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Argumentation and Arabic Philosophy of Language

Did the Arabic Tradition Know a More Complete Version of Alexander’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Topics? The Evidence from Ps-Jābir’s Kitāb al-Nukhab / Kitāb al-Baḥth

La tradition arabe a-t-elle connu une version plus complète du commentaire sur les Topiques d’Alexandre d’Aphrodise ? Les indices dans le Kitāb al-Nukhab / Kitāb al-Baḥth par Ps-Jābir
Alexander Lamprakis

Résumés

Dans cet article, nous examinerons deux passages du commentaire d’Alexandre d’Aphrodise sur les Topiques d’Aristote qui ont été transmis dans le Kitāb al-Nukhab par Ps-Jābir. Nous soutenons que la traduction arabe du commentaire d’Alexandre peut avoir été produite à partir d’une version plus complète que celle qui nous est parvenue en grec. Étant donné que le(s) auteur(s) du corpus jābirien forment une tradition différente de celles de l’école de Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq (d. 873) et des auteurs associés à « l’école de Bagdad », dont la toute première figure fut Abū Bishr Mattā b. Yūnus (d. 940), les fragments arabes du commentaire d’Alexandre préservés dans le  Kitāb al-Nukhab contribuent à éclairer plus précisément la première réception des Topiques et les différents contextes dans lesquels la dialectique aristotélicienne fut étudiée dans le monde islamique.  

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Texte intégral

I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Hans Hinrich Biesterfeldt and Dr. Michael Noble for their precious help in accessing the manuscripts that are investigated in the present study. I also would like to thank Dr. Liana Saif for confirming that I caught all references to the Topics (in case I did not, it is naturally my shortcoming alone). Moreover, I am particularly grateful to Abdurrahman Mihirig, who was always on the spot to help with difficult readings in the manuscripts. Also his comments on my translations were most helpful. For valuable advice and criticism I am grateful to Prof. Dr. Peter Adamson, Dr. Laura M. Castelli, Prof. Dr. Pieter Sjoerd Hasper, Prof. Dr. Katerina Ierodiakonou, and to the two anonymous reviewers. For careful proofreading and many insightful comments I am indebted to Hugo Branley, Nicolas Payen, and Dr. Mohammad Javad Esmaeili.

Introduction

1In his study on the textual transmission of Alexander’s commentary on the Topics, González Calderón suggests that

  • 1 Cf. Juan Felipe González Calderón (2014), Historia de la tradición textual del comentario de Alejan (...)

“at a certain stage in the transmission, Books V–VIII were not transmitted as a running commentary, but as a collection of scholia copied alongside the margins of specific manuscripts of Aristotle’s Topics […]. Thus, Alexanders exegesis was probably spread among several sources of different nature, before being collected and mingled into a single archetype.”1

  • 2 For a list of the surviving Greek manuscripts of Alexander’s commentary, see Juan Felipe González C (...)

This paper aims to complement González Calderón’s study by introducing and discussing evidence from the Arabic tradition of Alexander’s commentary, which preserves translations completed around two centuries before the earliest surviving Greek manuscripts. Because they reflect an early stage of textual transmission, fragments from Alexander’s commentary that are extant in Arabic promise to shed more light on González Calderón’s above-quoted thesis.2

  • 3 To my knowledge, the Kitāb al-Nukhab / Kitāb al-Baḥth is extant in three manuscripts: The Istanbul, (...)

2For this purpose, I will present and discuss two passages, which come down to us in Ps-Jābir b. Ḥayyān’s yet unedited Kitāb al-Nukhab (known alternatively under the title Kitāb al-Baḥth).3 Although these passages are introduced as taken from Alexander’s commentary, it seems that they are not entirely matched by what we have of it in Greek. If González Calderón’s contention is correct and the second half of Alexander’s commentary, as it comes down to us in Greek, is an excerpted and significantly shortened version of his original, its missing parts may have been known to authors active in the Islamic world. In light of this, I will propose that Ps-Jābir’s Kitāb al-Nukhab does, in fact, provide evidence for the assumption that (parts of) the Arabic philosophical tradition were acquainted with a fuller version of Alexander’s exegetical work.

  • 4 For this view, see, for instance, Dimitri Gutas (1998), Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-A (...)

3Given that the nature, dating, and intellectual environment of Ps-Jābir’s Kitāb al-Nukhab is still subject to debate, the analysis may also contribute to a better understanding of how the treatise draws on ancient sources, and of the way in which the study of Aristotelian dialectic relates to the treatise’s overall purpose. As my analysis of these passages will show, the Topics was not only used for establishing and criticizing arguments for and against given theses, a use that is nonetheless reflected in the Kitāb al-Nukhab, but also for the study of how to avoid the pitfalls of giving proper definitions and delineating the subject matter of a given art or science. This is particularly interesting in light of the question of whether the translation of Aristotle’s Topics under ʿAbbāsid rule was primarily driven by the need for a theory of argumentation in light of the rise of interfaith debates.4 As my analysis will show, a clear distinction between ‘argumentation theory’ and ‘scientific discourse’ is not reflected in the way in which material from the Topics is incorporated in the Kitāb al-Nukhab.

Alexander’s Commentary in the Arabic Tradition

4The first question to address when discussing the account given in the Arabic bio-bibliographical literature is a curious disparity between the first and the last four books of Alexander’s commentary, which seems to be common to both the Greek and Arabic manuscript tradition.

5In his Kitāb al-Fihrist, the bio-bibliographer Abū l-Faraj Muḥammad b. Isḥāq al-Nadīm (d. 995 or 998) derives his knowledge of Aristotle’s Topics from two sources, the first of which is the prologue of Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī’s (d. 974) lost commentary on the Topics:

  • 5 Cf. Abū l-Faraj Muḥammad Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Kitāb al-Fihrist. Ed. Gustav Flügel and Johannes Roed (...)

“Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī said at the beginning of the commentary on this treatise: I find no commentary on this treatise by any predecessor except for Alexander’s commentary on parts of the first book (li-baʿḍ al-maqāla al-ūlā), and also the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth books. There is also the commentary of Ammonius on the first, second, third, and fourth books. For what I undertook in this commentary of mine (ʿalā mā qaṣadtu fī tafsīrī hādhā), I relied upon what I understood of the commentaries of Alexander and Ammonius. I also improved the language of the translation of those two commentaries.”5

  • 6 Cf. Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Fihrist, p. 249: wa-l-kitāb bi-tafsīr Yaḥyā naḥwa alf waraqa. Yaḥyā’s comm (...)
  • 7 Both anecdotes are found in Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Fihrist, 252-3. For an English translation, see Ba (...)
  • 8 Ibn al-Nadīm, who refers to Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī on several occasions as his source, mentions, for instanc (...)

The fact that Ibn al-Nadīm quotes this passage from Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī’s commentary directly and subsequently mentions its total length of approximately one thousand folia speaks to the likelihood that he had first-hand acquaintance with it.6 As Ibn al-Nadīm reports on a different occasion, Yaḥyā was eager to get hold of treatises composed by the late ancient commentators on Aristotle, including Alexander’s. We learn, for instance, that he lamented not being quick enough in purchasing Alexander’s works on the Physics and the Posterior Analytics, which were eventually sold to a man from Khurāsān for three thousand dinars, while yet another report mentions that Yaḥyā offered fifty dinars for a copy of Alexander’s commentaries on the Sophistici Elenchi, Rhetorics, and Poetics, but their owner, Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd Allāh, was not willing to sell and rather preferred “to set them on fire at the time of his demise.”7 These reports reveal Yaḥyā’s great interest in Alexander’s commentaries generally. Furthermore, as it seems that most of the treatises that Yaḥyā was not able to access were subsequently either lost or not used by later authors, his role in preserving Alexander’s commentaries should not be underestimated.8

  • 9 Cf. Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Fihrist, p. 249. English translation by Bayard Dodge (1970), The Fihrist, (...)
  • 10 The text tells us that “Isḥāq translated what Ammonius and Alexander commented upon from the book, (...)

6Aside from Yaḥyā’s report, quoted above, Ibn al-Nadīm also mentions a second, anonymous source, according to which “Ammonius explained the first four books and Alexander the last four, as far as the twelfth chapter in the eighth book.”9 Moreover, this source claims that the two commentaries were first translated by Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn (d. 910-11), who either found them already joined together or organized them himself into one single book, which was then translated (presumably from Syriac into Arabic) by Abū ʿUthmān al-Dimashqī (d. after 914), the translator of Topics I–VII.10 Since Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn is reported to have carried out his translation of the Topics into Syriac, it is reasonable to assume that he prepared his translation of the commentary in the same language, even though one cannot know this with certainty. Missing, however, in the second report quoted by Ibn al-Nadīm, is Yaḥyā’s claim that Alexander’s commentary also covered parts of Top. I, while, on the other hand, the extent of his commentary on Top. VIII is restricted to the first twelve chapters.

  • 11 Cf. Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Fihrist, p. 249: wa-aṣlaḥtu ʿibārāt al-naqla li-hādhayni l-tafsīrayni. Eng (...)

7These two reports show clearly that the Arabic transmission of Alexander’s commentary was not as straightforward as was the case regarding many other late ancient texts. Yaḥyā, famous to his contemporaries for his great scholarly patience, notes for instance that he had to rely upon what he understood of the text he was facing. This indicates that the text was not in the best condition by the time it arrived in Baghdad, an impression which is supported by the fact that Yaḥyā felt the need to “improve the language of the translation of those two commentaries.”11

  • 12 See also the account in Francis Edward Peters (1968), Aristoteles Arabus, p. 20. Eleonore Stump (19 (...)

8Unfortunately, neither he nor Ibn al-Nadīm’s second anonymous source mention the reasons why the commentary has been divided into two pieces or why only its second part was ascribed to Alexander, while the first part they claimed to be Ammonius’s, who is otherwise not known to have commented on Aristotle’s Topics, neither in the Greek nor in the Arabic tradition.12 This situation becomes even more confusing when taking into account the fact that most of the explicit references to Alexander’s text in the Arabic tradition bear on the first half of the commentary, which both of Ibn al-Nadīm’s sources attribute to Ammonius.

  • 13 The Paris, BnF, arabe 2346 is the only extant manuscript covering all of Aristotle’s Organon (inclu (...)
  • 14 Cf. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (1949), Manṭiq Arisṭū 2, 533, note 7 and Farīd Jabr (1999), al-Naṣṣ al-kā (...)

