Adamson Neoplatonism

BRILL Phronesis 57 (2012) 380-399

Book Notes*

Neoplatonism

Peter AdamsonEacultätfrir Phibsophie, Wissenschaßstheorie und Religionswissenschafi,

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität

Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 München

[email protected]

I begin with a major publication edited by Lloyd Gerson, the CambridgeHistory of Philosophy in Late Antiquity. ' Apart from two deft overviews ofthe historical context by Elizabeth DePalme Digeser, each of the 48 chap-ters is devoted to a specific figure, movement or body of texts. Chapterlengths vary depending on topic — for instance Plotinus gets 24 pages,Plutarch of Athens only 8. One would be hard pressed to think of a lateancient figure not included, with chapters on numerous Christian thinkersas well as the whole gamut of late ancient pagan Platonists — figures likeHierocles of Alexandria get dedicated chapters. This generous scope isbroadened still ftirther by the inclusion of more general chapters on theHellenistic background and the later legacy of late ancient Platonism.(Somewhat surprisingly, the indisputably medieval Eriugena has a chapterto himself) Though the tone and level of detail is fairly consistent, thelarge number of authors and themes inevitably means that the contribu-tions vary to some extent in their approach. For instance the chapter onGregory of Nyssa focuses on infinity as a theme within his work, whereasmost other chapters touch more briefly on a range of topics in the thoughtof the author in question. Many authors have admirably covered a large

*' Book Notes discuss books on ancient philosophy that ate sent to the joutnal fot teview." L. P. Getson (ed.). The Cambridge History of Phibsophy in Late Antiquity. \ vol. in 2.Cambridge: Cambtidge Univetsity Ptess, 2010. Pp. 1284. Hatdback. £150. ISBN 9780521764407..

© Koninklijkc Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/15685284-12341237

p Adamson / Phronesis 57 (2012) 380-399 381

territory in their limited space, for instance Brad Inwood on Stoicism, thelate Bob Sharpies on the Peripatetics, or Dominic O'Meara on Plotinus.Still, the publication is probably too detailed and too evenly spread acrossboth minor and major figures to convey a coherent and synoptic view oflate ancient philosophy for the introductory reader — unless such a readerwere simply to peruse G's introductory essays for each section ofthe His-tory. This is especially so because of the lack of thematic chapters, whichleaves it to the reader to piece together the history of any given philo-sophical topic (such as free will, or theories of intellect) across the period.In this respect Gerson's History contrasts sharply with the almost exclusivelythematic History of Medieval Phibsophy that appeared in the same seriesand in the same year.^ Given its size, readers are in any case more likely todip in and out of the History, treating it as a capacious reference work. Itsusefulness for this role is enhanced by an ample bibliography (vol. 2, 983-1182 - those are pages, not years!), divided up by chapter topics. So there'sno doubt that this is a valuable set of volumes to have on one's shelf, evenif the exhaustive scope may not suit every reader.'

Those who would prefer their survey of late antique philosophy to bemore narrowly focused, and in Italian, will be pleased by the appearance ofjust such a volume under the editorship of Riccardo Chiaradonna.'' Thematerial is divided into 13 chapters, 7 of which are historical, 6 thematic(with topics like 'the first principle' and 'philosophy, religion and theurgy').This volume appeared after the publication of Gerson's History and C isthus in a position to take issue with it. In his introduction (16), he defends

'̂ R. Pasnau (ed.). The Cambridge History of Medieval Phibsophy (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2010).' ' The History is notable for Cerson's decision to ban the word 'Neoplatonism' (by 'editorialfiat', 3). In support of this G states that the word originally had, and still has, a pejorativeconnotation, and that figures like Plotinus saw themselves not as innovators, but as Pla-tonists. This latter point is undeniably true. As for the former point, I tend to think that'Neoplatonism' has finally become more a successful brand name than an insult. In anycase, G's proposal strikes me as quixotic. Widely used historical and intellectual categoriescannot be eliminated so easily, and I for one would regret the loss of 'Neoplatonism' werethe term to fall into desuetude. Consider, for instance, the usefulness of a phrase like 'theNeoplatonic aspects of Avicenna's metaphysics'. This concisely conveys Avicenna's accep-tance of principles like the necessary derivation of all things from a First Principle, in a waythat 'the Platonist aspects of Avicenna's metaphysics' would not.

•" R. Chiatadonna (ed.), Eilosofia tardoantica. Rome: Carocci, 2012. Pp. 323. Paperback.€28. ISBN 9788843063437.

382 P Adamson / Phronesis 57 (2012) 380-399

using the admittedly anachronistic term 'Neoplatonism' spurned by Gerson.He also explicitly prefers a narrower approach, with pagan Platonists whowrote in Greek at the center of the story. Thus, while the first half of thebook does include Zambon's substantial chapter on late ancient Christianphilosophy, this is the exception that proves the rule. Christian thinkers aremostly absent from the thematic sections (for an exception see 229-31),and Zambón himself focuses on the attitude of Christian authors towardspagan Hellenic thought. Although the volume does involve numerousauthors (11 in all) it has a strong editorial unity, and a shared conceptionof late ancient philosophy runs through the book. For instance, and pre-dictably, Plotinus looms much larger here than in the Cambridge Historywhere he is treated more as a primus inter pares. Somewhat less predictably(but in my view correctly) Porphyry appears in several of the historicalchapters as a pivotal figure (see e.g. 90, 109-10). Thanks in part to thisclarity of vision, the volume can be warmly recommended as a reliable andwell-designed introduction.

