The Letter Before the Spirit: The Importance of Text Editions for the Study of the Reception of Aristotle

542 Pages·2012·6.62 MB·English

by  Aafke Oppenraay

The Letter before the Spirit:
The Importance of Text Editions for the
Study of the Reception of Aristotle
Aristoteles Semitico-Latinus
founded by H.J. Drossaart Lulofs
is prepared under the supervision of the Royal Netherlands
Academy of Arts and Sciences as part of the Corpus Philosophorum
Medii Aevi project of the Union Académique Internationale.
The Aristoteles Semitico-Latinus project envisages the publication of
the Syriac, Arabic and Hebrew translations of Aristotle’s works, of the
Latin translations of these translations and the medieval paraphrases
and commentaries made in the context of this translation tradition.
Volumes 1–4 have been published by the Royal Netherlands Academy
of Arts and Sciences.
General Editors
H. Daiber
R. Kruk
Editorial Board
h.a.g. braakhuis – j. mansfeld – j.m. van ophuijsen
h.g.b. teule
VOLUME 22
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/asl
The Letter before the Spirit:
The Importance of Text Editions for the
Study of the Reception of Aristotle
Edited by
Aafke M.I. van Oppenraay, Huygens ING, The Hague
with the collaboration of
Resianne Fontaine, University of Amsterdam
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The letter before the spirit : the importance of text editions for the study of the reception of
Aristotle / edited by Aafke M.I. van Oppenraay ; with the collaboration of Resianne Fontaine.
  p. cm. — (Aristoteles semitico-latinus, 0927-4103 ; v. 22)
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-90-04-23414-7 (alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-23508-3 (e-book : alk. paper)
1. Aristotle—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Aristotle—Language. 3. Rhetoric, Ancient.
I. Oppenraaij, Aafke M.I. van. II. Fontaine, Resianne, 1953–
 PA3925.L48 2012
 185—dc23
2012031316
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters
covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the
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ISSN 0927-4103
ISBN 978-90-04-23414-7 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-23508-3 (e-book)
Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.
To the memory of Hendrik Joan Drossaart Lulofs (1906–1998)

CONTENTS
Preface  ................................................................................................................ xi
List of Contributors  ........................................................................................ xv
Introduction  ..................................................................................................... 1
The Letter before the Spirit: Still Editing Aristotle after
2300 Years  .................................................................................................... 11
Dimitri Gutas
The Textual Tradition of the Graeco-Arabic Plotinus. The Theology
of Aristotle, Its “ruʾūs al-masāʾil”, and the Greek Model of the
Arabic Version  ............................................................................................ 37
Cristina D’Ancona
A Christian Arabic Meteorological Treatise Attributed to
ʿAbdallāh Ibn al-Faḍl (11th c.) or to Bonaventura de Lude
(17th c.). Its Greek, Arabic and Latin Sources. Prolegomena
to a Critical Edition  ................................................................................... 73
Hans Daiber
The Arabo-Latin Aristotle  ............................................................................ 95
Charles Burnett
Edition of the Syriac Philosophical Works of Barhebraeus.
With a Preliminary Report on the Edition of the Book of
Heaven and the World and the Book of Generation and
Corruption of the Cream of Wisdom  .................................................... 109
Hidemi Takahashi
Barhebraeus’s Analytics: Medical Analytics  ............................................ 131
Jens O. Schmitt
The Sefer ha-nefesh. A First Attempt to Translate Aristotle’s
De anima into Hebrew  ............................................................................. 159
Alexander Fidora
viii contents
Thirteenth Century Hebrew Psychological Discussion:
The Role of Latin Sources in the Formation of Hebrew
Aristotelianism ............................................................................................ 173
Yossef Schwartz
Are the Medieval Hebrew Translations of Averroes’ Commentaries
on Aristotle Still of Value and Worth Editing?  ................................. 195
Steven Harvey
The Early Reception of Aristotle through Averroes in Medieval
Jewish Philosophy: The Case of the Midrash ha-Ḥokhmah  .......... 211
Resianne Fontaine
Contamination and Interlingual Contamination as a Challenge
to the Averrois Opera: The Case of the Judaeo-Arabic
Transmission of Averroes’ Manuscripts  .............................................. 227
Heidrun Eichner
Textual and Philosophical Issues in Averroes’s Long Commentary
on the De Anima of Aristotle  ................................................................. 267
Richard C. Taylor
A Hidden Hapax Legomenon in Avicenna’s Metaphysics:
Considerations on the Use of Anniyya and Ayyiyya in the
Ilāhiyyāt of the Kitāb al-Šifāʾ  .................................................................. 289
Amos Bertolacci
The Physics of the Avicenna Latinus and Its Significance for the
Reception of Aristotle’s Physics in the West  ..................................... 311
Jules Janssens
The Critical Edition of Aristotle’s De animalibus in the Arabic-Latin
Translation of Michael Scot. Its Purpose and Its Significance for
the History of Science  .............................................................................. 331
Aafke M.I. van Oppenraay
The Critical Edition of Albert the Great’s Commentaries on
De sensu et sensato and De memoria et reminiscentia:
Its Significance for the Study of the 13th Century Reception of
Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia and Its Problems  .................................... 345
Silvia Donati
contents ix
Guillaume de Moerbeke Traducteur du Liber de bona fortuna et de
l’Éthique à Eudème  ................................................................................... 401
Valérie Cordonier et Carlos Steel
Challenges in Syriac Text Editions Using the DOS-based Word
Processor Multi-Lingual Scholar  ........................................................... 447
George A. Kiraz
Édition Critique et Moyens Informatiques: Une Édition Assistée,
«Armée» ........................................................................................................ 463
Paul Tombeur
Index Nominum
 Names of Ancient and Medieval Authors  .......................................... 493
 Names of Modern Authors  ..................................................................... 496
Index Operum
 Works of Aristotle  ...................................................................................... 502
 Works by Other Authors  ......................................................................... 503
Index Rerum
 Subjects  ......................................................................................................... 508
 Terms  ............................................................................................................. 513
 Manuscripts  ................................................................................................. 515