15

John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book

of Aristotle’s De Anima, Wrongly Attributed to
Stephanus1
Pantelis Golitsis

It is generally agreed that the commentary on the third book of Aristotle’s On the Soul
or De Anima, published by Michael Hayduck in 1897, is not by John Philoponus.2
Although all three books of this commentary were attributed to Philoponus in 1535 by
Vittore Trincavelli (the editor of the editio princeps),3 Hayduck was sceptical about the

1
I wish to especially thank Valérie Cordonier, Börje Bydén, and Richard Sorabji for inviting me to
present this paper at various audiences in Paris, Göteborg, and Oxford. I am grateful to all participants
for their stimulus and fruitful comments.
2
M. Hayduck, ed., Ioannis Philoponi in Aristotelis De anima libros commentaria, CAG 15 (Berlin: Reimer,
1897). See e.g. H. J. Blumenthal, Aristotle and Neoplatonism in Late Antiquity. Interpretations of the De
anima (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 62–5 and 196–7, and W. Charlton, Philoponus, On
Aristotle on the Intellect (London: Duckworth, 1991), pp. 1–12, for arguments that seek to rule out the
possibility that Philoponus is the author of the Greek commentary on Book 3; W. Charlton, ‘Philoponus’
On Aristotle On the Soul 3.1–8 (London: Duckworth, 2000), pp. 1–12, repr. in W. Chalrton, ‘Philoponus’
On Aristotle On the Soul 3.9–13, with Stephanus, On Aristotle On intepretation (London: Duckworth
2000), for arguments that seek to attribute the commentary to Stephanus. Lately, Christian Tornau,
‘Bemerkungen zu Stephanos von Alexandria, Plotin und Plutarch von Athen’, Elenchos 28 (2007), 105–
27, has most interestingly provided a further argument, based on a parallel text, for attributing the
commentary to Stephanus; his thesis fundamentally rests on the assumption that a comment on
assertion and denial is unique in its formulation to ‘Ps.-Philoponus’ (in DA 3,546,1–6) and Stephanus
(in Int. 6,23–5), since in Ammonius, in Int. 27,1–3, only denial is dealt with. Mossman Roueché has
pointed out to me, however, that this very comment is also found in Ammonius’ commentary on the
Prior Analytics (in An. Pr. 22,34–23,8), where is attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias (cf. Alexander,
in An. Pr. 15,4–11). It could, therefore, be made by anyone familiar with Alexander’s commentary or
with Ammonius’ teachings on logic. Two scholars have resisted so far to the general tendency: W.
Bernard, ‘Philoponus on self-­awareness’, in R. Sorabji, ed., Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian
Science (London: Duckworth, 1987), p.  154, n. 3 (2nd edn, 2010, p.  195, n. 3), according to whom
‘several collections of his [i.e. Philoponus’] comments existed side by side in his day’, and P. Lautner,
‘Philoponus, in De anima 3: Quest for an author’, Classical Quarterly 42 (1992), 510–22, especially
514–5, where he asserts that ‘the in De anima 3 might be nothing other than the detailed lecture notes
of a disciple or disciples [of Philoponus]’; this is also my opinion, albeit argued in a different way. A.
Ritups, in his unpublished dissertation Aristotle De Anima III. 6: Essays in the history of its interpretation
(Leuven, 2010), also opts for Philoponus. R. Sorabji, ‘New findings on Philoponus: Part 2 – Recent
studies’, in R. Sorabji, ed., Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science, 2nd edn, pp.  11–40,
especially p. 29, prudently speaks of the ‘disputed Greek commentary on book 3’.
3
Edited by V. Trincavellus (Venice, 1535). The title describes it as a hupomnêma of John the
Grammarian on the books of Aristotle’s De Anima.

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 394 Aristotle Re-Interpreted

attribution of Book 3. He claimed that there are important stylistic differences between
the first two books and the third book.4 This is undoubtedly true but it only proves, as
Hayduck himself noted, that what we read in his (and in Trincavelli’s) edition is a
composite commentary: one author is responsible for the commentary on Books 1 and
2, while some other author is responsible for the commentary on Book 3. I will claim
in this paper that the first author is Ammonius, whereas the second is Philoponus.
Hayduck would disagree with my claim, since he had a second argument, which he
felt to be more decisive: in two Byzantine manuscripts, he says, namely the Parisinus gr.
1914, which is the oldest surviving manuscript of the commentary, and the Mutinensis
III. F. 8, the third book is introduced as biblion triton apo phonês Stephanou (‘Book 3
from the voice of Stephanus’). In fact, six out of thirteen manuscripts that contain the
composite commentary on the De Anima ascribe the third book to Stephanos.5 We
should be aware, however, that in good philology numbers do not count. A partial
collation quickly shows that the five manuscripts, dating from the fifteenth and the
sixteenth centuries, are direct or indirect copies of the sixth, namely the Parisinus gr.
1914, that is, Hayduck’s codex D, which is traditionally dated to the twelfth century.6 D
originally had no titles for Books 2 and 3, which ought to be added in red ink, just like
the general title of the commentary, which is written in red at the beginning of Book 1.
The missing titles have been provided some decades later by two correctors, D2 and D3,
who collated a second manuscript and either restored portions of text that had been
omitted by D1 or deleted portions of text that had been repeated by D1.7 D2 added the
title ‘commentary on the second book of On the Soul’ (exêgêsis tou deuterou peri
psukhês) at the beginning of Book 2, whereas D3 added the words ‘Book 3 from the
voice of Stephanus’ (biblion triton apo phônês stephanou) at the beginning of Book 3.
Unless it can be proved that D3’s addition was copied onto Parisinus from another
manuscript, the attribution to Stephanus has no value. Quite tellingly, the addition of
these words was D3’s last intervention, since he did not go on with his collation into
Book 3. He must have stopped because the manuscript he used for his collation did not
contain the commentary on Book 3 that D did; it contained, in all probability, a different
commentary, which is nowadays lost in the Greek original but is known to have been
used by Sophonias in the late thirteenth century.8 The attribution to Stephanus might
well have been a reasonable guess by D3, who was unable to make sense of the fact that
the apo phonês commentary contained in D was not the same as the (not apo phonês)
commentary attributed to Philoponus in the manuscript he used for his collation; thus,
being familiar with Stephanus’ apo phonês commentary on the De interpretatione, he
attributed it to him.

4
Hayduck, op. cit., p. v, says the first two books show verbose industry, the third a meagre brevity of
interpretation.
5
Apart from the Parisinus gr. 1914 and the Mutinensis III. F. 8, these manuscripts are: Leidensis Voss.
F 61, Oxoniensis Laud. gr. 48, Angelicus gr. 104, and Marcianus gr. 232.
6
According to my palaeographical judgement, this manuscript is older and should be dated to the
eleventh century.
7
See e.g. f. 4v, 94r, and 94v.
8
See S. Van Riet, ‘Fragments de l’original grec du « De intellectu » de Philopon dans une compilation
de Sophonias’, Revue philosophique de Louvain 63 (1965), 5–40.

