"Aristotle's On Interpretation, the centrepiece of his logic, examines the relationship between conflicting pairs of statements. The first eight chapters, analysed in this volume, explain what statements are, starting from their basic components - the words - and working up to the character of opposed affirmations and negations." "Ammonius, who in his capacity as Professor at Alexandria from around A.D. 470 taught almost all the great sixth-century commentators, left just this one commentary in his own name, although his lectures on (...) other works of Aristotle have been written up by his pupils, who included Philoponus and Asclepius. His ideas on Aristotle's On Interpretation were derived partly from his own teacher, Proclus, and partly from the great lost commentary of Porphyry. The two most important extant commentaries on On Interpretation, of which this is one, both draw on Porphyry's work, which can be to some extent reconstructed from them."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

Die Bibliotheca Teubneriana, gegründet 1849, ist die weltweit älteste, traditionsreichste und umfangreichste Editionsreihe griechischer und lateinischer Literatur von der Antike bis zur Neuzeit. Pro Jahr erscheinen 4-5 neue Editionen. Sämtliche Ausgaben werden durch eine lateinische oder englische Praefatio ergänzt.

This article tackles the sole surviving ancient commentary on what was perhaps the second most important Platonic work, with special interest for the manner in which the ancients tackled the setting of Plato's dialogues, Socratic ignorance, Socratic eros, the central myth-like Palinode, and the question of oral as against written teaching.

In the Phaedrus, Socrates insists that every proper logos must have the unity of an organic living thing. And yet it is hard to say what imposes any such unity on the various speeches and topics that are dealt with in this very dialogue. This chapter situates the view of Hermias of Alexandria in relation to modern debates about what, if anything, unifies the Phaedrus. For the ancient Neoplatonists, the question of unity was bound up with the question of (...) each dialogue's "skopos". We argue that Hermias' answer to this question -- that the skopos of the Phaedrus is 'beauty at every level' -- is not as wildly implausible as Neoplatonic readings of Plato's dialogues are often thought to be. (shrink)

Translation and commentary on the only surviving sustained work on Plato's Phaedrus from antiquity.

Plato’s Phaedrus is a dialogue of journeys, a tale of transitions. It begins with Socrates’ question, ‘Where to and from whence, my dear Phaedrus?’ and concludes with the Socrates’ decision, ‘Let’s go’ (sc. back into the city from whence they’ve come). In the speech that forms its centre-piece Socrates narrates another famous journey—the descent of the soul into the body and its reascent to the realm of Forms through erotic madness. It is not too implausible to suppose that Plato himself (...) saw fit to relate his powerful images of the human soul’s fall and re-ascent by dramatic means that highlight the movement from one place to another. This explains how Hermias of Alexandria -- author of the longest sustained work on the Phaedrus to survive from antiquity related the physical journey to the Ilissus to the soul's descent and ascent. This seemingly implausible allegorising gains a certain kind of sense when we consider that the Neoplatonic commentary tradition formed part of a philosophic way of life with an ethical telos. (shrink)

Hermias of Alexandria wrote down the lectures given on the Phaedrus by his teacher Syrianus, Head of the Neoplatonic School of Athens. In the preserved text the Platonic distinction of madness is presented in a Neoplatonic way. In the first section of the article we discuss Hermias’ treatment of possession. The philosopher examines four topics in his effort to present a Neoplatonic doctrine concerning possession. As he holds that divine possession is evident in all parts of the soul, (...) he first argues that it is primarily applied to the one-in-the-soul. Secondly, he explains that possession is also applied to reason, opinion, imagination, thymos and desire, all the above being distinctive parts of the human soul, but not as important as the one-in-the-soul. The third issue he discusses is whether all causes of possession are identical to the divine. Then, Hermias examines the fact that possession is to be traced not only in the human soul but also in the statues. In the second section of the article Hermias’ analysis of the four kinds of Platonic madness is presented. The philosopher first analyzes the interdependence between all four divine kinds of madness and then describes their function on two levels, inside and outside the soul. The function within the soul is richer and is realized in four fields: the restoration of the soul after its fall, the restoration of the human being as a whole, the Pythagorean mathematical system and the logic processes. The function outside the soul deals with the manifestations of the soul in human society. Under this perspective, Hermias clearly proposes an original classification of the kinds of madness, on the basis of which we encounter poetic madness. After that follow the madness of the seer, the telestic madness, and the madness of love. The whole analysis incorporates Platonic, Aristotelian, Pythagorean and theurgic elements that cover the fields of psychology, logic and metaphysics. (shrink)

The Byzantine philosopher Michael Psellos wrote a brief treatise entitled An Explanation of the Drive of the Soul Chariot and the Army of Gods According to Plato in the Phaedrus. The treatise consists of a compilation of excerpts from Hermias’ commentary on the Phae­drus. Psellos does not mention Hermias’ name but rather traces the origins of the treatise back to some “Greek theologians”. Psellos’ text presents a great interpretative challenge: the order of the myths about the charioteer and (...) the parade of gods is reversed so that the former explicates the latter in such a way that the whole Platonic argument is dismissed as “absurd”. The Phaedrus in the Neo ‑Platonic tradition is considered to be a strictly theological dialogue. Yet, Psellos’ arrangement shows that he was not interested in the mythographical or allegorical dimension of the excerpts. He rath­er focused on the epistemic problem, i.e., a reduction of the trichotomy of the soul into a duality of principles. Thus, he followed certain Aristo­telian commentators. Psellos suggests a reduction that is subjectivist or individualist in its nature and he refuses to identify individual intellect with any particular piety. (shrink)

_Studies in Hermias’ Commentary on Plato’s_ Phaedrus is a collection of twelve essays that consider aspects of Hermias’ philosophy, including his notions of the soul, logic, and method of exegesis.

In Hermias’ commentary on Phaedrus (In Platonis Phaedrum Scholia), it is possible to identify several direct references to the philosophers and pre-Socratic doctrines, including Pythagoras. We point out to three references to Pythagoras in Hermias: (1) Pythagoras is characterized as an unwritten philosopher, (2) there is a special connection with the divinities and Muses, and (3) there is a special connection with the Phaedrus dialogue, revealed by the affinity between Pythagoras and Socrates. We show how the explicit references (...) to Pythagoras in Hermias constitute a certain method of interpreting Platonism: as a philosophy manifested in writing, but which, at the same time, values the unwritten tradition, represented especially by Pythagoras and Socrates. We also demonstrate how the references translated and examined here reveal the image of this Neoplatonic Pythagoras of Hermias, an image which is not necessarily in tune with the oldest doxography, and which permits the reevaluation of Plato’s position as a philosopher who sought to combine unwritten doctrines with his explicit activity as a writer. (shrink)

Review of Carlo M. Lucarini et Claudio Moreschini, Hermias Alexandrinus, In Platonis Phaedrum scholia, Berlin – Boston: De Gruyter, 2012, lxiv+293 pp., ISBN 978-3-11-020115-4.

This paper aims to interpret the role of the soul as ontological, intellectual or cognitive and as the moral principle within the frame of the holistic conception of human psychosomatic health that emerges from the context of Zalmoxian medicine in the proemium of Plato’s Charmides. It examines what the ontological status of the soul is in relation to the body and the body–soul complex of man considered as a psychosomatic whole. By comparing the presentation of the soul as principle in (...) the Charmides and the Phaedrus, the paper defends the thesis that in the former dialogue, Plato develops his own anthropological ontology, which paves the way for the salvation of human existence and health. The soul is bestowed with an ontological primacy that determines the philosophical and medical presuppositions for treating human illness under a holistic view. The interpretation of the ontological relation of the soul to the body and the entire human being in the context of Zalmoxian holistic medicine is based on Hermias Alexandrinus’ exegesis of the conception of the soul as principle in the Phaedrus. This paper demonstrates that, from both the medical holistic viewpoint and the anthropological philosophical perspective, the soul is the principle and πρῶτον with regard to the body and the body–soul complex without being the whole that the corresponding medical epistemology must apprehend. (shrink)

This comprehensive and in-depth examination of Aristotle's poetry is focused on his ode for Hermias of Atarneus. The song's relation to earlier poetry is illustrated with unprecedented thoroughness and the remarkable story of its reception is studied in the context of fourth-century politics, religious history, and literary theory.

_ Source: _Volume 63, Issue 4, pp 449 - 476 While we know that the interpretation of the ‘soul’s pilot’ found in Hermias’ _Scholia on Plato’s Phaedrus_ differs considerably from that of Syrianus and Proclus, this difference has not shifted the prevailing opinion that the _Scholia_ are a faithful transcript of Syrianus’ lectures on the _Phaedrus_. I argue, however, that the difference over the soul’s pilot is only the first in a series of elements which are difficult, if not (...) impossible, to ascribe to Syrianus. This, I believe, is compelling evidence that the _Scholia_ contain the ideas of both Syrianus and Hermias. (shrink)

This commentary records, through notes taken by Hermias, Syrianus' seminar on Plato's Phaedrus, one of the world's most influential celebrations of erotic beauty and love. It is the only Neoplatonic commentary on Plato's Phaedrus to have survived in its entirety. Further interest comes from the recorded interventions by Syrianus' pupils - including those by Proclus, his eventual successor as head of the Athenian school, who went on to teach Hermias' father, Ammonius. The second of two volumes of (...) class='Hi'>Hermias' commentary, the chapters translated here begin with a discussion of how the discarnate soul is visualised as a winged chariot team whose charioteer may gain some glimpse of beauty itself, which can explain subsequent erotic longing. This volume provides a translation is accompanied by explanatory notes, an introduction detailing the significance and context of the treatise and a scholarly apparatus including multiple indexes, glossaries and a bibliography. (shrink)

That Hermias, the despot of Atarneus, was a barbarian as alleged by Theopompus, fr. 242, Oxf., Letter to Philip, in Didymus in Dem., col. 5, 24, has been denied by Jaeger, Aristoteles, p. 113 n., on the ground that in Aristotle's hymn and epigram he is put forward as a Hellene; cf. ibid., p. 119, on Callisthenes and Hermias. In confirmation may be added that, had he been a barbarian, he could hardly have induced the Eleans to declare (...) the Olympic truce to him as Theopompus says they did, Did. 5, 29. Demetrius the Magnesian, Diog. L. V. 3, said he was a Bithynian; and possibly Theopompus said the same in the defective passage in fr. 210, Did. 4, 69. He may have been in fact a Bithynian by place of birth, yet not by blood: at such Greeks the taunt ‘barbarian’ was readily cast; cf. Birds 1700 on Gorgias, and Aeschines on Demosthenes. But we may go much further in scepticism. (shrink)

The remarkable poem in which Aristotle addresses ‘Αρετά and honours the memory of his dead friend Hermias is fortunate in being well preserved. The complete text is given by Athenaeus XV 696a and by Diogenes Laertius V 27, and these authorities are now supplemented by the papyrus of Didymus’ Commentary on Demosthenes, which leaves few of the textual problems in need of a solution. But the poem still raises some questions. It is not clear what kind of poem it (...) was; its literary antecedents and affinities have not been fully studied; its contents still call for some remarks. In spite of Wilamowitz's brilliant treatment and Jaeger's acute comments it is puzzling enough to justify a few words of discussion. (shrink)

Thanks to the exegesis, Iamblichus succeeds in forging a psycho-epistemological doctrine which can boast a remarkable degree of consistency, albeit not always without minor flaws. Notably, the exegesis of Plato’s Phaedrus plays a pivotal role in constructing this system, despite moving not from phrases of the dialogue, but simply from single words, like κυβερνήτης and ἡνίοχος. Iamblichus’ anathema against Plotinus’ psychology makes Socrates’ palinode the sacred text from which to elicit those formulae of orthodoxy bound to be devoutly recited by (...) posterior Platonists, like Hermias of Alexandria. Indeed, in this text the divine Plato has revealed the essence of the triad νοερόν, νοητόν, κριτήριον, whose each element is susceptible of being dichotomized: νοερόν in νοῦς and ἕν, νοητόν in νοητόν and ἀκρότατα νοητά, κριτήριον in καθαρμός/φιλοσοφία and ἐνθουσιασμός/θεουργία. The result of this complex and fascinating move is an outstanding proof of philology and philosophy, psychology and epistemology hermeneutics and mysticism. (shrink)