[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]
The present volume is the result of the conference Aristotle and Contemporary Philosophy of Mind: An Encounter, held in Gothenburg in June 2018. It is divided into five parts that deal with key issues of Aristotelian interpretation as well as Aristotle’s relevance to modern problems in the philosophy of mind.
Part I: Methodology concerns the role of dialectic in the opening sections of De Anima (henceforth DA). Colin Guthrie King shows that Aristotle excludes dialectic as the primary methodology for researches on the soul, without nevertheless rejecting several of the dialectician’s tools for the conduct of psychological research. He argues that, while Aristotle gathers opinions of previous philosophers on the issue, there are differences between his method in DA and standard dialectical tactics: the δόξαι summarized in DA are not like ἔνδοξα in that they are not widely accepted views but presuppositions that motivate two common earlier views about the soul, namely, that the soul is a moved mover and that it is the agent of perception and cognition.
Giulia Mingucci examines the relation obtaining between the definitions of the soul in DA II.1 and II.2 through a novel interpretation of APo II.8-10. The author takes up Aristotle’s remark that division might be the appropriate method of examining the soul and shows that Aristotelian multiple-lines divisions succeed where Academic dichotomy fails. She then turns to DA II.2, where Aristotle proposes a different method for defining the soul by proceeding from “what is unclear yet more apparent” to “what is clear and more familiar in account.”[1] Mingucci focuses on an unspecified definition of the essence of the soul and claims that it can be reconstructed by combining Aristotle’s remark that ascertaining the properties of a substance contributes to knowing its essence with his proposal to proceed from “what is unclear but more apparent.” The latter is construed as involving induction, thereby offering a hint as to which are the apparent properties that can lead to the soul’s essence: the observable “properties of the living being qua possessor of the soul” (p. 55), from which one may proceed to elaborate a definition of the essence of the soul along the lines of DA II.2, 414a12–13, where soul is defined as that by which we primarily live and think.
Robert Bolton argues methodically that Aristotle’s interest in DA II.5 is to limit the change that takes place in the object perceived during veridical perception. Initially, he shows that the two ἔνδοξα cited at the beginning of II.5 are not meant to initiate a dialectical problem but to serve as sensible starting points for examining the formal and efficient cause of perception, respectively. Aristotle then focuses on the type of change a perceiver undergoes when switching from being passively to being actively perceptive and brings in the case of knowledge as a parallel: transitioning from illiteracy to literacy involves the destruction of a state by its contrary, whereas activation of literacy in the already skilled reader involves a preservation of the potentiality for literacy. Bolton dissolves a contradiction which presents Aristotle as arguing that in the case of acquisition of literacy no genuine change is involved in the patient and shows that what remains unaltered is the agent of literacy, i.e., the skilled teacher. In the case of perception, the transition to actuality is caused by external agents: when switching to actively perceiving, the alteration involved must be of the sort described as preservation. Bolton proves that what is preserved is not our perceptive organ, but the agent of perception, i.e., the external object that switches from inactivity to actuality without transitioning between contraries.
Katerina Ierodiakonou leads off Part II: Methodology with a reconstruction of Aristotle’s theory of perception and sight as relatives. Starting from the philosopher’s remark in Categories 7, where perception is classified as a πρός τι, Ierodiakonou turns to Alexander’s commentary on Aristotle’s De Sensu 6, where we find a distinction between different types of relatives (σχέσις) along with a statement that sight requires a relation between seer and object seen; yet, its nature is not exhausted in it, i.e., it does not consist in a mere Cambridge change, as, for example, happens in symmetrical relations, but needs in addition some sort of perceptive capacity. The author examines the history of the term σχέσις and traces out its presumably Stoic roots, arguing that Alexander’s usage may be due to the influence of the fourth Stoic category of “the relatively somehow disposed.” She concludes with caution that, despite the justifiable concern that Alexander may be importing his own views into Aristotle’s doctrine, he develops successfully Aristotle’s view by making use of the Stoic distinction of relatives.