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 John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book of Aristotle’s 395

A substantial part of the commentary used by Sophonias is preserved in Latin, since

it was translated by William of Moerbeke in 1268. It is misleadingly known as
Philoponus’ On the Intellect (De intellectu) thanks to its first editor Marcel De Corte,
who took Moerbeke’s colophon literally (cf. De intellectu, 119,62–4 Verbeke: ‘Here ends
the commentary of John the Grammarian or Philoponus or the Alexandrian on
Aristotle’s chapter on the Intellect in the book On the Soul’). The ‘chapter on the
intellect’, of which the colophon speaks, corresponds to our chapters 4–8 of the third
book of the De Anima, but Philoponus’ alleged commentary on it, as translated by
Moerbeke, is very different in content and style from the surviving Greek commentary
on Book 3. It is, however, very similar to the surviving Greek commentary on Books 1
and 2.9 This similarity led De Corte to infer that the authentic Philoponan commentary
on Book 3 has been replaced at some time in the Greek tradition by the commentary
of another author.10
De Corte was right about the unity of the Latin commentary on Book 3 with the
Greek commentary on Books 1 and 2 but he was wrong about its authorship. It escaped
his notice that in most and in the best manuscripts the commentary bears the title
‘Notes taken after the manner of schools11 (skholikai aposiemeiôseis) by John the
Alexandrian on Aristotle’s discourse [Greek scil.: logon]12 On the Soul from the courses
(sunousiai) of Ammonius, son of Hermeias, with some (tinôn) critical observations
(epistaseis) of his own’. Such a long title, of course, could not be repeated at the beginning

9
M. De Corte, ed., Le Commentaire de Jean Philopon sur le Troisieme Livre du « Traité de l’Ame »
d’Aristote, (Liège : Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l’Université de Liège, 1934).
De Corte gives twenty-­eight arguments of style and content (pp. ix–xv) that unite the commentary
translated into Latin with the Greek commentary on Books 1 and 2, which De Corte attributes
without qualification to Philoponus. Although we will be seeing that this author is not really
Philoponus, the homogeneity of the work cannot be doubted. It suffices to recall with De Corte a
self-­reference made by the author in De intellectu 2,7–11 De Corte = 2,27–31 Verbeke, which refers
back to in DA 2, 266,4–6). Further arguments have been supplied by Charlton, Philoponus On
Aristotle on the Intellect, pp. 5–6. We can add some further parallels: cf. in DA 1, 70,19–25: ‘Likewise
the soul, too, when it appears in its own light shows what mode of being it has, i.e. a divine,
incorporeal and passive mode of being, yet if it appears in the dark, i.e. in the body and in the
affections, we shall see it, as Plato says (cf. Republic, 611C7-D7), just as those observing Glaucus the
sea-­godobserving not his true being as such but seeing the seaweed around him as if it were he
himself. I mean the affections or the body and we will believe that it is some of those’ with De
intellectu, 53,62–6 Verbeke: ‘This is how Plato also taught us to think of the human soul. He says: “We
seem to have been seeing it here as some people see the sea-­god Glaucus.” They do not see its
substance, but the things which have grown into its appearance from outside’; and De intellectu,
38,99–39,3 Verbeke : ‘But to this it may be replied that we ought to interpret what Aristotle says here
carefully and thoughtfully with regard to his whole thought and to what he says everywhere about
the intellect. If we have shown a thousand times over, quoting Arristotelian texts, that he wants the
rational soul to be separate and immortal . . .’, with in DA 2, 246,24–7: ‘But we ought to look to the
whole idea of the Philosopher and recall the things said about the intellect before. So if he everywhere
declates the intellect separable and immortal, we should understanmnd the soul here to be both the
vegetative and the non-­rational.’
10
cf. De Corte, Le Commentaire de Jean Philopon, p. ix: ‘Our intention is to demonstrate that [. . .] only
the Graeco-Latin translation edited by us corresponds to Philoponus’ original Greek lost to this day,
and that consequently the Greek text of the Berlin edition is to be attributed to a pseudo-Philoponus’.
11
skholikai, meaning that the notes correspond to the way Aristotle is taught at class, that is, through
commenting on successive passages of Aristotle’s text.
12
Hayduck erroneously edits eis tên Peri Psukhês, which is not attested in any manuscript. Some
manuscripts have mutated ton, i.e. logon, to to.

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 396 Aristotle Re-Interpreted

of each book of the commentary. Indeed, in a manuscript older than Moerbeke’s

translation, namely the Meteora, Monê Metamorphôseôs 536, which has unfortunately
lost a great deal of its first and its last quires, we read an abridged title for Book 2:
‘school notes and (skholia kai) notes of John of the school of Alexandria of the schools
on 2 of Aristotle’s On the Soul’. Skholia kai is manifestly a corruption of skholikai, but
the aposiemeiôseis, of which the title speaks, must clearly be notes of something, that is,
of Ammonius’ lectures, which were undoubtedly mentioned in the general title of the
commentary in Book 1, nowadays lost. If we conceive of a similar title for book 3 (viz.
‘school notes and (skholia kai) notes of John of the school of Alexandria on 3 of
Aristotle’s On the Soul’), we can easily explain how Moerbeke was led to ascribe his De
intellectu to Philoponus without any further qualification.
The authenticity of the general title of the commentary, as is testified in the Greek
manuscript tradition, cannot be doubted, since it is fully consistent with the titles of
other commentaries: Philoponus’ commentaries on the Posterior Analytics and on On
Coming-­to-Be and Perishing are precisely described in the manuscripts, just as the
commentary on the De Anima, as ‘Notes taken after the manner of schools from the
courses of Ammonius, son of Hermeias, with some critical observations of his own.’
Therefore, we are forced to admit that in these commentaries Philoponus’ own thinking
is only to some extent represented, since these commentaries are explicitly said to
contain just some critical observations by him. Therefore, Gerard Verbeke, whose
edition of the De intellectu replaced that of the De Corte, could hardly be right when
he decided to enrich his introduction with a chapter on Philoponus’ psychologie et
noétique, a chapter starting as follows:

The exposition which follows is based on the Prologue and on the two first books
of the Greek commentary of Philoponus, and will eventually make it possible to
interpret the theory of intellect expounded in the Latin version of Book 3.13

It is quite likely that the theory of intellect which Verbeke describes in his book is not
Philoponus’ own theory but the theory of Philoponus’ teacher Ammonius. Indeed, it is
not without perplexity that a few pages later Verbeke notes:

One finds in this commentary an Aristotle much more spiritualist than he was in
fact, an Aristotle who foreshadows the philosophy of Plotinus and the Neoplatonists,
and in basic agreement with them.14

This must be, we may surmise, the Aristotle of the Neoplatonist Ammonius. He further
asks:

13
G. Verbeke, Jean Philopon, Le Commentaire sur le De anima d’Aristote, Traduction de Guillaume de
Moerbeke (Louvain: Publications Universiatires de Louvain / Paris: Éditions Béatrice-Nauwelaerts,
1966), p. xx.
14
Ibid., p. lxx.

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 John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book of Aristotle’s 397

Are there genuinely Christian elements in the doctrine of Philoponus? We have

hardly found any such. Insofar as Philoponus allows the doctrine of the pre-­
existence of the soul and of reincarnation, we should rather ask whether these
doctrines were compatible in his mind with Christian faith.

