Simplicius : on Aristotle physics 1.3-4

158 Pages·2011·0.93 MB·English

by  Simplicius & C. C. W. Taylor & Pamela M. Huby

SIMPLICIUS
On Aristotle
Physics 1.3-4
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SIMPLICIUS
On Aristotle
Physics 1.3-4
Translated by
Pamela Huby and C.C.W. Taylor
LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY
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First published in 2011
Paperback edition fi rst published 2014
© 2011 by Pamela Huby and C.C.W. Taylor
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Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as the Authors of this work.
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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
Scientifi c Research (NWO/GW); the Ashdown Trust; Dr Victoria
Solomonides, the Cultural Attaché of the Greek Embassy in London.
The editor wishes to thank Mossman Roueché and Catherine
Osborne for their comments, Era Gavrielides for preparing the
volume for press, and Deborah Blake at Duckworth, 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
Abbreviations vii
Textual Emendations viii
Introduction 1
Translation 13
1.3 15
1.4 58
Notes 89
Bibliography 112
English-Greek Glossary 113
Greek-English Index 123
Subject Index 145
Index of Passages 147
v
Conventions
[(cid:125)] Square brackets indicate additions to the translation to complete
the sense.
< > Angle brackets indicate additions to the Greek text.
vi
Abbreviations
DK = H. Diels, rev. W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th edn,
Berlin, 1951, 3 vols.
FHSG = W.W. Fortenbaugh, P.M. Huby, R.W. Sharples and D. Gutas,
ed. and tr., Theophrastus of Eresus. Sources for his Life, Writings,
Thought and Influence, Leiden, New York, Köln, 1992, 2 vols (Phi-
losophia Antiqua liv.1-2).
Guthrie = W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Cambridge,
1962-81, 6 vols.
KRS = G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philo-
sophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts, 2nd edn, Cam-
bridge, 1984.
LSJ = H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th edn, rev.
H.J. Jones and R. McKenzie, with a revised supplement, Oxford,
1996.
RUSCH = Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities, Eude-
mus of Rhodes, ed. W.W. Fortenbaugh and I. Bodnar, 2002.
Wehrli = F. Wehrli, Eudemos von Rhodos, Basel, 1955 (Die Schule des
Aristotelesviii).
vii
Textual Emendations
106,20-4 We have removed Diels’ brackets and the word hêtis.
108,24 kenoinônêke should be kekoinônêke.
116,1 read de forte.
134,19 Diels prints ei, ‘if’, but notes that it is absent in MS D. In
this quotation from Alexander it seems better to omit it.
150,32 Reading, following Diels, dio kai duskinêtotera hoion gên.
Eti puknotera phêsi instead of the MSS’ dio kai dus-
kinêtoteron ou mên eti puknotera phêsi.
152,24 Reading, following DK, auto gar moi touto theos dokei einai
instead of the MSS’ apo gar moi touto ethos dokei einai.
157,7 Reading, following DK, ho de nous, hos aei esti, to karta kai
nun estin hina kai to alla panta instead of the MSS’ ho de
nous hosa esti te karta kai nun estin hina kai ta alla panta.
158,5 Reading, with DK and other editors, threphtheisa instead of
the MSS’ thruphtheisa.
158,13 Reading, with DK and other editors, mathê instead of the
MSS’methê.
158,18 Reading, following Sextus M. 9.10, atalanton hapantêi in-
stead of the MSS’ atalanton hekaston.
159,2 Reading, with DK and other editors, pêi de ke kêxapoloito
instead of the MSS’ pêi de kai kêrux apoloito.
159,15 Reading, with DK and others, leukon horan kai thermon
hapantêi instead of the MSS’ thermon horan kai lampron
hapantêi.
161,7 Reading, following M.R. Wright, Empedocles, The Extant
Fragments, revised edn, Bristol Classical Press, London and
Indianapolis/Cambridge, 1995, p. 194, hoti sphisi gennai en
orgêiinstead of the MSS’ hoti sphisi gennan orga.
162,25-6 Reading, following DK, ei toinun mêden ên instead of the
MSS’ei tukhoi nun mêden ên orei tukhê nun mêden ên.
178,34 Following the Aldine edition we insert ou before ta suntheta.
viii
Introduction
Simplicius
Simplicius came from Cilicia and spent some time in Alexandria, but
eventually went to Athens and was one of the Neoplatonist pagans still
flourishing there in 529, when Justinian II decided to do something
about it and, perhaps, prevented them from continuing to teach in the
Academy. Seven, including Simplicius, went off to Persia, at the invita-
tion of the ruler Chosroes. But it didn’t work out, and they left Persia in
532. It is still uncertain where each of them went, but it is clear from
his later writings that Simplicius at least still had access to a large
library. He remained a pagan, and was hostile to the Alexandrian
commentator Philoponus, who was a Christian, and frequently wrote
against him.
In his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics Simplicius preserves a large
amount of material from the works of the Presocratics, much of which
is not available to us anywhere else, and also from previous writers like
Eudemus and Adrastus, which are also largely lost. He even quotes from
a lost work of Alexander of Aphrodisias, much of whose other writings has
survived. Simplicius is a careful scholar, and took considerable care to
transcribe the words as he found them in his sources. He was able to record
material from Presocratics like Melissus and Zeno partly from their own
works and partly from Plato, Aristotle, and later commentators.
He is frequently repetitious, and can be obscure, but is also inquisi-
tive, and enquires, for example, whether the dichotomy argument really
belongs to Zeno, or to Parmenides, as Porphyry claimed. At times he
dons a Neoplatonist hat and tries to interpret Plato and Parmenides
through Neoplatonist concepts, but usually he expounds standard Aris-
totelian metaphysics, including the ten categories and the four causes,
although he also makes play with the alien notion of hypostasis. He uses
the system of logic of his time, which includes both Aristotelian and
Stoic elements.
In places his methods are puzzling: thus he raises questions about
Zeno in connexion with what other writers have said, but then says that
he has Zeno’s own words to hand, and he is erratic in his quotations from
Parmenides. All this could be explained on the hypothesis that his
studies were intermittent and conducted in various places.
1