Proclus: Ten Problems Concerning Providence (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Steel, Carlos; Opsomer, Jan

ISBN 10: 0715639242 / ISBN 13: 9780715639245

Published by Bristol Classical Press, 2012

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Proclus: Ten Problems Concerning Providence (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)
• Publisher: Bristol Classical Press
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0715639242
• ISBN 13: 9780715639245
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

'The universe is, as it were, one machine, wherein the celestial spheres are analogous to the interlocking wheels and the particular beings are like the things moved by the wheels, and all events are determined by an inescapable necessity. To speak of free choice or self determination is only an illusion we human beings cherish.' Thus writes Theodore the engineer to his old friend Proclus, one of the last major Classical philosophers. Proclus' reply is one of the most remarkable discussions on fate, providence and free choice in Late Antiquity. It continues a long debate that had started with the first polemics of the Platonists against the Stoic doctrine of determinism. How can there be a place for free choice and moral responsibility in a world governed by an unalterable fate? Proclus discusses ten problems on providence and fate, foreknowledge of the future, human responsibility, evil and punishment (or seemingly absence of punishment), social and individual responsibility for evil, and the unequal fate of different animals.

Until now, despite its great interest, Proclus' treatise has not received the attention it deserves, probably because its text is not very accessible to the modern reader. It has survived only in a Latin medieval translation and in some extensive Byzantine Greek extracts. This first English translation, based on a retro-conversion that works out what the original Greek must have been, brings the arguments he formulates again to the fore.

About the Authors

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).