Aristotle treatise on the soul. About the book "On the Soul" by Aristotle
Book One
Chapter first
Place of psychology among other sciences. Research method. The nature of the soul. The value of incidental properties for the cognition of the essence. The connection of the soul with the body. The study of the soul is the work of the natural scientist. Determination of the states of the soul by a naturalist and dialectician. The subject and point of view of the natural scientist, "technique" (owner of art), mathematician and philosopher. The main materialistic conclusion of the chapter.
Chapter Two
Significance of a review of the views of predecessor philosophers on the soul. Two hallmarks of the animate. Soul as a driving principle. Views of Leucippus - Democritus and the Pythagoreans. Soul as something self-propelled. Views of Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Plato. Soul as a self-moving number. Disagreement about beginnings. Views of Thales, Diogenes, Heraclitus, Alcmaeon, Hippo, Critias. Three Signs of the Soul Recognized by Predecessor Philosophers. The doctrine that like is known by like. Soul and start. Objection to Anaxagoras. Opposites in the beginning. Origin of the name of life and soul
Chapter Three
A look at the essence of the soul as a movement and the conclusions that follow from such a look. Democritus point of view. Plato's doctrine of the world soul and the objection of Aristotle. Criticism of the view of the soul as something extended and of thinking as a cycle. The reason for the rotation of the sky. Organic connection of the soul with the body.
Chapter Four
Criticism of the view of the soul as harmony. View of Empedocles and related aporias. Movements of the soul and their interpretation. The doctrine of the soul as a self-propelling number and related aporias. criticism of this doctrine.
Chapter Five
Continuation of the criticism of the doctrine of the soul as a self-propelling number. Classification of traditional definitions of the soul. Criticism of the doctrine of the soul as a set of elements. Orphic doctrine of the soul. Soul as an integral part of the Universe (Thales). The question of the faculties of the soul and its unity
book two
Chapter first
Three entity values. Definition of matter and form. Definition of life. The body as a substrate. Definition of the soul as the form of the body. Two values of entelechy. The soul as the entelechy of the body. Comparison of the body with the tool. About body parts. The inseparability of the soul from the body. Possible exception.
Chapter Two
Finding the cause is the main thing in the definition. Life is a sign of an animated being. Different meanings of the concept of life. Plant and animal life. Touch is the first sensation. The vegetative faculty, the faculty of sensation, the faculty of reason, and movement are the powers of the soul. The mind is a special kind of soul. The definition of the soul as that by which we live, feel and think. The soul is immanent in a particular body.
Chapter Three
Repetition of the previous one. A new enumeration of the abilities of the soul. Aspiration as desire, passion and will. Feeling and pleasure. Touch as a sensation caused by a beggar. Hunger and thirst as desires. Other mental abilities of animals. The nature of the unity of the soul. Gradation of the abilities of the soul
Chapter Four
About the abilities of the soul. Reproduction and nutrition are the property of the plant soul. The soul as the threefold cause of the living body. Criticism of Empedocles' view of the direction of growth. An objection to the view of fire as the principal cause of nourishment and growth. Analysis of the opinion that the opposite feeds on the opposite. The difference between nutrition and the ability to grow. The first soul as nourishing and as the ability to reproduce its kind. Warmth in an animated being.
Chapter Five
About feeling in general. On the faculty of sensation. A sense of possibility and reality. The two meanings of possibility, enduring, and the faculty of sensation.
Chapter six
Three types of sensory perception and their characteristics. General qualities (movement, rest, number, figure, size). Explanation of sensual qualities perceived in an incidental way.
Chapter Seven
The object of sight is the visible. Color. Determination of a transparent medium (water, air) and light. Criticism of Empedocles' view of the world and the views of Democritus, who denies the importance of the environment in vision. The need for an environment for sound and olfactory sensations.
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Characteristics of smell and smell. Relationship between smell and taste. The perfection of touch in man. Dependence of giftedness on the subtlety of tactile sensations. Conditions of smell in humans and in bloodless animals. Olfactory organ.
Chapter Ten
Taste and touch. Moisture as a condition of taste sensations. Source of taste. Organ of taste and moisture. Types of taste properties.
Chapter Eleven
Aporias in the question of touch. Animated body (flesh) as a mixture of earth and water and air. Touch and taste, their environment. The role of the flesh in touch. Feeling tactile opposites. The definition of sensation as a kind of middle ground between the opposites that exist in the perceived. characteristic of the intangible.
