Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle On Coming to be and Perishing 2.2-5
Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle On Coming to be and Perishing 2.2-5

Author: Alexander Of Aphrodisias

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-04-10

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 1472501292

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This important commentary by Alexander of Aphrodisias on Aristotle's work on biochemistry was previously lost. However, four chapters of it have been re-identified in an Arabic translation by Emma Gannage and are here translated for the first time. The chapters were preserved in the writings of an eighth-century alchemist, Jabir ibn Hayyan. In addition to preserving an interesting example of very early cross-cultural scientific activity in the Muslim world, the newly discovered material is of philosophical importance: We learn how Alexander attempted to provide a unified theory that would unite Aristotle's chemistry with his elemental physics. As well as an English translation of the text, this volume includes a detailed introduction demonstrating the authenticity of the work and discussing its contribution to our understanding of ancient science.

Philoponus: On Aristotle On Coming-to-Be and Perishing 1.1-5
Philoponus: On Aristotle On Coming-to-Be and Perishing 1.1-5

Author: C.J.F. Williams

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-04-10

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1780938683

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The first five chapters of Aristotle's De Generatione et Corruptione distinguish creation and destruction from mere qualitative change and from growth. They include a fascinating debate about the atomists' analysis of creation and destruction as due to the rearrangement of indivisible atoms. Aristotle's rival belief in the infinite divisibility of matter is explained and defended against the atomists' powerful attack on infinite divisibility. But what inspired Philoponus most in his commentary is the topic of organic growth. How does it take place without ingested matter getting into the same place as the growing body? And how is personal identity preserved, if our matter is always in flux, and our form depends on our matter? If we do not depend on the persistence of matter why are we not immortal? Analogous problems of identity arise also for inanimate beings. Philoponus draws out a brief remark of Aristotle's to show that cause need not be like effect. For example, what makes something hard may be cold, not hard. This goes against a persistent philosophical prejudice, but Philoponus makes it plausible that Aristotle recognized this truth. These topics of identity over time and the principles of causation are still matters of intense discussion.

Philoponus: On Aristotle On Coming to be and Perishing 2.5-11
Philoponus: On Aristotle On Coming to be and Perishing 2.5-11

Author: Philoponus,

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-04-22

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 147250125X

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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.

Simplicius: On Aristotle On the Heavens 1.3-4
Simplicius: On Aristotle On the Heavens 1.3-4

Author: Simplicius,

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-04-22

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1472501705

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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.

Alexander of Aphrodisias: On the Soul
Alexander of Aphrodisias: On the Soul

Author:

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-04-22

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1472501721

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Around 200 AD, the greatest defender and interpreter of Aristotle within his school, Alexander of Aphrodisias, composed his own book On the Soul, partly following the pattern of Aristotle's. In the first half, translated in this volume, he discusses the soul as the form of the body, and the idea of parts or powers that constitute the soul of living things, including the two lowest powers: nutrition and perception. In the second half, translated in Part II, he discusses perception, representation, desire, understanding and - a notion emphasised by the Stoics - the governing part of the soul. He takes the soul to consist of these powers, which supervene on the mixture of the body's elemental ingredients, just as inanimate powers like buoyancy or lightness can supervene on other qualities. They are new, emergent causal powers of the living thing, which do not belong to the constituent ingredients of the body in themselves. Through his notion of emergence, he seeks to steer between the Platonic dualism of soul and body and the extreme materialism of his Stoic rivals. This volume contains the first English translation of the work, as well as a detailed introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a bibliography.

Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Metaphysics 2&3
Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Metaphysics 2&3

Author: E.W. Dooley

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-04-10

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1780934459

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Aristotle's Metaphysics 2 consists of two chapters on methodology flanking an important discussion of the impossibility of infinite causal chains. The subject is vital for scientific method and for theological belief in a first cause and in a beginning of the universe. Philoponus later attacked Aristotle on this last point, but Alexander presents Aristotle's view in a most favourable light. In Metaphysics 3, Aristotle sets out what he sees as the central problems of metaphysics. Alexander's commentary was subsequently used by the Neoplatonists, two of whom have left their own commentaries, so that Alexander's Aristotelian interpretation can be compared with its rivals.

Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Prior Analytics 1.32-46
Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Prior Analytics 1.32-46

Author: Alexander Of Aphrodisias

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-04-10

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 1472501357

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The last 14 chapters of book 1 of Aristotle's "Prior Analytics" are concerned with the representation in the formal language of syllogistic of propositions and arguments expressed in more or less everyday Greek. In his commentary on those chapters, "Alexander of Aphrodisias" explains some of Aristotle's more opaque assertions and discusses post-Aristotelian ideas in semantics and the philosophy of language. In doing so he provides an unusual insight into the way in which these disciplines developed in the Hellenistic era. He also shows a more sophisticated understanding of these fields than Aristotle himself, while remaining a staunch defender of Aristotle's emphasis on meaning as opposed to Stoics concern with verbal formulation. In his commentary on the final chapter of book 1 Alexander offers a thorough discussion of Aristotle's distinction between denying that something is, for example, white and asserting that it is non-white.

Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle On Sense Perception
Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle On Sense Perception

Author: A. Towey

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-04-10

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1780938845

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In his work On Sense Perception, Aristotle discusses the material conditions of perception, starting with the sense organs and moving to the material basis of colour, flavour and odour. His Pythagorean account of hues as a ratio of dark to light was enthusiastically endorsed by Goethe against Newton as being true to the painter's experience. Aristotle finishes with three problems about continuity. First, in what sense are indefinitely small colour patches or colour variations perceptible? Secondly, which perceptible leap discontinuously like light to fill a whole space, which have to reach one point before another; and do observers of the latter perceive the same thing if they are at different distances? Thirdly, how does the central sense permit genuinely simultaneous, rather than staggered, perception of different objects? Alexander's highly explanatory commentary is most expansive on these problems of continuity. His battery of objections to vision involving travel, which would lead to collisions and interference by winds, inspired a tradition of grading the five senses in respect of degrees of immateriality and of intentionality. He also introduces us to paradoxes of Diodorus Cronus about the relations of the smallest perceptible to the largest perceptible size.

Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Metaphysics 4
Alexander of Aphrodisias: On Aristotle Metaphysics 4

Author: Arthur Madigan

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-04-10

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1780934483

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In Metaphysics 4 Aristotle discusses the nature of metaphysics, the basic laws of logic, the falsity of subjectivism and the different types of ambiguity. The full, clear commentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias on this important book is here translated into English by Arthur Madigan. Alexander goes through Aristotle's text practically line by line, attending to the logical sequence of the arguments, noting places where Aristotle's words will bear more than one interpretation and marking variant readings. He repeatedly cross-refers to the De Interpretatione, Analytics, Physics and other works of Aristotle, thus placing Metaphysics 4 in the content of Aristotle's philosophy as a whole.