Plotínus

One of the more intriguing, and contentious, developments in recentscholarship on Plotinus — and one reflected in the Cambridge History — isthe suggestion that contemporary Gnostics played a major role in the for-mation of his brand of Platonism.^ We know from Porphyry that Gnostictexts were consulted in Plotinus' circle, and at least some of Plotinus' writ-ings (especially the so-called Großschrifi) clearly respond to their pessimismregarding the material world. Jean-Marc Narbonne thinks the Gnosticinfluence on Plotinus runs much deeper than that, though. A new mono-graph collects some of his work on this subject, adding previously unpub-lished studies.*^ The most impressive contribution here is probably the first,in which N sets out his view on the derivation of matter/evil in Plotinus.On N's reading matter is not emanated by soul (despite 1.8 [51] 14.51-4,the most problematic text for N; he makes a good case for a counterfactual

" The relation between Gnostics and Platonism in this period was also emphasized in therecent J. D. Turner and K. Corrigan (eds), Plato's Parmenides and its Heritage (Atlanta:Society of Biblical Literature, 2010), reviewed in last year's Book Notes.'''' J.-M. Narbonne, Plotinus in Dialogue with the Gnostics. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Pp. 152.Hardback. €86/$! 18. ISBN 9789004203266.

p. Adamson /Phronesis 57 (2012) 380-399 383

reading). Rather, it is in a sense 'self-constituted' as an 'escape' from theintelligible. Because it is 'already there', it can cause the descent of soul andserve as the unique source of evil. This is perhaps the single most conten-tious issue in Plotinian scholarship, but no one can dismiss N's reading,given the formidable defense he provides for it here. In this and other stud-ies, N further argues that Gnosticism lies behind a series of shifts in Ploti-nus' ideas: they are his discussion partners throughout the corpus, not onlyin the Großschrift. N takes even such an important doctrine as the partiallyundescended soul to be a 'Plotinian reformulation' of the Gnostic idea thatsoul is consubstantial with God. While N's attention to shifts in Plotinus'thought is impressive, he too often assumes, rather than arguing in detail,that the Gnostics were decisive in provoking those shifts. It is far fromobvious that they were more important for Plotinus than contemporaryand earlier Platonists (as assumed e.g. at 68-9, 119-20 - the repeated 'ofcourse' that creeps into N's prose here is little more than bluff), on suchtopics as the soul's descent and the beginning of the cosmos. Ideally Nmight, as in the final study, have undertaken more detailed textual com-parison with Gnostic texts (even in this study he is forced to speak ofPlotinus' idea that the One is self-causing as a 'natural extension' of Gnos-tic vocabulary, 131). Still, the book is never less than provocative, and willbe important as a document oí ne plus ultra maximalism regarding Gnosticinfluence on Plotinus.

The first volume of a new series of translations and commentaries, editedby John Dillon and Andrew Smith, is devoted to Enn. IV.8.^ We are in thecapable hands of Barrie Fleet, author of an important previous study onEnn. III.6. His translation seems to me readable and accurate, though notnecessarily an improvement on Armstrong's widely admired version in theLoeb series. In a few cases I would have preferred Armstrong, in fact. Forinstance F renders ou tauton legón pantachê phaneitai at IV.8.1.27 as 'hedoes not always speak with sufficient consistency'. Armstrong's more literal'he is obviously not saying the same thing everywhere' has the virtue ofavoiding the implication that Plato is inconsistent, something Plotinuswould surely not wish to say. F's introduction to the treatise and his com-mentary will be especially helpful to readers coming to Plotinus for thefirst time, since F stops to explain some fairly basic issues (e.g. levels of

' ' B. Fleet (ttans.), Plotinus: Ennead TV.8, On the Soul's Descent into the Body. Las Vegas:Patmenides, 2012. Pp. 197. Papetback. $32. ISBN 9781930972773.


potentiality and actuality in Aristotle, at 75). Such readers will also appre-ciate that F provides extensive discussion of the Platonic passages thatinspired Plotinus, an approach that fits.IV.8 especially well, since this trea-tise is unusually explicit in its doxographical use of Plato. Overall the vol-ume is a promising beginning to a new series that could provide an Englishreadership with something akin to the single-treatise commentaries andtranslations published by Cerf in France.

From Iamblichus to Olympiodorus

Iamblichus pioneered the systematic fusion of Platonism with traditionalGreek religion that lives on in Proclus and Damascius. Though his worksare very incompletely retained, those that are extant provide importantinformation about earlier thinkers. Of these, one takes his very name fromthe Neoplatonist: the Anonymus Iamblichi. A good deal of ink has beenspilled concerning the identity of this author. Blass, who first drew atten-tion to the fragments in Iamblichus' Protrepticus in 1889, suggested Anti-phon the Sophist, and a wide range of Pre-Platonic figures have beenproposed since. Ascanio Ciriaci's new monograph on the fragments (prob-ably wisely) makes no new specific proposal, committing itself only to adate in the late 5th century.* C suggests the composition of Plato's Gorgias,which he dates at 395-385 BC, as a terminus ante quem, on the basis thatthe author fails to use Plato's new-fangled term 'rhetoric' (116). This seemsto me less than decisive, but a date towards the end of the 5th century issupported by stylistic considerations (the use of Ionic words within a gen-erally Attic composition, 68) and numerous intellectual resonances withsophistical thought of the period. C is interesting on the democratic lean-ings of the author (e.g. 127-8), which chime well with ideas Thucydidesputs into the mouth of Pericles (110-50). C goes so far as to say that, forAnonymous, democracy is identical with good governance (eunomia: 163,181). In all this useful overview tends to confirm rather than overturn thedominant view about Anonymous, but provides a wealth of context anddetailed reading to support that view.

