Corpus evidence — top 10 passages

Most-relevant passages from the entire indexed corpus (67,286 paragraph chunks across YouTube transcripts, PubMed, arXiv, archive.org, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, OpenAlex, and more) ranked by semantic similarity (bge-small-en-v1.5).

1. 01 · blog0.763

   Following a tradition that may go all the way back to Andronicus of Rhodes (see the section on the early fortune of the Categories ), this treatise was considered an elementary introduction to the whole of philosophy and as such it was used to teach beginners with little or no knowledge of philosophy (Porphyry, In Cat. 56. 28–29). For this reason the exegetical activity on this short but difficult treatise never stopped but in fact increased in Late Antiquity. The key figure for the reception of the Categories during this period was undoubtedly Porphyry ( ca 234–305 CE). The latter wrote a com…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/commentators-on-aristotle.md

2. 02 · blog0.748

   In the sequence of courses, the ‘Prolegomena’ were followed by lectures on Porphyry’s seminal ‘Introduction to Aristotle’s Categories ’. Porphyry, who started the neoplatonic tradition of commentaries on Aristotle at the end of the 3rd century, was once approached by a Roman senator, Chrysarius, who had great difficulty understanding Aristotle’s ‘ Categories ’; Elias and David tell their students how Porphyry seized the opportunity to write what should turn out to be an extremely popular and influential text, the so-called ‘Isagogê’ (‘Introduction’). The text deals with a detailed explanation …

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/david.md

3. 03 · blog0.740

   A text from Philoponus points to interpreters who argued that the two even agreed on the nature of universals: Thus, also Proclus plainly and openly agrees with us about the difference of the two philosophers [sc. as regards the status of universals], or rather he has demonstrated it from the words/writings of Aristotle himself. From this one can only wonder about the overshooting amount of shamelessness among those who try to show that Aristotle and Plato did agree also in this point. (Philoponus, De aeternitate mundi 32.8–13 [Rabe], trans. by author) It is very likely that Iamblichus was amo…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/simplicius.md

4. 04 · blog0.731

   Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database. Other Internet Resources [Please contact the author with suggestions.] Related Entries Ammonius | Aristotle | David | Olympiodorus | Philoponus | Porphyry Copyright © 2022 by Christian Wildberg < chw168 @ pitt . edu > Open access to the SEP is made possible by a world-wide funding initiative. The Encyclopedia Now Needs Your Support Please R…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/elias.md

5. 05 · blog0.730

   Thus, Ζ.4 tells us, it is only these primary essences that are substances. Aristotle does not here work out the details of this “hierarchy of essences” (Loux, 1991), but it is possible to reconstruct a theory of such a hierarchy on the basis of subsequent developments in Book Ζ. In Ζ.6, Aristotle goes on to argue that if something is “primary” and “spoken of in respect of itself ( kath’ hauto legomenon )” it is one and the same as its essence. The precise meaning of this claim, as well as the nature and validity of the arguments offered in support of it, are matters of scholarly controversy. B…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-s-metaphysics.md

6. 06 · blog0.726

   Alberic’s fundamental disagreement with Abelard on this point is clear, and the nominalists’ attempts at finding evidence for their theory of universals in Aristotle are repeatedly mocked in the writings of Alberic’s followers (Iwakuma 2013: 35; Hansen 2023: 573–74, 588–89). Curiously, however, the sources are rather reticent when it comes to information about the details of Alberic’s own view. Indeed, it has been claimed that “the Albricani’s works so far known never directly take up the question of what universals are” (Iwakuma 2013: 38). This claim, however, rests on the rejection of L. M. …

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/alberic-of-paris.md

7. 07 · blog0.724

   Porphyry and Iamblichus) who mostly strongly shaped his commentaries, it would undoubtedly be Alexander of Aphrodisias (around 200 CE): [It is] profitable for those who choose to understand and explain Aristotle’s thought by way of Alexander’s commentaries, to examine what he said. (Simplicius, In Cael. 297.8–10, translated by J. Hankinson) Baltussen used this telling quotation to preface the chapter on Alexander of Aphrodisias in his monograph on Simplicius (2008: 107). It illustrates rather well that Simplicius by no means blindly followed “the commentator” ( ho exêgêtês ), as he calls him (…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/simplicius.md

8. 08 · yt0.724

   is so called because it remains always in the same condition that is separate from multitude its attributes are as follows it is called mind because the mind is stable and has preeminence hermaphrodism because it is both male and female odd and even for being added to the even it makes odd and to the odd even God because it is the beginning and end of all but itself has neither beginning nor end good for such is the nature of God the receptacle of matter because it produces the duad which is essentially material by the pythagoreans monad was called chaos obscurity Chasm Tartarus sticks Abyss l…

   yt/3UL4k11eQCI-the-secret-teachings-of-all-ages-pt-2-of-4-manly-p-hall-full/transcript.txt

9. 09 · blog0.722

   The universal whiteness is said-of many primary substances but is only accidental to them. 1.5 A Recent Debate The way in which I have characterized the concepts of said-of and present-in is, as I have said, natural and relatively straightforward. Moreover, it was by far the orthodox interpretation amongst Aristotle’s Medieval interpreters. I would be remiss, however, were I not to mention the recent debate started by G.E.L. Owen about the said-of/present-in distinction (Owen, 1965a). According to Owen, Aristotle did not accept the existence of non-substantial particulars. Instead, Owen argues…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-s-categories.md

10. 10 · blog0.722

    Simplicius continues and extends a program that was inaugurated by his teacher Ammonius, and also before him by Porphyry, and it was afterwards continued in Alexandria by Hierocles and Olympiodorus, more or less along the same lines as Simplicius. Karamanolis (2018: 36) argues convincingly that Porphyry (and before him some Middle Platonists) had already considered Aristotle a crucial part of the Platonic tradition: […] Porphyry wrote commentaries on works of Aristotle because he found these works to represent an elaboration on, and a development of, Plato’s philosophy. […] What Porphyry does …

    blog/plato-stanford-edu/simplicius.md