Aristotle’s Critique of Timaean Psychology
-
Jason W. Carter
Abstract:
Of all the criticisms that Aristotle gives of his predecessors’ theories of soul in De anima I.3–5, none seems more unmotivated than the ones directed against the world soul of Plato’s Timaeus. Against the current scholarly consensus, I claim that the status of Aristotle’s criticisms is philosophical rather than eristical, and that they provide important philosophical reasons, independent of Phys. VIII.10 and Metaph. Λ.6, for believing that νοῦς is without spatial extension, and that its thinking is not a physical motion.
Bibliography
Aquinas, Thomas (1959): In Aristotelis librum de Anima commentarium, ed. Angelo Pirotta. Turin: Marietti.Suche in Google Scholar
Bailey, Cyril (1926): Epicurus: The Extant Remains, with Short Critical Apparatus: Translation and Notes. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Berti, Enrico (1978): “The Intellection of Indivisibles according to Aristotle: De Anima III.6”. In: Geoffrey Lloyd and Gwilym Owen (eds.): Aristotle on Mind and the Senses: Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium Aristotelicum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.140–63.Suche in Google Scholar
Berti, Enrico (1996): “Reconsidérations sur l’Intellection des ‘Indivisibles’ selon Aristote, De Anima, III, 6”. In: Viano, ed. (1996), pp. 391–404.Suche in Google Scholar
Betegh, Gábor (2009): “What Makes a Myth Eikôs? Remarks inspired by Myles Burnyeat’s EIKÔS MYTHOS”. In: Richard Mohr and Barbara Sattler (eds.): One Book, The Whole Universe: Plato’s Timaeus Today. Las Vegas: Parmenides Pub., pp. 213–224.Suche in Google Scholar
Bodéüs, Richard (1996) : “Âme du Monde ou Corps Céleste?”. In: Viano, ed. (1996), pp. 81–88.Suche in Google Scholar
Brisson, Luc (1994): Le méme et l’autre dans la structure ontologique du Timée de Platon. Un commentaire systématique du Timée de Platon. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag.Suche in Google Scholar
Broadie, Sarah (2012): Nature and Divinity in Plato’s Timaeus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511997815Suche in Google Scholar
Burnyeat, Myles (2005): “ἘΙΚΩΣ ΜΥΘΟΣ”, Rhizai 2, pp. 143–165.Suche in Google Scholar
Burnyeat, Myles (2008): Aristotle’s Divine Intellect. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Cherniss, Harold (1962): Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato and the Academy. New York: Russell & Russell.Suche in Google Scholar
Chroust, Anton-Hermann (1966): “The Probable Date of Aristotle’s Lost Dialogue On Philosophy”, Journal of the History of Philosophy 4. No 4, pp. 283–291.10.1353/hph.2008.1228Suche in Google Scholar
Claghorn, George (1954): Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Timaeus. The Hague: Nijhoff.10.1007/978-94-011-8839-5Suche in Google Scholar
Cornford, Francis (1937): Plato’s Cosmology: The Timaeus of Plato. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Suche in Google Scholar
Crowley, Timothy (2008): “Aristotle’s ‘So-Called’ Elements”, Phronesis 53, pp. 223–242.10.1163/156852808X307061Suche in Google Scholar
De Corte, Marcel (1934) : La Doctrine de l’Intelligence chez Aristote. Paris: J. Vrin.Suche in Google Scholar
Descartes, René (1984): The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. II. John Cottingham, Richard Stoothoff & Dugald Murdoch (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511818998Suche in Google Scholar
Dillon, John (2003): “The Timaeus in the Old Academy”. In: Gretchen Reydams-Schils (ed.) Plato’s Timaeus as Cultural Icon. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 80–94.10.4324/9781351219228-3Suche in Google Scholar
Dillon, John (2009): “How Does the Soul Direct the Body, After All? Traces of a Dispute on Mind-Body Relations in the Old Academy”. In: Dorothea Frede and Richard Burkhart (eds.): Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 349–58.10.1515/9783110216523.4.349Suche in Google Scholar
Fattal, Michel (1996): “L’Intellection des Indivisibles dans De Anima (III, 6) d’Aristote. Lecture Arabes et Moderns”. In: Viano, ed. (1966), pp. 423–40.Suche in Google Scholar
Frede, Dorothea (1996): “The Philosophical Economy of Plato’s Psychology: Rationality and Common Concepts in the Timaeus”. In: Michael Frede and Gisela Striker (eds.): Rationality in Greek Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 29–58.10.1093/oso/9780198240440.003.0002Suche in Google Scholar
Frede, Michael, and Charles, David, eds. (2000): Aristotle’s Metaphysics Lambda: Symposium Aristotelicum. Oxford: Clarendon Press.10.1093/oso/9780198237648.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar
Frede, Michael (2008): “Aristotle on Thinking”, Rhizai: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science 5, pp. 287–301.Suche in Google Scholar
Geach, Peter (1969): “What Do We Think With”. In: Peter Geach: God and the Soul. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 30–41.Suche in Google Scholar
Grube, George (1932): “The Composition of the World Soul in Timaeus 35A-B”, Classical Philology 27, pp. 80–82.10.1086/361433Suche in Google Scholar
Hamlyn, David (2002): Aristotle De Anima: Books II and II (With Passages from Book I). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Hicks, Richard (1907): Aristotle De Anima. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Johansen, Thomas (2000): “Body, Soul, and Tripartition in Plato’s Timaeus”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 19, pp. 87–111.10.1093/oso/9780199242269.003.0003Suche in Google Scholar
