Philoponus’ commentary on the Posterior Analytics is remarkable* for two reasons : it is the oldest surviving and one of the longest ever written. Its merits, however, certainly do not end there : some of the views it presents are quite interesting either as explanations of Aristotle’s doctrines or in their own right. In the present paper, I try to shed some light on one of these views, namely Philoponus’ interpretation of induction (ἐπαγωγή). Accordingly, I examine the most relevant passages in this work, also resorting to what he says in his other commentaries when this can be of some help for understanding them, and I also combine my findings into a unified account—or rather, into two unified accounts, since some of the views about induction that emerge from these passages turn out to be quite different. Through this examination, I hope to show the originality and historical interest of Philoponus’ account of induction with respect to Aristotle’s own account.
1. Logical induction
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