθὼν ἐπίηρος ἐν εὐτύκτοις χοάνοισι
    τώ δύο τῶν ὀκτὼ μερέων λάχε Νήστιδος αἴγλης,
    τέσσαρα δ' Ἡφαίστοιο· τὰ δ' ὀστέα λευκὰ γένοντο
    Ἁρμονίης κόλληισιν ἀρηρότα θεσπεσίηισιν.

Traduction :

    Et la terre serviable en ses creusets bien façonnés
    Reçut deux parts sur huit de la brillance de Nestis,
    Et quatre d'Héphaïstos ; et ces choses-là devinrent les os blancs,
    Tenus ensemble par les colles divines d'Harmonie.

L'os serait composé de deux parts de la « brillance de Nestis » (δύο τῶν ὀκτὼ μερέων [...] Νήστιδος αἴγλης) – où l'on s'accorde à reconnaître l'eau sous le nom de Nestis –, de quatre parts de feu – puisque Héphaïstos désigne traditionnellement le feu (τέσσαρα δ' Ἡφαίστοιο) – et de deux parts de terre (ἤ δὲ χθὼν ἐπίηρος) pour parvenir à huit parts au total.

Dans le présent article, je voudrais analyser le texte du fr. 96 pour prendre position sur la question suivante : quel est le sens à donner à l'expression Νήστιδος αἴγλης, c’est-à-dire « la brillance de Nestis » ? La brillance de Nestis désigne-t-elle l'eau, ou bien un mélange d'air et d'eau ?

Certaines questions divisent les commentateurs actuels d'Empédocle, mais la question de la brillance de Nestis n'en fait pas partie. En effet, tout le monde ou presque s'accorde pour dire que la brillance de Nestis désigne l'eau et rien d'autre. Pourquoi alors s'interroger sur quelque chose qui ne divise point ? Parce que le consensus est parfois trompeur. Il peut se fixer sur la solution simple, celle qui ne nécessite presque pas ou peu d'explication. Mais à l'analyse, l'objet peut se révéler complexe, et le consensus sur le simple avoir fait fausse route.

J'espère parvenir à montrer au fil de cet article que la brillance de Nestis est un mélange d'air et d'eau, et non pas simplement de l'eau.

Si Empédocle n'avait pas introduit la brillance (αἴγλη), aucun doute n'aurait été permis pour comprendre que τῶ δύο τῶν ὀκτὼ μερέων [...] Νήστιδος signifie deux parts sur huit d'eau. Mais la brillance pose problème. Elle pose d'autant plus problème que la tournure τῶ δύο τῶν ὀκτὼ μερέων [...] Νήστιδος αἴγλης insiste sur le fait que les deux parts en question sont des parts de la brillance et non pas directement des parts de Nestis. Peut-on spontanément dire que pour Empédocle, Nestis apparaît brillante, tout comme Apollon est brillant (αἰγλήτης), tout comme Artémis et Hécate sont dispensatrices de lumière (φωσφόρος) ?

Si la brillance n'ajoutait rien à la compréhension de Nestis, la « brillance de Nestis » se réduirait à une façon poétique de dire Nestis. Si, au contraire, la brillance ajoutait quelque chose à Nestis, l'élément qui n'est pas nommé dans le fr. 96, à savoir l'air, pourrait être sous-entendu dans la brillance de Nestis.

Nous avons formulé une interprétation en faveur de l'air dans la composition de l'os. La conclusion n'en serait que renforcée si nous pouvions nous appuyer sur un témoignage ancien, différent de celui du Pseudo-Simplicius, voire de Philopon, qu'il est facile de mettre en doute. Ce témoignage existe. Il a été jusqu'ici traité avec indifférence et parfois dévalorisé. C'est celui de Théophraste.

Théophraste, critiquant Empédocle, dit que chez cet auteur les os et les poils devraient avoir des sensations puisqu'ils sont formés de tous les éléments (De sensibus, ΧΧΙΠ = A86.23). En d'autres termes, selon Théophraste, les os sont formés des quatre éléments, et les poils de même. Les modernes n'ont pas jugé bon de partir de Théophraste pour contredire Aétius et pour affirmer que l'os doit être composé des quatre éléments.

Il n'y a guère de doute que pour Empédocle, il existe des mélanges qui ne comportent pas les quatre éléments. Prenons quelques exemples : le bronze produit par l'alliage de l'étain et du cuivre (fr. 92), le vin mélangé à de l'eau (fr. 91), les couleurs résultant d'un mélange des couleurs de base (fr. 23), la pâte servant à faire le pain (fr. 34), la boue ou la pâte de poterie (fr. 73), l'eau salée de la mer (fr. 55, 56), etc.

Mais quand il s'agit des êtres vivant sur terre, il est permis de penser que Philotès fait chaque mélange sans exclure aucun élément, à l'instar du sang et des chairs (fr. 98). En effet, l'œuvre de l'Amour réalisée dans ces êtres éphémères semble préfigurer le grand vivant, composé des quatre éléments, qu'est le Sphairos. Pour les êtres vivants et éphémères, les parts pourraient être inégales dans chaque organe, mais tous les éléments être néanmoins présents.

Tout cela, certes, n'est que pure hypothèse. Aucun texte n'affirme que pour Empédocle, toutes les parties des vivants sont un mélange des quatre éléments. Une certitude demeure : on ne peut déconsidérer la parole de Théophraste sur l'os, ce même Théophraste qui disait que pour Empédocle, l'eau est noire.
[introduction p. 75-77/conclusion p. 99-100]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"863","_score":null,"_source":{"id":863,"authors_free":[{"id":1267,"entry_id":863,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":291,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Picot, Jean-Claude","free_first_name":"Jean-Claude","free_last_name":"Picot","norm_person":{"id":291,"first_name":"Jean-Claude","last_name":"Picot","full_name":"Picot, Jean-Claude","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"La Brillance de Nestis (Emp\u00e9docle, fr. 96)","main_title":{"title":"La Brillance de Nestis (Emp\u00e9docle, fr. 96)"},"abstract":"Dans le De l'\u00e2me, Aristote illustre l'importance de la proportion (\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2) et de la combinaison (\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2) des \u00e9l\u00e9ments entre eux par rapport \u00e0 ce que sont les \u00e9l\u00e9ments ; pour ce faire, il rapporte trois vers d'Emp\u00e9docle (410 a 4-6) relatifs \u00e0 la composition de l'os. Simplicius rapporte les m\u00eames vers et en ajoute un sur l'action d'Harmonie ; il pr\u00e9cise avoir tir\u00e9 sa citation du premier livre de la Physique d'Emp\u00e9docle. Ce sont ces quatre vers que Diels a recueillis sous le fr. 96 :\r\n\r\n \u1f24 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c7\u03b8\u1f7c\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03af\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bd \u03b5\u1f50\u03c4\u03cd\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c7\u03bf\u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9\r\n \u03c4\u03ce \u03b4\u03cd\u03bf \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03ba\u03c4\u1f7c \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd \u03bb\u03ac\u03c7\u03b5 \u039d\u03ae\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f34\u03b3\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2,\r\n \u03c4\u03ad\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b4' \u1f29\u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u00b7 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03b4' \u1f40\u03c3\u03c4\u03ad\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u1f70 \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\r\n \u1f09\u03c1\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03af\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03cc\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03b7\u03c1\u03cc\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03c0\u03b5\u03c3\u03af\u03b7\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd.\r\n\r\nTraduction :\r\n\r\n Et la terre serviable en ses creusets bien fa\u00e7onn\u00e9s\r\n Re\u00e7ut deux parts sur huit de la brillance de Nestis,\r\n Et quatre d'H\u00e9pha\u00efstos ; et ces choses-l\u00e0 devinrent les os blancs,\r\n Tenus ensemble par les colles divines d'Harmonie.\r\n\r\nL'os serait compos\u00e9 de deux parts de la \u00ab brillance de Nestis \u00bb (\u03b4\u03cd\u03bf \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03ba\u03c4\u1f7c \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd [...] \u039d\u03ae\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f34\u03b3\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2) \u2013 o\u00f9 l'on s'accorde \u00e0 reconna\u00eetre l'eau sous le nom de Nestis \u2013, de quatre parts de feu \u2013 puisque H\u00e9pha\u00efstos d\u00e9signe traditionnellement le feu (\u03c4\u03ad\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b4' \u1f29\u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf) \u2013 et de deux parts de terre (\u1f24 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c7\u03b8\u1f7c\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03af\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2) pour parvenir \u00e0 huit parts au total.\r\n\r\nDans le pr\u00e9sent article, je voudrais analyser le texte du fr. 96 pour prendre position sur la question suivante : quel est le sens \u00e0 donner \u00e0 l'expression \u039d\u03ae\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f34\u03b3\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2, c\u2019est-\u00e0-dire \u00ab la brillance de Nestis \u00bb ? La brillance de Nestis d\u00e9signe-t-elle l'eau, ou bien un m\u00e9lange d'air et d'eau ?\r\n\r\nCertaines questions divisent les commentateurs actuels d'Emp\u00e9docle, mais la question de la brillance de Nestis n'en fait pas partie. En effet, tout le monde ou presque s'accorde pour dire que la brillance de Nestis d\u00e9signe l'eau et rien d'autre. Pourquoi alors s'interroger sur quelque chose qui ne divise point ? Parce que le consensus est parfois trompeur. Il peut se fixer sur la solution simple, celle qui ne n\u00e9cessite presque pas ou peu d'explication. Mais \u00e0 l'analyse, l'objet peut se r\u00e9v\u00e9ler complexe, et le consensus sur le simple avoir fait fausse route.\r\n\r\nJ'esp\u00e8re parvenir \u00e0 montrer au fil de cet article que la brillance de Nestis est un m\u00e9lange d'air et d'eau, et non pas simplement de l'eau.\r\n\r\nSi Emp\u00e9docle n'avait pas introduit la brillance (\u03b1\u1f34\u03b3\u03bb\u03b7), aucun doute n'aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 permis pour comprendre que \u03c4\u1ff6 \u03b4\u03cd\u03bf \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03ba\u03c4\u1f7c \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd [...] \u039d\u03ae\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 signifie deux parts sur huit d'eau. Mais la brillance pose probl\u00e8me. Elle pose d'autant plus probl\u00e8me que la tournure \u03c4\u1ff6 \u03b4\u03cd\u03bf \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03ba\u03c4\u1f7c \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd [...] \u039d\u03ae\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f34\u03b3\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2 insiste sur le fait que les deux parts en question sont des parts de la brillance et non pas directement des parts de Nestis. Peut-on spontan\u00e9ment dire que pour Emp\u00e9docle, Nestis appara\u00eet brillante, tout comme Apollon est brillant (\u03b1\u1f30\u03b3\u03bb\u03ae\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2), tout comme Art\u00e9mis et H\u00e9cate sont dispensatrices de lumi\u00e8re (\u03c6\u03c9\u03c3\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2) ?\r\n\r\nSi la brillance n'ajoutait rien \u00e0 la compr\u00e9hension de Nestis, la \u00ab brillance de Nestis \u00bb se r\u00e9duirait \u00e0 une fa\u00e7on po\u00e9tique de dire Nestis. Si, au contraire, la brillance ajoutait quelque chose \u00e0 Nestis, l'\u00e9l\u00e9ment qui n'est pas nomm\u00e9 dans le fr. 96, \u00e0 savoir l'air, pourrait \u00eatre sous-entendu dans la brillance de Nestis.\r\n\r\nNous avons formul\u00e9 une interpr\u00e9tation en faveur de l'air dans la composition de l'os. La conclusion n'en serait que renforc\u00e9e si nous pouvions nous appuyer sur un t\u00e9moignage ancien, diff\u00e9rent de celui du Pseudo-Simplicius, voire de Philopon, qu'il est facile de mettre en doute. Ce t\u00e9moignage existe. Il a \u00e9t\u00e9 jusqu'ici trait\u00e9 avec indiff\u00e9rence et parfois d\u00e9valoris\u00e9. C'est celui de Th\u00e9ophraste.\r\n\r\nTh\u00e9ophraste, critiquant Emp\u00e9docle, dit que chez cet auteur les os et les poils devraient avoir des sensations puisqu'ils sont form\u00e9s de tous les \u00e9l\u00e9ments (De sensibus, \u03a7\u03a7\u0399\u03a0 = A86.23). En d'autres termes, selon Th\u00e9ophraste, les os sont form\u00e9s des quatre \u00e9l\u00e9ments, et les poils de m\u00eame. Les modernes n'ont pas jug\u00e9 bon de partir de Th\u00e9ophraste pour contredire A\u00e9tius et pour affirmer que l'os doit \u00eatre compos\u00e9 des quatre \u00e9l\u00e9ments.\r\n\r\nIl n'y a gu\u00e8re de doute que pour Emp\u00e9docle, il existe des m\u00e9langes qui ne comportent pas les quatre \u00e9l\u00e9ments. Prenons quelques exemples : le bronze produit par l'alliage de l'\u00e9tain et du cuivre (fr. 92), le vin m\u00e9lang\u00e9 \u00e0 de l'eau (fr. 91), les couleurs r\u00e9sultant d'un m\u00e9lange des couleurs de base (fr. 23), la p\u00e2te servant \u00e0 faire le pain (fr. 34), la boue ou la p\u00e2te de poterie (fr. 73), l'eau sal\u00e9e de la mer (fr. 55, 56), etc.\r\n\r\nMais quand il s'agit des \u00eatres vivant sur terre, il est permis de penser que Philot\u00e8s fait chaque m\u00e9lange sans exclure aucun \u00e9l\u00e9ment, \u00e0 l'instar du sang et des chairs (fr. 98). En effet, l'\u0153uvre de l'Amour r\u00e9alis\u00e9e dans ces \u00eatres \u00e9ph\u00e9m\u00e8res semble pr\u00e9figurer le grand vivant, compos\u00e9 des quatre \u00e9l\u00e9ments, qu'est le Sphairos. Pour les \u00eatres vivants et \u00e9ph\u00e9m\u00e8res, les parts pourraient \u00eatre in\u00e9gales dans chaque organe, mais tous les \u00e9l\u00e9ments \u00eatre n\u00e9anmoins pr\u00e9sents.\r\n\r\nTout cela, certes, n'est que pure hypoth\u00e8se. Aucun texte n'affirme que pour Emp\u00e9docle, toutes les parties des vivants sont un m\u00e9lange des quatre \u00e9l\u00e9ments. Une certitude demeure : on ne peut d\u00e9consid\u00e9rer la parole de Th\u00e9ophraste sur l'os, ce m\u00eame Th\u00e9ophraste qui disait que pour Emp\u00e9docle, l'eau est noire.\r\n[introduction p. 75-77\/conclusion p. 99-100]","btype":3,"date":"2008","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Kn8BmLiIsvQZnjb","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":291,"full_name":"Picot, Jean-Claude","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":863,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Revue de Philosophie Ancienne","volume":"26","issue":"1","pages":"75-100"}},"sort":["La Brillance de Nestis (Emp\u00e9docle, fr. 96)"]}

La critique aristotélicienne des Idées en Physique II 2 et l’interprétation de Simplicius, 2017
By: Golitsis, Pantelis
Title La critique aristotélicienne des Idées en Physique II 2 et l’interprétation de Simplicius
Type Article
Language French
Date 2017
Journal Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques
Volume 101
Pages 569-584
Categories no categories
Author(s) Golitsis, Pantelis
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In Physics II 2, 193b35–194a1, Aristotle criticizes in passing the partisans of the Ideas, comparing them to the mathematicians. The present article first attempts to specify the identity of the Academicians Aristotle has in view and to explain how their method resembles the mathematical one.

In a second step, the article sheds light on Simplicius' manner of deflecting the Aristotelian critique, showing that, despite appearances, the Stagirite acknowledges that the forms of natural realities, after the fashion of mathematical realities, can be thought of separately, that is to say, without matter.

The Neoplatonist's reflection casts new light on the notion of methexis, basically identical to that of phusikos logos or "form in itself," which is like intelligible Form. [author's abstract]

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La fin du Néoplatonisme Hellénique. Mise au point sur la question, 2002
By: Saihi, Sofian
Title La fin du Néoplatonisme Hellénique. Mise au point sur la question
Type Article
Language French
Date 2002
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 20
Issue 2
Pages 83-110
Categories no categories
Author(s) Saihi, Sofian
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
À ce stade de notre exposé, il est temps de dresser un bilan récapitulatif des travaux de M. Tardieu. Pour ce dernier, après avoir quitté Athènes, nos philosophes néoplatoniciens se sont rendus à Harrân. Cette cité nous est plus familière sous sa dénomination latine : Carrhae. Il s'agit d'une ville romaine de langue gréco-syriaque, toute proche de la frontière perse, à trente kilomètres au sud-est d'Édesse. Si nous avons dit qu'elle nous est familière, en voici la raison : en 53 avant notre ère, Crassus, membre du premier triumvirat avec Pompée et César, dirige une expédition en Perse. Richissime mais sans gloire militaire, il part à la recherche d'un exploit contre les Parthes. Or, ces derniers le mettent en déroute à Carrhae, où il se fait assassiner. C'est dans cette même ville que, quatre siècles plus tard, l'empereur Julien a effectué ses dernières dévotions avant de tomber sous les coups de Sâbuhr II.

D'après M. Tardieu, donc, c'est également là que Simplicius, son maître Damascius, et les autres auraient définitivement élu domicile. Accueillis au sein, ou à l'origine eux-mêmes, d'une école néoplatonicienne, ils auraient continué à vivre, travailler et enseigner ensemble à Harrân. Ils auraient été, en somme, chez eux parmi des populations encore attachées au paganisme. Ils s'y seraient sentis bien et auraient décidé d'y rester.

Au vu de ses propres déductions, Ilsetraut Hadot n'a pu rester indifférente aux résultats des travaux de Michel Tardieu. Elle le suit et le soutient ardemment. Et des chercheurs comme Pierre Chuvin, Lambros Couloubaritsis ou Alain de Libéra se sont rangés de leur côté. Par ailleurs, peu de critiques sont venues réfuter ses travaux. Certes, Luc Brisson, Paul Foulkes et, plus sérieusement, Simone Van Riet les ont mis en question. Mais Ilsetraut Hadot a su dissiper leurs doutes sans trop de difficulté.

Par conséquent, bien que l'hypothèse de Michel Tardieu reste encore à asseoir plus solidement, si nous admettons avec lui que Damascius et ses compagnons ont emporté les pénates du néoplatonisme à Harrân, nous devrions retrouver les vestiges d'un tel foyer. Nous insinuons par là que si ces lieux ont bel et bien abrité une école néoplatonicienne, il doit nécessairement en subsister des traces tangibles. Une empreinte que nous pourrions peut-être relever dans la pensée philosophique musulmane et dont il faudrait établir les rapports avec la doctrine des Sâbiens. À cette fin, il semble primordial de se pencher sur la première philosophie en terre d'Islam. Par une telle élucidation, nous serions alors en mesure de dégager les structures profondes du néoplatonisme qui y subsistent et, pourquoi pas, déterminer par quelle voie oblique cette doctrine a bien pu cheminer entre l'Antiquité tardive et le Moyen Âge. [conclusion p. 108-110]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1052","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1052,"authors_free":[{"id":1597,"entry_id":1052,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":307,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Saihi, Sofian","free_first_name":"Sofian","free_last_name":"Saihi","norm_person":{"id":307,"first_name":"Sofian","last_name":"Saihi","full_name":"Saihi, Sofian","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"La fin du N\u00e9oplatonisme Hell\u00e9nique. Mise au point sur la question","main_title":{"title":"La fin du N\u00e9oplatonisme Hell\u00e9nique. Mise au point sur la question"},"abstract":"\u00c0 ce stade de notre expos\u00e9, il est temps de dresser un bilan r\u00e9capitulatif des travaux de M. Tardieu. Pour ce dernier, apr\u00e8s avoir quitt\u00e9 Ath\u00e8nes, nos philosophes n\u00e9oplatoniciens se sont rendus \u00e0 Harr\u00e2n. Cette cit\u00e9 nous est plus famili\u00e8re sous sa d\u00e9nomination latine : Carrhae. Il s'agit d'une ville romaine de langue gr\u00e9co-syriaque, toute proche de la fronti\u00e8re perse, \u00e0 trente kilom\u00e8tres au sud-est d'\u00c9desse. Si nous avons dit qu'elle nous est famili\u00e8re, en voici la raison : en 53 avant notre \u00e8re, Crassus, membre du premier triumvirat avec Pomp\u00e9e et C\u00e9sar, dirige une exp\u00e9dition en Perse. Richissime mais sans gloire militaire, il part \u00e0 la recherche d'un exploit contre les Parthes. Or, ces derniers le mettent en d\u00e9route \u00e0 Carrhae, o\u00f9 il se fait assassiner. C'est dans cette m\u00eame ville que, quatre si\u00e8cles plus tard, l'empereur Julien a effectu\u00e9 ses derni\u00e8res d\u00e9votions avant de tomber sous les coups de S\u00e2buhr II.\r\n\r\nD'apr\u00e8s M. Tardieu, donc, c'est \u00e9galement l\u00e0 que Simplicius, son ma\u00eetre Damascius, et les autres auraient d\u00e9finitivement \u00e9lu domicile. Accueillis au sein, ou \u00e0 l'origine eux-m\u00eames, d'une \u00e9cole n\u00e9oplatonicienne, ils auraient continu\u00e9 \u00e0 vivre, travailler et enseigner ensemble \u00e0 Harr\u00e2n. Ils auraient \u00e9t\u00e9, en somme, chez eux parmi des populations encore attach\u00e9es au paganisme. Ils s'y seraient sentis bien et auraient d\u00e9cid\u00e9 d'y rester.\r\n\r\nAu vu de ses propres d\u00e9ductions, Ilsetraut Hadot n'a pu rester indiff\u00e9rente aux r\u00e9sultats des travaux de Michel Tardieu. Elle le suit et le soutient ardemment. Et des chercheurs comme Pierre Chuvin, Lambros Couloubaritsis ou Alain de Lib\u00e9ra se sont rang\u00e9s de leur c\u00f4t\u00e9. Par ailleurs, peu de critiques sont venues r\u00e9futer ses travaux. Certes, Luc Brisson, Paul Foulkes et, plus s\u00e9rieusement, Simone Van Riet les ont mis en question. Mais Ilsetraut Hadot a su dissiper leurs doutes sans trop de difficult\u00e9.\r\n\r\nPar cons\u00e9quent, bien que l'hypoth\u00e8se de Michel Tardieu reste encore \u00e0 asseoir plus solidement, si nous admettons avec lui que Damascius et ses compagnons ont emport\u00e9 les p\u00e9nates du n\u00e9oplatonisme \u00e0 Harr\u00e2n, nous devrions retrouver les vestiges d'un tel foyer. Nous insinuons par l\u00e0 que si ces lieux ont bel et bien abrit\u00e9 une \u00e9cole n\u00e9oplatonicienne, il doit n\u00e9cessairement en subsister des traces tangibles. Une empreinte que nous pourrions peut-\u00eatre relever dans la pens\u00e9e philosophique musulmane et dont il faudrait \u00e9tablir les rapports avec la doctrine des S\u00e2biens. \u00c0 cette fin, il semble primordial de se pencher sur la premi\u00e8re philosophie en terre d'Islam. Par une telle \u00e9lucidation, nous serions alors en mesure de d\u00e9gager les structures profondes du n\u00e9oplatonisme qui y subsistent et, pourquoi pas, d\u00e9terminer par quelle voie oblique cette doctrine a bien pu cheminer entre l'Antiquit\u00e9 tardive et le Moyen \u00c2ge. [conclusion p. 108-110]","btype":3,"date":"2002","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/dUsC8Irj8dUfNHy","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":307,"full_name":"Saihi, Sofian","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1052,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Revue de Philosophie Ancienne","volume":"20","issue":"2","pages":"83-110"}},"sort":["La fin du N\u00e9oplatonisme Hell\u00e9nique. Mise au point sur la question"]}

La pensée s'exprime «grâce» à l'être (Parménide, fr. 8.35), 2004
By: Cordero, Néstor-Luis
Title La pensée s'exprime «grâce» à l'être (Parménide, fr. 8.35)
Type Article
Language French
Date 2004
Journal Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Étranger
Volume 194
Issue 1
Pages 5-13
Categories no categories
Author(s) Cordero, Néstor-Luis
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Peu de temps après la mort de son père spirituel, Platon n'hésite pas à rendre un hommage appuyé au « vénérable et redoutable » Parménide ; mais, en même temps, il ne peut pas s'empêcher d'avouer : étant donné sa profondeur (bathos), « je crains tout à la fois que ses paroles, nous ne les comprenions pas, et que ce qu'il pensait en les prononçant nous dépasse beaucoup plus ». Mais ce que Platon ne dit pas, c'est que cette difficulté l'a poussé à essayer de déchiffrer le logos parménidien. Vingt-cinq siècles après, Marcel Conche en a fait autant, et c'est sur le chemin de Parménide que j'ai eu la chance et le grand honneur de faire sa connaissance. Et je peux témoigner que Platon avait raison : la pensée de Parménide nous a tellement dépassés qu'elle a pu être à l'origine d'interprétations très diverses et, même si l'Éléate était surpris d'apprendre qu'il était à la fois un et multiple, il faut admettre que le chemin de recherche qu'il a inauguré reste ouvert, car sa richesse est inépuisable.

Le dialogue que je voudrais entamer avec Marcel Conche concerne l'un des passages les plus controversés du Poème, l'énigmatique vers 8.35. Nous nous sommes occupés de ce texte dans notre travail Les deux chemins de Parménide, et Marcel Conche a commenté avec perspicacité notre interprétation, mais il n'a pas été convaincu par le texte que nous proposons de suivre à la place du texte traditionnel. Je voudrais renforcer les arguments donnés il y a quelques années dans le travail cité ci-dessus, car les échos de la lecture (il ne s'agit pas d'une conjecture) que nous proposons n'ont été que très restreints, malgré les points obscurs que notre solution permet d'éclairer. Regardons donc le contexte de ce passage. [introduction p. 5-6]

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Le σκοπός du traité aristotélicien Du Ciel selon Simplicius. Exégèse, dialectique, théologie, 2015
By: Hoffmann, Philippe
Title Le σκοπός du traité aristotélicien Du Ciel selon Simplicius. Exégèse, dialectique, théologie
Type Article
Language French
Date 2015
Journal Studia graeco-arabica
Volume 5
Pages 27-51
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hoffmann, Philippe
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
A six-page Prologue introduces the commentary on Aristotle’s De Caelo written by Simplicius after 529 AD. As usual in  the  exegeses  typical  of  the  Neoplatonic  schools  of  late  Antiquity,  this  Prologue  addresses  a  series  of  preliminary 
questions that are meant to steer the interpretation in its entirety, as well as to frame the text to be commented upon within the reading canon of the Aristotelian works, which were intended to provide the propaedeutics to the reading canon of Plato’s dialogues. Simplicius addresses the question of the scope of De Caelo, discussing the interpretations advanced  by  Alexander  of  Aphrodisias,  Iamblichus,  and  Syrianus.  According  to  Alexander,  this  treatise  deals  with the universe as a whole, as well as with the five simple bodies contained in it. It was with Iamblichus, who advocated the idea that for each Platonic dialogue there was only one skopos, that the unity of a philosophical work was raised 
to the rank of a general rule. According to Iamblichus, the skopos of the De Caelo is the divine body of heaven. As a  consequence,  the  primary  elements  that  depend  upon  the  heavens  are  included  in  the  treatise.  Syrianus  deepens 
the theological tendency implied in Iamblichus’ interpretation: for him, the skopos of the De Caelo is primarily the divine  body  of  heaven,  and  only  secondarily  the  set  of  sublunar  elements.  Simplicius  treasures  the  commentary  by 
Alexander; nevertheless, he questions the skopos assigned by him: Alexander underestimated the importance of the unity of the treatise, even though his intention to account for each and every question raised by Aristotle was laudable. Contrarily, Syrianus was right in emphasizing the theological vein of the De Caelo, but focussed only on the section on the divine body of heaven, playing down books III and IV as if they were only ancillary, thus forgetting that the skopos must account for the whole of the treatise at hand. Between the two positions, Simplicius advocates the idea of a synthetical skopos, following in the footsteps of Iamblichus’ interpretation, but taking systematically into account the best of Alexander’s. The skopos of the De Caelo is the divine heaven, that “communicates” its perfections to the 
entire universe. Simplicius’ position is revealed to be very different with respect to that of other commentators like Ammonius and Philoponus, who both considered that the title was self-evident and required no special investigation. [Author's abstract]

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Les conséquences tragiques pour Parménide d'une erreur d'Aristote, 2024
By: Nestor-Luis Cordero
Title Les conséquences tragiques pour Parménide d'une erreur d'Aristote
Type Article
Language French
Date 2024
Journal Journal of Ancient Philosophy
Volume 18
Issue 1
Pages 1-24
Categories no categories
Author(s) Nestor-Luis Cordero
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The difficulty of grasping the thought of Parmenides led interpreters already in antiquity to approach his philosophy according to later schemes of thought. This was the case of Aristotle, whose interpretation was inherited by his disciple Theophrastus and by his commentators, especially Simplicius. Simplicius, a Neoplatonist and Aristotelian at the same time, proposed an interpretation, strongly dualistic (dominated by the sensible/intelligible dichotomy), which is not found in the recovered quotations. The origin of this interpretation is an "error" of Aristotle, inherited by Simplicius, who attributed to Parmenides himself the paternity of the "opinions of mortals". In 1795 G.G.Fülleborn, inspired by Simplicius, proposed a division of the Poem into two "parts", unanimously accepted today, and which must be urgently revised and rejected. [author's abstract]

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Leucippus, Democritus and the οὐ μᾶλλον Principle: An Examination of Theophrastus Phys.Op. Fr. 8, 2002
By: Schofield, Malcom
Title Leucippus, Democritus and the οὐ μᾶλλον Principle: An Examination of Theophrastus Phys.Op. Fr. 8
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Phronesis
Volume 47
Issue 3
Pages 253–263
Categories no categories
Author(s) Schofield, Malcom
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper is a   piece of detective work. Starting from an obvious excrescence inthe transmitted text of Simplicius's   treatment of the foundations of Presocraticatomism near the beginning of his Physicscommentary, it excavates a Theophrasteancorrection to Aristotle's   tendency to lump Leucippus and Democritus together: Theophrastus made application of the οὐ μᾶλλον principle in the sphere of ontol-ogy an innovation by Democritus. Along the way it  shows Simplicius reorderinghis Theophrastean source in his efforts to nd material which will strengthen thecontrast between Leucippus's   atomism and Eleatic metaphysics. And it  arguesthat in doing so he all but obliterates TheophrastusÕs   attempt to point up theDemocritean credentials of the οὐ μᾶλλον principle. [author's abstract]

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Logic and Interpretation: Syllogistic Reconstructions in Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, 2021
By: Harari, Orna
Title Logic and Interpretation: Syllogistic Reconstructions in Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics
Type Article
Language English
Date 2021
Journal History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis
Volume 24
Issue 1
Pages 122-139
Categories no categories
Author(s) Harari, Orna
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this article I explain three puzzling features of Simplicius’ use of syllogistic reconstructions in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics: (1) Why does he reconstruct Aristotle’s non-argumentative remarks? (2) Why does he identify the syllogistic figure of an argument but does not explicitly present its reconstruction? (3) Why in certain lemmata does he present several reconstructions of the same argument? Addressing these questions, I argue that these puzzling features are an expression of Simplicius’ assumption that formal reasoning underlies Aristotle’s prose, hence they reflect his attempt to capture as faithfully as possible Aristotle’s actual mode of reasoning. I show further that, as a consequence of this seemingly descriptive use of syllogistic reconstructions, logic serves Simplicius not only as an expository and clarificatory tool of certain interpretations or philosophical views, but also motivates and shapes his exegetical stances and approach. [conclusion, p. 138]

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Mathematical Explanation and the Philosphy of Nature in Late Ancient Philosophy: Astronomy and the Theory of the Elements, 2012
By: Opsomer, Jan
Title Mathematical Explanation and the Philosphy of Nature in Late Ancient Philosophy: Astronomy and the Theory of the Elements
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale
Volume 23
Pages 65-106
Categories no categories
Author(s) Opsomer, Jan
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Late ancient Platonists discuss two theories in which geometric entities explain natural 
phenomena :  the  regular  polyhedra  of  geometric  atomism  and  the  eccentrics  and  epicycles 
of astronomy. Simplicius explicitly compares the status of the first to the hypotheses of the astronomers. The point of comparison is the fallibility of both theories, not the (lack of) reality 
of the entities postulated. Simplicius has strong realist commitments as far as astronomy is concerned. Syrianus and Proclus too do not consider the polyhedra as devoid of physical reality. Proclus rejects epicycles and eccentrics, but accepts the reality of material homocentric spheres, moved by their own souls. The spheres move the astral objects contained in them, which, however, add motions caused by their own souls. The epicyclical and eccntric hypotheses are useful, as they help us to understand the complex motions resulting from the interplay of spherical motions and volitional motions of the planets. Yet astral souls do not think in accordance with human theoretical constructs, but rather grasp the complex patterns of their motions directly. Our understanding of astronomy depends upon our own cognition of intelligible patterns and their mathematical images. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1094","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1094,"authors_free":[{"id":1652,"entry_id":1094,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":211,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Opsomer, Jan","free_first_name":"Jan","free_last_name":"Opsomer","norm_person":{"id":211,"first_name":"Jan","last_name":"Opsomer","full_name":"Opsomer, Jan","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1120966310","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Mathematical Explanation and the Philosphy of Nature in Late Ancient Philosophy: Astronomy and the Theory of the Elements","main_title":{"title":"Mathematical Explanation and the Philosphy of Nature in Late Ancient Philosophy: Astronomy and the Theory of the Elements"},"abstract":"Late ancient Platonists discuss two theories in which geometric entities explain natural \r\nphenomena : the regular polyhedra of geometric atomism and the eccentrics and epicycles \r\nof astronomy. Simplicius explicitly compares the status of the first to the hypotheses of the astronomers. The point of comparison is the fallibility of both theories, not the (lack of) reality \r\nof the entities postulated. Simplicius has strong realist commitments as far as astronomy is concerned. Syrianus and Proclus too do not consider the polyhedra as devoid of physical reality. Proclus rejects epicycles and eccentrics, but accepts the reality of material homocentric spheres, moved by their own souls. The spheres move the astral objects contained in them, which, however, add motions caused by their own souls. The epicyclical and eccntric hypotheses are useful, as they help us to understand the complex motions resulting from the interplay of spherical motions and volitional motions of the planets. Yet astral souls do not think in accordance with human theoretical constructs, but rather grasp the complex patterns of their motions directly. Our understanding of astronomy depends upon our own cognition of intelligible patterns and their mathematical images. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/NrliupadtaqUhIR","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":211,"full_name":"Opsomer, Jan","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1094,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale","volume":"23","issue":"","pages":"65-106"}},"sort":["Mathematical Explanation and the Philosphy of Nature in Late Ancient Philosophy: Astronomy and the Theory of the Elements"]}

Megaric Metaphysics, 2012
By: Bailey, Dominic
Title Megaric Metaphysics
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Ancient philosophy
Volume 32
Issue 2
Pages 303-321
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bailey, Dominic
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
I have attempted to show that, with some imaginative reconstruction, there is a good deal more to Megaricism than meets the eye. While the position is doubtless false, there are nevertheless reasons for being sympathetic to its conjuncts, especially if one has, as some philosophers still do, a fetish for the actual and a perplexity about the indefinite, whether the indefiniteness of the modal or that of the non-particular. I have shown how anti-Platonism about common nouns of the kind evinced by Stilpo makes M2 seem better considered than at first. And I have shown how skepticism about possibility without actuality, from which later logicians such as Diodorus and Philo felt they could not stray too far (see Bobzien 1993, 1998), makes M1 seem better considered than at first.

Moreover, I have demonstrated the impressive coherence of Megaricism, insofar as its conjuncts, as I interpret them, are both mutually entailing and, each in their ways, both Parmenidean and Protagorean. Megaricism is wrong, but sufficiently intriguing and well-integrated to make it worthy of serious consideration. [conclusion p. 320]

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Metaphysicizing the Aristotelian Categories. Two References to the Parmenides in Simplicius’ Commentary on the Categories (Simplicius, In Categorias 4 [CAG 8, 75,6 Kalbfleisch] and In Categorias 8 [291,2 K.]), 2008
By: Bechtle, Gerald
Title Metaphysicizing the Aristotelian Categories. Two References to the Parmenides in Simplicius’ Commentary on the Categories (Simplicius, In Categorias 4 [CAG 8, 75,6 Kalbfleisch] and In Categorias 8 [291,2 K.])
Type Article
Language English
Date 2008
Journal Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum
Volume 12
Issue 1
Pages 150-165
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bechtle, Gerald
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Der Artikel geht der Frage nach, inwiefern die aristotelische Kategorienschrift im Neuplatonismus zur Deutung der ersten Prinzipien genutzt und dadurch selbst als Teil metaphysischer Überlegungen etabliert wurde. Dadurch stellt sich die Frage, ob eine Verbindung mit der Rezeption von Platons Parmenides besteht, der für die Deutung der höchsten Prinzipien grundlegend war. Dies wird exemplarisch an Simplicius und dessen Kategorienkommentar untersucht. In diesem geht Simplicius an zwei Stellen explizit auf Platons Parmenides ein. Beide Stellen werden analysiert. Es zeigt sich, dass Simplicius die Terminologie der Kategorien durchaus auf Gott, das Gute oder das Eine anwendet, auch wenn an der weit verbreiteten Ansicht, die Kategorien könnten sich nur auf sprachlich ausdrückbare, also wahrnehmbare Dinge beziehen, nicht gerüttelt wird.

Hiervon ist jedoch die Position des Iamblichus zu unterscheiden, der die Kategorien auch für den noetischen Bereich annehmen konnte. In eine ähnliche Richtung weist die zweite explizite Bezugnahme auf Platons Parmenides in Simplicius’ Kategorienkommentar, die sich mit dem Ausschluss von Mehr-Weniger beschäftigt. [author's abstract]

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Methods in examining sense-perception: John Philoponus and Ps.-Simplicius, 2008
By: Lautner, Peter
Title Methods in examining sense-perception: John Philoponus and Ps.-Simplicius
Type Article
Language English
Date 2008
Journal Laval théologique et philosophique
Volume 64
Issue 3
Pages 651-661
Categories no categories
Author(s) Lautner, Peter
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The paper discusses the methods applied by Philoponus and Pseudo-Simplicius in commenting on Aristotle’s theory of sense-perception, and indicates their differences. Philoponus frequently employs medical theories and empirical material, mostly taken from Aristotle, to highlight not only the activities of the particular senses, but also a certain kind of awareness and the way we experience our inner states. By contrast, his Athenian contemporary Pseudo-Simplicius disregards such aspects altogether. His method is deductive: He relies on some general thesis, partly taken from Iamblichus, from which to derive theses on sense-perception. The emphasis falls on Philoponus’ doctrine since his reliance on medical views leads to an interesting blend of Platonic and medical/empirical theories. [Author’s abstract]

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Much Ado About 'Nothing': μηδέν and τὸ μὴ ἐόν in Parmenides, 2002
By: Sanders, Katie R.
Title Much Ado About 'Nothing': μηδέν and τὸ μὴ ἐόν in Parmenides
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Apeiron
Volume 35
Issue 2
Pages 87–104
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sanders, Katie R.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
It is, to my knowledge, a universally accepted assumption among contemporary commentators that μηδέν, 'nothing,' and το μη ἔον, 'what-is-not,' function as synonyms in Parmenides' poem. In this paper, I focus primarily on the central role this supposed semantic equivalence plays in arguments supporting an emendation in line 12 of fragment B8. Despite this scholarly unanimity regarding the synonymy of these two Greek terms and the popularity of the emendation, I contend that we can make the best sense of Parmenides' argument in this and the surrounding lines precisely by retaining the manuscript reading and recognizing the difference in meaning between 'nothing' and 'what-is-not.' This claim, of course, also has broader implications for the interpretation of Parmenides' poem generally. [introduction p. 87-88]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1050","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1050,"authors_free":[{"id":1595,"entry_id":1050,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":309,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sanders, Katie R.","free_first_name":"Katie R.","free_last_name":"Sanders","norm_person":{"id":309,"first_name":"Katie R.","last_name":"Sanders","full_name":"Sanders, Katie R.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Much Ado About 'Nothing': \u03bc\u03b7\u03b4\u03ad\u03bd and \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bc\u1f74 \u1f10\u03cc\u03bd in Parmenides","main_title":{"title":"Much Ado About 'Nothing': \u03bc\u03b7\u03b4\u03ad\u03bd and \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bc\u1f74 \u1f10\u03cc\u03bd in Parmenides"},"abstract":"It is, to my knowledge, a universally accepted assumption among contemporary commentators that \u03bc\u03b7\u03b4\u03ad\u03bd, 'nothing,' and \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03b7 \u1f14\u03bf\u03bd, 'what-is-not,' function as synonyms in Parmenides' poem. In this paper, I focus primarily on the central role this supposed semantic equivalence plays in arguments supporting an emendation in line 12 of fragment B8. Despite this scholarly unanimity regarding the synonymy of these two Greek terms and the popularity of the emendation, I contend that we can make the best sense of Parmenides' argument in this and the surrounding lines precisely by retaining the manuscript reading and recognizing the difference in meaning between 'nothing' and 'what-is-not.' This claim, of course, also has broader implications for the interpretation of Parmenides' poem generally. [introduction p. 87-88]","btype":3,"date":"2002","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/TyAsS6APM6xvpAp","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":309,"full_name":"Sanders, Katie R.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1050,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Apeiron","volume":"35","issue":"2","pages":"87\u2013104"}},"sort":["Much Ado About 'Nothing': \u03bc\u03b7\u03b4\u03ad\u03bd and \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bc\u1f74 \u1f10\u03cc\u03bd in Parmenides"]}

Neoplatonic Political Subjectivity? Prohairesis, to eph’ hēmīn, and Self-constitution in Simplicius’ Commentary on Epictetus’ Encheiridion , 2022
By: Tim Riggs
Title Neoplatonic Political Subjectivity? Prohairesis, to eph’ hēmīn, and Self-constitution in Simplicius’ Commentary on Epictetus’ Encheiridion
Type Article
Language English
Date 2022
Journal International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 18
Issue 2
Pages 152-177
Categories no categories
Author(s) Tim Riggs
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
I argue that in his commentary on Epictetus’ Encheiridion, Simplicius derives a method by which his students can enter into the process of self-constitution, which is only achieved through completion of the study of Plato’s dialogues. The result of following the method is the attainment of a perspective consonant with the level of political virtue, which I call ‘political subjectivity’. This is a speculative interpretation of the effect the student would. experience in following the method, accomplished through analyses of Simplicius’ interpretation of Epictetus’ concept of to eph’ hēmīn and the related prohairesis. I complement this with an analysis of the metaphysical foundation Simplicius gives the method in light of Charles Taylor’s notion of ‘strong evaluation’. In this way, I show how Simplicius adapts these concepts to his Neoplatonic psychology and virtue theory to make the method serve as preparation for the development of virtue prior to study of Plato. [author's abstract]

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Neue Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus (1995-2003). Teil II, 2004
By: Steel, Carlos, Helmig, Christoph
Title Neue Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus (1995-2003). Teil II
Type Article
Language German
Date 2004
Journal Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie
Volume 29
Pages 225-247
Categories no categories
Author(s) Steel, Carlos , Helmig, Christoph
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Dieser Artikel berichtete über weniger als zehn Jahre Forschung im Bereich des Neuplatonismus. Und doch ist es erfreulich festzustellen, wie viel seit Mitte der 90er Jahre zustande gekommen ist, auch wenn es für die Zukunft noch viel zu tun gibt. Die Aufgabe stellt sich in doppelter Hinsicht: philologisch und philosophisch.

In erster Linie ist es notwendig, das so rasant angewachsene Interesse für die neuplatonische Philosophie dahingehend zu nutzen, dass die Editionen und kommentierten Übersetzungen wichtiger Texte weitergeführt werden. Das ist eine intensive, mühevolle und oft undankbare Arbeit, weil so etwas im heutigen „Forschungsklima“ nicht immer in ausreichendem Maße gewürdigt wird. Und dennoch bleibt es eine der drängendsten Aufgaben, und das umso mehr, weil wir befürchten müssen, dass die Kenntnis der alten Sprachen immer weiter zurückgeht.

Wie im Mittelalter die antike Philosophie nur überleben und neuen Einfluss gewinnen konnte durch massive Übersetzungsaktivitäten (ins Arabische und Lateinische), so werden in diesem Jahrhundert – ob man es nun bedauert oder nicht – viele neuplatonische Autoren nur noch in Reihen wie „The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle“ oder in anderen Übersetzungen gelesen werden. Darum ist es wichtig, dass die Übersetzungen zuverlässig sind und auf guten Editionen fußen.

Es wäre daher wünschenswert, dass gerade auch in Deutschland vermehrt zentrale Texte aus dem späteren Neuplatonismus übersetzt und kommentiert würden. Aber neben dieser Editions- und Übersetzungsarbeit sollte das eigentliche Ziel der Forschung eine philosophische Annäherung sein an diese große Tradition der Geistesgeschichte mit ihren vielfachen kulturellen Verzweigungen im Mittelalter (von Syrien über den Irak und Andalusien bis nach Köln), in der Renaissance und in der Neuzeit.

Dabei müssen wir uns aber davor hüten, den Neuplatonismus allzu leicht mit Schwärmerei oder einer Art von Esoterik in Verbindung zu bringen. Er ist und bleibt vor allem eine Philosophie, auch wenn er eine Philosophie ist, die rational die Grenzen der Rationalität einsieht.