Pavel Gregoric reevaluates the evidence regarding reflexive awareness in Aristotle, focusing primarily on awareness of not seeing and hearing. He initiates his account with a presentation of DA III.2, where it is argued that we perceive that we are sensing through the relevant sense, and the seemingly contradictory view put forward in De somno 2, where our awareness of perception comes about through “some common power that accompanies the senses.” Gregoric finds fault with Caston’s “activity reading,” according to which every act of, say, sensing a color is unfailingly accompanied by a perception of seeing that color. Arguing plausibly that negative awareness is crucial for an animal’s survival, he shifts the focus to textual evidence that suggests Aristotle’s commitment to the idea that reflexive awareness of the inactivity of the senses is due to a κοινὴ δύναμις which is always active in a wakeful state and shuts down during sleep. Gregoric concludes that tokens of reflexive awareness can occur without necessarily involving tokens of first-order perception.
Part III: Representation begins with Filip Radovic’s examination of the various senses of image (εἴδωλον) in Aristotle and the relative ways in which φαντασία may be described as an image. After a small excursus on the traditional uses of εἴδωλον, Radovic distinguishes three senses in Aristotle, namely, (a) as a mirror reflection, (b) as an internal visual object/figure conjured by image-makers to enhance memory, and (c) as a secondary manifestation of feelings and emotions in memory and anticipation. The author pushes an identification between φάντασμα and the second sense, without explicitly endorsing an inner object theory of perception. The chapter concludes with an exploration of the various senses of “image” and a critique of Nussbaum’s rejection of the characterization of φαντάσματα as images.
Victor Caston offers a study against associating Aristotle with the theory that perception involves inspection of an inner object by the mind’s eye. Caston begins by toning down Aristotle’s talk of visualization as amounting to merely an acknowledgement of a phenomenological fact. He then examines passages that have been construed as implying perception of a φάντασμα, mostly Mem. 1, where Aristotle offers a representational theory of memory: the φάντασμα, which allows one to remember, is presented here as some sort of picture. Caston directs our attention to Mem. 1, 450b11–27, where a distinction is introduced between regarding a φάντασμα in itself or as a copy, in which case the φάντασμα is “of another” (ἄλλου): against construing this genitive as objective, he proposes a referential reading, according to which a copy “traces back” to its cause which may be absent (p. 184). Finally, Caston discusses Insomn. 3, where Aristotle describes how people may be deceived when dreaming so as to think that they are perceiving when in fact they are not. Caston rightly argues that the mistake cannot be caused by the subject’s confusing one object, i.e. an internal one, with an external: for this misidentification to hold, φαντάσματα must be mental images, something that cannot be the case since Aristotle elsewhere describes them as changes in the blood.
Part IV: Intellect opens with Sophia Connell’s exploration of the dependence of theoretical thinking on the human body. Countering the alleged incompatibility between νοῦς and the physical sciences, her analysis builds progressively from processes shared between humans and animals (φρόνησις) to an exposition of the aspects in which the sensory and nutri-generative soul contribute to perception and understanding. Focusing on De Generatione Animalium, Connell foregrounds the role of the nutri-generative soul which emerges as the primary agent and origin of development of the other soul capacities, particularly through the function of blood. The author fleshes out the dependence of νοῦς on the senses: given that φαντάσματα are necessary for thinking, their quality depends on αἰσθήματα whose accuracy is in turn tied to the proper function of our sense organs. Thus, factors such as the blood as well as the skin, the flesh, and the heart are illuminated as agents whose inadequate function compromises the quality of φαντάσματα. Connell then focuses on the structure of the human body and its contribution to the human behavior of positing why questions, which are the building blocks of theoretical knowledge. The final section deals with the importance of the nutritive faculty for maintaining balance in the operations required for the proper function of the bodily underpinnings of human thought.
