From Categories as Enemy to Categories as Friend
There has been
quite a bit of interest in the early reception of Aristotle lately, and
particularly in the way that those who embraced Plato saw him. Lloyd Gerson has
written a powerful book examining Neoplatonist theories of the harmony of Plato
and Aristotle, in which he strikes significant blows against the modern
Anglo-American orthodoxy that assumes a wide gulf between Aristotle and his
philosophic mentor.[1] Now we
have also got the useful, though patchier, account by George Karamanolis of the
reception of Aristotle by Platonists from Antiochus of Ascalon to Porphyry.[2] A
significant difference between the two books results from a certain consensus
of Neoplatonists to the effect that Aristotle was an ally, as opposed to the
radical disagreement among platonically inclined philosophers before Plotinus
as to whether Aristotle ought to be afforded any credibility at all. From
Iamblichus in the late 3rd or early 4th century Aristotle
supplied the early part of the philosophic curriculum that any budding
Platonist could be expected to tackle, and from AD 529 (and probably for some
time before at Alexandria) it became the politically astute option (if not the
only one)[3] to
give greater prominence to one’s Aristotelian studies. However, I know of no
evidence that the reading of Aristotle ever featured directly in any Platonist
curriculum before Plotinus, and even there it was less an educational text than
a basis for discussion within an educational circle. Not until Porphyry do we
find a Platonist producing a commentary-like work on an Aristotelian text, and
Porphyry was sufficient of a scholar to comment on other non-Platonists from
Homer to Ptolemy.[4]
Admittedly we have some evidence of hermeneutic works on the Categories before the end of the first
century AD, from figures such as Eudorus, Lucius, and Nicostratus, but these
works were certainly not commending Aristotle’s teachings and using them as a
basis for positive lessons.[5]
Somehow Platonists came to appreciate the didactic potential of the
Aristotelian organon in particular.
No work became more important than the Categories.
It is perhaps worth asking ourselves how this fundamental change came about.
To begin with I think that one
should clarify what one means by a ‘Platonist’. Karamanolis would seem to
define the term broadly, but at the expense of casting the net far too wide.
The concept of ‘Platonist’ simply is not
around in the days of Antiochus of Ascalon, who for him is the beginning of a
pro-Aristotelian Platonism. His assumption neglects the fact that Antiochus
thought of himself as a follower of the ‘Old Academy’ together with Aristotle
and at least Zeno from the Stoic school. It was simply a single type of
philosophy, drawing upon the common notions that all sensitive human beings
share, and using rather different language to interpret them. The message was
the same. Antiochus was not an eclectic, since he did not acknowledge that he
had to choose between the key players; he was just a philosopher of the
classical type. So far as we are aware nobody called themselves a ‘Platonic’
philosopher until the late first century AD. Eudorus, it seems, was content
with the term ‘Academic’ and Plutarch’s writings strongly suggest that this
term would have suited both him and his mentor Ammonius. In any case he was
like many other prominent intellectuals of the age in not requiring a living
from philosophy; for such persons a fluid allegiance remained entirely
possible. Only the teacher of philosophy needed to embrace a single philosophic
system and defend it against its competitors, and only he had to choose
carefully how he would describe himself. Karamanolis likewise has no problem
about seeing Numenius as a Platonist, even though it is clear enough that this was
not how he preferred to describe himself. He was a ‘Pythagorean’, who happened
to believe that many works of Plato largely preserved Pythagorean doctrine. On
the whole those on the boundary between Pythagoras and Plato were not easily
going to find Aristotle to be an important ally, even if this was to change
with the early Neoplatonists.
By contrast I am only considering
those who seriously engaged in the interpretation of Plato, and thought of
their primary allegiance as being to the Platonist cause. Antiochus, who does
not engage in serious hermeneutic issues, should be excluded; Eudorus of
Alexandria may possibly have called himself an ‘Academic’ in a sense that
implied a primary allegiance to Plato and cannot easily be ignored, but
otherwise I shall confine myself to figures who could without hesitation be
described as ‘Platonics’. It is important that those we examine should all feel
a primary allegiance to Plato, and should have been confronted by the challenge
of determining a proper Platonist response to Aristotle in general and to his Categories in particular.
