Aristotelian and Stoic Conceptions of Necessity in the De Fato of Alexander of Aphrodisias

It is widely agreed on that the key text to interpreting Plotinus' notion of ἐφ’ ἡμĩν, Ennead VI.8, starts off from a criticism of the notion as understood by Aristotle in the first chapters of Ethica Nicomachea (EN) III. This chapter analyses the development of the notion of ἐφ’ ἡμĩν within the Aristotelian tradition before Plotinus. First of all, it gives an account of the notion of ἐφ’ ἡμĩν in Aristotle. The focus lies on the EN and Eudemian Ethics (EE). The chapter then investigates later developments of the notion in the three earliest relevant Aristotelian 'commentaries' on the EN. Thus, it discusses Aspasius' In Ethica Nicomachea commentaria. The chapter then continues with the Anonymous' In Ethica Nicomachea II-V commentaria. Finally, the chapter analyses the development of the notion in Alexander of Aphrodisias' De fato. It ends with a general conclusion regarding the Aristotelian notion(s) of ἐφ’ ἡμĩν.Keywords:ἐφ’ ἡμĩν; Alexander of Aphrodisias; Aristotle; Aspasius; Ethica Nicomachea (EN); Eudemian Ethics (EE); Plotinus

Scholars generally agree that Alexander of Aphrodisias' objections to Stoic determinism in De fato are unconvincing. I show that there is one argument, however, that is more successful than Alexander's other arguments. This argument is an innovative version of the so-called "Lazy Argument". Traditional versions of the Lazy Argument claim that actions and deliberations would not matter in a deterministic world and that for this reason Stoic determinism cannot be true. By contrast, Alexander's new version asserts that it is too risky to believe in Stoic determinism because it can give average rational agents good reasons to be lazy. Since we cannot know whether Stoic determinism is true, it is safer not to believe it.

There is what might be called a ‘majority position’ in the history of Western philosophy according to which causes are sufficient for or ‘necessitate’ their effects. However, there is also a singificant ‘minority position’ according to which causes are necessary relative to their effects. The second/third century A.D. Peripatetic Alexander of Aphrodisias is an ancient representative of the minority position. He attributes his own view — with some justification, I shall suggest – to Aristotle. This paper has two, somewhat loosely connected purposes. The first is to explore the origin of the conception of ‘causes’ (aitia) as necessary conditions in Aristotle, particularly in On Generation and Corruption 2.11 and Posterior Analytics 2.12, and the development and use of the conception in Alexander's De fato. The second purpose of the paper is to explore and criticize a sophisticated contemporary version of the conception of causes as ‘necessary in the circumstances,’ that of J.L. Mackie.

Alexander of Aphrodisias has defended an aristotelian conception of responsability, particularly in his treatise On Fate , which presents "Aristotle's doctrine about fate and what depends on us" ( De fato , 1), and in some texts of Mantissa or Quaestiones. This defence led him to reiterate traditional anti-determinist arguments (for example the argument by legal, moral and social consequences) as well as to propose new ones. Among his rather creative and bold arguments, we can include one that admits the existence of a movement without cause, kinesis anaitios. This point is developed in Mantissa XXII, through a passage whose authenticity is highly discussed. I will attempt to show that, even if this text cannot be attributed to Alexander with certainty, it echoes some genuine alexandrian arguments, developed in the treatise On Fate .

This paper sets out to analyze Proclus’ exegesis of Socrates’ suggestion in Parmenides 132d1-3 that Forms stand fixed as patterns (παραδείγματα), as it were, in the nature, with the other things being images and likenesses of them. Proclus’ analysis of the notion of being pattern reveals the impact of the Aristotelian conception of the form as paradigm on his views, as we can infer from Alexander of Aphrodisias’ and Simplicius’ explanation of the paradigmatic character of the Aristotelian form. Whereas Aristotle and Alexander of Aphrodisias refute the efficient causality of the Platonic Forms and support that μέθεξις is just a metaphor, Syrianus, Proclus and Asclepius defend the Platonic theory, and specifically Proclus, who brings to the fore the multilateral role of the Forms as patterns with regard to the secondary things of this realm.[1]
 
 [1] An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Symposium Platonicum XII: Plato’s Parmenides, organized by the International Plato Society, Paris, 15-19 July 2019.

