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11517 results in Ancient philosophy

Page 135 of 576

  • Chapter 10 - The Puzzle of the Soul’s Divisibility

  • from Part IV - Earlier Theories and Two Psychological Puzzles
  • Jason W. Carter, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    Aristotle on Earlier Greek Psychology
    Published online:
    08 March 2019
    Print publication:
    21 March 2019, pp 206-218

  • Summary

    In Chapter 10, I show how Aristotle attempts to make an empirical advance over the Platonic theory that the soul has determinate spatial-parts in the body. What Aristotle takes over from this theory, I argue, is that the soul has ‘parts’ which exercise powers within the body, but these parts cannot be understood as spatial-parts. Aristotle’s investigation of this puzzle results in the discovery that, while the soul does not have a determinate spatial structure, it does have a metaphysical structure. These discussions, I claim, place a positive constraint on him to adopt the Part-Hood Thesis.

  • Chapter 9 - The Puzzle of the Soul’s Uniformity

  • from Part IV - Earlier Theories and Two Psychological Puzzles
  • Jason W. Carter, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    Aristotle on Earlier Greek Psychology
    Published online:
    08 March 2019
    Print publication:
    21 March 2019, pp 193-205

  • Summary

    In Chapter 9, I argue that, in DA 1.5, Aristotle sums up the basic shortcomings of early Greek psychology by arguing that these theories are at best able to provide an explanation of either the soul’s power of perception, or its power to initiate the body’s local motion, but not both. This criticism lays out the empirical groundwork for Aristotle’s claim in DA 2.3 that there is no uniform entity called ‘soul’ in nature, but various kinds of soul associated with broad divisions in the animal kingdom. I argue that this discussion places a negative constraint on him to adopt the Non-Uniformity Thesis.

  • Chapter 4 - Democritus’ Psychology

  • from Part II - Earlier Theories of Psychological Motion
  • Jason W. Carter, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    Aristotle on Earlier Greek Psychology
    Published online:
    08 March 2019
    Print publication:
    21 March 2019, pp 79-102

  • Summary

    In Chapter 4, I show how Aristotle appeals to his demonstrative heuristic to show that Democritus is able to provide a formal, but not adequate, explanation of both the soul’s ability to cause the body to move and its ability to think. This is because he thinks Democritus lacks an explanation of our ability to have a stable form of cognition from which deliberated actions proceed. What Aristotle gains from this criticism is the idea that the soul’s production of local motion, even if it involves mechanistic causes within the body, must also involve (at least in the case of humans) a free decision to move or to not move. The result of this criticism implies that the explanation of animal behaviour cannot be reduced to a deterministic series of causal interactions, and hence, that Democritus’ definition of the soul, which implies such a determinist account, is not scientific. The criticism of Democritus helps to show, indirectly, that the soul operates in an intentional way as both a final and efficient cause in the origination of the motion of animals, and thus lays further groundwork for the Efficient-Final Causal Thesis.

  • Introduction to Hylomorphic Psychology

  • Jason W. Carter, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    Aristotle on Earlier Greek Psychology
    Published online:
    08 March 2019
    Print publication:
    21 March 2019, pp 1-18

  • Summary

    There is a long-standing puzzle about how Aristotle come to believe that the soul is the form of a body which possesses life potentially. This is because the hylomorphic theory of nature that Aristotle develops in his Physics to account for natural things and their changes in terms of material, formal, efficient, and final causes does not on its own provide a clear answer as to what the soul is. I argue that the way Aristotle tries to determine the answer to this question essentially involves an investigation into earlier Greek psychological theories and constrains him to adopt five theses that characterise hylomorphic psychology: the Hylomorphic Thesis that soul is a fulfilment of a bodily potential, the Efficient-Final Causal Thesis that the soul is an efficient and final cause of the body's motions, the Non-Uniformity Thesis that there is no one uniform kind of thing in nature called 'soul', the Part-Hood Thesis that the soul has capacity-parts, which are not spatially divisible from one another in a given body, and the Separability Thesis that the mental capacity of soul might exist separate from the body.

  • Chapter 5 - Xenocrates’ Psychology

  • from Part II - Earlier Theories of Psychological Motion
  • Jason W. Carter, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    Aristotle on Earlier Greek Psychology
    Published online:
    08 March 2019
    Print publication:
    21 March 2019, pp 103-122

  • Summary

    In Chapter 5, I show how Aristotle appeals to his demonstrative heuristic in criticising the second head of the Platonic Academy, Xenocrates, for his inability to give a plausible theory of how the soul, defined as a ‘self-moving number’, can be instantiated in the body so as to move it. What Aristotle gains from this obscure set of criticisms is the idea that some kinds of formal entities, namely, mathematical forms, such as points and numbers, are not explanatory of the soul’s motive powers or affections. This places a negative constraint on his theory of soul that leads him to affirm the Hylomorphic Thesis.

Page 135 of 576