Ancient Perspectives on Aristotle's De Anima (Ancient and Medieval Philosophy) (Ancient and Medieval Philosophy Series 1)

217 Pages·2010·1.51 MB·English

by  Gerd Van Riel

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ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY
DE WULF-MANSION CENTRE
Series I
XLI
Series editors
Gerd Van Riel
Russell Friedman
Carlos Steel
The “De Wulf-Mansion Centre” is a research centre for ancient, medieval, and Renaissance
philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Leuven,
Kardinaal Mercierplein, 2, B 3000 Leuven (Belgium).
It hosts the international project “Aristoteles latinus” and publishes
the “Opera omnia” of Henry of Ghent.
ANCIENT PERSPECTIVES ON
ARISTOTLE’S DE ANIMA
Edited by Gerd VAN RIEL and Pierre DESTRÉE
with the assistance of Cyril K. CRAWFORD and Leen VAN CAMPE
LEUVEN UNIVERSITY PRESS
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introduction
Gerd Van Riel
Arnis Rītups

Aristotle’s treatise On the Soul figures among the most influential texts in the
intellectual history of the West. It is the first systematic treatise on the nature and
functioning of the (human) soul, presenting Aristotle’s authoritative analyses of,
among others, sense perception, imagination, memory, and intellect. The ongoing
debates on this difficult work continue the commentary tradition that dates back
to antiquity.
This volume offers a selection of papers, exploring the ancient perspectives on
Aristotle’s De anima, from Aristotle’s earliest successors through the Aristotelian
Commentators at the end of Antiquity. It constitutes a twin publication with a
volume entitled Medieval Perspectives on Aristotle’s De anima (to be published
in the Series “Philosophes Médiévaux”, Peeters Publ.), both volumes appearing to
celebrate the 50th anniversary of the De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient, Medi-
eval and Renaissance philosophy at K.U. Leuven and U.C. Louvain.
1. fifty years of research in the de wulf-mansion centre
The texts gathered in this volume are, for the most part, reworked versions of
papers presented at a conference Soul and Mind: Ancient and Medieval Perspec-
tives on the De anima, organized in February 2007 to celebrate the fiftieth an-
niversary of the De Wulf-Mansion Centre.¹ The present members of this Centre
deemed it appropriate to bring together scholars from around the world to present
new insights in a subject matter on which the Louvain Institute of Philosophy,
to which the Centre belongs, has focused its attention from the start. As Carlos
Steel, the former director of the De Wulf-Mansion Centre, noted in his welcoming
speech, Aristotle’s De anima was part and parcel of the neo-Thomistic educational
agenda of Cardinal Désiré Mercier, due to whose efforts the Institut Supérieur de
Philosophie itself was established as an independent institution in 1889. Cardinal
Mercier’s desire to oppose the dominant trends of positivism during the second
half of the 19th century led to the idea of combining the study of Thomism (encour-
aged by pope Leo xiii) with modern experimental psychology. This agenda made
¹ See the report on this conference by Arnis Rītups, in Bulletin de Philosophie
Médiévale 49 (2007), 271-304.
vi gerd van riel – arnis rtups
Aristotle’s De anima a convenient point of departure for a complex educational
programme in which psychology was conceived as the heart of philosophy.²
Since those days, the study of Aristotle’s works, and of ancient and medieval
philosophy in general, explored new fields and grounds, and the De Wulf-Mansion
Centre itself made an important contribution to the reassessment of the role of the
history of philosophy in studying philosophy. The Centre was founded in 1956 by
Fernand van Steenberghen, Maurice Giele, Gerard Verbeke, and Herman Leo van
Breda. From the start, this research centre set as its principal aim to facilitate and
enhance research in ancient and medieval philosophy, with particular interest in
the transition and continuity of the history of philosophy in these two periods.
The centre took its name from Maurice De Wulf (1867-1947), one of the pioneers of
the historiography of medieval philosophy, and Augustin Mansion (1882-1966), an
outstanding scholar of Aristotelianism.
In 1969, at the time of the division of the Catholic University of Louvain, two
centres were born, each to continue at its own university the mission entrusted by
the founders: the “De Wulf-Mansioncentrum” (hereafter dwmc) at Leuven and
the “Centre De Wulf-Mansion” (hereafter cdwm) at Louvain-la-Neuve. These two
centres retain their tight bonds of collaboration, to which the joint organization of
the 50th anniversary celebration bears witness.
The cdwm has always held on to its strong tradition of research in medieval
philosophy, focusing on Ps.-Dionysius, Cusanus, and Eckhart, and editing the
series Philosophes Médiévaux. Special attention is also paid to medieval Arabic
philosophy (Avicenna and the later tradition). On the ancient side, Plato, Aris-
totle and the Latin Stoics are the main research areas, in connection to which the
centre edits the series Aristote. Traductions et Études. The cdwm has also had a
close collaboration with the Centre de traitement électronique de documents (ce-
tedoc), which has developed a lot of electronic tools for lexicographical research.
Since 1973 the dwmc has been the home of the Aristoteles Latinus, the inter-
national project to edit the medieval Latin translations of Aristotle’s works, sup-
ported by the Union Académique Internationale. In this way, the centre’s original
mission was furthered, by studying the reception of Aristotelian thought in the
Middle Ages. The research in medieval philosophy also concerns philosophical
psychology and theories of knowledge in the period 1250-1350, and the study of
philosophical and theological schools in the Later Middle Ages (Thomism, Al-
bertism, and Nominalism). At the same time, members of the dwmc revealed a
² The original neo-Thomistic context is described in more detail in: Carlos Steel,
“Aquinas and the Renewal of Philosophy: Some Observations on the Thomism of Désiré
Mercier” in Boileau, D.A. – Dick, J.A. (eds.), Tradition and Renewal. Philosophical Essays
Commemorating the Centennial of Louvain’s Institute of Philosophy (Louvain Philoso phical
Studies 5), Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1992, Vol. 1, 181-215.
introduction vii
growing interest in the field of late ancient Platonic philosophy, focusing on Pro-
clus and Damascius in particular, and on the influence of Neoplatonic thought in
medieval philosophy. In addition to the initial focus on ancient and medieval phi-
losophy, the Centre’s scope expanded in 2007, to include the rich and growing field
of Renaissance philosophy (including late scholasticism). The dwmc is home to
four series of monographs: Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, the Corpus Latinum
Commentariorum in Aristotelem Graecorum, the Opera Omnia Henrici de Gan-
davo, and Francisci de Marchia Opera Philosophica et Theologica. Since 1997 the
Centre, together with the Thomas Institut (Cologne), is the editor of Recherches de
Théologie et Philosophie médiévales.
With all these activities, in Leuven as well as in Louvain-la-Neuve, a solid foun-
dation is laid for the Centre’s flourishing in the decades to come. Since 1973 the
dwmc has been the home of the Aristoteles Latinus, the international project to
edit the medieval Latin translations of Aristotle’s works, supported by the Union
Académique Internationale. In this way, the centre’s original mission was fur-
thered, by studying the reception of Aristotelian thought in the Middle Ages.
The research in medieval philosophy also concerns philosophical psychology and
theories of knowledge in the period 1250-1350, and the study of philosophical and
theological schools in the Later Middle Ages (Thomism, Albertism, and Nomi-
nalism). At the same time, members of the dwmc revealed a growing interest in
the field of late ancient Platonic philosophy, focusing on Proclus and Damascius in
particular, and on the influence of Neoplatonic thought in medieval philosophy.
In addition to the initial focus on ancient and medieval philosophy, the Centre’s
scope expanded in 2007, to include the rich and growing field of Renaissance phi-
losophy (including late scholasticism). The dwmc is home to four series of mono-
graphs: Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, the Corpus Latinum Commentariorum
in Aristotelem Graecorum, the Opera Omnia Henrici de Gandavo, and Francisci
de Marchia Opera Philosophica et Theologica. Since 1997 the Centre, together with
the Thomas Institut (Cologne), is the editor of Recherches de Théologie et Philoso-
phie médiévales.
With all these activities, in Leuven as well as in Louvain-la-Neuve, a solid foun-
dation is laid for the Centre’s flourishing in the decades to come.
2. presentation of the contributions
Klaus Corcilius’ article, ‘How are Episodes of Thought Initiated According to
Aristotle?’, reconsiders the limitations and possible implications of Aristotle’s
claim that we can engage in thinking whenever we wish. The two passages where
the claim occurs (De anima ii 5, 417a21-29 and 417b19-26) suggest that Aristotle
uses it to clarify what he means by so called ‘second potentiality’ (which seems
viii gerd van riel – arnis rtups
to correspond to the ‘first actuality’) and its transition towards ‘second actuality’.
