Aristotle's Psychology

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. Keywords Aristotle – phantasia – method – psychology – Three-stage View i The Ways of Natural Inquiry1 For Aristotle, psychology is a part of physics, and concerns a subset of nature: living beings qua living. In the incipit of Aristotle's Physics, he tells us that the path of natural inquiry proceeds from what is better known by us (the 'first to us') to what is better known by nature (the 'first per se'), i.e., from the general 1 I wish to thank the anonymous referees for their precious critical comments and suggestions.

This is an earlier paper (1992), published in the journal of Ancient Greek philosophy, Apeiron. In de Anima Aristotle considers several candidate definitions aiming to answer the question, "What is a living thing?" And "What distinguishes living from non-living things?" I argue that, contrary to some commentators, Aristotle doesn't complete this task until DA II 3-4, and that his conception of a living thing is both teleological-- but also ecological. This alternative reading of de Anima has some modestly surprising implications for Aristotle's hylomorphism.

The paper treats some difficulties concerning Aristotle’s theory of color. The major problem of interest is that of the role of light in visual perception and the mechanism of color translation from a visible object to the eye by means of some transparent medium. The solution suggested in the paper explains how according to Aristotle’s theory the black color and darkness could be made visible.

Commentators have had a hard time trying to reconcile Aristotle's claim that the soul is the form (eidos) or actuality (entelecheia) of an organic body with the idea that the soul is located in some particular part of the body. At first glance, these two strands within Aristotle's psychology might indeed seem to be mutually incompatible, for it seems strange to say of the soul that it is the formal unifying principle of the entire animal, as De Anima II 1 does, if its presence within the body is actually restricted to a particular organ. It has been suggested, most notably by Nuyens and Ross, 1 that these are two different and indeed irreconcilable strands of Aristotle's thinking and that they should be assigned to different phases of Aristotle's philosophical development. Such an approach would put the treatise Generation of Animals in a quite awkward position, since the treatise is clearly committed to both soul-body hylomorphism (the view that the soul is the form, and thus the entelecheia, of an organic body) and to cardiocentrism (the view that the most important psychic faculties reside in the heart). For some decades the developmental view held by Nuyens and Ross was extremely influential, but it has more recently gone out of fashion. Still, and regardless of what we think about this developmental approach, it seems still worth considering, first, how Aristotle argues for this privileged role of the heart, second, how he conceives of the presence of the soul within the heart and, third, whether this kind of presence of the soul within the heart gives us a clue as to how a centrally located soul is apt to make the entire animal a living being.

This paper focuses on one of the major criticisms made to Aristotle's virtue ethics, namely that it lacks explicit moral action guidance. The same criticism has been addressed to later developments of virtue ethics. There have been several attempts to overcome this objection and to demonstrate that modern theories of virtue ethics do provide principles of right action. In this paper, I discuss mainly two such major attempts: the exemplarist approach and the virtue rules approach. My aim is to examine whether, if applied to Aristotle’s virtue ethics, these two approaches can provide a convincing answer to the criticism that Aristotle’s ethics does not offer explicit moral action guidance .

This is an inquiry into the meaning of "soul itself" in Aristotle. It is argued that
(i) the soul itself is the first explanatory principle of the science of living things.
(ii) the soul itself contrasts with the "per se accidents" of the soul in the following way: the per se accidents of the soul are all the universal and necessary attributes of living things that can be explained with reference to the soul itself as their first principle.
(iii) these universal and necessary attributes are all the phenomena of the science of living things. In the case of animals (not plants) these phenomena are: the functional body parts, the actions and affections, habits, and character traces of animals.
(iv) the soul itself is not defined by way of the "commonest account" of the soul in De anima II 1 but by way of the so-called "parts of the soul".

