A Misunderstanding in the Aristotelian Tradition? Interpretations of Metaphysics α 1, 993 b 23-31

Abstract

In this paper, I present a translation and analysis of Metaphysics α 1, 993 b 23-31 to subsequently show how Alexander of Aphrodisias’s interpretation of said passage led medieval philosophers to attribute a doctrine of creation to Aristotle. For Alexander, those things that are most true and those beings that are in the highest degree, about which Aristotle speaks in Met. α 1, a passage that originally addressed the relationship between the premises and conclusions of demonstrations, are the unmoved movers, which have a relationship of imitation or participation with the things that depend on them. In Averroes, who favors the Neoplatonic notion of perfection, the causality of the unmoved mover becomes an efficient causality in its fullest sense: an explanation not only of the movement of the heavens, but of their being and that of all things. Thus, he implicitly presents Aristotle as a monotheistic and creationist philosopher. Thomas Aquinas, using the notions of “being by essence” and “being by participation” and deriving a notion of “always being” from that of “always being true”, also transforms the unmoved mover into a true creator and explicitly points out the reasons for his interpretation in the text of Aristotle.