Commentary and Tradition: Aristotelianism, Platonism, and Post-Hellenistic Philosophy

468 Pages·2010·2.715 MB·English, French, Italian

by  Mauro Bonazzi (editor), Pierluigi Donini

Pierluigi Donini
Commentary and Tradition
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca
et Byzantina
Quellen und Studien
Herausgegeben von
Dieter Harlfinger · Christof Rapp · Marwan Rashed
Diether R. Reinsch
Band 4
De Gruyter
Pierluigi Donini
Commentary and Tradition
Aristotelianism, Platonism,
and Post-Hellenistic Philosophy
edited by
Mauro Bonazzi
De Gruyter
ISBN 978-3-11-021872-5
e-ISBN 978-3-11-021873-2
ISSN 1864-4805
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Donini,Pierluigi,1940−
[Selections.Polyglot.2011]
Commentary and tradition : Aristotelianism, Platonism, and post-
Hellenisticphilosophy/PierluigiDonini;editedbyMauroBonazzi.
p.cm.−(CommentariainAristotelemGraecaetByzantina;v.4)
Italian,English,French,andGerman;introductorymatterinEnglish.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-3-11-021872-5(hardcover:alk.paper)
1.Aristotle. 2.Platonists. I.Bonazzi,Mauro,1973− II.Title.
B485.D64 2010
180−dc22
2010043239
BibliografischeInformationderDeutschenNationalbibliothek
DieDeutscheNationalbibliothekverzeichnetdiesePublikationinderDeutschen
Nationalbibliografie;detailliertebibliografischeDatensindimInternet
überhttp://dnb.d-nb.deabrufbar.
(cid:2)2011WalterdeGruyterGmbH&Co.KG,Berlin/NewYork
DruckundBindung:Hubert&Co.GmbH&Co.KG,Göttingen
(cid:2) GedrucktaufsäurefreiemPapier
PrintedinGermany
www.degruyter.com
Table of Contents
Introduction by Mauro Bonazzi and Robert W. Sharples 7
Acknowledgments 13
ARISTOTLE AND THE ARISTOTELIAN TRADITION
Il libro Lambda della Metafisica e la nascita della filosofia prima 17
Mimesis tragique et apprentissage de la phronesis 37
Cause, volontarietà e decisione in Aristotele, Rhet. I 10-15 (unpublished) 53
Aristotele, De motu animalium 701a7 85
Alessandro e i metodi dell’esegesi filosofica 87
L’objet de la Métaphysique selon Alexandre d’Aphrodise 107
(cid:441)(cid:473)(cid:351)(cid:454) (cid:462)(cid:297)(cid:514)(cid:454)(cid:234)(cid:494)(cid:532) in Alessandro di Afrodisia 125
Alexander’s De fato. Problems of Coherence 139
Doti naturali, abitudini e carattere nel De fato di Alessandro 155
(with Paolo Accattino) Alessandro di Afrodisia De an. 90, 23 sqq., a pro-
posito del (cid:516)(cid:518)(cid:815)(cid:521) (cid:511)(cid:713)(cid:520)(cid:504)(cid:511)(cid:508)(cid:516) 169
Senarco, Alessandro e Simplicio su movimenti e grandezze semplici nel
De caelo 173
La giustizia nel medioplatonismo, in Aspasio e in Apuleio 179
PLATONISM AND POST-HELLENISTIC PHILOSOPHY
The History of the Concept of Eclecticism 197
Testi e commenti, manuali e insegnamento: la forma sistematica e i metodi
della filosofia in età postellenistica 211
Medioplatonismo e filosofi medioplatonici. Una raccolta di studi 283
Le fonti medioplatoniche di Seneca: Antioco, la conoscenza e le idee 297
Plutarco, Ammonio e l’Academia 315
Science and Metaphysics: Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism in
Plutarch’s On the Face in the Moon 327
I fondamenti della fisica e la teoria delle cause in Plutarco 341
Platone e Aristotele nella tradizione pitagorica secondo Plutarco 359
L’eredità academica e i fondamenti del platonismo in Plutarco 375
Il De genio Socratis di Plutarco: i limiti del dogmatismo e quelli dello
“scetticismo” (unpublished) 403
La connaissance de dieu et la hiérarchie divine chez Albinos 423
Sokrates und sein Dämon im Platonismus des 1. und 2. Jahrhunderts n.Chr. 437
6 Table of Contents
A Bibliography of Pierluigi Donini’s Works 453
Index 459
Introduction
by Mauro Bonazzi and Robert W. Sharples1
1. Commentary and Tradition presents a selection of articles, two of which
unpublished, that Pierluigi Donini dedicated to the Aristotelian and Platonist
tradition in a period spanning over 30 years of activity. The main reason which
prompted the collection of these articles into a single book depends on the fact
that many of them, in spite of their outstanding relevance, often appeared in
