Aristotle on the intellect and limits of natural science

Most present-day philosophers of mind are physicalists . When it comes to determining the world’s ontology, physicalists privilege the position of those who study the inanimate world and refuse to countenance what is utterly mysterious (i.e., seemingly brute and arbitrary) from the physicist’s point of view. This orientation leads to a version of the “mind-body problem.” For the concepts we employ to describe thought, conscious perception, and the other states and activities Descartes indelibly marks with the label “mental” do not belong to physics’ basic conceptual repertoire. So, assuming that the physicalist doesn’t wish to eliminate the mental altogether, she must fi nd a way to effect an explanatory continuity between the world that the contemporary (or future, or perfect) physicist describes and the mental life of living organisms. At a minimum, this continuity consists in a restricted form of the global logical supervenience of mental properties upon physical properties. That is, the mental ceases to be mysterious to the physicist if and only if the totality of our world’s true physical facts entails the totality of our world’s true mental facts. 1 Though the goal is easily stated, and many physicalists take it for granted, establishing this supervenience claim is no easy task. Aristotle, unlike the present-day philosopher of mind, faces no special mindbody problem. For according to Aristotle, mental capacities are simply to be placed, with equal footing, alongside other vital capacities (δυνάμεις τῆς ψυχῆς) (e.g., respiration and digestion). At most, Aristotle faces a “life-body problem.” This life-body problem is not without its obstacles and several of these challenges mirror diffi culties that the mind-body problem raises. But Aristotle’s framework allows him to sidestep the one obstacle we have already mentioned: he does not have to establish that vital capacities and their activities are intelligible to those who study the inanimate world. For according to Aristotle, the science that studies the inanimate world is the science of nature (φυσικὴ ἐπιστήμη) and the individual who practices this science, the student of nature (φυσικός), examines that which “is by nature or according to nature” (φύσει καὶ κατὰ φύσιν) ( Phys . II.1, 193a1–2). 8