Commentary tradition of Aristotle and Thomism in late Byzantium: the status of the active mind (νοῦς ποιητικός) and the problem of immortality in the treatises of Gennady II Scholarius: general comments

The article attempts to partially present and comment on the view of Gennady Scholarius on the question of the status of the active mind (vοῦς ποιητικός) and on the problem of the immortality of the soul. The article begins with a review of the literature and contains two parts: the first reveals the Neoplatonic context of Aristotle’s reception and comments on the topic of the relationship between soul and body in the corpus of works by Gennady Scholarius; the second part gives the Aristotelian-Christian context of the problem under consideration and the rationale for the possible autonomy of soul and body. The problematic of this topic in relation to Scholarius is not only the present and comment his ideas, but also the identification of poorly researched sources that he used. The article gives possible influences on the Scholarius through the discovery of parallels close in meaning to his ideas, mainly demonstrated through the development of the Aristotle’s commentary tradition. We also consider the conclusion of G. Karamanolis that, according to the opinion of the Scholarius, a reasonable soul is definitely not an entelechy of the body. The article presents fragments in ancient Greek and provides translations and comments on them.