On Aristotle's "On the heavens 1.1-4" Simplicius ; translated by R.J. Hankinson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Simplicius, of Cilicia, author.

Contributor:

Hankinson, R. J., editor.

Series:

Ancient commentators on Aristotle

Language:

English

Greek, Ancient (to 1453)

Subjects (All):

Logic.

Aristotle. Posterior analytics.

Aristotle.

Knowledge, Theory of.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 164 pages).

Place of Publication:

London Bloomsbury Academic 2014.

Summary:

"In chapter 1 of On the Heavens Aristotle defines body, and then notoriously ruptures dynamics by introducing a fifth element, beyond Plato's four, to explain the rotation of the heavens, which, like nearly all Greeks, Aristotle took to be real, not apparent. Even a member of his school, Xenarchus, we are told, rejected his fifth element. The Neoplatonist Simplicius seeks to harmonise Plato and Aristotle. Plato, he says, thought that the heavens were composed of all four elements but with the purest kind of fire, namely light, predominating. That Plato would not mind this being called a fifth element is shown by his associating with the heavens the fifth of the five convex regular solids recognised by geometry. Simplicius follows Aristotle's view that one of the lower elements, fire, also rotates, as shown by the behaviour of comets. But such motion, though natural for the fifth elements, is super-natural for fire. Simplicius reveals that the Aristotelian Alexander of Aphrodisias recognised the need to supplement Aristotle and account for the annual approach and retreat of planets by means of Ptolemy's epicycles or eccentrics. Aristotle's philosopher-god is turned by Simplicius, following his teacher Ammonius, into a creator-god, like Plato's. But the creation is beginningless, as shown by the argument that, if you try to imagine a time when it began, you cannot answer the question, 'Why not sooner?' In explaining the creation, Simplicius follows the Neoplatonist expansion of Aristotle's four 'causes' to six. The final result gives us a cosmology very considerably removed from Aristotle's."--Bloomsbury Publishing

Contents:

Preface

Introduction

Textual Emendations

TRANSLATION

Notes

Bibliography English-Greek

Glossary Greek-English Index

Index of Passages Cited

Subject

Index

Notes:

First published in 2002 by Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd

Includes bibliographical references and index

Electronic reproduction. London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014. Available via World Wide Web. Access limited by licensing agreement

ISBN:

9781472552204

OCLC:

922786660