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11366 results in Ancient philosophy

Page 128 of 569

  • Introduction to Hylomorphic Psychology

  • Jason W. Carter, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    Aristotle on Earlier Greek Psychology
    Published online:
    08 March 2019
    Print publication:
    21 March 2019, pp 1-18

  • Summary

    There is a long-standing puzzle about how Aristotle come to believe that the soul is the form of a body which possesses life potentially. This is because the hylomorphic theory of nature that Aristotle develops in his Physics to account for natural things and their changes in terms of material, formal, efficient, and final causes does not on its own provide a clear answer as to what the soul is. I argue that the way Aristotle tries to determine the answer to this question essentially involves an investigation into earlier Greek psychological theories and constrains him to adopt five theses that characterise hylomorphic psychology: the Hylomorphic Thesis that soul is a fulfilment of a bodily potential, the Efficient-Final Causal Thesis that the soul is an efficient and final cause of the body's motions, the Non-Uniformity Thesis that there is no one uniform kind of thing in nature called 'soul', the Part-Hood Thesis that the soul has capacity-parts, which are not spatially divisible from one another in a given body, and the Separability Thesis that the mental capacity of soul might exist separate from the body.

  • Chapter 5 - Xenocrates’ Psychology

  • from Part II - Earlier Theories of Psychological Motion
  • Jason W. Carter, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    Aristotle on Earlier Greek Psychology
    Published online:
    08 March 2019
    Print publication:
    21 March 2019, pp 103-122

  • Summary

    In Chapter 5, I show how Aristotle appeals to his demonstrative heuristic in criticising the second head of the Platonic Academy, Xenocrates, for his inability to give a plausible theory of how the soul, defined as a ‘self-moving number’, can be instantiated in the body so as to move it. What Aristotle gains from this obscure set of criticisms is the idea that some kinds of formal entities, namely, mathematical forms, such as points and numbers, are not explanatory of the soul’s motive powers or affections. This places a negative constraint on his theory of soul that leads him to affirm the Hylomorphic Thesis.

  • Conclusion: Hylomorphic Psychology as a Dualism

  • Jason W. Carter, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    Aristotle on Earlier Greek Psychology
    Published online:
    08 March 2019
    Print publication:
    21 March 2019, pp 219-227

  • Summary

    In the conclusion, I assess the contribution that Aristotle’s criticisms of earlier Greek psychology make towards establishing a science of soul, in the sense of justifying, and helping us to understand better, the Hylomorphic Thesis, the Efficient-Final Causal Thesis, the Non-Uniformity Thesis, the Part-Hood Thesis, and the Separability Thesis. These results, I argue, show that Aristotle’s hylomorphic psychology is best understood as a dualistic one, which affirms that plants and non-human animals are constituted by interdependent substances and that human beings are constituted by one dependent substance, the body, and one independent one, the rational soul.

  • Chapter 7 - Empedocles’ Psychology

  • from Part III - Earlier Theories of Psychological Cognition
  • Jason W. Carter, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    Aristotle on Earlier Greek Psychology
    Published online:
    08 March 2019
    Print publication:
    21 March 2019, pp 143-167

  • Summary

    In Chapter 7, I show how Aristotle appeals to the demonstrative heuristic in scrutinising Empedoclean and other elemental theories of soul that try to explain the soul’s ability to cognise. He does so in order to show that the law-like principle that ‘like cognises like’ is too limited to explain the extent of the soul’s knowledge, and that it is inconsistent with the Axiom of Causal Association. What he gains from this criticism is the idea that the domain of what we can cognise extends beyond the domain of what the material or immaterial elements, operating by the cognitive likeness principle, could know. From this Aristotle infers that the soul cannot be reduced to the elements. However, by adding two important modifications to the principle that ‘like cognises like’, I show that Aristotle imports a version of Empedocles’ likeness principle into his own hylomorphic psychology, which I call the Refined Cognitive Likeness Axiom.

How to Be a Pyrrhonist
  • The Practice and Significance of Pyrrhonian Skepticism
  • Richard Bett
  • Published online:
    15 March 2019
    Print publication:
    21 March 2019
  • What was it like to be a practitioner of Pyrrhonist skepticism? This important volume brings together for the first time a selection of Richard Bett's essays on ancient Pyrrhonism, allowing readers a better understanding of the key aspects of this school of thought. The volume examines Pyrrhonism's manner of self-presentation, including its methods of writing, its desire to show how special it is, and its use of humor; it considers Pyrrhonism's argumentative procedures regarding specific topics, such as signs, space, or the Modes; and it explores what it meant in practice to live as a Pyrrhonist, including the kind of ethical outlook which Pyrrhonism might allow and, in general, the character of a skeptical life - and how far these might strike us as feasible or desirable. It also shows how Pyrrhonism often raises questions that matter to us today, both in our everyday lives and in our philosophical reflection.

Aristotle on Earlier Greek Psychology
  • The Science of Soul
  • Jason W. Carter
  • Published online:
    08 March 2019
    Print publication:
    21 March 2019
  • This volume is the first in English to provide a full, systematic investigation into Aristotle's criticisms of earlier Greek theories of the soul from the perspective of his theory of scientific explanation. Some interpreters of the De Anima have seen Aristotle's criticisms of Presocratic, Platonic, and other views about the soul as unfair or dialectical, but Jason W. Carter argues that Aristotle's criticisms are in fact a justified attempt to test the adequacy of earlier theories in terms of the theory of scientific knowledge he advances in the Posterior Analytics. Carter proposes a new interpretation of Aristotle's confrontations with earlier psychology, showing how his reception of other Greek philosophers shaped his own hylomorphic psychology and led him to adopt a novel dualist theory of the soul–body relation. His book will be important for students and scholars of Aristotle, ancient Greek psychology, and the history of the mind–body problem.

Page 128 of 569