Simplicius

Simplicius of Cilicia (c. 490–560) was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher active in late antiquity. Born in Cilicia, Asia Minor, he is best known for his extensive commentaries on Aristotle and for his role in preserving and transmitting earlier philosophical texts. He spent much of his career in Athens, where he wrote a substantial body of work that surveys Aristotle’s Categories, Physics, and On the Heavens, among other topics.

Simplicius sought to harmonize Aristotle’s natural philosophy with Neoplatonist metaphysics. His writings engage a wide range of sources, including Plato, Porphyry, and the Stoics, and are characterized by careful philology, close textual analysis, and a tendency to situate physical explanations within a unified metaphysical framework. Many of his works are preserved only in fragmentary form, but they are nonetheless valuable for understanding late antique interpretations of Aristotle and the broader Neoplatonist program.

His commentaries contributed significantly to the transmission of ancient philosophy to later generations. Through translations and quotations in Arabic and Latin centuries after his life, Simplicius helped preserve key Aristotelian and Platonic ideas that would influence medieval Scholasticism and Islamic philosophy, even as his own writings remained primarily accessible to scholars of the Greek tradition.

Little is known about his personal life beyond what can be inferred from his writings. He is generally regarded as one of the last major figures of ancient Greek philosophy, serving as a crucial bridge between late antique philosophical thought and later medieval interpretations.