This volume presents collected essays - some brand new, some republished, and others newly translated - on the ancient commentators on Aristotle and showcases the leading research of the last three decades. Through the work and scholarship inspired by Richard Sorabji in his series of translations of the commentators started in the 1980s, these ancient texts have become a key field within ancient philosophy. Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as 'a scholarly marvel', 'a truly breath-taking achievement' and 'one of the great scholarly achievements of our time' and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field. With a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts.

This book brings together twenty articles giving a comprehensive view of the work of the Aristotelian commentators. First published in 1990, the collection is now brought up to date with a new introduction by Richard Sorabji. New generations of scholars will benefit from this reissuing of classic essays, including seminal works by major scholars, and the volume gives a comprehensive background to the work of the project on the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which has published over 100 volumes of translations since 1987 and has disseminated these crucial texts to scholars worldwide. The importance of the commentators is partly that they represent the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools and partly that they provide a panorama of a thousand years of ancient Greek philosophy, revealing many original quotations from lost works. Even more significant is the profound influence - uncovered in some of the chapters of this book - that they exert on later philosophy, Islamic and Western. Not only did they preserve anti-Aristotelian material which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they present Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers.

Themistius' treatment of "Books 5-8" of Aristotle's "Physics" shows this commentator's capacity to identify, isolate and discuss the core ideas in Aristotle's account of change, his theory of the continuum, and his doctrine of the unmoved mover. His paraphrase offered his ancient students, as they will now offer his modern readers, an opportunity to encounter central features of Aristotle's physical theory, synthesized and epitomized in a manner that has always marked Aristotelian exegesis but was raised to a new level by the innovative method of paraphrase pioneered by Themistius. Taking selective but telling account of the earlier Peripatetic tradition (notably Theophrastus and Alexander of Aphrodisias), this commentator creates a framework that can still be profitably used by Aristotlian scholars today.

Unique in all of literature, the Confessions combines frank and profound psychological insight into Augustine's formative years along with sophisticated and beguiling reflections on some of the most important issues in philosophy and theology. The Confessions discloses Augustine's views about the nature of infancy and the acquisition of language, his own sinful adolescence, his early struggle with the problem of evil, his conversion to Christianity, his puzzlement about the capacities of human memory and the nature of time, and his views about creation and biblical interpretation. The essays contained in this volume, by some of the most distinguished recent and contemporary thinkers in the field, insightfully explore these Augustinian themes not only with an eye to historical accuracy but also to gauge the philosophical acumen of Augustine's reflections.

Unique in all of literature, the Confessions combines frank and profound psychological insight into Augustine's formative years along with sophisticated and beguiling reflections on some of the most important issues in philosophy and theology. The Confessions discloses Augustine's views about the nature of infancy and the acquisition of language, his own sinful adolescence, his early struggle with the problem of evil, his conversion to Christianity, his puzzlement about the capacities of human memory and the nature of time, and his views about creation and biblical interpretation. The essays contained in this volume, by some of the most distinguished recent and contemporary thinkers in the field, insightfully explore these Augustinian themes not only with an eye to historical accuracy but also to gauge the philosophical acumen of Augustine's reflections.

9/11 and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have left many people baffled and concerned. This interdisciplinary study of the ethics of war provides an excellent orientation not only to present, but also to future conflicts. It looks both back at historical traditions of ethical thought and forward to contemporary and emerging issues. The Ethics of War traces how different cultures involved in present conflicts have addressed similar problems over the centuries. Distinguished authors reflect how the Graeco-Roman world, Byzantium, the Christian just war tradition, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and the Geneva Conventions have addressed recurrent ethical problems of war. Cutting-edge essays by prominent modern theorists address vital contemporary issues including asymmetric war, preventive war, human rights and humanitarian intervention. Distinguished academics, ethical leaders, and public policy figures have collaborated in this innovative and accessible guide to ethical issues in war.

