more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
The soul is in a way all the things that exist, for all the things that exist are objects either of perception or of thought.
Gist of Idea
In a way the soul is everything which exists, through its perceptions and thoughts
Source
Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 431b20)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'De Anima (On the Soul)', ed/tr. Lawson-Tancred,H.C. [Penguin 1986], p.210
A Reaction
Sounds very like Berkeley's empirical version of idealism. It also seems to imply modern externalist (anti-individualist) understandings of the mind (which strike me as false).
1735 | In a way the soul is everything which exists, through its perceptions and thoughts [Aristotle] |
22978 | Memory is so vast that I cannot recognise it as part of my mind [Augustine] |
22164 | When Dasein grasps something it exists externally alongside the thing [Heidegger] |
12602 | There is no natural border between inner and outer [Harman] |
12603 | We can only describe mental attitudes in relation to the external world [Harman] |
8126 | Anti-individualism says the environment is involved in the individuation of some mental states [Burge] |
8127 | Broad concepts suggest an extension of the mind into the environment (less computer-like) [Burge] |
6176 | A mechanism can count as 'cognitive' whether it is in the brain or outside it [Clark/Chalmers, by Rowlands] |
19741 | If something in the world could equally have been a mental process, it is part of our cognition [Clark/Chalmers] |
19742 | Consciousness may not extend beyond the head, but cognition need not be conscious [Clark/Chalmers] |
6173 | Content externalism implies that we do not have privileged access to our own minds [Rowlands] |
6174 | If someone is secretly transported to Twin Earth, others know their thoughts better than they do [Rowlands] |