THEMISTIUS AGAINST PORPHYRY (?) ON ‘WHY WE DO NOT REMEMBER’

This article sheds new light on Themistius’ argument in what is philosophically the most original (and historically the most influential) section of his extant work, namely On Aristotle's On the Soul 100.16–109.3: here, Themistius offers a systematic interpretation of Aristotle's ‘agent’ intellect and its ‘potential’ and ‘passive’ counterparts. A solution to two textual difficulties at 101.36–102.2 is proposed, supported by the Arabic translation. This allows us to see that Themistius engages at length with a Platonizing reading of the enigmatic final lines of De anima III.5, where Aristotle explains ‘why we do not remember’ (without specifying when and what). This Platonizing reading (probably inspired by Aristotle's early dialogue Eudemus) can be safely identified with the one developed in a fragmentary text extant only in Arabic under the title Porphyry's treatise On the soul. While Themistius rejects this reading, he turns out to be heavily influenced by the author's interpretation of the ‘agent’, ‘potential’ and ‘passive’ intellect. These findings offer us a new glimpse into Themistius’ philosophical programme: he is searching for an alternative to both the austere (and, by Themistius’ lights, distorted) Aristotelianism of Alexander of Aphrodisias and the all too Platonizing reading of Aristotle adopted by thinkers such as Porphyry.

Aristotle the Platonist

This chapter evaluates the contributions of Aristotle to the completion of the Platonic project. Although it is undeniably true that Aristotle dissented from many claims made by Plato, it focuses on the principles he shared with Plato, his arguments for these, and some of the illuminating things he had to say about the application of these principles. Aristotle was as opposed to Naturalism as Plato. His argument for the subject matter of the science of being qua being supports Plato's identification of the subject matter of philosophy. Ultimately, one of Aristotle's greatest contributions to the Platonic project is the concept of potency. The chapter then discusses Aristotle's introduction of what has been called the immortal or agent intellect. The immortal intellect seems to be Aristotle's version of what Plato calls “the immortal part of the soul,” that which is separable from the body and capable of knowledge. The chapter also examines Aristotle's own account of a first principle of all, the Unmoved Mover, which had an enormous effect on how later soi-disant Platonists viewed Plato himself.

L’intellect agent, la lumière, l’hexis. Averroès lecteur d’Aristote et d’Alexandre d’Aphrodise

This article examines Averroes’ interpretation, found in his Long Commentary on the De Anima, of a famous passage in Aristotle’s De An. III 5 (430a14‑15) which presents the intellect “producing all things, as a kind of positive state (hexis), like light”. Averroes, clearly heir to Alexander of Aphrodisias for whom hexis refers not to the intellect “agent” itself but to its product, defends nevertheless, via the comparison with light, the conception of the agent intellect (a substance purely in act by itself ) as an hexis, which leads us to the inevitable consequence that the agent intellect is the prime object of the material intellect, acting as a condition for all subsequent thoughts.

Internal Senses and Intellect in the Sentencia cum Questionibus in libros De anima I-II Aristotelis attributed to Peter of Spain

This study aims to present the internal senses and intellect in the theory of the abstraction of Pedro Hispano’s on Sentencia cum questionibus in libros De anima I-II Aristotelis and the functions of these elements in the theory of abstraction, detaining the role of the cognitive faculties as well as the internal senses, the possible intellect and the agent intellect.

The causa sine qua non of Human Cognition for Durand f St. Pourçain

This article aims to analyze the notion of sine qua non cause of the cognitive theory of Durand’ of St. Pourçain Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard [A] and [C]. For Durand, when the intellect acts by a cognitive act, no absolute entity is added to it. The cognition, or thought, is treated by the author as a relative entity, not as something that belongs to the intellect, or as something that is added to it. The sensible species of the material object, spread in the medium, affects the external sensory organs. Therefore, the sensory faculty notices the changes that occurred in the body and is capable of producing a sensation and the cognitive faculty, on its turn, can produce a conception due to the intuition of the changes that happened in the body to which it is associated. Consequently, there is no need to affirm that a cognitive act is the result of an abstractive process. The culmination of his cognitive theory is the rejection of the existence of an agent intellect responsible for abstracting.