"Table of Contents / Pagination is incorrect:
THE WAYS OF ARISTOTLE – ARISTOTELIAN PHRÓNÊSIS, ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHY OF DIALOGUE, AND ACTION RESEARCH
Olav Eikeland
Preface 1
PART 1 – ARISTOTLE, SOCIAL RESEARCH, AND ACTION RESEARCH 3
1. Introduction – The Challenge of Phrónêsis 3
1.1 Three Kinds of General Theory 10
1.2 Aristotle and Critical Action Research 17
2. Action Research Approaching Phrónêsis 20
2.1 A Philosopher Defending Action Research 21
2.2 Making Social Science Matter 23
2.3 Abandoning Techniques 25
PART 2 – READING ARISTOTLE – LIMITS AND POSSIBILITIES FOR PHRÓNÊSIS 27
3. Virtues – Intellectual and Ethical 29
3.1 Particulars of Ethical Virtues 34
4. Phrónêsis and the Other Intellectual Virtues 38
4.1 Theoretical Knowledge, and Knowledge about Things We Influence 40
4.1.1 Overlaps and Intermeshes 45
4.2 Phrónêsis as an Intellectual Virtue 48
4.2.1 Excursus: Knowledge Forms and Ways of Knowing in Aristotle 49
4.2.1.1 Praxis, Poíêsis, Khrêsis, Páthos – And the Various Forms of the Epistêmai 50
4.2.1.2 Theoretical and Practical Truth 61
4.2 (Continued) Phrónêsis as an Intellectual Virtue 64
4.3 Phrónêsis and Rhetoric, Phrónêsis and Practical Syllogisms 70
4.3.1 The relationship to rhetoric 70
4.3.2 The relationship to practical syllogisms 75
5. Phrónêsis on Means and Ends, Phrónêsis and General Knowledge 76
5.1 Means and Ends, and Kinds of Causes 76
5.1.1 Poíêsis Makes Things, Praxis Makes Perfect 81
5.1.2 “Professional” Deliberations and Deductions 89
5.2 Knowledge, General and Particular 94
5.2.1 General Knowledge, Appropriate Knowledge, Knowledge in Action 94
5.2.2 Héxis (Habitus), and Empeiría (Experience) 103
5.2.3 Knowing Particulars 109
5.2.3.1 By What? 110
5.2.3.2 How? 111
5.2.3.3 Preconditions for a Universally Flexible Consideration 115
6. Developing and Defining Virtue 126
6.1 Developing Virtue 127
6.1.1 Epistêmê and Virtue through the Formation of Habit, Once More 130
6.1.2 What “Means” Means 136
6.1.3 Practical Development with a Hinge to It, the Question of Standards Again 138
6.2 Defining Virtue 145
6.2.1 Nóêsis as Dialogue, or, the Reason Why Aristotle Insists on Letting Phrónêsis Deliberate about Means Only 150
6.2.1.1 The Unfolded Know-How of Nous 152
6.2.1.2 The Topica and the Enfolded Habitus of Dialectics 154
6.2.1.3 The Philosopher, the Dialectician, and Experience 160
6.2.1.3.1 Dialogical Peculiarities 165
6.2.1.3.2 Dialogue and Experience 170
6.2.1.3.3 Basic Principle, Beginning, Medium, and End 182
6.2.1.4 Ways of Learning 185
6.2.1.5 Self-Evident First Principles? 191
6.2.1.6 Praxis1, and Praxis2 194
6.2.2 The Ethical Works do not Deliberate about Means, They Develop and Define Ends 198
6.2.3 Epistêmê, Virtue, and Phrónêsis Defined 205
6.3 Who Develops and Defines? The Art and Practice of Architectonics 214
7. Eudaimonía and Wisdom as “The Highest Practical Good”; Aristotelian Phron-Ethics, Theor-Ethics, and the Way of the Intellectual Commons 219
7.1 Kinds of Theory, Kinds of Practice 220
7.2 Ethics and Politics as Methodological Guidelines for Autonomous Practitioners 230
7.2.1 The Laws of Virtue 233
7.2.2 Tékhnê and Phrónêsis – At the Parting of the Ways 239
7.3 The Wisdom of the Commons – Common Wisdom 242
7.3.1 Tà Koiná – The Commons 247
7.3.2 The Common Skholê 252
7.4 Theor-Ethics and Primary Friendship 254
7.4.1 The Noetic “I” and the Psychological “Me” 259
7.4.2 Theorethical Interventions? 268
7.5 The Way of Theor-Ethics 269
7.5.1 Ethical Excellence – Settling with the Best “for Us”, i.e. for the Second Best “Absolutely” 277
7.6 The Ways of Politics – Continuous Learning in Common 288
7.6.1 Community: What Are the Things Common? 289
7.6.2 Oikos, Pólis, and Constitutions 294
7.6.3 Developing Concord – The Ethico-Political Role of Dialogical Gatherings 299
7.6.4 Different Concepts of Politics 310
7.6.5 Unity and Diversity in the Pólis 318
7.6.6 The Koinópolis as Panarchy – Aristocracy Suspended and Transcended 328
7.6.7 Religious Politics? 338
PART 3 – ARISTOTELIAN ACTION RESEARCH – WISDOM AND EUDAIMONÍA TRANSPOSED, SOCIAL RESEARCH TRANSFORMED 344
8. Neo-Epistemic, Dialogical Action Research 344
9. From Oikos to Pólis, and Beyond 349
10. Aristotle, Marx, and Modern Work Life 359
11. Aristotle Suspended 370
12. Epilogue 376
REFERENCES 381
Appendix 394"

