Mantissa §224

106,18 2. On Intellect.

Discussion of this text has focused on three interrelated issues: whether it is a single text or a combination of several pieces origi­nally more or less independent; whether the author or any of the authors, if there are more than one, can be identified with Alexan­der, and what the relation is between the views advanced here and those in the discussion of intellect in Alexander’s On the Soul; and whether the ‘Aristoteles’ referred to at 110.4 is to be identified with Aristotle the Stagirite or with the second-century AD Peripa­tetic Aristoteles of Mytilene. The text is here presented in three sections, [A], [BJ and [C], each subdivided according to the struc­ture of its argument; in the MSS, [Al] constitutes §3 of the Mantissa, [A2] §4, and all of [A3]-[C2] §5.

Greek text, Italian translation and commentary in Accattino 2001; translations into French in Moraux 1942, 185-94, and in Carricre et al., 1961; into English in Fotinis 1980, 137-53, and in Schroeder and Todd 1990, with commentary. The medieval Arabic version (no.21 in Dietrich 1964), is edited in Finnegan 1956, and in BadawT 1971, 31-42. From this Arabic version a Latin version was made by Gerard of Cremona, edited in Thery 1926, 69-83. I am particularly grateful to Inna Kupreeva, who has advised me on the implications of the Arabic version for the readings of the Greek text.

See also, in addition to other literature cited below in the notes, Freudenthal 1884, 24-7; Gilson 1929; Moraux 1942, 143-64, 1978, 301-5, 1984, 406-25 and 2001, 386-94; Gatje 1971, 70-71; BadawT 1972, 445; Bazan 1973; Donini 1974, 49-50, 60-61; Thillet 1981; Schroeder 1982, 1997; Gottschalk 1987, 1160-62; Sharpies 1987, 1211-14; Papadis 1991, 313-82; Accattino and Donini 1996, xxvii- xxx; Rashed 1997.

[A l]

Intellect is according to Aristotle of three [types]. One is 20 material intellect. I say ‘material’ not because it is

something that underlies like matter155 - for I say ‘matter’ of

48 Accattino 2001, 39 well suggests that this is a response to Xenarchus’ view that Aristotle identified intellect and primematter, reported by Alexander ap. Philoponus In DA 15,65-9 Verbeke; cf. Moraux 1973, 207-8. The account of material intellect

25Mantissa §2

something which underlies and is able to become a ‘this-something’'19 through the presence of some form. Rather, since matter’s being matter [consists] in its having the potentiality for all things, [it follows that] that in which there is potentiality and indeed that which is potential, insofar as it is such, is ‘material’. And so the intellect which is not yet thinking, but has the potentiality to come to be like this, is ‘material’, and it is this sort of potentiality of the 25 soul that is the material intellect, not being in actuality any of the extant things, but having the potentiality for becom­ing all of them, if indeed it is possible for there to be50 think­ing of all the extant things. For that which is going to apprehend all things must not be any of them in its own proper nature in actuality; its own proper form would appear incidentally in the apprehending of external things and become a hindrance to thinking of them.51

For the senses, too, do not apprehend those things in 30 which they have their own being. It is for this reason that sight, which apprehends colours, has the organ, in which it is and through which it apprehends, without colour; for water is without colour as far as its own proper colour is concerned. [The sense of] smell, too, [comes] from air 107, which is without smell, and it apprehends smells; and touch does not sense those things which are hot or cold or hard or soft in a similar way to it, but rather those which differ [from it] by being more or less [so]. And this is so because it was impossible for it, being a body, not to possess these contrarieties. For every natural and generated body is 5 tangible.

In the case of the senses, then, it is impossible for that

in [Al] is closely parallel to that in Alex., DA 84,14-85,10, as Moraux 2001, 387 n.314 notes. For the background of the concept see further Accattino and Donini 1996, 271.

