The Human Intellect: Aristotle’s Conception Of Νοῦς In His .
The Human Intellect:Aristotle’s Conception of Νοῦς in his De AnimaCaleb Murray CohoeA DISSERTATIONPRESENTED TO THE FACULTYOF PRINCETON UNIVERSITYIN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREEOF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHYRECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCEBY THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHYAdviser: Hendrik LorenzJune 2012
Copyright by Caleb Murray Cohoe, 2012. All rights reserved.
AbstractI examine Aristotle’s account of nous, the intellect or power of understanding, in the DeAnima (DA) and the implications this account has for Aristotle’s conception of the human being.At the beginning of the DA Aristotle presents what I argue is a condition for separability inexistence: the soul is separable from the body if it has some activity that can be done without thebody.In order to determine whether Aristotle thinks the soul meets this condition, I lay out hismetaphysical views concerning human beings. I argue that for Aristotle the human being, not thebody or the soul, is the underlying subject of all human activities, including understanding. I thenargue that Aristotle’s conception of the soul is compatible with the soul having powers andactivities that do not involve the body. If the intellectual power and its activities can existseparately from the body, the human being can as well.I present Aristotle’s account of the intentionality of cognitive states, both perceptual andintellectual, and use this account to reconstruct and defend Aristotle’s argument in III 4 that theintellect cannot have a bodily organ. Understanding is universal, but any cognitive activity thatoperates through bodily organs will be particular.I then argue that in DA III 5 Aristotle introduces a human intellectual power, theproductive intellect, which draws out the intelligible characteristics of things from the images wepossess in order to produce understanding. I maintain that my Human Intellect view, accordingto which Aristotle is claiming that the human intellect is undying and divine, is superior to theDivine Intellect view, on which Aristotle’s claim is about a divine extra-human intellect. On myview, understanding is not an activity that is done with the body, it only employs the soul.Aristotle can reasonably maintain that understanding no longer requires images after thedestruction of the body, since there is no longer a need to coordinate with other cognitivepowers. Human beings persist after death because we continue to understand, although we canno longer remember or experience emotions.iii
Table of ContentsAbstract.iiiTable of Contents.ivAcknowledgments .viiI.Introduction: The Human Intellect in Aristotle’s De Anima . 1II. The Separability of Soul and Intellect in De Anima I and II. 91.Introduction . 92.Aristotle’s Hylomorphic Account of Soul and Body. 93.Interpretations of Aristotle’s Views on Soul and Body . 134.Rival Interpretations of Νοῦς in the De Anima . 145.The Separability Thesis and Discussion of Metaphysics Λ 3 . 186.The Separability of Body and Soul in DA I and II 1-4. 23III. Νοῦς in DA I 4 and Other Disputed Passages in DA I-II . 341.Introduction . 342.Νοῦς in I 4 . 353.Νοεῖν and Other Intellectual Activities in DA I and II . 594.Intellectual Soul in DA II 2 and 3. 62IV. Who am I? Aristotle’s Views on Soul and Body . 681.Introduction . 682.Aristotle’s Account of What a Human Being is. 683.Two Rival Views of Aristotle’s Position on the Proper Subject of HumanActivities. 71a.The Attribute View . 71b.The Soul View . 754.The Composite View. 785.Why Aristotle Holds that the Soul is the Primary Explanatory Factor ofHuman Activities. 866.Why Aristotle Thinks that the Composite Substance, Not the Soul, is theProper Subject of Human Activities. 907.The Relationship between the Soul and the Composite Substance. 968.Aristotle’s Understanding of the Body . 979.Implications of Aristotle’s View . 99a.Criteria for Survival . 99b.Aristotle’s Views on Personal Character . 100c.Aristotle’s Hierarchy of Human Activities . 102Diagram A: Aristotle’s Hierarchy of Human Activities . 104d.Aristotle’s Special Role for the Intellect. 105V. Separability and the Soul as the Form of the Body . 108iv
1.Introduction . 1082.Two Views of the Soul: Soul before Powers and Refined Constitution1113.The Soul, the Intellect, and Non-Bodily Activities. 128VI. Why the Intellect Cannot Have a Bodily Organ: De Anima III 4 . 1411.Introduction . 1412.Aristotle’s Account of Intentionality . 1443.Aristotle’s Argument that the Intellect Cannot Have a BodilyOrgan . . 150a.Introduction. 150b.Aristotle’s Neutrality Condition. 152c.“The Intellect Understands All Things”. 159d.Aristotle’s Argument and Its Conclusion. 161e.Objection: Combining Bodily Organs of Cognition . 164f.The Universal Character of Understanding . 1664.Conclusion. 168VII. Images and Understanding . 1701.Introduction: The Implications of DA III 4 . 1702.Images Are Not Partially Constitutive of Understanding . 1763.The Separability Requirement. 1804.The Role of Images in Understanding: Introduction. 1835.The De Memoria Passage. 1856.Explanations of Images and Understanding. 187a.Wedin’s Account. 187b.The Triggering Theory. 188c.The Phenomenological Theory . 191d.The Need for Coordination . 192e.Explaining Error and Variation in Understanding . 192f.Explaining the Limits of Understanding. 195g.Images as Aids to Understanding. 1977.The DA on Images and Understanding . 2008.The Character and Role of Images in Understanding . 2059.Is Understanding Non-bodily and Separate?. 207VIII. The Productive Intellect: De Anima III 5. 2121.Introduction . 2122.Interpretive Options . 2153.The Context of DA III 5 . 2194.The Text of DA III 5. 225a.The Productive Intellect . 225b.Properties of the Productive Intellect. 249v
