Philoponus: Against Proclus On the Eternity of the World 1-5 PDF Download

Author: Philoponus,
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472501217
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
This is a post-Aristotelian Greek philosophical text, written at a crucial moment in the defeat of paganism by Christianity, AD 529, when the Emperor Justinian closed the pagan Neoplatonist school in Athens. Philoponus in Alexandria was a brilliant Christian philosopher, steeped in Neoplatanism, who turned the pagans' ideas against them. Here he attacks the most devout of the earlier Athenian pagan philosophers, Proclus, defending the distinctively Christian view that the universe had a beginning against Proclus' eighteen arguments to the contrary, which are discussed in eighteen chapters. Chapters 1-5 are translated in this volume.

Author: John Philoponus
Publisher: Bristol Classical Press
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
This is a post-Aristotelian Greek philosophical text, written at a crucial moment in the defeat of paganism by Christianity, AD 529, when the Emperor Justinian closed the pagan Neoplatonist school in Athens. Philoponus in Alexandria was a brilliant Christian philosopher, steeped in Neoplatanism, who turned the pagans' ideas against them. Here he attacks the most devout of the earlier Athenian pagan philosophers, Proclus, defending the distinctively Christian view that the universe had a beginning against Proclus' eighteen arguments to the contrary, which are discussed in eighteen chapters. Chapters 1-5 are translated in this volume.

Author: Philoponus,
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472500253
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
In one of the most original books of late antiquity, Philoponus argues for the Christian view that matter can be created by God out of nothing. It needs no prior matter for its creation. At the same time, Philoponus transforms Aristotle's conception of prime matter as an incorporeal 'something - I know not what' that serves as the ultimate subject for receiving extension and qualities. On the contrary, says Philoponus, the ultimate subject is extension. It is three-dimensional extension with its exact dimensions and any qualities unspecified. Moreover, such extension is the defining characteristic of body. Hence, so far from being incorporeal, it is body, and as well as being prime matter, it is form - the form that constitutes body. This uses, but entirely disrupts, Aristotle's conceptual apparatus. Finally, in Aristotle's scheme of categories, this extension is not to be classified under the second category of quantity, but under the first category of substance as a substantial quantity. This volume contains an English translation of Philoponus' commentary, detailed notes and introduction, and a bibliography.

Author: Pier Franco Beatrice
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004680071
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 601

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Book Description
This book gives us a new perspective on the Philosophy according to the Chaldean Oracles by Porphyry of Tyre (ca. 232/305 CE), demonstrating that much of what we thought we knew about this work and its fragments is mistaken. Here, for the first time, the attempt is made at reconstructing the original text by following the vicissitudes of its reception and transmission from Late Antiquity through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance up to modern scholarship. The extensive and painstaking study of the surviving fragments leads to the radically innovative conclusion that this encyclopedic treatise, written by Porphyry in the last decades of the 3rd century CE, consisted of fifteen books organized in various sections. After an initial discussion of the nature of theurgy and of its subordinate role with respect to philosophy, Porphyry describes the entire history of Greek philosophy from Homer up to his own teacher Plotinus, to then go on to present “introductions” to the seven encyclical disciplines whose study is required for the comprehension of theosophy, that is, the esoteric speculation on the three parts of philosophy: anthropology-ethics, physics, and metaphysics-theology. By harmonizing the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and the Chaldean Oracles, Porphyry intends to present the complete and definitive philosophic system, with the aim of showing the universal way for the liberation of the souls of initiates and of contextually fighting the final battle of the Greco-Roman civilization against Christianity.

Author: Miira Tuominen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317492587
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
In late antiquity the works of Plato and Aristotle were subject to intense study, which eventually led to the development of a new literary form, the philosophical commentary. Until recently these commentaries were understood chiefly as sources of information for the masters - Plato and Aristotle - they commented upon. However, in recent years, it has become increasingly acknowledged that the commentators themselves - Aspasius, Alexander, Themistius, Porphyry, Proclus, Philoponus, Simplicius and others - even though they worked in the Platonist - Aristotelian framework, contributed to this tradition in original, innovative and significant ways such that their commentaries are philosophically important sources in their own right. This book provides the first systematic introduction to the 'philosophy' of the commentators: their way of doing philosophy and the kind of philosophical problems they found interesting.Although there was no philosophy of the commentators in the sense of a definite set of doctrines, Tuominen shows how the commentary format was nevertheless a vehicle for original philosophical theorizing and argues convincingly that the commentators should take their place alongside other philosophers of antiquity in the history of western philosophy.

