Neoplatonist teacher at Alexandria, pupil of Proclus, who established the Alexandrian tradition of commentary on Aristotle and the course that opened with Porphyry’s Isagoge; the Fihrist knows his commentaries on the Categories and the Topics.
Life
Ammonius was the son of Hermeias, who taught Platonism at Alexandria. He studied with Proclus at Athens and then taught philosophy at Alexandria, where most of the important Platonists of the late fifth and early sixth centuries were his students: Asclepius, Simplicius, Eutocius, Olympiodorus and John Philoponus among them, while Damascius heard his lectures. Elias and David were his pupils at one remove. According to Damascius, Ammonius made an ‘agreement’ with the bishop of Alexandria; what it involved is debated, and the Stanford Encyclopedia finds no convincing evidence that he converted to Christianity.
Ammonius established the tradition of Aristotelian commentary at Alexandria and gave a model for the exegesis of Aristotle and Plato. He wrote up the large commentary on On Interpretation for publication himself. A commentary on the Isagoge, titled ‘Ammonius the Philosopher’s Exegesis of the Five Sayings’, may have been given its final form by him, though its prooemium is thought inauthentic; the commentaries on the Categories and on Prior Analytics I come from his students’ notes, ‘from the voice of Ammonius’. In the course associated with his school, students began with an introduction to philosophy, then an introduction to the Isagoge, a commentary on it and the reading of the Isagoge itself, and only then an introduction to Aristotle’s philosophy and to the Categories.
Works of Ammonius and his students were translated into Persian, Syriac and Arabic. The Syriac translator Sergius of Reshʿaynā studied with him. Ibn al-Nadīm’s Fihrist mentions his commentaries on the Categories and the Topics and gives him an entry of his own, and reports that Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn translated ‘what Ammonius and Alexander have commented upon’, which Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī then put into Arabic. Recent scholarship, as summarised by Cristina D’Ancona, credits Ammonius with a decisive influence on al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā on two points: the harmony between Plato and Aristotle, and the scope of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. The Alexandrian order of study, beginning with the Isagoge, is the one the Syriac schools and the Arabic Organon kept.
Uncertain or disputed
- Dates: the Stanford Encyclopedia gives ca. 435/445–517/526.
- Which of the logical commentaries under his name are his own writing and which are students’ notes is discussed above; the Isagoge commentary’s authorship is not fully settled.
- No Arabic form of his name is given here, since none was found in the sources consulted for this page.
Works
- Commentary on On Interpretation (De interpretatione) — üzerine AristotelesWritten up for publication by Ammonius himself.şerh
- Exegesis of the Five Sayings (commentary on the Isagoge) — üzerine PorfiriosPerhaps given its final form by Ammonius; the prooemium is considered inauthentic.şerh
- Commentaries on the Categories and on Prior Analytics I — üzerine AristotelesFrom students’ notes of his lectures.şerh
Reception
An Arabic adaptation of Hippolytus’ Refutation of All Heresies, reworked in the light of ninth-century Baghdad debates, circulated under the name of ‘Ammonius, the Alexandrian commentator of Aristotle’ (D’Ancona, SEP).
His harmonisation of Aristotle’s God with Plato’s efficient causation proved essential to the Arabic Aristotelians (SEP, ‘Ammonius’).
Sources (4)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘Ammonius’
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘Greek Sources in Arabic and Islamic Philosophy’ (Cristina D’Ancona)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘Greek Sources in Arabic and Islamic Philosophy’, notes 49 and 59
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘Arabic and Islamic Philosophy of Language and Logic’ (Tony Street)