Aristotle's psychology: Diagnosis of the need for a fundamental reinterpretation

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

Volumn 73, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 309-331

  Bos, Abraham P ^a  

^a VU UNIVERSITY AMSTERDAM   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 67650802432     PISSN: 10513558     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/acpq199973215     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. See L. Couloubaritsis, "La notion d' ENTELECHEIA dans la Métaphysique", in Aristotelica. Mélanges offerts à M. de Corte (Bruxelles/Liège: Presses Universitaires, 1985) 129-155;
2. D. W. Graham, "The etymology of " American Journal of Philology 110(1989):73-80
3. and G. A. Blair, "Aristotle on 'ENTEAEXEIA: a reply to David Graham", American Journal of Philology, 114(1993):91-97. 4 See Cic. Div. I 25, 53 = Arist. Eudem. fr. 1 Ross (Aristotelis fragmenta selecta, recogn. W. D. Ross, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955; repr. 1964); fr. 56 Gigon (Aristotelis Opera, vol. Ill, Deperditorum librorum fragmenta, collegit O. Gigon (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1987) and Plu. Mor. (Consol ad Apollonium), 115b-c = Arist. Eudem. fr. 6 Ross; 65 Gigon.
4. W. Jaeger, Aristoteles. Grundlegung einer Geschichte seiner Entwicklung (Berlin: Weidmann, 1923);
5. Aristotle. Fundamentals of the history of his development, translated with the author's corrections and additions by R. Robinson (Oxford: University Press, 1934; 2nd ed. 1948; repr. 1962). References will be to the English edition.
6. F. J. C. J. Nuyens, Ontwikkelingsmomenten in de zielkunde van Aristoteles. Een historisch-philosophische studie (Nijmegen-Utrecht: Dekker & v. d. Vegt, 1939);
7. French ed.: L 'evolution de la psychologie d'Aristote (Louvain: Centre De Wulf-Mansion, 1948; repr. 1973).
8. For Jaeger's contention that Aristotle was initially a Platonist in the sense that he supported the theory of Ideas, see I. During with many publications since his "Problems in Aristotle's Protrepticus Eranos 52(1954):139-71;
9. "Aristotle and Plato in the mid-fourth century", Eranos 54(1956):109-20;
10. see also his "Did Aristotle ever accept Plato's theory of transcendent Ideas?" AGPh 48(1966):312-16.
11. For the idea that Aristotle initially had speculative and theological interests, but later attached more value to scientific research in an almost modern, positivist sense, see A. P. Bos, Cosmic and meta-cosmic theology in Aristotle's lost dialogues (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989), 97-101.
12. see A. P. Bos, Cosmic and meta-cosmic theology, 94 and 187-188.
13. R. Sorabji, 'From Aristotle to Brentano: the development of the concept of intentionality', Aristotle and the later tradition ed. H. Blumenthal, H. Robinson, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991)
14. According to C. Shields, "Soul and body in Aristotle", Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 6(1988):103: "⋯ virtually no progress toward a consensus has been attained. On the contrary, one finds an alarmingly large and diverse literature on Aristotle's account of soul/body relations."
15. See I. Block, "The order of Aristotle's psychological writings", American Journal of Philology 82(1961):50-77.
16. Soon afterwards his view was strongly endorsed by W. F. R. Hardie, Philosophical Quarterly 14(1964):53-72.
17. J. M. Rist, "On Greek biology, Greek cosmology and some sources of theological pneumaPrudentia, suppl. vol. VI (Auckland: University of Auckland, 1985): 27-47;
18. reprint in Man, soul and body. Essays in ancient thought (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996).
19. J. M. Rist, "On Greek Biology", 28.
20. Gener. anim. II. 3, 736b30f.
21. See Cic. N. D. 1. 13, 33
22. = Arist. Philos, fr. 26 Ross;
23. The attempt by D. E. Hahm, "The fifth element in Aristotle's De philosophicr" JHS 102 (1982) 60-74 show that the doctrine of the fifth element did not yet play a role in the De philosophia, is doomed to fail on account of the intrinsic relationship of the doctrine of the fifth element with Aristotle's criticism of Plato's doctrine of the creation of the world and the psychology of the Timaeus.
24. See Cic. Acad. 1, 7, 26;
25. Tusc. 1, 10, 22; 1, 17, 41; 1, 26, 65-27, 66 =
26. Arist. Philos. fr. 27 Ross; T 18, 1 and fr. 994; 995; 996 Gigon. On the relationship between pneuma and aether
27. see A. Preus, Science and philosophy in Aristotle's biological works (Hildesheim/New York: Olms, 1975) 86-89
28. "Man and cosmos in Aristotle's Metaphysics A and the biological works", Biologie, logique et metaphysique chez Aristote ed. D. Deveureux, P. Pellegrin (Paris: Éd. du CNRS, 1990), 478-84.