Gerade in der deutschsprachigen Forschung haben wir schöne Beispiele für ein fruchtbares Zusammengehen von philologischer akribeia und philosophischer Annäherung. Ein Paradigma einer solchen Forschung am Neuplatonismus bleiben für uns die zahlreichen philosophisch anregenden Arbeiten von Werner Beierwaltes. [p. 246-247]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"481","_score":null,"_source":{"id":481,"authors_free":[{"id":651,"entry_id":481,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":14,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Steel, Carlos","free_first_name":"Carlos","free_last_name":"Steel","norm_person":{"id":14,"first_name":"Carlos ","last_name":"Steel","full_name":"Steel, Carlos ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/122963083","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":652,"entry_id":481,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":146,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Helmig, Christoph","free_first_name":"Christoph","free_last_name":"Helmig","norm_person":{"id":146,"first_name":"Christoph","last_name":"Helmig","full_name":"Helmig, Christoph","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1107028760","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Neue Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus (1995-2003). Teil II","main_title":{"title":"Neue Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus (1995-2003). Teil II"},"abstract":"Dieser Artikel berichtete \u00fcber weniger als zehn Jahre Forschung im Bereich des Neuplatonismus. Und doch ist es erfreulich festzustellen, wie viel seit Mitte der 90er Jahre zustande gekommen ist, auch wenn es f\u00fcr die Zukunft noch viel zu tun gibt. Die Aufgabe stellt sich in doppelter Hinsicht: philologisch und philosophisch.\r\n\r\nIn erster Linie ist es notwendig, das so rasant angewachsene Interesse f\u00fcr die neuplatonische Philosophie dahingehend zu nutzen, dass die Editionen und kommentierten \u00dcbersetzungen wichtiger Texte weitergef\u00fchrt werden. Das ist eine intensive, m\u00fchevolle und oft undankbare Arbeit, weil so etwas im heutigen \u201eForschungsklima\u201c nicht immer in ausreichendem Ma\u00dfe gew\u00fcrdigt wird. Und dennoch bleibt es eine der dr\u00e4ngendsten Aufgaben, und das umso mehr, weil wir bef\u00fcrchten m\u00fcssen, dass die Kenntnis der alten Sprachen immer weiter zur\u00fcckgeht.\r\n\r\nWie im Mittelalter die antike Philosophie nur \u00fcberleben und neuen Einfluss gewinnen konnte durch massive \u00dcbersetzungsaktivit\u00e4ten (ins Arabische und Lateinische), so werden in diesem Jahrhundert \u2013 ob man es nun bedauert oder nicht \u2013 viele neuplatonische Autoren nur noch in Reihen wie \u201eThe Ancient Commentators on Aristotle\u201c oder in anderen \u00dcbersetzungen gelesen werden. Darum ist es wichtig, dass die \u00dcbersetzungen zuverl\u00e4ssig sind und auf guten Editionen fu\u00dfen.\r\n\r\nEs w\u00e4re daher w\u00fcnschenswert, dass gerade auch in Deutschland vermehrt zentrale Texte aus dem sp\u00e4teren Neuplatonismus \u00fcbersetzt und kommentiert w\u00fcrden. Aber neben dieser Editions- und \u00dcbersetzungsarbeit sollte das eigentliche Ziel der Forschung eine philosophische Ann\u00e4herung sein an diese gro\u00dfe Tradition der Geistesgeschichte mit ihren vielfachen kulturellen Verzweigungen im Mittelalter (von Syrien \u00fcber den Irak und Andalusien bis nach K\u00f6ln), in der Renaissance und in der Neuzeit.\r\n\r\nDabei m\u00fcssen wir uns aber davor h\u00fcten, den Neuplatonismus allzu leicht mit Schw\u00e4rmerei oder einer Art von Esoterik in Verbindung zu bringen. Er ist und bleibt vor allem eine Philosophie, auch wenn er eine Philosophie ist, die rational die Grenzen der Rationalit\u00e4t einsieht.\r\n\r\nGerade in der deutschsprachigen Forschung haben wir sch\u00f6ne Beispiele f\u00fcr ein fruchtbares Zusammengehen von philologischer akribeia und philosophischer Ann\u00e4herung. Ein Paradigma einer solchen Forschung am Neuplatonismus bleiben f\u00fcr uns die zahlreichen philosophisch anregenden Arbeiten von Werner Beierwaltes. [p. 246-247]","btype":3,"date":"2004","language":"German","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/J1gdFPhAmlKlP6l","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":14,"full_name":"Steel, Carlos ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":146,"full_name":"Helmig, Christoph","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":481,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Allgemeine Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Philosophie","volume":"29","issue":"","pages":"225-247"}},"sort":["Neue Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus (1995-2003). Teil II"]}

Nicolas, l'auteur du Sommaire de la philosophie d'Aristote : doutes sur son identité, sa datation, son origine, 2008
By: Fazzo, Silvia
Title Nicolas, l'auteur du Sommaire de la philosophie d'Aristote : doutes sur son identité, sa datation, son origine
Type Article
Language French
Date 2008
Journal Revue des Études Grecques
Volume 121
Issue 1
Pages 99-126
Categories no categories
Author(s) Fazzo, Silvia
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The paper discusses the attribution of the compendium De Philosophia Aristotelis to Nicolaus of Damascus the general historian (fl.: end 1st c. BC). By contrast, there are reasons to believe that the work was written by a Peripatetic Nicolaus between the 3rd and the 6th century, most likely from Syria in the 4th c. AD. Among the consequences: one piece of evidence for interest in a wide range of Aristotle's works already in the 1st century BC-lst century AD is removed; the supposedly earliest evidence for Metaphysics as the title of Aristotle's work is moved to a later date; the idea that Peripatetic activity more or less ceased with Alexander, Thémistius being the only exception, is weakened by another counter-example. On the contrary, a distinctively Peripatetic culture must have been still alive in Themistius' and Nicolas' time, when special tools were produced both for teaching activity and for the transmission of Aristotle's philosophy to later eras. [Author’s abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"822","_score":null,"_source":{"id":822,"authors_free":[{"id":1223,"entry_id":822,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":77,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Fazzo, Silvia","free_first_name":"Silvia","free_last_name":"Fazzo","norm_person":{"id":77,"first_name":"Silvia","last_name":"Fazzo","full_name":"Fazzo, Silvia","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Nicolas, l'auteur du Sommaire de la philosophie d'Aristote : doutes sur son identit\u00e9, sa datation, son origine","main_title":{"title":"Nicolas, l'auteur du Sommaire de la philosophie d'Aristote : doutes sur son identit\u00e9, sa datation, son origine"},"abstract":"The paper discusses the attribution of the compendium De Philosophia Aristotelis to Nicolaus of Damascus the general historian (fl.: end 1st c. BC). By contrast, there are reasons to believe that the work was written by a Peripatetic Nicolaus between the 3rd and the 6th century, most likely from Syria in the 4th c. AD. Among the consequences: one piece of evidence for interest in a wide range of Aristotle's works already in the 1st century BC-lst century AD is removed; the supposedly earliest evidence for Metaphysics as the title of Aristotle's work is moved to a later date; the idea that Peripatetic activity more or less ceased with Alexander, Th\u00e9mistius being the only exception, is weakened by another counter-example. On the contrary, a distinctively Peripatetic culture must have been still alive in Themistius' and Nicolas' time, when special tools were produced both for teaching activity and for the transmission of Aristotle's philosophy to later eras. [Author\u2019s abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2008","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/jxgfqFdijkuOVZK","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":77,"full_name":"Fazzo, Silvia","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":822,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Revue des \u00c9tudes Grecques ","volume":"121","issue":"1","pages":"99-126"}},"sort":["Nicolas, l'auteur du Sommaire de la philosophie d'Aristote : doutes sur son identit\u00e9, sa datation, son origine"]}

Not-Being, Contradiction and Difference. Simplicius vs. Alexander of Aphrodisias on Plato’s Conception of Not-Being, 2023
By: Roberto Granieri
Title Not-Being, Contradiction and Difference. Simplicius vs. Alexander of Aphrodisias on Plato’s Conception of Not-Being
Type Article
Language English
Date 2023
Journal Méthexis
Volume 35
Issue 1
Pages 185-200
Categories no categories
Author(s) Roberto Granieri
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In explicating a passage from Physics A 3, Simplicius reports a criticism by Alexander of Aphrodisias against Plato’s conception of not-being in the Sophist. Alexander deems this conception contradictory, because it posits that unqualified not-being is. Simplicius defends Plato and gives a diagnosis of what he regards as Alexander’s interpretative mistake in raising his objection. I unpack this debate and bring out ways in which it sheds light on important aspects of Plato’s project in the Sophist and of Simplicius’ own philosophical background, notably in Damascius’ De principiis. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1588","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1588,"authors_free":[{"id":2787,"entry_id":1588,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Roberto Granieri","free_first_name":"Roberto","free_last_name":"Granieri","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Not-Being, Contradiction and Difference. Simplicius vs. Alexander of Aphrodisias on Plato\u2019s Conception of Not-Being","main_title":{"title":"Not-Being, Contradiction and Difference. Simplicius vs. Alexander of Aphrodisias on Plato\u2019s Conception of Not-Being"},"abstract":"In explicating a passage from Physics A 3, Simplicius reports a criticism by Alexander of Aphrodisias against Plato\u2019s conception of not-being in the Sophist. Alexander deems this conception contradictory, because it posits that unqualified not-being is. Simplicius defends Plato and gives a diagnosis of what he regards as Alexander\u2019s interpretative mistake in raising his objection. I unpack this debate and bring out ways in which it sheds light on important aspects of Plato\u2019s project in the Sophist and of Simplicius\u2019 own philosophical background, notably in Damascius\u2019 De principiis. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2023","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/kxUtLJkrkZD05av","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1588,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"M\u00e9thexis","volume":"35","issue":"1","pages":"185-200"}},"sort":["Not-Being, Contradiction and Difference. Simplicius vs. Alexander of Aphrodisias on Plato\u2019s Conception of Not-Being"]}

Note sulla chiusura della Scuola neoplatonica di Atene, 2002
By: Napoli, Valerio
Title Note sulla chiusura della Scuola neoplatonica di Atene
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2002
Journal Schede Medievali
Volume 42
Pages 53-95
Categories no categories
Author(s) Napoli, Valerio
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Secondo la lettura di Alain De Libera, l’“esilio” dei filosofi in Persia non segna la chiusura del conflitto tra l’ellenismo e il cristianesimo né la fine della filosofia («la filosofia è tutt'altro che morta a quest’epoca»), ma, al contrario, rappresenta l’evento che dà avvio a un movimento di trasferimento o di transfert della scienza – una traslazione degli studi o dei centri di studio – che durerà fino alla fine del Medioevo.

L’esilio in questione, con cui la filosofia emigra – o pensa di emigrare – dall’Impero bizantino all’Impero sassanide per poi ritornare nell’Impero bizantino (in una translatio da Atene in Persia e dalla Persia a Harràn), costituisce una delle varie translations studiorum che si verificano tra l’antichità e il Medioevo e segna il perdurare, nella città di Harràn, in territorio bizantino, della filosofia pagana.

In ogni caso, è possibile notare che, con i filosofi menzionati da Agazia (e forse con altri della stessa epoca non coinvolti nell’avventura persiana), ci troviamo di fronte all’ultima generazione di spicco dei filosofi pagani. Qualunque sia stata l’attività filosofica svolta dai neoplatonici dopo il loro ritorno dalla Persia, a Harràn o in qualche altra località, si può comunque constatare che Damascio (il quale probabilmente scrisse le sue opere prima del 529) e, se si vuole, qualche altro pensatore contemporaneo costituiscono gli ultimi filosofi pagani di rilievo.

«[...] De fait – dichiara con decisione Henri Dominique Saffrey – après l’époque de Justinien, il n’y a plus eu de philosophes païens. Simplicius et les quelques-uns de la génération qui le suit, furent les derniers». Il pensiero pagano continuerà a vivere – al di là della possibile attività della comunità neoplatonica harraniana – in Oriente e in Occidente, in una complessa e intricata trama di ricezioni, influssi, fruizioni, letture, trasformazioni e suggestioni, nell’ambito del pensiero successivo nelle sue articolazioni arabo-islamica, greco-bizantina, latino-occidentale e altre. [conclusion p. 94-95]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"949","_score":null,"_source":{"id":949,"authors_free":[{"id":1425,"entry_id":949,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":522,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Napoli, Valerio","free_first_name":"Valerio","free_last_name":"Napoli","norm_person":{"id":522,"first_name":"Valerio","last_name":"Napoli","full_name":"Napoli, Valerio","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Note sulla chiusura della Scuola neoplatonica di Atene","main_title":{"title":"Note sulla chiusura della Scuola neoplatonica di Atene"},"abstract":"Secondo la lettura di Alain De Libera, l\u2019\u201cesilio\u201d dei filosofi in Persia non segna la chiusura del conflitto tra l\u2019ellenismo e il cristianesimo n\u00e9 la fine della filosofia (\u00abla filosofia \u00e8 tutt'altro che morta a quest\u2019epoca\u00bb), ma, al contrario, rappresenta l\u2019evento che d\u00e0 avvio a un movimento di trasferimento o di transfert della scienza \u2013 una traslazione degli studi o dei centri di studio \u2013 che durer\u00e0 fino alla fine del Medioevo.\r\n\r\nL\u2019esilio in questione, con cui la filosofia emigra \u2013 o pensa di emigrare \u2013 dall\u2019Impero bizantino all\u2019Impero sassanide per poi ritornare nell\u2019Impero bizantino (in una translatio da Atene in Persia e dalla Persia a Harr\u00e0n), costituisce una delle varie translations studiorum che si verificano tra l\u2019antichit\u00e0 e il Medioevo e segna il perdurare, nella citt\u00e0 di Harr\u00e0n, in territorio bizantino, della filosofia pagana.\r\n\r\nIn ogni caso, \u00e8 possibile notare che, con i filosofi menzionati da Agazia (e forse con altri della stessa epoca non coinvolti nell\u2019avventura persiana), ci troviamo di fronte all\u2019ultima generazione di spicco dei filosofi pagani. Qualunque sia stata l\u2019attivit\u00e0 filosofica svolta dai neoplatonici dopo il loro ritorno dalla Persia, a Harr\u00e0n o in qualche altra localit\u00e0, si pu\u00f2 comunque constatare che Damascio (il quale probabilmente scrisse le sue opere prima del 529) e, se si vuole, qualche altro pensatore contemporaneo costituiscono gli ultimi filosofi pagani di rilievo.\r\n\r\n\u00ab[...] De fait \u2013 dichiara con decisione Henri Dominique Saffrey \u2013 apr\u00e8s l\u2019\u00e9poque de Justinien, il n\u2019y a plus eu de philosophes pa\u00efens. Simplicius et les quelques-uns de la g\u00e9n\u00e9ration qui le suit, furent les derniers\u00bb. Il pensiero pagano continuer\u00e0 a vivere \u2013 al di l\u00e0 della possibile attivit\u00e0 della comunit\u00e0 neoplatonica harraniana \u2013 in Oriente e in Occidente, in una complessa e intricata trama di ricezioni, influssi, fruizioni, letture, trasformazioni e suggestioni, nell\u2019ambito del pensiero successivo nelle sue articolazioni arabo-islamica, greco-bizantina, latino-occidentale e altre. [conclusion p. 94-95]","btype":3,"date":"2002","language":"Italian","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/UFh3Gu1utmqf1sN","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":522,"full_name":"Napoli, Valerio","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":949,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Schede Medievali","volume":"42","issue":"","pages":"53-95"}},"sort":["Note sulla chiusura della Scuola neoplatonica di Atene"]}

Nous and Two Kinds of Epistêmê in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, 2010
By: Zeev Perelmuter
Title Nous and Two Kinds of Epistêmê in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal Phronesis
Volume 55
Issue 3
Pages 228-254
Categories no categories
Author(s) Zeev Perelmuter
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Aristotle in Physics I,1 says some strange-sounding things about how we come to know wholes and parts, universals and particulars. In explicating these, Simplicius distinguishes an initial rough cognition of a thing as a whole, an intermediate “cognition according to the definition and through the elements,” and a final cognition of how the thing's many elements are united: only this last is πιστήμη. Simplicius refers to the Theaetetus for the point about what is needed for πιστήμη and the ways that cognition according to the definition and through the elements falls short. By unpacking this reference I try to reconstruct Simplicius' reading of “Socrates' Dream,” its place in the Theaetetus ' larger argument, and its harmony with other Platonic and Aristotelian texts. But this reconstruction depends on undoing some catastrophic emendations in Diels's text of Simplicius. Diels's emendations arise from his assumptions about definitions and elements, in Socrates' Dream and elsewhere, and rethinking the Simplicius passage may help us rethink those assumptions. [author's abstract] 

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1593","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1593,"authors_free":[{"id":2793,"entry_id":1593,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Zeev Perelmuter","free_first_name":"Zeev","free_last_name":"Perelmuter","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Nous and Two Kinds of Epist\u00eam\u00ea in Aristotle\u2019s Posterior Analytics","main_title":{"title":"Nous and Two Kinds of Epist\u00eam\u00ea in Aristotle\u2019s Posterior Analytics"},"abstract":"Aristotle in Physics I,1 says some strange-sounding things about how we come to know wholes and parts, universals and particulars. In explicating these, Simplicius distinguishes an initial rough cognition of a thing as a whole, an intermediate \u201ccognition according to the definition and through the elements,\u201d and a final cognition of how the thing's many elements are united: only this last is \u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7. Simplicius refers to the Theaetetus for the point about what is needed for \u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7 and the ways that cognition according to the definition and through the elements falls short. By unpacking this reference I try to reconstruct Simplicius' reading of \u201cSocrates' Dream,\u201d its place in the Theaetetus ' larger argument, and its harmony with other Platonic and Aristotelian texts. But this reconstruction depends on undoing some catastrophic emendations in Diels's text of Simplicius. Diels's emendations arise from his assumptions about definitions and elements, in Socrates' Dream and elsewhere, and rethinking the Simplicius passage may help us rethink those assumptions. [author's abstract] ","btype":3,"date":"2010","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/IHkwn4udUD0QWHq","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1593,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Phronesis ","volume":"55","issue":"3","pages":"228-254"}},"sort":["Nous and Two Kinds of Epist\u00eam\u00ea in Aristotle\u2019s Posterior Analytics"]}

OMOΣE XΩΡEIN: Simplicius, Corollarium de loco 601.26–8 (Diels), 2011
By: Gregoric, Pavel, Helmig, Christoph
Title OMOΣE XΩΡEIN: Simplicius, Corollarium de loco 601.26–8 (Diels)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2011
Journal Classical Quarterly
Volume 61
Issue 2
Pages 722-730
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gregoric, Pavel , Helmig, Christoph
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The  upshot  of  this  article  is  that  the  treatment  of  the  phrase  ὁμόσε  χωρεῖν  in LSJ  can  be  supplemented  as  far  as  later  (Neoplatonic)  authors  are  concerned.  We  have  seen  that  the  translation  ‘to  come  to  issue’  for  the  metaphorical  meaning  of  the  phrase  is  ambiguous  and  needs  to  be  qualified  according  to  the  context.  While  the  expression  usually  betrays  an  adversative  connotation  –  to  counter  or  refute  an  argument  –  later  (Neoplatonic)  authors  also  used  it  in  a  more  neutral  sense  (‘to  come  to  grips  with  an  argument’).  More  to  the  point,  the  phrase  can  also  have  a  
concessive  connotation,  implying  a  concession  or  acceptance.  It  is  precisely  this  
latter  connotation  that  we  find  in  Simplicius’  Corollary  on  Place  601.26–8. [conclusion, p. 730]

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On Simplicius’ Life and Works: A Response to Hadot, 2015
By: Golitsis, Pantelis
Title On Simplicius’ Life and Works: A Response to Hadot
Type Article
Language English
Date 2015
Journal Aestimatio
Volume 12
Pages 56-82
Categories no categories
Author(s) Golitsis, Pantelis
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This text is a response to Ilsetraut Hadot's book, "Le néoplatonicien Simplicius à la lumière des recherches contem¬poraines. Un bilan critique," which provides a critical overview of scholarly research on the Neoplatonist Simplicius. The author critiques Hadot's approach, arguing that her use of the Neoplatonic curriculum and medieval testimonies is an unsafe guide for assessing Simplicius' life and works. The article concludes by thanking Hadot for her previous work on Simplicius and acknowledging the value of her contributions to the field. [introduction/conclusion]

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Parmenide neoplatonico: intorno a un nuovo studio sulla presenza di Parmenide nel commento alla Fisica di Simplicio (Book discussion of: Ivan A. Licciardi, Parmenide tràdito, Parmenide tradìto nel commentario di Simplicio alla Fisica di Aristotele (Symbolon 42), Sankt Augustin, Academia Verlag, 2016), 2017
By: Hoine, Pieter d’
Title Parmenide neoplatonico: intorno a un nuovo studio sulla presenza di Parmenide nel commento alla Fisica di Simplicio (Book discussion of: Ivan A. Licciardi, Parmenide tràdito, Parmenide tradìto nel commentario di Simplicio alla Fisica di Aristotele (Symbolon 42), Sankt Augustin, Academia Verlag, 2016)
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2017
Journal Méthexis
Volume 29
Issue 1
Pages 188-198
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hoine, Pieter d’
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In conclusione, mi permetto ancora alcune osservazioni sulla forma di quest’opera. Benché Simplicio apprezzi la laconicità (cioè la famosa brachylogia) degli antichi, credo che nessuno abbia mai pensato che il commentatore tenti di imitarla. Anzi, i suoi commentari sono caratterizzati da una certa prolissità e da ripetizioni che non sempre sono necessitate da bisogni esegetici. Per di più, il filo conduttore delle sue analisi è spesso interrotto da discussioni dossografiche o da digressioni che sono sì interessanti, ma non sempre pertinenti all’esegesi del testo in considerazione.

Temo che anche il commentario di Ivan Licciardi non sia del tutto privo di queste imperfezioni. Inoltre, penso che alcune scelte formali – come quella di presentare il greco non a fronte della traduzione, ma piuttosto di seguito, e quella di non usare note nella parte del commentario – non abbiano contribuito a rendere più facile la navigazione attraverso le ricche informazioni che questo libro offre. Sotto questi aspetti, il libro ha l’impronta di un’opera prima, ma va detto che nella sua premessa l’autore stesso se ne mostra ben conscio (p. 19).

Esprimendo queste riserve, non ho l’intenzione di ridurre i meriti di questo studio né di sollevare dubbi sul contributo dato da questo libro alla nostra comprensione dei temi discussi. Il merito di questo libro è soprattutto quello di aver consentito una migliore comprensione del contesto storico e filosofico in cui e delle ragioni per cui Simplicio ci ha trasmesso Parmenide. Anche se questo libro può aiutare gli studiosi dei presocratici a contestualizzare la loro stessa interpretazione del filosofo di Elea, è soprattutto agli studi neoplatonici che l’autore contribuisce.

Infatti, il Parmenide di Simplicio è innanzitutto un Parmenide neoplatonico. Il senso storico e critico moderno fanno sì che noi non abbiamo più a nostra disposizione quella chiave ermeneutica neoplatonica che consiste nel riferire contraddizioni apparenti a diversi piani della realtà presenti solo implicitamente nel pensiero degli autori che studiamo. Il nostro obiettivo non è più quello di difendere la fondamentale unità del pensiero antico contro i cristiani né quello di mostrare la verità eternamente infallibile del platonismo.

Diversamente, pensiamo che sia più sensato rintracciare non solo i punti di accordo, ma anche le discordanze e le discontinuità nella storia del pensiero, in cui lo stesso Simplicio merita una posizione di rilievo. L’interpretazione simpliciana di Parmenide ha sì ‘salvato’ parecchie linee del Poema dall’oblio, ma il prezzo che l’Eleate ha pagato è stato quello di essere stato forzato, nelle parole di Licciardi, in una ‘griglia concettuale totalmente estranea alla logica del Poema’ (p. 43).

L’ironia di questa vicenda è che sia stato proprio l’intento di Simplicio di coltivare l’amicizia con tutti i filosofi pagani ad averlo spinto, in fin dei conti, a tradire tutti.
[conclusion p. 197-198]

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Licciardi, Parmenide tr\u00e0dito, Parmenide trad\u00ecto nel commentario di Simplicio alla Fisica di Aristotele (Symbolon 42), Sankt Augustin, Academia Verlag, 2016)","main_title":{"title":"Parmenide neoplatonico: intorno a un nuovo studio sulla presenza di Parmenide nel commento alla Fisica di Simplicio (Book discussion of: Ivan A. Licciardi, Parmenide tr\u00e0dito, Parmenide trad\u00ecto nel commentario di Simplicio alla Fisica di Aristotele (Symbolon 42), Sankt Augustin, Academia Verlag, 2016)"},"abstract":"In conclusione, mi permetto ancora alcune osservazioni sulla forma di quest\u2019opera. Bench\u00e9 Simplicio apprezzi la laconicit\u00e0 (cio\u00e8 la famosa brachylogia) degli antichi, credo che nessuno abbia mai pensato che il commentatore tenti di imitarla. Anzi, i suoi commentari sono caratterizzati da una certa prolissit\u00e0 e da ripetizioni che non sempre sono necessitate da bisogni esegetici. Per di pi\u00f9, il filo conduttore delle sue analisi \u00e8 spesso interrotto da discussioni dossografiche o da digressioni che sono s\u00ec interessanti, ma non sempre pertinenti all\u2019esegesi del testo in considerazione.\r\n\r\nTemo che anche il commentario di Ivan Licciardi non sia del tutto privo di queste imperfezioni. Inoltre, penso che alcune scelte formali \u2013 come quella di presentare il greco non a fronte della traduzione, ma piuttosto di seguito, e quella di non usare note nella parte del commentario \u2013 non abbiano contribuito a rendere pi\u00f9 facile la navigazione attraverso le ricche informazioni che questo libro offre. Sotto questi aspetti, il libro ha l\u2019impronta di un\u2019opera prima, ma va detto che nella sua premessa l\u2019autore stesso se ne mostra ben conscio (p. 19).\r\n\r\nEsprimendo queste riserve, non ho l\u2019intenzione di ridurre i meriti di questo studio n\u00e9 di sollevare dubbi sul contributo dato da questo libro alla nostra comprensione dei temi discussi. Il merito di questo libro \u00e8 soprattutto quello di aver consentito una migliore comprensione del contesto storico e filosofico in cui e delle ragioni per cui Simplicio ci ha trasmesso Parmenide. Anche se questo libro pu\u00f2 aiutare gli studiosi dei presocratici a contestualizzare la loro stessa interpretazione del filosofo di Elea, \u00e8 soprattutto agli studi neoplatonici che l\u2019autore contribuisce.\r\n\r\nInfatti, il Parmenide di Simplicio \u00e8 innanzitutto un Parmenide neoplatonico. Il senso storico e critico moderno fanno s\u00ec che noi non abbiamo pi\u00f9 a nostra disposizione quella chiave ermeneutica neoplatonica che consiste nel riferire contraddizioni apparenti a diversi piani della realt\u00e0 presenti solo implicitamente nel pensiero degli autori che studiamo. Il nostro obiettivo non \u00e8 pi\u00f9 quello di difendere la fondamentale unit\u00e0 del pensiero antico contro i cristiani n\u00e9 quello di mostrare la verit\u00e0 eternamente infallibile del platonismo.\r\n\r\nDiversamente, pensiamo che sia pi\u00f9 sensato rintracciare non solo i punti di accordo, ma anche le discordanze e le discontinuit\u00e0 nella storia del pensiero, in cui lo stesso Simplicio merita una posizione di rilievo. L\u2019interpretazione simpliciana di Parmenide ha s\u00ec \u2018salvato\u2019 parecchie linee del Poema dall\u2019oblio, ma il prezzo che l\u2019Eleate ha pagato \u00e8 stato quello di essere stato forzato, nelle parole di Licciardi, in una \u2018griglia concettuale totalmente estranea alla logica del Poema\u2019 (p. 43).\r\n\r\nL\u2019ironia di questa vicenda \u00e8 che sia stato proprio l\u2019intento di Simplicio di coltivare l\u2019amicizia con tutti i filosofi pagani ad averlo spinto, in fin dei conti, a tradire tutti.\r\n[conclusion p. 197-198]","btype":3,"date":"2017","language":"Italian","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/AZQTPKFglABgm9k","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":104,"full_name":"Hoine, Pieter d' ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1484,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"M\u00e9thexis","volume":"29","issue":"1","pages":"188-198"}},"sort":["Parmenide neoplatonico: intorno a un nuovo studio sulla presenza di Parmenide nel commento alla Fisica di Simplicio (Book discussion of: Ivan A. Licciardi, Parmenide tr\u00e0dito, Parmenide trad\u00ecto nel commentario di Simplicio alla Fisica di Aristotele (Symbolon 42), Sankt Augustin, Academia Verlag, 2016)"]}

Parmenides B8.38 and Cornford’s Fragment, 2010
By: McKirahan, Richard D.
Title Parmenides B8.38 and Cornford’s Fragment
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal Ancient Philosophy
Volume 30
Issue 1
Pages 1-14
Categories no categories
Author(s) McKirahan, Richard D.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Having established the attributes of τὸ ἐόν in a series of arguments that end at B8.33, in the following eight lines Parmenides goes on to explore implications of his earlier claim that ‘you cannot know what is not...nor can you declare it’ (B2.7-8) in the light of the results obtained so far in B8. He begins by stating (B8.34) that ‘what is to be thought of is the same as that on account of which the thought is’ and goes on to give an argument for that claim (B8.35-38a). He then (B8.38b-41) states as a consequence of the claim, that ‘it (that is, τὸ ἐόν) has been named all things that mortals, persuaded that they are real, have posited both to be generated and to perish, both to be and not, and to change place and alter bright color’. His treatment of these issues, which concern the relations among reality, thought, and language, is one of the most philosophically important parts of his work; it is arguably the very heart of his philosophy. It is also one of the most obscure. The philosophical difficulties are compounded by the facts that the Greek text is uncertain and its grammatical structure is hard to make out.

One of the principal issues in dispute is the relation between a line quoted in two ancient sources (Plato’s Theaetetus and a commentary on that work by an unknown author) and B8.38. Do those sources contain the true version of B8.38, an incorrect version of that line—a misquotation of the true version, or an altogether different line? B8.38 is a pivotal line in the passage B8.34-41; as indicated above, I believe that it contains the end of the first part of the passage and the beginning of the second, although it is commonly understood differently.

The first step towards understanding the passage is to establish the text of B8.38. Ideally such a text would have substantial support in the ancient sources, it would be a line of the dactylic hexameter verse in which Parmenides wrote, it would make grammatical sense, it would give a good philosophical sense in the place where it occurs, it would suit Parmenides’ manner of presenting his ideas and arguments, and it would make sense in relation to the rest of his philosophy.

In part I, I survey the evidence for B8.38 and argue that if the version reported by Plato and his commentator is accepted as a separate fragment, then one of the metrically acceptable versions of the line preserved in the manuscripts of Simplicius is more strongly supported than has previously been thought and, in fact, from this point of view it becomes the leading candidate. In part II, I argue that this version can be read in a way that is philologically unobjectionable, and I propose a way of reading it that fits well with its context, is characteristic of Parmenides’ philosophical style, and gives at least as good philosophical sense as previous construals do. I also defend my interpretation against recent claims by Kingsley, Vlastos, and Mourelatos.

Finally, in part III, I take up the question of Cornford’s fragment (as the line quoted by Plato and his commentator is known). I boost the alleged fragment’s claim to authenticity by proposing a new way to understand the text that makes the line metrically and philologically unobjectionable and presenting two ways of construing it that make philosophical sense and make claims that do not repeat what Parmenides says elsewhere but accord well with his views. [introduction p. 1-2]

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Plotin und Simplikios über die Kategorie des Wo, 2009
By: Strobel, Benedikt
Title Plotin und Simplikios über die Kategorie des Wo
Type Article
Language German
Date 2009
Journal Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte
Volume 51
Pages 7-33
Categories no categories
Author(s) Strobel, Benedikt
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Wir haben im vorhergehenden drei semantische Interpretationen von Lokativen – als Ortsbezeichnungen, als Bezeichnungen von einem in einem anderen und als Ausdrücke von Relationen – kennengelernt, mit denen Plotin in VI 1 [42] 14 gegen die aristotelische Annahme der Kategorie des Wo (πού) argumentiert und die drei verschiedene Bestimmungen des Wo einschließen: als Ort (τόπος), als eines in einem anderen (ἄλλο ἐν ἄλλῳ) und als Beziehung zu einem Ort (σχέσις πρὸς τόπον).

Dabei hat sich unter anderem gezeigt:
(i) Weder diese Interpretationen noch die auf ihnen beruhenden Argumente überzeugen völlig, und Simplikios' Verteidigung der aristotelischen Annahme der Kategorie des Wo ist weitgehend erfolgreich, weist jedoch mit der These, dass Lokative nicht-reziproke Relationen ausdrücken, eine Schwachstelle auf.
(ii) Plotins drittes, auf der Interpretation von Lokativen als Ausdrücke von Relationen beruhendes Argument überzeugt zwar letztlich nicht, weist jedoch auf ein ernsthaftes Problem für Aristoteles hin.
(iii) Die in der antiken Philosophie weitverbreitete Auffassung, an einem Ort zu sein bedeute, von einem Körper umfasst zu werden, gründet in einem bestimmten Verständnis von Lokativen der Form ἐν τινι (z. B. ἐν Λύκειον und ἐν Ἀκαδημίᾳ). Dies bestätigt die zu Beginn aufgestellte These, dass die semantische Analyse von Lokativen Konsequenzen hat für die Wahl der Antwort darauf, was es heißt, an einem Ort zu sein, und was es heißt, der Ort von etwas zu sein.
[introduction p. 30-31]

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Porphyry and Iamblichus on Universals and Synonymous Predication, 2007
By: Chiaradonna, Riccardo
Title Porphyry and Iamblichus on Universals and Synonymous Predication
Type Article
Language English
Date 2007
Journal Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale
Volume 18
Pages 123-140
Categories no categories
Author(s) Chiaradonna, Riccardo
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Porphyry’s interpretation of Aristotle’s theories of genus and substantial predication is based on two related assumptions:

    That a clear separation exists between logic and metaphysics (= doctrine of transcendent realities).
    That there is a close relation between logic and physics.

Since Porphyry’s physics is part of his ontology, logic and ontology (i.e., the logic and the ontology of the physical world) stand in close relation with each other. Porphyry only makes very partial references to metaphysics in his logical works. What I have argued is that Porphyry’s conception of genus in the Isagoge reflects the Platonic theory of the hierarchy of beings, since Porphyry presents his genus as an aph’ henos hierarchical relation. This, on the other hand, does not imply that Porphyry’s treatment of genus in the Isagoge refers to transcendent ante rem principles. Porphyry carefully introduces a doctrine in the Isagoge, the complete significance of which emerges in a different context: the ‘Porphyrean tree’ is thus a mere analogon of the Platonic hierarchy of beings.

The presence of physical doctrines is far more essential to Porphyry’s views of universals and predication. Physical entities such as bodiless immanent forms provide real correlates for Porphyry’s universal predicates: Aristotle’s substantial predication ‘mirrors’ the relation between a particular and its immanent form. Physical forms are not outside the scope of logic; rather, they provide the ‘real’ foundation for Porphyry’s views on predication. Such a foundation is presented in an introductory way in Porphyry’s logical writings and is only made explicit in his more ‘systematic’ works.

Iamblichus’ attitude is different in that his Platonizing of Aristotle’s logic is more direct and pervasive. Consequently, Iamblichus offers a Platonizing reading of the Aristotelian theory of substantial predication, which refers to ante rem genera and to the metaphysical relation of participation. Iamblichus is well aware that an ante rem form cannot be a universal synonymous predicate of its particular instantiations, and he conceives of substantial predication as a paronymous relation. Neither Porphyry nor Iamblichus believe that an ante rem form can be predicated synonymously of corporeal individuals.
[conclusion p. 17-18]

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Porphyry's Isagoge and Early Greek Neoplatonism, 2018
By: Chiaradonna, Riccardo
Title Porphyry's Isagoge and Early Greek Neoplatonism
Type Article
Language English
Date 2018
Journal Medioevo. Rivista di storia della filosofia medieval
Volume 43
Pages 13-39
Categories no categories
Author(s) Chiaradonna, Riccardo
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper focuses on Porphyry’s Isagoge against the wider background of debates  about  genera  and  the  hierarchy  of  being  in  early  Neoplatonism  from Plotinus to Iamblichus. Three works are considered: Porphyry’s Isagoge, Plotinus tripartite treatise On The Genera of Being (VI, 1-3 [42-44]), Iamblichus’ Reply to Porphyry (the so-called De Mysteriis). In addition to this, the discussion focuses on some passages on genus and predication from Porphyry’s and
Iamblichus’  lost  commentaries on  Aristotle’s  Categories preserved  in  Simplicius.  In  his  account  of  genus,  Porphyry  draws  on Aristotle  and  apparently
claims that an amended version of the genus/species relation is able to express the hierarchy of different levels of being. This view is different from that of Plotinus, who instead argues that intelligible and sensible beings are homonymous, as well as from that of Iamblichus, who rejects the existence of a common genus above intelligible and sensible beings, while emphasising the analogy subsisting between different levels in the hierarchy. [Author's abstract]

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Positioning Heaven: The Infidelity of a Faithful Aristotelian, 2006
By: McGinnis, Jon
Title Positioning Heaven: The Infidelity of a Faithful Aristotelian
Type Article
Language English
Date 2006
Journal Phronesis
Volume 51
Issue 2
Pages 140-161
Categories no categories
Author(s) McGinnis, Jon
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Aristotle's account of place in terms of an innermost limit of a containing body was to generate serious discussion and controversy among Aristotle's later commentators, especially when it was applied to the cosmos as a whole. The problem was that since there is nothing outside of the cosmos that could contain it, the cosmos apparently could not have a place according to Aristotle's definition; however, if the cosmos does not have a place, then it is not clear that it could move, but it was thought to move, namely, in its daily revolution, which was viewed as a kind of natural locomotion and so required the cosmos to have a place. The study briefly outlines Aristotle's account of place and then considers its fate, particularly with respect to the cosmos and its motion, at the hands of later commentators. To this end, it begins with Theophrastus' puzzles concerning Aristotle's account of place, and how later Greek commentators, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius and others, attempted to address these problems in what can only be described as ad hoc ways. It then considers Philoponus' exploitation of these problems as a means to replace Aristotle's account of place with his own account of place understood in terms of extension. The study concludes with the Arabic Neoplatonizing Aristotelian Avicenna and his novel intro- duction of a new category of motion, namely, motion in the category of position. Briefly, Avicenna denies that the cosmos has a place, and so claims that it moves not with respect to place, but with respect to position. [Author’s abstract]

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Priscian of Lydia, Commentator on the "de Anima" in the Tradition of Iamblichus, 2005
By: Perkams, Matthias
Title Priscian of Lydia, Commentator on the "de Anima" in the Tradition of Iamblichus
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Mnemosyne, Fourth Series
Volume 58
Issue 4
Pages 510-530
Categories no categories
Author(s) Perkams, Matthias
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
It  has been argued that Priscian of  Lydia (around 530), to  whom the  manuscripts ascribe only two short treatises, is the author of an extended com- 
mentary on the  De  anima,  which is  transmitted under the name of  Simplicius. Our analysis confirms this: Priscian's Metaphrase of Theophrastus' Physics  is the text which the commentator mentions as  his own work. Consequently, its author, Priscian, also wrote the De anima commentary. The parallels between both texts show that the commentator sometimes does not quote Iamblichus directly, but borrowed Iamblichean formulations from the Metaphrase.  As for the dating of his works, a comparison with Damascius' writings makes it probable that his On  principks is a terminus post quem for the De anima  commentary and a terminus ante  quern for the Metaphrase.  It is likely that both works were composed before 529. [Author's abstract]

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Proclus vs Plotinus on Matter ("De mal. subs." 30-7), 2001
By: Opsomer, Jan
Title Proclus vs Plotinus on Matter ("De mal. subs." 30-7)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Phronesis
Volume 46
Issue 2
Pages 154-188
Categories no categories
Author(s) Opsomer, Jan
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In De malorum subsistentia chapters 30–37, Proclus criticizes the view that evil is to be identified with matter. His main target is Plotinus' account in Enn. 1.8 [51]. Proclus denies that matter is the cause of evil in the soul, and that it is evil or a principle of evil. According to Proclus, matter is good because it is produced by the One.

Plotinus' doctrine of matter as evil is the result of a different conception of emanation, according to which matter does not revert to its principle. Proclus claims that positing a principle of evil either amounts to a coarse dualism or makes the Good ultimately responsible for evil. Plotinus does not seem to escape the latter consequence if he is to remain committed to the Neoplatonic conception of causation.

Plotinus equated matter with privation and said it is a kind of non-being that is the contrary of substance, thus violating fundamental Aristotelian principles. Proclus reinstates Aristotelian orthodoxy, as does Simplicius in his Commentary on the Categories. It is possible that Iamblichus was the source of both Proclus and Simplicius, and that he was the originator of the parhypostasis theory and the inventor of the anti-Plotinian arguments. [author's abstract]

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Pseudo-Simplicius (Review on Simplicius’: On Aristotle On the Soul 3.6–13.), 2014
By: Van Dusen, David
Title Pseudo-Simplicius (Review on Simplicius’: On Aristotle On the Soul 3.6–13.)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal The Classical Review
Volume 64
Issue 2
Pages 436-437
Categories no categories
Author(s) Van Dusen, David
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In Inferno IV, when Dante catches sight of him in a mild foyer to the spiraling pit of hell, Averroes is simply described as “he who made the great Comment.” But in Convivio IV, the only other place where Dante references him, Averroes is specifically “the Commentator on Aristotle’s De Anima III.” Dante wrote this in the first decade of the fourteenth century, when Averroes was still, in effect, the commentator on De Anima 3. But by the last decades of the fifteenth century, a Simplicius commentary on the De Anima was being circulated in Italy by émigrés from Constantinople. This commentary rapidly exerted an influence on figures like Pico della Mirandola and Agostino Nifo. It saw its first Greek edition in Venice in 1527, with a complete Latin translation appearing in 1543, also in Venice. As its first translator pointed out in his prefatory letter, Averroes now had a contender in this De Anima commentary. The title of a 1553 Latin translation left no doubt: Commentaria Simplicii Profundissimi & Acutissimi Philosophi in Tres Libros De Anima Aristotelis. By the end of the sixteenth century, this commentary had inspired a vocal coterie in Italy—the so-called sectatores Simplicii.

Despite the fervor of these sectatores Simplicii, there is now a stable consensus that their De Anima commentary is pseudo-Simplician. S. has long been convinced that the work should be attributed to Priscian of Lydia; in this, he is preceded by Francesco Piccolomini, a sixteenth-century opponent of the simpliciani, who also put Priscian forward as the commentator. I. Hadot fiercely criticized this re-attribution in a 2002 article in Mnemosyne, “Simplicius or Priscianus? On the Author of the Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima”, and S. refers to the dispute in his introduction. He is sanguine: “As no other scholar apparently shares Hadot’s view, there is no need for further polemics” (p. 32 n. 6). Regardless of attribution, it is agreed that this De Anima commentary originated in Simplicius’ circles, that it represents “an original and personal engagement with Aristotle’s text” (p. 4), and that the commentator “uses various philological strategies to make sense of an obscure text” (p. 7). On this last point, S. is effusive: “Modern commentators could learn with profit from his attempts ‘to set right’ a difficult text ...without intervening with conjectures” (p. 7).

The manuscript basis of S.’s translation is broader than that of M. Hayduck’s semi-critical Greek edition (1882), which has been faulted for collating only a single fourteenth-century manuscript (Laurentianus 85.21) and a single sixteenth-century edition of the commentary (Aldina). In preparing his translation, S. consulted another fourteenth-century manuscript (which shows emendations and annotations by Cardinal Bessarion) and a mid-fifteenth-century manuscript. Nevertheless, he is generous: “Hayduck was basically right: it is indeed possible to constitute a critical text with the Laurentianus and the Aldina” (p. 149). A concise list of S.’s proposed corrections to the Greek and reconstructions of outstanding lacunae is included at the back of the volume.

S.’s is the final volume of the first-ever English translation of this De Anima commentary and gives us ps.-Simplicius on De Anima 3.6–13. The translation is nuanced and reliable, though at places the syntax could be smoothed out (“That also oysters have maturity and decline, all agree ...”, p. 101). The volume’s apparatus, credited to Arnis Ritups, is ample. And while ps.-Simplicius has never had English-speaking sectaries, his De Anima commentary was cited once by Bishop Berkeley and repeatedly by Lord Monboddo in the eighteenth century, while Thomas Taylor incorporated excerpts into the notes to his 1808 English translation of De Anima. In short, ps.-Simplicius’ Greek commentary has a place in the modern British reception of De Anima. The present translation should similarly inform contemporary work on De Anima and the Neoplatonists’ appropriation and transmission of Aristotle.

Ps.-Simplicius’ text is, of course, too dense to reprise here, but there is much of interest in his negotiation of time-statements in the last pages of De Anima, since it is in these pages—not the last paragraphs of Physics 4—that Aristotle investigates the problematic link of “time” to the “soul.” (And when Plotinus takes up the question of time in Enneads 3.7, he—like contemporary philosophers—turns to Physics 4, not De Anima 3.) Those interested in Neoplatonic conceptions of time—and, more generally, in the concept of time in Late Antiquity—would do well to consult this commentary and the other surviving Greek commentaries on De Anima 3.

There is a single, colorful passage that indicates how ps.-Simplicius’ commentary on the soul also opens onto the terrain of the body—sexuality, and so on—in Late Antiquity. In De Anima 3.9, Aristotle writes that “the heart” is moved when we think of menacing things, whereas “if the object is pleasant, some other part” is moved. It is a pleasure, then, to see ps.-Simplicius’ gloss: “The heart, for instance, may be set in movement among fearful things, and the generative organs (γεννητικὰ μόρια) upon the thought of sexual pleasure (ἀφροδισιαστικῶν ἡδονῶν)” (p. 102). This is doubtless the sense of Aristotle’s euphemistic text, and ps.-Simplicius sees the deeper import of sexual excitation with perfect clarity: “The intellect is not wholly master (οὐ τὸ ὅλον κύριος) of the movement of the living being” (p. 102). How far removed are we here from Augustine’s discussion of post-paradisiacal arousal in City of God against the Pagans? Or from Proclus’ refusal of a disciple who was “pursuing philosophy, but at the same time devoting his life to the pleasures below the belly (τὰς ὑπογαστρίους ἡδονάς),” as Damascius reports?

