The Commentary on Plato's Parmenides by Proclus is the most important extant document on the interpretation of this enigmatic dialogue in antiquity, and has had a crucial influence on all subsequent readings. In Proclus' Commentary, the Parmenides provides the argumentative and conceptual framework for a scientific theology wherein all mythological discourse about the gods can be integrated. Its exposition was therefore the culmination of the curriculum of the Platonic school. This theological reading of the Parmenides persisted, through the medium of (...) Ficino, until the nineteenth century. Previously this important text was only accessible in the edition of V. Cousin. This new critical edition is based on an exhaustive study of both the Greek tradition and the medieval Latin translation. (shrink)
Although the treatise presented here is most interesting, it was never widely disseminated. As far as we know, it is preserved only in Latin, in one manuscript. The text poses many questions. Who produced a copy of the text? Who is the translator? Is the treatise a genuine work of Averroes? And if so, what was his intention in writing this monograph on the First Cause?
IN THE DISCUSSION on education in the Republic, Socrates lays down the principles which those who speak about the gods must follow if they want to avoid the errors of traditional mythology. The first typos of this rational theology is this: "God is the cause, not of all things, but only of the good." For "God, being good, cannot be responsible for everything happening in our life, as is commonly believed, but only for a small part. For we have a (...) far smaller share of good than of evil, and while God must be held to be the sole cause of good, we must look for some other factors than God as cause of the evil." Rightly celebrated, this passage has set the agenda for ages of reflection in Western thought on the cause of evil. In contrast to traditional mythology where the gods are seen as the origin of both good and evil--as Homer says, "Zeus has two jars standing on the floor of his palace, full of fates, good in one and evil in the other"--the divinity is now freed of all responsibility for evil. God, who is entirely good, can only be the cause of well-being. If this answer sets God free of all responsibility for evil, it seems to be at the cost of limiting God's power: for God is no longer responsible for "most things in human life," since most of them are evil. What, then, may be the cause or causes of evil? Do bad things have a cause? Or do they just happen? Plato's formulation seems to suggest that he favours a dualistic solution to the problem of evil: God is the cause of all good, but for evil we have to find other causes. What could those causes be: matter, cosmic necessity, an evil soul? Various answers of this type were developed in later Platonism and in later mythological philosophies. Without denying that Plato often uses a dualistic discourse and uses elements of it in his cosmology, I do think that Plato had something different in mind. After all, he was not primarily interested in the problem of theodicy. For in this passage of the Republic, he is not concerned with the problem of evil in the universe as a whole, which is really the theodicy question, but with evil in "human life," that is, evil insofar as human beings experience it and suffer from it: the fact that we are not at all living well but are instead miserable and unhappy. (shrink)
How can evil exist in a world governed by providence? That is the main question addressed in this chapter. To answer it, the author first sets out Proclus’ defence of providence, which combines the gods’ transcendence with their sharing goodness. The next step is to show that despite providence, evils have reality as well. There is, however, no substance or principle of evil, and only human and irrational souls and material bodies are susceptible to it. Evil’s having a ‘parhypostasis’ is (...) explained as its existing upon and alongside real existents; uncaused because a result of weakness, not power; not pure privation because parasitic on good existents, and hence a ‘subcontrary’ of the good. Finally, the author returns to the relation between providence and evil, showing that bodily evil fits the good of the universe, and that providence will punish evil souls in due course. (shrink)
A new critical edition (the first since 1864) of Proclus' Commentary on Plato's Parmenides. Proclus' work is the most important document on the interpretation of this enigmatic dialogue, and has had a crucial influence on all subsequent readings.
This volume is a study of the influence of Timaeus on the development of Western cosmology in three axial periods of European culture: Late Antiquity, Middle Ages and Renaissance.
From an epistemological viewpoint, the Forms constitute the objects of true knowledge. From an ontological point of view, they are the principles that underlie the order of the universe.
Dans cet article nous avons essayé d'examiner la valeur de l'attribution traditionelle du commentaire De Anima à Simplicius. En comparant ce traité aux grands commentaires de Simplicius (sur les Catégories, la Physique et le De Caelo d'Aristote), nous avons été en effet frappés par les divergences de style, et de langue, ainsi que par la différente manière de commenter. Dans la première partie nous démontrons que l'auteur de l'In D.A. a écrit également la Metaphrasis in Theophrastum, qui nous a été (...) transmise sous le nom de Priscien le Lydien. 1° Dans le In D.A. l'auteur renvoie à une de ses œuvres, qu'il appelle „Epitomé de la Physique de Théophraste". En réalité, cette référence se rapporte à un passage de la Métaphrase de Priscien, où la même problématique est exposée dans des termes identiques. — 2° Une comparaison détaillée, qui porte sur l'ensemble des deux œuvres, nous révèle une telle ressemblance de style et de pensée — il y a même des phrases à peu près identiques — qu'elle ne peut s'expliquer que par l'hypothèse de l'identité de l'auteur. Dans la deuxième partie nous essayons d'identifier l'auteur de ces deux œuvres qui pourtant nous ont été transmises sous deux noms différents. L'étude de la tradition directe et indirecte n'apporte guère de solution, puisque l'attribution des deux textes, l'un à Simplicius, l'autre à Priscien, y paraît très solide. Ce n'est donc que par une critique interne de l'In D.A., notamment par la confrontation avec les commentaires de Simplicius, dont l'attribution est certaine, que la question pourra être tranchée. 1° Dans l'In D.A. l'auteur renvoie trois fois à son commentaire sur la Physique. Pourtant, il est bien difficile de retrouver dans le grand commentaire de Simplicius trois passages dont le contenu et surtout le vocabulaire prouvent que l'auteur s'y réfère. — 2° Dans l'In D.A. on ne retrouve pas les traits caractéristiques de la méthode de commenter de Simplicius, ni l'approche du texte par la documentation historique, ni les longues discussions avec les exégètes antérieurs, ni l'exposé prolixe et bien structuré; d'autre part aucun des commentaires de Simplicius ne témoigne de la phraséologie tortueuse de notre oeuvre, ni de ses formules stéréotypées. — 3° La différence doctrinale est encore plus importante. Nulle part chez Simplicius n'apparaît la théorie de l'âme comme όριστική, qui est si fondamentale dans l'In D.A. (όρίζω y est un concept-clé). Les rares digressions de l'In D.A. à propos de questions physiques et logiques ne correspondent pas aux exposés de Simplicius sur les mêmes problèmes. Ainsi nous avons confronté la doctrine de la ‚physis', de l'âme et de son ‚automotion’ et enfin le rapport entre le ‚genre’ et les différences ‚constitutives’ et ‚diérétiques’. De tout cela se dégage une telle divergence entre l'In D. A. et les autres commentaires qu'elle ne peut s'expliquer par une évolution chez Simplicius lui-même. L'in D.A. lui est donc faussement attribué; et puisque nous avons établi que ce commentaire est du même auteur que la Métaphrase, nous pouvons conclure qu'il a été vraisemblablement écrit par Priscien le Lydien, un philosophe néoplatonicien dont nous savons seulement qu'il a accompagné Damascius et Simplicius en exil en Perse. (shrink)
Ce que la religion révélée nous promet de « béatitude » dans une vie future, les philosophes arabes l’ont compris comme « l’union » avec l’intellect agent. Les épîtres d’Averroès sur la « béatitude » philosophique ont été traduites par des philosophes juifs au XIIIe siècle et utilisées pour expliquer la Bible. Puis elles ont été recousues en un seul texte, à son tour traduit en latin après avoir été frelaté et réécrit, puis imprimé pour se retrouver au programme de (...) l’Université chez les « averroistes padouans » dans le début du XVIe siècle. L’enquête proposée ici retrace la transmission de ce texte et la réception dans la pensée médiévale de cette problématique dominée par la théorie de l’intellect d’Averroès. Elle s’appuie sur l’édition et la traduction annotée des différentes versions du texte au cours de son histroire. (shrink)
Throws light on the particular renewal of the theological and philosophical tradition which Henry of Ghent brought about and elucidates various aspects of his metaphysics and epistemology ethics, and theology.
The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity comprises over forty specially comissioned essays by experts on the philosophy of the period 200-800 C.E. Designed as a successor to The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy , it takes into account some forty years of scholarship since the publication of that volume. The contributors examine philosophy as it entered literature, science and religion, and offer new and extensive assessments of philosophers who until recently have been mostly ignored. (...) The volume also includes a complete digest of all philosophical works known to have been written during this period. It will be an invaluable resource for all those interested in this rich and still emerging field. (shrink)
Ambrosianus B 165 sup., a 14th-cent. Constantinopolitan manuscript containing Proclus' In Parmenidem, was once owned by the Cardinal Bessarion, who has read, corrected and annotated the text with remarkable care. In this contribution, we provide an analysis of Bessarion's work on this manuscript, thus offering a case-study of his philological method. We also discuss some quotations from this text in Bessarion's works, which testify to the importance of his knowledge of Proclus for his own writings. In addition, Bessarion's Greek scholia (...) on books II and III of Proclus' commentary are edited here for the first time. (shrink)
The volumes of the 'Symposium Aristotelicum' have become the obligatory reference works for all studies on Aristotle. In this eighteenth volume a distinguished group of scholars offers a chapter-by-chapter study of the first book of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Book Alpha is not just a fundamental text for reconstructing the early history of Greek philosophy; it sets the agenda for Aristotle's own project of wisdom after what he had learned from his predecessors. The volume comprises eleven chapters, each dealing with a different (...) section of the text, a new edition of the Greek text, based on an exhaustive examination of the complex manuscript and indirect tradition, and an introduction which offers new insights into the relation between the two divergent traditions of the text. (shrink)
The volumes of the 'Symposium Aristotelicum' have become the obligatory reference works for all studies on Aristotle. In this eighteenth volume a distinguished group of scholars offers a chapter-by-chapter study of the first book of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Aristotle presents here his philosophical project as a search for wisdom, which is found in the knowledge of the first principles allowing us to explain whatever exists. As he shows, the earlier philosophers had been seeking such a wisdom, though they had divergent views (...) on what these first principles were. Before Aristotle sets out his own views, he offers a critical examination of his predecessors' views, ending up with a lengthy discussion of Plato's doctrine of the Forms. Book Alpha is not just a fundamental text for reconstructing the early history of Greek philosophy; it sets the agenda for Aristotle's own project of wisdom after what he had learned from his predecessors. (shrink)