29. See P. Merlan, C. H. L. G. M. Ph. ed. A. H. Armstrong, (Cambridge: University Press, 1967; repr. 1970), 40-41 with n. 9, who mentions F. F. Kampe (1870) and H. von Amim as defenders of this view. Merlan himself also concludes: "Much in the history of the Peripatos can be better understood if we side with Kampe and Amim and take into account that the materialistic interpretation of Aristotle was, in antiquity, very frequent and started very early"
30. W. Jaeger, Aristotle nt. 5 above.
31. I. Düring, Aristoteles. Darstellung und Interpretation seines Denkens (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1966), vii-viii. In passing, this quotation also shows that Jaeger used A. Comte's scheme for his conception of development.
32. H. Flashar, Die Philosophie der Antike, vol. 3 (Basel/Stuttgart: Schwabe & Co, 1983), 177.
33. C. H. Kahn, AGP 48(1966):51 notices: "the developmental hypothesis seems to me more often to mask than reveal the true train of Aristotle's thought as reflected in the text"
34. See further Ch. Witt, "The evolution of developmental interpretations of Aristotle", in Aristotle's philosophical development. Problems and prospects ed. W. Wians, (Lanham/London: Rowman, 1996), 67-82.
35. O. Gigon, Aristotelis Opera, vol. III (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1987), 230.
36. Jaeger, Aristotle, 12.
37. A. Mansion, in F. Nuyens, L'évolution de la psychologie d'Aristote, 1948, xii.
38. Equally positive was W. D. Ross, in Aristotle, Parva naturalia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), 3-18.
39. G. Verbeke, RPhL 46(1948):341
40. American Journal of Philology 82(1961):50-77.
41. Block, bgf. C. H. Kahn, AGPh 48(1966):50-64 wholeheartedly agrees with Block. We just note that Block's hypothesis of a development from De anima to the Parva naturalia can be refuted by recognizing that in De anima II. 1, 412b25, is not "the whole percipient body", but the instrumental body of the anima sensitiva and implies the idea of the sensus communis, although according to Block that notion was fully developed only in the Parva naturalia.
42. In P. W.-R. E. 47 Halbbd (Stuttgart: A. Druckenmtiller Verlag, 1963) cols. 1171-1263.
43. C. Lefevre, Sur l'evolution d'Aristote en psychologie (Louvain: Centre De Wulf-Mansion, 1972).
44. C. Lefévre, "'Quinta natura' et psychologie aristotelicienne", in RPhL 69 (1971) 5-43.
45. See Sur revolution, p. ix, n. 2.
46. See Lefévre, Sur l'evolution d'Aristote en Psychologie 106: "dans le De gener⋯. Aristote n' a pu concevoir que l'instrumentisme fût, per se, en contradiction avec l'hylémorphisme"
47. M. C. Nussbaum, Aristotle's De motu animalium. Text with translation, commentary and interpretive essays (Princeton: University Press. 1978; repr. with corrections, 1985). 7510.
48. G. Freudenthal, Aristotle's Theory of Material Substance. Heat and Pneuma, Form and Soul (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).
49. D. E. Hahm, "The Fifth Element in Aristotle's De philosophia: a critical reexamination", JSH 102(1982):60-74.
50. See for example C. Osborne, Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy. Hippolytus of Rome and the Presocratics (Ithaca N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), who dismisses the information given by Hippolytus, Ref. 120, 1-6 on Aristotle's psychology with the remark: "Both of these may reflect a knowledge of exoteric works rather than works which are now extant"
51. See T. Tracy, "The soul/boatman analogy in Aristotle's De anima" Classical Philology 11(1982):97-112. 15;
52. H. Robinson, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1(1983):128-31;
53. H. J. Blumenthal, Aristotle and Neoplatonism (London: Duckworth, 1996), 96-97.
54. A. E. Taylor, Aristotle (1919; repr. New York: Dover Publications, 1955), 75.
55. See Cael. 1. 9, 279 a15. 90 Actually he did so in De motu animalium 10 wherepneuma is introduced as a special body within the visible body and as the organon of the soul as the principle of locomotion.
56. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek philosophy, vol. VI (Cambridge: University Press, 1981), 284.
57. See S. Byl, 'Note sur la polysemie d' 'OPrANON et les origines du finalisme', Ant. Class. 40(1971):132.
58. I was very pleased to see that also S. Everson, Aristotle on perception (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 64, affirms that "equipped with organs" is not the correct sense of "organikon. " 94 In De anima there are two examples: III.9, 432b 18; b25; see also III. 10, 433b22. 95 Significantly Diogenes Laërtius V.33 did not know it; neither did Plutarch Quaest. plat. 8, 1006d nor Hippol. Ref VII 23, 7-24, 2, although they knew his definition of the soul from De anima II. 1.
59. See A. P. Bos, "Aristotle, De anima II. 1: The Traditional Interpretation Rejected", Aristotle and Contemporary science ed. D. Sfendoni-Mentzou (New York: P. Lang, 1999) vol. 2.
60. See also A. P. Bos, "Why the Soul Needs an Instrumental Body According to Aristotle (De anima 1.3, 407b 13-26), Hermes 127 (1999).