Riccardo Chiaradonna

This article is a discussion of E. K. Emilsson, _Plotinus_ (London and New York, 2017). Three themes are selected: causation; the holistic account of intelligible being; the status of matter and body. The discussion ends with some remarks about Emilsson’s approach to Plotinus’ philosophy. Emilsson’s account of Plotinus’ causation is based on the transmission model, what Emilsson calls ‘the principle of prior possession’. Here it is argued that the transmission model requires qualifications in order to be applied to Plotinus’ account of causation. The section on Plotinus’ holism focuses on two analogies: that of science and its theorems and that of craftsmanship. The section on matter and body addresses the issue of Plotinus’ dualism as different from Cartesian dualism. The final remarks assess Emilsson’s philosophical approach to Plotinus, his use of contemporary philosophical notions, and the problem of Plotinus’ philosophical mysticism.

This article is a preliminary edition — introduction, text, translation, commentary — of a previously unknown commentary on Aristotle’s _Categories_, recently discovered in the Archimedes Palimpsest. The two lemmas covered (both incompletely) in the fourteen surviving pages are 1a20–b15, concerning the distinction between ‘said of a subject’ and ‘in a subject’, and 1b16–24, where Aristotle maintains that different genera are divided by different differentiae. By extrapolating from this sample, the commentary can be inferred to have been considerably longer than the longest _Categories_ commentary to survive intact, that of Simplicius. On this and other grounds, we argue that it is probably a fragment of Porphyry’s monumental lost commentary, the _Ad Gedalium_. A prominent feature of the new commentary is its extensive concentration on resolving puzzles raised against the _Categories_. Some of the material is completely absent from the remainder of the surviving _Categories_ tradition. The earlier commentators and critics cited by name in it are Andronicus, Boethus, Nicostratus and Herminus.

The series Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca et Byzantina: Series academica is published by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, and functions as a complement to the series Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca et Byzantina: Sources and Studies. The editions and source collections of the Series academica provide a basis for research on Byzantine philosophy and education and on the lasting impact of peripatetic philosophy in the Greek middle ages. The series succeeds to the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca directed by Hermann Diels and published by the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences. The publication schedule of the series includes editions of commentaries by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Simplicius, John Philoponus, Michael of Ephesus, Nicephorus Blemmydes, George Pachymeres, Theodore Metochites, George Scholarius, and Bessarion. The series is also open for preliminary studies and companion volumes. https://www.degruyter.com/view/serial/CAGB-B.

This chapter provides an overview of Plotinus’ reception of Aristotle. Plotinus’ in-depth knowledge of Aristotle and his extensive integration of Aristotelian doctrines and vocabulary find no adequate parallel in the previous Platonist tradition and can be seen as characteristic features of his work. The chapter first focuses on the position of Aristotle and of the Peripatetic commentators within Plotinus’ teaching method, as outlined in Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus. The main philosophical issues in Plotinus’ reception of Aristotle are then outlined: the doctrine of energeia, psychology, the categories, bodies and matter (with special emphasis on Plotinus’ critical discussion of Aristotle’s hylomorphism), and ethics. Plotinus draws extensively on Aristotle and his philosophical vocabulary is thoroughly Aristotelian; nonetheless, Plotinus arguably maintains a generally critical attitude towards Aristotle.

This chapter provides an overview of early modern readings of Plotinus after Ficino’s translation and up to the ‘Cambridge Platonists’. Ficino’s Latin translation and commentary (1492) deeply shape the reception of Plotinus in the sixteenth century, to the point that philosophers come to regard as Plotinian doctrines which are actually characteristic of Ficino (for example, the view that a corporeal spiritus acts as the vehicle of the world soul). Early modern naturalist philosophers such as Giordano Bruno and Tommaso Campanella are representative of this approach. The situation changes with the so-called Cambridge Platonists (particularly Henry More and Ralph Cudworth), who are familiar with Perna’s edition of the Greek text (1580) and whose reception of Plotinus is shaped by debates concerning Descartes’ dualism and by their characteristic polemics against mechanism. This is particularly evident in Cudworth’s account of plastic nature (see his True Intellectual System of the Universe, 1678).

