On Hippo of (Possibly) Rhegium

The Presocratic philosopher and medical writer Hippo is best known for two allusions, both markedly negative, in Aristotle (De Anima 405b1-5, Metaphysics 984a3-5). In the Metaphysics, Aristotle in a striking praeteritio explicitly excludes Hippo from the canon of his philosophical predecessors. This move ensured Hippo’s subsequent exclusion from most of the Theophrastean doxographic tradition -- and indeed from most modern scholarly discussion as well. The paper to be presented is part of a larger work which surveys our meagre and conflicting evidence for Hippo’s views. This has never received full treatment, though Hippo’s medical ideas have received some attention (cf. Manetti 1992). Some historians of philosophy, such as Guthrie 1965, have provided reasonably thorough accounts of the principal philosophical evidence. But like most modern scholars, including the highly influential Diels 1893 (“ein etwas beschränkter Kopf”, 421), Guthrie parrots Aristotle’s negative verdict without any real effort to reconstruct Hippo’s thought as a whole. The paper to be read at the APA deals with a small, detachable, and independently significant part of this study. It asks: how should we understand the account of Hippo’s views given in the doxography of Hippolytus’ Refutation of all Heresies (I.16)? I argue (contra Diels 1879) that Hippolytus’ account cannot be derived from the mainstream Theophrastean doxographic tradition. For one thing, we have strong ex silentio evidence that Hippo was largely excluded from that tradition. Second, the one arguably-Theophrastean text which does give Hippo’s views on the cosmic first principles [archai], Simplicius’ in Phys. I.23.22-4, gives a fundamentally different portrayal. Simplicus, following Aristotle, presents Hippo as a hydromonist – that is, like Thales, he proposes water as the sole archê. But Hippolytus presents Hippo as a dualist, with both water and fire as archai. Comparison with other texts, including Sextus Empiricus, suggests that Hippolytus’ report comes from an independent, sceptical doxographic tradition. At the same time, it can be reconciled with the Aristotelian account by way of Hippolytus’ further report that, according to Hippo, water gave birth to fire, which then overcame it to set the cosmos in order. This is an interestingly nuanced theory in the Presocratic context: water serves as the archê in being the first thing, but fire inasmuch as it is the cosmic ruler. It is understandable that later reports, in order to fit Hippo into the standard model of theories of the archai, would simplify by presenting him as either a monist or a dualist. The conflicting directions of that simplification can be explained by differing dialectical purposes. The sceptics found in Hippo a convenient instance of a two-archai theorist for use in their diaphônia arguments, while the Aristotelians were committed to dismissing him as adding nothing to the views of Thales. This case study shows that the ancient doxographic tradition is more polymorphous than Diels 1879 allowed (cf. Mansfeld 1992, 2004/08 et al.), in ways which may sometimes allow us to correct for Aristotelian-Theophrastean oversimplifications. It also suggests that Hippo was a more interesting and original figure than Aristotle’s deprecation would lead us to expect. Works Cited Diels, H. 1879. Doxographi Graeci. Berlin: G. Reimer. -----1893. “Ueber die Excerpte von Menons Iatrika in dem Londoner Papyrus 137.” Hermes 28: 406-34. Guthrie, W.K.C. 1965. A History of Greek Philosophy vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Manetti, D. 1992. “Hippo Crotoniates 1T.” Corpus dei papiri filosofici greci e latini I.1: 455-61. Mansfeld, J., 1992. Heresiography in Context: Hippolytus’ Elenchos as a Source for Greek Philosophy. Leiden: Brill. ----------. 2004/08. “Doxography of Ancient Philosophy.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/doxography-ancient/.