9A direct reference to Alexander’s commentary is, for instance, found in the only extant Arabic manuscript that covers all of Aristotle’s logical works, the well-known Paris, BnF, arabe 2346.13 A marginal note to Top. III reads “the educated (adīb) is the one who possesses the intellectual virtue, and the good (ṣāliḥ) the one who possesses the ethical virtue—so says Alexander.”14 The fact that the Arabic versions of Aristotle’s Topics and Alexander’s commentary both render the former term as adīb seems to support Ibn al-Nadīm’s report that they were translated by the same person, that is, Abū ʿUthmān al-Dimashqī. This, however, is not conclusive, for, rather than a translation, the marginal note may be just a paraphrase, or may have been taken directly from the original by another Baghdad scholar competent in Greek.

  • 15 Cf. Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (1990), Book of Letters (Kitāb al-Ḥurūf), ed. with Introduction and Notes by (...)
  • 16 Cf. Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (1988-90), Commentary on the Prior Analytics (Sharḥ al-Qiyās), edited in Moḥ (...)
  • 17 Cf. Joep Lameer (1994), al-Fārābī & Aristotelian Syllogistics, p. 200.
  • 18 Cf. Ibn Rushd (1979), Middle Commentary on the Topics (Talkhīṣ Kitāb al-Jadal), ed. Charles Butterw (...)
  • 19 Since Averroes does not elsewhere refer to Alexander apart from the above-mentioned reference (with (...)

10One author who, in several of his treatises, frequently draws on Alexander’s exegetical work is al-Fārābī (d. 950-1). Such references are, for instance, found in his Book of Letters/Particles (Kitāb al-Ḥurūf), where he discusses whether ‘existence’ (al-wujūd) is a genus or an accident.15 In the extant part of his literal commentary on the Prior Analytics, where he discusses the relationship between the methods of ‘example’ (mithāl) and ‘induction’ (istiqrāʾ), he also mentions Alexander’s commentary on the Topics.16 However, as already observed by Joep Lameer, what comes down to us in Greek from Alexander’s commentary on the Topics, “does not seem to contain any passage like the one to which al-Fārābī refers.”17 Further references to Alexander’s commentary are found in Averroes’s (d. 1198) middle commentary on the Topics, where he discusses Alexander’s views on the definition of topos.18 Again, this report is most likely taken from Alexander’s discussion of either the first or the second book of the Topics.19 In conclusion, although Ibn al-Nadīm’s two sources attribute the first half of the commentary on the Topics (i.e. books I–IV) to Ammonius, extant references to it in the philosophical literature ascribe it correctly to Alexander. What is missing, however, from the sources that are known and have been investigated, are decisive references that attest to the knowledge of the second half of Alexander’s commentary in the Arabic tradition.

Aristotle’s Topics in Ps-Jābir’s Kitāb al-Nukhab

11Among the reasons why the evidence of the Kitāb al-Nukhab must not be underestimated is that it does include passages from the second half of Alexander’s commentary. Investigating these passages may thus shed further light on the early textual transmission of Alexander’s commentary. In what follows, I will argue that the two references to Alexander’s commentary in Ps-Jābir’s Kitāb al-Nukhab suggest that, at a certain point of its transmission, the Arabic version of the second half of Alexander’s commentary might have been richer than the version we have in Greek.

  • 20 Cf. Paul Kraus (1943), Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān (vol. I), introduction (esp. p.xvii-lviii).
  • 21 Cf. Bink Hallum (2021), “New Light on Early Arabic Awfāq Literature”, in Liana Saif, Francesca Leon (...)
  • 22 Passages from Themistius’s paraphrase of the Posterior Analytics are preserved in Ps-Jābir’s Kitāb (...)
  • 23 Cf. Paul Kraus (1943), Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān (vol. I), p. 143: “Le k. al-baḥṯ, ouvrage très étendu, est (...)

12However, before discussing the content of these two quotations, I should introduce its source, the Kitāb al-Nukhab. As Kraus argues in his extensive study of the Jābir-corpus, a large number of treatises that are transmitted under Jābir’s name most probably go back to a Shīʿī school which flourished from the late 9th to the late 10th century and published their treatises under the name of their legendary patron Jābir b. Ḥayyān, who, according to Kraus, lived in the 8th century.20 Given that the Kitāb al-Nukhab is not mentioned in any other treatise of the Jābir-corpus, it is considered to be among its youngest works. The treatise is quoted in Maslama al-Qurṭubī’s (d. 964) The Goal of the Sage (Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm), which therefore may serve as terminus ante quem of its composition.21 The Jābir-corpus preserves a great number of ancient and late ancient sources, and has attracted some attention in past scholarship for this reason.22 The incomplete Kitāb al-Nukhab, at its core an exposition of the study of talismans,23 is particularly rich in quotes from ancient works of philosophy, including, among others, Aristotle’s Topics and Alexander’s commentary on it.

  • 24 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v12-13: al-ḥadd in lam yadullaʿalā māhiyyat al-shayʾ fa-laysa (...)
  • 25 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 39r21: al-ḥadd huwa khāṣṣa wa-laysa kull khāṣṣa lā maḥālata ḥad (...)
  • 26 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 37r21ff. This probably goes back to Top. VI 4, 141b5-9.
  • 27 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 37v1. This probably goes back to Top. VI 3, 140b2-5.

13In its references to the Topics, the Kitāb al-Nukhab appears to be particularly interested in problems related to definition (ḥadd) and, for this reason, frequently draws on its first and sixth books. As for the first book, it quotes Aristotle’s statement that “the definition, if it does not signify the essence of a thing, is not a definition24 and explicitly mentions the first book of the Topics in referring to the piece of doctrine that “the definition is a proprium, but not every proprium is necessarily a definition.”25 Also the sixth book of Aristotle’s Topics is mentioned explicitly regarding the question of how to formulate proper definitions. In this context, the Kitāb al-Nukhab refers, for instance, to the debate at Top. VI 4 in which definitions for which the definiens is better known than, but posterior to, the definiendum are illustrated, among others, by the example of defining the point (nuqṭa) by means of the line (khaṭṭ).26 A few lines later, the author also refers to Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s attempt to define soul as “a moved number.”27

  • 28 Cf. Top. V 6, 135b7-16.
  • 29 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 7v9-11.
  • 30 On Alexander's comparison of the Posterior Analytics and Topics, see Alex. In Top. 45, 8-11.

14Besides problems related to definition, in one instance the Topics is arguably also used as a repository for inference rules for finding arguments against one’s (scientific) opponents. An example of this is Aristotle’s topos that if, in a contrary pair, something is a specific property (khāṣṣa) of one of the two contraries, its contrary will also be a specific property of the other part of the contrary (and vice versa).28 The Kitāb al-Nukhab refers to this topos for constructing an argument regarding extra- and intromissionist theories of sense perception, which shows that the Topics was also used as a toolbox for defending one’s position and launching attacks against theories that are contrary to one’s own.29 These references to Aristotle’s treatise show that, in the milieu from which the Kitāb al-Nukhab emerged, the Topics was regarded both as a sourcebook for constructing (scientific) definitions and for finding arguments for and against a given thesis. Especially since Alexander considered Aristotle’s account of definition in the Posterior Analytics as more theoretical and detailed than what we find in Top. VI, it is noteworthy that it is not the Posterior Analytics, but the Topics that is mentioned more frequently in the Kitāb al-Nukhab.30

  • 31 Elvira Wakelnig (2020), “Ǧābir ibn Ḥayyān über die Autorenschaft”, p. 223-4 makes important observa (...)
  • 32 The Greek of the two homonymous definitions mentioned by Aristotle at Top. VI 2, 139b20-21 is ἡ γέν (...)

15As already stated, both passages that refer to Alexander’s commentary on the Topics discuss problems connected to definition, and can therefore be located in the context of Top. VI.31 In the first case, this claim is unproblematic, for the Kitāb al-Nukhab refers explicitly to the sixth treatise, and appears to concern a lemma on the problem of using definitions that involve equivocal expressions discussed at Top. VI 2. Judging from Ps-Jābir’s quotation, Alexander paraphrases and interprets Aristotle’s examples of two homonymous expressions that are found in the philosophical tradition. The first concerns defining “generation” as “the development into a substance” (al-kawn huwa l-maṣīr ilā l-jawhar) and the second “health” as “the balance of heat and coldness” (al-ṣiḥḥa iʿtidāl al-ḥarāra wa-l-burūda).32 The second quotation, on the other hand, appears to refer to the problem of non-essential definitions, discussing the example of the five (proper) sense perceptibles (al-maḥsūsāt al-khamsa) and criticizes earlier attempts to define them with reference to the five senses. In this case, the author of the Kitāb al-Nukhab does not inform us where the quoted passage is taken from but, on the basis of its content, I will propose that it elaborates on Top. VI 4, 141b15-19, where Aristotle discusses the acceptance of non-essential definitions.

Alexander on Definitions Involving Equivocity in Topics VI 2

  • 33 For the more general context in which the quoted passage appears, see the summary of the Kitāb al-N (...)

16The first quotation from Alexander’s commentary found in the Kitāb al-Nukhab, which is concerned with the problem of using homonymous expressions when giving a definition, is immediately preceded by some general remarks on the characteristics of definitions.33

  • 34 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v8-9; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v5: fa-inn (...)
  • 35 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v9-10; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v6-7: wa- (...)
  • 36 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v10-11; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v7: wa-l (...)

17In this regard, the author expresses the intention to mention examples of fallacious definitions beneficial to students, which he considers “very useful for the science and utilization of talismans.”34 Due to the importance of formulating sound definitions, the Kitāb al-Nukhab claims that “Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Themistius gave examples in their books commenting on this topic.”35 However, the author does not intend “to go beyond that which [this] group [i.e. these philosophers] said regarding it,” but rather “to comment on that which is obscure about it (...).”36 The text then introduces a quotation from Alexander's commentary on the Topics:

  • 37 Cf. Ps-Jābir, Kitāb al-Nukhab, MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (A), 38v11-18 and MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. (...)

