SGA 14 (2024)

Prof. Francesco Ademollo
francesco.ademollo[at]unifi.it
Università degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia
via della Pergola 60, 50121 Firenze (Italy)
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Dr. Tommaso Alpina
tommaso.alpina[at]unipv.it
Università degli Studi di Pavia, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici
Strada nuova 65, 27100 Pavia (Italy)
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Prof. Fabrizio Amerini
fabrizio.amerini[at]unipr.it
Università di Parma, Dipartimento di Discipline Umanistiche, Sociali e delle Imprese Culturali
Via M. d’Azeglio 85, 43100 Parma (Italy)
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Dr. Henryk Anzulewicz
henryk.anzulewicz[at]gmail.com
Albertus-Magnus-Institut
Adenauerallee 17, 53111 Bonn (Germany)
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Dr. Ruediger Arnzen
ruediger.arnzen[at]fau.de
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Lehrstuhl für Arabistik und Semitistik
Bismarckstraße 1, 91054 Erlangen
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Prof. Carmela Baffioni
baffioni[at]unior.it
Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”, Palazzo Du Mesnil 8012 Napoli (Italy)
Institute of Ismaili Studies, 10 Handyside St, King’s Cross, London (UK)
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Prof. Amos Bertolacci
amos.bertolacci[at]imtlucca.it
Scuola IMT Alti Studi
Piazza S. Francesco, 19 – 55100 Lucca (Italy)
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Dr. Marta Borgo
marta.borgo[at]gmail.com
Commission léonine
20 rue des Tanneries, F – 75013 Paris (France)
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Prof. Giovanni Catapano
giovanni.catapano[at]unipd.it
Università degli Studi di Padova, Dipartimento di Filosofia, Sociologia, Pedagogia e Psicologia Applicata
piazza Capitaniato 3, 35139 Padova (Italy)
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Prof. Riccardo Chiaradonna
riccardo.chiaradonna[at]uniroma3.it
Università degli Studi di Roma TRE
Dipartimento di Filosofia, Comunicazione e Spettacolo
Via Ostiense 234, 00144 Roma (Italy)

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Dr. Elisa Coda
elisa.coda[at]unipi.it
Università di Pisa, Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere
via P. Paoli 15, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
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Dr. Iacopo Costa
lem-umr8584-contact[at]cnrs.fr
Commission léonine
20 rue des Tanneries, F-75013 Paris (France)
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Prof. Cristina D’Ancona
cristina.dancona[at]unipi.it
Università di Pisa, Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere
via P. Paoli 15, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
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Dr. Silvia Donati
Albertus-Magnus-Institut
Adenauerallee 17, 53111 Bonn (Germany)
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Prof. Dr. Frans A.J. de Haas
f.a.j.de.haas[at]hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty of Humanities, Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte
Nonnensteeg 1-3, 2311 VJ Leiden (Netherlands)

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Prof. Marco Di Branco
marco.dibranco[at]uniroma1.it
Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Dipartimento di Storia, Antropologia, Religioni e Spettacolo
Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma (Italy)
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Prof. Matteo Di Giovanni
matteo.digiovanni[at]unito.it
Università di Torino, Dipartimento di Filosofia e Scienze dell’Educazione
Via Verdi 8, 10124 Torino (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. Davide Falessi
davide.falessi[at]etu.ephe.psl.eu
Laboratoire d’études sur les monothéismes, UMR 8584
Campus Condorcet 14 cours des Humanités 93322 Aubervilliers (France)
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Prof. Franco Ferrari
franco.ferrari[at]unipv.it
Università di Pavia, Dipartimento di Studi umanistici
Piazza del Lino, 2 – 27100 Pavia (Italy)
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Prof. Gianfranco Fioravanti
gianfranco.fioravanti[at]unipi.it
Università di Pisa, Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere
via P. Paoli 15, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
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Prof. Carlo Gabbani
Liceo “U. Dini”
via Benedetto Croce 36, 56125 Pisa (Italy)
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Prof. Gabriele Galluzzo
G.Galluzzo[at]exeter.ac.uk
University of Exeter, Department of Classics, Ancient History, Religion and Theology
Amory Building, Room 268, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4RJ (United Kingdom)
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Prof. Stefano Gattei
stefano.gattei[at]unitn.it
Università di Trento, Dipartimento di Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale
via Verdi, 26 – 38122 Trento (Italy)
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Dr. Guy Guldentops
guy.guldentops[at]uni-koeln.de
Thomas-Institut der Universität zu Köln
Universitätsstraße 22, D-50923 Köln (Germany)
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Prof. Em. Richard Goulet
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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Prof. Pieter Sjoerd Hasper
pieter-sjoerd.hasper[at]uni-tuebingen.de
Akademischer Rat am Lehrstuhl für Antike Philosophie
Universität Tübingen, Philosophisches Seminar
Bursagasse 1 72070 Tübingen (Germany)
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Prof. Em. Henri Hugonnard-Roche
henri.hugonnard-r[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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Prof. Daniel King
kingdh[at]cf.ac.uk
Cardiff University, School of History, Archaeology and Religion
John Percival Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU (United Kingdom)