'1!) I.e a particular instance of a definite type. See above, 15 n.13.f>0 Literally: ‘to come to be’.51 With this and the subsequent argument cf. Aristotle, DA 3.4

429al8-27; Alex., DA 44,3, 84,14-22. Bruns 1887, 84,16 n., 106,28 n.; Papadis 1991, 316-20, 342-3; Gannage 2002, 148 and n.47.

26 Mantissa §2

which possesses some [attribute] to apprehend and judge what it [itself] possesses. And in this way, since intellect is an apprehending and judging of intelligibles, it is not possi­ble for it to be any* of the things which are judged by it, either. But it apprehends all extant things, if it is possible to think all things. So [intellect] is not in actuality any of the

10 extant things; but it is all of them potentially. For this is what it is for it to be intellect. The senses, which come about through bodies, are not [themselves] the things that they apprehend, but are certain other things in actuality, and [their] potentiality is [the potentiality] of some body. Because of this the apprehending of sensible things involves the body being affected in some way. For this reason not every sense apprehends every thing; for it is

15 already itself some [sense] in actuality.52 But intellect does not apprehend extant things through body; it is not a poten­tiality of a body, and it is not affected. It is not in actuality any of the extant things at all,53 nor is what has the potential­ity a this- something,54 but it just is without qualification a potentiality for an actuality and soul of this sort, capable of receiving forms and thoughts. So this intellect, which is

20 material, is in all the things that have a share in complete [perfect] soul, that is, human beings.55

[A2]56

107,21 Another [type of intellect] is that which is already thinking and possesses the disposition of thinking, and is able to apprehend the forms of intelligible things by its own power.

52 Translating Bruns’ tis ... energeiai. MS M has tis ... energeia (‘some actualityO, but this may be either a simple error or a mistaken correction to give a superficially easier sense.

53 Cf. Alex., DA 84,21-22.M I.e., a specific thing. Above, 25 n.49.55 Cf. Alexander, DA 81,26-8: Papadis 1991, 317 n.23.56 The MSS here have a new heading and section number, 3.

On Intellect with the Disposition (en hexei; sc. the disposition for thinking). This is what became known in medieval discussions as ‘intellect in habitu’, from the Latin rendering of en hexei.

Mantissa §2 27being analogous to those who possess the disposition of craftsmen57 and are able to perform the actions of the craft by themselves. The first [type of intellect] was not like these, but more like those who are able to take up the craft and become craftsmen. And this [second type of intellect] is 25 the material [intellect] when it has already acquired the disposition and actual thinking.5S This sort of intellect is in those who are already more perfect and are thinking.59 So this is the second [type of] intellect.

[A3]60

The third [type of] intellect besides the two already 107, mentioned is the productive,61 on account of which the 30 material [intellect] comes to have the disposition, this productive [intellect] being analogous, as Aristotle says62, to light. For as light is the cause for colours that are potentially visible of their becoming visible in actuality, so this third [type of] intellect makes the potential and material intellect

57 Cf. Aristotle, DA 3.4 429b5-9, Alex., DA 86,1-5; Papadis 1991,376 n.302; Geoffroy 2002, 205 n.38. - The Greek word order might rather suggest ‘those of craftsmen who possess the disposition’.But this is illogical; those who do not (yet) possess the disposition are not (yet) craftsmen. And in Greek of this period the repetition of ten before ton tekhniton is not to be insisted upon.

58 Literally, ‘the thinking and being actual/active’. - Why is actual intellection referred to here, rather than just the first actual­ity, the developed ability to think? (I owe this question to Alan Lacey). Presumably because, when the ability develops, it is exercised, even if it is not continually exercised thereafter; someone who becomes a competent geometrician does not first become competent and only do actual geometry some time later.

59 Cf. Alexander, DA 82,1-3.60 The MSS here have a new heading and section number, 4.

On the Productive Intellect.61 Commonly known as the ‘active intellect’. With the distinction

of three types of intellect, the productive bringing the potential to actuality, compare Alcinous, Didascalicus 10.