The early modern sectatores Simplicii likely misattributed their De Anima commentary, but in this, they were correct: Averroes is not “the Commentator on Aristotle’s De Anima III.” Ps.-Simplicius’ reading of the book is still challenging and, at places, suddenly illuminating. And it is no small thing for us to now have access—in conscientious English and in full—to this methodical, lexically sensitive commentary on the soul from the immediate circle of the last representatives of a “Platonic succession” in Athens. [the entire review]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1294","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1294,"authors_free":[{"id":1884,"entry_id":1294,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":74,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Van Dusen, David","free_first_name":"David","free_last_name":"Van Dusen","norm_person":{"id":74,"first_name":"David ","last_name":"Van Dusen","full_name":"Van Dusen, David ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1066385637","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Pseudo-Simplicius (Review on Simplicius\u2019: On Aristotle On the Soul 3.6\u201313.)","main_title":{"title":"Pseudo-Simplicius (Review on Simplicius\u2019: On Aristotle On the Soul 3.6\u201313.)"},"abstract":"In Inferno IV, when Dante catches sight of him in a mild foyer to the spiraling pit of hell, Averroes is simply described as \u201che who made the great Comment.\u201d But in Convivio IV, the only other place where Dante references him, Averroes is specifically \u201cthe Commentator on Aristotle\u2019s De Anima III.\u201d Dante wrote this in the first decade of the fourteenth century, when Averroes was still, in effect, the commentator on De Anima 3. But by the last decades of the fifteenth century, a Simplicius commentary on the De Anima was being circulated in Italy by \u00e9migr\u00e9s from Constantinople. This commentary rapidly exerted an influence on figures like Pico della Mirandola and Agostino Nifo. It saw its first Greek edition in Venice in 1527, with a complete Latin translation appearing in 1543, also in Venice. As its first translator pointed out in his prefatory letter, Averroes now had a contender in this De Anima commentary. The title of a 1553 Latin translation left no doubt: Commentaria Simplicii Profundissimi & Acutissimi Philosophi in Tres Libros De Anima Aristotelis. By the end of the sixteenth century, this commentary had inspired a vocal coterie in Italy\u2014the so-called sectatores Simplicii.\r\n\r\nDespite the fervor of these sectatores Simplicii, there is now a stable consensus that their De Anima commentary is pseudo-Simplician. S. has long been convinced that the work should be attributed to Priscian of Lydia; in this, he is preceded by Francesco Piccolomini, a sixteenth-century opponent of the simpliciani, who also put Priscian forward as the commentator. I. Hadot fiercely criticized this re-attribution in a 2002 article in Mnemosyne, \u201cSimplicius or Priscianus? On the Author of the Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s De Anima\u201d, and S. refers to the dispute in his introduction. He is sanguine: \u201cAs no other scholar apparently shares Hadot\u2019s view, there is no need for further polemics\u201d (p. 32 n. 6). Regardless of attribution, it is agreed that this De Anima commentary originated in Simplicius\u2019 circles, that it represents \u201can original and personal engagement with Aristotle\u2019s text\u201d (p. 4), and that the commentator \u201cuses various philological strategies to make sense of an obscure text\u201d (p. 7). On this last point, S. is effusive: \u201cModern commentators could learn with profit from his attempts \u2018to set right\u2019 a difficult text ...without intervening with conjectures\u201d (p. 7).\r\n\r\nThe manuscript basis of S.\u2019s translation is broader than that of M. Hayduck\u2019s semi-critical Greek edition (1882), which has been faulted for collating only a single fourteenth-century manuscript (Laurentianus 85.21) and a single sixteenth-century edition of the commentary (Aldina). In preparing his translation, S. consulted another fourteenth-century manuscript (which shows emendations and annotations by Cardinal Bessarion) and a mid-fifteenth-century manuscript. Nevertheless, he is generous: \u201cHayduck was basically right: it is indeed possible to constitute a critical text with the Laurentianus and the Aldina\u201d (p. 149). A concise list of S.\u2019s proposed corrections to the Greek and reconstructions of outstanding lacunae is included at the back of the volume.\r\n\r\nS.\u2019s is the final volume of the first-ever English translation of this De Anima commentary and gives us ps.-Simplicius on De Anima 3.6\u201313. The translation is nuanced and reliable, though at places the syntax could be smoothed out (\u201cThat also oysters have maturity and decline, all agree ...\u201d, p. 101). The volume\u2019s apparatus, credited to Arnis Ritups, is ample. And while ps.-Simplicius has never had English-speaking sectaries, his De Anima commentary was cited once by Bishop Berkeley and repeatedly by Lord Monboddo in the eighteenth century, while Thomas Taylor incorporated excerpts into the notes to his 1808 English translation of De Anima. In short, ps.-Simplicius\u2019 Greek commentary has a place in the modern British reception of De Anima. The present translation should similarly inform contemporary work on De Anima and the Neoplatonists\u2019 appropriation and transmission of Aristotle.\r\n\r\nPs.-Simplicius\u2019 text is, of course, too dense to reprise here, but there is much of interest in his negotiation of time-statements in the last pages of De Anima, since it is in these pages\u2014not the last paragraphs of Physics 4\u2014that Aristotle investigates the problematic link of \u201ctime\u201d to the \u201csoul.\u201d (And when Plotinus takes up the question of time in Enneads 3.7, he\u2014like contemporary philosophers\u2014turns to Physics 4, not De Anima 3.) Those interested in Neoplatonic conceptions of time\u2014and, more generally, in the concept of time in Late Antiquity\u2014would do well to consult this commentary and the other surviving Greek commentaries on De Anima 3.\r\n\r\nThere is a single, colorful passage that indicates how ps.-Simplicius\u2019 commentary on the soul also opens onto the terrain of the body\u2014sexuality, and so on\u2014in Late Antiquity. In De Anima 3.9, Aristotle writes that \u201cthe heart\u201d is moved when we think of menacing things, whereas \u201cif the object is pleasant, some other part\u201d is moved. It is a pleasure, then, to see ps.-Simplicius\u2019 gloss: \u201cThe heart, for instance, may be set in movement among fearful things, and the generative organs (\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u1f70 \u03bc\u03cc\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1) upon the thought of sexual pleasure (\u1f00\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03b4\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f21\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u1ff6\u03bd)\u201d (p. 102). This is doubtless the sense of Aristotle\u2019s euphemistic text, and ps.-Simplicius sees the deeper import of sexual excitation with perfect clarity: \u201cThe intellect is not wholly master (\u03bf\u1f50 \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f45\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2) of the movement of the living being\u201d (p. 102). How far removed are we here from Augustine\u2019s discussion of post-paradisiacal arousal in City of God against the Pagans? Or from Proclus\u2019 refusal of a disciple who was \u201cpursuing philosophy, but at the same time devoting his life to the pleasures below the belly (\u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03b3\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u1f21\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03ac\u03c2),\u201d as Damascius reports?\r\n\r\nThe early modern sectatores Simplicii likely misattributed their De Anima commentary, but in this, they were correct: Averroes is not \u201cthe Commentator on Aristotle\u2019s De Anima III.\u201d Ps.-Simplicius\u2019 reading of the book is still challenging and, at places, suddenly illuminating. And it is no small thing for us to now have access\u2014in conscientious English and in full\u2014to this methodical, lexically sensitive commentary on the soul from the immediate circle of the last representatives of a \u201cPlatonic succession\u201d in Athens. [the entire review]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/PvqFfr47EAUaMIW","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":74,"full_name":"Van Dusen, David ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1294,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical Review","volume":"64","issue":"2","pages":"436-437"}},"sort":["Pseudo-Simplicius (Review on Simplicius\u2019: On Aristotle On the Soul 3.6\u201313.)"]}

Quelques exemples de scholies dans la tradition arabe des "Éléments" d'Euclide, 2003
By: Djebbar, Ahmed
Title Quelques exemples de scholies dans la tradition arabe des "Éléments" d'Euclide
Type Article
Language French
Date 2003
Journal Revue d'histoire des sciences
Volume 56
Issue 2
Pages 293-321
Categories no categories
Author(s) Djebbar, Ahmed
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
After describing two important sources of scholia, the manuscripts Teherán Malik 3586 and Leiden Or. 399/1, this article analyzes the different kinds of scholia found in these texts as well as in other mathematical writings of the Arab tradition of Euclid's Elements. The second part of the article provides a modern edition and French translation of some of these previously unpublished scholia. [author's abstract]

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Rational Assent and Self-Reversion: A Neoplatonist Response to the Stoics, 2016
By: Coope, Ursula
Title Rational Assent and Self-Reversion: A Neoplatonist Response to the Stoics
Type Article
Language English
Date 2016
Journal Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy
Volume 50
Pages 237-288
Categories no categories
Author(s) Coope, Ursula
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this paper, we have seen how ps.-Simplicius draws upon the Neoplatonic notion of self-reversion to explain the nature of rational assent. I have argued that this account of assent provides a basis for explaining a fundamental difference between assenting and having impressions: the fact that we can assent for a reason but cannot (in the same sense) have an impression for a reason.

Ps.-Simplicius' account thus suggests an interesting new view of the nature of assent, a view that combines elements of Aristotelian, Stoic, and Neoplatonist thought. From the Stoics, he inherits the view that believing involves assenting. He draws upon the Neoplatonist notion of self-reversion to explain the essentially self-reflexive nature of assent. This enables him to defend Aristotle's claim that we cannot believe at will.

On this account, though we do not believe at will, we nevertheless have a kind of rational control over our beliefs: beliefs, by their very nature, are such as to be revised or maintained for reasons.

This account thus provides an answer to the question we raised for the Stoics: what is it about the nature of assent that explains why you are responsible for assenting in a way in which you are not responsible for having impressions?

You are responsible for assenting just because you can assent (or withhold assent) for reasons, and you can assent for reasons just because of the essentially self-reflexive nature of the act of assent.
[conclusion p. 286]

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Remarque complémentaire à mon article “Dans quel lieu le néoplatonicien Simplicius a-t-il fondé son école de mathémathiques, et où a pu avoir lieu son entretien avec un manichéen?”, 2007
By: Hadot, Ilsetraut
Title Remarque complémentaire à mon article “Dans quel lieu le néoplatonicien Simplicius a-t-il fondé son école de mathémathiques, et où a pu avoir lieu son entretien avec un manichéen?”
Type Article
Language French
Date 2007
Journal The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 1
Pages 263-269
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hadot, Ilsetraut
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Concerning the book by R. Arnzen Abū l-‘Abbās an-Nayrīzīs Exzerpte aus (Ps.-?) Simplicius’  Kommentar  zu  den  Definitionen,  Postulaten  und  Axiomen  in  Euclids Elementa  I,  the  present  paper  off  ers  a  survey  of  the  way  the  late  Neoplatonists  used to conceive and compose their commentaries. Far from trying to be original, each commentary is largely based on the works of predecessors. [Author's abstract]

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Review of Baltussen 2008: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator, 2009
By: Dillon, John
Title Review of Baltussen 2008: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator
Type Article
Language English
Date 2009
Journal The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 3
Issue 2
Pages 158 –160
Categories no categories
Author(s) Dillon, John
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This is a most welcome book, by a scholar who has had much to do with Simplicius over the last decade or so, as part of the great Ancient Commentators on Aristotle project, initiated by Richard Sorabji (indeed it is to Sorabji that the book is dedicated). The fruits of this experience are evidenced on more or less every page. As B. remarks, it has not been customary hitherto to focus on the personality or methods of Simplicius himself, as opposed to his value as a source for previous figures, both commentators and original authors, such as the Presocratics—such would have been the attitude of the great Hermann Diels, for example, who edited the Physics Commentary, as well as making so much use of him for his Fragmente der Vorsokratiker and Doxographi Graeci. But undoubtedly, Simplicius merits some attention for himself.

The book consists of six chapters, with an introduction and an epilogue. The introduction sets out the parameters of the problem: what should one expect in the way of philosophical attitudes from a late antique Platonist such as Simplicius, and how B. himself proposes to proceed in evaluating him. He emphasises that there are many ways in which this is something of a "work in progress," but he certainly provides enough material to give us a good idea of what Simplicius is up to. Above all, learned though he is, and copiously though he quotes his predecessors, we should not expect Simplicius to be in any anachronistic way an "objective" scholar. He is a Platonist, and his purpose is to assimilate Aristotle (and indeed the Presocratic philosophers) into the Platonist system.

Ch. 1, ‘The Scholar and his Books’, introduces us to what is known of Simplicius’ life and education (with Ammonius in Alexandria and Damascius in Athens, in the early decades of the sixth century) and addresses the major problem of the location and circumstances in which he composed his vast commentaries—necessarily after the official closing of the Academy in 529, and the return of the philosophers, of whom he was one, from Persia in 531. The Harran hypothesis of Tardieu runs into the great problem of the availability of source materials in such a relatively outlying place, and B. is inclined to reject it. The alternative is a return to Athens, or possibly Alexandria, where at least there were good libraries.

For one salient aspect of Simplicius’ work is his extraordinary range of reading, and his willingness to provide us with verbatim quotations from this, extending from Presocratics such as Parmenides, Melissus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras, through immediate followers of Aristotle, such as Theophrastus and Eudemus, and then the great second-century A.D. Aristotelian commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias, down to his Neoplatonic predecessors Porphyry, Iamblichus, Syrianus, and Proclus, and his own teacher Damascius. B. devotes separate chapters to each of these categories of predecessor.

Ch. 2, ‘Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy? Origins of Ancient Wisdom’, looks at his use of Parmenides, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras in particular, and makes various suggestions about his overall purposes in this. It is certainly notable that Simplicius favours verbatim quotation even of prose authors—in contrast, for example, to such a figure as Proclus, who prefers to paraphrase prose authors at least—but I think that I would rest content with Simplicius’ own explanation (and apologies for over-quotation!), that he was concerned to preserve as much as he could of sources that were becoming increasingly rare in his day. It does not mean that he is not prepared to distort their meaning in a Neoplatonic direction.

Ch. 3, ‘Towards a Canon: The Early Peripatetics’, turns to a study of Theophrastus and Eudemus, and in particular their comments on, and adaptations of, Aristotle’s Physics. It is here, I fear, that one begins to realise that this is the sort of book that is best appreciated if one has the original works it is discussing at one’s elbow, as one generally does not—in this case, chiefly Simplicius’ vast Commentary on the Physics. However, B. undoubtedly gives a good account of how Simplicius uses Theophrastus, and particularly Eudemus, whom he actually refers to far more (132 references as against 37!), for the clarification of Aristotle’s doctrine.

Ch. 4, ‘Ghost in the Machine? The Role of Alexander of Aphrodisias’, deals with Alexander, who is indeed Simplicius’ chief authority—quoted or mentioned in all fully 1200 times, of which around 700 are in the Physics Commentary. Alexander is, for Simplicius, simply "the commentator," and is of basic importance to him. After giving a useful account of Alexander's own exegetical achievements, B. tries to draw up something of a typology of ways in which he is used by Simplicius (4.3): first, he can be used as simply a helpful source for understanding Aristotle; secondly, he can be quoted and criticised, on a matter of interpretation or doctrine; thirdly, he can be quoted in connection with a variant in the manuscript tradition. Of all these, he gives examples, emphasising how central Alexander is to the whole commentary tradition.

Ch. 5, ‘Platonist Commentators: Sources and Inspiration’, takes us through the later Platonist tradition of commentary, with a glance at the Middle Platonists, but focusing chiefly on Porphyry and Iamblichus, and the establishing of the "harmonising" interpretation of Aristotle of which Simplicius is the heir. The use of these Platonist predecessors is particularly notable in the case of the Categories Commentary, but it affects the others as well.

Lastly, in Ch. 6, ‘Polemic and Exegesis in Simplicius: Defending Pagan Theology’, he deals with Simplicius’ fierce controversy with his Christian contemporary John Philoponus, as well as with his more civil criticisms of Alexander. The bitterness of his assaults on Philoponus does, as B. argues, bring home to us how far Simplicius is a heroic and tragic figure, trying to preserve and synthesise the whole of the Hellenic (I do wish we could give up the term "pagan"!) philosophical tradition in face of the ever more insistent Christian challenge, and composing his vast commentaries for a now largely imaginary coterie of students.

An Epilogue resumes all these findings, and B. appends some useful appendices, including one listing the probable contents of Simplicius’ library, which certainly brings it home to us that these great works of his could not have been composed while wandering about the Syrian desert on the back of a camel. He really must have been back in Athens, with some access to the library of the Platonic School.

At any rate, with this study, B. at last gives Simplicius something of his due as a scholar as well as a commentator. [the entire review p. 158-160]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"601","_score":null,"_source":{"id":601,"authors_free":[{"id":852,"entry_id":601,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":97,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Dillon, John","free_first_name":"John","free_last_name":"Dillon","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}}],"entry_title":"Review of Baltussen 2008: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator","main_title":{"title":"Review of Baltussen 2008: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator"},"abstract":"This is a most welcome book, by a scholar who has had much to do with Simplicius over the last decade or so, as part of the great Ancient Commentators on Aristotle project, initiated by Richard Sorabji (indeed it is to Sorabji that the book is dedicated). The fruits of this experience are evidenced on more or less every page. As B. remarks, it has not been customary hitherto to focus on the personality or methods of Simplicius himself, as opposed to his value as a source for previous figures, both commentators and original authors, such as the Presocratics\u2014such would have been the attitude of the great Hermann Diels, for example, who edited the Physics Commentary, as well as making so much use of him for his Fragmente der Vorsokratiker and Doxographi Graeci. But undoubtedly, Simplicius merits some attention for himself.\r\n\r\nThe book consists of six chapters, with an introduction and an epilogue. The introduction sets out the parameters of the problem: what should one expect in the way of philosophical attitudes from a late antique Platonist such as Simplicius, and how B. himself proposes to proceed in evaluating him. He emphasises that there are many ways in which this is something of a \"work in progress,\" but he certainly provides enough material to give us a good idea of what Simplicius is up to. Above all, learned though he is, and copiously though he quotes his predecessors, we should not expect Simplicius to be in any anachronistic way an \"objective\" scholar. He is a Platonist, and his purpose is to assimilate Aristotle (and indeed the Presocratic philosophers) into the Platonist system.\r\n\r\nCh. 1, \u2018The Scholar and his Books\u2019, introduces us to what is known of Simplicius\u2019 life and education (with Ammonius in Alexandria and Damascius in Athens, in the early decades of the sixth century) and addresses the major problem of the location and circumstances in which he composed his vast commentaries\u2014necessarily after the official closing of the Academy in 529, and the return of the philosophers, of whom he was one, from Persia in 531. The Harran hypothesis of Tardieu runs into the great problem of the availability of source materials in such a relatively outlying place, and B. is inclined to reject it. The alternative is a return to Athens, or possibly Alexandria, where at least there were good libraries.\r\n\r\nFor one salient aspect of Simplicius\u2019 work is his extraordinary range of reading, and his willingness to provide us with verbatim quotations from this, extending from Presocratics such as Parmenides, Melissus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras, through immediate followers of Aristotle, such as Theophrastus and Eudemus, and then the great second-century A.D. Aristotelian commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias, down to his Neoplatonic predecessors Porphyry, Iamblichus, Syrianus, and Proclus, and his own teacher Damascius. B. devotes separate chapters to each of these categories of predecessor.\r\n\r\nCh. 2, \u2018Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy? Origins of Ancient Wisdom\u2019, looks at his use of Parmenides, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras in particular, and makes various suggestions about his overall purposes in this. It is certainly notable that Simplicius favours verbatim quotation even of prose authors\u2014in contrast, for example, to such a figure as Proclus, who prefers to paraphrase prose authors at least\u2014but I think that I would rest content with Simplicius\u2019 own explanation (and apologies for over-quotation!), that he was concerned to preserve as much as he could of sources that were becoming increasingly rare in his day. It does not mean that he is not prepared to distort their meaning in a Neoplatonic direction.\r\n\r\nCh. 3, \u2018Towards a Canon: The Early Peripatetics\u2019, turns to a study of Theophrastus and Eudemus, and in particular their comments on, and adaptations of, Aristotle\u2019s Physics. It is here, I fear, that one begins to realise that this is the sort of book that is best appreciated if one has the original works it is discussing at one\u2019s elbow, as one generally does not\u2014in this case, chiefly Simplicius\u2019 vast Commentary on the Physics. However, B. undoubtedly gives a good account of how Simplicius uses Theophrastus, and particularly Eudemus, whom he actually refers to far more (132 references as against 37!), for the clarification of Aristotle\u2019s doctrine.\r\n\r\nCh. 4, \u2018Ghost in the Machine? The Role of Alexander of Aphrodisias\u2019, deals with Alexander, who is indeed Simplicius\u2019 chief authority\u2014quoted or mentioned in all fully 1200 times, of which around 700 are in the Physics Commentary. Alexander is, for Simplicius, simply \"the commentator,\" and is of basic importance to him. After giving a useful account of Alexander's own exegetical achievements, B. tries to draw up something of a typology of ways in which he is used by Simplicius (4.3): first, he can be used as simply a helpful source for understanding Aristotle; secondly, he can be quoted and criticised, on a matter of interpretation or doctrine; thirdly, he can be quoted in connection with a variant in the manuscript tradition. Of all these, he gives examples, emphasising how central Alexander is to the whole commentary tradition.\r\n\r\nCh. 5, \u2018Platonist Commentators: Sources and Inspiration\u2019, takes us through the later Platonist tradition of commentary, with a glance at the Middle Platonists, but focusing chiefly on Porphyry and Iamblichus, and the establishing of the \"harmonising\" interpretation of Aristotle of which Simplicius is the heir. The use of these Platonist predecessors is particularly notable in the case of the Categories Commentary, but it affects the others as well.\r\n\r\nLastly, in Ch. 6, \u2018Polemic and Exegesis in Simplicius: Defending Pagan Theology\u2019, he deals with Simplicius\u2019 fierce controversy with his Christian contemporary John Philoponus, as well as with his more civil criticisms of Alexander. The bitterness of his assaults on Philoponus does, as B. argues, bring home to us how far Simplicius is a heroic and tragic figure, trying to preserve and synthesise the whole of the Hellenic (I do wish we could give up the term \"pagan\"!) philosophical tradition in face of the ever more insistent Christian challenge, and composing his vast commentaries for a now largely imaginary coterie of students.\r\n\r\nAn Epilogue resumes all these findings, and B. appends some useful appendices, including one listing the probable contents of Simplicius\u2019 library, which certainly brings it home to us that these great works of his could not have been composed while wandering about the Syrian desert on the back of a camel. He really must have been back in Athens, with some access to the library of the Platonic School.\r\n\r\nAt any rate, with this study, B. at last gives Simplicius something of his due as a scholar as well as a commentator. [the entire review p. 158-160]","btype":3,"date":"2009","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/p1cPjdejj6J9LSt","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":97,"full_name":"Dillon, John","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":601,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition","volume":"3","issue":"2","pages":"158 \u2013160"}},"sort":["Review of Baltussen 2008: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator"]}

Review of Baltussen, H., Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator, 2014
By: Sellars, J. T.
Title Review of Baltussen, H., Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sellars, J. T.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This book is the first monograph in English (or any other language) devoted to the Late Platonic commentator Simplicius. Its focus is on Simplicius' methodology as a commentator. It deals at length with Simplicius' engagements with other ancient philosophers, from the earliest Presocratics, through the Peripatetic tradition (Theophrastus, Alexander), to contemporaries such as John Philoponus.

Who was Simplicius? He was a Neoplatonist working in the first decades of the sixth century AD under whose name five commentaries have come down to us from antiquity. These commentaries are on Aristotle's Physics, Categories, De Caelo, and De Anima, and the Enchiridion of Epictetus, although his authorship of the commentary on the De Anima has been a subject of scholarly debate. In these often lengthy commentaries, Simplicius quotes from a wide range of philosophical texts where he thinks it relevant to his discussion of Aristotle's text and, in the process, preserves fragments from a number of otherwise lost works.

Simplicius' chief claim to fame, then, is that he has become a vital source for our knowledge of Presocratic philosophy. Without Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics, our knowledge of early Greek philosophy would be significantly reduced.

This is the standard line. We should all be thankful to Simplicius for his habit of quoting texts in full rather than merely naming them in passing. We are thankful. But is there any more to him? Is Simplicius himself an interesting or significant philosopher? Is there anything more to him beyond his role as a doxographical source? Baltussen, in devoting a monograph to him, thinks there is, but he is conscious many will not share that view. Consequently, his book opens with an apologetic and slightly defensive introduction in which he tries to make the case for reading Simplicius as more than merely a quarry from which to extract quotations. Part of the task includes a defense of Late Platonism (Baltussen deliberately avoids the usual label "Neoplatonism"), to which Simplicius adhered. We are encouraged to put our reservations to one side and reassess Simplicius afresh.

The opening chapter introduces Simplicius' method and practice as a commentator. His commentaries differ from many other examples from late antiquity to the extent that they don't seem to be straightforward records of oral lectures taken "from the voice of" (apo phônês) the author. Instead, they are extended written works, conceived as textbooks for pagan teachers explicitly designed to preserve as much as possible of the pagan philosophical tradition—hence the extensive quotations. In these often lengthy texts, Simplicius explicitly rejects originality, but Baltussen argues that we ought not to take this at face value and that these expressions of modesty are, in part, made out of respect for his teachers.

The second chapter deals with Simplicius' role as a source for the Presocratics. Baltussen welcomes Catherine Osborne's approach of reading fragments of the Presocratics within their doxographical context, as this adds to Simplicius' potential significance. What is important, of course, is to gain a sense of the motive and agenda of the doxographer. According to Baltussen, Simplicius' aim is to locate all of the Presocratics within a Late Platonic framework that emphasizes unity within the pagan philosophical tradition conceived as "a single venerable and ancient message." This may be so up to a point, but to what extent would Simplicius welcome Democritus (or Epicurus) into this unified tradition? It would have been interesting to hear more about those thinkers who don't neatly fit within this syncretized history of philosophy, precisely because the points of disagreement might help to bring Simplicius' own position into sharper focus. Baltussen raises the question of whether Simplicius had access to the works of Presocratics directly or merely to collections of excerpts but doesn't draw any firm conclusions either way.

The third chapter turns to Simplicius' use of early Peripatetics such as Theophrastus and Eudemus. Baltussen argues that Simplicius took the early Peripatetics—and especially Theophrastus—very seriously in his exegeses of Aristotle because Theophrastus would have known Aristotle personally, giving his glosses an added authority. This is a departure from the attitudes of previous Platonic commentators on Aristotle. Although Simplicius shares the wider Late Platonic desire to harmonize Plato and Aristotle, there is also a strong desire to get Aristotle right, and no one is more likely to help in that task than Theophrastus. Baltussen suggests that we conceive Theophrastus himself as part of the Platonic commentary tradition, given his own comments on the Timaeus, but philosophical engagement with a previous author is not quite the same thing as commentary.

The Peripatetic theme continues in the fourth chapter, which is devoted to Alexander of Aphrodisias. Baltussen offers a detailed and slightly labored analysis of the motivations behind Simplicius' regular and extensive quotation from Alexander, but the question seems relatively straightforward. Why did Simplicius make use of Alexander's commentaries on Aristotle in his own commentaries on Aristotle? Because Alexander has lots of interesting things to say about Aristotle. The focus here again is on form rather than content, methodology rather than philosophy.

The fifth chapter examines the Platonic commentary tradition before Simplicius and discusses Simplicius' use of Plotinus and the Post-Plotinian tradition of harmonizing commentaries from Porphyry onwards. Simplicius' immediate teacher Ammonius is discussed briefly but deserves more attention. For instance, we were told in the opening chapter that Simplicius' rejection of originality was mere self-deprecation, but presumably that claim could be tested to some degree via a comparison between his own views and those of his teacher. The same goes for his later mentor Damascius.

The final chapter turns to the theme of polemic and focuses its attention on Simplicius' exchanges with his arch-rival John Philoponus, another Platonic commentator, but also a Christian. Baltussen prefaces his discussion with an account of the tensions and hostilities between Christians and pagans in late antiquity. Once again, Simplicius is presented as the defender of an embattled pagan philosophical tradition, taking Philoponus to task for his attacks against Proclus and Aristotle in De Aeternitate Mundi Contra Proclum. Baltussen highlights the rhetorical aspects of Simplicius' polemics rather than the content of the dispute, so once more methodology is the principal focus. The intensity of Simplicius' personal references to Philoponus ("raving swine") is contrasted with his sober and respectful references to Alexander.

An epilogue sums up the proceedings. One of the central themes to emerge from the book as a whole is the claim that, in order to understand what Simplicius is doing in his commentaries, we must take into account his commitment to pagan religion as well as philosophy. We should see the commentaries not merely as "scholarly schoolbooks" but rather as steps on a long road toward a more existential transformation. This religious dimension of Late Platonism should not be overlooked, Baltussen argues, if we want to understand properly what Simplicius is trying to achieve. The commentaries are his attempt to preserve the entire pagan philosophical and religious tradition within an increasingly hostile Christian world. On this final point, as well as a number of others, Baltussen sketches a broad context within which to think about what Simplicius is
doing but there is much less in the way of detailed analysis of what he actually did do, what he argued for, or what philosophical
positions he himself held. This is in part simply a reflection of the sheer length of the commentaries themselves and no one could
offer a detailed analysis of their contents within the covers of a single volume.
I said at the outset that five commentaries have come down to us under the name of Simplicius. Baltussen discusses only three of
them. He puts to one side the De Anima commentary and he may well be right to do so, but it would have been nice to have seen a
fuller discussion of the text and the question of its authorship.[2] He also more or less ignores the commentary on the Enchiridion of
Epictetus. Although it does get the occasional mention (e.g. p. 43) Baltussen proceeds as if it doesn't exist, at one point writing 'all
three extant commentaries' (p. 34). In his interesting attempt to reconstruct 'the library of Simplicius' (pp. 211-15), neither
Epictetus nor Arrian get a mention. This is a great shame for a number of reasons. The in Ench. is unique as the only surviving
commentary on a Stoic text to come down to us. Moreover, it is a commentary by a Late Platonist, and as a rule Late Platonists only
wrote commentaries on Plato and Aristotle.[3] The way in which Late Platonists brought Aristotle into their curriculum is a
well-worn subject, but the desire to bring in a Stoic text is quite unusual. It complicates Simplicius' activity as a commentator in a
number of interesting and significant ways. Presumably Baltussen would argue that this is part of Simplicius' desire to unite and
then preserve the entire pagan philosophical tradition in an increasingly hostile Christian world, but if that is the case then the in
Ench. would form a potentially significant piece of evidence for Baltussen's thesis, one that has sadly been left out of the account. There is much in Baltussen's book that is of interest, but I'm not sure how far it goes in fleshing out a more rounded portrait of Simplicius. The focus of the volume throughout is squarely on Simplicius' use of other authors—i.e., his quotations—rather than Simplicius as an author or a philosopher in his own right. Baltussen consciously avoids discussing Simplicius qua philosopher on the basis that this has been done by others elsewhere. This is true to an extent, but what would be nice is a more synthetic volume that brings these discussions together in order to give us a complete picture. This book doesn't do that, although, to be fair, it doesn't ever claim to be trying to.

What remains a desideratum, then, is a monograph that might combine Baltussen's methodological researches with an account of what is philosophically valuable in Simplicius. Most of my critical comments above have been asking for more discussion on various points, and no author can do everything in just one volume. I certainly hope that this book will encourage further work on Simplicius by both Baltussen and others that will help us to gain a fuller portrait of this still relatively neglected philosopher. [the entire review]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"904","_score":null,"_source":{"id":904,"authors_free":[{"id":1335,"entry_id":904,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":299,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sellars, J. T.","free_first_name":"J. T.","free_last_name":"Sellars","norm_person":{"id":299,"first_name":"J. T.","last_name":"Sellars","full_name":"Sellars, J. T.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1011826046","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Review of Baltussen, H., Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator","main_title":{"title":"Review of Baltussen, H., Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator"},"abstract":"This book is the first monograph in English (or any other language) devoted to the Late Platonic commentator Simplicius. Its focus is on Simplicius' methodology as a commentator. It deals at length with Simplicius' engagements with other ancient philosophers, from the earliest Presocratics, through the Peripatetic tradition (Theophrastus, Alexander), to contemporaries such as John Philoponus.\r\n\r\nWho was Simplicius? He was a Neoplatonist working in the first decades of the sixth century AD under whose name five commentaries have come down to us from antiquity. These commentaries are on Aristotle's Physics, Categories, De Caelo, and De Anima, and the Enchiridion of Epictetus, although his authorship of the commentary on the De Anima has been a subject of scholarly debate. In these often lengthy commentaries, Simplicius quotes from a wide range of philosophical texts where he thinks it relevant to his discussion of Aristotle's text and, in the process, preserves fragments from a number of otherwise lost works.\r\n\r\nSimplicius' chief claim to fame, then, is that he has become a vital source for our knowledge of Presocratic philosophy. Without Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics, our knowledge of early Greek philosophy would be significantly reduced.\r\n\r\nThis is the standard line. We should all be thankful to Simplicius for his habit of quoting texts in full rather than merely naming them in passing. We are thankful. But is there any more to him? Is Simplicius himself an interesting or significant philosopher? Is there anything more to him beyond his role as a doxographical source? Baltussen, in devoting a monograph to him, thinks there is, but he is conscious many will not share that view. Consequently, his book opens with an apologetic and slightly defensive introduction in which he tries to make the case for reading Simplicius as more than merely a quarry from which to extract quotations. Part of the task includes a defense of Late Platonism (Baltussen deliberately avoids the usual label \"Neoplatonism\"), to which Simplicius adhered. We are encouraged to put our reservations to one side and reassess Simplicius afresh.\r\n\r\nThe opening chapter introduces Simplicius' method and practice as a commentator. His commentaries differ from many other examples from late antiquity to the extent that they don't seem to be straightforward records of oral lectures taken \"from the voice of\" (apo ph\u00f4n\u00eas) the author. Instead, they are extended written works, conceived as textbooks for pagan teachers explicitly designed to preserve as much as possible of the pagan philosophical tradition\u2014hence the extensive quotations. In these often lengthy texts, Simplicius explicitly rejects originality, but Baltussen argues that we ought not to take this at face value and that these expressions of modesty are, in part, made out of respect for his teachers.\r\n\r\nThe second chapter deals with Simplicius' role as a source for the Presocratics. Baltussen welcomes Catherine Osborne's approach of reading fragments of the Presocratics within their doxographical context, as this adds to Simplicius' potential significance. What is important, of course, is to gain a sense of the motive and agenda of the doxographer. According to Baltussen, Simplicius' aim is to locate all of the Presocratics within a Late Platonic framework that emphasizes unity within the pagan philosophical tradition conceived as \"a single venerable and ancient message.\" This may be so up to a point, but to what extent would Simplicius welcome Democritus (or Epicurus) into this unified tradition? It would have been interesting to hear more about those thinkers who don't neatly fit within this syncretized history of philosophy, precisely because the points of disagreement might help to bring Simplicius' own position into sharper focus. Baltussen raises the question of whether Simplicius had access to the works of Presocratics directly or merely to collections of excerpts but doesn't draw any firm conclusions either way.\r\n\r\nThe third chapter turns to Simplicius' use of early Peripatetics such as Theophrastus and Eudemus. Baltussen argues that Simplicius took the early Peripatetics\u2014and especially Theophrastus\u2014very seriously in his exegeses of Aristotle because Theophrastus would have known Aristotle personally, giving his glosses an added authority. This is a departure from the attitudes of previous Platonic commentators on Aristotle. Although Simplicius shares the wider Late Platonic desire to harmonize Plato and Aristotle, there is also a strong desire to get Aristotle right, and no one is more likely to help in that task than Theophrastus. Baltussen suggests that we conceive Theophrastus himself as part of the Platonic commentary tradition, given his own comments on the Timaeus, but philosophical engagement with a previous author is not quite the same thing as commentary.\r\n\r\nThe Peripatetic theme continues in the fourth chapter, which is devoted to Alexander of Aphrodisias. Baltussen offers a detailed and slightly labored analysis of the motivations behind Simplicius' regular and extensive quotation from Alexander, but the question seems relatively straightforward. Why did Simplicius make use of Alexander's commentaries on Aristotle in his own commentaries on Aristotle? Because Alexander has lots of interesting things to say about Aristotle. The focus here again is on form rather than content, methodology rather than philosophy.\r\n\r\nThe fifth chapter examines the Platonic commentary tradition before Simplicius and discusses Simplicius' use of Plotinus and the Post-Plotinian tradition of harmonizing commentaries from Porphyry onwards. Simplicius' immediate teacher Ammonius is discussed briefly but deserves more attention. For instance, we were told in the opening chapter that Simplicius' rejection of originality was mere self-deprecation, but presumably that claim could be tested to some degree via a comparison between his own views and those of his teacher. The same goes for his later mentor Damascius.\r\n\r\nThe final chapter turns to the theme of polemic and focuses its attention on Simplicius' exchanges with his arch-rival John Philoponus, another Platonic commentator, but also a Christian. Baltussen prefaces his discussion with an account of the tensions and hostilities between Christians and pagans in late antiquity. Once again, Simplicius is presented as the defender of an embattled pagan philosophical tradition, taking Philoponus to task for his attacks against Proclus and Aristotle in De Aeternitate Mundi Contra Proclum. Baltussen highlights the rhetorical aspects of Simplicius' polemics rather than the content of the dispute, so once more methodology is the principal focus. The intensity of Simplicius' personal references to Philoponus (\"raving swine\") is contrasted with his sober and respectful references to Alexander.\r\n\r\nAn epilogue sums up the proceedings. One of the central themes to emerge from the book as a whole is the claim that, in order to understand what Simplicius is doing in his commentaries, we must take into account his commitment to pagan religion as well as philosophy. We should see the commentaries not merely as \"scholarly schoolbooks\" but rather as steps on a long road toward a more existential transformation. This religious dimension of Late Platonism should not be overlooked, Baltussen argues, if we want to understand properly what Simplicius is trying to achieve. The commentaries are his attempt to preserve the entire pagan philosophical and religious tradition within an increasingly hostile Christian world. On this final point, as well as a number of others, Baltussen sketches a broad context within which to think about what Simplicius is\r\ndoing but there is much less in the way of detailed analysis of what he actually did do, what he argued for, or what philosophical\r\npositions he himself held. This is in part simply a reflection of the sheer length of the commentaries themselves and no one could\r\noffer a detailed analysis of their contents within the covers of a single volume.\r\nI said at the outset that five commentaries have come down to us under the name of Simplicius. Baltussen discusses only three of\r\nthem. He puts to one side the De Anima commentary and he may well be right to do so, but it would have been nice to have seen a\r\nfuller discussion of the text and the question of its authorship.[2] He also more or less ignores the commentary on the Enchiridion of\r\nEpictetus. Although it does get the occasional mention (e.g. p. 43) Baltussen proceeds as if it doesn't exist, at one point writing 'all\r\nthree extant commentaries' (p. 34). In his interesting attempt to reconstruct 'the library of Simplicius' (pp. 211-15), neither\r\nEpictetus nor Arrian get a mention. This is a great shame for a number of reasons. The in Ench. is unique as the only surviving\r\ncommentary on a Stoic text to come down to us. Moreover, it is a commentary by a Late Platonist, and as a rule Late Platonists only\r\nwrote commentaries on Plato and Aristotle.[3] The way in which Late Platonists brought Aristotle into their curriculum is a\r\nwell-worn subject, but the desire to bring in a Stoic text is quite unusual. It complicates Simplicius' activity as a commentator in a\r\nnumber of interesting and significant ways. Presumably Baltussen would argue that this is part of Simplicius' desire to unite and\r\nthen preserve the entire pagan philosophical tradition in an increasingly hostile Christian world, but if that is the case then the in\r\nEnch. would form a potentially significant piece of evidence for Baltussen's thesis, one that has sadly been left out of the account. There is much in Baltussen's book that is of interest, but I'm not sure how far it goes in fleshing out a more rounded portrait of Simplicius. The focus of the volume throughout is squarely on Simplicius' use of other authors\u2014i.e., his quotations\u2014rather than Simplicius as an author or a philosopher in his own right. Baltussen consciously avoids discussing Simplicius qua philosopher on the basis that this has been done by others elsewhere. This is true to an extent, but what would be nice is a more synthetic volume that brings these discussions together in order to give us a complete picture. This book doesn't do that, although, to be fair, it doesn't ever claim to be trying to.\r\n\r\nWhat remains a desideratum, then, is a monograph that might combine Baltussen's methodological researches with an account of what is philosophically valuable in Simplicius. Most of my critical comments above have been asking for more discussion on various points, and no author can do everything in just one volume. I certainly hope that this book will encourage further work on Simplicius by both Baltussen and others that will help us to gain a fuller portrait of this still relatively neglected philosopher. [the entire review]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/MiDP9FxKLHavo2S","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":299,"full_name":"Sellars, J. T.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":904,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews","volume":"","issue":"","pages":""}},"sort":["Review of Baltussen, H., Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator"]}

Review of Baltussen, Han: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commen­tator, 2008
By: Todd, Robert B.
Title Review of Baltussen, Han: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commen­tator
Type Article
Language English
Date 2008
Journal Aestimatio
Volume 5
Pages 210–224
Categories no categories
Author(s) Todd, Robert B.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In Philosophy and Exegesis in Simpliciusf a preparatory study for a 
history of the ancient philosophical commentary  [224nnl0,  13],  Han 
Baltussen addresses the  ‘methodology’  of pagan antiquity’s last  ma­
jor Platonist and its greatest philosophical scholar, Simplicius of Cili­
cia  (AD  ca  480- ca  540).  What  ‘methodology’  means  can  be  best 
appreciated if the book’s general conclusions are first summarized. [introduction p. 210]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"461","_score":null,"_source":{"id":461,"authors_free":[{"id":618,"entry_id":461,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":340,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Todd, Robert B.","free_first_name":"Robert B.","free_last_name":"Todd","norm_person":{"id":340,"first_name":"Robert B.","last_name":"Todd","full_name":"Todd, Robert B.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/129460788","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Review of Baltussen, Han: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commen\u00adtator","main_title":{"title":"Review of Baltussen, Han: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commen\u00adtator"},"abstract":"In Philosophy and Exegesis in Simpliciusf a preparatory study for a \r\nhistory of the ancient philosophical commentary [224nnl0, 13], Han \r\nBaltussen addresses the \u2018methodology\u2019 of pagan antiquity\u2019s last ma\u00ad\r\njor Platonist and its greatest philosophical scholar, Simplicius of Cili\u00ad\r\ncia (AD ca 480- ca 540). What \u2018methodology\u2019 means can be best \r\nappreciated if the book\u2019s general conclusions are first summarized. [introduction p. 210]","btype":3,"date":"2008","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/oXKF0eqANW36ItV","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":340,"full_name":"Todd, Robert B.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":461,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Aestimatio","volume":"5","issue":"","pages":"210\u2013224"}},"sort":["Review of Baltussen, Han: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commen\u00adtator"]}

Review of Hadot, I.: Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d'Épictète, Tome I, 2002
By: Sheppard, Anne D.
Title Review of Hadot, I.: Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d'Épictète, Tome I
Type Article
Language French
Date 2002
Journal The Classical Review, New Series
Volume 52
Issue 2
Pages 377-378
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sheppard, Anne D.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In 1996, Ilsetraut Hadot published the first-ever full critical edition of the Greek text of Simplicius' commentary on Epictetus' Encheiridion (I. Hadot, Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d'Epictète [Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1996]). The volume reviewed here is the first half of an editio minor of that text. It also contains a largely new introduction, written for a more general audience than the detailed scholarly introduction of the editio maior, and a translation equipped with notes. These notes follow the format of recent Budé editions of Neoplatonic texts, offering much helpful explanation with useful references to parallel passages in other Neoplatonic authors but inconveniently divided between the bottom of the page and the end of the volume.

All Neoplatonic commentaries are discursive, and those of Simplicius are among the most discursive. It takes 130 pages of this volume for Simplicius to reach Chapter 20 of Epictetus' short work. However, as with many Neoplatonic commentaries, the interest of this one does not lie in what it tells us about Epictetus—whose philosophy Simplicius misunderstood in some important respects, as Hadot points out in her introduction (pp. ci–cxvii). Rather, it is worth reading for what it tells us about Simplicius' own philosophical views. It is unusual among Neoplatonic commentaries in dealing with an ethical text, and the discussions of τὰ Ἐφ' ἡμῖν (what is within our power) and the spiritual exercises recommended by Epictetus are of considerable interest.

Hadot's introduction offers an updated version of her views on Simplicius' life, work, and philosophical system; a chapter on the Commentary's place in Neoplatonic teaching; an account of Simplicius' reception of Stoic doctrines; and a short history of the text. Finally, there is an appendix on Fate, Providence, and human freedom in Neoplatonism, which covers Porphyry, Iamblichus, Hierocles, and Proclus, as well as Simplicius. Of these, the account of Simplicius' reception of Stoic doctrines and the appendix are entirely new, while the chapter on the Commentary's place in Neoplatonic teaching is an updated and lightly revised version of a chapter from her book, Le problème du néoplatonisme alexandrin. Hiéroclès et Simplicius (Paris, 1978).

The first two chapters of the introduction repeat, in a clear and accessible form, views she has already published elsewhere and is well known for. She reiterates her now largely accepted demonstration that Simplicius' philosophical system is essentially the same as that of Damascius—not, as Praechter thought, a simplified Alexandrian system—and, more controversially, continues to maintain, with Tardieu, that his commentaries were written in Harran after 532. The chapter on the history of the text abbreviates the longer account in the editio maior and explains the principles of the editio minor, acknowledging the help of Concetta Luna in simplifying the apparatus. A small number of readings that differ from those of the editio maior are indicated in a footnote on p. cxxvi.