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Dr. Issam Marjani
issam.marjani[at]unipi.it
Università di Pisa, Centro Linguistico Interdipartimentale
via S. Maria 36, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
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Prof. Costantino Marmo
Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Dipartimento delle Arti
Via Azzo Gardino 23, Bologna (Italy)
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Prof. Cecilia Martini Bonadeo
cecilia.martini[at]unipd.it
Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche Geografiche e dell’Antichità, Università di Padova
Via del Vescovado 6, 35141 Padova (Italy)
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Prof. Dominic J. O’Meara
dominic.omeara[at]unifr.ch
Université de Fribourg, Département de philosophie
Av. de l’Europe 20, CH-1700 Fribourg (Switzerland)
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Prof. Adriano Oliva
a.oliva[at]commissio-leonina.org
Commission léonine
20 rue des Tanneries, F – 75013 Paris (France)
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Prof. Dr. Jan Opsomer
jan.opsomer[at]kuleuven.be
LU Leuven, De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
Kardinaal Mercierplein 2 – box 3200, 3000 Leuven (Belgium)
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Prof. Em. Agostino Paravicini Bagliani
Agostino.Paravicini[at]unil.ch
Université de Lausanne
Quartier UNIL-Chamberonne, Bâtiment Anthropole
1015 Lausanne (Switzerland)

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Prof. Federico Maria Petrucci
federicomaria.petrucci[at]unito.it
Università di Torino, Dipartimento di Filosofia e Scienze dell’Educazione
Via Sant’Ottavio 20, 10124 Torino (Italy)
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Prof. Giorgio Pini
pini[at]fordham.edu
Fordham University, Philosophy Department
113 W. 60th Street, New York NY 10023–7484 (U.S.A.)
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Prof. Anna Rodolfi
anna.rodolfi[at]unifi.it
Università degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia
via della Pergola 60, 50121 Firenze (Italy)
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Prof. Em. Pietro Bassiano Rossi
pietro.bassianorossi[at]unito.it
Università di Torino, Dipartimento di Filosofia e Scienze dell’Educazione
via S. Ottavio 20, 10124 Torino (Italy)
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Dr. Nicolas Roudet
nroudet[at]unistra.fr
University of Strasbourg, Bibliothèque de la MISHA (Maison Interuniversitaire des Sciences de l’Homme-Alsace)
5 All. du Général Rouvillois, 67083 Strasbourg (France)
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Dr. Lorenzo Salerno
lsalerno[at]stanford.edu
Department of Classics, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 110
Stanford, CA 94305 (U.S.A.)
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Dr. Denis Savoie
denis.savoie[at]obspm.fr
Observatoire de Paris (Syrte)
61 avenue de l’Observatoire, 75014 Paris (France)
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Prof. Jean-Pierre Schneider
jean-pierre.schneider[at]unine.ch
Université de Neuchâtel, Faculté de Lettres et sciences humaines
Côte 87 CH-2000 Neuchâtel (Switzerland)
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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. Carlos Steel
carlos.steel[at]kuleuven.be
De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium)
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Prof. Dr. Benedikt Strobel
strobel[at]uni-trier.de
Universität Trier Fachbereich I
Philosophie D-54296 Trier (Germany)
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Prof. Em. Jean-Pierre Torrell O.P.
Université de Fribourg, Faculté de théologie
Av. de l’Europe 20, CH-1700 Fribourg (Switzerland)
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Prof. Stéphane Toussaint
toussaint[at]prismanet.com
Centre André Chastel, UMR 8150, CNRS
Galerie Colbert, 2 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris (France)
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Prof. Cecilia Trifogli
cecilia.trifogli[at]all-souls.ox.ac.uk
University of Oxford, All Souls College
Oxford, OX1 4AL (England)
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Dr. Leonida Vanni
leonida.vanni[at]unifi.it
Università di Firenze, Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia
Via della Pergola 58-60, 50121 Firenze (Italy)
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Prof. Gerd Van Riel
gerd.vanriel[at]kuleuven.be
KU Leuven, De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
Kardinaal Mercierplein 2 – box 3200, 3000 Leuven (Belgium)
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Dr. Giovanna Varani
Hannover, Leibniz Archives
Waterloostraße 8, 30169 Hannover (Germany)
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Prof. Marco Zambon
marco.zambon.2[at]unipd.it
Università degli Studi di Padova, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche Geografiche e dell’Antichità
Palazzo Liviano, piazza Capitaniato 7, 35139 Padova (Italy)

Table of Contents (14/2)

doi: 10.12871/97912560807001

Abstract:
This is a textual note on the first definition of whole formulated by Aristotle in Metaph. Δ 26, 1023 b 26–7. I argue that the text transmitted by both families of the tradition is problematic, discuss an alternative reading which is present in some manuscripts and derives from Alexander’s commentary, and finally advance a conjecture that aims to solve all problems.

Abstract: Where I live, people have shown much fellow feeling or affiliation towards each other during the Covid pandemic from late 2019. In the Stoic theory of oikeiōsis, affiliation, expressed by the ancient Roman philosopher Seneca, humans are said to extend to their own mind as centre point the closest sense of belonging, the next closest to their body in the first surrounding circle, then to parents, siblings, wife and children in the next circle out, followed by the circles of other relatives, of one’s deme, of one’s tribe, of one’s city, of its neighbours, of one’s race and of the human race. 

