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Priscian of Lydia was one of the Athenian philosophers who took refuge in 531 AD with King Khosroes I of Persia, after the Christian Emperor Justinian stopped the teaching of the pagan Neoplatonist school in Athens. This was one of the earliest examples of the sixth-century diffusion of the philosophy of the commentators to other cultures.Tantalisingly, Priscian fully recorded in Greek the answers provided by the Athenian philosophers to the king''s questions on philosophy and science. But these answers survive only in a later Latin translation which understood both the Greek and the subject matter very poorly. Our translators have often had to reconstruct from the Latin what the Greek would have been, in order to recover the original sense. The answers start with subjects close to the Athenians'' hearts: the human soul, on which Priscian was an expert, and sleep and visions. But their interest may have diminished when the king sought their expertise on matters of physical science: the seasons, celestial zones, medical effects of heat and cold, the tides, displacement of the four elements, the effect of regions on living things, why only reptiles are poisonous, and winds. At any rate, in 532 AD, they moved on from the palace, but still under Khosroes'' protection. This is the first translation of the record they left into English or any modern language.This English translation is accompanied by an introduction and comprehensive commentary notes, which clarify and discuss the meaning and implications of the original philosophy. Part of the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, the edition makes this philosophical work accessible to a modern readership and includes additional scholarly apparatus such as a bibliography, glossary of translated terms and a subject index.

Is there such a thing as three-dimensional space? Is space inert or dynamic? Is the division of time into past, present and future real? Does the whole of time exist all at once? Does it progress smoothly or by discontinuous leaps?Simplicius surveys ideas about place and time from the preceding thousand years of Greek Philosophy and reveals the extraordinary ingenuity of the late Neoplatonist theories, which he regards as marking a substantial advance on all previous ideas.

Concerning embryos, Porphyry takes an original view on issues that had been left undecided by his teacher Plotinus and earlier by the doctor Galen. What role is played in the development of the embryo by the souls or the natures of the father, of the mother, of the embryo, or of the whole world?

Until the launch of this series nearly twenty years ago, the 15,000 volumes of the ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle constituted the largest corpus of extant Greek philosophical writings not translated into English or other European languages. Over 60 volumes have now appeared in the series, which is planned in some 80 volumes altogether.

Aristotle's "Meterology Book 4" provides an account of the formation of minerals, metals and other homogeneous stuffs. In doing so, this text argues, it offers us fresh and important insights into Aristotle's conception of matter.

This volume completes the translation in this series of Quaestiones attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias, the leading ancient commentator on Aristotle. The Quaestiones are concerned with physics and metaphysics, psychology and divine providence. They exemplify the process whereby Aristotle''s thought came to be organised into ''Aristotelianism'' and show how interpretations were influenced by doctrines of Hellenistic philosophy. Some, translated into Arabic and thence into Latin, played a part in the transmission of ancient Greek philosophy to the medieval world. Those interested in Aristotle''s psychological views will find this half of Quaestiones particularly valuable. Ten of the problems discussed explicitly involve issues raised in On the Soul, including the unity of apperception and the transition from first to second actuality in the act of contemplation. A further dozen concern problems in physical theory, including infinity, necessity and potentiality. Quaestio 2.21 concerns divine providence and helps supplement our knowledge of Alexander''s position based on surviving Arabic fragments of his On Providence.

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). The text, recovered from annotations in an Arabic translation of Aristotle, is an abridging paraphrase of Philoponus'' commentary on Physics Books 5-7, with two final comments on Book 8. The Simplicius text, which consists of his comments on Aristotle''s treatment of the void in chapters 6-9 of Book 4 of the Physics, comes from Simplicius'' huge commentary on Book 4. Simplicius'' comments on Aristotle''s treatment of place and time have been translated by J. O. Urmson in two earlier volumes of this series.

There has recently been considerable renewed interest in Book 7 of the Physics of Aristotle, once regarded as merely an undeveloped forerunner to Book 8. The debate surrounding the importance of the text is not new to modern scholarship: for example, in the fourth century BC Eudemus, the Peripatetic philosopher associate of Aristotle, left it out of his treatment of the Physics. Now, for the first time, Charles Hagen''s lucid translation gives the English reader access to Simplicius'' commentary on Book 7, an indispensable tool for the understanding of the text. Its particular interest lies in its explanation of how the chapters of Book 7 fit together and its reference to a more extensive second version of Aristotle''s text than the one which survives today.

Ammonius, who taught most of the leading sixth-century Neoplatonists, introduced the methods of his own teacher, Proclus, from Athens to Alexandria. These are exemplified in his commentaries: for instance, in the set of ten introductory questions prefixed to this commentary, which became standard. The commentary is interesting for the light it sheds on the religious situation in Alexandria. It used to be said that the Alexandrian Neoplatonist school was allowed to remain open after the Athenian school closed because Ammonius has agreed with the Christian authorities to keep quiet about his religious views. On the contrary, as this commentary shows he freely declared his belief in the Neoplatonist deities. The philosophical problems considered by Ammonius offer a unique insight into Aristotle's Categories. They exercise the mind and deepen understanding of the subject matter. Modern readers would do well to put the same questions to themselves.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics has been a central text in moral philosophy since the fourth century BC. The Ethical Problems attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias - the leading ancient commentator on Aristotle - not only shows us how Aristotle's work was discussed in Alexander's own day (c. 200 AD) but offers interpretations and insights that are valuable in their own right. Topics discussed include pleasure and distress, moral virtue, the criteria for judging actions voluntary, the development of moral understanding, and the place in ethics of utility, political community and a sense of shame.

Philoponus is engaged in an exegesis of Plato's Timaeus which aims to settle familiar interpretive problems, notably how we should understand the pre-cosmic state of disorderly motion, and the statement that the visible cosmos is an image of the paradigm. His exegetical concerns culminate with a discussion of Plato's attitude to poetry and myth.

This series translates the 15,000 pages of philosophical writings by the ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle, written mainly between 200 and 600 AD. Now translated into English, these works include introductions, notes and comprehensive indexes, filling a gap in the history of European thought.

In Posterior Analytics Aristotle elaborates his assessment of how universal truths of science can be scientifically explained as inevitable in demonstrative proofs. In this commentary Philoponus takes these issues further.

A volume in the prestigious series, The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which translates the works of the ancient commentators into English for the first time.

In this, the first half of Philoponus' analysis of book one of "Aristotle's Physics", the principal themes are metaphysical. Philoponus explains the apparent conflict between the 'didactic method' and the strict demonstrative method described in the "Analytics".

A volume in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, a pathbreaking enterprise which for the first time translates the commentaries of the Neoplatonic commentators on the works of Aristotle into English.

A volume in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, a path breaking enterprise which for the first time translates the commentaries of the Neoplatonic commentators on the works of Aristotle into English.

Chapters 5 and 6 of Aristotle's "Categories" describe his first two categories, Substance and Quantity. Simplicius' commentary is our most comprehensive account of the debate on the validity of these categories. This text provides a translation of Simplicius' work, with an introduction.

In the Corollaries on Place and Void, Philoponus attacks Aristotle's conception of place as two-dimensional, adopting instead the view more familiar to us that it is three-dimensional, inert and conceivable as void. Philoponus' denial that velocity in the void would be infinite anticipated Galileo, as did his denial that speed of fall is proportionate to weight, which Galileo greatly developed. In the second document Simplicius attacks a lost treatise of Philoponus which argued for the Christians against the eternity of the world. He exploits Aristotle's concession that the world contains only finite power. Simplicius' presentation of Philoponus' arguments (which may well be tendentious), together with his replies, tell us a good deal about both Philosophers.

The 15,000 pages of the ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle, written mainly between 200 and 600 AD, constitute the largest corpus of extant Greek philosophical writings. This series of translations with introductions, notes and indexes fills an important gap in the history of European thought.

In the chapters of his 'Physics' commented on here, Aristotle disagrees with Pre-Socratic philosophers about the basic principles that explain natural changes. But he finds some agreement among them that at least two contrary properties must be involved, for example hot and cold.

Aristotle's "On Interpretation" studies the relationship between conflicting pairs of statements. The first eight chapters, studied in this text, explain what statements are; they start from their basic components, the words, and work up to the character of opposed affirmations and negations.

Reveals how Aristotelian metaphysics was formalized and transformed by a philosophy which found its deepest roots in Pythagoras and Plato. This book shows how metaphysics, as a philosophical science, was conceived by the Neoplatonic philosopher of Late Antiquity.