A previously somewhat obscure part of Iamblichus' philosophical out-put has suddenly begun to receive a great deal of attention: the excerpts

*' A. Ciriaci, L'Anonimo di Giamblico: Saggio critico e analisi deiframmenti. Naples: Biblio-polis, 2011. Pp. 238. Paperback. €30. ISBN 9788870886054.


from his letters, preserved in they4«íAo/o¿)/of Stobaeus. In 2009 these werepublished in English translation.' They now receive a far more lavish treat-ment in a volume by Daniela Patrizia Taormina and Rosa Maria Piccione. '"Here readers will find not only a new edition and Italian translation, alongwith a close commentary (with contributions from Paolo Cipolla andRosario Scalia), but also a substantial introductory section (up to 270).This situates the fragments within t\\t Anthology, showing that Iamblichusplayed a key role for Stobaeus as a capstone to the materials he collected(see e.g. 208, pointing out that the authors selected by Stobaeus to illus-trate fate and providence are the same as those used by Iamblichus). Thefragments are also extensively related to other Iamblichean works, espe-cially On Mysteries and On the Soul (see for instance 168 for a nice parallelto On Mysteries regarding the higher soul). Focusing on Iamblichus' meth-odology, teaching on the soul, handling of fate, and classification of thevirtues, this introduction is tantamount to a brief monograph on key issuesin Iamblichus, and thus provides ample context for the texts found in Sto-baeus. The book will certainly need to be consulted by anyone who wantsto work careftilly with the fragments of these letters.

Another collection of fragments with commentary is devoted to Syri-anus, who represents the link between Iamblichus and Proclus. SarahKlitenic Wear has extracted 40 'fragments' (in fact really testimonia, asKW herself says, 20) bearing on Syrianus' reading of the Timaeus and Par-menides.^^ These are presented in a useful facing-page format: Greek pas-sages from Proclus' commentaries on these two dialogues and Damascius'On Principles, alongside new English translations. KW also providesdetailed comments on each passage. An obvious problem is that Proclus'own thought is so close to that of Damascius that it can be difficult toknow where one stops and the other starts. The criterion for inclusion here

'•" J. M. Dillon and W. Polleichtner (ed. and ttans.), Iamblichus of Chalcis: the Letters(Atlanta: Society of Biblical Litetatute, 2009), reviewed in last year's Neoplatonism BookNotes. A ttanslation of the most intetesting preserved text. To Macedonius On Eate, alteadyappeated in J. M. Dillon and L. P. Getson, Neoplatonic Phibsophy: Introductory Readings(Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004), 244-8.

"" D. P. Taotmina and R. M. Piccione, Giamblico: Iframmenti dalle epistole. Introduzione,testo, traduzione e commento. Naples: Bibliopolis, 2010. €60. Papetback. Pp. 680. ISBN978887088 6009.

' " S. Klitenic Weat, The Teachings of Syrianus on Plato's Timaeus and Parmenides. Leiden:Brill, 2011. Pp. 353. Hatdback. €108. ISBN 9789004192904.

386 P Adamson /Phronesis 57 (2012) 380-399

is, naturally enough, that Syrianus is mentioned explicitly as a source, butmuch of what Proclus says in his own name will of course represent Syri-anus' view. Conversely, KW sometimes needs to make more or less subjec-tive judgments about where to draw the boundary of a given testimony(see e.g. 42). So a really thorough look at Syrianus would still mean read-ing Proclus' commentaries themselves, and indeed KW often summarizesthe wider context ofthe fragments in some detail. KW is a helpful guideto Syrianus' ideas - frequently we are in the upper reaches of the theologicalsystem, but we also learn about topics like daemons and embryology - andalso the background to those ideas, most especially Iamblichus.

At the other end of the spectrum from the three dense and philologi-cally-oriented volumes just discussed is Emilie Kutash's study of Proclus'commentary on the Timaeus.^^ The book is organized in terms ofthe ten'gifts' given to the cosmos by the Demiurge, according to Proclus (visibil-ity, a mathematical bond, etc.). It sets out to introduce Proclus to a moreor less general readership by focusing on this commentary, a timely projectgiven the recent appearance ofthe work in English translation." The vol-ume is not really, suitable for this purpose, though. The 'ten gifts' structurewould be a nice approach for a more scholarly book on the commentary,but is short of ideal for the intended audience. More problematically, dif-ficult issues are rapidly raised and then dropped, and for the purposes ofsuch readers the book would frequently be obscure. I find it hard to imaginesomeone coming to Proclus for the first time benefiting from the volume.There are other problems: K relies extensively (and sometimes exclusively,e.g. at 77) on direct quotation of previous secondary literature, and largestretches ofthe book are given over to mere summary of Proclus' commen-tary or the work of other scholars. There are occasional wince-inducingparallels to contemporary notions, as when K compares monadic anddyadic numbers to genetic code (89). Some of her claims seem bizarre - forinstance in one passage she sees Proclus as beginning to move away fromthe idea that the cosmos is physically spherical (135). K's enthusiasm forProclus and his philosophy is appealing, but I have to confess that I foundher book exasperating.

'^' E. Kutash, Ten Gifts ofthe Demiurge: Proclus on Plato's Timaeus. London: Bristol Classi-cal Press, 2011. Pp. 309. Hardback. $80. ISBN 9780715638545.'̂ ' From Cambridge University Press, edited by Harold Tartant.


Sarah Abhel-Rappe provides us with the first English translation of themassive and fascinating work On Eirst Principles by Damascius.''' It repre-sents a sustained engagement with earlier Neoplatonist theologies, espe-cially those of Iamblichus and Proclus. The dialectical and aporetic natureof the work calls to mind Plotinus in some moods, rather than the some-what drier and more confident tone one often finds in later Neoplatonism.Damascius' subtle exploration of the highest reaches of the Neoplatonichierarchy pushes the limits of negative theology further than almost anyPlatonist, suggesting that the One is so completely transcendent that itcannot have any direct causal relation with what comes after it. But eventhis does not secure its transcendence sufficiently, so that Damascius feelscompelled to posit a further principle (which is not a principle) called, ina self-consciously self-contradictory way, 'the Ineffable'. A-R, who hastaken on the enormous task of translating this work singlehandedly, drawsattention to the 'provisional' nature of Damascius' account (46) and com-pares his strategies to those of the ancient skeptics (35 and 65). I don't findthis reading particularly plausible. Though Damascius clearly writes in ahighly dialectical fashion it seems clear to me that his aim is to reach well-founded conclusions that broadly remain within the system inherited fromIamblichus, Syrianus and Proclus.

