Abstract

In an article entitled “Is an Aristotelian Philosophy of Mind Still Credible? A Draft,” Myles Burnyeat suggested that we might do “what the seventeenth century did . . . [with the Aristotelian concept of the mind] . . . junk it.” Burnyeat buttressed this controversial claim, in large part, on the premise that it is difficult to believe that mental facts are not supervenient on physical facts in the wake of post-enlightenment thinking. Various valiant attempts to save Aristotle’s philosophy of mind from being junked soon followed. One strategy that found favor among some scholars was that of arguing that Aristotle’s physics really is not in conflict with the idea that mental facts supervene upon physical facts. Scholars such as Michael Wedin and Victor Caston read Aristotle as maintaining a supervenience thesis in Physics 7.3. I disagree with the view that ascribes supervenience physicalism to Aristotle. The general strategy for providing support for my view is as follows: I first aim to discredit the view that ascribes supervenience physicalism to Aristotle on the basis of Physics 7.3. Thereafter, I turn to more psychological and biological texts to argue that Aristotle’s central views therein are unfriendly to supervenience physicalism