Aristotle Transformed

544 Pages·2011·13.35 MB·English

Aristotle Transformed
THE ANCIENT COMMENTATORS
AND THEIR INFLUENCE
EDITED BY
Richard Sorabji
Cornell University Press
ITHACA, NEW YORK
©1990 by Richard Sorabji
All rights reserved. Except for brief
quotations in a review, this book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced, in any form
without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address Cornell University Press,
124 Roberts Place, Ithaca, New York 14850
First published 1990 Cornell University Press
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Aristotle transformed : the ancient commentators and their influence /
edited by Richard Sorabji.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8014-2432-1
1. Aristotle—Criticism and interpretation—History. I. Sorabji,
Richard.
B485.A655 1990
185—dc20 89-37190
Printed in Great Britain
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of contributors ,
1. The ancient commentators on Aristotle
Richard Sorabji
2. Review of the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca
Karl Praechter
3. The earliest Aristotelian commentators
Hans B. Gottschalk
4. The school of Alexander?
Robert W. Sharples
5. Themistius: the last Peripatetic commentator on Aristotle?
Henry J. Blumenthal
6. The harmony of Plotinus and Aristotle according to Porphyry
Pierre Hadot
7. Porphyry's legacy to logic: a reconstruction
Sten Ebbesen
8. How did Syrianus regard Aristotle?
H.D. Saffrey
9. Infinite power impressed: the transformation of Aristotle's
physics and theology
Richard Sorabji
10. The metaphysics of Ammonius son of Hermeias
Koenraad Verrycken
11. The development of Philoponus' thought and its chronology
Koenraad Verrycken
12. The life and work of Simplicius in Greek and Arabic sources
Ilsetraut Hadot
13. Neoplatonic elements in the de Anima commentaries
Henry J. Blumenthal
vi Contents
14. The Alexandrian commentators and the introductions to
their commentaries 325
L.G. Westerink
15. Boethius'commentaries on Aristotle 349
James Shiel
16. Boethius as an Aristotelian commentator 373
StenEbbesen
17. An unpublished funeral oration on Anna Comnena 393
Robert Browning
18. The Greek commentators on Aristotle's Ethics 407
H.P.F. Mercken
19. Philoponus,'Alexander'and the origins of medieval logic 445
Sten Ebbesen
20. Aristotle's doctrine of abstraction in the commentators 463
Ian Mueller
Note on the frontispiece: 'Aristotle and Alexander of
Aphrodisias'by Ulocrino 481
Donald R. Morrison
Select bibliography 485
Index locorum 525
General index •« A ' 535
Preface
The story of the ancient commentators on Aristotle has not previously
been told at book length. Here it is assembled for the first time by
drawing both on some of the classic articles translated into English or
revised and on the very latest research. Some of the chapters will be
making revisionary suggestions unfamiliar even to specialists in the field.
The philosophical interest of the commentators has been illustrated
elsewhere.1 The aim here is not so much to do this again as to set out the
background of the commentary tradition against which further
philosophical discussion and discussions of other kinds can take place.
The importance of the commentators lies partly in their representing
the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist
schools, partly in the panorama they provide of the 1100 years of Ancient
Greek philosophy, preserving as they do many original quotations from
lost philosophical works. Still more significant is their profound
influence, uncovered in some of the chapters below, on subsequent
philosophy, Islamic and European. This was due partly to their
preserving anti-Aristotelian material which helped to inspire medieval
and Renaissance science, but still more to their presenting an Aristotle
transformed in ways which happened to make him acceptable to the
Christian Church. It is not just Aristotle, but this Aristotle transformed
and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators, that lies behind
the views of later thinkers.
Many of the commentaries are being translated in the series 'The
Ancient Commentators on Aristotle', published by Duckworth and
Cornell University Press from 1987 onwards (general editor: Richard
Sorabji). The present book will also serve as an introduction to them.
Chapters 1, 4, 10, 11, 19 and 20 are new; 2, 6, 8 and 12 are translated;
5, 9, 14, 15 and 18 are substantially revised. Others are revised in more
minor ways; Greek and Latin passages are translated throughout. The
original articles appeared as follows:
Chapter 2: Karl Praechter, 'Die griechischen Aristoteleskommentare',
Byzantinische Zeitschrift 18,1909, 516-38.