Abstract: Otto Neugebauer has assigned to Cleomedes’ cosmological treatise a date at the end of the IVth cent. CE on the basis of a few lines of the author where the stars Antares and Aldebaran are located in opposition at the 15th degree of their signs. These values could have been deduced by Cleomedes from Ptolemy’s Catalogue of Stars using the ancient constant of precession of 1° per century. Since not so many ancient authors were aware of the issues linked with the Ptolemaic tropical zodiac, it is worth noting that the specified location of the two stars would have been quite normal within the sidereal zodiac of Babylonian origin in use in pre-Hipparchean Hellenistic period.

Abstract: The Theologumena Arithmeticae of ps.-Iamblichus are a very enigmatic work, composed of ten chapters each dedicated to one of the first ten natural numbers. The text has received some scrutiny with respect to its date, possible author, philosophical content, and sources, but no consensus has been reached yet. On the other hand, almost no attention has been paid to its philological issues since De Falco’s edition (1922). In this paper, I present some textual proposals concerning the chapter on the Tetrad, based also on a new collation of the three main mss. of the work.

Abstract: In this paper I explore Alexander’s interpretation of Aristotle’s arguments for the First Unmoved Mover, as it can be reconstructed from various sources. Alexander sets out to provide a clear answer to many of the puzzles that have haunted this topic until today. I argue that Alexander regards the argument summarized in Quaest. I.1 as an instance of dialectic serving philosophical goals, as he describes it in his Topics commentary. More particularly, I identify the argument in the second part of Quaest. I.1 as a case of analysis in the sense of reduction to (matter and) form, which is one of the meanings of ‘analysis’ that Alexander lists in his commentary on the Prior Analytics.

Abstract: The reception of the Aristotelian logic in Syriac and Arabic shows interesting analogies with the Latin corpora known under the label logica vetus and logica nova. This article explores two moments in the formation of the corpus of logical works in Syriac and Arabic. First the “school of Qenneshre” is presented, with the leading figure of Severus Sebokht (7th cent.). Then attention is called on the “Syro-Arabic corpus” of logical works put together by Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq and his son Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn (10th cent.), a corpus attested in MS Istanbul, Topkapı, Ahmet III 3362.

Abstract: Syriac philosophers were particularly fascinated by Aristotle’s Prior Analytics and the syllogistic system it describes. The basic curriculum of logic in Syriac worked up towards a full description of the assertoric syllogisms and so a number of introductions to logic survive in Syriac which include substantial descriptions of this system. The present paper offers a first edition and translation of one of these descriptions, written by Severus Sebokht in the seventh century. We have also offered a comprehensive Greek-Syriac glossary as a contribution to the better understanding of the development of the philosophical lexicon in Syriac and Arabic. The text offers some insight into the manner in which Greek philosophy was respected and taught in the mediaeval Syriac milieu.

Abstract: New editions of the three extant Arabic translations of Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations are indispensible for a good understanding of the philosophical and textual history of that work. In this contribution we present new editions of chapter 33 of the Sophistical Refutations, for the three Arabic translations as well as for the Greek original, with a full critical apparatus for the Arabic translations and an apparatus to the Greek original that fully registers the readings plausibly underlying in the final Greek exemplars of these translations. We add comments on the Arabic texts elucidating our editorial decisions, and finish with a discussion of the relevance of these editions of chapter 33 for the history of the text.

Abstract: In the spring of 1464, the German astrologer, astronomer and mathematician Johannes Müller, known as Regiomontanus (1436-1476) offered a course of lectures on the Arab astronomer al-Farġānī at the University of Padua. The lectures are not extant, but we do have the text of his inaugural oration, on the dignity, utility and beauty of the mathematical sciences, also calling for the necessity of translating into Latin a number of key works of the past, so as to make them available to European scholars. Together with his editorial programme, published ten years later, Regiomontanus’s oration is a revolutionary and forward-looking cultural manifesto, which uniquely combines the humanities and the sciences. After a brief introduction, I present the critical edition of the Latin text, based on all 16th-century printed editions, followed by an annotated Italian translation.

Abstract: In the Phaenomenon singulare, written in Prague in 1607 and published in Leipzig in 1609, Kepler mentions, without naming him, a Jesuit with whom he briefly discussed astronomical matters. We identify this Jesuit as Father Georgius Van der Boon (1572?-1636), then professor of mathematics at the Clementinum in Prague. We also provide some dates to clarify his biography.

Abstract: Teodosio Rossi is an Italian gnomonist who made exceptional sundials offered to two popes, Sixtus V and Urban VIII, as well as numerous astronomical engravings intended for the high nobility. A pupil of Christopher Clavius, Teodosio Rossi remains little known, although his achievements, all related to the measurement of time and the conversion of the different types of time in use in Europe at the beginning of the 17th century, made him an important player in this period.

Abstract: Leibniz was deeply interested in the lore of the Ancients and in Greek poetry, especially Homer. This article explores Leibniz’s letters, occasional remarks, and short treatises which document this attitude. The research is conducted against the background of the “Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes” on the one side and, on the other, against that of the rise of Greek philology in German culture. Compared to Melanchthon, who initiated this tradition, Leibniz offers a ground-breaking perspective.

Abstract: This essay reconstructs some aspects of the success of the “save phenomena” principle, a principle that is present throughout the entire history of Western philosophical reflection on the study of nature. In the first section, we try to clarify its meaning in the context of Greek astronomy. Then its presence in modern epistemology is analysed, with particular reference to the epistemology of Duhem and that of van Fraassen. Finally, we will evaluate what meaning and what interest this principle may have today, with reference to the overall relationship between the “manifest image” and “scientific image” of man. We will also try to highlight how the phenomena of which the principle speaks can take on different meanings, depending on the disciplines and scientific-philosophical issues that arise from time to time.

