| Title | Some Notes on the Text of Pseudo-Simplicius' Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima , III. 1-5 |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1997 |
| Published in | Studies in Plato and the Platonic Tradition. Essays Presented to John Whittaker |
| Pages | 213-228 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | Joyal, Mark |
| Translator(s) |
| As often, the title of this paper needs a word of explanation, since some readers, though not our dedicatee, might wonder who the author I call Ps-Simplicius might be. Those whose interests lie in Aristotle rather than his Neoplatonic commentators may not all be aware that there is a serious problem about the authorship of the De Anima commentary, which they know as the work of Simplicius. This is not the place to discuss this problem, which I and others have discussed elsewhere,¹ but the fact, as I think one must now take it to be, that our author is not the real Simplicius has an important implication for any study on the text of this work. That is, the substantial corpus of work by Simplicius himself cannot be used to corroborate—or undermine—readings in our work, and one cannot appeal to it for support for a conjecture. This is all the more so since one of the stronger arguments for denying authorship to the real Simplicius is that the language of the De Anima commentary is so different from his as to put it beyond the bounds of possibility that we are dealing with two different kinds of writing from one and the same hand.*² If, as some think, the author was Priscian of Lydia, author of the Metaphrasis in Theophrastum, we could occasionally appeal to that work, though it is short—a mere thirty-seven pages of Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca.³ But I think there are difficulties about that identification which are sufficient to require at least a degree of caution, and that all one can safely say is that this commentary comes from the same intellectual area as the works of Simplicius, Priscian, and Damascius, all Neoplatonists who worked in Athens at the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth. Hence the label Ps-Simplicius—a counsel of prudence, if not quite despair: not quite, because a solution is possible in principle, though I suspect that we may never arrive at it. [introduction p. 213-214] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/SafBRE6SrgivoG5 |
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Those whose interests lie in Aristotle rather than his Neoplatonic commentators may not all be aware that there is a serious problem about the authorship of the De Anima commentary, which they know as the work of Simplicius.\r\n\r\nThis is not the place to discuss this problem, which I and others have discussed elsewhere,\u00b9 but the fact, as I think one must now take it to be, that our author is not the real Simplicius has an important implication for any study on the text of this work. That is, the substantial corpus of work by Simplicius himself cannot be used to corroborate\u2014or undermine\u2014readings in our work, and one cannot appeal to it for support for a conjecture. This is all the more so since one of the stronger arguments for denying authorship to the real Simplicius is that the language of the De Anima commentary is so different from his as to put it beyond the bounds of possibility that we are dealing with two different kinds of writing from one and the same hand.*\u00b2\r\n\r\nIf, as some think, the author was Priscian of Lydia, author of the Metaphrasis in Theophrastum, we could occasionally appeal to that work, though it is short\u2014a mere thirty-seven pages of Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca.\u00b3 But I think there are difficulties about that identification which are sufficient to require at least a degree of caution, and that all one can safely say is that this commentary comes from the same intellectual area as the works of Simplicius, Priscian, and Damascius, all Neoplatonists who worked in Athens at the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth.\r\n\r\nHence the label Ps-Simplicius\u2014a counsel of prudence, if not quite despair: not quite, because a solution is possible in principle, though I suspect that we may never arrive at it.\r\n[introduction p. 213-214]","btype":2,"date":"1997","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/SafBRE6SrgivoG5","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":540,"full_name":"Joyal, Mark","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1469,"section_of":1470,"pages":"213-228","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1470,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"bibliography","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Studies in Plato and the Platonic Tradition. 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| Title | Some Notes on the Text of Pseudo-Simplicius' Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima , III. 1-5 |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1997 |
| Published in | Studies in Plato and the Platonic Tradition. Essays Presented to John Whittaker |
| Pages | 213-228 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Blumenthal, Henry J. |
| Editor(s) | Joyal, Mark |
| Translator(s) |
As often, the title of this paper needs a word of explanation, since some readers, though not our dedicatee, might wonder who the author I call Ps-Simplicius might be. Those whose interests lie in Aristotle rather than his Neoplatonic commentators may not all be aware that there is a serious problem about the authorship of the De Anima commentary, which they know as the work of Simplicius. This is not the place to discuss this problem, which I and others have discussed elsewhere,¹ but the fact, as I think one must now take it to be, that our author is not the real Simplicius has an important implication for any study on the text of this work. That is, the substantial corpus of work by Simplicius himself cannot be used to corroborate—or undermine—readings in our work, and one cannot appeal to it for support for a conjecture. This is all the more so since one of the stronger arguments for denying authorship to the real Simplicius is that the language of the De Anima commentary is so different from his as to put it beyond the bounds of possibility that we are dealing with two different kinds of writing from one and the same hand.*² If, as some think, the author was Priscian of Lydia, author of the Metaphrasis in Theophrastum, we could occasionally appeal to that work, though it is short—a mere thirty-seven pages of Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca.³ But I think there are difficulties about that identification which are sufficient to require at least a degree of caution, and that all one can safely say is that this commentary comes from the same intellectual area as the works of Simplicius, Priscian, and Damascius, all Neoplatonists who worked in Athens at the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth. Hence the label Ps-Simplicius—a counsel of prudence, if not quite despair: not quite, because a solution is possible in principle, though I suspect that we may never arrive at it. [introduction p. 213-214] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/SafBRE6SrgivoG5 |
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