Hadot's translation is divided into sections with helpful headings and subheadings, and, together with her full notes, provides a great deal of assistance in understanding Simplicius' text. This volume deserves a warm welcome as a further installment in the enormous contribution Hadot has made to the understanding of Simplicius over many years. It is to be hoped that it will not be too long before the second volume appears to complement it. [the entire review]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1020","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1020,"authors_free":[{"id":1536,"entry_id":1020,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":43,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sheppard, Anne D.","free_first_name":"Anne D.","free_last_name":"Sheppard","norm_person":{"id":43,"first_name":"Anne D.","last_name":"Sheppard","full_name":"Sheppard, Anne D.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1158024592","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Review of Hadot, I.: Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d'\u00c9pict\u00e8te, Tome I","main_title":{"title":"Review of Hadot, I.: Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d'\u00c9pict\u00e8te, Tome I"},"abstract":"In 1996, Ilsetraut Hadot published the first-ever full critical edition of the Greek text of Simplicius' commentary on Epictetus' Encheiridion (I. Hadot, Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d'Epict\u00e8te [Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1996]). The volume reviewed here is the first half of an editio minor of that text. It also contains a largely new introduction, written for a more general audience than the detailed scholarly introduction of the editio maior, and a translation equipped with notes. These notes follow the format of recent Bud\u00e9 editions of Neoplatonic texts, offering much helpful explanation with useful references to parallel passages in other Neoplatonic authors but inconveniently divided between the bottom of the page and the end of the volume.\r\n\r\nAll Neoplatonic commentaries are discursive, and those of Simplicius are among the most discursive. It takes 130 pages of this volume for Simplicius to reach Chapter 20 of Epictetus' short work. However, as with many Neoplatonic commentaries, the interest of this one does not lie in what it tells us about Epictetus\u2014whose philosophy Simplicius misunderstood in some important respects, as Hadot points out in her introduction (pp. ci\u2013cxvii). Rather, it is worth reading for what it tells us about Simplicius' own philosophical views. It is unusual among Neoplatonic commentaries in dealing with an ethical text, and the discussions of \u03c4\u1f70 \u1f18\u03c6' \u1f21\u03bc\u1fd6\u03bd (what is within our power) and the spiritual exercises recommended by Epictetus are of considerable interest.\r\n\r\nHadot's introduction offers an updated version of her views on Simplicius' life, work, and philosophical system; a chapter on the Commentary's place in Neoplatonic teaching; an account of Simplicius' reception of Stoic doctrines; and a short history of the text. Finally, there is an appendix on Fate, Providence, and human freedom in Neoplatonism, which covers Porphyry, Iamblichus, Hierocles, and Proclus, as well as Simplicius. Of these, the account of Simplicius' reception of Stoic doctrines and the appendix are entirely new, while the chapter on the Commentary's place in Neoplatonic teaching is an updated and lightly revised version of a chapter from her book, Le probl\u00e8me du n\u00e9oplatonisme alexandrin. Hi\u00e9rocl\u00e8s et Simplicius (Paris, 1978).\r\n\r\nThe first two chapters of the introduction repeat, in a clear and accessible form, views she has already published elsewhere and is well known for. She reiterates her now largely accepted demonstration that Simplicius' philosophical system is essentially the same as that of Damascius\u2014not, as Praechter thought, a simplified Alexandrian system\u2014and, more controversially, continues to maintain, with Tardieu, that his commentaries were written in Harran after 532. The chapter on the history of the text abbreviates the longer account in the editio maior and explains the principles of the editio minor, acknowledging the help of Concetta Luna in simplifying the apparatus. A small number of readings that differ from those of the editio maior are indicated in a footnote on p. cxxvi.\r\n\r\nHadot's translation is divided into sections with helpful headings and subheadings, and, together with her full notes, provides a great deal of assistance in understanding Simplicius' text. This volume deserves a warm welcome as a further installment in the enormous contribution Hadot has made to the understanding of Simplicius over many years. It is to be hoped that it will not be too long before the second volume appears to complement it. [the entire review]","btype":3,"date":"2002","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/lwxAqvhdfMDm8ss","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":43,"full_name":"Sheppard, Anne D.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1020,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical Review, New Series","volume":"52","issue":"2","pages":"377-378"}},"sort":["Review of Hadot, I.: Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d'\u00c9pict\u00e8te, Tome I"]}

Review of Huby, Taylor 2011: Simplicius, On Aristotle Physics 1.3–4, 2012
By: Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Title Review of Huby, Taylor 2011: Simplicius, On Aristotle Physics 1.3–4
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal The Classical Review
Volume 62
Issue 2
Pages 465-467
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Thanks to the Ancient Commentators project, almost all of Simplicius' commentaries are now translated. This volume completes the gigantic On Aristotle's Physics. Within this monument, Book 1 must be the most read by scholars today because Aristotle's criticism of several physical theories leads Simplicius to multiply quotations of his forerunners and to preserve for his contemporaries (as well as for us) much Presocratic material (by Simplicius' time much of this had already become very rare: see In Phys. 144.25-9 on Parmenides).
In Chapter 1.3, Aristotle discusses the unity of Being he ascribes to the Eleatic philosophers. Simplicius comments abundantly. Citing Theophrastus, Alexander, and Porphyry, he reproduces the 'Eleatic syllogism,' which affirms Being and excludes not-Being, so as to prove Parmenides' thesis that Being is one and to assert, via Plato's Sophist, that Parmenides recognizes the existence of not-Being. Moreover, he assigns this reading to Aristotle himself, considering his criticism as an expression of later conceptual and linguistic refinements.
In Chapter 1.4, Aristotle discusses Anaximander, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles. Here again, Simplicius contributes to the debate by his numerous quotations and by his analysis of rival commentators (Theophrastus, Alexander, Porphyry, and Nicolaus of Damascus). He considers how Anaxagoras and Empedocles can say that their principles are both one and many. Then, confronted with Aristotle's criticism of homoiomeria and nous, he gives a non-physical reading of Anaxagoras' account, explaining that it talks figuratively about a level of reality exceeding our mental capacities. In other words, in both these chapters, he attempts to reconcile Aristotle's physics with Presocratic philosophy so as to build a coherent system from the whole pagan tradition.
This volume could be said to consist of two books. Each translation is due to a different author; there are two introductions, two translations, and two selections of notes, and only the index and bibliography are in common. There are only minor differences in the style of the translations, but greater ones occur elsewhere. I shall discuss them separately.
As to H.'s introduction, two things must be noted. First, she contributes to the fierce debate by proposing a stimulating hypothesis about the place where such a large commentary could have been written: discrepancies, sometimes substantial, occurring in Simplicius' treatment of his sources are the result of his having written in various places. However, they could also be explained by the difficulty at that time of keeping every useful book constantly at hand: scholars were often compelled to write from memory. Second, H. summarizes the treatment Simplicius gives of Melissus and Parmenides, moving abruptly from one episode to the other. She perfectly communicates the sometimes confusing character of Simplicius' text. Her notes provide useful documentation rather than an explanatory commentary: she mentions parallels and justifies her translation but avoids going into detail about the philosophical issues.
T. opts to draw a clear map of the text, insisting on its structure and summing up its main arguments. Moreover, most of the references are given within the translation (in brackets), while end-notes (fewer but longer) are devoted to explaining the contents of and issues in Simplicius' commentary (i.e., his reading of the Presocratic fragments).
The translation is remarkably successful in rendering the stylistic variations in Simplicius' text, which constantly moves from paraphrase to quotation or philosophical commentary. The Greek text largely follows H. Diels' edition (1882), sometimes as emended by later editors of the Presocratic fragments (DK inter alios).
Now for some points of detail. In this Neoplatonic context, H. first suggests translating noeros as 'thinker' (and related words), 'because neither "mental" nor "intellectual" have the grammatical flexibility required' (p. 100 on In Phys. 143.18-19). Nevertheless, a little further on (p. 57 = In Phys. 147.26) she translates en tois noerois as 'in the mental area.' Another point concerns T.'s translation of Anaxagoras' vovs as 'Mind' (pp. 81-4). My intention here is not to contest this translation for interpreting Anaxagoras but to remind the reader that Simplicius must have connected this concept with his Neoplatonic vocabulary so that 'Intellect' seems a better translation. Otherwise, it becomes very problematic to translate the following: kai diakekritai oun kai hênôtai kata Anaxagoran ta eidê kai amphô dia ton noun echei. T. writes: 'In Anaxagoras' view, the kinds owe both their separation and their unity to Mind' (p. 84 = In Phys. 176.31-2); but it is difficult to exclude the likelihood that Simplicius, with his Neoplatonic background, was reading these words with reference to Intellect and Forms.
H. translates to on hen men esti, polla de ouk estin as 'Being is one and not many' (p. 37 = In Phys. 126.8). Since Simplicius has just referred to the Sophist and next opposes Being to rest and motion, it would be preferable to translate as 'is not many things.' Further (p. 46 = In Phys. 135.24), H. emends a quotation from the Sophist, turning tou ontos into tou mê ontos, following Plato's manuscripts. However, the text given by Simplicius makes sense and ought not to be altered (see my Simplicius lecteur du Sophiste (2007), pp. 140-1).
One could wonder why both authors have chosen, as is often done in this collection, to give the full lemmas from Aristotle's Physics, while Simplicius' manuscripts and Diels' edition give only a shortened version (i.e., 'from ... to ...'). Although it is risky to translate a text that possibly was not the one read by Simplicius, the decision should at least have been made explicit.
Finally, the bibliography. On Simplicius, H. and T. refer only to two recent books: H. Baltussen, Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius (2008), and P. Golitsis, Les Commentaires de Simplicius et de Jean Philopon à la Physique d'Aristote (2008). The remainder of the short bibliography concerns the Presocratics and Aristotle. One would expect at least to find reference to a book and a paper written by A. Stevens: Postérité de l'Être. Simplicius interprète de Parménide (1989) and 'La Physique d'Empédocle selon Simplicius,' RBPh (1989), 65-74. They provide commentaries on and (partial) translations of the chapters studied here.
With its English-Greek glossary, Greek-English index, subject index, and index of passages, this book is an extraordinarily useful tool for scholars. It provides an up-to-date translation of some of the richest pages about Presocratic philosophy. Now we can dream about a new edition of this commentary to replace the often misleading version of Diels.
[author's abstract]

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Within this monument, Book 1 must be the most read by scholars today because Aristotle's criticism of several physical theories leads Simplicius to multiply quotations of his forerunners and to preserve for his contemporaries (as well as for us) much Presocratic material (by Simplicius' time much of this had already become very rare: see In Phys. 144.25-9 on Parmenides).\r\nIn Chapter 1.3, Aristotle discusses the unity of Being he ascribes to the Eleatic philosophers. Simplicius comments abundantly. Citing Theophrastus, Alexander, and Porphyry, he reproduces the 'Eleatic syllogism,' which affirms Being and excludes not-Being, so as to prove Parmenides' thesis that Being is one and to assert, via Plato's Sophist, that Parmenides recognizes the existence of not-Being. Moreover, he assigns this reading to Aristotle himself, considering his criticism as an expression of later conceptual and linguistic refinements.\r\nIn Chapter 1.4, Aristotle discusses Anaximander, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles. Here again, Simplicius contributes to the debate by his numerous quotations and by his analysis of rival commentators (Theophrastus, Alexander, Porphyry, and Nicolaus of Damascus). He considers how Anaxagoras and Empedocles can say that their principles are both one and many. Then, confronted with Aristotle's criticism of homoiomeria and nous, he gives a non-physical reading of Anaxagoras' account, explaining that it talks figuratively about a level of reality exceeding our mental capacities. In other words, in both these chapters, he attempts to reconcile Aristotle's physics with Presocratic philosophy so as to build a coherent system from the whole pagan tradition.\r\nThis volume could be said to consist of two books. Each translation is due to a different author; there are two introductions, two translations, and two selections of notes, and only the index and bibliography are in common. There are only minor differences in the style of the translations, but greater ones occur elsewhere. I shall discuss them separately.\r\nAs to H.'s introduction, two things must be noted. First, she contributes to the fierce debate by proposing a stimulating hypothesis about the place where such a large commentary could have been written: discrepancies, sometimes substantial, occurring in Simplicius' treatment of his sources are the result of his having written in various places. However, they could also be explained by the difficulty at that time of keeping every useful book constantly at hand: scholars were often compelled to write from memory. Second, H. summarizes the treatment Simplicius gives of Melissus and Parmenides, moving abruptly from one episode to the other. She perfectly communicates the sometimes confusing character of Simplicius' text. Her notes provide useful documentation rather than an explanatory commentary: she mentions parallels and justifies her translation but avoids going into detail about the philosophical issues.\r\nT. opts to draw a clear map of the text, insisting on its structure and summing up its main arguments. Moreover, most of the references are given within the translation (in brackets), while end-notes (fewer but longer) are devoted to explaining the contents of and issues in Simplicius' commentary (i.e., his reading of the Presocratic fragments).\r\nThe translation is remarkably successful in rendering the stylistic variations in Simplicius' text, which constantly moves from paraphrase to quotation or philosophical commentary. The Greek text largely follows H. Diels' edition (1882), sometimes as emended by later editors of the Presocratic fragments (DK inter alios).\r\nNow for some points of detail. In this Neoplatonic context, H. first suggests translating noeros as 'thinker' (and related words), 'because neither \"mental\" nor \"intellectual\" have the grammatical flexibility required' (p. 100 on In Phys. 143.18-19). Nevertheless, a little further on (p. 57 = In Phys. 147.26) she translates en tois noerois as 'in the mental area.' Another point concerns T.'s translation of Anaxagoras' vovs as 'Mind' (pp. 81-4). My intention here is not to contest this translation for interpreting Anaxagoras but to remind the reader that Simplicius must have connected this concept with his Neoplatonic vocabulary so that 'Intellect' seems a better translation. Otherwise, it becomes very problematic to translate the following: kai diakekritai oun kai h\u00ean\u00f4tai kata Anaxagoran ta eid\u00ea kai amph\u00f4 dia ton noun echei. T. writes: 'In Anaxagoras' view, the kinds owe both their separation and their unity to Mind' (p. 84 = In Phys. 176.31-2); but it is difficult to exclude the likelihood that Simplicius, with his Neoplatonic background, was reading these words with reference to Intellect and Forms.\r\nH. translates to on hen men esti, polla de ouk estin as 'Being is one and not many' (p. 37 = In Phys. 126.8). Since Simplicius has just referred to the Sophist and next opposes Being to rest and motion, it would be preferable to translate as 'is not many things.' Further (p. 46 = In Phys. 135.24), H. emends a quotation from the Sophist, turning tou ontos into tou m\u00ea ontos, following Plato's manuscripts. However, the text given by Simplicius makes sense and ought not to be altered (see my Simplicius lecteur du Sophiste (2007), pp. 140-1).\r\nOne could wonder why both authors have chosen, as is often done in this collection, to give the full lemmas from Aristotle's Physics, while Simplicius' manuscripts and Diels' edition give only a shortened version (i.e., 'from ... to ...'). Although it is risky to translate a text that possibly was not the one read by Simplicius, the decision should at least have been made explicit.\r\nFinally, the bibliography. On Simplicius, H. and T. refer only to two recent books: H. Baltussen, Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius (2008), and P. Golitsis, Les Commentaires de Simplicius et de Jean Philopon \u00e0 la Physique d'Aristote (2008). The remainder of the short bibliography concerns the Presocratics and Aristotle. One would expect at least to find reference to a book and a paper written by A. Stevens: Post\u00e9rit\u00e9 de l'\u00catre. Simplicius interpr\u00e8te de Parm\u00e9nide (1989) and 'La Physique d'Emp\u00e9docle selon Simplicius,' RBPh (1989), 65-74. They provide commentaries on and (partial) translations of the chapters studied here.\r\nWith its English-Greek glossary, Greek-English index, subject index, and index of passages, this book is an extraordinarily useful tool for scholars. It provides an up-to-date translation of some of the richest pages about Presocratic philosophy. Now we can dream about a new edition of this commentary to replace the often misleading version of Diels.\r\n[author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/fltNdJ3NAIOLUAG","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":125,"full_name":"Gavray, Marc-Antoine","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1465,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical Review","volume":"62","issue":"2","pages":"465-467"}},"sort":["Review of Huby, Taylor 2011: Simplicius, On Aristotle Physics 1.3\u20134"]}

Review of Rescigno, A. 2004: Alessandro di Afrodisia: Commentario al De Caelo di Aristotele, Frammenti del Primo Libro, 2005
By: Todd, Robert B.
Title Review of Rescigno, A. 2004: Alessandro di Afrodisia: Commentario al De Caelo di Aristotele, Frammenti del Primo Libro
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Volume 10
Issue 38
Pages 750
Categories no categories
Author(s) Todd, Robert B.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
It is a sure sign that a field in classical studies is maturing when the fragments of its 
authors come in for close scrutiny. Where the Greek Aristotelian commentators are 
concerned, the way was pointed, in this as in so many other areas, by the late Paul 
Moraux, who in his early and epochal study of Alexander of Aphrodisias's 
psychological works included an appendix of selected fragments of this 
commentator's lost exegesis of Aristotle's De animaJ Later he reconstructed thefragments of the same philosopher's treatment of the Posterior Analytics.2 More 
recently, Arabists in particular have worked on fragments of Alexander's 
commentaries on the Physics and De generatione et corruptione, while Moraux in 
the posthumously published third volume of his Aristotelismus surveyed the 
fragments of several of the lost commentaries.3 One of these was the commentary 
on the De caelo, the first part of which Andrea Rescigno, in the first of two 
projected volumes, has now treated exhaustively in his edition of the fragments of 
the commentary on Book 1. [introduction p. 1]

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Review of: Baltussen: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator, 2010
By: Menn, Stephen
Title Review of: Baltussen: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal The Classical World
Volume 104
Issue 1
Pages 117-118
Categories no categories
Author(s) Menn, Stephen
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Most people who have heard of Simplicius know two things about him: he was a very learned man who included many quotations and reports of others' views in his writing, thus becoming one of our main sources for the pre-Socratics; but, unfortunately, he was a Neoplatonist, and his testimony is therefore to some degree suspect. So Simplicius has been studied more for the sake of assessing testimony about earlier philosophers than for his own sake; this is the first full-scale monograph on Simplicius in English, although virtually simultaneous with Pantelis Golitsis' Les commentaires de Simplicius et de Jean Philopon à la "Physique" d'Aristote: tradition et innovation (Berlin, 2008).

Simplicius, however, is not so neglected or undervalued as this might suggest: his projects of harmonizing Plato and Aristotle (and sometimes other philosophers), and of defending pagan philosophy against Christian attacks (leading to his polemics against Philoponus), have been much studied both by Anglophone scholars around Richard Sorabji and by Francophone scholars around Ilsetraut Hadot and Philippe Hoffmann. "Neoplatonist" is no longer an insult, and it now seems normal that in later antiquity reading and commenting on Plato and Aristotle should also be a way of doing philosophy. If Simplicius' religious and harmonistic aims, and his scholarly methods, are not ours, we are interested in alternatives to our own way of doing things. But we have lacked a systematic study of Simplicius' methods in his commentaries, and of his strategies for using authors besides Plato and Aristotle (not just the pre-Socratics, but also Theophrastus and Eudemus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Porphyry, and Proclus and his school, whom Baltussen discusses in turn).

Baltussen's aims are laudable, but his book is not a safe guide; Golitsis, while not comprehensive, is much better. Baltussen pursues some good questions: why does Simplicius quote so much (just to save the texts from the wave of Christian barbarism?), what are his sources, and how does he handle so much information? (Actually, Simplicius discusses no more writers than Proclus, but he cites verbatim much more, and tries to go beyond secondary sources.) Baltussen needlessly defends Simplicius against the bizarre idea that he knew the pre-Socratics only through Alexander of Aphrodisias. However, it is true that Simplicius sometimes uses secondary sources, and also that Alexander was very important for him. Baltussen says that "overall Simplicius considered [Alexander a] reliable guide and interpreter... Disagreement is expressed in muted form and head-on confrontation is rare" (192). This both understates and overstates Simplicius' relation to Alexander and misses his method as a commentator.

Simplicius' Physics and De Caelo commentaries are in effect metacommentaries on Alexander's lost commentaries (his Categories commentary starts instead from Porphyry and Iamblichus). One important hermeneutic principle for Simplicius is that each treatise must have a single primary object (skopos), such that everything else it discusses is discussed on account of some relation to that object. Baltussen discusses this principle but misleadingly. On p. 117, he has Simplicius attribute to Alexander (top of the page) the view that the skopos of the De Caelo is the world, and (lower down) the view that it is the four elements; attribute to Iamblichus the view that it is the universe; and Simplicius himself endorse the view that it is "both the universe... and the four elements."

In fact, Simplicius attributes to Iamblichus the view that it is only the fifth (heavenly) body, and to Alexander the view that it is both the world and the five simple bodies. Simplicius himself says that the skopos is just the five simple bodies. The mistake is particularly serious because Baltussen suggests that Simplicius does not really make up his mind and opts for plural skopoi, when Simplicius emphatically insists that each treatise must have a single skopos and criticizes Alexander for breaking that rule. (On p. 36, Baltussen seems to suggest that Simplicius took the single-skopos rule from Alexander, but in the passage he cites Simplicius is criticizing Alexander.)

On p. 23 and 158, Syrianus (died ca. 437 A.D.) is listed among Simplicius' teachers. On p. 81, the inset translation of In Physica 161.23-162.2 turns the text into nonsense, taking proéchthēsan (from proagō) as if it were from a compound of achthomai ("am grieved") and misunderstanding Simplicius' term proéchthēsan ("charitable interpretation"). (Baltussen doesn't usually quote the Greek, so the reader must be on guard.)

On p. 190 (and 175), he turns Simplicius' comments on constructing an equilateral triangle into a discussion of the first postulate, to draw a straight line. He notes skeptically that Simplicius "mentions a work 'On Prayer' by Aristotle... in which he claims that Aristotle knew of a transcendent intellect" (182), but On Prayer is well-attested, and of course Aristotle believed in a transcendent intellect; Simplicius' audacious claim in this passage is that Aristotle, like Plato, believed in a divine first principle above intellect and being.

Baltussen's discussions of Philoponus and Christianity are particularly misleading. On p. 185, he cites Leslie MacCoull as putting some of Philoponus' arguments in the context of "the theological debate among Arrianists [sic]", but Philoponus was a Monophysite, the Arians had nothing to do with it, and MacCoull does not say they did. Baltussen also speaks here of Philoponus' aims in his "polemic with Simplicius," but there seems to be no evidence that Philoponus knew of Simplicius' existence. [the entire review]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"978","_score":null,"_source":{"id":978,"authors_free":[{"id":1477,"entry_id":978,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":255,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Menn, Stephen","free_first_name":"Stephen","free_last_name":"Menn","norm_person":{"id":255,"first_name":"Stephen","last_name":"Menn","full_name":"Menn, Stephen","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/174092768","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Review of: Baltussen: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator","main_title":{"title":"Review of: Baltussen: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator"},"abstract":"Most people who have heard of Simplicius know two things about him: he was a very learned man who included many quotations and reports of others' views in his writing, thus becoming one of our main sources for the pre-Socratics; but, unfortunately, he was a Neoplatonist, and his testimony is therefore to some degree suspect. So Simplicius has been studied more for the sake of assessing testimony about earlier philosophers than for his own sake; this is the first full-scale monograph on Simplicius in English, although virtually simultaneous with Pantelis Golitsis' Les commentaires de Simplicius et de Jean Philopon \u00e0 la \"Physique\" d'Aristote: tradition et innovation (Berlin, 2008).\r\n\r\nSimplicius, however, is not so neglected or undervalued as this might suggest: his projects of harmonizing Plato and Aristotle (and sometimes other philosophers), and of defending pagan philosophy against Christian attacks (leading to his polemics against Philoponus), have been much studied both by Anglophone scholars around Richard Sorabji and by Francophone scholars around Ilsetraut Hadot and Philippe Hoffmann. \"Neoplatonist\" is no longer an insult, and it now seems normal that in later antiquity reading and commenting on Plato and Aristotle should also be a way of doing philosophy. If Simplicius' religious and harmonistic aims, and his scholarly methods, are not ours, we are interested in alternatives to our own way of doing things. But we have lacked a systematic study of Simplicius' methods in his commentaries, and of his strategies for using authors besides Plato and Aristotle (not just the pre-Socratics, but also Theophrastus and Eudemus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Porphyry, and Proclus and his school, whom Baltussen discusses in turn).\r\n\r\nBaltussen's aims are laudable, but his book is not a safe guide; Golitsis, while not comprehensive, is much better. Baltussen pursues some good questions: why does Simplicius quote so much (just to save the texts from the wave of Christian barbarism?), what are his sources, and how does he handle so much information? (Actually, Simplicius discusses no more writers than Proclus, but he cites verbatim much more, and tries to go beyond secondary sources.) Baltussen needlessly defends Simplicius against the bizarre idea that he knew the pre-Socratics only through Alexander of Aphrodisias. However, it is true that Simplicius sometimes uses secondary sources, and also that Alexander was very important for him. Baltussen says that \"overall Simplicius considered [Alexander a] reliable guide and interpreter... Disagreement is expressed in muted form and head-on confrontation is rare\" (192). This both understates and overstates Simplicius' relation to Alexander and misses his method as a commentator.\r\n\r\nSimplicius' Physics and De Caelo commentaries are in effect metacommentaries on Alexander's lost commentaries (his Categories commentary starts instead from Porphyry and Iamblichus). One important hermeneutic principle for Simplicius is that each treatise must have a single primary object (skopos), such that everything else it discusses is discussed on account of some relation to that object. Baltussen discusses this principle but misleadingly. On p. 117, he has Simplicius attribute to Alexander (top of the page) the view that the skopos of the De Caelo is the world, and (lower down) the view that it is the four elements; attribute to Iamblichus the view that it is the universe; and Simplicius himself endorse the view that it is \"both the universe... and the four elements.\"\r\n\r\nIn fact, Simplicius attributes to Iamblichus the view that it is only the fifth (heavenly) body, and to Alexander the view that it is both the world and the five simple bodies. Simplicius himself says that the skopos is just the five simple bodies. The mistake is particularly serious because Baltussen suggests that Simplicius does not really make up his mind and opts for plural skopoi, when Simplicius emphatically insists that each treatise must have a single skopos and criticizes Alexander for breaking that rule. (On p. 36, Baltussen seems to suggest that Simplicius took the single-skopos rule from Alexander, but in the passage he cites Simplicius is criticizing Alexander.)\r\n\r\nOn p. 23 and 158, Syrianus (died ca. 437 A.D.) is listed among Simplicius' teachers. On p. 81, the inset translation of In Physica 161.23-162.2 turns the text into nonsense, taking pro\u00e9chth\u0113san (from proag\u014d) as if it were from a compound of achthomai (\"am grieved\") and misunderstanding Simplicius' term pro\u00e9chth\u0113san (\"charitable interpretation\"). (Baltussen doesn't usually quote the Greek, so the reader must be on guard.)\r\n\r\nOn p. 190 (and 175), he turns Simplicius' comments on constructing an equilateral triangle into a discussion of the first postulate, to draw a straight line. He notes skeptically that Simplicius \"mentions a work 'On Prayer' by Aristotle... in which he claims that Aristotle knew of a transcendent intellect\" (182), but On Prayer is well-attested, and of course Aristotle believed in a transcendent intellect; Simplicius' audacious claim in this passage is that Aristotle, like Plato, believed in a divine first principle above intellect and being.\r\n\r\nBaltussen's discussions of Philoponus and Christianity are particularly misleading. On p. 185, he cites Leslie MacCoull as putting some of Philoponus' arguments in the context of \"the theological debate among Arrianists [sic]\", but Philoponus was a Monophysite, the Arians had nothing to do with it, and MacCoull does not say they did. Baltussen also speaks here of Philoponus' aims in his \"polemic with Simplicius,\" but there seems to be no evidence that Philoponus knew of Simplicius' existence. [the entire review]","btype":3,"date":"2010","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/nycXB8DgJkcMbQt","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":255,"full_name":"Menn, Stephen","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":978,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical World","volume":"104","issue":"1","pages":"117-118"}},"sort":["Review of: Baltussen: Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator"]}

Review of: Dorotheus, Guilelmus (trans.), Simplicius Commentarium in decem Categorias Aristotelis (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. Versiones Latinae temporis resuscitatarum litterarum, Bd. 8), 2001
By: Summerell, Orrin Finn
Title Review of: Dorotheus, Guilelmus (trans.), Simplicius Commentarium in decem Categorias Aristotelis (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. Versiones Latinae temporis resuscitatarum litterarum, Bd. 8)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Bochumer philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter
Volume 5
Issue 1
Pages 262-263
Categories no categories
Author(s) Summerell, Orrin Finn
Editor(s)
Translator(s)

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Review of: Han Baltussen, Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator. London, Duckworth, 2008, 2010
By: Janssens, Jules L.
Title Review of: Han Baltussen, Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of a Commentator. London, Duckworth, 2008
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal Tijdschrift voor Filosofie
Volume 72
Issue 1
Pages 193
Categories no categories
Author(s) Janssens, Jules L.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Simplicius van Silicia (ong. 480-540 n.Chr.) is de laatste der antieke 'commentatoren'. Zijn oeuvre wordt vooral (om niet te zeggen haast uitsluitend) gewaardeerd als bron voor de kennis van vroegere Griekse denkers (van wie de werken niet zelden verloren gegaan zijn en enkel Simplicius getuigenis aflegt). Dit wekt de indruk dat Simplicius geen echt filosofisch project had. Op magistrale wijze toont Baltussen aan dat dit geenszins zo is. Het belang van Simplicius' commentaren overschrijdt ruim de functie van kennisgeving van het vroegere Griekse denken. Zij getuigen immers van een speciale exegetische en didactische werkwijze. Bovendien vertegenwoordigen zij een bijzondere fase in de interpretatie van Plato en Aristoteles. Ook vormen zij de overgang van de oudheid naar de middeleeuwen.

Deze basiskenmerken worden grondig uitgewerkt in het boek. Een goed idee van de uitzonderlijke rijkdom aan geciteerde bronnen in Simplicius' diverse werken krijgt de lezer dankzij een overzichtstabel (p. 30). De vijf beginselen van Simplicius' exegetische methode (zoals door hemzelf verwoord in zijn commentaar op de Categorieën) worden nader toegelicht (met onder meer aandacht voor het kritisch vergelijken van handschriften en voor de diverse wijzen van citeren). In Simplicius' opvatting is de studie van Aristoteles duidelijk propedeutisch aan die van Plato (enkel deze laatste laat toe de goddelijke waarheid te bereiken). Tot slot verschijnt Simplicius als de laatste verwoorder van een heidense theologie; in die zin is zijn verwerping van Philoponus niet zozeer het resultaat van een polemische ingesteldheid, maar veeleer de uitdrukking van een godsdienstige motivatie. Van groot belang is ook dat Simplicius' werken losstaan van enige onderwijsopdracht en dat de synthese tussen de verschillende bronnen die hij opstelt, gevoerd wordt in propria voce, niet apo phonis.

Deze grondideeën worden rijkelijk geïllustreerd via een overzicht van Simplicius' interpretatie van de Griekse filosofie vóór hem (hoofdstukken 2-5). Achtereenvolgens worden de presocratici, de peripatetici, Alexander van Afrodisias en de platonische commentatoren behandeld. Van de vele belangwekkende gedachten die Baltussen formuleert, vermeld ik graag de volgende: het Griekse denken wordt volgens Simplicius gekenmerkt door één grote eenheid (betekenisvol hiervoor is zijn karakterisering van de presocratici als platonici avant la lettre); Simplicius vertoont duidelijk syncretistische neigingen; Alexander van Afrodisias is een belangrijke externe stem voor het uitdiepen van het harmonisatieproces tussen Aristoteles' en Plato's denken, dat zo kenmerkend is voor het latere platonisme; filosoferen betekent voor Simplicius geen zoektocht naar originaliteit, maar het beantwoorden van teksten, waaraan een autoriteitswaarde werd toegekend; de mogelijkheid dat Simplicius rechtstreeks toegang had tot Plotinus' Enneaden, maar waarschijnlijk niet tot Syrianus' werk.

Het lijdt geen twijfel dat Baltussen met zijn studie baanbrekend werk heeft geleverd. Hij toont op overtuigende wijze aan dat Simplicius meer was dan een 'archivaris'. Hij was daadwerkelijk een 'filosoof met een project'. De grote lijnen hiervan worden in dit boek meesterlijk uitgetekend.
[the entire review]

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Review of: I. Hadot, Le néoplatonicien Simplicius à la lumière des recherches contemporaines, 2015
By: Chemi, Germana
Title Review of: I. Hadot, Le néoplatonicien Simplicius à la lumière des recherches contemporaines
Type Article
Language French
Date 2015
Journal Studia graeco-arabica
Volume 5
Pages 385-388
Categories no categories
Author(s) Chemi, Germana
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
L’A. présente en ce volume un bilan raisonné des recherches contemporaines concernant la vie et l’œuvre du néoplatonicien Simplicius, ainsi que des études sur sa réception dans le monde arabe. Le volume contient aussi deux contributions de Ph. Vallat portant respectivement sur la biographie de Simplicius (p. 102-129) et sur la réception arabe de son commentaire aux Catégories d’Aristote (p. 241-264).

La première section (Biographie, p. 13-134), qui fait suite à la préface (p. 11-12), concerne la biographie de Simplicius. Cette partie du volume aborde les sujets suivants : le nom de Simplicius (p. 13-14), son origine et sa formation (p. 14-16), le milieu culturel d’Alexandrie à l’époque de ses études avec Ammonius (p. 16-17), le départ d’Athènes (p. 17-19), l’exil en Perse (p. 23-24) et la question du lieu où Simplicius et ses collègues se seraient rendus après avoir quitté la cour de Chosroès Ier (p. 25-129). Cette section s’achève par un sommaire général (p. 130-133) et trois épigrammes que l’A. attribue à Simplicius (p. 133-134).

La deuxième section (Les œuvres conservées sauf In Phys. et In De Caelo, p. 135-266) concerne les commentaires de Simplicius sur le Manuel d’Épictète (p. 148-181), sur le De Anima (p. 182-228) et sur les Catégories d’Aristote (p. 228-266). L’A. introduit son analyse de ces trois ouvrages par un aperçu général sur la datation des commentaires de Simplicius (p. 135-148) : conformément à la thèse déjà avancée dans ses travaux antérieurs, elle considère les commentaires de Simplicius comme ayant tous été écrits après l’exil en Perse.

La troisième section (Les œuvres partiellement ou entièrement perdues, p. 267-283) a pour objet les textes suivants, que l’A. attribue à Simplicius : un commentaire aux Éléments d’Euclide, un commentaire sur le Phédon (p. 267-269), un épitomé de la Physique de Théophraste (p. 269), un commentaire sur la Métaphysique d’Aristote (p. 269-277), un commentaire sur La secte pythagoricienne de Jamblique (p. 277-278), un commentaire sur les Météorologiques d’Aristote (p. 279-280), un commentaire sur l’Ars oratoria d’Hermogène (p. 280-282) et un traité sur les syllogismes (p. 282).

Suivent enfin un Épilogue (p. 285-288) et une bibliographie (p. 289-311).
[introduction p. 385]

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Review of: Ph. Soulier, Simplicius et l'infini, préface par Ph. Hoffmann, 2015
By: Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Title Review of: Ph. Soulier, Simplicius et l'infini, préface par Ph. Hoffmann
Type Article
Language French
Date 2015
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 33
Pages 115-128
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gavray, Marc-Antoine
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Ajoutons que Ph. Soulier donne en annexe un résumé analytique du texte de Simplicius. À défaut d’une traduction complète (qui est annoncée aux éditions des Belles Lettres), il s’agit là d’un formidable support pour suivre les analyses aussi denses que rigoureuses.

Simplicius n’a ni le prestige d’un Proclus ni l’audace philosophique d’un Damascius. Sans doute son rôle de Commentateur d’Aristote est à la fois la cause de sa relégation et le cœur de son originalité. Contraint de suivre la logique d’un texte différent de celle du système qui lui sert de grille d’analyse, il tire de cette lecture systématique des éléments qu’il doit harmoniser avec l’orthodoxie néoplatonicienne.

À cet égard, la question de l’infini est symptomatique de sa méthode, puisqu’elle montre de quelle façon se construit une doctrine originale sur la base du texte aristotélicien et de la toile de fond néoplatonicienne : Simplicius évince l’ἄπειρον du sensible, pour le réserver à l’intelligible, mais il retient un procès à l’infini, τὸ ἐπ᾽ ἄπειρον, et lui attribue une assise ontologique. Autrement dit, il n’admet pas simplement un « bon » et un « mauvais » infini, l’un qui vaudrait dans l’intelligible, l’autre qui en serait l’image sensible et dégradée. Il pose plutôt une forme positive de l’infinité dans le sensible même.

On peut dès lors remercier Ph. Soulier d’avoir fait la pleine lumière sur la revalorisation du sensible dans les dernières pages du néoplatonisme tardo-antique, c’est-à-dire d’avoir exposé avec une telle minutie comment l’analyse de la Physique permettait de déployer les propriétés de l’infini qui étaient caractéristiques du sensible, en accord avec la thèse néoplatonicienne la plus autorisée.
[conclusion p. 127-128]

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Review of: Thiel 1999: Simplikios und das Ende der neuplatonischen Schule in Athen, 2001
By: Luna, Concetta
Title Review of: Thiel 1999: Simplikios und das Ende der neuplatonischen Schule in Athen
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Mnemosyne
Volume 54
Issue 4
Pages 482–500
Categories no categories
Author(s) Luna, Concetta
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This is an extensive review of R. Thiel’s monograph Simplikios und das Ende der neuplatonischen Schule in Athen. The author of the review, C. Luna, reproduces the book’s discussion of the location where Neoplatonic philosophers settled after leaving Athens due to the ban on pagan philosophy in 529 AD. They went to Persia and later returned to the Byzantine Empire after the peace treaty was signed. The only known historical account of their location is from Agathias, who states that they were attracted to the wisdom of King Chosroes and stayed at his court. However, they eventually left and, using a clause in the peace treaty, returned to the Byzantine Empire without having to renounce their philosophical or religious beliefs. The text examines two hypotheses as to where they went: Athens or Alexandria, but a new hypothesis is presented based on Simplicius' texts that the philosophers settled in Harran, a city close to the Persian border. The text also discusses the possibility of Simplicius returning to Athens, Alexandria, or Harran. Thiel, believes it is unlikely the philosophers went to Alexandria because the patriarch of the city would not have allowed them to continue their philosophical and anti-Christian activities. [introduction]

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Review: Bowen, A.C., Simplicius on the Planets and Their Motions. In Defense of a Heresy, 2016
By: D'Ancona Costa, Cristina
Title Review: Bowen, A.C., Simplicius on the Planets and Their Motions. In Defense of a Heresy
Type Article
Language English
Date 2016
Journal Studia graeco-arabica
Volume 6
Pages 294-301
Categories no categories
Author(s) D'Ancona Costa, Cristina
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Within the history of the reception of ancient cosmology in later ages, Aristotle’s De Caelo plays an important role. Simplicius’ work on the planets and their motions is devoted to a specific point in the late antique exegesis of this Aristotelian treatise, namely the problem of planetary motions and the solution to it provided by Simplicius (d. 555 AD) in his commentary on De Caelo. Planetary motions indeed pose a problem for him: while throughout his commentary he is committed to showing that Aristotle’s description of the heavens is the correct one, on this particular issue he substitutes Ptolemy’s system for Aristotle’s (pp. 84-86). Bowen focuses on Simplicius’ “preference for post-Aristotelian planetary hypotheses” (p. 51) and questions the reason for this.

For Bowen, the answer lies in the well-known debate on the nature of the heavens that arose in the first half of the 6th century between Simplicius and Philoponus. Challenged by Philoponus in a lost work—whose main, though not exclusive, source of knowledge for us is Simplicius himself—the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity and divinity of the heavens was defended by Simplicius in his commentary on De Caelo, where he also directed harsh criticisms at Philoponus.

In Bowen’s book, four introductory chapters (pp. 27-93) precede the translation of Simplicius’ In De Caelo II, 10-12 (= pp. 470.29-510.35 Heiberg), followed by a series of comments on selected topics (pp. 201-98). Figures and tables are provided at the end of the introduction (pp. 22-25) and between the translation and the comments (pp. 181-97). Bowen frames much of his discussion against the backdrop of Simplicius’ struggle against Philoponus. Chapter One opens with the claim:

    “The great digression at the end of Simplicius’ In De Caelo 2.12 [492.25-510.35] is an apologia precipitated by Philoponus, the renegade Platonist, and his attack on Aristotle’s arguments for a fifth simple body, aether” (p. 27).

Even though Philoponus’ rejection of Aristotelian cosmology is not explicitly mentioned in Simplicius’ commentary on De Caelo II, 10-12, Bowen considers it Simplicius’ real target. Philoponus’ attack on the theory of the aether and its movement lies in the background of what, at first glance, appears to be a highly specialized discussion of the difficulties in the homocentric theory and an excursus on their solutions.

Bowen’s interpretation centers on the idea that Simplicius was well aware of the limitations of the homocentric theory. Faced with Philoponus’ objections, he sought a solution that was compatible with his own assumption of the circular and, consequently, eternal motion of the heavens. Philoponus’ main objection is as follows: if it were true that the entire cosmos rotates about its center, then the planets should not exhibit rotations about their own axes, nor should they have apogees and perigees—an argument that, according to Bowen, Simplicius could only agree with. In fact, this was precisely the reason he sided with Ptolemy. However, Simplicius could by no means endorse the general conclusion Philoponus drew from this, namely that there is no aether endowed with circular, eternal motion.

Bowen argues that Philoponus’ criticism “brings to the fore two points against Aristotle,” namely the rotation of the planets about their axes and their apogees and perigees, “in which he sides with Philoponus.” The danger here is heresy: Simplicius is now obliged to show that his agreement with Philoponus does not lead to Philoponus’ blasphemous conclusion (p. 28), hence the subtitle of Bowen’s book, In Defense of a Heresy.

This reconstruction hinges on linking Simplicius’ statements in his commentary on De Caelo II, 10-12—especially in the section labeled “digression”—to Philoponus. As Bowen puts it, “The digression is the apologia in full” (p. 64). As noted earlier, this long passage, which concludes Simplicius’ commentary on De Caelo II, 12, addresses difficulties in the cosmic model presented in Metaphysics XII 8, where all the spheres rotate around the Earth, the center of the universe (pp. 14, 92). However, Bowen maintains that, beyond its explicit content, the “digression” is in reality a response to Philoponus. The latter is not mentioned directly; instead, Simplicius presents Xenarchus’ objections and counters them with the arguments developed by Alexander of Aphrodisias.