Recent scholarship on Platonic
hermeneutics in this period has clearly revealed just how difficult it was for
Platonists to be able to interpret Plato’s own writings, given the absence of strong
interpretative traditions and agreed hermeneutic principles. It was little
wonder then that framing their response to Aristotle was an even more difficult
challenge. Long known primarily from his exoteric works, Aristotle in a
post-Andronicus era had to be re-assessed on the basis of exoteric as much as
esoteric texts. It was no easy matter to be reconciling the Eudemus, that not only argued for the
existence after death of the intellect but actually seemed to assume the
continuity of some rudimentary memory upon the resumption of bodily life, with
the concept of the soul as eidos and morphê of the physical body at the
beginning of the second book of the De
Anima. Then again, there were quite enough interpretative challenges within
the esoteric treatises themselves, such as reconciling what is said about ousia in the Categories with what is said about it in Metaphysics Z. Analogous problems were felt with regard to Plato,
by whom sense-objects could be described both as on and as mê on according
to the pro-Thrasyllan source of D.L. 3.64. Plato was hard enough, but at least
Platonists had to seem to be in agreement with him. Aristotle often presented
much the same challenges, and it was open to them to embrace or dismiss what he
said as they pleased.
At this point I think that we have
to distinguish sharply between Platonist attitudes to the Aristotelian
categories themselves and to the work in which they spelled out. For instance,
the anonymous Theaetetus-commentator
(LXVIII) is happy to find the first three Aristotelian categories behind the
text of Theaetetus 152d: ousia, poson, and poion. But he
is not so much acknowledging a debt to Aristotle as claiming to find in a
Platonic text many of the concepts that are fundamental to Aristotelian theory
here. This is even more obvious in Alcinous, when he claims in chapter 6
(158.43-4) that all ten categories (he does not call them ‘Aristotelian’) are
to be found in the Parmenides and
other writings. The primary legacy of the Categories
is embraced, without any obvious endorsement of the work itself. This may
be important given that chapter 5, which gives ontological primacy to the
physical particular, is one of the seemingly most anti-Platonic texts of the
Aristotelian corpus—at least for those who see a theory of transcendent ideas
as being the heart of Platonism. Where we see Platonists of the period
attacking the Aristotle on the categories it generally involves an attack on
the work itself; where we see the embrace of the categories themselves there is
no admission that the Aristotelian work is covering new ground. Plato may
either have anticipated Aristotle’s ten, as in Alcinous, or have employed a
different set that better meets philosophy’s needs.
At this point it is worth recalling that according to Dercyllides, a
figure somehow linked with Thrasyllus and highly regarded by Theon of Smyrna,
the Old Academic figure Hermodorus had attributed three categories to Plato:
‘in itself’ (kath’ hauto), and two
kinds of ‘in relation’ (pros hetera),
one of which involved its relation to its opposite (pros enantia as opposed to the simple pros ti). If this information was well known among Platonists of
the early empire, then it may have placed them under some kind of pressure both
to find categories in the dialogues and to demonstrate that they serve their
purpose better than Aristotle’s. The basic division suggested by the report was
suggested both by Sophist 255c-d and
by many passages of the Parmenides from
136a. It is supported by Xenocrates too.[6]
Finding a distinction between the simple pros
ti and the pros enantion in Plato
would have been more difficult, but one could certainly find examples of the
latter in the Parmenides (e.g.
152d6). It is likely that Dercyllides had appealed to Hermodorus’ authority
with a view to reviving these ‘categories’ and finding something distinctively
Platonic rather than Aristotelian or Stoic.