Aristotle. "On Sleep and Waking" (De Somno et Vigilia), translated into Russian with commentary. Первый перевод на русский язык трактата Аристотеля "О сне и бодрствовании" (De Somno et Vigilia) из сборника малых психологических сочинений философа, традиционно называемых Parva Naturalia. Основную тему трактата составляет поиск развернутого определения сна, включающего в себя указание на формальную, материальную, целевую и действующую причины этого состояния. Аристотель спрашивает, что такое сон, каково его назначение, состоянием какой части тела и души он является и какие причины отвечают за его возникновение. Проведенное исследование позволяет философу установить, что сон представляет собой временное прекращение ощущения, вызванное неспособностью главного органа чувств осуществлять естественную для него деятельность; что причиной сна является периодическое вытеснение тепла из верхней части тела в малую область сердца под давлением стекающих вниз тяжелых и влажных испарений; а целью и назначением – отдых, без которого животное не могло бы продолжать бодрствовать. Предлагаемый читателю первый перевод трактата на русский язык снабжен подробными комментариями, в которых анализируется ход рассуждения Аристотеля, раскрывается содержание основных понятий его учения о душе и обсуждаются отдельные сложные места этого сочинения.

This is a brief introduction to the book "The Soul/Body Problem in Plato and Aristotle": it can be useful to have a look at it, for those who are interested in the topic (they could check the presentations of each paper included in the book).

In the mid-1250s, shortly after becoming a master of theology at the University of Paris, Bonaventure wrote a series of disputed questions on the Mystery of the Trinity. Surprisingly, this disputation fell out of memory after Peter John of Olivi (d. 1298) last mentioned it.

The text was only rediscovered in the early 1870s by the Franciscan scholar Fidelis a Fanna, within a historical context quite different from Bonaventure’s.

Scholarship, following this rediscovery, has not produced a single study on the entirety of the text, and where the text is discussed, historical context is only a marginal concern.

This study attempts to begin to fill both of these lacunae. I first establish the historical background and context in which the De Mysterio Trinitatis was composed. Then, on this basis, I offer an interpretive analysis of the entire text, paying special attention to the theological and philosophical matters that would have motivated Bonaventure. I argue that Bonaventure, as the newly appointed external chair of theology at the University of Paris, was responding to the promulgation of a new arts curriculum in the spring of 1255. I show that Bonaventure understood how this new curriculum, which for the first time mandated the entirety of Aristotle’s works, had implications for how one should understand the relationship between reason and faith, philosophy and theology, and knowledge and love.

While incorporating Aristotelian methodology and concepts, Bonaventure outlined a synthesis between faith and reason, which deepened, clarified and, at times, corrected Aristotle. I show how Bonaventure sought to avoid certain apparent ‘naturalistic’ tendencies in Aristotle by allowing the doctrine of the Trinity—with its implications for the understanding of perfect personhood and freedom—to illumine metaphysics.

For Bonaventure, a full resolution of the questions arising out of the interplay between Aristotelian science and Christian wisdom is ultimately found in the notion of Primacy: a primacy that implies a Trinitarian order of being,  originating in the spontaneous, yet necessary, charity of the Father.

Bonaventure achieves his synthesis through a judicious, programmatic and, at times, stunning handling of Greek and Latin Patristic, Platonic and Neo-Platonic sources in dialogue with Aristotle.

"Il Problema XXX è il testo di riferimento della tradizione millenaria che associa l’intelligenza degli “uomini d’eccezione” e la loro creatività alla melanconia. Ma è anche uno dei primi tentativi di indagare le basi fisiologiche della mente.
Questa edizione rivela i presupposti e le implicazioni di un’opera fondamentale rendendola accessibile all’ampio pubblico dei lettori non specialisti."