Abstract: Aristotle reproaches Plato for having presented the relationship between forms and sensible particulars using metaphorical language, thus speaking empty (kenologein). This reproach from a descriptive point of view seems justified, because Plato very often employs images, analogies and metaphors to describe the relationship between forms and sensible objects. His choice is due to the extreme complexity of this relationship, which appears to be elusive in many respects. Many difficulties involved in understanding the relationship between forms and sensible objects depend on literal interpretation of these images, as the first part of the Parmenides shows. In the Timaeus too, Plato makes use of analogies and metaphors; but in this dialogue we also find an attempt to present the relationship in more philosophically accurate manner.

Abstract: According to a widespread opinion, in the Protagoras Socrates holds that akrasia is impossible, arguing that nothing is stronger than episteme, and thereby leaning to ethical intellectualism, while in later dialogues (Republic, Laws) Plato abandons ethical intellectualism in favor of a multipartite psychology. My purpose is to show that 1) in the Protagoras Socrates holds the impossibility only of epistemic, not of doxastic akrasia; 2) in the Laws the Athenian reiterates the thesis of the impossibility of epistemic akrasia in the same terms of the Protagoras, maintaining that knowledge cannot be overcome by any other motivation. Intellectual virtue is here conceived as a harmony of the parts of the soul, and this conception is implicit in the hedonistic thesis of the final part of the Protagoras.

Abstract: This paper identifies Sallustius’ On Gods and the Universe as a manual written for teachers offering a basic course in Platonic philosophy. Evidence found in the text in support of this identification is presented and comparisons are proposed with other such manuals from Greek and Roman literature in Late Antiquity, manuals written for teachers of rhetoric (Quintilian), Platonic philosophy (Alcinous, Proclus) and Christian doctrine (Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine). Conclusions are drawn concerning the implications of this identification for the interpretation of Sallustius’ text.

Abstract: Not much is known about the traditions of Platonic exegesis prior to Plutarch. In this contribution I shall focus mainly on two works of Platonic exegesis, the De animae procreatione in Timaeo and the Quaestiones platonicae, examing some crucial pieces of information they contain about Plutarch’s predecessors. Next, I shall bring to light some parallels with various texts from the pseudo-Pythagorean corpus, arguing that these works or their sources constituted a substantial part of the philosophical background within which Plutarch’s exegetical work should be situated.

Abstract:  Scholars tend to regard the attribution of craftsman-like causation to God as a distinguishing mark of Middle Platonism. In this paper I will show that this view is misleading, for it obscures Middle Platonist theories of non-craftsman-like causation, such as that introduced by Taurus. I shall not only outline the internal economy of this doctrine and of those supporting craftsmanship (e.g., those of Plutarch and Atticus), but also highlight the philosophical exigencies leading to their formulation and the meta-doctrinal strategies which they entail.

Abstract: In this paper I argue that, in Enn. V 5[32] and V 3[49], Plotinus defends a version of the identity theory of truth – the view that truth consists in a form of identity between what is thought or said and what is the case. For Plotinus, truth obtains only in the Intellect and consists in the identity between the Intellect itself and its objects of thought. I also argue that, similarly to modern identity theorists, Plotinus’ endorsement of the identity theory stems from dissatisfaction with the notion of truth as correspondence. If the best we can do is to think or say things that merely correspond to reality, then we shall never capture the reality we wish to think or say something about and so never attain truth proper. Some scholars have argued that Plotinus’ doctrine of the Intellect in Enn. V 5[32] and V 3[49] is a response to sceptical arguments, such as the ones advanced by Sextus Empiricus in M VII. Others have played down that role of ancient Scepticism in Plotinus’ doctrine of the Intellect. While maintaining that Scepticism does play a role in Plotinus’ epistemology, I finally contend that this role can be fully clarified only if one looks at his doctrine of truth as identity.

Abstract: This article is the second part of a study on Plotinus’ conception of μερισμός (“fragmentation”). In the first part, I have distinguished two senses of “fragmentation”: in a broad sense, every item in the scala entium, from intellect to bodies, is “fragmented”, in that it consists of distinct parts. In a stricter sense, “fragmentation” refers to the extreme degree of this phenomenon, i.e. the spatial separateness of the parts, which is a distinguishing feature of bodies. In this second part, I focus on the question of what the specific cause is of such extreme instance of fragmentation. I consider the three possible answers – extension, place, and matter – and argue for the last one. In this connection, I investigate the relationship between these three entities, with a special focus on the questions of how place and extension originate; whether matter is an indeterminate extension; and how an unextended substrate can bring about the extension and fragmentation of bodies. The article is complemented by an appendix about the fragmentation of geometrical entities.

Abstract: This article focuses on the debate concerning the status of specific differentiae from Alexander of Aphrodisias to Iamblichus. First, I outline Alexander’s views on the substantial status of differentiae and his distinction between the differentia insofar as it is taken in isolation and the differentia insofar as it is taken together with the genus and is a constituent part of the substantial species. I also focus on a passage from Plotinus on the differentia (see Enn. VI 3[44], 5) which is apparently directed against Alexander, and I suggest that Simplicius reports Iamblichus’ criticism of Plotinus’ anti-Aristotelian stance. Both Porphyry and Iamblichus are credited with the view that differentiae are intermediate between substance and quality. As I aim to show, this conclusion requires some qualification. Porphyry essentially follows Alexander’s account of the substantial status of differentiae. Iamblichus, instead, emphasizes that the differentia, while being a completive feature of substance, is not a constituent part of substance and, therefore, cannot be regarded as a substance. I further analyze the controversy over the status of the differentia between Porphyry and Iamblichus and try to set their disagreement against the wider background of their metaphysical views.

