The Parva naturalia in Greek, Arabic and Latin Aristotelianism: Supplementing the Science of the Soul

368 Pages·2018·5.25 MB·English

by  Börje Bydén

Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 17
Börje Bydén
Filip Radovic E ditors
The Parva
naturalia in Greek,
Arabic and Latin
Aristotelianism
Supplementing the Science of the Soul
Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind
Volume 17
Series editors
Henrik Lagerlund, The University of Western Ontario, Canada
Mikko Yrjönsuuri, Academy of Finland and University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Board of Consulting Editors
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Patricia Kitcher, Columbia University, U.S.A.
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Béatrice M. Longuenesse, New York University, U.S.A.
Calvin Normore, University of California, Los Angeles, U.S.A.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6539
Börje Bydén • Filip Radovic
Editors
The Parva naturalia in Greek,
Arabic and Latin
Aristotelianism
Supplementing the Science of the Soul
Editors
Börje Bydén Filip Radovic
Department of Philosophy, Linguistics Department of Philosophy, Linguistics
and Theory of Science and Theory of Science
University of Gothenburg University of Gothenburg
Gothenburg, Sweden Gothenburg, Sweden
Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind
ISBN 978-3-319-26903-0 ISBN 978-3-319-26904-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26904-7
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Preface
The 13 essays that make up the bulk of this volume all began as papers or comments
on papers presented at the first conference in Gothenburg arranged by the research
programme Representation and Reality: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
on the Aristotelian Tradition on 6–8 June 2014. Representation and Reality is
funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond for the period 2013–2019 and hosted by the
Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of
Gothenburg. For more information, visit http://representationandreality.gu.se. Our
thanks are due to Anna Ntinti for invaluable help with preparing the Index of
Passages.
Gothenburg, Sweden Börje Bydén
Filip Radovic
v
Contents
1 Introduction: The Study and Reception
of Aristotle’s Parva naturalia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Börje Bydén
2 The Unity of Sense-Power in the De anima and Parva naturalia . . . . 51
Giuseppe Feola
3 The Notion of κοινὴ αἴσθησις and Its Implications
in Michael of Ephesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Péter Lautner
4 Aristotle and Alexander of Aphrodisias on Colour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Katerina Ierodiakonou
5 Aristotle’s Transparency: Comments on Ierodiakonou,
“Aristotle and Alexander of Aphrodisias on Colour” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Pavel Gregoric
6 Representation of Which Reality? “Spiritual Forms”
and “maʿānī ” in the Arabic Adaptation of Aristotle’s
Parva naturalia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Rotraud Hansberger
7 Dreams, Providence and Reality: Comments on Hansberger,
“Representation of Which Reality?” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Emma Gannagé
8 Representation and Reality: On the Definition of Imaginative
Prophecy in Avicenna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Olga L. Lizzini
9 The Byzantine Reception of Aristotle’s Parva naturalia
(and the Zoological Works) in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century
Byzantium: An Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Michele Trizio
vii
viii Contents
10 Albert the Great as a Commentator of Aristotle’s
De somno et vigilia: The Influence of the Arabic Tradition. . . . . . . . . 169
Silvia Donati
11 Good Night and Good Luck: Some Late Thirteenth-Century
Philosophers on Activities in and through Dreams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Martin Pickavé
12 George Scholarios’ Abridgment of the Parva naturalia:
Its Place in His Œuvre and in the History of Byzantine
Aristotelianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
John A. Demetracopoulos
13 George Gennadius II Scholarios and the West: Comments
on Demetracopoulos, “George Scholarios’ Abridgment
of the Parva naturalia” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
John Monfasani
14 Localizing Memory and Recollection: The Sixteenth-Century
Italian Commentaries on Aristotle’s De memoria et reminiscentia
and the Question Concerning the Degrees of (dis)embodiment
of the “Psychic” Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Roberto Lo Presti
Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
Index of Passages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Chapter 1
Introduction: The Study and Reception
of Aristotle’s Parva naturalia
Börje Bydén
1 This Volume
The thirteen essays that make up the bulk of this volume all began as papers or com-
ments on papers presented at the first Representation and Reality conference in
Gothenburg on 6–8 June 2014 (“Cross-Cultural Dialogues: The Parva naturalia in
Greek, Arabic and Latin Aristotelianism”).1 They are perhaps most straightforwardly
read as accounts of so many episodes in the history of the ancient and medieval