With a novel approach to Aristotle’s zoology, this study looks at animals as creatures of nature (physis) and reveals a scientific discourse that, in response to his predecessors, exiles logos as reason and pursues the logos intrinsic to animals’ bodies empowering them to sense the world and live.

The volume explores Aristotle’s conception of animals through a discussion of his ad hoc methodology to study them, including the pertinence of the soul to such a study, and the rise of zoology as a branch of natural philosophy. For Aristotle, animal life stems from the body in the space of existence and revolves around sensation, which is entwined with pleasure, pain, and desire. Lack of human reason is irrelevant to an understanding of the richness of animal life and cognition. In sum, the reader will acquire knowledge of the "animal as such," which lay at the core of Aristotle’s agenda and required a study of its own, separate from plants and the elements.

This book is intended for students of history of science, ancient biology and philosophy and all those who, from different fields, are interested in animal studies and the human/animal relation.

Aristotle has been continuously at the frontier of philosophical reflection for almost 2400 years. Throughout the 20th century the influence of his practical philosophy has been growing. His «non-modernist» concept of phrónêsis or practical wisdom is attracting increasing interest as an alternative to both «modernism» and «post-modernism». This book is a meticulous study of Aristotle's phrónêsis and its applications to the fields of personal development or character formation and of ethical virtues. It also relates phrónêsis to the wider context of Aristotle's theoretical philosophy and of his different ways of knowing, and to both theoretical and practical concerns within modern social and action research. The whole of Aristotle's thinking is radically practice-based and directed. However, it never loses its theoretical focus. His theoretical philosophy is fundamentally dialogical. Hence, the relevance of Aristotelian thinking is striking for the current reconfigurations in the social organisation of learning and knowledge production.