Robert Roreitner detects a tension in Aristotle’s thought about the νοῦς-body relationship, represented by two opposed lines of interpretation, namely, that (a) νοῦς is equally dependent on the body as the rest of the activities of the soul and thus falls within the purview of the physical science (the assimilative view), and (b) the body is not directly involved in the activity of νοῦς, which is thus ontologically separable (the separatist view). The author believes the dichotomy to be a false one and argues plausibly to the effect that the disinvolvement of the body in the activity of the νοῦς does not entail the latter’s ability to be active without a body. Significantly, Roreitner returns to the ontological dependence of thinking on φαντασία, focusing particularly on its indispensability when thought is directed at immaterial objects: he concludes by developing further Alexander of Aphrodisias’ suggestion that the dependence of thinking on φαντασία is premised on our thinking of the immaterial νοητά as causes for material objects, which can only be thought through φαντασία.
In the first chapter of Part V: Hylomorphism, Howard Robinson presents a case against the ability of hylomorphism to address the problem of the interaction between the mental and the physical. The author challenges the tenet that hylomorphism can accommodate physical closure on the basis that the Aristotelian framework requires attributing a special causal role to form in the explanation of “the distribution of matter and its motion” (p. 284). He likewise notices the shortcomings of attempts to identify form with structure and proceeds to highlight the insufficiency of explanations of consciousness through appeal to syntactic engines which fail to accord the required prominence to abductive thinking and semantics. The overarching conclusion is that, despite appearing confused from a modern perspective, Aristotle was insightful enough to argue for the immateriality of the intellect and its irreducibility to purely mechanistic operations.
Christopher Shields examines how Aristotelian hylomorphism can tackle the problem of mental causation. First, he seeks to formulate the premises of the Exclusion Argument, which roughly specifies that, unless some sort of reductive materialism is adopted, mental events are relegated to causal inertia and are thus wholly epiphenomenal. Upon thorough inspection, the last premise required to give rise to the problem as well as its amended versions are all found to be patently false. The author then argues that the problem does not even arise in the Aristotelian framework since, for Aristotle, any mental state requires the presence of “functionally suitable matter” (p. 319), which nonetheless is not constitutive of the relevant mental state until appropriately structured by the property definitive of that state.
The contributions are carefully crafted and lucidly written, while the antithetical positioning of the chapters—in a small Appendix, the last two authors even comment on each other’s pieces—adds to the merits of this excellent volume. The occasional typos here and there are philosophically innocuous.
Authors and Titles
Introduction, Pavel Gregoric and Jakob Leth Fink
Part I: Methodology
- Δόξαι and the Tools of Dialectic in De Anima 1–3, Colin Guthrie King
- In Search of the Essence of the Soul: Aristotle’s Scientific Method and Practice in De Anima1–2, Giulia Mingucci
- Method and Doctrine in Aristotle’s Natural Psychology: De Anima5, Robert Bolton
Part II: Perception
- Aristotle and Alexander of Aphrodisias on Sight as a Relative, Katerina Ierodiakonou
- Perceiving That We Are Not Seeing and Hearing: Reflexive Awareness in Aristotle, Pavel Gregoric
Part III: Representation
- Eidōla and Phantasmata in Aristotle: Three Senses of “Image” in Aristotelian Psychology, Filip Radovic
- Aristotle and the Cartesian Theatre, Victor Caston
Part IV: Intellect
- Thinking Bodies: Aristotle on the Biological Basis of Human Cognition, Sophia Connell
- The Νοῦς-Body Relationship in Aristotle’s De Anima, Robert Roreitner
Part V: Hylomorphism
- Aristotelian Dualism, Good; Aristotelian Hylomorphism, Bad, Howard Robinson
- Hylomorphic Mental Causation, Christopher Shields
- Appendix: Howard Robinson and Christopher Shields on the Merits of Hylomorphism
Notes
[1] Mingucci turns Aristotle’s locution ἐκ τῶν ἀσαφῶν μὲν φανερωτέρων δὲ to the nominative but uses the false form ἀσαφά instead of ἀσαφῆ.