Richard Sorabji presents a fascinating study of Gandhi's philosophy in comparison with Christian and Stoic thought. Sorabji shows that Gandhi was a true philosopher. He not only aimed to give a consistent self-critical rationale for his views, but also thought himself obliged to live by what he taught-something that he had in common with the ancient Greek and Christian ethical traditions. Understanding his philosophy helps with re-assessing the consistency of his positions and life. Gandhi was less influenced by the Stoics than by Socrates, Christ, Christian writers, and Indian thought. But whereas he re-interpreted those, he discovered the congeniality of the Stoics too late to re-process them. They could supply even more of the consistency he sought. He could show them the effect of putting their unrealised ideals into actual practice. They from the Cynics, he from the Bhagavadgita, learnt the indifference of most objectives. But both had to square that with their love for all humans and their political engagement. Indifference was to both a source of freedom. Gandhi was converted to non-violence by Tolstoy's picture of Christ. But he addressed the sacrifice it called for, and called even protective killing violent. He was nonetheless not a pacifist, because he recognized the double-bind of rival duties, and the different duties of different individuals, which was a Stoic theme. For both Gandhi and the Stoics it accompanied doubts about universal rules. Sorabji's expert understanding of these ethical traditions allows him to offer illuminating new perspectives on a key intellectual figure of the modern world, and to show the continuing resonance of ancient philosophical ideas.

Until the launch of this series nearly twenty 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. Over 40 volumes have now appeared in the series, which is planned in some 80 volumes altogether. 'The universe is, as it were, one machine, wherein the celestial spheres are analogous to the interlocking wheels and the particular beings are like the things moved by the wheels' and all events are determined by an inescapable necessity. To speak of free choice or self determination is only an illusion we human beings cherish. Thus writes Theodore the engineer to his old friend Proclus. Proclus' reply is one of the most remarkable discussions on fate, providence and free choice in Late Antiquity. It continues a long debate that had started with the first polemics of the Platonists against the Stoic doctrine of determinism. How can there be place for free choice and moral responsibility in a world governed by an unalterable fate? Notwithstanding its great interest, Proclus' treatise has not received the attention it deserves, probably because its text is not very accessible to the modern reader. It has survived only in a Latin medieval translation. This first English translation will bring the arguments he formulates again to the fore.

Until the launch of this series nearly twenty 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. Over 40 volumes have now appeared in the series, which is planned in some 80 volumes altogether. Syrianus, originally from Alexandria, moved to Athens and became the head of the Academy there after the death of Plutarch of Athens. Syrianus attacked Aristotle in his commentary on Books 13 and 14 of the "Metaphysics", just as his pupil Proclus was to do later in his commentaries on Plato. This is because in "Metaphysics 13-14", Aristotle himself was being thoroughly polemical towards Platonism, in particular against the Academic doctrine of Form-numbers and the whole concept of separable number. In reply, Syrianus gives an account of mathematical number and of geometrical entities, and of how all of these are processed in the mind, which was to influence Proclus and all subsequent Neoplatonists.

Aristotle devotes books 8-9 of the "Nicomachean Ethics" to friendship, distinguishing three kinds: a primary kind motivated by the other's character; and other kinds motivated by utility or pleasure. He takes up Plato's idea that one knows oneself better as reflected in another's eyes, as providing one of the benefits of friendship, and he also sees true friendship as modelled on true self-love. He further compares friendship with justice, and illustrates the ubiquity of friendship by referring to the way in which we help wayfarers as if they were kin (oikeion), a word he takes from Plato's discussion of love. In many of these respects he probably influenced the Stoic theory of justice as based on the natural kinship (oikeiotes) one feels initially for oneself at birth and, eventually, for lost wayfarers. Of the three commentaries translated here, that by the second-century AD Aristotelian Aspasius is the earliest extant commentary on Aristotle; the second is by Michael of Ephesus in the twelfth century; the third is of unknown date and authorship. Aspasius worries whether there is only one kind of friendship with a single definition. But he plumps for a verdict not given by Aristotle, that the primary kind of friendship serves as a focal point for defining the other two. Aspasius picks up connections with his Stoic contemporaries. Michael cites Christians and draws from Neoplatonists the idea that there is a self-aware part of the soul, and that Aristotle saw individuals as bundles of properties.

This book is about the human mind in ancient philosophy, with a focus on sense perception, a subject that Richard Sorabji has previously treated more in articles than in books. But it finishes with chapters offering a distinctive view on moral conscience and will. Sense perception raises the further questions of the mind-body relation, of self-awareness, of infinite divisibility and the continuum, of the capacities of animals and children and of the relation between perception and reason. On all topics the introduction interconnects the papers and presents fresh material to fill out the picture. For the topic that has proved most popular, the physiological process in sense perception, a bibliography is provided as well as the latest update. The introduction interconnects the papers and fills out the picture by reference to other writings and to further thoughts. On the final topic, the will, it takes account of a different view that appeared only when the book was in preparation. The picture of the main topics shows that each continued to develop into a richer and richer account throughout the 1200 year course of Ancient Greek Philosophy up to 600 CE.