Abstract: This paper sets out the doctrine of virtue elaborated by Didymus the Blind (ca. 313–398), as it can be reconstructed from his preserved exegetical writings. After examining the different definitions of virtue and the reciprocal relationship between the virtues, its close connection to the developments of Middle Platonic reflection (Alcinous and Apuleius) is shown. In the last part, the relationship of virtue to the being of God and the problems that arise are examined.

Abstract: A new edition and French translation of an excerpt of Proclus’ In Rempublicam (notably belonging to essay XIII), titled “The Bee” (Melissa), transmitted in some manuscripts of his In Timaeum. The excerpt is lost in the remaining parts of a 9th c. manuscript of Proclus’ In Rempublicam that belonged to the so-called Collectio Philosophica (a manuscript that was cut in two, and is now preserved in mss Laurentianus Plut. LXXX 9 and Vaticanus gr. 2197, with a considerable loss of text, including the text of the excerpt). Based on new insights into the textual tradition of Proclus’ commentary on the Timaeus, it can be shown that the editorial principles adopted by Wilhelm Kroll in his edition of this part of the commentary on the Republic (1901) are not reliable. First of all, Kroll’s assumption that the excerpt was copied in the 16th c. from the manuscript that belonged to the Collectio Philosophica is erroneous. The excerpt figured in the tradition of Proclus’ In Timaeum as early as the 14th c., and probably even earlier. Hence it might belong to a different branch of the manuscript tradition of In Rempublicam than the one represented by mss Laurentianus Plut. LXXX 9 and Vaticanus gr. 2197. Secondly, Kroll’s edition was based on an erroneous assumption about the stemmatic relationship between the manuscripts of In Timaeum that contain the text of Melissa. The new edition adopts new editorial principles based on a full examination of the textual tradition.

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to try to understand how in the sixth century A.D., essentially in Alexandria, several Neoplatonic texts, the “prolegomena to philosophy”, were structured, in a pedagogical context, by the four Aristotelian scientific questions formulated in the first chapter of the second book of the Posterior Analytics. To do this, I will search in the Neoplatonic tradition, as well in the rhetoric one, the presence of these questions. I try to show how these were transformed in their form and their meaning to become finally a set of pedagogical and quasi rhetorical questions for the teacher to structure his course in a way which looks as scientific.

Abstract: Before composing in 1268 a complete translation (= G) of Ammonius-Philoponus’ commentary on De Anima III 4-8 – the famous chapters De Intellectu –, William of Moerbeke translated already in 1267 the opening section on III 4, 429 a 10-13 (= g). The twofold translation of the same lost Greek text offers an extraordinary case to test the possibilities and constraints of a retroversion. Our detailed comparative analysis of both versions aims to bring out the differences between g and G on the basis of a revised edition of g and G and to explain them by offering a tentative reconstruction of the Greek text with textual notes. We will conclude that William used the same Greek manuscript for g and G, that he used g when he was working on G, and, on a more general level, that, as far as William is concerned, even a twofold translation, though allowing more certainty about the lost Greek text, is often compatible with more than just one plausible retroversion.

Abstract: This paper dealts with Plotinus’ two Venuses with a focus on Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola as concurrent readers of Enn. III 5[50], 2-3. It aims at explaining Pico’s antificinian criticisms in his Commento (1486) and it shows that Ficino’s first translation of Plotinus’ treatise 50 On Love – included in ms. Firenze, BNCF, Conv. Soppr. E I. 2562 – was functional to this dispute.

Abstract: This article proposes to reduce the rules for dividing Latin words at the end of a line to two, on a purely syllabic basis and without changing the graphic form of the word (except for the joining stroke). In particular, the author rejects the rule followed by some of always dividing compound words after the first element.

Abstract: Abū Maʿšar al-Balḫī is one of the most ancient sources for the spread of philosophical ideas in Islam. This paper considers the Book of the Great Introduction to Astrology and gives special emphasis to themes related to Aristotle. The most extensive philosophical text referred to in the Great Introduction is found in Abū Maʿšar’s examination of the ten kinds of opposition to the science of astrology. Abū Maʿšar notes that many deny astrology because the stars do not indicate the possible. Instead, he aims to show that the possible exists and that it is determined by the stars, conceived as animate beings capable of thinking and choosing. This ‘saves astrology’ because when a human being chooses, he is predetermined – without knowing it – by the rational soul of the stars. A discussion of the ‘contingent futures’ in Aristotle is implied in this conclusion. Further examples of philosophical and scientific conceptions complete the study.