journals and volumes which are difficult to find – a problem many colleagues
often complained about. Moreover, the growing attention paid to Early Imperial
philosophy in recent times further confirmed the value of the enterprise. The
affinity of the articles both in content and style will also guarantee the unity of the
volume. Collected together, these articles will provide a key to Aristotelianism
and Platonism by pointing out major problems and themes. Indeed, Donini’s
work, as it will emerge in the introduction, constitutes a necessary condition for
an adequate understanding of Post-Hellenistic and Early Imperial philosophy.
2. Pierluigi Donini’s work on Aristotle and on the Aristotelian tradition, both in
the papers collected in this volume and elsewhere, is characterised by the clarifi-
cation of problematic passages and by the questioning of generally accepted
interpretations. On several occasions in the papers in this volume Donini solves a
problem simply by suggesting a new way of construing the syntax of an ancient
text: this applies, for example, both to Aristotele, De motu animalium 701a7 and
to Senarco, Alessandro e Simplicio su movimenti e grandezze semplici nel De
caelo. And, as demonstrated in Alessandro di Afrodisia e i metodi dell’esegesi
filosofica, in doing this Donini is following in the footsteps of the ancient com-
mentator Alexander, to the interpretation of whom he has himself greatly con-
tributed.
One theme of Donini’s work has been Aristotle’s Metaphysics, and the con-
troversy about the true nature of “first philosophy” for Aristotle – theology, or the
study of being quabeing in all beings; (cid:418) or(cid:445)? In his book La metafisica di Aris-
totele: Introduzione alla lettura (Rome 1995) Donini makes the important sug-
1 During the preparatory stages of this book, we received the sad news that Bob Sharples
had passed away. He had very kindly agreed to contribute to this introduction with his
extreme competence, discussing the works of Donini dedicated to Aristotelianism. This
loss is a great sorrow for us, since we have lost a dear friend, who was always ready to
discuss and collaborate, and at the same time one of the most competent and acclaimed
scholars. [Pierluigi Donini and Mauro Bonazzi]
8 Introduction
gestion that, while the “theological” book (cid:418) cannot have been intended to stand
where it now does, since its first part on sensible beings is redundant in the
context of the Metaphysics as a whole and suggests that (cid:418) was conceived by
Aristotle as a self-contained treatise, Aristotle may have intended some discussion
of immaterial being to stand at that point in his work, and editors may in this
sense have been true to Aristotle’s intentions in putting (cid:418) in its present position.
InIl libro Lambda della Metafisica e la nascita della filosofia prima Donini takes
up the thorny question of Aristotle’s remark in (cid:418) 1 that changeable and un-
changeable beings will be studied by different sciences if they do not have a
common first principle, and suggests that Aristotle’s readiness in (cid:418) to accept that
they may be the objects of a single science may reflect an early period when he
had not yet fully broken free from the Academy’s conception of the inclusiveness
of physics. In L’objet de la Métaphysique selon Alexandre d’Aphrodise Donini
examines the position of the commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias on the object
of “first philosophy” for Aristotle, and shows that, while Alexander’s solution can
hardly be described as true to Aristotle – Alexander is, after all, trying to formu-
late a consistent view whereas Aristotle’s may have changed over time – it is at
least possible to improve the internal consistency of Alexander’s view by a
simple modification to the punctuation of one sentence in the standard edition of
his commentary. Alexander’s supposition that Aristotle’s views were consistent
in all his works, and the ways in which he deals with texts which from this point
of view are problematic, are also examined by Donini in Alessandro di Afrodisia
e i metodi dell’esegesi filosofica.