Κύριος στόχος της μονογραφίας είναι η απάντηση –βασισμένη στα ί-δια τα κείμενα του φιλοσόφου- σε ένα ερώτημα καθοριστικό για την κα-τανόηση της αριστοτελικής γνωσιοθεωρίας: είναι όντως ο Αριστοτέλης προπάτορας του ορθολογισμού των Νέων Χρόνων; Με άλλη διατύπωση: ποια σχέση έχει η ορθολογικότητα της αριστοτελικής επι-στήμης με την καρτεσιανή και μετακαρτεσιανή νοησιαρχία; Η θέση που υποστηρίζεται είναι η ακόλουθη: Η επιστημονική ορθολογικότητα που προκρίνεται από τον Σταγειρίτη ως μέθοδος πρόσβασης στη γνώση δια-στέλλεται ριζικά από την εκδοχή του ορθολογισμού που επικράτησε κατά τη νεωτερικότητα στη νοησιαρχική Δύση· ο αριστοτελικός ὀρθὸς λόγος δεν ταυτίζεται με τη λατινογενή, καρτεσιανή ratio.
Η απάντηση στο συγκεκριμένο ερώτημα και η τεκμηρίωση της παρα-πάνω θέσης μεθοδεύονται μέσω μιας διττής προοπτικής. Επιχειρείται αφενός θεωρητική προσέγγιση του επιστημολογικού προβλήματος, ε-ρευνάται αφετέρου η αριστοτελική γνωσιοθεωρία όπως αναδύεται στην πράξη μέσα από ένα επιστημονικό τομέα ιδρυμένο από τον Αριστοτέλη, την ψυχολογία.
Το θεωρητικό μέρος αναπτύσσεται στην «Εισαγωγή» και στα δύο «Κεφάλαια». Στην «Εισαγωγή» παρουσιάζεται η στοχοθεσία της μονο-γραφίας και οι μεθοδολογικές αρχές στις οποίες υπακούει. Το πρώτο Κε-φάλαιο («Η αμφισβήτηση του νεωτερικού ρασιοναλισμού») αναπτύσσει τους θεωρητικούς άξονες που θα βρουν αργότερα την εφαρμογή τους στα «Μελετήματα». Για τον σκοπό αυτό αξιοποιούνται προτάσεις για μια μη-νοησιαρχική ορθολογικότητα, οι οποίες έχουν κατατεθεί από κο-ρυφαία φιλοσοφικά αναστήματα του 20ου αι.
Το δεύτερο Κεφάλαιο («Ο αποφατικός ορθολογισμός του Αριστοτέ-λη») αποτελεί γενική διερεύνηση του προβλήματος σε αριστοτελικά κεί-μενα με γνωσιοθεωρητικές αναφορές. Η εργασία προσπαθεί να δείξει ότι στο έργο του έλληνα σοφού δεν συγχέονται κατά κανένα τρόπο τα πεδία της πραγματικότητας και της γλώσσας/γνώσης. Όσο κι αν η λογι-κότητα διαπερνά τα δύο πεδία, δεν τα ενο¬ποιεί εξομοιώνοντάς τα, αλλά τα συνδέει ως σημαινόμενο (πραγματικότητα) και ση¬μαίνον (γλώσ-σα/γνώση). Η αντικει¬μενοποιημένη και συμβατική ταύτιση ουσιών-όντων και εννοιών (η σχολαστική adaequatio rei et intellectus), δεν βρί-σκει ερείσματα στον αριστοτελικό λόγο.
Το εφαρμοσμένο μέρος της μονογραφίας αρθρώνεται σε τέσσερα «Μελετήματα», στα οποία επιχειρείται ανάγνωση και ερμηνεία πληθώ-ρας αριστοτελικών χωρίων προερχόμενων από όλες σχεδόν τις πραγματείες του φιλοσόφου. Όσον αφορά την έρευνα της ανθρώπινης ψυχής τονίζεται ότι η αναφορά του Αριστοτέλη στις λειτουργίες της ψυχής πρέπει να κατανοηθεί πιο πολύ ως (εξ ορισμού ατελής) γνωστική προσέγγιση παρά ως ακριβής περιγραφή ή αποτύπωση του ψυχικού τοπίου. Μπορεί η φερώνυμη αριστοτελική πραγματεία να επιτυγχάνει το θαυμάσιο: να επιχειρεί εμβριθείς, διεισδυτικές, οξυνούστατες διαπιστώσεις και διατυπώσεις περί ψυχής, πλην όμως ακριβώς μέσω αυτών ο αναγνώστης εμπεδώνει την αίσθηση και βεβαιότητα ότι η αλήθεια των (ψυχικών) πραγμάτων παραμένει επέκεινα της πρόσληψής τους, στο ανεξάντλητο πεδίο της φύσης και της κίνησης.
Και στην περίπτωση, λοιπόν, της ψυχής, των σύνθετων λειτουργιών της, των ἔργων καὶ παθῶν της, των ηθικών επιλογών της, των τρόπων με τους οποίους εντάσσεται στο γίγνεσθαι του κόσμου και το προσλαμβάνει, είναι συνειδητή η άρνηση του Αριστοτέλη να ταυτίσει τη γνωστική προσέγγιση του φυσικού-ψυχικού επιστητού με την ίδια την πραγματικότητα: άλλο τα πράγματα, η φύση και η ψυχή, άλλο οι δικές μας γνωστικές απόπειρες και αφαιρετικές διατυπώσεις γι’ αυτά.
Έτσι, μέσα από την ανάγνωση και ερμηνεία πολλών σχετικών κειμένων δεικνύεται ότι ο αριστοτελικός λόγος περί ψυχής αφίσταται ξεκάθαρα από τη σύγχρονη Ψυχολογία. Ο Αριστοτέλης δεν ανατέμνει επιστημονικά την ατομική ψυχή, δεν είναι επιστήμονας της ψυχολογίας του βάθους. Ο λόγος του περὶ ψυχής συστήνει λιγότερο ψυχολογία και περισσότερο (πολιτική) ανθρωπολογία.
  Το θεωρητικό μέρος της μονογραφίας είναι αδημοσίευτο, ενώ τα «Με-λετήματα» είχαν σε δημοσιευτεί σε επιστημονικά περιοδικά σε μορφή διαφορετική -άλλο λιγότερο, άλλο περισσότερο. Στη συγκεκριμένη, ό-μως, μονογραφία στην οποία εντάχθηκαν αναδεικνύεται καταρχήν η ενότητα του ερευνητικού αντικειμένου των «Μελετημάτων», η αριστοτελική «ψυχολογία». Και τα τέσσερα «Μελετήματα», στην καινούργια τους μορφή, περιστρέφονται πια με σαφήνεια γύρω από τον πυρήνα της ανθρώπινης ψυχής, όπως τη μελετά ο Αριστοτέλης (στο πλαίσιο αυτό ενοποιήθηκε και εμπλουτίστηκε η βιβλιογραφία που συνόδευε τα «Μελετήματα»). Κατά δεύτερο λόγο τα «Μελετήματα»  συνέκλιναν υπηρετώντας πλέον μία στόχευση που ελάνθανε κατά την πρώτη τους δημοσίευση: την ανάδειξη του ιδιαίτερου χαρακτήρα της αριστοτελικής ορθολογικότητας, αυτής που ονομάζουμε αποφατικό ορθολογισμό (αποφατισμός είναι η άρνηση να ταυτίσουμε τη γνώση και την αλήθεια με τη διατύπωσή τους, η άρνηση να ταυτίσουμε τα σημαι-νόμενα με τα σημαίνοντά τους, τελικά η αποδοχή του σχετικού χαρα-κτήρα της ανθρώπινης γνωστικής δραστηριότητας). Για την επίτευξη της συγκεκριμένης στόχευσης τα «Μελετήματα» εμπλουτίστηκαν στη δεύτερη δημοσίευσή τους με τον αναγκαίο σχολιασμό. Οπωσδήποτε, όμως, το κέντρο βάρους τους παραμένει αυτό που ήταν: η ερμηνευτική ανάγνωση κειμένων του Αριστοτέλη.
  Εν ολίγοις, η συγκεκριμένη μονογραφία θίγει ένα καθαρά φιλοσοφικό πρόβλημα, το πρόβλημα της επιστημονικής αλήθειας, με μια καθαρά φιλολογική μέθοδο: την οργανωμένη μελέτη του αριστοτελικού λόγου.

