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Single Idea 20204

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 1. Faculties ]

Full Idea

It makes no difference if the soul is divided into parts or lacks parts, as it certainly has distinct capacities.

Gist of Idea

Whether the mind has parts is irrelevant, since it obviously has distinct capacities

Source

Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1219b32), quoted by Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski - Virtues of the Mind II 3.1

Book Ref

Zagzebski,Linda: 'Virtues of the Mind' [CUP 1996], p.140

A Reaction

I take this to endorse my view that the mind-body problem is of limited interest to philosophers. The focus should be on what the mind does, not how it is constructed. But then I presume the latter issue is revealed by neuroscience.

Related Idea

Idea 23648 First we notice and name attributes ('abstracting'); then we notice that subjects share them ('generalising') [Reid]

The 20 ideas with the same theme [theory that each distinct capacity has a specific source]:

24061 If we divide the mind up according to its capacities, there are a lot of them [Aristotle]
20204 Whether the mind has parts is irrelevant, since it obviously has distinct capacities [Aristotle]
23906 Courage from spirit is natural and unconquerable, as seen in the young [Aristotle]
20785 Our conceptions arise from experience, similarity, analogy, transposition, composition and opposition [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
21799 We just use the word 'faculty' when we don't know the psychological cause [Galen]
23264 Philosophers think faculties are in substances, and invent a faculty for every activity [Galen]
22107 Sensations are transmitted to 'internal senses' in the brain, chiefly to 'phantasia' and 'imagination' [Aquinas, by Kretzmann/Stump]
24026 Our four knowledge faculties are intelligence, imagination, the senses, and memory [Descartes]
21800 Descartes mentions many cognitive faculties, but reduces them to will and intellect [Descartes, by Schmid]
21804 Faculties are either fictions, or the abstract universals of ideas [Spinoza]
2869 Kant's only answer as to how synthetic a priori judgements are possible was that we have a 'faculty'! [Nietzsche on Kant]
9346 Judgements which are essentially and strictly universal reveal our faculty of a priori cognition [Kant]
5572 Reason has logical and transcendental faculties [Kant]
24145 Mind is a mechanism of abstraction and simplification, aimed at control [Nietzsche]
23191 Minds have an excluding drive to scare things off, and a selecting one to filter facts [Nietzsche]
14868 Our primary faculty is perception of structure, as when looking in a mirror [Nietzsche]
23943 Distinguishing reason from passion is based on an archaic 'faculty' theory [Solomon]
2539 Mental modules for language, social, action, theory, space, emotion [McGinn]
20657 There are 23 core brain functions, with known circuit, transmitters, genes and behaviour [Watson]
22135 Our concepts can never fully capture reality, but simplification does not falsify [Boulter]