Alexander of Aphrodisias On Aristotle On Sense Perception This page intentionally left blank Alexander of Aphrodisias On Aristotle On Sense Perception Translated by Alan Towey LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com First published in 2000 by Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. Paperback edition first published 2014 © Alan Towey (Editor’s Note, Richard Sorabji) 2000 Alan Towey asserts his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN HB: 978-0-7156-2899-7 PB: 978-1-7809-3885-1 ePDF: 978-1-7809-3884-4 Acknowledgements The present translations have been made possible by generous and imaginative funding from the following sources: the National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Research Programs, an independent federal agency of the USA; the Leverhulme Trust; the British Academy; the Jowett Copyright Trustees; the Royal Society (UK); Centro Internazionale A. Beltrame di Storia dello Spazio e del Tempo (Padua); Mario Mignucci; Liverpool University; the Leventis Foundation; the Humanities Research Board of the British Academy; the Esmée Fairbairn Charitable Trust; the Henry Brown Trust; Mr and Mrs N. Egon; The Netherlands Foundation for Scientific Research (NWO/GW). The editor wishes to thank Ivars Avotins, Han Baltussen, John Finamore, Pamela Huby, Peter Lautner, Arthur Madigan, R.W. Sharples and Teun Tieleman for comments on the MS, and Han Baltussen for preparing the volume for press. Typeset by Ray Davies Printed and bound in Great Britain Contents Editor’s Note vi Preface vii Introduction 1 Textual Emendations 11 Translation 17 Notes 157 Bibliography 189 English-Greek Glossary 191 Greek-English Index 204 Subject Index 227 Editor’s Note In On Sense Perception Aristotle discusses the material conditions of perception, starting with the sense organs and moving to the material basis of colour, flavour and odour. His Pythagorean account of hues as a ratio of dark to light was enthusiastically endorsed by Goethe against Newton as being true to the painter’s experience. Aristotle finishes with three problems about continuity. In what sense are indefinitely small colour patches or colour variations perceptible? Secondly, which percep- tibles leap discontinuously, like light to fill a whole space, which have to reach one point before another, and do observers of the latter perceive the same thing, if they are at different distances? Thirdly, how does the control sense permit genuinely simultaneous, rather than staggered, perception of different objects? Alexander’s highly explanatory commentary is most expansive on these problems of continuity. His battery of objections to vision involving travel, which would lead to collisions and interferences by winds, inspired a tradition of grading the five senses in respect of degrees of immateriality and of intentionality. He also introduces us to paradoxes of Diodorus Cronus about the relation of the smallest perceptible to the largest percep- tible size. January 2000 R.R.K.S. Preface The present volume is a translation of the commentary on the De Sensu of Aristotle (to give it its Latin title) attributed to the Aristotelian commen- tator Alexander of Aphrodisias. The De Sensu deals with sense perception and is therefore referred to as ‘On Sense Perception’ both in the title of this volume and elsewhere in the Ancient Commentators series. The Greek title is Peri aisthêseôs kai aisthêtôn which for consistency with my trans- lation policy (see notes 1 and 2 on p. 157 below) I have rendered as ‘On Perception and Perceptibles’. The aim of this translation is to express Alexander’s meaning accu- rately whilst writing English which is clear and readable. Alexander is fond of longer sentences than we find natural in English and in some places I have broken these up. I have used angle brackets < > to enclose words or phrases necessary to complete the meaning which are absent from Alexander’s text. The English-Greek Glossary indicates how I have chosen to translate Alexander’s technical vocabulary. Whilst wishing to be consistent I have had to take account of the fact that for some Greek words (logos is a good example) the span of meaning is not matched by any one English word. The alternative translations are listed in the Greek-English index and in important cases explanations have been provided in the notes. The translation of Alexander’s commentary on chapters three, six and seven (pages 41,7 to 66,6 and pages 109,7 to 173,12) originally appeared as an appendix to my PhD thesis Time, Change, and Perception: Studies in the Aristotelianism of Alexander of Aphrodisias (London, 1995). I am grateful to the supervisor of my research, Professor R.R.K. Sorabji, for his many helpful comments and in particular for allowing me to read his unpublished commentary on the De Sensu. My thanks are also due to the examiners of my thesis, Professors R.W. Sharples and M. Schofield. Save where I have indicated in Textual Emendations, my translation follows the edition of the text produced by Paul Wendland for the Berlin Academy in 1901, which itself benefited from the earlier edition of Charles Thurot as well as unpublished work by Hermann Usener. The survey of the manuscript tradition found in the preface to Wendland’s edition (Alexandri in Librum De Sensu Commentarium (CAG 3,1), Berlin 1901, v-xiii) emphasises the large number of surviving manuscripts, including a medieval Latin translation. However, all these manuscripts share serious viii Preface corruptions and lacunae and are presumed to derive from a single cor- rupted early medieval archetype. Wendland candidly confesses that in many places he allowed himself the licence of recovering Alexander’s meaning rather than his actual words and acknowledges that he has left several errors for others to correct. But he comments that in an age in which hardly any readers of Alexander’s commentary can be found it is an audacious man who expects to find anyone to undertake the task of textual emendation. It will not, I am sure, be regarded as too audacious of me to hope that the present volume will go some way to remedying the first shortage, if not the second. January 2000 A. Towey Introduction 1. Alexander of Aphrodisias Alexander of Aphrodisias was appointed as a teacher of Aristotelian philosophy at some time between AD 198 and 209.1 Although he was not the first to write a commentary upon a work of Aristotle, he was one of the earliest commentators, and certainly one of the most celebrated.2 Aris- totle’s treatises require exegetical commentary because of the obscurity of his expression. They also invite philosophical commentary because they approach the issues they discuss in a spirit of inquiry which calls for further reflection rather than acceptance as the last word on a subject. A commentator on Aristotle therefore should do his job not merely by offer- ing an exposition of the meaning but also by attempting to resolve the philosophical problems that Aristotle has addressed. Alexander’s fame as a commentator rests upon his achievement on both counts. The Alexandrian corpus comprises commentaries on Aristotle, treat- ises, and collections of shorter discussions, such as the Quaestiones.3 Alexander always presents himself to the world as a loyal follower of the Aristotelian school. As Sharples points out, ‘in his independent treatises, as well as in the commentaries, Alexander’s approach to the issues he discusses is from Aristotle’s works – and above all from the esoteric works – as a starting point’.4 On the other hand the five centuries which separate Alexander from Aristotle had seen the advent of important philosophical movements, notably the foundation of the Epicurean and Stoic schools. These impinged on Alexander in two ways. Firstly, as a defender of Aristotle he would have felt the need to resist the anti-Aristotelian teach- ings of rival schools. Secondly, there is what Todd refers to as Alexander’s ‘general affinities to the contemporary philosophical culture’,5 which mani- fest themselves both in his interest in topics not hitherto seen as Aristote- lian6 and in his philosophical vocabulary much of which is derived from the Stoics.7 In view of this Alexander’s own protestations8 that his role is simply to set out Aristotle’s own doctrine as clearly as possible are not to be taken at face value. Expressions of loyalty to the founder of one’s philosophical school do not necessarily rule out intellectual independence9 and the commentaries no less than Alexander’s other works provide ample opportunity for the development of Aristotle’s thought in new directions. To provide some impression of what this means in practice I have set out