The Presence of Plato in Ammonius‘ Explanation of Aristotelian Doctrines

The idea of harmony between Aristotle’s and Plato’s doctrines is widely recognized as a specific feature of neoplatonic commentaries on Aristotle. This paper will present a single case study belonging to this field of interest. It will focus on Ammonius’ explanations of single passages of Aristotle’s De interpretatione in which he refers extensively to Plato and uses central ideas of Plato’s dialogues to explain Aristotle’s cryptic statements.

The paper will focus on the issue why he falls back upon Plato in these passages. It will ask whether his recourse on Plato intends only a harmonization of both doctrines or whether a harmonization might be the consequence of a different purpose.
By treating this issue the paper tries to understand some modalities of the transfer of Plato’s doctrines into Ammonius’ commentary on De interpretatione.