Download or read book Simplicius On Aristotle On the Heavens 3 7 4 6 written by Simplicius, and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Commenting on the end of Aristotle's On the Heavens Book 3, Simplicius examines Aristotle's criticisms of Plato's theory of elemental chemistry in the Timaeus. Plato makes the characteristics of the four elements depend on the shapes of component corpuscles and ultimately on the arrangement of the triangles which compose them. Simplicius preserves and criticizes the contributions made to the debate in lost works by two other major commentators, Alexander the Aristotelian, and Proclus the Platonist. In Book 4, Simplicius identifies fifteen objections by Aristotle to Plato's views on weight in the four elements. He finishes Book 4 by elaborating Aristotle's criticisms of Democritus' theory of weight in the atoms, including Democritus' suggestions about the influence of atomic shape on certain atomic motions. This volume includes an English translation of Simplicius' commentary, a detailed introduction, extensive commentary notes and a bibliography.

Download or read book Simplicius On Aristotle On the Heavens 3 1 7 written by Simplicius, and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The subject of Aristotle's On the Heavens, Books 3-4, is the four elements of earth, air, fire and water, which exist below the heavens. Book 3, in chapters 1 to 7, frequently criticizes the Presocratic philosophers. Because of this, Simplicius' commentary is one of our main sources of quotations of the Presocratics. Ian Mueller's translation of this commentary gains added importance by enabling us to see the context which guided Simplicius' selection of Presocratic texts to quote. Simplicius also criticizes the lost commentary of the leading Aristotelian commentator, Alexander, and thereby gives us important information about that work. The English translation in this volume is accompanied by a detailed introduction, extensive commentary notes and a bibliography.

Download or read book Simplicius On Aristotle On the Heavens 1 3 4 written by Simplicius, and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first English translation of Simplicius' responses to Philoponus' Against Aristotle on the Eternity of the World. The commentary is published in two volumes: Ian Mueller's previous book in the series, Simplicius: On Aristotle On the Heavens 1.2-3, and this book on 1.3-4. Philoponus, the Christian, had argued that Aristotle's arguments do not succeed. For all they show to the contrary, Christianity may be right that the heavens were brought into existence by the only divine being and one moment in time, and will cease to exist at some future moment. Simplicius upholds the pagan view that the heavens are eternal and divine, and argues that their eternity is shown by their astronomical movements coupled with certain principles of Aristotle. The English translation in this volume is accompanied by a detailed introduction, extensive commentary notes and a bibliography.

Download or read book Simplicius On Aristotle On the Heavens 1 2 3 written by Simplicius, and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the arguments in Aristotle's On the Heavens propounds that the world neither came to be nor will perish. This volume contains the pagan Neoplatonist Simplicius of Cilicia's commentary on the first part of this this important work. The commentary is notable and unusual because Simplicius includes in his discussion lengthy representations of the Christian John Philoponus' criticisms of Aristotle along with his own, frequently sarcastic, responses. This is the first complete translation into a modern language of Simplicius' commentary, and is accompanied by a detailed introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a bibliography.

Download or read book Simplicius On Aristotle On the Heavens 1 1 4 written by Simplicius, and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-04-10 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In chapter 1 of On the Heavens Aristotle defines body, and then notoriously ruptures dynamics by introducing a fifth element, beyond Plato's four, to explain the rotation of the heavens, which, like nearly all Greeks, Aristotle took to be real, not apparent. Even a member of his school, Xenarchus, we are told, rejected his fifth element. The Neoplatonist Simplicius seeks to harmonise Plato and Aristotle. Plato, he says, thought that the heavens were composed of all four elements but with the purest kind of fire, namely light, predominating. That Plato would not mind this being called a fifth element is shown by his associating with the heavens the fifth of the five convex regular solids recognised by geometry. Simplicius follows Aristotle's view that one of the lower elements, fire, also rotates, as shown by the behaviour of comets. But such motion, though natural for the fifth elements, is super-natural for fire. Simplicius reveals that the Aristotelian Alexander of Aphrodisias recognised the need to supplement Aristotle and account for the annual approach and retreat of planets by means of Ptolemy's epicycles or eccentrics. Aristotle's philosopher-god is turned by Simplicius, following his teacher Ammonius, into a creator-god, like Plato's. But the creation is beginningless, as shown by the argument that, if you try to imagine a time when it began, you cannot answer the question, 'Why not sooner?' In explaining the creation, Simplicius follows the Neoplatonist expansion of Aristotle's four 'causes' to six. The final result gives us a cosmology very considerably removed from Aristotle's.

Download or read book Simplicius On Aristotle On the Heavens 2 1 9 written by Simplicius, and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aristotle believed that the outermost stars are carried round us on a transparent sphere. There are directions in the universe and a preferred direction of rotation. The sun moon and planets are carried on different revolving spheres. The spheres and celestial bodies are composed of an everlasting fifth element, which has none of the ordinary contrary properties like heat and cold which could destroy it, but only the facility for uniform rotation. But this creates problems as to how the heavenly bodies create light, and, in the case of the sun, heat. The value of Simplicius' commentary on On the Heavens 2,1-9 lies both in its preservation of the lost comments of Alexander and in Simplicius' controversy with him. The two of them discuss not only the problem mentioned, but also whether soul and nature move the spheres as two distinct forces or as one. Alexander appears to have simplified Aristotle's system of 55 spheres down to seven, and some hints may be gleaned as to whether, simplifying further, he thinks there are seven ultimate movers, or only one.