El presente trabajo tiene por objeto examinar el lugar que ocupa el llamado noûs «capaz de hacer todas las cosas» en el proceso cognitivo descrito por Aristóteles en DA 3.5 (430a10-25). Para ello se propondrán algunas hipótesis de lectura, las cuales de ser plausibles, nos permitirían comprender la distinción entre lo que los comentaristas tradicionalmente han llamado el noûs pathetikós y el noûs poietikós. En primer lugar, se intenta observar que en Aristóteles el noûs está vinculado con lo universal, tratando de comprender la naturaleza de dicho vinculo. En segundo lugar, se sostendrá que la distinción entre un noûs «capaz de llegar a ser todas las cosas» y un noûs «capaz de hacer todas las cosas» es una distinción operativa. Por último, se examinará en qué consiste el poieîn de la segunda operación, y a partir de allí se pretenderá mostrar que se ocupa de producir en potencia, lo cual nos permitirá inferir que el noûs «capaz de hacer» produce lo universal.

I argue that Aristotle's science of the soul only covers sublunary living things. Aristotle cannot properly ascribe ψυχή to unmoved movers since they do not have any capacities that are distinct from their activities or any matter to be structured. Heavenly bodies do not have souls in the way that mortal living things do, because their matter is not subject to alteration or generation. These beings do not fit into the hierarchy of soul powers that Aristotle relies on to provide unity to ψυχή. Their living consists in their activities, not in having a capacity for activity.

In Aristotle’s psychology, sensation of senses seems to be realized in the sense. The separation between sensation and sensation of sensation has resulted in the philosopher’s special attachment to the power of common sense. As to Avicenna’s psychology, sensation of sensation takes the name perception, not sensation. Our article aims to examine comparatively how Aristotle’s account of sensation of sensation differed in Avicenna’s theory of nafs and to explore the ground of the powers of perception which Ibn Sina differentiates from those of Aristotle.

One of the salient features of dreams is that we are deceived by them, we take our dreams to be real. Aristotle is alert to this feature and he discusses it in several passages of De insomniis. In the first part of this contribution, I examine the relevant passages and provide an interpretation of Aristotle’s explanation of the deceptive character of dreams. My interpretation has wider consequences for our understanding of Aristotle’s views on various cognitive capacities and their interaction. In the second part, I discuss the commentary on De insomniis by Michael of Ephesus. I present Michael’s interpretation of Aristotle’s take on the deceptive character of dreams, and I compare it with the interpretation I developed in the first part of this contribution.