Only after addressing these objections, “long after Philoponus’ objections to the Aristotelian aether have been answered, does Simplicius again take up, without mentioning Philoponus, the question of the homocentric planetary theory (...). So the astronomical digression (παρέκβασις) at the close of In De Caelo 2.12 is, logically speaking, a part of Simplicius’ attempt to deal with Philoponus” (p. 15). [introduction p. 294-295]

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Simplicius\u2019 work on the planets and their motions is devoted to a specific point in the late antique exegesis of this Aristotelian treatise, namely the problem of planetary motions and the solution to it provided by Simplicius (d. 555 AD) in his commentary on De Caelo. Planetary motions indeed pose a problem for him: while throughout his commentary he is committed to showing that Aristotle\u2019s description of the heavens is the correct one, on this particular issue he substitutes Ptolemy\u2019s system for Aristotle\u2019s (pp. 84-86). Bowen focuses on Simplicius\u2019 \u201cpreference for post-Aristotelian planetary hypotheses\u201d (p. 51) and questions the reason for this.\r\n\r\nFor Bowen, the answer lies in the well-known debate on the nature of the heavens that arose in the first half of the 6th century between Simplicius and Philoponus. Challenged by Philoponus in a lost work\u2014whose main, though not exclusive, source of knowledge for us is Simplicius himself\u2014the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity and divinity of the heavens was defended by Simplicius in his commentary on De Caelo, where he also directed harsh criticisms at Philoponus.\r\n\r\nIn Bowen\u2019s book, four introductory chapters (pp. 27-93) precede the translation of Simplicius\u2019 In De Caelo II, 10-12 (= pp. 470.29-510.35 Heiberg), followed by a series of comments on selected topics (pp. 201-98). Figures and tables are provided at the end of the introduction (pp. 22-25) and between the translation and the comments (pp. 181-97). Bowen frames much of his discussion against the backdrop of Simplicius\u2019 struggle against Philoponus. Chapter One opens with the claim:\r\n\r\n \u201cThe great digression at the end of Simplicius\u2019 In De Caelo 2.12 [492.25-510.35] is an apologia precipitated by Philoponus, the renegade Platonist, and his attack on Aristotle\u2019s arguments for a fifth simple body, aether\u201d (p. 27).\r\n\r\nEven though Philoponus\u2019 rejection of Aristotelian cosmology is not explicitly mentioned in Simplicius\u2019 commentary on De Caelo II, 10-12, Bowen considers it Simplicius\u2019 real target. Philoponus\u2019 attack on the theory of the aether and its movement lies in the background of what, at first glance, appears to be a highly specialized discussion of the difficulties in the homocentric theory and an excursus on their solutions.\r\n\r\nBowen\u2019s interpretation centers on the idea that Simplicius was well aware of the limitations of the homocentric theory. Faced with Philoponus\u2019 objections, he sought a solution that was compatible with his own assumption of the circular and, consequently, eternal motion of the heavens. Philoponus\u2019 main objection is as follows: if it were true that the entire cosmos rotates about its center, then the planets should not exhibit rotations about their own axes, nor should they have apogees and perigees\u2014an argument that, according to Bowen, Simplicius could only agree with. In fact, this was precisely the reason he sided with Ptolemy. However, Simplicius could by no means endorse the general conclusion Philoponus drew from this, namely that there is no aether endowed with circular, eternal motion.\r\n\r\nBowen argues that Philoponus\u2019 criticism \u201cbrings to the fore two points against Aristotle,\u201d namely the rotation of the planets about their axes and their apogees and perigees, \u201cin which he sides with Philoponus.\u201d The danger here is heresy: Simplicius is now obliged to show that his agreement with Philoponus does not lead to Philoponus\u2019 blasphemous conclusion (p. 28), hence the subtitle of Bowen\u2019s book, In Defense of a Heresy.\r\n\r\nThis reconstruction hinges on linking Simplicius\u2019 statements in his commentary on De Caelo II, 10-12\u2014especially in the section labeled \u201cdigression\u201d\u2014to Philoponus. As Bowen puts it, \u201cThe digression is the apologia in full\u201d (p. 64). As noted earlier, this long passage, which concludes Simplicius\u2019 commentary on De Caelo II, 12, addresses difficulties in the cosmic model presented in Metaphysics XII 8, where all the spheres rotate around the Earth, the center of the universe (pp. 14, 92). However, Bowen maintains that, beyond its explicit content, the \u201cdigression\u201d is in reality a response to Philoponus. The latter is not mentioned directly; instead, Simplicius presents Xenarchus\u2019 objections and counters them with the arguments developed by Alexander of Aphrodisias.\r\n\r\nOnly after addressing these objections, \u201clong after Philoponus\u2019 objections to the Aristotelian aether have been answered, does Simplicius again take up, without mentioning Philoponus, the question of the homocentric planetary theory (...). So the astronomical digression (\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ad\u03ba\u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2) at the close of In De Caelo 2.12 is, logically speaking, a part of Simplicius\u2019 attempt to deal with Philoponus\u201d (p. 15). [introduction p. 294-295]","btype":3,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/PxYyMRyYuxV6BPl","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":60,"full_name":"D'Ancona Costa, Cristina","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1410,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Studia graeco-arabica","volume":"6","issue":"","pages":"294-301"}},"sort":["Review: Bowen, A.C., Simplicius on the Planets and Their Motions. In Defense of a Heresy"]}

Self-motion according to Iamblichus, 2012
By: Opsomer, Jan
Title Self-motion according to Iamblichus
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Elenchos
Volume 33
Issue 2
Pages 259-290
Categories no categories
Author(s) Opsomer, Jan
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Iamblichus' theory of self-motion has to be pieced together from various texts and passing remarks. Ever since Aristotle's critique, Plato's concept of the self-motive soul was felt to be problematic. Taking his lead from Plotinus, Iamblichus counters Aristotle's criticism by claiming that true self-motion transcends the opposition between activity and passivity. He moreover argues that it does not involve motion that is spatially extended. Hence it is non-physical. Primary self-motion is the reversion of the soul to itself, by which the soul constitutes itself, i.e. imparts life to itself. This motion is located at the level of essence or substance. The bestowal of life upon the body derives from this fundamental motion. As a result, animals are derivatively self-motive. Secondary self-motions are acts of thought in the broad sense. Contrary to the unmoved motion of intellect, the self-motion of the soul is not beyond time. This somehow fits Iamblichus' theory of the “changing self”. Iamblichus anticipates much of the later Platonic accounts of self-motion. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1093","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1093,"authors_free":[{"id":1651,"entry_id":1093,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":211,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Opsomer, Jan","free_first_name":"Jan","free_last_name":"Opsomer","norm_person":{"id":211,"first_name":"Jan","last_name":"Opsomer","full_name":"Opsomer, Jan","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1120966310","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Self-motion according to Iamblichus","main_title":{"title":"Self-motion according to Iamblichus"},"abstract":"Iamblichus' theory of self-motion has to be pieced together from various texts and passing remarks. Ever since Aristotle's critique, Plato's concept of the self-motive soul was felt to be problematic. Taking his lead from Plotinus, Iamblichus counters Aristotle's criticism by claiming that true self-motion transcends the opposition between activity and passivity. He moreover argues that it does not involve motion that is spatially extended. Hence it is non-physical. Primary self-motion is the reversion of the soul to itself, by which the soul constitutes itself, i.e. imparts life to itself. This motion is located at the level of essence or substance. The bestowal of life upon the body derives from this fundamental motion. As a result, animals are derivatively self-motive. Secondary self-motions are acts of thought in the broad sense. Contrary to the unmoved motion of intellect, the self-motion of the soul is not beyond time. This somehow fits Iamblichus' theory of the \u201cchanging self\u201d. Iamblichus anticipates much of the later Platonic accounts of self-motion. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/1Kioea09D5a6jXo","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":211,"full_name":"Opsomer, Jan","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1093,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Elenchos","volume":"33","issue":"2","pages":"259-290"}},"sort":["Self-motion according to Iamblichus"]}

Semence, vertu formatrice et intellect agent chez Nicolò Leoniceno entre la tradition arabo-latine et la renaissance des commentateurs grecs, 2007
By: Hiro, Harai
Title Semence, vertu formatrice et intellect agent chez Nicolò Leoniceno entre la tradition arabo-latine et la renaissance des commentateurs grecs
Type Article
Language French
Date 2007
Journal Early Science and Medicine
Volume 12
Issue 2
Pages 134-165
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hiro, Harai
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The treatise On Formative Power (Venice, 1506) of Ferrara's emblematic medical humanist, Nicolo Leoniceno (1428-1524), is the one of the first embryological monographs of the Renaissance. It shows, at the same time, the continuity of medi eval Arabo-Latin tradition and the new elements brought by Renaissance medical humanism, namely through the use of the ancient Greek commentators of Aristotle like Simplicius. Thus this treatise stands at the crossroad of these two currents. The present study analyses the range of Leoniceno's philosophical discussion, determines its exact sources and brings to light premises for the early modern development of the concept of formative force, which will end up in the theory of "plastic nature" at the heart of the Scientific Revolution. [Author’s abstract]

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Simplicius and Iamblichus on Shape (μορφή), 2018
By: Schwark, Marina
Title Simplicius and Iamblichus on Shape (μορφή)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2018
Journal Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale
Volume 29
Pages 59
Categories no categories
Author(s) Schwark, Marina
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The present article examines how Simplicius and Iamblichus conceive of the quality shape  (μορφή) and its relation to other qualities. As Simplicius’ commentary on Categories 8 shows, Simplicius follows Iamblichus in almost all aspects of his analysis. In particular,Simplicius shares Iamblichus’ assumption that shape is ultimately caused by intelligibleprinciples. Yet, Simplicius departs from Iamblichus’ position by asserting that shape isconstituted by figure, color, and perhaps even other qualities. Iamblichus opposes thisview, presumably because he takes it to interfere with his own metaphysical explanationof shape.  Simplicius,  however,  suggests  that  his  claim  is  in  accord  with  Iamblichus’assumptions.  In  his  attempt  to  harmonize  the  ’constitution  thesis with  Iamblichus’theory of intelligible principles, Simplicius relies on the notion of  σύλληψισς. He argues that shape  as  a common conjunction (κοινὴ σύλληψις)  includes, the other qualities  inquestion, albeit as its parts or elements different from itself. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1144","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1144,"authors_free":[{"id":1717,"entry_id":1144,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":289,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Schwark, Marina","free_first_name":"Marina","free_last_name":"Schwark","norm_person":{"id":289,"first_name":"Marina","last_name":"Schwark","full_name":"Schwark, Marina","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius and Iamblichus on Shape (\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u1f75)","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius and Iamblichus on Shape (\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u1f75)"},"abstract":"The present article examines how Simplicius and Iamblichus conceive of the quality shape (\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u1f75) and its relation to other qualities. As Simplicius\u2019 commentary on Categories 8 shows, Simplicius follows Iamblichus in almost all aspects of his analysis. In particular,Simplicius shares Iamblichus\u2019 assumption that shape is ultimately caused by intelligibleprinciples. Yet, Simplicius departs from Iamblichus\u2019 position by asserting that shape isconstituted by figure, color, and perhaps even other qualities. Iamblichus opposes thisview, presumably because he takes it to interfere with his own metaphysical explanationof shape. Simplicius, however, suggests that his claim is in accord with Iamblichus\u2019assumptions. In his attempt to harmonize the \u2019constitution thesis with Iamblichus\u2019theory of intelligible principles, Simplicius relies on the notion of \u03c3\u1f7b\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03c8\u03b9\u03c3\u03c2. He argues that shape as a common conjunction (\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u1f74 \u03c3\u1f7b\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03c8\u03b9\u03c2) includes, the other qualities inquestion, albeit as its parts or elements different from itself. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2018","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/vLFTw1MUlOcJyPx","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":289,"full_name":"Schwark, Marina","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1144,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale","volume":"29","issue":"","pages":"59"}},"sort":["Simplicius and Iamblichus on Shape (\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u1f75)"]}

Simplicius and James of Viterbo on Propensities, 2009
By: Côté, Antoine
Title Simplicius and James of Viterbo on Propensities
Type Article
Language English
Date 2009
Journal Vivarium
Volume 47
Issue 1
Pages 24-53
Categories no categories
Author(s) Côté, Antoine
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The paper examines Simplicius's doctrine of propensities (epitedeioteis ) in his commen- 
tary on Aristotles Categories and follows its application by the late thirteenth century theologian and philosopher James of Viterbo to problems relating to the causes of 
volition, intellection and natural change. Although he uses Aristotelian terminology and means his doctrine to conflict minimally with those of Aristode, James s doctrine of propensities really constitutes an attempt to provide a technically rigorous dressing to his Augustinián and Boethian convictions. Central to Jamess procedure is his rejection, following Henry of Ghent, of the principle that "everything that is moved is moved by another". James uses Simplicius' doctrine of propensities as a means of extending the rejection of that principle, which Henry had limited to the case of the will, to cognitive operations and natural change. The result is a theory of cognition and volition that sees the soul as the principal cause of its own acts, and a theory of natural change that minimizes the causal impact of external agents. [Author's abstract]

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Simplicius and the Early History of Greek Planetary Theory , 2002
By: Bowen, Alan C.
Title Simplicius and the Early History of Greek Planetary Theory
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Perspectives on Science
Volume 10
Issue 2
Pages 155–167
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bowen, Alan C.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In earlier work, Bernard R. Goldstein and the present author have intro-
duced a procedural rule for historical inquiry, which requires that one take
pains to establish the credibility of any citation of ancient thought by later
writers in antiquity through a process of veriªcation. In this paper, I shall
apply what I call the Rule of Ancient Citations to Simplicius’ interpretation
of Aristotle’s remarks in Meta . 8, which is the primary point of departure
for the modern understanding of Greek planetary theory. I ªrst sketch several
lines of argument that lead me to conclude that Simplicius’ interpretation
should not be accepted because it assumes a concern with planetary phenomena
unknown to the Greeks before the late 2nd and early 1st centuries bc. Then,
after showing that there is a fairly well deªned range of readings of Aris-
totle’s remarks more in keeping with what we actually know of astronomy in
the 5th and 4th centuries bc, I conclude that neither Aristotle’s report about
the Eudoxan and Callippan accounts of the celestial motions nor Simplicius’
interpretation of this report is a good starting point for our understanding of
early Greek planetary theory. [author's abstract]

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Simplicius and the Subversion of Authority, 2010
By: Baltussen, Han
Title Simplicius and the Subversion of Authority
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal Antiquorum Philosophial
Volume 3
Pages 121-136
Categories no categories
Author(s) Baltussen, Han
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this paper, I have made the case for the position that Simplicius is more independent as a philosophical writer than modern scholarship has allowed. As soon as he became used as a source for Presocratic philosophy, attention was deflected from his own contributions to the philosophical debate. In broad terms, Simplicius remains loyal to his teachers, but it would be wrong to see him as a mindless copyist or a slavish collector of doxai. This means that there is room for changing our view of him. Late Platonism may have formed a united front, but this does not preclude critical reading and assessment of previous views and disagreements among themselves. I have attempted to illustrate the extent to which Simplicius found fault with and criticized his fellow Platonists and other commentators.

That this was not always done by head-on confrontation may be explained by the historical situation he found himself in: firstly, he had to cope with an immensely learned and copious tradition, a task which he took on with considerable courage and resourcefulness; secondly, he was forced to choose a defensive line of argument with respect to the presentation of pagan philosophy in a world that had been taken over by Christianity. This circumstance contributed importantly to his predicament and the ensuing strategy. As I concluded in my summing up of his methodology: "In trying to defend the Platonist point of view in contradistinction to the Christian outlook, he uses polemic to persuade and refute, and comprehensive exegesis to clarify and proselytize."

The extent to which he is seen to dissent would need further confirmation, but the preliminary evidence suggests that it is in proportion to the difficult balancing act forced upon him by his historical position. Philosophically, he is a seventh-generation Platonist since Plotinus taught his new doctrine, and ideologically, he finds himself "surrounded" by an increasingly hostile world. Given the sheer amount of material canvassed and processed, it is a miracle he managed to express a personal view at all. As the works stand, he does so cautiously and judiciously. In his modus operandi, he comes close to the ideal commentator outlined in In Cat. 7.23–32, with the added bonus that he offers quotations to support his arguments.

A partial explanation for his "cautious" comments, offered as muted disagreement, could be that criticizing fellow Platonists too strongly might weaken one’s overall position. A final peculiarity also hints at his ability to take a more objective stance: Simplicius occasionally adopts a detached view of the Platonists, referring to them as "the Platonists do this or that," as if he were not to be counted among them. This coincides with his unusually comprehensive scope of source analysis, an approach which was bound to produce tensions and hence difficulties in presenting a unified picture of the philosophical tradition, whether it was meant to be Greek (a wide perspective) or Platonist (a narrow perspective).

It can be concluded, therefore, that respect for authority can go hand in hand with criticism and dissent in Simplicius, without jeopardizing the fundamental tenets of Platonism. [conclusion p. 133]

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Simplicius et le “lieu”. À propos d’une nouvelle édition du Corollarium de loco, 2014
By: Golitsis, Pantelis, Hoffmann, Philippe
Title Simplicius et le “lieu”. À propos d’une nouvelle édition du Corollarium de loco
Type Article
Language French
Date 2014
Journal Revue des Études Grecques
Volume 127
Issue 1
Pages 119-175
Categories no categories
Author(s) Golitsis, Pantelis , Hoffmann, Philippe
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The digression labelled “Corollarium de loco” by Hermann Diels in his edition of Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (Commentaria  in Aristotelem  Graeca, IX, Berlin  1882) is a key text in the debate - often referred to by specialists as magna quaestio -  generated by an apparent lack of consistency between Aristotle’s definition of ‘place’ (topos) as “the first unmoved boundary 
of the surrounding body”  (Phys. IV, 4, 212 a 20-21) and his assertion that the Heaven moves in a circle while not being ‘somewhere’, since it is not surrounded by  any  body that  would be  exterior to it.  Following the  steps of his  master Damascius, and at the end of a long discussion initiated by Neoplatonists after Plotinus (principally by Iamblichus, Proclus and Syrianus), Simplicius replaces Aristotle’s definition with a new definition of place as a “gathering (or uniting) measure” (metron sunagôgon), which is one of the four “measures” (number, size, place, time) or gathering powers that protect the intelligible and sensible 
entities against the dangers of the dispersion related to the procession of reality. This doctrine places physics in a decidedly theological perspective since, in last analysis, these uniting powers derive from the One or Good per  se. Our under­standing of this crucial text for our knowledge of the Neoplatonic philosophy of 
Nature will be improved thanks to a new critical edition (with French translation and notes), to be published soon in the collection “Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca and Byzantina” (by Walter de Gruyter) under the auspices of the Academy 
of Sciences of Bcrlin-Brandenburg. The new edition is based not only on a fresh collation of the two manuscripts used by Diels (Marciani  graeci 227 and 229) but also on a Moscow manuscript (Mosquensis Muz. 3649) unknown to the Ger­man scholar, since it belonged during the nineteenth century to a private Russian 
collection. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1321","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1321,"authors_free":[{"id":1955,"entry_id":1321,"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":2378,"entry_id":1321,"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}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius et le \u201clieu\u201d. \u00c0 propos d\u2019une nouvelle \u00e9dition du Corollarium de loco","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius et le \u201clieu\u201d. \u00c0 propos d\u2019une nouvelle \u00e9dition du Corollarium de loco"},"abstract":"The digression labelled \u201cCorollarium de loco\u201d by Hermann Diels in his edition of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, IX, Berlin 1882) is a key text in the debate - often referred to by specialists as magna quaestio - generated by an apparent lack of consistency between Aristotle\u2019s definition of \u2018place\u2019 (topos) as \u201cthe first unmoved boundary \r\nof the surrounding body\u201d (Phys. IV, 4, 212 a 20-21) and his assertion that the Heaven moves in a circle while not being \u2018somewhere\u2019, since it is not surrounded by any body that would be exterior to it. Following the steps of his master Damascius, and at the end of a long discussion initiated by Neoplatonists after Plotinus (principally by Iamblichus, Proclus and Syrianus), Simplicius replaces Aristotle\u2019s definition with a new definition of place as a \u201cgathering (or uniting) measure\u201d (metron sunag\u00f4gon), which is one of the four \u201cmeasures\u201d (number, size, place, time) or gathering powers that protect the intelligible and sensible \r\nentities against the dangers of the dispersion related to the procession of reality. This doctrine places physics in a decidedly theological perspective since, in last analysis, these uniting powers derive from the One or Good per se. Our under\u00adstanding of this crucial text for our knowledge of the Neoplatonic philosophy of \r\nNature will be improved thanks to a new critical edition (with French translation and notes), to be published soon in the collection \u201cCommentaria in Aristotelem Graeca and Byzantina\u201d (by Walter de Gruyter) under the auspices of the Academy \r\nof Sciences of Bcrlin-Brandenburg. The new edition is based not only on a fresh collation of the two manuscripts used by Diels (Marciani graeci 227 and 229) but also on a Moscow manuscript (Mosquensis Muz. 3649) unknown to the Ger\u00adman scholar, since it belonged during the nineteenth century to a private Russian \r\ncollection. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"French","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/CopNdLIRs5QEoZb","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":129,"full_name":"Golitsis, Pantelis","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":138,"full_name":"Hoffmann, Philippe ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1321,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Revue des \u00c9tudes Grecques ","volume":"127","issue":"1","pages":"119-175"}},"sort":["Simplicius et le \u201clieu\u201d. \u00c0 propos d\u2019une nouvelle \u00e9dition du Corollarium de loco"]}

Simplicius on Categories 1a16–17 and 1b25–27: An Examination of the Interests of Ancient and Modern Commentary on the Categories, 2014
By: Almeida, Joseph
Title Simplicius on Categories 1a16–17 and 1b25–27: An Examination of the Interests of Ancient and Modern Commentary on the Categories
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Quaestiones Disputatae
Volume 4
Issue 2
Pages 73-99
Categories no categories
Author(s) Almeida, Joseph
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
We may gather these observations into several points.

First, Simplicius’s commentary on the Categories shows, not surprisingly, the influence of the great Neoplatonic spiritual odyssey of return to first principles. The final prayer offered at the termination of his commentary is a stunning testimony to the power which this spiritual program exerted on the ancient commentators:

    "I stop my discourse, invoking the Guardians of the Logoi to grant me a more accurate understanding of these matters and to favor me with this understanding as a viaticum toward higher contemplations and to provide me leisure from the distractions of life."

For Simplicius, commentary on Aristotle could never be wholly separated from this overarching spiritual purpose. In at least one of the passages considered above, this influence manifested itself in an attempt to elucidate Aristotle’s text as the lesser mysteries on route to the higher. As this program and its consequences are central to the business of Neoplatonic commentary on the Categories, so it is, in its central impetus, irrelevant to the interests of the modern program of solving the problem of the Categories.

Second, Simplicius was a happy heir of a long tradition, part of which conditioned commentators to see the Categories as a text for beginners in philosophy. Embracing this teaching, Simplicius does not hesitate to deflect certain difficulties presented by the text with appeal to the elementary nature of the Categories, content to leave a real solution to more advanced speculations elsewhere. When modern interest is focused on just such a problem, such a treatment is of little value.

Third, the same tradition obligates Simplicius to harmonize Aristotle with Plato. At least in the example considered above, the reconciliation can involve certain abstruse points of Neoplatonic philosophy. Such commentary is no doubt of great value to students of Neoplatonism but will generally miss the mark set by the interests of modern inquiry.

These three points appear relatively secure and of universal application to the body of ancient commentary on the Categories. There is, however, a fourth point, to be stated cautiously because of the limited data examined. When Simplicius spoke directly to the passages in question in Cat. 1a16–17 and 1b25–27, he did not seem to appreciate the issues which interested modern readers of the Categories—namely, that the doctrine of simple expressions presents a philosophical theory in need of expansion and illumination, a problem to be solved in relation to a theory of categories in general rather than a solution to be applied to questions concerning the identity and nature of the Aristotelian categories in particular.

This is not to say that a modern reader will never find anywhere in Simplicius a discussion corresponding to his interest, but that in all likelihood it would be serendipitous and peripheral to Simplicius’s own primary interest in the Categories.

These observations warrant the conclusion that there is indeed a separation between the interests of the ancient and modern commentators on the Categories. In its strong form, the conclusion is that the separation is absolute. This is in accord with Praechter’s position in his classic review of the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (i.e., that the commentaries will prove to be essentially of historic value):

    “[They will be] invaluable for the history of the Greek language, for the lexicon as well as for the grammar”;
    “[They will be invaluable] for understanding how ancient philosophy was able to fulfill the vast cultural mission which befell it in antiquity as sovereign in the realm of Weltanschauung, and in the Middle Ages as the ‘handmaiden of theology.’”

Even Sorabji, who seems to regard the independent philosophical value of the commentaries more highly than Praechter, recommends them to students of Aristotle with a note of caution:

    “The distorting Neoplatonist context... does not prevent the commentaries from being incomparable guides to Aristotle. The commentators... have minutely detailed knowledge of the entire Aristotelian corpus... Moreover, commentators are enjoined neither to accept nor to reject what Aristotle says too readily, but to consider it in depth and without partiality. The commentaries draw one’s attention to hundreds of phrases, sentences, and ideas in Aristotle which one could easily have passed over... The scholar who makes the right allowance for the distorting context will learn far more about Aristotle than he would on his own.”

Although this is a more positive view of the substantive content of the commentaries, the illumination of sentences and ideas still does not address the needs of the kind of modern inquiry exemplified in our discussion.

Because the conclusion is drawn from limited data—namely, a close reading of about sixty pages of the Berlin text of Simplicius on the Categories—it must remain tentative and provisional. However, truth to be told, the tremendous effort involved in reading even cursorily just one of the ancient commentaries on the Categories, let alone with an eye to the intersection between Neoplatonic and modern interest, may leave the matter open for quite some time.
[conclusion p. 97-99]

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The final prayer offered at the termination of his commentary is a stunning testimony to the power which this spiritual program exerted on the ancient commentators:\r\n\r\n \"I stop my discourse, invoking the Guardians of the Logoi to grant me a more accurate understanding of these matters and to favor me with this understanding as a viaticum toward higher contemplations and to provide me leisure from the distractions of life.\"\r\n\r\nFor Simplicius, commentary on Aristotle could never be wholly separated from this overarching spiritual purpose. In at least one of the passages considered above, this influence manifested itself in an attempt to elucidate Aristotle\u2019s text as the lesser mysteries on route to the higher. As this program and its consequences are central to the business of Neoplatonic commentary on the Categories, so it is, in its central impetus, irrelevant to the interests of the modern program of solving the problem of the Categories.\r\n\r\nSecond, Simplicius was a happy heir of a long tradition, part of which conditioned commentators to see the Categories as a text for beginners in philosophy. Embracing this teaching, Simplicius does not hesitate to deflect certain difficulties presented by the text with appeal to the elementary nature of the Categories, content to leave a real solution to more advanced speculations elsewhere. When modern interest is focused on just such a problem, such a treatment is of little value.\r\n\r\nThird, the same tradition obligates Simplicius to harmonize Aristotle with Plato. At least in the example considered above, the reconciliation can involve certain abstruse points of Neoplatonic philosophy. Such commentary is no doubt of great value to students of Neoplatonism but will generally miss the mark set by the interests of modern inquiry.\r\n\r\nThese three points appear relatively secure and of universal application to the body of ancient commentary on the Categories. There is, however, a fourth point, to be stated cautiously because of the limited data examined. When Simplicius spoke directly to the passages in question in Cat. 1a16\u201317 and 1b25\u201327, he did not seem to appreciate the issues which interested modern readers of the Categories\u2014namely, that the doctrine of simple expressions presents a philosophical theory in need of expansion and illumination, a problem to be solved in relation to a theory of categories in general rather than a solution to be applied to questions concerning the identity and nature of the Aristotelian categories in particular.\r\n\r\nThis is not to say that a modern reader will never find anywhere in Simplicius a discussion corresponding to his interest, but that in all likelihood it would be serendipitous and peripheral to Simplicius\u2019s own primary interest in the Categories.\r\n\r\nThese observations warrant the conclusion that there is indeed a separation between the interests of the ancient and modern commentators on the Categories. In its strong form, the conclusion is that the separation is absolute. This is in accord with Praechter\u2019s position in his classic review of the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (i.e., that the commentaries will prove to be essentially of historic value):\r\n\r\n \u201c[They will be] invaluable for the history of the Greek language, for the lexicon as well as for the grammar\u201d;\r\n \u201c[They will be invaluable] for understanding how ancient philosophy was able to fulfill the vast cultural mission which befell it in antiquity as sovereign in the realm of Weltanschauung, and in the Middle Ages as the \u2018handmaiden of theology.\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\nEven Sorabji, who seems to regard the independent philosophical value of the commentaries more highly than Praechter, recommends them to students of Aristotle with a note of caution:\r\n\r\n \u201cThe distorting Neoplatonist context... does not prevent the commentaries from being incomparable guides to Aristotle. The commentators... have minutely detailed knowledge of the entire Aristotelian corpus... Moreover, commentators are enjoined neither to accept nor to reject what Aristotle says too readily, but to consider it in depth and without partiality. The commentaries draw one\u2019s attention to hundreds of phrases, sentences, and ideas in Aristotle which one could easily have passed over... The scholar who makes the right allowance for the distorting context will learn far more about Aristotle than he would on his own.\u201d\r\n\r\nAlthough this is a more positive view of the substantive content of the commentaries, the illumination of sentences and ideas still does not address the needs of the kind of modern inquiry exemplified in our discussion.\r\n\r\nBecause the conclusion is drawn from limited data\u2014namely, a close reading of about sixty pages of the Berlin text of Simplicius on the Categories\u2014it must remain tentative and provisional. However, truth to be told, the tremendous effort involved in reading even cursorily just one of the ancient commentaries on the Categories, let alone with an eye to the intersection between Neoplatonic and modern interest, may leave the matter open for quite some time.\r\n[conclusion p. 97-99]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/OzmApALBY8ZdgnX","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":557,"full_name":"Almeida, Joseph","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1499,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Quaestiones Disputatae","volume":"4","issue":"2","pages":"73-99"}},"sort":["Simplicius on Categories 1a16\u201317 and 1b25\u201327: An Examination of the Interests of Ancient and Modern Commentary on the Categories"]}

Simplicius on Empedocles: A note on his Commentary in Phys. 157.25–161.20, 2024
By: Anna Afonasina
Title Simplicius on Empedocles: A note on his Commentary in Phys. 157.25–161.20
Type Article
Language English
Date 2024
Journal Shagi/Steps
Volume 10
Issue 2
Pages 183-196
Categories no categories
Author(s) Anna Afonasina
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The present study attempts to show what influence a
commentary can have on the formation of ideas about a preceding
philosophical tradition. A case in point is Simplicius’ commentary
on Aristotle’s “Physics” and on fragments of Empedocles’ poem.
The selected passage, though small in size, is quite remarkable in
terms of content and the way Simplicius deals with it. With regard
to content, we are dealing here with one of the fundamental problematic
plots of Empedocles’ philosophy about the alternate rule of
Love and Strife. But Simplicius adds to this his own view of Empedocles’
philosophy, dictated by his desire to harmonize the views of
all the pagan philosophers and place them within a single consistent
scheme. Simplicius wanted to counterpose something to Christianity,
which was gaining in strength, and to show that all Greek
philosophy developed along a certain path and contains no internal
disagreements. On the one hand, Simplicius has preserved for us
very valuable material — fairly lengthy sections of the text of Empedocles’
poem. On the other hand, wishing to implement his program,
Simplicius chose those fragments of the poem that fit well
into it. Therefore, the question arises whether we should take into
account the context in which the fragments are quoted, or simply
extract from the general body of the commentary those fragments
of Empedocles’ poem that we need and consider them independently? [author's abstrac]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1580","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1580,"authors_free":[{"id":2761,"entry_id":1580,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Anna Afonasina","free_first_name":"Anna ","free_last_name":"Afonasina","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Simplicius on Empedocles: A note on his Commentary in Phys. 157.25\u2013161.20","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius on Empedocles: A note on his Commentary in Phys. 157.25\u2013161.20"},"abstract":"The present study attempts to show what influence a\r\ncommentary can have on the formation of ideas about a preceding\r\nphilosophical tradition. A case in point is Simplicius\u2019 commentary\r\non Aristotle\u2019s \u201cPhysics\u201d and on fragments of Empedocles\u2019 poem.\r\nThe selected passage, though small in size, is quite remarkable in\r\nterms of content and the way Simplicius deals with it. With regard\r\nto content, we are dealing here with one of the fundamental problematic\r\nplots of Empedocles\u2019 philosophy about the alternate rule of\r\nLove and Strife. But Simplicius adds to this his own view of Empedocles\u2019\r\nphilosophy, dictated by his desire to harmonize the views of\r\nall the pagan philosophers and place them within a single consistent\r\nscheme. Simplicius wanted to counterpose something to Christianity,\r\nwhich was gaining in strength, and to show that all Greek\r\nphilosophy developed along a certain path and contains no internal\r\ndisagreements. On the one hand, Simplicius has preserved for us\r\nvery valuable material \u2014 fairly lengthy sections of the text of Empedocles\u2019\r\npoem. On the other hand, wishing to implement his program,\r\nSimplicius chose those fragments of the poem that fit well\r\ninto it. Therefore, the question arises whether we should take into\r\naccount the context in which the fragments are quoted, or simply\r\nextract from the general body of the commentary those fragments\r\nof Empedocles\u2019 poem that we need and consider them independently? [author's abstrac]","btype":3,"date":"2024","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/GQwsce7zWyeDLxe","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1580,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Shagi\/Steps","volume":"10","issue":"2","pages":"183-196"}},"sort":["Simplicius on Empedocles: A note on his Commentary in Phys. 157.25\u2013161.20"]}

Simplicius on Predication, 2015
By: Hauer, Mareike
Title Simplicius on Predication
Type Article
Language English
Date 2015
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 33
Issue 2
Pages 173-200
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hauer, Mareike
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper deals with Simplicius’ discussion of Aristotle’s account of predication in his Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories. Of particular interest is the relation between synonymous predication and essential predication. In Aristotle, as well as in Simplicius, both kinds of predication are closely connected. It has been argued in Aristotelian scholarship that, for Aristotle, synonymous predication yields essential predication. It has been equally argued that this assumption is compatible with Aristotle’s theoretical framework, but if applied to Plato, would pose a problem for Plato. Simplicius’ extensive discussion of both synonymous predication and essential predication suggests that he was aware of the deeper problem raised by the assumption that synonymous predication yields essential predication. In this paper, I will argue that Simplicius, by means of an original interpretation of the predicate, not only turns the assumption that synonymous predication yields essential predication into a supposition that is less problematic for Plato, but also creates a framework for a possible harmonization of Plato and Aristotle. [Author's abstract]

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Simplicius on Tekmeriodic Proofs, 2012
By: Harari, Orna
Title Simplicius on Tekmeriodic Proofs
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Volume 43
Pages 366-375
Categories no categories
Author(s) Harari, Orna
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this study I examine the sole detailed evidence we have for Simplicius’ view of sign-based, i.e. tekmeriodic proofs, thereby questing the widespread assumption that he espouses Phiioponus' account of these proofs. Specifically. I argue that (1) it is more plausible to understand the signs on which Simplicius bases his tekmeriodic proofs as refutable, (2) he grounds the epistemic worth of these proofs in the evidential strength of their premises rather than in their validity, (3) unlike Phiioponus, he conceives of the argu­ment that leads to the principles of natural  philosophy, which tekmeriodic proofs are aimed to prove, as inductive, and  (4) he evaluates these proofs against Plato’s  un-hypothetical  science, hence denying natural  philosophy  the  autonomy  from  metaphysics  that  Phiioponus’  account  of tekmeriodic  proofs grants. [Author's abstract]

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Simplicius on the "Theaetetus" ("In Physica" 17,38-18,23 Diels), 2010
By: Menn, Stephen
Title Simplicius on the "Theaetetus" ("In Physica" 17,38-18,23 Diels)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2010
Journal Phronesis
Volume 55
Issue 3
Pages 255-270
Categories no categories
Author(s) Menn, Stephen
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Aristotle in Physics 1,1 says some strange-sounding things about how we come to know wholes and parts, universals and particulars. In explicating these, Simplicius distinguishes an initial rough cognition of a thing as a whole, an intermediate "cognition according to the definition and through the elements," and a final cognition of how the thing's many elements are united: only this last is ἐπιστήμη. Simplicius refers to the Theaetetus for the point about what is needed for ἐπιστήμη and the ways that cognition according to the definition and through the elements falls short. By unpacking this reference I try to recon struct Simplicius' reading of "Socrates' Dream," its place in the Theaetetus larger argument, and its harmony with other Platonic and Aristotelian texts. But this reconstruction depends on undoing some catastrophic emendations in Diels's text of Simplicius. Diels's emendations arise from his assumptions about definitions and elements, in Socrates' Dream and elsewhere, and rethinking the Simplicius passage may help us rethink those assumptions. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"977","_score":null,"_source":{"id":977,"authors_free":[{"id":1476,"entry_id":977,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":255,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Menn, Stephen","free_first_name":"Stephen","free_last_name":"Menn","norm_person":{"id":255,"first_name":"Stephen","last_name":"Menn","full_name":"Menn, Stephen","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/174092768","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius on the \"Theaetetus\" (\"In Physica\" 17,38-18,23 Diels)","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius on the \"Theaetetus\" (\"In Physica\" 17,38-18,23 Diels)"},"abstract":"Aristotle in Physics 1,1 says some strange-sounding things about how we come to know wholes and parts, universals and particulars. In explicating these, Simplicius distinguishes an initial rough cognition of a thing as a whole, an intermediate \"cognition according to the definition and through the elements,\" and a final cognition of how the thing's many elements are united: only this last is \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7. Simplicius refers to the Theaetetus for the point about what is needed for \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7 and the ways that cognition according to the definition and through the elements falls short. By unpacking this reference I try to recon struct Simplicius' reading of \"Socrates' Dream,\" its place in the Theaetetus larger argument, and its harmony with other Platonic and Aristotelian texts. But this reconstruction depends on undoing some catastrophic emendations in Diels's text of Simplicius. Diels's emendations arise from his assumptions about definitions and elements, in Socrates' Dream and elsewhere, and rethinking the Simplicius passage may help us rethink those assumptions. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2010","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/dEWYys9PQqr0WtF","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":255,"full_name":"Menn, Stephen","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":977,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Phronesis","volume":"55","issue":"3","pages":"255-270"}},"sort":["Simplicius on the \"Theaetetus\" (\"In Physica\" 17,38-18,23 Diels)"]}

Simplicius on the Individuation of Material Substances, 2019
By: Schwark, Marina
Title Simplicius on the Individuation of Material Substances
Type Article
Language English
Date 2019
Journal Elenchos
Volume 40
Issue 2
Pages 401-429
Categories no categories
Author(s) Schwark, Marina
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In his commentary on Physics I 9, Simplicius claims that individual forms individuate matter. Given that in the same text he calls the immanent form ‘universal,’it seems reasonable to conclude that the individual forms are individual instances of one universal species–form. However, Simplicius also mentions accidental properties that are peculiar to form rather than to matter. On the basis of Simplicius’ commentaries on the Categories and on the Physics, I argue that the individuating
accidents are not part of the individual forms, but that each individual’s form coordinates the individual’s accidental features. By belonging to a certain species, the individual form sets limits as to which accidents a matter–form compound can
assume. This approach enables Simplicius to combine hylomorphism with a theory
of individuation through properties. Furthermore, in his commentary on De Caelo I 9 Simplicius explains the uniqueness of each individual’s conglomeration of properties in light of his Neoplatonic cosmology: each individual corresponds to an individual cosmic disposition that determines its characteristic features. [Author's abstract]

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Simplicius on the Principal Meaning of Physis in Aristotle's Physics II. 1-3, 2019
By: Mouzala, Melina G.
Title Simplicius on the Principal Meaning of Physis in Aristotle's Physics II. 1-3
Type Article
Language English
Date 2019
Journal Analogia
Volume 7
Issue Byzantine Aristotle
Pages 43-82
Categories no categories
Author(s) Mouzala, Melina G.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
At the beginning of his Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics II.2, Simplicius attempts to reveal the principal meaning of physis, that which in his view is preeminent above all others presented by Aristotle in Physics II.1. Through the arguments he uses to show what the principal meaning of physis is, we are also able to better understand the other meanings. These other meanings are, on the one hand, those which are discovered in the light of Simplicius’ insightful reading of it. Simplicius appears to recognize—or at least to be conscious of the fact—that this part of his Commentary constitutes an autonomous analysis and explanation of the different meanings of physis, which sets out to reveal its concealed principal meaning.

My aim in this paper is to show that in his comments on Physics II.1, Simplicius is trying to offer an exegesis of the Aristotelian arguments, while in his comments regarding the beginning of Physics II.2, he proceeds to a bold reading of what Aristotle has said in chapter one. He does this by giving his own interpretation of the meaning of physis, within the frame which Aristotle had already sketched out in the previous chapter, but also by deviating to some extent from Aristotle. For Simplicius, the principal, albeit concealed, meaning of physis, within the Aristotelian philosophical framework, lies in the idea that nature is a sort of propensity for being moved and a sort of life, to wit, the lowest sort of life (eschatê zôê). [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1541","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1541,"authors_free":[{"id":2691,"entry_id":1541,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Mouzala, Melina G. ","free_first_name":"Melina G.","free_last_name":"Mouzala","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Simplicius on the Principal Meaning of Physis in Aristotle's Physics II. 1-3","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius on the Principal Meaning of Physis in Aristotle's Physics II. 1-3"},"abstract":"At the beginning of his Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Physics II.2, Simplicius attempts to reveal the principal meaning of physis, that which in his view is preeminent above all others presented by Aristotle in Physics II.1. Through the arguments he uses to show what the principal meaning of physis is, we are also able to better understand the other meanings. These other meanings are, on the one hand, those which are discovered in the light of Simplicius\u2019 insightful reading of it. Simplicius appears to recognize\u2014or at least to be conscious of the fact\u2014that this part of his Commentary constitutes an autonomous analysis and explanation of the different meanings of physis, which sets out to reveal its concealed principal meaning.\r\n\r\nMy aim in this paper is to show that in his comments on Physics II.1, Simplicius is trying to offer an exegesis of the Aristotelian arguments, while in his comments regarding the beginning of Physics II.2, he proceeds to a bold reading of what Aristotle has said in chapter one. He does this by giving his own interpretation of the meaning of physis, within the frame which Aristotle had already sketched out in the previous chapter, but also by deviating to some extent from Aristotle. For Simplicius, the principal, albeit concealed, meaning of physis, within the Aristotelian philosophical framework, lies in the idea that nature is a sort of propensity for being moved and a sort of life, to wit, the lowest sort of life (eschat\u00ea z\u00f4\u00ea). [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2019","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/BnCCI5k1m32XM47","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1541,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Analogia","volume":"7","issue":"Byzantine Aristotle","pages":"43-82"}},"sort":["Simplicius on the Principal Meaning of Physis in Aristotle's Physics II. 1-3"]}

Simplicius on the Relation between Quality and Qualified, 2016
By: Hauer, Mareike
Title Simplicius on the Relation between Quality and Qualified
Type Article
Language English
Date 2016
Journal Méthexis
Volume 28
Pages 111-140
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hauer, Mareike
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Simplicius claims in his Commentary on Aristotle’s  Categoriesthat quality is prior to the qualified according to nature. However, in an interesting passage in the same com­mentary, Simplicius describes the relation between quality and qualified in such a way that it strongly suggests an ontological simultaneity. The aim of this paper is to clarify Simplicius'  notion of natural priority and to  investigate the  extent to which the as­sumption of a natural priority of the quality over the qualified is compatible with the assumption of a co-existence of quality and qualified. [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"387","_score":null,"_source":{"id":387,"authors_free":[{"id":506,"entry_id":387,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":174,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Hauer, Mareike","free_first_name":"Mareike","free_last_name":"Hauer","norm_person":{"id":174,"first_name":"Mareike","last_name":"Hauer","full_name":"Hauer, Mareike","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius on the Relation between Quality and Qualified","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius on the Relation between Quality and Qualified"},"abstract":"Simplicius claims in his Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Categoriesthat quality is prior to the qualified according to nature. However, in an interesting passage in the same com\u00admentary, Simplicius describes the relation between quality and qualified in such a way that it strongly suggests an ontological simultaneity. The aim of this paper is to clarify Simplicius' notion of natural priority and to investigate the extent to which the as\u00adsumption of a natural priority of the quality over the qualified is compatible with the assumption of a co-existence of quality and qualified. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/DTcssHAheWWZmpg","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":174,"full_name":"Hauer, Mareike","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":387,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"M\u00e9thexis","volume":"28","issue":"","pages":"111-140"}},"sort":["Simplicius on the Relation between Quality and Qualified"]}

Simplicius or Priscianus? On the Author of the Commentary on Aristotle's "De Anima" (CAG XI) : A Methodological Study, 2002
By: Hadot, Ilsetraut
Title Simplicius or Priscianus? On the Author of the Commentary on Aristotle's "De Anima" (CAG XI) : A Methodological Study
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Mnemosyne, Fourth Series
Volume 55
Issue 2
Pages 159–199
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hadot, Ilsetraut
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This article represents a new contribution to the author's debate with C. Steel as to the authenticity of the Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima, attributed by the manuscripts to the 6th-century A.D. Neoplatonist philosopher Simplicius. On the basis of what he claims are stylistic and doctrinal differences between the In DA and Simplicius' other commentaries, Steel has argued that the In DA cannot be by Simplicius, but is instead to be attributed to his contemporary Priscian of Lydia. In the present article, it is argued (1) that the alleged stylistic differences between the In DA and Simplicius' other commentaries can be explained by other considerations: in particular, the vocabulary and style of the Neoplatonist commentators is largely determined by the text commented upon, as well as the level of studies of the audience for whom each commentary is intended. (2) The alleged doctrinal differences between the In DA and Simplicius' other com- mentaries simply do not exist. Careful examination of Steel's arguments shows that they suffer from serious methodological flaws, including the failure to take into consideration Simplicius' Commentary on the Manual of Epictetus, and the ambiguity of Neoplatonic philosophical terminology. It is concluded that in the whole of Steel's argumentation, there is not one decisive argument which would allow us to conclude that the commentary on the De Anima, attributed by direct and indirect tradition to Simplicius, is inauthentic.  [Author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"692","_score":null,"_source":{"id":692,"authors_free":[{"id":1030,"entry_id":692,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":4,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","free_first_name":"Ilsetraut","free_last_name":"Hadot","norm_person":{"id":4,"first_name":"Ilsetraut","last_name":"Hadot","full_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/107415011","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius or Priscianus? On the Author of the Commentary on Aristotle's \"De Anima\" (CAG XI) : A Methodological Study","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius or Priscianus? On the Author of the Commentary on Aristotle's \"De Anima\" (CAG XI) : A Methodological Study"},"abstract":"This article represents a new contribution to the author's debate with C. Steel as to the authenticity of the Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima, attributed by the manuscripts to the 6th-century A.D. Neoplatonist philosopher Simplicius. On the basis of what he claims are stylistic and doctrinal differences between the In DA and Simplicius' other commentaries, Steel has argued that the In DA cannot be by Simplicius, but is instead to be attributed to his contemporary Priscian of Lydia. In the present article, it is argued (1) that the alleged stylistic differences between the In DA and Simplicius' other commentaries can be explained by other considerations: in particular, the vocabulary and style of the Neoplatonist commentators is largely determined by the text commented upon, as well as the level of studies of the audience for whom each commentary is intended. (2) The alleged doctrinal differences between the In DA and Simplicius' other com- mentaries simply do not exist. Careful examination of Steel's arguments shows that they suffer from serious methodological flaws, including the failure to take into consideration Simplicius' Commentary on the Manual of Epictetus, and the ambiguity of Neoplatonic philosophical terminology. It is concluded that in the whole of Steel's argumentation, there is not one decisive argument which would allow us to conclude that the commentary on the De Anima, attributed by direct and indirect tradition to Simplicius, is inauthentic. [Author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2002","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/BFVk6vhtz2ul08p","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":4,"full_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":692,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Mnemosyne, Fourth Series","volume":"55","issue":"2","pages":"159\u2013199"}},"sort":["Simplicius or Priscianus? On the Author of the Commentary on Aristotle's \"De Anima\" (CAG XI) : A Methodological Study"]}

Simplicius, in Cat., p. 1,3-3,17 Kalbfleisch: An Important Contribution to the History of the Ancient, 2004
By: Hadot, Ilsetraut
Title Simplicius, in Cat., p. 1,3-3,17 Kalbfleisch: An Important Contribution to the History of the Ancient
Type Article
Language English
Date 2004
Journal Rheinisches Museum für Philologie
Volume 147
Issue 3/4
Pages 408-420
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hadot, Ilsetraut
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In the first place, the survey  of  the  commentaries  on  the  Categories with  which  Simplicius  provides  us,  as  well  as  the  examination  undertaken  by J. M. Dillon of the fragments of Iamblichus’ commentaries on Plato’s dialogues, show as clearly as possible that the form of the continuous commentary was utilized by the Neoplatonists right from the start, and that it therefore was not introduced by Syrianus. Secondly,  an  attentive  comparison  between  those  Neoplatonic  commentaries on the Categories that have come down to us proves that a  genuine  doctrinal  continuity  existed  from  Porphyry  to  Simplicius. In addition, I consider it likely that an analogous continuity with regard to the tendency to harmonize the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle also existed in the Neoplatonic commentaries on the Metaphysics, of which only that of Syrianus (partial), and that of Asclepius-Ammonius (partial) have come down to us, whereas those of Porphyry and Iamblichus are lost, but attested, and that Syrianus’ attitude,  which  he  manifests  in  the  introduction  to  his commentary on book My the Metaphysics, is therefore no more original than his use of the form of the continuous commentary. In conclusion, Syrianus was certainly a great philosopher, but, as far as the precise points dealt with in this article are concerned, he was not the innovator he has been made out to be. [conclusion, p. 419-420]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"638","_score":null,"_source":{"id":638,"authors_free":[{"id":904,"entry_id":638,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":4,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","free_first_name":"Ilsetraut","free_last_name":"Hadot","norm_person":{"id":4,"first_name":"Ilsetraut","last_name":"Hadot","full_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/107415011","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius, in Cat., p. 1,3-3,17 Kalbfleisch: An Important Contribution to the History of the Ancient","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius, in Cat., p. 1,3-3,17 Kalbfleisch: An Important Contribution to the History of the Ancient"},"abstract":"In the first place, the survey of the commentaries on the Categories with which Simplicius provides us, as well as the examination undertaken by J. M. Dillon of the fragments of Iamblichus\u2019 commentaries on Plato\u2019s dialogues, show as clearly as possible that the form of the continuous commentary was utilized by the Neoplatonists right from the start, and that it therefore was not introduced by Syrianus. Secondly, an attentive comparison between those Neoplatonic commentaries on the Categories that have come down to us proves that a genuine doctrinal continuity existed from Porphyry to Simplicius. In addition, I consider it likely that an analogous continuity with regard to the tendency to harmonize the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle also existed in the Neoplatonic commentaries on the Metaphysics, of which only that of Syrianus (partial), and that of Asclepius-Ammonius (partial) have come down to us, whereas those of Porphyry and Iamblichus are lost, but attested, and that Syrianus\u2019 attitude, which he manifests in the introduction to his commentary on book My the Metaphysics, is therefore no more original than his use of the form of the continuous commentary. In conclusion, Syrianus was certainly a great philosopher, but, as far as the precise points dealt with in this article are concerned, he was not the innovator he has been made out to be. [conclusion, p. 419-420]","btype":3,"date":"2004","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/iOqb6gj8D2LqZxB","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":4,"full_name":"Hadot, Ilsetraut","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":638,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Rheinisches Museum f\u00fcr Philologie","volume":"147","issue":"3\/4","pages":"408-420"}},"sort":["Simplicius, in Cat., p. 1,3-3,17 Kalbfleisch: An Important Contribution to the History of the Ancient"]}

Simplicius: Commentary, Harmony, and Authority, 2009
By: Barney, Rachel
Title Simplicius: Commentary, Harmony, and Authority
Type Article
Language English
Date 2009
Journal Antiquorum Philosophia
Volume 3
Pages 101-119
Categories no categories
Author(s) Barney, Rachel
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
I have tried to make the case for two claims. First, we can do better than to speak of Simplicius as simply being committed to "the" Neoplatonic project of harmonizing Plato and Aristotle. Simplicius’ project is a very distinctive one, and, properly speaking, it is not to harmonize Plato and Aristotle. Nor, on the other hand, is it to harmonize the whole of pagan wisdom, or even the whole of Greek philosophy. Rather, it is to vindicate the unity of a certain dominant, broadly Platonic philosophical tradition, which importantly includes Aristotle, the Presocratics, and, to a lesser extent, the Stoics, in order to better defend that tradition against Christian attack. The scope, methods, and spirit of this project are all modeled on Aristotle’s own treatment of his predecessors, including an expansive but not unreasonable version of the principle of charity.