Abstract: This paper examines how some of the leading exponents of the so-called formative or classical age of Arabic philosophy responded to the puzzling analogy found in the first chapter of book Alpha Elatton of Aristotle’s Metaphysics (993 b 9-11), in which the intellectual capacity of the human soul in relation to the most evident things of all is compared to the visual capacity of the eyes of bats in relation to daylight. Against the background of the two extant Arabic translations of Aristotle’s passage, the paper analyses the interpretations of al-Kindī, Avicenna, and Averroes in three different types of works they devoted to the Metaphysics (original metaphysical treatise in the case of al-Kindī; summa of philosophy in the case of Avicenna; literal commentary on the work in the case of Averroes). These interpretations explicitly address the problem posed by the analogy and answer the question of its compatibility with Aristotle’s more general conception of the nature and aims of metaphysics, and with his more optimistic view of the power of the human mind elsewhere. The three authors in question creatively modify the analogy through considerations that are, respectively, methodological, eschatological, and teleological: al-Kindī rephrases it in the context of a sharp distinction between intellectual and sensory knowledge; Avicenna locates its ultimate cause in the body-soul relationship during earthly life; Averroes retains its content but subverts its purport on the basis of the idea that the innate human desire for knowledge cannot remain unfulfilled.

Abstract: This article deals with the short treatise by Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī entitled On the explanation of the fact that both number and relation have essences that exist in numbered objects and relative things and their existence is not only in the imagination (Maqāla fī Tabyīn anna li-l-ʿadad wa-l-iḍāfa ḏātayn mawǧūdatayn fī l-maʿdūdāti wa-l-muḍāfāt wa anna laysa wuǧūduhumā fī-l-tawahhum faqaṭ). A profile of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī is followed by the edition and translation of the Maqāla. The text is discussed against the background of the scholastic tradition that connects the philosophical activity of the Bagdad Aristotelian Circle, in the 10th century, to its late antique roots. An Appendix offers a bibliographical update on the author and his works.

Abstract: Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (d. ca 1023) was labelled “the littérateur of the philosophers and the philosopher of the littérateurs”. Among other works which made him a model of Arabic literary style, he authored also the Kitāb al-muqābasāt (Book of Mutual Enligthments). The muqābasa 91 contains a glossary of philosophical terms which this article presents for the first time in translation. The relationship of the muqābasa 91 with the oral teaching of Abū Sulaymān al-Siǧistānī is also examined and the source of 48 definitions listed by al-Tawḥīdī is detected in al-Kindī’s Epistle on the Definitions.

Abstract: In the scholarship on Avicenna’s theory of the soul, one frequently comes across the claim that, in the eschatological context, the Persian philosopher compares the human soul with a mirror to refer to the supreme, intellectual beatitude the human soul acquires in the afterlife if appropriately trained during its earthly life. Some scholars have also argued that, in Nafs V, 6, Avicenna uses the same comparison in the epistemological context to explain how human intellection works and how the human soul relates to intellectual forms. This reconstruction of Avicenna’s argument(s) in Nafs V, 6, where the soul-mirror comparison features, is at odds with several doctrinal points of Avicenna’s philosophical psychology, and with the textual evidence. Thus, by looking at the text from Nafs V, 6 and the broader context to which it belongs, this paper calls into question the claim that the soul-mirror comparison expresses how Avicenna conceives of the relationship between the human soul and intellectual forms. In particular, a close textual inspection reveals that in Nafs V, 6, Avicenna uses the soul-mirror comparison to refer to a model for human intellection (i.e., that based on the reflection of a self-subsisting content outside and above the human intellect), which he rejects because he deems it unsuitable to account for how human intellect works.

Abstract: Averroes enjoyed wide acclaim in cultural milieus other than his motherland. This fact is often acknowledged with regard to its amplitude but not to its root causes related to Averroes’ posture as a philosopher. An enthusiast of Aristotle and secular science, Averroes defended perhaps more vigorously than any others his assumption that philosophy can and should be accomplished independent of religious creeds. The universalism implicit in this stance, involving the dismissal of all confessionalism or parochialism, paved the way for Averroes’ cross-cultural afterlife while, at the same time, maintaining that philosophy is the genuine embodiment of Islamic law: uneducated Muslims are to their intellectual peers like diminished philosophers, much as Jews and Christians are like diminished Muslims. As such, all humans make up one community of inchoate-to-accomplished philosophers such as the religion of Islam has established for the whole of humankind.

Abstract: The Latin Middle Ages owes its knowledge of the Nicomachean Ethics to three most eminent translators from Greek: Burgundio of Pisa, Robert Grosseteste, and William of Moerbeke. Grosseteste substantially enlarged the horizon of the knowledge of the Aristotelian ethics via the translation of commentaries accompanied by his notulae, the fruit of his erudition and at one and the same time the mark of his wish to put the Greek learning at the disposal of the cultivated readership with no access to it. The focus of this article is the antiquior translatio (largely lost in itself) which served as the basis for Grosseteste’s translation. It will be shown that he revised it on the basis of Greek manuscripts unknown before. Grosseteste re-defined the extent and structure of the corpus ethicum Aristotelicum. The formation of the Versio Lincolniens is reconsidered and the question of the identity of the author of the antiquior translation and the editor of the Recensio recognita is taken into account.