Thus far, studies of Damascius and his fellow Platonic commentatorOlympiodorus are not thick on the ground. But they are the subject of afine new monograph by Sebastian Gertz, on the Phaedo commentaries ofthese authors.'^ The book moves along with the commentators throughthe Phaedo itself, and includes interesting discussions of the Neoplatonistson suicide, the relation of civic to purificatory virtue (purification beingthe true skoposoîu\ç. dialogue, in this tradition), and the closing myth. Butthe center of the book is an intricate reconstruction of the arguments for thesoul's immortality. The Phaedo arguments had been subjected to critiqueby Strato and Boethus, and as late as these post-Proclan Neoplatonistswe find that the process of defending Plato is still going on. One centralissue is the question of whether each argument is, in itself, sufficient to

'"" S. Abhel-Rappe, Damascius' Problems df Solutions Concerning First Principles. New York:Oxford, 2010. Pp. 529. Hardback. £65. ISBN 9780195150292.'" S. R. R Gertz, Death and Immortality in Late Neoplatonism. Studies on the Ancient Com-mentaries on Plato's Phaedo. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Pp. 223. Hardback. $133. ISBN 9789004207172.


prove full immortality. Characteristically, Iamblichus thinks so, whereasthe later commentators are more circumspect and see the arguments asbuilding to the full demonstration of the 'final argument'. Another leitmo-tif \s the assumption that soul is separable from body and a subject for twoopposed conditions: life and death, which frequently seems to mean noth-ing but 'the condition of being separated from body'. Though G beginseach chapter with a consideration of the source text in the Phaedo itself, theinterest of the book lies chiefly in his careful exegesis of the commentators'arguments. Damascius especially emerges as a clever and independent-minded philosopher who is unafraid, indeed eager, to criticize his greatpredecessor Proclus.

Commentators on Aristotle

Although it is now generally accepted that this sort of philosophical origi-nality is to be found in ancient commentators, it can be a laborious processto extract the original points from lemmatized commentaries. So it is nowonder that scholars of Simplicius and Philoponus have long been drawnto the 'digressions' or 'corollaries' in their Physics commentaries. PantelisGolitsis' monograph is, however, the first to look collectively at all thesepassages.'^ Some of the more interesting digressions have been well studiedalready, for instance Philoponus' treatments of motion and void, and Sim-plicius' report of Damascius on place and time. G has relatively little toadd to previous scholarship on these more celebrated digressions, oftenjust quoting selectively from the text. (Complete translations of all thedigressions are supplied at the end of the book, which will be useful toFrancophone readers although the Commentators Project has renderedthis material into English already. Also welcome is the provision of the fullGreek text for every passage G quotes.) Similarly, the opening chaptersusefully summarize what is known of the careers and methods of bothcommentators. G does not merely sum up what is already known, though.For instance he adds to previous criticism of Verrycken's thesis about Philo-ponus' development. Unusually, G has somewhat more to say about Sim-plicius and his methods than Philoponus, who is usually a more popular

""' P. Golitsis, Les Commentaires de Simplicius et de Jean Philopon à la Physique d'Aristote.

Betlin: de Gtuytet, 2008. Pp. 306. Hatdback. €1O5/$157. ISBN 9783110195415.

p Adamson /Phronesis 57 (2012) 380-399 389

object of study but here often feels like a bit of an afterthought.'^ In gen-eral, what G adds to existing literature on these commentaries is not somuch philosophical analysis as historical insight, e.g. the point that whenSimplicius criticizes the views of the obscure Pericles of Lydia on matter,his real target is probably Philoponus (131).

A comparable study, albeit one that is not always in agreement with thatof Golitsis, is Pascal Mueller-Jourdan's commentary on Book 11 of Philo-ponus Against Proclus.^^ M-J provides a translation and commentary onthis section, which contains Philoponus' well-known discussion of matter.Philoponus holds that matter is not completely indeterminate but is three-dimensionality or 'volume'. Though the latter designation may be originalwith him (133), M-J stresses that the view was anticipated by the just-mentioned Pericles (20, 216). For this reason and others, M-J argues thatwe should see Philoponus' theory of matter more in the context of a debatewithin Ammonius' philosophical school than in the context of Christianvs. pagan polemic (10, 15-23, 116, 216). Though I would want to qualifythis by insisting that Against Proclus as a whole is surely motivated byPhiloponus' Christian commitments, it is important to note that there wasa debate within Platonism about the sense in which matter is 'generated'(see the nice contrast between Philoponus and Proclus at 43). Of courseexcellent work by de Haas and others has been devoted to Book 11, andthere is now an English translation of this book." Nonetheless M-J'smeticulous analysis of each section of Book 11 would be a useful guidefor close reading, and his argument about the context of the theory isstimulating.

Now let us return to Simplicius, whose Physics commentary continuesto appear in English translation in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotleseries. The latest offering covers his comments on two chapters fromPhysics 1.̂ " In these chapters Simplicius covers Aristotle's critique of the

"' G's book may thus be seen as one oF two studies devoted to Simplicius published in2008. The other is H. Baitussen, Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius. The Methodology of aCommentator (London: Duckworth, 2008), discussed in my 2009 Book Notes."" P. Mueller-Jourdan, Gloses et commentaire du livre XJ du Contra Proclum de Jean Philo-pon. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Pp. 236. Hardback. $147. ISBN 9789004202467.''•'' M. Share (trans.), Philoponus: Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World 9-11 (London:Duckworth, 2010), discussed in last year's Book Notes.™' P Huby and C. C. W. Taylor, Simplicius: On Aristotle Physics 1.3-4. London: Duck-worth, 2011. Pp. 149. Hardback. £60. ISBN 9780715639214. Huby translates the com-mentary on ch. 3, Taylor the commentary on ch. 4.