Second, I have tried to bring out that projects of harmonization in philosophy have a perennial attraction for philosophers and interpreters alike, and not only for those who are antecedently committed to a canon of conflicting authorities. Projects of harmonization come in many guises and range across a spectrum from the primarily philosophical to the purely exegetical. Simplicius comes close to the latter extreme: his persona and methods are, in fact, strikingly close to those of a familiar sort of modern scholar, notwithstanding the strong philosophical commitments that inform his project. Finally, I would suggest that this self-appointed role as exegete is, more than anything else, an expression of Simplicius’ self-conscious belatedness. With a few exceptions, such as the residual puzzles about place and time addressed in the Corollaries, Simplicius’ work shows us what it is like to do philosophy after all the philosophical problems have been solved. All that remains open to him is the essentially interpretive work of showing how the correct solutions fit together. [conclusion p. 117-118]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"825","_score":null,"_source":{"id":825,"authors_free":[{"id":1226,"entry_id":825,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":418,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Barney, Rachel","free_first_name":"Rachel","free_last_name":"Barney","norm_person":{"id":418,"first_name":"Rachel","last_name":"Barney","full_name":"Barney, Rachel","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/17355959X","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius: Commentary, Harmony, and Authority","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius: Commentary, Harmony, and Authority"},"abstract":"I have tried to make the case for two claims. First, we can do better than to speak of Simplicius as simply being committed to \"the\" Neoplatonic project of harmonizing Plato and Aristotle. Simplicius\u2019 project is a very distinctive one, and, properly speaking, it is not to harmonize Plato and Aristotle. Nor, on the other hand, is it to harmonize the whole of pagan wisdom, or even the whole of Greek philosophy. Rather, it is to vindicate the unity of a certain dominant, broadly Platonic philosophical tradition, which importantly includes Aristotle, the Presocratics, and, to a lesser extent, the Stoics, in order to better defend that tradition against Christian attack. The scope, methods, and spirit of this project are all modeled on Aristotle\u2019s own treatment of his predecessors, including an expansive but not unreasonable version of the principle of charity.\r\n\r\nSecond, I have tried to bring out that projects of harmonization in philosophy have a perennial attraction for philosophers and interpreters alike, and not only for those who are antecedently committed to a canon of conflicting authorities. Projects of harmonization come in many guises and range across a spectrum from the primarily philosophical to the purely exegetical. Simplicius comes close to the latter extreme: his persona and methods are, in fact, strikingly close to those of a familiar sort of modern scholar, notwithstanding the strong philosophical commitments that inform his project. Finally, I would suggest that this self-appointed role as exegete is, more than anything else, an expression of Simplicius\u2019 self-conscious belatedness. With a few exceptions, such as the residual puzzles about place and time addressed in the Corollaries, Simplicius\u2019 work shows us what it is like to do philosophy after all the philosophical problems have been solved. All that remains open to him is the essentially interpretive work of showing how the correct solutions fit together. [conclusion p. 117-118]","btype":3,"date":"2009","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/bBLV4U0YGAzXs7u","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":418,"full_name":"Barney, Rachel","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":825,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Antiquorum Philosophia","volume":"3","issue":"","pages":"101-119"}},"sort":["Simplicius: Commentary, Harmony, and Authority"]}

Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 1, 2003
By: Bowen, Alan C., Simplicius
Title Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 1
Type Article
Language English
Date 2003
Journal SCIAMVS: Sources and Commentaries in Exact Sciences
Volume 4
Pages 23-58
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bowen, Alan C. , Simplicius
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
If there is a single text that has proven to be the bedrock for the modern understanding of early Greek astronomy, it is Simplicius’ commentary on Book 2, Chapter 12 of Aristotle’s treatise De caelo. Simplicius’ remarks, which are effectively an elaboration of what he supposes Aristotle to mean in Metaphysics Λ 8, are almost always accepted as gospel in their broad outlines. Take any recent history of early Greek astronomy you please, and you will find that its author immediately turns to Simplicius as the source clarifying what Aristotle writes in this chapter of his Metaphysics.

Indeed, the main challenge scholars perceive in Simplicius’ commentary is to tease out and reconstruct the underlying mathematical theory that would make it all ‘true.’ Such naïveté is breathtaking. Few who read Simplicius and understand his historiographical project—a search for a truth that Aristotle’s text is supposed to embody rather than a study of the text itself on its own terms—would elevate him to a position of such unquestioned authority. And those who have reflected on the often intractable problems in assessing the truth of ancient reports or testimonia in the sciences will quite naturally decline to take Simplicius at his word in this matter.

I recognize, of course, that it is customary to detect errors in Simplicius’ account and to attribute them either to Aristotle or to Simplicius; but this, I fear, typically amounts to little more than a demonstration that we moderns can be speciously clever while taking what Simplicius writes for granted.

I have written at length elsewhere that Simplicius’ comments on De caelo 2.12 do not constitute an account of what Aristotle meant in Metaphysics Λ 8 that we should accept today as properly historical. There is, after all, no extant Greek or Latin text written before the late second century BCE that shows any knowledge of the planetary phenomena of station and retrogradation, which are so central to Simplicius’ commentary. There are also ample signs that Simplicius’ remarks about the history of early astronomy are not a report but a reconstruction occasioned by what Aristotle writes in Metaphysics Λ 8 and the need to explain why the homocentric planetary theory outlined there was later abandoned by Aristotelians. Moreover, Metaphysics Λ 8 is itself underdetermined so far as its presentation of this homocentric theory goes. Indeed, there are other interpretations of this presentation that fit far better than Simplicius’ with what we can find elsewhere in Aristotle’s writings and in documents by other writers of the fourth century.

That scholars today persist in reading Metaphysics Λ 8 and other early texts as indicating knowledge of the planetary stations and retrogradations is a puzzle. One only wishes, when these scholars have elaborated their interpretations of Metaphysics Λ 8 and of the other related texts written before the late second century that concern planetary motions, that they would not stop here as if their work as historians were done. Obviously, it will not be enough if they simply adduce relevant testimonia by later ancient writers. Not only are these testimonia few in number and dated to a time after the characteristic planetary motions were duly understood, they typically prove on critical examination to be either ambiguous or anachronistic in the same way as Simplicius’ account is. Consequently, any appeal to such testimonia without critical argument in defense of their historical validity is pointless.

Indeed, the burden must fall on these scholars to demonstrate that Metaphysics Λ 8 and the other early texts must be read in this way. For, absent such proof, all one has is the fallacy of imputing to a writer the perceived consequences of what he writes. Of course, making such a proof will be hard work. Even those sharing the general view that the Greeks of the fourth century were aware of planetary stations and retrogradations do not agree about how these phenomena were understood or explained. In addition, there are my own arguments not only that these texts may be read without supposing such knowledge but also that they should be read without such a supposition, given the contemporaneous evidence of astronomical theory.

And finally, there is the largely unrecognized problem that, even if Simplicius’ history of astronomy in Aristotle’s time is anachronistic, it has a simpler interpretation than the one first propounded in the 19th century by Schiaparelli and elaborated to this day. Granted, these scholars may wish to excuse themselves from the charge of wrongly imputing to Simplicius what they perceive as the real meaning of his text, by claiming that Simplicius is preserving material from earlier sources that he does not understand. But should historians today assent to reading an ancient commentary in a way that makes the commentator irrelevant, and should they do this in the expectation that the interpretation offered reflects the thought of some putative source from whom nothing survives for confirmation?

My own view is that compounding such a misreading of an ancient literary genre with such untestable faith—or, if you will, unassailable credulity—may have numerous outcomes, but historical knowledge will not be one of them.

Few modern historians have examined what Simplicius actually writes—the great tendency is to rely on some learned summary such as that supplied by Heath, who makes accessible in English the pioneering work of Schiaparelli. Accordingly, I here present Simplicius’ account of Metaphysics Λ 8 so that readers may begin to get their own sense of what is at issue.

To this end, I have translated Heiberg’s edition of Simplicius’ commentary on the three narrowly astronomical chapters of the De caelo and have supplied my translation with annotation intended primarily to clarify the technical, scientific meaning.

Given the exigencies of publication, this annotated translation will come in two parts. The first, presented here, is devoted to Simplicius’ commentary on De caelo 2.10–11. These chapters in the De caelo raise stock issues in astronomy; and it is valuable, I think, for readers interested in Simplicius’ account of planetary theory in 2.12 to see and assess just how he deals with them. Indeed, not only does Simplicius’ commentary on 2.10–11 show him drawing on a tradition of technical writing for novices and philosophers that goes back to Geminus and Cleomedes, it also shows him going astray on fundamental points in elementary mathematics. And this is surely important for our interpretation of his commentary on 2.12.

The annotation itself is, as I have said, intended to assist the reader with information that may be needed to make sense of the text. My main aim is to allow access to Simplicius that is as little encumbered by my interpretative intrusion as is feasible, since my hope in this publication is that the reader will confront Simplicius for himself, by himself, so far as this is possible in a translation.

Thus, I do not engage in the details of the interpretations offered by those who assume that the early Greeks were aware of the planetary phenomena so central to Simplicius’ account of Metaphysics Λ 8. Still, there is a question about just how much annotation is needed by readers of this journal, and I hope that I have not erred too much in following my natural disposition to say less.

Simplicius’ Greek is typical of scholastic commentary: elliptical, crabbed, and technical. I have tried to deal with this by supplying in square brackets what is missing whenever this seemed necessary or likely to make the meaning easier for the reader to grasp. At the same time, I have tried, so far as is reasonable and within my ability, to capture Simplicius’ technical vocabulary and to preserve the logical structure of his sentences.

This translation has benefited greatly from the generous criticism of earlier versions offered by Bernard R. Goldstein and Robert B. Todd: they have saved me from numerous mistakes and infelicities, and I am most pleased to acknowledge this.

Finally, I am very pleased to record my gratitude to Ken Saito, the Managing Editor of SCIAMVS, for his unflagging interest in this project and his encouragement as I pursued it. That my annotated translation appears in SCIAMVS is ample proof of his very kind support and his patience with a historian whose sense of time seems limited to the past. [introduction p. 23-26]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1479","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1479,"authors_free":[{"id":2560,"entry_id":1479,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":16,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Bowen, Alan C.","free_first_name":"Alan C.","free_last_name":"Bowen","norm_person":{"id":16,"first_name":"Bowen C.","last_name":"Bowen","full_name":"Bowen, Alan C. ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/140052720","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2601,"entry_id":1479,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":62,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Simplicius","free_first_name":"","free_last_name":"","norm_person":{"id":62,"first_name":"Cilicius","last_name":"Simplicius ","full_name":"Simplicius Cilicius","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/118642421","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 1","main_title":{"title":"Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 1"},"abstract":"If there is a single text that has proven to be the bedrock for the modern understanding of early Greek astronomy, it is Simplicius\u2019 commentary on Book 2, Chapter 12 of Aristotle\u2019s treatise De caelo. Simplicius\u2019 remarks, which are effectively an elaboration of what he supposes Aristotle to mean in Metaphysics \u039b 8, are almost always accepted as gospel in their broad outlines. Take any recent history of early Greek astronomy you please, and you will find that its author immediately turns to Simplicius as the source clarifying what Aristotle writes in this chapter of his Metaphysics.\r\n\r\nIndeed, the main challenge scholars perceive in Simplicius\u2019 commentary is to tease out and reconstruct the underlying mathematical theory that would make it all \u2018true.\u2019 Such na\u00efvet\u00e9 is breathtaking. Few who read Simplicius and understand his historiographical project\u2014a search for a truth that Aristotle\u2019s text is supposed to embody rather than a study of the text itself on its own terms\u2014would elevate him to a position of such unquestioned authority. And those who have reflected on the often intractable problems in assessing the truth of ancient reports or testimonia in the sciences will quite naturally decline to take Simplicius at his word in this matter.\r\n\r\nI recognize, of course, that it is customary to detect errors in Simplicius\u2019 account and to attribute them either to Aristotle or to Simplicius; but this, I fear, typically amounts to little more than a demonstration that we moderns can be speciously clever while taking what Simplicius writes for granted.\r\n\r\nI have written at length elsewhere that Simplicius\u2019 comments on De caelo 2.12 do not constitute an account of what Aristotle meant in Metaphysics \u039b 8 that we should accept today as properly historical. There is, after all, no extant Greek or Latin text written before the late second century BCE that shows any knowledge of the planetary phenomena of station and retrogradation, which are so central to Simplicius\u2019 commentary. There are also ample signs that Simplicius\u2019 remarks about the history of early astronomy are not a report but a reconstruction occasioned by what Aristotle writes in Metaphysics \u039b 8 and the need to explain why the homocentric planetary theory outlined there was later abandoned by Aristotelians. Moreover, Metaphysics \u039b 8 is itself underdetermined so far as its presentation of this homocentric theory goes. Indeed, there are other interpretations of this presentation that fit far better than Simplicius\u2019 with what we can find elsewhere in Aristotle\u2019s writings and in documents by other writers of the fourth century.\r\n\r\nThat scholars today persist in reading Metaphysics \u039b 8 and other early texts as indicating knowledge of the planetary stations and retrogradations is a puzzle. One only wishes, when these scholars have elaborated their interpretations of Metaphysics \u039b 8 and of the other related texts written before the late second century that concern planetary motions, that they would not stop here as if their work as historians were done. Obviously, it will not be enough if they simply adduce relevant testimonia by later ancient writers. Not only are these testimonia few in number and dated to a time after the characteristic planetary motions were duly understood, they typically prove on critical examination to be either ambiguous or anachronistic in the same way as Simplicius\u2019 account is. Consequently, any appeal to such testimonia without critical argument in defense of their historical validity is pointless.\r\n\r\nIndeed, the burden must fall on these scholars to demonstrate that Metaphysics \u039b 8 and the other early texts must be read in this way. For, absent such proof, all one has is the fallacy of imputing to a writer the perceived consequences of what he writes. Of course, making such a proof will be hard work. Even those sharing the general view that the Greeks of the fourth century were aware of planetary stations and retrogradations do not agree about how these phenomena were understood or explained. In addition, there are my own arguments not only that these texts may be read without supposing such knowledge but also that they should be read without such a supposition, given the contemporaneous evidence of astronomical theory.\r\n\r\nAnd finally, there is the largely unrecognized problem that, even if Simplicius\u2019 history of astronomy in Aristotle\u2019s time is anachronistic, it has a simpler interpretation than the one first propounded in the 19th century by Schiaparelli and elaborated to this day. Granted, these scholars may wish to excuse themselves from the charge of wrongly imputing to Simplicius what they perceive as the real meaning of his text, by claiming that Simplicius is preserving material from earlier sources that he does not understand. But should historians today assent to reading an ancient commentary in a way that makes the commentator irrelevant, and should they do this in the expectation that the interpretation offered reflects the thought of some putative source from whom nothing survives for confirmation?\r\n\r\nMy own view is that compounding such a misreading of an ancient literary genre with such untestable faith\u2014or, if you will, unassailable credulity\u2014may have numerous outcomes, but historical knowledge will not be one of them.\r\n\r\nFew modern historians have examined what Simplicius actually writes\u2014the great tendency is to rely on some learned summary such as that supplied by Heath, who makes accessible in English the pioneering work of Schiaparelli. Accordingly, I here present Simplicius\u2019 account of Metaphysics \u039b 8 so that readers may begin to get their own sense of what is at issue.\r\n\r\nTo this end, I have translated Heiberg\u2019s edition of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on the three narrowly astronomical chapters of the De caelo and have supplied my translation with annotation intended primarily to clarify the technical, scientific meaning.\r\n\r\nGiven the exigencies of publication, this annotated translation will come in two parts. The first, presented here, is devoted to Simplicius\u2019 commentary on De caelo 2.10\u201311. These chapters in the De caelo raise stock issues in astronomy; and it is valuable, I think, for readers interested in Simplicius\u2019 account of planetary theory in 2.12 to see and assess just how he deals with them. Indeed, not only does Simplicius\u2019 commentary on 2.10\u201311 show him drawing on a tradition of technical writing for novices and philosophers that goes back to Geminus and Cleomedes, it also shows him going astray on fundamental points in elementary mathematics. And this is surely important for our interpretation of his commentary on 2.12.\r\n\r\nThe annotation itself is, as I have said, intended to assist the reader with information that may be needed to make sense of the text. My main aim is to allow access to Simplicius that is as little encumbered by my interpretative intrusion as is feasible, since my hope in this publication is that the reader will confront Simplicius for himself, by himself, so far as this is possible in a translation.\r\n\r\nThus, I do not engage in the details of the interpretations offered by those who assume that the early Greeks were aware of the planetary phenomena so central to Simplicius\u2019 account of Metaphysics \u039b 8. Still, there is a question about just how much annotation is needed by readers of this journal, and I hope that I have not erred too much in following my natural disposition to say less.\r\n\r\nSimplicius\u2019 Greek is typical of scholastic commentary: elliptical, crabbed, and technical. I have tried to deal with this by supplying in square brackets what is missing whenever this seemed necessary or likely to make the meaning easier for the reader to grasp. At the same time, I have tried, so far as is reasonable and within my ability, to capture Simplicius\u2019 technical vocabulary and to preserve the logical structure of his sentences.\r\n\r\nThis translation has benefited greatly from the generous criticism of earlier versions offered by Bernard R. Goldstein and Robert B. Todd: they have saved me from numerous mistakes and infelicities, and I am most pleased to acknowledge this.\r\n\r\nFinally, I am very pleased to record my gratitude to Ken Saito, the Managing Editor of SCIAMVS, for his unflagging interest in this project and his encouragement as I pursued it. That my annotated translation appears in SCIAMVS is ample proof of his very kind support and his patience with a historian whose sense of time seems limited to the past. [introduction p. 23-26]","btype":3,"date":"2003","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/skKbEWtOO6LigIs","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":16,"full_name":"Bowen, Alan C. ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":62,"full_name":"Simplicius Cilicius","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1479,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"SCIAMVS: Sources and Commentaries in Exact Sciences","volume":"4","issue":"","pages":"23-58"}},"sort":["Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 1"]}

Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 2, 2008
By: Bowen, Alan C., Simplicius
Title Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 2
Type Article
Language English
Date 2008
Journal SCIAMVS: Sources and Commentaries in Exact Sciences
Volume 9
Pages 25-131
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bowen, Alan C. , Simplicius
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This completes my translation of the narrowly astronomical sections of Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s De caelo, which first appeared in SCIAMVS 4 (2003), 23–58. Its aim, as before, is to provide the reader with a suitably annotated rendering of Simplicius’ text that will facilitate addressing critical questions regarding the nature, construction, and historical value of Simplicius’ commentary, especially as it pertains to the history of earlier Greek astronomical theorizing.

In completing this project, I have relied strictly on modern editions of Aristotle’s De caelo in presenting the lemmata in full and have relegated comments about any differences with Simplicius’ abbreviated lemmata to footnotes. After all, given that we have only Simplicius’ lemmata and not the full text of the De caelo that he used, there seems little sense in presenting Aristotle’s text in full while combining it with readings from Simplicius’ text, thereby implying a text that does not exist. At the same time, I have preserved the fact that the text quoted or paraphrased in the commentary proper sometimes differs from the text found in the lemmata. Thus, the lemmata presented here differ from those offered by Ian Mueller (2005), since he revises the received text of the De caelo in light of Simplicius’ text and removes any differences between Simplicius’ lemmata and his quotations and paraphrases.

For the modern text of Aristotle’s De caelo, my primary source is Paul Moraux’s edition, as it makes extensive use of the indirect tradition in establishing Aristotle’s text. Moreover, as before, I have used Heiberg’s 1894 edition for the text of Simplicius’ commentary. However, caveat lector: this edition has recently been criticized for its reliance on the 1540 edition of the Latin translation of In De caelo made by William of Moerbeke in the 13th century. Additionally, arguments have been made for the importance of the recently discovered translation of De caelo 2 and related passages from Simplicius by Robert Grosseteste in establishing Simplicius’ text. Regrettably, there is only a proper edition thus far of Moerbeke’s translation of Simplicius’ commentary on De caelo 1; and, though it has certainly proved useful, we must all await the publication of the edition of Moerbeke’s version of Simplicius’ In De caelo 2. This forthcoming edition, as I understand, will account for both of Moerbeke’s translations of Simplicius’ astronomical digression in his commentary on 2.12.

As for Grosseteste’s translation, though there is apparently a typescript edition by the late Fernand Bossier, it seems to be privately circulated, and so far, I have been unable to obtain a copy.

Next, in interpreting the syntax and meaning of Simplicius’ Greek, I have used terminology that remains faithful to our ancient sources while also being familiar to historians of science, ensuring an accurate rendering of the technical language that Simplicius employs (and sometimes misuses) in the course of his philosophical and astronomical interpretations. As before, the line numbers in the margins of the translation indicate the line in which the first word of the corresponding line in Heiberg’s text appears. The result is not exact in terms of the actual line count, but it should suffice to allow readers to move between my translation and Simplicius’ text if they so wish.

Finally, I have supplied extensive footnotes and comments to explicate the many issues that readers should understand in order to assess the nature of Simplicius’ commentary on De caelo 2.12. Readers may well disagree with my claims and arguments; however, I trust that this annotation will at least help them avoid missteps—mine included. What I have not done, however, is address the voluminous literature offering reconstructions of the system of homocentric spheres that Simplicius describes in the great astronomical digression concluding his commentary on 2.12.

As in Part 1, my overriding aim is to provide only such annotation as allows readers to engage with Simplicius’ testimony directly, without obscuring it beneath layers of learned interpretation and speculation. My hope is that this approach will encourage readers to assess such reconstructions critically. Admittedly, this aim aligns with my own conclusion that such reconstructions, which trace back to Schiaparelli in the 19th century and were largely codified by Heath (1913), must today be seen as an egregious example of how scholars and their communities project their own perspectives onto the past.

Moreover, this approach fits with my conviction that Simplicius’ commentary on De caelo 2.10–12 is historically significant in its own right as a witness to concerns in late antiquity about the nature and foundations of astronomical knowledge. Accordingly, I have limited my remarks on these reconstructions to instances where proponents make claims about the meaning of Simplicius’ Greek or critique his interpretations. For the most part, I have set aside alternative reconstructions proposed by Maula (1974), Heglmeier (1996), Mendell (1998, 2000), and Yavetz (1998, 2001, 2003).

For further details on the principles underlying this translation and the format of its presentation, I urge the reader to consult Part 1, especially pages 25–26. [introduction p. 25-27]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1480","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1480,"authors_free":[{"id":2561,"entry_id":1480,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":16,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Bowen, Alan C.","free_first_name":"Alan C.","free_last_name":"Bowen","norm_person":{"id":16,"first_name":"Bowen C.","last_name":"Bowen","full_name":"Bowen, Alan C. 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Its aim, as before, is to provide the reader with a suitably annotated rendering of Simplicius\u2019 text that will facilitate addressing critical questions regarding the nature, construction, and historical value of Simplicius\u2019 commentary, especially as it pertains to the history of earlier Greek astronomical theorizing.\r\n\r\nIn completing this project, I have relied strictly on modern editions of Aristotle\u2019s De caelo in presenting the lemmata in full and have relegated comments about any differences with Simplicius\u2019 abbreviated lemmata to footnotes. After all, given that we have only Simplicius\u2019 lemmata and not the full text of the De caelo that he used, there seems little sense in presenting Aristotle\u2019s text in full while combining it with readings from Simplicius\u2019 text, thereby implying a text that does not exist. At the same time, I have preserved the fact that the text quoted or paraphrased in the commentary proper sometimes differs from the text found in the lemmata. Thus, the lemmata presented here differ from those offered by Ian Mueller (2005), since he revises the received text of the De caelo in light of Simplicius\u2019 text and removes any differences between Simplicius\u2019 lemmata and his quotations and paraphrases.\r\n\r\nFor the modern text of Aristotle\u2019s De caelo, my primary source is Paul Moraux\u2019s edition, as it makes extensive use of the indirect tradition in establishing Aristotle\u2019s text. Moreover, as before, I have used Heiberg\u2019s 1894 edition for the text of Simplicius\u2019 commentary. However, caveat lector: this edition has recently been criticized for its reliance on the 1540 edition of the Latin translation of In De caelo made by William of Moerbeke in the 13th century. Additionally, arguments have been made for the importance of the recently discovered translation of De caelo 2 and related passages from Simplicius by Robert Grosseteste in establishing Simplicius\u2019 text. Regrettably, there is only a proper edition thus far of Moerbeke\u2019s translation of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on De caelo 1; and, though it has certainly proved useful, we must all await the publication of the edition of Moerbeke\u2019s version of Simplicius\u2019 In De caelo 2. This forthcoming edition, as I understand, will account for both of Moerbeke\u2019s translations of Simplicius\u2019 astronomical digression in his commentary on 2.12.\r\n\r\nAs for Grosseteste\u2019s translation, though there is apparently a typescript edition by the late Fernand Bossier, it seems to be privately circulated, and so far, I have been unable to obtain a copy.\r\n\r\nNext, in interpreting the syntax and meaning of Simplicius\u2019 Greek, I have used terminology that remains faithful to our ancient sources while also being familiar to historians of science, ensuring an accurate rendering of the technical language that Simplicius employs (and sometimes misuses) in the course of his philosophical and astronomical interpretations. As before, the line numbers in the margins of the translation indicate the line in which the first word of the corresponding line in Heiberg\u2019s text appears. The result is not exact in terms of the actual line count, but it should suffice to allow readers to move between my translation and Simplicius\u2019 text if they so wish.\r\n\r\nFinally, I have supplied extensive footnotes and comments to explicate the many issues that readers should understand in order to assess the nature of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on De caelo 2.12. Readers may well disagree with my claims and arguments; however, I trust that this annotation will at least help them avoid missteps\u2014mine included. What I have not done, however, is address the voluminous literature offering reconstructions of the system of homocentric spheres that Simplicius describes in the great astronomical digression concluding his commentary on 2.12.\r\n\r\nAs in Part 1, my overriding aim is to provide only such annotation as allows readers to engage with Simplicius\u2019 testimony directly, without obscuring it beneath layers of learned interpretation and speculation. My hope is that this approach will encourage readers to assess such reconstructions critically. Admittedly, this aim aligns with my own conclusion that such reconstructions, which trace back to Schiaparelli in the 19th century and were largely codified by Heath (1913), must today be seen as an egregious example of how scholars and their communities project their own perspectives onto the past.\r\n\r\nMoreover, this approach fits with my conviction that Simplicius\u2019 commentary on De caelo 2.10\u201312 is historically significant in its own right as a witness to concerns in late antiquity about the nature and foundations of astronomical knowledge. Accordingly, I have limited my remarks on these reconstructions to instances where proponents make claims about the meaning of Simplicius\u2019 Greek or critique his interpretations. For the most part, I have set aside alternative reconstructions proposed by Maula (1974), Heglmeier (1996), Mendell (1998, 2000), and Yavetz (1998, 2001, 2003).\r\n\r\nFor further details on the principles underlying this translation and the format of its presentation, I urge the reader to consult Part 1, especially pages 25\u201326. [introduction p. 25-27]","btype":3,"date":"2008","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/bK5nxtsNqCbstdI","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":16,"full_name":"Bowen, Alan C. ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":62,"full_name":"Simplicius Cilicius","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1480,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"SCIAMVS: Sources and Commentaries in Exact Sciences","volume":"9","issue":"","pages":"25-131"}},"sort":["Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle, De Caelo 2.10-12: An Annotated Translation, Part 2"]}

Simplikios, czytelnik Epikteta, 2014
By: Łapiński, Krzysztof
Title Simplikios, czytelnik Epikteta
Type Article
Language Polish
Date 2014
Journal Przegląd Filozoficzno-Literacki
Volume 40
Issue 3-4
Pages 35-43
Categories no categories
Author(s) Łapiński, Krzysztof
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Simplicius, the Neoplatonic philosopher, and commentator from late antiquity, devoted one of his commentaries to Epictetus’ Enchiridion. In the article, the author posed the question about the place of the text by the Stoic writer within the whole Neoplatonic education system. In addition, he asked to what extent the act of commenting on Epictetus’ work could be conceived by Simplicius as a kind of spiritual exercise. In the second part of the article, the hypothesis by M. Tardieu and I. Hadot is presented, suggesting that the city of Harran could be regarded as the possible place of exile where the group of philosophers settled after the Platonic Academy had been closed. [Author's abstract]

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Simplikios: Wstęp do Komentarza do Encheiridionu Epikteta (wybór), 2014
By: Łapiński, Krzysztof
Title Simplikios: Wstęp do Komentarza do Encheiridionu Epikteta (wybór)
Type Article
Language Polish
Date 2014
Journal Przegląd Filozoficzno-Literacki
Volume 40
Issue 3-4
Pages 45-49
Categories no categories
Author(s) Łapiński, Krzysztof
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The  translation  includes  an  introduction  to  the  Simplicius’  commentary 
on Epictetus’ Enchiridion. The author of the commentary explains to whom 
is  the work  of Epictetus  addressed,  what is  the scope  o f the  Enchiridion, 
the  meaning  of  the  title  and  the  literary  genre  to  which  it  belongs. 
The  supposed  audience  is  the  reader  who  wants  to  live  in  accordance 
with  reason  on  the  level  of ethical  and  political  virtues.  Such  a  reader 
ought to internalize Epictetus’ teaching and appeal to it in the challenging 
moments  of life.  The  Stoic  content  has  been  enriched with  the  Platonic 
teaching  drawn  from  Alcibiades  I   about  relationship  between  the  soul 
and the body. The first Polish translation of Simplicius’ text has been based 
on the Ilsetraut Hadot’s edition. [author's abstract]

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Sinfonia dei Presocratici. Su due παρεκβάσεις in Simplicio (in PHYS. 6.31–8.15 e 28.32–37.9), 2019
By: Licciardi, Ivan Adriano
Title Sinfonia dei Presocratici. Su due παρεκβάσεις in Simplicio (in PHYS. 6.31–8.15 e 28.32–37.9)
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2019
Journal Epekeina. International Journal of Ontology History and Critics
Volume 10
Issue 1
Pages 1-32
Categories no categories
Author(s) Licciardi, Ivan Adriano
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Osserviamo, a bilancio finale, quanto segue: Simplicio affida a due digressioni di In Physica I la sua veduta complessiva sui Presocratici. Mentre Aristotele, nella sua ricostruzione storico-dialettica, inserisce i predecessori dentro griglie concettuali nelle quali le posizioni vengono poste come contraddittorie fra di loro, Simplicio muove invece dal presupposto che la filosofia dei Presocratici nel suo complesso sia in realtà unitaria, armonica e coerente. Ma Simplicio, a differenza dello Stagirita, opera alla fine del mondo antico, e la sua necessità fu innanzitutto quella di tramandare ai posteri la tradizione antica affinché tale patrimonio non andasse disperso.

Trattasi, qui, non di una necessità archeologica o erudita, bensì filosofica e ideologica a un tempo. Occorreva, peraltro, tramandare questo patrimonio come un che di armonico, unitario e intimamente coerente a un grado almeno paritetico rispetto a un’altra tradizione, quella cristiana, che dopo le incertezze e le transizioni che avevano caratterizzato il suo affacciarsi alla storia mondiale, aveva ormai consolidato il suo apparato dogmatico (specialmente dopo i concili di Efeso, Nicea e Calcedonia) e aveva dato concretezza strategica al suo piano di espansione e diffusione per il tramite di adeguati strumenti politici (editti di Milano e Tessalonica) atti a imporsi definitivamente quale visione dominante nell’Occidente alla fine del mondo antico.

Lo strumentario di cui si serve Simplicio è un ampio ricorso alla citazione diretta dei predecessori, congiuntamente a un trattamento mirante a “limare” le differenze che intercorrono fra loro e ad accentuarne i tratti comuni. La cornice teorica che accoglie questo tipo di operazione, in buona sostanza una “platonizzazione” di tutti i Presocratici, è il neoplatonismo, della cui tradizione Simplicio è l’ultimo erede pagano. Vale la pena, a tal proposito, sottolineare un ultimo fatto: quando Simplicio fa riferimento a una tradizione filosofica unitaria e coerente, che dalle origini giunge fino al suo tempo, egli non qualifica siffatta tradizione come platonica, bensì come antica.

Si tratta di un fatto che solo apparentemente contraddice quanto abbiamo asserito, e cioè che la teoria della συμφωνία dei Presocratici scaturisca da un’interpretazione, fondamentalmente, neoplatonica. Il riferirsi, da parte di Simplicio, a una tradizione indeterminata di veteres non andrà interpretato come uno sbiadimento della consapevolezza di possedere un’identità e un’eredità storica e filosofica ben determinata (che, fondamentalmente, è quella del neoplatonismo ateniese), bensì come testimonianza di un passaggio storico ormai avvenuto.

Questo passaggio storico consiste in questo: Simplicio non opera in un contesto quale quello dell’età classica, in cui l’Accademia e il Peripato si contendevano l’egemonia filosofica e culturale ateniese, e non opera nemmeno, a seguire, in un contesto paragonabile al periodo successivo alla morte di Alessandro Magno, in cui il pensiero greco si trova disperso nei rivoli delle αἱρέσεις ellenistiche e in cui una delle cifre dominanti è costituita da un agonismo che non sembra avere mai fine.

Il contesto storico in cui opera Simplicio è, diversamente, quello della fine di un mondo, quello pagano, a cui ne sta per subentrare un altro, quello della Christianitas. Non si tratta più, in sostanza, di affermare il primato di una scuola o di una tradizione di pensiero rispetto ad altre tradizioni che non appartengono a quella platonica, perché le priorità, adesso, sono mutate.

In questo passaggio epocale, la proposta filosofica e culturale di Simplicio sembra consistere, in altre parole, in una sorta di panellenismo filosofico. Come Isocrate, al fine di proseguire la lotta contro i Persiani, aveva cercato di superare i contrasti fra le varie πόλεις, cercando di radunare le loro energie e di riunirle politicamente sotto l’egemonia ateniese, così Simplicio, al fine di proseguire la lotta contro i Cristiani, mira a superare i contrasti e le divergenze fra le varie tradizioni di pensiero, dichiarandoli apparenti, e teorizza, appunto, la loro συμφωνία, sotto l’egemonia platonica.

L’ermeneutica che caratterizza il procedere di Simplicio è segnata, in particolare, dalla coppia concettuale “enigma/chiarezza”. Secondo il Commentatore, il secondo modulo espressivo appartiene in modo eminente a Platone (e in parte anche ad Aristotele), mentre il primo ai Presocratici, e in particolare a Parmenide, Empedocle e i Pitagorici.

Sarebbe proprio la modalità espressiva enigmatica, per Simplicio, la causa principale dei fraintendimenti che avrebbero condotto alcuni a concepire i Presocratici in agonismo fra di loro, proprio come vorrebbe lasciar intendere certa dossografia cristiana. La classificazione simpliciana dei Presocratici (che, come si è visto, è una tripartizione) è funzionale, però, solo a una migliore comprensione delle ragioni della loro profonda unità.

Conformemente all’uso tecnico e tardo settecentesco del termine «sinfonia», possiamo dire che nell’ottica di Simplicio la filosofia dei Presocratici fu una sinfonia nel senso di un brano composto da più movimenti – più propriamente una “sonata per orchestra”: ἡ παλαιὰ φιλοσοφία μένει ἀνέλεγκτος.
[conclusion p. 29-32]

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Mentre Aristotele, nella sua ricostruzione storico-dialettica, inserisce i predecessori dentro griglie concettuali nelle quali le posizioni vengono poste come contraddittorie fra di loro, Simplicio muove invece dal presupposto che la filosofia dei Presocratici nel suo complesso sia in realt\u00e0 unitaria, armonica e coerente. Ma Simplicio, a differenza dello Stagirita, opera alla fine del mondo antico, e la sua necessit\u00e0 fu innanzitutto quella di tramandare ai posteri la tradizione antica affinch\u00e9 tale patrimonio non andasse disperso.\r\n\r\nTrattasi, qui, non di una necessit\u00e0 archeologica o erudita, bens\u00ec filosofica e ideologica a un tempo. Occorreva, peraltro, tramandare questo patrimonio come un che di armonico, unitario e intimamente coerente a un grado almeno paritetico rispetto a un\u2019altra tradizione, quella cristiana, che dopo le incertezze e le transizioni che avevano caratterizzato il suo affacciarsi alla storia mondiale, aveva ormai consolidato il suo apparato dogmatico (specialmente dopo i concili di Efeso, Nicea e Calcedonia) e aveva dato concretezza strategica al suo piano di espansione e diffusione per il tramite di adeguati strumenti politici (editti di Milano e Tessalonica) atti a imporsi definitivamente quale visione dominante nell\u2019Occidente alla fine del mondo antico.\r\n\r\nLo strumentario di cui si serve Simplicio \u00e8 un ampio ricorso alla citazione diretta dei predecessori, congiuntamente a un trattamento mirante a \u201climare\u201d le differenze che intercorrono fra loro e ad accentuarne i tratti comuni. La cornice teorica che accoglie questo tipo di operazione, in buona sostanza una \u201cplatonizzazione\u201d di tutti i Presocratici, \u00e8 il neoplatonismo, della cui tradizione Simplicio \u00e8 l\u2019ultimo erede pagano. Vale la pena, a tal proposito, sottolineare un ultimo fatto: quando Simplicio fa riferimento a una tradizione filosofica unitaria e coerente, che dalle origini giunge fino al suo tempo, egli non qualifica siffatta tradizione come platonica, bens\u00ec come antica.\r\n\r\nSi tratta di un fatto che solo apparentemente contraddice quanto abbiamo asserito, e cio\u00e8 che la teoria della \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03af\u03b1 dei Presocratici scaturisca da un\u2019interpretazione, fondamentalmente, neoplatonica. Il riferirsi, da parte di Simplicio, a una tradizione indeterminata di veteres non andr\u00e0 interpretato come uno sbiadimento della consapevolezza di possedere un\u2019identit\u00e0 e un\u2019eredit\u00e0 storica e filosofica ben determinata (che, fondamentalmente, \u00e8 quella del neoplatonismo ateniese), bens\u00ec come testimonianza di un passaggio storico ormai avvenuto.\r\n\r\nQuesto passaggio storico consiste in questo: Simplicio non opera in un contesto quale quello dell\u2019et\u00e0 classica, in cui l\u2019Accademia e il Peripato si contendevano l\u2019egemonia filosofica e culturale ateniese, e non opera nemmeno, a seguire, in un contesto paragonabile al periodo successivo alla morte di Alessandro Magno, in cui il pensiero greco si trova disperso nei rivoli delle \u03b1\u1f31\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 ellenistiche e in cui una delle cifre dominanti \u00e8 costituita da un agonismo che non sembra avere mai fine.\r\n\r\nIl contesto storico in cui opera Simplicio \u00e8, diversamente, quello della fine di un mondo, quello pagano, a cui ne sta per subentrare un altro, quello della Christianitas. Non si tratta pi\u00f9, in sostanza, di affermare il primato di una scuola o di una tradizione di pensiero rispetto ad altre tradizioni che non appartengono a quella platonica, perch\u00e9 le priorit\u00e0, adesso, sono mutate.\r\n\r\nIn questo passaggio epocale, la proposta filosofica e culturale di Simplicio sembra consistere, in altre parole, in una sorta di panellenismo filosofico. Come Isocrate, al fine di proseguire la lotta contro i Persiani, aveva cercato di superare i contrasti fra le varie \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2, cercando di radunare le loro energie e di riunirle politicamente sotto l\u2019egemonia ateniese, cos\u00ec Simplicio, al fine di proseguire la lotta contro i Cristiani, mira a superare i contrasti e le divergenze fra le varie tradizioni di pensiero, dichiarandoli apparenti, e teorizza, appunto, la loro \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03af\u03b1, sotto l\u2019egemonia platonica.\r\n\r\nL\u2019ermeneutica che caratterizza il procedere di Simplicio \u00e8 segnata, in particolare, dalla coppia concettuale \u201cenigma\/chiarezza\u201d. Secondo il Commentatore, il secondo modulo espressivo appartiene in modo eminente a Platone (e in parte anche ad Aristotele), mentre il primo ai Presocratici, e in particolare a Parmenide, Empedocle e i Pitagorici.\r\n\r\nSarebbe proprio la modalit\u00e0 espressiva enigmatica, per Simplicio, la causa principale dei fraintendimenti che avrebbero condotto alcuni a concepire i Presocratici in agonismo fra di loro, proprio come vorrebbe lasciar intendere certa dossografia cristiana. La classificazione simpliciana dei Presocratici (che, come si \u00e8 visto, \u00e8 una tripartizione) \u00e8 funzionale, per\u00f2, solo a una migliore comprensione delle ragioni della loro profonda unit\u00e0.\r\n\r\nConformemente all\u2019uso tecnico e tardo settecentesco del termine \u00absinfonia\u00bb, possiamo dire che nell\u2019ottica di Simplicio la filosofia dei Presocratici fu una sinfonia nel senso di un brano composto da pi\u00f9 movimenti \u2013 pi\u00f9 propriamente una \u201csonata per orchestra\u201d: \u1f21 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03bf\u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03af\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b3\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2.\r\n[conclusion p. 29-32]","btype":3,"date":"2019","language":"Italian","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/d1OxzfD4Xu8EZnr","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1554,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Epekeina. International Journal of Ontology History and Critics","volume":"10","issue":"1","pages":"1-32"}},"sort":["Sinfonia dei Presocratici. Su due \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b5\u03ba\u03b2\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 in Simplicio (in PHYS. 6.31\u20138.15 e 28.32\u201337.9)"]}

Stoici e Peripatetici su agire, patire e movimento: la testimonianza di Simplicio, 2023
By: Giuseppe Nastasi
Title Stoici e Peripatetici su agire, patire e movimento: la testimonianza di Simplicio
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2023
Journal Elenchos: Rivista di Studi Sul Pensiero Antico
Volume 44
Issue 2
Pages 333-365
Categories no categories
Author(s) Giuseppe Nastasi
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories contains the most extended testimony about the Stoic conception of acting (ποιεῖν) and undergoing (πάσχειν). Simplicius ascribed to the Stoics the idea that acting and undergoing are to be reduced to the movement. To this opinion Simplicius opposed the Aristotelian view according to which acting and undergoing are two different categories. In this paper I intend to outline the original Stoic position comparing the reportage of Simplicius with other Stoic sources. Later, I will deal with Boethus’ defense of the distinction between the categories of acting and undergoing. I will argue that Boethus directly reacted against the Stoic opinion reformulating it in Aristotelian language. [author's abstract]

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Stoicism and Byzantine philosophy: Proairesis in Epictetus and Nicephorus Blemmydes, 2014
By: Sotiria Triantari
Title Stoicism and Byzantine philosophy: Proairesis in Epictetus and Nicephorus Blemmydes
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch Fur Antike Und Mittelalter
Volume 17
Issue 1
Pages 85-98
Categories no categories
Author(s) Sotiria Triantari
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Was the Byzantine thinker Nicephorus Blemmydes directly influenced in his views about human “proairesis” by the Stoic Epictetus or did he take over his views from the Neoplatonic Simplicius? After exploring Blemmydes’ reception of Epictetus, one can say that Blemmydes drew elements in a brief treatise under the title “De virtute et ascesi” from the mainly Neoplatonic Simplicius, who commented on the handbook by the Stoic Epictetus. Blemmydes, following Simplicius identifies “φ’ μν” with “aftexousion” and he designates “proairesis” as an activity, which emanates from “aftexousion”. Blemmydes shows the moral power of “proairesis” as a transforming factor of human existence and the mediatory factor to the dialectical relation between man and God. For the completion of the study, the following sources have been used: Blemmydes’ De virtute et ascesi, Epictetus’ Handbook, and Neoplatonic Simplicius’ commentaries on the Handbook. I specifically focus on the views of Aristotle, Epictetus, and Neoplatonic Simplicius about “proairesis” and compare the views of Blemmydes to Simplicius’ ideas. I conclude that Blemmydes drew ideas from Simplicius, with regard to human “proairesis” and in the context of the practising and cultivating virtues in everyday life. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1596","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1596,"authors_free":[{"id":2796,"entry_id":1596,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Sotiria Triantari","free_first_name":"Sotiria","free_last_name":"Triantari","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Stoicism and Byzantine philosophy: Proairesis in Epictetus and Nicephorus Blemmydes","main_title":{"title":"Stoicism and Byzantine philosophy: Proairesis in Epictetus and Nicephorus Blemmydes"},"abstract":"Was the Byzantine thinker Nicephorus Blemmydes directly influenced in his views about human \u201cproairesis\u201d by the Stoic Epictetus or did he take over his views from the Neoplatonic Simplicius? After exploring Blemmydes\u2019 reception of Epictetus, one can say that Blemmydes drew elements in a brief treatise under the title \u201cDe virtute et ascesi\u201d from the mainly Neoplatonic Simplicius, who commented on the handbook by the Stoic Epictetus. Blemmydes, following Simplicius identifies \u201c\u03c6\u2019 \u03bc\u03bd\u201d with \u201caftexousion\u201d and he designates \u201cproairesis\u201d as an activity, which emanates from \u201caftexousion\u201d. Blemmydes shows the moral power of \u201cproairesis\u201d as a transforming factor of human existence and the mediatory factor to the dialectical relation between man and God. For the completion of the study, the following sources have been used: Blemmydes\u2019 De virtute et ascesi, Epictetus\u2019 Handbook, and Neoplatonic Simplicius\u2019 commentaries on the Handbook. I specifically focus on the views of Aristotle, Epictetus, and Neoplatonic Simplicius about \u201cproairesis\u201d and compare the views of Blemmydes to Simplicius\u2019 ideas. I conclude that Blemmydes drew ideas from Simplicius, with regard to human \u201cproairesis\u201d and in the context of the practising and cultivating virtues in everyday life. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/L5aG4m1stEAka7L","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1596,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch Fur Antike Und Mittelalter","volume":"17","issue":"1","pages":"85-98"}},"sort":["Stoicism and Byzantine philosophy: Proairesis in Epictetus and Nicephorus Blemmydes"]}

The Aristotelian Commentaries and Platonism, 2014
By: Gerson, Lloyd P.
Title The Aristotelian Commentaries and Platonism
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Quaestiones Disputatae
Volume 2
Issue 4
Pages 7-23
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gerson, Lloyd P.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
All students of the history of philosophy are apt to be seduced by linearity. What I mean is this. Naturally, we read the texts of the history of philosophy in the chronological order in which they were written. So, for example, we read Aristotle after we read Plato. And we read the supposedly later works of Plato after the earlier ones. Perfectly reasonable. But in pursuing the task of trying to figure out the meaning of what we have read, we tend to seek out or suppose the “influence” of the earlier philosopher on the later or the “development” of the philosopher’s views.

