{"title":"Ancient Commentators On Aristotle","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the minds that shaped philosophical thought. Explore interpretations of Aristotle from antiquity, revealing the historical roots of Western intellectual tradition. A fascinating series for philosophy enthusiasts.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"michael-of-ephesus-aspasius-anonymus-book-richard-sorabji-9780715630716","title":"Michael of Ephesus\/Aspasius\/Anonymus","description":"Aristotle devotes books 8-9 of the \"Nicomachean Ethics\" to friendship, distinguishing three kinds: a primary kind motivated by the other's character; and other kinds motivated by utility or pleasure. He takes up Plato's idea that one knows oneself better as reflected in another's eyes, as providing one of the benefits of friendship, and he also sees true friendship as modelled on true self-love. He further compares friendship with justice, and illustrates the ubiquity of friendship by referring to the way in which we help wayfarers as if they were kin (oikeion), a word he takes from Plato's discussion of love. In many of these respects he probably influenced the Stoic theory of justice as based on the natural kinship (oikeiotes) one feels initially for oneself at birth and, eventually, for lost wayfarers. Of the three commentaries translated here, that by the second-century AD Aristotelian Aspasius is the earliest extant commentary on Aristotle; the second is by Michael of Ephesus in the twelfth century; the third is of unknown date and authorship. Aspasius worries whether there is only one kind of friendship with a single definition. But he plumps for a verdict not given by Aristotle, that the primary kind of friendship serves as a focal point for defining the other two. Aspasius picks up connections with his Stoic contemporaries. Michael cites Christians and draws from Neoplatonists the idea that there is a self-aware part of the soul, and that Aristotle saw individuals as bundles of properties.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49510995427601,"sku":"GOR002479428","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52151878451473,"sku":"NLS9780715630716","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0715630717.jpg?v=1750743783"},{"product_id":"on-aristotle-on-the-heavens-1-10-12-book-of-cilicia-simplicius-9780715632321","title":"On Aristotle \"On the Heavens 1.10-12\"","description":"In the three chapters of \"On the Heavens\" dealt with in this volume, Aristotle argues that the universe is ungenerated and indestructible. In Simplicius' commentary, translated here, we see a battle royal between the Neoplatonist Simplicius and the Aristotelian, Alexander, whose lost commentary on \"On the Heavens\" Simplicius partly preserves. Simplicius' rival, the Christian Philoponus, had conducted a parallel battle in his \"Against Proclus\" but had taken the side of Alexander against Proclus and other Platonists, arguing that Plato's \"Timaeus\" gives a beginning to the universe. Simplicius takes the Platonist side, denying that Plato intended a beginning. The origin on which Plato refers is, according to Simplicius, not a temporal origin, but the divine cause that produces the world without beginning.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49518211170577,"sku":"GOR013711506","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0715632329.jpg?v=1751420577"},{"product_id":"philoponus-book-inna-kupreeva-9780715633045","title":"Philoponus","description":"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. Over 30 volumes have now appeared in the series, which is planned in some 60 volumes altogether. Subjects covered in this, the third and last, volume of translation of this work include: why the elements are four in number; what's wrong with Empedocles' theory of elements; how homogeneous stuffs, particularly the tissues of a living body, come to be and consist of the elements. The volume also contains very important discussions of causes, particularly of efficient cause, and of necessity in the sphere of generation and corruption. It will be of interest to the students of ancient philosophy and science (the commentary draws on earlier philosophical and medical texts); of Patristics and Christian Theology (it allows comparison of Philoponus' later creationist doctrine with his earlier ideas about generation); of medieval philosophy (this text was known to the Arabs; it is used by Avicenna and Averroes); and to anyone with interest in the metaphysics of causation, emergence, necessity and determinism.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49573585813777,"sku":"GOR013585620","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/071563304X.jpg?v=1750880907"},{"product_id":"on-abstinence-from-killing-animals-book-porphyry-9780801436925","title":"On Abstinence from Killing Animals","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49584450765073,"sku":"GOR013567094","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0801436923.jpg?v=1750785620"},{"product_id":"corollaries-on-place-and-void-book-john-philoponus-9780715622506","title":"Corollaries on Place and Void","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49618375377169,"sku":"GOR013694497","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52672388399377,"sku":"NLS9780715622506","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0715622501.jpg?v=1751010002"},{"product_id":"syrianus-book-richard-sorabji-9780715635742","title":"Syrianus","description":"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. Over 40 volumes have now appeared in the series, which is planned in some 80 volumes altogether. Syrianus, originally from Alexandria, moved to Athens and became the head of the Academy there after the death of Plutarch of Athens. Syrianus attacked Aristotle in his commentary on Books 13 and 14 of the \"Metaphysics\", just as his pupil Proclus was to do later in his commentaries on Plato. This is because in \"Metaphysics 13-14\",  Aristotle himself was being thoroughly polemical towards Platonism, in particular against the Academic doctrine of Form-numbers and the whole concept of separable number. In reply, Syrianus gives an account of mathematical number and of geometrical entities, and of how all of these are processed in the mind, which was to influence Proclus and all subsequent Neoplatonists.