But there is no need to go that far. Insofar as such doctrines are globally accepted by a
pagan Platonist, it suffices to simply trust the title of the commentary: what we read in
this commentary does not in the main reflect Philoponus’ own beliefs but it reflects the
beliefs of his teacher Ammonius. Had this commentary been a proper work by
Philoponus, it surely would not have been qualified by Philoponus himself as ‘notes
taken at the courses of Ammonius, son of Hermias’.
We can also adduce the testimony of his other commentaries. In Philoponus’
commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorologica, which is not described as aposêmeiôseis and,
therefore, is not supposed to reflect Ammonius’ lectures, Philoponus refers to his own
commentary on the fourth book of Aristotle’s Physics as ‘our own writings
(sungrammata) after the manner of schools on the fourth book of the Physics’.15 Both
the commentary on the Meteorologica and the commentary on the fourth book of the
Physics are well known for containing some of the most original thinking of Philoponus.
We have seen so far, just by giving due attention to the testimony of the manuscripts,
that the commentary on Books 1 and 2, as well as the part of Book 3 that has been
translated into Latin by William of Moerbeke, is not composed by Philoponus in the
proper sense but by Philoponus’ teacher Ammonius. With the exception of his epistaseis,
Philoponus’ task consisted in editing for publication the notes he had taken at
Ammonius’ courses.16 I shall now go on to examine not the titles but the contents of the
composite commentary edited by Hayduck. Select examples will suffice to establish
three things: (i) that Philoponus published an oral commentary by Ammonius on the
De Anima, (ii) that he enriched this commentary with critical observations of his own,
and (iii) that he himself later commented on book 3 of the De Anima.

I.  Ammonius’ (Oral) Commentary on the De Anima

In the commentary on Book 1, the author rejects twice a claim made by Andronicus of
Rhodes about De Interpretatione’s being spurious because it contains in its very
beginning a blind reference to the De Anima. While commenting on De Anima, the
author of the commentary spots two passages to which the alleged blind reference
corresponds, as precisely does Ammonius in his commentary on the De Interpretation,17
the unique commentary known to have been published by Ammonius himself.

15
Philoponus, in Meteor. 35,18–19.
16
I discuss in more details Philoponus’ role as an editor of Ammonius in a paper given at a conference
held at the University of Thessaloniki: Aristotle and His Commentators: Studies in Memory of
Paraskevi Kotzia (publication forthcoming).
17
cf. in DA 27,21–9: ‘On the basis of this passage we can refute Andronicus of Rhodes, who declared
On Interpretation spurious: since Aristotle there says that thoughts are affections of the soul, as it is
said in On the Soul, Andronicus says that this is nowhere stated in On the Soul, so that either On the

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 398 Aristotle Re-Interpreted

Moreover, the author of the commentary on Books 1 and 2 insists on the harmony
between Plato and Aristotle, which is a well known feature of Ammonian exegesis.
Compare, for instance, the following passages:

These are the things that serve to show that even according to Aristotle himself the
soul is subject to movement and that Plato was not wrong in assigning self-­
movement to it. And for a grateful arbitrator of these arguments no battle will be
found to exist between these philosophers, except in the words alone. As Aristotle
is used to do in many places when he is refuting the apparent meaning [of Plato’s
sayings], he does so here, too.
in DA 95,7–12; trans. van der Eijk modified

Therefore, Empedocles spoke well about love and strife, and the Pythagoreans
about numbers, meaning by that the intelligibles, as did the Platonists speaking
about forms. And we have shown that Aristotle openly represents the same
things. It is therefore as to the appearance that Aristotle battled against these
philosophers, so that we do not accept their doctrines by trusting their appearance.
in Metaph. 233,36–40

Soul or On Interpretation must be spurious; but On the Soul has been agreed to be by Aristotle;
therefore, On Interpretation is spurious. We reply that in this passage by “affections peculiar to the
soul” [1.1, 402a9] Aristotle means nothing else than thoughts, so that this is what he referred to in On
Interpretation’ (trans. van der Eijk), and 45,8–14: ‘Look, he has again called thinking an affection. This
relates to Andronicus of Rhodes, who declared On Interpretation spurious because there Aristotle
says that thoughts are affections of the soul, as has been said in On the Soul, yet evidently nowhere in
On the Soul has he called thoughts affections, Andronicus believed. In that case look just at this text,
where he says “Thinking in particular seems to be something peculiar” [1.1, 403a8], i.e. a peculiar
affection. If, then, he says, the soul has an affection peculiar to it, it is thinking’ (trans. van der Eijk),
with Ammonius, in Int. 5,24–6,33: ‘As for the book’s being a genuine work of the Philosopher, none of
those who studied the writings of Aristotle wished to cast doubt on it, in view of the persuasiveness
of its content, the technical character of the observations it transmits (a character quite usual for the
Philosopher) and the agreement <of our treatise> with his other courses – except for Andronicus of
Rhodes, who was eleventh in succession from Aristotle. When Aristotle heard Aristotle in the
prooemium of this book calling thoughts “passions of the soul” and adding “these have been discussed
in On the Soul”, he failed to understand where in the course On the Soul the Philosopher called
thoughts “passions of the soul” and, thinking it necessary for one of the two courses, this one and On
the Soul, to be shown to be a counterfeit work of Aristotle, he considered he had to reject this one as
spurious, rather than On the Soul. It must, however, be understood that often in On the Soul the
imagination is called a “passive intelligence” by the Philosopher [. . .]. And he also clearly extends to
all the activities of the soul in common the name “passion”; at any rate, he says there that the passions
of the soul pose a dilemma as to “whether they are all shared by the one who has them, or whether
there is one which is peculiar to the soul itself ” [1.1, 403a3–5]. In solving this dilemma he adds: “Of
most things [the soul] seems to suffer or to do none without the body, for example becoming angry,
taking heart, desiring, sensing in general. But thinking in particular seems to be something peculiar;
and, if it too is an imagination or is not without imagination, not even this could exist without body”
[1.1, 403a5–10]. Even before this, in the prooemium of the same course, he says: “We also seek to
investigate and to know both the soul’s nature and its being, and then all its accidents, of which some
seem to be the peculiar passions of the soul, while other seem to belong in common to the animals
too, because of the soul” [1.1, 402a7–10]’ (trans. Blank, adapted).

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 John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book of Aristotle’s 399

Now since Plato says that all actuality without further qualification is movement,
whereas Aristotle says that only the natural movements are such, it comes out that
both the account that says according to Plato that the soul is subject to movement
and the account that says according to Aristotle that the soul is not subject to
movement are true; their disagreement lies only in the words.
in DA 95,22–6; trans. van der Eijk, modified

It should be noted that the same rationale as to the differentiated use of the word kinêsis
in Plato and Aristotle is also found, with a similar wording, in Ammonius’ pagan
student Simplicius.18 It would be strange indeed to ascribe this rationale not to
Ammonius but to Philoponus.
While commenting on Book 2.3, 415a11 (‘we shall speak about the theoretical nous
elsewhere’) the commentator explains that Aristotle does not mean the divine nous
that exists in heavenly bodies, as Alexander of Aphrodisias had believed, but he means
the theoretical intellect, as opposed to the practical intellect, of human beings. He
considers this statement to be linked to what Aristotle has said in the previous chapter,
namely that ‘about the intellect and its theoretical power nothing yet has been made
clear, but it seems that the intellect is a different kind of soul, a kind that alone (that is,
among the parts or powers of soul) can by nature be separated <from the body>, as the
eternal is separated from the perishable’.19 The divine nous of the heavenly bodies,
however, is not separable in such a way, since heavenly bodies are eternal.20 It is plain
that such an account does not fit into a Christian or creationist account of the universe,
as one would expect from Philoponus.
The author of the commentary approves of Aristotle’s postponing the examination
of the theoretical intellect, because this intellect is a separate form and speaking about
separate forms is the task of the theologian:

