This book investigates Aristotle’s views on abstraction and explores how he uses it. In this work, the author follows Aristotle in focusing on the scientific detail first and then approaches the metaphysical claims, and so creates a reconstructed theory that explains many puzzles of Aristotle’s thought. Understanding the details of his theory of relations and abstraction further illuminates his theory of universals. Some of the features of Aristotle’s theory of abstraction developed in this book include: abstraction is a relation; perception (...) and knowledge are types of abstraction; the objects generated by abstractions are relata which can serve as subjects in their own right, whereupon they can appear as items in other categories. The author goes on to look at how Aristotle distinguishes the concrete from the abstract paronym, how induction is a type of abstraction which typically moves from the perceived individuals to universals and how Aristotle’s metaphysical vocabulary is "relational.’ Beyond those features, this work also looks at how of universals, accidents, forms, causes and potentialities have being only as abstract aspects of individual substances. An individual substance is identical to its essence; the essence has universal features but is the singularity making the individual substance what it is. These theories are expounded within this book. One main attraction in working out the details of Aristotle’s views on abstraction lies in understanding his metaphysics of universals as abstract objects. This work reclaims past ground as the main philosophical tradition of abstraction has been ignored in recent times. It gives a modern version of the medieval doctrine of the threefold distinction of essence, made famous by the Islamic philosopher, Avicenna. (shrink)

In this paper the author will assess Plato’s tripartite psychology in the light of his metaphysical account of μέγιστα γένη and One and Many, in order to further clarify the structure of his “dualism”. By doing so, the author will try to show that the tripartition is not a metaphysical conundrum of Plato’s thought and that it cannot be read in the light of Cartesian substance dualism, which is a noticeable approach in contemporary discussions. Aside of that, Plato and Descartes (...) are often understood as the main advocates of the substance dualism. Since the author finds the approach misleading, the aim of the paper is to point out the fundamental differences between the two, foremost by paying attention to the role of body in conceptual determination of soul. (shrink)

In the Republic, Phaedrus, and Timaeus, Socrates holds that the psyche is complex, or has three distinct and semi-autonomous sources of motivation, which he calls the reasoning, spirited, and appetitive parts. While the rational part determines what is best overall and motivates us to pursue it, the spirited and appetitive parts incline us toward different objectives, such as victory, honor, and esteem, or the satisfaction of our desires for food, drink, and sex. While it is obvious that Socrates primarily characterizes (...) and distinguishes the parts in terms of what each desires and pursues, what is less often brought to the fore is that he also characterizes and distinguishes the parts in terms of how they think. More specifically, he claims that the rational part forms its beliefs on the basis of rational calculation, while the spirited and appetitive parts form their beliefs on the basis of how things appear, without scrutinizing those appearances. Socrates’ dual characterization of the parts of the soul raises a question: why does he characterize each part as having the particular desires and cognitive abilities that he does? In general, how do facts about what a part desires relate to facts about how it thinks? In this paper, I suggest an answer to this question, one that I hope sheds light on the nature of the parts of the soul and so on Plato’s theory of tripartition more generally. I conclude by showing that Socrates’ theory bears a notable resemblance to contemporary dual process theories of judgment, according to which we have two distinct processes for forming judgments, one which is broadly akin to reflection and another to intuition. (shrink)

This paper pursues the philosophical significance of a relatively unexplored point of Platonic aesthetics: the social dimension of beauty. The social dimension of beauty resides in its conceptual connection to shame and honour. This dimension of beauty is fundamental to the aesthetic education of the Republic, as becoming virtuous for Plato presupposes a desire to appear and to be admired as beautiful. The ethical significance of beauty, shame, and honour redound to an ethically rich notion of appearing before others which (...) corresponds to a public conception of virtue. I suggest how this dimension of beauty in Plato – particularly the emphasis on beautification – proves fruitful for reconsidering the scope and the nature of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

