Alexander of Aphrodisias

1) His Biography:

 Alexander arrived in Athens before the end of the second century. He was originally from Aphrodisias in Caria (modern-day Turkey). He studied under the Peripatetic or Stoic philosophers Sosigenes and Herminus as well as perhaps Aristotle of Mytilene. He assumed leadership of the Peripatetic school in Athens and taught Peripatetic philosophy there. On Fate, which Alexander dedicated to Septimius Severus and Caracalla as a token of appreciation for their support of him in his post at Athens, was written between 198 and 209.

His entire name, Titus Aurelius Alexander, is revealed in a recently published inscription from Aphrodisias, which also confirmed that he was the head of one of the Schools at Athens. His whole name reveals that the emperor Antoninus Pius, when proconsul of Asia, most likely granted Roman citizenship to his grandfather or another ancestor. The inscription pays tribute to his father, a philosopher who goes by the same name. This fact makes it logical to attribute some of the dubious works that are a part of Alexander’s corpus to his father.

 Alexander wrote various commentaries on Aristotle’s writings in an effort to break free from a trend toward syncretism and reclaim Aristotle’s original teachings.  His commentary on Prior Analytics, Topics, Meteorology, Sense and Sensibilia, and Metaphysics are the ones that are now available. The commentary on the Sophistical Refutations and the commentary on the last nine books of the Metaphysics are regarded as being false. Works on the De Interpretatione, Posterior Analytics, Physics, On the Heavens, On Generation and Corruption, On the Soul, and On Memory are among the lost commentaries. Alexander gave commentary on the quadrature of the lunes and the accompanying circle-squaring issue, according to Simplicius of Cilicia. When an early commentary on Aristotle’s Categories was found in the Archimedes Palimpsest by imaging analysis in April 2007, Robert Sharples suggested Alexander as the most likely author.

Several of Alexander’s original writings are still in existence. On the Soul, Problems and Solutions, Ethical Problems, On Fate, and On Mixture and Growth amongst these. The works: Medical Questions, Physical Problems, and On Fevers are all thought to be forgeries. Alexander also wrote On the Principles of the Universe, On Providence, and Against Galen on Motion, which are all still available in Arabic form.

 2) Main Works:

 On the Soul: 

The dissertation On the Soul (De anima), which follows the ideas presented in Aristotle’s own De anima, is about the soul. According to Alexander, a man’s undeveloped reason is material (nous hylikos) and inextricably linked to his body. He made a compelling case against the idea that the soul is eternal. He connected God with the active intellect (nous poietikos), which is the mechanism by which the potential intellect in man is realised.

Supplement to On the Soul:

The Supplement to On the Soul (Mantissa), is the second book. The Mantissa is a collection of twenty-five distinct compositions, the first five of which directly address psychology. The remaining twenty pieces address issues in physics and ethics, with most of them addressing issues related to vision and light and the final four addressing issues related to fate and providence. Although the Mantissa wasn’t likely authored by Alexander in its current form, a lot of the content may have been.

Problems and Solutions:

 The three books that make up Problems and Solutions (Quaestiones) tackle topics that are not are not all physical and are not all problems, even though they are titled “problems and solutions of physical questions”.  Twenty-four of the sixty-nine things in these three books are about physics, seventeen are about psychology, eleven are about logic and metaphysics, and six are about issues with destiny and providence. Alexander probably didn’t write all of the Quaestiones; some might be his own explanations, while others might be assignments from his pupils.

Ethical Problems:

 Historically, the Quaestiones’ fourth volume was considered to be Ethical Problems. The work addresses ethical dilemmas using Aristotle as a foundation and includes solutions to issues and questions from Alexander’s school. The text was probably not authored by Alexander, but rather by his students based on discussions about Alexander. 

On Fate: 

In his essay, On Fate, Alexander challenges the necessity-based philosophy of the Stoics. In this, Alexander refuted three ideas: necessity (ἀvάγκη), the foreknowledge of fated occurrences that was a component of the Stoic identification of God and Nature, and determinism in the sense of a chain of causes that was already laid down (προκαταβεβλημένα αἴτια) or was predestined by antecedents (προηγούμενα αἴτια). He defended a morality system that is now known as libertarianism.

On Mixture and Growth:

 The topic of the combination of physical bodies is covered in On Mixture and Growth. It is both a detailed analysis of, and polemic against Stoic physics, and a presentation of this issue in Aristotelian thought.

