Böcker av Richard Sorabji

Supporting the twelve volumes of translation of Simplicius' great commentary on Aristotle's Physics, all published by Bloomsbury in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, between 1992 and 2021, this volume presents a general introduction to the commentary. It covers the philosophical aims of Simplicius' commentaries on the Physics and the related text On the Heaven; Simplicius' methods and his use of earlier sources; and key themes and comparison with Philoponus' commentary on the same text.Simplicius treats the Physics as a universal study of the principles of all natural things underlying the account of the cosmos in On the Heaven. In both treatises, he responds at every stage to the now lost Peripatetic commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias, which set Aristotle in opposition to Plato and to earlier thinkers such as Parmenides, Empedocles and Anaxagoras. On each passage, Simplicius after going through Alexander's commentary raises difficulties for the text of Aristotle as interpreted by Alexander. Then, after making observations about details of the text, and often going back to a direct reading of the older philosophers (for whom he is now often our main source, as he is for Alexander's commentary), he proposes his own solution to the difficulties, introduced with a modest 'perhaps', which reads Aristotle as in harmony with Plato and earlier thinkers.

With this translation, all 12 volumes of translation of Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics have been published (full list below). In Physics 1.1-2, Aristotle raises the question of the number and character of the first principles of nature and feels the need to oppose the challenge of the paradoxical Eleatic philosophers who had denied that there could be more than one unchanging thing.This volume, part of the groundbreaking Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, translates into English for the first time Simplicius' commentary on this selected text, and includes a brief introduction, extensive explanatory notes, indexes and a bibliography.Previous published volumes translating Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics can all be found in Bloomsbury's series:- On Aristotle Physics 1.3-4, tr. P. Huby and C. C. W. Taylor, 2011- On Aristotle Physics 1.5-9, tr. H. Baltussen, M. Atkinson, M. Share and I. Mueller, 2012- On Aristotle Physics 2, tr. B. Fleet, 1997- On Aristotle Physics 3, tr. J. O. Urmson with P. Lautner, 2001- On Aristotle Physics 4.1-5 and 10-14, tr. J. O. Urmson, 1992- On Aristotle on the Void, tr. J. O. Urmson, 1994 (=Physics 4.6-9; published with Philoponus, On Aristotle Physics 5-8, tr. P. Lettinck)- On Aristotle Physics 5, tr. J. O. Urmson, 1997- On Aristotle Physics 6, tr. D. Konstan, 1989- On Aristotle Physics 7, tr. C. Hagen, 1994- On Aristotle Physics 8.1-5, tr. I. Bodnar, M. Chase and M. Share, 2012- On Aristotle Physics 8.6-10, tr. R. McKirahan, 2001

Aristotle's Topics is a handbook for dialectic, i.e. the exercise for philosophical debates between a questioner and a respondent. Alexander takes the Topics as a sort of handbook teaching how to defend and how attack any philosophical claim against philosophical adversaries. In book 3, Aristotle develops strategies for arguing about comparative claims, in which properties are said to belong to subjects to a greater, lesser, or equal degree. Aristotle illustrates the different argumentative patterns that can be used to establish or refute a comparative claim through one single example: whether something is more or less or equally to be chosen or to be avoided than something else. In his commentary on Topics 3, here translated for the first time into English, Alexander of Aphrodisias spells out Aristotle's text by referring to issues and examples from debates with other philosophical school (especially: the Stoics) of his time. The commentary provides new evidence for Alexander's views on the logic of comparison and is a relatively neglected source for Peripatetic ethics in late antiquity. This volume will be valuable reading for students of Aristotle and of the developments of Peripatetic logic and ethics in late antiquity.

Allan Monkhouse, the pioneering engineer, began his career whilst growing up in the bush servicing one of the earliest New Zealand generators. He went on to work in Russia under the Tsars, and then through the Russian revolution, standing in the street beside Lenin in 1917 as he announced his programme, surviving a death sentence and escaping through Siberia. When most people would have retired, he was called to India, and convinced Prime Minister Nehru to back, against opposition, first his finding that India's water power could be increased twelve-fold, and then his claim that the micro-generator he had designed could bring electricity across the Himalayas. After apparent rejection, he installed the first thirty. In 2014 an estimated 105,000 villages are served by such micro-generators across the width of the Himalayas.

Aristotle's treatise "De Memoria" is close to theories of memory in the British empiricist tradition and serves as a good introduction to the topic. This book, first published in 1972, provides a translation of the text together with extensive introduction, summaries and commentary.

A look at the history of ideas about ethical treatment of animals. The Stoics denied animals reason and belief, but this would mean that perception, emotion, intention, moral responsibility, memory, and speech would need to be redefined. Sorabji argues that a broader view of ethics is required.

Richard Sorabji here presents a selection of his previously-published papers on four topics in ancient philosophy: two on the mind-body relation, nine on sense perception, and one each on moral conscience and on the will.

9/11 and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq left many people baffled and concerned. This book traces how different cultures involved in these conflicts have addressed similar problems over the centuries. It addresses various issues including asymmetric war, preventive war, human rights and humanitarian intervention.