For as I have said many times, he himself says in the De partibus animalium (1.1,
641a32-b10) and in book Epsilon of the Metaphysics (6.1, 1026a5–6) that it belongs
to the student of nature to speak not about all soul but about its parts that are not
without matter. Since, then, the theoretical intellect is separate, he reasonably says
that there is another account concerning it; for it belongs to the theologian to
speak about separate forms. But still, as is his custom, just as towards the end of the
Physics he brought himself up to the separate cause of natural things and discussed

18
cf. Simplicius, in Phys. 821,20–1: ‘The apparent difference of their accounts being of this extent, I
wonder whether their disagreement lies only in the names [they use]’. Other concordist passages in
the DA commentary are the following: 37,18–32; 114,24–8; 116,26–8; 165,28–32.
19
DA 2.2, 413b24–7.
20
in DA 261,10–18: ‘Here again he is clearly to be seen separating the intellect and not reckoning it
with the other powers of the soul. And here again Alexander says, he is speaking about the divine
intellect which is in eternal things. Yet not far off is what he said about it when he said “But concerning
the intellect and the power to contemplate nothing is yet evident. But it looks as if it is a different
kind of soul, and this alone is capable of being separated.” He says the very same thing here too: there
he said “nothing is yet evident”, and here “another account”. But no one would say that those things
were said about the divine intellect. For it is not separated from those bodies, since they are eternal’
(trans. Chartlon, very lightly modified).

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 400 Aristotle Re-Interpreted

the unmoved cause,21 so here too after discussing the other things he will bring
himself up to the intellect too.
in DA 261, 27–35; trans. Charlton, modified

Let me first note that, in this case too, the author’s reference to the Physics is also found
with a similar wording in Simplicius:

But, of course, Aristotle too (i.e. not only Plato) did not stop at nature as being the
first or principally productive <cause>, but he himself (i.e. just like Plato) went up
to the unmoved cause that moves all things, and he attached all moving things to
this cause towards the end of the treatise.
Simplicius, in Phys. 8,6–9

The appeal to the specific task of the phusikos as a means for resolving exegetical
problems is precisely ascribed to Ammonius by Philoponus in the latter’s commentary
on the fourth book of the Physics. Philoponus says in his commentary that Ammonius,
who is labelled as ‘the philosopher’,22 discarded his idea of the kenon diastêma as
what topos really is on the grounds that such an empty extension is not natural, because
it does not have in itself the principle of motion and rest (as any natural thing
must have, according to Aristotle’s definition of nature); and not being natural, it
does not concern the physicist, which is precisely the task assumed by Aristotle in
the Physics:

Nevertheless, when we made these points against what Aristotle said about place,
the following defence was put forward by the Philosopher (sc. Ammonius): being
a philosopher of nature, Aristotle discusses those things which exist and are
governed by nature; but nature is a principle of motion and rest: so if that is
what nature is, whatever things are natural have in themselves a principle of
motion and rest. So whatever things do not have in themselves a principle of
motion and rest are not natural; and so the physicist will not discuss them.
Now, extension of the kind we describe, having no principle of motion and rest in
itself (for it does not grow or change or move in place, and does not come into
being nor perish), cannot be a natural thing. Therefore, since Aristotle’s discourse
is concerned with natural things, he now inquires what is the place of natural
things, being obviously itself natural. It is reasonable, then, that he denies that an
extension such as we describe is the place of natural bodies, whether it exists or
not (for it is not natural), and that the only natural place for bodies that he finds
among natural things is the boundary of the container according to which it
contains the contents.
Philoponus, in Phys. 583,13–29; trans. Furley, modified

Cf. also in DA 20,31–21,7.

21

Cf. also Philoponus, in An. Post. 111,31–112,1: ‘The philosopher (sc. Ammonius) said that his teacher
22

Proclus objected to Alexander’s explanation . . .’.

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 John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book of Aristotle’s 401

Philoponus goes on to explain that this is nonsense.23 There is of course nothing strange
in Philoponus’ being critical of Ammonius in a commentary which is properly ascribed
to him. Philoponus is equally critical of Proclus and of Aristotle in his Contra Proclum
and Contra Aristotelem. But there would be something strange in his being critical of
Ammonius in a commentary which is said to reproduce Ammonius’ lectures, as is the
commentary on the De Anima. It is the announced presence of the epistaseis that allows
us to do away with such a strangeness.

II.  Philoponus’ epistaseis on Ammonius’ Commentary

on the De Anima
What is an epistasis and how is it demarcated? It is usually translated as ‘observation’
but in a commentarial context it properly means ‘critical observation’ or ‘criticism’. That
this is the technical sense given to the term by Philoponus can be seen through his use
of the related verb ephistanein in a passage that gives a first instance of his criticisms of
Aristotle’s doctrine of place (which are subsequently more fully developed in his so-­
called Corollary on place):

It should be pointed out as a criticism to him (i.e. to Aristotle)24 that, on the basis
of these considerations (212a24–8) as well, it is shown that place is not the limit of
the container.
Philoponus, in Phys. 592,16–17

The same sense can also be deduced from the following statement of Simplicius:

The commentator’s judgement must be impartial, so that he may neither

mischievously seek to prove something well said to be unsatisfactory, nor, if some
point should require criticism, should he be so obstinate as to try to demonstrate
that Aristotle is always and everywhere infallible, as if he had enrolled himself in
the Philosopher’s school.25
Simplicius, in Cat. 7,26–9; trans. Chase, modified

Despite this statement, Simplicius is nowhere critical of Aristotle. Philoponus, on the

contrary, is repeatedly critical not only of Aristotle but also of his fellows and

23
Cf. Philoponus, in Phys. 583,30–585,4; see especially 584,1–4: ‘But since Aristotle explicitly and
continually, both here and in his discussion of the void, attempts to show that there is no extension
other than body-­extensions, the Philosopher’s defense of Aristotle is shown to be fictitious.’ (trans.
Furley)
24
K. Algra and J. van Ophuijsen, Philoponus, On Aristotle Physics 4.1–5 (London: Bristol Classical
Press, 2012), wrongly take ekeinôi to refer to one of two alternatives interpretations and translate
epistateon as if it were sêmeiôteon: ‘With regard to the former alternative it should be noted that . . .’.
25
Cf. also Simplicius, in Phys. 791, 32–3: ‘Damascius objects to Plotinus that in his teaching he
substitutes eternal intellect for eternity’ (trans. Urmson) and 795,15–17: ‘Damascius, through his
love of labour and his sympathy with Iamblichus, did not hesitate to reject many of Proclus’
doctrines’.

