On the Soul
Translated by J. A. Smith
2h 42m
32,355 words
en
Across three books, Aristotle defines the soul as the actuality of a body that has life potentially. He distinguishes the nutritive soul of plants, the sensitive soul of animals, and the rational soul of humans, then works through perception sense-by-sense and arrives at the most contested passages in his corpus: the active intellect, immortal yet impersonal. On the Soul founded the discipline of psychology, shaped medieval philosophy of mind from Avicenna to Aquinas, and remains a touchstone for any modern theory of consciousness.
