Andrea Araf

Andrea Araf holds an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Rome Tor Vergata and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He completed his doctoral dissertation on Plotinus’ doctrine of extension, body and matter at Roma Tre University and the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg. He will visit the Forum in April–May 2026 to work on a project on late ancient theories of self-intellection.

Abstract: This project examines Alexander of Aphrodisias’ and Plotinus’ theories of self-intellection. Scholars have established Alexander’s influence on Plotinus and their key divergence: Alexander defends a mediated model in which the intellect knows itself only as intelligible, whereas Plotinus advocates a direct model, wherein the intellect knows itself also as intellect. This project expands this line of inquiry by incorporating evidence about Alexander’s lost commentary on De Anima preserved in later commentators. Additionally, it considers the role of Aristotle’s Physics 8.5 in shaping both philosophers’ accounts of self-intellection. Aristotle argues that only a compound of active and passive parts can move itself, whereas an undivided whole cannot, as the coincidence of activity and passivity would violate the principle of non-contradiction. Alexander adapts this argument to justify his mediated model in the De Intellectu, and, as Philoponus testifies, he explicitly referenced Physics 8.5 in his commentary on De Anima. My central hypothesis is that Plotinus engages not only with Aristotle, but also with Alexander’s adaptation of Physics 8.5. In Ennead 5.3, Plotinus uses Aristotle’s formula αὐτὸ ἑαυτό (‘it itself’) to argue that self-intellection belongs not to a compound, but to an undivided whole—thus directly challenging Alexander’s model. Within this framework of transmission and critique, the project aims to offer new insights into the metaphysical foundations of self-intellection in late ancient philosophy.