The employment of these two seemingly innocuous and certainly ubiquitous terms is in fact rarely edifying. An easy means of seeing why this is so is to ask what sort of Aristotelian cause influence and development are supposed to indicate. Since we are talking about temporal succession, presumably we would have in mind efficient or moving causes. But it only requires a moment’s reflection to realize that the views of one philosopher never stand in relation to the views of another as efficient cause to effect.

Thus, for example, it is not because Plato believed that nominalism is false that Aristotle believed that nominalism is false, even if it is indeed the case that Aristotle accepted Platonic arguments to this effect. If, however, we loosen the connection between Plato and Aristotle and agree that the views of the former did not cause the views of the latter, what is the influence supposed to amount to? Indeed, why claim that Aristotle is influenced by Plato, with whom he happened to agree on many issues, and not by, say, Democritus, with whom he happened to disagree? Surely, one can be inspired to embrace a position that is exactly the opposite of that which one hears from another.

Consider “development.” The perfectly anodyne sense of this term—namely, that according to which the sequence of writings in an author indicates the progress or course of his thought—is quite useless. But as soon as you try to gin up this weak sense of development into something more portentous, you get into serious trouble. If, for example, you say that Plato’s thought developed in the sense that his later dialogues represent an advancement in, or even a change from, his earlier thought—apart from cases of outright contradiction of which there are few or none—you have to specify what the development is a development of; that is, to use Aristotelian terminology once again, what is the underlying substrate for the development? But this underlying substrate will be the locus of continuity throughout the putative development; continuity that may be far more important than any change.

I am not suggesting that Plato or any other philosopher never changed his mind. I am suggesting that the changes cannot ever be viewed uncritically as going from false to true or wrong to right. Consider someone who believes that the high point of Plato’s thinking occurred in the early or middle dialogues. Someone like this would not consider the middle or late dialogues developments in any sense but the anodyne one mentioned above. Some scholars, looking at the identical texts, believe that Aristotle developed from a Platonist to something like an anti-Platonist, while others believe that his anti-Platonism was only a “phase” after which he developed into a Platonist once again. None of this is very helpful.

The reason I bring it up is that the Platonists of late antiquity who introduced the philosophical curriculum wherein the commentaries played such an important role were mostly impervious to the siren song of linearity. As we know from the accounts of the philosophical curriculum, perhaps introduced by Iamblichus or Porphyry in the late third century, students were obliged to study Aristotle before studying Plato. Studying Aristotle, or at least some of the works of Aristotle, was thought to be the most suitable preparation for studying Plato.

The reason for this is quite simple: the Platonists were aiming at truth rather than what we might like to think of as an “objective and unbiased” account of the “development” of the history of philosophy. But we still should want to ask why the study of Aristotle was supposed to be conducive to understanding the truth as it is revealed in Plato and articulated by the man whom Proclus called “the exegete of the Platonic revelation,” namely, Plotinus.

Simplicius provides a preliminary answer to this question when he says in his Physics commentary that Aristotle was authoritative for the sensible world as Plato was for the intelligible world. Beginning the study of philosophy “in” the sensible world, in accord with Aristotle’s remark in Physics—that we start with things more intelligible to us and move to things more intelligible by nature—puts the student in a better position to appreciate the more difficult insights found in the two works that comprise the culmination of philosophical study: namely, Timaeus and Parmenides.

Let us be quite specific. The study of Categories is supposed to assist the student in preparing for the study of the intelligible world. Initially, this seems far-fetched. Indeed, it is not uncommon for contemporary Aristotle scholars to take Categories as in a way programmatic for an anti-Platonic Aristotelian philosophy, the focus of which is the individual sensible substance. So, on this showing, Iamblichus was naive to think that he was molding disciples of Platonism by having the students read Categories even before they encountered a dialogue of Plato.

As I have argued elsewhere, Iamblichus and Simplicius and many other prominent Platonists of late antiquity believed that Aristotle’s philosophy was in harmony with Platonism. The way I characterized harmony was to argue that Aristotle’s philosophy stood to Platonism analogous to the way that Newtonian mechanics stood to quantum mechanics. I was and am not altogether happy with letting my argument rest on an analogy in part because, in trying to explore further the details of harmony, one soon runs up against the limitations of the analogy.

Instead, I would like to pursue a different approach here. I would like to argue that what underlies the claims of harmony is a set of shared principles; shared not only by self-proclaimed Platonists and by Aristotle, but by virtually all philosophers from at least 200 CE until perhaps the beginning of the seventeenth century, with only a few notable exceptions. It will become clear as I proceed why I have cast my net so widely. And I hope it will also become clear why the Aristotelian commentary tradition remains a critical component in the larger Platonic project. [introduction p. 7-9]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1510","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1510,"authors_free":[{"id":2623,"entry_id":1510,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":46,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Gerson, Lloyd P.","free_first_name":"Lloyd P.","free_last_name":"Gerson","norm_person":{"id":46,"first_name":"Lloyd P.","last_name":"Gerson","full_name":"Gerson, Lloyd P.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/131525573","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The Aristotelian Commentaries and Platonism","main_title":{"title":"The Aristotelian Commentaries and Platonism"},"abstract":"All students of the history of philosophy are apt to be seduced by linearity. What I mean is this. Naturally, we read the texts of the history of philosophy in the chronological order in which they were written. So, for example, we read Aristotle after we read Plato. And we read the supposedly later works of Plato after the earlier ones. Perfectly reasonable. But in pursuing the task of trying to figure out the meaning of what we have read, we tend to seek out or suppose the \u201cinfluence\u201d of the earlier philosopher on the later or the \u201cdevelopment\u201d of the philosopher\u2019s views.\r\n\r\nThe employment of these two seemingly innocuous and certainly ubiquitous terms is in fact rarely edifying. An easy means of seeing why this is so is to ask what sort of Aristotelian cause influence and development are supposed to indicate. Since we are talking about temporal succession, presumably we would have in mind efficient or moving causes. But it only requires a moment\u2019s reflection to realize that the views of one philosopher never stand in relation to the views of another as efficient cause to effect.\r\n\r\nThus, for example, it is not because Plato believed that nominalism is false that Aristotle believed that nominalism is false, even if it is indeed the case that Aristotle accepted Platonic arguments to this effect. If, however, we loosen the connection between Plato and Aristotle and agree that the views of the former did not cause the views of the latter, what is the influence supposed to amount to? Indeed, why claim that Aristotle is influenced by Plato, with whom he happened to agree on many issues, and not by, say, Democritus, with whom he happened to disagree? Surely, one can be inspired to embrace a position that is exactly the opposite of that which one hears from another.\r\n\r\nConsider \u201cdevelopment.\u201d The perfectly anodyne sense of this term\u2014namely, that according to which the sequence of writings in an author indicates the progress or course of his thought\u2014is quite useless. But as soon as you try to gin up this weak sense of development into something more portentous, you get into serious trouble. If, for example, you say that Plato\u2019s thought developed in the sense that his later dialogues represent an advancement in, or even a change from, his earlier thought\u2014apart from cases of outright contradiction of which there are few or none\u2014you have to specify what the development is a development of; that is, to use Aristotelian terminology once again, what is the underlying substrate for the development? But this underlying substrate will be the locus of continuity throughout the putative development; continuity that may be far more important than any change.\r\n\r\nI am not suggesting that Plato or any other philosopher never changed his mind. I am suggesting that the changes cannot ever be viewed uncritically as going from false to true or wrong to right. Consider someone who believes that the high point of Plato\u2019s thinking occurred in the early or middle dialogues. Someone like this would not consider the middle or late dialogues developments in any sense but the anodyne one mentioned above. Some scholars, looking at the identical texts, believe that Aristotle developed from a Platonist to something like an anti-Platonist, while others believe that his anti-Platonism was only a \u201cphase\u201d after which he developed into a Platonist once again. None of this is very helpful.\r\n\r\nThe reason I bring it up is that the Platonists of late antiquity who introduced the philosophical curriculum wherein the commentaries played such an important role were mostly impervious to the siren song of linearity. As we know from the accounts of the philosophical curriculum, perhaps introduced by Iamblichus or Porphyry in the late third century, students were obliged to study Aristotle before studying Plato. Studying Aristotle, or at least some of the works of Aristotle, was thought to be the most suitable preparation for studying Plato.\r\n\r\nThe reason for this is quite simple: the Platonists were aiming at truth rather than what we might like to think of as an \u201cobjective and unbiased\u201d account of the \u201cdevelopment\u201d of the history of philosophy. But we still should want to ask why the study of Aristotle was supposed to be conducive to understanding the truth as it is revealed in Plato and articulated by the man whom Proclus called \u201cthe exegete of the Platonic revelation,\u201d namely, Plotinus.\r\n\r\nSimplicius provides a preliminary answer to this question when he says in his Physics commentary that Aristotle was authoritative for the sensible world as Plato was for the intelligible world. Beginning the study of philosophy \u201cin\u201d the sensible world, in accord with Aristotle\u2019s remark in Physics\u2014that we start with things more intelligible to us and move to things more intelligible by nature\u2014puts the student in a better position to appreciate the more difficult insights found in the two works that comprise the culmination of philosophical study: namely, Timaeus and Parmenides.\r\n\r\nLet us be quite specific. The study of Categories is supposed to assist the student in preparing for the study of the intelligible world. Initially, this seems far-fetched. Indeed, it is not uncommon for contemporary Aristotle scholars to take Categories as in a way programmatic for an anti-Platonic Aristotelian philosophy, the focus of which is the individual sensible substance. So, on this showing, Iamblichus was naive to think that he was molding disciples of Platonism by having the students read Categories even before they encountered a dialogue of Plato.\r\n\r\nAs I have argued elsewhere, Iamblichus and Simplicius and many other prominent Platonists of late antiquity believed that Aristotle\u2019s philosophy was in harmony with Platonism. The way I characterized harmony was to argue that Aristotle\u2019s philosophy stood to Platonism analogous to the way that Newtonian mechanics stood to quantum mechanics. I was and am not altogether happy with letting my argument rest on an analogy in part because, in trying to explore further the details of harmony, one soon runs up against the limitations of the analogy.\r\n\r\nInstead, I would like to pursue a different approach here. I would like to argue that what underlies the claims of harmony is a set of shared principles; shared not only by self-proclaimed Platonists and by Aristotle, but by virtually all philosophers from at least 200 CE until perhaps the beginning of the seventeenth century, with only a few notable exceptions. It will become clear as I proceed why I have cast my net so widely. And I hope it will also become clear why the Aristotelian commentary tradition remains a critical component in the larger Platonic project. [introduction p. 7-9]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/fH9zEC1gXGTy5tA","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":46,"full_name":"Gerson, Lloyd P.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1510,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Quaestiones Disputatae","volume":"2","issue":"4","pages":"7-23"}},"sort":["The Aristotelian Commentaries and Platonism"]}

The Authorship of the Pseudo-Simplician Neoplatonic Commentary on the De Anima, 2020
By: Gabor, Gary
Title The Authorship of the Pseudo-Simplician Neoplatonic Commentary on the De Anima
Type Article
Language English
Date 2020
Journal Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy
Volume 35
Issue 1
Pages 1-22
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gabor, Gary
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The traditional ascription of the Neoplatonic commentary on the De Anima to Sim­plicius has prominently been disputed by Carlos Steel and Fernand Bossier, along with J.O. Urmson and Francesco Piccolomini, among others. Citing problems with terminology, diction, cross-references, doctrine, and other features, these authors have argued that the commentary cannot have been composed by Simplicius and that Priscian of Lydia is a favored alternative. In this paper, I present some new arguments for why the traditional attribution to Simplicius is, in fact, the correct one. In particular, while addressing some of the terminological facts that have also been discussed by Christina Luna, Peter Lautner, Patricia Huby, and Philippe Vallat, among others, I offer a more secure basis for identifying the author of the De Anima commentary with Simplicius than has so far been proposed. In place of the disputes regarding terminology, which the debate has largely centered upon, I argue that certain unique and characteristic interpretive procedures, which one only finds in the undisputed Simplician works, allow us to identify the authorship of the De Anima commentary with Simplicius securely. Further, comparison of these methodological features with the extant works of Priscian rules out the possibility of his authorship of the commentary. I also provide some suggestions for resolving a few remaining issues of cross-reference between the De Anima commentary and the rest of Simplicius’s work. Finally, I conclude with some words on how that particular form of harmonization pursued by Simplicius’s contemporaries differs from both that of the De Anima commentary as well as his other works. [Author's abstract]

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The Justification and Derivation of Aristotle’s Categories in Ammonius and Simplicius, 2014
By: Gabor, Gary
Title The Justification and Derivation of Aristotle’s Categories in Ammonius and Simplicius
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Quaestiones Disputatae
Volume 4
Issue 2
Pages 99-112
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gabor, Gary
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Susanne Bobzien recently described “the volumes of the Greek commentators on Aristotle’s logical works” as “monumental” but “rarely creative.” While to a certain degree accurate, Bobzien’s assessment obscures the occasional flashes of innovation in these works. I intend to explore one such example here—the question of what justification, if any, late ancient philosophers gave for Aristotle’s ten categories.

This topic would also animate later interpreters of Aristotle, sometimes with positive and sometimes more critical results. Kant, for instance, rejected Aristotle’s list for what he perceived as its capricious and arbitrary nature, arguing that Aristotle “had no principle” and merely “rounded them up as he stumbled upon them.” In fact, Kant was neither the first nor the last to perceive that Aristotle’s account of the categories needed some sort of justification. The existence of rival categorial schemes, in particular, demands it. In the ancient world, the Stoics provided a fourfold series of categories, and Plato provided a fivefold set of greatest kinds in the Sophist. More recently, E. J. Lowe has defended another fourfold Aristotelian-inspired ontology as fundamental.

For Platonists of late antiquity, the question of justification for Aristotle’s categories had special force following Plotinus’s analysis and critique of them, along with the Stoic, Platonic, and other accounts in Enneads 6.1–2. Plotinus’s student Porphyry later defended and commented on Aristotle’s Categories, and Iamblichus reinterpreted and included the Categories in the philosophical curriculum that was to remain standard in the Neoplatonic schools for several centuries.

For the Neoplatonic commentators working in these schools, one of the first questions raised in their commentaries was the justification that could be given to Aristotle’s tenfold scheme. I shall examine two such justifications: those given by Ammonius Hermiae, scholarch of the Platonist school in Alexandria, Egypt, during the second half of the fifth century AD, and his student Simplicius, the last great commentator in the Athenian Academy before its closure by Emperor Justinian in AD 529.

Ammonius’s account of the categories is relatively simple, while Simplicius’s is more complex. Both, however, argue for a justification of the ten categories presented by Aristotle as in some sense a correct list. By comparing the two accounts, one can discern a distinct development in Neoplatonic justifications of Aristotle’s categories. [introduction p. 99-101]

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The Limits of Late Antiquity: Philosophy between Rome and Iran, 2002
By: Walker, Joel Thomas
Title The Limits of Late Antiquity: Philosophy between Rome and Iran
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Ancient World
Volume 33
Issue 1
Pages 45–69
Categories no categories
Author(s) Walker, Joel Thomas
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
As a series of recent retrospectives makes clear, the study of late antiquity has witnessed dramatic growth during the past twenty years, with increasing signs of formal recognition during the 1990s. This rapid expansion has been accompanied by an implicit debate over the most useful chronological and geographical boundaries for the emergent field. Although the "world of late antiquity" ostensibly includes the whole of the Sasanian and early Islamic Near East, the current shape of the field, as defined especially by conferences and publications, remains heavily weighted towards the Mediterranean world of the Roman Empire and its successor states in western Europe. Many recent discussions of the "late antique world" are, in fact, studies of late Roman history that make little attempt to incorporate regions east of the Euphrates.

Integrating the Sasanian Empire into the study of late antiquity will be a difficult task. A variety of obstacles, outlined in section II above, beset the study of Sasanian history, and substantial linguistic barriers limit access to the Sasanian world for scholars trained in the Greco-Roman sources. Modern political geography has also proved to be a major barrier for historians and archaeologists interested in regions "east of Byzantium." In the current gap between Sasanian and late Roman history, however, lies also much potential for future research. To develop a more interdisciplinary vision of late antiquity, scholars will need to explore more closely the connections and contrasts between the worlds of Byzantium and Sasanian Iran. Some progress in this direction has been made in the fields of military, diplomatic, and economic history; far more work needs to be done in the areas of cultural and intellectual history, not least the history of philosophy. The recent collapse of the Soviet Union during the late 1980s has reminded us how quickly changes in contemporary geography can lead to comparable shifts in the conceptualization of historical geography. The world of late antiquity may also look very different, if and when more scholars have greater access to travel, teach, and again conduct archaeological fieldwork in Iraq, Iran, and neighboring countries.

The emergence of the field of late antiquity represents a major opportunity for Sasanian history, precisely because it invites us to look across the traditional disciplinary division between Mediterranean and Near Eastern history. Modern interpretations of the philosophers’ journey to the court of Khosrow Anoshirvan in 531/532 C.E. reveal how often this disciplinary division has obscured the richness of intellectual life at the late Sasanian court, as well as the intensity of its contacts with Greek and Syrian intellectuals. From Gibbon through Bury and down to Alan Cameron’s influential article on the "Closing of the Academy," there has been a strong tendency among Greco-Roman historians to give too much credence to Agathias’ hostile depiction of Sasanian philhellenism. Near Eastern historians, such as Rawlinson and Christensen, and the occasional Byzantinist such as Jean-François Duneau, have offered more optimistic readings of Khosrow’s philosophical patronage, but without sufficient attention to the tensions involved in the Sasanian encounter with Hellenism. The task that lies ahead, building on the work of Michel Tardieu, is to explain the precise quality of Sasanian Hellenism, its social and political context, cultural milieu, and intellectual legacy. The career of Uranius, and the modern debate over the peregrinations of Damascius, prove that this investigation must include not only Athens, Alexandria, and Constantinople, but also Ctesiphon, Harran, and Gondishapur. Khosrow’s patronage of Greek philosophers thus reveals the advantages, indeed the necessity, of a world of late antiquity that includes the whole of the Sasanian and early Islamic Near East. [conclusion p. 67-69]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"446","_score":null,"_source":{"id":446,"authors_free":[{"id":598,"entry_id":446,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":355,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Walker, Joel Thomas","free_first_name":"Joel Thomas","free_last_name":"Walker","norm_person":{"id":355,"first_name":"Joel Thomas","last_name":"Walker","full_name":"Walker, Joel Thomas","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/131718118","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The Limits of Late Antiquity: Philosophy between Rome and Iran","main_title":{"title":"The Limits of Late Antiquity: Philosophy between Rome and Iran"},"abstract":"As a series of recent retrospectives makes clear, the study of late antiquity has witnessed dramatic growth during the past twenty years, with increasing signs of formal recognition during the 1990s. This rapid expansion has been accompanied by an implicit debate over the most useful chronological and geographical boundaries for the emergent field. Although the \"world of late antiquity\" ostensibly includes the whole of the Sasanian and early Islamic Near East, the current shape of the field, as defined especially by conferences and publications, remains heavily weighted towards the Mediterranean world of the Roman Empire and its successor states in western Europe. Many recent discussions of the \"late antique world\" are, in fact, studies of late Roman history that make little attempt to incorporate regions east of the Euphrates.\r\n\r\nIntegrating the Sasanian Empire into the study of late antiquity will be a difficult task. A variety of obstacles, outlined in section II above, beset the study of Sasanian history, and substantial linguistic barriers limit access to the Sasanian world for scholars trained in the Greco-Roman sources. Modern political geography has also proved to be a major barrier for historians and archaeologists interested in regions \"east of Byzantium.\" In the current gap between Sasanian and late Roman history, however, lies also much potential for future research. To develop a more interdisciplinary vision of late antiquity, scholars will need to explore more closely the connections and contrasts between the worlds of Byzantium and Sasanian Iran. Some progress in this direction has been made in the fields of military, diplomatic, and economic history; far more work needs to be done in the areas of cultural and intellectual history, not least the history of philosophy. The recent collapse of the Soviet Union during the late 1980s has reminded us how quickly changes in contemporary geography can lead to comparable shifts in the conceptualization of historical geography. The world of late antiquity may also look very different, if and when more scholars have greater access to travel, teach, and again conduct archaeological fieldwork in Iraq, Iran, and neighboring countries.\r\n\r\nThe emergence of the field of late antiquity represents a major opportunity for Sasanian history, precisely because it invites us to look across the traditional disciplinary division between Mediterranean and Near Eastern history. Modern interpretations of the philosophers\u2019 journey to the court of Khosrow Anoshirvan in 531\/532 C.E. reveal how often this disciplinary division has obscured the richness of intellectual life at the late Sasanian court, as well as the intensity of its contacts with Greek and Syrian intellectuals. From Gibbon through Bury and down to Alan Cameron\u2019s influential article on the \"Closing of the Academy,\" there has been a strong tendency among Greco-Roman historians to give too much credence to Agathias\u2019 hostile depiction of Sasanian philhellenism. Near Eastern historians, such as Rawlinson and Christensen, and the occasional Byzantinist such as Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Duneau, have offered more optimistic readings of Khosrow\u2019s philosophical patronage, but without sufficient attention to the tensions involved in the Sasanian encounter with Hellenism. The task that lies ahead, building on the work of Michel Tardieu, is to explain the precise quality of Sasanian Hellenism, its social and political context, cultural milieu, and intellectual legacy. The career of Uranius, and the modern debate over the peregrinations of Damascius, prove that this investigation must include not only Athens, Alexandria, and Constantinople, but also Ctesiphon, Harran, and Gondishapur. Khosrow\u2019s patronage of Greek philosophers thus reveals the advantages, indeed the necessity, of a world of late antiquity that includes the whole of the Sasanian and early Islamic Near East. [conclusion p. 67-69]","btype":3,"date":"2002","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/AVLAM9PVkGxCgRz","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":355,"full_name":"Walker, Joel Thomas","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":446,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Ancient World","volume":"33","issue":"1","pages":"45\u201369"}},"sort":["The Limits of Late Antiquity: Philosophy between Rome and Iran"]}

The Perils of Self-Perception: Explanations of Apperception in the Greek Commentaries on Aristotle, 2005
By: Hubler, J. Noel
Title The Perils of Self-Perception: Explanations of Apperception in the Greek Commentaries on Aristotle
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal The Review of Metaphysics
Volume 59
Issue 2
Pages 287-311
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hubler, J. Noel
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle's brief consideration of self-perception engaged in an extensive discussion of the problem, offering various interpretations of apperception from the second to sixth century. The commentators modeled their explanation of self-awareness in perception on their understanding of the nature of knowledge in general and their notion of what the core meaning of truth was. [introduction]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1354","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1354,"authors_free":[{"id":2028,"entry_id":1354,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":199,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Hubler, J. Noel","free_first_name":"J. Noel","free_last_name":"Hubler","norm_person":{"id":199,"first_name":"J. Noel","last_name":"Hubler","full_name":"Hubler, J. Noel","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/188463461","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The Perils of Self-Perception: Explanations of Apperception in the Greek Commentaries on Aristotle","main_title":{"title":"The Perils of Self-Perception: Explanations of Apperception in the Greek Commentaries on Aristotle"},"abstract":"The ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle's brief consideration of self-perception engaged in an extensive discussion of the problem, offering various interpretations of apperception from the second to sixth century. The commentators modeled their explanation of self-awareness in perception on their understanding of the nature of knowledge in general and their notion of what the core meaning of truth was. [introduction]","btype":3,"date":"2005","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/XGXaGpEPq3YahVv","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":199,"full_name":"Hubler, J. Noel","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1354,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Review of Metaphysics","volume":"59","issue":"2","pages":"287-311"}},"sort":["The Perils of Self-Perception: Explanations of Apperception in the Greek Commentaries on Aristotle"]}

The Presocratics in the doxographical tradition. Sources, controversies, and current research, 2005
By: Baltussen, Han
Title The Presocratics in the doxographical tradition. Sources, controversies, and current research
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Studia Humaniora Tartuensia
Volume 6
Issue 6
Pages 1-26
Categories no categories
Author(s) Baltussen, Han
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this paper I present a synthetic overview of recent and ongoing research in the field of doxography, that is,  the  study  of  the  nature,  transmission  and  interrelations  of  sources  for  ancient  Greek  philosophy.  The  latest revisions of the theory of Hermann Diels (Doxographi Graeci 1879) regarding the historiography ought to be known more widely, as they still influence our understanding of the Presocratics and their reception. The scholarly study on the compilations of Greek philosophical views from Hellenistic and later periods has received a major boost by the first of a projected three-volume study by Mansfeld and Runia (1997). Taking their work as a firm basis I also describe my own work in this area and how it can be related to, and fitted into, this trend by outlining how two important sources for the historiography of Greek philosophy, Theo-phrastus (4th–3rd c. BCE) and Simplicius (early 6th c. AD) stand in a special relation to each other and form an important strand in the doxographical tradition. [Author's abstract]

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The Stoic Ontology of Geometrical Limits, 2009
By: Eunyoung Ju, Anna
Title The Stoic Ontology of Geometrical Limits
Type Article
Language English
Date 2009
Journal Phronesis
Volume 54
Issue 4/5
Pages 371-389
Categories no categories
Author(s) Eunyoung Ju, Anna
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Scholars have long recognised the interest of the Stoics' thought on geometrical limits, both 
as a specific topic in their physics and within the context of the school's ontological 
taxonomy. Unfortunately, insufficient textual evidence remains for us to reconstruct their 
discussion fully. The sources we do have on Stoic geometrical themes are highly polemical, 
tending to reveal a disagreement as to whether limit is to be understood as a mere concept, 
as a body or as an incorporeal. In my view, this disagreement held among the historical 
Stoics, rather than simply reflecting a doxographical divergence in transmission. This 
apparently Stoic disagreement has generated extensive debate, in which there is still no 
consensus as to a standard Stoic doctrine of limit. The evidence is thin, and little of it refers 
in detail to specific texts, especially from the school's founders. But in its overall features the 
evidence suggests that Posidonius and Cleomedes differed from their Stoic precursors on 
this topic. There are also grounds for believing that some degree of disagreement obtained 
between the early Stoics over the metaphysical status of shape. Assuming the Stoics did so 
disagree, the principal question in the scholarship on Stoic ontology is whether there were 
actually positions that might be called "standard" within Stoicism on the topic of limit. In 
attempting to answer this question, my discussion initially sets out to illuminate certain 
features of early Stoic thinking about limit, and then takes stock of the views offered by late 
Stoics, notably Posidonius and Cleomedes. Attention to Stoic arguments suggests that the 
school's founders developed two accounts of shape: on the one hand, as a thought-construct, 
and, on the other, as a body. In an attempt to resolve the crux bequeathed to them, the 
school's successors suggested that limits are incorporeal. While the authorship of this last 
notion cannot be securely identified on account of the absence of direct evidence, it may be 
traced back to Posidonius, and it went on to have subsequent influence on Stoic thinking, 
namely in Cleomedes' astronomy. [Author’s abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"750","_score":null,"_source":{"id":750,"authors_free":[{"id":1115,"entry_id":750,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":83,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Eunyoung Ju, Anna","free_first_name":"Anna","free_last_name":"Eunyoung Ju","norm_person":{"id":83,"first_name":"Anna","last_name":"Eunyoung Ju","full_name":"Eunyoung Ju, Anna","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The Stoic Ontology of Geometrical Limits","main_title":{"title":"The Stoic Ontology of Geometrical Limits"},"abstract":"Scholars have long recognised the interest of the Stoics' thought on geometrical limits, both \r\nas a specific topic in their physics and within the context of the school's ontological \r\ntaxonomy. Unfortunately, insufficient textual evidence remains for us to reconstruct their \r\ndiscussion fully. The sources we do have on Stoic geometrical themes are highly polemical, \r\ntending to reveal a disagreement as to whether limit is to be understood as a mere concept, \r\nas a body or as an incorporeal. In my view, this disagreement held among the historical \r\nStoics, rather than simply reflecting a doxographical divergence in transmission. This \r\napparently Stoic disagreement has generated extensive debate, in which there is still no \r\nconsensus as to a standard Stoic doctrine of limit. The evidence is thin, and little of it refers \r\nin detail to specific texts, especially from the school's founders. But in its overall features the \r\nevidence suggests that Posidonius and Cleomedes differed from their Stoic precursors on \r\nthis topic. There are also grounds for believing that some degree of disagreement obtained \r\nbetween the early Stoics over the metaphysical status of shape. Assuming the Stoics did so \r\ndisagree, the principal question in the scholarship on Stoic ontology is whether there were \r\nactually positions that might be called \"standard\" within Stoicism on the topic of limit. In \r\nattempting to answer this question, my discussion initially sets out to illuminate certain \r\nfeatures of early Stoic thinking about limit, and then takes stock of the views offered by late \r\nStoics, notably Posidonius and Cleomedes. Attention to Stoic arguments suggests that the \r\nschool's founders developed two accounts of shape: on the one hand, as a thought-construct, \r\nand, on the other, as a body. In an attempt to resolve the crux bequeathed to them, the \r\nschool's successors suggested that limits are incorporeal. While the authorship of this last \r\nnotion cannot be securely identified on account of the absence of direct evidence, it may be \r\ntraced back to Posidonius, and it went on to have subsequent influence on Stoic thinking, \r\nnamely in Cleomedes' astronomy. [Author\u2019s abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2009","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/H3kH3u3PbGnOPyE","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":83,"full_name":"Eunyoung Ju, Anna","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":750,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Phronesis","volume":"54","issue":"4\/5","pages":"371-389"}},"sort":["The Stoic Ontology of Geometrical Limits"]}

The notion of ἐπιτηδειότης in Simplicius' discussion of quality, 2016
By: Hauer, Mareike
Title The notion of ἐπιτηδειότης in Simplicius' discussion of quality
Type Article
Language English
Date 2016
Journal Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale
Volume 27
Pages 65-83
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hauer, Mareike
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper deals with the meaning and function of epitêdeiotês in Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, particularly in chapter 8, the discussion of the category of quality. Based on the question as to whether Simplicius uses epitêdeiotês as a technical term or as a mere substitute for the Aristotelian notion of dynamis, different passages of chapter 8 will be analyzed and compared with Aristotle's discussion of dynamis. It will be argued that Simplicius distinguishes between two senses of epitêdeiotês, one of which can be associated with the Aristotelian notion of dynamis; the other sense, however, differs from the Aristotelian notion of dynamis and, instead, appears to be in agreement with the use of epitêdeiotês in the theory of participation established by Simplicius' Neoplatonic predecessors. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1150","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1150,"authors_free":[{"id":1725,"entry_id":1150,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":174,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Hauer, Mareike","free_first_name":"Mareike","free_last_name":"Hauer","norm_person":{"id":174,"first_name":"Mareike","last_name":"Hauer","full_name":"Hauer, Mareike","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The notion of \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c4\u03b7\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 in Simplicius' discussion of quality","main_title":{"title":"The notion of \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c4\u03b7\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 in Simplicius' discussion of quality"},"abstract":"This paper deals with the meaning and function of epit\u00eadeiot\u00eas in Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Categories, particularly in chapter 8, the discussion of the category of quality. Based on the question as to whether Simplicius uses epit\u00eadeiot\u00eas as a technical term or as a mere substitute for the Aristotelian notion of dynamis, different passages of chapter 8 will be analyzed and compared with Aristotle's discussion of dynamis. It will be argued that Simplicius distinguishes between two senses of epit\u00eadeiot\u00eas, one of which can be associated with the Aristotelian notion of dynamis; the other sense, however, differs from the Aristotelian notion of dynamis and, instead, appears to be in agreement with the use of epit\u00eadeiot\u00eas in the theory of participation established by Simplicius' Neoplatonic predecessors. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2016","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/uZGcu7N3ynTApz0","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":174,"full_name":"Hauer, Mareike","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1150,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale","volume":"27","issue":"","pages":"65-83"}},"sort":["The notion of \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c4\u03b7\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 in Simplicius' discussion of quality"]}

The text of Simplicius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics and the question of supralinear omicron in Greek manuscripts, 2014
By: Tarán, Leonardo
Title The text of Simplicius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics and the question of supralinear omicron in Greek manuscripts
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal Revue d’histoire des textes
Volume 9
Pages 351-358
Categories no categories
Author(s) Tarán, Leonardo
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper tries to establish that supralinear omicron is not, as most elementary introductions to Greek paleography have it, a simple abbreviation for the ending omicron-sigma. Rather, it was originally a symbol for suspension that later medieval scribes used also for other subordinated purposes which are impossible to classify. Some examples will be given in what follows. For a long time this interpretation had seemed so obvious to me that during a 1985 colloquium on Simplicius in Paris, it surprised me that some members of the audience objected that supralinear omicron is simply an abbreviation for omicron-sigma. As this occurred during my discussion of a passage of Simplicius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, and as several of my examples come from that work, it is convenient to give a list of the manuscripts used by Diels and also of additional prim ary witnesses either rejected by, or not known to him. [introduction]

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The Ṣābians of Ḥarrān and the Classical Tradition, 2002
By: Pingree, David
Title The Ṣābians of Ḥarrān and the Classical Tradition
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal International Journal of the Classical Tradition
Volume 9
Issue 1
Pages 8-35
Categories no categories
Author(s) Pingree, David
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This article addresses questions concerning the characteristics of the paganism of Harran, its eclectic sources, and its development by examining the relationships - real, possible, and fictitious - of various personalities with the city of Harran from Assyrian times till the Mongol attack in 1271. It is suggested that the Sabians used Neoplatonism, which, if Tardieu's analysis is correct, they originally learned from Simplicius, to develop, explain, and justify their practice of astral magic, and that their interest in the Greek astronomy and astrology that astral magic required served to maintain the study and to preserve the texts of these sciences during the centuries in which they were ignored in Byzantium. It is further shown that the Greek philosophical and scientific material available to them was mingled with elements from ancient Mesopotamia, India, Iran, Judaism, and Egypt to form a syncretic system of belief that they could claim to be mankind's original and authentic religion. [Author's abstract]

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Thomas' Neoplatonic Histories: His following of Simplicius, 2002
By: Hankey, Wayne J.
Title Thomas' Neoplatonic Histories: His following of Simplicius
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Dionysius
Volume 20
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hankey, Wayne J.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Following Simplicius, Thomas set up the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophical viae as complementary oppositions each of which contributed to the truth. Thomas also followed 
Simplicius in discerning differences between the hermeneutic methods of the two great schools. He reproduced the history of philosophy of Simplicius as soon as he had his commentaries, agreed with many of his conciliating judgments, and used the same reconciling logical figures. He does not identify himself as a Peripatetic or as a Platonist. 
However, when he agrees that Aristotle’s way of reasoning, per viam motus, to the existence of 
separate substances is manifestior et certior, he is sitting in judgment with, not against, Simplicius. For both the sixth and the thirteenth century commentators, Plato and Aristotle are assimilated to each other in various ways, and the real possibility of any beginning except that from the sensible is excluded. Thomas’ hermeneutic is that of the Platonic tradition in late Antiquity – Thomas certainly thought that the truth was veiled under poetic and symbolic language and judged this to be essential for revealing the truth to humans. 
Consistently with this approach, in the exposition of the De Caelo, Aquinas goes so far with 
Simplicius as to find “something divine (fabula aliquid divinum continet)” in the myth that Atlas 
holds up the heavens.106 He would seem, thus, to be on his way to the reconciliation of religious as well as of philosophical traditions. If this should, in fact, be his intent, Thomas would be following Simplicius and his Neoplatonic predecessors in their deepest purposes. This Christian priest, friar, and saint would have placed himself with the “divine” Proclus among the successors of Plato. [Conclusion]

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Three Thêtas in the "Empédocle de Strasbourg", 2001
By: Algra, Keimpe A., Mansfeld, Jaap
Title Three Thêtas in the "Empédocle de Strasbourg"
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Mnemosyne, Fourth Series
Volume 54
Issue 1
Pages 78-84
Categories no categories
Author(s) Algra, Keimpe A. , Mansfeld, Jaap
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
We conclude that we cannot, merely on the basis of the Strasbourg fragments, confidently assign to the physical poem the gruesome fragment (now plus its new context) Stein and Diels assigned to the Purifications. Until further evidence turns up, only a non liquet is feasible, and we should keep open the possibility that we are dealing with "Zwei Empedocle de Strasbourg." The 6s in the papyrus fragments discussed above are simply wrong. The slightly bizarre interpretation based on them may be abandoned. [conclusion p. 81]

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Time, Perpetuity and Eternity in Late Antique Platonism, 2005
By: Siniossoglou, Nikētas
Title Time, Perpetuity and Eternity in Late Antique Platonism
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal KronoScope
Volume 5
Issue 2
Pages 213-235
Categories no categories
Author(s) Siniossoglou, Nikētas
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper focuses on the late antique conception of time, eternity and perpetual duration and examines the relation between these concepts and Plato’s cosmology. By exploring the controversy between pagan philosophers (Proclus, Ammonius, Simplicius, Olympiodorus) and Christian writers (Aeneas of Gaza, Zacharias of Mytilene, Philoponus) in respect to the interpretation of Plato’s Timaeus, I argue that the Neoplatonic doctrine of the perpetuity (ἀïδιότης) of the world derives from a) the intellectual paradigm presupposed by the conceptual framework of late antiquity and b) the commentators’ principal concern for a coherent conception of Platonic cosmology essentially free from internal contradictions. [author's abstract]

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Un commentaire perpétuel de Georges Pachymère à la Physique d'Aristote, faussement attribué à Michel Psellos, 2007
By: Golitsis, Pantelis
Title Un commentaire perpétuel de Georges Pachymère à la Physique d'Aristote, faussement attribué à Michel Psellos
Type Article
Language French
Date 2007
Journal Byzantinische Zeitschrift
Volume 100
Issue 2
Pages 637-676
Categories no categories
Author(s) Golitsis, Pantelis
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Récapitulons l'essentiel des raisonnements philologiques qui nous ont permis de restituer le véritable auteur du commentaire, qui dorénavant doit être attribué à Georges Pachymère.

Nous avons vu que l'ensemble de la tradition manuscrite qui attribue le commentaire à Psellos descend d'un ancêtre commun, l'Ambrosianus H 44 sup., écrit à la fin du XIVᵉ siècle. Celui-ci remonte pourtant à un archétype, écrit vers l'an 1300 et aujourd'hui perdu (l'Escorialensis D. IV. 24), dans lequel le commentaire figurait sous le nom de Pachymère, ainsi que nous avons pu le montrer grâce au Vindobonensis phil. gr. 248 et à des témoignages du XVIᵉ siècle.

Cet archétype de l'ensemble de la tradition manuscrite du commentaire a été copié sur le Laurentianus plut. 87,5, autographe stricto sensu de Pachymère, dont il se servait pour assurer son enseignement de la Physique.

[Conclusion, p. 676]

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Un commentario alessandrino al «De caelo» di Aristotele, 2013
By: Rescigno, Andrea
Title Un commentario alessandrino al «De caelo» di Aristotele
Type Article
Language Italian
Date 2013
Journal Athenaeum: Studi di letteratura e Storia dell'antichità
Volume 101
Issue 2
Pages 479-516
Categories no categories
Author(s) Rescigno, Andrea
Editor(s)
Translator(s)

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Un philosophe plus poète (Simplicius, "Com. in Ar. Phys." 24, 20 / DK 12 A 9), 2012
By: Santoro, Fernando
Title Un philosophe plus poète (Simplicius, "Com. in Ar. Phys." 24, 20 / DK 12 A 9)
Type Article
Language French
Date 2012
Journal Revue de Philosophie Ancienne
Volume 30
Issue 1
Pages 3-22
Categories no categories
Author(s) Santoro, Fernando
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
This paper is about the meaning and implications for Presocratics' modern exegesis of a comment made by Simplicius about the vocabulary of a passage from Anaximander, which he has just quoted. Simplicius says that Anaximander wrote his sentence about the nature of beings in more poetic terms: ποιητικωτέροις οὕτως ὀνόμασιν αὐτά λέγων.

In their remarks on the passage, Nietzsche and Heidegger not only drew attention to the words and thought of Anaximander but also made us look at that simple comment, that "hiccup" of thought in Simplicius.

What is it for a philosopher to speak in a more poetic way? We propose to understand that it does not imply the use of images or allegories but a very original way of interacting and thinking in universal terms. [author's abstract]

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Unbeachtete Zitate und doxographische Nachrichten in der Schrift De Aeternitate Mundi des Johannes Philoponos, 2005
By: Scholten, Clemens
Title Unbeachtete Zitate und doxographische Nachrichten in der Schrift De Aeternitate Mundi des Johannes Philoponos
Type Article
Language German
Date 2005
Journal Rheinisches Museum für Philologie
Volume 148
Issue 2
Pages 202-219
Categories no categories
Author(s) Scholten, Clemens
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In der Schrift De Aeternitate Mundi (aetm.) des Johannes Philoponos aus der Zeit bald nach 529 n. Chr. gibt es, über eine Reihe von bereits näher beleuchteten Quellen und doxographischen Nachrichten hinaus, eine größere Anzahl von bisher unbeachteten doxographischen Materialien, Paraphrasen und/oder Zitaten aus verlorenen Schriften antiker Autoren. Unter quellenkritischen und doxographischen Gesichtspunkten im engeren Sinn ist aetm. noch nicht eigens untersucht worden. Das wird sicherlich damit zu tun haben, dass die Erforschung der doxographischen Überlieferung vor gut hundert Jahren ihren Schwerpunkt auf die vorplatonische Tradition setzte und unter diesem Gesichtspunkt aetm. offenbar zu vernachlässigen glaubte, zumal H. Rabe als Herausgeber von aetm. in seinen Fußnoten die Textnachweise aus den großen Dichtern und Philosophen wie Homer, Platon, Aristoteles, Plotin usw., soweit möglich, zuverlässig geführt hat.

Möglicherweise ist daran auch die Einschätzung des letzten Rezensenten der Rabeschen Edition aus dem Jahre 1901 nicht unbeteiligt, der aetm. für unergiebig im Hinblick auf verlorene Quellen hielt und meinte, aetm. habe lediglich bekanntes Material zu bieten.

Aber es gab damals schon andere Stimmen. Bemerkenswerterweise hatte ein Jahr zuvor Wendland in seiner Rezension anders geurteilt. Ebenso forderte Gudeman in seinem RE-Artikel „Johannes Philoponos“ aus dem Jahre 1915 die Aufarbeitung der Quellenfrage. Bei diesem Desiderat ist es allerdings bis heute geblieben.

In größerem Umfang sind lediglich die Teile des Quellenmaterials aus aetm. behandelt worden, die für die Timaios-Kommentierung in der Zeit vor Proklos von Belang sind. Es handelt sich besonders um Texte aus den Timaios-Kommentaren des Calvisios Tauros und Porphyrios, die im Rahmen der Sichtung der erhaltenen Stücke aus dem Timaios-Kommentar des Porphyrios zusammengestellt wurden oder bei der Untersuchung der Weltentstehungslehren, wie sie im Rahmen der Exegese des Timaios entwickelt wurden, behandelt worden sind.

Auf Proklos-Texte hat Beutler in seinem RE-Artikel hingewiesen, allerdings einiges übersehen. Bereits verifiziert sind ein Zitat aus dem fünften Buch des Timaios-Kommentars des Proklos in aetm. 9,11 (364,5–365,3), die von Johannes Philoponos häufig erwähnte, paraphrasierte oder zitierte Schrift des Proklos Untersuchung der Einwände des Aristoteles gegen den platonischen Timaios (Ἐπἱσκέψις τῶν πρὸς τὸν Πλάτωνος Τίμαιον ὑπὸ Ἀριστοτέλους ἀντιρρηθέντων oder Ὁ ὑπὲρ τοῦ Τιμαίου πρὸς Ἀριστοτέλην λόγος), die Proklos in seinem Timaios-Kommentar selbst erwähnt und die daher älter als der Kommentar sein dürfte, sowie die Proklos-Schrift Zehn Aporien hinsichtlich der Vorsehung, die Beutler als erster kurz vorgestellt hat und die Boese, Dornseiff und Feldbusch zu größeren Teilen in Texten späterer Autoren wiedergefunden haben.

Ein längeres Zitat aus Galens Schrift Über den Beweis ist schon zwei Jahre, bevor Rabe aetm. ediert hat, notiert worden. Eine vollständige Sichtung und Zusammenstellung aller in aetm. benutzten Quellen und doxographischen Nachrichten gibt es bis jetzt nicht.