Eleatics and of 'natural philosophers', especially Anaxagoras. These sec-tions are of course a gold mine of fragments and testimonia, not only forthe Pre-Socratics but also earlier commentators like Aspasius, Alexanderand Eudemus. In one of the most interesting stretches, Simplicius reportsAlexander's rebuttal of Aspasius on whether the 'merely existent' is a genus,and goes on to refute Alexander's accusation that Plato made absolute non-being a genus (42-8). This is only one example of Simplicius' steadfastdefense of pretty much anyone 'ancient', that is, of the generation of Aris-totle or earlier. The Eleatics are vindicated through Neoplatonic exegesis(Parmenides' infamous claim that being is spherical is compared to theOrphic egg, 56; similarly on Melissus, 20-1); Aristotle is said to be 'gener-ous' towards the 'apparently absurd' views of Anaxagoras (69); and Xeno-crates' theory of indivisible lines must be taken seriously (52).

Still speaking of Simplicius, 25 years ago the Commentators series pub-lished the testimonia in his De Cáelo commentary for Philoponus' critiqueof Aristotle on the eternity of the world.^' Some, but not all, of Simplicius'other comments on De Cáelo 1.1-4 were translated in a ftirther volume. '̂̂Still, there has been no running English commentary of Simplicius' wholetreatment oí De Cáelo 1.2-4. Two new volumes of translation by the lateIan Mueller now fill this lacuna, so that one can read the full exchangesbetween Philoponus and Simplicius in their original context.^' Speaking assomeone who always felt it was a shame that the previous translations wereselective, I welcome these new volumes, despite their significant overlapwith the previous translations. Mueller's introduction to the volumes isincidentally a usefiil overview of what is known about Philoponus andSimplicius.

Another volume, very interesting for Philoponus' attitudes towardsAristotle and earlier commentators, is Inna Kupreeva's translation of hiscommentary on the opening chapters of the Meteorology.^'' Towards the

^" C. Wildberg (trans.), Phibponus: Against Aristotle on the Eternity of the World (London:Duckworth: 1987)." ' R. J. Hankinson (ttans.), Simplicius: On Aristotle On the Heavens 1.1-4 (London: Duck-worth, 2002)." ' I. Mueller (trans.), Simplicius: On Aristotle On the Heavens 1.2-3. London: Bristol Clas-sical Press, 2011. Pp. 202. Hatdback. £60. ISBN 9780715639207; id., Simplicius: OnAristotle On the Heavens 1.3-4. London: Btistol Classical Press, 2011. Pp. 192. Hatdback.£60. ISBN 9780715640630."' I. Kupreeva, Phibponus: On Aristotle Meteorology 1.1-3. London: Bristol Classical Press,2011. Pp. 138. Hatdback. £60. ISBN 9780715636763.


beginning ofthe material in this volume Philoponus is a fairly docile inter-preter, but when we arrive at chapter 3 we realize we are in the company ofthe man who wrote Against Aristotle. He chastizes Aristotle for fatheringhis 'newfangled' cosmological ideas on the Pre-Socratics (45), alludes to hisown non-Aristotelian theory of place as 'three dimensional interval' (65),and then attacks at length Aristotle's account of the composition of theheavens (72) and Alexander's attempt to explain how a heavenly body likethe sun could transmit its influence through a lower sphere made of aether(78). On this topic there is also a tantalizing reference to Alexander's viewthat different heavenly bodies have different types of influence (75). Thisidea can also be found in the astrological tradition. Philoponus' observa-tions about why the air should be colder further away from the earth'ssurface are meanwhile reminiscent of the Muslim philosopher al-Kindi'saccount of this same phenomenon — both invoke the idea that the sunheats through rays, which cannot affect the thinner, higher air as intensely.̂ ^

The same series now includes Boethius' second commentary on OnInterpretation,, translated in two volumes by Andrew Smith.^^ For the series,this is an unusual foray into Latin, but a clearly justified one. Not only wasBoethius (d. ca. 525 AD) a contemporary of the late antique philosophers(Ammonius died at about the same time), but he carefully engaged withearlier Greek commentators. He oftien prefers Porphyry to others likeAspasius, Alexander and Herminus (see first volume 28, 101 and secondvolume 27-66). One can only envy Boethius that he was able to read somany commentaries now lost to us. He treats certain predecessors withsome asperity, especially Andronicus for his unwarranted identification ofOn Interpretation as a spurious work (see first volume, 20). AlthoughBoethius is thus valuable as a witness to previous commentaries, he alsodevelops ideas of his own. Mostly these concern philosophy of languageand logic, as shown by the next book to be reviewed (see below). But thereare numerous passages that shed light on his metaphysics as well. Inthe first volume, for instance {89 ff), he takes up the notion of a quality

'̂' I take the liberty of referring the reader to P. Adamson and R E. Pormann, The Philo-sophical Works ofal-Kindi (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012), 208-16. See futthetR \jminoi, Aristotle's Meteorology and its Reception in the Arab W&rZ;/(Leiden: Brill, 1999).'̂' A. Smith (trans.), Boethius: On Aristotle On Interpretation 1-3. London: Duckworth,

2010. Pp. 166. Hardback. £60. ISBN 9780715639184; id., Boethius: On Aristotle OnInterpretation 4-6. London: Duckworth, 2011. Pp. 151. Hardback. £60. ISBN 9780715639191.


possessed by each individual, e.g. 'Plato-ness (Platonitas)\ which unlike aname ('Plato') can be shared with no other individual. Also important isBoethius' engagement with the infamous deterministic argument of Deint. 9. (Again, this part of the commentary was translated in a previousvolume in the same series.)^^ Of particular interest in the second volume,to my mind at least, is the discussion of modality in books 5 and 6 of thecommentary. Here Boethius makes numerous fundamental distinctions,for instance berween the scope of modal operators (79) or between one-and two-sided possibility (82). In general the translation is clear and asreadable as one could hope given the dense source material. (Boethiushimself comments: 'in philosophical treatises attention to style is not rel-evant and it is truth alone that is being questioned', second volume, 61 -this from an admirer of Plato!)

