Simplicius : on Aristotle on the soul 3.6-13

241 Pages·2013·1.817 MB·English

by  Simplicius, Rītups, Arnis, Steel, Carlos G

‘SIMPLICIUS’
On Aristotle
On the Soul 3.6-13
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‘SIMPLICIUS’
On Aristotle
On the Soul 3.6-13
Translated by Carlos Steel
in Collaboration with
Arnis Ritups
LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY
Bloomsbury Academic
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Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in 2013 by Bristol Classical Press
Paperback edition fi rst published 2014
© 2013 by Carlos Steel
Carlos Steel has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval
system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting
on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication
can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-7809-3208-8
PB: 978-1-4725-5802-2
ePDF: 978-1-4725-0039-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
The present translations have been made possible by generous
and imaginative funding from the following sources: the
National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Research
Programs, an independent federal agency of the USA; the
Leverhulme Trust; the British Academy; the Jowett Copyright
Trustees; the Royal Society (UK); Centro Internazionale A.
Beltrame di Storia dello Spazio e del Tempo (Padua); Mario
Mignucci; Liverpool University; the Leventis Foundation; the
Arts and Humanities Research Council; Gresham College;
the Esmée Fairbairn Charitable Trust; the Henry Brown
Trust; Mr and Mrs N. Egon; the Netherlands Organisation
for Scientifi c Research (NWO/GW); Dr Victoria Solomonides,
the Cultural Attaché of the Greek Embassy in London. The
editor wishes to thank Benedikt Strobel, Philip van der Eijk,
William Charlton, Pamela Huby, Jan Opsomer and Barrie
Fleet for their comments, Ian Crystal for preparing the volume
for press, and Deborah Blake, who has been the publisher
responsible for every volume since the fi rst.
Typeset by Ray Davies
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Contents
Conventions vi
Preface vii
Introduction 1
Translation 41
Philological Appendix 149
Notes 155
Bibliography 193
English-Greek Glossary 201
Greek-English Index 206
Subject Index 222
Conventions
[(cid:125)] Square brackets enclose words or phrases that have been added
to the translation or the lemmata for purposes of clarity, as well as
those portions of the lemmata which are not quoted by Simplicius.
<(cid:125)> Angle brackets enclose conjectures relating to the Greek text,
i.e. additions to the transmitted text deriving from parallel sources
and editorial conjecture, and transposition of words or phrases.
Accompanying notes provide further details.
((cid:125)) Round brackets, besides being used for ordinary parentheses,
contain transliterated Greek words and Bekker page references to
the Aristotelian text.
Preface
This is the fourth and last volume of the translation of the commen-
tary on Aristotle’ treatise On the Soul, wrongly attributed to Sim-
plicius. I was still a young doctoral student when I started working
on this commentary. During lunch breaks I often had the pleasure of
discussing difficult passages with my senior colleague at the ‘Aris-
toteles latinus’, Fernand Bossier, who was himself working on a
doctoral project about the medieval translations of Simplicius. We
both became convinced that the commentary On the Soul was not by
Simplicius, but should be attributed to his colleague Priscian of
Lydia, and we set out our arguments in a joint article (1972). In his
commentary Priscian proves to be an original philosopher who de-
serves to be studied, not only as a thoughtful commentator of a
complex Aristotelian text, but also because of his own provocative
views on the rational soul as a Self in Change. I devoted a large part
of my doctoral dissertation – published in 1978 as The Changing Self
– to Priscian’s philosophy. In 1995 J.O. Urmson published the first
volume of the translation of the Commentary in this series (1.1-2.4).
He had also proposed to translate the second volume, 2.5-12, but,
having noticed that the author of the commentary could not be the
genuine Simplicius, he abandoned that part of the project and pre-
ferred to return to his translation of the Physics Commentary from
the genuine Simplicius, whom he admired at first for throwing light
on his beloved Aristotle. He had made, however, a complete draft of
the translation of DA 2.5-12, which I was asked to revise and finish
for publication (1997). It was an excellent idea to include in the same
volume Pamela Huby’s translation of Priscian’s Metaphrasis. Henry
Blumenthal continued the difficult task with the translation of 3.1-5,
which was published in 2000, but his untimely death left the project
unfinished for many years. Richard Sorabji asked me to take over the
remaining section, but in the meanwhile I was taken by other pro-
jects, in particular the edition of Proclus’ Commentary on the Par-
menides. Richard often gently pushed me and reminded me of what
I had foolishly promised, and it was my pleasure to be able to return
to Priscian in the last years before my academic retirement. I had the
extraordinary fortune of having a talented doctoral student who
shared my interest in the ancient commentators on the soul, Arnis
viii Preface
Ritups from Riga. He took as the subject of his dissertation DA 3.6,
a notoriously difficult chapter, and investigated ancient and medie-
val commentaries on this text. In the preparation of his dissertation
he made a first translation of Priscian’s commentary on 3.6 and we
spent together a full week in August 2008 in Jurmala to discuss,
correct and improve this first version. A fully annotated version of
this translation was integrated as part of his dissertation, which was
defended at the Leuven Institute of Philosophy in 2010. I profited
also from his draft translation of 3.7-8 and comments and corrections
on other chapters. Arnis also made most of the notes to the transla-
tion. I completed the annotation and made the last supervision. Arnis
also prepared the material for the introduction and some sections are
entirely his work. Here again, I take responsibility of the revision
and final result. In the preparation of this volume I greatly benefited
from this unique interaction. After all, there are few scholars in the
world with whom one can discuss difficult passages and subtle
speculations as found in this commentary, and Arnis is one of these
rare scholars. I also have to express my gratitude to the external
readers of my manuscript, who had to vet the text when it was still
unfinished. The final version owes much to their criticism.
For the translation of the Aristotelian lemmas I stayed as close as
possible to the Greek text (so as to help the reader understand the
textual comments made by Ps.-Simplicius) without any attempt at
originality. Besides using Hamlyn’s translation, I was often inspired
by the version of the lemmas in W. Charlton’s translation of Ps.-
Philoponus. David Robertson took upon himself the composition of
the Greek-English and English-Greek Glossary. Quite an effort was
needed to make the manuscript, which had been assembled in dribs
and drabs over several months, an integrated homogeneous docu-
ment. For this ungrateful task I owe gratitude to Ian Crystal, who
was always ready to work on my manuscript in short terms. Deborah
Blake had to reset deadlines continuously to adapt them to reality
and made an extraordinary effort to have the book published before
the celebration of the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle project in
London/Oxford 2012.
With this volume the whole corpus of ancient commentaries on de
Anima (Themistius, Philoponus, pseudo-Philoponus, pseudo-Sim-
plicius) has now been translated into English, which makes it
possible to discover the great richness of psychological doctrines in
late antiquity. All scholars on ancient philosophy, and all interested
in the philosophical tradition, owe a great gratitude to Richard
Sorabji for having envisaged this grandiose project, encouraged
scholars to collaborate on it, and motivated institutes and founda-
tions to provide the necessary funding. As we all know, Richard is not
just the great mastermind of the project, but takes care of all minute
details from the first to the last volume. Reformulating somewhat
Preface ix
Priscian’s words in the preface of his commentary, one may say that
he was in this whole enterprise ‘guide of ours souls (hêgemoni tôn
psukhôn) and cause of all arguments (logônpantônaitiôi)’.
Carlos Steel Leuven, 8 November 2012