Strato and the peripatetic background of Alexander’s On Time

Abstract

In this paper I discuss the remarks on time that have been transmitted to the name of Strato of Lampsacus (Fr. 31-37 Declos-Fortenbaugh). I argue that these remarks are not criticisms of Aristotle but emphasize issues that need elucidation if we are to make a coherent whole of Aristotle’s treatment of time in different works (Physics, Categories, Metaphysics). Most of these remarks have found a place in the short treatise On time written by Alexander of Aphrodisias. I argue how Alexander, both in this treatise and in his commentary on Metaph. Δ.13, clarifies these issues in such a way that they support his own Peripatetic notion of time. He advocates time as a single, eternal continuum connected to the eternal motion of the outer sphere. It is only in thought that time is divided, and measured by particular movements. In order to avoid a notion of time that is completely independent of change (associated with the Platonic tradition and Galen), Alexander has to specify in detail how time can belong to change without requiring for its existence a rational soul that is actually numbering change.