Aristote sur le sommeil de l’embryon et du nouveau-né (GA V 1, 778b20-779a26)

La Génération des animaux est le traité d’embryologie antique le plus complet qui nous ait été conservé. Au cours des cinq livres qui le composent, Aristote suit l’ordre chronologique, de la formation de l’embryon à la naissance du nouveau-né, jusqu’aux phénomènes qui constituent chez l’adulte des suites du même processus de génération naturelle. C’est dans ce contexte qu’au début du dernier livre, Aristote
examine la vie de l’embryon et celle du nouveau-né. La question posée est celle de savoir si l’embryon dort et en quel sens, et si l’embryon et le nouveau-né perçoivent, et de quelle façon. Ces questions vont conduire Aristote à préciser sa conception de l’animation et à réviser sa théorie générale de la sensation et du sommeil ou, plutôt, à l’adapter à ces deux cas-limites. L’étude détaillée de ce passage, retraduit, conduit à plusieurs résultats. On s’attache à expliquer d’abord de quelle façon le sommeil sui generis de l’embryon constitue une preuve de son animation ; le passage éclaire ainsi comment cette animation se produit différemment pour les âmes végétative et sensitive ; enfin, on montre aussi comment la vie de l’embryon et du nouveau-né oblige Aristote à reconnaître, contrairement aux principes de l’explication du sommeil et de la veille, l’existence d’un état où le vivant perçoit alors que pourtant il dort : le sourire et les pleurs du nouveau-né dans son sommeil montrent en effet que le nouveau-né ignore la veille et, paradoxalement, perçoit en dormant. De ce point de vue, la croissance et l’éducation consistent à apprendre le plaisir de la vie en acte – l’éveil, la sensation, la pensée.

In De Anima 2.4, Aristotle claims that nutritive soul encompasses two distinct biological functions: nutrition and reproduction. We challenge a pervasive interpretation which posits 'nutrients' as the correlative object (antikeimenon) of the nutritive capacity. Instead, the shared object of nutrition and reproduction is that which is nourished and reproduced: the ensouled body, qua ensouled. Both functions aim at preserving this object, and thus at preserving the form, life, and being of the individual organism. In each case, we show how Aristotle's detailed biological analysis supports this ontological argument. [Coauthored with James G. Lennox; Phronesis 65 (4): 414–466. 2020.]

No argument from the Arabic philosophical tradition has received more scholarly attention than Avicenna's ‘flying man’ thought experiment, in which a human is created out of thin air and is able to grasp his existence without grasping that he has a body. This paper offers a new interpretation of the version of this thought experiment found at the end of the first chapter of Avicenna's treatment of soul in the Healing. We argue that it needs to be understood in light of an epistemological theory set out elsewhere by Avicenna, which allows that all the constitutive properties of an essence will be clear to someone who understands and considers that essence. On our reading, this theory is put to work in the ‘flying man’: because the flying man would grasp that his own essence has existence without grasping that he has a body, connection to body cannot be constitutive of the essence.

In this paper I provide a global reading of Aristotle's De Anima III 4 aimed at unveiling the rigorous argumentative structure of the chapter, which I show to exhibit the typical Aristotelian pattern of philosophical inquiry: a setting of the agenda of basic questions to be answered; a dialectical path to the position of a hypothesis; a derivation from it of relevant individu-ating features of the object, some of which are already manifest and are accounted for as derivable from the hypothesis; and the emergence of aporiai that prima facie seem to invalidate the hypothesis but eventually allow for a deeper understanding of it. I attempt to reveal the speculative progression of the chapter by initially regarding the Actuality Principle as underlying his Assimilation Model of cognition (S cognizes F iff S's cognitive principle becomes F due to a cognized object O that is F in actuality). Aristotle derives Unmixedness from not having limits of scope (Unlimitedness Assumption), which is a manifest feature of νοῦς, from Unmixedness he derives Separability (these entail-ments are clarified through the first aporia), from Separability Spontaneity and from Spontaneity Self-thinkability of νοῦς (clarified through the second aporia). Although I examine the whole chapter, I focus specifically on the theoretical and methodological value of introducing and addressing the two aporiai.

I argue that Aristotelian decisions (προαιρέσεις) cannot be conceived of as based solely on wish (βούλησις) and deliberation (βούλευσις), as the standard picture (most influentially argued for in Anscombe's "Thought and Action in Aristotle", in R. Bambrough ed. New Essays on Plato and Aristotle. London: Routledge, 1965) suggests. Although some features of the standard view are correct (such as that decisions have essential connection to deliberation and that wish always plays a crucial role in the formation of a decision), Aristotelian decisions sometimes must include non-rational desires such as appetite. Consequently, any exegetical account of Aristotle’s notion of decision must be able to accommodate this feature.

