Commentaries on Aristotle

From Inquiry to Demonstrative Knowledge: New Essays on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics edited by J. H. Lesher (Academic Printing and Publishing) Reviewed by Christopher Shields, University of Oxford reprinted from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=23209

Published as consecutive numbers of the journal Apeiron, these conference proceedings reproduce papers delivered at the Duke-UNC-Chapel Hill Conference in Ancient Philosophy held in 2009 on the topic of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. These papers are intended for specialists in Ancient Philosophy and, more narrowly, for those with a research focus on Aristotle's account of epistêmê (science, or knowledge, or perhaps branch of knowledge -- several of the papers query the meaning of the term in Aristotle's use and so also its most suitable rendering in English). Despite its narrow focus, given the liveliness and accessibility of several of its papers, the volume may prove of interest to a wider audience, including philosophers of science and epistemologists concerned with questions of first principles.

The volume comprises five papers, each followed by a commentary, some more and some less independent of their target papers; a brief, useful introduction by the editor; and three indices, of passages, of modern names, and of subjects. Greek words are sometimes transliterated and sometimes not, depending, it seems, upon the preferences of the authors. (Some manifest both preferences.) The volume is reasonably well produced, though below the standard of a single, continuous treatise, with some inconsistencies in formatting, again, it seems, depending upon the preferences of individual authors.

The contributors and their primary contentions, in brief:

(1) In 'Aristotle's Natural Science: the Many and the One,' James Lennox draws attention, crisply and fairly, to a tension in Aristotle's presentation and practice of epistêmê: while often speaking as if all natural science were somehow single in content and method, Aristotle equally calls attention to the subject-specific peculiarities of methods suited to distinct branches of natural science (so Meteorologica I 1 and De Partibus Animalium I 1), thus leaving the impression that he finds less unity of method in practice than he would ideally like in theory. Lennox's judiciously tentative conclusion: 'at some point Aristotle realized that the goal of a unified knowledge . . . was not to be achieved by means of a single, undifferentiated method of investigation' (21). In her equally judicious comments, Gisela Striker provides reason for supposing both that the divergence Aristotle encounters in practice is only to be expected given the differences in his subject matters and that this need not upset his general drive towards unity in method unduly.

(2) When reading the Posterior Analytics, one forms the impression that the scientist succeeds by fastening on static, unalterable features of reality: the premises of demonstrations, the sorts of deductions used to lay bare the causal structures of the world in scientific explanation, must be necessary, more intelligible than their conclusions, and universal in scope (APo 71b16-25, 74b5). Yet when describing animals and their activities, Aristotle spends a great deal of time reflecting on patterns of development and on processes of various sorts. In 'Aristotle's Syllogistic Model of Knowledge and the Biological Sciences: Demonstrating Natural Processes,' Mariska Leunissen contends that this sort of emphasis should not be thought to represent a significant discontinuity within Aristotle's conception of epistêmê. On the contrary, already in Posterior Analytics II 12 Aristotle shows himself concerned to account for change and development within epistêmê; so, the picture of static necessity and invariance within the Posterior Analytics is overdrawn. Allan Gotthelf endorses the general tenor of Leunissen's argument, and indeed finds her account of the sort of attention Aristotle devotes to the chronological order of generation in his Generation of Animals 'virtually flawless' (72). Even so, he finds ample room to disagree with her treatment of the extraordinarily difficult 'teleological syllogism' and its role in tensed explanation in Aristotle.

(3) In 'The Place of the Posterior Analytics in Aristotle's Thought, with Particular Reference to the Poetics,' Richard McKirahan explores the perennial question of the relationship between model and practice in Aristotelian science. As he observes, 'A traditional problem is how to account for the fact that none of Aristotle's scientific work follows the APo model. This is clearly true' (76). After setting forth some developmental hypotheses about the order of Aristotle's writings, McKirahan argues that even if the Posterior Analytics is an early work of Aristotle's, there is little reason to suppose that he abandons its primary prescriptions as he engages in his scientific inquiries. Instead, although no work fully respects the straightjacketing demands of the Posterior Analytics, many clearly bear its marks and indeed will not be fully understood without appreciating that fact. McKirahan's unlikely -- and delightfully illuminating -- suggestion for a test case is a work he fairly calls an 'outlier' in this debate: the Poetics. C. D. C. Reeve offers an informed set of criticisms, together with a series of rich suggestions of his own about the role of dialectic in and out of epistêmê. Both papers repay careful study and together they constitute rich and productive exchange about Aristotle's conception of epistêmê in the Posterior Analytics and its relation to the rest of his corpus.

(4) The remaining two papers deal with the final chapter of the Posterior Analytics. In this chapter, Aristotle describes a process of knowledge acquisition, according to which knowers move from perception to memory, from memory to experience (empeiria), and from experience to a grasp of first principles (nous) (APo. 100a10-b6). Scholars have puzzled how it should be possible, according to Aristotle, to move from perception to the unmediated apprehension (nous) of first principles in this way. Knowledge of first principles puts us in touch with necessary and universal features of reality; perception trades in the particular and contingent.

Miira Tuominen explicates this process in 'Back to Posterior Analytics II 19: Aristotle on the Knowledge of Principles.' She proposes to deal with the difficulties many have located in the chapter by understanding it in relation to the whole of the Posterior Analytics: 'my aim is to illuminate how I see APo II 19 and its account of how we come to know the principles in the context of the whole treatise and how, I think, reading the chapter in that context alleviates, or perhaps rather circumvents, some qualms concerning it' (119). J. H. Lesher finds himself in broad agreement with Tuominen's overarching thesis, but turns critical attention on her treatment of a key but elusive crux of the chapter, in which Aristotle offers a battle analogy to explain how settled states (hexeis) come to be present in us on the basis of experience and so ultimately on the basis of perception (APo. 100a10-12). The final purport of this analogy is no doubt permanently contestable. Even so, Lesher does much to illuminate it by discussing its terms in philologically informed detail.

(5) The remaining paper on the last chapter of the work, 'Αἴσθησις, Ἐμπειρία, and the Advent of Universals in Posterior Analytics II 19' by Gregory Salmieri, connects the chapter to Aristotle's discussions of universality in Posterior Analytics I 4-5 and 24 as well as to discontinuous remarks scattered throughout the whole of the second book. He plausibly urges in addition that a proper elucidation of the chapter requires that attention be paid to Aristotle's cognitive diction in De Anima iii. David Bronstein offers acute critical comments, effectively closing the volume with a fruitful set of questions for future research into the chapter.

As will be appreciated from these summaries, the two dominant themes of the volume are: (i) Aristotle's approach to epistêmê in theory and implementation; and (ii) Aristotle's fascinating if frustrating genetic account of how knowledge of necessity eventuates from perception within the framework of a thoroughgoing empiricism. Both topics receive extended, instructive discussion.

The volume offers a welcome mix of established and younger scholars, all writing at the state of the art and all engaging issues of abiding interest pursuant to the rich and demanding text of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics.

Renaissance Reading of the Corpus Aristotelicum: Papers from the Conference Held in Copenhagen 23-25 April 1998 edited by Marianne Pade (Museum Tusculanum [ISBS]) The essays in this collection are mostly in English with two in Italian. They are well edited and represent readable discussions of the impact upon studies of Aristotle during the Renaissance revival of new sources for Greek commentaries of the Philosopher and the Greek text without the intervention of Averroes.

Contents

Preface
Gert SORENSEN: The Reception of the Political Aristotle in the Late Middle Ages (from Brunetto Latini to Dante Alighieri). Hypotheses and Suggestions
David A. LINES: Ethics as Philology: A Developing Approach to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics in Florentine Humanism
Marianne MARCUSSEN: Aristotle and Perspective in the Early Italian Renaissance
John MONFASANI: Greek and Latin Learning in Theodore Gaza's Antirrheticon
Eckhard KESSLER: Metaphysics or Empirical Science? The two Faces of Aristotelian Natural Philosophy in the Sixteenth Century
Heikki MIKKELI: The Aristotelian Classification of Knowledge in the Early Sixteenth Century
Cesare VASOL:I Giovan Francesco Pico e i presupposti della sua critica ad Aristotele
Olaf PLUTA: The Transformations of Alexander of Aphrodisias' Interpretation of Aristotle's Theory of the Soul
Peter WAGNER: Renaissance Readings of the Corpus Aristotelicum not Among the Herbalists
Kristian JENSEN: Description, Division, Definition ‑ Caesalpinus and the study of plants as an independent discipline
Sten EBBESEN: Caspar Bartholin
Antonis FYRIGOS: Joannes Cottunios di Verria a il neoaristotelismo padovano
Bo LINDBERG Political Aristotelianism in the Seventeenth Century
INDEX of names and passages in Aristotle's works

Ancient Commentators on Aristotle

ARISTOTLE TRANSFORMED: The Ancient Commentators and Their Influence edited by Richard Sorabji (Cornell University Press)

Logics:

Dexippus on Aristotle's Categories by Dexippus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by John Dillon (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

On Aristotle's Categories by Porphyry, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Stephen K. Strange (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Simplicius: On Aristotle's 'Categories 5-6' by Frans A. J. De Hass and Barrie Fleet (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle: Cornell University Press) Chapters 5 and 6 of Aristotle's Categories describe his first two categories, Substance and Quantity. It is usually thought that Plotinus attacked Aristotle's Categories, but that Porphyry and Iamblichus restored it to the curriculum once and for all. However, Frans de Haas stresses that Porphyry drew much of his defense of Aristotle from Plotinus' critical discussion.

