Lukios

Lukios ( Greek  Λούκιος ) was an ancient Greek philosopher ( Middle Platonist ). He lived in the Roman Empire , before the middle of the 2nd century.

life and work

Lukios is only known from information in the commentary by the late ancient Neo-Platonist Simplikios on the categories of Aristotle . Simplikios reports that Lukios was active as a critic of Aristotle even before Nikostratus , another Middle Platonist. This gives a clue for the chronological classification, because an inscription from Delphi , which was created around the middle of the 2nd century, tells of the granting of Delphic citizenship to a group of four Platonists, including Nikostratos. Lukios may have lived in the first half of the 2nd century, but the 1st century is also possible. That he was a Platonist emerges only indirectly from his traditional statements and their reception in Neoplatonism; here and there traces of stoic influence are noticeable, but this is no reason to consider him a stoic.

Lukios wrote an anti-Aristotelian polemic in which he dealt with the categories of Aristotle. As an objection to the theory of categories, he cited aporias (unanswered questions, difficulties). With arguments of various kinds he tried to show the inadequacy of the Aristotelian system. He is said to have contradicted almost all relevant doctrinal statements of Aristotle. Among other things, he complained that the system of the ten Aristotelian categories was incomplete and that the determination of the meaning of the statement "to be in a subject" was deficient, that the category of quantity was not uniform and its classification was incorrect, the weight was not taken into account in the case of the quantity The body belongs to the category of substance and not to quantity. Furthermore, the order in which Aristotle discusses the categories is not appropriate, because it is wrong to treat relation before quality. Simplikios cites some of the aporias with indication of the source. There may be other aporias from Lukios, which Simplikios reports without naming their origin. Apart from the fragments handed down by Simplikios, nothing of the work of Lukios has survived. It was probably not a systematic commentary on the categories , but just a collection of relevant aporias. A hypothesis discussed in the 20th century, according to which Lukios quoted a work by Klaudios Ptolemaios , is insufficiently substantiated.

reception

In the 2nd century, Nikostratus made use of the explanations of Luke when he wrote a similar, likewise polemical anti-Aristotelian script, which has also been lost. Simplikios mentions supporters of the direction represented by these philosophers. The hypothesis that the Peripatetic Herminos , who also lived in the 2nd century, knew the work of Lukios is controversial. The Aristotle criticism of the two Middle Platonists continued to have an impact in Neoplatonic circles; As early as the 3rd century Plotinus , the founder of Neoplatonism, resorted to them in his analysis of the theory of categories. As Simplikios reports, his student Porphyrios contradicted all Middle Platonic objections to the theory of categories. Simplikios, who lived in the 6th century, probably had no direct access to the treatises of the Middle Platonic Aristotle critics; He drew his knowledge of their arguments probably exclusively from category comments by Porphyry and the influential Neoplatonist Iamblichus , which have not been preserved. It is unclear whether Porphyrios and Iamblichus still had the original text by Lukios or whether they only owed their knowledge of it to the quotations in Nikostratos.

Simplikios reprimanded Lukios and Nikostratos for considering their attacks on the theory of categories to be rash and too polemical. Nevertheless, he considered her work to be meritorious, as her aporias would have stimulated valuable knowledge.

Source collections

• Adriano Gioè: Filosofi medioplatonici del II secolo d. C. Testimonianze e frammenti . Bibliopolis, Napoli 2002, ISBN 88-7088-430-9 , pp. 117–154 (source texts with Italian translation and commentary)
• Marie-Luise Lakmann (Ed.): Platonici minores. 1st century BC - 2nd century AD. Prosopography, fragments and testimony with German translation (= Philosophia antiqua , volume 145). Brill, Leiden / Boston 2017, ISBN 978-90-04-31533-4 , pp. 166-170, 598-605

literature

• Franco Ferrari: Lukios and Klaudios Nikostratos from Athens. In: Christoph Riedweg et al. (Hrsg.): Philosophy of the imperial era and late antiquity (= outline of the history of philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity. Volume 5/1). Schwabe, Basel 2018, ISBN 978-3-7965-3698-4 , pp. 587-590, 688
• Concetta Luna : Lucius . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Volume 4, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-271-06386-8 , pp. 167-174
• Paul Moraux : Aristotelianism among the Greeks from Andronikos to Alexander of Aphrodisias. Volume 2, de Gruyter, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-11-009919-5 , pp. 431 f., 528-563

Remarks

1. ↑ The information provided by Simplikios is also mentioned by the scholar ibn an-Nadīm (10th century), see Adriano Gioè: Filosofi medioplatonici del II secolo d. C. Testimonianze e frammenti , Napoli 2002, p. 126 f., 154.
2. ^ Fouilles de Delphes III, 4, 94 . Greek text and German translation by Heinrich Dörrie , Matthias Baltes : Der Platonismus in der Antike , Vol. 3, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1993, p. 14 f. (and commentary on p. 144 f.).
3. ^ Concetta Luna: Lucius . In: Richard Goulet (Ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 4, Paris 2005, pp. 167–174, here: 167 f .; Adriano Gioè: Filosofi medioplatonici del II secolo d. C. Testimonianze e frammenti , Napoli 2002, p. 131 f.
4. ^ Adriano Gioè: Filosofi medioplatonici del II secolo d. C. Testimonianze e frammenti , Napoli 2002, pp. 132 f., 141.
5. ^ Concetta Luna: Lucius . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 4, Paris 2005, pp. 167–174, here: 171–174; Hans B. Gottschalk: The earliest Aristotelian commentators . In: Richard Sorabji (Ed.): Aristotle Transformed. The Ancient Commentators and Their Influence , 2nd, revised edition, London 2016, pp. 61–88, here: 86–88; Paul Moraux: Aristotelianism among the Greeks from Andronikos to Alexander von Aphrodisias , Vol. 2, Berlin 1984, pp. 536-547.
6. ^ Concetta Luna: Lucius . In: Richard Goulet (Ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 4, Paris 2005, pp. 167–174, here: 167 f .; Adriano Gioè: Filosofi medioplatonici del II secolo d. C. Testimonianze e frammenti , Napoli 2002, p. 150.
7. ^ Paul Moraux: Aristotelianism among the Greeks from Andronikos to Alexander von Aphrodisias , Vol. 2, Berlin 1984, p. 545; Concetta Luna: Lucius . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 4, Paris 2005, pp. 167-174, here: 172; Adriano Gioè: Filosofi medioplatonici del II secolo d. C. Testimonianze e frammenti , Napoli 2002, p. 146.
8. ↑ Of the two categories - Comments by Porphyry, only the small one has survived; the great one dedicated to Gedaleios is lost.
9. ^ Adriano Gioè: Filosofi medioplatonici del II secolo d. C. Testimonianze e frammenti , Napoli 2002, p. 119 f. (Text of the Simplikios); Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: Platonism in antiquity , vol. 3, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1993, pp. 66 f., 258 f.