In this paper, I seek to present the range of issues involved in the efforts of sixteenth‐century kabbalists to understand the nature of selfhood, and the paths prescribed for the formation of an ideal life. I reflect on the mystical writings of Moshe Cordovero, Eliyahu de Vidas, andayyim Vital—probing their conceptions of core identity, the polarity between body and soul, and the ethical guidance for a life well lived. In so doing, I consider the following additional themes, and their relation (...) to the matrix of self‐formation and religious identity: reincarnation and rebirth; the virtue of humility and self‐effacement; the cultivation of wisdom; ideals of piety and prophetic experience; asceticism; and the spiritual transcendence of desire. In presenting this wide range of constituent themes, I argue that sixteenth‐century kabbalists understood the soul to be the ultimate marker of personal identity (nuanced and complicated by the doctrine of reincarnation), and that they formulated a vision of an ideal ethics in which the human being functions as an earthly vessel for the divine presence. What is more, the preparation of that vessel required a degree of humility so extreme that the attainment of ideal personhood ultimately involved the effacement of that very identity. (shrink)

Aristotle is famous for thinking that all our knowledge comes from perception. But it's not immediately clear what this view is meant to entail. It's not clear, for instance, what perception is supposed to contribute to the more advanced forms of knowledge that derive from it. Nor is it clear how we should understand the nature of its contribution—what it might mean to say that these more advanced forms of knowledge are "derived from" or "based on" what we perceive. Aristotle (...) is often thought to have disappointingly little to say on these matters. I argue here that this thought is mistaken: a coherent and philosophically attractive view of perceptual knowledge can be found in the various texts in which Aristotle discusses perception's role in animal life, the cognitive resources on which it does and does not depend, and the relation it bears to practical and theoretical modes of understanding. This book offers a sustained examination of these discussions and their epistemological, psychological, and ethical implications. It defends an interpretation of Aristotle as a moderate sort of empiricist, who thinks that we can develop sophisticated forms of knowledge by broadly perceptual means—and that we therefore share an important part of our cognitive lives with nonrational animals—but also holds that our intellectual powers allow us to surpass these animals in certain ways and thereby develop distinctively human forms of understanding. (shrink)

This book presents a novel interpretation of Aristotle's account of how shame instils virtue, and defends its philosophical import. Shame is shown to provide motivational continuity between the actions of the learners and the virtuous dispositions that they will eventually acquire.

Although most scholars agree that the lexicon of Sophist 232b1-236d4 is similar to that of Republic X, they leave undetermined whether they are theoretically compatible. Notably, both dialogues elucidate the art of imitation through the metaphor of the painter who deceives his pupils through φαντάσματα. I argue that Plato’s conception of imitation of the Republic is not only consistent with that presented in the Sophist, but also importantly integrates it.

I begin by describing certain central features of a prominent Anglophone approach to Platonic virtue over the last few decades. I then present an alternative way of thinking about virtue in Plato that shifts central concern away from moral psychology and questions about virtue's relationship to happiness. The approach I defend focuses on virtue, both as a supreme aim of a person's actions and as something whose nature needs to be determined.

Many philosophers today approach important psychological phenomena, such as weakness of the will and moral motivation, using a broadly Humean distinction between beliefs, which aim to represent the world, and desires, which aim to change the world. On this picture, desires provide the ends or goals of action, while beliefs simply tell us how to achieve those ends. In the Republic, Socrates attempts to explain the phenomena using a different distinction: he argues that the human soul or psyche consists in (...) reason, spirit, and appetite. It is initially tempting to assimilate Socrates’ picture to the standard belief ⁄ desire model, and to think that reason’s role in motivating action is restricted to calculating the best means for satisfying spirited and appetitive desires. But this would be a mistake, since Socrates thinks that each element in the soul is capable of setting the ends of action. But then how exactly should we understand these elements? My aim in this essay is to introduce the reader to Plato’s theory of the tripartite psychology. In part 2, I present Socrates’ argument for the claim that the soul has three elements. In part 3, I provide a general characterization of reason, spirit, and appetite, respectively. I then turn to discuss two central interpretive issues. In part 4, I discuss the sense in which Socrates considers the appetitive and spirited elements to be non-rational. And in the final part of the essay, I discuss the issue of how we ought to conceive of the parts of the soul, and more specifically, whether we should think of them as agent-like parts, or in some other way. (shrink)

