Aristotle on Human Nature: The Animal with Logos

Description

Exploring Aristotle’s concept of logos as a foundational concept of human nature, this volume explores its place in the history of philosophy. Expert contributors re-position our understanding of it as a singular additional feature of human nature by arguing that logos is the organizing principle of human life itself. Tracing its multiple meanings in different contexts, including reason, logic, speech, ratio, account, and form, this collection proves that there is no single way to translate the term. Split into three parts, this book systematically analyses logos in relation to metaphysics, phusis, ethos, and polis. Contributors highlight the ways in which we can see logos in human thinking, in the organizing principles of our bodies, in our perception of the world, in our social and political life, and through our productive arts. Through this focus, logos reveals itself not as one feature amongst others, but instead as the feature, that organizes all others, from the most “animal” to the most “spiritual.” By presenting logos in this way, readers gain a complex account of the philosophy of human nature. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations of Works by Aristotle Introduction Part I: The Logos of Logos Chapter 1: Language, Logic, and Metaphysics: The Being with Logos and the Logos of Being Part II: The Logos of Phusis Chapter 2: “For There Are Gods Here Too”: Embodied Essence, Two-Footedness, and the Animal with Logos Chapter 3: The Significance of Self-Nourishment: Aristotle’s De Anima II.4 Chapter 4: Flesh as Logos Chapter 5: Perception, Thought, and Error in Aristotle’s De Anima Chapter 6: “Actuality in the First Sense” and the Question of Human Nature in Aristotle Part III: The Logos of Ethos Chapter 7: Wishful Thinking in Aristotle Chapter 8: The Dissociative Power of Logos in Taking Account of Oneself Chapter 9: Aristotle on the Rationality of Virtue Chapter 10: Learning How to Be at Leisure through Musical Education Part IV: The Logos of the Polis Chapter 11: The Vicissitudes of Logos: On Nature, Character, and Time-of-Life Chapter 12: Practical Logos in Aristotle’s Ethics, Rhetoric, and Politics Chapter 13: The Movement of Political Animals Chapter 14: Aristotle: The Politics of Life and the Life of Politics Chapter 15: Logos and the Polis in the Poetics Bibliography Contributors Index