Boethius would no doubt see it as a sign of divine providence that thesenew translations have appeared at the same time aS Taki Suto's monographon Boethius' commentary.^* This is a meticulous look at some thorny issuesin Boethius' philosophy of language, which engages robustly and convinc-ingly with previous scholarship on the commentary, especially by Mageeand Kretzmann. S argues for instance that Kretzmann's attempt to find asense-reference distinction in Boethius fails. For there is no systematic ter-minological distinction in Boethius that matches this contrast: demonstraredoes seem to have to do with reference, but significare is not used to trackthe notion of a Fregean sense (22-6). The same lexical approach is taken ina chapter exploring the question of why Boethius chose to translate twoGreek words in a single passage, sumbolon and sémeion, with the sameLatin word nota. This apparently rather pedantic question yields signifi-cant fruit, as S shows that Boethius was trying to stress a causal asymmetry:things cause thoughts, and thoughts cause words. (S cautions us thatBoethius often has this linear model in mind, rather than the famous'semantic triangle'.) Later in the book S criticizes the claim that Boethiuswas the first to see the verb 'to be' as a copula. This idea seems to emergerather in the commentary of his rough contemporary Ammonius. S ftirther

"' See D. Blank and N. Kretzmann, Ammonius and Boethius: On Aristotle On Interpretation 9(London: Duckworth, 1998).'̂" T. Suto, Boethius on Mind, Grammar and Logic. A Study of Boethius' Commentary on Peri

Hermeneias. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Pp. 296. Hardback. $148. ISBN 9789004214187.


argues that these two commentaries are independent, though both deeplyinfluenced by Porphyry.

The tradition of commentary on Aristotle left its traces not only inLatin, as with Boethius, and in Arabic, but also in Armenian. The works ofDavid 'the Invincible', a Christian student of Olympiodorus, were writtenoriginally in Greek but parts are extant only in Armenian. Following avolume collecting papers on David, Brill has now published Aram Top-chyan's translation of the commentary on the Prior Analytics. ̂ '^ A brief butuseful introduction establishes, I would say beyond doubt, that David wasnot himself the translator of this commentary from Greek into Armenian,as sometimes supposed (7-9). T also argues persuasively for David's author-ship of the original Greek (10-16). T's Armenian edition and facing-pagetranslation come equipped with detailed notes and further apparatus, suchas an appendix of Hellenicisms. This will be indispensible for the selectgroup of scholars who are working on Graeco-Armenian texts. For the restof us, the commentary is also well worth reading. The most interestingpart is David's engagement with the question of whether logic is a part orinstrument of philosophy; he juxtaposes the views of the Stoics (part).Peripatetics (instrument), and Platonists (both). Also striking is his insis-tence that Aristotle carefully sets out his logic to include hypothetical aswell as categorical syllogisms (see 67, 93). Finally, I can't resist mentioningDavid's example illustrating that irrational creatures do not graspuniversals: if they did, roosters would get anxious when their fellows wereslaughtered (41).

Antique Christian Thought

Of all the books reviewed in these Notes, the widest net is cast by Wolf-gang Kullmann in his survey of'natural law' {nomos phusikos, foedus natu-rae, lex naturalis, etc.) in antiquity.'" K shows that this notion developedonly gradually, thanks especially to the Stoics who drew an explicit parallel

" ' A. Topchyan, David the Invincible: Commentary on Aristotle's Prior Analytics. Leiden:Btill, 2010. Pp. 221. Hatdback. €97/$138. ISBN 978004187191. Fot the eadiet volume,discussed in my 2010 Book Notes, see V. Calzolati and J. Batnes (eds). L'oeuvre de Davidl'Invincible (Uiden: BtiU, 2009).

"̂̂ W. Kullmann, Naturgesetz in der Vorstellung der Antike, besonders der Stoa. Stuttgart:Franz Steiner, 2010. Pp. 189. Hatdback. €39. ISBN 9783515096331.


between social or moral law and the ordering of the cosmos. The roots ofthe conception can be found among the earliest Pre-Socratics, as in Hera-clitus 22 B114 DK: 'all human nomoi are nourished by the nomos of thegod.' Starting from there, K takes us on a whirlwind tour, frequently allot-ting only a page or two to significant figures (for instance Plotinus andPorphyry get about one page together, and Galen only a brief paragraph).The reason for this is that K's focus is lexical: that is, he is interested largelyin explicit uses of the phrase 'law of nature'. Occasionally the book hasalmost the feel of a reference work, but K does argue for innovative theses,for instance that Seneca provides a particularly sophisticated version of theStoic conception, with Lucretius already having made the notion of a 'nat-ural law' something more than just a metaphorical analogy to human con-ventions (comparable to Aristotelian 'absolute necessity', 55). The idea iscertainly more than a metaphor in the Church fathers, who take pride ofplace with lengthy surveys at the end of the book. In these authors we getthe idea of a natural law as actually legislated by god. Here, arguably, wehave a critical philosophical issue emerging with full clarity only in Patris-tic literature - K singles out Basil of Caesarea. Is natural law a dictate ofGod, or (as Philo at least sometimes suggests, 67) does God merely exe-cute, rather than authoring, the regulating norms of nature?

Speaking of Basil of Caesarea, one of the most interesting books underreview this year is Mark DelCogliano's study of philosophy of language inBasil and his polemical target Eunomius.^' For those who might be unfa-miliar with this debate, D summarizes the theological context with admi-f-able clarity. Eunomius was a 'heterousian' — that is, he held the ousia ofthe Father to be 'other' than that of the Son. He built on previous heterou-sian theory to develop a theory of language, according to which a namesuch as 'unbegotten' is directly revelatory of the unique essence or substanceof the Father. This led him to problematic conclusions, such as the syn-onymy of all proper divine names and even the equivalence of the namewith the substance named (40, 43). In an attack on Eunomius (which hasappeared in a new translation by D and a collaborator)^^ Basil upholds the

^" M. DelCogliano, Basil of Caesarea's Anti-Eunomian Theory of Names: Christian Theologyand Late-Antique Philosophy in the Fourth Century Trinitarian Controversy. Leiden: Brill,2010. Pp. 300. Hardback. €110. ISBN 9789004183322.'^' M. DelCogliano and A. Radde-Gallwia (trans.), Basil of Caesarea: Against Eunomius .(Washington DC: Catholic University Press, 2011).

p Adamson /Phronesis 57 (2012) 380-399 ' 395

homoiousian position: the Persons are neither the 'same' nor 'other', but'similar'. Naturally, Basil draws attention to the paradoxical aspects ofEunomius' position. But he also develops his own theory of language,according to which names give us access only to 'notions' (ennoiai) ofthings in the mind, rather than the things themselves. This skeptical posi-tion has clear resonances with Neoplatonist interpretations of Aristotle'sCategories and On Interpretation. D gives this point some weight but, plau-sibly, argues that both Basil and Eunomius are 'embedded' more in theimmediate Christian context (not only the Trinitarian context but ancientgrammatical theory). Throughout, D's analysis is clear-headed and acute.Indeed, this is the kind of book that could help bring the Cappodociansinto the mainstream study of ancient philosophy, by conveying the philo-sophical interest of Greek theologians without reducing their thought to amere borrowing from pagan Neoplatonists.

Another philosophical engagement with theologians of this period isKevin Corrigan's study of the anthropology of Evagrius and Gregory ofNyssa.^' C is more eager to assume links between these Church Fathers andthe Hellenic philosophical tradition. But to note a striking resonance isnot to discover a historical link (e.g. Evagrius and Plotinus on 'falsethoughts', 81-2), and some of C's supposedly striking resonances in factseem quite forced (e.g. between Evagrius and Plato, 85-6 and 97). None-theless, C's sympathetic reading of both thinkers is often insightful. Study-ing these two thinkers alongside one another is itself an innovative andhistorically well-founded project (cf the usefiil biographical introductionsto both thinkers, at Iff. and \\ff).\ was also persuaded that Evagrius andGregory are no simple ascetics, but integrate the body into a richer anthro-pology. C does tend to overstate his case with sweeping praise of Gregory'sunparalleled achievement (155, 207) and the book is dotted with anachro-nistic comparisons (38, 100, 117, 168,201). Still, it can only be welcomedthat we are now getting a number of monographs that expose ancientGreek Christian texts to serious philosophical reflection.

A great deal of work remains to be done in tracing the influence of ear-lier Greek thinkers in the Byzantine period. An attempt in this direction isFilip Ivanovic's brief volume on ps.-Dionysius and the iconoclasm contro;

^̂ ' K. Corrigan, Evagrius and Gregory: Mind, Soul and Body in the 4th Century. Farnham:

Ashgate, 2009. Pp. 245. Hardback. £60. ISBN 9780754616856.


versy.''' This material would perhaps have been better suited to an article-length study. Only the final chapter comes to grips with the central issue,with the preceding sections given over to superficial, though generallysolid, overviews ofthe ps.-Dionysius and the history of iconoclasm. Unfor-tunately I's philosophical analysis does not get far beyond drawing a paral-lel between the Dionysian idea that created things are a theophany - anappearance of God in the world — and the claim of John of Damascus andothers that icons are a defensible manifestation and symbol of the divine.I takes sides in the controversy, showing little intellectual curiosity aboutthe iconoclastic position and presupposing that its defeat was a victory forphilosophical and religious truth. More problematic is that, in his zeal toshow the Dionysian underpinnings ofthe iconophile position, I pays littleattention to the sense in which icons are somehow a special representationof God, rather than just being on a par with any other object in God'screation. This is by the way another volume marred by sweeping judg-ments ('never again, in the history of aesthetics, has such a radical theoryof art been proposed', 91).

The Variorum series from Ashgate has published a collection of GillianClark's essays on the history and philosophy of late antiquity.'^ I place thevolume in this section of these Notes because a Latin Church Father,St Augustine, looms large in C's studies. She contextualizes his attitudestowards a range of issues, such as huinan sexuality and non-human ani-mals, by looking at a profusion of sources, both pagan and Christian. Arunning theme in the volume is asceticism, both its underlying social basisand intellectual rationale. Of particular interest to afficionados of Neopla-tonism will be C's contributions on Porphyry. The pieces here make astrong cumulative case for seeing him as an unusually ascetic Platonist (seeV, 41-2 for the lack of'mortification' in pagan Platonists). He was unprec-edented in his fascination with asceticism across cultures (see e.g. XV, 46)and in his own revulsion towards the body. The volume tends to suggest(though C does not say this explicitly) that Porphyry's plea for vegetarianism

'•^ F. Ivanovic, Symbol and Icon: Dionysius the Areopagite and the Iconoclastic Crisis. Eugene,Oregon: Pickwick, 2010. Pp. 116. Paperback. $14. ISBN 9781608993352." ' G. Clark, Body and Gender, Soul and Reason in Late Antiquity. Fatnham: Ashgate, 2011.Pp. 330. Hardback. £80. ISBN 9781409423751. Tliis is a collection of originally indepen-dent pieces, and there is some overlap between selections (especially between items VII andX, and XII and XIII).


in On Abstinence was motivated far more by this ascetic impulse than anyviews he may have had regarding animal rationality. In all, C's work pro-vides an illuminating picture of the cultural context and attitudes of paganand Christian philosophers, full of evocative details presented with lightlyworn scholarship.

Some of the same issues are addressed very differently in Andrea Night-ingale's nionograph on embodiment in Augustine. At the risk of invidiouscategorization, the book might be described as a contribution to literarystudies and theology rather than history of philosophy.'*^ For instance oneof the more illuminating parts of the books is an appendix on Augustine'sreaction to remarks on the body and flesh in St Paul (rather more unex-pected is an 'epilogue' on Melville, Thoreau and Karel Çapek). The mostinteresting philosophical proposal in the book is N's contrast between 'psy-chic' and 'earthly' time. She takes this largely from the famous discussionof time in Confessions book 11, though there are resonances with On theTrinity (a text she could exploit more than she does). N's idea is that forAugustine, whereas the mind is distended into past and future thanks tomemory and expectation, the body relentlessly ages, caught in a moving.present. Thus humans, being both bodies and souls, experience two kindsof time that are in tension with one another (as N puts it, we reside in 'twodifferent time zones'). I suspect N may underestimate Augustine's skepti-cism regarding so-called 'earthly' time: it is not obvious, given the Confes-sions analysis, that this sort of time is in fact real. Some texts she citesdo not support her distinction, either (for instance the passage quoted on

' 59 seems to me to say that the soul is subject to the same kind of temporalflux as body). Furthermore, N might do more to explain how it can be thatthe human soul experiences bodily or earthly time if this is defined inopposition to uve psychic experience of time.

