HYPATIA
(370/75–415 CE)

Hypatia was a philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer who, though female and pagan, achieved the honor of being named by the Christian Roman government to the position of philosopher at the museum of Alexandria. Students reading philosophy at the Alexandrian School would also study mathematics and astronomy as technical, applied disciplines of the more traditional studies of metaphysics and cosmology. Hypatia's father, Theon of Alexandria, was the museum's most famous mathematician-astronomer, and it is largely through Theon that we have a reliable source of Ptolemy's Syntaxis Mathematica (Almagest ).

Hypatia likely assumed the directorship of the school of philosophy in about 400. The recently converted Christian, Synesius of Cyrene, later the bishop of Ptolemais, became her student in 393. From Synesius's works we surmise that Hypatia's early philosophical teachings concentrated on Plato's metaphysical works, especially the Timeaus. Her mathematical and astronomical writings can be understood primarily as applications of Neoplatonist metaphysical and cosmological theories to mathematical problems whose solution informed astronomical theories. These in turn were considered to illuminate Neoplatonist cosmological theories. Six of Hypatia's works have been tentatively identified. They include an edition of Diophantus's Arithmetica with new lemmas, a lost prototype based on Archimedes's Sphere and Cylinder surviving as John of Tynemouth's De Curvis Superficibus, a text on isoperimetric figures incorporated by a later author into Introduction to the Almagest, a commentary on Archimedes's Dimension of the Circle, and a commentary edition of Apollonius Pergaeus's Conics upon which later commentary editions were based. But her most important work appears to have been a revision of a work by her father Theon appearing in Book III of his Commentary of Ptolemy's Syntaxis Mathematica.

Hypatia was an eclectic philosopher with a Cynic's literary and personal style that may have had as much to do with her risky status as both woman and pagan as with her philosophical affiliation. Accounts of outrageous tactics to counter sexist male student behavior may be apocryphal (Lewis 1921, Toland 1720). Nevertheless, they provide insight into the personality of a defensive female professor in a brutally misogynist environment. A traditional middle Platonist, Hypatia was sympathetic to Porphyrian metaphysics and to Stoicism. She preferred Euclidean methodology to the Archimedean in formulating results of problems and as a pedagogical tool for teaching philosophical mathematics. In 415, she was savagely dismembered by a gang of monks. She appears to have been succeeded by Hierocles.

See also Alexandrian School; Cynics; Feminism and the History of Philosophy; Neoplatonism; Platonism and the Platonic Tradition; Porphyry; Sexism; Stoicism; Women in the History of Philosophy.

Bibliography

Bregman, Jay. Synesius of Cyrene: Philosopher-Bishop. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.

Evrard, Etiénne. "A Quel titre Hypatie enseigna-t-elle la philosophie?" Revue des études grecques 90 (1977): 69–74.

Heath, Thomas. Diophantus of Alexandria. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1910.

Heath, Thomas. Greek Astronomy. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1932.

Heath, Thomas. A History of Greek Mathematics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921.

Index Bibliothecae Mediceae. Firenze: Tip dell' arte della stampa, 1882.

Knorr, Wilbur. "Observations on the Early History of the Conics." Centaurus 26 (1982): 1–24

Knorr, Wilbur. Textual Studies in Ancient and Medieval Geometry. Boston: Birkhäuser, 1989.

Knorr, Wilbur. "John of Tynemouth alias John of London: Emerging Portrait of a Singular Medieval Mathematician." British Journal for the History of Sciences, 1990.

Lampropoulou, S. "Hypatia philosophe Alexandrine." Athenai, Bibliopholeion. Athens, 1977.

Lewis, Thomas. The History of Hypatia, a Most Impudent Schoolmistress of Alexandria. London: T. Bickerton, 1721.

Ligier, Hermann. De Hypatia philosophà et eclectismi alexandrini fine. Dijon: Mercurri Curte, Chassel, 1879.

Meyer, Wolfgang Alexander. Hypatia von Alexandria: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Neuplautonismos. Heidelberg: G. Weiss, 1886.

Montucla, Jean Etienne. Histoire des mathématiques. Paris: A. Blanchard, 1967. This important work was originally published in 1799.

Rome, Adolphe. Commentaires de Pappus et de Théon d'Alexandrie sur l'almageste, tome III, Théon d'Alexandrie commentaire sur les livres 3 et 4 de l'almageste. Studi e testi 106. Vatican City, 1943. This established Greek text with introduction and notes in French is substantially based on Halma, Nicolas. B. Theon et Hypatie, Commentaires de Theon d'Alexandrie sur le troisième livre de l'Almageste de Ptolemée. Paris: Merlin, 1820 and the introduction by Halma in his Almageste de Ptolémée, Commentaires de Théon D'Alexandrie sur le premier livre de la composition mathématique de Ptolemée. Paris: Merlin, 1821.

Rome, Adolphe. "Le Troisième livre des commentaires sur l'almageste par Théon et Hypatie." Annales de la société scientifique de Bruxelles 46 (1926), 1–14.

Rome, Adolphe. "Observations d'équinoxes et de solstices dans le chapitre 1 du livre 3 du commentaire sur l'almageste par Théon d'Alexandrie." Annales de la société scientifique de Bruxelles 57 (1937): 213–236 (première partie); 58 (1938): 6–26 (second partie).

Suidas. Lexicon. 5 vols. Translated by Ada Adler. Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner, 1967–1971. This work was reissued in 1989-1994.

Tannery, Paul. Diophanti Alexandrini Opera Omnia. 2 vols. Stuttgard: B.G. Teubner, 1974. This work was originally published in 1893–95.

Tannery, Paul. "L'Article de Suidas sur Hypatia." Annales de la faculté des lettres de Bordeaux. Bordeaux, 1880.

Tannery, Paul. Mémoires scientifiques. Paris: Editions Jacques Gabay, 1995. This work was originally published in Toulouse in 1912.

Toland, John. Hypatia, or the History .… In Tetradymus, part III. London: J. Brotherton and W. Meadows, 1720.

Usener, Hermann. "Fasti Theonis Alexandrini." In Chronica Minora Sasc. IV. V, VI, VII, edited by T. Mommsen. Berlin: Berolini, 1898.

Waithe, Mary Ellen. "Finding Bits and Pieces of Hypatia." In Hypatia's Daughters: Fifteen Hundred Years of Women Philosophers, edited by Linda Lopez McAlister, 4–15. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996.

Waithe, Mary Ellen. "Hypatia of Alexandria." In A History of Women Philosophers, Vol. 1, Ancient Women Philosophers 600 BC–500 AD. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff/Kluwer Academic Press, 1987.

Mary Ellen Waithe (1996, 2005)