MARSIUO FICINO AND THE PLATO-ARISTOTLE CONTROVERSY
John Monfasani
The Plato-Aristotle Controversy of the Renaissance was a unique moment in the history of philosophy. 1 At no time before or since has philosophy been seen as a bipolar world split between Plato and Aristotle. For many in the Renaissance, to compare Plato and Aristotle was to enter into, indeed, to settle the major issues of philosophy. From George Gemistus Pletho's Treatise on the Differences between Plato and Aristotle in 1439 to Jacopo Mazzoni's Comparison of Plato and Aristotle in 1597, Renaissance Europe produced a whole series of comparisons based on the assumption that Plato and Aristotle in some way encom passed the whole philosophical universe.2 One might be tempted to retort that it was not the Renaissance but Aristotle himself who began the Plato-Aristotle controversy. Mter all, in the Metaphysics Aristotle attacked Plato's theory of Forms, in the Politics he criticized Plato's Republic and Laws, in De anima he refuted Plato's conception of the soul, in the Physics and De caelo he debunked Plato's notion of time and infinity, and in the Prior Ana[ytics he had harsh things to say about Plato's theory of division. One can write a great deal about Aristotle's criticisms of Plato, and, in fact, modem scholars have. 3 Nonetheless, Aristotle did not start the
1 On the controversy in the Renaissance the best overview remains F. Purnell, Jr., :Jacopo Mazzoni and his Comparison of Plato and Aristotle', PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1971; for the mid-fifteenth-century stage, see L. Mohler, Kardirw.l Bessarion als 1heologe, Humanist und Staatsmann, 3 vols, Paderborn, 1923-42; repr. Aalen, 1967, I, pp. 346-98; P. 0 . Kristeller, 'Byzantine and Western Platonism in the Fifteenth Century', in idem, Renaissance Concepts of Man and Other Essqys, New York, 1972, pp. 86-1 09; J. Monfasani, George of Trebi;;,ond: A Biograp~ and a Study of his Rhetoric and LJgic, Leiden, 1976, pp. 201-29; articles I, II, III, VII, X, and XIII in idem, Byzantine Scholars in Renaissance Italy: Cardinal Bessarion and Other Emigres, Aldershot, 1995; and J. Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols, continuously paginated, Leiden etc., 1990, pp. 165- 263. 2 The only sizeable survey is Purnell, :Jacopo Mazzoni', pp. 64-92. 3 See H. Cherniss, Aristotle's Criticism of Plato and the Academy, Baltimore, 1944; repr. New York, 1962; G. S. Claghorn, Aristotle's Criticism of Plato's 'TtmaeUS', The Hague, 1954; I. During, Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition, Goteborg, 195 7, 180 JOHN MONFASANI
Plato-Aristotle controversy. He criticized the Presocratics just as ener getically as he criticized Plato;4 and though his largely lost opuscule De ideis seems to have been in the main a critique of Plato's theo ries,5 he wrote no major extant work the chief intent of which was to attack Plato or to compare himself with Plato. Some Platonists in antiquity did not take kindly to Aristotle's criticisms of their master. So they served Aristotle some of his own medicine. In the mid-second century AD, Calvenus Taurus published a now lost critique of Aristotle's Categories.6 A generation later, another Platonist, Atticus, attacked Aristotle on a whole range of issues. 7 The Church Father Eusebius of Caesarea preserved extensive fragments of Atticus's critique, which became well known in the later Renais sance.8 But in fact Taurus and Atticus were swimming against the tide. First of all, philosophical debate in antiquity was not bipolar.
pp. 318-32; G. R. Morrow, 'Aristotle's Comments on Plato's lAws', in Aristotle and Plato in tJu Mid-Fourth Century, ed. by I. During and G. E. L. Owen, Goteborg, 1960, pp. 145-62; C. J. De Vogel, 'Aristotle's Attitude to Plato and the Theory of Ideas according to the Topics', in Aristotle on DWlectic: Proceedings of tJu Third Symposium Aristotelicum, ed. by G. E. L. Owen, Oxford, 1968, pp. 91-102; W. Weszl, Il 'De ideis' di Aristotele e kJ teoritJ pkltonica delle idee, with a critical edition of De ideis by D. Harlfinger, Florence, 1975; and G. E. L. Owen, 'The Platonism of Aristotle' and 'Dialectic and Eristic in the Treatment of Forms', in his Logic, Science, and DWlectic, ed. by M. Nussbaum, Ithaca, NY, 1986, pp. 200-20 and 221-38. 4 See H. Cherniss, Aristotle's Criticism of Presocratic Phiwsopl!Y, Baltimore, 1935; repr. New York, 1964. 5 See G. Fine, On Ideas: Aristotle's Criticism of Pklto's Theory of Forms, Oxford, 1993. 6 See K. Praechter, 'Tauros', in Paufys &al-Eruyc!JJpiidi£ dtr cl.assirchen Altmumswissensclli!ft, ed. by G. Wissowa et al., 34 vols, 15 suppl. vols, Stuttgart, Munich, 1894-1980, IV, pt A2 (1932), cols 1728- 75; J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 80 B.C. to A.D. 220, Ithaca, NY, 1977, pp. 237-47; H. Dorrie, 'Kalbenos Tauros. Das Personlichkeitsbild eines platonischen Philosophen urn der Mitte des 2. Jahrh. n. Chr.', in his Pkltonica Minora, Munich, 1976, pp. 31-53. 7 See Dillon, Middle Pkltonists, pp. 247-58; P. Merlan, 'Greek Philosophy from Plato to Plotinus', in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Earfy Medialal PhiWsopl!Y, ed. by A. H. Armstrong, Cambridge, 1967, pp. 14-132, at pp. 73-77; P. Moraux, Der Aristotelismus bei den Griechen von Andronikos bis Alexander von Aphrodisios, 2 vols, Berlin, 1984, II, pp. 564- 82; and C. Moreschini, 'Attico: una figura singolare del medioplatonismo', in Aufstieg und Nudergang der riimischen Welt, ed. by W. Haase, Berlin and New York, 11.36.1 (1988), pp. 477-91. 8 The excerpts are found in Eusebius of Caesarea, De evangelica praeparatione, XV.5-9. In his translation of 1448, George of Trebizond omitted Bk XV, and it was not until Robert Estienne's edition of the full Greek text in 1549 and his Latin translation of 1555 that it became easily available; see J. Monfasani, Collectanea Trapezuntiana: Texts, Documents, and BibliographUs of George of TrebU;ond, Binghamton, NY, 1984, pp. 725-26. Atticus's fragments have been gathered by E. des Places, Atticus. Fragments, Paris, 1977.