This article focuses on the debate concerning the status of specific differentiae from Alexander of Aphrodisias to Iamblichus. First, I outline Alexander’s views on the substantial status of differentiae and his distinction between the differentia insofar as it is taken in isolation and the differentia insofar as it is taken together with the genus and is a constituent part of the substantial species. I also focus on a passage from Plotinus on the differentia (see Enn. VI 3[44], 5) which is apparently directed against Alexander, and I suggest that Simplicius reports Iamblichus’ criticism of Plotinus’ anti-Aristotelian stance. Both Porphyry and Iamblichus are credited with the view that differentiae are intermediate between substance and quality. As I aim to show, this conclusion requires some qualification. Porphyry essentially follows Alexander’s account of the substantial status of differentiae. Iamblichus, instead, emphasizes that the differentia, while being a completive feature of substance, is not a constituent part of substance and, therefore, cannot be regarded as a substance. I further analyze the controversy over the status of the differentia between Porphyry and Iamblichus and try to set their disagreement against the wider background of their metaphysical views.

Plotinus’ outline of his method on inquiry on eternity and time in 3.7(45).1.4 includes a reference to ‘concentrated apprehensions of thought’ ([…] ταῖς τῆς ἐννοίας ἀθροωτέραις ἐπιβολαῖς […]). Scholars sometimes argue that Plotinus is here referring to the Epicurean notion of ἀθρόα ἐπιβολή (Epic., Ep. Hdt. 35.9; PHerc. 346, col. 4.24–28). I suggest instead that Gal., mm x.38 Kühn provides the closest parallel to Plotinus’ passage. Further parallels between 3.7 and Galens’ lost On Demonstration suggest that Galen, not Epicurus, is Plotinus’ immediate source.

This article focuses on the reception of Aristotle’s Categories by the first three representatives of Greek Neoplatonism: Plotinus (204/205–270 CE), Porphyry (ca. 234–ca. 305 CE), Iamblichus (ca. 242–ca. 325 CE). The first section argues that Plotinus’ acquaintance with Aristotle’s treatises marked a fresh start vis-à-vis the previous Platonist tradition. Aristotle’s views, arguments and vocabulary are ubiquitous in Plotinus writings (the Enneads) and they must be considered an essential part of his philosophical project. Plotinus, however, does not share some of Aristotle’s key theories and is critical of them. The second section focuses on Plotinus’ discussion of Aristotle’s Categories in the tripartite treatise On the Genera of Being (6.1–3). There he rejects the Peripatetic division into ten categories as providing an incomplete account of the genera of being that unduly omits “those which are most authentically beings”, i.e. Plato’s separate Forms. While drawing on earlier Platonist objections to Aristotle, Plotinus’ approach is original insofar as he criticizes Aristotle and his followers not only for omitting intelligible beings in the division of categories, but also for being unable, for this very reason, to work out an adequate division of sensible beings themselves. The third section is devoted to Porphyry, a student of Plotinus’ and the editor of his works. Porphyry worked intensively on Aristotle’s Categories, which he regarded as an introduction not only to logic, but to philosophy as a whole. Unlike Plotinus, Porphyry aimed to integrate Aristotle into Platonism and his engagement with the Categories was a key part of his project after Plotinus’ in-depth criticism. Porphyry’s approach is connected to his view of the subject-matter of the Categories, which he sees as focusing on words insofar as they signify beings, and not on beings as such. The fourth section focuses on some parallels between Plotinus’ Genera of Beings and Porphyry’s works, which may reflect the debate within Plotinus’ school. The fifth section focuses on Iamblichus of Chalcis. Both in theology and in the interpretation of Aristotle’s Categories, Iamblichus aimed to both continue and supplant Porphyry’s work. While Plotinus criticizes Aristotle’s categories for omitting intelligible beings, and while Porphyry accepts Aristotle’s categories insofar as they focus on words signifying sensible things, Iamblichus incorporates his Neoplatonist and Pythagorizing metaphysics into the interpretation of the Categories.