Die unbeachteten Quellenstücke und doxographischen Nachrichten, die bei der Arbeit an der Übersetzung von aetm. auffielen, sollen im Folgenden vorgestellt werden. [introduction p. 202-204]

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Chr. gibt es, \u00fcber eine Reihe von bereits n\u00e4her beleuchteten Quellen und doxographischen Nachrichten hinaus, eine gr\u00f6\u00dfere Anzahl von bisher unbeachteten doxographischen Materialien, Paraphrasen und\/oder Zitaten aus verlorenen Schriften antiker Autoren. Unter quellenkritischen und doxographischen Gesichtspunkten im engeren Sinn ist aetm. noch nicht eigens untersucht worden. Das wird sicherlich damit zu tun haben, dass die Erforschung der doxographischen \u00dcberlieferung vor gut hundert Jahren ihren Schwerpunkt auf die vorplatonische Tradition setzte und unter diesem Gesichtspunkt aetm. offenbar zu vernachl\u00e4ssigen glaubte, zumal H. Rabe als Herausgeber von aetm. in seinen Fu\u00dfnoten die Textnachweise aus den gro\u00dfen Dichtern und Philosophen wie Homer, Platon, Aristoteles, Plotin usw., soweit m\u00f6glich, zuverl\u00e4ssig gef\u00fchrt hat.\r\n\r\nM\u00f6glicherweise ist daran auch die Einsch\u00e4tzung des letzten Rezensenten der Rabeschen Edition aus dem Jahre 1901 nicht unbeteiligt, der aetm. f\u00fcr unergiebig im Hinblick auf verlorene Quellen hielt und meinte, aetm. habe lediglich bekanntes Material zu bieten.\r\n\r\nAber es gab damals schon andere Stimmen. Bemerkenswerterweise hatte ein Jahr zuvor Wendland in seiner Rezension anders geurteilt. Ebenso forderte Gudeman in seinem RE-Artikel \u201eJohannes Philoponos\u201c aus dem Jahre 1915 die Aufarbeitung der Quellenfrage. Bei diesem Desiderat ist es allerdings bis heute geblieben.\r\n\r\nIn gr\u00f6\u00dferem Umfang sind lediglich die Teile des Quellenmaterials aus aetm. behandelt worden, die f\u00fcr die Timaios-Kommentierung in der Zeit vor Proklos von Belang sind. Es handelt sich besonders um Texte aus den Timaios-Kommentaren des Calvisios Tauros und Porphyrios, die im Rahmen der Sichtung der erhaltenen St\u00fccke aus dem Timaios-Kommentar des Porphyrios zusammengestellt wurden oder bei der Untersuchung der Weltentstehungslehren, wie sie im Rahmen der Exegese des Timaios entwickelt wurden, behandelt worden sind.\r\n\r\nAuf Proklos-Texte hat Beutler in seinem RE-Artikel hingewiesen, allerdings einiges \u00fcbersehen. Bereits verifiziert sind ein Zitat aus dem f\u00fcnften Buch des Timaios-Kommentars des Proklos in aetm. 9,11 (364,5\u2013365,3), die von Johannes Philoponos h\u00e4ufig erw\u00e4hnte, paraphrasierte oder zitierte Schrift des Proklos Untersuchung der Einw\u00e4nde des Aristoteles gegen den platonischen Timaios (\u1f18\u03c0\u1f31\u03c3\u03ba\u03ad\u03c8\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03a0\u03bb\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03a4\u03af\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u1f51\u03c0\u1f78 \u1f08\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03c1\u03c1\u03b7\u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd oder \u1f49 \u1f51\u03c0\u1f72\u03c1 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03a4\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f08\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7\u03bd \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2), die Proklos in seinem Timaios-Kommentar selbst erw\u00e4hnt und die daher \u00e4lter als der Kommentar sein d\u00fcrfte, sowie die Proklos-Schrift Zehn Aporien hinsichtlich der Vorsehung, die Beutler als erster kurz vorgestellt hat und die Boese, Dornseiff und Feldbusch zu gr\u00f6\u00dferen Teilen in Texten sp\u00e4terer Autoren wiedergefunden haben.\r\n\r\nEin l\u00e4ngeres Zitat aus Galens Schrift \u00dcber den Beweis ist schon zwei Jahre, bevor Rabe aetm. ediert hat, notiert worden. Eine vollst\u00e4ndige Sichtung und Zusammenstellung aller in aetm. benutzten Quellen und doxographischen Nachrichten gibt es bis jetzt nicht.\r\n\r\nDie unbeachteten Quellenst\u00fccke und doxographischen Nachrichten, die bei der Arbeit an der \u00dcbersetzung von aetm. auffielen, sollen im Folgenden vorgestellt werden. [introduction p. 202-204]","btype":3,"date":"2005","language":"German","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/9laXIov8GbXAA3T","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":286,"full_name":"Scholten, Clemens","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1034,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Rheinisches Museum f\u00fcr Philologie","volume":"148","issue":"2","pages":"202-219"}},"sort":["Unbeachtete Zitate und doxographische Nachrichten in der Schrift De Aeternitate Mundi des Johannes Philoponos"]}

Wenn der Steuermann ruft..." (Epiktet, Encheiridion 7), 2022
By: Krämer, Benedikt
Title Wenn der Steuermann ruft..." (Epiktet, Encheiridion 7)
Type Article
Language German
Date 2022
Journal Hyperboreus
Volume 28
Issue 1
Pages 111-122
Categories no categories
Author(s) Krämer, Benedikt
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Die vorliegende Betrachtung hat eine Interpretation angeboten, die sich eng an den Wortlaut von Kapitel 7 des Encheiridion hält. Demnach beschreibt Epiktet in der Tat zwei verschiedene Lebenssituationen zweier Menschen (oder desselben Menschen in unterschiedlichen Lebensphasen).

Im ersten Fall thematisiert Epiktet die schicksalsbedingte Veränderung der Peristasen, der man entweder freiwillig oder unter Zwang Folge leisten kann. Im zweiten Fall kündigt der Ruf des Steuermanns den bevorstehenden Tod an.

Das verbindende Element der Lebensbeschreibungen ist die stoische Spannungslehre. Der tugendhafte Mensch richtet sich in allen Situationen und bei allen Entscheidungen auf Gott aus und erhöht so den Tonos seines seelischen Pneumas.

Im zweiten Fall spricht Epiktet aus seiner eigenen persönlichen Religiosität heraus psychagogisch wirksam die persönliche Religiosität des Lesers an. Wer den seelischen Tonos und die aufmerksame Ausrichtung auf Gott auch im fortgeschrittenen Alter bewahrt, wird den Tod – für eine gewisse Zeit – überdauern und eine Gemeinschaft mit Gott erleben.
[conclusion p. 120-121]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"1555","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1555,"authors_free":[{"id":2718,"entry_id":1555,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Kr\u00e4mer, Benedikt","free_first_name":"Benedikt","free_last_name":"Kr\u00e4mer","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Wenn der Steuermann ruft...\" (Epiktet, Encheiridion 7)","main_title":{"title":"Wenn der Steuermann ruft...\" (Epiktet, Encheiridion 7)"},"abstract":"Die vorliegende Betrachtung hat eine Interpretation angeboten, die sich eng an den Wortlaut von Kapitel 7 des Encheiridion h\u00e4lt. Demnach beschreibt Epiktet in der Tat zwei verschiedene Lebenssituationen zweier Menschen (oder desselben Menschen in unterschiedlichen Lebensphasen).\r\n\r\nIm ersten Fall thematisiert Epiktet die schicksalsbedingte Ver\u00e4nderung der Peristasen, der man entweder freiwillig oder unter Zwang Folge leisten kann. Im zweiten Fall k\u00fcndigt der Ruf des Steuermanns den bevorstehenden Tod an.\r\n\r\nDas verbindende Element der Lebensbeschreibungen ist die stoische Spannungslehre. Der tugendhafte Mensch richtet sich in allen Situationen und bei allen Entscheidungen auf Gott aus und erh\u00f6ht so den Tonos seines seelischen Pneumas.\r\n\r\nIm zweiten Fall spricht Epiktet aus seiner eigenen pers\u00f6nlichen Religiosit\u00e4t heraus psychagogisch wirksam die pers\u00f6nliche Religiosit\u00e4t des Lesers an. Wer den seelischen Tonos und die aufmerksame Ausrichtung auf Gott auch im fortgeschrittenen Alter bewahrt, wird den Tod \u2013 f\u00fcr eine gewisse Zeit \u2013 \u00fcberdauern und eine Gemeinschaft mit Gott erleben.\r\n[conclusion p. 120-121]","btype":3,"date":"2022","language":"German","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/zHBaqqHklM9rLNZ","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1555,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Hyperboreus","volume":"28","issue":"1","pages":"111-122"}},"sort":["Wenn der Steuermann ruft...\" (Epiktet, Encheiridion 7)"]}

What Has Aristotelian Dialectic to Offer a Neoplatonist? A Possible Sample of Iamblichus at Simplicius on the Categories 12,10-13,12, 2012
By: Griffin, Michael J.
Title What Has Aristotelian Dialectic to Offer a Neoplatonist? A Possible Sample of Iamblichus at Simplicius on the Categories 12,10-13,12
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 6
Pages 173-185
Categories no categories
Author(s) Griffin, Michael J.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Simplicius in Cat.  12,10-13,12 presents an interesting justifijication for the study of Aristotle’s Categories, based in Neoplatonic psychology and metaphysics. I suggest that this passage could be regarded as a testimonium to Iamblichus’ reasons for endorsing Porphyry’s selection of the Categories as an introductory text of Platonic philosophy. These Iamblichean arguments, richly grounded in Neoplatonic metaphysics and psychology, may have exercised an influence comparable to Porphyry’s. [authors abstract]

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What does Aristotle categorize? Semantics and the early peripatetic reading of the "Categories", 2012
By: Griffin, Michael J.
Title What does Aristotle categorize? Semantics and the early peripatetic reading of the "Categories"
Type Article
Language English
Date 2012
Journal Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
Volume 55
Issue 1
Pages 69-108
Categories no categories
Author(s) Griffin, Michael J.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Through this sketch of the evidence, I hope to have suggested that there is, in any case, more to the bipartite theory than a compendious treatment or compression of the tripartite material by Porphyry, and that attention should be drawn to it as a separate and distinct layer of the tradition. I have also explored some of the ways in which both layers may be seen as predating Porphyry, while Porphyry’s approach to the Categories in the shorter commentary could be seen as building on an earlier source.
As to our first mystery—the role of the Categories in the harmony of Plato and Aristotle, both first-century and Neoplatonic—I would like to offer a few concluding reflections on the theory itself. To be significant, a verbal expression must have an extension that qualifies as ὄν (Porph. In Cat. 90,30-91,12 – T17; as this passage shows, the extension might be infinite). If Busse is right to read ἕκαστον κατὰ ἀριθμὸν σημαίνει <ἕν> τῶν ὄντων (“each numerically distinct expression signifies one of the beings”) around 58,5-15 (T9), I think we are not merely dealing with the Stoic view that there are “somethings” that do not subsist—occasionally compared to Meinong's distinction of bestehen and existieren as represented by Bertrand Russell—but an even stronger view, akin to Owen’s positive reading of the Parmenidean maxim that “what can be spoken and thought must exist” (B2). That sort of intuition, though pre-Platonic, was always part of the Platonic tradition.
Perhaps it is not so surprising, then, that we find friendly Platonist and Neopythagorean treatments in the earliest layer of the exegetical stratigraphy of the Categories, and that Porphyry should find it a suitable cornerstone around which to build later Neoplatonic ontology.
The bipartite theory that I have described looks like an extensional theory of signification—as Porphyry’s language in T17 might seem to suggest, the meaning of a predicate F amounts to the set of objects said to be F. We might call this kind of view nominalist, and not very much in the spirit of Platonism as we usually conceive it. But there are also examples in the Arabic tradition that draw on the Posterior Analytics for a kind of Platonic view about the existence of eternal natures.
For example (see Adamson, “Knowledge of Universals”), the tenth-century logician Ibn ʿAdī maintained that (1) terms in syllogisms directly refer (have some existing extension), (2) following the Post. An., demonstrative knowledge is never of the transient, unlimited particulars, and (3) nonetheless, demonstrative knowledge occurs; from these points, he was led to maintain that there are eternal, unchanging objects of reference. If this conclusion could be referred to as essential Platonism, then as Adamson puts it, “to some extent, Aristotle’s own words invited the Platonizing.”
It seems to me compatible with Alexander’s view, if I understand his De anima rightly (especially around p. 90), that there are eternal natures that may or may not be predicated of many particulars, a view about which Sharples has also written. My suggestion here, then, is just that the interpretation of the Organon that facilitates this line of thinking goes back to a very early layer of commentary on the Categories.
Modern philosophy arguably also provides examples of how a theory of direct reference can inspire different flavors of almost Platonic realism, especially when the observable infinity of particular objects of acquaintance is coupled with the observed feasibility of human knowledge.
Bertrand Russell in 1945 criticized Porphyry’s work on the Categories (which he had, I suppose, indirectly) by wielding the same weapons that had served against his interpretation of Meinong in 1904. Russell credited Porphyry’s alleged misreading of Aristotle with the excessively “metaphysical” temper of subsequent logic (HWP 1945:472), including entrenched realism about genera and species and “endless bad metaphysics about unity” (198).
But it was the early Russell himself who, in 1903, made every denoting phrase directly denote an existing entity and argued that “anything that can be mentioned is sure to be a term...” that has unity and in some sense exists (43).
In fact, Russell was led by his pre-1905 account of denoting to frame the problem of knowledge in terms strikingly similar to our bipartite theory (see T27a): the “inmost secret of our power to deal with infinity” lies in the fact that “an infinitely complex object... can certainly not be manipulated by the human intelligence; but infinite collections, owing to the notion of denoting, can be manipulated.”
Russell later eliminated (what he took to be) the Meinongian plurality of denoted beings implied by his own earlier logical realism, using his theory of descriptions as an instrument; thus the later Russell, who still maintained that “we could not acquire knowledge of absolute particulars,” came to hold that our words denote just adjectives or relations (T27b).
Porphyry—and arguably many Peripatetics before him—took an analogous temperament in precisely the opposite direction. Both held, in their own way, that an ideal language would carve nature at the joints; and the semantic building blocks of Porphyry's ideal language, as I have suggested here, were rooted in a long tradition of Peripatetic thought about what Aristotle’s Categories categorize, and in particular how unity could be imposed on plurality to make sense of the world.
But whereas Russell’s language ultimately aimed to talk about, and gain certainty about, a Moorean world of common sense and acquaintance, Porphyry’s categorical language aimed to talk about, and gain certainty about, the world of the Enneads and the existence of some eternal natures.
Peripatetic and Porphyrian logicism was not Russell’s, and a similar interest in the ontological implications of their logical apparatus led to very different results at the dawn of analytic philosophy and at the dawn of Neoplatonism: by dispensing with several components of Aristotle’s theory of predication that Porphyry had held to be central, Russell had toppled the giant from whose shoulders Porphyry had spied (and at any rate hoped to teach his pupils to spy) Plotinus’s ontology.
 [conclusion p. 90-92]

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Semantics and the early peripatetic reading of the \"Categories\""},"abstract":"Through this sketch of the evidence, I hope to have suggested that there is, in any case, more to the bipartite theory than a compendious treatment or compression of the tripartite material by Porphyry, and that attention should be drawn to it as a separate and distinct layer of the tradition. I have also explored some of the ways in which both layers may be seen as predating Porphyry, while Porphyry\u2019s approach to the Categories in the shorter commentary could be seen as building on an earlier source.\r\nAs to our first mystery\u2014the role of the Categories in the harmony of Plato and Aristotle, both first-century and Neoplatonic\u2014I would like to offer a few concluding reflections on the theory itself. To be significant, a verbal expression must have an extension that qualifies as \u1f44\u03bd (Porph. In Cat. 90,30-91,12 \u2013 T17; as this passage shows, the extension might be infinite). If Busse is right to read \u1f15\u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u1f00\u03c1\u03b9\u03b8\u03bc\u1f78\u03bd \u03c3\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9 <\u1f15\u03bd> \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd (\u201ceach numerically distinct expression signifies one of the beings\u201d) around 58,5-15 (T9), I think we are not merely dealing with the Stoic view that there are \u201csomethings\u201d that do not subsist\u2014occasionally compared to Meinong's distinction of bestehen and existieren as represented by Bertrand Russell\u2014but an even stronger view, akin to Owen\u2019s positive reading of the Parmenidean maxim that \u201cwhat can be spoken and thought must exist\u201d (B2). That sort of intuition, though pre-Platonic, was always part of the Platonic tradition.\r\nPerhaps it is not so surprising, then, that we find friendly Platonist and Neopythagorean treatments in the earliest layer of the exegetical stratigraphy of the Categories, and that Porphyry should find it a suitable cornerstone around which to build later Neoplatonic ontology.\r\nThe bipartite theory that I have described looks like an extensional theory of signification\u2014as Porphyry\u2019s language in T17 might seem to suggest, the meaning of a predicate F amounts to the set of objects said to be F. We might call this kind of view nominalist, and not very much in the spirit of Platonism as we usually conceive it. But there are also examples in the Arabic tradition that draw on the Posterior Analytics for a kind of Platonic view about the existence of eternal natures.\r\nFor example (see Adamson, \u201cKnowledge of Universals\u201d), the tenth-century logician Ibn \u02bfAd\u012b maintained that (1) terms in syllogisms directly refer (have some existing extension), (2) following the Post. An., demonstrative knowledge is never of the transient, unlimited particulars, and (3) nonetheless, demonstrative knowledge occurs; from these points, he was led to maintain that there are eternal, unchanging objects of reference. If this conclusion could be referred to as essential Platonism, then as Adamson puts it, \u201cto some extent, Aristotle\u2019s own words invited the Platonizing.\u201d\r\nIt seems to me compatible with Alexander\u2019s view, if I understand his De anima rightly (especially around p. 90), that there are eternal natures that may or may not be predicated of many particulars, a view about which Sharples has also written. My suggestion here, then, is just that the interpretation of the Organon that facilitates this line of thinking goes back to a very early layer of commentary on the Categories.\r\nModern philosophy arguably also provides examples of how a theory of direct reference can inspire different flavors of almost Platonic realism, especially when the observable infinity of particular objects of acquaintance is coupled with the observed feasibility of human knowledge.\r\nBertrand Russell in 1945 criticized Porphyry\u2019s work on the Categories (which he had, I suppose, indirectly) by wielding the same weapons that had served against his interpretation of Meinong in 1904. Russell credited Porphyry\u2019s alleged misreading of Aristotle with the excessively \u201cmetaphysical\u201d temper of subsequent logic (HWP 1945:472), including entrenched realism about genera and species and \u201cendless bad metaphysics about unity\u201d (198).\r\nBut it was the early Russell himself who, in 1903, made every denoting phrase directly denote an existing entity and argued that \u201canything that can be mentioned is sure to be a term...\u201d that has unity and in some sense exists (43).\r\nIn fact, Russell was led by his pre-1905 account of denoting to frame the problem of knowledge in terms strikingly similar to our bipartite theory (see T27a): the \u201cinmost secret of our power to deal with infinity\u201d lies in the fact that \u201can infinitely complex object... can certainly not be manipulated by the human intelligence; but infinite collections, owing to the notion of denoting, can be manipulated.\u201d\r\nRussell later eliminated (what he took to be) the Meinongian plurality of denoted beings implied by his own earlier logical realism, using his theory of descriptions as an instrument; thus the later Russell, who still maintained that \u201cwe could not acquire knowledge of absolute particulars,\u201d came to hold that our words denote just adjectives or relations (T27b).\r\nPorphyry\u2014and arguably many Peripatetics before him\u2014took an analogous temperament in precisely the opposite direction. Both held, in their own way, that an ideal language would carve nature at the joints; and the semantic building blocks of Porphyry's ideal language, as I have suggested here, were rooted in a long tradition of Peripatetic thought about what Aristotle\u2019s Categories categorize, and in particular how unity could be imposed on plurality to make sense of the world.\r\nBut whereas Russell\u2019s language ultimately aimed to talk about, and gain certainty about, a Moorean world of common sense and acquaintance, Porphyry\u2019s categorical language aimed to talk about, and gain certainty about, the world of the Enneads and the existence of some eternal natures.\r\nPeripatetic and Porphyrian logicism was not Russell\u2019s, and a similar interest in the ontological implications of their logical apparatus led to very different results at the dawn of analytic philosophy and at the dawn of Neoplatonism: by dispensing with several components of Aristotle\u2019s theory of predication that Porphyry had held to be central, Russell had toppled the giant from whose shoulders Porphyry had spied (and at any rate hoped to teach his pupils to spy) Plotinus\u2019s ontology.\r\n [conclusion p. 90-92]","btype":3,"date":"2012","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/0V3z3uBVFDC712w","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":148,"full_name":"Griffin, Michael J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":1148,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies","volume":"55","issue":"1","pages":"69-108"}},"sort":["What does Aristotle categorize? Semantics and the early peripatetic reading of the \"Categories\""]}

What goes up: Proclus against Aristotle on the fifth element, 2002
By: Baltzly, Dirk
Title What goes up: Proclus against Aristotle on the fifth element
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Australasian Journal of Philosophy
Volume 80
Issue 3
Pages 261-287
Categories no categories
Author(s) Baltzly, Dirk
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In this paper, I consider Proclus’ arguments against Aristotle on the composition of the 
heavens from the fifth element, the aether. Proclus argues for the Platonic view (Timaeus 
40a) that the heavenly bodies are composed of all four elements, with fire predominating. 
I think that his discussion exhibits all the methodological features that we find admirable 
in  Aristotle’s  largely  a priori  proto-science.  Proclus’  treatment  of the  question  in  his 
commentary  on  Plato’s  Timaeus  also  provides  the  fullest  statement  of a  neoplatonic 
alternative to the Aristotelian theory of the elements. As such, it forms a significant part of 
a  still  largely underappreciated neoplatonic  legacy to  the history of science. [authors abstract]

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What is Platonism?, 2005
By: Gerson, Lloyd P.
Title What is Platonism?
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Journal of the History of Philosophy
Volume 43
Issue 3
Pages 253-276
Categories no categories
Author(s) Gerson, Lloyd P.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
My main conclusion is that we should understand Platonism historically as consisting in fidelity to the principles of “top-downism.” So understanding it, we havea relatively sharp critical tool for deciding who was and who was not a Platonist despite their silence or protestations to the contrary. Unquestionably, the most important figure in this regard is Aristotle. I would not like to end this historical inquiry, however, without suggesting a philosophical moral. The moral is that there
are at least some reasons for claiming that a truly anti-Platonic Aristotelianism is not philosophically in the cards, so to speak. Thus, if one rigorously and honestly seeks to remove the principles of Platonism from a putatively Aristotelian position, what would remain would be incoherent and probably indefensible. Thus, an Aristotelian ontology of the sensible world that excluded the ontological priority of the supersensible is probably unsustainable. And an Aristotelian psychology that did not recognize the priority and irreducibility of intellect to soul would be
similarly beyond repair.89 What contemporary exponents of versions of Platonism or  Aristotelianism  should  perhaps  conclude  from  a  study  of  the  history  is  that, rather than standing in opposition to each other, merger, or at least synergy, ought to be the order of the day.[conclusion, p. 276]

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Where to Live the Philosophical Life in the Sixth Century? Damascius, Simplicius, and the Return from Persia, 2005
By: Watts, Edward Jay
Title Where to Live the Philosophical Life in the Sixth Century? Damascius, Simplicius, and the Return from Persia
Type Article
Language English
Date 2005
Journal Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
Volume 45
Issue 3
Pages 285-315
Categories no categories
Author(s) Watts, Edward Jay
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The closing of the Neoplatonic school in Athens by Justinian in 532 was not the end of classical philosophy, for when they returned to the Empire from Persia two years later the philosophers did not need to reconstitute the school at Harran or at any particular city in order to continue their philosophical activities. [author's abstract]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"441","_score":null,"_source":{"id":441,"authors_free":[{"id":593,"entry_id":441,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":357,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Watts, Edward Jay","free_first_name":"Edward Jay","free_last_name":"Watts","norm_person":{"id":357,"first_name":"Edward Jay","last_name":"Watts","full_name":"Watts, Edward Jay","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/131826530","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Where to Live the Philosophical Life in the Sixth Century? Damascius, Simplicius, and the Return from Persia","main_title":{"title":"Where to Live the Philosophical Life in the Sixth Century? Damascius, Simplicius, and the Return from Persia"},"abstract":"The closing of the Neoplatonic school in Athens by Justinian in 532 was not the end of classical philosophy, for when they returned to the Empire from Persia two years later the philosophers did not need to reconstitute the school at Harran or at any particular city in order to continue their philosophical activities. [author's abstract]","btype":3,"date":"2005","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/EoZ3BSOdBPuEnet","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":357,"full_name":"Watts, Edward Jay","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":441,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies","volume":"45","issue":"3","pages":"285-315"}},"sort":["Where to Live the Philosophical Life in the Sixth Century? Damascius, Simplicius, and the Return from Persia"]}

Which ‘Athenodorus’ commented on Aristotle's "Categories"?, 2013
By: Griffin, Michael J.
Title Which ‘Athenodorus’ commented on Aristotle's "Categories"?
Type Article
Language English
Date 2013
Journal The Classical Quarterly
Volume 63
Issue 1
Pages 199-208
Categories no categories
Author(s) Griffin, Michael J.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The principate of Augustus coincided with a surge of interest in the short Aristotelian treatise which we now entitle Categories, contributing to its later installation at the outset of the philosophical curriculum and its traditional function as an introduction to logic. Thanks in part to remarks made by Plutarch (Sulla 26.1–2) and Porphyry (Vita Plotini 24.7), the origin of this interest has often been traced to Andronicus of Rhodes: his catalogue (πίνακες) and publication of the Aristotelian corpus began with the Categories and may have drawn fresh attention to a previously obscure treatise. But the later Neoplatonic sources name several other philosophers who also discussed the Categories and played an important role in crafting its interpretation during the first centuries of our era. For example, the Neoplatonist Simplicius discusses the views of Stoics and Platonists who questioned the Categories’ value as a treatment of grammar or ontology, while others defended its usefulness as an introduction to logic. These early debates, as these later sources suggest, exercised a lasting influence on the shape of subsequent philosophy and philosophical education within and beyond the Aristotelian tradition.

In this note, I would like to revisit the identity of one of the Categories’ earliest critics, a Stoic identified only as ‘Athenodorus’ in the pages of Dexippus, Porphyry, and Simplicius. There is a strong consensus identifying this ‘Athenodorus’ with Athenodorus Calvus, a tutor of Octavian and correspondent of Cicero, roughly contemporary with Andronicus of Rhodes. I want to suggest several reasons for reconsidering this identification. In particular, I want to argue that a certain Athenodorus mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (7.68) is, on philosophical grounds, a compelling candidate for identification with the critic of the Categories, and that Diogenes’ Athenodorus is relatively unlikely to be Calvus. As an alternative to Calvus, I tentatively advance the possibility that our Athenodorus may belong to a generation of Stoic philosophers who conducted work on the Categories in the Hellenistic period, prior to the activity of Andronicus in the first century, and under the title Before the Topics (see Simpl. in Cat. 379.9, who observes that Andronicus of Rhodes was aware of this title and rejected it).

Such a story runs counter to the older consensus, now considerably less certain, that Andronicus was the first philosopher to draw serious attention to the Categories after it had languished for centuries out of circulation. Instead, we might regard Andronicus’ relocation of the text to the outset of the Aristotelian curriculum under the new title Categories as a relatively late chapter in an ongoing tradition of commentary and polemic. In what follows, I suggest some possible motives for Andronicus’ relocation of the Categories, if it can be viewed as a response to earlier criticism. [introduction p. 199-200]

{"_index":"sire","_id":"821","_score":null,"_source":{"id":821,"authors_free":[{"id":1222,"entry_id":821,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":148,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Griffin, Michael J.","free_first_name":"Michael J.","free_last_name":"Griffin","norm_person":{"id":148,"first_name":"Michael J.","last_name":"Griffin","full_name":"Griffin, Michael J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1065676603","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Which \u2018Athenodorus\u2019 commented on Aristotle's \"Categories\"?","main_title":{"title":"Which \u2018Athenodorus\u2019 commented on Aristotle's \"Categories\"?"},"abstract":"The principate of Augustus coincided with a surge of interest in the short Aristotelian treatise which we now entitle Categories, contributing to its later installation at the outset of the philosophical curriculum and its traditional function as an introduction to logic. Thanks in part to remarks made by Plutarch (Sulla 26.1\u20132) and Porphyry (Vita Plotini 24.7), the origin of this interest has often been traced to Andronicus of Rhodes: his catalogue (\u03c0\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2) and publication of the Aristotelian corpus began with the Categories and may have drawn fresh attention to a previously obscure treatise. But the later Neoplatonic sources name several other philosophers who also discussed the Categories and played an important role in crafting its interpretation during the first centuries of our era. For example, the Neoplatonist Simplicius discusses the views of Stoics and Platonists who questioned the Categories\u2019 value as a treatment of grammar or ontology, while others defended its usefulness as an introduction to logic. These early debates, as these later sources suggest, exercised a lasting influence on the shape of subsequent philosophy and philosophical education within and beyond the Aristotelian tradition.\r\n\r\nIn this note, I would like to revisit the identity of one of the Categories\u2019 earliest critics, a Stoic identified only as \u2018Athenodorus\u2019 in the pages of Dexippus, Porphyry, and Simplicius. There is a strong consensus identifying this \u2018Athenodorus\u2019 with Athenodorus Calvus, a tutor of Octavian and correspondent of Cicero, roughly contemporary with Andronicus of Rhodes. I want to suggest several reasons for reconsidering this identification. In particular, I want to argue that a certain Athenodorus mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (7.68) is, on philosophical grounds, a compelling candidate for identification with the critic of the Categories, and that Diogenes\u2019 Athenodorus is relatively unlikely to be Calvus. As an alternative to Calvus, I tentatively advance the possibility that our Athenodorus may belong to a generation of Stoic philosophers who conducted work on the Categories in the Hellenistic period, prior to the activity of Andronicus in the first century, and under the title Before the Topics (see Simpl. in Cat. 379.9, who observes that Andronicus of Rhodes was aware of this title and rejected it).\r\n\r\nSuch a story runs counter to the older consensus, now considerably less certain, that Andronicus was the first philosopher to draw serious attention to the Categories after it had languished for centuries out of circulation. Instead, we might regard Andronicus\u2019 relocation of the text to the outset of the Aristotelian curriculum under the new title Categories as a relatively late chapter in an ongoing tradition of commentary and polemic. In what follows, I suggest some possible motives for Andronicus\u2019 relocation of the Categories, if it can be viewed as a response to earlier criticism. [introduction p. 199-200]","btype":3,"date":"2013","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/IbfU0uOFgfzLjDG","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":148,"full_name":"Griffin, Michael J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":821,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical Quarterly","volume":"63","issue":"1","pages":"199-208"}},"sort":["Which \u2018Athenodorus\u2019 commented on Aristotle's \"Categories\"?"]}

Why Does Plato's Element Theory Conflict With Mathematics (Arist. Cael. 299a2-6)?, 2003
By: Kouremenos, Theokritos
Title Why Does Plato's Element Theory Conflict With Mathematics (Arist. Cael. 299a2-6)?
Type Article
Language English
Date 2003
Journal Rheinisches Museum für Philologie
Volume 146
Issue 3/4
Pages 328-345
Categories no categories
Author(s) Kouremenos, Theokritos
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In Cael. 3.1 Aristotle argues against those who posit that all bodies are generated because they are made from, and dissolve into, planes, namely Plato and perhaps other members of the Academy who subscribed to the Timaeus physics (cf. Simplicius, In Cael. 561,8-11 [Heiberg]). In his Timaeus Plato assigns to each of the traditional Empedoclean elements a regular polyhedron: the tetrahedron or pyramid to fire, the cube to earth, the octahedron to air, and the icosahedron to water. Each regular polyhedron can be anachronistically called a molecule of the element in question, and, as is suggested by the analogy between the regular solids and molecules, Plato also posits that the regular polyhedra are made from 'atoms': the faces of the tetrahedron, octahedron, and icosahedron are made from scalene right-angled triangles, whose hypotenuses are double the length of the smaller sides, whereas the faces of the cube consist of isosceles right-angled triangles.

Since fire, air, and water consist of polyhedral molecules whose elementary constituents are of the same type, they can freely change into one another. Any of these three elements turns into another when its molecules break down into their elementary constituents, and these building blocks recombine into molecules of another element. Aristotle has in mind the reshuffling of elementary triangles when he refers to all bodies being made from, and dissolving into, planes. His first objection to this fundamental assumption in Plato's element theory is set out in Cael. 299a2-6: as is easily seen, constructing bodies from planes runs counter to mathematics whose 'hypotheses' should be accepted, unless one comes up with something more convincing.

Contrary to Aristotle's claim, it is not easy to see why Plato's element theory runs counter to mathematics because it constructs the polyhedral molecules from the triangular planes in the faces of these molecules. Aristotle presumably implies that this violates some mathematical 'hypotheses' which should be better left as they stand but does not explain what the 'hypotheses' in question are. Nor is it any clearer whether Plato commits himself to the rejection of these 'hypotheses' or some aspect of Plato's element theory entails their rejection by Aristotle's own lights. I will attempt to answer these questions after a critique of Simplicius who identifies the hypotheses in Cael. 299a2-6 with the Euclidean definitions of point, line, and plane but also thinks that Aristotle sets out further mathematical objections to Plato's element theory in Cael. 299a6-11: contrary to the commentator, there is only one such objection in Cael. 299a6-11, namely that Plato's element theory introduces indivisible lines, and, as is suggested by an allusion to Cael. 299a2-6 in the treatise On Indivisible Lines, the same objection is also implicit in Cael. 299a2-6.

That in this passage Plato's element theory is said to conflict with mathematics because it entails the existence of indivisible lines is borne out not only by Cael. 299a6-11 but also by 299a13-17. After interpreting the 'hypotheses' in Cael. 299a2-6 consistently with this fact, I will show that, when Aristotle charges Plato with introducing various sorts of indivisibles in his element theory, he actually brings out the untenability of this theory by arguing that Plato ought to introduce such entities which are, though, ruled out by mathematics. Aristotle's implicit objection in Cael. 299a2-6 follows from a similar argument which I will attempt to reconstruct in the final sections of this paper. [introduction p. 328-329]

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Xenarchus, Alexander, and Simplicius on Simple Motions, Bodies and Magnitudes, 2002
By: Hankinson, Robert J.
Title Xenarchus, Alexander, and Simplicius on Simple Motions, Bodies and Magnitudes
Type Article
Language English
Date 2002
Journal Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
Volume 46
Pages 19-42
Categories no categories
Author(s) Hankinson, Robert J.
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
Aristotle accounted for the fundamental dynamics of the cosmos in terms of the tendencies of the  various elements to distinct types of natural motions,  and  (in the case of the sublunary elements) to rest in their   natural  places. In so doing, he introduced  a  fifth element, the ether, with a natural and  unceasing  tendency to revolve, as the  matter for the heavenly bodies. This paper deals with some of the objections raised to this model, and to its conceptual  underpinnings,  raised by Xenarchus of Seleuceia, an unorthodox Peripatetic of the 1 st century BC, and of the attempts of later philosophers to rebut  them. In so doing it casts light on a  little-known, but historically  important  and  interesting, episode in the development of physical dynamics. [Author's abstract]

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Zeno of Elea's Argument from Bisection: Newly Discovered Evidence in a Hebrew Translation of Averroes, 2001
By: Glasner, Ruth
Title Zeno of Elea's Argument from Bisection: Newly Discovered Evidence in a Hebrew Translation of Averroes
Type Article
Language English
Date 2001
Journal Aleph
Volume 1
Pages 285-293
Categories no categories
Author(s) Glasner, Ruth
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
To conclude, in the Hebrew version of Averroes' long commentary on the Physics, comment 1.30, we find what seems to be Alexander's version of Zeno's argument ek tes dichotomias against plurality. Averroes interprets Zeno's argument as contradicting Parmenides', 
thus drawing attention to a problem that is latent in Simplicius' commentary. [conclusion, p. 293]

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Zu Aristoteles’ Rezeption der vorsokratischen Prinzipienlehren (Ph. I 4, 187 a 12-26). Teil 2 (Themistios, Philoponos, Simplikios), 2012
By: Marcinkowska-Rosół, Maria
Title Zu Aristoteles’ Rezeption der vorsokratischen Prinzipienlehren (Ph. I 4, 187 a 12-26). Teil 2 (Themistios, Philoponos, Simplikios)
Type Article
Language German
Date 2012
Journal EOS
Volume 99
Pages 67-89
Categories no categories
Author(s) Marcinkowska-Rosół, Maria
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The paper presents an examination of the Aristotelian classification of the natural philosophers in Ph. I 4, 187 a 12-26. It focuses on the exgesis of this passage found in the commentarys on the Physics by Themsitios (In Ph. 5,2. 13. 9-28), Philoponus (In Ph. 86. 19-94. 16) and Simplicius (In Ph. 148. 25-161. 20). The ancient interpretations are discussed, evaluated and compared with the modern readings of the Aristotelian text. [author's abstract]

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Zum Problem der Gattung des Seienden bei Marius Victorinus und im antiken Neuplatonismus, 2017
By: Němec, Václav
Title Zum Problem der Gattung des Seienden bei Marius Victorinus und im antiken Neuplatonismus
Type Article
Language German
Date 2017
Journal Rheinisches Museum für Philologie (Neue Folge)
Volume 160
Pages 161-193
Categories no categories
Author(s) Němec, Václav
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The article is concerned with the problem of the genus of being in Neoplatonism. Specifically, it focuses on Pierre Hadot’s hypothesis, according to which some Neoplatonic authors, such as Porphyry, and under his influence Marius Victorinus and Dexippus, presupposed a common genus of being or substance in the Aristotelian sense, encompassing various ontological levels of the Platonic universe, namely the intelligible and sensible being or substance.

A comprehensive analysis of relevant texts of Neoplatonic interpreters of and commentators on Aristotle’s writings shows that Hadot’s hypothesis is not tenable. In fact, Neoplatonists from Plotinus to Porphyry and Dexippus to Simplicius presupposed one genus of intelligible substance, which is the source of being for every other substance, including the sensible substance. Nevertheless, the intelligible substance or being is the "highest genus" only in the sense of Plato’s Sophist, and not in the sense of Aristotle’s Categories. Accordingly, the relationship between the highest "genus" and other "arts" of substance is not regarded as one of synonymy but as one of homonymy. More precisely, this is not homonymy "by chance" but homonymy "by intention," which can be specified as homonymy "based on analogy," "based on derivation from a single source," or "based on relation to a single thing."

Moreover, the author argues that the crucial passage from Victorinus’s Against Arius Ib, which Hadot considered the main basis for his hypothesis, allows an alternative reading that is fully in accordance with the Neoplatonic doctrine as reconstructed in the article. [author's abstract]

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Échelle de la nature et division des mouvements chez Aristote et les stoïciens, 2005
By: Bénatoui͏̈l, Thomas
Title Échelle de la nature et division des mouvements chez Aristote et les stoïciens
Type Article
Language French
Date 2005
Journal Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale
Volume 4
Pages 537-556
Categories no categories
Author(s) Bénatoui͏̈l, Thomas
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
The stoic scala naturae was based, among other things, on a division of natural movements, which this paper studies in order to understand the way in which stoicism approached Nature and its empirical diversity. First, I argue against David Hahm's interpretation that movement «through» (dia) oneself is not on a par with the other natural movements: far from being specific to stones or elements, it designates the movement which is specifically produced by the nature of a thing or being. The aristotelian and stoic analysis of self-movement are then shown to share their basic principles but to lead to diverging approaches of Nature: whereas Aristotle looks for the origin and causes of natural movements, the Stoics offer a taxonomy of visible movements.  [Author’s abstract]

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‘Simplicius’ (Review of: On Aristotle Physics 1.5-9, translated by Hans Baltussen, Michael Atkinson, Michael Share and Ian Mueller), 2014
By: Fleet, Barrie
Title ‘Simplicius’ (Review of: On Aristotle Physics 1.5-9, translated by Hans Baltussen, Michael Atkinson, Michael Share and Ian Mueller)
Type Article
Language English
Date 2014
Journal The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition
Volume 8
Issue 1
Pages 113-114
Categories no categories
Author(s) Fleet, Barrie
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
At the outset of Physics 1, Aristotle states that systematic knowledge of natural things and their changing character derives from a group of "principles (arkhai), causes (aitia), or elements (stoikheiai)." In this first book, he does not formally distinguish between these three terms, focusing instead on principles, although later commentators went to great lengths to formalize distinctions among them. Books 1 and 2 of Physics are devoted to seeking out the principles of change within the realm of natural science. Aristotle begins with commonly accepted propositions, “constantly appealing to what is ordinarily said or thought” (W. Charlton, Aristotle’s Physics I, II, Oxford, 1970, xi).

Aristotle posits axiomatically that the principles of change in natural bodies are inherent in what comes into being from them, that they do not arise from one another or from external things, but that all things originate from these principles. He seeks to identify the rationally distinguishable factors inherent in the world of physical change. In chapters 1–4, he briefly reviews earlier theorists, such as Parmenides and Melissus, who posited a single principle and denied qualitative change, thereby placing themselves outside the scope of Aristotle’s inquiry. Aristotle concludes that principles must be multiple, either finite or infinite in number.

The Neoplatonists, in general, prioritize Aristotle for questions of natural science and Plato for metaphysics. Book 1 of Physics straddles these two domains, and Simplicius, a 6th-century AD commentator, is eager throughout to demonstrate the harmony between Plato and Aristotle. Simplicius appeals particularly to Phaedo, Sophist, Philebus, Phaedrus, and Timaeus to suggest that many of Aristotle’s ideas were anticipated by Plato.

In chapter 5, Aristotle asserts that everyone agrees the opposites (ta enantia) are principles, though there is considerable variation regarding what these opposites, as primary principles of physical change, are. Aristotle's approach differs from Plato’s Argument from Opposites in Phaedo. He reduces physical change to an underlying matter and, rather than a pair of opposites, considers the presence or absence of an opposite. The absence is redefined as "privation" (sterêsis) of a form, with a possible critique of John Philoponus—though this is contested by Sorabji (Introduction, pp. 4–7). Simplicius provides a detailed analysis of Aristotle’s arguments, distinguishing between primary and secondary principles, substance and contraries, per accidens and per se, and potential and actual—though M. suggests (n. 16) that at least once “Simplicius has no clue.”

Simplicius draws parallels between Aristotelian matter and Plato’s Receptacle in Timaeus and the great-and-small in Philebus. He defines matter explicitly at 230,22 and finds congruence between Plato and Aristotle regarding the distinction between the first form, which is genuinely separate, and the natural form immanent in individual compound objects, which perishes with the compound.

Simplicius uses Aristotle’s discussion of privation in chapters 7–9 to defend Plato against the charge of giving undue credence to Parmenides' unitary concept of Being. He extensively quotes Sophist to show that Plato recognized but did not emphasize privation, opting instead to discuss the presence or absence of form. Where Aristotle uses privation, Plato prefers the concept of "the other." Simplicius concludes that Plato and Aristotle are not in conflict regarding principles: Plato sought the per se causes of being that are elemental and inherent, while Aristotle sought causes of change, including privation as a per accidens cause.

Simplicius frequently cites other commentators, especially Alexander of Aphrodisias, offering a dense and complex analysis that illuminates not only Aristotle’s text but also its reception by a Neoplatonist of the 6th century AD.

This edition, translated by four contributors with glossaries by Sebastian Gertz and editorial notes by Richard Sorabji, provides accurate and fluent translations with minimal errors, despite being a collective effort. However, a more detailed note on logos, often left untranslated, would be valuable. Note 252 on p. 155 repeats paragraph 3 of the Introduction (p. 11). Overall, this translation is a significant contribution to Aristotelian studies. [The entire review p. 113-114]

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Books 1 and 2 of Physics are devoted to seeking out the principles of change within the realm of natural science. Aristotle begins with commonly accepted propositions, \u201cconstantly appealing to what is ordinarily said or thought\u201d (W. Charlton, Aristotle\u2019s Physics I, II, Oxford, 1970, xi).\r\n\r\nAristotle posits axiomatically that the principles of change in natural bodies are inherent in what comes into being from them, that they do not arise from one another or from external things, but that all things originate from these principles. He seeks to identify the rationally distinguishable factors inherent in the world of physical change. In chapters 1\u20134, he briefly reviews earlier theorists, such as Parmenides and Melissus, who posited a single principle and denied qualitative change, thereby placing themselves outside the scope of Aristotle\u2019s inquiry. Aristotle concludes that principles must be multiple, either finite or infinite in number.\r\n\r\nThe Neoplatonists, in general, prioritize Aristotle for questions of natural science and Plato for metaphysics. Book 1 of Physics straddles these two domains, and Simplicius, a 6th-century AD commentator, is eager throughout to demonstrate the harmony between Plato and Aristotle. Simplicius appeals particularly to Phaedo, Sophist, Philebus, Phaedrus, and Timaeus to suggest that many of Aristotle\u2019s ideas were anticipated by Plato.\r\n\r\nIn chapter 5, Aristotle asserts that everyone agrees the opposites (ta enantia) are principles, though there is considerable variation regarding what these opposites, as primary principles of physical change, are. Aristotle's approach differs from Plato\u2019s Argument from Opposites in Phaedo. He reduces physical change to an underlying matter and, rather than a pair of opposites, considers the presence or absence of an opposite. The absence is redefined as \"privation\" (ster\u00easis) of a form, with a possible critique of John Philoponus\u2014though this is contested by Sorabji (Introduction, pp. 4\u20137). Simplicius provides a detailed analysis of Aristotle\u2019s arguments, distinguishing between primary and secondary principles, substance and contraries, per accidens and per se, and potential and actual\u2014though M. suggests (n. 16) that at least once \u201cSimplicius has no clue.\u201d\r\n\r\nSimplicius draws parallels between Aristotelian matter and Plato\u2019s Receptacle in Timaeus and the great-and-small in Philebus. He defines matter explicitly at 230,22 and finds congruence between Plato and Aristotle regarding the distinction between the first form, which is genuinely separate, and the natural form immanent in individual compound objects, which perishes with the compound.\r\n\r\nSimplicius uses Aristotle\u2019s discussion of privation in chapters 7\u20139 to defend Plato against the charge of giving undue credence to Parmenides' unitary concept of Being. He extensively quotes Sophist to show that Plato recognized but did not emphasize privation, opting instead to discuss the presence or absence of form. Where Aristotle uses privation, Plato prefers the concept of \"the other.\" Simplicius concludes that Plato and Aristotle are not in conflict regarding principles: Plato sought the per se causes of being that are elemental and inherent, while Aristotle sought causes of change, including privation as a per accidens cause.\r\n\r\nSimplicius frequently cites other commentators, especially Alexander of Aphrodisias, offering a dense and complex analysis that illuminates not only Aristotle\u2019s text but also its reception by a Neoplatonist of the 6th century AD.\r\n\r\nThis edition, translated by four contributors with glossaries by Sebastian Gertz and editorial notes by Richard Sorabji, provides accurate and fluent translations with minimal errors, despite being a collective effort. However, a more detailed note on logos, often left untranslated, would be valuable. Note 252 on p. 155 repeats paragraph 3 of the Introduction (p. 11). Overall, this translation is a significant contribution to Aristotelian studies. [The entire review p. 113-114]","btype":3,"date":"2014","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/nqkDsZcyl8kNw0V","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":117,"full_name":"Fleet, Barrie","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":594,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition","volume":"8","issue":"1","pages":"113-114"}},"sort":["\u2018Simplicius\u2019 (Review of: On Aristotle Physics 1.5-9, translated by Hans Baltussen, Michael Atkinson, Michael Share and Ian Mueller)"]}

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