WITT CharlotteMareMagnum
On Aristotle's Metaphysics 1. Translated by William E. Dooley.
1989réf. S12066Ithaca NY:: Cornell University Press 1989. 1989. Series: Ancient Commentators on Aristotle. 8vo. 240 pp. Navy cloth gilt-stamped spine title dust jacket. Ink ownership signature on ffep. Fine. Translation of Alexander of Aphrodisias' Hypommnema eis to meizon . . . "In Alexander's metaphysical writings including his commentaries we find some of the major points of ancient discussion concerning the core not so much of metaphysics but of Aristotelian metaphysics. At times Alexander seems most focused on criticizing contemporaries from an Aristotelian perspective and at times instead to defend Aristotelianism by elaborating in original ways that address possible criticisms." / "As an example of the second apologetic feature: in his commentary on the Metaphysics we find an elaboration of the question whether metaphysics can be a demonstrative science. Alexander makes an effort to show that it is in fact a demonstrative science in the sense of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics i.e. with its own genus or subject matter axioms and derived theorems. As part of this effort he understands the subject matter of metaphysics being qua being as referring to all beings insofar as they are existent Bonelli 2001. He also reshapes the concept of common notions in such a way that in metaphysics common notions may serve as axioms i.e. provide its fundamental principles. Common notions which started out in Aristotle and later the Stoics as shared starting points for inquiry and argument are expanded by Alexander to incorporate features of dialectical starting points points about which there is general agreement and scientific axioms. They are not innate but immediately evident to everyone and serve as indemonstrable starting points for scientific knowledge — the prime example for metaphysics being the principle of non-contradiction de Haas 2021." / Frede Dorothea and Marije Martijn "Alexander of Aphrodisias" The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Summer 2024 Edition. FROM THE CONTENTS: "In the first two chapters of Metaphysics 1 Aristotle asks what is philosophy and in particular philosophical wisdom sophia and how is it related to philosophy He answers that it is a knowledge of causes or rather of explanations including God who is a cause or explanation in one of the few distinguishable ways. The remaining eight chapters examine the account given of cause or explanation by his predecessors." / "Alexander of Aphrodisias was the greatest expositor and elabor ator of Aristotle's philosophy. But his commentary on this book has a curious feature: over half is devoted to the two chapters in which Aristotle discusses Plato. From this we learn not only about Alex ander but also far more than we could from Aristotle's text itself about Aristotle Plato and Plato's Academy. Aristotle's battery of objections against the theory of Ideas is spelled out with fragmen tary quotations and paraphrases from four of his lost works On the Ideas On the Good On Philosophy and On the Pythagoreans. There is an expanded account of the 'unwritten doctrines' which Plato developed late in his career according to which the Ideas are numbers namely the One and the Indefinite Dyad." / editors. PROVENANCE: David C. Lindberg 1935-2015 was an American historian of science. His main focus was on the history of medieval and early modern science especially physical science and the relationship between religion and science. Lindberg was the Hilldale Professor Emeritus of History of Science and past director of the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin Madison. ISBN: 0801422353 Cornell University Press, (1989). hardcover books
