The philosophy of Aristotle
But how is it that, when we think of something, sometimes we take action and sometimes not, sometimes we are in motion, and sometimes not? It seems to be nearly the same case as when we consider and think of things that are unchangeable (as mathematics is). Continue reading “When and how we act”
It remains, then, to inquire the way in which the soul moves the body, and what is the origin of the animal’s motion. For the ensouled, save the motion of the universe, are responsible for the motion of the rest, providing not to move by each other through bumping against each other. This is why all their movements have a limit; and so do the motions of the ensouled. For all animals are both movers and being moved for the sake of something, so that this is the limit of all their motion: the for-the-sake-of-something. Continue reading “How the soul moves the body, and what is the origin of the animal’s motion”
It seems at any rate that these two are responsible for movement: either desire or intellect, if someone would consider imagination as a kind of thinking; for many people follow their imaginations in spite of their knowledge, and beside this in all other animals neither thinking nor reasoning reside, but imagination does. Continue reading “What it is that makes us move”
Since just as in the whole nature on the one hand there is the matter of each kind of thing (and this is all those things in potentiality), while on the other the cause and productive, in that it produces all these things, e.g. as art stands to its material, so too in the case of the soul there must be these differences. Continue reading “On the active intellect of the soul”
If indeed imagination is that in virtue of which we say that an image comes about to us and not as when we say something metaphorically, then it is some kind of faculty or capacity, by virtue of which we judge and say the truth or the untruth. Such are perception, belief, scientific knowledge, and intellect. Continue reading “What imagination is”
So first we must speak about nourishment and reproduction; for the nutritive soul holds also of the other creatures, and it is the primary and most common capability of the soul, by virtue of which life resides in all living things. Continue reading “In what way mortal creatures partake of the eternal and divine”
We say that substance is one of the genera of things (Aristotle’s ten categories), and that it is divided (as simple) into two parts: the one as matter, that which in itself it is not such and such a thing (for it is deprived of the form), the other as shape and form, according to which a thing when it receives its form is called a certain ‘this’; and thirdly (as compound) in the sense of that which is compounded of these. Continue reading “What the soul is”
