The problem of the Materia Prima is certainly one of the most important challenges of late antique Physics. It is interesting to note that such a difficulty has never been focused on an exhaustive treatise in Antiquity. If the question of the matter resists any investigation, it is because the matter is radically 'aneideos' (without form) even though it is the condition 'sine qua non' of the existence of all forms in the sensible world.
The present study proposes the first translation in French of the entire eleventh Book of the Philoponus' Contra Proclum (VIe s.) which precisely discusses the status of the Prime Matter. After having clarified the context of such a question in the Neoplatonic Alexandrian School, it puts forward a detailled step-to-step analysis of the Philoponian argument, the notions used by him and a new general theory which attempts to evaluate the pertinence and the internal coherence of his contribution to this very problematic question.
Pascal Mueller-Jourdan, DrHabil in Ancient Philosophy, University of Fribourg, is a Lecturer in Ancient Philosophy at the Catholic University of the West (Angers, France). He has published extensively on the Philosophy of Late Antiquity. His first study (VCS, Brill, 2005) deals with space and time in Maximus Confessor's Mystagogy. He has recently provided two articles for the Reallexicon für Antike und Christentum (RAC): Logik (2009) & Mystagogie (forthcoming, 2011).
Avant-propos
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI. Onzième argument de Proclus (403.14 - 404.28)
Commentaire du âOnzième argument de Proclusâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI. plan des chapitres (405.1-407.14)
Commentaire du Plan de la solution au Onzième argument
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.1 (407.15-410.5)
Commentaire âpremier chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.2 (410.6-412.14)
Commentaire âdeuxième chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.3 (412.15-415.10)
Commentaire âtroisième chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.4 (415.11-421.15)
Commentaire âquatrième chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.5 (421.16-424.11)
Commentaire âcinquième chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.6 (424.12-425.24)
Commentaire âsixième chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.7 (425.25-428.25)
Commentaire âseptième chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.8 (428.26-445.27)
Commentaire âhuitième chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.9 (445.28-447.7)
Commentaire âneuvième chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.10 (447.8-455.25)
Commentaire âdixième chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.11 (455.26-457.10)
Commentaire âonzième chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.12 (457.11-458.26)
Commentaire âdouzième chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.13 (458.27-459.24)
Commentaire âtreizième chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.14 (459.25-464.19)
Commentaire âquatorzième chapitreâ
Traduction : Contra Proclum XI.15 (464.20-465.22)
Commentaire âquinzième chapitreâ
All those interested in the history of the science in Antiquity, in the history of ideas (physical and cosmological problems) as well as historians of the philosophy interested in the ancient tradition of the commentators of Plato and Aristotle, and finally theologians.