Abstract Aristotle's account of Phantasia in De Anima 3.3 is notoriously difficult to decipher. At one point he describes Phantasia as a capacity for producing images, but then later in the same chapter it is clear Phantasia is supposed to explain appearances, such as why the sun appears to be a foot wide. Many commentators argue that images cannot explain appearances, and so they claim that Aristotle is using Phantasia in two different ways. In this paper I argue that images (...) actually explain perceptual appearances for Aristotle, and so Phantasia always refers to images. I take a new approach to interpreting DA 3.3, reading it alongside Plato's Theaetetus and Sophist . In the Theaetetus , Socrates explains how memory gives rise to perceptual appearance. I claim that Aristotle adopts Socrates' account of perceptual appearance, but what Socrates calls memory, Aristotle calls Phantasia. (shrink)

In the Timaeus, human bodies are treated as homeostatic systems, striving to maintain their natural state. This striving constitutes Plato’s explanatory framework for perception: perceptions come about when the equilibrium is shaken, and when it is restored. The article makes two main suggestions: first, that experienced pleasure and pain are grounded in non-experiential departures from and restorations of the natural state. Second, that the striving to maintain the natural state grounds perceptual interests, especially through conscious algesic and hedonic affection. Explanation (...) of what humans find desirable and avoidable in their environment – what they attend to – is a complicated story that in the context of the Timaeus must include the role of human rational abilities. This article, however, only sheds light on its other, very basic aspect: the teleology involved in bodies and how it affects perceptual interests. (shrink)

It is well-known that Plato’s Republic introduces a tripartition of the incarnate human soul; yet quite how to interpret his ‘parts’ 1 is debated. On a strong reading, they are psychological subjects – much as we take ourselves to be, but homunculi, not homines. On a weak reading, they are something less paradoxical: aspects of ourselves, identified by characteristic mental states, dispositional and occurrent, that tend to come into conflict. Christopher Bobonich supports the strong reading in his Plato’s Utopia Recast: (...) His Later Ethics and Politics. In his The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, Hendrik Lorenz agrees with Bobonich that the parts of the soul are ‘the subjects or bearers of psychological states’. Any ascription to my Mental Conflict of the opposed, weak view needs qualification: my Plato is highly ambivalent.2 But my intention here is less to defend an earlier self – though I predict failing to escape it – than to reconsider tripartition in the Republic in the light of Bobonich’s virtuosity and Lorenz’s lucidity. They persuade me of the inexhaustibility of the text, notably within Book 4 from 436 to 439. About these pages we may indeed disagree: they find them decisive in favour of their view, as I don’t. When Socrates remarks, ‘Let us have our understanding still more precise, lest as we proceed we become involved in dispute’, he was not anticipating the dissensions of interpreters. (shrink)

This article updates “The State of the Question in the Study of Plato” (Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1996) based on research covering the years from 1995–2015. Its three major parts examine: (1) how the mid‐twentieth‐century consensus has fared, (2) whether the new trends identified in that article have continued, and (3) identify trends either new or missed in the original article. On the whole, it shows the continuing decline of dogmatic and nondramatic Plato interpretation and the expansion and ramification of (...) the more literary, dramatic, and nondogmatic “new Platonism.” What was a growing insurgency twenty years ago can now be described as a, if not the, dominant approach. (shrink)

This paper argues that the duality of phantasia consists not in its being divided between two faculties, but in its being the meeting point of two representations. First it is argued that Plotinus’ theory, according to which the representation is a judgement, rests on his reading of Theaetetus 184c–187a and its criticism in De Anima III, 2–3. Second, it is argued that the ‘image’ in which the Plotinian representation consists follows the perceptual judgement instead of preceding it. Third, it is (...) argued that there is neither a sub-sensitive faculty of phantasia nor a sub-sensitive representation. Then, the exteriority of the objects of representation with respect to the soul is discussed. Finally, an interpretation is proposed concerning the necessity for Plotinus to posit two representations of the same object. (shrink)