The tenth chapter of Alexander of Aphrodisias' De Fato' contains a treatment of fatalism and future truth which clearly harks back to Aristotle's famous 'Sea Battle' discussion in De Interpretatione (DI) 9.2 Alexander's discussion has not yet been satisfatorily interpreted: this paper is intended to help remedy this lack. On the traditional interpretation of Aristotle's argument, he accepted the fatalist's inference from the truth of a statement about a future contingency (which I will call a future contingent statement, FCS for short) to its necessity, but sought to counter necessitarianism by denying the principle of bivalence (PB) on which the fatalist's inference rests.3 This interpretation has in recent times been challenged from two quarters. According to one view (the 'modern' interpretation), Aristotle does not seek to restrict PB; rather, he rebuts fatalism by distinguishing between the truth/falsity of a FCS and its necessity, allowing the former but refusing the latter, and in particular banning any inference from a necessary disjunction of FCSs (such as 'There will be a sea battle tomorrow or there will not be a sea battle tomorrow') to the several necessities of the disjuncts.4 Others

The aim of this paper is to unravel Aristotle’s reasoning with regard to the ontological status of colours; also, to get a better understanding of his views on the production of the whole spectrum of colours; and finally, to evaluate the explanatory power of his theory of colours. The texts I mainly draw my evidence from is Aristotle’s De sensu 3 and the relevant passages from the De anima as well as from other Aristotelian treatises; in addition, I use for my interpretation remarks made by Alexander of Aphrodisias in his commentary on the De sensu, in his Quaestiones and in the dubious treatise Mantissa.

The so-called second book of the treatise On the Soul ( De anima) by Alexander of Aphrodisias is a collection of short discussions on a range of topics, more or less closely connected with psychology. Since 1887 it has commonly been known by the title Mantissa given to it by its editor Ivo Bruns, Mantissa originally being an Etruscan word meaning a make-weight, something the trader puts in to balance up the scales.1 One sequence of discussions in the Mantissa, §§9–14, consists of a series of refutations of non-Aristotelian theories of vision, followed in §15 by an exposition of Aristotelian doctrine and in §16 by a discussion of the Aristotelian account of colour.

As a subject of the first philosophy, the being as being is defined as the most universal and primary one. However, Aristotle proves in the Metaphysics that neither One nor being are substances, therefore they do not exist separately. Furthermore, in the De Anima he claims that those that are said to be universal are "either nothing or posterior", because they cannot be on its own in separation from the particular things. How, then, the universal being which can be named nothing or posterior postulated as the subject of first philosophy that is most worthy of knowing? And, on the other hand, if the being as universal is not a substance, on what ground it has it's unity? In order to answer these questions, I will consider Alexander of Aphrodisias' Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics and also the Quaestio I.3 and I.11 of his Quaestiones.

The aim of this work is to present the Peripatetic doctrine of fate (heimarmene) according to Alexander of Aphrodisias in his treatise Peri heimarmenes or De fato. The central thesis of this Alexandrian work is that everything that occurs kata ten physin (in accordance with nature) occurs kath’ heimarmenen (in accordance with fate). In order to reconstruct the doctrine underlying this claim, I alternate between an exposition of the Aristotelian concepts addressed in Alexander’s writings and his own theoretical elaborations. The paper begins by outlining the terms of the debate on fate as presented by Alexander. It then reconstructs the Alexandrian account of the causality of fate, along with the Aristotelian presuppositions that support it. Finally, it examines specific aspects and limits of Alexander’s notion of fate, particularly in relation to other key concepts in his philosophy, such as what occurs katà symbebekos, human proairesis, and divine pronoia. De fato is the main reference for this paper, but other relevant works, including the Quaestiones and De Providentia, are also considered.

The Book of the Laws of the Countries is one of the most important sources for our knowledge of Syriac Christianity in the late second century. In 1979 Albrecht Dihle has depicted Bardesanes as an ingenious christian philosopher. The sources of his theory of free will are the middle-platonic and peripatetic philosophy, mainly Alexander of Aphrodisias and his dialog De fato. This new german translation of the Book of the Laws of the Countries gives an introduction into the Bardesanes research.

This paper is devoted to Alexander of Aphrodisias, the Exegete, whose theory is gaining popularity among Aristotelian scholars as a possible solution to manifold interpretation problems created by Aristotle’s De Anima 3.5 due to its brevity and obscurity. I recommend Alexander’s solution as a remedy for two main predicaments concerning the notorious second intellect called enigmatically nous poietikos: the mysterious (if any) function of active intellect, and Thomistic monopoly in the field of Aristotle’s psychology (and theology). In other words, I believe that the externalist interpretations which identify nous poietikos with the Deity or a noetic sphere are more appropriate than the internalist ones that include the productive mind in our mental apparatus (Aquinas being the most famous partisan of this view). This is why I believe Alexander (an externalist), who remains rather unknown to scholars focused outside ancient philosophy, should be introduced to the broader public, especially because he inspired the Arabic philosophy, which is also an alternative to internalism (often overlapping with theistic readings). This introduction, alongside shedding light on some psychological issues, is the main aim of my paper.

