De Anima (On the Soul)

Author Aristotle
Translated by Hugh Lawson-Tancred
For the Pre-Socratic philosophers the soul was the source of movement and sensation, while for Plato it was the seat of being, metaphysically distinct from the body that it was forced temporarily to inhabit. Plato's student Aristotle was determined to test the truth of both these beliefs against the emerging sciences of logic and biology. His examination of the huge variety of living organisms - the enormous range of their behaviour, their powers and their perceptual sophistication - convinced him of the inadequacy both of a materialist reduction and of a Platonic sublimation of the soul. In De Anima, he sought to set out his theory of the soul as the ultimate reality of embodied form and produced both a masterpiece of philosophical insight and a psychology of perennially fascinating subtlety.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Aristotle was born at Stageira, in the dominion of the kings of Macedonia, in 384 BCE. For 20 years he studied at Athens in the Academy of Plato, on whose death in 347 he left, and, sometime later, became tutor of the young Alexander the Great. When Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedonia in 335, Aristotle returned to Athens and established his school and research institute, the Lyceum, to which his great erudition attracted a large number of scholars. After Alexander's death in 323, anti-Macedonian feeling drove Aristotle out of Athens, and he fled to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322. His writings, which were of extraordinary range, profoundly affected the whole course of ancient and medieval philosophy, and they are still eagerly studied and debated by philosophers today. Very many of them have survived and among the most famous are the Ethics and the Politics. View titles by Aristotle
De Anima (On the Soul)Foreword

Introduction
I. Entelechism
II. The Life of Aristotle
III. The Philosophical Background
IV. The Development and Scope of Entelechism
V. Perception, Imagination and Desire
VI. Intellect
VII. Entelechism in the Modern Debate
VIII. Conclusion
IX. The Translation
Glossary

On the Soul

Book I

The Traditional Background


Chapter One: The Scope of the Work
Chapter Two: Some Earlier Theories
Chapter Three: Comments on Earlier Views I
Chapter Four: Comments on Earlier Views II
Chapter Five: General Remarks

Book II

The Nature of the Soul
Chapter One: Soul as Form
Chapter Two: The Psychic Hierarchy I
Chapter Three: The Psychic Hierarchy II
Nutrition
Chapter Four: Methodological Remarks; Nutrition
Sense-perception
Chapter Five: Sensation
Chapter Six: The Types of Sense-object
Chapter Seven: Sight
Chapter Eight: Hearing
Chapter Nine: Smell
Chapter Ten: Taste
Chapter Eleven: Touch
Chapter Twelve: Perception as the Reception of Form without Matter

Book III

Sense-perception


Chapter One: General Problems of Perception I
Chapter Two: General Problems of Perception II
Imagination
Chapter Three: Imagination
Intellect
Chapter Four: Intellect
Chapter Five: Intellect; Active and Passive
Chapter Six: Intellect; Simple and Complex
Chapter Seven: Appendix to Sense and Mind
Chapter Eight: SUmmary of Account of Sense-perception and Thought
Motivation
Chapter Nine: Motivation; The Division of the Soul
Chapter Ten: Motivation
Chapter Eleven: Appendix to Motivation

Appendix: Animal Survival
Chapter Thirteen: The Teleological Context I
Chapter Fourteen: The Teleological Context II

Notes
Bibliography

About

For the Pre-Socratic philosophers the soul was the source of movement and sensation, while for Plato it was the seat of being, metaphysically distinct from the body that it was forced temporarily to inhabit. Plato's student Aristotle was determined to test the truth of both these beliefs against the emerging sciences of logic and biology. His examination of the huge variety of living organisms - the enormous range of their behaviour, their powers and their perceptual sophistication - convinced him of the inadequacy both of a materialist reduction and of a Platonic sublimation of the soul. In De Anima, he sought to set out his theory of the soul as the ultimate reality of embodied form and produced both a masterpiece of philosophical insight and a psychology of perennially fascinating subtlety.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Author

Aristotle was born at Stageira, in the dominion of the kings of Macedonia, in 384 BCE. For 20 years he studied at Athens in the Academy of Plato, on whose death in 347 he left, and, sometime later, became tutor of the young Alexander the Great. When Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedonia in 335, Aristotle returned to Athens and established his school and research institute, the Lyceum, to which his great erudition attracted a large number of scholars. After Alexander's death in 323, anti-Macedonian feeling drove Aristotle out of Athens, and he fled to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322. His writings, which were of extraordinary range, profoundly affected the whole course of ancient and medieval philosophy, and they are still eagerly studied and debated by philosophers today. Very many of them have survived and among the most famous are the Ethics and the Politics. View titles by Aristotle

Table of Contents

De Anima (On the Soul)Foreword

Introduction
I. Entelechism
II. The Life of Aristotle
III. The Philosophical Background
IV. The Development and Scope of Entelechism
V. Perception, Imagination and Desire
VI. Intellect
VII. Entelechism in the Modern Debate
VIII. Conclusion
IX. The Translation
Glossary

On the Soul

Book I

The Traditional Background


Chapter One: The Scope of the Work
Chapter Two: Some Earlier Theories
Chapter Three: Comments on Earlier Views I
Chapter Four: Comments on Earlier Views II
Chapter Five: General Remarks

Book II

The Nature of the Soul
Chapter One: Soul as Form
Chapter Two: The Psychic Hierarchy I
Chapter Three: The Psychic Hierarchy II
Nutrition
Chapter Four: Methodological Remarks; Nutrition
Sense-perception
Chapter Five: Sensation
Chapter Six: The Types of Sense-object
Chapter Seven: Sight
Chapter Eight: Hearing
Chapter Nine: Smell
Chapter Ten: Taste
Chapter Eleven: Touch
Chapter Twelve: Perception as the Reception of Form without Matter

Book III

Sense-perception


Chapter One: General Problems of Perception I
Chapter Two: General Problems of Perception II
Imagination
Chapter Three: Imagination
Intellect
Chapter Four: Intellect
Chapter Five: Intellect; Active and Passive
Chapter Six: Intellect; Simple and Complex
Chapter Seven: Appendix to Sense and Mind
Chapter Eight: SUmmary of Account of Sense-perception and Thought
Motivation
Chapter Nine: Motivation; The Division of the Soul
Chapter Ten: Motivation
Chapter Eleven: Appendix to Motivation

Appendix: Animal Survival
Chapter Thirteen: The Teleological Context I
Chapter Fourteen: The Teleological Context II

Notes
Bibliography