The Powers of Aristotle's Soul

The Powers of Aristotle's Soul PDF Author: Thomas Kjeller Johansen
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191633011
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Aristotle is considered by many to be the founder of 'faculty psychology'—the attempt to explain a variety of psychological phenomena by reference to a few inborn capacities. In The Powers of Aristotle's Soul, Thomas Kjeller Johansen investigates his main work on psychology, the De Anima, from this perspective. He shows how Aristotle conceives of the soul's capacities and how he uses them to account for the souls of living beings. Johansen offers an original account of how Aristotle defines the capacities in relation to their activities and proper objects, and considers the relationship of the body to the definition of the soul's capacities. Against the background of Aristotle's theory of science, Johansen argues that the capacities of the soul serve as causal principles in the explanation of the various life forms. He develops detailed readings of Aristotle's treatment of nutrition, perception, and intellect, which show the soul's various roles as formal, final and efficient causes, and argues that the so-called 'agent' intellect falls outside the scope of Aristotle's natural scientific approach to the soul. Other psychological activities, various kinds of perception (including 'perceiving that we perceive'), memory, imagination, are accounted for in their explanatory dependency on the basic capacities. The ability to move spatially is similarly explained as derivative from the perceptual or intellectual capacities. Johansen claims that these capacities together with the nutritive may be understood as 'parts' of the soul, as they are basic to the definition and explanation of the various kinds of soul. Finally, he considers how the account of the capacities in the De Anima is adopted and adapted in Aristotle's biological and minor psychological works.

The Powers of Aristotle's Soul

The Powers of Aristotle's Soul PDF Author: Thomas Kjeller Johansen
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191633011
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Get Book Here

Book Description
Aristotle is considered by many to be the founder of 'faculty psychology'—the attempt to explain a variety of psychological phenomena by reference to a few inborn capacities. In The Powers of Aristotle's Soul, Thomas Kjeller Johansen investigates his main work on psychology, the De Anima, from this perspective. He shows how Aristotle conceives of the soul's capacities and how he uses them to account for the souls of living beings. Johansen offers an original account of how Aristotle defines the capacities in relation to their activities and proper objects, and considers the relationship of the body to the definition of the soul's capacities. Against the background of Aristotle's theory of science, Johansen argues that the capacities of the soul serve as causal principles in the explanation of the various life forms. He develops detailed readings of Aristotle's treatment of nutrition, perception, and intellect, which show the soul's various roles as formal, final and efficient causes, and argues that the so-called 'agent' intellect falls outside the scope of Aristotle's natural scientific approach to the soul. Other psychological activities, various kinds of perception (including 'perceiving that we perceive'), memory, imagination, are accounted for in their explanatory dependency on the basic capacities. The ability to move spatially is similarly explained as derivative from the perceptual or intellectual capacities. Johansen claims that these capacities together with the nutritive may be understood as 'parts' of the soul, as they are basic to the definition and explanation of the various kinds of soul. Finally, he considers how the account of the capacities in the De Anima is adopted and adapted in Aristotle's biological and minor psychological works.

Aristotle's On the Soul

Aristotle's On the Soul PDF Author: Caleb Cohoe
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108485839
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Thirteen newly-commissioned essays that deepen our understanding of Aristotle's key concepts, including living, form, reason, and capacity.

The Powers of Aristotle's Soul

The Powers of Aristotle's Soul PDF Author: T. K. Johansen
Publisher: Oxford University Press (UK)
ISBN: 0199658439
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Thomas Kjeller Johansen presents a new account of Aristotle's major work on psychology, the De Anima. He argues that Aristotle explains a variety of psychological phenomena by reference to the soul's capacities, and considers how Aristotle adopts and adapts this theory in his later works.

Aristotle's De Anima

Aristotle's De Anima PDF Author: Ronald Polansky
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139466054
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 525

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Book Description
Aristotle's De Anima was the first systematic philosophical account of the soul, which serves to explain the functioning of all mortal living things. In his commentary, Ronald Polansky argues that the work is far more structured and systematic than previously supposed.

