Interpreting Aristotle's Posterior Analytics in Late Antiquity and Beyond (Philosophia Antiqua)

294 Pages·2011·1.51 MB·English

by  Frans A. J. De Haas

Posterior Analytics
Interpreting Aristotle’s
in Late Antiquity and Beyond
Philosophia Antiqua
A Series of Studies on Ancient Philosophy
PreviousEditors
J.H. Waszink†
W.J. Verdenius†
J.C.M. Van Winden
Editedby
K.A. Algra
F.A.J. de Haas
J. Mansfeld
C.J. Rowe
D.T. Runia
Ch. Wildberg
VOLUME124
Interpreting Aristotle’s
Posterior Analytics
in Late
Antiquity and Beyond
Editedby
Frans A.J. de Haas, MariskaLeunissen and MarijeMartijn
LEIDEN•BOSTON
2010
Thisbookisprintedonacid-freepaper.
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InterpretingAristotle'sPosterioranalyticsinlateantiquityandbeyond/editedbyFransA.J.de
Haas,MariskaLeunissen,andMarijeMartijn.
p.cm.–(Philosophiaantiqua;v.124)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-90-04-20127-9(hardback:alk.paper)
1.Aristotle.Posterioranalytics.2.Logic.3.Knowledge,Theoryof.4.Definition(Philosophy)
I.Haas,FransA.J.de,1963-II.Leunissen,Mariska,1979-III.Martijn,Marije.
B441.I582010
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ISBN: 9789004201279
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CONTENTS
Preface ................................................................. vii
Introduction ........................................................... ix
parti
conceptformationinposterior analyticsii
TheAncientCommentatorsonConceptFormation ................. 3
RichardSorabji
Proclus’CriticismofAristotle’sTheoryofAbstractionand
ConceptFormationinAnalyticaPosterioraII.................. 27
ChristophHelmig
Eustratius’CommentsonPosteriorAnalyticsII ................... 55
KaterinaIerodiakonou
RogerBacononExperiment,InductionandIntellectinhis
ReceptionofAnalyticaPosterioraII ............................ 73
PiaA.Antolic-Piper
part ii
metaphysicsasa science
AlexanderofAphrodisiasontheScienceofOntology ............... 101
MaddalenaBonelli
Les‹SecondsAnalytiques›danslecommentairedeSyrianussurla
‹Métaphysique›d’Aristote .......................................... 123
AngelaLongo
part iii
demonstration,definitionandcausation
AlexanderandPhiloponusonPriorAnalyticsI–:IsThere
TensionbetweenAristotle’sScientificTheoryandPractice? ...... 137
MiiraTuominen
vi contents
TwoTraditionsintheAncientPosteriorAnalyticsCommentaries... 155
OwenGoldin
AristotleandPhiloponusonFinalCausesinDemonstrationsin
PosteriorAnalyticsII............................................. 183
MariskaLeunissen
AristotleonCausationandConditionalNecessity:Analytica
PosterioraIIinContext.......................................... 203
InnaKupreeva
Bibliography ........................................................... 235
IndexNominum ....................................................... 255
IndexLocorum ........................................................ 258
PREFACE
This volume brings togethera number ofpapers connectedto thepro-
gramFromnaturalphilosophytoscience:–fundedbytheEuro-
peanScience Foundation. In thatframeworktheteam ‘The anatomyof
science: logic and method’, led by De Haas, organised two workshops.
ThefirstwasorganisedbytheeditorsofthisvolumeanddevotedtoInter-
pretationsofAristotle’sPosteriorAnalytics(Leiden,Netherlands,–June
);thesecondwasdevotedtoIntuitiveKnowledge,Induction,andthe
Role of Experiment (Maynooth, Ireland, – June ). The editors
gratefully acknowledgethefinancialsupportprovidedbytheESFwith-
out whichthis enterprisewould not have been possible.Martijn’s work
on this volume has in part been made possible by a Veni-grant of the
NetherlandsOrganizationforScientificResearchNWO,project--
.
TheMaynoothconferencewasorganizedbythelateJohnCleary,who,
