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chapter 7The matter of mind: Aristotle on the biology of‘psychic’ processes and the bodily aspects of thinking1 psychology, biology, and variationsin cognitive performancesAlthough Aristotle’s On the Soul (De anima ) has for centuries been regardedas a ‘metaphysical’ rather than a ‘physical’, or as a ‘philosophical’ ratherthan a ‘scientific’, work, there seems nowadays to be a consensus amongstudents of his psychology as to the thoroughly biological status of thetheory set forth there. 1 This may have to do with recent developments inthe philosophy of mind, but it is probably also related to a reassessmentof the importance of Aristotle’s zoological writings (i.e. History of Animals(Hist. an.), Parts of Animals (Part. an.), Generation of Animals (Gen. an.),Progression of Animals (De incessu animalium, IA) and Movement of Animals(De motu an.)) and to a growing conviction among students of Aristotle’sbiology concerning the interrelatedness of what were traditionally calledthe ‘psychological writings’ of Aristotle (i.e. On the Soul and parts of theParva naturalia) and the zoological works. There also seems to be a generalagreement as to the basic consistency of Aristotle’s psychological theory, orat least a tendency to explain apparent contradictions between On the Souland the Parva naturalia on the one hand, and statements related to thesoul in the zoological writings on the other (or between On the Soul andthe Parva naturalia, or between different sections of the Parva naturalia)as the result of differences of method, approach, or argumentative strategyof particular treatises or contexts rather than in terms of a development inAristotle’s psychological ideas. 2This chapter was first published in W. Kullmann and S. Föllinger (eds.), Aristotelische Biologie. Intentionen,Methoden, Ergebnisse (Stuttgart, 1997) 221–58.1 See, e.g., Kahn (1966) 46ff.; Sorabji (1974) 65–6.2 For a convenient summary of the older discussion – initiated by Nuyens (1948) and applied to theParva naturalia by Drossaart Lulofs (1947) and Block (1961a) – see Fortenbaugh (1967) 316–27. Thecompatibility of ‘instrumentalism’ and ‘hylomorphism’ was stressed by Kahn (1966); Lefèvre (1972)and (1978); and for the Parva naturalia by Wiesner (1978); and Wijsenbeek-Wijler (1976). See also206