Simplicius' commentary is the most comprehensive account of the debate on the validity of Aristotle's Categories. Simplicius discusses where the differentia of a species (for instance, the rationality of humans) fits into the scheme of categories. Another is why Aristotle elevates the category of Quantity to second place, above the category of Quality. Further, de Haas shows how Simplicius arrives at multiple definitions of "universal" to solve some of the problems.

As Simplicius lead us to expect in his introduction, some passages in his commentary have flown from his own ingenuity, e.g. `an aporia of some value or a noteworthy articulation of the argument'. A combination of both seems to be present in the division of positions concerning the categorial status of the differentia discussed above. We have seen that Simplicius opts for the position that the differentia is a `substantial quality'. But then Simplicius can no longer agree with Iamblichus' reply to the question how the differentia, itself a quality, can nevertheless be predicated synonymously of a substance (Cat. 3a17‑28). For Iamblichus criticizes the question as resting on the confusion of regarding the differentia both as part of the substance and as a quality in its own right. In order to escape this criticism, Simplicius must reject Iamblichus' solution. He rephrases the problem and provides the solution that since the differentia is not merely a quality but a substantial quality, and therefore essentially part of a substance, the definition of the differentia qua quality is simply irrelevant to the discussion. Fortunately Simplicius suggests that this solution can be confirmed from later remarks in Iamblichus so that this departure from his master is not too obvious.,

Concerning a problem involved in essential predication Simplicius' dissatisfaction with existing solutions gives rise to an interesting compromise. The problem was put that if `human being' is said of Socrates this would mean that `human being' is in Socrates and thereby an accident ‑which is obviously absurd. Porphyry and Iamblichus claimed that in such cases the non‑coordinated (akatatakton) human being (either the concept or the cause) is said of the coordinated (katatakton) nature of human being which is present in Socrates. This solution nicely preserves the distinction in Aristotle's vocabulary between `said of and `in'. At the same time it shows why essential predication is not a tautology, and how Neoplatonic metaphysics ties in with each act of predication. However, Simplicius suggests that this solution should be further refined in order to meet more clearly the problem of identity and difference involved in essential predication, thus developing a hint of Iamblichus in a related context. In contrast to his predecessors Simplicius prefers to regard the coordinated nature of human being as the predicate 46 but only in virtue o f the likeness to its transcendent cause that it is able to display by participation. In other words, Simplicius creates a distinction within the individual substance (between the likeness displayed by the image and introduction the image as a whole) in order to solve the initial problem. This focus is more in line with the framework of common parlance about sensible objects to which the problematic in Aristotle's Categories is supposed to be confined, and still emphasizes (though in a different way) the causal relation between transcendent causes and immanent natures.

Finally, Simplicius seems to raise a new problem in response to Iamblichus' claim that if one considers speech only by its length and vocal utterance one does not appear to reveal any order. Is it not clear to everyone that there is order in the word, that nobody would speak the name `Socrates' by pronouncing the syllable `cra' first? If, then, order is accepted in the case of speech too, all quantities lacking position (time, number, and speech) will have order in terms of prior and posterior instead. In this way Simplicius deftly removes an incongruity from Iamblichus' interpretation of Aristotle and at the same time provides Aristotle with an even more coherent account. Thus Simplicius' own additions may serve to confirm once again the ingenuity of his strategy in demonstrating the coherence of Aristotle's Categories and its harmony with the whole tradition of ancient philosophy as a unique mode of knowledge that was believed to derive ultimately from Pythagorean wisdom.

On Aristotle's ''Categories 7-8: Simplicius by Simplicius, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Richard Sorabji and Barrie Fleet (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

On Aristotle’s 'Categories 9-15' by Simplicius, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Richard Gaskin (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Contents:
Introduction
Textual Emendations
Translation
Notes
English-Greek Glossary
Greek-English Index
Subject Index
Index of Passages

On Aristotle's Categories by Hermiae Ammonius, edited and translated with introduction and notes by S. Marc Cohen and Gareth B. Matthews (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

On Aristotle's Topics 1 by Simplicius, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Johannes M. Van Ophuijusen (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Aristotle's Topics is about dialectic, which can be understood as a debate between two people or the inner debate of one thinker with himself. Its purposes range from philosophical training to discovering the first principles of thought. Aristotle offers rules for debating, and the debates turn on the four predicables: definition, property, genus and accident. Aristotle explains these predicables, says something about how they fit into his scheme of up to ten categories, and begins in Book 1 to outline strategies for debate, such as the identification of ambiguity.

Alexander of Aphrodisias was the leading ancient commentator on Aristotle in the Aristotelian school. He wrote around AD 200, more than five hundred years after Aristotle's death. His commentaries had an immense influence first on the Neoplatonist school and then on Medieval Philosophy in Islam and eventually in the Latin West.

His commentary on Topics Book 1 opens the door on a major argument between the Stoics and Aristotelians on how to think of syllogistic. He discusses how to define Aristotelian syllogistic and why it stands up against the rival Stoic theory of inference. This is also treated in his commentary on Prior Analytics 1.1‑7, already translated in the present series, and it will be useful to consult the comments of the translators, Barnes, Bobzien, Flannery and Ierodiakonou. Alexander further considers what is the character of inductive inference and of rhetorical argument.

At least three further subjects in his commentary are of special interest. He distinguishes inseparable accidents like the whiteness of snow from defining differentiae like its being frozen and considers how these fit into his scheme of categories. He investigates the subject of ambiguity which had been richly developed since Aristotle by the rival Stoic school .z And he speaks of dialectic as a stochastic discipline, that is as one whose success is to be judged not by victory but by skill in argument. A parallel view was sometimes taken in antiquity of medical practice, as a discipline to be judged not by its success in curing patients, but by its method and skill.

And the Stoics took such a view of life, as something to be assessed not by its success in achieving objectives, but by the objectives chosen and the way in which they were pursued.

On Aristotle's on Interpretation 1-8 by Hermiae Ammonius, edited and translated with introduction and notes by David Bland (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

On Aristotle's On Interpretation 9: With on Aristotle's on Interpretation 9/Boethius: First and Second Commentaries by Hermiae Ammonius and Boethius, edited and translated with introduction and notes by David Bland and Norman Kretzmann (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Contents:

Preface Richard Sorabji
Acknowledgements
I. Introduction
1. The three deterministic arguments opposed by Ammonius
Richard Sorabji
2. Boethius, Ammonius and their different Greek backgrounds
Richard Sorabji
3. Boethius and the truth about tomorrow's sea battle
Norman Kretzmann
4. Ammonius' sea battle
Mario Mignucci
II. Translations
Textual Emendations
Ammonius On Aristotle On Interpretation 9
David Blank
Notes
Boethius On Aristotle On Interpretation 9
(first commentary)
Boethius On Aristotle On Interpretation 9
(second commentary) Norman Kretzmann
Notes
Bibliography
English-Greek Glossary
Greek-English Index
English-Latin Glossary
Latin-English Index
Subject Index

On Aristotle's Prior Analytics 1.1-7 by Alexander of Aphrodisas, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Jonathan Barnes and Susanne Bobzien (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

On Aristotle's 'Prior Analytics 1.14-22' by Alexander of Aphrodisas, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Josiah Gould and Ian Mueller (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Contents:
Editor's Note
Preface Introduction
Assertoric syllogistic
Modal syllogistic without contingency
Conversion of necessary propositions
NN-combinations
N+U combinations
Modal syllogistic with contingent propositions
Strict contingency and its transformation rules
Alexander and the temporal interpretation of modality
Conversion of necessary propositions
Conversion of contingent propositions
Conversion of affirmative contingent propositions
Non-convertibility of negative contingent propositions
Syllogistic and non-syllogistic combinations
CC premiss combinations
U+C premiss combinations
N+C premiss combinations
Theophrastus and modal logic
Notes
Summary (overview of symbols and rules)
Translation: The commentary
Textual Emendations
The first figure
Combinations with two contingent premisses
Combinations with an unqualified and a contingent premiss
Combinations with a necessary and a contingent premiss
The second figure
Combinations with two contingent premisses
Combinations with an unqualified and a contingent premiss
Combinations with a necessary and a contingent premiss
The third figure
Combinations with two contingent premisses
Combinations with an unqualified and a contingent premiss
Combinations with a necessary and a contingent premiss
Notes
Appendix 1. The expression `by necessity' (ex anankes)
Appendix 2. Affirmation and negation
Appendix 3. Conditional necessity
Appendix 4. On Interpretation, chapters 12 and 13
Appendix 5. Weak two-sided Theophrastean contingency
Appendix 6. Textual notes on Aristotle's text
Bibliography
English-Greek Glossary
Greek-English Index
Subject Index
Index Locorum

