On the Soul
- Language:
- English
- Translation:
- Charles Collier
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~91,200 words · 433 passages
Cite this work
- APAAristotle. (n.d.). On the Soul. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/aristotle/de-anima-on-the-soul
- MLAAristotle. "On the Soul." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/aristotle/de-anima-on-the-soul.
- ChicagoAristotle. On the Soul. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/aristotle/de-anima-on-the-soul.
What it is about
Aristotle's treatise on the soul, which is not a spirit shut inside a body but that which makes a living body alive.
Context and history
The definition in book two — the soul is the first actuality of a natural body having life in potentiality — dissolves at a stroke the Platonic problem of how two different substances are joined: they are not joined, because they are not two, just as the shape of an axe is not something separate from the iron. Out of this comes a scale: plants feed and reproduce, animals also perceive and move, man also thinks. Book three contains the passage on the active intellect that occupied fifteen hundred years of commentary, because Aristotle says there that this part is 'separable, impassible and unmixed' and does not make clear whether it is personal or common: Averroes read it one way and Aquinas another, and the quarrel ran on to the Renaissance. It is also the earliest treatise on psychology and on the theory of perception that we possess.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
CONTENTS Front page Preface Introduction Book the first Prelude to Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Prelude to Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Prelude to Chapter 3 Chapter 3 Prelude to Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Prelude to Chapter 5 Chapter 5 Book the second Prelude to Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Prelude to Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Prelude to Chapter 3 Chapter 3 Prelude to Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Prelude to Chapter 5 Chapter 5 Prelude to Chapter 6 Chapter 6 Prelude to Chapter 7 Chapter 7 Prelude to Chapter 8 Chapter 8 Prelude to Chapter 9 Chapter 9 Prelude to Chapter 10 Chapter 10 Prelude to Chapter 11 Chapter 11 Prelude to Chapter 12 Chapter 12 Book the third Prelude to Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Prelude to Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Prelude to Chapter 3 Chapter 3 Prelude to Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Prelude to Chapter 5 Chapter 5 Prelude to Chapter 6 Chapter 6 Prelude to Chapter 7 Chapter 7 Prelude to Chapter 8 Chapter 8 Prelude to Chapter 9 Chapter 9 Prelude to Chapter 10 Chapter 10 Prelude to Chapter 11 Chapter 11 Prelude to Chapter 12 Chapter 12 Prelude to Chapter 13 Chapter 13 Cambridge: Printed at the University Press. For MACMILLAN & Co. London: D. NUTT. Oxford: J. H. PARKER. Edinburgh: EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS. Dublin: HODGES AND SMITH. Glasgow: JAMES MACLEHOSE. ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΟΥΣ ΠΕΡΙ ΨΥΧΗΣ. ARISTOTLE ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE. Translated from the original Text; WITH NOTES BY CHARLES COLLIER, M.D., F.R.S. FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, AND HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS. Cambridge: MACMILLAN & CO. LONDON: D. NUTT. 1855. PREFACE.← Back to Aristotle