Simplicius: On Aristotle On the Soul 1.1-2.4

by Simplicius, J.O. Urmson

The commentary attributed to Simplicius on Aristotle's On the Soul appears in this series in three volumes, of which this is the first. The translation provides the first opportunity for a wider readership to assess the disputed question of authorship. Is the work by Simplicius, or by his colleague Priscian, or by another commentator? In the second volume, Priscian's Paraphrase of Theophrastus on Sense Perception, which covers the same subject, will also be translated for comparison.
Whatever its authorship, the commentary is a major source for late Neoplatonist theories of thought and sense perception and provides considerable insight into this important area of Aristotle's thought. In this first volume, the Neoplatonist commentator covers the first half of Aristotle's On the Soul, comprising Aristotle's survey of his predecessors and his own rival account of the nature of the soul.

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Simplicius of Cilicia (/sɪmˈplɪʃiəs/; Greek: Σιμπλίκιος; c. 490 – c. 560) was a disciple of Ammonius Hermiae and Damascius, and was one of the last of the Neoplatonists.

Reviews

[John Cairns · Rating 5 out of 5]

He uses the analogy of a cutting having the soul of the plant it's taken from and acquiring its own whole soul, which is perfectly compatible with cloning Dolly from cells and her having her own soul. The author says Aristotle ascribes the form of living things to the soul, that would be to the DNA programming. The soul is not body but belongs to body and is present in a body. The prime power of the soul is nutritive, for bringing to birth and the use of food are its functions, for the natural function of living things is to create another like themselves that they may partake of everlastingness and divinity in the way that is possible. Mortals are everlasting as a species and not by their own individual continuity. The soul is the cause of life. Food is in a contrary state to what it nourishes but is transformed into like to like, bone to bone, flesh to flesh. The soul acts from within and of itself, preserving, increasing and bringing to birth something like itself. None of this analyses what the soul is but it's compatible with what's thought now, which has hardly gone any further forward and for much the same reason: it's science, dealing with what's sensible and intelligible to it, without having the means to measure the spiritual that's beyond it. The use plants make of quantum mechanics to so efficiently use light for growth would for this ancient author come under what's intelligible and confirm the existence of a rational soul and wouldn't be incompatible with his own thinking. He and Aristotle would be delighted by genetics though evolution might stretch their minds a bit as it's stretching that of the religious bigots.