Richard Sorabji presents a fascinating study of Gandhi's philosophy in comparison with Christian and Stoic thought. Sorabji shows that Gandhi was a true philosopher. He not only aimed to give a consistent self-critical rationale for his views, but also thought himself obliged to live by what he taught-something that he had in common with the ancient Greek and Christian ethical traditions. Understanding his philosophy helps with re-assessing the consistency of his positions and life. Gandhi was less influenced by the Stoics than by Socrates, Christ, Christian writers, and Indian thought. But whereas he re-interpreted those, he discovered the congeniality of the Stoics too late to re-process them. They could supply even more of the consistency he sought. He could show them the effect of putting their unrealised ideals into actual practice. They from the Cynics, he from the Bhagavadgita, learnt the indifference of most objectives. But both had to square that with their love for all humans and their political engagement. Indifference was to both a source of freedom. Gandhi was converted to non-violence by Tolstoy's picture of Christ. But he addressed the sacrifice it called for, and called even protective killing violent. He was nonetheless not a pacifist, because he recognized the double-bind of rival duties, and the different duties of different individuals, which was a Stoic theme. For both Gandhi and the Stoics it accompanied doubts about universal rules. Sorabji's expert understanding of these ethical traditions allows him to offer illuminating new perspectives on a key intellectual figure of the modern world, and to show the continuing resonance of ancient philosophical ideas.

In Moral Conscience through the Ages, Richard Sorabji brings his erudition and philosophical acumen to bear on a fundamental question: what is conscience? Examining the ways we have conceived of that little voice in our heads - our self-directed judge - he teases out its most enduring elements, the aspects that have survived from the Greek playwrights in the fifth century BCE through St Paul, the Church Fathers, Catholics and Protestants, all the way to the 17th centurys political unrest and the critics and champions of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. Sorabji traces a history of conscience over this long period and examines an impressive breadth of recurrent topics: the longing for different kinds of freedom of conscience, the proper limits of freedom itself, protests at consciences being terrorized, dilemmas of conscience, the value of conscience to human beings, its secularization, its reliability, and ways to improve it. These historical issues are alive today, with fresh concerns about topics such as conscientious objection, the force of conscience, or the balance between freedoms of conscience, religion, and speech. The result is a stunningly comprehensive look at a central component of our moral understanding.

This volume presents collected essays - some brand new, some republished, and others newly translated - on the ancient commentators on Aristotle and showcases the leading research of the last three decades. Through the work and scholarship inspired by Richard Sorabji in his series of translations of the commentators started in the 1980s, these ancient texts have become a key field within ancient philosophy. Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as 'a scholarly marvel', 'a truly breath-taking achievement' and 'one of the great scholarly achievements of our time' and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field. With a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts.

Drawing on classical antiquity and Western and Eastern philosophy, Richard Sorabji tackles in" Self" the question of whether there is such a thing as the individual self or only a stream of consciousness. According to Sorabji, the self is not an undetectable soul or ego, but an embodied individual whose existence is plain to see. Unlike a mere stream of consciousness, it is something that owns not only a consciousness but also a body.
Sorabji traces historically the retreat from a positive idea of self and draws out the implications of these ideas of self on the concepts of life and death, asking: Should we fear death? How should our individuality affect the way we live? Through an astute reading of a huge array of traditions, he helps us come to terms with our uneasiness about the subject of self in an account that will be at the forefront of philosophical debates for years to come. "There has never been a book remotely like this one in its profusion of ancient references on ideas about human identity and selfhood . . . . Readers unfamiliar with the subject also need to know that Sorabji breaks new ground in giving special attention to philosophers such as Epictetus and other Stoics, Plotinus and later Neoplatonists, and the ancient commentators on Aristotle (on the last of whom he is the world's leading authority)."--Anthony A. Long, "Times Literary Supplement"

