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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.
This is a post-Aristotelian Greek philosophical text, 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Until the launch of this series over ten 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. Subjects covered in this, the third and
last, volume of translation of this work include: why the elements
are four in number; what's wrong with Empedocles' theory of
elements; how homogeneous stuffs, particularly the tissues of a
living body, come to be and consist of the elements. The volume
also contains very important discussions of causes, particularly of
efficient cause, and of necessity in the sphere of generation and
corruption. It is of interest to students of ancient philosophy and
science (the commentary draws on earlier philosophical and medical
texts); of Patristics and Christian Theology (it allows comparison
of Philoponus' later creationist doctrine with his earlier ideas
about generation); of medieval philosophy (this text was known to
the Arabs; it is used by Avicenna and Averroes); and to anyone with
interest in the metaphysics of causation, emergence, necessity and
determinism.
In this, one of the most original ancient texts on sense
perception, Philoponus, the sixth century AD commentator on
Aristotle, considers how far perceptual processes are incorporeal.
Colour affects us in the same way as light which, passing through a
stained glass window, affects the air, but colours only the masonry
beyond. Sounds and smells are somewhat more physical, travelling
most of the way to us with a moving block of air, but not quite all
the way. Only the organ of touch takes on the tangible qualities
perceived, because reception of sensible qualities in perception is
cognitive, not physical. Neither light nor the action of colour
involves the travel of bodies. Our capacities for psychological
activity do not follow, nor result from, the chemistry of our
bodies, but merely supervene on that. On the other hand, Philoponus
shows knowledge of the sensory nerves, and he believes that thought
and anger both warm us. This argument is used elsewhere to show how
we can tell someone else's state of mind.
This text by Philoponus, the sixth-century commentator on
Aristotle, is notable for its informative introduction to
psychology, which tells us the views of Philoponus, of his teacher
and of later Neoplatonists on our psychological capacities and on
mind-body relations. There is an unusual account of how reason can
infer a universally valid conclusion from a single instance, and
there are inherited views on the roles of intellect and perception
in concept formation, and on the human ability to make reasoned
decisions, celebrated by Aristotle, but here downgraded. Philoponus
attacks Galen's view that psychological capacities follow, or
result from, bodily chemistry; they merely supervene on that and
can be counteracted. He has benefited from Galen's knowledge of the
brain and nerves, but also propounds the Neoplatonist belief in
tenuous bodies which after death support our irrational souls
temporarily, or our reason eternally.
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.
Aristotle's "Physics" 1.4-9 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 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. This
volume contains an English translation of Philoponus' commentary,
as well as a detailed introduction, commentary notes and a
bibliography.
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 ascribed to Philoponus incorrectly, 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. This volume contains an English translation of the
commentary, accompanied by extensive commentary notes, an
introduction and a bibliography.
In one of the most original books of late antiquity, Philoponus
argues for the Christian view that matter can be created by God out
of nothing. It needs no prior matter for its creation. At the same
time, Philoponus transforms Aristotle's conception of prime matter
as an incorporeal 'something - I know not what' that serves as the
ultimate subject for receiving extension and qualities. On the
contrary, says Philoponus, the ultimate subject is extension. It is
three-dimensional extension with its exact dimensions and any
qualities unspecified. Moreover, such extension is the defining
characteristic of body. Hence, so far from being incorporeal, it is
body, and as well as being prime matter, it is form - the form that
constitutes body. This uses, but entirely disrupts, Aristotle's
conceptual apparatus. Finally, in Aristotle's scheme of categories,
this extension is not to be classified under the second category of
quantity, but under the first category of substance as a
substantial quantity. This volume contains an English translation
of Philoponus' commentary, detailed notes and introduction, and a
bibliography.
Philoponus' commentary on the last part of Aristotle's "Physics"
Book 4 does not offer major alternatives to Aristotle's science, as
did his commentary on the earlier parts, concerning place, vacuum
and motion in a vacuum. Aristotle's subject here is time, and his
treatment of it had led to controversy in earlier writers.
Philoponus does offer novelties when he treats motion round a bend
as in one sense faster than motion on the straight over the same
distance in the same time, because of the need to consider the
greater effort involved. And he points out that in an earlier
commentary on Book 8 he had argued against Aristotle for the
possibility of a last instant of time.This volume contains an
English translation of Philoponus' commentary, as well as a
detailed introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a
bibliography.
In this part of the "Posterior Analytics," Aristotle elaborates his
assessment of how universal truths of science can be scientifically
explained as inevitable in demonstrative proofs. But he introduces
complications: some sciences discuss phenomena that can only be
explained by higher sciences and again sometimes we reason out a
cause from an effect, rather than an effect from a cause.
Philoponus takes these issues further. Reasoning from particular to
universal is the direction taken by induction, and in mathematics
reasoning from a theorem to the higher principles from which it
follows is considered particularly valuable. It corresponds to the
direction of analysis, as opposed to synthesis.This volume contains
an English translation of Philoponus' commentary, a detailed
introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a bibliography.
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.
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. The translation in this volume is
accompanied by a detailed introduction, extensive commentary notes
and a bibliography.
In the Corollaries on Place and Void, Philoponus attacks
Aristotle's conception of place as two-dimensional, adopting
instead the view more familiar to us that it is three-dimensional,
inert and conceivable as void. Philoponus' denial that velocity in
the void would be infinite anticipated Galileo, as did his denial
that speed of fall is proportionate to weight, which Galileo
greatly developed. In the second document Simplicius attacks a lost
treatise of Philoponus which argued for the Christians against the
eternity of the world. He exploits Aristotle's concession that the
world contains only finite power. Simplicius' presentation of
Philoponus' arguments (which may well be tendentious), together
with his replies, tell us a good deal about both Philosophers.
In this part of the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle elaborates his
assessment of how universal truths of science can be scientifically
explained as inevitable in demonstrative proofs. But he introduces
complications: some sciences discuss phenomena that can only be
explained by higher sciences and again sometimes we reason out a
cause from an effect, rather than an effect from a cause.
Philoponus takes these issues further. Reasoning from particular to
universal is the direction taken by induction, and in mathematics
reasoning from a theorem to the higher principles from which it
follows is considered particularly valuable. It corresponds to the
direction of analysis, as opposed to synthesis. This volume
contains an English translation of Philoponus' commentary, a
detailed introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a
bibliography.
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