The three Platonically-inclined philosophers whom Simplicius cites for
their hostile attitude to the Categories
are Eudorus, Lucius, and Nicostratus. Eudorus presents a considerable
challenge, as it is very difficult to build a coherent picture of him from the
varied fragments that we possess. We know him as one who engaged also in the
interpretation of Plato and Pythagoras, to both of whom he is well disposed.[7] He
is described as an Academic, which in my view means that he resembled Plutarch
in being committed to a broadly Platonic philosophy, with a nod towards the
critical activities of New Academy as well. Eudorus came at a time when
Aristotle was being re-marketed as the author of the treatises. The efforts of
Antiochus of Ascalon to show that Platonism and Aristotelianism were one and
the same philosophy seemed plausible enough as long as Aristotle was known
primarily from the ‘exoteric’ works, but, whatever the truth behind the story
of the rediscovery of the treatises, there was certainly a new wave of interest
in them, involving Andronicus, Boethus, Aristo, and Athenodorus as well as
Eudorus.[8]
Two former followers of Antiochus of Ascalon’s school, Aristo and Cratippus,[9]
were led to declare themselves to be Peripatetics, presumably after (i)
recognizing that Aristotle did differ from Plato in spite of what the exoteric
works might suggest, and (ii) finding on reflection that they preferred the
mature Aristotelian position. I wish to emphasize here that the treatises do
not only reveal an Aristotle who cannot without ingenuity be reconciled with
Plato; they also indulge in extensive criticism of positions adopted by Plato,
Speusippus and Xenocrates in matters that range from the practical (ethics and
politics) to the theoretical (metaphysics and physics) This criticism
highlights above all aspects of Plato’s thought and the thought of his
successors that were not grounded in the familiar sensible world. Furthermore
they serve to suggest links between Plato and the Old Academy and the
Pythagoreans, links that would not have been evident without Aristotle’s
personal contribution. Hitherto transcendent or Pythagorizing elements may have
been dismissed as metaphor and their radical nature failed to register. When
the treatises began to attract attention both the transcendent leanings of
Plato and the Aristotelian emphasis on the world of physical particulars became
evident. The single Platonic-Aristotelian-Stoic system of Antiochus had to
disappear, built as it was upon a flawed history of philosophy. Ironically it
was in this new era that the first philosophy to describe itself as ‘eclectic’
was born—Potamo of Alexandria (D.L. 1.21) really did recognize that on any
given issue one had to choose between the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle, and
the Stoa, and that an amalgam of classical and early Hellenistic doctrines
could be marketed as something new.
It is a reasonable supposition that Eudorus too recognised the extent of
the differences, and was led to resist the new Aristotelian force in philosophy
in favour of a Platonism that leaned towards transcendence and Pythagoreanism.
We find in him an interest in transcendence, mathematical principles, and the
Pythagoreans that is absent from our evidence for Antiochus. Since he embraced
the side of Plato that Aristotle had repeatedly rejected, it is inevitable that
he would have treated Aristotle as suspect. However, he was not alone in
lacking the hermeneutic devices to see Aristotle in a particularly favourable
light. Just as the interpretation of Plato was an extremely difficult task in
the early days of serious interpretation, so too the Aristotelian treatises
repeatedly offered some excruciating challenges for anybody committed to
finding a single coherent Aristotelian position. Works and parts of works
seemed to disagree. One could not easily make it one’s task to tackle just one
work at a time (as one might the Phaedo,
for example), since treatises lacked the internal coherence that would be
required and often stood in close relation to others. It is virtually certain
that the organon attracted a great
deal of interest, insofar as it gave something lacking any explicit treatment
in the writings of Plato. Much that was said in the works on logic was
potentially helpful to a Platonist, and offered the kind of instruction that
one would not think wasted on any respectable student of philosophy. So should
a Platonist adopt them as something that was a natural product of Plato’s
school with which Plato would agree? Should he in fact argue that Plato
actually anticipated all this in one work or another? Or should he expose
weaknesses in what Aristotle offered and try to work towards something more
plausibly Platonic?