c.Knowledge . 258d.Concluding Remarks. 2645.Conclusion. 275IX. Νοῦς and the Possibility of Survival. 2791.Introduction . 2792.Objections to the Human Intellect View . 281a.Methodological Objections . 281b.Consequences of the Human Intellect View . 2873.Conclusion. 292Appendix A: Sigla Codicorum Manuscriptorum. 296Appendix B: Translation and Text of De Anima III 5 . 297Bibliography . 299vi
AcknowledgmentsFirst of all, I would like to thank my primary advisor Hendrik Lorenz for his guidance,advice, and scholarly example. I am especially grateful for his readingness to engage inextended, detailed, and careful philosophical conversation. He helped pose some of the mostincisive objections to the positions I developed and helped me to carefully consider and engagewith alternative readings. Hendrik played a large part in the development of my interpretations ofmost of the key passages in the De Anima. I would also like to thank John Cooper, who served asmy secondary adviser and helped me to articulate my overall project and provided much usefulcriticism and direction.I want to acknowledge my debt to all the students and faculty in Princeton’s ClassicalPhilosophy Program. My knowledge of ancient philosophy has been greatly deepened andenlarged through all the activities of this program, from seminars and reading groups to informalconversation. The base of knowledge this program gave me has improved and informed all of mywork in ancient philosophy.Samuel Baker has been a wonderful friend and fellow seeker of wisdom throughout ourexperience together at Princeton. Our conversations have consistently challenged and deepenedmy philosophical views and my interpretations of Aristotle and others. His advice, questions, andcomments have informed my whole philosophical outlook, in addition to having a largeinfluence on my dissertation.I would also like to thank those who provided me with comments and suggestions onparts of this work. In particular, I would like to thank my fellow participants in the PrincetonPhilosophy Department’s Dissertation Seminar for their comments and feedback on materialfrom Chapters II and VI. These comments helped me to more clearly outline the background andassumptions of Aristotle’s work on the soul, as well as raising a number of important questionsand objections. I would also like to thank audiences at the 14th Annual Oxford PhilosophyGraduate Conference and attendees of the 1st Graduate Conference of the Ancient Philosophy &Science Network, held at the Humboldt University, Berlin for their comments and questionsconcerning material from Chapter VI. I received helpful comments and questions on materialfrom Chapter IV in a colloquium with the faculty at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Iwould also like to particularly thank Ryan Cook, for his comments and advice on the material inChapter IV which helped me to get clearer on Aristotle’s views on the relationship betweenhuman activities, the soul, and the composite human being. Stephen Menn helpfully shared withme his unpublished paper on De Anima III 4-5.Daniel and Agata Herrick, David and Harmony Decosimo, Joseph and Nora Clair, Jadaand Tim Strabbing, and Samuel Baker, among many other friends, especially from InterVarsityGraduate Christian Fellowship, all helped to make graduate school life joyful and rewarding aswell as supporting me through all the challenges I faced. I would also like to thank HansHalvorson for advice and encouragement.Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Samantha, and my family for their wonderfulsupport and understanding throughout graduate school and especially throughout the process ofwriting and preparing my dissertation. They have been a constant joy and encouragement to meand a welcome reminder of the importance and value of life outside of scholarly work.vii
I. Introduction: The Human Intellect in Aristotle’s De AnimaWhat is it to truly understand something? What do the activities of understanding thathumans engage in reveal to us about human beings and their relationship to, and place in, theworld? In this dissertation I examine Aristotle’s answers to these questions. I carefully considerhis account of νοῦς, the intellect or power of understanding, in the De Anima (DA) and theimplications this account has for Aristotle’s conception of the human being. For Aristotle,understanding is the power that most fundamentally distinguishes human beings from nonhuman animals. Some animals share with us capacities for perception, memory, and imaginationbut no animal is able to understand what something is. In this dissertation I argue that, forAristotle, understanding is crucially different from all the other activities of ensouled livingthings because it is a non-bodily activity. This activity belongs to human beings just in virtue ofour souls, not our bodies. On my interpretation of Aristotle’s De Anima (DA), what I will call theHuman Intellect interpretation, all of Aristotle’s claims in this work about νοῦς or intellect areabout the human intellect, including those that describe it as everlasting and undying. On myview, the non-bodily character of the activity of understanding means that it can continue afterthe destruction of the body, allowing human beings to survive death through the continuedexercise of the intellect in understanding. The human soul can exist and perform intellectualactivities apart from the body.Aristotle’s De Anima is one of the fundamental texts in psychology and the philosophy ofmind and has remained so from antiquity to the present day, engaging a wide array of thinkersthroughout the centuries. There has been much recent discussion on Aristotle’s conception of thesoul and its relation to the body, both generally and with a particular focus on Aristotle’s theoryof perception, but Aristotle’s conception of νόησις, understanding, has been relatively1
neglected, despite its prominence in the tradition of commentary stretching from antiquitythrough the Renaissance and beyond. Νοῦς or intellect is central to Aristotle’s thought. Anadequate grasp of Aristotle’s theory of the intellectual capacities is crucial for grasping his viewon the relationship between the soul and the body, since the intellectual capacities are the humansoul’s most distinctive faculties and have the most complex relationship to the body. Νοῦς isalso central to Aristotle’s ethics and first philosophy or metaphysics. The claim that νοῦς is themost divine aspect of us and the identification of the activity of νοῦς with happiness,εὐδαιμονία, are some of the central and most striking features of his Nicomachean Ethics. InAristotle’s first philosophy, he claims that the divine being on which all of nature depends isidentical to the perfect activity which is (divine) νοῦς. Careful study of Aristotle’s conception ofunderstanding in the De Anima lays the groundwork for better understanding and appreciatingthe significance of Aristotle’s use of νοῦς in the other parts of his philosophy. Aristotle’scarefully articulated account of understanding is worth examining in its own right. It also givesus a better grasp of Aristotle’s natural philosophy as a whole and contributes to understandingother areas of Aristotle’s thought.In the remainder of this introductory chapter, I lay out the structure and overall aims ofthe dissertation, as I attempt to provide a complete account of Aristotle’s theory of the humanpower of understanding, or νοῦς, in the De Anima. In Chapter II I present Aristotle’smetaphysical framework, as it relates to living things. For Aristotle, a human being is composedout of the human soul, the form that accounts for what the human being is, and a human body,matter organized in the appropriate way for carrying out human activities. Although soul andbody are intrinsically connected, Aristotle asks at the beginning of the DA, but postponesanswering, whether the human soul might be separable from the body. He presents a separability2
condition: the soul is separable from the body if it engages in, or can engage in, some activitythat can be done without the body, with the activity of understanding being the most plausiblecandidate. I argue that Aristotle is offering a condition for separability in existence, not just acondition for separability in definition or kind.I then outline the main existing contemporary and historical interpretations of νοῦς as itis discussed in the DA. On my preferred view, in the DA Aristotle consistently uses the termνοῦς to refer to the intellect or power of understanding that belongs to individual human beings.Other interpretations hold that (at least in some DA passages) the νοῦς that Aristotle speaks of isa separately existing substance, not the intellect of any particular human being. Differentversions of this interpretation offer different accounts concerning the nature of this substance, butthey all hold that νοῦς in this sense is not a power internal to the human being. I presentevidence from the first two books of the DA in favor of my interpretation. In Chapter III I discusspassages from DA I and II that initially seem to provide support for the other interpretation. Iargue that a reading that takes νοῦς to be a power internal to the human being does a better jobof explaining them.In Chapter IV I examine Aristotle’s views on what a human being is and, in particular,his views on what the proper subject of human activities and affections is. I argue that forAristotle the human being, composed of body and soul, is the underlying subject of all the humanactivities of an individual (ones that they engage in specifically as human beings), not the bodyor the soul. Although the composite human being is the subject, the human soul, the goaldirected capacity for performing human activities, plays a commanding role in accounting forwhat human beings are and for what we do, insofar as we are human beings. Against someinterpreters, I argue that the soul is not merely the set of capacities or powers possessed by the3
living body as something a
iii Abstract I examine Aristotle’s account of nous, the intellect or power of understanding, in the De Anima (DA) and the implications this account has for Aristotle’s conception of the human being. At the beginning of the DA Aristotle presents what I argue is a condition for separability in existence: the soul is separable from the body if it has some activity that can be done without the
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