ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS  , pupil of Aristocles of Messene, the most celebrated of the Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle, and styled, by way of pre-eminence, O E rt'p r iS (" the expositor "), was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria . He came to Athens towards the end of the 2nd century A.D., became head of the Lyceum and lectured on peripatetic philosophy . The object of his work was to free the doctrine from the syncretism of Ammonius and to reproduce the pure doctrine of Aristotle . Commentaries by Alexander on the following works of Aristotle are still extant:—the Analytica, Priora, i.; the Topica; the Meteorologica; the De Sensu; and the Metaphysica, i.-v., together with an abridgment of what he wrote on the remaining books of the Metaphysica . His commentaries were greatly esteemed among the Arabians, who translated many of them . There are also several original writings by Alexander still extant . The most important of these are a work On Fate, in which he argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity; and one On the Soul, in which he contends that the undeveloped reason in man is material (vas i'AiK6s) and inseparable from the body . He argued strongly against the doctrine of immortality . He identified the active intellect (vows 7roujTLK05), through whose agency the potential intellect in man becomes actual, with God . Several of Alexander's works were published in the Aldine edition of Aristotle, Venice, 1495–1498; his De Fato and De Anima were printed along with the works of Themistius at Venice (1534); the former work, which has been translated into Latin by Grotius and also by Schulthess, was edited by J . C . Orelli, Zurich, 1824; and his commentaries on the Metaphysica by H .

Bonitz, Berlin, 1847, J . Nourisson has treated of his doctrine of fate (De la liberte et du hazard, Paris, 1870) . In the early Renaissance his doctrine of the soul's mortality was adopted by P . Pomponazzi against the Thomists and the Averroists . SeePERIPATETICS (ad fin.) ;ALEXANDRISTS ;POMPONAllI, PIETRO; also A . Apelt, " Die Schrift d . Alex. v . Aphr.," Philologus, xlv., 1886 ; C . Ruelle, " Alex. d'Aphr. et le pretendu Alex. d'Alexandrie," Rev. des etudes grecques, v., 1892; E . 'Zeller's Outlines of Gk . Phil . (Eng. trans., ed .

1905, Q . 296) .