De Anima Research Articles

Aristotle, De Anima. Translated With Introduction and Notes, by C. D. C. Reeve

Aristotle, De Anima. Translated With Introduction and Notes, by C. D. C. Reeve

Aristote : poursuivre et fuir

ARISTOTLE ON PURSUIT AND AVOIDANCE. Pleasure and pain play an essential role in Aristotle’s conception of the goal‑directed activities of animals and human beings, since they trigger the reactions of pursuit or avoidance, and hence the entire behavior. The present paper inquires into Aristotle’s analysis of this phenomenon on the basis of De Anima III , chapter 7 and De Motu Animalium, chapters 6‑7‑8. The crucial move in this analysis is the definition of pleasure and pain given in both treatises : “To feel pleasure or pain is to actualize through the sensitive mean towards what is good or bad, as such”. The paper examines the meaning of this definition and shows how it connects and agrees with the explanation of the principles of the physical motions of animals in the De Motu Animalium.

On intentionality and life, or why philosophers and psychologists should not abandon the historical roots of their sciences

Журнал «Вопросы теологии» — международный академический журнал по теологии. Журнал ориентирован на развитие всех направлений и областей, входящих в исследовательскую отрасль «Теология», прежде всего в том варианте, в каком она развивается в светских вузах и научно-исследовательских структурах, а также в духовных академиях.

I Want to Break Free

Abstract Albertus Magnus is known for his rational approach to explaining various phenomena; a method that would be acquired and applied by his pupil Thomas Aquinas as well. In this paper, I focus on the concept of freedom, i. e., on the question of what it is that constitutes the freedom of free will in the account of Albert the Great. I investigate this question from the perspective of natural philosophy, a field that Albert was particularly interested in. In the first part of the paper, I study Albert’s definition of free will and its implications as they are tackled in De homine, De anima, and Ethica. Albert regards free will as a capacity of the rational soul, capable of choosing from opposites. Albert confronts the definitions of free will presented by Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Anselm of Canterbury, and in each of these cases he advances his argument from the perspective of psychology. In the second part of the paper, I identify the topics in which the general definition of free will is applied in a naturalistic context. Those are the debates on fate and free will, on the question whether animals have free will and, finally, on natural circumstances such as age or gender, limiting the freedom of free will. Subsequently, I aim at expounding Albert’s balanced, yet not tension-free position in the debate between determinism and free action. Although several extensive studies on fate in Albert have been produced, the problem of free choice in Albert’s works remains surprisingly understudied. The present paper intends to open a path for further research and debates on this relevant topic.

THE APORIAI OF INTELLECT IN ARISTOTLE’S DE ANIMA III 4

En este paper ofrezco una lectura global de <em>De Anima </em>III 4 de Aristóteles, en la que pretendo develar la rigu­rosa estructura argumentativa del capítulo. Así, mues­tro que el capítulo exhibe el típico patrón aristotélico de investigación filosófica: el estableci­mien­to de los pro­blemas básicos que han de ser resueltos, el camino dia­léctico para la postulación de una hipótesis, la deri­va­ción, a partir de ella, de las características indivi­dua­li­zantes relevantes del objeto (algunas de las cuales son ya manifiestas y explicadas <em>como</em> derivables de la hipó­tesis), y la emergencia de <em>aporiai</em> que <em>prima</em> <em>facie</em> pare­cen invalidar la hipótesis pero que finalmente po­si­bili­tan una comprensión más profunda de ella. Pro­curo cla­rificar la progresión especulativa del capí­tu­lo al consi­derar incialmente el <em>Principio de Actuali­dad</em> como sub­yacente a su <em>Modelo de Asimilación</em> de la cog­nición (S conoce F <em>si y solo si</em> el principio cognitivo de S deviene F debido a un objeto conocido O que es F en acto). Aristóteles, además, deriva la no-mezcla a partir de la carencia de límites (<em>Asunción de Ilimita</em><em>­ción</em>), que es una carac­terística manifiesta del <em>nous</em>. De la no-mezcla deriva la <em>Separabilidad</em> (estas im­plica­cio­nes se clarifican en la primera <em>aporia</em>), de la Se­pa­rabi­li­dad deriva la <em>Espontaneidad</em> y de la Esponta­neidad la <em>Autointelección</em> del <em>nous</em> (clarificada en la segunda <em>aporia</em>). Aunque examino el capítulo completo, me en­foco específicamente en el valor teórico y meto­doló­gico de la introducción y discusión de las dos <em>aporiai</em>

Movement versus activity: Heidegger’s 1922/23 seminar on Aristotle’s ontology of life

ABSTRACTThe important role played by Aristotle in Martin Heidegger’s path towards Being and Time during the 1920's is now well documented. Yet an important chapter of this story remains mostly unexplored: Heidegger's early attempt to develop an ontology of life in dialogue with Aristotle. This is because the early seminars in which Heidegger developed his important and highly original interpretation of Aristotle's De Anima remain unpublished (apart from one very inadequate transcript): one seminar from the summer of 1921 and one spanning the winter semester of 1922/23 and the summer semester of 1923. In the present paper, I reconstruct Heidegger's key interpretative moves in the latter seminar on the basis of a detailed handwritten transcript preserved among the papers of his student Helene Weiss held at Stanford University. What emerges is a dialogue between Aristotle and Heidegger that enables us better to understand and to question the thought of both philosophers on the phenomenon of life.