On Aristotle's Prior Analytics 1.8-13 : (With 1.17,36B35-37A31) by Alexander of Aphrodisas and Simplicius edited and translated with introduction and notes by Josiah Gould and Ian Mueller (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Editor's Note
Preface Introduction
Assertoric syllogistic
Modal syllogistic without contingency
Conversion of necessary propositions
NN-combinations
N+U combinations
Modal syllogistic with contingent propositions
Strict contingency and its transformation rules
Alexander and the temporal interpretation
of modality
Conversion of necessary propositions
Conversion of contingent propositions
Conversion of affirmative contingent propositions
Non-convertibility of negative contingent propositions
Syllogistic and non-syllogistic combinations
CC premiss combinations
U+C premiss combinations
N+C premiss combinations
Theophrastus and modal logic
Notes
Summary (overview of symbols and rules)
Translation: The commentary
Textual Emendations
The first figure
Combinations with two contingent premisses
Combinations with an unqualified and a
contingent premiss
Combinations with a necessary and a contingent premiss
The second figure
Combinations with two contingent premisses
Combinations with an unqualified and a contingent premiss
Combinations with a necessary and a contingent premiss
The third figure
Combinations with two contingent premisses
Combinations with an unqualified and a
contingent premiss
Combinations with a necessary and a contingent premiss
Notes
Appendix 1. The expression `by necessity' (ex anankes)
Appendix 2. Affirmation and negation
Appendix 3. Conditional necessity
Appendix 4. On Interpretation, chapters 12 and 13
Appendix 5. Weak two-sided Theophrastean contingency
Appendix 6. Textual notes on Aristotle's text
Bibliography
English-Greek Glossary
Greek-English Index
Subject Index
Index Locorum

Simplicius: Corollaries on Place and Time by Simplicus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by J.O. Urmson (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Quaestiones 1.1-2.15 by Alexander of Aphrodisas, edited and translated with introduction and notes by R.W. Sharples (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Quaestiones 2.16-3.15 by Alexander of Aphrodisas, edited and translated with introduction and notes by R.W. Sharples (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Alexander of Aphrodisias' Quaestiones is reminiscent of Aristotle's Problemata, but have a greater claim to authenticity. It provides the best neoplatonic bridge to basic Aristotle categories. There is his identification of the "Active Intellect" with the "Unmoved Mover" whereby "intellect" "intellectualizes the best of beings" by "intellectualizing" "itself." And there is classic logical inference about how the "Unmoved Mover" has no "function," or telos. Translator R.W. Sharples even goes so far as to deduce that, for Alexander, "by 'God' Aristotle does not mean the supreme Unmoved Mover."
Moreover, according to Alexander, "the whole world does not need some [being] to exercise providence [over it]." Indeed, "how far he can escape from the charge...that his conception of providence is essentially mechanistic...are issues that the reader will want to consider." A more explicit treatment of determinism than anything available in Aristotle can be found in this work. A distinction between "fate" and "necessity" is made where "'that of which the opposite is impossible is the definition of that which is of necessity," but "it is those things, of which the opposite is impossible, that come to be in accordance with a sequence of causes that will be in accordance with fate."
There is a discussion of how the idea of names being "by nature" is disproved because "if names are by nature, the letters in terms of which they are drawn up have to be by nature." Moreover, "identity of names [for different things], and plurality of names [for a single thing], and changes of name are also sufficient to establish this." Some predictable conundrums relating to hylomorphism are cited. One also finds a discussion of universals that any conceptualist would accept. Other points of interest are that the heavens are "ensouled," "it is impossible for soul to be on its own," and that there was confusion over whether what is "actually" something is simultaneously "potentially" that same thing. In many ways this commentary advances certain basic ideas in Aristotle.

Metaphysics:

On Aristotle's Metaphysics 1: Alexander of Aphrodisias by Alexander of Aphrodisas, edited and translated with introduction and notes by William E. Dooley (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Focus Publishing Company)

Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle's Metaphysics 2 & 3 by Alexander of Aphrodisas, edited and translated with introduction and notes by William E. Dooley and Arthur Madigan (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

On Aristotle's Metaphysics 4 by Alexander of Aphrodisas, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Arthur Madigan (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press). In this first English translation of the late antique commentator Alexander of Aphrodisas discusses almost line by line Aristotle's thinking on such fundamentals as the nature of metaphysics, the basic laws of logic, types of ambiguity, and the falsity of subjectivism. He explains the logical sequence of the arguments, notes where the text supports more than one interpretation, and provides variant readings.

On Aristotle's Metaphysics 5 by Alexander of Aphrodisas, edited and translated with introduction and notes by William E. Dooley (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press).

"ON COMING-TO-BE AND PERISHING 1.1-5" by Philoponus; translated by C. J. F. Williams (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle: Cornell University Press)

Philoponus: On Aristotle's on Coming-To-Be and Perishing 1.6-2.4 by Simplicius and John Philoponus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by C.J.G. Williams (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press).

Philoponus: Against Aristotle on the Eternity of the World by John Philoponus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Christian Wildberg (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Focus Publishing)

Sciences:

On Aristotle's Physics 2 by John Philoponus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by A.R. Lacey (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press).

On Aristotle's Physics 3 by John Philoponus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by J.M. Edwards (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press).

Simplicius: On Aristotle's 'Physics 3' by Simplicius, translated by J. O. Urmson (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle: Cornell University Press) Aristotle's Physics Book 3 covers two subjects: the definition of change and the finitude of the universe. Change, which enters into the very definition of nature as an internal source of change, receives two definitions in Chapters 1 and 2, as involving the actualization of the potential or of the changeable. Alexander of Aphrodisias is reported as thinking that the second version is designed to show that Book 3, like Book 5, means to disqualify change in relations from being genuine change. Aristotle's successor Theophrastus, we are told, and Simplicius himself, prefer to admit relational change.

Chapter 3 introduces a general causal principle that the activity of the agent causing change is in the patient undergoing change, and that the causing and undergoing are to be counted as only one activity, however different in definition. Simplicius points out that this paves the way for Aristotle's God who moves the heavens, while admitting no motion in himself. It is also the basis of Aristotle's doctrine, central to Neoplatonism, that intellect is one with the objects it contemplates.

In defending Aristotle's claim that the universe is spatially finite, Simplicius has to meet Archytas' question: "What happens at the edge?" He replies that, given Aristotle's definition of place, there is nothing beyond the furthest stars, and one cannot stretch one's hand into nothing, nor be prevented by nothing.

Translator introduction: Aristotle's Physics Book 3 covers two main subjects, the definition of change and the finitude of the universe. The Physics is about nature, and change enters into the very definition of nature as an internal source of change. Change receives two definitions in chapters 1 and 2, as involving the actualization of the potential (201a 1011), or of the changeable (202a78). Alexander is reported (Simplicius in Phys. 436,26‑32) as holding, and Philoponus agrees (in Phys. 367, 6‑369,1), that the second definition is designed to disqualify change in relations from being genuine change.

In Physics 3.3, Aristotle maintains that the activity of the teacher is located in the learner and in a way identical with the activity of the learner, though not the same in definition. Rather, if you are counting how many activities are going on, there is only one to be counted. This enables Aristotle in Physics 8, as Simplicius observes in Phys. 442,18, to locate the activity of the divine unmoved mover in the universe that he moves, and so to accommodate no motion within himself. Philoponus in Phys. 385,4fI: refers to Aristotle's principle, in order to support his own impetus theory, according to which the impetus imparted by a thrower comes to be located inside the projectile.

In Physics 3.4‑8, Aristotle analyses infinity, and concludes that the universe is spatially finite. He gives an account of infinity still propounded by modern school teachers, according to which there is never a more than finite number of anything, but to talk of infinity is to say that however large a finite number of something you have, you can always have a larger finite number. Infinity is thus an ever expandable finitude, just as it is in modern talk of approaching a limit, or getting as close as you like. This helps to make it seem less frightening. One of Aristotle's objections to a more than finite number is that its parts would also be more than finite, Phys. 3.5 204a20‑9. That is something whose acceptability was not explained in the West until the fourteenth century, although it has been pointed out to me that it was known in the thirteenth century to Grosseteste, I presume from an Arabic source, and I would tentatively think of al‑Haytham.