This chapter focuses on Plotinus’ engagement with Aristotle’s hylomorphism against the wider background of Plotinus’ account of living beings. Plotinus’ general point throughout his writings is that, whatever one might think of the soul as an enmattered form, its status is not sufficiently distinct from that of the body and of its attributes. So Aristotle cannot ground his own distinction between body and soul, since the soul is an attribute among others and all attempts to make sense of its status and of its causal role are doomed to fail. This chapter outlines Plotinus’ critical approach to Aristotle’s hylomorphism from the early treatise 4.7 through the treatises on the soul (4.3 and 4.4) down to the treatises 6.7 and 6.3, where Plotinus develops his own sophisticated theory of incorporeal forms. Particular attention is paid to the status of living bodies within Plotinus’ account of causation.

Neoplatonists from Plotinus onward incorporate Aristotle's logic and ontology into their philosophies: this process is of both intrinsic and historical interest and paves the way for subsequent philosophical debates in the Middle Ages and in the Modern Era. The fifteen essays collected in this book focus on the readings of Aristotle by Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Their discussions cover key issues in the history of logic and metaphysics such as substance, hylomorphism, causation, existence, and predication. Among the topics tackled in this volume are Plotinus' criticism of Aristotle's physical essentialism, which is a major chapter in the history of metaphysics, and the interpretation of Porphyry's Isagoge, one of the most influential and enigmatic works in the history of philosophy. Further essays focus on the readings of Aristotle's categories developed by Porphyry and Iamblichus, which raise interesting questions at the intersection of logic and ontology, and on the integration of Aristotle's ontology into Neoplatonist accounts of being and existence.

The article focuses on debates concerning ontology and predication in early Neoplatonism (Porphyry and Iamblichus). Evidence coming from Simplicius’ Commentary on the Categories and from the Categories Commentary in the Archimedes Palimpsest suggests that Porphyry and Iamblichus interpreted Aristotle’s theory of synonymous predication (dici de subiecto) and specific differentia within the framework of their ontology (doctrine of the hierarchy of being). While Porphyry possibly suggested that a slightly emended version of Aristotle’s predication could express the relation between ante rem and in re items (akatatakton, katatetagmenon), Iamblichus argued that different metaphysical levels cannot in any way be conceived of as species ranked under the same genus (hence Iamblichus’ emphasis on paronymous predication). Further evidence coming from Iamblichus’ Reply to Porphyry and from the Anonymous Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides attributed to Porphyry confirms these conclusions.

On several occasions Plotinus discusses memory : its function and relation to knowledge. In the long section that runs from IV 3 [27], 25 to IV 4 [28], 5, Plotinus considers what it is that remembers, i.e. what constitutes the subject of memory. An examination of these chapters reveals a number of features in the Plotinian theory of knowledge. Plotinus draws a thorough distinction between memory and the mere conservation of sense data, and links the former to an intrinsic power of the soul. The Soul, however, as the subject of memory, is always characterized by some kind of discursive thought, and bound up with time. Plotinus distinguishes this kind of knowledge from the highest thought, which belongs to the part of the Soul that has not descended from the Intellect, and is extraneous to time and discursivity. In addressing the issue of the subject of memory, Plotinus also draws light on the structure of the Soul and the role of imagination (phantasia). Soul emerges as an intrinsically dynamic essence, which has the power of redefining its own nature in concert with the faculty which acts as its unifying centre. At the highest level is a cognitive condition in which the Soul, even “here below”, prior to its separation from the body, gathers the intelligible Forms by means of an appropriate knowledge, independent of any kind of memory and discursivity (see IV 4 [28], 4-5). As a result, the role of recollection in Plotinian epistemology is rather limited.

This paper focuses on Galen’s views about the formal cause against the wider background of his account of causation. In his works on the pulse, Galen provides an in-depth discussion of issues such as the theory of causes and the problem of definition. While Galen is inclined to incorporate Peripatetic doctrines and vocabulary, he neglects Aristotle’s formal cause both in his account of causes and in that of definition. Further parallels outside the corpus on the pulse confirm Galen’s reserved attitude towards the (Peripatetic) formal cause. In his work That the Faculties of the Soul Follow the Mixtures of the Body, however, Galen refers favourably to the Peripatetic theory of hylomorphic form. More precisely, Galen equates the Peripatetic en-mattered form with the mixture of homoeomerous bodies (the ratio or proportion of the elementary qualities in them). Here I will attempt to provide an explanation of Galen’s mixed attitude towards the formal cause and I will argue that his general position is consistent after all. In addition to this, I will try to set Galen’s position against the background of the Peripatetic debates on the status of form.