Aristotle on the De anima and the Study of Life

Aristotle on the De anima and the Study of Life

On Music and Memory through Μνήµη and Ἀνάµνησις

Abstract Memory plays an integral role in music listening and music performance. But what specific memory structures do we employ when we engage with music? Taking Aristotle’s De memoria et reminiscentia as principle guide, I aim to press upon a matter of central interest to the phenomenologist of music, focusing on the relation between memory proper [µνήµη] and recollection [ἀνάµνησις]. Drawing upon Physics IV and De anima III, I clarify a two-fold temporal structure—a structure comprised of sensation and flowing continuity—at work in the experience of remembering. Finally, I claim that music, through the ordered expression of its successive sensations, pertains directly to ἀνάµνησις but supports access to µνήµη, as well.

Significado y Mente en Aristóteles

Aristotle’s concern for meaning and mind, in the compact opening lines of De Interpretatione (16a3-8) together with the sequel of the next six chapters of this treatise, have been read (both historically and contemporary) in heavily different ways. Discrepancies reach even the kind of project this text carries out, whether engaged in a theory of language and meaning closely linked to Aristotle’s explanation of mental representation or rather engaged primarily in dialectical refutation without particular interest on meaning and mind. Yet, it is held -almost without exception among contemporary interpreters- that Aristotle explains (there and everywhere) meaning in terms of mental representation, and that somehow he takes mental representation to be dependent strongly on images which produce a mental likeness to the external object. So it goes nearly uncontested that mainly imagination must be responsible for meaning. This is a controversial assumption that I will dispute here by providing a detailed account of De Interpretatione (and some other related texts of the Organon) and by uncovering the psychological support for semantics (mostly found in De Anima and Parva Naturalia). Two main theses will be here argued for. First, I will contend that Aristotle is committed to a moderate linguistic conventionalism through which he can manage to preserve the intentional content of significant sounds as well as to avoid the shortcomings of any explanation of meaning in terms of images and likeness. Second, I will give several reasons Aristotle would have for explaining meaning on the basis of intellect rather than imagination. As a result, Aristotle will be exonerated from the common blame of having countenanced a natural imitation (based on images) to secure the reference of words.

Ciência e Saber. A Importância da Concepção Platônica da Natureza da Episteme em Aristóteles

The influence of Plato’s thought on his most important disciple does not raise doubts. In spite of that, it is not so easy to identify precise elements which reveal such an authority, especially in the field of ontology. On the contrary, appearances show metaphysical systems distinct enough to initiate, in the course of history, opposite philosophical currents. Even so, Plato’s influence on Aristotle is undeniable with respect to the question of the nature of knowledge. About this topic, the Stagirite uses not only an important part of the vocabulary found in some Platonic dialogues, but he also refers to realities very similar to those presented by his Master. The main object of this paper is precisely to highlight such correspondence between our protagonists regarding the issue of the essence of knowledge. To reach this objective, we begin our analysis by examining Plato’s Theaetetus, in which significant explanation on this subject are found. The study of two other dialogues completes our analysis since they add new information. Afterwards, we investigate Aristotle’s Categories, in which there are important data on the question of the nature of knowledge. At last, we complete our study by analysing in De anima some metaphysical elements essential for our subject.

The Birth of Being and Time: Heidegger's Pivotal 1921 Reading of Aristotle's On the Soul

AbstractDuring the 1920s Heidegger gave no less than twelve seminars and lecture courses devoted either exclusively or in large part to the reading of Aristotle's texts. Seven of these, especially the smaller seminars for advanced students, have not been published and apparently will never be included in the Gesamtausgabe. My focus here is on the very first of these. Billed as a reading of Aristotle's De Anima, much of it was devoted to Aristotle's Metaphysics. This decision not to separate Aristotle's “psychology” from his “ontology” is a key move of the seminar that anticipates the project of Being and Time. This and many other ways in which Heidegger's early reading of De Anima anticipates the key moves of the later book constitute one of the reasons for its importance. Another is that the seminar allows us to see what gets suppressed in Heidegger's reading of Aristotle, most significantly, the phenomenon of life itself in favor of an eventual focus on the being of human life or Dasein. This early seminar thus enables us not only to better understand Heidegger's project, but also to raise some fundamental questions concerning it.

Об одном атрибуте деятельного ума у Аристотеля

This paper examines one attribute of the active intellect (νοῦς ποιητικός)— ἕξις (disposition, quality). In “De Anima” (III.5) Aristotle characterizes νοῦς ποιητικός “as a kind of disposition (ὡς ἕξις τις), like light.” Why does Aristotle call the active intellect ἕξις? There are two difficulties here. (1) If ἕξις is some sort of quality or property (as it is sometimes taken to be), how can it be “unmixed, separated, eternal and immortal”, as Aristotle further characterizes it? (2) The second difficulty concerns the Aristotelian comparison of the active intellect with the light. Though it is often considered to be a simple figure of speech, I contend that Aristotle’s comparison between the active intellect and the light is not a mere metaphor. Since the light and the active intellect are “some ἕξις”, the clarification of the phenomenon of light may help to clarify what active intellect is.

