Simplicius: On Aristotle Categories 5-6 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Barrie Fleet

ISBN 10: 1780938934 / ISBN 13: 9781780938936

Published by Bloomsbury Academic 2014-04-10, 2014

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 6666-IUK-9781780938936

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Simplicius: On Aristotle Categories 5-6 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic 2014-04-10
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1780938934
• ISBN 13: 9781780938936
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Chapters 5 and 6 of Aristotle's Categories describe his first two categories, Substance and Quantity. It is usually taken that Plotinus attacked Aristotle's Categories, but that Porphyry and Iamblichus restored it to the curriculum once and for all. Nonetheless, the introduction to this text stresses how much of the defence of Aristotle Porphyry was able to draw out of Plotinus' critical discussion. Simplicius' commentary is our most comprehensive account of the debate on the validity of Aristotle's Categories. One subject discussed by Simplicius in these chapters is where the differentia of a species (eg the rationality of humans) fits into the scheme of categories. Another is why Aristotle elevates the category of Quantity to second place, above the category of Quality. Further, de Haas shows how Simplicius distinguishes different kinds of universal order to solve some of the problems.

About the Authors

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).