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 402 Aristotle Re-Interpreted

predecessors. While publishing Ammonius’ lectures on the Posterior Analytics, he

adds a critical observation, which takes in this case the form of an identifiable textual
unity inside the commentary through the contradistinction of kai phasi ge . . . emoi de
dokei . . . (‘They claim . . . I think . . .’), about Aristotle’s famous dictum ‘so goodbye to
the Ideas’:26

They claim wishing to defend these words of Aristotle that Aristotle himself
explicitly proclaims on every occasion that the demiurgic accounts of things are
Ideas. For it is he who in the Metaphysics says that just as the order[ly arrangement]
in a camp does not arise spontaneously, but from the order within the commander,
so the order in the cosmos does not arise spontaneously but from the order in the
Demiurge (cf. 12.10, 1075a14–15). And <. . .> that in the doctor who is ill. And it is
he himself who says that the demiurgic intellect sees all things when it sees itself,
and that intellect insofar as it is a plenitude of forms is also a form (DA 3.8, 432a2).
Further, he says in On the Soul ‘those who say that the soul is the place of forms
speak rightly’ (3.4, 429a27–8) but, they say, it is in regard to those who
misunderstand the doctrines concerning the Ideas and think that whiteness
subsists by itself and not in the demiurgic logos, or think this of a bodiless humanity,
as if it had nose and feet and hands and such things, that he was always wont to
rebuke the argument about such Ideas. But I think that such a defence is thoroughly
unconvincing; for if Plato had posited the Forms as demiurgic logoi existing within
the Demiurge, Aristotle himself, who everywhere says the same things, would have
never objected to this; and he would have pointed out that Plato meant the Ideas
to be such, but others misunderstood him. But this is not what Aristotle is up to,
here. Rather, it is obvious that he is always doing battle against the doctrine of
Forms and not against those who conceive of it incorrectly. For in the Metaphysics
(cf. 1.9; 10.3, 4–5) he draws out many long refutations of the doctrine. It is related
that even while Plato was alive Aristotle directed against him with great courage his
refutations of this doctrine.
in An. Post. 242,26–243,21; trans. Goldin and Martijn, modified

Philoponus rejects even more straightforwardly the thesis that Aristotle’s criticisms of
the Platonic doctrine of Ideas are addressed to those who misunderstand it some years
later in his De Aeternitate Mundi Contra Proclum.27 But the contrary thesis that Aristotle

26
An. Post. 1.22, 83a32: ta gar eidê khairetôsan. Not making a distinction between proper commentary
of Ammonius and added epistasis of Philoponus, K. Verrycken, ‘The Development of Philoponus’
Thought and its Chronology’, in R. Sorabji, ed., Aristotle Transformed: The Ancient Commentators
and Their Influence (London: Duckworth, 1990), pp.  233–74, especially p.  257, believes that this
passage is sign of a partial revision of Philoponus’ own commentary on the Posterior Analytics.
27
Philoponus, Aet. 29,2–13: ‘From these passages we can most certainly see that Aristotle’s refutations
of Plato are not directed at people who have wrongly understood Plato, which is a fiction created by
some more recent commentators out of fear at the disagreement between the [two] philosophers,
but rather constitute a rebuttal of the notions of Plato himself. For, if Aristotle had not been attacking
Plato’s own doctrine on the Forms but, as these commentators claim, that of people who have
misunderstood him, he would have specified precisely this at the outset and not have refuted the
doctrine of the Forms generally and without qualification’ (trans. Share, lightly modified).

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 John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book of Aristotle’s 403

was indeed a partisan of the doctrine of Ideas is precisely put forward on the basis of
the very same passages in the commentary on the first book of the De Anima:

Some have thought that here he speaks of the Forms, alluding to Plato. But this is
not the case. For Aristotle, too, thinks that the genera and species exist prior to the
plurality [of individual instances]. At any rate, in the Metaphysics he says that, just
as the order[ly arrangement] is twofold, the one being in the commander, the other
in the soldiers, and that the orderly arrangement in the soldiers is derived from
that of the commander (cf. 12.10, 1075a14–15), and health, too, is twofold, the one
being in the doctor, the other in the body that is being restored to health, and the
health that is in the doctor is productive of that of the body (cf. 11.3, 1061a5–7),
likewise the orderly arrangement in the universe has come into being as a result of
the orderly arrangement in the Craftsman. Consequently, he also knows the
transcendent formal principles of things. Again, in the present treatise he says: ‘The
active intellect is the things’ (cf. 3.5, 430a14–15), and ‘those who say that the soul is
the place of forms speak rightly’ (3.4, 429a27–28). Again, in the Metaphysics, when
discussing the divine intellect, he says that the forms of all things are present in it;
at any rate, he says that when seeing itself it sees all things, and when seeing all
things it sees itself. And there are numerous other statements by him that one
could quote, which all express the same thought. Therefore the discussion here is
not about the forms that are prior to the many, but about the things that come into
being later.
in DA 37,18–32; trans. van der Eijk, modified

We need not posit a volte-­face of Philoponus, as Koenraad Verrycken once did,28 in

order to account for these contradictory passages. It simply suffices to trust the titles of
the manuscripts and ascribe these two passages to different units of the commentaries:
whereas the second passage is what Ammonius said in his lectures on On the Soul, the
first passage is an epistasis added by Philoponus to Ammonius’ lectures on the Posterior
Analytics. And since the epistasis is made in the commentary on the Posterior Analytics
and not in the commentary on the De Anima, we may conclude that the latter
commentary has been published by Philoponus earlier than the former.
Philoponus’ emphasis on Aristotle’s contradicting Plato with great courage
(karterôtata) even when Plato was still alive, might even be an indication of his failing
to do so, when he was a pupil of Ammonius. This seems to be equally suggested by the
incident related by Philoponus in his commentary on the Physics, where Ammonius’
response to his objection seems to have led him to acquiescence.29 This would imply in
its turn that Ammonius was not alive, when Philoponus published Ammonius’ lectures.
It would be strange, indeed, if the famous Ammonius, the holder of the chair of
philosophy in Alexandria, entitled his pupil to publish commentaries that were in

See Verrycken (n. 26 above).

28

See the passage quoted above, p. 000. Philoponus expressed to Ammonius only his objection and his
29

response to Ammonius’ response was not made until he himself lectured on Book 4 of the Physics.

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 404 Aristotle Re-Interpreted

places overtly critical of him. At any rate, Ammonius was certainly dead when Asclepius
published his master’s lectures on the Metaphysics under the title ‘Comments on
Aristotle’s Metaphysics made by Asclepius from the voice of Ammonius son of
Hermeias’: Ammonius is called by Asclepius hêrôs, a word which praisingly qualifies a
dead person.30 This provides us with a simple but perfectly sufficient explanation of
why these commentaries, contrary to those published by other pupils anonymously,31
mention in their titles the names of the reportatores: Asclepius and Philoponus, who
were presumably Ammonius’ assistants and best pupils, were asked to produce reliable
publications of their dead master’s teachings.
As specified in its title, the commentary on the De Anima also contains some
epistaseis by Philoponus. We can readily spot one such passage in the commentary on
book 2, where Philoponus speaks anew of an explication put forward by ‘the
philosopher’, that is, Ammonius:

Let that be our arbitration on that. But someone might plausibly raise this difficulty,
that if seeing does not occur by the emission of sight-­streams, but the activities of
the objects of sight travel to the eye, how do we get to know the distances between
us and the things seen? For if the activities travel as far as the eye, both things near
and things far should be seen in the same way; if, however, we get to know the
distances of the objects of sight, clearly the images, that is, the activities of the
objects of sight do not travel to us. And how could one even imagine activities of
shapes and colours travelling through the air? But to this the Philosopher said that
the activities do not travel as far as the eye but, in a word, all the air is filled with all
objects of sight. But this is even more difficult and more absurd. For in the first
place the same difficulty still remains. For if the air generally is filled with the
presentations of objects of sight, how do we get to know their distances? What is
extremely far and what is near should appear in the same way. And not even the
furthest things should escape perception if the air is filled with all presentations.
But perhaps to this he could have replied that, just as those who suppose sight-­
streams say that they are weaker as they proceed further, and that is why they do
not see what is far off, we suppose the same about the activities, that they are
weaker when they proceed a long way. But what could he have replied to this? If all
the air is filled with presentations, what need is there to make the supposition that
the activities go in a straight line? For we ought to see those that are not far from
us and in a word, we ought to see all that we are able to see, wherever we look, if the