In defending Aristotle's view that the universe is spatially finite, Simplicius has to answer the objection of Plato's Pythagorean friend Archytas (in Phys. 467,26‑32), `What happens at the edge? Can I stretch out my hand or stick, or not?'The objection had been elaborated by Eudemus, and had been answered by Alexander, Quaestiones 3.12, 106,35107,4. There is nothing rather than empty space beyond the furthest stars, and one cannot stretch into nothing, nor even want to. That there is no place at all for stretching would follow from Aristotle's definition of place in terms of a thing's surroundings. Beyond the furthest stars, there are no surroundings. Simplicius slightly alters Alexander's solution when he repeats it, in Phys. 467,35‑468,3; cf. in Cael. 285,21‑7. A man is not prevented from stretching by nothingness. Rather, nothingness neither repels nor accommodates a hand.

Simplicius does not at 516,3‑38, fully bring out the reply sketched by Aristotle Physics 3.8, 208all‑20, and elaborated by Alexander Quaestiones 3.12,104,24‑9, which tackles the objection that if we try to think of the universe as limited, we have to think of it, self‑defeatingly, as limited by something further out. Their answer is that `limited' has a different logic from `touched'. It does not equally imply an agent doing the limiting. Alexander illustrates the point by offering three sufficient conditions for a whole being limited, none of which implies a limiting agent outside. I have interpreted these three conditions in Matter, Space and Motion, ch. 8, at 135‑8, as follows. First, a whole can have a limit, if it has a limit in Aristotle's sense of a first rim outside which you cannot take anything. Secondly, in Alexander's view, a thing will be limited, if it can be divided into an equal number of segments. Thirdly, a whole can have a limit if it consists of a limited number of parts of limited size, where this last reference to the limitedness of the parts can be understood in the opponent's way, as being limited by other parts. What is the meaning of `limited number' in Alexander's suggestion? Simplicius reports, 516,29‑38, Alexander's remark that a number can be limited (peperasthai) without possessing a limit (peras) at all. Simplicius thinks this impossible, but surely Alexander is right.

Philoponus was to complain of an asymmetry in Aristotle. His universe ought to be temporally, as well as spatially, finite, and that would refute pagan Aristotelians and Neoplatonists and vindicate the Christian view that the universe had a beginning. Without a beginning, the universe will have finished going right through a more than finite number of years and that will be only a fraction of the more than finite number of days. Finishing an infinity and infinite fractions had both been ruled out by Aristotle. Simplicius replies by citing an idea from Aristotle Physics 3.6, 206a33‑b3; 3.8, 208a20‑1. Temporal objects, like the Olympic games, or a day, or the generations of men differ from spatial objects, in that, as one gets more and more members of the collection, the previous members perish. Simplicius asks how many past years would exist in a beginningless universe. Not a more than finite number, but none. Never does more than one year exist at a time. This answer is unsatisfactory, because Aristotle's objection to a more than finite number of anything would apply even to defunct years. Even in a more than finite collection of defunct years, parts of the collection would be more than finite, like the whole.

One interesting aspect of Simplicius' discussion, however, is his talk of divisions (diairemata ‑ I take Diels' diairemata to be a misprint), 506,11, of temporally extended objects. Surprisingly, it turns out that a division is not superseded by the next division, but rather is said to be prolonged (auxanesthai, line 13). This is unexpected, given Aristotle's claim that what you had before ceases to exist and Aristotle's point could well have been put by saying that the Olympic games, unlike an extended substance, has temporal parts. The Middle Ages took up this distinction between successive and permanent entities (see Cecilia Trifogli, Oxford Physics in the Thirteenth Century, Leiden 2000, ch. 4). But the distinction was sometimes denied, e.g. by Ockham, who thought we needed to postulate only permanent entities (see Marilyn McCord Adams, William Ockham, Notre Dame Indiana 1987), and by David Lewis, who sees even physical substances as successive entities with temporal parts.

On Aristotle's Physics 4.1-5, 10-14 by Simplicus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by J.O. Urmson (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

On Aristotle's Physics 5 by Simplicus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Peter Lautner, J.O. Urmson (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Simplicius on Aristotle's Physics 6 by Simplicus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by David Constan (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

On Aristotle's Physics 5-8 With Simplicius on Aristotle on the Void by John Philoponus and Simplicius, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Paul Lettinck and J.O. Urmson (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press) Paul has reconstructed Philoponus' commentary on Aristotle by translating it from annotations to an Arabic translation of the Physics itself; only fragments of the commentary are extant. J.O. Urmson translates the commentary by Simplicius on Aristotle's view of the void. The two ancient commentators were rival neoplatonists writing in Greek in the sixth century, whose views offer contrasting approaches to late antique understanding of basic Aristotelian science

On Aristotle's Physics 7 by Simplicus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Charles Hagen (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

On Aristotle's Physics 8.6-10 by Simplicus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Richard McKirahan (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Aristotle's Physics is about the causes of motion and culminates in a proof that God is needed as the ultimate cause of motion. Aristotle argues that things in motion need to be moved by something other than themselves ‑ he rejects Plato's self‑movers. On pain of regress, there must be an unmoved mover. If this unmoved mover is to cause motion eternally, it needs infinite power. It cannot, then, be a body, since bodies, being of finite size, cannot house infinite power. The unmoved mover is therefore an incorporeal God.

Simplicius reveals that his teacher, Ammonius, harmonized Aristotle with Plato to counter Christian charges of pagan disagreement, by making Aristotle's God a cause not only of beginningless movement, but also of beginningless existence of the universe. Eternal existence, no less than eternal motion, calls for an infinite, and hence incorporeal, force. This anti‑Christian interpretation turned Aristotle's God from a thinker into a certain kind of Creator, and so helped to make Aristotle's God acceptable to Saint Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century.

Unlike many of these translations, the introduction to this work is far more expansive about the importance and continual relevance of this late antique commentator. Recommended.

Translator introduction: After a millennium and a half, Simplicius' commentary on the Physics still stands up well against even its most recent rivals. The magnitude of the work is impressive in its own right, but sheer quantity does not make for a good commentary. However, in it Simplicius constantly brings to bear his thorough knowledge of Aristotle and the entire Greek philosophical tradition, as well as his acuity in dissecting arguments. He makes frequent use of earlier commentaries now lost, especially those of Eudemus, Alexander and Simplicius' own teacher, Ammonius, not hesitating to quote them at length. His independence is instanced by his occasional disagreement with Alexander, whom he frequently cites with approval. He takes strong exception to Philoponus, his contemporary Christian rival in Alexandria, and in the present volume he engages in extensive criticism of one of Philoponus' lost works in passages notable for their invective. As a Neoplatonist, Simplicius attempts to reconcile the doctrines of Aristotle with those of Plato, and this interpretive programme is prominent in the present volume. In what follows, for each of the five chapters of the Physics covered here, I briefly summarize the contents of each and indicate some of the features of Simplicius' commentary that are of historical and philosophical interest.

In Chapter 6, Aristotle argues that there is an eternal and unmoved primary mover; it causes a single, eternal, continuous motion, and therefore what is primarily moved by it is eternal as well, and it is the motion of this that causes generation, perishing, and other kinds of change to occur in other things. He also analyses the nature of self-movement that animals possess and concludes that it is not continuous, whereas even when not undergoing this motion animals undergo other motions such as breathing and growth, which are due not to their own agency, but to the changing environment, whose motion is ultimately due to the unmoved primary mover.

Simplicius' contributions in his treatment of Chapter 6 consist largely in explicating Aristotle's arguments, supplying missing steps where necessary, and offering supplementary arguments for some of Aristotle's claims (1250,35‑1251,4,1252,10‑11,1253,3‑12,1255,21‑33).

At 1252,18‑23, he argues that the unmoved elements in self‑movers fail to satisfy the account of what it is to be a principle of motion. At 1255,34-1256,30, he raises and then solves a serious objection: that although Aristotle's argument for the existence of an eternal unmoved mover is based on the existence of continuous eternal motion, the points for which Aristotle argued in Chapter 1, that prior to any motion hypothesized to be first there is always another motion, and likewise there is always a motion posterior to any motion hypothesized to be last, establish only that motion is consecutive, not that it is continuous. At 1259,15‑28, he offers several interpretations of Aristotle's problematic claim that the soul moves itself by leverage (259b20). At 1260,22‑35, he quotes with approval Alexander's account of how a cause of circular motion, while being located in the body that is in motion, can be `in the same place throughout the motion. He also rejects Alexander's view that the souls of the planetary spheres are moved incidentally (1261,30‑1262,13). He likens Aristotle's view that changes in the sublunary sphere are due to the variations in position of the sun, moon and other planets, with Plato's views in Phaedrus 246B on the motion of the soul in the heaven. Throughout, he interprets Aristotle's abstract arguments in terms of Aristotle's cosmology, a strategy that gives considerable clarity to several of the individual arguments as well as the overall direction of Aristotle's thought.

