SGA 11/1(2021)

Prof. Em. Hans Hinrich Biesterfeldt
hinrich.biesterfeldt[at]rub.de
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
GC 6/162, Universitätsstraße 150
44801 Bochum (Germany)
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Prof. Cristina D’Ancona
cristina.dancona[at]unipi.it
Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere
Università di Pisa
Via P. Paoli 15, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
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Prof. Tiziano Dorandi
tiziano.dorandi[at]orange.fr
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(UMR 8230, Centre Jean Pépin)
7, rue Guy Môquet BP N°8
94801 Villejuif Cedex, Paris (France)
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Dr. Bishara Ebeid
bishara.ebeid[at]unive.it
Dipartimento di Studi sull’Asia e sull’Africa Mediterranea
Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
Ca’ Cappello, Venezia (Italy)
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Dr. Geneviève Lachance
genevieve.lachance[at]ugent.be
Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences
Ghent University
Blandijnberg 2
9000 Gent
Belgium
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Dr. Concetta Luna
concetta.luna[at]sns.it
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
Piazza dei Cavalieri 1, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
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Dr.Lorenzo Salerno
lorenzo.salerno[at]sns.it
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
Piazza dei Cavalieri 1, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
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Prof. Sir Richard Sorabji
richard.sorabji[at]philosophy.ox.ac.uk
Wolfson College, University of Oxford
Linton Road OX2 6UD, Oxford (UK)
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Prof. Alexander Treiger
ATreiger[at]dal.ca
Department of Classics
6135 University Avenue
PO Box 15000
Halifax, NS B3H 4R2
CANADA

Abstract:
This article presents the intellectual activity of Father Henri Dominique Saffrey O.P. (1921-2021), describing the work of a great philologist and historian of Neoplatonism. In particular, it deals with the critical editions (Proclus, Marinus, Iamblichus) that Father Saffrey produced in close collaboration with L.G. Westerink and A.-Ph. Segonds, which are an essential reference for any scholar of late ancient thought.

Abstract:
This article analyses the role of Euclid’s fifth postulate (also known as the “Parallel Postulate”) in Proclus’ Commentary on the first book of the Elements. Since Euclid included it among the postulates, he considered it indemonstrable; other ancient geometricians, though, disagreed with him and tried to find a proof of this fundamental principle. Proclus also thought so: in his Commentary, he reports
various opinions on the postulate, together with Ptolemy’s attempt at proof, which he refutes, a paradoxical opinion of anonymous authors who even deny the fifth postulate, and his own attempt at proof. The analysis of these attempts at proof was made by Heath; the aim of this paper is to extend the study to all the parts of Proclus’ Commentary relating to the fifth postulate. A textual note on the term λημμάτιον used in reference to the fifth postulate closes the article. The distinction between axioms and postulates and the “squares of propositions” are dealt with in two final appendices.

Abstract:
This paper aims to study and analyse the Trinitarian doctrine of a Syriac Patristic florilegium of Trinitarian content found in MS London, British Library, Add. 14532, in an attempt to understand the reasons that led to its composition. It will include an analysis of the development of Miaphysite metaphysics during the sixth and the seventh centuries, when the Miaphysites had to deal with various internal controversies, and an analytical presentation of the florilegium and of its contents, with an identification of the patristic quotations used by the compiler. The study of the theology and metaphysics of this florilegium will go on to demonstrate that the Miaphysites, starting from their Christology and the problems it created in their Trinitarian doctrine, formulated a metaphysical system based on a new comprehension of “substance”, “hypostasis”, “property” and “monarchy” and developed what I call “Miaphysite Trinitarian doctrine”.

Abstract:
The aim of my paper is a presentation of the principles of the new edition of the epitomé (recensio breviata) of books 1-2 of the Anthology of Joannes Stobaeus. My method differs significantly from that applied by C. Wachsmuth (1884). The recensio breviata gives a limited idea of the structure and contents of those two books, but the only realistic one. For this reason it must be published in itself without the additions of the parallel tradition and according to criteria and principles proper to the epitomaí. The different problems of edition of the recensio breviata are reviewed and discussed through a detailed analysis of a large number of examples.