62 Aristotle, DA 3.5 430al5-17. Below, 42 n.106.

Mantissa §228[become] intellect in actuality, by creating in it the disposi­tion of intellection.

This [intellect] is what is intelligible in its own nature and108,1 is such in actuality; for it is this that produces thinking and

leads the material intellect to actuality. This too is itself an intellect; for immaterial form, which alone is intelligible in its own nature, is intellect.

For enmattered forms are made intelligible by the intel­lect, being intelligible potentially.63 The intellect separates

5 them from the matter with which they have their being, and itself makes them intelligible in actuality, and each of them, when it is thought, then comes to be intelligible in actuality and intellect; [but] they are not like this previously or by their own nature. For intellect in actuality-is nothing other than the form that is being thought, so that each of these things too, that are not intelligible without qualification, becomes intellect, whenever it is thought. As knowledge in

10 actuality is the same as what is knowable in actuality,64 and

63 Geoffroy 2002, 206 says that it is clear that the reference here is to the Active Intellect, and (208) that ambiguity in the Arabic version caused both this and the beginning of the preceding paragraph to be referred erroneously to the actualised intellect in the individual. But in the present paragraph Alexander is in fact speaking of abstraction by the human intellect (cf. Accattino 2001,11 and 43, and Alex. DA 87,25; below, 35 n.80), as an argument for the preceding general claim that immaterial form is intellect and hence that the transcendent active intellect which is indeed referred to at the beginning of the preceding paragraph is both intelligible and intellect.

64 It is odd that in the case of knowledge and its object the identity is only stated once, while in that of sensation which follows it is stated twice. The Arabic and Latin versions indeed add ‘and what is known in actuality (i.e., knowable in actuality; the actuality of the knowable is its being known) is knowledge in actuality’, followed in two of the Arabic MSS and the Latin by a further addition (in the Arabic: ‘for one thing is knowledge in actuality and what is known in actuality, and the object of knowl­edge in actuality is knowledge in actuality’), perhaps a marginal variant incorporated into the text. (I am grateful to Inna Kupre- eva for this suggestion and for information on the Arabic version

29Mantissa §2

as sensation in actuality is the same as the sensible in actuality and the sensible in actuality [is the same] as sensation in actuality, so too intellect in actuality is the same as what is intelligible in actuality, and what is intelligi­ble in actuality [is the same] as intellect in actuality. For intellect, apprehending the form of the thing that is thought and separating it from the matter, both makes it 15 intelligible in actuality and itself comes to be intellect in actuality.

If then there is any of the extant things that is intelligible in actuality in its own nature, and because it is immaterial possesses of itself the [property] of being such, not deriving it from an intellect that separates it from matter, such a thing is intellect in actuality always. For what is intelligible in actuality is intellect.| This thing that is both intelligible in 20 its own nature and intellect in actuality comes to be the cause of the material intellect’s, by reference to such a form,65 separating and imitating66 and thinking each of the

of the passage.)65 Conceivably inspired by Aristotle’s reference to intellect as

‘form of forms’ at DA 3.8 432al-3; cf. also, with Accattino 2001, 46, DA 3.4 429b3-4. But the implication that the productive intellect, i.e. God, is the first thing that we think of, and that it is this thought that enables us to think of other things, is bizarre. (Geoffroy 2002, 211, 218 interprets the present passage as saying that the material intellect is actualised by referring material forms to the immaterial forms which are the objects of the productive intellect’s thought; but see 28 n.63 above.) In Alexander’s DA the way in which the productive intellect is productive of our thinking is much less clearly indicated (cf. Sharpies 1987, 1206-8). Moreo­ver, as Moraux 2001, 390 and nn. points out, Averroes observed that Alexander’s DA appears to hold that it is not intellect in habitu that apprehends transcendent, per se intelligibles, but the active intellect itself coming to be in us.

