Albert the Great Interpreting Aristotle:

Intimacy and Independence

by Isabelle Moulin
Inde est quod multi legunt et pauci intellegunt.
Guibert of Tournai (d. 1284).1

In this paper,2 I would like to present Albert the Great not as a theologian,
not as a philosopher writing his own thesis in a treatise like the De bono or
the De unitate intellectus, but as a philosopher commenting on another
philosopher, or, I should say, commenting on The Philosopher. The story
of the acculturation3 of the thirteenth century by the Greek and Arabic
thinkers, and particularly Aristotle, is well known. I would like to focus
instead on the texts themselves and study Albert the Greats method of
reading and commenting on one of the two thinkers who strongly influenced
his philosophy, namely Aristotle4 the second one being Pseudo-Dionysius.
It is really interesting to note that the two philosophers who had the greatest
influence on Albert the Greats career are two thinkers from the Greek
world, whom he had to read through the medium of a translation, as Albert
obviously did not read Greek.5 One should keep in mind that when
commenting on Aristotle, Albert either used some translations from the
Greek (though all his commentaries are written before the Moerbekes
output), or translations from the Arabic that included Averroes
1

De modo addiscendi 6.2, ed. E. Bonifacio, De modo addiscendi, introduzione e testo

inedito (Turin, 1953), p. 270.
2
I thank Helga de Bontin for correcting my English for the first draft of this paper, as well
as Prof. Tad Brennan for his final corrections. If some remain, one should incriminate only
the author.
3
See Alain de Libera, Penser au Moyen-ge (Paris, 1991), p. 109.
4
Aristotle is indubitably a fundamental authority for Albert the Great. He is a praeclarus
philosophus (Albertus Magnus, De anima [Ed. Colon. 7/1], 1.1.1, p. 2.27). A good example
of the way Albert treats his authorities is to be found in his Super sententiarum: for faith and
morality, one should trust Augustine, but concerning medicine, one should rather trust
Hippocrates or Galen (Albertus Magnus, II Sent. [Ed. Paris 27], d. 13, C, a.2, p. 247a).
5
H.-F. Dondaine, Saint Albert et le grec, Recherches de thologie ancienne et
mdivale 17 (1950), 31519.

158

Albert Interpreting Aristotle

159

commentary. This latter fact certainly explains his dependence on The

Commentator in many ways. But Albert is not a pure follower: he not only
presents his own interpretations, he also introduces his own personal
thoughts, thoughts that undergo a whole set of influences: from Aristotle, of
course, and from other Greek, Arabic, and Jewish thinkers (Dionysius, AlFarabi, Avicenna, Maimonides, Averroes, Liber de Causis, only to name a
few). It is not an exaggeration to say that he has read and digested the
whole range of knowledge available at his time.
For Albert the Great interpreting Aristotle is mostly a matter of
commenting upon him. Of course, he quotes some Aristotelian doctrines and
shows some of their errors in theological or scientific works.6 But his
philosophy is mostly composed of running commentaries on the Aristotelian
texts. And if one wants to study the Albertian philosophy one has to read
Aristotle first.
The commentary is then at the very heart of the Albertian thought. And to
underline its legitimacy is the first presupposition the reader must grant. By
the time Albert is writing his own commentaries, commenting is a wellestablished practice. Historically, it coincides with the flourishing of schools
of teaching in which it constitutes a major scholarly practice.7 It is also
developing when a risk to the scholarly institution itself constitutes a threat
to the transmission of the teaching of its masters. It also marks the passage
from oral tradition to the study of written texts seen as authoritative.8
6
See for example Albertus Magnus, De nat. loci (Ed. Colon. 5), 1.7, p. 14.4347: in
libro enim Meteororum aliquid iterum dicemus de hoc secundum sententias philosophorum.
Sed quidquid ibi dicturi sumus, hoc erit opinionis aliorum. Hic autem vere scripsimus
opinionem nostrum.
7
For precise analyses of the role of the schools in the commentary practice and especially
the importance of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Syrianus, see Cristina DAncona, From
Late Antiquity to the Arab Middle Ages: The Commentaries and the Harmony between the
Philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, in Albertus Magnus und die Anfnge der AristotelesRezeption im lateinishen Mittelalter. Von Richardus Rufus bis zu Franciscus de Mayronis,
Subsidia Albertina, Albertus-Magnus-Institut Bonn, vol. 1, ed. L. Honnefelder, R. Wood, M.
Dreyer, and M.-A. Aris (Mnster, 2005), pp. 4569; Syrianus dans la tradition exgtique de
la Mtaphysique dAristote, in Le Commentaire entre tradition et innovation: Actes du
Colloque International de lInstitut des Traditions Textuelles (Paris et Villejuif, 2225
septembre 1999), ed. M.-O. Goulet-Caz et al. (Paris, 2000), pp. 31127.
8
For this analysis, see Pierre Hadot, Thologie, exgse, revelation, criture, in Les
rgles de linterprtation, ed. Michel Tardieu (Paris, 1987), pp. 1334; repr. in Pierre Hadot,
tudes de Philosophie ancienne (Paris, 1998), pp. 2758, at 3031: the writings of the
founders take the place of the scholarly institution that they have created (my translation). A
good survey is provided by Nathalie Raybaud, La philosophie arabe: une philosophie du
commentaire?, Philosophie 77 (2003), 85110. For the new flourishing of written texts in

