Commentaries on Plato

Commentaries on Plato refers to the great mass of literature produced, especially in the ancient and medieval world, to explain and clarify the works of

Neoplatonists

, in particular, wrote many commentaries on individual dialogues of Plato, many of which survive to the present day.

Greek commentators

Many of the scholars in the

Republic was written by Onasander.^[2] By the 2nd century the Middle Platonists were producing paraphrases and summaries of Plato's thought. Thus we have Albinus, who wrote an introduction to Plato's works, and Alcinous and Apuleius who both wrote manuals of Platonism.^[3] From the physician Galen we have fragments of a commentary on the Timaeus.^[4] Already though the influence of Aristotle was being felt on the popular Platonism of the day, and we have the figure of Atticus (c. 175) who opposed the eclecticism which had invaded the school and contested the theories of Aristotle as an aberration from Plato.^[3]

The

Platonist philosophy and wrote a number of commentaries on Plato, Aristotle, and Theophrastus.^[5] Additional commentaries on Plato were written by Dexippus, Plutarch of Athens, and Syrianus. A partial translation and commentary in Latin of Plato's Timaeus by Calcidius was significant for being the only substantial work of Plato known to scholars in the Latin west for approximately 800 years.^[6] The best commentaries date from this era; most of the works of Proclus are commentaries on single dialogues of Plato and similar subjects.^[7] The commentaries on Plato were either given in lectures or written; and many have come down to us. Later Neoplatonist commentators on Plato whose works partially survive include Damascius and Olympiodorus

.

Byzantine commentaries

In the

Archbishop of Caesarea, who concerned himself with the preservation of the manuscripts of Plato and other ancient writers, and wrote scholia to the texts of Plato in his own hand.^[9] By the 11th century enthusiastic admirers of Platonism could be found in figures such as Michael Psellos and John Italus.^[10] The only surviving commentary from the late empire is a commentary on the Parmenides by George Pachymeres.^[10]

Islamic commentaries

Compared to Aristotle, Plato figured far less prominently in

Republic, were available in Arabic translation.^[11] Averroes, who wrote many commentaries on Aristotle, was probably motivated to write his one Platonic commentary, on the Republic, only because he could not find a copy of Aristotle's Politics.^[13]

References

^ Zeller (1895), page 172
^ Dihle & Malzahn 1994, page 153
^ ^a ^b Zeller (1895), page 309
^ Dickey 2007, page 49
^ Zeller (1895), page 323
^ Grant 2004, pages 93-4
^ Hegel (1896), page 403
^ Kennedy (1999), page 190
^ Dickey 2007, page 46
^ ^a ^b Angelov (2007), pages 344-5
^ ^a ^b Platonism in Islamic Philosophy (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1998)
^ Benson (2006), page 445
^ Black, page 119

Sources

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1896), Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Part One. Greek Philosophy.
Eduard Zeller (1895), Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy.
Dimiter Angelov (2007), Imperial Ideology and Political Thought in Byzantium, 1204-1330. Cambridge University Press
Hugh H. Benson (2006), A Companion to Plato. Blackwell
Antony Black (2001), The History of Islamic Political Thought. Routledge
Eleanor Dickey (2007), Ancient Greek Scholarship. Oxford University Press
Albrecht Dihle, Manfred Malzahn (1994), Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire: From Augustus to Justinian. Routledge
Edward Grant (2004), Science and Religion, 400 B.C. to A.D. 1550, pages 93-4. Greenwood Publishing Group
George Alexander Kennedy (1999), Classical Rhetoric & Its Christian & Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times. UNC Press