Not all of this work is equally as interesting, but the parts that are, make it worthy of a good review and make it worth recommending.

Syrianus was a later Neo-Platonist and was the teacher of both Proclus and Hermeias. Many of his works have disappeared and a lot of his Neo-Platonist thought most likely survives in the one commentary we have of Hermeias and the numerous extant works of Proclus. What we do have of Syrianus is his commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics.

For anyone that is curious to know how the later Neo-Platonists dealt with Aristotle, this commentary is a primary source. It shouldn't be surprising that the Neo-Platonists disagreed with Aristotle on a number of topics, but they also utilized him where they felt his philosophy was compatible with Plato. They seemingly accepted his categories, but also used them in contrasting ways. Here, I thought it was quite interesting that Syrianus pointed out that it is difficult to find any unifying subtance (or principle) in Aristotle's categories: as one ascends to genera, the categories become more abstract, even if more general and, seemingly, more codifying; and when one descends into species, one finds plurality and division with no apparent unifying principle. Aristotle rejected the Platonic doctrine of forms, but he was not able to show exactly what brought his categories into cohesion. Syrianus' criticism is incredibly poignant and interesting. Aristotle's genera are abstract and his species are manifold. There really seems to be no way for Aristotle to advocate cohesion of the categories without appealing to some abstract principle such as Plato's forms.

There may not be a lot here directly relevant to Syrianus' own Neo-Platonist system, but he covers a lot of ground in discussing the relationship between Aristotle and Plato (or, I should say, the Neo-Platonist interpretation of Plato). For those who are interested in how Neo-Platonists responded to Aristotelian criticisms, this book is essential reading. ( )