Dexippus (philosopher)

Dexippos (Greek Δέξιππος Dexippos, latin Dexippus ) was a late ancient philosopher ( Neoplatonist ). He lived in the 4th century and wrote a commentary on the Categories of Aristotle.

Life

Very little is known about the life of Dexippos. He was a pupil of the famous Neoplatonist Iamblichus of Chalcis, which, probably in Apamea on the Orontes, taught in Syria. Iamblichus wrote him a letter about the dialectic, of which a fragment is narrated by John Stobaeus. It is certain that Dexippos worked as a teacher of philosophy.

Work

The only known work of Dexippos is his commentary on the Categories of Aristotle. It is written in the form of a dialogue between the author and his young pupil Seleucus, the student poses the problems and the teacher to solve them. The first two books are completely preserved, the third only partially. The first book contains 40 chapters each devoted to a problem, the second 42 of the 40 chapters of the third book are the first ten fully narrated, are from the other thirty headers only in front (which are not authentic well ). If the work dealt with the whole theory of categories, its circumference is a multiple of the resultant text should have identified originally.

At the beginning Dexippos has indicated that he does not advance with their own insights into philosophical territory and wanted to compete with the previous commentators. Instead, he was content to lay out a number of controversial issues. In his answers, he relies heavily on the categories of Porphyry and Iamblichus Comments that are lost except for fragments. The loss of these comments the work of Dexippos a relatively high value as a historical source philosophy receives despite its small originality. It is not a mere introduction of writing, which explains the wording of the categories and eliminate ambiguities, but Dexippos discussed difficult problems. Of particular interest is for him the central question of the Neo-Platonic view about the ontological status of categories. He represents the common position of the Neoplatonists, according to which the categorization is not to capture the existing things is in itself, but an adequate means for the classification of sensible phenomena.

Dexippos tackles in the second and third book of Plotinus' objections to the doctrine of the categories of Aristotle. He is not only on arguments that are to be found in Plotinus' Enneads, but also on considerations that Porphyry as a pupil of Plotinus knew well from his oral teaching and recovered his lost comment. Furthermore Dexippos also considered Stoic criticism of the theory of categories.

In his commentary Dexippos wanted to show that Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions can be reconciled. Porphyry had the theory of categories against Plotinus defends objections in his big, not preserved Categories Commentary, and also Dexippos ' teacher Iamblichus was strongly advocated it. Dexippos shared this view, which has prevailed in the late antique Neoplatonism. While Iamblichus Plotinus sought to refute arguments against the theory of categories, Dexippos was anxious to make his view plausible, according to which, in reality, the positions of Plotinus and Aristotle are not as far apart as Plotinus' anti-Aristotelian argument suggests.

Reception

In the early 6th century, the work of Dexippos in the Neoplatonic school of philosophy in Athens was still known; the philosopher Simplicius was working there it is available. Probably Simplicius had access to a manuscript that contained the full text. However, he noted that source hardly; probably he did not used it, because he was of the opinion Dexipppos have the older, originating from Porphyry and Iamblichus categories comments hardly added anything new.

In the Latin -speaking scholarly world of the Middle Ages Dexippos was unknown. Only in the Renaissance his lost work was rediscovered. The humanist Giovanni Bernardo Feliciano ( Johannes Bernardus Felician ), who translated a number of ancient Greek writings into Latin in the first half of the 16th century, prepared a Latin translation of Dexippos ' Categories Commentary, 1546 in Venice, and in 1549 in Paris was printed. The first edition of the Greek text published Leonhard Spengel 1859.

Text editions and translations

• Adolf Busse ( eds.): Dexippi in Aristotelis categorias Commentarium ( = Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca vol 4 part 2). Georg Reimer, Berlin 1888 ( critical edition )
• Johannes Bernardus Felicianus: Dexippus: In defensionem praedicamentorum Aristotelis adversus Plotinum. Introduction by Anja Heilmann and Charles Lohr. From man - Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2008, ISBN 978-3-7728-1234-7 ( reprint of the edition of Paris 1549 Felicianus ' Latin translation )
• John M. Dillon: Dexippus, On Aristotle Categories. Duckworth, London, 1990, ISBN 0-7156-2242-0 (English translation )