Aristotle's Physics Book 3 covers two subjects: the definition of change and the finitude of the universe. Change enters into the very definition of nature as an internal source of change. Change receives two definitions in chapters 1 and 2, as involving the actualisation of the potential or of the changeable. Alexander of Aphrodisias is reported as thinking that the second version is designed to show that Book 3, like Book 5, means to disqualify change in relations from being genuine change. Aristotle's successor Theophrastus, we are told, and Simplicius himself, prefer to admit relational change. Chapter 3 introduces a general causal principle that the activity of the agent causing change is in the patient undergoing change, and that the causing and undergoing are to be counted as only one activity, however different in definition. Simplicius points out that this paves the way for Aristotle's God who moves the heavens, while admitting no motion in himself. It is also the basis of Aristotle's doctrine, central to Neoplatonism, that intellect is one with the objects it contemplates.In defending Aristotle's claim that the universe is spatially finite, Simplicius has to meet Archytas' question, "What happens at the edge?". He replies that, given Aristotle's definition of place, there is nothing, rather than an empty place, beyond the furthest stars, and one cannot stretch one's hand into nothing, nor be prevented by nothing. But why is Aristotle's beginningless universe not temporally infinite? Simplicius answers that the past years no longer exist, so one never has an infinite collection.

Simplicius: On Aristotle Physics 3 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Politics & Social Sciences

Lautner, Peter

Simplicius Of

Philosophy

Bristol Classical Press

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.

Simplicius: On Aristotle On the Heavens 1.1-4 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Simplicius: On Aristotle On the Heavens 2.1-9 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

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.

Simplicius: On Aristotle On the Heavens 1.5-9 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Aristotle believed that the outermost stars are carried round us on a transparent sphere. There are directions in the universe and a preferred direction of rotation. The sun, moon and planets are carried on different revolving spheres. The spheres and celestial bodies are composed of an everlasting fifth element, which has none of the ordinary contrary properties like heat and cold which could destroy it, but only the facility for uniform rotation. But this creates problems as to how the heavenly bodies create light, and, in the case of the sun, heat. The topics covered in this part of Simplicius' commentary are: the speeds and distances of the stars; that the stars are spherical; why the sun and moon have fewer motions than the other five planets; why the sphere of the fixed stars contains so many stars whereas the other heavenly spheres contain no more than one (Simplicius has a long excursus on planetary theory in his commentary on this chapter); discussion of people's views on the position, motion or rest, shape, and size of the earth; that the earth is a relatively small sphere at rest in the centre of the cosmos.

On Aristotle on the Heavens 2.10-14 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Science & Math

Mueller, Ian

Astronomy & Space Science

Place, Void, and Eternity (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Philoponus

NCROL

Corollaries on Place and Time (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Book 7 of Aristotle's Physics - once regarded as merely an undeveloped early version of Book 8 - has recently attracted renewed interest. Differences of opinion concerning its importance are as old as Aristotle's text, and Simplicius' commentary, written in the sixth century A.D., is an indispensable tool for understanding Book 7. Charles Hagen here gives the English reader access to this commentary for the first time. Among the most important aspects of the commentary are Simplicius' explanation of the interconnections among the chapters of Book 7 and his references to a more extensive second version of Aristotle's text than the one that survives today. Acknowledging that Book 8 offers a more precise discussion of the subject covered in Book 7, the case for a prime mover, Simplicius both identifies ways in which Book 7 reveals Aristotle's acumen and clarifies its relationship to the other books in the Physics.

On Aristotle's "physics 7" (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

On Theophrastus's "on Sense Perception" and on Aristotle's "on the Soul 2.5-2.12" (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Priscian

Book 2 of the Physics is arguably the best introduction to Aristotle's ideas. It defines nature and distinguishes natural science from mathematics. Book 2 introduces the seminal idea of four causes, or four modes of explanation. It defines chance, but rejects a theory of chance and natural selection in favour of purpose in nature. To these riches Simplicius, writing in the sixth century A.D., adds his own considerable contribution. Seeing Aristotle's God as a creator, he discusses how nature relates to soul, adds Stoic and Neoplatonist causes to Aristotle's list of four, and questions the likeness of cause to effect. He discusses missing a great evil or a great good by a hairsbreadth and considers whether animals act from reason or natural instinct. He also preserves a Posidonian discussion of mathematical astronomy.

On Aristotle's "physics 2" (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

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