Averroes (1126–1198) is the foremost medieval commentator on Aristotle. As such, his thoughts on perception are found in a number of his writings, particularly in his commentaries on the Parva naturalia1 and the De anima. Helmut Gatje, Harry Wolfson and others have studied Averroes’ views on this subject,2 and they have located him within the Islamic philosophical tradition of his predecessors. As these studies have shown, “perception” is a term that bridges three activities of the soul: the sensation that the senses experience, and the imaginative and intellectual apprehensions subsequent to that sensation. Perception thus involves various faculties of the soul as then conceived: the sense organs, the common sense, the imaginative faculty, the cogitative faculty,3 memory, and the rational faculty. The path that leads from sensation to cognition has a guiding hand, an external agency that Averroes understood as part of the Peripatetic tradition, though its origins lay with Alexander of Aphrodisias. It was he who elevated Aristotle’s immanent active principle of intellection to a transcendent sphere, equivalent to that of other

In order to understand Averroes on intellect, it is necessary to understand his primary source text, Aristotle’s De Anima, especially DA III.4–5. This chapter explains and defends Averroes’ reading of these chapters of the DA. Contemporary commentators often overlook an important core and structural interpretation advanced by Averroes and later, following him, Thomas Aquinas. However much Averroes and Aquinas disagree on the separate substantiality of the intellects, the key to both their interpretations is an all-or-nothing reading of the shared immaterial ontological status of both the material/possible intellect (MPI) and the agent/active intellect (AI). It is argued that this is a legitimate interpretation of Aristotle’s Greek text. The chapter proceeds with some comparison to Aquinas’s views and also an evaluation of the other major rival strand of interpretation, originally proposed by Alexander of Aphrodisias, according to which the active intellect is God.

326 BOOK REVIEWS the ethical is not grounded in a hope for death (necessary for the purest form of self-sacrifice), but in hope for community (because every true gift presupposes a mutual exchange ofgifts), as well as in hope for the Resurrection (where giving and receiving coincide in a perpetual and ecstatic feast of love). Lehigh University Bethlehem, Pennsylvania MICHAEL L. RAPoSA Avicenna'sMetapbysics in Context. ByROBERTWISNOVSKY. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 2003 Pp. xii+ 305. $65.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8()14-41781 . As Whitehead claimed that all philosophies are footnotes to Plato, too many histories of philosophy reduce Avicenna's metaphysics to a summary of and commentaryonAristotle, withsome footnotes and adaptations. In fact, Avicenna offers a powerful new synthesis, which critically assesses the work of previous philosophers and theologians and courageously rethinks many issues. Its originality and the interest of its philosophical moves can only be understood in context. For Wisnovsky the context has to do with (1) the Greek and early Arabic commentators' efforts to reconcile Aristotle not onlywith himself but also with Neoplatonism and (2) the works and discussions of the "Mutakallimfm," the practitioners of Kalam or Islamic theology. Beginningwith thefirstcontext, thatofthe various commentators, Wisnovsky shows how Alexander of Aphrodisias and others tried to reconcile Aristotle's texts, in particular the view of "entelechia" in the definition of the soul in De anima 2.1 and in the definition of change in Pbysics 3.1. In order to do so they introduced various distinctions which affected the way these Aristotelian passages were translated and understood in the Arabic tradition. The Ammonian synthesis went further and attempted to reconcile Aristotle with Neoplatonism. Wisnovsky contends that Avicenna follows the Ammonian synthesis in shifting the focus from the question of the relation of soul to body to the question of how the soul causes the body. Such a shift, which makes the soul the final cause of the body, allows commentators to find a way to argue for the immortality of the soul, which many passages in Aristotle seem to exclude. Wisnovsky shows, by going painstakingly through various commentators and their terminological shifts, that Avicenna mainly inherits the Ammonian synthesis on this issue. His originality shines in other purely metaphysical themes. Asecond issue, which in fact is a double one, that ofthe distinction of essence and existence and of necessity and possibility, then takes center stage. This BOOK REVIEWS 327 double issue likewise takes its origin in the commentators and the terminological choices of the Arabic translators but leads to a new synthesis, which displaces that ofAmmonius, thanks to an integration of sophisticated Kalam notions. The clear distinction between essence and existence takes its origin in an integration of the Kalam concept of "shay," that is, "thing" or "res" in Latin, as a concomitantof"being," the primarymetaphysicalconcept. This also ensures that no multiplicity ensues from considering God as both an efficient and a final cause. As for the famous development of a matrix of distinctions based on "necessary in itself" and "possible in itself," the latter being equated with the "necessarythroughanother," we have to consider Kalam discussions about God's attributes and the need for Avicenna to find a way to distinguish God from any other eternal realities, such as Intelligences, Heavenly Spheres, and their Souls. For each of these issues Wisnovsky indicates various stages of development in Avicenna's own works, though he considers them more as determined by the specific readership and the length of the various works than by what one could call a distinctive evolution. Wisnovsky also alludes to how much these two elaborations of distinctions influenced the Latin West (a fact very well known, though not always much explored) as well as post-Avicennian philosophy (as illustrated in the Philosophy of Illumination), and also Kalam, a discovery Richard Frank already adumbrated with his emphasis on the way Avicenna influenced al-Ghazali. Wisnovsky is now working on a systematic exploration of Arabic postclassical philosophical commentaries in order to develop and ground this claim (see, for instance, his essay "The Nature and Scope of Arabic Philosophical Commentary in Post-classical [ca. 1100-1900 AD] Islamic IntellectualHistory: Some PreliminaryObservations," inPhilosophy, Scienceand Exegesis in Greek, Arabic and...