c. 490–570 CE · Christian philosopher · grammarian · commentator on Aristotle
John Philoponus
Ἰωάννης ὁ Φιλόπονος
In Alexandria: c. 510–570 CE
"Lover of work", a pupil of Ammonius who turned Aristotle against himself: he argued that the world had a beginning, that the heavens are not made of a fifth element, and that a thrown body moves by an impressed force. He also wrote the earliest surviving treatise on the astrolabe. The legend of 642 makes him beg 'Amr for the Library's books, but he had been dead for some seventy years.
Their life and work
He taught in the Alexandrian school of Ammonius, son of Hermias, and edited his teacher's lectures on Aristotle. In 529, the year Justinian closed the school at Athens, he published Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World, and later Against Aristotle; Simplicius answered him with contempt. In later life he wrote as a Christian theologian, and his views on the Trinity were condemned after his death.
The story of 642, in Ibn al-Qifti, has him ask 'Amr for the books. It was written some six centuries later, and he died around 570. Legend: told story
Our device: Their emblem is a plane astrolabe. No portrait of any of these people survives. The emblems are our devices.
On the shelves
- John Philoponus, On the Use and Construction of the Astrolabe · c. 520–530 CE · Survives whole
- John Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World · 529 CE · Survives in large part
Moments
- c. 430–610s CE · The late schools teach Plato and Aristotle Known: attested
- 529 CE · Philoponus argues that the world had a beginning Known: attested
- before 1248 CE · A story told by Ibn al-Qifti: John the Grammarian and the baths Legend: told story
In the show
The show has not yet spoken of John Philoponus.
Sources (4)
- R. Sorabji (ed.), Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science (London: Duckworth, 1987)
- E. J. Watts, City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006)
- John Philoponus, Against Proclus on the Eternity of the World ed. Rabe
- Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's On the Heavens ed. Heiberg