Albert the Great and the Aristotelian Reform of the Platonic Method of Division

The Thomist 73 (2009): 399-435 ALBERT THE GREAT AND THE ARISTOTELIAN REFORM OF THE PLATONIC METHOD OF DIVISION MICHAEL W. TKACZ Gonzaga University Spokane, Washington IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING a summary of the rules for employing the method of division in the study of animals, the medieval naturalist Albert the Great issues a caution to the zoological researcher. The zoologist, he says, must beware of "introducing forms existing apart from matter, as did Plato, for the forms of animals and their parts all exist in matter and are brought forth from the potentiality of matter."1 This is a reference to the error Platonis discussed by Albert in several of his Aristotelian commentaries.2 The error in question arises out of the Platonic understanding of the subject of natural science as being the eternal subsistent forms rather than the form of the substantial material individual. The notion that the true generative principles of material beings are to be found in antecedent formal being of quantitative dimensionality which, in turn, is founded on even more abstract metaphysical principles is a notion that Albert rejects as "wholly 1 "Et adhuc cavendum est, ne tales inducantur formae quae in materia non sunt, sicut fecit Plato, quoniam formae animalium et membrorum eorum omnes sunt in materia existentes et de potentia materiae eductae" (Albertus Magnus, De animalibus 11, tr. 2, c. 4 [ed. Hermann Stadler in Beitriige zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters (Munster: Aschendorff, 1916-20), 15:797.15-18]). 2 This important theme is found throughout Albert's Aristotelian commentaries, but the most direct references are found in the commentaries on the Physics and the Metaphysics. For references, see JamesA. Weisheipl, "Albertus Magnus and the Oxford Platonists," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 32 (1958): 124-39. 399 400 MICHAEL W. TKACZ false."3 Further, Albert contends that such a conception of the sensible subject makes research in the natural sciences impossible.4 This reference to the error Platonis in the context of a discussion of the method of division suggests that Albert understood Aristotelian division as distinct from and a reform of the original Platonic method. In the last twenty years, the method of division has received increased attention from Aristotle scholars, especially insofar as it throws light on the zoological treatises and their methodology.5 An important aspect of this scholarship has been the focus on Aristotle's rejection of dichotomous division as apparently practiced in the Academy and his development of a new method of division better suited to scientific research. Aristotle scholars rightly associate this revision with the abandonment of the Platonic theory of subsistent forms and the concern to understand substantial individuals in terms of their natural causes. Thus, recent attention to Aristotelian division is associated with the growing body of literature on Aristotle's natural science, especially his zoology. Much less attention has been given to the crucial role played by Albert the Great in the reform of Platonic division. His thirteenth-century commentaries on Aristotle's 3 "Cavendus autem his est error Platonis, qui dixit naturalia fundari in mathematicis et mathematica in divinis, sicut tertia causa fundatur in secunda et secunda fundatur in primaria, et ideo dixit mathematica principia esse naturalium, quod omnino falsum est" (Albertus Magnus, Metaphysica l, tr. 1, c. 1 [Albertus Magnus, Opera Omnia, editio Coloniensis (Munster: Aschendorff, 1951-), 16/1:2.31-35]). 4 Albertus Magnus, De principiis motus processivi, tr. 1, c. 1 (ed. Colon. 12:49.21-31). See also idem, Posteriora analytica l, tr. 5, c. 6 (Albertus Magnus, Opera Omnia, ed. Auguste Borgnet [Paris: Vives, 1890-99], 2:140a-b); and idem, Physica 1, tr. 1, c. 5 (ed. Colon. 4/1:89 ). 5 See, for example, D. M. Balme, "Aristotle's Use of Division and Differentiae," in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology, ed. Allan Gotthelf and James G. Lennox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 69-89; James G. Lennox, Aristotle's Philosophy of Biology: Studies in the Origins of Life Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), esp. 7-38 and 98-109; Aristotle's De partibus animalium I and De generatione animalium I, trans. D. M. Balme (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), esp. notes on 101-19...