Aristotle's Philosophy of Mind

Abstract

It is somewhat anachronistic to speak of Aristotle’s philosophy of mind, since he does not operate with our concept of mind and does not share our focus on questions concerning consciousness and characteristics of mental states. Instead, Aristotle operates with a concept of the soul (psuchē), which only partially overlaps with our concept of mind. The soul is the animating principle that accounts for all manifestations of life. It is evoked to explain processes and states that modern thinkers regard as purely physiological, such as nutrition, growth, reproduction, respiration, sleep, and waking. However, to the extent that the soul also accounts for mental states and processes, a study of soul overlaps with a study of mind and inevitably touches upon issues of consciousness and characteristics of mental states, which makes it legitimate to speak of Aristotle’s philosophy of mind. Aristotle provides an account of the soul in the relatively short treatise De anima, which has been one of his most widely read and commented writings. There are also whole treatises in Aristotle’s biological corpus, and many passages elsewhere, dedicated to various phenomena that Aristotle explains with reference to the soul and that are consequently informative of his views on it. Over the past fifty years philosophers have approached Aristotle as a possible source of fresh ideas concerning mental phenomena and their relation to physical states, followed by ever more conceptually sophisticated and historically sensitive scholarship.