Plato links pleasure with illusion, and this link explains his rejection of the view that all desires are rational desires for the good. The Protagoras and Gorgias show connections between pleasure and illusion; the Republic develops these into a psychological theory. One part of the soul is not only prone to illusions, but also incapable of the kind of reasoning that can dispel them. Pleasure appears good; therefore this part of the soul (the appetitive part) desires pleasures qua good but (...) ignores reasoning about what is really good. Hence the new moral psychology of the Republic: not all desires are rational, and thus virtue depends on bringing one's non-rational desires under the control of reason. (shrink)

The Greeks knew a virtue term that represented the ability to determine which norms deserved commitment, a virtue term usually misunderstood as “prediction of likely outcomes” or “being hesitant”:promêtheia. Plato’s uses of this term, almost completely ignored by scholarship, show a sensitivity to the prerequisites for the capacity for rational agency. We must add this virtue term to the usual suspects related to acting as a rational agent:sôphrosunê, dikaiosunê, phrônesis, andsophia.Promêtheiastands out for its importance in times of ignorance of the (...) future. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

A variety of interpreters have argued that Kant construes the animality of human beings as ‘transformed’, in some sense, through the possession of rationality. I argue that this interpretation admits of multiple readings and that it is either wrong, or doesn't result in the conclusion for which its proponents argue. I also explain the sense in which rationality nevertheless significantly differentiates human beings from other animals.

I offer a novel interpretation of Aristotle's psychology and notion of rationality, which draws the line between animal and specifically human cognition. Aristotle distinguishes belief (doxa), a form of rational cognition, from imagining (phantasia), which is shared with non-rational animals. We are, he says, “immediately affected” by beliefs, but respond to imagining “as if we were looking at a picture.” Aristotle's argument has been misunderstood; my interpretation explains and motivates it. Rationality includes a filter that interrupts the pathways between cognition (...) and behavior. This prevents the subject from responding to certain representations. Stress and damage compromise the filter, making the subject respond indiscriminately, as non-rational animals do. Beliefs are representations that have made it past the filter, which is why they can “affect [us] immediately.” Aristotle's claims express ceteris paribus generalizations, subject to exceptions. No list of provisos could turn them into non-vacuous universal claims, but this does not rob them of their explanatory power. Aristotle's cognitive science resolves a tension we grapple with today: it accounts for the specialness of human action and thinking within a strictly naturalistic framework. The theory is striking in its insight and explanatory power, instructive in its methodological shortcomings. (shrink)

What is a toy? As objects of play, toys seem to be inextricably bound up with mimesis: a child plays ‘make believe’, for example, with a doll or toy cart. But as I will show, Plato has a very different conception of toys from the modern one which tends to conceive of play as essentially mimetic. Toys do not derive their pleasure from being mimetic objects; rather, they are essentially pleasure objects and as such only incidentally mirror the objects of (...) a ‘serious’ or ‘real’ world. (shrink)

In Republic VIII, oligarchy is represented as a transitional or hybrid regime combining features of aristocracy and timocracy with the rule of appetitive desire characteristic of democracy and tyranny. The apparently anomalous intermediary position of oligarchy, in which an object of appetitive soul provides the foundation for interpersonal and political norms, demonstrates the complexity of the interaction between ruling soul parts and underlying rational structures that give unity to each constitution and character type. This interaction cannot be adequately accounted for (...) in terms of the activity of autonomous soul parts whose interactions are wholly reduced to quantitative relations of force. (shrink)

In books 8 and 9 of Plato’s Republic, Socrates provides a detailed account of the nature and origins of four main kinds of vice found in political constitutions and in the kinds of people that correspond to them. The third of the four corrupt kinds of person he describes is the ‘democratic man’. In this paper, I ask what ‘rules’ in the democratic man’s soul. It is commonly thought that his soul is ruled in some way by its appetitive part, (...) or by a particular class of appetitive desires. I reject this view, and argue instead that his soul is ruled by a succession of desires of a full range of different kinds. I show how this view helps us better understand Plato’s depiction of corrupt souls in the Republic more generally, and with it his views on the rule of the soul, appetitive desire, and the nature of vice. (shrink)

The partition of the soul is used extensively, both in Book iv and in Books viii-ix of the Republic, to describe and to explain the structure, growth, and decay, of just and unjust cities and souls. Plato has in mind a single conception of the three parts of the soul, and he expounds it gradually. He recognizes different grades of rationality in desire. These grades help us to understand the roles of the partition of the soul in Plato’s argument.

