Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Aristotle on the matter of mind 217(3) Thirdly, there are contexts in which Aristotle is giving a physiologicalexplanation of variations in the distribution of psychic capacities or in theirperformance among various species of animals or types within one species –variations which, as I said, can be either purposive or without a purpose.Such a comprehensive analysis is clearly beyond the scope of the presentstudy. Moreover, the anatomical and physiological aspects of nutrition andof visual perception have recently been dealt with by Althoff (1997) andOser-Grote (1997). For these practical reasons, the second part of thechapter will attempt to apply these general considerations to the highestpsychic function only, the notoriously tricky subject of thinking andintelligence.2 the bodily aspects of thinkingAristotle’s sketchy and intriguing remarks on and its relation to thebody in De an. 3.4–5 have attracted a lot of scholarly attention, and the discussionon the precise implications of Aristotle’s statements concerning theincorporeality of the intellect is still continuing. 41 Rather than adding to thevast amount of secondary literature on that topic, I shall confine myself toa discussion of a number of passages, mostly from the zoological writings,but also from On the Soul itself, in which Aristotle deals with the physicalaspects of human (and animal) thinking. In order to avoid misunderstanding,it is perhaps useful to say from the outset that I shall be concerned withthe intellectual activity of organisms rather than with the (divine) intellectitself, that is, with operations of the intellect in human (and to some extentalso animal) cognition. 42 However, this does not mean a restriction to concreteacts of thinking (which might be seen as instances of participation byembodied souls in an incorporeal principle), for some of the passages to bediscussed deal with structures and dispositions rather than with instantaneousacts of thinking, that is to say, they also pertain to the level of the ‘firstactuality’. A second preliminary remark is that the focus will be on the rolethese physical factors play rather than on the factors themselves: a comprehensiveand systematic account of all individual factors involved (e.g. the41 For two recent interpretations see Kahn (1992), especially 366ff., and Wedin (1994); see also Wedin(1989).42 Cf. the distinction between ‘the principle or faculty of nous as such and its concrete activity in us,in human acts of thinking’ made by Kahn (1992) 362 and 367. It should be said, however, that thisdistinction is less clear in Aristotle than Kahn suggests; nor is it clear why the distinction betweenthe principle and its concrete activities does not apply just as well to sensation – and if it does, whatremains of the unique status of nous. Cf. Frede (1992) 105–7.