Simplicius: On Aristotle On the Heavens 1.10-12 PDF Download

Author: Simplicius,
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472501373
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
In the three chapters of On the Heavens dealt with in this volume, Aristotle argues that the universe is ungenerated and indestructible. In Simplicius' commentary, translated here, we see a battle royal between the Neoplatonist Simplicius and the Aristotelian Alexander, whose lost commentary on Aristotle's On the Heavens Simplicius partly preserves. Simplicius' rival, the Christian Philoponus, had conducted a parallel battle in his Against Proclus but had taken the side of Alexander against Proclus and other Platonists, arguing that Plato's Timaeus gives a beginning to the universe. Simplicius takes the Platonist side, denying that Plato intended a beginning. The origin to which Plato refers is, according to Simplicius, not a temporal origin, but the divine cause that produces the world without beginning.

Author: Simplicius,
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 178093906X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
In chapter 1 of On the Heavens Aristotle defines body, and then notoriously ruptures dynamics by introducing a fifth element, beyond Plato's four, to explain the rotation of the heavens, which, like nearly all Greeks, Aristotle took to be real, not apparent. Even a member of his school, Xenarchus, we are told, rejected his fifth element. The Neoplatonist Simplicius seeks to harmonise Plato and Aristotle. Plato, he says, thought that the heavens were composed of all four elements but with the purest kind of fire, namely light, predominating. That Plato would not mind this being called a fifth element is shown by his associating with the heavens the fifth of the five convex regular solids recognised by geometry. Simplicius follows Aristotle's view that one of the lower elements, fire, also rotates, as shown by the behaviour of comets. But such motion, though natural for the fifth elements, is super-natural for fire. Simplicius reveals that the Aristotelian Alexander of Aphrodisias recognised the need to supplement Aristotle and account for the annual approach and retreat of planets by means of Ptolemy's epicycles or eccentrics. Aristotle's philosopher-god is turned by Simplicius, following his teacher Ammonius, into a creator-god, like Plato's. But the creation is beginningless, as shown by the argument that, if you try to imagine a time when it began, you cannot answer the question, 'Why not sooner?' In explaining the creation, Simplicius follows the Neoplatonist expansion of Aristotle's four 'causes' to six. The final result gives us a cosmology very considerably removed from Aristotle's.

Author: Simplicius,
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472501152
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Aristotle believed that the outermost stars are carried round us on a transparent sphere. There are directions in the universe and a preferred direction of rotation. The sun, moon and planets are carried on different revolving spheres. The spheres and celestial bodies are composed of an everlasting fifth element, which has none of the ordinary contrary properties like heat and cold which could destroy it, but only the facility for uniform rotation. But this creates problems as to how the heavenly bodies create light, and, in the case of the sun, heat. The topics covered in this part of Simplicius' commentary are: the speeds and distances of the stars; that the stars are spherical; why the sun and moon have fewer motions than the other five planets; why the sphere of the fixed stars contains so many stars whereas the other heavenly spheres contain no more than one (Simplicius has a long excursus on planetary theory in his commentary on this chapter); discussion of people's views on the position, motion or rest, shape, and size of the earth; that the earth is a relatively small sphere at rest in the centre of the cosmos.

Author: Simplicius
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
"Aristotle believed that the outermost stars are carried around us on a transparent sphere. In the Aristotelian view, there are directions in the universe and a preferred direction of rotation. The sun, moon, and planets are carried on different revolving spheres. The spheres and celestial bodies are composed of an everlasting fifth element, which can be destroyed by none of the ordinary contrary properties like heat and cold. It is able only to rotate in a uniform manner. This creates problems as to how the heavenly bodies create light and, in the case of the sun, heat." "The main value of Simplicius' commentary to On the Heavens 2.1-9 arises from its preservation of the lost comments of Alexander and of the controversy between Alexander and Simplicius. The two of them discuss not only the problem mentioned, but also whether soul and nature move the spheres as two distinct forces or as one. Alexander appears to have simplified Aristotle's system of fifty-five spheres down to seven, and some hints may be gleaned as to whether, simplifying further, he thinks there are seven ultimate movers or only one."--BOOK JACKET.

Author: Simplicius
Publisher: Bristol Classical Press
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Author: Philoponus,
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472501276
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This text by Philoponus, the sixth-century commentator on Aristotle, is notable for its informative introduction to psychology, which tells us the views of Philoponus, of his teacher and of later Neoplatonists on our psychological capacities and on mind-body relations. There is an unusual account of how reason can infer a universally valid conclusion from a single instance, and there are inherited views on the roles of intellect and perception in concept formation, and on the human ability to make reasoned decisions, celebrated by Aristotle, but here downgraded. Philoponus attacks Galen's view that psychological capacities follow, or result from, bodily chemistry; they merely supervene on that and can be counteracted. He has benefited from Galen's knowledge of the brain and nerves, but also propounds the Neoplatonist belief in tenuous bodies which after death support our irrational souls temporarily, or our reason eternally.