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49622746300689,"sku":"GOR013580829","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52129970127121,"sku":"NLS9780715635742","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0715635743.jpg?v=1751105614"},{"product_id":"against-proclus-on-the-eternity-of-the-world-6-8-book-john-philoponus-9780715632345","title":"Against Proclus \"On the Eternity of the World 6-8\"","description":"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. Philoponus in Alexandria was a brilliant Christian philosopher, steeped in Neoplatonism, who turned the pagans' ideas against them. Here he attacks the most devout of the earlier Athenian pagan philosophers, Proclus, defending the distinctively Christian view that the universe had a beginning against Proclus' eighteen arguments to the contrary, which are discussed in eighteen chapters. Chapters 6-8 are translated in this volume.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49622864658705,"sku":"GOR013651039","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52130858893585,"sku":"NLS9780715632345","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0715632345.jpg?v=1750913480"},{"product_id":"alexander-of-aphrodisias-supplement-to-on-the-soul-book-alexander-of-aphrodisias-9781472557735","title":"Alexander of Aphrodisias: Supplement to On the Soul","description":"The Supplement transmitted as the second book of On the Soul by Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. c. 200 AD) is a collection of short texts on a wide range of topics from psychology, including the general hylomorphic account of soul and its faculties, and the theory of vision; questions in ethics (natural instincts, the unity of the virtues, the naturalness of justice and the insufficiency of virtue for happiness); and issues relating to responsibility, chance and fate. One of the texts in the collection, On Intellect, had a major influence on medieval Arabic and Western thought, greater than that of Alexander's On the Soul itself. The treatises may all be by Alexander himself; certainly the majority of them are closely connected with his other works. Many of them, however, consist of collections of arguments on particular issues, collections which probably incorporate material from earlier in the history of the Peripatetic school. This translation is from a new edition of the Greek text based on a collation of all known manuscripts and comparison with medieval Arabic and Latin translations.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50006412951825,"sku":"CIN1472557735G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51915549442321,"sku":"CIN1472557735VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52681216819473,"sku":"NLS9781472557735","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472557735.jpg?v=1752056909"},{"product_id":"on-aristotle-s-prior-analytics-1-32-46-book-alexander-of-aphrodisias-9780801444951","title":"On Aristotle's Prior Analytics 1.32-46","description":"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. 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In his commentary on the final chapter of book 1 Alexander offers a thorough discussion of Aristotle's distinction between denying that something is, e.g., white and asserting that it is non-white.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50155094212881,"sku":"CIN0801444950VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0801444950.jpg?v=1750850095"},{"product_id":"on-epictetus-handbook-27-53-book-simplicius-9780801439056","title":"On Epictetus' Handbook 27-53","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50287745892625,"sku":"CIN0801439051VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0801439051.jpg?v=1750818391"},{"product_id":"olympiodorus-on-plato-first-alcibiades-10-28-book-michael-griffin-9781350052222","title":"Olympiodorus: On Plato First Alcibiades 10-28","description":"This open access book looks at Olympiodorus (AD c. 500–570), possibly the last non-Christian teacher of philosophy in Alexandria, who delivered 28 lectures as an introduction to Plato. This volume translates lectures 10–28, following from the first nine lectures and a biography of the philosopher published in translation in a companion volume, Olympiodorus: Life of Plato and On Plato First Alcibiades 1–9 (Bloomsbury, 2014).  For us, these lectures can serve as an accessible introduction to late Neoplatonism. Olympiodorus locates the First Alcibiades at the start of the curriculum on Plato, because it is about self-knowledge. His pupils are beginners, able to approach the hierarchy of philosophical virtues, like the aristocratic playboy Alcibiades. Alcibiades needs to know himself, at least as an individual with particular actions, before he can reach the virtues of mere civic interaction. As Olympiodorus addresses mainly Christian students, he tells them that the different words they use are often symbols of truths shared between their faiths.  The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. 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Olympiodorus locates the First Alcibiades at the start of the curriculum on Plato, because it is about self-knowledge. His pupils are beginners, able to approach the hierarchy of philosophical virtues, like the aristocratic playboy Alcibiades. Alcibiades needs to know himself, at least as an individual with particular actions, before he can reach the virtues of mere civic interaction. 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The commentaries ascribed to them on works on sense-perception, one by Aristotle and one by his successor Theophrastus, are translated here in this single volume. Both commentaries give a highly Neoplatonic reading to their Aristotelian subjects and tell us much about late Neoplatonist psychology. This volume is also designed to enable readers to assess a recent major controversy: it has been argued by Carlos Steel and Fernand Bossier that the commentary ascribed to Simplicius is in fact by Priscian, and their article, hitherto only available in Dutch, is here published in revised form and in English for the first time. This book therefore contains all the evidence necessary for readers to judge this intriguing question for themselves.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50385344856337,"sku":"CIN1472558472VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52667969339665,"sku":"NLS9781472558473","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472558472.jpg?v=1751987157"},{"product_id":"supplement-to-on-the-soul-book-of-aphrodisias-alexander-9780715632369","title":"Supplement to \"On the Soul\"","description":"The \"Supplement\" transmitted as the second book of \"On the Soul\" by Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. c. 200 AD) is a collection of short texts on a wide range of topics from psychology, including the general hylomorphic account of soul and its faculties, and the theory of vision; questions in ethics (natural instincts, the unity of the virtues, the naturalness of justice and the insufficiency of virtue for happiness); and issues relating to responsibility, chance and fate. 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In Physics 1.1–2, Aristotle raises the question of the number and character of the first principles of nature and feels the need to oppose the challenge of the paradoxical Eleatic philosophers who had denied that there could be more than one unchanging thing.  This volume, part of the groundbreaking Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, translates into English for the first time Simplicius' commentary on this selected text, and includes a brief introduction, extensive explanatory notes, indexes and a bibliography.  Previous published volumes translating Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics can all be found in Bloomsbury’s series: - On Aristotle Physics 1.3–4, tr. P. Huby and C. C. W. Taylor, 2011 - On Aristotle Physics 1.5–9, tr. H. Baltussen, M. Atkinson, M. Share and I. Mueller, 2012 - On Aristotle Physics 2, tr. B. Fleet, 1997 - On Aristotle Physics 3, tr. J. O. Urmson with P. Lautner, 2001 - On Aristotle Physics 4.1–5 and 10–14, tr. J. O. 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Miller, Jr. argues that the author of the commentary is in fact not Alexander of Aphrodisias, Aristotle’s distant successor in early 3rd century CE Athens and his leading defender and interpreter, but Michael of Ephesus from Constantinople as late as the 12th century CE. Robert Browning had earlier made the case that Michael was enlisted by Princess Anna Comnena in a project to restore and complete the ancient Greek commentaries on Aristotle, including those of Alexander; he did so by incorporating available ancient commentaries into commentaries of his own.  Metaphysics Book 12 posits a god as the supreme cause of motion in the cosmic system Aristotle had elaborated elsewhere as having the earth at the centre. The fixed stars are whirled around it on an outer sphere, the sun, moon and recognised planets on interior spheres, but with counteracting spheres to make the motions of each independent of the motions of others and of the fixed stars, thus yielding a total of 55 spheres. 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This ancient commentary was the first work in the Aristotelian syllabus after a general introduction to Aristotle by the same author. It is influenced by an extant short anonymous record of Philoponus’ teacher Ammonius’ lectures on the same work, but Philoponus’ commentary is two and a half times as long as that anonymous record, and includes special contributions of Philoponus’ own, for example in philology, Christian theology and in disagreements with Aristotle.  This English translation of Philoponus' work is the latest volume in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series and makes this philosophical work accessible to a modern readership. 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Further interest comes from the recorded interventions by Syrianus' pupils - including those by Proclus, his eventual successor as head of the Athenian school, who went on to teach Hermias' father, Ammonius.    The first of two volumes of Hermias' commentary, the chapters translated here discuss the argument that the soul can be proved immortal as being the self-moving source of eternal motion. Aristotle explicitly disagreed with Plato on this treatment of the soul and Syrianus, having previously (in a commentary on the Metaphysics) criticised Aristotle severely when he disagreed with Plato, feels obliged here, too, to address the apparent disagreement. 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Over 40 volumes have now appeared in the series, which is planned in some 80 volumes altogether. This text by Philoponus rejects accounts of soul, or as we would say of mind, which define it as moving, as cognitive, or in physical terms. Chapter 3 considers Aristotle's attack on the idea that the soul is in motion. This was an attack partly on his teacher, Plato, since Plato defines the soul as self-moving. Philoponus agrees with Aristotle's attack on the idea that a thing must be in motion in order to cause motion. But he offers what may be Ammonius' interpretation of Plato's apparently physicalistic account of the soul in the Timaeus as symbolic. What we would call the mind-body relation is the subject of Chapter 4. Plato and Aristotle attacked a physicalistic theory of soul, which suggested it was the blend, ratio, or harmonious proportion of ingredients in the body. Philoponus attacked the theory too, but we learn from him that Epicurus had defended it. 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