The Traditional Interpretation Refuted :: Philosophy Literature Papers

The Traditional Interpretation RefutedThe psychology of Aristotle has never been unsounded in a historically correct way. A new rendering of the De anima will be proposed in which this work potentiometer be seen as compatible with the psychology that can be reconstructed from the fragments of Aristotles lost dialogues and the De motu animalium and another(prenominal) biological works (in which the notions of pneuma and vital heat play a crucial role) and the doxographical data garner from ancient writers besides the commentators. In De anima, II, 412b5, where psych is defined as the first entelecheia of a natural body that is organikon, the words natural body should not be taken to mean(a) the body of a living plant, animal or human being exclusively to stand for elementary body. And the qualification organikon should not be understood as equipped with organs (as it everlastingly has) but in the sense of serving as an instrument to the soul. This instrumental body that is in separably machine-accessible with the soul is the seat of desire (orexis), which physically influences the parts of the visible body. anyhow those two corrections there are the words ta mer in 412b18 that should be taken as meaning not parts of the body but parts of the soul. Aristotle is argument there that even those parts of the soul that are not unless actualized in the embryo of a new living being can be said to be not without body.Do we really know Aristotles psychology? This question may sound strange at first, since we have a famous book by Aristotle which is called On the soul and we possess preferably a bit of information about a lost dialogue, the Eudemus, which was also subtitled On the soul. Yet I propose to argue that Aristotles psychology has remained unfathomed up till now. And this is because since the third century AD the text of his extant work De anima has been interpreted in a way that runs completely forestall to Aristotles intentions. What has been hel d to be Aristotles psychology is the result of the interpretation of his work put ship by Alexander of Aphrodisias in the third century AD.(1) The situation is corresponding with the imaginary situation that Platos oeuvre had been lost except for his Parmenides and that we only have the information of Plotinus for a reconstruction of Platos thought.To make a convincing boldness for this revolutionary theory, I will argue three propositions.