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Moulin

Athens, Alexandria, and Baghdad are good examples of this double aspect.
They also are comparable because they share the same goal: to support
philosophy and show the harmony of the doctrines of Aristotle and Plato.9
On the contrary, Avicenna with his free reading of Aristotle in his Shifa10
and Averroes with his proper threefold method of commenting on Aristotle,
each method requiring its own specific methodology,11 present a new and
decisive way of integrating the Aristotelian text which Albert will later call
the peripatetic set of doctrines. Amazingly, Albert the Greats way of
commenting on Aristotle will stay in the middle between a free
appropriation of fundamental Aristotelian theses interpreted in the light of
the philosophy of Al-Farabi (which was Avicennas approach) and the closer
explanation of the Aristotelian text (which was Averroes approach).
It is only quite recently that the form of the commentary has begun to
arouse a certain interest among scholars and has gained its own reputation as
a full philosophical text.12 It has long been neglected and considered as a
minor literary form for practising philosophy. But a commentary is a cumthe thirteenth century and the diffusion of paper as a new material, see Jacques Paul, Histoire
intellectuelle de lOccident mdival (Paris, 1998), pp. 21718, pp. 23537.
9
For the Neoplatonists, the reconciliation of Aristotle with Plato, the symphonia, is
grounded on the attempt of finding the truth that has been revealed at the origins in the
palaios logos. Their exegesis is consequently a spiritual exegesis that goes far beyond our
modern conception of philosophy; see Pierre Hadot, Thologie, exgse, rvlation,
criture, p. 33 and Cristina dAncona, Greek into Arabic: Neoplatonism in Translation, in
The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, ed. P. Adamson and R. Taylor
(Cambridge, 2005), pp. 1031, esp. pp. 1417. Their exegesis then not only refers to
philosophical texts but any text related to this philosophia perennis, i.e. the Chaldaean
oracles, the pythagorism, the mythic logoi. The Arabic context is different.
10
For the Shifa as a palimpsest, see Jean Jolivet, Le commentaire philosophique arabe,
in Le Commentaire entre Tradition et Innovation, pp. 397410, at 407.
11
In commenting on the Aristotelian philosophy, Averroes uses three methods, namely,
short, middle, and long commentary. A short commentary, or epitome, is usually a summary
of the text which often includes a good deal of additional material to help relate the
philosophical discussion to contemporary theological and legal matters (Oliver Leaman,
Averroes and his Philosophy [Richmond, Surrey, 1988], p. 9); the middle commentary is
longer and more proximate to the text than the short commentary. The large commentary
often quotes precisely the text and includes a lot of diversions and digressions to help
understand the relevant questions. It demonstrates a method of commenting closer to Alberts
method. See J. Jolivet, Le commentaire philosophique arabe, pp. 4089.
12
Several colloquiums have been held these recent years that led to to edited proceedings.
To name a few: G.W. Most, Commentaries-Kommentare, Aporemata 4 (Gttingen, 1999), Le
Commentaire entre tradition et innovation, ed. M.-O. Goulet-Caz, The Classical
Commentary. Histories, Practices, Theory, Mnemosyne, supp. 232, ed. R.K. Gibson and C.
Shuttleworth Kraus (Leiden/Boston/Cologne, 2002).

Albert Interpreting Aristotle

161

mentarium, a thinking with13 which includes a dialogue between the reader

and his text, or even a conversation that might lead to a conversion. It also
implies a writing project as the commentator wants to share his first silent
reading. Then the commentary becomes a medium, a way of transmission,
the ideal place for the inter-pres, i.e. the intermediary between two parties. It
explains why the distinction between translating and commenting is often
blurred. And did the Latin masters of the thirteenth century not have to
struggle with the same difficulties as the Arabic thinkers of the Islamic
world? The gigantic task that was imparted to Albert the Great, namely to
accommodate the new science to Western thought presents the same
phenomenon of the acculturation of Aristotelian philosophy as did the
earlier episode in the East.
The double movement of accepting and then transforming is typical of
every commentary. Conceptually speaking, each commentator has to deal
with two temptations, the charybdean repetition of the Same, the ancillary
psittacism,14 and the scyllean misunderstanding of the Other, the failure of
meaning. But because those great Masters were not pure readers, even their
miscomprehensions are significant. As Pierre Hadot puts it, exegetical
misinterpretations set forth a hermeneutic fecundity.15 Transposing
Heraclitus, one should say: Come in, even there philosophy is present.16
Consequently, all the commentators texts are meaningful.
This double movement of adoption and transposition/transformation
applies to Albert the Greats interpretation of the Aristotelian texts too. But
there is more in this binomial. One cannot take Alberts account seriously
when he asserts, in one of his very first commentaries, that he has only
undertaken the task of commenting on Aristotle to satisfy the request of the
Brothers of his Order who found the texts of the Stagirite difficult to

13

See Nathalie Raybaud, La philosophie arabe, p. 104.

See Jacques Le Goff, Les intellectuels au moyen ge (Paris, 1985), p. 98: the danger is
repetition, psittacism, servile imitation.
15
Misinterpretations and miscomprehensions have often caused important evolutions in
the history of philosophy and have set forth new notions (Philosophie, exgse et
contresens, in Akten des XIV. Internationalen Kongresses fr Philosophie [Vienna, 1968],
vol. 1, pp. 33339; repr. in P. Hadot, tudes de philosophie ancienne, pp. 411, at 9, my
translation).
16
Aristotle, Parts of Animals, 2.5, 645a.1721: And as Heraclitus, when the strangers
who came to visit him found him warming himself at the furnace in the kitchen and hesitated
to go in, is reported to have bidden them not to be afraid to enter, as even in that kitchen
divinities were present.
14

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understand.17 Regarding the Aristotelian influx of the early thirteenth

century, two attitudes were possible. And if Albert the Great chose to
comment upon Aristotle whereas Bonaventure chose to stay close to the
Augustinian heritage, there is certainly a question of the affinity of their
mental character too, of proximity of thinking with. Albert is
unquestionably not an Aristotelian, but he would definitely be classified as a
Peripatetic in his own particular use of the term. Albert has often been
called a Neoplatonist. In a neo-plotinian meaning of the word, he is not.18
But his own philosophy is deeply influenced by the original thought of
Dionysius and of the Liber de causis, two texts strongly committed to
Neoplatonism, the Liber being a free adaptation and translation of some
passages of the Elementatio theologica of Proclus. But here lies the double
movement of intimacy and independence of the Albertian commentaries. In
his Christian conception of the world and in his inheritance of the Arabic
philosophy, Albert presents himself as an original reader of a text to which
he feels particularly akin.

17

Albertus Magnus, Phys. (Ed. Colon. 4/1), I.1.1, p. 1.122: Our intention in the natural
science is to fulfil, as much as we can, the requests of the Brothers of our Order who asked us
a long time ago to compose for them such a book on the Physics, in which they could acquire
a perfect knowledge of the natural science together with a more qualified intelligence of the
books of Aristotle. Although we were thinking that we were not sufficient for doing this kind
of work, we had not the power however to disappoint the prayers of the Brothers, and having
declined many times, we accepted at last and defeated by the prayers of some, we undertook
it, first for the praise of the almighty God who is the source of wisdom, the Founder, the
Establisher and the Ruler of nature, but also to be useful to the Brothers, and, therefore, to
everybody who wished to understand the natural science by reading this book. I suspect a
sort of finickyness in this presentation, or, maybe, a certain mark of humility, as it seems to be
a commonplace to excuse oneself on the pretext of having having been asked to write; see for
example, the Praelocutio of Bonaventuras In Sententiarum, book 2: Salvatoris opitulante
gratia, ex quo perventum est ad completionem primi, Fratrum pariter interveniente instantia,
oportet incohare secundum (ed. Ad Claras Aquas, vol. 2, p. 1). For this recurrent topos in
ancient commentaries on scientific and medical texts, see Heinrich von Staden, A Woman
Does Not Become Ambidextrous: Galen and the Culture of Scientific Commentary, in The
Classical Commentary, pp. 10939, who quotes Galens commentary on the Hippocratic
Prognostic: I am saying this to all you, my companions, who compelled me, though I had not
made the choice myself, to record my explications of Hippocrates writings (Galen, In
Hippocratis Prognosticum commentaria 3.6, Corpus Medicorum Greacorum 5.9.2 [Leipzig
and Berlin, 1915], p. 328).
18
See Leo Sweeney, Are Plotinus and Albertus Magnus Neoplatonists?, in Graceful
Reason. Essays in Ancient and Mediaeval Philosophy. Presented to Joseph Owens, Papers in
Mediaeval Studies 4, ed. Llyod P. Gerson (Toronto, 1983), pp. 177202.

Albert Interpreting Aristotle

163

Moreover, to produce a commentary implies that there is something or

someone to comment upon, namely texts and auctores. But an author is not
only the originator or the producer of a work. At a time when the notion of
intellectual property was less valued than nowadays and when the only
concern for philosophers and theologians was truth, an author was
essentially an authority whose ideas were read, borrowed, and commented
upon. As an authority, the textus is less a locus of intellectual interchange
than the adoption of the discovery of the truth. Therefore, it presents itself as
an unavoidable reference with which one must be acquainted and, ideally,
intimate. That was indisputably the case with the Aristotelian metaphysical
and scientific system at the time of Albert.
Nevertheless, Albert the Greats commentary is not the commentary of a
pure disciple. Aristotle is not Alberts only source. He is situated at the
converging point of too many philosophical tendencies, and at a point in the
history of Aristotles reception that was too crucial for him not to be
involved in some discussions that are independent of the original text itself.
This aspect constitutes one of the main differences between Alberts
commentary and the commentaries written either before or after him, for
example, Thomas Aquinass commentaries. A few decades separate Alberts
project from Thomas Aquinass project, but in these few decades, there is
the whole reception of Aristotle in the Latin West, as well as a new
translation. The other reason for a certain independent attitude towards the
Aristotelian text, which cannot be attributed to all the Masters of this period,
is Alberts own characteristic attitude. Aristotle is not a god, as he says in
his Physics, he is a man, and, as such, can err.19 And Albert had read too
widely to underestimate the value of Platonic philosophy,20 even if he had no
tools (absence of translations for example) and no will to undertake it: there
are two ways in Ancient Philosophy that could be followed concerning the
principles of the substance and even if the Platonic way seems based on

19

Si autem credit ipsum esse hominem, tunc procul dubio errare potuit sicut et nos,
Albertus Magnus, Phys. (Ed. Colon. 4/2), 8.1.14, p. 578.2527.
20
Note, however, that his conception of the philosophy of Plato is not comparable to ours.
Plato is a Stoic, for Albert. See Alain de Libera, Albert le Grand et le platonisme. De la
doctrine des Ides la thorie des trois tats de luniversel, in On Proclus and his Influence
in Medieval Philosophy, ed. E.P. Bos and A. Meijer (Leiden/New York/Cologne, 1992), pp.
89119 and Alain de Libera, Albert le Grand ou lantiplatonisme sans Platon, in Contre
Platon. Tome I. Le platonisme dvoil, ed. Monique Dixsaut (Paris, 1993), pp. 24771, Alain
de Libera, Mtaphysique et notique. Albert le Grand (Paris, 2004), esp. pp. 15966.

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only probable and not necessary demonstrations,21 it had the potential to

possess a certain solidity and was still waiting for its own commentator.22
In light of this double aspect of Albert the Greats commentaries, one
might expect to find Albert so intimate with Aristotle as to produce a literal
commentary when citing the original text and to set the text at a distance
only in his digressions where one might expect to read Alberts own theses.
Most of the time, this is so, but it would be too simplistic to rely on such a
presumption. The interrelation between the Philosopher and the Interpreter
are too complicated to be simplified in that way.
To make my point clear, I would like to go back and underline first the
characteristic Albertian method of commentary and then show how this
project is not conducted totally in accordance with Alberts original plan.
The Physics is one of the first commentaries written by Albert the Great
around 1250 or so. This commentary begins with a prospective introduction
on the work to be done. Albert first explains why he had decided to
undertake such a challenge as commenting on all the work of Aristotle. Then
he makes his intention very clear: his purpose is not only to explain the
structure and the sentences that are to be found in Aristotles text, but also to
add certain explanations, when he deems it necessary to introduce them,
even if the original text does not require it: In this work, our method will
consist of following the order and the opinion of Aristotle and giving an
explanation of it and proving it each time it will seem necessary to us, even
if the text does not mention it in any case. Moreover, we will add digressions
in order to indicate the arising uncertainties that occur and to fill up any
defective (minus esse) assertion of the Philosopher that produced some
obscurity among some people. We will also divide this whole work into
head-chapters, and whenever the title simply shows the subject-matter of the
chapter that will mean that this chapter belongs to the series of the
Aristotelian books, but whenever it is specified in the title that there will be a
digression, then we will introduce some completing addition or
demonstration. In proceeding in this way, we will obtain the same number of
books, identical by name, as Aristotle. We will even on one occasion, add
some imperfect23 passages of books, and on another, some unused or
21

Albertus Magnus, Metaph. (Ed. Colon. 16/2), 11.3.7, p. 541.2123: Platonis autem via
fundatur super propositiones probabiles, non necessarias.
22
Albertus Magnus, Metaph. (Ed. Colon. 16/2), 11.2.31, pp. 52227.: Quaecumque
autem Plato dixit, habeant firmitatem, quam possunt, donec forte ab aliquo explanentur.
23
They are imperfect probably either because they are unfinished or incomplete (lack of
translation, abrupt end of a manuscript) or because they have not been made by Aristotle

Albert Interpreting Aristotle

165

discarded books that either had not been composed by Aristotle, or if

perhaps composed by him, had not come to us.24 The method he is
employing is clearly defined. When he follows the text of the Stagirite, the
heading does not include the word digression. The reader knows it will be
a simple paraphrase. When the heading does include the term
digression, the reader can expect Albert either to give his own
interpretation of the problem at hand, or to give a full account of the answers
that have been made by others on the same subject. Generally, he quotes
Arabic philosophy, especially Averroes and Avicenna, but he can also allude
to Greek commentators (Themistius, Philoponus, Alexander) via Averroes,
the hermetic tradition, via Apuleus and the Asclepius, or some
contemporaries. Albert the Greats method in commenting on Aristotle is
then easy to discern and it does not vary, no matter which book he is
commenting upon: he follows line for line the original text, integrating the
very words of the translation he uses. This method is typical of what has
been called a paraphrase.25 He satisfies then the usual requirement for a
good commentary: articulation of the text in chapters but note that this
dcoupage is extremely loose compared to the highly detailed articulation of
the Aristotelian arguments produced by Thomas Aquinas (see the constant
numeration of the Aquinate: and then he does three things, etc.); addition
of useful parallels either internal as they appeal to different passages of the
Aristotelian text alluding to or complementing the same thesis,26 or external,

