Abstract

The treatise De intellectu attributed to Alexander of Aphrodisias can be divided into four sections. The first is an interpretation of the Aristotelian theory of intellect, and especially of the active intellect referred to in Aristotle, De anima 3.5, which differs from the interpretation in Alexander's own De anima, and whose relation to Alexander's De anima, attribution to Alexander, and date are all disputed. The second is an account of the intellect which is broadly similar to A though differing on certain points. The third is an account of someone's response to the problem of how intellect can enter the human being ‘from outside’ if it is incorporeal and hence cannot move at all; in the fourth the writer who reported Cl criticizes that solution and gives his own alternative one.