218 Aristotle and his school
role of heat, orpneuma, or blood) is beyond the scope of this chapter.^43
In particular, the question will be raised to what extent these roles can
be subsumed under the rubric of ‘the dependence of thought on appear-
ances’K L; for this is a dependence Aristotle acknowledges^44
but which seems to open the door to a variety of serious bodily influences
on the operation of the intellect and thus may present a challenge to his
‘canonical’ view that thinking is not a bodily process taking place in a
particular bodily organ (a view that can be related to other parts of his phi-
losophy, e.g. his epistemological and ethical views about man, man’s being
akin to the gods, man’s highest activity consisting in contemplation, etc.).
First, there are a number of texts that describe thinking itself in seemingly
physical terms. Thus a passage inPh. 247 b 1 ff. describes thinking as a state of
‘rest’Kq #
Lor ‘coming to a standstill’K
Lfollowing upon,
indeed emerging from, a state of bodily motion or turbulence:
Nor are the states of the intellectual part qualitative changes... nor is the original
acquisition of knowledge a process of becoming or a modification. For it is through
[discursive] reasoningK
Lcoming to a standstill that we are said to know and
understandK
L, and there is no process of becoming leading
to the standstill, nor indeed to any kind of change... Just as when someone changes
from [a state of ] drunkenness or sleep or disease into the opposite states we do not
say that he has come to have knowledge again – although hewasunable to realise
the knowledge – so likewise when he originally acquires the state [of knowing] we
should not say so [i.e. that he is ‘coming to be’ possessed of knowledge]. For it is by
the soulK:Lcoming to a standstill from the natural turbulence that something
becomes understandingK !
Lor knowingK
L– and this is also
why children cannot acquire knowledgeK
Lor pass judgements according
to their senses as grown men can, for they are in a state of great turbulence and
movement. It [i.e. the soul] is brought to a standstill and to rest, with regard to
(^43) It would be very useful indeed to study the role of particular factors, especially heat and blood,
in the various psychic powers and to see what part they play in the explanation of variations in
psychic performances among different kinds of animals (for a thorough treatment of the role of the
elementary qualities in Aristotle’s biological writings see Althoff ( 1992 a), whoseindex locorumwill
guide the reader to useful discussions of the relevant passages). This might also shed light on the
difficult question of how the different ‘parts’ of the soul are interrelated and how, or rather,whether
operations of ‘lower’ soul functions may be influenced by higher ones, e.g. whether human perception
isitselfdifferent from animal perception because of the presence of the intellectual capacity. Thus
in addition to speaking of ‘sense informed by a noetic capacity’ and saying that ‘It is only in the
case ofhumanperception, enriched by the conceptual resources provided by its marriage withnous,
that Aristotle can speak of usperceiving a man’ (Kahn ( 1992 ) 369 ), one might also consider saying
that according to Aristotle the human bodily structures and conditions for perception are better and
more conducive to knowledge and understanding than in animals (e.g. because man has a better,
purer blend of heat and cold).
(^44) Mem. 449 b 31 – 450 a 1 ;De an. 403 a 9 ; 427 b 15 ; 431 a 17 ; 431 b 2 ; 432 a 3 ff.