The paper defends three claims about Aristotle’s theory of uncontrolled actions (akrasia) in NE 7.3. First, I argue that the first part of NE 7.3 contains the description of the overall state of mind of the agent while she acts without control. Aristotle’s solution to the problem of uncontrolled action lies in the analogy between the uncontrolled agent and people who are drunk, mad, or asleep. This analogy is interpreted as meaning that the uncontrolled agent, while acting without control, is still in possession of her knowledge but she is unable to use it as knowledge due to the temporary disablement of her reason by appetite. Due to this disablement, the uncontrolled agent is temporarily unable to be motivated to act by her knowledge and acts merely on her appetite. Second, I argue that the second part of NE 7.3 provides an analysis of the particular mental state from which the uncontrolled action issues. Its central passage is a description of the uncontrolled agent’s state of mind before the uncontrolled action and not, as it has been traditionally understood, a description of her state of mind during the uncontrolled action. Third, I argue that, on Aristotle’s view, the transition from the state before the uncontrolled action to the state in which the agent already acts without control does not involve any psychological state that would constitute the agent’s choice to abandon her decision and give in to her desires but proceeds on a purely physiological level.

In this paper, I argue that the widely held view that Aristotle's vicious agent is a principled follower of a wrong conception of the good whose soul, just like the soul of the virtuous agent, is marked by harmony between his reason and non-rational desires is an exegetical mistake. Rather, Aristotle holds – consistently and throughout the Nicomachean Ethics – that the vicious agent lacks any real principles of action (or conception of the good) and that his soul lacks unity and harmony even more than the soul of the uncontrolled (akratic) agent.

Recently, a strong hylemorphic reading of Aristotelian emotions has been put forward, one that allegedly eliminates the problem of the causal interaction between soul and body. Taking the presentation of emotions in de An. I 1 as a starting point and guiding thread, but relying also on the discussion of in Rh. II, I will argue that this reading only takes into account two of the four causes of emotions, and that, if all four of them are included in the picture, then a causal interaction of mind and body remains within Aristotelian emotions, independent of how strongly their hylemorphism is understood. Beyond the discussion regarding this recent reading, the analysis proposed of the fourfold causal structure of emotions is also intended as a hermeneutical starting point for a comprehensive analysis of particular emotions in Aristotle. Through the different causes Aristotle seems to account for many aspects of the complex phenomenon of emotion, including its physiological causes, its mental causes, and its intensional object.

Based on an analysis of Aristotle's understanding of the universality of reason from De anima III, the paper attempts to demonstrate that the analogous breadth of reason, open to the light of specifically Christian Easter and Trinitarian mysteries, represents an adequate response to the reductively narrowing notion of reason, which could be found in transhumanistic and deep-ecological approach. Therefore, more than ever, we now need to restore this analogia intellectus to its full metaphysical scope.

L’article examine la lecture qu’Averroès propose de la fin de Physique VII, 3 d’Aristote, où ce dernier établit qu’il n’y a pas d’altération dans la partie intellectuelle de l’âme, du fait que « ce qui possède la science appartient éminemment aux relatifs ». Dans ce cadre, on montre : premièrement, que la pensée de l’homme se comprend chez Averroès comme un acte composé, constitué d’un mouvement réel (dans le corps et l’âme sensitive) et de sa fin instantanée (dans l’intellect) ; deuxièmement, que l’averroïsme, à proprement parler, n’est pas cette philosophie dans laquelle « pensant » se prédiquerait de l’homme par dénomination extrinsèque et en vertu, seulement, d’un Cambridge change. (This article examines Averroes’s reading of the end of Aristotle’s Physics VII, 3, where
the Stagirite explains there’s no alteration in the intellectual part of the soul, since « that
which knows is mostly said in the <category> or relation ». In this context, we show : first,
that human thought must be understood in Averroes as a composed act, made of a real
mouvement (in the body and in the sensitive soul) and of its instantaneous end (in the
intellect) ; second, that for Averroes, properly speaking, « thinking » is not said of human
beings only by extrinsic denomination and in virtue of a Cambridge Change.)

The paper outlines the salient features of the investigation about sleep and dreams carried out by Aristotle in De somno et vigilia, De insomniis and De divinatione per somnum. My aim is to show that the analysis conducted in these texts is substantially coherent and organic and that it must be followed in correspondence of the editorial structure of the Parva, that is: as a physiological event, as a cognitive experience and, finally, in relation to the activities of wakefulness, with which the dream establishes a causal link.