“Alexander of Aphrodisias says in the sixth treatise of the Topics upon which he commented: One must not use in a definition comparisons that amount to equivocity and what is similar to it. Also, [one must] not [use] that which is equivocal. An example of that is when somebody seeking the definition of generation says [that] generation is ‘the development (maṣīr) into a substance’. [Another] example is when someone defines health saying that it is ‘the balance (iʿtidāl) of heat and coldness’. These are equivocal terms, for it [i.e. maṣīr] is said for changing the conduct, for carrying things, reversion, change, and similar things. Iʿtidāl is said regarding numbers which are counted by a common number, and for things which are equivalent in unity, in multitude, in size, in quality, or similar things, for muʿtadila is [also] said about the eye, which means that it reaches a certain range of distance, and that ‘wrestling’ and ‘gymnastics’ are muʿtadila regarding this disposition (?).”37

  • 38 For al-Dimashqī’s translation of Top. VI 2, 139b19-22, see ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (1949), Manṭiq Ari (...)
  • 39 This could have already occurred in the Greek of Alexander’s paraphrase that often differs from the (...)
  • 40 Cf. Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Fihrist, p. 310 (quoted above).

Comparing the quoted passage to al-Dimashqī’s Arabic translation of Top. VI 2, 139b19-22, one will notice that Ps-Jābir’s terminology slightly differs from that of al-Dimashqī.38 The least problematic change is that of the adjectives ‘hot’ (ḥārra) and ‘cold’ (bārida) in al-Dimashqī’s translation to the nouns ‘heat’ (ḥarāra) and ‘coldness’ (burūda) in the Kitāb al-Nukhab.39 More significant is the fortune of the Greek homōnymon (‘equivocal’) which is translated by al-Dimashqī as al-ashyāʾ al-muttafiqa asmāʾuhā, while the Kitāb al-Nukhab has it as al-ism al-mushtarak. This difference is odd, if al-Dimashqī is also supposed to be the translator of the commentary quoted in the Kitāb al-Nukhab. It is, however, possible that its author is not relaying the translation of Alexander word for word, or, alternatively, he might be referring to an earlier translation, either one unknown to Ibn al-Nadīm’s sources or the one attributed to Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn. Moreover, the fact that the latter expression, al-ism al-mushtarak, went on to become the more usual technical rendering of homōnymon speaks against the likelihood of its predating the other, making less plausible the idea that the Kitāb al-Nukhab drew on an earlier translation. In addition to the two mentioned options, it is also conceivable that the divergence goes back to Yaḥyā’s revision of al-Dimashqī’s translation, as reported in Ibn al-Nadīm’s account.40

18In the beginning of the above-quoted passage, we find a paraphrase of the Aristotelian text which is not included in the Greek of Alexander’s commentary and introduces the two examples Aristotle provides in Top. VI 2, 139b19-22. In what follows, the actual commentary starts at 38v14 (A) / 88v10 (Γ), with the explanation of why maṣīr (‘development’) and iʿtidāl (‘balance’) are equivocal terms (asmāʾ mushtaraka). The counterpart in the Greek text (which is Alexander’s entire commentary on this lemma) reads as follows:

  • 41 Cf. Alex. In Top. 423,19-424,5.

“Because agōgē means ‘carriage of things’, which is also called ‘to transport’, as we say ‘agōgē of foodstuffs’ or [‘agōgē] of wine’. It is also called ‘refinement of conduct through [the development of] character’, as we say ‘agōgē of children’. But also ‘transformation’ is called agōgē. The one who defines ‘generation’ in such a way made use of the word agōgē according to this [i.e. the last] signification. Also symmetria is equivocal like symmetron. For symmetra are ‘things which have a common measure’ and [things] ‘suitable’ and ‘a match’ for each thing, either in terms of multitude, magnitude, qualities, or things which are equivalent in terms of powers.”41

  • 42 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v16 and MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v11, see (...)
  • 43 A further possibility is that the expression wa-l-inqilāb is supposed to render καὶ παρακομίζειν (...)

Thus Ps-Jābir, in writing that “these are equivocal names, for it is said for changing the conduct, for carrying things, reversion, change, and similar things”42 preserves the three meanings of agōgē which are also found in the Greek, namely ‘changing of conduct’ (al-tanaqqul fī l-akhlāq), the ‘carrying of things’ (naql al-ashyāʾ, omitting the explanatory addition ‘which is also called “to transport”’, which may be already covered by the previous naql), and, finally, ‘reversion’ and ‘change’ (al-inqilāb wa-l-taghayyur).43

  • 44 I.e. “The one who defines ‘generation’ in such a way made use of the word agōgē according to this s (...)
  • 45 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v17; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v12, see ab (...)

19Strangely enough, the order of the first two examples is inverted in the two versions, which seems either to suggest that the author of the Kitāb al-Nukhab does not quote his translation verbatim (maybe the ‘changing of the conduct’ was the most pertinent example to him or the less evident) or that the translation preserves a different version of the Greek. Also, the sentence connecting the explanation of the two examples is omitted in the Arabic version.44 However, Ps-Jābir’s dependence on the Greek gets further support from the way in which the Alexander of the Kitāb al-Nukhab distinguishes the equivocity of iʿtidāl (‘balance’), stating that  “iʿtidāl is said regarding numbers which are counted by a common number, and for things which are equivalent in unity, in multitude, in size, in quality, or similar things.”45

  • 46 Cf. Euc. El. X, Def. 1 Heiberg: σύμμετρα μεγέθη λέγεται τὰ τῷ αὐτῷ μέτρῳ μετρούμενα. The parallel t (...)
  • 47 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 39r7-9; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v23-25.
  • 48 Cf. (Ps-)Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (1594), Kitāb Taḥrīr uṣūl li-Uqlīdis (Commentary on Euclid’s Elements(...)

20Although the second part of the phrase seems to have been slightly shortened, the Arabic more or less captures the rather complex explanation of symmetra found in the Greek. The definition ‘things that have a common measure’, which originates in Euclid’s Elements,46 is rendered as al-aʿdād allatī yaʿudduhā ʿadad wāḥid, which seems to narrow down commensurability to the realm of numbers. It is not clear from the outset whether the translator understood the exact meaning of the Greek. However, Ps-Jābir’s elaboration on Alexander’s commentary and his example that 45 and 63 are commensurable inasmuch as they are multiples of 3 seems to suggest that the symmetry here was taken to be restricted to numbers.47 To give an example, the expression found in the Kitāb al-Nukhab also occurs in an Arabic edition and commentary of Euclid’s Elements, ascribed to Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 1274) (or one of his students), for distinguishing geometrical from arithmetical commensurability. While the former (being a continuous quantity) is characterized by the fact that two magnitudes can be measured by a common magnitude (miqdār wāḥid), the latter (being a distinct quantity) allows for being counted by a common number, for, as al-Ṭūsī explains, “commensurability in magnitudes differs from commensurability in numbers, for commensurable numbers are those that are counted by a common number.”48

  • 49 In addition, also other passages in which Alexander refers to the topic of ‘commensurability’ rathe (...)

21The semantic restriction to arithmetic may have occurred as a consequence of the Greek verb metreō covering the meaning both of ‘measuring’ (qaddara, yuqaddiru in Arabic) and ‘counting’ (ʿadda, yaʿuddu in Arabic), for which there is no common word in Arabic. Moreover, also the fact that (rational) numbers are always commensurable, while magnitudes can be also incommensurable (like Plato’s famous example of the diagonal and the side of a square in the Meno) might have been a reason for rendering the Greek metreō as yaʿuddu.49

  • 50 As for ‘quality’, the Arabic seems to be closer to the reading κατὰ ποιότητα as listed in Wallies(...)

22Since the explanation of symmetra as ‘suitable’ and ‘a match for each thing’ is rendered as al-ashyāʾ al-mutakāfiʾa, it must have been either identified as a hendiadys or was incomplete in Greek. It is, however, unclear whether fī l-wāḥida is meant to translate hekastōi. The Arabic’s dependency on the Greek is clearer in the correspondence of the terms ‘multitude’ and kathra, ‘magnitude’ and ʿiẓam, and ‘quality’ and kayfiyya.50 Finally, the phrase ‘which are equivalent in terms of powers’ is either omitted or understood as ‘what is similar to that’, given the Arabic rendition as wa-mithāl dhālika.

23It is unclear whether the quotation is supposed to be completed with the expression ‘and what is similar to that’, but, in what follows the part that is extant both in Greek and Arabic, one finds that Ps-Jābir adds two further uses of iʿtidāl that are not preserved in the Greek Alexander. Although the possibility cannot be excluded that these further cases of homonymy were added by the author of the Kitāb al-Nukhab, they do have parallels in other of Alexander’s commentaries.

  • 51 Cf. Alex. In Met. IV 5, 313, 33-35 Hayduck: περὶ γὰρ χρῶμα ἡ ὄψις οὖσα ἀληθεύει περὶ αὐτό, ἂν ᾖ ἀπὸ (...)
  • 52 Cf. Alex. In De Sens. 50, 22-24 Wendland: ἐν δὲ τοῖς σώμασι (πάλιν δὲ σώματα τὰ στερεὰ λέγει) τὸ αὐ (...)
  • 53 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 39r10-11; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v26-27, (...)

24The first case appears to mirror the usage of symmetron in the process of vision. Examples for this usage of symmetron are found in Alexander’s commentaries on the Metaphysics and De Sensu. In the prior, he states that “sight, which is concerned with colour, is true if it is [seeing] from a moderate distance (apo symmetrou diastēmatos) and not from far off”51, while, in the second, he states that “the <body> seen remains the same when people <come> close as when they go further away provided that the distance is moderate (an ge ēi to diastēma symmetron).”52 In both cases, Alexander describes the phenomenon that a visible object can only be properly perceived if it is in a ‘moderate’ distance from the eye. In other words, when it is neither too far nor too close. This also seems to be the sense intended in the Kitāb al-Nukhab, which is repeated in somewhat more detail later on in the text.53

  • 54 Cf. Alex. In Top. 206,4-5 Wallies: οἷον τὸ γυμνάζεσθαι συμμέτρως ἀγαθὸν ὄν (ποιητικὸν γὰρ ὑγείας) τ (...)

25The second additional homonymous use of iʿtidāl concerns ‘gymnastics’ (riyāḍa), which is likely to mirror the Greek gymnasia. As a matter of fact, one finds that Alexander does also use symmetron in this sense, for instance, in his commentary on the Topics, where he says that “doing gymnastics in the right amount (to gymnazesthai symmetrōs), which is good (for it produces health)[,] has an excess which is bad.”54 In this case, the adverb symmetrōs is meant to indicate that gymnastic that leads to health is ‘moderate’, which also bears the connotations of being ‘proper’ and ‘suitable’.