Chapter 7 establishes by means of several arguments that locomotion is the primary kind of change and the only kind that can be continuous, and hence that this is the kind of motion that the first mover causes. At 1265,26‑8, Simplicius contrasts Aristotle's account of growth here (260a29‑b5) with that in the Categories, saying that here Aristotle is speaking `more like a natural scientist'. At 1267,15‑19, he makes an argument for a point not made by Aristotle, that considerations of combination and separation, which Aristotle used in proving that generation and perishing are posterior to locomotion, can also be used to prove that growth and decrease are posterior to locomotion. At 1267,1928 (also 1272,38‑1273,12), he claims that in holding that locomotion is prior to other forms of change, Aristotle agrees with Plato (Laws 10, 893E‑894D). Whereas at 260b17‑19 Aristotle lists three ways in which a thing may be prior, at 1268,7‑1269,5 Simplicius goes through other significations of priority found in Categories 12 and Metaphysics 5,11. At 1270,4‑13, he fills in missing steps in the elliptical argument at 260b29‑30. At 260b30261a12, Aristotle argues that even though in individuals that are subject to generation locomotion is posterior to other changes, nevertheless the cause of generation of the individual will undergo locomotion prior to the individual's generation. Whereas Aristotle merely envisages an infinite chain of ancestors, where in each case the parent undergoes locomotion prior to generating offspring, Simplicius, bearing Aristotle's cosmology constantly in mind, refers the entire series of generations to an eternal, prior cause, the motion of the heavens (1270,25‑6,1270,35‑7). At 1273,2833, he carefully shows the relation between Aristotle's argument that only locomotion can be continuous (261a31‑b22) and his argument in Chapter 8 that among locomotions only circular locomotion can be continuous. At 1274,16‑25, he offers arguments for the proposition that a single continuous motion cannot arise from opposite or contrary motions, which Aristotle uses tacitly in his argument. At 1274,25‑8, he describes lateral motion as a compound of upward and downward motion and compares it to a compound made out of contrary elements. At 1274,33‑1275,4, he provides a badly needed explication (securely based on Chapter 8) of Aristotle's oracular claim that `a thing that is not always undergoing a particular motion, but that existed previously, must previously have been at rest' (261b1‑2). At 1277,31‑3, he supports Aristotle's claim that it is `absurd if something that was generated had to perish immediately, and could persist for no time interval' (261b23‑4) through considerations drawn from Neoplatonic epistemology.

Chapter 8 establishes that circular locomotion is the only kind of motion that can be eternal, single and continuous. At 1278,10‑13, Simplicius problematizes the claim (which Aristotle apparently considered obviously true) that if either of the components of a combined (rectilinear and circular) motion is not continuous, the combined motion is not continuous either, and he proposes a response to someone who denies this claim. At 1279,22‑32, we have a useful treatment of the difference between arguments based on `signs' (semeia) and demonstrations. At 1292,24‑1293,5, in discussing Aristotle's statement that `it is an accidental attribute of a line to be an infinite number of halves' (263b78), Simplicius points out that this is not an accidental property in Aristotle's normal use of that expression, and suggests that Aristotle here introduces a different kind of accident, namely, what belongs to something potentially. He quotes with approval Alexander's use of Aristotle's claim that the instant of change (e.g. the instant when Socrates died) is the last instant of the process of dying and does not belong to the interval in which the thing is in the state that results from the change (when Socrates is dead), to solve skeptical arguments against the possibility of dying or being born (1296,18‑35), and to show that propositions of the form `If Dion is alive, Dion will be alive', which some people claimed change truth value indeterminately, do not change truth value at all (1299,36‑1300,30), and he offers a cogent modification of this latter claim of Alexander (1300,30‑6). At 1301,19‑29, he tells us that a `dialectical' (logikos) argument is one based on terms that are not `appropriate' but more common and more general, and capable of applying to other things too, and says that they are so called because they arise through accepted (endoxos) arguments. At 1303,12‑24 (cf. also 1304,39‑1305,6), he states and refutes an objection that one might make to one of Aristotle's arguments that backward‑turning rectilinear motion stops at the endpoint (264a18‑19), and at 1303,27‑33 he quotes an additional argument of Alexander's for the same thesis.

In Chapter 9 Aristotle proves that circular motion is the primary kind of motion, since it alone is simple and complete, it alone can be eternal, one, continuous and uniform, and it is the measure of other motions. At 1317,18‑28 and 1317,33‑1318,7, in commenting on Aristotle's claim (265b12‑13) that things in rectilinear motion undergo locomotion nonuniformly, Simplicius offers some valuable comments on non‑uniform (i.e. accelerated) motion, both violent and natural. At 1318,10‑15, he gives us his opinion of why Aristotle introduces the opinions of his predecessors after his own demonstrations, and contrasts Aristotle's use of such testimony with more recent practice. At 1318,34, Simplicius informs us that the fifth‑century atomist Democritus and his followers called the atoms `nature' (ph usis), and at 1318,35 he attributes to them the`view that atoms have weight. At 1319,20‑3, he says that Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander and Heraclitus explain generation and perishing in terms of condensation acid rarefaction.

In Chapter 10 Aristotle proves that the first mover must have no parts or size; it is also indivisible. It is the cause of the eternal circular motion of the heavens, which in turn cause the changes in the sublunary world. The first mover causes motion without effort, and is located at the circumference of the sphere of the fixed stars. In this chapter Aristotle also discusses projectile motion, and states why a projectile does not stop moving when it loses contact with what throws it: the thrower imparts the ability to be a mover to the medium through which the projectile moves.

In his comments on this chapter Simplicius gives further insight into his views on kinematics and dynamics. He holds that in the case of motions that are bodily or due to force, a greater power causes motion over a greater length of time than a smaller power, and makes the same thing move in a shorter time than the smaller power does (1321,512). At 1322,8‑35, he makes a specification that eliminates a loophole in Aristotle's argument that nothing finite can cause motion for an infinite time. At 1325,81326,27, he reports an objection that Alexander made to Aristotle's argument for the thesis that no finite magnitude can contain infinite power, and then defends Aristotle against it, and at 1326,28‑37 he quotes an additional argument that Alexander supplied for the thesis. From 1326,38 to 1336,34 Simplicius subjects his Christian opponent Philoponus (whom he does not name but calls variously 'that Grammarian' and 'that man') to a bitter and sustained attack. He refers to Philoponus' arguments against Aristotle's view that the world, and also time and motion are eternal, which he refuted elsewhere (cf. n. 415), but here focuses his objections on Philoponus' assumption that if something possesses finite power it is perishable, and on his failure to distinguish between (a) causing motion eternally, where the mover possesses an infinite active motive power all at once together in actuality, and (b) being able to be moved eternally, which is a property of what is moved immediately by the first mover, and which is a passive capacity to be moved ad infinitum that exists potentially and not all at once together. Simplicius holds that while a finite body cannot have infinite power all at once together, it can be moved ad infinitum, and that the latter property rather than the former is what is required in order for the world to be eternal. Beginning at 1329,16 he presents and argues vigorously against several of Philoponus' own arguments which appeared in a lost work whose title is unknown, that the heavenly bodies are perishable, that they do not by their own nature possess infinite power, and that they possess finite power and hence are perishable. Simplicius relates Philoponus' belief in the perishability of the world to the tradition that the heavens were created 5500 years before the birth of Christ and that God will bring the world to an end in its six‑thousandth year (cf. n. 455), so that in the early sixth century AD, when Philoponus and Simplicius were writing, the end of the world was nigh. In response, Simplicius marshals counter‑evidence that tends to show that the world is not nearing its end (1335,3‑16).

Immediately following his criticism of Philoponus, Simplicius argues at length that Plato's account of the world in the Timaeus (especially 41A‑B, which Simplicius quotes and interprets) agrees with Aristotle's in several essential respects, in particular that the heaven is eternal and always moving both on account of its own nature and on account of the cause that creates and moves it (1336,35‑1339,24). In this section Simplicius' Neoplatonism is evident in its terminology, its style of argumentation, its ideas, and its way of approaching Plato and Aristotle.

Next (1339,25‑1340,8) follows a brief treatment of the question whether Aristotle's primary mover causes motion temporally or atemporally, the answer being that unlike things that cause motion being themselves moved, which cause motion temporally, it causes motion atemporally: 'it is by the agency of what is atemporal that time must exist in what is moved temporally'. At 1340,25‑8, Simplicius supplies some surprising examples to illustrate Aristotle's claim that `there can be more power in a smaller magnitude' (266b7‑8), and disagrees with Alexander's objection to the usefulness of this claim (1340,32‑1341,9). At 1341,20, he says that Aristotle desires to geometrize nature. At 1342,7, he uses the phrase'indefinite and becoming smaller ad infinitum' to describe we would say is approaching zero as a limit. At 1342,39‑1343,12, he generalizes Aristotle's proof at 266b8‑20 (which is stated in terms of doubling the power and halving the time) so as to be applicable to other ratios.

