Note 34 — Chapter XIV · THE LATER AGE OF THE GREEK WORLD PART I PHILOSOPHY

Theophrastos discussed (by the method of ἀπορίαι fashionable with the school) the obscurities and difficulties inherent in the doctrine of νοῦς, particularly of the reduplicated νοῦς, the ποιητικός and the παθητικός. True to his character, however, he adheres to the fixed dogma of his school of the νοῦς χωριστός which ἔξωθεν ὢν καὶ ὥσπερ ἐπίθετος is ὅμως σύμφυτος with man and being ἀγέννητος is also ἄφθαρτος: Frag. 53b, p. 226 ff.; 53, p. 176 Wim. (θεωρία belongs to νοῦς, θιγόντι καὶ οἷον ἁψαμένῳ, and is therefore without ἀπάτη, fr. 12, § 26. The νοῦς is κρεῖττόν τι μέρος [τῆς ψυχῆς] καὶ θειότερον, fr. 53. To the νοῦς and its θεωρία we must suppose the κατὰ δύναμιν ὁμοιοῦσθαι θεῷ to refer—for this is the teaching of Thphr. also: Jul., Or. vi, p. 185 A.) Nowhere is there any indication that for him the immortality of νοῦς had the slightest importance for this life and its conduct. Nor has it any in the ethical doctrine of the very theologically inclined Eudemos. Here the aim of life—the ἀρετὴ τέλειος which is καλολἀγαθία—is said to be ἡ τοῦ θεοῦ θεωρία which is carried on by the νοῦς, τὸ ἐν ἠμῖν θεῖον, 1248a, 27; in this process it is best ἥκιστα αἰσθάνεσθαι τοῦ ἄλλου μέρους τῆς ψυχῆς, 1249b, 22. For the sake of τὸ γνωρίζειν man wishes ζῆν ἀεὶ, 1245a, 9—but upon earth and in the body: there is no thought of the other world. (This would have been quite natural and to be expected of this semi-theological thinker who, e.g. speaks quite seriously of the separability of νοῦς from the λόγος—the ἄλλο μέρος τῆς ψυχῆς—in bodily life and of its higher intuition in enthousiasmos and veracious dreaming: 1214a, 23; 1225a, 28; 1248a, 40.)—To this first generation of Peripatetics belong also Aristoxenos and Dikaiarchos who did not recognize any peculiar substance of the “soul” apart from the “harmony” brought about by the mixture of bodily material. Dik. ἀνῄρηκε τὴν ὅλην ὑπόστασιν τῆς ψυχῆς: Atticus ap. Eus., PE. xv, 810 A. Aristox. and Dik. nullum omnino animum esse dixerunt Cic. TD. 1, 51: 21; 41, etc.; Dik. (in the Λεσβιακοὶ λόγοι) expressly controverted the doctrine of immortality, TD. i, 77. (It remains very remarkable that Dik. who naturally knew nothing of a separabilis animus, TD. i, 21, nevertheless, believed not merely in mantic dreams—that would be just intelligible, ἔχει γάρ τινα λόγον, Arist., P. Nat. 462b ff.—but also in the prophetic power of ἐνθουσιασμός, Cic., Div. i, 5; 113; Dox. 416a, which invariably presupposes the dogma of a special substance of the “soul” and its separability from the body.)—Straton “the naturalist” (d. 270), for whom the soul is an undivided force, inseparable from the body and the αἰσθήσεις, gave up completely the belief in the νοῦς χωριστός of Aristotle: he cannot possibly have held any doctrine of immortality in any form or under any limitations.—Then follows the period of pure scholarship when the Peripatetic school almost gave up philosophy. With the return to the study of the master’s writings (from the time of Aristonikos) they gained a new lease of life. The problems of the parts of the soul, the relation of νοῦς to the soul (and to the νοῦς παθητικός) were discussed once more. It became more and more common, however, to set aside the νοῦς θύραθεν ἐπεισιών (cf. the definition of the soul given by Andronikos ap. Galen π. τ. τῆς ψυχῆς ἠθῶν, iv, 782 f., K.; Themist., de An. ii, 56, 11; 59, 6 Sp.). This meant the denial of immortality (which belonged to νοῦς only): e.g. by Boëthos: Simp., de An. p. 247, 24 ff. Hayd. [Sto. Vet. iii, 267 Arn.]. A different view again, and one which even went beyond Aristotle, was held by Kratippos, the contemporary of Boëthos: Cic., Div. i, 70; cf. 5; 113. Alexander of Aphrodisias the great ἐξηγητής absolutely banished the νοῦς ποιητικός from the human soul. (This is the divine νοῦς, which is perpetually νοῦς and νοητὸν ἐνεργείᾳ, and that, too, already πρὸ τοῦ νοεῖσθαι by the ὑλικὸς νοῦς of man. It enters into the latter θύραθεν—though not locally, for it is incapable of change of place, p. 113, 18 f.—with the individual act of νοεῖν by the νοῦς ὑλικός, but it never becomes a μόριον καὶ δύναμίς τις τῆς ἡμετέρας ψυχῆς: Alex. de An., p. 107–9; p. 90 Br.). For him νοῦς is χωριστός and ἀθάνατος, ἀπαθής, etc., whereas the human soul exactly like the εἶδος of its σῶμα from which it is ἀχωριστός perishes at death together with its νοῦς ὑλικός, completely: συμφθείρεται τῷ σώματι, de An., p. 21, 22 f.; p. 90, 16 f. The individual soul thus perishes: the imperishable νοῦς had not communicated itself to the individual.—The indestructibility of the individual νοῦς of man (and this was indubitably what Aristotle himself taught), a doctrine derived not from experience but from pure logical inference, had in reality no serious significance for the general teaching of the Peripatetics so long as they preserved their independence. Finally, indeed, they too were swallowed up in the ferment of Neoplatonism.