Simplicius: On Aristotle's Categories 1-4

I myself came across some of these writings, and I made a copy, following Iamblichus’ writings with as much care as I was capable of, often using the Philosopher’s very words.

Simplicius’ commentary on the Categories is, then, at least to some degree, a copy of the (lost) commentary of Iamblichus on the same Aristotelian work. Shortly before this, however, Simplicius had told us that Iamblichus, in turn, had based himself very closely on Porphyry’s (lost) Commentary to Gedalius, making a few corrections, additions, and improvements along the way. Thus, Simplicius’ work turns out to be a copy of a copy of a (lost) original! Yet we know it was not merely that, for Simplicius occasionally adds his own judgments on Iamblichus’ work, and elsewhere inserts bits of Damascian doctrine which can scarcely come from Iamblichus, who died more than two hundred years before Damascius’ death.

After an interesting and historically valuable Preface, in which he discusses the work of his predecessors, Simplicius goes on to reproduce the two schemata of questions which I. Hadot has shown are present in all the commentaries on the Categories. First comes a ten-point scheme designed as an introduction to the philosophy of Aristotle, which addressed such questions as the classification of Aristotle’s writings, the qualities required of a good teacher and a good student, etc. There then follows the traditional six-point introductory scheme to the Categories, discussing the goal (skopos) of the treatise, its usefulness, its authenticity, its place in the Neoplatonic curriculum, the reason for its title, and its division into chapters. A final point discusses the question ‘Under what part of Philosophy should the Categories be ranged?’, the answer being ‘logic’.

Simplicius then proceeds, throughout more than 400 pages of Greek, to discuss Aristotle’s text lemma by lemma. The composite nature of Simplicius’ work can help to explain some of the more surprising characteristics of Simplicius’ Commentary on the Categories. His usual procedure is to start from an objection or problem (Greek aporia), which he no doubt found attributed in his sources to the Stoic-Platonists Lucius or Nicostratus, or to the Peripatetics Boethos of Sidon and Alexander of Aphrodisias. Simplicius then passes in review the solutions of his various predecessors, and finally comes up with a solution (lusis), which may be due to Porphyry, Iamblichus, or Simplicius himself (who may, in turn, be relying on a lost commentary and/or oral instruction by Damascius). When Simplicius quoted or paraphrased an older text, the conventions of his time did not require him to announce the fact, so that it is often next to impossible to tell when he is speaking in his own voice and when he is quoting some earlier authority. As a rule, however, we may assume that the more textually based, ‘down-to-earth’ solutions are due to Porphyry, while the occasional passages of densely-written