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A Note on Aristotle, De Anima, A. 3, 406b1–3

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

H. De Ley
Affiliation:
University of Ghent

Extract

Ever since the first edition of the De anima by Trendelenburg, modern scholars have been in trouble as to the exact interpretation of this phrase and especially of the expression Although the right one, as we think, was suggested a long time ago by Shorey, a restatement of it seems justified, because the later treatment of the problem in the edition of Sir David Ross has apparently established a different (and, as we believe, a wrong) communis opinio.

The first detailed examination of the whole passage was given by Bonitz, who saw no other possibility of making the text render the required sense than to alter This is indeed ‘a rather improbable corruption’. It is also clear that such an emendation of a reading defended by the consensus of all our manuscripts should only be accepted if there really is no other way out.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1970

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References

page 92 note 1 Shorey, P., ‘Aristotle's De anima’, A.J.Ph. xxii (1901), 149–64 (on the edition and translation of G. Rodier, Paris, 1900).Google Scholar

page 92 note 2 Ross, D. (Oxford, 1961), 187–8, who does not formulate, however, any explicit objection against Shorey.Google Scholar

page 92 note 3 Cf. the translation of Smith, J. A., Oxf. Transl., vol. iii:Google Scholar ‘Hence it would follow that the soul too must in accordance with the body change either its place as a whole or the relative places of its parts’; Siwek, P. (Roma, 1965), 69:Google Scholaromnino ac corpus locum mutabit; and Jannone, A.-Barbotin, E. (Budé, Paris, 1966), 13 :Google Scholar ‘changement de la même manière que le corps’. Cf. Rodier's ‘comme le corps’. Only Gigon, O., Arist. vom Himmel, von der Seek, uon der Dichtkunst (Zürich, 1950), 269, translates it by ‘innerhalb des Leibes’.Google Scholar

page 92 note 4 Bonitz, H., ‘ZurErklärungeiniger Stellen aus Aristoteles Schrift über die Seele,’ Hermes, vii (1873), 422–8.Google ScholarHis arguments are fully stated and discussed in the edition of Hicks, R. D. (London, 1907), 246–9.Google Scholar

page 92 note 5 Bonitz, , op. cit., 424Google Scholar (he appeals to the texts of Philoponus and Themistius, but see Hicks, 248). This emendation was recently adopted again in the translation of Theiler, W. (Berlin, 1966), 13. 9 (‘örtlich’).Google Scholar

page 92 note 6 Ross, 187. The words appear also in the text quoted by Simpl., p. 37. 3.

page 92 note 7 Bonitz, , op. cit., 423–4. We shall quote his objections in the rewording of Hicks, 247 (for Hicks's own propositions, see Ross, 187).Google Scholar

page 92 note 8 So Simpl., p. 37. 4: (Philop., p. 106. 19–21, says the same thing, but without quoting the words of Aristotle).

page 92 note 9 Hicks, 247.

page 93 note 1 406a4–10.

page 93 note 2 Stating, e.g.. that if the soul does move by its essence and not per accidens, it must have a place : 406a14–22.

page 93 note 3 406b3–5.

page 93 note 4 Bonitz's emendation too belongs with this interpretation, for it tries to make Aristotle express more explicitly the same idea.

page 93 note 5 This is actually presented as a new point of view in 406b15 ff.

page 93 note 6 See LSJ, s.v., B. 1. 2: ‘with or without signf. of motion, on, over, throughout a space’.

page 93 note 7 See Bonitz, , op. cit., 423.Google Scholar

page 93 note 8 Bonitz, , loc. cit., already admitted: ‘Es legt nahe, die in allein nicht zu findende Beschränkung auf die räumliche Veränderung in den Worten zu suchen’, but as he only understood it as meaning ‘dem Leibe entsprechend’, he had to reject this.Google Scholar

page 93 note 9 Shorey, , op. cit., 152: ‘In spite of the Greek commentators may this not mean “within the body” rather than “comme le corps”?’Google Scholar

page 93 note 10 Though Shorey does not express an opinion on this point (his quoting of the phrase only up to and including rather suggests the contrary), Ross, influenced probably by Bonitz's note, writes, p. 187 : ‘Shorey keeps connecting it with rather than with

page 93 note 11 Bonitz, , op. cit., 424.Google Scholar

page 94 note 1 Vorsokr. 22 B 67 a; Epid. 6. 5. 5 (Littré, v. 316). See Deichgräber, K., Die Epidemien und das C.H., 54 and 61;Google ScholarPohlenz, M., Hippokratesstudien [N.A.G., 1937, 1. 2, 4], 86–7Google Scholar = Kl. Schriften, ii. 194 f., who refers to the Morb. Sacr.,Google Scholar ‘wo die eingeatmete Luft, die Trägerin des Seelischen, ständig durch den ganzen Leib zirkuliert (c. 4)’. Compare also Vict. 6 § 3: