In chapter 1 of On the Heavens Aristotle defines body, and then
notoriously ruptures dynamics by introducing a fifth element, beyond
Plato's four, to explain the rotation of the heavens, which, like
nearly all Greeks, Aristotle took to be real, not apparent. Even a
member of his school, Xenarchus, we are told, rejected his fifth
element. The Neoplatonist Simplicius seeks to harmonise Plato and
Aristotle. Plato, he says, thought that the heavens were composed of
all four elements but with the purest kind of fire, namely light,
predominating. That Plato would not mind this being called a fifth
element is shown by his associating with the heavens the fifth of the
five convex regular solids recognised by geometry. Simplicius follows
Aristotle's view that one of the lower elements, fire, also rotates,
as shown by the behaviour of comets. But such motion, though natural
for the fifth elements, is super-natural for fire. Simplicius reveals
that the Aristotelian Alexander of Aphrodisias recognised the need to
supplement Aristotle and account for the annual approach and retreat
of planets by means of Ptolemy's epicycles or eccentrics. Aristotle's
philosopher-god is turned by Simplicius, following his teacher
Ammonius, into a creator-god, like Plato's. But the creation is
beginningless, as shown by the argument that, if you try to imagine a
time when it began, you cannot answer the question, 'Why not sooner?'
In explaining the creation, Simplicius follows the Neoplatonist
expansion of Aristotle's four 'causes' to six. The final result gives
us a cosmology very considerably removed from Aristotle's.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781780939063
Publisert
2020
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Bloomsbury Academic
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter