De mixtione XIV: the Ingredients’ Preservation in the Blend

I argue that in De mixtione XIV Alexander addresses the question of the ingredients’ preservation in the blend from the viewpoint of the distinction between their substrates and their qualities. Through this interpretation I show that the discrepant claims regarding the ingredients’ preservation found in De mixtione XIII–XV are compatible because they hold for different aspects of the ingredients: the claim that they perish holds for their substrates, whereas the claim that they are preserved holds for their qualities. In so doing, I clarify Alexander’s stance in his debate with the Stoics as well as his contribution to the Peripatetic tradition. I show that in holding that blending is a real unification of the ingredients, he argues against the Stoics that the ingredients are not preserved as distinct individual bodies but their qualities are preserved in a diminished mode, and also departs from the earlier Peripatetic tradition, by stressing that blending does not result in a juxtaposition that appears unified due to the imperceptibility of its different ingredients. This interpretation helps place Alexander’s account of blending in the broader context of his metaphysics, by indicating that his view of the preservation of the ingredients underpins his anti-reductionist conception of substantial forms.