Philoponus: On Aristotle Meteorology 1.1-3

145 Pages·2011·0.92 MB·English

by  John Philoponus

PHILOPONUS
On Aristotle
On Aristotle Meteorology 1.1-3
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PHILOPONUS
On Aristotle
Meteorology 1.1-3
Translated by
Inna Kupreeva
LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY
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First published in 2011
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Acknowledgements
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 Scienti(cid:192) c Research (NWO/GW); the Ashdown
Trust; Dr Victoria Solomonides, the Cultural Attaché of the Greek
Embassy in London. The editor wishes to thank Ian Mueller for his
comments, Michael Grif(cid:192) n for preparing the volume for press, and Deborah
Blake at Bristol Classical Press, who has been the publisher
responsible for every volume since the (cid:192) rst.
Typeset by Ray Davies
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Contents
Conventions vi
Introduction 1
Textual Questions 24
Translation 27
Notes 85
Bibliography 99
English-Greek Glossary 101
Greek-English Index 113
Index of Passages Cited 133
Subject Index 136
v
Conventions
[...] 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 Philoponus.
<...> 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. Accompany-
ing notes provide further details.
(...) Round brackets, besides being used for ordinary parentheses, con-
tain transliterated Greek words and Bekker pages references to the
Aristotelian text.
vi
Introduction
This volume contains Philoponus’ commentary on the first three chap-
ters of Aristotle’s Meteorology. Philoponus’ extant commentary on this
work of Aristotle is not complete: we only have a commentary on book
1, with a large lacuna starting in the middle of chapter 9 and ending
several paragraphs into the commentary on chapter 12. The commen-
tary is found in this state in the most complete of the known manu-
scripts; it is possible that they descend from the same exemplar. The
commentary on Meteorology, or at least its final version, most likely
belongs to the later period of Philoponus’ philosophical activity.1 Unlike
several commentaries considered early (on De Anima, On Generation
and Corruption, Categories, and Physics), it is not presented as a
revised set of notes from Ammonius’ seminars.
Philoponus’ commentary presents many departures and digressions
from Aristotle’s argument. Some of them are no doubt informed by his
own polemic against Aristotle, and some may also be going back to
Ammonius’ discussions of this text, but the extent of Ammonius’ influ-
ence is hard to determine. Ammonius most probably lectured on the
Meteorology, which was a part of the scientific curriculum in the Alex-
andrian school,2 but his lectures on this subject do not seem to have
been preserved except for occasional references in Philoponus and
Olympiodorus.3
Another important source for Philoponus’ commentary is the com-
mentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias, which is fortunately extant in
full. Therefore, unlike Ammonius’ lectures, Alexander’s commentary is
easy to track down in Philoponus’ work, both by direct references made
and by multiple doctrinal and textual parallels (where Alexander’s
arguments are included in a very close, near-verbatim paraphrase).4
Philoponus often adopts Alexander’s exegetical tactics in interpreting
the phrasing and technical layout of the argument, but, as we shall see,
quite seriously opposes Alexander on several cardinal doctrinal issues.
A number of features of the structure and style of the commentary
point to its role as a pedagogical text, a common role of philosophical
commentaries in the school of Alexandria. Philoponus applies the tra-
ditional distinction between theôria (discussion of the general
argument of the lemma and related doctrinal issues) and lexis (discus-
sion of stylistic and textual matters) throughout the commentary.5
1
2 Introduction
Theôria is no longer restricted to a mere exposition of Aristotle’s argu-
ment accompanied by Philoponus’ own reflection.6 A considerable part
of it is occupied now by Philoponus’ polemic against Aristotle and/or his
earlier commentators (mainly Alexander of Aphrodisias) and a much
more detailed and outspoken presentation of his own position on the
subject under discussion.
The lemmata are not always complete, and on a number of occasions,
there are reduplications, when parts of the main lemma are lemmatised
again in the discussion of the text.7 On the other hand, the missing parts
of the lemmata are usually supplied in the discussion, in verbatim
quotations, so that the commentary gives a full coverage of Aristotle’s
text, with few stones left unturned. The Aristotelian text used by
Philoponus shows agreement with the main Aristotle manuscripts,
with only occasional characteristic departures.8 The division of Aris-
totle’s text on which the commentary is based into books and chapters