26Ps-Jābir then adds to the above-quoted text the following, which is also not preserved in the Greek:

  • 55 Cf. Ps-Jābir, Kitāb al-Nukhab, MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v18-39r3; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. T (...)

“I say: as for his [i.e. Alexander’s] saying that ‘maṣīr is said with respect to conduct and its reversion’, he made clear through this that, since the specific difference indicates something’s form and true essence, it is necessary that the word by means of which it [i.e. the essence] is signified, can be the same for that whose meaning it acquired and for something else. For the term maṣīr is said with respect to ‘the completion of becoming a substance’ and for ‘the reversion of the shameful conduct of a child’. For he [i.e. Alexander] said that children at the beginning of their development are, by definition, mostly used to commit shameful deeds, either all or most of them [i.e. of the shameful deeds]. For they are by nature the most dishonest of God’s creatures because they tell and report what they have not seen and heard. They are the most deceitful, sneaky, wicked in every manner, sinful and nosy of God’s creatures, in addition to being the most stubborn, and cunning, and harmful for themselves and other living beings. Then, education (adab) and age continuously transform them and bring them to different states; even if they are deprived of education, age will correct it. And this is, in truth, a transformation and a maṣīr from one state to another. Such is their maṣīr and their transformation from the age of adolescence towards being middle-aged and such is [their maṣīr] towards old age, which is [altogether a sort of] change. Likewise, the state of corruption in decreasing, which is a maṣīr of what is in a substance towards non-existence and the transformation of composition. One must therefore not use the term maṣīr in the definition of ‘generation’, because it is an equivocal term.”55

  • 56 Cf. Alex. Eth. Prob., p. 121-122, Bruns, See also the translation and commentary in Alexander of Ap (...)

It is unclear how far Alexander’s actual account extends and whether it contains a literal quotation, a paraphrase, or is simply meant to be some sort of super-commentary on Alexander’s exegesis. The Islamic expression ‘God’s creature’ (khalq Allāh) in particular raises doubts about whether this passage is based on Alexander's account at all. It is also hard to imagine Alexander, who is known for his sober style of writing, composing the lurid description of children’s bad manners. However, since both the Greek and the Arabic versions of Alexander’s commentary deal with the same examples of equivocity, namely agōgē (maṣīr) and symmetria (iʿtidāl), and considering that the Arabic maṣīr, unlike the Greek agōgē, does not obviously mean a ‘changing of conduct’, it is reasonable to presume that they – at least in parts – draw on the same source. This appears also to be confirmed from a philosophical point of view, for in his work entitled Ethical Problems, Alexander argues against the Stoics that children are morally accountable.56 If that text, or another text that contains Alexander’s thought on education, was known to the author(s) of the Kitāb al-Nukhab, it could also be the case that such texts were used to explain Alexander ex Alexandro.

  • 57 The passage on the explanation of iʿtidāl spans 39r4-14 in the MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α). Also (...)

27It seems likely, therefore, that what follows 38v23 (Α) / 88v16 (Γ) was added by the author of the Kitāb al-Nukhab, and serves to compensate for the asymmetry between the meanings of maṣīr and agōgē by emphasizing how a child’s education can be considered a ‘transformation’ and ‘reversion’ of behavior. Also, in the case of symmetria (iʿtidāl) we find that the Kitāb al-Nukhab, in what follows the quoted passage, elaborates on Alexander’s example of two things ‘having the same measure’ by adding the mathematical examples of ‘perfect numbers’ (al-aʿdād al-tāmma) and ‘amicable numbers’ (al-aʿdād al-mutaḥābba).57

  • 58 See, for instance, Marwan Rashed (2015), al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī, Commentary on Aristotle De (...)

28In sum, while the Greek version of the passage under consideration begins immediately with an explanation of the two equivocal terms, the text found in Ps-Jābir, following Alexander’s usual textual practice, first provides a paraphrase of the Aristotelian text.58 Since the Alexander we encounter in Arabic goes beyond the evidence provided in the Greek, it is assumable that the latter is only an excerpt, providing the student with what is indispensable for understanding the text and sparing anything beyond that. The Arabic Alexander, on the other hand, provides further examples and explanations that go beyond what one needs to know for reading Aristotle and might therefore be based on a fuller version of Alexander’s commentary.

Alexander on Non-Essential Definitions in Topics VI 4

  • 59 For the context in which the quoted passage appears, see Paul Kraus (1943), Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān (vol. (...)
  • 60 Cf. Aristot. Top. VI 4, 141b15-19. For al-Dimashqī’s Arabic translation, see ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (...)

29The second passage of Alexander’s commentary quoted in the Kitāb al-Nukhab, which also deals with the problem of definition (although this time in the context of sense perception), appears to have no extant counterpart in the Greek.59 Nevertheless, I will argue that, given its context, our text may comment on a passage from Topics VI 4, in which Aristotle defends the usage of non-scientific definitions in cases where the definiens is not prior to, but better known than the definiendum.60

30This quotation appears in the context of a discussion about how to define ‘(proper) sense perceptibles’ (al-maḥsūsāt). As will be seen, Ps-Jābir applies exactly this difference of scientific and non-scientific definitions to the problem, which is characterized in the following manner:

  • 61 Cf. Ps-Jābir, Kitāb al-Nukhab, MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 103v2-7; Paris, BnF, arabe 5321 (Β), (...)

“I say: The group [of the philosophers] agreed regarding the five sensibles for which every healthy human being has senses. They say that each one of them is a quality specific to that sense [organ]. For instance, they say about ‘colour’ that it is ‘a quality specific to the sense of sight’, regarding ‘odour’ that it is ‘a quality specific to the sense of the nose [i.e. smell]’, regarding ‘flavour’ that it is ‘a quality specific to the sense of the tongue [i.e. taste]’, regarding ‘hot, cold, rough, soft, and all touchable things’ that they are ‘a quality specific to the sense of the body and the limbs possessing strong sense perception’, and regarding ‘sound’ [they say] that it is ‘a quality specific to the sense of hearing’.”61

  • 62 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 103v7; Paris, BnF, arabe 5321 (Β), 39v5: fa-ʿtadhara Arisṭāṭāli (...)

At this point Aristotle enters the scene. The author of the Kitāb al-Nukhab claims that the philosopher ‘vindicated’ this way of giving a definition both in case of the mentioned philosophers and in case of himself.62 Besides this, he claims that Aristotle was followed by Alexander, who, in his commentary on the Topics, also included an excuse for giving such definitions. The Kitāb al-Nukhab states:

  • 63 Cf. Ps-Jābir, Kitāb al-Nukhab, MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 103v7-14; Paris, BnF, Arabe 5321 (Β) (...)

“This is, likewise, what Alexander of Aphrodisias did in his vindication [of this practice] in the Topics. He says that this definition does not indicate to us what each thing among the sense perceptibles essentially is, neither ‘colour’, nor ‘odour’, nor ‘flavour’, nor any of the remaining [sense perceptibles]. [Instead,] they [i.e. these philosophers] proceeded in the manner of puzzlement, and, together with that, they did not at all mention its cause and what it is. By ‘what it is’ I mean that which is more helpful for understanding the matter than [their] discussion on the sense perceptibles and better explains their causes. As for ‘sound’, they did speak in this manner and provided its definition, and this is also the case with the remaining [sense perceptibles]. However, they do so in the course of the discussion. Therefore, it is very hidden for the one searching for it. They define ‘sound’ as ‘a strike between two bodies in the air’ and ‘a compression of air between two bodies’ and similar things, proceeding in the same manner.”63

  • 64 The above-quoted passage continues with a short exposition of Plato’s theory of colour (A: 103v14-1 (...)

31There seems to be no direct correspondence between the passage of the Kitāb al-Nukhab, which goes under Alexander’s name, and the extant Greek text of Alexander’s commentary. Taking the whole passage into consideration, there is, unfortunately, again no clear indication of whether it represents a summary of Alexander’s point of view, a verbatim quotation, or some kind of super-commentary by the author of the Kitāb al-Nukhab; nor, if it is a quotation, of its length.64

  • 65 On Alexander’s different uses of dialectic, see also Peter Adamson (2018), “Dialectical Method in A (...)

32However, the overall problem of defining sense perceptibles does appear in passages of Alexander’s commentary on the Topics, of which, in what follows, I will quote two examples in order to provide some context. As seen above, Alexander is introduced by the Kitāb al-Nukhab as having vindicated philosophers who gave ‘non-scientific’, i.e. ‘non-essential’ definitions. A corresponding justification for giving such definitions is found in the context of Alexander’s elaboration on the usefulness of dialectic for scientific starting-points in Top. I 2, 101a36-b4.65 Alexander comments on this passage by referring to such definitions, which Aristotle himself uses in his treatises. These definitions are, according to Alexander, only ‘generally accepted’ and not properly scientific (i.e. involving the proximate genus and a specific difference). The passage of Alexander’s commentary reads as follows:

  • 66 Cf. Alex. In Top. 30,12-31,1 (trans. Johannes M. Van Ophuijsen (2001), Alexander of Aphrodisias. On (...)

“Aristotle himself, when proving things in philosophy, often adds ‘verbally’ (logikōs) in the sense of ‘dialectically’ (dialektikōs), implying that there are also things in philosophy which require this kind of proofs. An example of this is ‘every body is delimited by a surface,’ which is something approved, given the supposition that ‘a surface is the limit of a body,’ which Aristotle has used in his Physics to show that there is no unlimited body. [...] For having obtained ‘surface is the limit of the body,’ which is approved, and ‘a limit is other than that which it is a limit of,’ having provided a foundation for this by induction, he deduces that ‘surface is other than body’”.66

  • 67 Cf. Aristot. Top. VI 4, 141b3-5.
  • 68 In fact, as the above-quoted passages show, the Alexander of the Kitāb al-Nukhab claims that these (...)

