You should of asked me before I left San Francisco, I left a sizeable library behind, would of given you everything.
dhspriory.org/thomas/Metaphysics.htm
Saved you 80 bucks. The best bookstore in the bay area isn’t in Berkeley, but the San Francisco side. Green Apple Books, they keep the philosophy section up on the second floor in the far rear.
I recommend suspending your partisan views and impulse to opinion while reading this text, and focus on logical mechanisms within the text. Isolate them, and Google key words. You’ll often times will find Stoic and Neo-Platonists, and Nominalists already explored it, or Theophrastus discussed it, or scholia exists on it. Its very slow and painstaking work, but you can usually trace the development of ideas via several schools to the present, and isolate it to specific psychological mechanisms based on the gyro architecture of the mind once you know the historical range of arguments and assertions each thinker made.
For this particular work, the Stoa and Neo-Platonists. Ironically, Satyr might know a bit, I realized a while back he was a Pythagorean (a gay Satanic Neopythagorean to be exact, but that’s a remarkable oxymoron given Numenius’ views on gnosticism and relative morality/stoic indifference, and I hate adding the prefix Neo- to long lasting philosophical movements that naturally mutate). He could possibly help you though concepts, as this work effected his particular school. Likewise maybe Sauwelios. He claims he read Plato (got a feeling its the divine Plato and not the real one), and have a very rudimentary understanding of neurology and pop personality theory, but he is perversely biased and questionable in his ability to arrive at insightful conclusions. Not really anyone else I could recommend as a study mate on this forum. Not exactly a great selection here to choose from as the evidence goes. Think Cezar read this, but doubt he understands what he reads even enough to get it wrong, much less right. Might parrot to you.
I’m glad your taking classical philosophy more seriously. These works were made to be discussed and debated, not merely read. I would recommend you search out a local philosophy group. Several exist in the bay area, I was a member of every single one when I lived there.
I can also offer up a suggestion. Buy a notebook, and practice copying down key paragraphs in very fine small print (spend the extra few dollars for a nice pen .08 or smaller, and focus your attention extra hard on the simple calligraphy and actively ask yourself how this idea reasonably relates to his other ideas, and other thinkers. You’ll find Theophrastus and the Stoa mentioned a lot, copy their quotes, its useful here.
Oh, sixth floor of the SF main library, there is a historical map room. Walk to the far end, and there is a calligraphy and rare historic book binding room hidden beyond it (inside, far wall). The reason you mix calligraphy with concentration in study, is as the Japanese discovered, it allows for optimal concentration and lateralization of concepts between the hemispheres, you’ll be able to coalate the ideas of diverse sources better if you learn this technique. You might find yourself making connections you never before could of considered. I’m not talking fancy calligraphy, just simple yet meticulous print, the kind a early cenobite would make.
You’ll also want to upgrade your forum here too. We have several specialty forums out there on the net, Google and yahoo groups have forums that deal with specialty topics. Its best to join such groups. I find myself dealing on a regular basis with translators and historical novelists, and even had a few life experiences and dreams written into a romantic novel by a member who writes books on the era. A few others write commentaries and have adjusted their approach to my input. You can’t get involved in depth on a site like this. For books like this, you gotta search out the best subject matter experts, not the peons. This forum, its for the dumbest common denominator. I’ll check back in a few months to see how your doing.
I see absolutely nothing of value appears to of been discussed on this site since I left, and the social science section has ossified, so off I pop. Best of luck.