(Excerpt from Ioannes Philoponus De Aeternitate Mundi Cont...)
Excerpt from Ioannes Philoponus De Aeternitate Mundi Contra Proclum Menda raro manu posteriore saeo. XV sublata sunt, saepius librarius ipse correxit; in margine nonnunquam vitii signum (cum) ascriptum est. Î ascriptum plerum que omissum est; alicubi contra morem positum est ofirm vicies: 98, 11. 291, 2 cet. Miram octies: 279, 18. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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John Philoponus lived in the later part of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th century of our era. Possibly born into a Christian family, nothing is known of his early life. The surname Grammaticus he assumed in virtue of his lectures on language and literature; that of Philoponus owing to the large number of treatises he composed.
Philoponus studied at the school of Alexandria. He was a pupil of Ammonius Hermiae, and is supposed to have written the life of Aristotle sometimes attributed to his master.
To Philoponus are attributed a large number of works on theology and philosophy. It is said that, though he was a pupil of Ammonius, he was at first a Christian, and he has been credited with the authorship of a commentary on the Mosaic Cosmogony in eight books, dedicated to Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, and edited by Balthasar Corderius in 1630. Other authorities maintain that this, as well as the Disputatio de paschale, was the work of another author, John the Tritheist.
It was perhaps this Philoponus who tried to save the Alexandrian library from the caliph Omar after Amu's victory in 639.
The more certain writings of Philoponus consist of commentaries on Aristotle. These include works on the Physica, the Prior and the Posterior Analytics, the Meteorologica, the De Anima, the De generations animalium, the De generations et interitu and the Metaphysica. These have been frequently edited and are interesting in connexion with the adoption of Aristotelianism by the Christian Church. They seem to have embodied the lectures of Ammonius with additions by Philoponus, and are remarkable rather for elaborate care than for originality and insight.
He wrote also an attack on Proclus (De aeternitate mundi).
Two treatises on mathematics are ascribed to him: A Commentary on the Mathematics of Nicomachus, edited by Hoche (1864 and 1867), and a Treatise on the Use of the Astrolabe, published by Hase. The latter is the most ancient work on this instrument, and its authenticity is rendered almost certain by its reference to Ammonius as the master of the author.
John Philoponus broke from the Aristotelian–Neoplatonic tradition, questioning methodology and eventually leading to empiricism in the natural sciences. He was one of the first to propose a "theory of impetus" reminiscent of the modern concept of inertia over Aristotelian dynamics.
Philoponus was the author of a considerable number of philosophical treatises and theological works. His two treatises on grammar were later revised in lexicon form and received wide recognition during the Middle Ages.
(Excerpt from Ioannes Philoponus De Aeternitate Mundi Cont...)
Philoponus interpreted Aristotle critically in the light of Neoplatonic idealism and Christian theology; thus, he identified Aristotle’s concept of the first cause with the Christian notion of a personal God. He held that God created all matter with its physical properties and with natural laws that would allow matter to progress from a state of chaos to an organized state forming the present universe.
