British Library C Fhiloponus, John 6th cont First published in 1991 by Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd ‘The Old Piano Factory, 48 Hoxton Square, London N1 6PB Introduction and Translation © 1991 by William Chariton Preface and Appendix ©) 1991 by Richard Sorabji All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form ar by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN 07 6 2245 5 ion Data jaloguing in Publi On Aristotle on the intellect: (On the soul 3.4-8) 1, Humans. Intelligence. Theories L Title [1, Charlton, W. (William) 1935-111. Bossier, Fernand IV, Aristotle 884-322 B.C, De anima 153.9082 ISBN 0-7158-2245-5 Phototypeset by Intype, London Printed in Great Britasn by Redwood Press Ltd., Melksham Contents Preface Richard Sorabji Introduction 1, Text, authorship and translation 2. Philoponus’ theory of the intellect ‘Translation Textual Emendations Appendix: the commentators Indexes English-Latin Glossary Latin-English Index Index of Names Subject IndexPreface Richard Sorabji ‘This is a special volume. In 1989, William Charlton completed a very skilful translation which made the best possible sense of Latin that was often unintelligible. He equipped it with an introduction which brought out the unique views of Philoponus on sense percep- tion, imagination and thinking and revealed how far Philoponus diverged from Aristotle. He also offered an up to date verdict on vexed questions of authenticity, That was already a notable achievement. At that point Fernand Bossier spotted that there was something wrong with the Latin, The Greek original of Philoponus is lost. What survives is the Latin translation made in the thirteenth cen- tury by William of Moerbeke. Where the Latin translation reads, unintelligibly and ungrammatieally, ‘if not’ (si non), William of Moerbeke must have had before his eyes a Greek Lest Ural reud ‘if not (ei mé). That is equally unintelligible and ungrammatical. But it ean easily be explained as a corruption of the Greek word eidé — the Platonic Forms — which makes perfect sense. Bossier’s detective ‘work pierces through the unintelligible Latin to the original Greek On the basis of such conjectures and others that take account, for example, of William of Moerbeke's own idiosyncratic habits of abbreviation, Bossier suggested a new text at many points Chariton had sometimes anticipated, sometimes accepted and some- times dissented from the suggestions. The resulting agreed emen- dations are listed at the end and explanations are incorporated into the footnotes, ‘The emended passages are retranslated by Charlton, and the indexes include Greok-Latin equivalences. The result is much more than a translation of one of the most interesting ancient commentaries on Aristotle, In addition, we see a medieval translator at work and we have the basis of a new text, 50 that we may often know for the first time what Philoponus originally said. Finally, Charlton's philosophically sensitive intro- duction reveals the theories that Philoponus developed in Philo- Sophy of Mind and how foreign they appear when attributed, as they are by Philoponus, to Aristotle ‘The present translations have been made possible by generous and imaginative funding from the following sources: the Nationalviii Preface Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Research Programs, an independent federal agency of the USA; the Leverhulme Trust; the British Academy; the Jowett Copyright Trustees; the Royal Society (UK); Centro Internazionale A. Beltrame di Storia dello Spazio © del Tempo (Padua); Mario Mignucei; Liverpool University. T should like to thank the following for their very helpful com- ‘ments on the translation: Charles Burnett, Bernard Dod, Jill Kraye, Lars Mortensen, Vivian Nutton and Koenraad Verrycken. Introduction 1. Text, authorship and translation Text ‘The work here translated into English is a thirteenth-century trans- lation into Latin from a Greek commentary on a portion of Aris- totle's de Anima (On the Soul) known as the de Intellectu (On the Intellect: de Anima 8.4-8), The Greek original is now lost, although excerpts from it are embedded in a surviving Greek paraphrase of Aristotle’s de Anima put together by Sophonias at the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century (edited by Michael Hayduck, Berlin 1883). The Latin translation is preserved in three manuscripts, Toledo Cathedral Library 95.13, Vatican Library Lat. 2438, and Biblioteca Casanatense 957. These manu- seripts are referred to hereafter as T, V and C. More than half the text is also preserved in Henry Bate's Speculum divinorum et quorunclam naturalium, referred to as Date or B. Tam grateful to the Vatican Library and the Biblioteca Casanatense for sending me photocopies of their manuscripts and to the librarian of the Cathedral Library at Toledo for making me welcome for a week to study the codices 95.13 and 47.12 there. ‘The Latin translation was executed by the Belgian Dominican William de Moerbeke with a celerity which leaves his present name- soke gasping. He finished translating Ammonius’ commentary on the de Inzerpretatione on 12 September 1268 and he had got through this commentary on the de Intellectu (according to a note at the end of T) by 17 December. Not only was the work done at high speed, Dut Moerbeke says, ‘Let the reader be warned that the Greek orig- inal was destroyed in many places by water so that Iwas completely unable to read it’. Roger Bacon, admittedly a member of a rival religious order, raises a doubt about his competence. William the Fleming, he says, ‘had neither the knowledge of philosophy nor the Knowledge of Greek on which he presumed’. Bacon reaches the conclusion that his translations are ‘altogether erroneous and to be shunned’ (quoted by Verbeke in his edition of Moerbeke’s trans- lation of Themistius’ commentary on the de Anima, Leiden 1973, lexiv), That verdiet is too harsh, and for someone working, presum- ably, without dictionaries or grammar books Moerbeke did a credi- table job. But it is not surprising under the circumstances that the ht