Aristotle's De anima : a guide / José Luis Bermúdez.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bermúdez, José Luis, Author.

Series:

Oxford guides to philosophy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Aristotle. De anima.

Aristotle.

Soul.

Psychology--Philosophy.

Psychology.

Psychē (The Greek word).

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (unpaged) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2025]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

"Aristotle's De Anima explores the concept of the psuchê, a distinctively Greek concept that overlaps in certain respects with our modern notions of the mind or the soul, but that applies to plants and non-human animals, as well as to human beings. In the De Anima, Aristotle develops an innovative and challenging account of the relation between the psuchê and the body, before going on to offer thought-provoking accounts of the different capacities of the psuchê, starting with nutrition and reproduction. In addition to discussing perception in general, Aristotle explores the five individual sense modalities in detail, as well as perceptual imagination. He then goes on to discuss the intellectual capacities that he takes to be distinctive of human beings (including the famous discussion of the "agent intellect" in III.5) before going on to give a sophisticated account of how desire leads to action. This situates the De Anima in the context of ancient Greek philosophy, as well as relating it to Aristotle's corpus as a whole. Each chapter is organized around focus readings from the De Anima and elsewhere in Aristotle's writings (as well as some readings from Plato's Phaedo and Theaetetus). The author develops an historically-informed account of Aristotle's arguments in the De Anima that draws connections with contemporary philosophy of mind as appropriate. The reader is introduced to some of the key topics and controversies in modern Aristotle scholarship, as well as to the insights of the ancient and medieval commentators"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The Rylean passage

Further reading

3 Psuchê and Sôma in De Anima Book I

3.1 The affections of the psuchê and the question of separability

3.2 Reincarnation and commonality

3.3 The harmonia theory in Plato's Phaedo

3.4 Aristotle on harmonia

3.5 Perception, the body, and the elements

4 A beginner's guide to Aristotle on matter, form, and substance

4.1 Matter and form in Physics I

4.2 Matter, form and explanation in Physics II.1 and II.2

4.3 Matter, form, and the four aitia in Physics II.3 and II.7

Cover

Half Title

Series

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Figures

Acknowledgments

Note on Texts

1 Introducing Aristotle and the De Anima

1.1 Aristotle's life and times

1.2 Personality, temperament, and prose style

1.3 The corpus aristotelicum

1.4 What is the psuchê?

2 Aristotle and his predecessors: The question of motion

2.1 What is Aristotle doing in DA I?

2.2 The three characteristics

2.3 Motion and the psuchê

The resurrection reductio

The Philippus/Democritus argument

The magnitude reductio

4.4 Actuality and potentiality in Metaphysics Eta

5 The accounts of psuchê in De Anima II

5.1 Aristotle's official account of the psuchê

5.2 Looking back to the program of DA I

5.3 Separability in DA II.1

5.4 The mysterious sailor

5.5 Beyond the official account: Setting the agenda for the remainder of De Anima

6 Nourishment and perception

6.1 The structure of the hierarchy

6.2 The plan of attack

6.3 Nutrition and generation

6.4 Perception, motion, and alteration

6.5 The objects of perception

6.6 Looking ahead

Further reading

7 Perception and the senses

7.1 The need for a medium

7.2 The causality of perception

7.3 Perception as form transmission

8 Perception and imagination

8.1 Perception in the Theaetetus

8.2 Common sensibles and cross-modal perception (DA III.1)

8.3 Perceiving that we perceive (DA III.2)

8.4 What is phantasia?

8.5 Conclusion

9 Varieties of nous

9.1 Nous: Terminology and taxonomy

9.2 The starting points for interpreting nous

9.3 Perception and abstraction in DA III.4.

9.4 Who or what is DA III.5 about?

10 The springs of action

10.1 Bridging from the epistemic to the practical: DA III.6-8

10.2 The role of desire

10.3 Thought and action

Afterword

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Online resource; title from digital title page (Oxford Academic, viewed December 8, 2025)

Other Format:

Print version: Bermúdez, José Luis Aristotle's De anima

ISBN:

9780197624715

0197624715

9780197624708

0197624707

0197624693

9780197624692

OCLC:

1528574640

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license