Author: Sergei Mariev
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501503634
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 568

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Book Description
Byzantine intellectuals not only had direct access to Neoplatonic sources in the original language but also, at times, showed a particular interest in them. During the Early Byzantine period Platonism significantly contributed to the development of Christian doctrines and, paradoxically, remained a rival world view that was perceived by many Christian thinkers as a serious threat to their own intellectual identity. This problematic relationship was to become even more complex during the following centuries. Byzantine authors made numerous attempts to harmonize Neoplatonic doctrines with Christianity as well as to criticize, refute and even condemn them. The papers assembled in this volume discuss a number of specific questions and concerns that drew the interest of Byzantine scholars in different periods towards Neoplatonic sources in an attempt to identify and explore the central issues in the reception of Neoplatonic texts during the Byzantine era. This is the first volume of the sub-series "Byzantinisches Archiv - Series Philosophica", which will be dedicated to the rapidly growing field of research in Byzantine philosophical texts.

Author: Jacobus Erasmus
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319734385
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
This book offers a discussion of the kalām cosmological argument, and presents a defence of a version of that argument after critically evaluating three of the most important versions of the argument. It argues that, since the versions of the kalām cosmological argument defended by Philoponus (c. 490–c. 570), al-Ghazālī (1058– 1111), and the contemporary philosopher, William Lane Craig, all deny the possibility of the existence of an actual infinite, these arguments are incompatible with Platonism and the view that God foreknows an endless future. This conclusion, however, is not a problem for the proponents of the kalām cosmological argument, for the book shows how the argument can be defended without denying the possibility of the actual infinite. In order to offer a comprehensive analysis of Philoponus and al-Ghazālī’s cosmological arguments, the book draws on recent English translations of some of their works. Next, the book advances a detailed argument against the popular argument based on the impossibility of an actual infinite. Finally, the book offers a unique defence of the kalām cosmological argument by defending philosophical arguments for a beginning of time that do not deny the actual infinite, evaluating which hypothesis best explains the discoveries of modern cosmology, and offering an argument in support of the premise that, if the universe came into existence, then God brought it into existence.

Author: Michael W. Champion
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199337489
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Explaining the Cosmos analyses the philosophical and theological writings relating to the creation and eternity of the world of three Gazan thinkers, Aeneas, Zacharias and Procopius. It sheds light on Neoplatonic and Christian debates, and maps distinctive cultural characteristics of Gaza, including its schools and monasteries, in Late Antiquity.

Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047419871
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
Throughout his academic career Robert Crouse has insisted that the patristic and medieval philosophical and theological traditions, which have so profoundly shaped western culture, cannot be understood apart from the subtle and complex dialogue between Christianity and Hellenic culture out of which these traditions emerged. In this volume in Father Crouse’s honour, twenty-two eminent scholars from across North America and Europe examine various moments within the emergence of the doctrine of creation in the patristic and medieval periods, the Hebraic and Hellenic pre-history of this movement, as well as modern reactions to the partristic and medieval syntheses. Student and specialist alike will appreciate not only the depth of scholarly research clearly evident in the individual essays, but also the broad scope of the volume as a whole. Contributors include: Stephen Andrews, Stephen F. Brown, Mary T. Clark, RSCJ, Kevin Corrigan, Lawrence Dewan, Robert Dodaro, OSA, Wayne J. Hankey, Walter A. Hannam, Michael Harrington, Paige E. Hochschild, Dennis House, Edouard Jeauneau, Angus Johnston, Torrance Kirby, Terence J. Kleven, Marguerite Kussmaul, Matthew L. Lamb, D. Gregory MacIsaac, Ralph McInerny, Luca Obertello, Willemien Otten, Neil G. Robertson, Horst Seidl, and Michael Treschow.

Author: Richard D. McKirahan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350250457
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
An astounding project of analysis on more than one hundred translations of ancient philosophical texts, this index of words found in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series comprises some 114,000 entries. It forms in effect a unique dictionary of philosophical terms from the post-Hellenistic period through to late antiquity and will be an essential reference tool for any scholar working on the meaning of these ancient texts. As traditional dictionaries have usually neglected to include translation examples from philosophical texts of this period, scholars interested in how meanings of words vary across time and author have been ill served. This index fills a huge gap, therefore, in the lexical analysis of ancient Greek and has application well beyond the reading of ancient philosophical commentaries. Bringing together the full indexes from 110 of the volumes published in Bloomsbury's Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, McKirahan has combined each word entry and analysed how many times particular translations occur. He presents his findings numerically so that each meaning in turn has a note as to the number of times it is used. For meanings that are found between one and four times the volume details are also given so that readers may quickly and easily look up the texts themselves.