himself and seem to be spurious. Albert the Great is aware of the hazardous factors of the
transmission of the texts.
24
Albertus Magnus, Phys. (Ed. Colon. 4/1), 1.1.1, p. 1, l. 2342.
25
See, for example, Mechthild Dreyer, Albertus Magnus, in A Companion to
Philosophy in the Middle Ages, ed. Jorge J.E. Gracia and Timothy B. Noone
(Malden/Oxford/Victoria, 2006), pp. 92101, at 95; Olga Weijers, The Literary Forms of the
Reception of Aristotle: Between Exposition and Philosophical Treatise, in Albertus Magnus
und die Anfnge der Aristoteles-Rezeption, pp. 55585, at 577; S. Ebbesen, Medieval Latin
Glosses and Commentaries on Aristotelian Logical Texts of the Twelfth and Thirteenth
Centuries, in Glosses and Commentaries on Aristotelian Logical Texts. The Syriac, Arabic
and Medieval Latin Traditions, Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts 23, ed. C. Burnett
(London, 1993), pp. 12977.
26
Sometimes, the Aristotelian text presents some obscurity that needs to be fully
explained. As it cannot be achieved in a few sentences, Albert appeals to full chapters. See,
for example, the question of divine intellection, its object, and its relation with other
substances in Albertus Magnus, Metaph. (Ed. Colon. 16/2), 11.2.31, pp. 52227.

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to modernize the system (i.e. in astronomy)27 or to complete it or even to

produce different solutions to the same problem.28
So far, so good. The problem is then to determine if Albert is always as
literal as he pretends to be. For Albert frequently insists upon the fact that he
does not judge the text he is commenting upon and that he strictly follows
the peripatetic philosophy. Even if he is fully aware that sometimes in his
paraphrase he adds here and there some points external to the text, he really
intends to strictly follow Aristotle as he frequently states: In what we will
say afterwards, nobody shall think that we have said anything in our name,
any more than was the case in any of our books on natural philosophy, but
we will only explain the statements of the Peripatetics concerning these
substances, and we will leave to others the task of deciding what was true
and what was false in their declarations.29 Albert usually maintains that he
does not add to Aristotle, that he is close to him in his explanations, which is
the first quality of a commentary but also a protective way of not getting too
much involved. Alberts disclaimers are so frequent that some scholars have
claimed that they must be taken seriously and that they prevent anyone
wishing to find Alberts own philosophy in his commentaries from doing
it.30
Yet, if this conception of the Albertian paraphrase were correct, the
hermeneutic fecundity of the exegetical misinterpretations that Pierre Hadot
set forward would be reduced to its simplest terms. Against a conception of
the Albertian paraphrase that would reduce its intimacy to literality, several

27

See for example, Albertus Magnus, Metaph. (Ed. Colon. 16/2), 11.2.24, pp. 51314.:
Digression stating the modern theses concerning the number of spheres and celestial
movers and his modern answer in the following chapter (pp. 51516).
28
If these solutions have been provided by other commentators, Albert takes them up and
fully exposes them. He often retrieves information from Averroes, especially for Alexander of
Aphrodisias and Johannes Philoponus. See Mechtild Dreyer, Albertus Magnus, p. 95: The
aim of supplementing Aristotles fundamental ideas by providing additional argumentation
leads Albert to write short essays called excursus that solve philosophical problems arising
from the text or to discuss extensively particular issues found in it, resulting in a substantial
dialogue between the Aristotelian text and the writings of other philosophical authors. This is
especially the case in those places where Albert finds that Aristotles treatment of an issue is
incomplete.
29
Albertus Magnus, Metaph. (Ed. Colon. 16/2), 11.2.1, p. 482.2329. See also: ibid.,
11.2.4, p. 486.6870; ibid., 11.2.12, p. 500.1417; ibid., 11.2.30, p. 522.8385.
30
See James A. Weisheipl, Albert's Disclaimers in the Aristotelian Paraphrases,
Proceedings of the Patristic, Medieval and Renaissance Conference, Villanova University, 5
(1980), pp. 128.

