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Alexander of Aphrodisias, De Intellectu 110.4: ‘I Heard this from Aristotle’. A modest proposal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Jan Opsomer  and
Bob Sharples
Jan Opsomer
Affiliation:
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Bob Sharples
Affiliation:
University CollegeLondon
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Extract

The treatise De intellectu attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias can be divided into four sections. The first (A, 106.19–110.3) is an interpretation of the Aristotelian theory of intellect, and especially of the active intellect referred to in Aristotle, De anima 3.5, which differs from the interpretation in Alexander's own De anima, and whose relation to Alexander's De anima, attribution to Alexander, and date are all disputed. The second (B, 110.4–112.5) is an account of the intellect which is broadly similar to A though differing on certain points. The third (Cl, 112.5–113.12) is an account of someone's response to the problem of how intellect can enter the human being ‘from outside’ if it is incorporeal and hence cannot move at all; in the fourth (C2, 113.12–24) the writer who reported Cl criticizes that solution and gives his own alternative one.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , May 2000 , pp. 252 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

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References

1 All references to the text of the De intellectu (which forms part of the De anima libri mantissa, Supplement to the book On the Soul) are to the page and line numbers of the edition byBruns, I. in Supplementum Aristotelicum 2.2 (Berlin, 1892).Google Scholar

2 υoûς θúραθευ: Aristotle, De generatione animalium 2.3 736b28.

3 Moraux, P., Alexandre d'Aphrodise: Exégète de la noétique d'Aristote (Liège and Paris, 1942), 148Google Scholar; Schroeder, F. M. and Todd, R. B., Two Aristotelian Greek Commentators on the Intellect: The De Intellectu attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius’ Paraphrase of Aristotle De Anima 3.4–8 (Toronto, 1990), 23, 30–1.Google Scholar

4 Originally suggested by Trabucco, F., ‘11 problema del “De philosophia” di Aristocle di Messene e la sua dottrina’, Acme 11 (1958), 97–150, at 120–3Google Scholar, followed by Moraux, P., ‘Aristoteles, der Lehrer Alexanders von Aphrodisias’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 49 (1967), 169–82 at 174–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, by Sharpies, R. W., ‘Alexander of Aphrodisias: scholasticism and innovation’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, vol. 2.36.1 (Berlin, 1987), 1176–1243 at 1212Google Scholar, and by Accattino, P. and Donini, P. L., Alessandro di Afrodisia: L'anima (Rome and Bari, 1996), xxvii and n.78.Google Scholar

5 112.8, ‘following his own idea’ (κατ’ ἰδìαυ ༐πιυoíαυ). 113.2–4, ‘he said that, if one is to suppose that intellect is divine and imperishable according to Aristotle at all, one must think [that it is so] in this way, and not otherwise’, shows that the proposer of the doctrine was presenting his interpretation in a speculative way, and 112.19–20 refers to Aristotle for one particular terminological point in a way that may suggest the rest of the doctrine presented is less strictly Aristotelian.

6 The unusual use of the first-person singular both in B (at 110.4–5) and in C2 (at 113.12), noted By Rashed, M., ‘A “new” text of Alexander on the soul's motion’, in Sorabji, R. (ed.), Aristotle and After. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Suppl. Vol. 68 (London, 1997), 181–95 at 192Google Scholar, n. 28, is an argument for the reporter of B and the reporter of Cl (and author of the criticism in C2) being the same person, not for the proponents of the doctrines reported in B and in Cl being the same.

7 Cf. Schroeder and Todd (n. 3), 73, and the discussions cited there. There are similarities between Cl and the discussion in Alexander, Quaestio 2.3 of the influence of the heavens (cf. 113.6–12 here); there is also a possible reference back from the latter (at 48.19–22) to the former (cf. Moraux, P., ‘Alexander von Aphrodisias Quaest. 2.3’, Hermes 95 [1967], 159–69Google Scholar, at 160, n. 2, 163–4, n. 2). But the Quaestio speaks only of the effect of the motion of the heavens in making human beings rational, not of a supra-personal intellect which is active in our thinking.

8 We are grateful to an anonymous referee of the first version of this paper for emphasizing this point. One might indeed argue, against the interpretation of the beginning of B that we will be advocating, that, regardless of any question concerning Cl, the source of B itself needs to be indicated. But just because B is broadly similar to A, this requirement seems much less pressing than does the identification of the proponent of Cl. There is indeed a question why it was thought worthwhile to add B to A at all; but that is another issue.

9 Zeller, E., Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung 3.1 (Leipzig, 1909), 815, n. 3.Google Scholar

10 Cf. e.g. Alexander, De fato 164.13, 212.5, 17 (though at 171.17 the reference is rather to the opinion of the Peripatetics); De providentia 31.20 Ruland. See also Sharpies, R. W., Alexander of Aphrodisias: Quaestiones 1.1–2.15 (London, 1992), 86, n. 266.Google Scholar

11 ‘par une tradition qui se réclamait d'Aristote’: Moraux (n. 3), 148.

12 Moraux (n. 4), esp. 176–82.

13 As is pointed out by P. Thillet, Alexandre d'Aphrodise: Traité du Destin (Paris, 1984), xvii.

14 Cf. Schenkeveld, D., ‘Prose usages of ảκoûειυ “to read”’, CQ 42 (1992), 129–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A clear example is the emperor Julian's statement in Oratio 8(5).3 162C that he remembered hearing Xenarchus ‘saying certain things’ (τoιαûτα γàρ ༐γώ μέμυημμαι τoû ΞευάρΧoυ λέγoυτoς ảκηκoώς) Julian lived in the fourth century A.D., Xenarchus in the first century B.c.

