PHILOPONUS On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 1.9-18 This page intentionally left blank PHILOPONUS On Aristotle Posterior Analytics 1.9-18 Translated by Richard McKirahan LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in 2012 Paperback edition fi rst published 2014 © 2012 by Richard McKirahan Richard McKirahan has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN HB: 978-0-7156-4089-0 PB: 978-1-4725-5797-1 ePDF: 978-1-4725-0036-6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Acknowledgements The present translations have been made possible by generous and imaginative funding from the following sources: the National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Research Programs, an independent federal agency of the USA; the Leverhulme Trust; the British Academy; the Jowett Copyright Trustees; the Royal Society (UK); Centro Internazionale A. Beltrame di Storia dello Spazio e del Tempo (Padua); Mario Mignucci; Liverpool University; the Leventis Foundation; the Arts and Humanities Research Council; Gresham College; the Esmée Fairbairn Charitable Trust; the Henry Brown Trust; Mr and Mrs N. Egon; the Netherlands Organisation for Scientifi c Research (NWO/GW); the Ashdown Trust; Dr Victoria Solomonides, the Cultural Attaché of the Greek Embassy in London. The editor wishes to thank Owen Goldin, Donald Russell, Alberto Jori, Mossman Roueché, Martin Achard and Peter Lautner for their comments, Sebastian Gertz for preparing the volume for press, and Deborah Blake at Bristol Classical Press, who has been the publisher responsible for every volume since the fi rst. Typeset by Ray Davies Printed and bound in Great Britain Contents Conventions vii Introduction 1 Textual Information 11 Translation 13 Notes 115 Bibliography 141 English-Greek Glossary 145 Greek-English Index 157 Index of Passages 187 Index of Names 191 Subject Index 193 This page intentionally left blank Conventions [(cid:125)] Square brackets enclose words or phrases that have been added to the translation or the lemmata for purposes of clarity, as well as those portions of the lemmata which are not quoted by Philoponus. <(cid:125)> Angle brackets enclose conjectures relating to the Greek text, i.e. additions to the transmitted text deriving from parallel sources and editorial conjecture, and transposition of words or phrases. Accompanying notes provide further details. ((cid:125)) Round brackets, besides being used for ordinary parentheses, contain transliterated Greek words and Bekker pages references to the Aristotelian text. This page intentionally left blank Introduction1 Philoponus’ work, the earliest surviving commentary on the Posterior Analytics, was not the first. Theophrastus wrote a commentary in seven books,2 while Galen boasts of having composed six commentar- ies on the first book of the Posterior Analytics and five on the second,3 and Philoponus himself refers to Alexander’s commentary.4 We do not know the scale of these earlier works, but Philoponus’ commen- tary (333 CAG pages on book I alone) can claim to be among the longest ever written. Maximilian Wallies’ edition, published in 1909, contains in addition to Philoponus’ commentary on book I, the com- mentary on book II that is (by almost universal agreement5 falsely) attributed to Philoponus, as well as an anonymous commentary on book II. The present volume is the third of a projected four which will present the first complete translation of Philoponus’ commentary on book I and pseudo-Philoponus’ on book II into any modern language.6 Interest in this commentary has waned since the Renaissance, when it was the first of Philoponus’ major philosophical works to be edited.7 It was twice translated into Latin in the sixteenth century, with the translations being reprinted frequently from 1534 to 1569.8 In it Philoponus sets himself the task of expounding the meaning of the Aristotelian text rather than raising objections and presenting alternative theories in the ways that make some of his later commen- taries (notably the Physics commentary) important philosophical works in their own right. Here, he is in the main content to follow the run of the text, clarifying difficulties and explaining Aristotle’s state- ments in the light of other passages in the Posterior Analytics or of other works of Aristotle. Among these, he tends to limit his refer- ences to the other logical works (the Categories, De Interpretatione, Prior Analytics, and Topics), and to the Physics,Metaphysics, and De Anima. His practice of explaining Aristotle through Aristotle has been standard ever since. The opening words of the work, ‘John of Alexandria’s lecture notes from the meetings of Ammonius, son of Hermeias, on the first book of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, together with some observations of his own’, indicate that it contains some original contributions of Philoponus, but that it is largely a record of Ammonius’ views. The absence of other direct testimony about Ammonius’ lectures on the