Abstract: In his Liber De Natura et origine animae tr. 2, c. 6, Albert the Great introduces six arguments in syllogistic form in favour of the immortality of the rational soul. In cc. 3-6 of the same work, he presents a typology of forms encompassing both material forms and forms transcending matter. Among the material forms, he enumerates the forms of the elements, the primary qualities of the mixture and the forms of the mixtures as such (metals and rocks). Among the forms that transcend matter, he mentions instead the forms of animate bodies, namely the vegetative, the sensitive and the rational soul. The author of an anonymous question An anima racionalis sit mortalis preserved in Codex CP 439 (13th century) focuses on the problem of the immortality of the rational soul starting from Albert’s classification of the forms of living bodies. His treatise shows clear similarities with the above-mentioned sections of Albert’s Liber De Natura et origine animae and with other works of the Doctor universalis in terms of terminology, content, and sources. The existence of some relationship between the anonymous treatise and Albert is also confirmed by an external element: in Codex CP 439, this anonymous work is preceded and followed by a work by Albert, De Fato and Super Ethica, respectively. The present contribution contains a critical edition of this anonymous question, hitherto unknown to scholars. The edition is preceded by an introduction in which the relationship between the anonymous work and Albert is discussed on the basis of a detailed analysis of the text.

Abstract: This essay aims to explain the doctrine of the individuation of the angel in the theological thought of Albert the Great. He shares with Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (differently from Thomas Aquinas) the idea that angels are a multiplicity of individuals, while he rejects, like Thomas (and against Bonaventure), the notion of materia spiritualis as principle of angels’ individuation. Despite their immaterial being, for Albert angels as individuals belong to the same species, like men. The singular being of the angel depends for Albert on his ontological composition between the common nature and the fundamentum and on his being a rational persona capable of a specific officium. The position on the individuality of the angel formulated by Albert represents a relevant argument against the identification between angels and separate intelligences. It is associated by Albert to a consideration about the epistemological relationship between philosophy and theology.

Abstract: Thomas Aquinas’ favourite teaching practice was the “quaestio disputata”; he taught and wrote according to this model, which implies an in-depth examination of the pros and contras, even when he embarked upon his most systematic works, chiefly the Summa theologiae. Against the background of the scholastic practices of the Middle Ages, this article discusses the structure of the Summa theologiae. Attention is paid also on the various interpretations proposed in the scholarship, as well as to the famous claim of the Prologue, where the intended audience is described as formed by beginners.

Abstract: In 1993 R.A. Gauthier wrote that the study of Aquinas’ use of Aristotle’s Metaphysics would experience a fresh start thanks to the critical edition of Moerbeke’s translation of this work by G. Vuillemin-Diem. The edition was published two years later in the series the Aristoteles Latinus. Thirty years since its publication, Vuillemin-Diem’s edition has not yet been taken into account as it deserves in the study of Thomas Aquinas’ works. This paper provides a status quaestionis concerning Aquinas’ use of the Metaphysics after mid-1271 – the watershed date, since which Thomas gradually switched from older translations to the Moerbekana as the reference version of the Metaphysics. The paper intends to take a first step towards the deep rethinking called for by Gauthier. By comparing the Expositio super Librum De Causis and the De Substantiis separatis with the commentary on the Metaphysics, it argues that this work does not represent a text to be read in one only version, but rather a corpus which progressively grew over Thomas’ lifespan.

Abstract: This article presents, firstly, a codicological description of the manuscript and its contents, to situate within it an anonymous and un-catalogued commentary on Books I and II (dd. 1-22) of Lombard’s Sentences. The nine initial questions, devoted to theology as a science, are also copied, cursively, on a fly leaf of MS Paris, BnF lat. 15338, which contains Thomas Aquinas’ commentary on Book I of the Sentences. The present edition of questions is based on these two witnesses, which derive from two different yet mutually complementary textual traditions. These questions can be dated with certitude to the years between 1276 (or 1280) and 1310 (or 1306). Moreover, it is possible that study of the entire commentary will permit further precision of this range of dates. Doctrinal questions place in evidence several of the author’s unambiguous positions as well as his obvious dependence on the Summa of Henry of Ghent. On view here is an important testimony to the understanding of theology as a science at the moment when the controversies between Thomists and anti-Thomists were at their apogee.

Abstract: This paper examines Thomas Aquinas’s claim that no intelligible species is required in the beatific vision and its influence on later thinkers, particularly Giles of Rome and Henry of Ghent. It traces how Giles developed Aquinas’s view, reconceptualizing intelligible species as proxies for objects lacking direct intelligibility. The author argues that Giles and Henry, despite apparent disagreements, shared fundamental assumptions derived from Aquinas. This shift in focus from species to cognitive acts as the key explanatory factor in cognition set the stage for later developments in medieval theories of cognition.

Abstract: In this paper I examine the presence of Thomas Aquinas in Giles of Rome’s discussion about divine knowledge and divine ideas in distinction 36 of book I of his Commentary on the Sentences (Ord. I, dist. 36). I first offer an overview of the presence of Aquinas in this work by Giles. The overview focuses on three general features of Giles’s work: the topics of the questions, the contents of the questions, and the anonymous quotations. All these features show an extensive influence of Aquinas. I then single out the two most substantial cases in which Giles attacks Aquinas’s views and give a detailed presentation of them. These are about God’s knowledge of singulars and the cognitive role of divine ideas. This paper is intended as an ideal continuation of the superb work done by Concetta Luna on the presence of Aquinas in Giles’s Reportatio on the Sentences.

Abstract: Aristotle’s claim that “we too are ends of a sort” (Phys. B 2, 194 a 35) is the basis upon which the scholastics build their teleological anthropocentrism. Like several other medieval Aristotelians, Giles of Rome offers a soft interpretation of this line in his Physics commentary. In his Sentences commentary, however, he develops a more robust anthropoteleology (slightly distinct from Aquinas’s and Bonaventure’s theories). An analysis of Giles’s texts shows that he subordinates Aristotle’s view to his own Christian-theological doctrine of the mid-position of human beings in the universe.

