‘SIMPLICIUS’ On Aristotle On the Soul 3.6-13 This page intentionally left blank ‘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 An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com 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
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