The Powers of Aristotle’s Soul, by Thomas Kjeller Johansen.

Abstract

In this fine and important book, the culmination of many years of work on these topics by its author, Thomas Kjeller Johansen develops and defends an account of the structure, nature, and methodological underpinnings of Aristotle’s theory of the soul. Johansen’s main focus is on Aristotle’s De Anima (DA). As he readily acknowledges, this is hardly a neglected work. What makes Johansen’s book distinctive, in its author’s own words, is its focus on ‘the explanatory role of the soul’s capacities as such within Aristotle’s psychology’ (p. 7). Johansen argues that Aristotle treated the ‘capacities’ (or ‘powers’, dunameis — he uses these terms interchangeably) of the soul as principles, which are explanatorily basic relative to other things that can be said about the soul. The book is organized roughly as follows. In chapters one to three, Johansen addresses general questions about Aristotle’s goals and methods in De Anima, focusing on Aristotle’s stated goal of providing a definition of the soul. In chapters four to five, he deals in general terms with the notion of a capacity and the relations between capacities, activities, and objects. In chapters six to twelve, he works his way through Aristotle’s discussions of the different capacities of soul in De Anima, beginning with nutrition, followed by perception and phantasia (‘imagination’), the intellect, and locomotion. Finally, in chapters thirteen to fourteen, Johansen considers the relationship between Aristotle’s theory of the soul in De Anima and his biology.