SIMPLICIUS – The Encyclopedia of Philosophy
SIMPLICIUS, sixthcentury Neoplatonist and commentator on Aristotle, studied in Alexandria under Ammonius and in Athens under Damascius. The School at Athens was closed in 529, and Simplicius withdrew to Persia. When he returned, his paganism barred him from lecturing. His surviving commentaries (on Aristotle’s Categories, Physics, De Caelo, and De Anima) are both more learned and more polemic than would have been suitable for students. His chief importance in the history of philosophy probably lies in his being a source of our knowledge of other ancient philosophers, notably the preSocratics.
Simplicius takes for granted the metaphysics of Neoplatonism as it had been systematized in the Athenian School of the fifth century. He accepts the usual three hypostases but follows Iamblichus and Damascius in making much of the distinction between each hypostasis and, indeed, between each selfsubsistent reality as it is undifferentiated (remaining in the One) and as it is differentiated or pluralized (proceeding). (See, for example, In De Caelo, pp. 9394, Heiberg.) It is one of the concepts or devices by which he carries out the task that dominates his work, to reconcile Plato and Aristotle. They appear to disagree, for instance, about motion: a selfmoving or an unmoved mover, the motion or immobility of reason, and so on. According to Simplicius, Plato is usually writing of the primary kind of motion, and Aristode of the secondary, or proceeding, kind. Simplicius’ interpretation of the De Anima is based on that of Iamblichus, which took it as a valid description of the embodied soul, to be supplemented by a metaphysical account of the "separate" intellect.
In natural philosophy, Simplicius, like other Neoplatonists, is more ready to criticize Aristotle, so that the result is mors often a compromise, rather than a reconciliation, with Plato. Aristotelian matter had long been identified with Plato’s notbeing; Simplicius has little to add here to Plotinus and Porphyry. But the problems of space, motion, place, and allied concepts had repeatedly been examined and were already beginning to suggest relational definitions foreign to Aristotle’s physics. In an excursus on the notion of place (In Physica, Vol. XI, pp. 601645, Diels) Simplicius describes some interesting and original views of Damascius, which he reconciles with Aristotle only by implying, implausibly, that the two are complementary. A similar but less scientific treatment of time as a kind of metaphysical cause of the existence of motion and things in motion depends on the distinction already referred to between remaining in the One and proceeding; the latter aspect accounts lor flowing time, which is the measure of succession.
Simplicius also wrote an extant commentary on the Stoic Epictetus’ Enchiridion (or handbook of ethics). In moral philosophy the Neoplatonists borrowed much from Stoicism, and while well expressed, most of the commentary is commonplace for the period. However, it does contain a semipopular presentation of Neoplatonie theology or metaphysics (pp. 95101, Dübner), and this has been claimed as a survival of Alexandrian Platonism in which (as in the Middle Academy) the highest hypostasis is not the One, but Intellect. The text is not unambiguous but dubiously supports the claim.
Bibliography
Dick, Hermann, ed., Simplicius in Phy.\icorum, Libras IIV, in Commentaria in Aristolelem Graeca, Vol. XI. Berlin 1882.
Diels, Hermann, ed., Simplicius in Physicorum, Libros VVIII, in Commentaria in Aristolelem Graeco, Vol. X. Berlin, 1895.
Diibner, F., cd., Commentarius in Epicleti Enchiridion, in Theophrasti Characters. Paris, 1ST".
Heiberg. J. L., ed., Simplicius in de Caclo, in Commentaria in Aristolelem Graeca, Vol. VII. Berlin, 1894.
Jammer, Max, Concepts of Space. Cambridge, Mass., 1954.
Praechter, Karl, "Simplicius." in August Pauly and Ceorg Wissowa, eds., Realencyclopadie dcr klassischen AltertumswissenKhaft, Scries 2, Vol. V. Stuttgart, 1927.
Sambursky, S., Physical World of Late Antiquity. London, 1962.
A. C. Lloyd
Verbete da “The Encyclopedia of Philosophy” – Paul Edward, Editor in Chief. vol VII. Collier Macmillan Publishers, London.
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