15 By Gavrilov, A. K., ‘Techniques of reading in classical antiquity’, CQ 47 (1997), 56–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Burnyeat, M. F., ‘Postcript on silent reading’, CQ 47 (1997), 74–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; we are grateful to Pamela Huby for drawing our attention to these discussions and to that in the following note. Schenkeveld (n. 14), 130 already recognizes that reading aloud was not the most common practice.

16 By Usener, S., Isokrates, Platon und ihr Publikum (Tübingen, 1994: ScriptOralia, 63), 164, n. 39. What concerns us is however rather whether ảκoúειυ can refer to the acquisition of information by reading or hearing about an author no longer alive.Google Scholar

17 Schenkeveld's examples of ảκoúειυ λέγoυτoς applying to Aristotle do involve reports of the content of Aristotelian texts, extant now or lost: Schenkeveld (n. 14), 133. Cf. Schroeder and Todd (n. 3), 24, n. 79.

18 Moraux (n. 4), 175; cf. Schroeder and Todd (n. 3), 24. Thillet (n. 13), xvi-xvii, citing Plutarch, De audiendis poetis 37a3–4, notes that ảκoúευ with the dative is used to refer to a doctrine one has heard of in a certain context, with no implication that one has heard it directly from the original source; indeed the context explicitly refers both to hearing and to reading (πρoακηκoότες …καì πρoαυεγωκóτες, 36e13-fl), and when Plutarch refers to what is heard παρà τoîς øιλoσóøoις what follows is, as Thillet notes, verbatim quotation of Epicurus.

19 Mantissa 150.19, τŵυ παρά ’Aριστoτέλoυς περì τoû πρώτoυ oἰκεîoυ 169.33, τഭυ παρά ’Aριστoτέλoυς περî τoû’ ήμîυ; 172.16, as 169.33 (but with totally different doctrine!).

20 Schroeder and Todd (n. 3), 28–30.

21 Accattino and Donini (n. 4), xxvii, n. 77. See also below, n. 29.

22 The text, it may be noted, has υoû τoû θúραθευ, not τoû θúραθευ υoû Why? Perhaps because the sense is ‘intellect—more specifically, the intellect from without’ (cf. Smyth, H. W., Greek Grammar (Cambridge, MA, 1920 [1980], §1159)Google Scholar; and in that case the reference to Aristotle, ‘intellect—more specifically the intellect from without in, or which derives from, Aristotle’, may seem a natural and indeed necessary completion. The implicit reference to Aristotle at 110.25 confirms that 110.6–25 is considered as truly from Aristotle and suggests that the rest of the discussion (from 110.25 onwards) is conducted in an equally Aristotelian vein; in this respect B is to be contrasted with Cl (above, n. 5).

23 In the case of the titles later in the Mantissa (above n. 18), to speak of what derives from Aristotle, rather than what is in him, concerning responsibility (τȤ ༐ø’ ήμîυ) is entirely suitable; Aristotle uses the expression, but the argument of these sections is hardly ‘in Aristotle’, verbatim or otherwise. Similarly, Aristotle says that intellect comes ‘from outside’, but could hardly be said to develop the idea in detail.

24 Schroeder and Todd (n. 12), 30.

25 Which were probably added later; cf. Bruns (n. 1), xi.

26 For example Mantissa 130.14, 134.30, 136.30, from a sequence on vision; cf. Sharpies, R. W., ‘Alexander and pseudo-Alexanders of Aphrodisias: scripta minima. Questions and Problems, makeweights and prospects’, in Wolfgang, Kullmann, Jochen, Althoff, and Markus, Asper (edd.), Gattungen wissenschaftlicher Literatur in der Antike (Tübingen, 1998:ScriptOralia, 95), 383–408 at 395–6.Google Scholar Cf. also τoíυυυ at Mantissa 141.30; καí at Mantissa 169.34 and Ethical Problem 24.

27 γάρ certainly cannot be taken as linking 110.5 directly to the end of A in 110.3.

28 Denniston, J. D., The Greek Particles (Oxford, 1954), 59Google Scholar refers to γάρ ‘after an expression denoting the giving or receiving of information, or conveying a summons to attention’.

29 Accattino and Donini (n. 4), xxvii, n.77 argue that the name ‘Aristoteles’ would not need to be repeated if it refers to the same person both in (1) and in (2). But in (1) Aristotle is referred to as the authority from whom the theory derives; in (2) the reference is to a discussion of his motives. And that difference is sufficient to justify the repetition.

30 On the other evidence for Aristoteles of Mytilene as Alexander's teacher cited by Moraux, in 1967, cf. Thillet (n. 13), xix-xxxi; R. Goulet, ‘Aristote de Mytilène’, in id. (ed.) Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, vol. 1 (Paris, 1989), 411–12Google Scholar; Schroeder and Todd (n. 3), 25. There remains the reference to ‘our Aristotle’ at Alexander, In metaph. 166.19–20, noted by Moraux, P., ‘Ein neues Zeugnis über Aristoteles, den Lehrer Alexanders von Aphrodisias’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 67 (1985), 266–9 and byCrossRefGoogle ScholarAccattino, P., ‘Alessandro di Afrodisia e Aristotele di Mitilene’, Elenchos 6 (1985), 67–74.Google Scholar But, as Schroeder and Todd (n. 3), 27–8 note, this can only establish that Aristoteles of Mytilene was Alexander's teacher if one combines it with the De intellectu passage, interprets the De intellectu passage in the manner in which Moraux did in 1967, and accepts that the De intellectu is an authentic work of Alexander's.