In Alexander’s De fato: Problems of coherence, Donini defends his earlier
claim (in Tre studi sull’aristotelismo nel II secolo d.C., Turin 1974) that there are
inconsistencies in the way the concept of nature is used in the De fato, both
between the natures of individuals and the nature of human beings as a species,
and also between nature as what determines our actions for the most part and the
more Aristotelian notion of a natural endowment which is the basis on which
individuals develop different characters. He also considers the difficulties which
Alexander finds in combining an Aristotelian account of deliberation and decision
with his own notion of freedom from determinism as involving the possibility for
alternatives (on which see now S. Bobzien, The inadvertent conception and late
birth of the free-will problem, “Phronesis” 43 (cid:62)1998(cid:64), pp. 133-175) and makes the
interesting suggestions that Alexander’s solution in terms of alternative goals of
action is more suited to ordinary people than to the Aristotelian phronimos, and
that Alexander may be following a trend of his times in concentrating on the
former rather than on the latter. But, as Donini rightly comments, this has the
unwelcome implication that, the closer to moral virtue one is in Aristotle’s under-
standing of that term, which Alexander in De fato shows no sign of rejecting, the
lessfree one is in Alexander’s understanding of that term. In Doti naturali, abitu-
dini e carattere nel De fato di Alessandro Donini returns to the discrepancies be-
tween different parts of Alexander’s De fato, and points out that the latter part of
that work presents not so much Aristotle’s theory of moral development as one
Introduction 9
which is influenced by, and shows connections with, what is argued in the earlier
part of the De fato itself. Determinism and character development in Aristotle are
further examined by Donini in Ethos: Aristotele e il determinismo, Alessandria
1989, and in Volontarietà di vizio e virtù (Aristotele Etica Nicomachea III.1-7), in
E. Berti-L.M. Napolitano Valditara (eds.), Etica, Politica, Retorica: Studi su Ari-
stotele e la sua presenza nell’età moderna, L’Aquila 1989, pp. 3-21.
Moral development in Aristotle is also the theme of Mimesis tragique et ap-
prentissage de la phronesis, in which Donini argues that the Poetics fits into
Aristotle’s scheme of intellectual enquiry as a part of ethics and politics; watching
or reading tragedies assists adults in developing phronesis (but not the young,
which is why tragedy is not explicitly discussed in Politics VIII). Interestingly,
Donini suggests that the reason why the link between tragedy and the context of
moral development in the citizens of a polis is not made explicit in the Poetics is
Aristotle’s belief that the effects of tragedy can be achieved through private
reading as well as through seeing a performance in a public context.
In Cause, volontarietà e decisione in Aristotele, Rhet. I 10-15 Donini exam-
ines Aristotle’s treatment of proairesis in these sections of the Rhetoric. He argues
that differences from the concept as treated in the Ethics – notably its wider
extension – are to be explained not by changes in Aristotle’s views over time, but
by the different concerns and contexts in the different works.
On another issue Donini revolutionised the study of Alexander by showing
that his views were closer to Aristotle’s than had been thought. Alexander defines
the soul as the capacity resulting from the mixture of the bodily elements (De
anima 24.21-23). His view had commonly been dismissed, above all by Paul
Moraux in the work that began the modern study of Alexander (Alexandre d’Aph-
rodise: Exégète de la noétique d’Aristote, Liège-Paris 1942) as an example of the
materialism which, according to some, marked the degeneration of ancient phi-
losophy generally, and of the Aristotelian tradition in particular, after Aristotle
himself. But Donini, in L’anima e gli elementi nel De Anima di Alessandro di
Afrodisia, “Atti dell’Accademia delle Scienze di Torino” 105 (1971), pp. 61-107,
shows that by referring to the capacity arising from the mixture, when his older
contemporary Galen identified soul with the mixture, simply, Alexander is
arguing for a more Aristotelian position than others did. Donini’s insight has been
developed in the context of ancient thought about the relation between body and
soul and of modern arguments in analytical philosophy concerning the relation
between body and mind by V. Caston, Epiphenomenalisms: Ancient and Modern,
“Philosophical Review” 106 (1997), pp. 309-363.
