Aristotle and His Commentators by Pantelis Golitsis Katerina Ierodiakonou

Aristotle and His Commentators by Pantelis Golitsis Katerina Ierodiakonou

Author:Pantelis Golitsis, Katerina Ierodiakonou
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Published: 2019-02-15T00:00:00+00:00


Conclusion

The paper suggests that the theory of the soul found in the preface of Philoponus’ commentary on the De anima reflects Ammonius’ doctrines and teachings in the school of Alexandria. The whole discussion about the pneumatic vehicle of the soul in the preface is presented as setting forth the view of unnamed third persons.565 One might wish to see in this a hesitation on the part of Ammonius to refer to specific Platonists by name, or an editorial intervention on the part of Philoponus, or merely a rhetorical device. I believe, however, that there is no evidence to support the view that Philoponus had his own disagreements with respect to the theory he reports on the nature of the pneumatic body or that he even had an account of his own. The final solution, as described above, emerges in the context of a disagreement among Platonists. In addition, the solution proposed fits within the exegetical framework of Ammonius, who presents Aristotle and the definition of the soul as being in agreement with Platonism. It seems to me that Philoponus had little to offer towards this interpretative line as an assigned editor of the lectures of his teacher.

Of course, Ammonius does not offer a satisfactory answer concerning the nature of ghosts – at least not in the eyes of modern scholarship. His argument that there exists a pneumatic vehicle of the irrational soul and that this must be conceived of as in a sense organic is not well elaborated and could in the end be reduced to an argument similar to that of his teacher Proclus. Yet, it would be unfair to dismiss the discussion about ghost appearances around graves either because today we can hardly believe in them or because we consider the subject to be an obsolete product of outdated superstition. The historian of the philosophy of late antiquity has much to learn by dealing with this subject with care and through the eyes of the era that posed it.



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