On the Principles of the Universe:

 The Arabic translation of On the Principles of the Universe is still available. This treatise is not mentioned in the surviving Greek sources, but it was very well-known among Muslims, and several copies of it have survived. This book’s primary goal is to provide an overview of Aristotelian cosmology and metaphysics, but it also has a polemical tone and may be targeted at opposing Peripatetic school viewpoints.

 Alexander was interested in bridging the gaps in the Aristotelian system, erasing its flaws, and presenting a coherent view of the physical and ethical world. The nature of heavenly motions and the interaction between the stable celestial realm and the sublunar world of generation and decay are discussed in this. His primary sources are the Pseudo-Aristotelian On the Universe, the Physics, and Metaphysics.

 On Providence:

 Two Arabic translations of On Providence still exist. The Stoic belief that divine Providence encompasses all facets of the world is opposed by Alexander in this work; he considers it to be unworthy of the gods. Instead, providence is a force that flows from the heavens to the sublunar area and is in charge of creating and destroying everything on Earth without having any direct influence over people’s lives.

 3) Main Themes in his Writings:

 Alexanders commentary of Aristotle:

 Two of his Aristotelian interpretations—whether found in formal comments or other writings—are particularly well-known.  Aristotle made Plato’s concepts immanent in sensible persons while insisting that only this “ideal” (i.e., universal) component of sensibles could be recognised, so that in regards to us, the individual is prior to the universal. Although the universal is truly prior to the individual, Alexander however, went one step further and claimed that only individuals actually exist, with the universals existing only as by-products of human mental (noetic) activity (υoειυ) which dissociates them from the individuals (or the individual existing only in one exemplar e.g., the phoenix). 

Alexander acknowledges the presence of intelligibles that exist outside the domain of the sensible in addition to these intelligibles existing only as the outcomes of our mental activity. They roughly correlate to Aristotle’s “pure” forms, of which his highest deity, the Unmoved Mover, is the most well-known example.

 These “higher” intelligibles (κυρίωςυoητά) have one thing in common with the lower ones: they can only be understood as the results of mental (noetic) acts, but it is not our human intelligence that understands or perceives them. Instead, it is divine intellect, whose hallmark is that its activity is everlasting and never-ending, leading to the existence of these “higher” intelligibles that are also eternal and never-ending. They are “caused” by the greatest intelligible, whose causality Alexander describes in a way that foreshadows several Neoplatonic categories. Since they are not embodied, the mental act of experiencing them does not “abstract” them from substance.

 In connection with this piece of noetics, there is another that Alexander uses to interpret a particularly challenging portion of Aristotle’s psychology in chapters 4 and 5 of Book III of On the Soul. Alexander claims that Aristotle teaches the presence of human intellect (Alexander refers to it as passive, or potential, or material intelligence), which varies for various people and is a component of everyone’s soul, as well as of a second intelligence, which is identical with the Supreme Deity and is known as active intelligence (it is this intelligence that continuously and eternally perceives itself through perceiving the “higher” intelligibles).

 This intelligence-Deity is special since it “enters” man from without (i.e., it is not physically related to him), and it is active in the sense that it awakens human intellect, allowing it to comprehend both lower-order and higher-order intelligibles. Alexander refers to human intellect as being “in action” or “acquired as habit” or “acquired as disponsible skill”(έυεργείαι έπίκτoς, κάθ′ ε̈ξιυ), depending on how it has been activated (we could also use the word “transformed” and Alexander almost uses the word “divinized”). The denial of any type of personal immortality is the most obvious outcome of this idea.

 Man’s intelligence, as it was altered by the active intelligence, endures by being reabsorbed into that particular, impersonal, divine intelligence. However, man’s soul perishes with his body. It is interesting that Pseudo-Alexander refers to the “transformation” experience, which occurs when human intelligence is able to perceive the “higher” intelligibles, as an ethereal (indescribable) event. One of the major debates of the Middle Ages and the early Modern Era was whether or not Alexander’s reading of Aristotle was valid, and even more, whether or not the theory (the denial of personal immortality) was correct.

 Locomotion:

 All change is finally reduced to locomotion in Aristotle’s works, and the celestial bodies are credited with prime locomotion (fixed stars and planets, and their spheres). The reason behind this movement is explained in three different ways. The first one is that all heavenly bodies are animated and propelled by their souls; the second is that they are composed of an element, the ether, which by nature moves eternally, ceaselessly, and in circles; and third is that they are attracted to and moved by their Unmoved Mover. Alexander made an effort to harmonise these three accounts. Ether is animated, and the soul is its nature. This soul wants to imitate the Unmoved Mover, and so it circles him forever. 

