Time, Creation and the Continuum: Theories in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
by Richard Sorabji
University of Chicago Press, 2006 Paper: 978-0-226-76822-9 Library of Congress Classification BD638.S67 2006 Dewey Decimal Classification 115.093
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Richard Sorabji here takes time as his central theme, exploring fundamental questions about its nature: Is it real or an aspect of consciousness? Did it begin along with the universe? Can anything escape from it? Does it come in atomic chunks? In addressing these and myriad other issues, Sorabji engages in an illuminating discussion of early thought about time, ranging from Plato and Aristotle to Islamic, Christian, and Jewish medieval thinkers. Sorabji argues that the thought of these often negelected philosophers about the subject is, in many cases, more complete than that of their more recent counterparts.
“Splendid. . . . The canvas is vast, the picture animated, the painter nonpareil. . . . Sorabji’s work will encourage more adventurers to follow him to this fascinating new-found land.”—Jonathan Barnes, Times Literary Supplement
“One of the most important works in the history of metaphysics to appear in English for a considerable time. No one concerned with the problems with which it deals either as a historian of ideas or as a philosopher can afford to neglect it.”—Donald MacKinnon, Scottish Journal of Theology
“Unusually readable for such scholarly content, the book provides in rich and cogent terms a lively and well-balanced discussion of matters of concern to a wide academic audience.”—Choice
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Richard Sorabji is emeritus professor of philosophy at King’s College, London, and fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. He is the author of Aristotle on Memory; Necessity, Cause and Blame; Matter, Space, and Motion; Animal Minds and Human Morals; Emotion and Peace of Mind, and Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death. He is also general editor of seventy volumes to date of The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, and coeditor of The Ethics of War: Shared Problems in Different Traditions.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
I. THE REALITY OF TIME
1. Is Time Real?
2. Solutions from Diodorus to Augustine
3. Iamblichus' Solution: Static and Flowing Time
4. Aristotle on Stratic and Flowing Time
5. Solutions by the Last Athenian Neoplatonists: Divisible Leaps
II. TIME AND ETERNITY
6. Does Time Require Change
7. Time, Number, and Consciousness
8. Is Eternity Timelessness?
9. Is Anything Timeless?
10. Myths about Non-Propositional Thought
11. Mystical Experience in Plotinus and Augustine
12. Fear of Death and Endless Recurrence
III TIME AND CREATION
13. Did the Universe Have a Beginning? The Background
14. Infinity Arguments in Favour of a Beginning
15. Arguments Against a Beginning
16. Timelessness Versus Changlessness in God
17. Plato and Aristotle on the Beginning of Things
IV CREATION AND CAUSE
18. Gregory of Nyssa: The Origins of Idealism
19. The Origins of Occasionalism
20. Principles of Causation among Platonists and Christians
V ATOMS, TIME-ATOMS AND THE CONTINUUM
21. Zeno's Paradoxes of Motion
22. Arguments for Atomism
23. Types of Atomism: Early Developments
24. Atoms adn time-Atoms after Aristotle
25. Atoms and Divisible Leaps in Islamic Thought
26. Stopping and Starting
Table of principle persons discussed
Select Bibliography
Index
Index locorum to
Time, Creation and the Continuum, Necessity, Cause and Blame, and Matter, Space and Motion. Compiled by John Ellis, Harry Ide and Eric Lews.
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who has a disability that prevents you
from using this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
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Please have the disability coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Time, Creation and the Continuum: Theories in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
by Richard Sorabji
University of Chicago Press, 2006 Paper: 978-0-226-76822-9
Richard Sorabji here takes time as his central theme, exploring fundamental questions about its nature: Is it real or an aspect of consciousness? Did it begin along with the universe? Can anything escape from it? Does it come in atomic chunks? In addressing these and myriad other issues, Sorabji engages in an illuminating discussion of early thought about time, ranging from Plato and Aristotle to Islamic, Christian, and Jewish medieval thinkers. Sorabji argues that the thought of these often negelected philosophers about the subject is, in many cases, more complete than that of their more recent counterparts.
“Splendid. . . . The canvas is vast, the picture animated, the painter nonpareil. . . . Sorabji’s work will encourage more adventurers to follow him to this fascinating new-found land.”—Jonathan Barnes, Times Literary Supplement
“One of the most important works in the history of metaphysics to appear in English for a considerable time. No one concerned with the problems with which it deals either as a historian of ideas or as a philosopher can afford to neglect it.”—Donald MacKinnon, Scottish Journal of Theology
“Unusually readable for such scholarly content, the book provides in rich and cogent terms a lively and well-balanced discussion of matters of concern to a wide academic audience.”—Choice
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Richard Sorabji is emeritus professor of philosophy at King’s College, London, and fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. He is the author of Aristotle on Memory; Necessity, Cause and Blame; Matter, Space, and Motion; Animal Minds and Human Morals; Emotion and Peace of Mind, and Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death. He is also general editor of seventy volumes to date of The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, and coeditor of The Ethics of War: Shared Problems in Different Traditions.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
I. THE REALITY OF TIME
1. Is Time Real?
2. Solutions from Diodorus to Augustine
3. Iamblichus' Solution: Static and Flowing Time
4. Aristotle on Stratic and Flowing Time
5. Solutions by the Last Athenian Neoplatonists: Divisible Leaps
II. TIME AND ETERNITY
6. Does Time Require Change
7. Time, Number, and Consciousness
8. Is Eternity Timelessness?
9. Is Anything Timeless?
10. Myths about Non-Propositional Thought
11. Mystical Experience in Plotinus and Augustine
12. Fear of Death and Endless Recurrence
III TIME AND CREATION
13. Did the Universe Have a Beginning? The Background
14. Infinity Arguments in Favour of a Beginning
15. Arguments Against a Beginning
16. Timelessness Versus Changlessness in God
17. Plato and Aristotle on the Beginning of Things
IV CREATION AND CAUSE
18. Gregory of Nyssa: The Origins of Idealism
19. The Origins of Occasionalism
20. Principles of Causation among Platonists and Christians
V ATOMS, TIME-ATOMS AND THE CONTINUUM
21. Zeno's Paradoxes of Motion
22. Arguments for Atomism
23. Types of Atomism: Early Developments
24. Atoms adn time-Atoms after Aristotle
25. Atoms and Divisible Leaps in Islamic Thought
26. Stopping and Starting
Table of principle persons discussed
Select Bibliography
Index
Index locorum to
Time, Creation and the Continuum, Necessity, Cause and Blame, and Matter, Space and Motion. Compiled by John Ellis, Harry Ide and Eric Lews.
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who has a disability that prevents you
from using this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the disability coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE