Themistius on Soul and Intellect in Aristotle’S De Anima

COLLOQUIUM 1

THEMISTIUS ON SOUL AND INTELLECT IN ARISTOTLE’S DE ANIMA

JOHN F. FINAMORE

ABSTRACT This paper considers the question whether Themistius is a Peripatetic or Platonist by ex- amining an area that separates Platonists from Aristotelians in antiquity: the controversy whether the soul has parts, as Plato maintained, or rather had powers, as Aristotle said. By considering what Themistius‟s position on the matter is in his Paraphrasis of Aristo- tle‟s De Anima, we discover a unique doctrine that is more Aristotelian than Platonic but still involves a harmonization of Plato and Aristotle. Themistius is thereby shown to be an Aristotelian philosopher with Platonic leanings.

Themistius (c. 317 - c. 388 C.E.) has presented something of a puzzle for modern scholars. In his Paraphrasis on Aristotle’s De Anima, he presents some doctrines of his own concerning the soul and especially the intellect that some have found baffling but that one scholar has recently defended (Gabbe 2008, esp. 80-90). There is even a question of whether Themistius is more of a Platonist or Aristotelian, and how much of his work is in- formed by Neoplatonic doctrines.1 It is with this question of allegiance that I am concerned, but it will have a bearing on his philosophical doctrines as well. I will stake out a position intermediary between those who make him dependent on Neoplatonic ideas and those who downplay the role of Plato- nism in his work. I propose to examine how Themistius tries to resolve the “parts” vs. “powers” distinction with regard to the soul, since it was a problem that clearly exercised Platonists. We possess two remarkably similar resolutions from two Neoplatonists who are usually at odds with each other, Porphyry and Iamblichus. We will see how Themistius handles this problem, and how his solution compares to those of these two Platonists. The problem concerning the parts of the soul (are there any and how many could there be) begins with Plato. In Republic IV, after discovering the four cardinal virtues (wisdom, courage, self-control, and justice) in the ______

1 For the history of this argument, see Balleriaux 1994, 171-173. Blumenthal 1990a, 123, concludes, after careful sifting of the evidence, that Themistius “was predominately a Peripa- tetic.” Huby 1991, 140, agrees, as does Todd both in Schroeder and Todd 1990, 34, and in Todd 1996, 2. Gabbe 2008, 74n5, and 80n15, too, stresses Themistius‟s Aristotelianism, and argues against Balleriaux 1994, who sees Themistius as more Platonic. Martin 1966, 2n3, leaves the question unresolved. See also n8, below, in this paper.

2 JOHN F. FINAMORE three segments of his state (rulers, guardians, and workers) (427d-434d), Socrates argues that the equivalent of these three elements of society will be found in the soul as well (435b). From the interrelations of these three elements will come the definitions of the virtues, and especially of justice. These three elements become known as the “parts” of the soul, although it should be said that Plato uses the Greek word for part (κέξνο) only twice, at 442b11 and c5. He prefers “classes” (γέλε) in 435b5 and 7, 441c6, 442b2, 443d3, 444b5; “kinds” (εἴδε) in 435b9, c5, e2, 439e2, 440e8-9; and most often he resorts simply to the neuter of the adjective coupled with the defi- nite article (436a8-c1, 439b3-6, 439c5-d8, 440e2-6, 441a5-6, 441d12-e2, 442c10-d1, 443b1-2). He never uses the word “power” (δύλακηο) to de- scribe the elements of the soul. This concept of the triple division of the soul can be seen also in the Phaedrus myth;2 in the Timaeus, 69b-71a, the three parts of the soul are allotted three different areas of the body but only the rational soul is immortal. Plato’s pupil Aristotle, on the other hand, criticized Plato’s tripartition of the soul. For Aristotle, the soul was not divisible into parts, but rather the single, unified soul held disparate powers.3 He raised the issue four times in the De Anima (402b1-5, 411b5-30, 413b13-32, 432a22-b7). Aristotle brought four arguments against his former teacher:4 1) If the soul had parts, it would require something else to unify the parts. This something cannot be the body, for it would seem that the soul unifies the body, not vice versa. But then whatever else would make the soul one would then be soul. Then, however, the problem merely arises again: what unifies this soul? And the argument would continue to infinity or until we find the one unifying factor (411b5-14). ______

2 I have argued elsewhere that Rep. X is consistent with the Phaedrus. concerning the immortality of all three parts. See Finamore 2005, 35-51. 3 Aristotle’s own doctrine of the intellect, however, which seems not to share in the hy- lomorphism of the lower soul seen elsewhere in the De Anima, is notoriously difficult to interpret and harmonize with Aristotle‟s overall conception of soul. I understand Aristotle to mean that the active intellect is involved with the human being through the faculty of phantasia and the passive intellect (which requires the body and phantasia to be affected), while it is also capable of a separate, eternal existence apart from the body, when necessarily its think- ing must change from conceptual (making use of individual images in the faculty of phantasia) to pure thought, more akin to the World Soul in Plato‟s Timaeus (which thought involves no images at all). For three other possible interpretations of the role of intellect in Aristotle, differing with my view and each other‟s, see Wedin 1986 and 1988, Caston 1999, and Gerson 2004. We shall consider Themistius‟s understanding of intellect later in this paper. 4 On Aristotle‟s criticisms in his De Anima concerning Plato‟s tripartism, see my article “Aristotle‟s Criticisms of Plato‟s Tripartite Soul,” forthcoming in an anthology edited by A. Sheppard and to be published by the Institute of Classical Studies.