There has been a recent surge of interest in ancient accounts of free will. It is surprising, then, that there have been virtually no attempts to discuss whether Plato had such an account. Those who have made an attempt quickly deny that such an account is present in the dialogues. I shall argue that if we draw a distinction between two notions of free will, it is plausible that some account of free will is, in fact, present in the dialogues, (...) the Republic in particular. This is the first in depth search into the question and I demonstrate that the defender of a Platonic free will thesis has more resources than she first appears to. It also has the benefit of giving us an obvious source material for Augustine's discussion. (shrink)

Aristotle's claim that natural slaves do not possess autonomous rationality (Pol. 1.5, 1254b20-23) cannot plausibly be interpreted in an unrestricted sense, since this would conflict with what Aristotle knew about non-Greek societies. Aristotle's argument requires only a lack of autonomous practical rationality. An impairment of the capacity for integrated practical deliberation, resulting from an environmentally induced excess or deficiency in thumos (Pol. 7.7, 1327b18-31), would be sufficient to make natural slaves incapable of eudaimonia without being obtrusively implausible relative to what (...) Aristotle is likely to have believed about non-Greeks. Since Aristotle seems to have believed that the existence of people who can be enslaved without injustice is a hypothetical necessity, if those capable oí eudaimonia are to achieve it, the existence of natural slaves has implications for our understanding of Aristotle's natural teleology. (shrink)

In my paper, I defend an interpretation according to which Aristotle thinks in Nicomachean Ethics (EN) that the rational aspect of soul is needed in discerning which ends of desire would be good. Many interpreters have traditionally supported this, ‘rationalist’ line of interpreting Aristotle’s theory of value cognition. The rationalist interpretation has, however, recently come under a novel challenge from Jessica Moss (2011, 2012), but has not yet received a defence. Moss attempts to resurrect now virtually abandoned ‘anti-rationalist’ interpretation, which (...) claims, in a contrast to the rationalist one, that discerning good ends may require no activity from the rational aspect, but only well-habituated non-rational desire. Moss’ interpretation appeals to certain Aristotle’s claims in De Anima (DA) 3, which, she thinks, show that non-rational phantasia suffices for discerning good ends if only accompanied with the habituated desire. Although her interpretation can successfully avoid some problems that earlier anti-rationalist interpretations faced with certain passages of EN, I also argue, however that it introduces some new problems, and attributes philosophically incoherent views about moral responsibility to Aristotle. Therefore I conclude that even after Moss’ improvements to the anti-rationalist interpretation, the rationalist interpretation remains overall more plausible. (shrink)

I argue that given a plausible reading of John Williams’s Stoner (2012 [1965]) the novel throws light on the demands and costs of pursuing a strategy for self-realisation along Platonic lines which seeks unification through the adoption of a single exclusive end in a manner that emulates the Socratic maieutic teacher. The novel does not explicitly argue either for or against such a strategy but rather vividly depicts its difficulties, appeal, and limitations, thus leaving the ultimate evaluation up to the (...) reader. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 60, Issue 1, pp 60 - 87 Aristotle invokes a specifically human desire, namely wish, to provide a teleological explanation of the pursuit of the specifically human good in terms of virtuous activity. Wish is a basic, unreasoned desire which, independently of other desires, or evaluative attitudes, motivates the pursuit of the human good. Even a person who pursues what she mistakenly believes to be good is motivated by wish for what in fact is good, although she (...) is oblivious of it. (shrink)