In (cid:439)(cid:471)(cid:349)(cid:452) (cid:460)(cid:295)(cid:512)(cid:452)μ(cid:492)(cid:530) in Alessandro di Afrodisia Donini considers the different
analyses of the influence of the heavens on the sublunary world, and in particular
its relation to the presence of soul in individual living creatures, advanced by
Alexander in Quaestio 2.3. He shows that this is part of Alexander’s response to
the criticism by the Platonist Atticus (fr. 8 des Places) that Aristotle makes the
world, as it were, episodic; but there is nothing in Alexander’s accounts ap-
proaching the Platonic doctrine of the World-Soul.
10 Introduction
InLa giustizia nel medioplatonismo, in Aspasio e in Apuleio Donini examines
the problematic reference in the prologue to Aspasius’ commentary on the Ethics2
to “theoretical justice” as possessed by God. He shows the connection to the
account of justice by Aspasius’ younger contemporary Apuleius in his On Plato,
where iustitia speculatrix utilitatis alienae is a virtue of the philosopher-rulers of
the Republic, and argues that the background to Apuleius’ account is an attempt
by Platonists to systematise Plato’s views in a way similar to what the Aristote-
lian commentators were doing with Aristotle.
3. Along with the Aristotelian tradition, Platonism is another favourite theme of
Donini’s work and the other major issue of the present volume. As in the case of
Aristotelianism his research promoted a better understanding of this philosophical
tradition by questioning generally accepted interpretations. Platonism is tradition-
ally reduced to one of the two following options: either as a sort of perennis
philosophia or as an incoherent form of eclecticism. Against the first tendency
Donini constantly argues in favour of its historical complexity; and against the
latter he shows that, in spite of this apparent confusion, the Platonists’ doctrines
rest on conscious argumentative strategies. He successfully steers a middle course
between these different and misleading interpretations by emphasizing the cen-
trality of Plato’s dialogues. Indeed, Platonism can neither be reduced to the peren-
nial transmission of a corpus of “secret doctrines” as opposed to the philosophical
contents of the dialogues nor as a syncretistic attempt to assemble bits and pieces
of other philosophies into one single system.3 One major result of his ground-
breaking monograph Le scuole l’anima l’impero. La filosofia da Antioco a Plotino
(Turin 1982), consists of clearly taking out any interpretation of Platonism which
does not acknowledge the pivotal role of the dialogues; and many of the papers
here presented confirm this view apropos of many specific and substantial issues.
Most notably, I fondamenti della fisica e la teoria delle cause in Plutarco argues
that Plutarch’s theory of causes heavily depends on a stringent and original
interpretation of the Timaeus. Needless to say, the Timaeus is the great
protagonist of many other papers. But it is not the only one, and other dialogues
are equally important, as for instance the Republic when Donini gives his
balanced account of Albinus/ Alcinous’ theology in La connaissance de dieu et la
hiérarchie divine chez Albinos. When read against the background of the dia-
logues, Alcinous’ presentation of God acquires a consistency otherwise difficult
2 Often referred to as Aspasius’ commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics: but while As-
pasius includes the “common books” (Nicomachean Ethics 5-7 = Eudemian Ethics 4-6) in
his commentary on the former, it is not clear that he regarded them as actually belonging to
the Nicomachean Ethics, and in fact there are indications that he did not do so. See J.
Barnes, An introduction to Aspasius, in A. Alberti-R.W. Sharples (eds.), Aspasius: the
Earliest Extant Commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics, Berlin 1999, pp. 1-50, at p. 21.
3 More in general, The History of the Concept of Eclecticism correctly argues against the
adoption of this category by showing that it seriously hinders an adequate understanding of
Post-Hellenistic philosophy.