At 1346,29‑1348,5, Simplicius quotes with approval Alexander's discussion of a problem that arises in connection with Aristotle's account of projectile motion: Aristotle holds that projectile motion does not violate his principle that in every motion the mover is continuously in contact with the moved even though the projectile keeps moving after losing contact with the thrower, because the air receives from the thrower the power of causing motion in the projectile; but how can the air continue to move the projectile even after the thrower ceases to move it? Alexander's answer (which is different from Aristotle's) is that the thrower makes the air a self-mover for a limited time, and so the air can continue being moved, and hence move the projectile, even after the thrower stops moving it. Aristotle's solution is that the air is a not a self‑mover (a view he criticized when Plato applied it to the soul) but no‑longer‑moved mover. In effect Simplicius interprets the principle `if it is not moved it will not cause motion' more strongly than Aristotle. Where Aristotle takes it to mean `if there is no time at which it is moved, it will not cause motion', Simplicius understands it as asserting, `if it is not moved at any given time it will not cause motion at that time'.

At 1348,6‑1349,10, Simplicius also considers a further problem about the nature of the air's self movement: if air is like paradigm self movers, viz. animals, it will be composed of two elements, corresponding to the soul and the body, one of which is an unmoved mover while the other is moved; but air is not composite in this way, so Alexander's attempt to rescue Aristotle's account fails. Simplicius' response is based on Alexander's claim that the air becomes `in a way' a self‑mover for a little while: namely, in a different (although not well explained) way from that in which an animal is a self-mover.

Simplicius next (1349,11‑36) takes up an objection to the account he has given: why not simply say that the thrower makes the projectile, rather than the air, a self‑mover for awhile? His answer is that the earthy nature of projectiles makes them unsuitable for either lateral or upwards motion, and that air (also water) as an intermediate element that is suitable for both upward and downward motion (and consequently for lateral motion as well) contributes to the persistence of upward and lateral motions of projectiles. At the end of this discussion (1349,36‑1350,9) Simplicius expresses doubts about the adequacy of this solution, declaring that he has offered it in an attempt to deal with the problems in a way consistent with what Aristotle says, but inviting others to improve on his solution. In commenting on Aristotle's rejection of mutual replacement (antiperistasis) as the cause of projectile motion, Simplicius informs us (1351,28‑1352,17) that (contrary to the opinion of commentators both ancient and modern) Plato did not hold that projectiles move by mutual replacement, but the cause of their motion is `non‑uniformity and inequality' (c£ Tim. 57E‑59A).

At 1353,29‑33, Simplicius gives a cosmological interpretation of Aristotle's conclusion that the cause of uniform eternal motion is unmoved and that the thing that this unmoved mover moves is eternal and is unchanging in its relation to the mover: the heaven and consequently the entire world are eternal, as is the primary mover of the heavens, and they stand in the same relation to one another unchangeably and forever. Aristotle's claim that the primary unmoved mover of the heavens is located at the most rapidly moving part of what it moves (267b7‑9) gives rise to great difficulties, with which Simplicius wrestles at 1354,12‑1355,38. If the mover is located on something that moves, how will it not be moved incidentally? Alexander's suggestion that it is not moved because is on the entire circumference, which does not move or change place as a whole, is rejected as inconsistent with Alexander's more correct claim that the mover is incorporeal and occupies no place, and also because the suggestion is not consistent with Aristotle's claim that the mover is located in what moves fastest. Simplicius' own proposal is that the mover is not strictly speaking in the heaven, but that the heaven is in it, since it surrounds the whole world by virtue of its infinite power. (Shortly below, he clarifies this proposal: the primary mover is not in the sphere of the fixed stars but in the entire body that is in circular motion, i.e. the entire world: 1357,13‑17.)

At 1356,33‑1357,17, he brings up a problem raised by Alexander: should we say that the motions of the spheres of the planets as they are carried along with the sphere of the fixed stars are continuous, eternal and uniform, even though the cause of these motions is the sphere of the fixed stars, which is moved? While Alexander's answer is that the primary unmoved mover, not the sphere of the fixed stars, is the cause of the motion of the planetary spheres, Simplicius suggests that the motion of the entire heavens including the planets is a single motion. At 1357,11‑29, he quotes Eudemus' account of various ways in which things that are unmoved can cause motion. At 1358,18‑1359,4, he praises Alexander for recognizing that in the case of something that is moving ad infinitum (like the sphere of the fixed stars), when we speak of its power or capacity (dunamis) to be moved, we are using the word `power' only homonymously. Unlike movers, where their power can grow weary, here `power' merely means a suitability to be affected, which may persist and be activated as long as it exists. Thus (pace Philoponus), what is moved ad infinitum has by its own nature the ability to be moved, and it gets its motion through the agency of something else; hence, the sphere of the fixed stars, which is finite, does not possess all at once together an infinite power of causing motion, but it is subject to motion ad infinitum, so that, again, in a way the planets, which move together with the sphere of the fixed stars, are moved by the same unmoved mover.

At 1359,5‑1360,23, Simplicius draws parallels between Aristotle's way of proceeding from the moving, changing, extended and limited existence of bodies to the unmoved, unchangeable, unextended and unintermittent cause, and Plato's progression from the changing, moving, corporeal world of generation to the unchangeable, unmoved, intellective, eternal creator (Tim. 27D‑28A), and he praises Aristotle for taking care to avoid language that suggests that eternal things are generated ‑ a mistake made in their cosmologies by others (including Plato) who did not believe that the world has a temporal origin. At 1360,24‑1363,24, he argues that Aristotle's primary mover, like Plato's demiurge, is an efficient as well as a final cause of the world and in particular of the heaven. Moreover, at 1361,11‑1362,12 he cites several arguments from a book by his teacher Ammonius designed to present Aristotle's God as being, like Plato's, a Creator, albeit of a beginningless universe. This inadvertently makes Aristotle's God closer t o the Christian God.

Simplicius concludes his commentary on the Physics with a detailed summary of the argument of book 8 (1363,251366,22), which ends by indicating the relation between physics and first philosophy: `the entire structure of nature depends on a cause that is above nature, and the stud v of nature depends on first philosophy' (1366,19‑21, cf1359,58).

On Aristotle's 'on Sense Perception' by Alexander of Aphrodisas, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Alan Towey (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Contents: Editor's Note
Preface
Introduction
Textual Emendations
Translation
Notes
Bibliography
English-Greek Glossary
Greek-English Index
Subject Index

Porphyry: On Abstinence from Killing Animals by Porphyry, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Gillian Clark (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Contents:
Introduction
Translation
Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Notes
Bibliography
English-Greek Glossary
Greek-English Index
Subject Index
Index of Names and Places
Index of Animals, Birds, Reptiles and Fishes

On Aristotle's Meteorology 4 by Alexander of Aphrodisas, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Eric Lewis (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Ethics:

ETHICAL PROBLEMS by Alexander of Aphrodisias; translated by R. W. Sharples {Ancient Commentators on Aristotle: Cornell University Press)

ON ARISTOTLE'S "NICOMACHEAN ETHICS 8 AND 9” by Aspasius; Anonymous; Michael of Ephesus; translated by David Konstan {Ancient Commentators on Aristotle: Cornell University Press) In Books 8 and 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes among three forms of friendship: a primary kind motivated by the other's character and two other kinds motivated by utility and pleasure. He takes up Plato's idea that one knows oneself better as reflected in another's eyes. Aristotle sees true friendship as modeled on true self‑love. He further compares friendship with justice, and illustrates the ubiquity of friendship by referring to the way in which we help wayfarers as if they were kin (oikeion), a word he takes from Plato's discussion of love. In many of these respects he probably influenced the Stoic theory of justice.

The commentary by Aspasius that is translated here dates from the second century A.D., and is the earliest extant commentary on Aristotle. The second work is of unknown date and authorship. The third, a commentary by Michael of Ephesus, dates to the twelfth century.

Aspasius worries whether there is only one kind of friendship, with a single definition, and decides that the primary kind of friendship serves as a focal point for defining the other two. Aspasius picks up connections with his Stoic contemporaries. Michael cites Christians and draws from neoplatonists the idea that there is a self‑aware part of the soul, and that Aristotle saw individuals as bundles of properties.

From translator’s Introduction: The eighth and ninth books of Aristotle's Nicornachean Ethics are devoted to an analysis of philia, a subject that Aristotle also treats in the Eudernian Ethics (Book 7) and the Magna Moralia (Book 2),' That Aristotle's is the most sustained and profound discussion of philia to survive from Greek antiquity is beyond question. It is equally clear that philia is one of the fundamental value terms in classical Greek. Given that this is so, it is the more remarkable that there is still no consensus on what philia means, or even how to render it in English.

The surviving ancient and medieval Greek commentaries on these books of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, translated in this volume, provide invaluable evidence as to how Aristotle's arguments were received in the philosophical schools that flourished in the centuries after Aristotle wrote. They also illuminate important aspects of Aristotle's treatment of philia, and shed light on what the concept might have meant to a writer of Greek in late antiquity. The commentaries do not, however, entirely resolve the perplexities attaching either to the term philia itself or to Aristotle's discussion of it; and they introduce some further interpretative problems of their own (consider, for example. Aspasius' effort (181,24182,3) to turn Aristotle's words,'a democracy is least wicked' (1160b 19‑20), into their opposite, 'democracy is worse than the others', in conformity with his own preference for monarchy). All of which is to the good, inasmuch as it encourages further thought on the nature of philia.

