Eudorus of Alexandria

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Eudorus of Alexandria ( Greek  Εὔδωρος Eúdōros ) was an ancient Greek philosopher ( Platonist ). He lived in the 1st century BC. And was one of the first representatives of Middle Platonism ; some researchers even consider him to be its real founder.

Life

Very little is known about the life of Eudorus; presumably he spent it in his hometown of Alexandria . He was a contemporary of the Peripatetic Ariston of Alexandria and of 64/63 BC. Born geographer Strabon . Ariston was much older than Strabo; he initially had the "Old Academy" of probably 68 BC. Belongs to the late philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon , whose pupil he was. Thus Ariston was originally a Platonist; but later he decided on the teaching of Aristotle . This gives clues for the chronological classification of Eudorus, who was probably around the middle and the second half of the 1st century BC. Was active.

It is not known where Eudorus received his philosophical training. Apparently he was not a member of the "Old Academy", the only successor institution to Plato's Academy that existed at the time ; its peculiarities, especially its proximity to Stoic philosophy in the rejection of transcendence , are not recognizable in him. The older research opinion, according to which Antiochus of Ashkelon, who stayed temporarily in Alexandria, left a school there to which Eudorus belonged, is outdated. It is noticeable that Eudorus is never mentioned in the sources as “Platonics”, but as “Academics”, a designation that goes back to 86 BC at the latest. "Younger Academy" that was lost in BC. Harold Tarrant has therefore suspected that he was building on the philosophy of the Younger Academy, the main characteristic of which was skepticism ("academic skepticism"). In what has been handed down of his views, however, there are hardly any useful clues for a proximity to the skepticism of the Younger Academy.

Works

Only fragments of Eudoros' works have survived. Several of his writings are known from mentions and quotations in the works of later authors:

  • the “Classification of the Doctrine of Philosophy”, a systematic, summarizing overview of philosophy, which was arranged according to questions ( Problem mata ); a fragment handed down by Johannes Stobaios deals with the division of ethics.
  • a comment on Plato's dialogue Timaeus
  • a treatise in which he criticized Aristotle's categories ; it was probably a pamphlet, not a commentary on this work.
  • a treatise on metaphysics ; It is unclear whether it was a treatise on Platonic ontology or a commentary on the metaphysics of Aristotle, which Eudorus also dealt with textually.
  • a cosmological and astronomical script (possibly in the form of a commentary on the astronomical didactic poem of Aratos by Soloi )
  • "Across the Nile". The famous geographer Strabo says that he had a book about the Nile in two versions that were identical in terms of content, but differed in their arrangement. One version was by Eudorus, the other by Ariston of Alexandria. One of them plagiarized the other's work; Eudoros accused Ariston, but the language speaks more for Ariston.

Harold Tarrant has put forward the hypothesis that Eudoros was the author of an anonymously transmitted Middle Platonic commentary on Plato's dialogue Theaetetos . His reasoning was refuted by Jaap Mansfeld . Eudorus has also been assumed to be the author of a Pythagoras biography and literature on Pythagoreanism. He can also be considered as the author of a work from which a fragment on optics (the creation of mirror images) in a papyrus from Oxyrhynchos (POxy 1609) has been preserved; his Timaeus comment is quoted there.

Teaching

Eudoros falls back on Plato's philosophy of transcendence, with which he differentiates his teaching from the “academic skepticism” of the Younger Academy as well as from the stoic, materialistic worldview of the “Old Academy” of Antiochus of Ascalon. With regard to his metaphysics, he refers to the Pythagoreans ; he assumes that Pythagoras anticipated the teachings of Plato. He thus proves to be a representative of the neo-Pythagorean current, which was widespread in later Platonism, which combines Pythagorean ideas with Platonic ideas. Partly taking up a Pythagorean concept, partly following information from Plato, as a monist he represents a hierarchy in the ontology. He accepts the " one " ( to hen ) as the original principle, supreme deity and origin of everything (including matter). Immediately below this completely undifferentiated one there is ontologically a pair of opposing “elements”: the “unity” ( monás , as opposition to plurality) and the “indefinite duality” ( aóristos dyás ). This pair includes all polar pairs of opposites, with the indefinite duality standing for the respective negative pole (for example for the disordered, the unlimited and the dark).

In cosmology, Eudorus interprets Plato's statements on the origin of the world in the Timaeus in a figurative sense. In his opinion, the cosmos is not created and immortal, and he rejects the idea of ​​a temporal act of creation.

Eudorus divided ethics into three parts. Its classification should apply not only to the ethics in Platonism, but to the systems of all schools of philosophy. In addition to a theoretical part, the subject of which is values, and a practical part, which deals with actions, he understood the investigation of the drive or impulse to act ( hormḗ ) as a separate third sub-area. He used the stoic terminology common at the time, but this does not necessarily mean that he took over stoic positions. The doctrine according to which the goal of human life and the highest good consists in "assimilation to God" has been traced back to him by some researchers. This determination of the goal of life ties in with the statement in Plato's Theaetetus that man should strive to become as similar as possible to the deity. However, the source base for the assumption that Eudorus was the first to make a statement about the goal of life from Plato's remark is not unanimously accepted in research. He took the rigorous point of view that eudaimonia (bliss) rested solely on the presence of mental virtues ; bodily and external goods are not components of eudaimonia. With this he turned against Aristotle and the Peripatetics, who believed that a happy life is not possible without physical and external goods.

In the field of logic, Eudorus emerged as a critic of Aristotle's theory of categories. With him began the criticism of the Aristotelian system of categories, which was exercised in Platonic and Stoic circles in the following centuries.

reception

Paul Keyser suspects that the author of the bogus second letter in the collection of thirteen largely forged letters attributed to Plato was a pupil of Eudoros or at least was familiar with his teachings. This forger probably also wrote a considerable part of the other letters.

Areios , the court philosopher of the emperor Augustus , valued Eudoros' "division of the doctrine of philosophy"; he described it as worth buying and took some material from it. Plutarch dealt critically with the Timaeus interpretation of Eudorus. A hypothesis is controversial in research, according to which the dialogue figure Ammonios in Plutarch's dialogue On the E in Delphi presents a concept that goes back directly or indirectly to Eudoros' Timaeus commentary. In the case of the church writer Clemens of Alexandria , the influence of the "division" is clearly visible. The writer Achilles, who - presumably in the 3rd century - wrote a treatise "About the universe", which later served in an abridged version as an introduction to Aratos 'didactic poem, used Eudoros' astronomical script. In late antiquity the Neo-Platonist Simplikios referred several times to the relevant work of Eudorus in his commentary on Aristotle's categories ; he counted him among the "old interpreters". He also quoted him in his commentary on the physics of Aristotle.

In modern research, although the scope of his influence is difficult to determine, Eudorus is considered to be a key figure in the renewal of Platonism at the beginning of the epoch of Middle Platonism. Harold Tarrant suggests that the impetus Eudorus gave to the Platonic movement was not based on the originality of his own teachings, but on his ability to explain older concepts clearly.

Text output

  • Claudio Mazzarelli: Raccolta e interpretazione delle testimonianze e dei frammenti del medioplatonico Eudoro di Alessandria . In: Rivista di Filosofia neo-scolastica 77, 1985, pp. 197–209 and 535–555 (Greek text of the fragments with Italian translation, without comment)