Drawing on classical antiquity and Western and Eastern philosophy, Richard Sorabji tackles in" Self" the question of whether there is such a thing as the individual self or only a stream of consciousness. According to Sorabji, the self is not an undetectable soul or ego, but an embodied individual whose existence is plain to see. Unlike a mere stream of consciousness, it is something that owns not only a consciousness but also a body.
Sorabji traces historically the retreat from a positive idea of self and draws out the implications of these ideas of self on the concepts of life and death, asking: Should we fear death? How should our individuality affect the way we live? Through an astute reading of a huge array of traditions, he helps us come to terms with our uneasiness about the subject of self in an account that will be at the forefront of philosophical debates for years to come. "There has never been a book remotely like this one in its profusion of ancient references on ideas about human identity and selfhood . . . . Readers unfamiliar with the subject also need to know that Sorabji breaks new ground in giving special attention to philosophers such as Epictetus and other Stoics, Plotinus and later Neoplatonists, and the ancient commentators on Aristotle (on the last of whom he is the world's leading authority)."--Anthony A. Long, "Times Literary Supplement"

Richard Sorabji presents a ground-breaking study of ancient Greek views of the emotions and their influence on subsequent theories and attitudes, pagan and Christian. The key questions are ones that concern everyone: what is emotion, and how does one cope with one's own emotions and establish peace of mind? The central focus of the book is the Stoics, but Sorabji draws on a vast range of texts to give a rich historical survey of how Western thinking about this central aspect of human nature developed. The result is a magisterial work of scholarship which will be fascinating for anyone with an interest in the emotions from a historical or contemporary perspective.

Richard Sorabji presents a ground-breaking study of ancient Greek views of the emotions and their influence on subsequent theories and attitudes, pagan and Christian. The key questions are ones that concern everyone: what is emotion, and how does one cope with one's own emotions and establish peace of mind? The central focus of the book is the Stoics, but Sorabji draws on a vast range of texts to give a rich historical survey of how Western thinking about this central aspect of human nature developed. The result is a magisterial work of scholarship which will be fascinating for anyone with an interest in the emotions from a historical or contemporary perspective.

In Moral Conscience through the Ages, Richard Sorabji brings his erudition and philosophical acumen to bear on a fundamental question: what is conscience? Examining the ways we have conceived of that little voice in our heads--our self-directed judge--he teases out its most enduring elements, the aspects that have survived from the Greek playwrights in the fifth century BCE through St Paul, the Church Fathers, Catholics and Protestants, all the way to the 17th century's political unrest and the critics and champions of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. Sorabji examines an impressive breadth of topics: the longing for different kinds of freedom of conscience, the proper limits of freedom itself, protests at conscience's being 'terrorized, ' dilemmas of conscience, the value of conscience to human beings, its secularization, its reliability, and ways to improve it. These historical issues are alive today, with fresh concerns about topics such as conscientious objection, the force of conscience, or the balance between freedoms of conscience, religion, and speech. The result is a stunningly comprehensive look at a central component of our moral understanding.

Over the centuries, the idea of the self has both fascinated and confounded philosophers. From the ancient Greeks, who problematized issues of identity and self-awareness, to Locke and Hume, who popularized minimalist views of the self, to the efforts of postmodernists in our time to decenter the human subject altogether, the idea that there is something called a self has always been in steady decline. But for Richard Sorabji, one of our most celebrated living intellectuals, this negation of the self is dispiriting. In Self, he sets out to recover the rich variety of positive accounts of the self from Antiquity right up to the present, while offering his own inspiring view of what precisely the self might be. Drawing on Eastern religion, classical antiquity, and Western philosophy, Sorabji proceeds to tackle a number of thematic debates that have preoccupied philosophers over the ages, including the concept of the self, its sameness and mutability, the idea of the resurrection of the body and spirit, and the fear of death. According to Sorabji, the self is not an undetectable soul or ego, but an embodied individual whose existence is plain to see. It is also neither a linguistic creation nor a psychological fiction, but something that owns both a consciousness and a body. Ultimately, Sorabji argues, the demise of a positive idea of the self stems from much older and more pervasive problems of identity than we realize. Through an astute reading of this tradition, he helps us come to terms with our uneasiness about the subject in an account that will be at the forefront of philosophical debates foryears to come.

Allan Monkhouse, the pioneering engineer, began his career whilst growing up in the bush servicing one of the earliest New Zealand generators. He went on to work in Russia under the Tsars, and then through the Russian revolution, standing in the street beside Lenin in 1917 as he announced his programme, surviving a death sentence and escaping through Siberia. When most people would have retired, he was called to India, and convinced Prime Minister Nehru to back, against opposition, first his finding that India's water power could be increased twelve-fold, and then his claim that the micro-generator he had designed could bring electricity across the Himalayas. After apparent rejection, he installed the first thirty. In 2014 an estimated 105,000 villages are served by such micro-generators across the width of the Himalayas.

