This is a post-Aristotelian Greek philosophical text, written at a crucial moment in the defeat of paganism by Christianity, AD 529, when the Emporor Justinian closed the pagan Neoplatonist school in Athens. Philoponus in Alexandria was a brilliant Christian philosopher, steeped in Neoplatanism, who turned the pagans' ideas against them. Here he attacks the most devout of the earlier Athenian pagan philosophers, Proclus, defending the distinctively Christian view that the universe had a beginning against Proclus' eighteen arguments to the contrary, which are discussed in eighteen chapters. Chapters 1-5 are translated in this volume.

Philoponus: Against Proclus On the Eternity of the World 1-5 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Literature & Fiction

Philoponus

History & Criticism

Bristol Classical Press

This is one of the most interesting of all post-Aristotelian Greek philosophical texts, written at a crucial moment in the defeat of paganism by Christianity, AD 529, when the Emperor Justinian closed the pagan Neoplatonist school in Athens. Philoponus in Alexandria was a brilliant Christian philosopher, steeped in Neoplatonism, who turned the pagans' ideas against them. Here he attacks the most devout of the earlier Athenian pagan philosophers, Proclus, defending the distinctively Christian view that the universe had a beginning against Proclus' eighteen arguments to the contrary, which are discussed in eighteen chapters. Chapters 6-8 are translated in this volume.

Philoponus: Against Proclus On the Eternity of the World 6-8 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

In On The Soul 2.1-6, Aristotle differs from Plato in his account of the soul, by tying it to the body. The soul is the life-manifesting capacities that we all have and that distinguish living things, and explain their behaviour. He defines soul and life by reference to the capacities for using food to maintain structure and reproduce, for perceiving and desiring, and for rational thought. Capacities have to be defined by reference to the objects to which they are directed. The five senses, for example, are defined by reference to their objects which are primarily forms like colour. And in perception we are said to receive these forms without matter. Philoponus understands this reception not physiologically as the eye jelly's taking on colour patches, but 'cognitively', like Brentano, who much later thought that Aristotle was treating the forms as intentional objects. Philoponus is the patron of non-physiological interpretations, which are still a matter of controversy today.

Philoponus: On Aristotle On the Soul 2.1-6

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Until the launch of this series over fifteen years ago, the 15,000 volumes of the ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle, written mainly between 200 and 600 AD, constituted the largest corpus of extant Greek philosophical writings not translated into English or other European languages. This text by Philoponus rejects accounts of soul, or as we would say of mind, which define it as moving, as cognitive, or in physical terms. Chapter 3 considers Aristotle's attack on the idea that the soul is in motion. This was an attack partly on his teacher, Plato, since Plato defines the soul as self-moving. Philoponus agrees with Aristotle's attack on the idea that a thing must be in motion in order to cause motion. But he offers what may be Ammonius' interpretation of Plato's apparently physicalistic account of the soul in the Timaeus as symbolic. What we would call the mind-body relation is the subject of Chapter 4. Plato and Aristotle attacked a physicalistic theory of soul, which suggested it was the blend, ratio, or harmonious proportion of ingredients in the body.Philoponus attacked the theory too, but we learn from him that Epicurus had defended it. In Chapter 5, Philoponus endorses Aristotle's rejection of the idea that the soul is particles and of Empedocles' idea that the soul must be made of all four elements in order to know what is made of the same elements. He also rejects, with Aristotle, definitions of the soul as moving or cognitive as ignoring lower forms of life. He finally discusses Aristotle's rejection of Plato's localisation of parts of the soul in parts of the body, but asks if new knowledge of the brain and the nerves do not require some kind of localisation.

Philoponus (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

In chapters 12-18 of Against Proclus, Philoponus continues to do battle against Proclus' arguments for the beginninglessness and everlastingness of the ordered universe. In this final section there are three notable issues under discussion. The first concerns the composition of the heavens and its manner of movement. Philoponus argues against the Aristotelian thesis that there is a fifth heavenly body that has a natural circular motion. He concludes that even though the celestial region is composed of fire and the other three elements, it can move in a circle by the agency of its soul, and that this circular motion is not compromised in any way by the innate natural motion of the fire.Chapter 16 contains an extended discussion of the will of God and His relation to particulars. Here Philoponus addresses issues that become central to medieval philosophical and theological discussions, including the unity, timelessness and indivisibility of God's will. Finally, throughout these seven chapters Philoponus is engaged in a detailed exegesis of Plato's Timaeus which aims to settle a number of familiar interpretive problems, notably how we should understand the pre-cosmic state of disorderly motion, and the statement that the visible cosmos is an image of the paradigm. Philoponus' exegetical concerns culminate in chapter 18 with an extensive discussion of Plato's attitude to poetry and myth.