Abstract: In this article I shall take into consideration Giles’s of Rome commentary on Posterior Analytics II 13. After sketching Giles’s theory of demonstration, I shall summarise the content of the Aristotelian text, as well as the opinions of modern commentators. Then I shall analyze in some detail Giles’s commentary, even contrasting his understanding of the text with those of the authors who preceded him within the medieval tradition, in an effort to identify the main points of his interpretation and the reasons on which it is grounded.

Abstract: The early diffusion of Radulphus Brito’s questions on logic (vetus and nova) is probably accompanied by the equally early diffusion (between the last decade of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century) of his Expositio super Porphyrium, as evidenced by the glosses preserved in a codex of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence (Plut. 11 sin. 1). The lost work re-surfaces in this codex with a very high level of fragmentation: the glosses in fact – probably for didactic reasons – focus on the divisio textus, reporting only some of the numerous annotations that must have been part of the original text of Brito’s Expositio. One of these, very close to the A-version of his Quaestiones super Porphyrium, allows us to connect it with certainty to Radulphus Brito.

Abstract: In the Summa de ecclesiastica potestate (1322-1326 ca.), Augustine of Ancona dedicates a quaestio to the superiority of the pope over the angels (papa maior est angelis) in order to support the universality of his authority, on earth as it is in heaven. A few years earlier, within the ‘myth’ of the angelic pope, the identification of the pope with the angel of the Apocalypse, as in the Expositio super Apocalypsi (1306), served instead to confer on the pontiff an authority to reform the Church and establish peace in the (political) society of his time.

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to provide an explanation of Augustine of Ancona’s interpretation of the Aristotelian account of the several senses of being as we can read it in Metaphysics V 7. In his commentary on the Metaphysics, Augustine, while mainly following Aquinas in his interpretation, introduces some relevant solutions to some issues proper of Aristotle’s text. In particular, he offers an original explanation for the relationship between the categorical division of being per se and its opposition to being per accidens. Secondly, likely starting from some insights of Averroes and Aquinas, Augustine suggests that being as truth is a form of relation (habitudo) and therefore a type of accident, namely a relative accident (accidens relatiuum). Finally, an appendix includes the critical text of his commentary, preserved in a manuscript in Innsbruck (Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, 192), as well as Augustine’s glosses to Aristotle’s Metaphysics, found in a manuscript in Munich (Staatsbibliothek, Clm 13042).

Abstract: This article aims to test the different ways in which Giles of Rome’s theological heritage has been dealt with in the first three major authors of the “second Augustinian school”, this is to say Gregory of Rimini, Alphonsus Vargas, and Hugolinus of Orvieto. Based on the explicit quotations we find in their Sentences commentaries, we can notice that the situation is not at all the same in these masters: Giles of Rome is almost only an occasion for polemical discussions and criticism in the first two (in Alphonsus more than in Gregory); on the contrary, he is regarded as an important doctrinal source by Hugolinus.

Abstract: The text presented here constitutes the concluding section of Antonio da Parma’s comprehensive commentary on the initial five chapters of the first book of Avicenna’s Canon. It encompasses the latter half of the five lectures he delivered on chapter five of the sixth doctrine, entitled De virtutibus animalibus comprehendentibus, within the larger context of the Doctrina Sexta. In his exegesis of a text that was becoming fundamental for medical education in the Studium of Bologna (and subsequently in other Italian universities), Antonio demonstrates his early philosophical training in both his conceptual approach and his precise references to Aristotelian texts. This is particularly evident in his work on the text in question, which was being used as a key source of medical education in Bologna in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.

Abstract: The article examines the accounts of Mehmed II’s visit to Hagia Sophia given by the Greek historian Critoboulus of Imbros and the Ottoman historian Tursun Beg, both influenced by Polybian motifs. It also addresses the question of the meaning of the verses spoken by the Sultan on this occasion and reported in the text of Tursun Beg.

Abstract: In the period between the 15th and the early 16th centuries, Francesco Silvestri, like other Italian members of the Dominican Order, played a significant role in the progressive resumption and establishment of both the theological doctrine and the philosophical thought of Thomas Aquinas. He is primarily renowned for his commentary on the Contra Gentiles (1524), which achieved considerable success. This paper addresses Silvestri’s Annotationes in Posteriora (published in 1517), and, in particular, his analysis of the accuracy of the Latin translation of Aristotle’s text in comparison to the Greek text, as well as the interpretation of the Greek commentators.

Abstract: That of Christian philosophy has been one of the notions that have most influenced the historiographical debate of the last century. Étienne Gilson spent much time to elaborate on it. In some writings, Gilson also associates the development of the notion of Christian philosophy with a depreciating view of philology. This is a criticism that may at first be surprising, not only because it seems to conflict with the attention to texts that characterizes all of Gilson’s research, but also because it is developed in a work of his mature production, as the Introduction à la philosophie chrétienne (1960). In this article I discuss Gilson’s critique of philology and show that in fact it concerns only a qualified acception of philology and aims to question a privilege that, according to Gilson, philologists arrogate to themselves—a privilege whose removal appears to Gilson necessary in light of the fundamental assumption from which Christian philosophy must start.