According to this account, the usefulness of dialectic is directly connected to what Aristotle states in Top. VI 4, namely that one must provide definitions in terms of something ‘better known’ than that whose definition one seeks. Being ‘better known’, however, can be said in relation to ‘the nature of things’ or in relation ‘to us’.67 The essential definition of body, for instance, would involve a proper genus and a specific difference, as when we define it as ‘a three-dimensional magnitude’. The cases Alexander discusses in his commentary on Top. I 2, however, involve definitions by means of that which is better known ‘to us’, rather than ‘in itself’. In these cases, one has to establish something’s existence by means of a non-essential definition first, before one can move to the question of its essence.68 This is the task of the dialectician, who investigates that which is ‘approved’ and ‘generally accepted’. In this way, one can make sense of why one would ‘vindicate’ (iʿtadhara) the usage of non-essential definitions as the Kitāb al-Nukhab reports with respect to Aristotle and Alexander.

33The problem of defining sense perceptibles with reference to one’s respective senses also appears in other passages of Alexander’s commentary on the Topics like in his commentary on Top. I 5, 102a11-17, where he elaborates on the difference between ‘sameness’ and ‘definition’, writing that

  • 69 This part is not included in the main text by Wallies but is mentioned in the apparatus; cf. Alex. (...)
  • 70 Cf. Alex. In Top. 44,32-45,7 (trans. Van Ophuijsen, slightly modified).

“It has been shown both that ‘sameness’ is useful with a view to definitional problems, and that the inquiry into ‘sameness’ and into ‘definition’ are not the same in all respects. For, from the fact that ‘visible by itself’ and ‘colour’ are the same, and so are ‘audible’ and ‘sound,’ and ‘flavour’ and ‘what can be tasted’, it does not follow that the definition of ‘colour’ is either ‘visible by itself,’ or as some people define it, ‘the perceptible quality proper to sight’ [or of ‘sound,’ that it is ‘the hearable itself’ or ‘the perceptible quality proper to hearing’].69 For these things are not what they are insofar as they are colour, or sound, but only in their relation to a perceiver.”70

This passage provides us with two important points for understanding the reference to Alexander in the Kitāb al-Nukhab. Firstly, Alexander was obviously dissatisfied with defining ‘colour’ only by saying that it is a ‘perceptible quality proper to sight’. Secondly, philosophers, as a matter of fact, frequently gave definitions that correspond exactly to the one discussed in the Kitāb al-Nukhab. The same example also appears in Top. II 4, where Alexander repeats such views regarding the definition of colour, this time as an example for attacking an argument:

  • 71 Cf. Alex. In Top. 166, 30-32 (trans. Laura M. Castelli). One might wonder who these philosophers ac (...)

“That the definition of ‘colour’ is not ‘proper perceptible of sight’ is argued for in this way: for if its being consists in this, then colour is a relative; but it is not a relative (namely, it is a quality).”71

These two passages show that Alexander often referred to the example of sense perception when discussing the topic of definition, but none of them correspond directly with what is quoted in the Kitāb al-Nukhab. I therefore propose that, if one assumes that the reference is authentic and meant to be a proper quotation rather than a more general summary, the quotation can be considered as referring to a lost passage commenting on Top. VI 4, 141b15-19, in which Alexander may have discussed the legitimacy of non-essential definitions for cases in which the definiens is essentially posterior to, yet better known than the definiendum. Just as the Kitāb al-Nukhab implies, this passage offers an ‘apology’ for providing such definitions, and refers to other philosophers who gave such definitions at the beginning of their analyses, but also provided essential definitions in later sections of their works.

34In summary, both passages from the Kitāb al-Nukhab that have been discussed in this article provide evidence that the author(s) of that treatise may have been acquainted with a fuller version of Alexander’s commentary, either in Greek, Syriac, or Arabic. Although Alexander’s explanations must be assumed as a substratum of Ps-Jābir’s exposition, it is not clear whether the references are meant to be translations of the Greek or Syriac, quotations from one of the extant Arabic translations, paraphrases, or simply some sort of super-commentary that aims at making both Aristotle’s text and Alexander explanation of it understood to a philosophically educated audience.

Conclusion

  • 72 Cf. Christian August Brandis (1833), “Über die Reihenfolge der Bücher des Aristotelischen Organons (...)
  • 73 The double scholia of books V and VI are already listed in Max Wallies (1891), „Die griechischen Au (...)
  • 74 Cf. Juan Felipe González Calderón (2014), Historia de la tradición, 455-6 (quoted above, note 1).

35In his early study on the Greek commentary tradition, Brandis claimed that the greater part of Alexander’s commentary on the Topics is authentic, even though partly contaminated.72 Wallies, largely agreeing with Brandis, argues that worries about the overall authenticity of Alexander’s commentary must be confined to books V–VIII. As, more recently, Kotzabassi and González Calderón have confirmed, a large number of double-scholia that are found in the second half of Alexander’s commentary originate from Leo Magentinos’s (fl. 13th century) Byzantine commentary.73 This appears to confirm González Calderón’s analysis of the Greek manuscript tradition, for which he suggests that Alexander’s commentary on books V–VIII was partly transmitted as a collection of scholia rather than as a running commentary.74 This might also explain why, according to Ibn al-Nadīm’s account, Alexander’s commentary on the Topics is reported to be split into two parts, and why the second part (i.e. Books V–VIII) seems to be attested much more scarcely than the first (i.e. Books I–IV). For this reason, one may speculate that the author of the Kitāb al-Nukhab may have had access to a copy of Alexander’s text that did not yet undergo the transformation into a collection of marginal scholia.

36Taking into account the analyzed passages from Ps-Jābir’s Kitāb al-Nukhab, as well as other references to Alexander’s commentary on the Topics, this study has shown that Ibn al-Nadīm’s report must be corrected: Most quotations from and references to Alexander’s commentary can be located in the first half (that is not ascribed to Alexander), while Ps-Jābir’s Kitāb al-Nukhab, as I have argued, also transmits fragments that belong to the commentary’s second half. This shows that both halves of Alexander’s commentary must have been known to the Arabic tradition at a certain point of its reception. Because the quotations found in the Kitāb al-Nukhab include material that is not traceable in the Greek tradition of Alexander’s text, one may further conclude that (parts of) the Arabic tradition could have been acquainted with a fuller version of Alexander’s commentary. Given the amount of texts which still await scholarly attention, one can be confident that more material will arrive to complement, support, or correct these preliminary results.

37Finally, yet another result of the present analysis concerns the early reception of Aristotelian ‘dialectic’ in the Islamic world: while it has been argued that the primary context in which Aristotle’s Topics was received in the Islamic world concerns argumentation theory, the way in which the Kitāb al-Nukhab incorporates passages from this treatise (and Alexander’s commentary on it), shows that it was nonetheless considered to be useful for questions concerning the organization of a scientific discipline or art (such as the art of producing talismans). Hence, the Topics was not only perceived to teach how to craft arguments for or against given theses, but also as helpful for providing scientific and non-scientific definitions. This tells us that the barrier between ‘dialectic’ and ‘science’ in the early reception of Greek philosophy in the Islamic world was not as firmly established as it is often depicted to have been.

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Bibliographie

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Koetschet, Pauline (2017), « Abū Bakr al-Rāzī et le signe : fragment retrouvé d’un traité logique perdu », Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 27 (1), p. 75-114.

Kotzabassi, Sofia (1999), Byzantinische Kommentatoren der aristotelischen Topik. Johannes Italos & Leon Magentinos, ΕΤΑΙΡΕΙΑ BYZANTINΩΝ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝ 17, Thessaloniki, ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ ΒΑΝΙΑΣ.

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Saif, Liana, “The Jābirian Kitāb al-Nukhab and Teaching the Science of Talismans in Medieval Islam”, forthcoming.

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Wakelnig, Elvira (2020), „Ǧābir ibn Ḥayyān über die Autorenschaft der Präambel zu Euklids Elementen. Zur Definition und Finalität im Buch der Untersuchung (Kitāb al-Baḥṯ)“, Studia graeco-arabica 10, p. 217-26.

Wallies, Max (1891), „Die griechischen Ausleger der Aristotelischen Topik.“ Wissenschaftliche Beilage zum Programm des Sophien-Gymnasiums zu Berlin, Ostern 1891, p. 4-27.

Watt, John W. (2004), “Syriac Translators and Greek Philosophy in Early Abbasid Iraq”, Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 4, p. 15-26.

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Notes

1 Cf. Juan Felipe González Calderón (2014), Historia de la tradición textual del comentario de Alejandro de Afrodisias a los Tópicos de Aristóteles. Tesis Doctoral, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Getafe, Departamento de Humanidades: Historia, Geografía y Arte, Getafe, p. 455-6.

2 For a list of the surviving Greek manuscripts of Alexander’s commentary, see Juan Felipe González Calderón (2014), Historia de la tradición, p. 55-65, of which the earliest dates to the 12th century.

3 To my knowledge, the Kitāb al-Nukhab / Kitāb al-Baḥth is extant in three manuscripts: The Istanbul, Süleymaniye Jarullah 1721 (henceforth A), the incomplete and unordered Paris, BnF, arabe 5321 (henceforth Β) and an undated manuscript preserved in the private collection of Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī in Ankara (henceforth Γ). See also Hans Hinrich Biesterfeldt (1980), “Zum Kitāb al-Baḥṯ des Ğābir ibn Ḥaiyān”, Vorträge des XX. Deutschen Orientalistentages vom 3. bis 8. Oktober 1977 in Erlangen , hrsg. v. Wolfgang Voigt, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Supplement 4, Wiesbaden, Steiner, p. 206-7. Parts of the Kitāb al-Nukhab / Kitāb al-Baḥth are edited in Paul Kraus (1935), Mukhtār rasāʾil Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān, Cairo, Maktabat al-Khānjī, p. 501-27. Paul Kraus (1942), Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān. Contribution à l’histoire des idées scientifiques dans l’Islam (2 vols.), Jābir et la science grecque (vol. I), Cairo, Imprimerie de l’institut français d’archéologie orientale, points to the fact that Ps-Jābir quite regularly refers to the Greek commentary tradition. As for the Kitāb al-Nukhab / Kitāb al-Baḥth, Kraus explicitly mentions Alexander’s commentary on the Topics: “Notons à ce sujet que Jābir se réfère à plusieurs reprises au commentaire des Topiques par Alexandre d’Aphrodisias.(320). Reproducing Kraus’s note, Francis Edward Peters (1968), Aristoteles Arabus. The Oriental Translations and Commentaries on the Aristotelian Corpus, Leiden, Brill, p. 22 also refers to Ps-Jābir’s Kitāb al-Nukhab / Kitāb al-Baḥth, writing: Commentary of Alexander: His commentary is used in the “Book of Investigation” which forms part of the Jābir-corpus.” Paul Kraus (1943), Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān, Contribution à l’histoire des idées scientifiques dans l’Islam (2 vols.), Le corpus des écrits Jābiriens (vol. I), Cairo, Imprimerie de l’institut français d’archéologie orientale, p. 142-6, summarizes the content of Jābir’s Kitāb al-Nukhab / Kitāb al-Baḥth (= no1800). An edition, translation and commentary of the Kitāb al-Nukhab / Kitāb al-Baḥth is currently being prepared by Liana Saif. See also Saif’s forthcoming article, “The Jābirian Kitāb al-Nukhab and Teaching the Science of Talismans in Medieval Islam”.