Thus the clarifying function of the claim seems to be based on its familiarity (by
means of which a less familiar idea is made clear): our simple and commonly
shared awareness that, if we know something like one who has learned grammar
knows grammar, we can immediately, if we wish so, initiate a thought based on
that knowledge. Michael Wedin is perhaps the only author who has seen Aristo-
tle’s De Anima iii 4-5 as offering a complex explanation of how such an initiation
of thinking actually takes place (Wedin sees a link between the claim made in De
anima ii 5 and the question of how thinking comes about that is explicitly stated
in De anima iii 4, 429a13; see Wedin 1988; Wedin 1989; Wedin 1993; Wedin 1994).
Corcilius, after considering the complexities of Wedin’s picture, defends what he
calls a more naïve and widely shared understanding of the claim. He shows that
it is possible to understand its implications without entering the intricacies of De
anima iii 4-5. This entails that one should not identify thoughts with actions but
rather conceive of ‘thinking-episodes as embedded in action-contexts’. To specify
his position, Corcilius investigates various possible ‘action-contexts’ for initiating
our thoughts, and spells out the limitations of the naïve interpretation of the au-
tonomy claim. The study shows that on Aristotelian terms there is a certain paral-
lelism between moral responsibility and our responsibility for our thoughts.
For over two decades a considerable amount of scholarly articles and energy
has been spent over an interpretation of Aristotle’s De anima ii 5, with a par-
ticular focus on the question of what kind of change is induced by the perceiver’s
‘taking on form without matter’ (Caston 2005 offers a detailed account of the dis-
cussion). From the start, the main representatives and opponents in the debate
have been Myles Burnyeat and Richard Sorabji, advocating a ‘spiritualist’ and ‘lit-
eralist’ reading of the change respectively. Since Burnyeat’s seminal article, origi-
nally written in 1983 (first published as Burnyeat 1992), there have been several
attempts to find a middle or an alternative way to understand the change that
takes place in perception. Nathanael Stein goes into the middle of the debate
with his contribution ‘After Literalism and Spiritualism: the Plasticity of Aristote-
lian Perception’. While accepting, in broad outline, a middle ground between the
extremes of ‘literalist’ and ‘spiritualist’ readings, Stein takes into account causal
and representational aspects of the perceptual change and reveals a possible gap
‘between the properties with which our perceptual faculty interacts causally and
the properties which according to Aristotle our perceptual states represent things
as having’. Bridging that gap turns out to be quite a complex affair that involves the
analysis of other mental powers, a variety of possible perceptual situations and ob-
jects (proper, incidental, common), and their various degrees of complexity. More
importantly, one needs to clarify the role of universals in perception. Even the very
basic perceptual acts require some innate resources of representation, but com-
introduction ix
plex perceptual situations that involve incidental and common sensibles certainly
require something more than perceptual ability to see colors, hear sounds etc. To
tackle the function of universals in perception, Stein also reconsiders an extremely
difficult passage (the last chapter of Posterior Analytics ii 19, esp. 100a14-b3) and
shows that there is a rationalist element in Aristotle’s account.
Annick Stevens’ contribution, ‘L’apparition de la conscience dans le De
anima et d’autres œuvres d’Aristote’, considers most of the passages that treat
awareness or consciousness of one’s own existence and one’s own mental acts,
or, at least, might be taken to speak about something like that. After considering
Aristotle’s apparent hesitancy in De anima iii 2, 425b12-25 over the question by
which power we are able to perceive that we perceive, Stevens turns to passages
that speak about an immediate awareness or consciousness of one’s existence (De
sensu 7, 448a24-30 and Nicomachean Ethics ix 9, 1170a25-b17). She shows that, ac-
cording to Aristotle, awareness of our existence is implied in our awareness that
we perceive and think. It depends on our being active as perceivers and thinkers.
Stevens accepts an emendation of Bywater in NE ix 9, 1170a31-32 and suggests, on
additional grounds, that the same faculty that distinguishes between white and
sweet also presents an awareness of one’s existence, perceptual acts and thinking.
Stevens explains why this awareness is an immediate awareness and not a reflexive
consciousness, later introduced by Plotinus.
In his paper ‘Know Thyself: Plato and Aristotle on Awareness’, Frans de Haas
shares Annick Stevens’ interest in Aristotle’s account of perceptual awareness (De
anima iii 2). De Haas identifies the arguments in De anima iii 2 as a further devel-
opment of Plato’s exploration of ‘knowledge of knowledge’ in First Alcibiades and
Charmides with which it shares the problem and the set of solutions discussed.
But contrary to what the commentary tradition after Alexander of Aphrodisias
has taught us, the problem is not so much our perceptual or mental awareness,
but rather how to conceive of Delphi’s maxim ‘Know Thyself’ along the lines of a
soul function that is directed towards itself as its object. With respect to aware-
ness De Haas reaches the conclusion that for Aristotle in De anima perceptual
awareness accompanies each of the activities that reside in the sense organs (not
the common sense), as numerically identical with, though different in being from
Λ
them. A similar conclusion is argued for in Metaphysics with respect to mental
awareness. Later commentators, who would encounter perceptual and mental
awareness in Aristotle’s ethics before dealing with De anima, were prone to find
degrees of awareness in De anima even where Aristotle was discussing different
topics altogether.
In a contribution titled ‘Aristotelian Imagination and the Explanation of Be-
φαντασία
havior’, Joel Yurdin clarifies the explanatory requirements that , one of
the most crucial and puzzling notions in Aristotle’s De anima, is intended to meet.
x gerd van riel – arnis rtups
φαντασία
Among the many aspects of in Aristotle’s works Yurdin concentrates
on two — what role it plays in explaining behavior of non-human and human
animals, and what role it plays in the acquisition of general concepts. The author
νοῦς
considers what cannot be done by either the intellect ( ), which mainly deals
αἴσθησις
with universals, or perception ( ), which deals with particulars, or by both
φαντασία
of them together, and why Aristotle needs . Yurdin suggests that without
φαντασία
one cannot account for certain sorts of perceptual and non-perceptual
cognition that are crucial for the survival and well-being of an animal. By stressing
φαντασία φαντασία
the close link between and memory Yurdin explains how per-
φαντασία
forms the needed explanatory work in behavioral contexts and also how
facilitates the acquisition of general concepts, including such substance-concepts
as ‘human’ and ‘horse’. In the context of behavior as well as of concept-acquisition,
φαντασία
the work of involves the retention and association of content originally
obtained through perception.
Marco Zingano’s contribution, ‘Considérations sur l’argumentation
d’Aristote dans De anima iii 4’, deals mainly with the first part of da iii 4 (429a10-
b10), demonstrating that this passage presents several exegetical difficulties that
are rarely taken seriously. Zingano uncovers the origins of a non-problematic ex-
planation of the text by considering a well established interpretive tradition ini-
tiated, perhaps, by Themistius, but shared by almost all of the ancient and many
modern commentators. Zingano also shows that the roots of the approach that
tries to explain the difficulties away may lie in the work of Alexander of Aph-
rodisias. A notorious difficulty in this respect is the apparent contrast between
ἀπαθής
Aristotle’s assertion that the intellect is ‘impassive’ ( ) and his claim that
πάθοςτι
‘thinking’ is an affection ( ), as analogous to sense perception (429a14-15).
According to the non-problematic exegesis, this contradiction can be solved by
distinguishing between alteratio destructiva (where one state destroys and re-
places another state) and alteratio perfectiva (where the subject is perfected by the
change that occurs to it). On this interpretation, thinking should be understood
as a case of ‘perfective change’. To challenge such a smooth reading, Zingano dis-
cusses several important passages (most notably, Physics vii 3) that exhibit the
difficulties in this approach for Aristotle’s works in general and for De anima iii
4-5 in particular. Zingano argues for a need to understand the nature of the pro-
posed arguments before jumping to conclusions about the views of Aristotle. As
Theophrastus’ discussion of Aristotle’s claims about the intellect shows, there is a
special but currently underappreciated value to an aporetic understanding of the
text. If the text is meant to contain aporiae, then any attempt to smoothen away
the difficulties might miss its philosophical potential.
νοῦς
In their contribution ‘God, the Divine, and in relation to the De anima’,
Patrick MacFarlane and Ronald Polansky challenge a widely accepted in-