In Categories chapters 7 and 8 Aristotle considers his third and fourth categories - those of Relative and Quality. Critics of Aristotle had suggested for each of the non-substance categories that they could really be reduced to relatives, so it is important how the category of Relative is defined. Aristotle offers two definitions, and the second, stricter, one is often cited by his defenders in order to rule out objections. The second definition of relative involves the idea of something changing its relationship through a change undergone by its correlate, not by itself. There were disagreements as to whether this was genuine change, and Plotinus discussed whether relatives exist only in the mind, without being real. The terms used by Aristotle for such relationships was 'being disposed relatively to something', a term later borrowed by the Stoics for their fourth category, and perhaps originating in Plato's Academy. In his discussion of Quality, Aristotle reports a debate on whether justice admits of degrees, or whether only the possession of justice does so. Simplicius reports the further development of this controversy in terms of whether justice admits a range or latitude (platos). This debate helped to inspire the medieval idea of latitude of forms, which goes back much further than is commonly recognised - at least to Plato and Aristotle.

"In his discussion of Quality, Aristotle reports a debate on whether justice admits of degrees, or whether only the possession of justice does so. Simplicius reports the further development of this controversy in terms of whether justice admits a range or latitude (platos). This debate helped to inspire the medieval idea of latitude of forms, which thus goes back much further than is commonly recognized - at least as far in the past as Plato and Aristotle."--BOOK JACKET.

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This volume studies the origin and evolution of philosophical interest in Aristotle's Categories. After centuries of neglect, the Categories became the focus of philosophical discussion in the first century BCE, and was subsequently adopted as the basic introductory textbook for philosophy in the Aristotelian and Platonic traditions. In this study, Michael Griffin builds on earlier work to reconstruct the fragments of the earliest commentaries on the treatise, and illuminates the earliest arguments for Aristotle's approach to logic as the foundation of higher education. Griffin argues that Andronicus of Rhodes played a critical role in the Categories' rise to prominence, and that his motivations for interest in the text can be recovered. The volume also tracks Platonic and Stoic debate over the Categories, and suggests reasons for its adoption into the mainstream of both schools. Covering the period from the first century BCE to the third century CE, the volume focuses on individual philosophers whose views can be recovered from later, mostly Neoplatonic sources, including Andronicus of Rhodes, Eudorus of Alexandria, Pseudo-Archytas, Lucius, Nicostratus, Athenodorus, and Cornutus.

Neoplatonists from Plotinus onward incorporate Aristotle’s logic and ontology into their philosophies: this process is of both intrinsic and historical interest and paves the way for subsequent philosophical debates in the Middle Ages and beyond. The ten essays collected in this book focus on the readings of Aristotle by Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Their discussions cover key issues in the history of logic and metaphysics such as substance, hylomorphism, causation, existence, and predication. Among the topics tackled in this volume are Plotinus’ criticism of Aristotle’s physical essentialism, which is a major chapter in the history of metaphysics, and the interpretation of Porphyry’s Isagoge, one of the most influential and enigmatic works in the history of philosophy. Further essays focus on the readings of Aristotle’s categories developed by Porphyry and Iamblichus, which raise interesting questions at the intersection of logic and ontology, and on the integration of Aristotle’s ontology into Neoplatonist accounts of being and existence.

This book provides a collection of sources, many of them fragmentary and previously scattered and hard to access, for the development of Peripatetic philosophy in the later Hellenistic period and the early Roman Empire. It also supplies the background against which the first commentator on Aristotle from whom extensive material survives, Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. c. AD 200), developed his interpretations which continue to be influential even today. Many of the passages are here translated into English for the first time, including the whole of the summary of Peripatetic ethics attributed to 'Arius Didymus'.

This book is about the epistemological views and arguments of the early Stoics. It discusses such questions as: How is knowledge possible, and what is it? How do we perceive things and acquire notions of them? Should we rely on arguments? How do we come to make so many mistakes? The author tries to give a comprehensive and conservative account of Stoic epistemology as a whole as it was developed by Chrysippus. He emphasizes how the epistemological views of the Stoics are interrelated among themselves and with views from Stoic physics and logic. There are a number of Stoic views and arguments that we will never know about. But there are passages on Stoic epistemology in Sextus Empiricus, Galen, Plutarch, Cicero, and a few others authors. The book is like a big jigsaw puzzle of these scattered pieces of evidence.

Aristotle classified the things in the world into ten categories: substance, quantity, quality, relative, etc. Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatonism, attacked the classification, accepting only these first four categories, rejecting the other six, and adding one of this own: change. He preferred Plato's classification into five kinds which included change. In this part of his commentary, Simplicius records the controversy on the six categories which Plotinus rejected: acting, being acted upon, being in a position, when, where, and having on. Plotinus' pupil and editor, Porphyry, defended all six categories as applicable to the physical world, even if not to the world of Platonic Forms to which Platonist studies must eventually progress. Porphyry's pupil, lamblichus, went further: taken in a suitable sense, Aristotle's categories apply also to the world of Forms, although they require Pythagorean reinterpretation. Simplicius may be closer to Porphyry that to lamblichus, and indeed Porphyry's defence established Aristotle's categories once and for all in Western thought. But the probing controversy of this period none the less revealed more effectively than any discussion of modern times the profound difficulties in Aristotle's categorical scheme.

These two volumes represent the first fruits of an international project to produce a new collection - text, translation and commentary - of the fragments and testimonia relating to Theophrastus (c. 370-288/5 B.C.), Aristotle's pupil and successor as head of the Lyceum. The need for a new collection was apparent: the standard collection, by Wimmer, is already 120 years old, whereas we now have far better texts of many of the ancient authors in which fragments and testimonia of Theophrastus occur. Whilst classicists have devoted the past hundred years to bringing into the light the work of the major post-Aristotelian schools, the contribution of Theophrastus has remained obscure. The second printing contains corrections to the first. This first stage of the project presents the texts, critical apparatus and English translation of the fragments and testimonia. It contains a long methodological introduction, an index of Theophrastean texts and concordances with other collections (Scheider, Wimmer and the several recent partial editions). The second stage of the project, which Brill will also publish will consist of 9 commentary volumes, planned at present as follows: 1. Life, Writings, various reports (M. Sollenberger, Mt. St. Mary's College) 2. Logic (P.M. Huby, Liverpool University) 3. Physics (R.W. Sharples, University College London) 4. Metaphysics, Theology, Mathematics, Psychology (P.M. Huby, Liverpool University) 5. Human Physiology, Living Creatures, Botany (R.W. Sharples, University of London) 6. Ethics, Religion (W.W. Fortenbaugh, Rutgers University) 7. Politics (J. Mirhady) 8. Rhetoric, Poetics (W.W. Fortenbaugh, Rutgers University) 9. Music, Miscellaneous Items and Index of proper names, subject index, selective index of Greek, Latin and Arabic terms (several authors/editors). Most of the nine commentary volumes will include significant discussion of Arabic texts, with contributions by Dimitri Gutas (Yale University) and Hans Daiber (Free University of Amsterdam). It is expected that the first commentary volume, volume 5, will appear in the course of 1993.