Aristotle's account of place, in which he defined a thing's place as the inner surface of its nearest immobile container, was supported by the Latin Middle Ages, even 1600 years after his death, though it had not convinced many ancient Greek philosophers. The sixth century commentator Philoponus took a more common-sense view. For him, place was an immobile three-dimensional extension, whose essence did not preclude its being empty, even if for other reasons it had always to be filled with body. However, Philoponus reserved his own definition for an excursus, already translated in this series, The Corollary on Place. In the text translated here he wanted instead to explain Aristotle's view to elementary students. The recent conjecture that he wished to attract young fellow Christians away from the official pagan professor of philosophy in Alexandria has the merit of explaining why he expounds Aristotle here, rather than attacking him. But he still puts the students through their paces, for example when discussing Aristotle's claim that place cannot be a body, or two bodies would coincide. This volume contains an English translation of Philoponus' commentary, as well as a detailed introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a bibliography.

During the past three decades Jaap Mansfeld, Professor of Ancient Philosophy in Utrecht, has built up a formidable reputation as a leading scholar in his field. His work has concentrated on the Presocratics, Hellenistic Philosophy, the sources of our knowledge of ancient philosophy (esp. doxography) and the history of scholarship. In honour of his sixtieth birthday, colleagues and friends have contributed a collection of articles which represent the state of the art in the study of the history of ancient philosophy and frequently concentrate on subjects in which the honorand has made important discoveries. The 22 contributors include M. Baltes, J. Barnes, J. Brunschwig, W.M. Calder III, J. Dillon, P.L. Donini, J. Glucker, A.A. Long, L.M. de Rijk, D. Sedley, P. Schrijvers, and M. Vegetti. The volume concludes with a complete bibliography of Jaap Mansfeld's scholarly work so far.

The two books of Sextus Empiricus' Against the Physicists have not received much attention in their own right, as sustained and methodical specimens of sceptical philosophy. This volume redresses the balance by offering a series of in-depth studies on them, focusing in particular on their overall argumentative structure and on the various ways in which their formal features relate to their contents, showing how Sextus' procedures vary from one section to the other, and throwing new light on the way he was using his sources. It follows Sextus' own division of these two books into nine successive topics, namely god, cause, wholes and parts, body, place, motion, time, number, coming-to-be and passing-away. These nine chapters are preceded by an introduction which discusses a number of general features of Sextus' scepticism and links the conclusions of this volume to some recent discussions on the scope of ancient scepticism.

A full account of the philosophy of the Greek and Roman worlds from the last days of Aristotle (c.320 BC) until 100 BC. Hellenistic philosophy, for long relatively neglected and unappreciated, has over the last decade been the object of a considerable amount of scholarly attention. Now available in paperback, this 1999 volume is a general reference work which pulls the subject together and presents an overview. The History is organised by subject, rather than chronologically or by philosophical school, with sections on logic, epistemology, physics and metaphysics, ethics and politics. It has been written by specialists but is intended to be a source of reference for any student of ancient philosophy, for students of classical antiquity and for students of the philosophy of later periods. Greek and Latin are used sparingly and always translated in the main text.

Cicero's philosophical works are a rich source for the understanding of Hellenistic philosophy, and his "Academic Books" are of critical importance for the study of ancient epistemology, especially the central debate between the Academic sceptics and the Stoics. This volume makes Cicero's challenging work accessible to philosophers and historians of philosophy and represents the best current work in both fields. The ten papers published here are the work of leading authorities from North America, England and Europe; they were presented and discussed at the seventh Symposium Hellenisticum at Utrecht, August 1995, and deal with every aspect of the "Academic Books," historical, literary and philosophical. Several papers make major contributions to the understanding of ancient scepticism and sceptical arguments, to the role of Socrates in later Greek thought, to the history of the Academy as an institution, and to the philosophical stance of Cicero himself.

"Concepts of Space in Greek Thought studies ancient Greek theories of physical space and place, in particular those of the classical and Hellenistic period. These theories are explained primarily with reference to the general philosophical or methodological framework within which they took shape. Special attention is paid to the nature and status of the sources. Two introductory chapters deal with the interrelations between various concepts of space and with Greek spatial terminology (including case studies of the Eleatics, Democritus and Epicurus). The remaining chapters contain detailed studies on the theories of space of Plato, Aristotle, the early Peripatetics and the Stoics.
The book is especially useful for historians of ancient physics, but may also be of interest to students of Aristotelian dialectic, ancient metaphysics, doxography, and medieval and early modern physics.

The two books of Sextus Empiricus' Against the Physicists have not received much attention in their own right, as sustained and methodical specimens of sceptical philosophy. This volume redresses the balance by offering a series of in-depth studies on them, focusing in particular on their overall argumentative structure and on the various ways in which their formal features relate to their contents, showing how Sextus' procedures vary from one section to the other, and throwing new light on the way he was using his sources. It follows Sextus' own division of these two books into nine successive topics, namely god, cause, wholes and parts, body, place, motion, time, number, coming-to-be and passing-away. These nine chapters are preceded by an introduction which discusses a number of general features of Sextus' scepticism and links the conclusions of this volume to some recent discussions on the scope of ancient scepticism.

Aristotle's account of place, in which he defined a thing's place as the inner surface of its nearest immobile container, was supported by the Latin Middle Ages, even 1600 years after his death, though it had not convinced many ancient Greek philosophers. The sixth century commentator Philoponus took a more common-sense view. For him, place was an immobile three-dimensional extension, whose essence did not preclude its being empty, even if for other reasons it had always to be filled with body. However, Philoponus reserved his own definition for an excursus, already translated in this series, "The Corollary on Place." In the text translated here he wanted instead to explain Aristotle's view to elementary students. The recent conjecture that he wished to attract young fellow Christians away from the official pagan professor of philosophy in Alexandria has the merit of explaining why he expounds Aristotle here, rather than attacking him. But he still puts the students through their paces, for example when discussing Aristotle's claim that place cannot be a body, or two bodies would coincide.This volume contains an English translation of Philoponus' commentary, as well as a detailed introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a bibliography.