Chapter Twelve
The definition of sensation as that which is capable of perceiving the forms of the sensed without its matter. Comparison of feeling with imprint. The destructive effect on the senses of an excessive degree of sensation. The reason for the lack of sensations in plants. The impossibility that something incapable of sensation should experience from the corresponding sensible object. Analysis of the question of what light, sound, smell, tangible and tasted act on. Book Three
Chapter first
Arguments to prove that, apart from the five external senses, there are no others. The absence of a special organ for the perception of general properties. The need to have not one, but several senses for a more distinct knowledge of common properties.
Chapter Two
Proof that by sight a person perceives what he sees. Ambiguous perception. The possibility of having sensations and ideas after the removal of perceived objects. The identity of the perceived and the sensations in their actual state. The presence of special names for the current state of sensations in some senses (sound, hearing, vision), the absence of such in others. A refutation of the view that sensory qualities do not exist apart from the presence of corresponding sensations. Feeling like ratio. The need for something unified to establish differences of sensations. Distinguishing ability. An example of a point as a combination of the indivisible and the divisible.
Chapter Three
Identification by the ancients of thinking and feeling. The impossibility of explaining erroneous knowledge in terms of the theory that like is known by like. Differences between feeling and thinking. Imagination and its difference from sensation and opinion. Positive definition of imagination. Explanation of the name of imagination. The reasons why people sometimes act not in accordance with reason, but in accordance with their ideas.
Chapter Four
Thinking. Analogy between thought and feeling. Mind and comprehended by the mind. Mind at Anaxagoras. Separation of the mind from the body. The rational soul as the seat of forms. The dual understanding of possibility as applied to the mind. The solution of the question of whether the essence of the object and the object itself are cognized by the same ability or by different abilities. Aporias arising from the position that the mind is simple, subject to nothing and has nothing in common (Anaxagoras). Comparing the mind to a writing board with nothing written on it yet. Identity of the thinking and the thinkable in the incorporeal.
Chapter Five
The mind that becomes everything and the mind that produces everything. analogy with light. The eternity of the active mind. The transience of the passive mind and its dependence on the active mind.
Chapter six
The proposition that the delusion lies in the (wrong) combination. Imagination of time. The difference is in the ways in which the mind thinks of various kinds of indivisibles. The truth of the mind, directed at the essence of the existence of the object.
Chapter Seven
Actual and potential knowledge. An explanation why the soul does not think without representations. A single center of knowledge. The unity of the cognizing mind as the cause of the discrimination of heterogeneous and opposite perceptible properties. Representations as something involving the mind in life practice. Explanation of the essence of abstraction.
Chapter Eight
The soul as a totality of beings. Knowledge and feeling. Soul as a form of an object. Comparison of the soul with the hand. Mind as a form of forms. An explanation why a being without sensations cannot learn or comprehend anything. Impossibility of contemplation by the mind without ideas.
Chapter Nine
The power of discernment and the power to set in motion spatial motion are the two main faculties of the soul. The question of the legitimacy of the division of the soul into parts. The ability to bring into spatial motion and the illegitimacy of reducing it to a vegetable ability, to the ability of sensation or mind.
Chapter Ten
Aspiration and mind as driving forces. The difference between the active mind and the theoretical mind. Purpose as a source of activity. The object of aspiration as a driving force. Mind, will and desire. The object of desire is the good. Difficulties associated with the doctrine of the abilities of the soul. The struggle between the mind and desires. The mover, the organ of movement and the moving body. Comparison of the driving principle with articulation and circle. Possession of the ability to strive as a condition for the animal to move itself.
Chapter Eleven
The driving principle and other abilities in lower animals. Imagination in non-intelligent animals and in humans. An explanation why the lower animals have no opinion. Three types of movement depending on the interaction between will and aspiration. Opinion directed to the individual, and opinion directed to the general, and their ability to set in motion.
Chapter Twelve
The vegetable soul as a necessary condition for all life. Sensation is a necessary property not of all living beings, but of animals. The presence of sensations as a condition for the existence of the soul. The need for tactile sensations to preserve the life of animals. Touch and taste as food conditions. Perception through the environment. An analogy between the relationship of moving and moving bodies and the processes that cause sensations.
Chapter Thirteen
The impossibility for the body of an animal to be simple. Touch as direct perception and the only sense, the loss of which leads the animal to death. The impact of tactile and gustatory sensations on the sense organs and the animal organism. Functions of other sensations.
About the soul Aristotle
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Title: About the soul
About the book "On the Soul" by Aristotle
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was a student of Plato. He is the founder of formal logic and one of the most influential thinkers of antiquity. He was able to establish a comprehensive system of philosophy, which included all areas of human development.