The centrality of the Categories
to modern Aristotelian endeavours should not obscure the fact that it is rather
a fiendish work to interpret. To begin with the author does not set out by
defining its subject matter. The name suggests that we shall deal with the ten
categories, but we are plunged straightaway into a discussion of homonyms and
synonyms, before noting some basic points about predication. Chapter 4 finally
introduces the ten categories themselves, but it does not do so in the order in
which Aristotle will tackle them, and it does not commit him to tackling them
all either. Above all, we do not receive any guidance as to whether we should
be reading anything metaphysical into what we are being told, or whether we are
dealing strictly with the meaningful terms that constitute sentences. Here it
should be appreciated that the Stoics had long built language into the fabric
of the world, while Platonists too were used to assuming that the world of
language somehow reflected the realities of the universe. The precise relation
may have been difficult to pinpoint, but somehow dialectic had to serve as a
science for an approach to reality. Divisions and definitions were also
supposed to reflect reality. So how could they easily accept that the Aristotelian
Categories was a metaphysically
neutral document? In particular, how could they not suspect an anti-Platonic
agenda behind the identification of primary ousia
with individual particulars, while universals were called ousia only in a secondary sense? And as soon as they allowed
something metaphysical here, how was it to be reconciled with Aristotle’s own Metaphysics Z?
It is against this background that we should see the activities of
Eudorus. We hear of him nine times in Simplicius’ magnificent Commentary on the Categories, all in the
treatment of Categories 7-8, where
Aristotle is dealing with Relative and with Quality respectively.[10]
This probably indicates that Porphyry, to whose full-length commentary we owe
most of the early material,[11]
only used anything by Eudorus in this section, and possibly also that Eudorus
had written either on Relative and Quality alone (as Boethus had written on the
Relative, 163.6) or with a special focus on it—for he had been especially keen
to show the priority of Quality over Relative. In any case Eudorus is clearly
going well beyond casual criticism of Aristotelian trends, writing rather with
the intention of undermining much of the detail of Aristotle’s book. Eudorus
asks, not without some point, why it was that Aristotle tackled to pros
ti without paying any attention to the concept of to kath' hauto to which it is opposed. Simplicius is fairly
dismissive, but it does seem rather like discussing the concept of altruism
without a mention of selfishness. One needs to know what else is possible. But
it is certainly relevant that kath' hauto
had been regularly contrasted with pros
ti in Platonic and Old Academic thought.
There are times, however, when Aristotle feels the need to be especially
precise, as when he says that the wing is properly pros pterôton, not pros ornin
(6b36-7a5), so that there is this reciprocity even when there appears not
to be. Here Eudorus is, I believe, almost satirizing
Peripatetic precision when he objects that the reciprocity is now between what
is spoken of in activity and what is spoken of in potency. Presumably, on the
analogy of the soul, the wing is the first entelechy of a potentially winged
creature, and Eudorus claims that pterôton
is used to refer to any member of species whose adult has wings, while epterômenon
is used for anything whose wings are actually formed. It is no accident here
that Eudorus is given the title Akadêmaikos,
since he appears to be giving a critique of Aristotle in Aristotelian terms as
a New Academic would have done. And whatever was his intention it is clear that
he set in train a considerable debate, involving Athenodorus, Cornutus,
Boethus, Apollonius of Alexandria, Aristo, and unnamed commentators about
problems involving the status of ‘wing’ and ‘rudder’ as Relatives, and what is
reciprocal to them (187.18-189.12). Simplicius concludes by noting that
‘Archytas’ (I think somebody who adopts
this name),[12] who is
closely associated with Eudorus and who produced a derivative Doric work on
categories himself, omits the reciprocal feature of the Relative altogether.
Archytas is also associated with Eudorus over the question of the order
of the categories, both making Quality second, Quantity third, with Relative
coming later. As a Platonist Eudorus feels that Quality must be more closely
linked with Substance than Quantity can be. Since he recognizes that Aristotle
is concerned with sensible Substance (206.14), it may be that Quality’s link
with form and shape in the Timaeus
has suggested this to him (cf. Simpl. in
Categ. 206.15-18); again, the pre-cosmic condition in the Timaeus had already involved something
Quality-like, but nothing very Quantity-like. Furthermore Eudorus goes beyond
Archytas in putting Time and Place before the Relative. This again could be
connected with the belief that until the one world is given Quantity, which in
turn provides the conditions for separation by Time and Place (both conceived
mathematically), one cannot have x standing in relation to y. One certainly
cannot have the wing serving as part of the winged or the rudder serving as
part of the ruddered.
