Ammonius: Interpretation of Porphyry's Introduction to Aristotle's Five Terms

by Michael Chase

Overview

One of his six introductions to philosophy, widely used by students in Alexandria, Ammonius' lecture on Porphyry was recorded in writing by his students in the commentary translated here. Along with five other types of introductions (three of which are translated in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle volume Elias and David: Introductions to Philosophy with Olympiodorus: Introduction to Logic) it made Greek philosophy more accessible to other cultures. These introductions became standard in Ammonius' school and included a popular set of five or more definitions of philosophy, some of them drawn from commentaries on quite different works.

Ammonius' lecture expounded the most celebrated and discussed previous introduction written by Porphyry 200 years earlier, which was devoted to five main technical terms of Aristotle's logic. Ammonius was sympathetic to Porphyry because they both sought to harmonise the views of Plato and Aristotle with each other, arguing in different ways that the two philosophers did not disagree about the nature of universals. Porphyry's introduction was a hugely influential work for centuries after its composition, and this commentary by Ammonius served to maintain its position at the centre of later schools of philosophy.

This English translation of Ammonius' work is the latest volume in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series and makes this philosophical work accessible to a modern readership. The translation is accompanied by an introduction, comprehensive commentary notes, bibliography, glossary of translated terms and a subject index.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350089242
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	09/05/2019
Series:	Ancient Commentators on Aristotle
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Michael Chase is Adjunct Professor of Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada, and Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France. He is author of two other volumes in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series: Simplicius: On Aristotle Categories 1-4 (Bloomsbury Academic, 2003), Simplicius: On Aristotle Physics 8.1-5 (with István Bodnár and Michael Share, Bloomsbury Academic, 2012).
Michae Chase is Adjunct Professor of Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada, and Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France. His books include three in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series and his research focuses on Ancient Greek Neoplatonism with increasing interest in its relation to medieval Islamic Philosophy. He has also made accessible the work of the French scholar Pierre Hadot through English translations of his work and expositions of his view of Philosophy as a way of life, which was also the view of much of Greek Philosophy, including the commentary tradition.

Table of Contents

Conventions
Abbreviations

Introduction
Textual Emendations
Translation
Notes

Appendix of Variant Readings

Bibliography
English–Greek Glossary
Greek–English Index
Subject Index