This is the first work to draw on the four hundred years of transition from ancient Greek philosophy to the medieval philosophy of Islam and the West. During this period, philosophy was often written in the form of commentaries on the works of Plato and Aristotle. Many ideas wrongly credited to the Middle Ages derive from these centuries, such as that of impetus in dynamics and intentional objects in philosophy of mind. The later Neoplatonist commentators fought a losing battle with Christianity, but inadvertently made Aristotle acceptable to Christians by ascribing to him belief in a Creator God and human immortality. The commentators provide a panorama of up to a thousand years of Greek philosophy, much of which would otherwise be lost. They also serve as the missing link essential for understanding the subsequent history of Western philosophy. The second volume of The Philosophy of the Commentators, 200-600 AD, A Sourcebook, deals with physics. The physics of the commentators was innovative: the Neoplatonists thought that the world of space and time was causally ordered by a nonspatial, nontemporal world, and this view required original thinking. Of the sixth-century Neoplatonists, Simplicius considered his teacher's ideas on space and time to be unprecedented, and Philoponus revised Aristotelianism to produce a new physics built around the Christian belief in God's Creation of the world. The thinkers of the Middle Ages borrowed from Philoponus and other commentators the proofs of a finite past, the idea of degrees of latitude in change and mixture, and in dynamics the idea of impetus and the defense of motion in a vacuum. All sources appear in English translation and are carefully linked and cross-referenced by editorial comment and explanation. Bibliographies are provided throughout.

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.

This is the first work to draw on the four hundred years of transition from ancient Greek philosophy to the medieval philosophy of Islam and the West. During this period, philosophy was often written in the form of commentaries on the works of Plato and Aristotle. Many ideas wrongly credited to the Middle Ages derive from these centuries, such as that of impetus in dynamics and intentional objects in philosophy of mind. The later Neoplatonist commentators fought a losing battle with Christianity, but inadvertently made Aristotle acceptable to Christians by ascribing to him belief in a Creator God and human immortality. The commentators provide a panorama of up to a thousand years of Greek philosophy, much of which would otherwise be lost. They also serve as the missing link essential for understanding the subsequent history of Western philosophy.

The second volume of The Philosophy of the Commentators, 200 600 AD, A Sourcebook, deals with physics. The physics of the commentators was innovative: the Neoplatonists thought that the world of space and time was causally ordered by a nonspatial, nontemporal world, and this view required original thinking. Of the sixth-century Neoplatonists, Simplicius considered his teacher's ideas on space and time to be unprecedented, and Philoponus revised Aristotelianism to produce a new physics built around the Christian belief in God's Creation of the world. The thinkers of the Middle Ages borrowed from Philoponus and other commentators the proofs of a finite past, the idea of degrees of latitude in change and mixture, and in dynamics the idea of impetus and the defense of motion in a vacuum. All sources appear in English translation and are carefully linked and cross-referenced by editorial comment and explanation. Bibliographies are provided throughout."

"They don't have syntax, so we can eat them." According to Richard Sorabji, this conclusion attributed to the Stoic philosophers was based on Aristotle's argument that animals lack reason. In his fascinating, deeply learned book, Sorabji traces the roots of our thinking about animals back to Aristotelian and Stoic beliefs. Charting a recurrent theme in ancient philosophy of mind, he shows that today's controversies about animal rights represent only the most recent chapter in millennia-old debates.

Sorabji surveys a vast range of Greek philosophical texts and considers how classical discussions of animals' capacities intersect with central questions, not only in ethics but in the definition of human rationality as well: the nature of concepts; how perceptions differ from beliefs; how memory, intention, and emotion relate to reason; and to what extent speech, skills, and inference can serve as proofs of reason. Focusing on the significance of ritual sacrifice and the eating of meat, he explores religious contexts of the treatment of animals in ancient Greece and in medieval Western Christendom. He also looks closely at the contemporary defenses of animal rights offered by Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and Mary Midgley.

Animal Minds and Human Morals sheds new light on traditional arguments surrounding the status of animals while pointing beyond them to current moral dilemmas. It will be crucial reading for scholars and students in the fields of ancient philosophy, ethics, history of philosophy, classics, and medieval studies, and for everyone seriously concerned about our relationship with other species.