Hermodorus of Syracuse

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Hermodorus of Syracuse was an ancient Greek philosopher . He lived in the 4th century BC. And was a student of Plato .

Life

We only know about the origin of Hermodorus that he came from Syracuse . His first meeting with Plato probably took place there. It falls accordingly in the period between approx. 388 and 360 BC. In which Plato made three trips to Syracuse.

Hermodoros followed Plato to Athens, where he evidently entered his philosophy school, the academy . He later returned to his homeland and spread Platonic philosophy there as he understood it. He made the dialogues of his teacher in Sicily known, using the trade in copies of these works as a source of income. He also wrote his own writings on the knowledge that he had acquired in class. In the " Seventh Letter " attributed to Plato , the author - either Plato himself or a well-informed philosopher from his environment - emphatically distanced himself from authors whom he accused of publishing writings on Platonic philosophy, although they in fact knew nothing about it. This criticism in the letter, which was addressed to a group of Sicilian Greeks , may have been aimed at Hermodorus as well.

Works

The titles of two now lost writings by Hermodorus have survived: Peri Plátōnos (About Plato) and Peri mathēmátōn ( About Mathematics or About the Sciences ).

The writing about Plato contained both biographical information and a presentation of teaching material that Hermodorus had become known in class. What has been preserved is a passage that the late ancient Neo-Platonist Simplikios quoted verbatim in his commentary on the physics of Aristotle . However, Simplikios had no access to the original text of Hermodorus; he took over the quote from a now lost work by Porphyry , who in turn had taken it from Derkylides . The hypothesis that about Plato can be determined as an important source for the Academica (Academicorum index) of Philodemos has proven to be incorrect.

In the other treatise, Hermodorus discussed a subject of the history of science. There he dealt with the Persian Zarathustra , whose lifetime he arranged chronologically. Presumably he believed that the mathematical and natural history knowledge of mankind could ultimately be traced back to Zarathustra.

In a pseudo- Plutarchic (wrongly attributed to Plutarch ) dialogue about the nobility (Latin Pro nobilitate ), the unknown author - apparently a Renaissance humanist - quotes an alleged writing by Hermodoros, in which, according to his statements, the question of whether nobility is based on descent or virtue. It is unclear whether the pupil of Plato from Syracuse is meant. In any case, the view that Pseudo-Plutarch calls that of Hermodorus is unplatonic. That speaks against equating this Hermodorus with the Sicilian student of Plato.

reception

According to a proverbial tradition, Hermodorus made a business out of spreading Plato's teachings in Sicily. This claim seriously damaged his reputation. The Platonists frowned upon commercial making of money; it was considered unworthy of a philosopher. It was particularly offensive to trade in Plato's works and thus to enrich oneself in Plato's philosophy. Apparently the business acumen of Hermodorus was ridiculed in Athens by a contemporary comedy poet; the proverb "Hermodoros capitalizes on dialogues" probably originates from a comedy and was perhaps taken up in anti-Platonic circles in the Hellenistic era. Cicero knew this story; in a letter to Atticus he quoted the proverb and mentioned the historical context. In the 2nd century the scholar Zenobius took the proverb into his collection and explained it. It was still known in the Byzantine Empire in the Middle Ages ; the passage from the collection of proverbs of Zenobius was included in the Suda , a Byzantine encyclopedia.

In modern research on the history of philosophy, Simplikios's passage from Hermodoros' work About Plato is met with great interest, because it describes a doctrine that Hermodoros ascribed to Plato, but which is not explicitly stated in the Platonic dialogues. The Hermodoros fragment is therefore used by some ancient scholars as evidence for the existence and reconstruction of the controversial " unwritten teaching " of Plato. The founders of the "Tübingen Plato School", Hans Krämer and Konrad Gaiser , as well as the Italian historian of philosophy Giovanni Reale have expressed themselves in this sense . Other researchers, who reject the reconstruction company of the Tübingen, consider the surviving text to be a representation of Hermodoros' own view. In Heinrich Dörrie's view , Hermodoros did not understand Plato's metaphysics and therefore misrepresented it. In the quote from Simplikios, matter is described as formless, unlimited, without beginning and non-existent and counted among the things that have a “more” and “less”, such as the pair of opposites “large and small”, and it is established that it is not a principle ( archḗ ) .

