The Philosophy of the Commentators, 200-600 AD: A Sourcebook. Vol. 1: Psychology

440 Pages·2003·21.63 MB·English

by  Richard Sorabji

Preface and Acknowledgements
In 1996, the British Academy advertised a Research Chair in the Humani-
ties and Social Sciences, the vacated half of one of the first two such chairs
which had been donated by Lord Wolfson. It was to begin on 1 October
1996, the day after I finished a five-year term at the Institute of Classical
Studies, and I was fortunate enough to be awarded it. Without this
two-and-a-half year break, I would not have undertaken the Sourcebook.
The work was done in phases.
Phase 1: The initial phase involved preparing the first draft of the
Sourcebook in time for a week-long international workshop held at the
Institute of Classical Studies in the University of London in June 1997, and
financed by the Institute and the University's School of Advanced Study, of
whch the Institute is a member. Some forty younger scholars attended
from all over the world, in order to gain acquaintance with the Philosophy
of the Ancient Commentators from the period 200 to 600 AD. The first draft
was on the table and was also used by some of the speakers in preparing
handouts.
In order to prepare the first draft, I selected topics and illustrative texts,
in very much the format of the final version, ad&ng brief introductory
heahngs. Of my research assistants at that time, the work of typing up the
available translations was started by Dolores Iorizzo, and then taken over
by Sylvia Berryman, with a team of graduate students. It was a mammoth
task to deliver the three draft volumes a week before the workshop.
The nineteen speakers at the workshop, in some cases, added their own
handouts. They were: Sylvia Berryman, Victor Caston, Gillian Clark, John
Ellis, Andrea Falcon, Barrie Fleet, Frans de Haas, Pamela Huby, Jill
Kraye, Peter Lautner, Eric Lewis, Arthur Madigan, Mario Mignucci, Sara
Rappe, David Sedley, Robert Sharples, Anne Sheppard, Lucas Siorvanes,
and Richard Sorabji.
Phase 2: The main recommendation of the workshop participants was
that I should add more explanatory narrative. This process led to the
ad&tion and subtraction of texts. Furthermore, only the minority of texts
selected had been translated in our series, The Ancient Cornrnerttators OIL
Aristotle, especially as the series was still at a comparatively early stage.
So new translations needed to be commissioned, or translated by me when
a translator was unavailable.
Phase 3: The resulting second draft was sent out for comment at the
end of Summer 1999 to teams of specialists, to whom I am extremely
grateful. The Psychology volume and the last part of the Logic and Meta-
physics volume were reviewed by a team of scholars at the Institute of