The Platonic Tradition

I begin this final, somewhat miscellaneous section before the dawn of Neo-platonism, with the most voluminously extant of the so-called 'Middle'Platonists, Plutarch. The proceedings of a conference held in Paris in 2007

^'' A. Nightingale, Once Out of Nature: Augustine on Time and the Body. Chicago: Univer-sity of Chicago Press, 2011. Pp. 244. Hardback. $39. ISBN 9780226585758.


collect seven papers (all in French) on Plutarch's use of Plato.'^ Helpfully,'the editors provide an introduction which details all citations of Plato inone Plutarchian work, by way of illustration, as well as an appendix listingallusions from across the corpus. Though Plutarch has the tendency to'atomize' Plato by quoting 'wise sayings' out of their context in the dia-logues (15), he is also capable of engaging closely with Plato. This is shownby Brouillette, who explains how Plutarch's De defectu oraculorum seeks aunion between Plato's Form of the Good and the religious teachings asso-ciated with Delphi: just as, in Plato's simile of the sun, sunlight allows usto see, so Apollo facilitates the vision possessed by the oracle. A similarlysynthetic tendency is explored in Bonazzi's examination of fragments ofPlutarch's On the Soul, where he argues that Plato represents a (very)ancient Greek belief in the soul's immortality. In the face of this 'unifiedtradition' (88) the Epicureans are shown to be an objectionable aberration.Two interesting papers on the Platonicae quaestiones by Opsomer and Gia-vatto suggest that these are no mere notes on problems in Plato, but care-fully designed pieces of dialectic. Opsomer's ingenious contribution on thefifth question (why does Plato make physical things only out of rectilinearshapes?) argues that Plutarch stages a kind of implicit dialogue, for instanceby including deliberate errors in the presentation of interpretations ofPlato's text that he rejects (102, 115). In general, the volume benefits fromits tight focus, and provides an illuminating survey of a topic which iscrucial to Plutarch's philosophical method.

If the history of late ancient philosophy can be written as the story ofcompeting philosophical schools, then the main event in this competitionmust be Platonism vs. Aristotelianism. It was, then, almost obligatory thatthe series 'Diatribai', which has collected papers on other inter-school rela-tionships in the past, would give us a volume on this central conflict. Anda good volume it is, with eleven papers in three languages (French, Italianand English) on thinkers ranging from Boethus of Sidon to Damascius."Particularly well represented are the Peripatetics, with a nice reconstruction

^" X. Btouillette and A. Giavatto (eds). Les dialogues platoniciens chez Plutarque: Stratégieset méthodes exégétiques. Leuven: Leuven Univetsity Ptess, 2011. Pp. 164. Papetback. €59.50.ISBN 9789058678546.'"' T. Bénatouïl, E. Maffi and F. Ttabattoni (eds). Plato, Aristotle or Both? Dialogues betweenPlatonism and Aristotelianism in Antiquity. Hildesheim: Geotge Olms, 2011. Pp. 278.Papetback. €42.80. ISBN 9783487145457. The thtee ptevious volumes have appeatedwith othet ptesses.


of Boethus' critique of the Phaedo by Trabattoni (known doubly indirectly,through Porphyry's refutation as quoted by Eusebius), and three papers onAlexander (by Morel, Rashed, and Cordonier). For 'Middle' Platonism wehave pieces on Philo and Plutarch, both of which encourage us to take abroad view of Aristotle's influence in these authors. Levy questions recentclaims of Aristotle's centrality to Philo's theology, balancing this with alook at Philo's ethics. Roskam demonstrates that Plutarch uses Aristotleextensively but usually in contexts that would not threaten Plutarch's basicPlatonism (when he writes history, for instance). A nice piece by Chiara-donna shows how Plotinus uses principles from the Posterior Analytics inanalyzing the nature of the intelligibles. Taormina exposes an eyebrow-raisingly Aristotelian handling of memory in Plotinus, which distinguishesbetween dispositional memory (for which Plotinus uses the unusual wordkatochë, 'retention') and actual remembering. Later Neoplatonism is wellrepresented by van Riel's look at Damascius' critique of Proclus on matterand d'Hoine's piece, which uncovers two rival views on the scope of Forms.The volume as a whole is excellent, but saves one of the best contributionsfor last with a brilliant study by de Haas. He shows that in the Analytics,Aristotle was responding to views on circular proof current among math-ematicians of the Academy. This debate still resonates as late as Philopo-nus, who like the Academician Menaechmus has a more relaxed attitudetowards circularity than Aristotle would defend, accepting conversion ofpropositions (i.e. what serves as a conclusion in one argument appears apremise in a second argument, and vice-versa) as well as conversion ofterms.

Finally, I briefly note the appearance of a new translation of To Himselfby Marcus Aurelius, better known as the Meditations.^^ Robin Hard hasrevised his 1997 translation and added to it English versions of lettersbetween Marcus and his teacher of rhetoric, Fronto. This, along with intro-duction and notes by Christopher Gill (the Hellenistic Book Notes author,hence my inclusion of this volume here rather than in his Notes) provideuseful context for the Meditations themselves.

^̂ ' R. Hard (trans.), C. Gill (introduction and notes), Marcus Aurelius: Meditations, withSelected Correspondence. OxFord: OxFord University Press, 2011. £7.99. Pp.176. ISBN97801999573202.

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