Michael of Ephesus: On Aristotle's On the Generation of Animals 1-2

by Richard Sorabji (Editor), Sean Coughlin (Translator), Michael Griffin (Editor)

Overview

Michael of Ephesus' commentary on Aristotle's On the Generation of Animals is the earliest surviving, and perhaps first, commentary on this foundational zoological treatise. Composed in the 12th century as part of the Aristotelian revival which took place under the patronage of Constantinople's Anna Comnena, this commentary represents the state of the art of Byzantine and ancient scholarship on the philosophical questions concerning the origins and development of life.

Translated here for the first time into a modern language, Michael's commentary on Books I-II of Aristotle's On the Generation of Animals focuses on Aristotle's core philosophical commitments concerning animal generation: the parts of animals responsible for reproduction, the contributions of males and females, the role of nature and the divine, the creation of different kinds of soul, and the stages of embryonic development. Throughout the commentary, Michael offers unique and insightful readings of Aristotle's text and records the opinions of his predecessors and contemporaries on questions of biology. The treatise is vital reading for those studying Aristotle's biology as well as the Byzantine renaissance of biological inquiry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350087491
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/09/2026
Series:	Ancient Commentators on Aristotle
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Richard Sorabji is Research Professor of Philosophy at King's College London and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, UK. He is the author of many books, including Necessity, Clause and Blame, Matter, Space and Motion, and Time, Creation and the Continuum, all published by Bloomsbury, and general editor of the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series.

Michael Griffin is Associate Professor of Classics and Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is co-editor of the series Ancient Commentators on Aristotle and translator of two of its volumes: Olympiodorus: Life of Plato and On Plato First Alcibiades 1–9 (Bloomsbury 2014) and Olympiodorus: On Plato First Alcibiades 10–28 (Bloomsbury 2015).

Table of Contents

Preface
Conventions
Abbreviations

Introduction

Translation

Notes
Bibliography
English-Greek Glossary
Greek-English Index
Subject Index