ARISTOTLE’S ONTOLOGY OF THE SOUL "QUA" PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SOUL

Abstract

If we are to correctly understand the causes and motives for this kind of essay title, concerning Aristotle’s soul theory, we need to primarily bear in mind the fact that the soul, for Stagirite, is inevitably bestowed in being. Also, the fact that the concept of soul cannot be explicated without its ontological basis, which stands on the difference between dýnamis and enérgeia (entelékheia), it gives us the chance to realize that the soul’s position must be understood ontologically, and not ontically. Primary concern of Aristotle’s ”psychology” thus becomes the grounding of ousiology of the soul, which suspends the soul from being simply placed in the class of beings. Precisely that is the outcome of the previously stated characteristic of the soul, which is indispensably located in being. On the other hand, the dominant disposition of the phenomenological drift, effectuated both in De Anima and Parva naturalia, are suggesting us that it is far more fruitful if we take our directions towards the phenomenology of the soul, instead of elucidating the ontology of the soul in the way of psychologia rationalis.