Philoponus: Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 12-18

Aristotle's Posterior Analytics elaborates for the first time in the history of Western philosophy the notions of science and the requirements for the distinctive kind of knowledge scientists possess. His model is mathematics and his treatment of science amounts to a philosophical discussion, from the perspective of Aristotelian syllogistic, of mathematical proofs and the principles they are based on. Chapters 1-8 expound the foundations of Aristotle's theory, pointing out the similarities and differences between scientific knowledge and other types of knowledge, establishing the need for basic principles, and identifying the types of principles and the source of necessity associated with scientific facts. Philoponus' massive commentary, the most complete ancient discussion of Posterior Analytics Book 1, offers uniquely valuable testimony to the way this book was read and understood in late antiquity, as well as providing information on earlier interpretations. Of particular interest is Philoponus' account of scientific principles, which is based not only on Aristotle but also on the Greek mathematical tradition, especially Euclid and his commentator Proclus.

Philoponus: On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 1.1-8 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Of Philoponus' commentary on the Meteorology only that on chapters 1-9 and 12 of the first book has been preserved. It is translated in this series in two volumes, the first covering chapters 1-3; the second (this volume) chapters 4-9 and 12. The subjects discussed here include the nature of fiery and light phenomena in the sky, the formation of comets, the Milky Way, the properties of moist exhalation, and the formation of hail. Philoponus pays special attention to the distinction between the apparent and the real among the sky phenomena; he criticises Aristotle's theory of the Milky Way as sublunary, and argues for its origin in the heavenly realm; gives a detailed exposition of Aristotelian theory of antiperistasis, mutual replacement of the hot and the cold, as the mechanism of condensation and related processes. As in the first volume, Philoponus demonstrates scholarly erudition and familiarity with methods and results of post-Aristotelian Greek science. Despite the fragmented state of the work and the genre of commentary, the reader will find the elements of a coherent picture of the cosmos based on a radical re-thinking of Aristotelian meteorology and physics. The volume will be of interest to all students of ancient and medieval philosophy, history of Early Modern philosophy, history and philosophy of science.

Philoponus: On Aristotle Meteorology 1.4-9, 12 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Aristotle's Meteorology influenced generations of speculation about the earth sciences - ranging from atmospheric phenomena to earthquakes. The commentary of John Philoponus (6th century AD) on the opening three chapters of Meteorology is here translated for the first time into English by Dr Inna Kupreeva, building on the work of L.G. Westerink. Philoponus - who today is increasingly respected as a philosopher in his own right - here engages critically with Aristotle's views about the building-blocks of our world, its size and relationship to other heavenly bodies, and reception of warmth from the sun. This volume will be of interest to all students of ancient and medieval philosophy, history and philosophy of science.

Philoponus: On Aristotle Meteorology 1.1-3 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

In the chapters discussed in this section of Philoponus' Physics commentary, Aristotle explores a range of questions about the basic structure of reality, the nature of prime matter, the principles of change, the relation between form and matter, and the issue of whether things can come into being out of nothing, and if so, in what sense that is true. Philoponus' commentaries do not merely report and explain Aristotle and the other thinkers whom Aristotle is discussing. They are also the philosophical work of an independent thinker in the Neoplatonic tradition. Philoponus has his own, occasionally idiosyncratic, views on a number of important issues, and he sometimes disagrees with other teachers whose views he has encountered perhaps in written texts, and sometimes in oral delivery. A number of distinctive passages of philosophical importance occur in this part of Book 1, in which we see Philoponus at work on issues in physics and cosmology, as well as logic and metaphysics.

Philoponus: On Aristotle Physics 1.4-9 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

The Posterior Analytics contains Aristotle's Philosophy of Science. In Book 2, Aristotle asks how the scientist discovers what sort of loss of light constitutes lunar eclipse. The scientist has to discover that the moon's darkening is due to the earth's shadow. Once that defining explanation is known the scientist possesses the full scientific concept of lunar eclipse and can use it to explain other necessary features of the phenomenon. The present commentary, arguably misascribed to Philoponus, offers some interpretations of Aristotle that are unfamiliar nowadays. For example, the scientific concept of a human is acquired from observing particular humans and repeatedly receiving impressions in the sense image or percept and later in the imagination. The impressions received are not only of particular distinctive characteristics, like paleness, but also of universal human characteristics, like rationality. Perception can thus in a sense apprehend universal qualities in the individual as well as particular ones.

Philoponus: On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 2 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Philoponus. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Philoponus