4 For this view, see, for instance, Dimitri Gutas (1998), Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ʿAbbāsid Society (2nd-4th / 8th-10th centuries), London, Routledge, p. 67: “In this context, a handbook in Arabic that would teach the art of argumentation and disputation was clearly needed. Al-Mahdī must have had good advisors; they suggested nothing less than the work that started it all, Aristotle’s Topics.” See also the discussion of Gutas’s view in John W. Watt (2004), “Syriac Translators and Greek Philosophy in Early Abbasid Iraq”, Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies 4, p. 17-19.

5 Cf. Abū l-Faraj Muḥammad Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Kitāb al-Fihrist. Ed. Gustav Flügel and Johannes Roediger, Leipzig, Verlag von F. C. W. Vogel, p. 249. For an English translation (quoted above, modified), see Bayard Dodge (ed. and tr.) (1970), The Fihrist. A 10th Century AD Survey of Islamic Culture, New York, Columbia University Press (1998 reprinted for the Great Books of the Islamic World, Inc. series), p. 601.

6 Cf. Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Fihrist, p. 249: wa-l-kitāb bi-tafsīr Yaḥyā naḥwa alf waraqa. Yaḥyā’s commentary on the Topics is also mentioned in Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Fihrist, 264 as Kitāb tafsīr Kitāb Ṭūbīqā li-Arisṭūṭālīs maqālatuhu fī l-buḥūth al-arbaʿa. Bayard Dodge (1970), The Fihrist, p. 631, nt. 279 argues that one should separate maqālatuhu fī l-buḥūth al-arbaʿa from what precedes it and thus translated “A commentary on Aristotle’s book “Topica”; his treatise about the four investigations.” In contrast, based on Flügel’s edition, Francis Edward Peters (1968), Aristoteles Arabus, p. 22 translates “Commentary on the Book of Topics of Aristotle: a single tractate embracing four investigations.” Peters’s translation appears to be problematic, given that Yaḥyā’s commentary is not qualified as being organized in four investigations. Dodge’s decision to interpret the Arabic as a description of two different treatises seems therefore more appealing. Yaḥyā’s commentary is also mentioned (alongside Themistius’s) in Abū Sahl al-Masīḥī’s (d. after 1025) Kitāb fī aṣnāf al-ʿulūm al-ḥikmiyya. Cf. Mehmet Cüneyt Kaya (2020), “Abū Sahl al-Masīḥī and his Kitāb Fī aṣnāf al-ʽulūm al-ḥikmiyya”, İslam Tetkikleri Dergisi - Journal of Islamic Review 10/2, p. 496. See also Ahmad Hasnawi (2007), “Boèce, Averroès et Abū al-Barakāt al-Baġdādī, Témoins des écrits de Thémistius sur les Topiques d’Aristote”, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 17, p. 207.

7 Both anecdotes are found in Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Fihrist, 252-3. For an English translation, see Bayard Dodge (1970), The Fihrist, 608-9. The aforementioned Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd Allāh is also known as the translator of Top. VIII.

8 Ibn al-Nadīm, who refers to Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī on several occasions as his source, mentions, for instance, that Alexander’s commentary on the Posterior Analytics “is not extant.” Cf. Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Fihrist, p. 249.

9 Cf. Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Fihrist, p. 249. English translation by Bayard Dodge (1970), The Fihrist, p. 601 (slightly modified). Since the eighth book of the Topics is not concerned with topoi but rather with the question of how to organize one’s argumentation in a debate, the term mawḍiʿ here probably refers to chapter 12 of book VIII rather than the 12th ‘topos’. This would mean that, according to this account, Alexander’s commentary on the final two chapters of Top. VIII was not extant. On this, see also Ahmad Hasnawi, “Boèce, Averroès et Abū al-Barakāt al-Baġdādī”, p. 205-6, nt. 11.

10 The text tells us that “Isḥāq translated what Ammonius and Alexander commented upon from the book, and Abū ʿUthmān al-Dimashqī translated this book” (wa-qad tarjama hādhā l-kitāb Abū ʿUthmān al-Dimashqī). Cf. Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Fihrist, p. 249. Ibn al-Nadīm also mentions a commentary on the same portion of the Topics among Alexander’s writings. He seems to have taken the information from Yaḥyā’s account.

11 Cf. Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Fihrist, p. 249: wa-aṣlaḥtu ʿibārāt al-naqla li-hādhayni l-tafsīrayni. English translation by Bayard Dodge (1970), The Fihrist, p. 601 (slightly modified).

12 See also the account in Francis Edward Peters (1968), Aristoteles Arabus, p. 20. Eleonore Stump (1978), Boethius’s De topicis differentiis. Translated, with notes and essays on the text, Ithaca, London, Cornell University Press, p. 212 indicates that Boethius might have been familiar with Ammonius’s works, including the alleged commentary on the Topics: “If such a commentary by Ammonius did exist, and if the Ammonius in question is (as seems not implausible) Ammonius Hermiae, then it is possible that Boethius knew and used that commentary.” Marta Spranzi (2011), The Art of Dialectic between Dialogue and Rhetoric. The Aristotelian Tradition, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, p. 39 already takes Ammonius’s commentary for granted and claims that Ammonius, together with Themistius, had a “stronger emphasis on judgement rather than invention” (p. 51). Also in the Greek tradition one finds reports of two (rather than one) commentaries on the Topics. These sources, however, do not mention Ammonius, but Philoponus alongside Alexander: A Byzantine catalogue of Aristotle’s treatises assigns the second of two commentaries to Philoponus. On this, see the analysis (and further literature) in Juan Felipe González Calderón (2014), Historia de la tradición, p. 39-40, who also mentions a single gloss on the definition of topos found in three Greek manuscripts that is attributed to Philoponus. The list is edited in Hermann Usener (1914), Kleine Schriften. Arbeiten zur griechischen Literaturgeschichte, Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Epigraphik, Chronologie. Dritter Band, Leipzig and Berlin, Teubner, p. 5-6. Sofia Kotzabassi (1999), Byzantinische Kommentatoren der aristotelischen Topik. Johannes Italos & Leon Magentinos. ΕΤΑΙΡΕΙΑ BYZANTINΩΝ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝ 17, Thessaloniki, ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ ΒΑΝΙΑΣ, p. 6, however, suggests that this might be a mistake. Possibly based on earlier Byzantine catalogues, Philoponus is also mentioned in Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa’s catalogue as having written a commentary on Aristotle’s Topics. Again, Cristina d’Ancona (2019), “Philoponus, or ‘Yaḥyā al-naḥwī’. An Overview”, Studia graeco-arabica 9, p. 221 lists this as a dubious or false attribution. Philoponus himself, in his commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (Cf. Phlp. In An. Post. 3, 3-4), appears to refer to his commentary on the Topics. On this, see esp. Ilsetraut Hadot (1990), Simplicius: Commentaire sur les Catégories / 1 : Introduction, première partie, Leiden, Brill, p. 83f.

13 The Paris, BnF, arabe 2346 is the only extant manuscript covering all of Aristotle’s Organon (including the Rhetoric and the Poetics). Parts of it were first edited in ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (1948-1952), Manṭiq Arisṭū (3 vols.), Cairo, Maṭbaʿat Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, and, subsequently by Farīd Jabr (1999), al-Naṣṣ al-kāmil li-manṭiq Arisṭū (2 vols.), Beirut, Dār al-Fikr al-Lubnānī.

14 Cf. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (1949), Manṭiq Arisṭū 2, 533, note 7 and Farīd Jabr (1999), al-Naṣṣ al-kāmil 2, p. 703, note 7. The passage our text refers to is Alexander of Aphrodisias, Alexandri Aphrodisiensis in Aristotelis topicorum libros octo commentaria (henceforth Alex. In Top.), edited by Maximilianus Wallies, Berlin, Reimer, 1891, p. 224, 19-20: δύναται καὶ τὸν μὲν φρόνιμον κατὰ τὴν λογικὴν ἀρετὴν εἰρηκέναι, τὸν δὲ ἀγαθὸν κατὰ τὴν ἠθικήν, and comments on Aristoteles (1958), Topica et Sophistici Elenchi (henceforth Aristot. Top.), ed. William D. Ross, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970, III 1, 116a14-15: καὶ μᾶλλον ἂν ἕλοιτο φρόνιμος ἀγαθὸς ἀνὴρ (...). This note is not merely philological, but meant to increase the understanding of the particular topos at stake. For Ibn Suwār’s (= Ibn al-Khammār’s) general method of editing and glossing the text, see Henri Hugonnard-Roche (1993), “Remarques sur la tradition arabe de l’Organon d’après le manuscrit Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, ar. 2346”, in Charles Burnett (ed.), Glosses and Commentaries on Aristotelian Logical Texts. The Syriac, Arabic and Medieval Latin Traditions, London, The Warburg Institute, p. 23. The word adīb is overwritten in the manuscript with ʿāqil, which seems to have been more common, especially given that the Greek phronēsis is usually rendered into Arabic as taʿaqqul.

15 Cf. Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (1990), Book of Letters (Kitāb al-Ḥurūf), ed. with Introduction and Notes by Muḥsin Mahdī, Beirut, Dār al-Mashriq, p. 223.

16 Cf. Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (1988-90), Commentary on the Prior Analytics (Sharḥ al-Qiyās), edited in Moḥammad Taqī Dāneshpazūh, al-Manṭiqiyyāt li-l-Fārābī, vol. II, Qom, Maktabat-i Āyatullāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī, p. 529. See also the summary in Joep Lameer (1994), al-Fārābī & Aristotelian Syllogistics. Greek Theory & Islamic Practice, Leiden, Brill, p. 198-201.