Albert Interpreting Aristotle

167

examples could be set forth. Due to the limited scope of this paper, one
major example of distortion will be produced.
The presentation of the causality of the Prime Mover in Aristotles
Metaphysics gives Albert the opportunity to present his own thesis of the
emanation. To harmonize its reading of Aristotle with its own metaphysics
of the flow, together with its conviction of a True Maker of the world, Albert
is compelled to redefine the Aristotelian definition of efficient causality
following the Avicennian distinction between a moving efficient causality
and an ontological efficient causality. Most readers of the Aristotelian
Metaphysics would agree that the Prime Mover moves as a final cause. But
for Albert the Great, the First Principle is the true efficient ontological cause
of everything that exists in the world. In his commentary on Metaphysics ,
in a chapter which is not a digressive one, Albert presents an expression of
the causality of the First Mover which is obviously biased. But he gives no
indication that his presentation is un-Aristotelian. The following text is a
good example of the transformation and the reappropriation of an
Aristotelian thesis:
Indeed, he is the good of all goods and the object that all desire. And its diffusion
extends itself towards the spheres just like the diffusion of the sunlight towards the
forms of life which move the plants and the animals to their generation. For even if
the sunlight is unique, it is nonetheless received by everything, gives the form of the
heat that provides life and the vital spirit of everything and moves them towards the
acquisition of their own and connatural good. This is the reason why the Ancients
called the sun the provider of life. Thus in the first single mover there is an essential
light which diffuses itself upon the spheres and upon the universal being. For he is the
forming form who moves everything towards the being and who antecedently holds
(praehabere) in himself everything by the virtue of his single causality and who gives
to everything its substance. And he is received intellectually by the intellects,
naturally by the natural things, corporeally by the corporeal things, through a local
motion by the celestial objects but through a motion from potency to act by the things
that undergo generation. And he is moving everything.31

The prime mover as the supreme Good, the causality interpreted in terms of
diffusion, the metaphor of the light, the notion of vital spirit, the notion of
forming form,32 the pre-holding, and the variety of the virtus recipiendi

31

Albertus Magnus, Metaph. (Ed. Colon. 16/2), 11.2.6, p. 490.5976.

Condemned by the papal bull in 1225 as being associated with the pantheism of David
of Dinant and Amaury of Bne.
32

