Work · Ancient Greek
On the Soul (De anima)
The soul as the form of the living body.
Introduction
A treatise in three books on what distinguishes living from non-living things. Aristotle surveys earlier theories and then defines the soul as the “first actuality” of a natural body that has life potentially: not a separate thing in the body but its organisation and capacity to live. Plants have nutritive soul, animals also perception and desire, humans also thought. Much of the work deals with the five senses and with imagination. A short, obscure chapter (III.5) on an intellect that “makes” all things set off centuries of debate among Greek, Arabic and Latin commentators about whether this intellect is individual or shared by all.
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Connections
Criticizes
- Phaedoc. 380 BCE · Plato
Taken up in
- The Book of Healing (Kitab al-Shifa)c. 1027 · Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
- Long Commentaries on Aristotlec. 1190 · Ibn Rushd (Averroes)
- Questions on the Third Book of On the Soulc. 1269 · Siger of Brabant
- On the Immortality of the Soul1516 · Pietro Pomponazzi
- On the Soul and Life1538 · Juan Luis Vives
- Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint1874 · Franz Brentano
More works by Aristotle
- c. 350 BCEOrganon
- c. 350 BCEPhysics
- c. 340 BCEMetaphysics
- c. 340 BCENicomachean Ethics
- c. 335 BCEPoetics
- c. 335 BCEPolitics
Appears in
- Journey ‘The Riddle of Consciousness’ · Stop 3 of 10
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