Moraux (1978, 304-5; 2001, 392-4), Accattino and Donini 1996 xxx, and Accattino 2001, 45-6 and 52, suppose that the present text is an authentic but early work of Alexander’s, and that the views developed in his DA superseded those expressed here. This seems more plausible than that the present text is later than DA

Mantissa §230enmattered forms as well, and making it intelligible. It is the intellect said to be ‘from without’,67 the productive [intellect], not being a part or power of our soul, but coming to be in us from outside, whenever we think of it, if indeed

- thought comes about in the apprehending of the form, and 25 (if indeed) it is itself immaterial form, never being accompa­

nied by matter nor being separated from matter when it is thought.

Being like this it is, reasonably, separate from us, since its being intellect does not come about in its being thought by us, but it is such in its own nature, being in actuality both intellect and intelligible. Form of this sort and substance separate from matter is imperishable. For this reason the productive intellect, which is in actuality a form of this sort

30 being from without, is reasonably called immortal intellect109,1 by Aristotle. For each of the other forms that are thought,

too, is intellect when it is thought, but it is not intellect from without or from outside,6S but comes to be [intellect] when it is thought. But this intellect, being [intellect] even before it is thought [by us], is and is said to be ‘from without’, reasonably, when it is thought

The intellect which [possesses] the disposition [for intel­lection] and is active is able to think itself [as its object]. For

5 it [does] not [do so] in that it is an intellect - for [in that case] it will possess thinking and being thought at the same time and in the same respect - but, first, in the way in which intellect in actuality is the same as things that are thought in actuality. Thinking these it thinks itself, if the things

and represents either Alexander’s own development of that work (Bazan 1973, especially 476-8) or a misunderstanding of DA by someone other than Alexander (Moraux 1942, 132-42, a view which Moraux later abandoned; Schroeder and Todd 1990, 13-14, 19-20). Cf. p.2 above, and below, 37 n.87, 44 n.115.

66 Accattino 2001, 45 well suggests that ‘imitating’ here should be understood in the sense of ‘reproducing’.

67 Cf. Alex., DA 90,19; Aristotle, GA 2.3 736b28; and below 112,6.68 Because it is only in the mind that the abstraction of form

from the perceived form-matter compound takes place.

31Mantissa §2

which it thinks, in being thought of, come to be intellect.For if the things that are thought are intellect in actuality, and it thinks these, it comes to think itself. For in thinking it comes to be the same as the things that are thought, but 10 when not thinking it is other than they. In this way sensa­tion too may be said to sense itself, since it senses the things which in actuality become the same as it. For as we said,69 sensation in actuality, too, is the thing that can be sensed. For both sensation and intellect apprehend their proper [objects] by grasping the forms separately from matter.

Moreover, intellect may be said to think itself not in that it 15 is intellect, but in that it is intelligible. For it is as intelligible that it apprehends [itself], just as [it does] each of the other intelligibles too, [and] not as intellect. For it is an attribute of intellect that it is also intelligible; for since it too is one of the extant things, and it is not perceptible by the senses, the remaining [possibility] is that it be intelligible. For if it was as intellect and in that it is intellect that it was thought by itself, it would not think anything else that is not intellect, 20 and so it would think only itself. But [as it is], in thinking the intelligibles which are* not intellect before they are thought, it also thinks itself as [being] of this sort, as one among the intelligibles. So this intellect incidentally comes to think itself, advancing from the material intellect.

And the primary intellect, intellect in actuality, also thinks itself in a similar way and for the same reason. But it has something more than this [human intellect]; for it does not think anything other than itself. For by being intelligible it is 25 thought by itself; and, by being intelligible in actuality and in its own nature, it will always be thought; and clearly [it will be thought] by what is <always>70 thinking in actuality. But it

69 At 108,10 above: so Bruns, ad loc.70 Added by Freudenthal 1884, 26, followed by Bruns, from the

text of pseudo-Alexander, In Metaph., as edited by Bonitz (673,21 = 699,4 Hayduck). The word appears in one MS of pseudo- Alexander but not in others, and though accepted by Bonitz was rejected without comment by Hayduck. It does not appear in the Greek MSS of the Mantissa; the Arabic and Latin versions are

Mantissa §232is itself the only intellect that is always thinking in actuality; so it will always think itself. [It will think itself] alone, inasmuch as it is simple. For intellect that is simple thinks what is simple, and nothing else is a simple intelligible except itself. For it is unmixed and immaterial and having nothing in potentiality in itself. So it will think itself alone. Thus in that it is intellect, it will think itself as intelligible; in that it is in actuality both intellect and intelligible, it will always think itself; in that it alone is simple, it will think itself alone. For itself alone being simple it is able to think something simple, and it itself alone among the intelligibles is simple.

[B l]

I also heard, about the intellect from without from Aristotle, [things] which I preserved:71

The things that prompted Aristotle to introduce the intel­lect from without were said72 to be these: the analogy from

here compressed and so do not provide a sure guide. (I am grate­ful to Inna Kupreeva for clarification of this point.) Nevertheless, ‘always’ does seem to be required here by the argument.

71 For this translation of this notorious sentence, which I owe to Jan Opsomer, see Opsomer and Sharpies 2000. If it is instead trans­lated ‘I also heard from Aristoteles things about the intellect from without, which I preserved’, the reference will probably be to Aristo­teles of Mytilene, a second-century AD. Peripatetic mentioned by Galen. This was proposed by Moraux 1967 (cf. id., 1984, 399-401; 1985, 2001, 393 n.334a), and is adopted by Papadis 1991, 334; Accattino and Donini 1996, xxvii and nn.77-8; Accattino 2001, 13-15. That the reference in this sentence is rather to Aristotle the Stagir- ite has been argued by Moraux 1942, 148; Thillet 1984, xi-xxxi, especially xv-xix; Schroeder and Todd 1990, 23-4, 28-31; Opsomer and Sharpies 2000. (The suggestion of Zeller 1903, 815 n.3, followed by Trabucco 1958, 117-26, that the text should be emended to refer to Aristocles of Messene is not supported by anything we know of Aristocles’ doctrines.) In the next sentence the reference is on any view to Aristotle the Stagirite.

72 Although the position adopted in [B2] below is broadly similar to that in [A], [B] as a whole differs from [A] in making

110,1

30 -

110,4

5

33Mantissa §2

things perceptible by the senses, and that applying to all things that come to be. For in all things that come to be there is something that is affected, something that produces, and thirdly, from both of these, what comes to be.It is similar in the case of sensible things; for what is affected is the sense-organ, what produces is the sensible [object], and what comes to be is the apprehending of the 10 sensible thing through the sense-organ. In the same way in the case of the intellect too [Aristotle] supposed that there must be some productive intellect, which would be able to lead the potential and material intellect to actuality; and actuality is making intelligible to itself all the extant things.For as there are sensible things which are themselves* in actuality and produce sensation in actuality, so there must also be things which produce intellect, being intelligible in 15 actuality themselves. For it is not possible for anything to be productive of anything if it is not itself in actuality.

But none of these things which are thought by us is intel­ligible in actuality. For our intellect thinks the sensible things which are intelligible potentially, and these are made intelligible by the intellect. For this is the activity of intellect, by its own power to separate and abstract the things which are sensible in actuality from those things in the company of which they are sensible, and to define 20 (them) in themselves.73 If then this is the activity of the intellect that previously existed potentially, and what is brought to be and is led from potentiality to actuality must

the issue of ‘the intellect from without’ its starting-point and moreover in doing so in the context of an earlier tradition. This may suggest that it is earlier than [A] and has perhaps been attached by an editor to [A], the latter being the later and more complete version.

73 Bruns suggests reading kath’ hauta <ta eide auton>, ei de haute, which would give the sense ‘and to define their forms in themselves’. The reference is certainly to forms (cf. Alex., DA 87,24-5); but it can perhaps be understood rather than added in the Greek. Inna Kupreeva points out that the Arabic seems to have construed ei de as eide.