Aristotle's Physics is about the causes of motion and culminates in a proof that God is needed as the ultimate cause of motion. Aristotle argues that things in motion need to be moved by something other than themselves - he rejects Plato's self-movers. On pain of regress, there must be an unmoved mover. If this unmoved mover is to cause motion eternally, it needs infinite power. It cannot, then, be a body, since bodies, being of finite size, cannot house infinite power. The unmoved mover is therefore an incorporeal God. Simplicius reveals that his teacher, Ammonius, harmonised Aristotle with Plato to counter Christian charges of pagan disagreement, by making Aristotle's God a cause of beginningless movement, but of beginningless existence of the universe. Eternal existence, not less than eternal motion, calls for an infinite, and hence incorporeal, force. By an irony, this anti-Christian interpretation turned Aristotle's God from a thinker into a certain kind of Creator, and so helped to make Aristotle's God acceptable to St Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. This text provides a translation of Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's work.
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Aristotle's "Physics" is about the causes of motion and culminates in a proof that God is needed as the ultimate cause of motion. This text provides a translation of Simplicius' commentary on his work.
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Preface
Introduction
Textual Emendations
TRANSLATION
Notes
Bibliography English-Greek
Glossary Greek-English Index
Index of Passages Cited
Subject
Index

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Aristotle's Physics is about the causes of motion and culminates in a proof that God is needed as the ultimate cause of motion. This text provides a translation of Simplicius' commentary on his work.
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The latest volume in a prestigious scholarly series, now in over 90 volumes

The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series is a prestigious scholarly project, which translates into English the principal works of the Neoplatonist commentators on Aristotle. The translation in each volume is accompanied by an introduction, comprehensive commentary notes, bibliography, glossary of translated terms and a subject index.

Praise for the series:

"A truly breathtaking achievement, with few parallels in the history of scholarly endeavour"
Times Literary Supplement

"Well-known and renowned"
Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"One of the great scholarly achievements of our time"
British Journal for the History of Philosophy

"Without any doubt, it is this enterprise of R. Sorabji which has had the greatest impact among historians of ancient philosophy."
Ilsetraut Hadot in Le Néoplatonicien Simplicius à la lumière des recherches contemporaines

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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781780938974
Publisert
2014-04-10
Utgiver
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Vekt
363 gr
Høyde
234 mm
Bredde
156 mm
Aldersnivå
U, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
240

Biografisk notat

Richard McKirahan is the Edwin Clarence Norton Professor of Classics and Professor of Philosophy at Pomona College, Claremont, California.