Victor Caston

The study of Aristotle’s psychology has long been dominated by metaphysical concerns, centering above all on the relation between the soul and the body. For centuries, this was inevitable, given the widespread preoccupation with immortality and considerable puzzlement as to whether Aristotle’s views about the intellect committed him to it or not. But in the twentieth century the soul-body relation has continued to be the main focus, even when talking about perception. The debate over perception that raged from the 1980s until the last decade was almost entirely restricted to the question of whether Aristotle was a functionalist.It is a welcome change, then, to have a book whose primary concern is the content of..

In "De anima" 3.5, Aristotle argues for the existence of a second intellect, the so-called "Agent Intellect." The logical structure of his argument turns on a distinction between different types of soul, rather than different faculties within a given soul; and the attributes he assigns to the second species make it clear that his concern here -- as at the climax of his other great works, such as the "Metaphysics," the "Nicomachean" and the "Eudemian Ethics" -- is the difference between the human and the divine. If this is right, we needn't go on a wild goose chase trying to invent a role for the so-called Agent Intellect to play. God moves our intellects as he moves the heavenly spheres, "as a beloved": he constitutes the complete actualization towards which all of our intellectual striving is directed. Aristotle regards such final causation as an efficient cause, but not in a way that would make it part of what we would call the causal processes or mechanisms of human psychology. But, he would insist, it is essential for appreciating who we are and what our place is in the world

Aristotle not only fonnulates the problem of intentionality explicitly, he makes a solution to it a requirement for any adequate theory of mind. His own solution, however, is not to be found in his theory of sensation, as Brentano and others have thought. In fact, it is precisely because Aristotle regards this theory as inadequate that he goes on to argue for a distinct new ability he calls “phantasia.” The theory of content he develops on this basis (unlike Brentano’s) is profoundly naturalistic: it is a representational theory, formulated in tenns of the causal powers and physical magnitudes of the body.

This debate, I shall argue, has everything to do with Aristotle. Aristotle raises the charge of epiphenomenalism himself against a theory that seems to have close affinities to his own, and he offers what has the makings of an emergentist response. This leads to controversy within his own school. We find opponents ranged on both sides, starting with his own pupils, several of whom are stout defenders of epiphenomenalism, and culminating in the developed emergentism of later commentators. Aristotle’s theory and the debate that ensued are thus quite relevant to contemporary discussions. But first we need to get clear on terms.

Aristotle not only formulates the problem of intentionality explicitly, he makes a solution to it a requirement for any adequate theory of mind. His own solution, however, is not to be found in his theory of sensation, as Brentano and others have thought. In fact, it is precisely because Aristotle regards this theory as inadequate that he goes on to argue for a distinct new ability he calls "phantasia." The theory of content he develops on this basis (unlike Brentano's) is profoundly naturalistic: it is a representational theory, formulated in terms of the causal powers and physical magnitudes of the body