Anima

Anima PDF Author: Saint Thomas (Aquinas)
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9781883357108
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
To ascertain, however, anything reliable about it is one of the most difficult of undertakings. Such an enquiry being Common to many topics—I mean, an enquiry into the essence, and what each thing is—it might seem to some that one definite procedure were available for all things of which we wished to know the essence; as there is demonstration for the accidental properties of things. So we should have to discover what is this one method. But if there is no one method for determining what an essence is, our enquiry becomes decidedly more difficult, and we shall have to find a procedure for each case in particular. If, on the other hand, it is clear that either demonstration, or division, or some such process is to be employed, there are still many queries and uncertainties to which answers must be found. For the principles in different subject matters are different, for instance in the case of numbers and surfaces. Aeterna Press

Heat, Pneuma, and Soul in Ancient Philosophy and Science

Heat, Pneuma, and Soul in Ancient Philosophy and Science PDF Author: Hynek Bartoš
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108476732
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
The first volume to examine theories of soul in Greek philosophy using an approach drawn from the history of science.

A New Aristotle Reader

A New Aristotle Reader PDF Author: J. L. Ackrill
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400835828
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 595

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Book Description
In a single volume that will be of service to philosophy students of all levels and to their teachers, this reader provides modern, accurate translations of the texts necessary for a careful study of most aspects of Aristotle's philosophy. In selecting the texts Professor J. L. Ackrill has drawn on his broad experience of teaching graduate classes, and his choice reflects issues of current philosophical interest as well as the perennial themes. Only recent translations which achieve a high level of accuracy have been chosen; the aim is to place the Greekless reader, as nearly as possible, in the position of a reader of Greek. As an aid to study, Professor Ackrill supplies a valuable guide to the key topics covered. The guide gives references to the works or passages contained in the reader, and indication of their interrelations, and current bibliography.

Body and Soul in Hellenistic Philosophy

Body and Soul in Hellenistic Philosophy PDF Author: Brad Inwood
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108485820
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Explores Greek and Roman theories about the relationship of soul and body in the centuries after Aristotle.

Vegetative Powers

Vegetative Powers PDF Author: Fabrizio Baldassarri
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030697096
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
The volume analyzes the natural philosophical accounts and debates concerning the vegetative powers, namely nutrition, growth, and reproduction. While principally focusing on the early modern approaches to the lower functions of the soul, readers will discover the roots of these approaches back to the Ancient times, as the volume highlights the role of three strands that help shape the study of life in the Medieval and early modern natural philosophies. From late antiquity to the early modern period, the vegetative soul and its cognate concepts have played a substantial role in specifying life, living functions, and living bodies, sometimes blurring the line between living and non-living nature, and, at other moments, resulting in a strong restriction of life to a mechanical system of operations and powers. Unearthing the history of the vegetative soul as a shrub of interconnected concepts, the 24 contributions of the volume fill a crucial gap in scholarship, ultimately outlining the importance of vegetal processes of incessant proliferation, generation, and organic growth as the roots of life in natural philosophical interpretations.

Mortal Imitations of Divine Life

Mortal Imitations of Divine Life PDF Author: Eli Diamond
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 081013070X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
In Mortal Imitations of Divine Life, Diamond offers an interpretation of De Anima, which explains how and why Aristotle places souls in a hierarchy of value. Aristotle’s central intention in De Anima is to discover the nature and essence of soul—the principle of living beings. He does so by identifying the common structures underlying every living activity, whether it be eating, perceiving, thinking, or moving through space. As Diamond demonstrates through close readings of De Anima, the nature of the soul is most clearly seen in its divine life, while the embodied soul’s other activities are progressively clear approximations of this principle. This interpretation shows how Aristotle’s psychology and biology cannot be properly understood apart from his theological conception of God as life, and offers a new explanation of De Anima’s unity of purpose and structure.