Alexandrists

The Alexandrists were a school of Renaissance philosophers who, in the great controversy on the subject of personal immortality, adopted the explanation of the De Anima given by Alexander of Aphrodisias.

[1] According to the orthodox Thomism of the Catholic Church, Aristotle rightly regarded reason as a facility of the individual soul.

Against this, the Averroists, led by Agostino Nifo, introduced the modifying theory that universal reason in a sense individualizes itself in each soul and then absorbs the active reason into itself again.

[1] The Alexandrists, led by Pietro Pomponazzi, 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.