30
Asclepius, in Metaph. 92,29–31: ‘The hero Ammonius, who was the pupil of Proclus and the teacher
of me Asclepius, said that the Pythagoreans called the ideas numbers in a symbolic way.’ On the rank
of ‘hero’ within the pagan pantheon, see L. Brisson, ‘Le commentaire comme prière destinée à assurer
le salut de l’âme’, in M.-O. Goulet-Cazé, ed., Le commentaire entre tradition et innovation (Paris: Vrin,
2000), pp. 329–53. A hero is an intelligible soul that has been freed from the human body. That these
commentaries were posthumously published is equally suggested by the use of past tense, which can
be compared with the use of present tense in Ammonius’ anonymously published commentary (see
next note) on An. Pr. 23,8–9: ‘This is Alexander’s explication; the great philosopher (i.e. Ammonius),
who explicates the passage in a deeper and more precise way, says that . . .’.
31
As is Ammonius’ commentaries on the Categories (CAG 4.4) and on the Prior Analytics (CAG 4.6).

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 John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book of Aristotle’s 405

air is filled with presentations. Why, then, do we not see the heavens and every
object of sight without gazing at them?
in DA 334,30–335,12; trans. Charlton, lightly modified

This passage is part of a quite long epistasis about vision (334,30–355,11). Ammonius
contended that, when seeing, the air is filled with the images of the objects of sight.
Philoponus finds this contention strange and claims that the activities of the objects of
sight move through the air without its being affected and they imprint the colours and
shapes of the sight-­objects on the sense-­organ.32 What is important for our present
purpose is to point out that Philoponus uses conditionals (phêseien an) to describe
Ammonius’ possible answers to his queries: his questions that were never really put to
Ammonius. This indicates anew that Ammonius was not alive when Philoponus
published his lectures adding some critical observations of his own.
We may, then, suggest the following evolution in Philoponus. A qualified
grammarian and a skilful pupil, Philoponus was assigned by Ammonius the task of
transcribing his lectures. When Ammonius died, Philoponus was commissioned (as
Asclepius commissioned too), possibly by some authorities or by Ammonius’ relatives,
to produce reliable publications of Ammonius’ teachings. By then a teacher of
philosophy himself, Philoponus occasionally added to these publications some
epistaseis of his own, that is, critical observations on Ammonius’ lectures. It has not
been noted that, in all probability, this very type of enriched commentary is an
invention of Philoponus. The commentaries on the On the Soul (survived partly in
Greek, partly in Latin), the commentary on the Posterior Analytics, the commentary on
the On Coming-­to-Be and Perishing and, as I try to show elsewhere,33 the commentary
on the Prior Analytics and the commentary on the first two books of the Physics
precisely consist in publications of Ammonius’ lectures enriched with some epistaseis
by Philoponus. It is reasonable to assume that it was his gradual distanciation from
Ammonius’ authority and the latter’s defence of Aristotle that progressively led
Philoponus to his criticisms of Aristotle. For Philoponus was about to conceive of a
further innovation: he would, of course, freely use what was well said by Ammonius
and by other commentators on what Aristotle meant and, when they failed to do so, he,
as a good commentator, would explain what Aristotle really meant; but, when Aristotle
failed to explain how things really are, Philoponus would moreover express his own
judgment.34 This new methodology is programmatically stated in his own commentary
on the Categories:

The commentator should neither, on account of good will, try to make sense of
what is badly said as though receiving it from a tripod, nor should he, on account
of hatred, take in a bad sense what is said beautifully. He should rather try to be a

32
cf. in DA 335,12–30.
33
See my paper mentioned in n. 16.
34
I offer a more detailed account of this passage in P. Golitsis, Les Commentaires de Simplicius et
de Jean Philopon à la Physique d’Aristote: Tradition et innovation (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008),
pp. 197–200.

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 406 Aristotle Re-Interpreted

dispassionate judge of what is said and he should first explain the meaning of the
ancient text and interpret the doctrines of Aristotle, and then go on to express his
own judgement [on how things are].
Philoponus, in Cat. 6,30–5

The most prominent examples of Philoponus’ methodology are the so-­called Corollaries
on place and on void of the commentary on the fourth book of the Physics, as well as
the refutation of Aristotle’s fifth element in his commentary on the Meteorology. But we
may now return to the disputed Greek commentary on the third book of the On the
Soul, so as to point to an eloquent exemplification of someone’s being, as Philoponus
wants it, a ‘dispassionate judge’ (kritês apathês) of Aristotle.

III.  Philoponus’ Commentary on the

Third Book of the De Anima
The disputed author of the commentary on Book 3 overtly criticizes Aristotle as to
what it is that perceives the activities of the senses: it is the ‘attentive part’ of the rational
soul, he says, and not the particular senses themselves, as Aristotle believed:

So Aristotle does not speak rightly but, as we said, it belongs to the attentive part of
the soul to get to know the activities of the senses. And that this is so can be seen
from the things themselves. For when reason is engrossed with something, even if
sight sees, we do not know that it has seen because reason is engrossed. And later,
when reason comes to itself and, though not seeing the friend, even now says that
it has seen him, it is as if it were retaining a small imprint of the thing seen and,
though it was engrossed, now having recovered it said that it saw. So it belongs to
reason to say ‘I saw’.
in DA 466,27–35; trans. Charlton, lightly modified

At the end of his exposition, the commentator utters a verdict:

We are not paying our nursling’s dues to Aristotle but declare that his account is
false.
in DA 467,4–5

Some pages earlier, however, while discussing an argument put forward by Themistius
about the number of the senses, the commentator had given the opposite verdict:

Paying our nursling’s dues to Aristotle we shall show that this proof too belongs
to him.
in DA 450,20

Now, the classicizing expression tropheia apodidonai tini, which is first found in Hesiod
as threptêria apodidonai tois tokeusi (meaning ‘paying our dues to our parents for

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 John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book of Aristotle’s 407

bringing us up’),35 stems from the classical rhetoric tradition and in particular from
Isocrates, who used it to remind the Athenians of their debt towards their fatherland.36
Quite tellingly, however, it is found in a philosophical context only in the disputed
commentary on the third book of the De Anima and in Olympiodorus’ commentary
on the Meteorologica:

But the great philosopher, our own ancestor, paying his nursling’s dues to Aristotle,
he frees him from this absurdity.
Olympiodorus, in Meteor. 175,14–15