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according to each recipients being are clearly not Aristotelian but come
mostly from Plotinus, Eriugena, Denys, and the Liber de causis.33
Some other examples could be produced: the treatment of the question of
the eternity of the word, the redefinition of the notion of analogy of being
taken up from the Arabic transposition of the Aristotelian paronymy, and the
logical reformulation of some Aristotles argumentations in a syllogistic way
that transforms a statement in the initial text into a full demonstration in the
commentary.34 All these examples would show that if Albert has sometimes
been rightly accused of being too literal he nonetheless presents a personal
interpretation and/or a misinterpretation of the text that is remote from the
original meaning. There he gains his legitimate independence from the
original text.
Therefore, one might object: what then is the value of a commentary
tinged with external analysis and marked with another personal doctrine?
But one has to be careful not to trap the commentator in a same/other net:
either the commentator asserts the same thesis as the original text and, if not
accused of repetition, the extreme mode of literality, he is a good
commentator but a poor author, or he presents different thesis and sometimes
meaningful misinterpretations and while being a good author, he stands as a
poor commentator. The dilemma would be: either a good intermediary, a
good inter-preter, or a good philosopher, a good author-ity. But this dilemma
does not concern the authoritative commentator or the commenting
philosopher but merely the meta-reader, who tries to find an interest in
Albert the Greats works. If this meta-reader, that is to say, if we, are
interested in retrieving the meaning of the Aristotelian text, we would
certainly have to make a cathartic removal of any obvious reference to the
Albertian system, which requires that we have some previous acquaintance
with that system. On the contrary, if the meta-reader wants to rediscover
the doctrine of Albert the Great, he would have to pay special attention to
the digressions, distortions, and misinterpretations added to the Aristotelian
text, which now requires previous acquaintance with Aristotle. In either
process, subtracting Albert or adding Aristotle, the meta-reader would have
33
These texts have been direct or indirect sources for Albert, but, of course, show
different requisites.
34
The reformulation of arguments in a demonstrative and syllogistic way has been set
forth by Henri Hugonnard-Roche concerning Averroes. It applies to Albert the Great too. See
La formulation logique de largumentation, in Le commentaire entre tradition et
innovation, pp. 38795, esp. 38889. For some examples in Simpliciuss De Caelo, see
Catherine Dalimier, Les enjeux de la reformulation syllogistique chez les commentateurs
grecs du De Caelo dAristote, in Le commentaire entre tradition et innovation, pp. 37786.

Albert Interpreting Aristotle

169

to face the double-headed Janus binomial, the first and essential requirement
of reading a great philosopher commenting on a great text.
But maybe it is the natural process of a commentator who exceeds the
basic scholarly requirement and whose authority sometimes overshadows the
first one upon which he is commenting. One should then qualify the
statement of Etienne Gilson.35 If Albert the Great is certainly not a mere
scriptor nor a mere compilator, he stands both as a commentator, who adds
personal touches to the text but only what is required to make it intelligible,
and as an auctor whose principal goal is to expose his own ideas, only
appealing to the ideas of others to confirm his own. Certainly he was an
authority for his contemporaries but his authority was also gained through
his capacity to digest the whole knowledge available at his time, namely
making it understandable, eatable for his contemporaries.
Every keen reader develops a certain intimacy with the thought he is
reading, especially if he has chosen it for years. For Aristotle, there is an
additional factor as he stands as the ultimate reference. And, as Philippe
Hoffmann justly states concerning the Neoplatonic schools from Athens and
Alexandria: The exegesis of the Authorities presupposes that the truth must
be already enclosed in these texts: already there, waiting only to be made
explicit,36 a statement confirmed for the Universities of the Latin West by
this lament of Guibert of Tournai: We would never find the truth if we
remained contented with what has been previously discovered (). Those
who wrote before us are not lords for us but guides. Truth is open to
everyone. It has not been wholly possessed.37 Whereas in interpreting
Aristotle, Albert unwittingly gave due credit to both parties: he established
the authority of the Aristotelian text while opening up the possibility of

35

Etienne Gilson, La philosophie au Moyen-ge (Paris, 1976), p. 505.

Lexgse des Autorits suppose que la vrit soit dj contenue dans ces textes: dj
l, elle ne demande qu tre explicite, Les catgories aristotliciennes et
daprs le commentaire de Simplicius. Mthode dexgse et aspects doctrinaux, in Le
Commentaire entre Tradition et Innovation, pp. 35576, at 355; see Pierre Hadot,
Philosophie, exgse et contresens, p. 7, who quotes Plotinus, Enn. 5.1.8.10: These
teachings are not new, nor of today, but long since stated, though not fully developed; now we
are simply the exegetes of these statements whose antiquarian status is based on the testimony
of Plato himself.
37
Quoted from Jacques Le Goff, Les intellectuels, p. 99; see De modo addiscendi 4.19, p.
224; 25, pp. 24142; Eruditio regum et principium, ed. A. de Poorter, Le Trait Eruditio
regum et principum de Guibert de Tournai, O.F.M. tude et texte indit, Les Philosophes
Belges 9 (Louvain, 1914).
36

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Moulin

surpassing it. No Thomistic thought would have been possible without the
previous Albertian one.
Isabelle Moulin, Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame