On Aristotle S On The Heavens 1 10 12

In the three chapters of "On the Heavens" dealt with in this volume, Aristotle argues that the universe is ungenerated and indestructible. In Simplicius' commentary, translated here, we see a battle royal between the Neoplatonist Simplicius and the Aristotelian, Alexander, whose lost commentary on "On the Heavens" Simplicius partly preserves. Simplicius' rival, the Christian Philoponus, had conducted a parallel battle in his "Against Proclus" but had taken the side of Alexander against Proclus and other Platonists, arguing that Plato's "Timaeus" gives a beginning to the universe. Simplicius takes the Platonist side, denying that Plato intended a beginning. The origin on which Plato refers is, according to Simplicius, not a temporal origin, but the divine cause that produces the world without beginning.

In the three chapters of On the Heavens dealt with in this volume, Aristotle argues that the universe is ungenerated and indestructible. In Simplicius' commentary, translated here, we see a battle royal between the Neoplatonist Simplicius and the Aristotelian, Alexander, whose lost commentary on On the Heavens Simplicius partly preserves. Simplicius' rival, the Christian Philoponus, had conducted a parallel battle in his Against Proclus but had taken the side of Alexander against Proclus and other Platonists, arguing that Plato's Timaeus gives a beginning to the universe. Simplicius takes the Platonist side, denying that Plato intended a beginning. The origin on which Plato refers is, according to Simplicius, not a temporal origin, but the divine cause that produces the world without beginning.

One of the arguments in Aristotle's On the Heavens propounds that the world neither came to be nor will perish. This volume contains the pagan Neoplatonist Simplicius of Cilicia's commentary on the first part of this this important work. The commentary is notable and unusual because Simplicius includes in his discussion lengthy representations of the Christian John Philoponus' criticisms of Aristotle along with his own, frequently sarcastic, responses. This is the first complete translation into a modern language of Simplicius' commentary, and is accompanied by a detailed introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a bibliography.

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.

In this commentary on Aristotle Physics book eight, chapters one to five, the sixth-century philosopher Simplicius quotes and explains important fragments of the Presocratic philosophers, provides the fragments of his Christian opponent Philoponus' Against Aristotle On the Eternity of the World, and makes extensive use of the lost commentary of Aristotle's leading defender, Alexander of Aphrodisias. This volume contains an English translation of Simplicius' important commentary, as well as a detailed introduction, explanatory notes and a bibliography.

In the three chapters of On the Heavens dealt with in this volume, Aristotle argues that the universe is ungenerated and indestructible. In Simplicius' commentary, translated here, we see a battle royal between the Neoplatonist Simplicius and the Aristotelian Alexander, whose lost commentary on Aristotle's On the Heavens Simplicius partly preserves. Simplicius' rival, the Christian Philoponus, had conducted a parallel battle in his Against Proclus but had taken the side of Alexander against Proclus and other Platonists, arguing that Plato's Timaeus gives a beginning to the universe. Simplicius takes the Platonist side, denying that Plato intended a beginning. The origin to which Plato refers is, according to Simplicius, not a temporal origin, but the divine cause that produces the world without beginning.

This monograph brings three branches of philosophy together: epistemology, ethics and aesthetics. It assesses the built environment as a case study from a phenomenological perspective. Under the notion of phenomenology, this study understands the built environment as the hermeneutical phenomenon of being in the life-world that is experienced by people within the socio-cultural and historical context of habitation. Hermeneutically, the built environment as a phenomenon is contextually interwoven with other phenomena within the socio-cultural, historical, and environmental network. Phenomenologically speaking, the task of the study is to excavate, listen to, unfold, divulge, and reconstruct the socio-culturally, environmentally, and historically constructed relationship between people and their built environment that build, develop, and elaborate the system of knowledge, ethics, and aesthetics. By and large, its nature and findings are theoretical and interdisciplinary, so it will be of interest not only for philosophers, but also to scholars studying urban development and anthropology.

Aristotle argues in On the Heavens 1.5-7 that there can be no infinitely large body, and in 1.8-9 that there cannot be more than one physical world. As a corollary in 1.9, he infers that there is no place, vacuum or time beyond the outermost stars. As one argument in favour of a single world, he argues that his four elements: earth, air, fire and water, have only one natural destination apiece. Moreover they accelerate as they approach it and acceleration cannot be unlimited. However, the Neoplatonist Simplicius, who wrote the commentary in the sixth century AD (here translated into English), tells us that this whole world view was to be rejected by Strato, the third head of Aristotle's school. At the same time, he tells us the different theories of acceleration in Greek philosophy.