Author: Andrea Falcon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000022374
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
The late Mario Mignucci was one of the most authoritative, original, and influential scholars in the area of ancient philosophy, especially ancient logic. Collected here for the first time are sixteen of his most important essays on Ancient Logic, Language, and Metaphysics. These essays show a perceptive historian and a skillful logician philosophically engaged with issues that are still at the very heart of history and philosophy of logic, such as the nature of predication, identity, and modality. As well as essays found in disparate publications, often not easily available online, the volume includes an article on Plato and the relatives translated into English for the first time and an unpublished paper on De interpretatione 7. Mignucci thinks rigorously and writes clearly. He brings the deep knowledge of a scholar and the precision of a logician to bear on some of the trickiest topics in ancient philosophy. This collection deserves the close attention of anyone concerned with logic, language, and metaphysics, whether in ancient or contemporary philosophy.

Author: E.W. Dooley
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1780933630
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Alexander of Aphrodisias was the greatest exponent of Aristotelianism after Aristotle, and his commentary on Metaphysics 1-5 is the most substantial commentary on the Metaphysics to have survived from antiquity. The commentary on book 1 has the further interest that over half of it is devoted to Aristotle's discussion of Plato. Aristotle's battery of objectives to the theory of Ideas is spelled out with fragmentary quotations and paraphrases from four of Aristotle's lost works, and we are given an extended account of Plato's 'unwritten doctrines' according to which the Ideas are numbers, namely the One and Indefinite Dyad. The deliberations for and against the theory of Ideas recorded by Alexander are more detailed than anything in Plato's dialogues and tell us more than any other source how they were conceived in Plato's most developed theory.

Author: W. Charlton
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 147250190X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
In On the Soul 3.1-8, Aristotle first discusses the functions common to all five senses, such as self-awareness, and then moves on to Imagination and Intellect. This commentary on Aristotle's text has traditionally been ascribed to Philoponus, but William Charlton argues here that it should be ascribed to a later commentator, Stephanus. (The quotation marks used around his name indicate this disputed authorship.) 'Philoponus' reports the postulation of a special faculty for self-awareness, intended to preserve the unity of the person. He disagrees with 'Simplicius', the author of another commentary on On the Soul (also available in this series), by insisting that Imagination can apprehend things as true or false, and he disagrees with Aristotle by saying that we are not always free to imagine them otherwise than as they are. On Aristotle's Active Intellect. 'Philoponus' surveys different interpretations, but ascribes to Plutarch of Athens, and rejects, the view adopted by the real Philoponus in his commentary on Aristotle's On Intellect that we have innate intellectual knowledge from a previous existence. Instead he takes the view that the Active Intellect enables us to form concepts by abstraction through serving as a model of something already separate from matter. Our commentator further disagrees with the real Philoponus by denying the Idealistic view that Platonic forms are intellects. Charlton sees 'Philoponus' as the excellent teacher and expositor that Stephanus was said to be.

Author: W. Charlton
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472501918
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
The earlier part of the commentary by 'Philoponus' on Aristotle's On the Soul is translated by William Charlton in another volume in the series. This volume includes the latter part of the commentary along with a translation of Stephanus' commentary on Aristotle 's On Interpretation. It thus enables readers to assess for themselves Charlton's view that the commentary once ascribed to Philoponus should in fact be ascribed to Stephanus. The two treatises of Aristotle here commented on are very different from each other. In On Interpretation Aristotle studies the logic of opposed pairs of statements. It is in this context that Aristotle discusses the nature of language and the implications for determinism of opposed predictions about a future occurrence, such as a sea-battle. And Stephanus, like his predecessor Ammonius, brings in other deterministic arguments not considered by Aristotle ('The Reaper' and the argument from God's foreknowledge). In On the Soul 3.9-13, Aristotle introduces a theory of action and motivation and sums up the role of perception in animal life. Despite the differences in subject matter between the two texts, Charlton is able to make a good case for Stephanus' authorship of both commentaries. He also sees Stephanus as preserving what was valuable from Ammonius' earlier commentary On Interpretation, while bringing to bear the virtue of greater concision. At the same time, Stephanus reveals his Christian affiliations, in contrast to Ammonius, his pagan predecessor.