with the help of his Maynooth colleagues, saw it through successfully
despitethefactthathiswifehadjustfallenseriouslyill.Hisunfailingsup-
portfortheESFproject,hisintensecommitmenttotheunderstandingof
ancientphilosophy,butalsohischeerfuljokesandremarkabletaleswill
alwaysberememberedbyeveryonewhoparticipatedintheworkshops.
Thisvolumeisdevotedtohismemory.
Thepapersweselectedforpublicationweresubstantiallyrevisedand
updatedtothecurrentstateofresearch.OwenGoldin,whoparticipated
intheLeidenworkshop,kindlyacceptedtheinvitationtoprepareanew
paper,sincehisoriginalpaperwasalreadyinpressatthetimeofdelivery
(Goldin ). In the introduction and bibliography we have aimed at
providingaccesstotherapidlygrowingfieldofthereceptionofthePos-
teriorAnalyticsinlaterGreekAntiquity,andtheByzantine,Arabic,and
LatinMedievalphilosophicaltraditions.Wehavenotaimedatproviding
acompletebibliography,butweareconfidentthatthescholarshipwedid
includewillprovideboththegeneralandthespecializedreaderwiththe
meanstopursuehisorherinterests.
Theeditorsincurredanumberofdebtswhilepreparingthisvolume.
It will be hard to compensate for the patience of our contributors, and
we are truly grateful that they bore with us until we were able to bring
the project to the press. James Lesher and Henrik Lagerlund kindly
viii preface
informed us about forthcoming publications that we were thus able
to include in our bibliography. For last minute advice on parts of the
introductionweareindebtedtoKaterinaIerodiakonou,MicheleTrizio,
andthemembersoftheresearchgroupAncientandmedievalphilosophy
attheVUUniversityAmsterdam.
FransdeHaas
MariskaLeunissen
MarijeMartijn
Leiden,thMarch
INTRODUCTION
One of the major contributors to research on the Posterior Analytics,
JonathanBarnes,oncewrotethatthetext“plays CinderellaintheAris-
totelianpantomime”1—inthesensethatsheusedtobedisregardedbutis
recentlyfollowedaroundbyahostofsuitors.WhatistrueofthePosterior
Analyticsnow,hasbeentrueduringtheMiddleAges(Byzantine,Arabic
and Latin) in a very specific sense.Whenmedieval philosopherswrote
commentariesonAristotle’sPosteriorAnalyticstheydidnotaimatgiving
anoverviewoftheworkforitsownsakeoratclarifying itsplaceinthe
corpusanditsrelationtootherAristotelianworks.Instead,theymadethe
textplaytheproverbialCinderellabyhavingitscrubthefloors:eitherthe
commentarieshadanexternalaim,primarilythedefenseoftheologyasa
science,orthecommentatorsselectedafairlylimitednumberofthemes
usefultotheareasofphilosophyoftheirinterest.Therootsofthistreat-
mentofthePosteriorAnalyticscanbefoundintheancientcommentary
tradition,althoughthereitisstillpartofamorecomprehensiveapproach
tothework.
The treatment of the Posterior Analytics became an instrument in a
development characteristic for the transition from natural philosophy
to science, namely a progression of the awareness and sophistication
of method and logical argument. Here we bring together a collection
of essays that trace these developments in the discussions of scientific
method and argument in the comment(arie)s on Aristotle’s Posterior
Analytics and related methodological passages in the Aristotelian cor-
pus. Despite the importance of these discussions the larger part of the
commentarytraditiononthePosteriorAnalyticsstillremainsuncharted.
Thiscollectionaimstoopenup thisnewline ofresearchbyidentifying
andexploringthreeimportantstrandsofinterpretationrelatedto()the
receptionofAristotle’slogicofinquiryandtheoryofconceptformation
in Posterior Analytics II ; () the influence of the Posterior Analytics
on the evaluation of metaphysics as a science; and () the reception of
Aristotle’s theory of demonstration, definition, and causation in Poste-
riorAnalyticsbookII.
1 Barnes().