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ See also John Dillon: Eudoros and the beginnings of Middle Platonism . In: Clemens Zintzen (Ed.): Der Mittelplatonismus , Darmstadt 1981, pp. 3–32, here: 27; Carlos Lévy: Cicéron et le moyen platonisme: the problem of your sovereignty bien selon Plato . In: Revue des Études Latines 68, 1990, pp. 50–65, here: 51.
  2. ↑ For the chronological classification see Michelangelo Giusta: I dossografi di etica , Vol. 1, Torino 1964, p. 203; Paul T. Keyser: Orreries, the Date of [Plato] Letter ii, and Eudoros of Alexandria . In: Archive for the History of Philosophy 80, 1998, pp. 241–267, here: 265; John Glucker: Antiochus and the Late Academy , Göttingen 1978, pp. 95-97, 122.
  3. ^ Woldemar Görler : Platonism in Alexandria . In: Outline of the History of Philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity , vol. 4: The Hellenistic philosophy 2nd half volume, Basel 1994, p. 986f.
  4. ↑ Harold Tarrant: The Date of Anon. In Theaetetum . In: Classical Quarterly NS 33, 1983, pp. 161-187, here: 180-183.
  5. ^ Greek text and German translation of the fragment by Heinrich Dörrie , Matthias Baltes : Der Platonismus in der Antike , Vol. 4, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1996, pp. 4–11 (and commentary, pp. 209–214).
  6. ↑ Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: The Platonism in antike , vol. 3, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1993, p. 256.
  7. ↑ See Mauro Bonazzi: Eudoro di Alessandria alle origini del platonismo imperiale . In: Mauro Bonazzi, Vincenza Celluprica (ed.): L'eredità platonica. Studi sul platonismo da Arcesilao a Proclo , Napoli 2005, pp. 115-160, here: 144-152; on the text-critical intervention of Eudoros see Paul Moraux : A correction by the Middle Platonist Eudoros to the text of the metaphysics of Aristotle . In: Ruth Stiehl , Hans Erich Stier (eds.): Contributions to ancient history and its afterlife , Berlin 1969, pp. 492–504; Giorgio Iaksetich: Eudoro e la Metafisica di Aristotele . In: Quaderni di Filologia Classica 4, 1983, pp. 25-30.
  8. ↑ Strabon, Geographika 17,1,5 (790 C.). See the comment by Stefan Radt : Strabons Geographika , Vol. 8, Göttingen 2009, pp. 408f.
  9. ↑ Harold Tarrant: The Date of Anon. In Theaetetum . In: Classical Quarterly NS 33, 1983, pp. 161-187, here: 172, 179-187.
  10. ^ Jaap Mansfeld: Two Attributions. In: Classical Quarterly NS 41, 1991, pp. 541-544, here: 543f.
  11. ↑ Mauro Bonazzi: Eudoro di Alessandria all origini del platonismo imperial . In: Mauro Bonazzi, Vincenza Celluprica (ed.): L'eredità platonica. Studi sul platonismo da Arcesilao a Proclo , Napoli 2005, p. 115f.
  12. ↑ John Dillon: Eudore d'Alexandrie . In: Richard Goulet (Ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 3, Paris 2000, pp. 290-293, here: 292. Paul Moraux: Der Aristotelismus bei den Greeks , Vol. 2, Berlin 1984, p. 512 Note 10 assumes that it is a piece of text from Eudoros' "Division of the Doctrine of Philosophy".
  13. ↑ Charles H. Kahn: Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans , Indianapolis 2001, pp. 95-99.
  14. ^ Greek text and German translation of the fragment by Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: Der Platonismus in der Antike , Vol. 4, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1996, pp. 174–177 (and commentary, pp. 473–477). See Mauro Bonazzi: Eudoro di Alessandria alle origini del platonismo imperiale . In: Mauro Bonazzi, Vincenza Celluprica (ed.): L'eredità platonica , Napoli 2005, pp. 115–160, here: 119–123; on the Pythagorean influence Pierre Boyancé : Études philoniennes . In: Revue des Études grecques 76, 1963, pp. 64–110, here: 86–89. Cf. also Linda M. Napolitano: Eudoro di Alessandria: monismo, dualismo, assiologia dei principi nella tradizione platonica . In: Museum Patavinum 3, 1985, pp. 289-312.
  15. ↑ Michelangelo Giusta: Ario Didimo e la Diairesis dell'etica di Eudoro di Alessandria . In: Atti della Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche 120, 1987, pp. 97-132, here: 123.
  16. ↑ John Dillon: Eudorus and the beginnings of Middle Platonism . In: Clemens Zintzen (Ed.): Der Mittelplatonismus , Darmstadt 1981, pp. 3–32, here: 13; Michelangelo Giusta: I dossografi di etica , Vol. 1, Torino 1964, pp. 151-170, 197-199.
  17. ↑ For the reason, see Heinrich Dörrie: Platonica minora , Munich 1976, p. 303.
  18. ↑ Plato, Theaetetus 176a – b.
  19. ^ Carlos Lévy: Cicéron et le moyen platonisme: leproblemème du souverain bien selon Plato . In: Revue des Études Latines 68, 1990, pp. 50–65, here: 53–55.
  20. ↑ See Paul Moraux: Der Aristotelismus bei den Greeks , Vol. 2, Berlin 1984, pp. 519-527 and Harold Tarrant: Eudorus and the Early Platonist Interpretation of the Categories . In: Laval théologique et philosophique 64, 2008, pp. 583-595, here: 590-594.
  21. ↑ Paul T. Keyser: orreries, the date of [Plato] Letter ii, and Eudorus of Alexandria . In: Archive for the History of Philosophy 80, 1998, pp. 241–267, here: 262–267.
  22. ↑ On the partly controversial details of his Eudoros reception see Michelangelo Giusta: Ario Didimo e la diairesis dell'etica di Eudoro di Alessandria . In: Atti della Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche 120, 1987, pp. 97-132.
  23. ↑ See Harold Tarrant: The Date of Anon. In Theaetetum . In: Classical Quarterly NS 33, 1983, pp. 161-187, here: 181f.
  24. ^ Franco Ferrari: La costruzione del platonismo nel De E apud Delphos di Plutarco. In: Athenaeum 98, 2010, pp. 71–87, here: 84f .; Jan Opsomer: M. Annius Ammonius, a Philosophical Profile. In: Mauro Bonazzi, Jan Opsomer (ed.): The Origins of the Platonic System , Louvain et al. 2009, pp. 123-186, here: 165-171.
  25. ↑ Michelangelo Giusta: I dossografi di etica , Vol. 1, Torino 1964, pp. 152f., 174-181.
  26. ↑ Mauro Bonazzi: Eudoro di Alessandria all origini del platonismo imperial . In: Mauro Bonazzi, Vincenza Celluprica (ed.): L'eredità platonica , Napoli 2005, pp. 115–160, here: 118.
  27. ↑ Harold Tarrant: Platonism before Plotinus. In: Lloyd P. Gerson (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity , Vol. 1, Cambridge 2010, pp. 63–99, here: 73f.
personal data
SURNAME Eudorus of Alexandria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION ancient Greek philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 1st century BC Chr.