Albert the Great’s Disclaimers in the Aristotelian Paraphrases: A Reconsideration

Building on previous scholarship, the present article pursues three interrelated aims. First, the various typologies of statements that J. A. Weisheipl and subsequent scholarship record cumulatively under the general rubric of ‘disclaimers’ in Albert’s commentaries on Aristotle are distinguished, with the intent of assessing the various conceptual layers that reside within these contentions, and of narrowing this label, stricto sensu, only to some of them. Second, the evidential basis of the dossier on this topic is enlarged, by means of textual evidence merely mentioned, scarcely considered, or even completely overlooked before, in the footsteps of the most recent critical editions of Albert’s paraphrases and of the indexes and the lexica complementing the critical texts. Third, the possible origin of this motif of Albert’s Aristotelian commentaries is explained, in a double direction: on the one hand, the first emergence of this topic is precisely located within Albert’s production, pointing at the subsequent evolution of Albert’s stance on this issue; on the other hand, the historical ancestry of the disclaimers is retrieved within the Aristotelian and Peripatetic tradition, in such a way that this aspect of Albert’s exegesis of Aristotle reinforces, rather than diminishing or jeopardising, the author’s advocacy of the Peripatetism that he is expounding in the commentaries.