Alexander of Aphrodisias
On the Soul: Part I: Soul as Form of the Body, Parts of the Soul, Nourishment, and Perception
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Around 200 AD, the greatest defender and interpreter of Aristotle within his school, Alexander of Aphrodisias, composed his own book On the Soul, partly following the pattern of Aristotle's.
In the first half, translated in this volume, he discusses the soul as the form of the body, and the idea of parts or powers that constitute the soul of living things, including the two lowest powers: nutrition and perception. In the second half, translated in Part II, he discusses perception, representation, desire, understanding and - a notion emphasised by the Stoics - the governing part of the soul. He takes the soul to consist of these powers, which supervene on the mixture of the body's elemental ingredients, just as inanimate powers like buoyancy or lightness can supervene on other qualities. They are new, emergent causal powers of the living thing, which do not belong to the constituent ingredients of the body in themselves.
Through his notion of emergence, he seeks to steer between the Platonic dualism of soul and body and the extreme materialism of his Stoic rivals.
This volume contains the first English translation of the work, as well as a detailed introduction, extensive explanatory notes and a bibliography.
Richard Sorabji
Richard Sorabji is Research Professor of Philosophy at King's College London and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, UK. He is the author of many books, including Necessity, Clause and Blame, Matter, Space and Motion, and Time, Creation and the Continuum, all published by Bloomsbury, and general editor of the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series.
Michael Griffin
Michael Griffin is Professor of Classics and Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is co-editor of the series Ancient Commentators on Aristotle and translator of two of its volumes: Olympiodorus: Life of Plato and On Plato First Alcibiades 1-9 (Bloomsbury 2014) and Olympiodorus: On Plato First Alcibiades 10-28 (Bloomsbury 2015).
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