Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TIDA (Text and Idea of Aristotle's Science of Living Things)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-10-01 bis 2025-03-31
TIDA is a philosophical-philological research project dedicated to a better understanding of Aristotle's science of living things with a special view to his scientific account of mental phenomena. One main objective of TIDA is to replace the dominant interpretative approach in regard of Aristotle's treatise "On the Soul (De anima)" and related treatises, according to which the De anima's Hylomorphic account of the soul falls into the domain of "philosophy of mind". TIDA argues – against this pervasive trend in the literature – that the De anima is devoted strictly only to the definition of the first principle of a general science of living things and that such a principle, due to the role that first principles play in Aristotle's theory of scientific explanation, is far removed from what is commonly dealt with in the philosophy of mind. In particular, the De anima does not contain scientific explanations of mental phenomena; rather, it is TIDA's claim that the De anima provides only the very first step of such explanations and that the Aristotle's scientific explanations of mental phenomena are to be found in a group of writings that Aristotle calls the works "common to body and soul". Based on this insight, TIDA aims at laying bare the architecture of Aristotle's science of living things and exploring his explanations of mental phenomena in the works common to body and soul. TIDA believes that this approach will avoid many, if not all, of the tensions and contradictions the common methodological approach towards Aristotle's "philosophy of mind" got itself into. This regards especially the alleged tension between Aristotle's Hylomorphic theory of the soul and of living things on the one hand and his so-called cardiocentrism (the view that the soul of animals is located in the heart) and the causal role he assigns to the perceptual soul on the level of mental episodes.
In order to yield lasting results TIDA consists in a very close collaborate effort of both philosophers and philologists. The manuscripts of the Greek text of Aristotle will be submitted to a critical edition by textual critics who are members of TIDA and who work together with all members of the research team in the qualitative evaluation of the variant readings of the Greek text. We expect that the closest collaboration between historians of philosophy and textual critics will yield new and last results.
In order to yield lasting results TIDA consists in a very close collaborate effort of both philosophers and philologists. The manuscripts of the Greek text of Aristotle will be submitted to a critical edition by textual critics who are members of TIDA and who work together with all members of the research team in the qualitative evaluation of the variant readings of the Greek text. We expect that the closest collaboration between historians of philosophy and textual critics will yield new and last results.
We have set up and established our working group. We have installed our various regular and irregular activities (conferences, workshops, reading groups, seminars) and we have found a modus operandi that allows us to achieve our goals. We have been able to publish two monographs and various articles on different themes of Aristotle's science of living things. Further publications are underway. The monographs are entitled "The Architecture of the Science of Living Things" (2024) and "Aristotle on the Essence of Human Thought". We have made significant progress on the edition of the Greek text of Aristotle's De anima. Our collations of the Arabic translations of the De anima are making progress as well. As things look now, there are chances that we will be able to actually publish a critical edition of Aristotle's De anima still within the funding period. This goes beyond what we expected while writing our application. It seems that we are on a productive and altogether very good path.
1. The text of Aristotle's science of living things
Our work on the new critical edition of Aristotle's De anima is making good progress. The critical edition will provide future scholarship on Aristotle's De anima with a new and lasting foundation.
2. The idea of Aristotle's science of living things
The monograph "The Architecture of the Science of Living Things. Aristotle and Theophrastus on Animals and Plants" by Andrea Falcon (CUP) offers a comparative study of Aristotle's zoology and Theophrastus botany from a decidedly methodological point of view. This entails giving attention especially to the few transitional passages where Aristotle and Theophrastus offer their own account of what they are trying to accomplish in their own works. The two separate corpora of writings that have been transmitted to us engage in a study of perishable life via separate studies of animals and plants. What we know about the biological discourse before Aristotle and Theophrastus suggests that this approach to the study of perishable living beings was an important innovation. There is a precise order in which animals and plants were studied in the early Peripatos—namely, first animals and then plants. In his monograph, Falcon takes this order of study very seriously. It explores the reasons that may have led Aristotle and Theophrastus to adopt it.
The monograph "Aristotle on the Essence of Human Thought" by Klaus Corcilius, Andrea Falcon, and Robert Roreitner (OUP) offers a new interpretation of the notorious chapters on the thinking capacity in Aristotle's De anima III 4-8. The monograph does so on the basis of TIDA’s insights concerning the fundamental role of the De anima for Aristotle’s science of living things. The argument of the book shows that this stretch of text contains a single and coherent account of the essence of the human capacity for thought (nous). Nous, it is argued in line with TIDA's principles, is the first principle, and ultimate explanans, of the phenomena of human thinking. What is new and distinctive about the interpretation advanced in this book is that the discussion of nous in the De anima is shown to - by Aristotle's standards – successfully account for the human capacity of thinking. This includes the explanation of such features of human scientific thinking as objectivity, universality, and necessity.