Aristotle believed that the human soul has integrity. It, like fear and courage, is inseparable from the body and is able to regulate the whole organism. The soul is immaterial, but thanks to it we think and feel. One of the author's works devoted to this topic is called "On the Soul".
The opinion of the thinker is largely at odds with the ideas of his teacher Plato. Aristotle is convinced that the state of mind is directly related to the physical. In the understanding of the philosopher, not only people have a soul, but also animals and plants.
Treatise "On the Soul" consists of three books. In the first, the author's opinion about the soul is considered, in the second - its nature, in the third, the philosopher reflects on the theme of the five feelings that people experience.
The thinker claims that, by nature, every person strives for knowledge from birth. This is due to attraction to sense perceptions. Thanks to memory, experience arises, based on which art and science arise. "Wisdom", according to Aristotle, is the science of principles and causes.
In his works, the philosopher asks the question: what is the soul, does it consist of parts or is it a single whole? He is sure that thinking is inherent in the soul. It is directly related to the body. Animate and inanimate objects are distinguished by the presence of life in them.
In the essay "On the Soul" the thinker compares the soul and plant life. The first is able to feel and think. She has thinking and spatial movement. Plant life is only capable of nourishment and reproduction. The animal, in addition, has four more functions. She has feelings, can move, feel and remember. But the rational soul, which is inherent only in man, is still capable of thinking and analyzing.
In the treatise On the Soul, the author writes that there are three types of memory: lower, memory in the proper sense, and higher. With the help of associations, the received information is processed.
According to the philosopher, the mind, like other parts of the body, exists separately from the soul. The ability to think is in the power of man, but sensations are not subject to him.
The philosopher criticizes the statement of Democritus about the fact that the soul and mind are one and the same. According to Aristotle, the mind is not inherent in all living beings, and not even in all people.
On our site about books, you can download the site for free without registration or read online the book "On the Soul" by Aristotle in epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf formats for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and a real pleasure to read. You can buy the full version from our partner. Also, here you will find the latest news from the literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For novice writers, there is a separate section with useful tips and tricks, interesting articles, thanks to which you can try your hand at writing.
Quotes from the book "On the Soul" by Aristotle
The essence of a thing, expressed in the definition, is its form (Book 1)
The animate most of all differs from the inanimate, apparently, in two [features]: movement and sensation (Book 1)
What is a soul? Is it one whole or is it made up of different parts? Does it really exist or is it all just a fantastic fiction invented so that we do not experience the fear of death? From time immemorial, these questions have occupied the minds of the most influential thinkers of mankind. One such person was the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. In his scientific and philosophical treatise "On the Soul" he tries to give exhaustive answers to these questions.
Aristotle argued that mind and soul are not the same thing. It, like many other sensations, such as fear, is inseparable from the human body. Thanks to it, we think and have the ability to experience various sensations, emotions and feelings. According to the philosopher, not only people, but also animals and plants can have a soul. In his essay “On the Soul”, the author says that the soul has thinking, is able to coordinate the work of the whole organism. However, the mind, the ability to think, analyze, etc. are peculiar only to humans, plants and animals lose in this regard. However, the philosopher also emphasizes that not all people have reason. And there is an exception to this rule.
The book of the great thinker of antiquity "On the Soul" consists of 3 sections. In the first, the author analyzes the theories of his predecessors on this issue. In particular, he examines the views of Socrates (his teacher), Democritus, the Pythagoreans and other well-known schools of philosophy. Movement, according to the author, is inseparable from the soul. There are four types of it: movement, transformation, decrease and increase. In the second part of his work, the philosopher touches on metaphysics, analyzes the very nature of the human soul, shows the relationship between essence, matter and form, explains the differences between the souls of humans, animals and plants based on the ability to grow, feel and think. And finally, in the third part, the famous thinker describes and reflects on the five human senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. The author also contrasts sensations with thinking and explains their differences.
The author criticizes many theories of his predecessors in the treatise "On the Soul". So, he argues that the mind and soul are different things, smashing to smithereens the views of Democritus on this matter. Aristotle is one of those smart, rare people whose intellectual abilities have outgrown their mentor. Here we are talking about Plato. Reading this collection, you will get acquainted with the ideas, thoughts of a truly great man, the wisdom of whose views is relevant to this day.
On our literary site, you can download Aristotle's book "On the Soul" for free in formats suitable for different devices - epub, fb2, txt, rtf. Do you like to read books and always follow the release of new products? We have a large selection of books of various genres: classics, modern science fiction, literature on psychology and children's editions. In addition, we offer interesting and informative articles for beginner writers and all those who want to learn how to write beautifully. Each of our visitors will be able to find something useful and exciting.
