From the first century BCE onwards, philosophers started to write commentaries on those Aristotle’s treatises that were meant for the internal use of his school. Plato’s works had been commented on already earlier, the first reported commentary originates in the 300s BCE. Commentaries are treatises that follow an object text in a more or less linear fashion. The format was not unknown before the first century BCE but new in extensive philosophical use. This review essay focuses on authors who commented (...) on Aristotle’s works. The commentaries emerged when Platonists and Aristotelians observed the need to teach the philosophy of these ancient masters to their students and to systematise their philosophy to respond to rival schools. In the late ancient schools, Plato and Aristotle were considered great thinkers, whose views needed to be studied carefully when considering any matter at hand. Many also argued that, despite the initial appearance to the contrary, there is no deep disagreement between Plato and Aristotle but, rather, a division of labour; Aristotle is dominant in natural philosophy and Plato in theology. However, this harmony thesis was not universally accepted. Despite their respect for Plato and Aristotle, the commentators were not mere followers of these authors. They developed, criticised and transformed the doctrines in significant ways, not only by suggesting different answers to the same questions but also by transforming the questions themselves. (shrink)

It is well known that when it comes to perception in the De anima, Aristotle uses affection-related vocabulary with extreme caution. This has given rise to a debate between interpreters who hold that in Aristotle’s account, the act of sense-perception nevertheless involves the physiological alteration of the sense organ (Richard Sorabji), and those think, with Myles Burnyeat, that for Aristotle, perception does not involve any material process, so that an Aristotelian physics of sense-perception is a “physics of forms alone”. The (...) present article suggests that the dematerialisation of Aristotle’s theory of perception, which has a long story from Alexander of Aphrodisias to Brentano, may be in fact traced back to Theophrastus’ exegesis of Aristotle’s relevant passages in the De anima in his Physics, as we can reconstruct it on the basis of Priscian’s Metaphrasis in Theophrastum and Simplicius’ commentary of Aristotle’s De Anima. The reconstruction also provides a scholastic-theoretical frame to Theophrastus’ critical exposition of ancient theories about sense perception in his De sensibus, whether or not the discussion originally belonged to Theophrastus’ Physics. (shrink)

Scholars working in the field of Graeco-Arabic Neoplatonism often discuss the role Porphyry, the editor of Plotinus, must be credited with in the formation of the Arabic Plotinian corpus. A note in this corpus apparently suggests that Porphyry provided a commentary to the so-called Theology of Aristotle, i.e., parts of some treatises of Enneads IV-VI. Consequently, Porphyry has been considered as responsible for the doctrinal shifts which affect the Arabic Plotinian paraphrase with respect to the original text. This article aims (...) at submitting this hypothesis to trial on a specific doctrinal point where Porphyry parts company with Plotinus: the relationship between the Demiurgic Intellect and World Soul. The ancient doxographical sources testify that Porphyry, in his conviction to be in agreement with Plotinus, in fact parted company with him in so far as he merged the World Soul into the Demiurgic Intellect, while Plotinus always kept them apart. There are in the Enneads some baffling passages where the role of Intellect as the Demiurge of the sensible world is not clearly distinguishable from the role of World Soul. Notwithstanding that, these passages in the Arabic paraphrase do not bear any trace of the characteristically Porphyrian merging of World Soul into Intellect. The Arabic paraphrase of Plotinus text and its Arabic tradition. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 10, Issue 1, pp 40 - 64 This paper focuses on the four preserved commentaries to a Pythagorean poem known as the _Golden Verses_. It deals with two Greek texts—Iamblichus’ _Protrepticus_ and Hierocles’ _Commentary to the Golden Verses_—as well as two commentaries preserved in Arabic, attributed to Iamblichus and Proclus. The article analyses how each of these commentators understood the relationship between man and god in the context of the eschatological vision presented in the poem. It also (...) demonstrates how differences in the interpretation of particular verses and ideas within the poem were dependent on an author’s philosophical views and cultural background. (shrink)

I argue that in his commentary on Epictetus’ Encheiridion, Simplicius derives a method by which his students can enter into the process of self-constitution, which is only achieved through completion of the study of Plato’s dialogues. The result of following the method is the attainment of a perspective consonant with the level of political virtue, which I call ‘political subjectivity’. This is a speculative interpretation of the effect the student would. experience in following the method, accomplished through analyses of Simplicius’ (...) interpretation of Epictetus’ concept of to eph’ hēmīn and the related prohairesis. I complement this with an analysis of the metaphysical foundation Simplicius gives the method in light of Charles Taylor’s notion of ‘strong evaluation’. In this way, I show how Simplicius adapts these concepts to his Neoplatonic psychology and virtue theory to make the method serve as preparation for the development of virtue prior to study of Plato. (shrink)