ALEXANDRISTS, the name given to those philosophers of the
Renaissance, who, in the great controversy on the subject
of personal immortality, adopted the explanation of the
De
Anima given by Alexander of Aphrodisias. According to the
orthodox Thomism of the Roman Catholic Church, Aristotle
rightly regarded reason as a facility of the individual
soul. Against this, the Averroists, led by Agostino Nito
(q.v.), introduced the modifying theory that universal
reason in a sense individualizes itself in each soul and
then absorbs the active reason into itself again. These two
theories respectively evolved the doctrine of individual and
universal immortality, or the absorption of the individual
into the eternal One. The Alexandrists, led by Pietro
Pomponazzi, boldly assailed these beliefs and denied that
either was rightly attributed to Aristotle. They held that
Aristotle considered the soul as a material and therefore
a mortal entity which operates during life only under the
authority of universal reason. Hence the Alexandrists denied
the possibillty of immortality in every shape or form.
Since the soul is organically connected with the body, the
dissolution of the latter involves the extinction of the former.
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