The Method of Aristotle’s Inquiry on φαντασία in De Anima III 3

This paper concerns the Aristotelian inquiry on φαντασία’ in De Anima III 3. I argue for a systematic interpretation of the chapter, according to which III 3 neatly instantiates what David Charles has called the Three Stage View on scientific inquiry. The first stage establishes the meaning of the term φαντασία so it provides a nominal definition of the object, the second stage dialectically confirms the existence of φαντασία as something different from other already known cognitive powers (perception, thought), the third stage posits a hypothetical essence (real definition), then it tests its power of enabling us to derive from such an essence those manifest and apparent features of φαντασία, that had been previously individuated. On the basis of such reading, some general suggestions on the status and role of φαντασία are also proposed, on the basis of which we can take the definition of III 3 to be consistent with any other explanatory uses of φαντασία in the corpus .

Aristotle, De Anima: Translation, Introduction, and Commentary

Aristotle, De Anima: Translation, Introduction, and Commentary

Jámblico en Estobeo: doctrinas sobre el alma transmitidas por la doxografía

Joannes Stobaeus, at the end of the fifth century, compiled the most extensive collection of philosophical literature by his times, especially referring to Neoplatonism, whith deep roots in the Alexandrian era and edifying purposes in the Byzantine age. The philosophical doctrines compiled by Stobaeus are full of ready-made phrases, γνῶμαι, judgments and moral recommendations, hence their influence on Byzantine and medieval florilegia. The main value of the anthology lies in the transmission of texts not recorded by another source. In fact, De Anima by Iamblichus only survives in the pages of the Eclogae by Joannes Stobaeus, who included it in his collection under the title Ἰαμβλίχου ἐκ τοῦ περὶ ψυχῆς (<Taken from> On the Soul by Iamblichus). The treatise On the soul does not appear in the canonical listings of the works by Iamblichus, in fact it is not in the TLG under the Chalcidencis’ authorship. I have observed the itineraries of the theories about the soul and its projection on the Byzantine world, in the German edition of Curtius Wachsmuth and Otto Hense (1884-1923), for the translation and commentary of the passages I checked the English version by John Finamore and John Dillon (2003) and the Italian one by Lucrezia Martone (2014).

Aristotle, Plato and Bhagvad Gita on the “Soul”

This paper broadly aims at examining the idea of the “soul” or “atma” in ancient Greece and in India during the Axial Age. Against the backdrop of this general understanding, an attempt is made at comprehending the idea of the soul in Plato’s Phaedo in the light, on the one hand of Aristotle’s De Anima and on the other of Bhagavad Gita (or Gita in short). It is opined that Socrates’s views, in Phaedo, are closer in spirit to the Hindu ideas of “atma” in the Upanishads and the Gita than to the Greek ideas of the “soul”. An attempt has been made to provide a background for this paradoxical event.

Does the Soul Weave? Reconsidering De Anima 1.4, 408a29-b18

Abstract In De Anima 1.4, Aristotle asks whether the soul can be moved by its own affections. His conclusion—that to say the soul grows angry is like saying that it weaves and builds—has traditionally been read on the assumption that it is false to credit the soul with weaving and building; I argue that Aristotle’s analysis of psychological motions implies his belief that the soul does in fact weave and build.

As Versões em Língua Árabe do De Anima de Aristóteles

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some difficulties concerning the reception of Aristotle’s De anima in Arabic language in view of direct sources, i.e., the translations and paraphrases, and indirect sources, i.e., the testimonies on them.

Internal Senses and Intellect in the Sentencia cum Questionibus in libros De anima I-II Aristotelis attributed to Peter of Spain

This study aims to present the internal senses and intellect in the theory of the abstraction of Pedro Hispano’s on Sentencia cum questionibus in libros De anima I-II Aristotelis and the functions of these elements in the theory of abstraction, detaining the role of the cognitive faculties as well as the internal senses, the possible intellect and the agent intellect.

The Problem of Verbum Mentis and Intellectio in the Philosophical Works of Innocent Gizel and Joseph Volchansky

The article provides a comparative analysis of the mental word concepts in the works of two Kyiv-Mohyla Academy professors: Innocent Gizel and Joseph Volchansky. The analysis is based on the Latin-language handwritten treatises by these authors: «De anima» Gizel (1646–1647) and «De corpore animato» Volchansky (1715). The authors’ concepts of intellectual cognition are examined in the context of the European scholastic tradition. It is found out that understanding of intellectual cognition by Innocent Gisel and Joseph Volchansky differ significantly. The concept of Gisel is noted by an eclectic character and combines elements of the Thomistic, Scottistic, and Surazian interpretations, and Volchansky is guided by F. Suares and F. DeOvideo.