Paul Lettinck has restored a lost text of Philoponus by translating it for the first time from Arabic (only limited fragments have survived in the original Greek).
Book 2 of the Physics is arguably the best introduction to Aristotle's work, both because it explains some of his central concepts, such as nature and the four causes, and because it asks some gripping questions that are still debated today: Is chance something real?
In this commentary on Aristotle Physics book eight, chapters one to five, the sixth-century philosopher Simplicius quotes and explains important fragments of the Presocratic philosophers, provides the fragments of his Christian opponent Philoponus' Against Aristotle On the Eternity of the World, and makes extensive use of the lost commentary of Aristotle's leading defender, Alexander of Aphrodisias.
'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.
'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.
Until the launch of this series in 1985, 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.
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.
In chapters 12-18 of Against Proclus, Philoponus continues to do battle against Proclus' arguments for the beginninglessness and everlastingness of the ordered universe.
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 the second half of book 1 of the Prior Analytics, Aristotle reflects on the application of the formalized logic he has developed in the first half, focusing particularly on the non-modal or assertoric syllogistic developed in the first seven chapters.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Commenting on the end of Aristotle's On the Heavens Book 3, Simplicius examines Aristotle's criticisms of Plato's theory of elemental chemistry in the Timaeus.
Themistius' treatment of Books 1-3 of Aristotle's Physics presents central features of Aristotle's thought about principles, causation, change and infinity.
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.
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.
Philoponus has been identified as the founder in dynamics of the theory of impetus, an inner force impressed from without, which, in its later recurrence, has been hailed as a scientific revolution.
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.
