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An Excerpt from Boethus of Sidon's Commentary on the Categories?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Theodore Waitz, in the section of his introduction to Aristotle's Organon called De Codicibus graecis organi, prints a number of passages found in various manuscripts, which are not to be treated simply as scholia on Aristotle, but are still of some interest to the student of Aristotle's logic. In this paper I am concerned with three leaves, fos. 84–6, from Laurentianus 71, 32, a fourteenth-century manuscript containing paraphrases of several works, which Waitz uses for scholia on the Categories and the De Interpretatione. These leaves are in a different hand from the rest of the manuscript, and Waitz thinks they originated elsewhere. The heading is: Περ⋯ τ⋯ς το⋯ ποτ⋯ κɑτηγορ⋯ɑς, and the work falls into two parts, a discussion of Time, based on Physics 4, and an independent section in which the category of When, which Aristotle does little more than mention in a number of lists, is treated at length. In Waitz' text there are a number of references to scholia: these are in fact from Simplicius' Commentary on the Categories, and a comparison with these and still other passages of Simplicius not mentioned by Waitz suggests that the author of this work was Boethus of Sidon, the Peripatetic. I propose to examine it and argue that it is indeed by Boethus.
Boethus, known as ‘the Peripatetic’, to distinguish him from the Stoic philosopher of the same name, was head of the Peripatos in succession to Andronicus of Rhodes. There is some uncertainty about Andronicus' dates, but he lived some time in the middle of the first century b.c. and we may place Boethus somewhat later in the same century. Andronicus is well known as the editor, and in a sense the rediscoverer, of the esoteric works of Aristotle; it is less well known that he had an independent attitude to Aristotle and put forward what he presumably thought of as some improvements in doctrine. What concerns us here is his attempt to substitute the category of Time for that of When. In opposition to him Boethus may be seen as a conservative, coming to the defence of Aristotle against these innovations.
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References
* To facilitate commentary line numbers of Waitz' pagination are given in square brackets.
1 This paper was originally read at a seminar on Space and Time in Antiquity in January 1980 at the Institute of Classical Studies, London, and I wish to thank members of that seminar for many helpful comments.
2 Printed in Waitz, Th., Aristotelis Organon Graece, i (Leipzig, 1844), pp. 19–23Google Scholar.
3 For a recent study of Andronicus and Boethus see Moraux, P., De Aristotelismus bei den Griechen (Berlin, 1973), pp. 97–179CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 1. 18, Kalbfleisch.
page 399 note a ⋯ρ⋯ζομεν…χρ⋯νον m. rec. add.
page 399 note b τῷ ἄλλο κα⋯ ἄλλο Waitz: τ⋯ ἄλλο ἄλλο ms.
page 399 note c θ⋯ττον ms.
page 400 note d ὡς συνελ⋯ντα εἰπεῖν del. ms.
page 401 note a ἔχει pr. m.
page 401 note b ⋯στιν ms. Cf. Simpl. In Cat. 347. 3: ᾖ Waitz.
page 401 note c ⋯ μ⋯ν secl. Waitz.
5 At 350. 10 it is clear that it is Iamblichus who refers to Archytas, but at 352. 22 Simplicius appears to be quoting directly.
6 The first passage, 345. 1–7, is covered by the words of Iamblichus quoted in the following line. The second, 347. 1–4, is right at the end of what seems to be a long quotation from Iamblichus. The rest of 347 and 348 contain many passages. This section does not seem to be a direct quotation from Iamblichus, but his name reappears at 349. 10 and he may well be behind what comes earlier. The next section, 349. 19–31, is more difficult: it contains two adjacent passages of Waitz with their order transposed, and follows what appears to be an objection by Simplicius to Iamblichus at 349. 15. It is not impossible, however, that it should be a return to Iamblichus. The final passage, 356. 26–30, is not apparently near to anything from Iamblichus, but may yet have come from him. In addition, the passages I refer to at 134–5 come at the end of a collection of problems and solutions and Iamblichus is quoted as the authority for a number of these (e.g. 131. 10–17) and may be the source of these passages as well. Moraux, op. cit., p. 148, however, believes that Porphyry's lost work Πρ⋯ς Γεδάλειον was an intermediary.
7 At first sight the arguments might be those of Archytas rather than Andronicus. The Archytas in question is in fact the Pseudo-Archytas who wrote the Περ⋯ το⋯ κɑθóλον λóγου quoted at length by Simplicius in this commentary, and also in his commentary on the Physics. Although Simplicius and most other commentators thought it was by the Pythagorean philosopher who was Plato's friend, it cannot be earlier than Aristotle's Categories. Szlezák, Thomas in his Pseudo-Archytas über die Kategorien (Berlin, 1972), pp. 13–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, gives persuasive arguments for dating it to the period of renewed interest in the Categories which followed the work of Andronicus. In addition to Simplicius' long quotations couched in the artificial Doric affected by neo-Pythagorean philosophers, we possess a full Koine text. There are no arguments in it of the kind we are looking for, and for this reason, as well as on the grounds of date, it is reasonable to attribute these to Andronicus.
8 It even has the reading ⋯στι, which was in Waitz' manuscript, but which he wished to change to ᾖ.
9 Simplicius' comment (347. 4–5), ‘And this is the view of Aristotle’, is puzzling, but it may refer back to the general claim that When is a category.
