PHIL 901 Aristotle on Intellect and Intellectual Virtue
This course is a close reading of De Anima Book III, which is Aristotle's account of intellectual capacities, and of Eudemian Ethics Book V (Nicomachean Ethics VI), which is Aristotle's account of intellectual virtues. We also consider selections from Aristotle's logical and biological works, as well as relevant texts from other ancient and more recent thinkers. We begin, however, with a paradigmatic case of human intellectual activity, namely imitation. Aristotle says in the Poetics that "Imitation is natural to human beings from childhood and in this way they differ from the other animals, because he is the most imitative of animals, and he accomplishes his first learnings through imitation" (1448b5-8). This presents an interesting contrast with standard Aristotelian definitions of man as a rational or reason-possessing animal. The activity of intellectual imitation and its objects frames the course. Following Aristotle, we seek to understand these intellectual activities and achievements by comparison and contrast with non-intellectual ones like perception and moral virtue. Throughout we pay close attention to the order and method Aristotle follows.