Book contents
- Aristotle’s On the Soul
- Cambridge Critical Guides
- Aristotle’s On the Soul
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Hylomorphic Explanation and the Scientific Status of the De Anima
- Chapter 2 Aristotle on Earlier Definitions of Soul and Their Explanatory Power: DA I.2–5
- Chapter 3 Why Nous Cannot Be a Magnitude: De Anima I.3
- Chapter 4 Souls among Forms: Harmonies and Aristotle’s Hylomorphism
- Chapter 5 Aristotle on the Soul’s Unity
- Chapter 6 Aristotle on Seed
- Chapter 7 The Gate to Reality
- Chapter 8 Aristotle on the Objects of Perception
- Chapter 9 Perceptual Attention and Reflective Awareness in the Aristotelian Tradition
- Chapter 10 Phantasia and Error
- Chapter 11 Intelligibility, Insight, and Intelligence
- Chapter 12 The Separability of Nous
- Chapter 13 Thought and Imagination
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Critical Guides
Chapter 1 - Hylomorphic Explanation and the Scientific Status of the De Anima
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2022
- Aristotle’s On the Soul
- Cambridge Critical Guides
- Aristotle’s On the Soul
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Hylomorphic Explanation and the Scientific Status of the De Anima
- Chapter 2 Aristotle on Earlier Definitions of Soul and Their Explanatory Power: DA I.2–5
- Chapter 3 Why Nous Cannot Be a Magnitude: De Anima I.3
- Chapter 4 Souls among Forms: Harmonies and Aristotle’s Hylomorphism
- Chapter 5 Aristotle on the Soul’s Unity
- Chapter 6 Aristotle on Seed
- Chapter 7 The Gate to Reality
- Chapter 8 Aristotle on the Objects of Perception
- Chapter 9 Perceptual Attention and Reflective Awareness in the Aristotelian Tradition
- Chapter 10 Phantasia and Error
- Chapter 11 Intelligibility, Insight, and Intelligence
- Chapter 12 The Separability of Nous
- Chapter 13 Thought and Imagination
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Critical Guides
Summary
I examine the status of Aristotle’s science of soul and argue that it is trans-generic in the way that Aristotle's universal mathematics is. For just as the branches of the latter differ considerably, so too do the sciences of life: botany, zoology, psychology, and (in Aristotle’s view) astronomy and theology. Discovering the correct definition of soul, which is their starting point or first principle, as with other scientific starting points, involves both induction and dialectic. Induction uses scientific observation of living things to move toward this starting point. Dialectic enables the scientist to assemble endoxa, or reputable beliefs, that allow us to solve each puzzle (aporia) that clouds our understanding (nous) of the starting point that induction enables us to reach.
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- Aristotle's On the SoulA Critical Guide, pp. 14 - 31Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022