This absurdity is connected with the claim, made by Alexander of Aphrodisias, that for
Aristotle all winds move according to the rotation of the universe, that is, from east to
west, and ‘the ancestor and great philosopher’ who rescues Aristotle from the absurd
idea to want to make all winds east winds, can be no other but Ammonius. Since it is
impossible that Olympiodorus is the Christian author of the commentary on the DA
3, and it is rather implausible that he took the expression tropheia apodidonai tôi
Aristotelei from the latter, granted that the commentary on DA 3 is addressed to
Christian students,37 we may ascribe the expression to Ammonius himself, who used it
to mean ‘pay our dues to Aristotle by setting him free from accusations made against
him’.38 Following the example of his great ancestor and master, Olympiodorus pays
his dues to Aristotle twice in his commentary on the Meteorologica.39 The author of
the disputed commentary, however, differentiating himself from the tradition of ‘the
great philosopher’, who is dispassionately called by him Ammônois ho philosophpos,40
once pays his dues to Aristotle and once not; he acts, we may say, as a ‘dispassionate
judge’.41
Let us now call the testimony of a cross-­reference, which has been left unnoticed
and which points to Philoponus’ being the above ‘dispassionate judge’. It concerns
the distinction between the formal cause of being something, i.e. its essence, and the
being of something, i.e. the compound of matter and form, which are respectively
expressed through the use of dative and accusative case-­inflections construed with
einai. As the author of the disputed commentary has repeatedly explained, there is
no difference between using the dative or the accusative, when it comes to immaterial
beings:

35
Cf. Hesiod, Opera et dies 188.
36
Cf. Isocrates, Archidamus 108,1. Cf. also Lysias, Epitaphius 70,5.
37
As is suggested by a tacit quotation of the Genesis in in DA 547,8–14. In in DA 527,30–1, the
author equally refers to the ‘pious doctrines’ (ta eusebê dogmata), meaning the doctrines of the
Scriptures.
38
There is, of course, the possibility that Olympiodorus was the first to use this expression and that the
author of the in DA 3 was somehow familiar with Olympiodorus’ exegetical rhetoric. If so, his use of
the expression has also a tone of irony, which would hardly be surprising for Philoponus.
39
Cf. Olympiodorus, in Meteor 5,19–23 and 239,14–28.
40
in DA 473,10.
41
cf. also in DA 544,26–31, where Philoponus points dispassionately to an internal contradiction in
Aristotle’s work. I thank Carlos Steel for drawing my attention to this passage.

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 408 Aristotle Re-Interpreted

It has been said both in [our teaching of] the Categories and [of] the Physics42
that ‘being this’ (tode) is one thing and ‘to be this’ (tôide) is another. ‘Being this’
signifies the two together, that which is form with matter, such as water or a
magnitude, whereas ‘to be this’ signifies the form alone without the matter, such
as the being of water, the being of a magnitude. In the case of things that are
in matter there is this <double> way of signifying, but in the case of things that
are immaterial, ‘being this’ and ‘to be this’ are the same, for example in the case
of God or a mathematical point or the like: both case-­inflections signify the
same thing.
in DA 528,34–529,4; trans. Charlton, modified

This explication of the Aristotelian use of accusative and dative case inflections
construed with einai, which might seem banal, seems to have originated in Ammonius’
lectures: it is found without the formalization made through the demonstratives tode
and tôide in Ammonius’ commentary on the Categories (as published by an anonymous
pupil), in his commentary on the Metaphysics (as published by Asclepius), where the
most relevant discussion is made by Aristotle, as well as in the De intellectu:

And why didn’t he say ‘being an animal’ (zôion) but he said ‘to be an animal’ (zôiôi)?
We reply that the things are characterized either from their matter or from their
form or from their composite, that is, from their matter and their form; if, then, he
had said ‘being an animal’, he would have signified the matter and the form, but
having said ‘to be an animal’ he signified that in virtue of which a thing is
characterized, that is, the form.
Ammonius, in Cat. 21,9–15

Having said that, he further asks whether saying ‘being an animal’ and ‘to be an
animal’, or saying ‘being good’ and ‘to be good’, or saying ‘being a soul’ and ‘to be a
soul’ is the same thing (cf. Aristotle, Metaph. 7.6, 1031a31-b3). And generally, as has
been said in [our teaching of] the Categories, when applied to simple things, ‘being
an animal’ and ‘to be an animal’ is the same, that is, when applied to simple
substances, and ‘being a soul’ and ‘to be a soul’ is the same. But when applied to the

It might not be unnecessary to point out that it is not the Categories (or the Physics) itself but a
42

teaching of the Categories (and of the Physics) that is here meant. For a self-­evident case see
Philoponus, in Phys. 705,20–4: ‘He says “exoteric arguments” in order to contrast the demonstrative
arguments presented to academic audiences with the ones based on received opinions and plausible
considerations. It has also been stated in [our teaching of] the Categories that those arguments are
exoteric that are not demonstrative, and are addressed not to the real [philosophers] in the audience
but to ordinary people, and are based on plausible considerations’ (trans. Broadie, completed), which
matches perfectly Philoponus, in Cat. 4,15–22. Ammonius, for his part, speaks of ‘those who
understand superficially’; cf. Ammonius, in Cat. 4,22–7: ‘They are called popular because Aristotle
wrote [them] for those who understand superficially. The philosopher deliberately used a clearer
style in these works and his proofs are not so much demonstrative as they are plausible, [deriving]
from received opinions. The others are called school [works], since they would have to be listened to
attentively by one who is serious and in fact a genuine lover of philosophy’ (trans. Marc Cohen and
Matthews).

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 John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book of Aristotle’s 409

human being, it is not the same any more, because the human being is constituted
by matter and form, so that it is not the same thing to say ‘being a human being’
and ‘to be a human being’.
Asclepius [Ammonius], in Metaph. 389,26–33

He spoke similarly in the Categories (cf. Cat. 1a5), because animal is one thing,
what it is to be animal another, and man is one thing, what it is to be man
another.
Philoponus [Ammonius], De intellectu, 23,28 Verbeke43

It is also found in Philoponus’ commentary on the Categories:

This is why Aristotle, here too, wishing to give the definition in terms of form, did
not say ‘what being an animal (zôion) is for each of them’ (for this signifies the
composite, i.e. the matter and the form) but he said ‘what it is to be an animal
(zôiôi) for each of them’, i.e. what it is in virtue of which each of them is an animal,
so as to make it clear that the definition is of form; for they are animals in virtue
of this.
Philoponus, in Cat. 23,8–13

And, quite revealingly, the distinction between dative and accusative case-­inflections is
explicated and put forward by Philoponus in his commentary on the Physics too, where
it helps to illustrate Aristotle’s argument that if the infinite is a substance and a single
principle, as some people hold, then it must be simple, and if it is simple, then ‘infinite’
and ‘being infinite’ will be the same thing, which means that each part of the infinite
will be itself infinite, which is tantamount to the absurdity that one infinite is many
infinities:

For in each of the compounds ‘being this’ (tode) is one thing and ‘to be this’ (tôide)
is another, as has been said also in [our teaching of] the Categories (for ‘being this’
signifies the compound, as when I say ‘being an animal’, but ‘to be an animal’
signifies the form in virtue of which the being is present to the animal); but in the
case of simple entities it is the same thing to say ‘being a soul’ and ‘to be a soul’ (for
not even in its definition can it be divided into more), and to say ‘being an intellect’
and ‘to be an intellect’. If, then, the nature of the infinite is such that ‘being infinite’
is for it the same as ‘to be infinite’, every part of it will be infinite . . .
Philoponus, in Phys. 414,20–7; trans. Edwards, modified

Verbeke, unlike De Corte, seems to miss the causal sense of quia (hoti) and wrongly takes ‘aliud est
43

. . . homini esse’ to by a quotation of Aristotle. The Greek should be rendered as following: houtôs
ephê kai en Katêgoriais, hoti allo esti to zôion kai allo esti to zôiôi einai kai anthrôpon einai kai
anthrôpôi einai. The very same content is found in Elias (David), in Cat. 144,20–1: Allo estin eipein
zôiôi einai kai zôion einai kai anthrôpôi einai kai anthrôpon einai. I thank Mossman Roueché for
drawing my attention to these passages.

