Proclus: On the Existence of Evils (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Proclus' On the Existence of Evils is not a commentary, but helps to compensate for the dearth of Neoplatonist ethical commentaries. The central question addressed in the work is: how can there be evil in a providential world? Neoplatonists agree that it cannot be caused by higher and worthier beings. Plotinus had said that evil is matter, which, unlike Aristotle, he collapsed into mere privation or lack, thus reducing its reality. He also protected higher causes from responsibility by saying that evil may result from a combination of goods. Proclus objects: evil is real, and not a privation. Rather, it is a parasite feeding off good. Parasites have no proper cause, and higher beings are thus vindicated as being the causes only of the good off which evil feeds.

Carlos Steel is Emeritus Professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and Director of 'Aristoteles Latinus'.

Jan Opsomer is Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Leuven, Belgium.

Richard Sorabji is Research Professor of Philosophy at King's College London and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, UK. He is the author of many books, including Necessity, Clause and Blame, Matter, Space and Motion, and Time, Creation and the Continuum, all published by Bloomsbury, and general editor of the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series.

Michael Griffin is Professor of Classics and Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is co-editor of the series Ancient Commentators on Aristotle and translator of two of its volumes: Olympiodorus: Life of Plato and On Plato First Alcibiades 1–9 (Bloomsbury 2014) and Olympiodorus: On Plato First Alcibiades 10–28 (Bloomsbury 2015).