In this paper, we show that there are some strong philosophical and exegetical reasons to argue that according to the view developed in the first chapter of Aristotle’s De Memoria, the objects of memory are non-present, or absent, things and events rather than our past acts of awareness of them. We argue that on Aristotle’s account, the objects of memory can be particulars or universals, perceptibles or intelligibles, and that all these kinds of things are past in the same sense, (...) namely, in the sense of previously having been present to the perceiver or knower. Aristotle’s claim that we remember that we previously learned or saw something is the description of how, rather than what, we remember. Keywords: Aristotle, memory, past, pathos, present. (shrink)

One puzzling feature of Plato’s Republic is the First City or ‘city of pigs’. Socrates praises the First City as a “true”, “healthy” city, yet Plato abandons it with little explanation. I argue that the problem is not a political failing, as most previous readings have proposed: the First City is a viable political arrangement, where one can live a deeply Socratic lifestyle. But the First City has a psychological corollary, that the soul is simple rather than tripartite. Plato sees (...) this ‘First Soul’ as an inaccurate model of moral psychology, and so rejects it, along with its political analogue. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that Aristotle operates with a particular theoretical model in his explanation of animal locomotion, what we call the ‘centralized incoming and outgoing motions’ model. We show how the model accommodates more complex cases of animal motion and how it allows Aristotle to preserve the intuition that animals are self-movers, without jeopardizing his arguments for the eternity of motion and the necessary existence of one eternal unmoved mover in Physics VIII. The CIOM model helps to elucidate (...) Aristotle’s two central yet problematic claims, namely that the soul is the efficient cause of animal motion and that it is the internal supporting-point necessary for animal motion. Moreover, the CIOM model helps us to explain the difference between voluntary, involuntary and non-voluntary motions, and to square Aristotle’s cardiocentrism with his hylomorphism, but also, more generally, it provides an interesting way of thinking about the place of intentionality in the causal structure of the world. (shrink)

I introduce and argue for the importance of a cognitive state that I call alief. An alief is, to a reasonable approximation, an innate or habitual propensity to respond to an apparent stimulus in a particular way. Recognizing the role that alief plays in our cognitive repertoire provides a framework for understanding reactions that are governed by nonconscious or automatic mechanisms, which in turn brings into proper relief the role played by reactions that are subject to conscious regulation and deliberate (...) control. (shrink)

Aristotle claims that "although we perceive particulars, perception is of universals; for instance of human being, not of Callias-the-human-being" (APo II.19 100a16-b1). I offer an interpretation of this claim and examine its significance in Aristotle's epistemology.

I argue that a study of the Nicomachean Ethics and of the Parva Naturalia shows that Aristotle had a notion of attention. This notion captures the common aspects of apparently different phenomena like perceiving something vividly, being distracted by a loud sound or by a musical piece, focusing on a geometrical problem. For Aristotle, these phenomena involve a specific selectivity that is the outcome of the competition between different cognitive stimuli. This selectivity is attention. I argue that Aristotle studied the (...) common aspects of the physiological processes at the basis of attention and its connection with pleasure. His notion can explain perceptual attention and intellectual attention as voluntary or involuntary phenomena. In addition, it sheds light on how attention and enjoyment can enhance our cognitive activities. (shrink)

La concepción platónica de las experiencias visual y auditiva en un doble nivel repercute en su propuesta educativa y política, expresada, entre otros diálogos, en República. Un estudio filológico de estos campos semánticos en el Libro VIII e inicio del Libro IX de República permite postular que, para el ateniense, los cambios en las formas de la polis están ligados a cambios en los modos de ver y oír humanos. Así, el desplazamiento puede producirse desde una mirada y audición profundas (...) a una mirada y audición superficiales, desde un oír- ver unitarios a múltiples, o del ver y oír al no-ver ni oír. En todos los casos,este desplazamiento tiene como correlato un desplazamiento en las formas de organización de la polis. (shrink)