Johansen, Thomas (2004): Plato’s Natural Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511518478Suche in Google Scholar
Johansen, Thomas (2009): “From Plato’s Timaeus to Aristotle’s De Caelo: The Case of the Missing World Soul”. In: Alan Bowen and Christian Wildberg (eds.): New Perspectives on Aristotle’s De Caelo. Leiden: Brill, pp. 9–28.10.1163/ej.9789004173767.i-326.7Suche in Google Scholar
Karfik, Filip (2004): Die Beseelung des Kosmos: Untersuchungen zur Kosmologie, Seelenlehre und Theologie, in Platons Phaidon und Timaios. München: K.G. Saur.10.1515/9783110930801Suche in Google Scholar
Lee, Edward (1976): “Reason and Rotation: Circular Movement as the Model of Mind (Nous) in the Later Plato”. In: William Werkmeister (ed.), Facets of Plato’s Philosophy. Assen: Van Gorcum, pp. 70–102.Suche in Google Scholar
Mansion, Suzanne (1961): “Le rôle de l’exposé et de la critique des philosophies antérieures chez Aristote”. In: Aristote et les problèmes de method. Louvain: Publications Universitaires, pp. 35–56.Suche in Google Scholar
Menn, Stephen (1992): “Aristotle and Plato on God as Nous and as the Good”, The Review of Metaphysics 45. No. 3, pp. 543–573.Suche in Google Scholar
Menn, Stephen (2002): “Aristotle’s Definition of the Soul and the Programme of the De Anima”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 23, pp. 83–139.10.1093/oso/9780199255894.003.0004Suche in Google Scholar
Mignucci, Mario (1996): “Vérité et Pensée dans le De Anima”. In: Viano, ed. (1996), pp. 405–422.Suche in Google Scholar
Nuyens, François (1973): L’évolution de la psychologie d’Aristote. Louvain: Éditions de l’Institut Supérieur de Philosophie.Suche in Google Scholar
Phillips, John. (1997): “Neoplatonic Exegeses of Plato’s Cosmogony (Timaeus 27C–28C)”, Journal of the History of Philosophy 35. No. 2, pp. 173–197.10.1353/hph.1997.0037Suche in Google Scholar
Philoponus (1897) : In Aristotelis De Anima libros commentaria (ed. Michael Hayduck), Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca Vol. XV. Berlin: Reimer.Suche in Google Scholar
Plutarch (1976): De animae procreatione in Timaeo [De an. procr.], trans. by Harold Cherniss. In: Plutarch’s Moralia Vol. XIII, part 1. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press – London: Heinemann.Suche in Google Scholar
Polansky, Ronald (2007): Aristotle’s De Anima. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511551017Suche in Google Scholar
Proclus (1903–6): Procli Diadochi in Platonis Timaeum Commentaria (ed. Ernst Diehl). Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.Suche in Google Scholar
Ross, William (1961): Aristotle De Anima. Oxford: Clarendon Press.10.1093/actrade/9780198141556.book.1Suche in Google Scholar
Sedley, David (1999): “The Ideal of Godlikeness”. In: Gail Fine (ed.): Plato 2: Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 309–28.Suche in Google Scholar
Simplicius (1882) : In libros Aristotelis De Anima commentaria (ed. Michael Hayduck). Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca Vol. XI. Berlin: Reimer.Suche in Google Scholar
Sophonias (1897): In libros Aristotelis De Anima paraphrasis (ed. Michael Hayduck). Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, Vol. XXIII, part I. Berlin: Reimer.Suche in Google Scholar
Tarán, Leonardo (1981): Speusippus of Athens: A Critical Study with a Collection of the Related Texts and Commentaries. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004320604Suche in Google Scholar
Taylor, Alfred (1928): A Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Themistius (1899): In libros Aristotelis De Anima paraphrasis (ed. Richard Heinze). Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca Vol. V, part III. Berlin: Reimer.Suche in Google Scholar
Tricot, Jean (2010) : Aristote: De l’âme. Paris: Vrin.Suche in Google Scholar
Viano, Cristina, ed. (1996): Corps et Âme: Sur le De Anima d’Aristote. Paris: J. Vrin.Suche in Google Scholar
Viano, Cristina (1996a) : “La Doxographie du De Anima (I, 2–5), ou le Contre-modèle de l’Âme”. In: Viano, ed. (1996), pp. 51–79.Suche in Google Scholar
Vlastos, Gregory (1939): “The Disorderly Motion in the Timaios”, The Classical Quarterly 33. No. 2, pp. 71–83.10.1017/S0009838800020966Suche in Google Scholar
von Perger, M. (1997): Die Allseele in Platons Timaios. Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner.10.1515/9783110968422Suche in Google Scholar
Wilson, Andrea, and Sedley, David. eds. (2010): Ancient Models of Mind: Studies in Human and Divine Rationality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Witt, Charlotte (1992): “Dialectic, Motion, and Perception: De Anima, Book I”. In: Martha Nussbaum and Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (eds.), Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 169–83.10.1093/019823600X.003.0011Suche in Google Scholar
Article note: This paper would not exist without the gracious help of a number of scholars who took the time to offer detailed criticisms of it or to discuss its central ideas with me over the past four years. For this, thanks are due to Thomas Johansen, David Charles, Marwan Rashed, Brad Inwood, Victor Caston, and a number of anonymous referees, who all offered essential criticisms and guidance at some stage of its development.
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