17 Cf. Joep Lameer (1994), al-Fārābī & Aristotelian Syllogistics, p. 200.

18 Cf. Ibn Rushd (1979), Middle Commentary on the Topics (Talkhīṣ Kitāb al-Jadal), ed. Charles Butterworth and Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Majīd Harīdī, Cairo, The American Research Center in Egypt, 1979, p. 63. Alexander’s definition of topos is found in Alex. In Top. 5 and In Top. 126. Averroes also discusses the views of Theophrastus, which are otherwise only found in Alexander’s commentary.

19 Since Averroes does not elsewhere refer to Alexander apart from the above-mentioned reference (with one exception, see later in this note), it might be the case that the two references to Alexander’s commentary on the Topics originate in one of al-Fārābī’s (lost) treatises rather than on direct acquaintance with Alexander’s text. It might have been al-Fārābī’s lost commentary on Topics II, which is mentioned in the bio-bibliographical literature and could have been also known to Averroes. The only exception to this is Ibn Rushd (1979), Middle Commentary on the Topics, p. 39, where he mentions Alexander in the context of a discussion of whether ‘existence’ (al-wujūd) is a genus or an accident. However, also this may have been taken either from al-Fārābī’s lost commentary on Topics II or from his Kitāb al-Ḥurūf. On this passage, see also Ahmed Hasnawi (2001), “Topic and Analysis: The Arabic Tradition”, in Robert W. Sharples (ed.), Whose Aristotle? Whose Aristotelianism?, Aldershot, Ashgate, p. 45, note 57.

20 Cf. Paul Kraus (1943), Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān (vol. I), introduction (esp. p.xvii-lviii).

21 Cf. Bink Hallum (2021), “New Light on Early Arabic Awfāq Literature”, in Liana Saif, Francesca Leoni, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, and Farouk Yahya (eds.), Islamicate Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice, Leiden, Brill, p. 84 (with references to the literature in note 69). Neither the author of this work, nor its dating is, however, unambiguous, as Hellmut Ritter, ‘Picatrix’, Das Ziel des Weisen von Pseudo-Maǧrīṭī, Brill, Leiden (originally The Warburg Institute) (1962), xxi suggested previously the 11th Cent. AD as the likely date of its composition.

22 Passages from Themistius’s paraphrase of the Posterior Analytics are preserved in Ps-Jābir’s Kitāb al-Nukhab, as pointed out by Rémi Brague (1999), Thémistius, Paraphrase de la Métaphysique d’Aristote (livre lambda), traduit de l’hébreu et de l’arabe, introduction, notes et indices, Paris, Vrin, p. 24-25. Further examples are Alexander’s otherwise lost On Coming to Be and Perishing, which is extant in Ps-Jābir’s Kitāb al-Taṣrīf, as pointed out in the introduction to Emma Gannagé (2005), Alexander of Aphrodisias. On Aristotle On Coming-to-Be and Perishing 2.2-5, London, Duckworth, and a lost treatise by Abū Bakr al-Rāzī identified in Ps-Jābir’s Kitāb al-Taṣrīf by Pauline Koetschet (2017), “Abū Bakr al-Rāzī et le signe : Fragment retrouvé d’un traité logique perdu”, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 27, p. 75-114.

23 Cf. Paul Kraus (1943), Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān (vol. I), p. 143: “Le k. al-baḥṯ, ouvrage très étendu, est consacré à la justification philosophique de la théurgie.” On the reception of Euclid’s Elements in the Kitāb al-Nukhab / Kitāb al-Baḥth, see now also Elvira Wakelnig (2020), “Ǧābir ibn Ḥayyān über die Autorenschaft der Präambel zu Euklids Elementen. Zur Definition und Finalität im Buch der Untersuchung (Kitāb al-Baḥṯ)”, Studia graeco-arabica 10, p. 217-26.

24 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v12-13: al-ḥadd in lam yadullaʿalā māhiyyat al-shayʾ fa-laysa dhālika ḥaddan. The examples probably go back to Aristot. Top. I 5-6.

25 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 39r21: al-ḥadd huwa khāṣṣa wa-laysa kull khāṣṣa lā maḥālata ḥaddan.

26 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 37r21ff. This probably goes back to Top. VI 4, 141b5-9.

27 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 37v1. This probably goes back to Top. VI 3, 140b2-5.

28 Cf. Top. V 6, 135b7-16.

29 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 7v9-11.

30 On Alexander's comparison of the Posterior Analytics and Topics, see Alex. In Top. 45, 8-11.

31 Elvira Wakelnig (2020), “Ǧābir ibn Ḥayyān über die Autorenschaft”, p. 223-4 makes important observations regarding the context in which the topic of ‘definition’ is discussed in his Kitāb al-Nukhab.

32 The Greek of the two homonymous definitions mentioned by Aristotle at Top. VI 2, 139b20-21 is ἡ γένεσις ἀγωγὴ εἰς οὐσίαν and ἡ ὑγίεια συμμετρία θερμῶν καὶ ψυχρῶν. The Arabic jawhar translates the Greek οὐσία, which seems not quite accurate, for the Greek means ‘existence’, while the Arabic is best rendered as ‘substance’ or ‘essence’. For the purpose of this paper, I will usually leave the terms maṣīr and iʿtidāl untranslated (just as their Greek counterparts agōgē and symmetria/symmetra). When translating these terms may be useful, I chose to translate maṣīr (which is the maṣdar of the verb ṣāra, whose basic meaning is ‘to become’) with ‘development’ and iʿtidāl as ‘balance’. To the best of my knowledge the second passage is not preserved in (Β).

33 For the more general context in which the quoted passage appears, see the summary of the Kitāb al-Nukhab in Paul Kraus (1943), Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān (vol. I), p. 145.

34 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v8-9; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v5: fa-inna dhālika nāfiʿ fī ʿilm al-ṭilasm wa-ʿamalihi jiddan.

35 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v9-10; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v6-7: wa-qad ḍaraba li-dhālika Arisṭūṭālīs wa-l-Iskandar al-Afrūdīsī wa-Thāmisṭīūs al-amthāl fī kutubihim fī sharḥ hādhihi l-mawāḍiʿ.

36 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v10-11; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v7: wa-lasnā nataʿaddā mā dhakarahu l-qawm minhu wa-nataʿammadu sharḥ mā staghlaqa minhu (...).

37 Cf. Ps-Jābir, Kitāb al-Nukhab, MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (A), 38v11-18 and MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v8-13 (here and elsewhere the Arabic has been adjusted to standard orthography. Variant readings among the manuscripts are usually not indicated):

[ Γ8] قال الإسكندر الأفروديسي [Α 12] في المقالة السادسة من كتاب طوبيقا الذي شرحه: لا ينبغي أن يستعمل في الحدّ الأمثلة [ Α13] التي تليق بالاسم [9 Γ] المشترك وتشابهه ولا ما هو اسم مشترك. ومثال ذلك أن يقول قائل وهو [14 Α] يريد حدّ الكون إنّ الكون هو المصير إلى الجوهر. ومثل [10 Γ] أن يحدّ الصحّة فيقول إنّها اعتدال [15 Α] الحرارة والبرودة. وهذه هي أسماء مشتركة [11 Γ] فإنّه قد يقال في التنقّل في الأخلاق ونقل الأشياء [16 A] والانقلاب والتغيّر وأمثال ذلك. والاعتدال قد يقال في الأعداد التي يعدّها [12 Γ] عدد واحد [17 A] وفي الأشياء المتكافئة في الواحدة وفي الكثرة وفي العظم وفي الكيفيّة وأمثال ذلك، فإنّ قد يقال في العين "معتدلة" و[13 Γ] هي أن [18 A] تصير إلى هذا المقدار من البعد وإنّ الصراع والرياضة "معتدلة" في هذه الهيئة (؟).

38 For al-Dimashqī’s translation of Top. VI 2, 139b19-22, see ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (1949), Manṭiq Arisṭū 2, p. 625, and Farīd Jabr (1999), al-Naṣṣ al-kāmil 2, p. 791, which runs as follows:

فأحد مواضع ما يوصف وصفًا غامضًا أن يكون الشيء الموصوف من المتّفقة أسماؤها. مثال ذلك أنّ الكون هو المصير إلى الجوهر، وأنّ الصحّة اعتدال الأشياء الحارّة والباردة. وذلك أنّ المصير والاعتدال من المتّفقة أسماؤها.

39 This could have already occurred in the Greek of Alexander’s paraphrase that often differs from the exact wording of Aristotle’s text. A similar definition is also found in Aristot. Phy. VII 3, 246b3-6.

40 Cf. Ibn al-Nadīm (1871), Fihrist, p. 310 (quoted above).

41 Cf. Alex. In Top. 423,19-424,5.

42 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v16 and MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v11, see above, note 37.

43 A further possibility is that the expression wa-l-inqilāb is supposed to render καὶ παρακομίζειν λέγεται. However, given the diverging meanings, I think it is more likely that both inqilāb and taghayyur render μεταβολή.

44 I.e. “The one who defines ‘generation’ in such a way made use of the word agōgē according to this signification.”

45 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v17; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v12, see above, nt. 37.

46 Cf. Euc. El. X, Def. 1 Heiberg: σύμμετρα μεγέθη λέγεται τὰ τῷ αὐτῷ μέτρῳ μετρούμενα. The parallel to Euclid was not indicated by Wallies, but, as pointed out by one of the anonymous reviewers, Euclid’s definitions were most likely common knowledge in Alexander’s time and context.

47 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 39r7-9; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v23-25.

48 Cf. (Ps-)Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (1594), Kitāb Taḥrīr uṣūl li-Uqlīdis (Commentary on Euclid’s Elements), Roma, In Typographia Medicea, p. 225: al-ishtirāk fī l-maqādīr yukhālifu l-ishtirāk fī l-aʿdād fa-inna l-aʿdād al-mushtaraka hiya llatī yaʿudduhā ʿadad wāḥid.

49 In addition, also other passages in which Alexander refers to the topic of ‘commensurability’ rather deal with numbers than magnitudes. Cf. Alex. In Met. 19,1-4, and Alex. In Met. 404,1-11.

50 As for ‘quality’, the Arabic seems to be closer to the reading κατὰ ποιότητα as listed in Walliess apparatus instead of κατὰ τὰς ποιότητας as the text has it; cf. Alex. In Top. 424,4-5 (and Walliess apparatus).