All English translations of Aristotle's Ethics with which I am familiar render the term philia as 'friendship' (translations into other modern languages typically employ amicizia, amistad, amiae, Freundschaft, and the like). On occasion, in the versions that follow, I do so as well. More often, however, I translate philia as 'love'. I believe that this is the core sense of the Greek word, and that even when it is applied, as it frequently is, to the relationship between friends (philoi), it primarily denotes the affection that obtains between them, and may properly be rendered as 'love' in these contexts as well. In some cases, the word 'friendship' is obviously absurd as an equivalent to philia, for example, when Aristotle speaks of a mother's philia for her infant child, and retaining 'friendship' makes Aristotle's arguments sound odd or nonsensical. In other cases, however, as in the affection that may arise between commercial partners, it sounds strange to speak of love, and I have bowed to the necessity of using the term `friendship'. The ancient Greek commentators did not, o] course, have to confront the question of how to translate philia. And yet, as we shall see, they worried about the different senses it apparently could bear in Aristotle's own treatment of it. Aspasius in particular calls attention to one anomaly in this regard. Unfortunately, his efforts to clarify the matter only add to the general confusion.

Aristotle begins his treatise on philia in his typical fashion, by reviewing popular or received opinions (endoxa) concerning the topic. He then turns to an analysis of philia between friends, specifically identified a: such, that is, as philoi. The definition he offers of philia here runs a; follows (EN 8.2,1155b31‑56a5):

They say that one must wish good things for a friend (philos) for his sake, and they call those who wish good things in this way people who have good will (eunous), even if there is not the same [attitude] on the part of the other; for good will in those who feel it mutually is philia. We must add that it must not escape notice, for many have good will toward people they have not seen, but whom they believe to be decent and worthy, and one of these latter might feel the same way toward him. These then might be thought to have good will toward each other; but how could one call them friends if each escaped [the other's] notice in regard to how he was disposed toward him? It is necessary, then, that they have good will toward one another, wish good things [for one another], and not escape [the other's] notice [in being so disposed].

By affirming that `good will in those who feel it mutually is philia' Aristotle would appear to be defining philia as a reciprocal relationship which indeed it is ‑ when it denotes the bond between friends or philoi That this cannot be the meaning of philia as such in this treatise (or in Greek generally), however, appears shortly afterwards, when Aristotle offers as an example what he calls the most natural kind of philia, that between mother and child (8.8,1159a28‑33):

For some [mothers] give out their own children to be raised, and they love (philousi) and know them, but they do not seek to be loved in return (antiphileisthai), if both [loving them and being loved by them] are not possible; but it seems to them to suffice if they see them [their children] doing well, and they love them even if they [the children], as a result of their ignorance, provide in return none of the things that are due a mother.

It is obvious that this example of maternal love does not accord with the reciprocal character of philia as defined previously. Aspasius, accordingly attempts to resolve the dilemma as follows (179,28‑180,5):

Now, love (philia) is in loving (philein) and in being loved, but it seems to be more in loving than in being loved .... [Aristotle] adduces as a sign of this the fact that mothers delight in loving, even if they are not loved. For sometimes, if they are not recognized by [their children], who have been given to other women to raise, they are not loved [in return]; but it is sufficient for them `if they see that they are doing well'. But he has supposed [here] not love (philia) but the feeling of love (philesis), for love is in those who love mutually (antiphilein). But, nevertheless, the [feeling] of parents toward their children is a trace of love (philia): I say `trace', because sometimes their sons do not love them in return; and yet it strongly resembles love, because parents wish good things for their sons for their own sakes, and the chief function of love is in this.

In fact, however, no such contorted ingenuity as Aspasius' is required. For Aristotle, the noun philos normally carries the meaning of `friend', as it commonly does in classical Greek. Friends, in Greek or in English, are characterized by mutual affection. So too, in the second book of the Rhetoric, where he discusses various emotions, Aristotle says that loving (philia or to philein) entails wishing good things (or what the other believes to be good things) for the other's sake and his only ‑ not one's own, Aristotle insists parenthetically ‑ and acting, to the best of one's ability, to secure good things for that person (2.4, 1380b35‑1381a1). A friend (philos), Aristotle continues ‑ he is clearly specifying a restriction on the more general definition of philia ‑ is one who both loves and is loved in return, 2 and those who regard each other as mutually so disposed consider themselves to be friends (2.4,1381a1‑3).3

As it happens, the word philos as an adjective bears the sense of `dear' (or, on occasion, `loving'). The class of those who are dear to one another as philoi or friends are by definition ‑ clearly constitutes a subset of those who are dear to someone, irrespective of whether the feeling is reciprocated. It is perfectly possible for someone to be dear to me, without that person holding me dear in turn. To hold someone dear is to love (or like) that person; in Greek, the verb that corresponds to the adjective `dear' or philos is philein, which I have rendered consistently as `to love'. Philia, in turn, is the abstract noun that corresponds to the verb philein; to say that `I love someone' (philein) means precisely that there obtains in me philia toward that person.

It is clear, then, that philia does not have to be mutual; in the case of a mother's love for an infant child, it manifestly is not, although this love is, on Aristotle's view, the most natural (innate or intense) type. Aspasius has applied to Aristotle's discussion of maternal love the conditions that obtain specifically in that type of philia that exists between friends, and which forms the subject of much, but by no means all, of Books 8 and 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics. Hence, Aspasius' perplexity; and, I may add, that of some modern scholars as well.

Even when affection is reciprocal, it does not necessarily follow that the partners to the relationship are `friends'. Consider the following account of parental affection that Aristotle offers in the Eudemian Ethics (7.4.1‑2, 1239al‑7): `it would be absurd for a father to be a friend (philos) to his child, but of course he loves (philei) him and is loved (phileitai) by him'.

Here, all the elements specified in Aristotle's definition of philia between friends seem to obtain; nevertheless, in Greek, as in English, it is not usual to speak of parents and young children as `friends'. Hence Aristotle's proviso. The philia, then, that mothers and fathers bear for their children can be a one‑way sentiment (as can other forms of love as well); requital is of course possible, but it is not part of the definition of such affection.

In his initial discussion of philia in the sense of `friendship', Aristotle defines three kinds or species of the philia that obtains between philoi: one on account of utility, a second on account of pleasure, and the third on account of character or virtue. I have employed here, and in my translations of the commentators, the cumbersome phrase `on account of to render the concise Greek preposition dia, because alternative formulations, such as `utilitarian friendship', `pleasure friendship', or `friendship of character', risk obscuring the sense of the Greek. At stake is whether Aristotle's formula means that friendship just is the bond, whatever its nature, between people who are useful or pleasing to one another, or who admire one another's virtues, or whether it indicates rather the affection that arises on the basis of these qualities (mutually apprehended), although it is not reducible to them. To make the distinction sharper: one view takes it that two people who are, say, useful to one another are eo ipso friends or philoi, in this case of the utilitarian kind. What each likes is just the other's usefulness. The other view allows that people may be mutually useful, but not necessarily friends simply as a result of this fact. If philia that is, friendship or love, exists between them, it has emerged as a consequence, but not a necessary consequence, of their mutual utility. If there is philia (in the sense of friendship), according to Aristotle's definition, then it must be the case that each of the friends wishes good things for the other and solely for the other's sake. Utility, pleasure, and lains it, "The records of caravan routes are like the philosophical stemmata of history, the trails of oral discourses moving through communities, of texts copied from texts. . . .What they reveal is not a structure of parallel straight lines—one labeled ‘Greece,’ another ‘Persia,’ another ‘India’—but a tangled web in which an element in one culture often leads to elements in others."

While scholars have sensed a philosophical kinship between Eastern and Western cultures for many decades, The Shape of Ancient Thought is the first study to provide the empirical evidence. Covering a period ranging from 600 B.C. until the era of Neoplatonism and a geographical expanse reaching across the ancient world, McEvilley explores the key philosophical paradigms of these cultures, such as Monism, the doctrine of reincarnation in India and Egypt, and early Pluralism in 36,26‑32) as holding, and Philoponus agrees (in Phys. 367, 6‑369,1), that the second definition is designed to disqualify change in relations from being genuine change.

In Physics 3.3, Aristotle maintains that the activity of the teacher is located in the learner and in a way identical with the activity of the learner, though not the same in definition. Rather, if you are counting how many activities are going on, there is only one to be counted. This enables Aristotle in Physics 8, as Simplicius observes in Phys. 442,18, to locate the activity of the divine unmoved mover in the universe that he moves, and so to accommodate no motion within himself. Philoponus in Phys. 385,4fI: refers to Aristotle's principle, in order to support his own impetus theoryl according to which the impetus imparted by a thrower comes to be located inside the projectile.

