“On Aristotle's Hypothetical Method in De Anima” by Tutor Jacques Duvoisin
To understand Aristotle’s remark that there is no thinking without an image, it is necessary to consider the mode of his argument in De Anima and elsewhere. If we suppose that he is exploring a hypothesis -- if we accept that, we must also accept this -- and inviting us to join him in it, we may find a result that is both unsettling and oddly compelling, but also one we cannot easily dispense with. It seems strange to say that all modes of thinking, including the thinking we might attribute to the gods must involve an image. This means we have to develop a keen sense of the context of the remark, and this will entail attending to its argumentative mode. This reflection will nudge us toward recognizing both a physiological and a political dimension to Aristotle’s theory of the soul.
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