An earlier discussion at 156.17 had credited ‘those who take Lucius’
position’ with criticizing the order Substance–Quantity–Relative–Quality in
favour of Archytas’ Substance–[Quality+Quantity]-Relative, itself compatible
with the order of Categories 4. It is
worth noting here that not even Andronicus would defend Aristotle on the
position of Relative, but actually placed it last (157.18-20). So, in delaying
Relative further, Eudorus had the backing of Andronicus. A non-Platonist could
perhaps be content to deny that Aristotle was propounding any special order, as
seen 155.31-32***, but for a Platonist such hierarchies are important; hence
Simplicius will defend the order as both natural and suited to teaching
(158.1-27), while Porphyry defended the Aristotelian order even more
vigorously, referring explicitly to Empedocles[13]
and to the ratios of the Psychogony in the Timaeus
but earning himself a mild rebuke from the later commentator.
Eudorus has a number of detailed criticisms on the discussion of quality
itself, beginning with the third line (8b27-9a13), critics generally
(236.12-13) had objected that states (hexeis)
and conditions (diatheseis) are
listed under Quality as they had been under Relative. While some thought
Aristotle’s distinction between states and conditions here to run counter to
general usage, Eudorus objects that it runs counter to Aristotle’s own further
statements. The distinction makes a hexis
relatively stable in contrast to the diathesis,
but Eudorus somewhere finds Aristotle committed to the instability of
both—state too being easily got rid of.[14]
This connects up with the next criticism, where the distinction is actually
presumed. Eudorus now complains that Aristotle’s discussion of natural
capacities under the heading of Quality (9a14-27) is superfluous, as any
natural capacity must be either long-lived or short-lived, either a hexis or a diathesis (246.22-24).
It does not take long to realise that Eudorus is somebody with a liking
for neat and orderly divisions, with a precise rationale. That actually fits
well with what those who called themselves ‘Academics’ were doing in the first
century BC.[15] At
256.16-18 he objects to the inclusion of heat, cold, health, and disease under
both ‘conditions’ (diatheseis) and
‘affective qualities’ (pathêtikai
poiotêtes), and he is actually taking issue with Andronicus’ attempt to
discover a fifth type of quality at 263.27-29. At 268.13-14 he is puzzling over
Aristotle’s exclusion of rare, dense, rough and smooth from the category of
quality on the ground that they (but not straightness and roundness) are
indicative rather of position (10a16-24).
On the whole Eudorus’ reaction to Categories
7 and 8 is one that questions the refinement of the organization of materials in Aristotle’s texts, often raising
points that it would not be difficult to puzzle over today. Even though we
might now be well able to supply solutions, and Porphyry nearly always had an
answer for Aristotle too, it remains a fact that Aristotle has not always
explained what he is doing and the basic principles behind his division. The Categories are simply not as clear as
one might have supposed. Eudorus is not so much attacking Aristotle, as
exposing weaknesses and countering what was probably a growing admiration for
the Stagirite. At this time not even the Peripatetics were handling the text
with great confidence.
Plutarch is one figure obviously influenced by Eudorus. He displays the
same ability to indulge in criticism of other Schools in the Aristotelian
tradition, and is certainly capable of applying that to Aristotle too, albeit
constructively rather than destructively.[16]
Aristotle is less of an enemy than the Stoics and Epicureans. Plutarch will
also make positive use of Aristotle at times, and assume that he is bringing
out material already explicit in Plato. Both Dillon and Karamanolis discuss a
passage in the De Animae Procreatione
(1023e) in which it appears that Plutarch is finding the categories already
implied by Timaeus 37b-c,[17]
and a Plutarchian work on the ten categories is to be found in the Lamprias
catalogue. That both works talk of ten categories indicates an acceptance of
the basic conceptual scheme that Eudorus did not share; in this respect
Plutarch agrees with Alcinous 6 (158.43-4).
