Damascius

Damascius (Greek Δαμάσκιος; * 462 in Damascus; † after 538) was a major philosopher of late antiquity ( Neoplatonist ). After years of study in Alexandria, he joined the neo-Platonic school in Athens and eventually became their last leader. As a strong supporter of the ancient Greek religion he stood in opposition to the Christian state religion of the Eastern Roman Empire. After the religious conflict to the closure of the school of philosophy had led Damascius emigrated with other Neoplatonists temporarily into the Persian Empire.

Life

The hometown of Damascius was Damascus, where he was probably born in the early sixties of the fifth century. Apparently he came - like most late antique Neoplatonist - from a respected family. To 479 he went to the study of rhetoric to Alexandria, where he spent three years as a student teacher rhetoric called Theon, probably one of the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry wife of the offspring. In Alexandria, he frequented the circle of the Platonic -oriented pagan philosophers and their families and studied Platonic philosophy and astronomy at Ammonius, a son of the philosopher Hermias of Alexandria. The followers of the old religion to which he belonged, were then exposed in Alexandria persecution by the Christian authorities; under such police action Damascius ' younger brother Julian was tortured.

To 482 Damascius went to Athens, where he first nine years granted rhetoric classes and also joined the local Neo-Platonic school, which continued the tradition of the Platonic Academy. This school was to 485 still led by Proclus, his successor Marinos of Neapolis was. In Marinos Damascius studied in preparation for serving on the philosophy propaedeutic sciences, especially geometry and arithmetic. However, he had no high opinion of the abilities of the Marinos. His philosophy teacher had two disciples of Proclus, Zenodotos and Isidore. With Isidore, whom he greatly admired, he was a friend.

At least 515 Damascius was the last leader of the Neo-Platonic school. His most important pupil was Simplicius. After Emperor Justinian I had forbidden the pagan teaching activity in the year 529, the school was closed. Well in the spring of 532 immigrant Damascius and Simplicius with five other Neoplatonists in the Persian Sassanid Empire from. There they found at the court of the reigning since 531 Great King Chosroes I. recording. However, they saw their hopes soon disappointed and decided to Chosroes although they would like to keep at his court, to return to the Eastern Roman Empire. In the autumn of 532 a peace between the Sassanids and the Romans was closed, and in one of the clauses of the contract was the Great King that home the philosophers and were allowed to remain undisturbed for the rest of their lives with their religious beliefs. Where Damascius and the other philosophers then settled is unknown; an attractive but controversial hypothesis by Michel Tardieu According they lived when they returned to Carrhae ( in modern Turkey). It is certain that Damascius was staying 538 in Syria; later, he no longer appears in the sources.

Works

Damascius ' works are sometimes almost completely preserved, partly survives only in the form of lecture notes, partly lost, and only mentions in his extant writings or other authors known. Almost completely preserved are two works: the treatise On First Principles ( Peri Archon TON proton, latin De principiis ) and the commentary on Plato's dialogue Parmenides. In the earlier research, it was argued, if it were two parts of a single work, as both deal with the Parmenides - topic. Today one assumes, however, that there are two separate works.

Survives only as transcripts or notes collections of listeners are commentaries to two other dialogues of Plato: Phaedo and Philebus to. Another work, the written 517-526 Biography of Damascius ' teacher and friend Isidor is preserved only in fragments which are preserved in the library of the Byzantine scholar Photius and the Suda. Damascius himself describes this work as a biography, but it is beyond the scope of a mere biography of Isidore, as it offers a wide view of the history of the Neo-Platonic school in Athens since the end of the 4th century; Therefore, the value specified in the Suda title seems Philosophical History ( Philósophos historía ) reasonable. Damascius describes in prominent philosophers, where he also practices abundant criticism and polemic against the Christians.

Known only from a few mentions are lost comments on Plato's Timaeus and the First Alcibiades, in which Damascius opposed views of Proclus, who had commented on these dialogues of Plato. Also get only in fragments are a treatise on the number, location, and the time in which he deals with Aristotle's dealt physics, and a work on the first book of Aristotle's Meteorologica. Among the lost writings also include a collection of miracle stories ( paradoxes ) in four books, containing, among other numerous tales of demons and apparitions of souls of the dead as well as extraordinary natural phenomena, a grave speech in verse on Aidesia, the wife of the philosopher Hermias of Alexandria, and comments on works of rhetoricians.

Teaching and reception

Damascius sat well with the interpretation of Plato Proclus apart, of whose teaching he turned away; his understanding of Platonism grew out of the ongoing conflict against the views of Proclus. He returned to the philosophy of Iamblichus. His aim was to restore the original teachings of Iamblichus and clean of the changes that were introduced and especially Syrianos Proclus. Of the two means of salvation Neoplatonists of philosophical knowledge and theurgy, Damascius preferred the philosophy, but also kept the theurgy important. With reference to Plato, he argued for a connection between the two, in which he saw the task of a Platonic philosopher.

Damascius continued the characteristic of the late Neoplatonism refining the classification of the transcendent, where he went in the differentiation of the conceptual provisions nor Proclus. At the same time, but his philosophy was also influenced by a train agnostic, for he saw in these subdivisions rather thinking aids, which requires the human mind as objectively valid statements about the non- sensible world. The transcendence of the Absolute, he emphasized so strongly that he was not even with the One wanted to equate, but only on the " unspeakable " talked about the only negative comments would be useful. Therefore, he considered the unsayable, which he still turned over the relatively predicable A, not even as a principle in the strict sense. This got him all statements about the relation of the Absolute to us to access a reality principle provisional.

In his discussion of the problem of the temporal continuum Damascius went out of the paradoxes of Zeno of Elea. The solution he saw in the assumption that the time has a discontinuous structure and consists of non- divisible quanta. In his view, the flow of time by a succession of tiny cracks is composed, which represents finite sizes, and one of which follows immediately after the other. This is now for him thus not point-like. The size of the time quantum is not constant; it increases with the speed of a moving body, but also in the rest state is always larger than zero. Damascius adopted a " total time " ( Sympas Chronos ), a simultaneously existing reality all the time as the basis of what we see as a continuum quantized time. Thus, only humans shares the time in the past, present and future, as he - in contrast to his simultaneous perception of space - is unable to perceive the simultaneous character of the total time.

In the Byzantine Empire Damascius ' major philosophical works were almost unknown. In modern times, the late Schelling continued his emphasis on the transcendence of the Absolute.

Text output (partial translation)

• Leendert G. Westerink, Joseph Combes (eds.): Damascius: Commentaire de du Parmenides Plato. 4 volumes, Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1997-2003 ( critical edition with French translation )
• Leendert G. Westerink (ed.): The Greek Commentaries on Plato's Phaedo, vol 2: Damascius. North -Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1977, ISBN 0-7204 8331 - X ( critical edition with English translation)
• Gerd Van Riel (ed.): Damascius: Commentaire sur le Philèbe de Platon. Les Belles Lettres, Paris 2008, ISBN 978-2-251-00546-1 ( critical edition with French translation )
• Leendert G. Westerink, Joseph Combes (eds.): Damascius: Traité des premiers principes. 3 volumes, Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1986-1991 ( critical edition with French translation )
• Polymnia Athanassiadi ( eds): Damascius: The Philosophical History. Apamea Cultural Association, Athens 1999, ISBN 960-85325-2-3 ( critical edition of the excerpts and fragments of Isidor biography with English translation)
• Clemens Zintzen (ed.): Damascii vitae Isidori reliquiae. Olms, Hildesheim, 1967 ( first critical edition of the excerpts and fragments of Isidor biography)

Translations

• Sara Ahbel - Rappe: Damascius ' Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-515029-2
• Rudolf Asmus: The life of the philosopher Isidore of Damascius of Damascus. Meiner, Leipzig 1911 ( German translation of excerpts and fragments of Isidor biography)
• Marie -Claire Galperine: Damascius: Des premiers principes. Apories et Resolutions. Texts intégral. Verdier, Lagrasse, 1987, ISBN 2-86432-055- X