Chapter 3: Hans B. Gottschalk, pp. 1089-112 and 1150-1 of
1 For example, Time, Creation and the Continuum and Matter, Space and Motion, and in a
related volume Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science, London and Ithaca
N.Y. 1983, 1988, 1987.
viii Preface
'Aristotelian philosophy in the Roman world from the time of Cicero to
the end of the second century AD', in W. Haase (ed.), Aufstieg und
Niedergang der romischen Welt II, 36.2, Berlin 1987.
Chapter 5: H.J. Blumenthal, 'Themistius, the last Peripatetic
commentator on Aristotle?', in Arktouros, Hellenic Studies presented to
Bernard M. W. Knox on the occasion of his 65th birthday, Berlin 1979.
Chapter 6: Pierre Hadot, 'L'harmonie des philosophies de Plotin et
d'Aristote selon Porphyre dans le commentaire de Dexippe sur les
Categories', in Plotino e il Neoplatonismo in Oriente e in Occidente,
Problemi attuali di scienza e di cultura 198, Accademia Nazionale dei
Lincei, Rome 1974, 31-47.
Chapter 7: Sten Ebbesen, Commentators and Commentaries on
Aristotle's Sophistici Elenchi, 3 vols, vol. 1 = Corpus Latinum
Commentariorum in Aristotelem Graecorum (CLCAG), vol. 7, part 1,
Brill, Leiden 1981,133-70.
Chapter 8: H.D. Saffrey, 'Comment Syrianus, le maitre de l'ecole
neoplatonicienne d'Athenes, considerait-il Aristote?', in Jiirgen Wiesner
(ed.),Aristoteles: Werk und Wirkung, vol. 2, Berlin 1987.
Chapter 9: Richard Sorabji, 'Infinite power impressed: the transform-
ation of Aristotle's physics and theology', in Sarah Hutton and John
Henry (eds), New Perspectives in Renaissance Thought: Essays in the
History of Science, Education and Philosophy in memory of Charles B.
Schmitt, London 1989.
Chapter 12: Ilsetraut Hadot, 'La vie et l'oeuvre de Simplicius d'apres
des sources grecques et arabes', in Simplicius - sa vie, son oeuvre, sa
survie, Peripatoi 15, Berlin 1987, 3-39.
Chapter 13: H.J. Blumenthal, 'Neoplatonic elements in the de Anima
commentaries', Phronesis 21,1976, 64-87.
Chapter 14: L.G. Westerink, Anonymous prolegomena to Platonic
Philosophy, Amsterdam 1962, Introduction, xxxii.
Chapter 15: James Shiel, 'Boethius' commentaries on Aristotle', in R.
Hunt, R. Klibansky, L. Labowsky (eds), Medieval and Renaissance
Studies 4,1958, 217-44.
Chapter 16: Sten Ebbesen, 'Boethius as an Aristotelian scholar', in
Jiirgen Wiesner (ed.),Aristoteles: Werk und Wirkung, vol. 2, Berlin 1987.
Chapter 17: Robert Browning, 'An unpublished funeral oration on
Anna Comnena', Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society n.s. 8,
1962, 1-12.
Chapter 18: H.P.F. Mercken, The Greek Commentaries on the
Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle in the Latin Translation of Robert
Grosseteste, vol. 1 = Corpus Latinum Commentariorum in Aristotelem
Graecorum{CLCAG), vol. 6, part 1, Brill, Leiden 1973, Introduction,
*3-*29.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank the following for their generous permission to print, and
in some cases to translate, earlier work:
Chapter 2: BSB B.G. Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig.
Chapter 3: the editors of Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt.
Chapters 4, 8,12,16: Walter de Gruyter and Co., Berlin.
Chapter 6: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome.
Chapters 7 and 18: Professor G. Verbeke, director of the Corpus
Latinum Commentariorum in Aristotelem Graecorum.