At around A.D. 160, and perhaps close in date to Alcinous, it seems that
Nicostratus was composing an attack on the Categories
in the tradition of a Platonist Lucius, aimed at all parts of the work. His
objections are described as enstaseis (Simpl.
in Categ. 1.21; 2.13; cf. 26.21;
30.16; 73.29; 76.13) or aporiai
(Simpl. in Categ. 1.18; 2.1), and
verbs of accusation such as enkaleô
(Simpl. in Categ. 29.24; 58.15; 63.4;
127.30; 368.12; 370.1; 428.3) or aitiaomai
(Simpl. in Categ. 231.20; 388.4;
406.6; 410.25) are regularly used, along with other vocabulary of polemics,
such as antilegein and cognates
(62.30; 390.15). At one point an accusation of ‘empty-talk’ (mataiologia, 58.15) is employed. The
better known anti-Aristotelian Platonist Atticus (fl. c. A.D. 175) followed
with at least one blow against the Categories
himself (Simpl. in Categ. 30.17).
The significance of Nicostratus is probably not in the quality of his
criticisms of the Categories, but
rather his having prepared the way for Plotinus’ own worries about the
Aristotelian work in a sequence of treatises, Enneads VI, 1-3. Plotinus is not here a polemicist, but somebody
with a profound respect for Aristotle, who promoted in his educational circle
the reading of Aristotle and his commentators as well as Plato and his
commentators. Plotinus can see real purpose in Aristotle’s work insofar as one
is dealing with the sensible and changing world, but that exercise was inferior
to Plato’s attempt to engage with the categories of the intelligible and
unchanging world. He seems caught between his own mentor Ammonius Saccas, of
whom we are told that he held Aristotle and Plato to be in agreement on the
most important doctrines,[18]
and the problems posed by Nicostratus and by Lucius even earlier. The way
forward to the Neoplatonic orthodoxy required that Aristotle should be presumed
from the beginning to be a great philosopher but that problems about him,
particularly where he seemed to deviate from Plato, should indeed be felt. Hence
Simplicius (in Categ. 1.23-2.5) says
that (i) Nicostratus should at least be thanked for providing the materials for
businesslike problem-raising and the incentive for serious solutions, while
(ii) Plotinus tackled the most businesslike lines of examination (pragmateiôdestatas exetaseis) prompted
by the Categories. The implication is
that in his three treatises Plotinus he did not stoop so low as to either raise
or refute the more sophistic objections.
Plotinus’ philosophical acumen brought the services of clear and well
meaning reasoning to the rehabilitation of our text. However, Plotinus did not
show the same skills in modern exegetical techniques. These had been given a
considerable boost in the middle of the second century by Numenius, who had been
skilled in both allegorical interpretation and the drawing of fine distinctions
that solved hermeneutic problems. Numenius had a rather synthetic mind, which
enabled him to look at passages within their overall contexts and whole works
within the context of a corpus. For Plotinus on the other hand little passages
could be looked at in isolation or with a limited number of favoured passages
for comparison. Like Ammonius,[19]
he was driven by philosophy as he conceived it rather than by any commitment to
a single philosopher and to accompanying hermeneutic techniques. Such
techniques were displayed rather by those who favoured commentary as a means of
philosophic teaching, and it is clear that Porphyry had considerable
hermeneutic skills to add to his reasoning abilities and to his commitment to
the philosophic value of both Plato and Aristotle. He is always thinking of
what sort of work he is dealing with, and what could be expected given the
purpose of the work. He is keen to tackle the earlier objections to what is
being said as well as the deeper puzzles of earlier thinkers, and indeed much
that we know of earlier Platonists would be lost but for Porphyry’s diligence,
not only as a scholar but also as a corrector of the commentary tradition. He
has a prodigious knowledge of the works of Plato and Aristotle, and this offers
him a considerable resource for the solution to difficulties. Above all, it
allows him to feel his way into a work on the author’s own terms, and to
become, in a strange kind of way, a model to all of us.