The doctrine has another major importance for Neoplatonism, for it is the basis of Aristotle's view in On the Soul 3.2, 3.7 and 3.8, that the activity of the perceptible or intelligible is in a way identical with the activity of perception or intellect. It is central to Neoplatonism that Intellect can be identical with its intelligible objects, the Platonic Forms, although this identity allows that the activity of the intelligibles, like that of the teacher, acts as agent and so has a certain priority. The identity also means that, in being aware of its objects, Intellect is in a way aware of itself. It further gives the human intellect the opportunity of being united with the Forms, while at the same time sowing the seeds of the Averroist problem about how disembodied intellects, if united with Forms, are still distinct from each oents; and the product belongs to the maker rather than vice versa. Aristotle notes also that the love of parents for children is of longer duration than that of children for parents, since it begins at birth, when the infant is still incapable of consciousness and perception. Time, as Aristotle notes elsewhere (cf. 9.5, 1166b43; EE 7.2,1237b12‑38a16), is one of the elements that contribute to philia.

Interestingly enough, Aspasius is aware that children should, on one line of reasoning, love parents more than parents love children. For, as he points out (in his comments on 1158b11‑1159b23), `in loves according to superiority, being loved must be distributed in accord with worth', i.e., the better or more beneficial person should be loved more than the worse. Aspasius remarks (177,31‑3): `This argument shows that parents should be loved more by their sons than they love them, even if it does not happen thus: for they [i.e., the parents] are more beneficial and better.' The qualification that `it does not happen thus' shows that Aspasius knows perfectly well that this conclusion contradicts other statements in Aristotle, but he does not bestir himself to work the problem out. In general, the commentators stop short of pressing Aristotle very hard, even where they are alert to a difficulty in the argument. But their perplexities are in themselves often illuminating, as are their attempts to resolve them.

Aristotle offers an abundance of motives too for love between brothers (or, perhaps, siblings). Like that between parents and children, it rests on consubstantiality, since siblings are products of the same parents; though they are separate, they are in a sense the same thing. In addition, the fact that they are brought up together and are of the same age contributes to the philia between them. In these respects, Aristotle says, love between siblings resembles that between comrades or hetairoi (1161b 30‑5). However, fraternal love is even more intimate, since common rearing and education produce a similarity in character as well (1162a914). Brotherly love, accordingly, best stands the test of time. Here again, one notes that philia within the family is not reducible to the bond of kinship as such; love may endure a longer or shorter time, whereas the tie of blood is permanent.

I have been speaking so far about the things on account of which love may arise, but have not yet addressed the question of what kind of affect love is. Aristotle himself seems to have been unsure of how to classify philia. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he states that philia resembles a settled state of character or hexis, since it is accompanied by deliberate choice (proairesis); accordingly, he coins the term philesis ‑ a 'loving feeling', perhaps ‑ to denote that aspect of love that corresponds to a pathos (8.5, 1157b28‑32). In the Rhetoric, however, Aristotle unhesitatingly includes philia among the emotions or passions (pathe). Friendship is clearly more than passing feeling between two individuals; yet it was as natural in Greek as it is in English to label love as an emotion. Here too, the commentators note the difficulty without, so far as I can see, offering a clear or convincing solution.

Although Aristotle insists that philia entails that one wish good things for the sake of the other, and not one's own sake, there remains some controversy over whether this proviso amounts to an altruistic conception of love. The issue hangs in part on Aristotle's discussion of self‑love (EN 9.4, 9.8). On one interpretation, love for others is an extension of love for oneself, or is at all events modelled on it; if this is so, one might argue that love inevitably has, for Aristotle, a self interested or egoistic dimension. Aristotle may, however, be arguing the reverse, namely, that self-love (or at least the idea of self‑love) is derivative from love for others, which is the unproblematic category. There is a further question of how, and indeed whether, Aristotle distinguishes the two parties in a perfectly loving relationship. Aristotle famously`describes a friend as 'another self; if one takes this formula in its most literal, or radical, sense, then desire for the well‑being of the other simply is desire for one's own well‑being.

Still in the chapter on self‑love (9.4), Aristotle cites a common definition of a friend as one who 'shares in the pain and the pleasure of his friend' (1166a7‑8). Here again, one might conclude that it is impossible to separate out the good of a friend from one's own good. The words that Aristotle employs here are sunalgein and sunkhairein, literally `to feel pain together with' and 'to enjoy together with' someone else; in similar contexts, Aristotle uses the synonymous expressions sullupein and sunhedesthai, which again begin with the prefix sun‑ or 'with'. This reference to participation in the feelings (pain or pleasure) or the emotions of another person suggests a high degree of intimacy. It is worth noting that, in this respect, love or friendship is quite different from a more distant emotional connection such as pity (eleos). In the Rhetoric, Aristotle observes that 'people pity their acquaintances (gnorimoi), provided that they are not exceedingly close in kinship; for concerning these latter they are disposed as they are concerning themselves' (2.8,1386a18‑20). Just as, for Aristotle, pity does not involve participation in the grief of the other, so too in his discussion of philia, which presupposes such identification, there is no place for the emotion of pity. Toward loved ones, people 'are disposed as they are concerning themselves'.

The commentators on Books 8 and 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics do not themselves appeal to the distinction that I have indicated between pity, which requires a certain distance from the pitied, and love. Indeed, it is not clear that they consulted the Rhetoric at all in their analysis of philia in the NE. Like Aristotle, however, they systematically employ compound words beginning with sun‑ to indicate the identification characteristic of philia, and indeed they add some to Aristotle's stock. It is crucial, it seems to me, that the reader of the translation be able to recognize such terms, and I have therefore been careful to make the translation as transparent as possible in this regard. Such precision has inevitably resulted in a less fluent version than I might have desired; the repeated rendering of sunalgein as 'suffer with', for example, is both cumbersome and inelegant, but it is less likely to mislead the reader than varying it with expressions such as'condole' would do, not to mention'sympathize', which carries with it a history of its own in English philosophy. So too, I have preferred to render sunaisthanesthai as 'co‑perceive' rather than 'be conscious of or the like (cf. NE 11704), both in order to indicate the connection with other sun‑ words, and to avoid possibly irrelevant meanings associated with of the notion of consciousness.

Psyche:

On Aristotle's on the Soul by Themistius, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Robert B. Todd (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

On Aristotle's on the Soul 1.1-2.4 by Simplicus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by J.O. Urmson and Peter Lautner (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Priscian on Theophrastus on Sense-Perception: With 'Simplicius' on Aristotle's on the Soul 2.5-12 by Simplicus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Pamela Huby and Carlos Steel (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)
Contents:

Preface Richard Sorabji
Priscian: On Theophrastus on Sense-Perception Pamela Huby
Introduction
Bibliography
Textual Emendations
Translation
Notes
English-Greek Glossary
IGreek-English Index
Index of Passages
`Simplicius': On Aristotle On the Soul 2.5-12
Introduction and translation by Carlos Steel
Notes by Peter Lautner
Introduction
Textual Emendations
Translation
Notes
English-Greek Glossary
Greek-English Index
Index of Names and Subjects

On Aristotle's on the Soul 3.1-5 by ‘Simplicius’, edited and translated with introduction and notes by H.J. Blumenthal (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)
In On the Soul 3.1-5, Aristotle goes beyond the five senses to the general functions of sense perception, the imagination and the so-called active intellect, the identity of which was still a matter of controversy in the time of Thomas Aquinas.

In his commentary on Aristotle's text, 'Simplicius' insists that the intellect in question is not something transcendental, -but the human rational soul. He denies both Plotinus' view that a part of the soul has never descended from uninterrupted contemplation of the Platonic Forms, and Proclus' view that the soul cannot be changed in its substance through embodiment.

He also denies that imagination sees things as true or false, which requires awareness of one's own cognitions. He thinks that imagination works by projecting imprints. In the case of mathematics, it can make the imprints more like shapes taken on during sense perception or more like concepts, which calls for lines without breadth. He acknowledges that Aristotle would not agree to reify these concepts as substances, but thinks of mathematical entities as mere abstractions.

Addressing the vexed question of authorship, H. J. Blumenthal concludes that the commentary was written neither by Simplicius nor Priscian. In a novel interpretation, he suggests that if Priscian had any hand in this commentary, it might have been as editor of notes from`Simplicius' lectures.

Philoponus': On Aristotle's 'on the Soul 3.1-8 by John Philoponus, edited and translated with introduction and notes by William Charlton (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

Preface
Introduction
Textual Emendations
Translation
Notes
English-Greek Glossary
Greek-English Index
Subject Index

Philoponus' on Aristotle's 'on the Soul 3.9-13' With Stephanus on Aristotle's 'on Interpretation' edited and translated with introduction and notes by William Charlton (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Cornell University Press)

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Review Essays of Academic, Professional & Technical Books in the Humanities & Sciences

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Review Essays of Academic, Professional & Technical Books in the Humanities & Sciences

Commentaries on Aristotle

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Metaphysics:

Sciences:

Ethics:

Psyche:

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Ancient Philosophy