10 Apart from Alexander and Plotinus, discussed below, I have found Plotinus, Enn. 6. 1, 4 (nine senses), Porphyry, In Cat. 77. 18–78. 21 (nine), Themistius, In Phys. 108. 6 – 111. 3 (eleven plus one), Ammonius, In Cat. 26. 32 – 27. 2 and 29. 5–17 (both eleven, but not identical. Busse athetizes the earlier passage), Philoponus, In Cat. 32. 7–26 (eleven), Olympiodorus, In Cat. 47. 3–21 (eleven), Elias, In Cat. 149. 16–34 (eleven plus one), John of Damascus, Dialectica λθ' p. 106 Kotter (eleven), Sophonias, In Cat. 6, 12–17 (this is the anonymous commentary CIAG xxiii, ii) and Simplicius himself, In Cat. 46. 5 ff. (eleven plus one) and In Phys. 551. 11 – 553. 11 (eleven plus one). Sophonias is derived from Simplicius, In Cat. 348, but even his list differs from that given by Simplicius here (and Waitz), and from all the others. There are two separate activities, to count and comment on Aristotle's own list, and to produce a list with exactly eleven items, any extra ones being mentioned separately. I hazard the guess that the canonical number of eleven originated with Boethus.
11 The exception is Alexander of Aphrodisias, In De Anim. 13. 10 – 14, 3. which seems to be his own list, set up for the purpose of discussing how the soul might be in the body. Plotinus (Enn. 4. 3. 20–1) has a different list from that mentioned in n. 10; H. J. Blumenthal (AGP 50 (1968), 255–61), cautiously argues that Plotinus could have read Alexander.
12 Aristotle also refers to ‘in something’ at Metaph. Δ, 1023a23–5, but only to say that it follows the senses of ἔχειν, which he has just listed. This is not very helpful.
13 It seems to me possible that Aristotle originally listed this item too. It could easily have been lost by homoeoarcton.
14 This sense is important in the Categories, e.g. 1 a20–b9. It was apparently connected with the Physics as early as Eudemus (Simp. In Phys. 128). For more on this see below p. 407.
15 ‘In a vessel’ is not considered, perhaps because Aristotle seems to treat it as one item with ‘in place’. At 350. 3 Simplicius gives an explanation of this kind, but it is not in Waitz.
16 At 160. 12–15 Simplicius lists Boethus as one of those who used both τ⋯ πρóς τι and τ⋯ πρóς τι in connection with the category.
17 Waitz connects this with Cat. 11 a27, but that passage is not very close.
18 Simplicius goes on (134. 33 – 135. 6) to discuss place in the same way, taking up the reference to it as containing body which we find at Waitz 22. 1–3, but in an expanded form.
19 Since Zeller it has been supposed that Xenocrates was criticizing Aristotle. But this can be only an assumption.
20 This takes up Nic. Ethics 1096a22, where Aristotle says that the πρóς τι is like a sideshoot and accident of what is.
21 Moraux, op. cit., p. 103 has a rather different account.
22 This resembles Waitz 22. 18–25, but there are so many differences that neither seems directly derived from the other.
23 Simplicius has an odd sentence immediately afterwards, about When being banished from the divine – ‘but these things must be included because of the customary use of language’. This seems to be his own comment. Sophonias, In Cat. 54. 28–9, clearly using Simplicius, has this sentence, and immediately before it has the missing clause εἴπερ ⋯ γ⋯νεσις συνεχής, which suggests that it was originally in Simplicius' text.
24 Actually – ‘the universal was not ⋯ν ὑποστάσει, and if it was, it was not τι’. ⋯ν ὑποστάσει is a post-Aristotelian expression, and presumably Boethus' own (cf. καθ' ὑπ⋯στασιν at Waitz 22. 45).
25 This is in harmony with the doctrine of Waitz 21. 20–7.
26 The same problem, with a similar solution, is discussed by Dexippus (In Cat. 22. 26 – 23. 16 Busse).
27 Waitz 21. 21 supports the reading κατ⋯ συμβεβηκ⋯ς at Aristotle, Physics 221a8. The source of this passage may be Boethus' commentary on the Physics.
28 Since Simplicius refers to Alexander here, Moraux, op. cit., p. 170 thinks that both Themistius and Simplicius were using Alexander.
29 Themistius has τ⋯ν ⋯ριθμ⋯ν, Simplicius τ⋯ ⋯ριθμητ⋯ν. Simplicius gives Alexander's solution, that Boethus was right if the existence of number lies in being counted, but the countable can exist apart from being counted. This seems to support Simplicius' reading.
30 Though at 2l9b8 Aspasius supports the opposite reading.
31 SVF 1. 33. Zeno uses it of heaven.
32 νυχθήμερον, and ὥρα as a fixed measure of time, which, as H. B. Gottschalk tells me, is associated with Hipparchus' work at the end of the third century b.c.
33 Simplicius, , In Cat. 58. 29–59Google Scholar. 4 has three adjectives formed with -ik- in seven lines of Boethus.
34 Porphyry, , In Cat. 107. 25–30Google Scholar Busse, ascribes this view to Herminus, the teacher of Alexander of Aphrodisias. Busse, referring to Simplicius, wonders if Andronicus is meant instead of Herminus, but at 59. 17 Porphyry seems to imply that on another topic Herminus summarized Boethus, and it is rather Andronicus who seems out of place.