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 410 Aristotle Re-Interpreted

Let us recapitulate. The author of the commentary on the third book of the De Anima
tells us that he has explained twice, once in his teaching of the Categories and once in
his teachings of the Physics, that ‘being’ construed with the accusative case and ‘being’
construed with the dative case mean different things, when they are applied to material
or compound realities. Philoponus explains both in his teaching of the Categories and
in his teaching of the Physics that being construed with the accusative case and being
construed with the dative case mean different things, when they are applied to
compound realities. A sceptic might neglect the formalization made through the use of
the demonstratives tode and tôide, which is only found in the disputed commentary on
the DA 3 and in Philoponus’ commentary on the Physics, and not accept Philoponus’
authorship for the former on the assumption that such an explication could be made
by any philosopher who was familiar with Ammonius’ teaching. But the same sceptic
will have to accept that this philosopher, just like Philoponus, made this explication in
the same terms while explicating the same two texts. That such a persona duplicata is
unnecessary is shown by Simplicius, who was a pupil of Ammonius but who does not
say a word about this distinction in his commentary on the Categories and who, even
more significantly, in his commentary on the Physics articulates Aristotle’s argument
against the infinite’s being a substance in the same way as Philoponus does, stating that
apeiron einai and apeirôi einai will be the same thing but without explicating
the difference between the use of accusative and dative case-­inflections.44 This
suggests that the two commentators made use of the same source for reconstructing
Aristotle’s argument, apparently Ammonius’ lectures on the Physics, and that Philoponus
explicated anew for his own audience the difference between tode einai and tôide
einai out of his own initiative. Later, while lecturing on the third book of the
De Anima, he recalled having made the same distinction twice, namely in his lectures
on the Categories and on the third book of the Physics. We do not know whether he
also lectured on the first two books of the De Anima. But the possibility that he
only lectured on Book 3, which I think is true, should come as no surprise; we
know that he also commented separately (and selectively) on different books of
the Physics.45
We may now return to the doctrine of the attentive part of the soul and
properly grasp the irony that emerges from the following passage of the commentary
on DA 3:

But more recent interpreters neither tremble at Alexander’s frown nor pay heed to
Plutarch, but pushing away even Aristotle himself they have devised a newer
interpretation: they say that it belongs to the attentive part of the rational soul to
lay hold of the activities of the senses.
in DA 464,30–4; trans. Charlton, lightly modified

Cf. Simplicius, in Phys. 473,11–24. The articulation of the argument in Simplicius and in Philoponus
44

must go back to a common source, namely Ammonius.

Philoponus, in Phys. 3, 458,30–1, and in Phys. 4, 639,7–9 and 762,7–9, refer back to Philoponus’ (lost)
45

commentary on Phys. 8.

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 John Philoponus’ Commentary on the Third Book of Aristotle’s 411

At first, it sounds as if the author of the commentary was a traditionalist, who

condemned novelty46 and criticized the modern interpreters.47 In reality, however, he
sides with them:

We agree with these interpreters that there is not a sixth sense which gets to know
[that we see and hear]. Not, however, because the same sense sees and knows that
it sees, but because this belongs to the rational part of the soul, and of this, to the
attentive.
in DA 465,31–4; trans. Charlton

The apparent criticism put forward in the first passage is in reality a fake criticism and
makes a fine intertextual play with a statement made by Philoponus in his commentary
on the Physics, as is to be seen through the parallel use of the participle (kat)aidesthentes:

Up to this point Aristotle’s argument proceeds from the inequality of the speed of
moving things compared with that through which their movement occurs, arguing
that it would not be possible, if there were a void, for motion to occur through it;
but anyone who has the goal of arriving at the truth in all cases, let him gather all
his power, lest through the harshness and obscurity of Aristotle’s arguments he
misses his goal. It is better perhaps first to go through the whole argument about
the void, and then take up each of the arguments from the beginning and enquire
what truth or falsity is in it, not fearing anything,48 and not putting the reputation
of this man before the truth.
Philoponus, in Phys. 650,27–651,4; trans. Huby, modified

Indeed, Aristotle’s authority is repudiated more than once in the commentary on the
DA 3:

But we say to this: ‘You argue badly, Aristotle’!

in DA 464, 13–14

We, however, say on Homer’s behalf: ‘O Aristotle, you have understood the distich ill’!
in DA 486, 22.23

Such apostrophes match perfectly well with Philoponus’ spirit, who has admirably
written in his De Aeternitae Mundi Contra Proclum:

46
Novelty (kainoprepeia) was an exegetical ‘sin’ for Simplicius; see P. Hoffmann, ‘Simplicius’ Polemics’,
in R. Sorabji, ed., Philoponus and the Rejection of the Aristotelian Science (London: Duckworth,
1987), pp. 57–83.
47
According to Lautner, ‘Philoponus, in De anima 3: Quest for an author’, p.  516, such a recent
commentator was Damascius.
48
Cf. also Philoponus, contra Proclum 29,5–6: ‘. . . which is a fiction created by some more recent
commentators out of fear (aidesthentes) at the disagreement between the [two] philosophers’.

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 412 Aristotle Re-Interpreted

So the hypothesis regarding an incorporeal and formless matter has been shown to
be a baseless fiction and unproven assumption, even if ten thousand Platos and the
rest of the roll-­call of the ancients had advanced this view regarding it. Indeed, we
shall decline to believe anything that lacks rational proof: ‘if you don’t hear yourself
saying something’, says Plato (Alc. I 114E7–9), ‘you should never believe someone
else when they say it’.
Philoponus, Aet. 445,7–14; trans. Share

Philoponus’ denial of the existence of unformed matter in his Contra Proclum,

composed in 529, allows us to date the commentary on DA 3 before the Contra
Proclum, since the existence of unformed matter is accepted in the former work.49
To conclude: we should discard Stephanus as a possible author of the in DA 3,
which is an attribution depending on a Byzantine addition onto a manuscript with no
title, and reascribe this commentary to Philoponus on grounds of a self-­reference,
exegetical attitude, and general style.50 This commentary, possibly through the initiative
of a pupil who recorded it, replaced Ammonius’ commentary on Book 3, as previously
published by Philoponus, thus allowing two different editions to reach Byzantium:
Philoponus’ edition of Ammonius lectures and the composite edition in which
Ammonius’ lectures on Book 3 was replaced by those of Philoponus. The second
edition was that copied by D1, whereas D3 had only access to the first edition.

49
Cf. in DA 543, 29–31: ‘For this thing, magnitude, is the first form that comes along before all other
forms to formless matter: first it is made quantitative and then after that it is made qualitative.’ (trans.
Charlton)
50
We should be aware, of course, that questions of style when dealing with commentaries depend very
much on the type of commentary; in DA 3 is, as it seems, the only commentary apo phonês
Philoponou.

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