Free Will:

 Alexander sets out to demonstrate that a person’s will is free (or, to use Greek, that we have some control over certain things, έϕ’ ήμι~υ). One of his primary points is that, in contrast to other animals, man has the ability to deliberate, which mediates between stimuli (ϕαυτασίαι) and actions. Animals, on the other hand, only respond to stimuli. Since nothing that nature does is done in vain, the fact that humans have the ability to deliberate and agree or disagree with stimuli in a logical manner demonstrates our freedom of choice.

 Another explanation for the existence of free will is based on the idea that, in contrast to the domain of the changeable (of becoming and perishing), which is said to be saturated by nonbeing, the realm of the eternal and unchanging is, if we may say so, full of being. There is no cause for phenomena like chance and free will; they are caused by this nonbeing.

 Alexander’s solution to the issue of fate or destiny, or the notion of an unbroken causal chain, is related to the free-will theory. Human freedom is evidence that this theory is false. The definition of “fate” should be understood to suggest that everything behaves in accordance with its unique, non-generic character; in fact, “fate” and “nature” coexist without restricting man’s freedom. 

Providence:

 Alexander talks about the issue of providence. According to Alexander, the idea that the divine (superior) exists for the benefit of or benefits from the inferior is false. He rejects the idea that the divine provides in a direct way (πρoηγουμέυως), much like a shepherd provides for his flock.

 He also disputes the idea that divine providence has only accidental (κατά συμβεβηκóς) results, but he insists that there are other forms of divine providence and pledges to demonstrate that, in contrast to what some have claimed, Aristotle understood providence. Alexander himself, at least speculatively, attributes providence to the totality of effects resulting from the celestial bodies’ perpetual rotation, with its primary result being the general immortality of mortals, who make up the world of becoming. 

 Natural Justice:

 Alexander claims that natural justice exists. His major argument is that justice is natural because justice cannot exist without society and because man was designed by nature to dwell in it.

 Moral Perfection:

 As demonstrated by the fact that a morally perfect man can justify killing himself for excellent reasons (ε̕ύλσγoς έξαγωγή), something he would never do if his life were happy, Alexander claims that moral perfection (άρετή) does not ensure happiness. Nobody can have one moral perfection (άρετή), like courage, without also possessing the others. 

 Squaring the Circle:

 Alexander is likely to be cited in any history of the circle-squaring problem because he remarked on every section in which Aristotle condemned the techniques employed for this goal by Hippocrates of Chios, Bryson, and Antiphon, always in passing and to the point of obscurity. It appears that Alexander, who was probably duped by Aristotle, believed that Hippocrates did not distinguish between lunules formed on quadrants and sextants (the sides of a square encircled by a circle), and that Antiphon violated the rule that a curve and a straight line can share only one point, which suggests that he claimed that atomic lengths existed, of which both curves and straight lines were a part of. Alexander disregarded the circle-squaring techniques of Hippocrates and Antiphon based on this justification.

 4) His Legacy:

 The influence of Alexander’s teaching during his lifetime is unknown. However, some evidence of critical attacks on his contemporary Galen (129–216 CE) suggests that he was also involved in a debate with other of his contemporaries. It’s unclear if his arguments against modern interpretations of Stoic theory were meant to be personal or more academic. Alexander may have had direct interaction with the occupants of the other philosophical seats in Athens if he held the chair of Peripatetic philosophy there.

 Of course, he was not the first to comment on Aristotle. However, other exegetes unquestionably held up his approach and his norms for clarifying issues and obscurities in Aristotle’s writings as models. Both explicit citations in later commentators and the unacknowledged use of his work in some still-existing later commentaries on the same texts serve as indicators of this. He continued to be regarded as a preeminent authority throughout late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, as evidenced by the translations of his works into Arabic and, to a lesser extent, Latin. Scholars still use his commentary today, not just for historical reasons but also because his recommendations are frequently worthwhile to consider in their own work.

 As evidenced by the rise in publications on both general and specific aspects of Alexander’s exegetical and philosophical work, specialists have been closely scrutinising his work in various ways because late-antique philosophers other than the Neo-Platonists have received much more attention in recent years. Alexander’s work opens an intriguing period of transition in the history of philosophical and scientific ideas, and the accessibility of the majority of his writings in English translations will make clear to a more general readership that it is not only important for specialists in the history of philosophy.