Download or read book Simplicius On Aristotle On the Heavens 1 5 9 written by Simplicius, and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aristotle argues in On the Heavens 1.5-7 that there can be no infinitely large body, and in 1.8-9 that there cannot be more than one physical world. As a corollary in 1.9, he infers that there is no place, vacuum or time beyond the outermost stars. As one argument in favour of a single world, he argues that his four elements: earth, air, fire and water, have only one natural destination apiece. Moreover they accelerate as they approach it and acceleration cannot be unlimited. However, the Neoplatonist Simplicius, who wrote the commentary in the sixth century AD (here translated into English), tells us that this whole world view was to be rejected by Strato, the third head of Aristotle's school. At the same time, he tells us the different theories of acceleration in Greek philosophy.

Download or read book Simplicius On Aristotle On the Heavens 1 10 12 written by Simplicius, and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the three chapters of On the Heavens dealt with in this volume, Aristotle argues that the universe is ungenerated and indestructible. In Simplicius' commentary, translated here, we see a battle royal between the Neoplatonist Simplicius and the Aristotelian Alexander, whose lost commentary on Aristotle's On the Heavens Simplicius partly preserves. Simplicius' rival, the Christian Philoponus, had conducted a parallel battle in his Against Proclus but had taken the side of Alexander against Proclus and other Platonists, arguing that Plato's Timaeus gives a beginning to the universe. Simplicius takes the Platonist side, denying that Plato intended a beginning. The origin to which Plato refers is, according to Simplicius, not a temporal origin, but the divine cause that produces the world without beginning.

Download or read book Simplicius On Aristotle On the Heavens 2 10 14 written by Simplicius, and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aristotle believed that the outermost stars are carried round us on a transparent sphere. There are directions in the universe and a preferred direction of rotation. The sun, moon and planets are carried on different revolving spheres. The spheres and celestial bodies are composed of an everlasting fifth element, which has none of the ordinary contrary properties like heat and cold which could destroy it, but only the facility for uniform rotation. But this creates problems as to how the heavenly bodies create light, and, in the case of the sun, heat. The topics covered in this part of Simplicius' commentary are: the speeds and distances of the stars; that the stars are spherical; why the sun and moon have fewer motions than the other five planets; why the sphere of the fixed stars contains so many stars whereas the other heavenly spheres contain no more than one (Simplicius has a long excursus on planetary theory in his commentary on this chapter); discussion of people's views on the position, motion or rest, shape, and size of the earth; that the earth is a relatively small sphere at rest in the centre of the cosmos.

Download or read book A Vocabulary of the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle written by Richard D. McKirahan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-16 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An astounding project of analysis on more than one hundred translations of ancient philosophical texts, this index of words found in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series comprises some 114,000 entries. It forms in effect a unique dictionary of philosophical terms from the post-Hellenistic period through to late antiquity and will be an essential reference tool for any scholar working on the meaning of these ancient texts. As traditional dictionaries have usually neglected to include translation examples from philosophical texts of this period, scholars interested in how meanings of words vary across time and author have been ill served. This index fills a huge gap, therefore, in the lexical analysis of ancient Greek and has application well beyond the reading of ancient philosophical commentaries. Bringing together the full indexes from 110 of the volumes published in Bloomsbury's Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, McKirahan has combined each word entry and analysed how many times particular translations occur. He presents his findings numerically so that each meaning in turn has a note as to the number of times it is used. For meanings that are found between one and four times the volume details are also given so that readers may quickly and easily look up the texts themselves.

Download or read book Simplicius On Aristotle Physics 8 6 10 written by Richard D. McKirahan and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-04-10 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aristotle's Physics is about the causes of motion and culminates in a proof that God is needed as the ultimate cause of motion. Aristotle argues that things in motion need to be moved by something other than themselves - he rejects Plato's self-movers. On pain of regress, there must be an unmoved mover. If this unmoved mover is to cause motion eternally, it needs infinite power. It cannot, then, be a body, since bodies, being of finite size, cannot house infinite power. The unmoved mover is therefore an incorporeal God. Simplicius reveals that his teacher, Ammonius, harmonised Aristotle with Plato to counter Christian charges of pagan disagreement, by making Aristotle's God a cause of beginningless movement, but of beginningless existence of the universe. Eternal existence, not less than eternal motion, calls for an infinite, and hence incorporeal, force. By an irony, this anti-Christian interpretation turned Aristotle's God from a thinker into a certain kind of Creator, and so helped to make Aristotle's God acceptable to St Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. This text provides a translation of Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's work.