Chapter 9: the organisers of the Charles B. Schmitt Memorial
Symposium held at the Warburg Institute on 20-1 February 1987.
Chapter 13: van Gorcum, Assen - The Netherlands.
Chapter 14: North Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam.
Chapter 15: the editors of Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Chapter 17: the Cambridge Philological Society.
The work on this book, like that on the translations in the series 'The
Ancient Commentators on Aristotle', has been generously funded by the
following sources: the National Endowment for the Humanities, 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 (Padua) and Liverpool University.
For an enormous investment of work on the typescripts, including
electronic wizardry, I am indebted to John Ellis, Duran Dodson and Eric
Lewis, and for the indexing to John Ellis, Duran Dodson, Lars Mortensen
and Jean-Pierre Schneider. For his role in the preparation of the King's
College bibliography on the commentators, I am grateful to Titos
Christodoulou. The three translations from French and one from German
were all executed by Victor Caston. The typing kindly undertaken by
Gertrud Watson and D. Woods was exceptionally difficult because of the
extensive revision of some chapters. Thanks are due to them and not least
to Deborah Blake at Duckworth, whose patience and editorial skill has
brought this book and the related volumes of translation to light.
ix
Contributors
Dr Henry J. Blumenthal Department of Greek, Liverpool
University
Professor Robert Browning Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C.
Professor Sten Ebbesen Institut for Middelalderfilologi,
University of Copenhagen
Dr Hans B. Gottschalk School of Classics, Leeds University
Dr Ilsetraut Hadot Directeur de Recherches, C.N.R.S., Paris
Professor Pierre Hadot College de France (emeritus)
Dr H. Paul F. Mercken Filosofisch Instituut, Rijksuniversiteit,
Utrecht
Professor Donald R. Morrison Department of Philosophy, Rice
University
Professor Ian Mueller Department of Philosophy, University of
Chicago
Professor Karl Praechter 1858-1933
le Pere H.D. Saffrey Couvent St Jacques, Paris
Dr Robert W. Sharpies Department of Greek, University College,
London
Dr James Shiel Sussex University (emeritus)
Professor Richard Sorabji Department of Philosophy, King's
College, London
Dr Koenraad Verrycken University of Antwerp
Professor L.G. Westerink State University of New York at Buffalo
CHAPTER ONE
The ancient commentators on Aristotle
Richard Sorabji
Two impulses: Andronicus and Porphyry
Cicero reports in the Topics (ch. 3), written in 44 BC, that Aristotle is
ignored by all but a few philosophers, and indeed his own knowledge of
Aristotle does not extend far beyond the early dialogue works. Yet even
before the time he was writing, as Gottschalk argues in Chapter 3 below,
a new explosion of interest in Aristotle was under way, which was to
occupy the rest of the century. Whether in Rome or more probably in
Athens, Andronicus of Rhodes had begun his work on the great edition of
Aristotle which forms the basis of today's editions, and he had
accompanied some of the treatises with commentaries. Altogether five
different commentaries were produced on Aristotle's Categories by the
end of the century, along with a Doric version of the Categories
purporting to be the work of the old Pythagorean Archytas, and two
compendia of the Philosophy of Aristotle. The commentaries are lost,
except for fragments, notably those preserved in Simplicius' commentary
on the Categories, and the next comparable boost to Aristotelian studies
would not come until Porphyry in the third century AD. But the tradition
of commentary on Aristotle had begun.
The earliest surviving commentaries come from Aristotelians of the
second century AD, culminating at the end of that century and the
beginning of the next in the commentaries of the greatest expositor and
elaborator of Aristotle's thought within the Aristotelian tradition,
Alexander of Aphrodisias (appointed to his Aristotelian Chair between
198 and 209).
Outside the Aristotelian schools, the chief interest in the first two
centuries AD still focused on Aristotle's Categories. The work seems to
have acted as a catalyst, attracting commentaries from three schools, the
Stoic, Platonist and Aristotelian. Gottschalk suggests below that it was
the Aristotelians who first described the Stoic scheme as one of
categories', but that the comparison forced them in return to establish a
correct order for their own scheme of categories, since order was