The Extension of Method in Aristotle's "de Anima"
Dissertation, University of Southern California (
1988)
Copy
BIBTEX
Abstract
In De Anima, Aristotle's treatise on the soul, there is an extraordinary methodological difficulty which I believe to be of great philosophical interest. It seems that in his inquiry into the soul, Aristotle runs into some difficulty, he then abandons his method of science from the Organon and proceeds instead with an account of soul which is different in nature and which is arrived at by a different method. ;In the chapters of this dissertation, I defend the thesis that some difficulties in the inquiry into the soul force Aristotle to depart from the method of the Organon and to adopt a different, though untheorized, method, allowing him to arrive at a "most fitting account" of the soul. ;The difficult subject matter of soul, and possibly others, call for a "most fitting account." ;In a teleological analysis of Aristotle's logic of science I critically examine Aristotle's logic of science in the Organon. I also examine closely the difficulties which this method encounters in De Anima and Aristotle's adoption of a different method for a most fitting account.