Aristotle S Concept Of Mind

A fresh interpretation of this important and widely misunderstood concept as an acquired ability to make principles and essences intelligible.

In this timeless and profound inquiry, Aristotle presents a view of the psyche that avoids the simplifications both of the materialists and those who believe in the soul as something quite distinct from body. On the Soul also includes Aristotle's idiosyncratic and influential account of light and colors. On Memory and Recollection continues the investigation of some of the topics introduced in On the Soul. Sachs's fresh and jargon-free approach to the translation of Aristotle, his lively and insightful introduction, and his notes and glossaries, all bring out the continuing relevance of Aristotle's thought to biological and philosophical questions.

In this book, Erick Raphael Jimenez examines Aristotle's concept of mind (nous), a key concept in Aristotelian psychology, metaphysics, and epistemology. Drawing on a close analysis of De Anima, Jimenez argues that mind is neither disembodied nor innate, as has commonly been held, but an embodied ability that emerges from learning and discovery. Looking to Aristotle's metaphysics and epistemology, Jimenez argues that, just as Aristotelian mind is not innate, intelligibility is not an innate feature of the objects of Aristotelian mind, but an outcome of certain mental constructions that make those objects intelligible. Conversely, it is through these same mental constructions that thinkers become intelligent, or come to possess minds. Connecting this account to Aristotle's metaphysics and epistemology, Jimenez shows how this concept of mind fits within Aristotle's wider philosophy. His bold interpretation will interest a wide range of readers in ancient and later philosophy.

Aristotle initiated the systematic investigation of perception, the emotions, memory, desire and action, developing his own account of these phenomena and their interconnection. The aim of this book is to gain a philosophical understanding of his views and to examine how far they withstand critical scrutiny. Aristotle's account, it is argued, constitutes a philosophically live alternative to conventional post-Cartesian thinking about psychological phenomena and their place in a material world. It offers a way to dissolve, rather than solve, the mind-body problem we have inherited.

This book offers new insights into the workings of the human soul and the philosophical conception of the mind in Ancient Greece. It collects essays that deal with different but interconnected aspects of that unified picture of our mental life shared by all Ancient philosophers who thought of the soul as an immaterial substance. The papers present theoretical discussions on moral and psychological issues ranging from Socrates to Aristotle, and beyond, in connection with modern psychology. Coverage includes moral learning and the fruitfulness of punishment, human motivation, emotions as psychic phenomena, and more. Some of these topics directly stemmed from the Socratic dialectical experience and its tragic outcome, whereas others found their way through a complex history of refinements, disputes, and internal critique. The contributors present the gradual unfolding of these central themes through a close inspection of the relevant Ancient texts. They deliver a wide-ranging survey of some central and mutually related topics. In the process, readers will learn new approaches to Platonic and Aristotelian psychology and action theory. This book will appeal to graduate students and researchers in Ancient philosophy. Any scholar with a general interest in the history of ideas will also find it a valuable resource.

In the 20th century theorists of mind were almost exclusively concerned with various versions of the materialist thesis, but prior to current debates accounts of soul and mind reveal an extraordinary richness and complexity ?which bear careful and impartial investigation. This book is the first single-authored, comprehensive work to examine the historical, linguistic and conceptual issues involved in exploring the basic features of the human mind - from its most remote origins to the beginning of the modern period. MacDonald traces the development of an armature of psychical concepts from the Old Testament and Homer's works to the 18th century advocacy of an empirical science of the mind. Along the way, detailed attention is paid to the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Epicurus, before turning to look at the New Testament, Neoplatonism, Augustine, Medieval Islam, Aquinas and Dante. Treatment of Renaissance theories is followed by an unusual (perhaps unique) chapter on the words "soul" and "mind" in English literature from Chaucer to Shakespeare; the story then rejoins the mainstream with analyses of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Chapter-focused bibliographies.

A clear introduction to the main issues arising in the philosophy of the mind is provided through this straightforward elementary textbook for beginning students of philosophy.