Download or read book Simplicius On Aristotle Physics 1 1 2 written by and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-04-07 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With this translation, all 12 volumes of translation of Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics have been published (full list below). In Physics 1.1–2, Aristotle raises the question of the number and character of the first principles of nature and feels the need to oppose the challenge of the paradoxical Eleatic philosophers who had denied that there could be more than one unchanging thing. This volume, part of the groundbreaking Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, translates into English for the first time Simplicius' commentary on this selected text, and includes a brief introduction, extensive explanatory notes, indexes and a bibliography. Previous published volumes translating Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics can all be found in Bloomsbury's series: - On Aristotle Physics 1.3–4, tr. P. Huby and C. C. W. Taylor, 2011 - On Aristotle Physics 1.5–9, tr. H. Baltussen, M. Atkinson, M. Share and I. Mueller, 2012 - On Aristotle Physics 2, tr. B. Fleet, 1997 - On Aristotle Physics 3, tr. J. O. Urmson with P. Lautner, 2001 - On Aristotle Physics 4.1–5 and 10–14, tr. J. O. Urmson, 1992 - On Aristotle on the Void, tr. J. O. Urmson, 1994 (=Physics 4.6–9; published with Philoponus, On Aristotle Physics 5–8, tr. P. Lettinck) - On Aristotle Physics 5, tr. J. O. Urmson, 1997 - On Aristotle Physics 6, tr. D. Konstan, 1989 - On Aristotle Physics 7, tr. C. Hagen, 1994 - On Aristotle Physics 8.1–5, tr. I. Bodnar, M. Chase and M. Share, 2012 - On Aristotle Physics 8.6–10, tr. R. McKirahan, 2001

Download or read book The Philosophy of the Commentators 200 600 AD Psychology with ethics and religion written by Richard Sorabji and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third volume of this invaluable sourcebook covers three main subject areas. First, the metaphysics of Aristotle's logical works: the concepts of universal and particular underwent surprising transformations in this period, which gave rise to debates, still raging today, on personal survival after an interruption such as death. Second, logic in a more conventional sense: perhaps the most impressive debate was on the existence of the subject in singular and universal statements. There was also debate about the very different Aristotelian and Stoic conceptions of syllogism, of modal logic, of induction, of the nature of mathematics, and of philosophy of language. Third, the higher metaphysics of the Neoplatonists taught Augustine, and indirectly Descartes, to look for truth within themselves. The Neoplatonists struggled with the question whether our higher intellectual selves have distinct individuality, and thus they fed both sides in the great medieval debate between Aquinas and the followers of Averroes on individual human immortality. All sources appear in English translation and are carefully linked and cross-referenced by editorial comment and explanation. Bibliographies are provided throughout.

Download or read book Simplicius On Aristotle Physics 1 8 written by and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-04-07 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Supporting the twelve volumes of translation of Simplicius' great commentary on Aristotle's Physics, all published by Bloomsbury in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, between 1992 and 2021, this volume presents a general introduction to the commentary. It covers the philosophical aims of Simplicius' commentaries on the Physics and the related text On the Heaven; Simplicius' methods and his use of earlier sources; and key themes and comparison with Philoponus' commentary on the same text. Simplicius treats the Physics as a universal study of the principles of all natural things underlying the account of the cosmos in On the Heaven. In both treatises, he responds at every stage to the now lost Peripatetic commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias, which set Aristotle in opposition to Plato and to earlier thinkers such as Parmenides, Empedocles and Anaxagoras. On each passage, Simplicius after going through Alexander's commentary raises difficulties for the text of Aristotle as interpreted by Alexander. Then, after making observations about details of the text, and often going back to a direct reading of the older philosophers (for whom he is now often our main source, as he is for Alexander's commentary), he proposes his own solution to the difficulties, introduced with a modest 'perhaps', which reads Aristotle as in harmony with Plato and earlier thinkers.

Download or read book Ancient Greek Cosmogony written by Andrew Gregory and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2008-01-03 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient Greek Cosmogony is the first detailed, comprehensive account of ancient Greek theories of the origins of the world. It covers the period from 800 BC to 600 AD, beginning with myths concerning the creation of the world; the cosmogonies of all the major Greek and Roman thinkers; and the debate between Greek philosophical cosmogony and early Christian views. It argues that Greeks formulated many of the perennial problems of philosophical cosmogony and produced philosophically and scientifically interesting answers. The atomists argued that our world was one among many worlds, and came about by chance. Plato argued that it is unique, and the product of design. Empedocles and the Stoics, in quite different ways, argued that there was an unending cycle whereby the world is generated, destroyed and generated again. Aristotle on the other hand argued that there was no such thing as cosmogony, and the world has always existed. Reactions to, and developments of, these ideas are traced through Hellenistic philosophy and the debates in early Christianity on whether God created the world from nothing or from some pre-existing chaos. The book examines issues of the origins of life and the elements for the ancient Greeks, and how the cosmos will come to an end. It argues that there were several interesting debates between Greek philosophers on the fundamental principles of cosmogony, and that these debates were influential on the development of Greek philosophy and science.

Download or read book On Aristotle s On the Heavens 1 1 4 written by Simplicius and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Greece and Rome Vol 1 7 written by Michael Gagarin and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 3369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: