Philoponus: On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 1.1-8

Philoponus: On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 1.1-8
Author: John Philoponus
Publisher: Bristol Classical Press
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2008-03-20
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN:

Aristotle's "Posterior Analytics" elaborates the notions of science and the requirements for the distinctive kind of knowledge scientists possess. This book explores the foundations of Aristotle's theory, pointing out the similarities and differences between scientific and other types of knowledge, and establishing the need for basic principles.

Philoponus: On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 2

Philoponus: On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 2
Author: Philoponus,
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2014-04-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1472501594

The Posterior Analytics contains Aristotle's philosophy of science. In Book 2, Aristotle asks how the scientist discovers what sort of loss of light constitutes lunar eclipse. The scientist has to discover that the moon's darkening is due to the earth's shadow. Once that defining explanation is known the scientist possesses the full scientific concept of lunar eclipse and can use it to explain other necessary features of the phenomenon. The present commentary, arguably ascribed to Philoponus incorrectly, offers some interpretations of Aristotle that are unfamiliar nowadays. For example, the scientific concept of a human is acquired from observing particular humans and repeatedly receiving impressions in the sense image or percept and later in the imagination. The impressions received are not only of particular distinctive characteristics, like paleness, but also of universal human characteristics, like rationality. Perception can thus in a sense apprehend universal qualities in the individual as well as particular ones. This volume contains an English translation of the commentary, accompanied by extensive commentary notes, an introduction and a bibliography.

Philoponus: On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 1.9-18

Philoponus: On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 1.9-18
Author: Philoponus,
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2014-04-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1472500369

In this part of the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle elaborates his assessment of how universal truths of science can be scientifically explained as inevitable in demonstrative proofs. But he introduces complications: some sciences discuss phenomena that can only be explained by higher sciences and again sometimes we reason out a cause from an effect, rather than an effect from a cause. Philoponus takes these issues further. Reasoning from particular to universal is the direction taken by induction, and in mathematics reasoning from a theorem to the higher principles from which it follows is considered particularly valuable. It corresponds to the direction of analysis, as opposed to synthesis. This volume contains an English translation of Philoponus' commentary, a detailed introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a bibliography.

Interpreting Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics in Late Antiquity and Beyond

Interpreting Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics in Late Antiquity and Beyond
Author: F.A.J. de Haas
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2010
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004201270

This volume collects Late Ancient, Byzantine and Medieval appropriations of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, addressing the logic of inquiry, concept formation, the question whether metaphysics is a science, and the theory of demonstration.

Philoponus: On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 1.1-8

Philoponus: On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 1.1-8
Author: Philoponus,
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2014-04-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1472501519

Aristotle's Posterior Analytics elaborates for the first time in the history of Western philosophy the notions of science and the requirements for the distinctive kind of knowledge scientists possess. His model is mathematics and his treatment of science amounts to a philosophical discussion, from the perspective of Aristotelian syllogistic, of mathematical proofs and the principles they are based on. Chapters 1-8 expound the foundations of Aristotle's theory, pointing out the similarities and differences between scientific knowledge and other types of knowledge, establishing the need for basic principles, and identifying the types of principles and the source of necessity associated with scientific facts. Philoponus' massive commentary, the most complete ancient discussion of Posterior Analytics Book 1, offers uniquely valuable testimony to the way this book was read and understood in late antiquity, as well as providing information on earlier interpretations. Of particular interest is Philoponus' account of scientific principles, which is based not only on Aristotle but also on the Greek mathematical tradition, especially Euclid and his commentator Proclus.

Aristotle and Philoponus on Light

Aristotle and Philoponus on Light
Author: Jean De Groot
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2015-08-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317380630

Originally published in 1991. Philoponus’ long commentary on Aristotle’s definition of light sets up the major concerns, both in optics and theory of light, that are discussed here. Light was of special interest in Neoplatonism because of its being something incorporeal in the world of natural bodies. Light therefore had a special role in the philosophical analysis of the interpenetration of bodies and was also a paradigm for the soul-body problem. The book contains much about the physiology of vision as well as the propagation of light. Several chapters investigate the philosophical theory behind what came to be known as ‘multiplication of species’ in medieval light theory. These issues in the history of science are placed within an analysis of Neoplatonic development of the distinction between Aristotle’s kinesis and energeia. The book treats Philoponus’ philosophy of mathematical science from the point of view of matter, quantity, and three-dimensionality.

Exploring Written Artefacts

Exploring Written Artefacts
Author: Jörg B. Quenzer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 1280
Release: 2021-10-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110753340

This collection, presented to Michael Friedrich in honour of his academic career at of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, traces key concepts that scholars associated with the Centre have developed and refined for the systematic study of manuscript cultures. At the same time, the contributions showcase the possibilities of expanding the traditional subject of ‘manuscripts’ to the larger perspective of ‘written artefacts’.

Interpreting Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics in Late Antiquity and Beyond

Interpreting Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics in Late Antiquity and Beyond
Author: F.A.J. de Haas
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2011-03-21
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004201823

This collection of essays highlights Ancient, Byzantine and Medieval developments in the discussion of scientific method and argument in the comment(arie)s on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics and related methodological passages in the Aristotelian corpus. Despite the importance of these discussions, the larger part of the commentary tradition on the Posterior Analytics still remains uncharted. The contributors to this volume identify and explore three important strands of interpretation, viz. (1) the reception of Aristotle’s logic of inquiry and theory of concept formation in Posterior Analytics II 19; (2) the influence of the Posterior Analytics on the evaluation of metaphysics as a science; and (3) the reception of Aristotle’s theory of demonstration, definition, and causation in Posterior Analytics book II.

Philoponus: On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 1.19-34

Philoponus: On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 1.19-34
Author:
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2014-04-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1472501756

Aristotle described the scientific explanation of universal or general facts as deducing them through scientific demonstrations, that is, through syllogisms that met requirements of logical validity and explanatoriness which he first formulated. In Chapters 19-23, he adds arguments for the further logical restrictions that scientific demonstrations can neither be indefinitely long nor infinitely extendible through the interposition of new middle terms. Chapters 24-26 argue for the superiority of universal over particular demonstration, of affirmative over negative demonstration, and of direct negative demonstration over demonstration to the impossible. Chapters 27-34 discuss different aspects of sciences and scientific understanding, allowing us to distinguish between sciences, and between scientific understanding and other kinds of cognition, especially opinion. Philoponus' comments on these chapters are interesting especially because of his metaphysical analysis of universal predication and his understanding of the notion of subordinate sciences. We learn from his commentary that Philoponus believed in Platonic Forms as inherent in, and posterior to, the Divine Intellect, but ascribed to Aristotle an interpretation of Plato's Forms as independent substances, prior to the Demiurgic Intellect. A very important notion from Aristotle's Posterior Analytics is that of the 'subordination' of sciences, i.e. the idea that some sciences depend on 'higher' ones for some of their principles. Philoponus goes beyond Aristotle in suggesting a taxonomy of sciences, in which the subordinate science concerns the same scientific genus as the superordinate, but a different species. This volume contains the first English translation of Philoponus' commentary, as well as a detailed introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a bibliography.