does not differ significantly from the familiar division, with only a few
minor differences which do not affect the structure of the argument.
Philoponus apparently also uses his own division of the commentary
into meaningful sections: the first section of such division, is marked at
the end of chapter 3, and must therefore include the content of this
volume.9 Because the commentary is not complete, we cannot say much
about the principles of this division, but it probably has to do with the
structure of the teaching process.
In his discussion of Meteorology, Philoponus often invokes Aristotle’s
doctrines from other treatises of the physical corpus, including Physics
itself, De Caelo, and On Generation and Corruption (see, for example,
2,17-18); there is a paraphrase of one of the texts from the spurious
Problemata.10 He does make frequent appeals to Platonic physics, the
main source being Plato’s Timaeus, but also the physical doctrines of
his contemporary and near-contemporary Platonist colleagues and op-
ponents. Philoponus makes several references to an unknown work of
Damascius, which must contain a discussion at least of some of the
problems to do with Aristotle’s Meteorology.11 The use of the conceptual
framework of Aristotelian logic is a common feature of most late Neo-
platonic commentaries on Aristotle. A remarkable feature of this
commentary is Philoponus’ use of current mathematical and astronomi-
cal theories in the exposition, interpretation and criticism of Aristotle’s
views. This tendency to use not only philosophical, but also current
scientific sources in the interpretation of Aristotle’s cosmology, goes
back to the earlier commentators, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias,
and becomes prominent in the learned commentaries of the late Neo-
platonic writers such as Philoponus and Olympiodorus at Alexandria
and Simplicius at Athens. We know that Philoponus’ teacher Am-
monius cultivated scientific interests in his school. Philoponus wrote a
commentary on Nicomachus’ Introduction to Arithmetic and is familiar
with both the basic doctrines and their expositions by late antique
Introduction 3
authors, such as Theon of Smyrna. He is familiar with astronomical
theories and understands practical astronomy. A treatise On the Astro-
labe is attributed to him. In his commentary on Meteorology, we find
several references to the results which go back to Ptolemy’s Almagest:
Philoponus is probably familiar with the work, even if not with all the
details of its complex argument and mathematical apparatus.12 He may
have read other works by Ptolemy, such as Optics, and he certainly
knows enough of the principles of geometrical optics to be able to use
freely the assumption of the eye-streams in the explanation of the
heavenly phenomena which produce various visual effects.13 He has
some familiarity with catoptrics.14
The reader will notice that many of Philoponus’ arguments concern-
ing the subjects of mathematical astronomy and geometrical optics
either involve a diagram or are more easily followed when supplied with
some kind of a drawing. There can be little doubt that using diagrams
in geometrical demonstrations was a school routine. This commentary
can be a good illustration of the direction in which the scientific curricu-
lum was taken in the Alexandrian school by Ammonius and his circle.
Another characteristic feature of this commentary is that Philoponus
clearly has a polemical agenda, which is perceived throughout the
commentary, most obviously in his direct arguments against Aris-
totle and Alexander, but also in scattered brief objections where
Philoponus avoids a detailed engagement with the argument but
refers the audience to his earlier discussions (mainly Contra Aris-
totelem but possibly also to Aet. 13).15
The argument
1.1. The place of Meteorology in the Aristotelian system
Aristotle’sMeteorology1.1 is a short introductory chapter whose main
purpose is to explain the place of the treatise in the order of the works
that make up the physical corpus. Aristotle briefly enumerates the
subjects which have been dealt with in the works that precede Meteor-
ology, namely the first causes of nature and all natural motion (presum-
ably, Physics), the ordered motions of the stars (presumably De Caelo
1-2, although the astronomical theory itself is presented in Metaphysics
12.8) and the bodily elements, their number, kinds and mutual trans-
formations (this probably corresponds to the De Caelo 3-4 and On
Generation and Corruption).16Meteorology is described as a traditional
discipline treating of the natural processes that take place in the region
bordering on that of the motion of the stars. These processes include the
Milky Way, comets, shooting stars and meteors, winds, earthquakes,
thunderbolts, whirlwinds, firewinds, the processes of condensation
(such as rain, snow, hail). The next in the order after the Meteorology
are the works of the biological corpus, on animals and plants. This