The article "Aristotle’s Perceptual Objectivism" by Michael Arsenault (Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 2024) deals with the issue of Aristotle's perceptual objectivism. We ordinarily think of Aristotle as an objectivist about perceptible qualities. Yet this consensus has long been threatened by various thorny passages, including especially De anima III.2 425b26–426a28, which appear to suggest that Aristotle is a subjectivist. Arsenault shows that recent attempts to make sense of these passages by appeal to Aristotle’s three-stage distinction between first potentiality, second potentiality/first actuality, and second actuality commit Aristotle to a subjectivism that he cannot consistently endorse. Arsenault argues for an alternative that vindicates Aristotle’s objectivism.
The article "La botanique d’Aristote" by Justin Winzenrieth (Elenchos 45/1) argues that Aristotle had valid reasons to find the subject-matter of plants much less interesting than zoology, as the activities of plants amount to a subset of what animals do. When studying attributes common to both plants and animals in the transmitted corpus, Aristotle systematically focuses on the case of the most complex animals and, once an explanatory model has been found, proceeds to apply it to the remaining cases with less details. Most of Aristotle’s botany is found to be already encapsulated in the main results of his study of animals.
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Our work on the new critical edition of Aristotle's De anima is making good progress. The critical edition will provide future scholarship on Aristotle's De anima with a new and lasting foundation.
2. The idea of Aristotle's science of living things
The monograph "The Architecture of the Science of Living Things. Aristotle and Theophrastus on Animals and Plants" by Andrea Falcon (CUP) offers a comparative study of Aristotle's zoology and Theophrastus botany from a decidedly methodological point of view. This entails giving attention especially to the few transitional passages where Aristotle and Theophrastus offer their own account of what they are trying to accomplish in their own works. The two separate corpora of writings that have been transmitted to us engage in a study of perishable life via separate studies of animals and plants. What we know about the biological discourse before Aristotle and Theophrastus suggests that this approach to the study of perishable living beings was an important innovation. There is a precise order in which animals and plants were studied in the early Peripatos—namely, first animals and then plants. In his monograph, Falcon takes this order of study very seriously. It explores the reasons that may have led Aristotle and Theophrastus to adopt it.
The monograph "Aristotle on the Essence of Human Thought" by Klaus Corcilius, Andrea Falcon, and Robert Roreitner (OUP) offers a new interpretation of the notorious chapters on the thinking capacity in Aristotle's De anima III 4-8. The monograph does so on the basis of TIDA’s insights concerning the fundamental role of the De anima for Aristotle’s science of living things. The argument of the book shows that this stretch of text contains a single and coherent account of the essence of the human capacity for thought (nous). Nous, it is argued in line with TIDA's principles, is the first principle, and ultimate explanans, of the phenomena of human thinking. What is new and distinctive about the interpretation advanced in this book is that the discussion of nous in the De anima is shown to - by Aristotle's standards – successfully account for the human capacity of thinking. This includes the explanation of such features of human scientific thinking as objectivity, universality, and necessity.
The article "Aristotle’s Perceptual Objectivism" by Michael Arsenault (Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 2024) deals with the issue of Aristotle's perceptual objectivism. We ordinarily think of Aristotle as an objectivist about perceptible qualities. Yet this consensus has long been threatened by various thorny passages, including especially De anima III.2 425b26–426a28, which appear to suggest that Aristotle is a subjectivist. Arsenault shows that recent attempts to make sense of these passages by appeal to Aristotle’s three-stage distinction between first potentiality, second potentiality/first actuality, and second actuality commit Aristotle to a subjectivism that he cannot consistently endorse. Arsenault argues for an alternative that vindicates Aristotle’s objectivism.
The article "La botanique d’Aristote" by Justin Winzenrieth (Elenchos 45/1) argues that Aristotle had valid reasons to find the subject-matter of plants much less interesting than zoology, as the activities of plants amount to a subset of what animals do. When studying attributes common to both plants and animals in the transmitted corpus, Aristotle systematically focuses on the case of the most complex animals and, once an explanatory model has been found, proceeds to apply it to the remaining cases with less details. Most of Aristotle’s botany is found to be already encapsulated in the main results of his study of animals.
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