How homogenous are the sources of human motivation? Textbook Humeans hold that every human action is motivated by desire, thus any heterogeneity derives from differing objects of desire. Textbook Kantians hold that although some human actions are motivated by desire, others are motivated by reason. One question in this vicinity concerns whether there are states such that to be in one is at once take the world to be a certain way and to be motivated to act: the state-question. My (...) question here is different: whether passion and reason constitute distinct sources of human motivation: the source question. In this essay, I defend an affirmative answer to the source-question while remaining neutral on the state-question. I distinguish between what I call orectic desires, which are associated with the appetites, and anorectic desires, which are associated with judgments of the good. I argue that the two sorts of desires constitute distinct sources of motivation initially on the basis of their differing epistemological profiles. Specifically, self-attributions of anorectic desires are governed by the transparency condition, self-attributions of orectic desires are not. It emerges from this discussion that the motivation for performing an action arises in very different ways from each sort of desire. This difference, in turn, is explained by their differing relations to the will. Roughly, an orectic desire influences the will, but an anorectic desire is the will. The motivation to perform some of our actions derives simply from the determination that they are to-be-done—from reason. (shrink)

Scholars often assert that Plato and Aristotle share the view that discursive thought is internal speech. However, there has been little work to clarify or substantiate this reading. In this paper I show Plato and Aristotle share some core commitments about the relationship of thought and speech, but cash out TIS in different ways. Plato and Aristotle both hold that discursive thinking is a process that moves from a set of doxastic states to a final doxastic state. The resulting judgments (...) can be true or false. Norms govern these final judgments and, in virtue of that, they govern the process that arrives at those judgments. The principal norm is consistency. However, the philosophers differ on the source of this norm. For Plato, persuasiveness and accuracy ground non-contradiction because internal speech is dialogical. For Aristotle, the Principle of Non-Contradiction grounds a Doxastic Thesis that no judgment can contradict itself. For Aristotle, metaphysics grounds non-contradiction because internal speech is monological. (shrink)

This article examines the problem of mental partitioning and mental conflict in Han 漢 dynasty sources. It begins by outlining two Greek psychological models—the Platonic tripartite model and the Stoic monistic model—and explains the connection between the two psychological models and their differing descriptions of mental conflict. It then analyzes passages from a seldom discussed text, the _Extended Reflections_ (_Shenjian_ 申鑒), written by the Eastern Han thinker X un Yue 荀悅. A combined analysis of the _Extended Reflections_ with fragments from (...) other Han dynasty thinkers uncovers debates on mental partitioning and mental conflict that are in some ways analogous to those found in Greek philosophical literature. One view posits that the human psyche is composed of two parts capable of producing conflicting motivations. The other view sees all actions as stemming from a single psychological center. The conclusions of this article offer new perspectives on early Chinese moral psychology that have important implications for modern research on early Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

I explain what Aristotle means when, after puzzling about the matter of motion in incomplete animals (those without sight, smell, hearing), he suggests in De Anima III 11.433b31–434a5 that just as incomplete animals are moved indeterminately, desire and phantasia are present in those animals, but present indeterminately. I argue that self-motion and its directing faculties in incomplete animals differ in degree but not in kind from those of complete animals. I examine how an object of desire differs for an incomplete (...) animal. Using a comparison with Aristotle’s account of recollection, especially in unfavorable circumstances, I describe indeterminate self-motion. Finally, I discuss implications for our understanding of Aristotle’s accounts of the faculties of the soul and incomplete animals. (shrink)

I reconstruct Aristotle’s reasons for thinking that the intellect cannot have a bodily organ. I present Aristotle’s account of the aboutness or intentionality of cognitive states, both perceptual and intellectual. On my interpretation, Aristotle’s account is based around the notion of cognitive powers taking on forms in a special preservative way. Based on this account, Aristotle argues that no physical structure could enable a bodily part or combination of bodily parts to produce or determine the full range of forms that (...) the human intellect can understand. For Aristotle, cognitive powers with bodily organs are always spatiotemporally limited, but the understanding is not. Aristotle claims that our understanding applies to all instances of the thing understood wherever and whenever they exist. On Aristotle’s own account the intellect in its nature is only “potential,” it does not actually possess any form. Thus nothing prevents it from possessing all forms. (shrink)

