Gary Gabor

The traditional ascription of the Neoplatonic commentary on the De Anima to Sim­plicius has prominently been disputed by Carlos Steel and Fernand Bossier, along with J.O. Urmson and Francesco Piccolomini, among others. Citing problems with terminology, diction, cross-references, doctrine, and other features, these authors have argued that the commentary cannot have been composed by Simplicius and that Priscian of Lydia is a favored alternative. In this paper, I present some new arguments for why the traditional attribution to Simplicius is, in fact, the correct one. In particular, while addressing some of the terminological facts that have also been discussed by Christina Luna, Peter Lautner, Patricia Huby, and Philippe Vallat,1 among others, I offer a more secure basis for identifying the author of the De Anima commentary with Simplicius than has so far been proposed. In place of the disputes regarding terminology, which the debate has largely centered upon, I argue that certain unique and characteristic interpretive procedures, which one only finds in the undisputed Simplician works, allow us to identify the authorship of the De Anima commentary with Simplicius securely. Further, comparison of these methodological features with the extant works of Priscian rules out the possibility of his authorship of the commentary. I also provide some suggestions for resolving a few remaining issues of cross-reference between the De Anima commentary and the rest of Simplicius’s work. Finally, I conclude with some words on how that particular form of harmonization pursued by Simplicius’s contemporaries differs from both that of the De Anima commentary as well as his other works.

I agree with Robbert Van den Berg that Plotinus endorses Socratic intellectualism, but I challenge his view that Plotinus rejects the phenomenon of akrasia. According to Van den Berg, the only form of akrasia acknowledged by Plotinus is a conditional, or ‘weak,’ akrasia. I provide some reasons for thinking that Plotinus might have accepted complete or ‘strong’ akrasia—full stop. While such strong forms of akrasia are usually taken to conflict with Socratic intellectualism, I argue that Plotinus’s complex, dual-self psychology allows a way in which he, unique among ancient philosophers, could simultaneously endorse Socratic intellectualism and hard akrasia.