So I conclude my journey with Simplicius’ own tribute to Porphyry:
After these, Porphyry, the cause to whom we owe everything fine, achieved
with considerable labour a perfect exegesis of the book and solutions to all
the objections in seven volumes that are addressed to Gedaleius.
(Simpl. in Categ.
2.5-8)
Harold Tarrant,
University of Newcastle, Australia
[1] Lloyd P. Gerson, Aristotle and Other Platonists (Ithaca, 2005); the orthodox view
results partly from the lack of interest in Aristotle's early work, coupled
with an unwillingness to engage with issues of his development.
[2] George Karamanolis, Plato and Aristotle in Agreement: Platonists
on Aristotle from Antiochus to Porphyry (Oxford, 2006).
[3] It appears that Olympiodorus could
still lecture on Plato after that date at Alexandria, albeit with the
occasional effort to disguise the influence of the Parmenides and the full extent of his disagreement with Christian
readings of the climax of the Alcibiades at
133c.
[4] See Karamanolis (2006), 2, who dates
the first Platonist commentaries on Aristotle to ‘around AD 300’. That date
should be brought forward a little. From Porhpyry there survives the short
‘catechist’ commentary on the Categories,
but a more important and more detailed commentary is lost. That commentary is
probably the indirect source of much of what we know about the interpretation
of the work up to that point.
[5] Karamanolis (2006), 83; John Dillon, The Middle Platonists (London, 1977), 233-6; Adriano Gioè Filosofi Medioplatonici del II socolo d.c. (Napoli, 2002), 402-6.
[6] Fr. 95 I-P = 12 H = Simpl. in Categ. 63.22-26; the testimony is
somewhat strange in that it refers to "those in the camp of [hoi peri] Xenocrates and
Andronicus", which presumably means that it is through Andronicus that
Xenocrates’ position was known to Simplicius; hence the details of the content
may be determined primarily by Andronicus’ agenda.
[7] Scholars still regularly refer to Dillon (1977) for discussion of Eudorus; he is now being re-examined in depth by Mauro Bonazzi.
[8] Simpl. in Categ. 8.159.32.
[9] Cratippus was a pupil of Antiochus’ brother Aristus rather than of Antiochus himself.
[10] See 159.32, 174.14, 187.10, 206.10, 236.28, 246.22, 256.16, 263.27, 268.13.
[11] See Simpl. in Categ. 160.10.
[12] Adoption of appropriate Greek names was probably common enough in the case of non-Greeks; Porphyry (Malchas, Basileus), Zethus, Alcinoos, and possibly Numenius.
[13] To cite Empedocles was a blow against ‘Archytas’, showing the Pythagorean tradition (to which Empedocles was assumed to belong) to be on Aristotle’s side.
[14] No relevant note in Barrie Fleet’s translation, Simplicius On Aristotle Categories 7-8 (Ithaca, 2002), but it seems that Eudorus finds his text at 9a10, where there is a crux.
[15] Both Philo and Eudorus both tackled the division of philosophy at length, Stob. Ecl. 2.7.2.2 = 2.39W (OuÂtoj o( Fi¿lwn ta/ te aÃlla pepragma/teutai deciw½j kaiì diai¿resin tou= kata\ filosofi¿an lo/gou,....) and 27.2.64 = 2.42W ( ãEstin ouÅn Eu)dw¯rou tou= ¹Alecandre/wj, ¹Akadhmiakou= filoso/fou, diai¿resij tou= kata\ filosofi¿an lo/gou,.... ).
[16] See Karamanolis (2006), 92-115.
[17] See Karamanolis (2006), 124-5; Dillon (1977), 226.
[18] Photius, codices 214 and 251, 171b38-173a18-40; on Ammonius the discussion of Karamanolis (2006), 191-215, is to be commended.
[19] Karamanolis (2006), 214.