I examine the passages where Aristotle maintains that intellectual activity employs φαντάσματα (images) and argue that he requires awareness of the relevant images. This, together with Aristotle’s claims about the universality of understanding, gives us reason to reject the interpretation of Michael Wedin and Victor Caston, on which φαντάσματα serve as the material basis for thinking. I develop a new interpretation by unpacking the comparison Aristotle makes to the role of diagrams in doing geometry. In theoretical understanding of mathematical and (...) natural beings, we usually need to employ appropriate φαντάσματα in order to grasp explanatory connections. Aristotle does not, however, commit himself to thinking that images are required for exercising all theoretical understanding. Understanding immaterial things, in particular, may not involve employing phantasmata. Thus the connection that Aristotle makes between images and understanding does not rule out the possibility that human intellectual activity could occur apart from the body. (shrink)

This paper considers the use that Plato makes of the Principle of Non-Contradiction in his engagements with eristic refutations. By examining Plato’s use of the principle in his most detailed engagements with eristic—in the Sophist, the discussion of “agonistic” argumentation in the Theaetetus, and especially the Euthydemus—I aim to show that the pressure exerted on Plato by eristic refutations played a crucial role in his development of the PNC, and that the principle provided him with a much more sophisticated means (...) of demarcating philosophical argumentation from eristic than he is generally thought to have. In particular, I argue that Plato’s qualified formulation of the PNC restricts the class of genuine contradictions in such a way that reveals the contradictions that eristics produce through their refutations to be merely apparent and that Plato consistently appeals to his qualified conception of genuine contradiction in his encounters with eristics in order to demonstrate that their refutations are merely apparent. The paper concludes by suggesting that the conception of genuine contradiction afforded by the PNC did not just provide Plato with a way of demarcating genuine from eristic refutations, but also with an answer to substantive philosophical challenges that eristics raised through their refutations. (shrink)

En la República Platón parece romper con el intelectualismo socrático al aceptar deseos independientes del bien. Sin embargo, esto no le impide seguir afirmando que el alma hace todo lo que hace en virtud del bien. Para resolver esta aparente contradicción en el presente artículo se insiste en la distinción entre deseos y valores. Los deseos, generados en las partes del alma, están apegados a sus objetos propios, pero los valores revisten estos deseos de imágenes del bien y otros elementos (...) cognitivos que los convierten en móviles aceptables de la acción en la unidad del alma, por lo que hay que distinguir una volición independiente del bien en las partes del alma y una volición que actúa sub specie boni en el contexto de un alma unitaria que ha de decidir entre deseos opuestos entre sí. (shrink)

Traditional interpretations of Aristotle’s theory of perception mainly focus on uncovering the underlying mechanisms that are at stake when perceivers are affected by sensible qualities. Investigating the nature of sense perception is one of Aristotle’s main worries and one that he explicitly relates to the question of its causes (e. g.Sens. 436a16–17, 436b9) and its ends (e. g.de An. 434a30 ff.). Therefore I suggest that, in order to fully explain Aristotle’s view of perceptual phenomena, the possibilities, the constraints, and the (...) goals defined by the embodied and situated engagement of perceivers with the external world must be taken into account. Accordingly, in this paper, I provide an affective reading of Aristotle’s theory of perception. I shall ask what, in addition to functioning sense organs and appropriate response mechanisms, the perceiver contributes to perceptual content. Specifically, I propose to shed light on the significance of perceptual experience for the perceiver and I aim to show that, according to Aristotle, one’s biological and personal qualities are perceptually relevant, meaning that they underpin perception, rather than coming into play after perception has occurred and its objects have been discerned. The paper is divided into two parts, respectively dealing with sensory affections and more complex affective phenomena. As regards the domain of primal sense perception, I will focus on smell as a representative example: since Aristotle identifies it as the least developed of human sensory faculties, it will serve as a revealing illustration of how sense perception is informed and qualified by what, drawing on contemporary philosophical terminology, I will call ‘perceptual interests’, viz. the affective sense of what is at stake in the living being’s interaction with the environment. I will then proceed to consider the way more complex affective phenomena underpin perception by examining the case of emotions and that of virtues of character. By showing how perception is affectively inflected and how emotion is rooted in perception’s bodily nature, I aim to sketch out the general lines along which I believe that the Aristotelian theory of perception should be approached. (shrink)