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Home , Empedocles, Parmenides, Zeno of Citium

COMMENTARY 142-145 35

also 49, 70, 597. The placing of the reference to Zeno between those to and to strongly suggests that it is who is intended rather than the Stoic; the latter might be more directly involved with "the contem­ plation of ", but the linking of Zeno of Elea with refutations (line 7) is not inappropriate. As for Parmenides, in On Sensation 1, 3-4 and Aetius (e.g. 2.7.1) treat his Way of Seeming as an account of the physical , and he himself indicates in fr.8.60-1 that, though false, it is better than any other account; in treating Parmenides too as a natural Theodore is in agreement with this tradition, whatever the exact nature of its influence on him may be. Cf. also, with G.S. Kirk and J.E. Raven, The Presocratic , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 11957, 280, , A 5 986b31-34.-I am grate­ ful to Verity Harte for discussion of these issues.

PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL

142-145 Steinmetz (1964) 149-50. Laks (1998).

Overview: Sources

142, 143 and 144B all come from Simplicius' commentary on the opening chapter of Aristotle's . 144A is Philoponus' report of the of Theophrastus reported by Simplicius in 144B. Both commentators use Theophrastean material to elaborate their account of Aristotle's introduction to the basic nature of physics or natural science as an enquiry; 143 and 144B are explicitly said to come from Theophrastus' own Physics, and no doubt 142 does too. (For 144A see below). In our collection we have arranged these items by ­ , from the more general to the more specific. As Laks (1998) 144 argues, in Theophrastus' own text they probably followed the sequence we find in the passages of Aristotle on which Simplicius is commenting and so in Simplicius himself, with 144 preceding 142 and 143. Laks notes (152-3) that in each of these passages Simplicius introduces the reference to Theophrastus as supporting evidence at the end of a section of his own discussion. 36 PHYSICS: OF NATURAL SCIENCE

Overview: Doctrines

Theophrastus provides an explicit argument for natural things having principles, where Aristotle left the point as evident without argument (144). Both in Simplicius' reports (142 and 143) and in Theophrastus' Metaphysics (9bl-24; below on 143, 159) there is emphasis on the limitations of human understanding and the need to start from what is accessible to us; Theophrastus is here following Aristotle (Physics 1.1 184a16-21), but with a greater emphasis on the limits of physical enquiry.

142 Simplicius, On Aristotle's Physics 1.1 184a16-b14 ( CAGvol.9 p.18.29-34 Diels)

Regenbogen (1940) 1397. Steinmetz (1964) 150. Laks (1998) 165-7.

Simplicius cites 's account in the of natural science as concerned with probabilities, and Aristotle's stringent require­ ments in the Posterior Analytics if an argument is to be demonstra­ tive in the proper sense. The context, as Laks shows, is an attempt by Simplicius to reconcile Aristotle and Plato, by assimilating Aristotelian natural science to the "likely story" of the Timaeus, and by showing that even for Aristotle himself it falls short of the ideal. We should not scorn natural science, Simplicius argues, but accept our own limitations; it is for this last point that Theophrastus is specifically cited. For the limitations of human understanding Laks 167 n.71 compares 34A.R5 See further below, on 143.

143 Simplicius, On Aristotle's Physics 1.1 184a16-b14 ( CAGvol.9 p.20.17-26 Diels)

Regenbogen (1940) 1397. Steinmetz (1964) 149-50. Gottschalk (1967) 23. Longrigg (1975) 219. Sharples (1985,2) 588-9. van Raalte (1988) 190, (1993) 281. Battegazzore (1989) 64. Baltussen (1993) 64. Laks (1998) 153-65.

Rfi However, in Plato, Timaeus 29c8, which Laks also compares, the source of the limitation is not in our understanding but in the subject-matter.