The work Περὶ Kόσμου (De mundo, DM) is not by Aristotle. Purporting to be a letter to Alexander the Great, its author aims to present an Aristotelian picture of the universe, traversing, as it were, the multitudinous sublunary phenomena and culminating in an account of god. The DM has largely suffered the fate of many pseudonymous texts: deemed second-rate and derivatively eclectic, scholarship mired with questions of dating, (in)authenticity and sources. The recent translation and collection of papers edited by J.C. Thom (Cosmic Order and Divine Power: Pseudo-Aristotle, ‘On the Cosmos’ (Tübingen 2014)) was a step in the right direction, but it is only as of the present volume that we have a comprehensive discussion of the theories and arguments of the entire treatise. The nine contributors offer a section-by-section analysis of the DM, treating it as a serious and interesting piece of philosophy.
An introduction by the editors sets out the aims of the volume and offers a series of considerations for post-Aristotelian/Hellenistic authorship. There follow chapters on each of the sections of the DM: the preface (George Karamanolis), the supra- and sublunary realms (Karel Thein and Jakub Jirsa, respectively), geography (Irene Pajón Leyra and Hynek Bartoš), meteorology (István Baksa), cosmic harmony and eternity (Pavel Gregorić), god’s power (Gábor Betegh and Gregorić) and the names of god (Vojtěch Hladký).
Karamanolis’ discussion emphasizes the introductory and protreptic character of the DM and is sensitive to the author’s style and various registers. He highlights an important theme that recurs throughout the volume, the various overlaps between the DM and Stoic and Platonist thought. The DM attempts to offer a Peripatetic alternative to these schools not through open polemic but through appropriation and implicit criticism.
The chapters on the heavenly sphere, the elements and sublunary phenomena are the most commentary-like of the volume, focussed on explicating the text, highlighting parallels and discussing, if not always resolving, interpretative cruxes. As a whole they strike a good balance between the forest and the trees. Jirsa’s remark on the DM’s view on the four elemental layers can apply to DM 2–4 as a unit: ‘the author’s intention is to prepare the reader for his conclusion that even the highly diverse stratum teeming with plants, animals, growth and decay is governed by a single power which penetrates the whole cosmos’ (68–69). The chapters on geography and meteorology are highlights for their thoroughness and utility and could serve double duty as critical introductions to post-Aristotelian developments in these sciences.
The account of the causal power of god is the capstone of the DM, so it is no surprise that the chapters on cosmic harmony and god’s power are the most interpretatively rich. Gregorić explains how DM 5 facilitates the transition from sublunary science to cosmotheology by illustrating how a cosmos rife with opposing and destructive elemental principles can nevertheless be unperishing. The many echoes of Plato’s Timaeus in this section are ultimately anti-Platonic, although Istill find the DM’s argument for its Peripatetic alternative to Platonist cosmology difficult to parse. (Gregorić defends this deficiency by appealing to the introductory and rhetorical character of the treatise.) DM 6 elaborates the power (dunamis) of god through an intricate series of analogies. Betegh and Gregorić, building upon their article ‘Multiple Analogy in Ps.-Aristotle, De Mundo 6’, CQ 64 (2014), 574–91, admirably demonstrate how the 12 analogies work together: subsequent images either expand on or emend a deficiency in the preceding one. Their discussion is teeming with insight; Iflag two points that mark significant contrast with earlier interpreters. First, they (rightly, in my view) warn against the assimilation of the DM’s deity to Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover since in the DM god is said to reside far off in the highest part of the cosmos rather than transcend it strictly speaking. Second, they interpret the final analogy, which likens god in the cosmos to law in the soul, as meaning that god coordinates ‘the goal-directed activities of all members of a political community’ (199). Not everyone will agree with their identification of god as a final cause in the DM, especially since all the other analogies are at pains to explain how god is an efficient cause despite acting at such a remove.
This is not strictly a ‘commentary’, and there are some shortcomings to the section-by-section format: almost all the contributors comment on the DM’s relationship to Stoicism, but it would be nice to have a definitive statement on the matter instead of these scattered, albeit instructive, remarks; and certain overarching themes remain underexplored (especially the ethical and political thought of the DM and the work’s engagement with traditional Hellenic religion). These cavils aside, the collection of essays is successful in demonstrating the philosophical coherence and sophistication of the DM. Perhaps most importantly the volume provides a model for how to approach anonymous or pseudonymous texts as serious and interesting philosophical works. Analysis and dating go hand in glove: in analysing the theory or doctrine of a work, one inevitably asks: In what dialectical context does it make sense for our author to hold this position? To what views does he respond? Why propose this alternative in the first place? The papers here ought to dispel any lingering suspicions of Aristotelian authorship (although A. Bos remains a dogged holdout (BMCR 2021.06.24)), and this collection certainly should rehabilitate the place of the DM in the history of late- and post-Hellenistic philosophy.
