{"_index":"sire","_type":"_doc","_id":"927","_score":null,"_ignored":["booksection.book.abstract.keyword"],"_source":{"id":927,"authors_free":[{"id":1371,"entry_id":927,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2527,"entry_id":927,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The writings of the De anima commentators","main_title":{"title":"The writings of the De anima commentators"},"abstract":"So far we have discussed the work of our commentators as if it was \r\nsimply scholarship and philosophical exposition, whether of their own \r\nphilosophy or that of Aristotle which most of them held to be fundamen\u00ad\r\ntally the same. There is, however, another aspect of the commentaries \r\nwhich, while not prominent, should not be forgotten. That is the way in \r\nwhich doing such work was an integral part of a life aimed at the greatest \r\npossible degree of return to that higher reality from which the commenta\u00ad\r\ntors saw human life as a decline and separation. It is becoming \r\nincreasingly better understood that for the great majority of Greek philo\u00ad\r\nsophers, philosophy was not only a way of thinking but a way of life.70 The \r\nlate Neoplatonists seem to have gone even further, and regarded the \r\nproduction of commentaries as a kind of service to the divine, much as a \r\nChristian monk who engaged in scholarship would have seen it in that \r\nlight So we find at the end of Simplicius\u2019 commentary on the De caelo what \r\ncan only be described as a prayer: \u2018Oh lord and artificer of the universe \r\nand the simple bodies in it, to you and all that has been brought into being \r\nby you I offer this work as a hymn, being eager to see as a revelation the \r\nmagnitude of your works and to proclaim it to those who are worthy, so \r\nthat thinking no mean or mortal thoughts about you we may make \r\nobeisance to you in accordance with the high place you occupy in respect \r\nof all that is produced by you\u2019 (731.25-9). Those who think that ancient \r\nphilosophy ceased to be of interest some three and a half centuries before \r\nthese words were written and who may from time to time consult Sim\u00ad\r\nplicius for an opinion on the meaning of an Aristotelian text, are unlikely \r\never to see these words, or those that come at the end of the commentary \r\non the Enckeiridion (138.22-3). Without them they cannot fully under\u00ad\r\nstand the nature of works beyond whose surface they never penetrate, \r\nworks whose very composition could be seen as an act of reverence to the \r\ngods of paganism. [Conclusion, p. 71]","btype":2,"date":"1996","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/1xXItSZspUfzEIR","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":927,"section_of":213,"pages":"53-71","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":213,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":1,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle and Neoplatonism in late antiquity: Interpretations of the \"De Anima\"","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Blumenthal1996a","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1996","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1996","abstract":"Steven Strange, Emory UniversityScholars have traditionally used the Aristotelian commentators as sources for lost philosophical works and occasionally also as aids to understanding Aristotle. In H. J. Blumenthal's view, however, the commentators often assumed that there was a Platonist philosophy to which not only they but Aristotle himself subscribed. Their expository writing usually expressed their versions of Neoplatonist philosophy. Blumenthal here places the commentators in their intellectual and historical contexts, identifies their philosophical views, and demonstrates their tendency to read Aristotle as if he were a member of their philosophical circle.This book focuses on the commentators' exposition of Aristotle's treatise De anima (On the Soul), because it is relatively well documented and because the concept of soul was so important in all Neoplatonic systems. Blumenthal explains how the Neoplatonizing of Aristotle's thought, as well as the widespread use of the commentators' works, influenced the understanding of Aristotle in both the Islamic and Judaeo-Christian traditions.H. J. Blumenthal is the author or coeditor of six previous books and is currently preparing a two-volume translation, with introduction and commentary, of Simplicius' Commentary on \"De anima\" for publication in Cornell's series Ancient Commentators on Aristotle.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/fixlFMqtKju8xdW","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":213,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Duckworth","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["The writings of the De anima commentators"]}