Destructible Worlds in an Aristotelian Scholion (Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Lost Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, Frag. 539 Rashed)
-
André Laks
Abstract
Does Anaxagoras admit that the world is destructible? Aëtius’ doxographical handbook says as much, and so does a doxographical scholion derived from Alexander of Aphrodisias’ lost commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (Frag. 539 Rashed) according to the transmitted text. However, because of other difficulties occurring in the same scholion, Rashed was led to correct not only this text, thus making it contradict Aëtius’ testimony, but also the entry dedicated to Plato. My article suggests that while Rashed’s corrections are superfluous, the problems that triggered them are of great interest for the history of the doxographical tradition, for the way in which this tradition was used by Alexander of Aphrodisias and Simplicius in their commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics and, last but not least, for the understanding of the difficulties that ancient interpreters had to confront when they had to make sense of the lines now known as Anaxagoras B12 DK – difficulties that modern interpreters have still to confront.
Appendix: Note on the structure of the doxography in the scholion
On the basis of the reading I suggested for the Plato entry above p. 414, the scholion could reflect 5 rather than 6 lemmas, because the entries labeled 4a and 4b below really result from a dissociation of one single doxa, as is shown by a comparison with Aëtius 24.9 Mansfeld and Runia (cf. above p. 414, n. 24):
| 1. ἀπείρους κόσμους γενητοὺς [καὶ φθαρτούς | Δημόκριτος, Ἀναξίμανδρος, Ἐπίκουρος. |
| 2. ἕνα κόσμον γενητὸν καὶ φθαρτὸν [ἄλλον καὶ ἄλλον | Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ᾽Αναξιμένης, Διογένης, Ἡράκλειτος, [ἡ Στοά. |
| 3. ἕνα κόσμον γενητὸν καὶ [φθαρτόν ἐξ ἡσυχίας | Ἀναξαγόρας Ἀρχέλαος Μητρόδωρος. |
| 4a. ἕνα κόσμον γενητὸν καὶ[φθαρτόν ἐξ ἀταξίας | Πλάτων, ὡς δοκεῖ· |
| 4b. ἕνα κόσμον γενητὸν καὶ [ἄφθαρτον. [34] | <Πλάτων καθ᾽ ἀλήθειαν> vel <Πλάτων> [35] |
| 5. ἕνα κόσμον ἀγένητον καὶ [ἄφθαρτον | Ξενοφάνης, Παρμενίδης. |
The chapter is progressing both from ‘illimited’ number to ‘unicity’ and from ‘genesis-cum-destruction” to ‘non-genesis-cum-non-destruction’. The main divide is between illimited number and unicity, that is between 1 and 2. There is a remainder of multiplicity in 2, since the cosmos is generically one, but specifically different inasmuch as it is periodically regenerated (ἄλλον καὶ ἄλλον). This remainder is progressively eliminated in the four remaining lemmas, which consider the case of a straightforwardly unique cosmos. The modality of the genesis, which was not mentioned in the first two entries and is irrelevant to the last one where there is no genesis, is explicitly mentioned in 3 and 4. Whereas ἡσυχία refers to the immobility characteristic of Anaxagoras’ mixture before the intervention of Nous, which initiates motion (cf. B12), ἀταξία, by contrast, points not only to the notion of disorder, but to the agitation characteristic of the chora in the Timaeus (cf. Tim. 52e). At the same time, Plato’s doxa directly leads to the Eleatic position, in an inversion of the move that leads from the first to the second entry: whereas entry 2 still implied some multiplicity in an already single-world scheme, entry 4 still contains a generative moment, which is then totally eliminated in the last, fully Eleatic doxa.