reception of a classical philosophical work, Aristotle’s Parva naturalia. By and
large, they can also be read as inquiries into different passages in the development
of a specific theme (psycho-physiology, for want of a better term) in the history of
ancient and medieval philosophy. For in ancient and medieval times, the reception
of classical philosophical works, not least Aristotle’s, was part of the daily business
of philosophers, not historians. Each of these accounts (or inquiries) presents o riginal
research designed to widen and deepen our understanding of the episode in hand.
The contributors to the volume, all recognized experts in their respective fields,
were not assigned specific topics for treatment according to any systematic plan;
instead, some of them were invited to submit original papers on topics selected at
their own discretion and on the basis of their own expertise, whereas others were
asked to comment on one or another of these papers. As a result, certain episodes in
the history of the reception of the Parva naturalia—typically ones considered by
1 The research programme Representation and Reality: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
on the Aristotelian Tradition is funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond for the period 2013–2019
and hosted by the Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of
Gothenburg. For more information, visit http://representationandreality.gu.se
B. Bydén (*)
Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science,
University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
e-mail: [email protected]
© The Author(s) 2018 1
B. Bydén, F. Radovic (eds.), The Parva naturalia in Greek, Arabic and Latin
Aristotelianism, Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind 17,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26904-7_1
2 B. Bydén
contemporary scholars to be of particular significance—will be found to have cap-
tured the attention of more than one contributor; others, alas, are only touched upon
in passing or not at all. For the benefit of those readers who legitimately wonder
how one or another of these episodes connects with the rest (and what the missing
episodes were all about), the following introduction attempts to provide a skeletal
outline of the study and reception of the Parva naturalia through the ages, with the
bibliographical references necessary for putting flesh on the bones also regarding
those parts of the story which are not directly addressed in any of the thirteen essays.
2 Aristotle’s Parva naturalia2
Aristotle’s De sensu et sensibilibus is prefaced with a statement of the relation
between the preceding discussion “of the soul as such and of each of its faculties”
(evidently the De anima) and the following inquiry, the purpose of which is to estab-
lish which functions (πράξεις)3 are peculiar to some and which are common to all
animals and other living (and thus ensouled) creatures. In this inquiry, Aristotle
says, the results of the preceding discussion must be assumed. This is how the new
inquiry begins:
It is clear that the main attributes of animals, both those that are common [to all] and those
that are peculiar [to some], are common to the soul and the body, for instance, sense percep-
tion, memory, spiritedness, appetite and desire in general, and besides these pleasure and
pain. Indeed, these belong to practically all animals. But besides them certain attributes are
common to all things that partake of life, while others [belong only to] some among the
animals. It so happens that the principal among these attributes constitute four pairs of
opposites, namely: wakefulness and sleep, youth and old age, inhalation and exhalation, life
and death. We must examine what each of these attributes is and which are the causes of
their occurrence. But it is also the task of a natural philosopher to discern the first principles
of health and disease, since neither health nor disease can exist in things that are bereft of
life. This is why pretty much the vast majority of natural philosophers end up in the study
of medicine, whereas those among the physicians who pursue their art in a more philo-
sophical way take the study of nature as their starting-point (Sens. 436a6–b1).4
By and large, the programme of study set out in this passage is implemented over
the next nine (or eight, if 7a and 7b in the list below are taken together as one) trea-
tises in our standard editions of the corpus aristotelicum. The English and Latin
titles of these treatises used in the present volume are as follows:
2 For general overviews of the Parva naturalia, see Ross (1955, 1–68); Düring (1966, 560–571);
Morel (2000, 9–60). For discussions of their unity, scope and character, see Kahn (1966); Lloyd
(1992); van der Eijk (1994, 68–87, 1997); Morel (2006, 2007, 71–89); Johansen (2006); Sassi
(2014). See also King (2001, 34–73), which is particularly focused on the theory of nutrition occu-
pying centre stage in Parva nat. 7a–8.
3 For the concept, see De part. an. 1.5, 645b14–646a4, which lends little support to Alexander’s
contention (In De sensu 4.5–6, echoed by Ross 1906, 123–124) that the term is used “properly” for
rational activity. See also Morel (2000, 19–23).
4 Unless otherwise stated, all translations are my own.