Alexander of Aphrodisias on the soul as a cause of generation

The discussion about the soul in ancient philosophy is connected not only with consideration of the soul’s relation to the body, its capacities and functions of the living organism, but also with the question of generation, formation and animation of organic body, that has life potentially, in the womb. Considering the generation among the capacities of the nourishing soul, Alexander in De Anima Liber discusses the causes of embryogenesis. Among the causes of embryo’s development, he indicates the nourishing capacity, which is transmitted from the parent through the seed, and the soul as a form of the parent, which acts in the embryo, since it is part of the mother, that is, before birth. The paper explicates Alexander's notion of the causes of animal’s generation in the context of his idea of the soul as capacity (δύναμις) and disposition (ἕξις) from the perspective of the Alexander's treatise "On the Soul" and Simplicius's commentary on the Aristotle's "Physics"