Work · Hellenistic, Roman & Late Antique
Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics
Drawn from Ammonius’ lectures but critical of Aristotle: a thrown stone keeps moving through a force given to it, not through the air behind it, and motion through a void is possible.
Introduction
A commentary on the first four books of Aristotle’s Physics, with fragments of the rest, which Philoponus says he based on Ammonius’ lectures but expanded with his own observations; an example in the text gives a date corresponding to 517 CE. In long digressions he departs from Aristotle. Place is not the inner surface of the surrounding body but a three-dimensional extension; motion in a void would be possible and take a finite time; and a projectile moves on through a force impressed on it by the thrower rather than through the push of the air. The last idea, which has parallels in Avicenna and in the Paris impetus theory, is the reason the commentary has a place in every history of dynamics. A Latin translation of parts of it was printed in the sixteenth century.
Connections
Criticizes
- Physicsc. 350 BCE · Aristotle
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