Abstract:
The following article aims at studying the different ways in which Aristotelian commentators interpreted two passages of Aristotle’s De Interpretatione which pertain to the thorny question of language’s conventionality: 16 a 26-8 (Chapter 2) and 16 b 33-17 a 2 (Chapter 4). The article gives special attention to the exegesis of an anonymous commentator whose commentary on Aristotle’s De Interpretatione was only preserved in Armenian and, to this day, has never been studied nor translated in its entirety. The article intends to highlight the different interpretations defended by various commentators on Aristotle’s De Interpretatione living before the seventh/eighth century AD and to position the anonymous commentator among an already long and rich exegetical tradition. It will demonstrate that the anonymous Armenian commentary is probably not the fruit of a member of the Neoplatonic school of Alexandria, but rather the work of a scholar who was probably linked with the Peripatetics, or had access to sources linked with them.

Abstract:
The Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato’s Cave assumes that beyond discursive reason there is in the soul a power to grasp the intelligible Forms and the first principle: the One, or the Good. In itself beyond knowledge, the One-Good is nevertheless present to the human soul as the ultimate foundation of knowledge which is made possible by the Forms. The perfect simplicity of the One-Good implies transcendence with respect to knowledge; however, the soul can have a grasp of it, provided that it raises itself to the non-discursive mode of knowledge which is typical of the Intellect – a separate substance whose nature is intellection. This Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato’s doctrine of knowledge reached the Latin Middle Ages through various channels and fueled the idea that our mind can indeed get direct acquaintance with the supra-sensible realm and its ultimate principle, God. Surprisingly enough, in the philosophical culture of the Middle Ages, both Arabic and Latin, this account was not seen as incompatible with the Aristotelian theory of knowledge, although the latter is based on abstraction from sense perception and does not grant any contact between the human mind and the Unmoved Mover. This article explores the roots of the medieval intermingling of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic epistemologies which occurs, in particular, in the theory of the “conjunction” of our mind with the intelligible realm. Based on Alexander of Aphrodisias’ exegesis of the De Anima, this theory originates in Arabic philosophy. Here Alexander and Plotinus merge together in the creation of the socalled ʿaql mustafād / intellectus adeptus.

Abstract:
Galenʼs treatise Quod animi mores… has fascinated generations of scholars investigating the ancient history and theory of Greek medicine. The Arabic version of the treatise, Quwā l-nafs (ed. Biesterfeldt 1973), has considerably extended the ground for establishing a proper Greek text. In addition to the then unique ms. Ayasofya 3725, which served as a basis for my edition, a second manuscript of the text recently emerged, Meshhed Riḍā ṭibb 5223. It contributes valuable readings to the Arabic, and indirectly to the Greek, text and documents the work of a member of the group of translators from Greek into Arabic around Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq, namely Iṣṭifan b. Basīl. His readings and his copious marginal remarks show his excellent knowledge of Greek and of Greek culture and give us an idea of what the readers of this kind of scholarly heritage might have been interested in.

Abstract:
The present contribution analyzes an intriguing tradition that appears in al-Rāġib al-Iṣfahānī’s (d. 422/1031) Kitāb al-Ḏarīʿa ilā makārim al-šarīʿa and Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī’s (d. 505/1111) Mīzān al-ʿamal and Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn. This tradition discusses a painting of two philosophers holding scrolls with pithy sayings. An analysis (based on a wide array of related texts: from al ʿĀmirī, al-Muṭahhar ibn Ṭāhir al-Maqdisī, and Arabic gnomologia) demonstrates that the philosophers are to be identified as Plato and Aristotle. It also shows (on the basis of a comparison to late-Byzantine and post-Byzantine Orthodox frescoes of Greek philosophers) that the Arabic tradition is, most likely, a literary depiction (ekphrasis) of an actual painting that once adorned a Christian church. The present contribution also suggests that the Arabic tradition in question owes its origin to the Muslim Diyārāt and Zuhd literatures, dedicated to Christian monasteries and asceticism respectively.

Abstract:
The idea of intentional objects of consciousness, which Brentano made the mark of the mental, goes back to the ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle of 200 – 600 CE, especially Philoponus, who in turn influenced Islamic Philosophy, which in its turn influenced Philosophy in medieval Latin.