Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

Aristotle on the matter of mind 233but whose existence, however marginal their importance may be, Aristotlerecognises as interesting and in need of explanation 89 – an explanationwhich invokes the principle that even within the category of ‘what is contraryto nature’ there is such a thing as ‘according tonature’ .However much this may seem to be applauded, it remains unclear howthese gradualist and compensatory explanations should be accommodatedwithin the ‘normative’ theory of De an. 3.4–8, for in explaining all thesevariations by reference to bodily variables he seems to grant physical conditionsa greater influence on intellectual activities than his ‘canonical’ viewof the incorporeality of nous would seem to allow.To be sure, it may be asked whether there is actually such a tension, for itmight be argued that all instances of bodily influence on intellectual activitydiscussed above can be classified under the rubric of the ‘dependence ofthe intellect on appearances’. 90 Yet even if this is true, we still have gaineda much more detailed view on how this dependence may work out in particularcases, what may go wrong in the supply of images to the intellectand what range of bodily factors may actually influence this supply, andindeed not only the supply but also the quality of images, and even the actof thinking itself. Whether this affects the thesis of the incorporeality of theintellect, remains to be seen. 91 One way in which it would not do so, is toassume that the bodily influences only apply to lower levels of intellectualactivity such as doxa (‘opinion’), hupolēpsis (‘supposition’), dianoia (‘discursivethought’), not to nous, or to ‘practical’ not ‘theoretical’ intellect, or to‘passive’ not ‘active’ intellect. 92 This is a problematic solution because, as iswell known, it is not easy to see how the various terminological distinctionsbetween intellectual powers that Aristotle makes are related to each other,and we have also seen that the passages on bodily influence do not seemto be very specific with regard to the precise intellectual power they are89 On all these phenomena, and their place in Aristotle’s philosophy, see ch. 5 in this volume,pp. 164 ff.90 This seems to be the view taken by most interpreters who have dealt with (some of) the passagesI have discussed; see, e.g., Kahn (1992) 366 n. 11 on De an. 408 b 9: ‘In mentioning bodily changein connection with thinking, Aristotle must be referring to phantasms’; Tracy (1969) 272ff.; andVerbeke (1978) 201–2 with n. 55.91 See Aristotle’s uneasiness about this in De an. 403 a 8–10.92 See Kahn (1992) 362–3: ‘It is not the disembodied principle of nous that requires phantasms; it isour use of nous, the penetration of nous into our embodied activity as sentient animals, which musttake place by means of the phantasms, that is, through the neurophysiological mechanism of senseand the mental imagery of conscious thought.’ A distinction between and seemsto be implied in De an. 408 b 24–5, although Aristotle is very tentative (cf. the use of in b 29).On different modes of thinking see also Lowe (1983) 17–30.