51 Cf. Alex. In Met. IV 5, 313, 33-35 Hayduck: περὶ γὰρ χρῶμα ἡ ὄψις οὖσα ἀληθεύει περὶ αὐτό, ἂν ᾖ ἀπὸ συμμέτρου διαστήματος καὶ μὴ πόρρω· (trans. Madigan, modified).

52 Cf. Alex. In De Sens. 50, 22-24 Wendland: ἐν δὲ τοῖς σώμασι (πάλιν δὲ σώματα τὰ στερεὰ λέγει) τὸ αὐτὸ μένει τὸ ὁρώμενον, ἐγγύς τε καὶ πορρωτέρω ἀποχωρούντων, ἄν γε τὸ διάστημα σύμμετρον (trans. Towey, Greek added).

53 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 39r10-11; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ), 88v26-27, where Ps-Jābir uses more precise terminology and, instead of ʿayn, rather speaks of imtidād baṣar al-ʿayn.

54 Cf. Alex. In Top. 206,4-5 Wallies: οἷον τὸ γυμνάζεσθαι συμμέτρως ἀγαθὸν ὄν (ποιητικὸν γὰρ ὑγείας) τὴν ὑπερβολὴν κακὸν ἔχει. (trans. Laura M. Castelli, Greek added).

55 Cf. Ps-Jābir, Kitāb al-Nukhab, MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 38v18-39r3; MS Ankara, Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī (Γ) 88v13-21:

فأقول: [19 Α] أمّا قوله إنّ "المصير قد يقال [14 Γ] في الأخلاق وانقلابها" هو أنّه أبان بذلك أنّه إن كان [20 Α] الفصل دالًّا على صورة الشيء وجوهره الذي هو بالحقيقة، فينبغي أن يكون [15 Γ] الاسم المعبّر به عنه [21 Α] قد يحتمل أن يكون كذلك لذلك الشيء الذي في اكتساب معناه ولغيره، فإنّ اسم المصير لما [22 Α] كان قد يقال على انتهاء الكون إلى الجوهر [16 Γ] ولانقلاب أخلاق الصبيّ القبيحة. فإنّه قد قال إنّ [23 Α] الصبيّ قد يكون في ابتداء نشوئه على الأكثر قبيح الأفعال حدًّا إمّا كلّها أو أكثرها. [17 Γ] فإنّه بالطبع [24 Α] يكون أكذب خلق الله لأنّه يحكي ويخبر بما لم يره ولم يسمعه. ويكون أحيل خلق الله وألصّه [25 Α] وأفسده لكلّ أمر وآثمه وأكثره [18 Γ] فضولًا وأشدّ الحيوان لجاجًا وكيادًا وأضرّه في [26 Α] نفسه بنفسه وبغيره. ثمّ لا يزال الأدب والسنّ ينقلانه ويصيران به إلى أحوال أخر. [27 Α] [19 Γ] وإن فقد الأدب قوّمته بعض التقويم الفوائد بالسنّ وهذا بالحقيقة هو انتقال ومصير [9r A3] من حال إلى أخرى. وكذلك مصيره وانتقاله [20 Γ] من سنّ الشباب إلى التكهّل. وكذلك إلى الشيخوخة [2 Α] وهذا هو تغيير. وكذلك حال الفساد في النقصان وهو مصير ما في الجوهر [21 Γ] إلى العدم [3 Α] وانتقال التركيب. فليس اسم المصير واقعًا موقعه في حدّ الكون لأنّه اسم مشترك.

56 Cf. Alex. Eth. Prob., p. 121-122, Bruns, See also the translation and commentary in Alexander of Aphrodisias (1990), Ethical Problems, translated by R. W. Sharples, London, Bloomsbury, p. 20-23.

57 The passage on the explanation of iʿtidāl spans 39r4-14 in the MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α). Also in this case it is yet unclear whether or not the author of the Kitāb al-Nukhab draws to some extent on Alexander’s commentary.

58 See, for instance, Marwan Rashed (2015), al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī, Commentary on Aristotle De generatione et corruptione. Edition, Translation and Commentary, Berlin and Boston, De Gruyter, p. 257: “As often in Alexander, we do not have a word for word quotation here, but a slight paraphrasis of Aristotle’s words [...]”.

59 For the context in which the quoted passage appears, see Paul Kraus (1943), Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān (vol. I), p. 145f.

60 Cf. Aristot. Top. VI 4, 141b15-19. For al-Dimashqī’s Arabic translation, see ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (1949), Manṭiq Arisṭū 2, p. 633, and Farīd Jabr (1999), al-Naṣṣ al-kāmil 2, p. 798.

61 Cf. Ps-Jābir, Kitāb al-Nukhab, MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 103v2-7; Paris, BnF, arabe 5321 (Β), 39r20-v5.

[2 Α] فأقول: إنّ القوم أجمعوا [B 21] في هذه المحسوسات الخمس التي هي حواسّها في كلّ إنسان سلمت [3 Α] خلقته. فقالوا في كلّ [39v Β] واحدة منها إنّها كيفيّة تخصّ تلك الحاسّة. مثال ذلك أنّهم قالوا في [4 Α] اللون [2 Β] إنّه كيفيّة تخصّ حاسّة البصر وفي الشمّ إنّه كيفيّة تخصّ حاسّة الأنف وفي الذوق [5 Α] [3 Β] إنّه كيفيّة تخصّ حاسّة اللسان وفي الحارّ والبارد والخشن والليّن واللمس [4 Β] كلّه فإنّه كيفيّة [6 Α] تخصّ حاسّة البدن والأعضاء ذوات الحسّ القويّ وفي الصوت [5 Β] إنّه كيفيّة تخصّ حاسّة السمع.

62 Cf. MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 103v7; Paris, BnF, arabe 5321 (Β), 39v5: fa-ʿtadhara Arisṭāṭālis lahum wa-li-nafsihi.

63 Cf. Ps-Jābir, Kitāb al-Nukhab, MS Istanbul, Jarullah 1721 (Α), 103v7-14; Paris, BnF, Arabe 5321 (Β), 39v5-13:

وكذلك فعل الإسكندر الأفروديسي في العذر في كتاب طوبيقا. وقال إنّ هذا الحدّ ليس [7 Β] يدلّنا على ماهيّة شيء من هذه المحسوسات، لا اللون ولا [9 Α] الشمّ ولا الذوق لا سائر [8 Β] الباقية. وأجروا ذلك مجرى العجب. ومع ذلك فلم يذكروا العلّة [10 Α] فيه ولا ما هو [9 Β] البتّة. و"ما هو" أرى شيئًا هو أعون على فهم هذا الأمر من الكلام في هذه [11 Α] المحسوسات [10 Β] وأعطأ أسبابها. فأمّا الصوت فإنّهم قد قالوا وأتوا بحدّه وكذلك [12 Α] الحال [B 11] في الباقية. ولكنّهم أجروا ذكر ذلك في درج الكلام فخفي جداً على الطالب له. والذي [12 Β] حدّوا [13 Α] به الصوت هو أنّه "قرع جسمَين في هواء" و"انضغاط هواء بين جسمَين" و [13 Β] أمثال [14 Α] ذلك ممّا مجرى مجراه.

64 The above-quoted passage continues with a short exposition of Plato’s theory of colour (A: 103v14-17; B: 39v13-17) and of a theory ascribed to “someone other than Plato” (ghayr Aflāṭun) (A: 103v18-23; B: 39v17-21). Also this section may originate in (or relate to) Alexander’s commentary. Because it begins a new thought and then appears to deviate from the primary intention of the above-quoted passage, it is not included in the translation.

65 On Alexander’s different uses of dialectic, see also Peter Adamson (2018), “Dialectical Method in Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Treatises on Fate and Providence”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 54, p. 279-308.

66 Cf. Alex. In Top. 30,12-31,1 (trans. Johannes M. Van Ophuijsen (2001), Alexander of Aphrodisias. On Aristotle’s Topics 1, Ithaca and New York, Cornell University Press, p. 33-34, modified).

67 Cf. Aristot. Top. VI 4, 141b3-5.

68 In fact, as the above-quoted passages show, the Alexander of the Kitāb al-Nukhab claims that these philosophers mentioned essential (whether emissionist or intromissionist) definitions in later sections of their treatises.

69 This part is not included in the main text by Wallies but is mentioned in the apparatus; cf. Alex. In Top. 45 (apparatus).

70 Cf. Alex. In Top. 44,32-45,7 (trans. Van Ophuijsen, slightly modified).

71 Cf. Alex. In Top. 166, 30-32 (trans. Laura M. Castelli). One might wonder who these philosophers actually were. As for De An. II 6-12, Aristoteles introduces the topic of ‘senses’ with a reference to their proper perceptibles, writing “concerning each sense one has to speak first about the perceptible object”; cf. De An. 418a7-8: λεκτέον δὲ καθ' ἑκάστην αἴσθησιν περὶ τῶν αἰσθητῶν πρῶτον. Such a passage may have given rise to the assumption that Aristotle defines proper sense perceptibles in relation to the senses which they correspond to.

72 Cf. Christian August Brandis (1833), “Über die Reihenfolge der Bücher des Aristotelischen Organons und ihre Griechischen Ausleger, nebst Beiträgen zur Geschichte des Textes jener Bücher des Aristoteles und ihrer Ausgaben”, Hist.-Phil. Abhandlungen der königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, vorgelegt am 19. Dezember 1833, p. 297f.

73 The double scholia of books V and VI are already listed in Max Wallies (1891), „Die griechischen Ausleger der Aristotelischen Topik.“ Wissenschaftliche Beilage zum Programm des Sophien-Gymnasiums zu Berlin, Ostern 1891, p. 7. They are often introduced by expressions like εἰς τὸ αὐτό, ἑτέρου, and ἄλλως. See also the edition of Leo Magentinoss commentary in Sofia Kotzabassi (1999), Byzantinische Kommentatoren, and her introduction on p. 3-16.

74 Cf. Juan Felipe González Calderón (2014), Historia de la tradición, 455-6 (quoted above, note 1).

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Alexander Lamprakis, « Did the Arabic Tradition Know a More Complete Version of Alexander’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Topics? The Evidence from Ps-Jābir’s Kitāb al-Nukhab / Kitāb al-Baḥth »Methodos [En ligne], 22 | 2022, mis en ligne le 01 mai 2022, consulté le 06 juin 2023. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/methodos/8763 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/methodos.8763

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Alexander Lamprakis

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München / Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg

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