Editions of the fragments and sources

  • Jan Bollansée (Ed.): Hermodoros of Syracuse . In: Guido Schepens (ed.): Felix Jacoby, The fragments of the Greek historians continued , Part IV A: Biography , Fasc. 1: The Pre-Hellenistic Period. Brill, Leiden 1998, ISBN 90-04-11094-1 , pp. 192–211 (No. 1008; critical edition with English translation and commentary)
  • Heinrich Dörrie (ed.): Platonism in antiquity . Volume 1, Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1987, ISBN 3-7728-1153-1 , pp. 80–86 (texts with translation) and 294–302 (commentary)
  • Margherita Isnardi Parente , Tiziano Dorandi (eds.): Senocrate e Ermodoro: Testimonianze e frammenti. Edizioni della Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa 2012, ISBN 978-88-7642-208-9 , pp. XX f., 377-391 (uncritical edition with Italian translation)

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ John Dillon: The Heirs of Plato , Oxford 2003, p. 198.
  2. ↑ Jan Bollansée (ed.): Hermodoros of Syracuse . In: Guido Schepens (ed.): Felix Jacoby, The fragments of the Greek historians continued , Part IV A, Fasc. 1, Leiden 1998, pp. 192-211, here: 201; Heinrich Dörrie (Hrsg.): The Platonism in antike , Vol. 1, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1987, p. 295; Margherita Isnardi Parente (ed.): Senocrate - Ermodoro: Frammenti , Napoli 1981, p. 437.
  3. ↑ Jan Bollansée (ed.): Hermodoros of Syracuse . In: Guido Schepens (ed.): Felix Jacoby, The fragments of the Greek historians continued , Part IV A, Fasc. 1, Leiden 1998, pp. 192-211, here: 199-202, 204.
  4. ↑ Jan Bollansée (ed.): Hermodoros of Syracuse . In: Guido Schepens (ed.): Felix Jacoby, The fragments of the Greek historians continued , Part IV A, Fasc. 1, Leiden 1998, pp. 192-211, here: 198; Heinrich Dörrie (Ed.): Platonism in antiquity , vol. 1, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1987, p. 295, note 1; John Dillon: The Heirs of Plato , Oxford 2003, pp. 199 f.
  5. ↑ Jan Bollansée (ed.): Hermodoros of Syracuse . In: Guido Schepens (ed.): Felix Jacoby, The fragments of the Greek historians continued , Part IV A, Fasc. 1, Leiden 1998, pp. 192-211, here: 198 f .; Margherita Isnardi Parente (ed.): Senocrate - Ermodoro: Frammenti , Napoli 1981, p. 444.
  6. ↑ The source texts have been compiled and translated by Jan Bollansée (ed.): Hermodoros of Syracuse . In: Guido Schepens (ed.): Felix Jacoby, The fragments of the Greek historians continued , Part IV A, Fasc. 1, Leiden 1998, pp. 192-211, here: 192 f. (Comment on p. 203). See Heinrich Dörrie (Ed.): The Platonism in antike , Vol. 1, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1987, p. 294 f.
  7. ↑ Hans Joachim Krämer: Arete in Platon and Aristoteles , Heidelberg 1959, pp. 282–286.
  8. ↑ Konrad Gaiser: Plato's unwritten teaching , Stuttgart 1963, pp. 80 f., 178 f., 515.
  9. ^ Giovanni Reale: On a new interpretation of Plato , 2nd, extended edition, Paderborn 2000, pp. 206 f., 209, 480.
  10. ^ For example, Margherita Isnardi Parente: Studi sull'Accademia platonica antica , Firenze 1979, pp. 123-132. See Hans Krämer: The Older Academy. In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , vol. 3, 2nd, expanded edition, Basel 2004, pp. 1–165, here: 98 f .; Heinz Happ : Hyle , Berlin 1971, pp. 137–140.
  11. ↑ Heinrich Dörrie (ed.): The Platonism in antike , Vol. 1, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1987, pp. 296-302. Cf. Paul Wilpert: Two Aristotelian early writings on the theory of ideas , Regensburg 1949, p. 193 f.
  12. ↑ Jan Bollansée (ed.): Hermodoros of Syracuse . In: Guido Schepens (ed.): Felix Jacoby, The fragments of the Greek historians continued , Part IV A, Fasc. 1, Leiden 1998, pp. 192-211, here: 194-197 (Greek text and English translation). See Michael Erler : Platon , Basel 2007, p. 424; Marie-Dominique Richard: L'enseignement oral de Platon , Paris 1986, pp. 105 f., 158-163; Cornelia J. de Vogel : Problems of the later philosophy of Plato . In: Jürgen Wippern (ed.): The problem of the unwritten teachings of Plato , Darmstadt 1972, pp. 51–68; John Dillon: The Heirs of Plato , Oxford 2003, pp. 200-204; Hermann Schmitz : The theory of ideas of Aristoteles , Vol. 2, Bonn 1985, pp. 267-273.
personal data
SURNAME Hermodorus of Syracuse
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 4th century BC Chr.