Includes bibliographical references (pages 595-623) and indexes.
Contents:
Introduction: seven hundred years of commentary and the sixth century diffusion to other cultures / Richard Sorabji -- The texts of Plato and Aristotle in the first century BCE: Andronicus' Canon / Myrto Hatzimichali -- Boethus' Aristotelian Ontology / Marwan Rashed -- The inadvertent conception and late birth of the free will problem and the role of Alexander / Susanne Bobzien -- Alexander of Aphrodisias on particulars and the Stoic criterion of identity / Marwan Rashed -- Themistius and the problem of spontaneous generation / Devin Henry -- Spontaneous generation and its metaphysics in Themistius' paraphrase of Aristotle's Metaphysics 12 / Yoav Meyrav -- The Neoplatonic commentators on 'spontaneous' generation / James Wildberding -- A rediscovered Categories commentary: Porphyry? with fragments of Boethus / Riccardo Chiaradonna, Marwan Rashed, and David Sedley -- The purpose of Porphyry's rational animals : a dialectical attack on the Stoics in On Abstinence from Animal Food / G. Fay Edwards -- Universals transformed in the commentators on Aristotle / Richard Sorabji -- Iamblichus' Noera Theôria of Aristotle's Categories / John Dillon -- Proclus' defence of the Timaeus against Aristotle: a reconstruction of a lost polemical treatise / Carlos Steel -- Smoothing over the Differences: Proclus and Ammonius on Plato's Cratylus and Aristotle's De Interpretatione / R.M. van den Berg -- Dating of Philoponus' commentaries on Aristotle and of his divergence from his teacher Ammonius / Richard Sorabji -- John Philoponus' commentary on the third book of Aristotle's De Anima, wrongly attributed to Stephanus / Pantelis Golitsis -- Mixture in Philoponus: an encounter with a third kind of potentiality / Frans A.J. de Haas -- Gnôstikôs and/or hulikôs: Philoponus' account of the material aspects of sense-perception / Peter Lautner -- The last philosophers of Late Antiquity in the Arabic Tradition / Peter Adamson -- Alexander of Aphrodisias versus John Philoponus in Arabic: a case of mistaken identity / Ahmad Hasnawi -- New Arabic fragments of Philoponus and their reinterpretation: does the world lack a beginning in time or take no time to begin? / Marwan Rashed -- Simplicius' Corollary on Place: method of philosophising and doctrines / Philippe Hoffmann and Pantelis Golitsis -- A philosophical portrait of Stephanus the philosopher / Mossman Roueché -- Who were the real authors of the Metaphysics commentary ascribed to Alexander and Ps.-Alexander? / Pantelis Golitsis.
Summary:
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 resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.