If this description is right, the scholion not only contains new information about the opinions of some of the authors it mentions (cf. supra, p. 405, n. 6 and Rashed 2011, p. 489f), but it above all presents an original organization of a material abundantly represented in the ancient debate (cf. the references collected by Mansfeld and Runia 2009 at the end of their reconstruction of Aëtius 2.4., p. 364–366). This topic would require further investigation, too. [36]
References
Betegh, G. 2016. “Archelaus on Cosmogony and the Origins of Social Institutions”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 51, 1–40.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198795797.003.0001Suche in Google Scholar
Bodnar, I., Chase M., Share M. 2012. Simplicius. On Aristotle Physics 8.1-5 (tranls.), London, Bristol Classical.Suche in Google Scholar
Cooper, J. 1997 (ed.). Plato Complete Works, Indianapolis/Cambridge, Hackett Publishing Company.Suche in Google Scholar
Cornford, F. M. 1934. “Innumerable Worlds in Presocratic Philosophy”, The Classical Quarterly 28, 1–16.10.1017/S0009838800009897Suche in Google Scholar
Curd, P. 2007. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae: Fragments and Testimonia, Toronto/Buffalo/London, Toronto University Press.10.3138/9781442684027Suche in Google Scholar
Laks, A. 1993. “Mind’s Crisis. On Anaxagoras’ Nous”, The Southern Journal of Philosophy 31, Supplement (Proceedings of the 1992 Spindel Conference), 19–38.10.1111/j.2041-6962.1993.tb00693.xSuche in Google Scholar
Laks, A. 2002. “Les fonctions de l’intelligence. Derechef à propos du Nous d’Anaxagore”, Methodos 2, 7–31 (http://methodos.revues.org). Also in A. Laks, Histoire, Doxographie, Vérité, Louvain, Peeters, 2007, 132–148.10.4000/methodos.224Suche in Google Scholar
Laks, A., Most, G. W. 2016a. Early Greek Philosophy (Loeb Collection), 9 vols., Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Laks, A., Most, G. W. 2016b. Les Débuts de la philosophie. Des premiers penseurs Grecs à Socrate, Paris, Seuil.Suche in Google Scholar
Lesher, J. 1995. “Mind’s Knowledge and Powers of Control in Anaxagoras DK B12”, Phronesis 40, 125–142.10.1163/156852895321051919Suche in Google Scholar
Louguet, C. 2002. “Note sur le fragment B4a d’Anaxagore : pourquoi les autres mondes doivent-ils être semblables au nôtre ?”, in A. Laks et C. Louguet, Qu’est-ce que la philosophie présocratique ?/What is Presocratic Philosophy ?, Villeneuve d’Ascq, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 497–528.10.4000/books.septentrion.55782Suche in Google Scholar
Mansfeld, J., Runia D. T. 2009. Aëtiana: The Method and Intellectual Context of a Doxographer, vol. II/2: Aëtius Book II. Specimen Reconstructionis, Leiden/Boston, Brill.10.1163/ej.9789004180413.i-650Suche in Google Scholar
Rashed, M. 2007. Essentialisme: Alexandre d’Aphrodise entre logique, physique et cosmologie, Berlin/New York, de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110901306Suche in Google Scholar
Rashed, M. 2011. Alexandre d’Aphrodise, commentaire perdu à la Physique d’Aristote (livres IV-VIII): les scholies byzantines: édition, traduction et commentaire, Berlin/Boston, de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110216462Suche in Google Scholar
Sedley, D. 2007. Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity, Berkeley/Los Angeles/ London, University of California Press.10.1525/9780520934368Suche in Google Scholar
Silvestre, M. L. 1989. Anassagora nella storiografia filosofica: dal V sec. a.C. al VI sec. d.C. Roma, Ed. Dell’Ateneo.Suche in Google Scholar
Zeller, E. 1963 (1919/1923). Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, ed. W. Nestle, 6 vols., Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.Suche in Google Scholar
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Foreword
- Articles
- L’equilibrio dopo il movimento: percezione e conoscenza fra Democrito e i medici ippocratici
- I pathe di Epicuro tra epistemologia ed etica
- Epicurean Dreams
- Passione e immaginazione in Lucrezio: il caso dell’inganno onirico
- La peur, passion radicale
- Keine Furcht mit Diogenes!
- La trattazione vetero-stoica dell’ira: componenti logiche e caratteri fisiologici
- The Stoics on the Mental Mechanism of Emotions: Is There a “Pathetic Syllogism”?
- Seneca e la passione come esperienza fisica
- Note
- Destructible Worlds in an Aristotelian Scholion (Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Lost Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, Frag. 539 Rashed)
- Review
- Review
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Foreword
- Articles
- L’equilibrio dopo il movimento: percezione e conoscenza fra Democrito e i medici ippocratici
- I pathe di Epicuro tra epistemologia ed etica
- Epicurean Dreams
- Passione e immaginazione in Lucrezio: il caso dell’inganno onirico
- La peur, passion radicale
- Keine Furcht mit Diogenes!
- La trattazione vetero-stoica dell’ira: componenti logiche e caratteri fisiologici
- The Stoics on the Mental Mechanism of Emotions: Is There a “Pathetic Syllogism”?
- Seneca e la passione come esperienza fisica
- Note
- Destructible Worlds in an Aristotelian Scholion (Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Lost Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, Frag. 539 Rashed)
- Review
- Review
