Alexandre d'Aphrodise et l'existence des intermédiaires

In Alexander of Aphrodisias’ commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, we find several passages concerning “the intermediaries” (τὰ μεταξύ). In this article I will consider some of them, taken from the commentaries on Alpha (6, 987b14-18) and Beta (2, 997a34-b3; 997b25-28; 998a7-9), because in these passages we do not find a simple paraphrase of what Aristotle says (as is common in Alexander), but a stance that seems to me highly original. From this analysis, we will find a confirmation of what is often said, namely that Alexander is not interested in philosophers (of the past and contemporary) as such, but only as objects of consideration, often polemical, of Aristotle and of Aristotelians “purs et durs” like him. We will also find another confirmation, namely that Alexander always tries to explain Aristotle systematically, even when the Aristotelian theses do not appear coherent or mutually well harmonized. However, it will also have to be noted that the passages of Alexander’s commentary that will be analysed have the merit of underlining and clearly explaining the serious difficulties that we encounter when we reflect on the μεταξύ of the Platonists: the difficulty of conceiving their relationship to sensible reality if we consider them as objects of certain mathematical sciences, and the difficulty of considering their existence if we conceive them as objects immanent to reality.