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Aristotle and the Spheres of Motivation: De Anima III.11

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

D. S. Hutchinson
D. S. Hutchinson
Affiliation:
Trinity College, University of Toronto
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Extract

Motivations can often conflict. Suppose it is six o'clock and I want a drink; suppose also that I know that it would be unwise or inappropriate in my present circumstances to drink. In cases like this I feel a struggle inside me. For Plato and for Aristotle, such struggles were an important part of moral experience, and on their description and analysis depends much of Plato's and Aristotle's moral psychology. It is not well enough appreciated that, in this respect, Aristotle was an uncritical follower of Plato. If we understand Plato's theory and how little Aristotle departed from it, we will be able to make better sense of some difficult passages, especially De Anima III.11, and we will even be able to solve the conundrum of the ‘sphere’ which has teased scholars for two thousand years.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 29 , Issue 1: Aristotle , Winter 1990 , pp. 7 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1990

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References

Notes

1 It looks as if Chapters 12 and 13 follow it, but in my “Restoring the order of Aristotle's De Anima”, Classical Quarterly, 37 (1987), I showed that they have been accidentally displaced from their original position in Book II.Google Scholar

2 Bekker, Immanuel, ed., Aristoteles Graece (Berlin: Prussian Academy and Georg Reimer, 1831)Google Scholar, reading, at 434a13, σΦαῑρα, σΦαῑαν (Essen). I use Bekker's text because I think that all the later editors have introduced errors of which Bekker was free. I looked at Rodier, G., ed. and transl., Aristote: Traité de l'âme (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1900)Google Scholar; Hicks, R. D., ed. and transl., Aristotle: De Anima (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1907)Google Scholar; Ross, W. D., ed., Aristotelis De Anima (Oxford: e typographeo Clarendoniano, 1956)Google Scholar; Ross, W. D., ed., Aristotle: De Anima (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961)Google Scholar; Siwek, P., ed., Aristotelis Tractatus de Anima (Rome: Desclée, 1965)Google Scholar; Jannone, A., ed., Aristote: De l'âme, translated by Barbotin, E. (Paris: Budé, 1966). On the other hand, later editors, especially Siwek, give a far more informative apparatus criticus. I have silently altered some of Bekker's punctuation.Google Scholar

3 Aristotle, , On the Soul, Parva Naturalia, On Breath, translated by Hett, W. S. (London and Cambridge, MA: Loeb, 1936, 1957).Google Scholar

4 Aristotle, , De Anima, translated by Smith, J. A., in Ross, W. D., ed., The Works of Aristotle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931), Vol. 3.Google Scholar

5 Aristotle, , On the Soul, translated by Smith, J. A. (1931), revised by Jonathan Barnes, in Jonathan Barnes, ed., The Complete Works of Aristotle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), Vol. 1.Google Scholar

6 Rodier, Hicks and Barbotin, as cited in note 2.

7 As cited in note 2.

8 As cited in note 5.

9 One other place where the text is in dispute is at 434a16 where Jannone, the Budé editor, has οὐ κινɛḹ τι (for οὐ κινɛῖται), with the support of some of the MSS. But this seems a mistake, as the sequel (434a19–21) shows; the knowing part does motivate, but is not itself subject to being moved.

10 For On Justice, see Moraux, Paul, A la recherche de l'Aristote perdu: Le Dialogue “Sur la Justice” (Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain;Paris: Béatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1957).Google Scholar

11 The example is derived from Davidson, Donald, “How is weakness of the will possible?” in Feinberg, Joel, ed., Moral Concepts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969)Google Scholar, reprinted in Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions and Other Events (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). I have changed some of the details of the example and put it to a different purpose, but I have benefited very much from Davidson's essay.

12 Simplicius, In libros Aristotelis de Anima Commentaria 310.30–34 Hayduck, in Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (Berlin: Prussian Academy and Georg Reimer, 1892), Vol. 11.Google Scholar

13 Philoponus, In Aristotelis de Anima libros Commentaria 590.10–12 Hayduck, in Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (Berlin: Prussian Academy and Georg Reimer, 1887), Vol. 15Google Scholar; Themistius, In libros Aristotelis De Anima Paraphrasis 121.33–37 Heinze, in Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (Berlin: Prussian Academy and Georg Reimer, 1899), Vol. 5, pt. 3Google Scholar; Aristotelis De Anima libri tres, edited by Trendelenburg, F. H., 2nd ed. (Berlin: Weber, 1877)Google Scholar; Hicks (see note 2); the Oxford Aristotle (see note 4).

14 Simplicius, Commentaria 310.21–24; Sophonias, In libros Aristotelis de Anima Paraphrasis 145.16–19 Hayduck, in Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (Berlin: Prussian Academy and Georg Reimer, 1883), Vol. 23, pt. 1; Rodier (see note 2); Ross (1961) (see note 2); Barnes (see note 2); Siwek (see note 2).

15 Burette, V., Memoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, Vol. 1.Google Scholar