Syrianus describes the monad as masculine and the dyad as feminine. Syrianus attacked aristotle in his commentary on books and 14 of the metaphysics, just as his pupil proclus was to do later in his commentaries on plato. In his metaphysics commentary syrianus explains his view of the monad and the dyad in a number of places. The second, very short essay is entitled a course ephodos by syrianus, the son of philoxenus, on book gamma of aristotles metaphysics. In presenting metaphysics 4, syrianus explains in what sense metaphysics deals with being as being and how this includes the essential attributes of being unitymultiplicity. The prefaces which syrianus gives to his commentary on books 14, on book 3 and on. Syrianus on aristotle metaphysics 14 pdf download.
Among his works, his commentary on four books of aristotles metaphysics 2, 4, 14 is extant and recently translated into english for the first time by john. He employs the doctrine of the two cosmic principles to explain the origin of evil. This is because in metaphysics 14, aristotle himself was being thoroughly polemical towards platonism, in particular against the academic doctrine of formnumbers and the whole concept of separable number. Syrianus attacked aristotle in his commentary on books and 14 of the metaphysics, just as his pupil proclus was to do later in his. We learn from the commentary of proclus on the timaeus of plato that syrianus also wrote a commentary on the same book. His bestknown extant work is a commentary on the metaphysics of aristotle.
This book of the metaphysics begins with an exposition of first philosophy as dealing with being in general, that is, with what is insofar as it has being, as well as the properties that belong in and of itself to anything that has being. In discussing aristotles metaphysics 34, he shows how metaphysics, as a philosophical science, was conceived by the neoplatonic philosophers of late antiquity. In presenting metaphysics 4, syrianus explains in what sense metaphysics deals with being as being and how this includes the essential attributes of being unitymultiplicity, samenessdifference, etc. It is here in syrianus commentary on aristotle s metaphysics that we meet the great teacher syrianus firsthand, the only oeuvre to which he has left us of any regard. The one is immediately followed by a supreme monad and dyad.