Simplicius. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

A. Falcon (ed.), Brill's Companion to the Reception of Aristotle in Antiquity, Leiden, 2016

B. Strobel (hrsg.), Die Kunst der philosophischen Exegese bei den spätantiken Platon- und Aristoteles-Kommentatoren. Akten der Tagung der Karl und Gertrud Abel-Stiftung vom 4. bis 6. Oktober 2012 in Trier, 2018

2020

This book, translated from the French, offers a synthesis of modern research devoted to Simplicius's life and to three of his five commentaries: On Epictetus' Handbook, On Aristotle's De anima, On Aristotle's Categories. Its biographical part brings to light the historical role played by this Neoplatonic philosopher. Born in Cilicia, Asia Minor, he studied in Alexandria and Athens and apparently ended his life teaching in Syria on the frontier between the Byzantine and Sassanide Empires. His role was that of a mediator between the Greco-Roman world and philosophy and Syriac philosophy, which would feed Arabic philosophy at its beginning. The second part of the book, devoted to doctrinal and authorship issues, also deals with the underlying pedagogical curriculum and methods proper to Neoplatonic commentaries, which modern interpretation all too often tends to neglect in studies on Simplicius and other Neoplatonists.

Simplicius is well regarded today as an insightful, comprehensive, detailed, sometimes repetitive, but generally useful and reliable interpreter of Aristotle. How he reads other authors though – with the possible exception of the Presocratics – is less well studied. In this chapter I examine Simplicius’ interpretation of Plato. By this I mean not Simplicius’ views regarding Platonism (though these of course influenced his interpretation), but rather the ways in which Simplicius read the particular dialogues written by Plato, as well as the history that had accumulated by his time regarding Plato’s life and thought. While something of a picaresque task, given that Simplicius’ extant commentaries all center on texts of either Aristotle or the Stoic Epictetus – the Physics, De Caelo, Categories, and, disputedly, the De Anima, as well as the Enchiridion – nevertheless, his frequent references, allusions, and discussions of Plato’s works in his writing provide ample evidence for gathering a good working picture of how Simplicius read him.

2009

Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aristotle in Antiquity, 2000

1993

Any discussion of Greek Alexandria may properly take its starting point from the work of P. M. Fraser, even if only to dissent from it. In the preface to Ptolemaic Alexandria Fraser observes that philosophy was one of the "items" that "were not effectively transplanted to Alexandria."* In his chapter on philosophy, talking of the establishment of the main philosophical schools at Athens, Fraser writes that it "remained the centre of philosophical studies down to the closing of the schools by Justinian in A.D. 563."^The first of these statements is near enough the truth, since the Alexandria of the Ptolemies was not distinguished in philosophy as ifwas in literature or science, though even then some important things happened during that period too. But the implication that this situation continued during the Roman and early Byzantine periods is misleading, and by the end of the period simply false.^The purpose of this paper is to examine some aspects of the considerable contribution that Alexandria made to the philosophical tradition that continued into the Islamic and Christian middle ages and beyond, and to show that it may lay claim to have been at least equal to that of Athens itself. Though I do not want to spend long on the Ptolemaic period, a few points should be made before we jump forward into the third century A.D. That Alexandria at this time was not a centre of philosophical activity is true enough, but perhaps unimportant. That may strike some as a strange thing to say, the more so just now when the study of Hellenistic philosophy has become rather fashionable. Nevertheless it is not, I think, difficult to justify. The point is that most of the philosophical endeavour of these times was a dead end. On the one hand much was said and written by disparate groups of so-called philosophers trying to tie up loose ends or exploit suggestions made by the great philosophers of fifth-and fourth-century Athens, people All references to the Greek commentators on Aristotle are to the Berlin Academy edition, Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, unless otherwise specified. ' P. M. Fraser, Plolemaic Alexandria (Oxford 1972) viii. Fraser (previous note) 480 I am not here concerned with the date of the alleged closure, which is usually put at 529. * For a brief treatment, see now H. Jones, The Epicurean Tradition (London and New York 1989) 144^9. Cf. Cicero. Academica 2. 43. 132. '°O n these mailers, cf. e.g. J. M. DUlon, The Middle Platonisls (London 1977) 1 15 ff. * On names of this type, derived from Egyptian gods but also used by Greeks, cf. P. M. Fraser, "Two Studies in the Cult of Sarapis in the Hellenistic World," Opuscula Atheniensia 3 (1960) 15-16. '"' A. K. Bowman, Egypt after the Pharaohs (London 1986) 230. '*' M. Tardieu, "Les calendriers en usage a Harran d'apres les sources arabes et le commenlaire de Simplicius a la Physique d'Arislole," in Simplicius (previous nole) 40-57; his conclusions are given al 55-57. The lexl in question is ai In Phys. 1 8-30. '^^Cf. now P. Foulkes. "Where was SimpUcius?" 7/75 112 (1992) 143. *^De aet. m. 579.13-17 Rabe. *^T he fragments have been collected by C. Wildberg and translated in Philoponus. Against Arislolle on the Eternity of the World (London 1987). *5 Cf. Saffrey (above, note 28) 406-07. '^'^I n Tim. 1.276. 10 ff. ** Cf. Simplicius, In De caelo 85. 7 ff. On Simplicius' polemic against Philoponus, cf. P. Hoffmann, "Simplicius' Polemics," in R. Sorabji (cd.), Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science (London 1987) 57-83. *^O n his theological output see H. Chadwick, "Philoponus the Christian Theologian," in Sorabji (previous note) 42-54.