IntranetIn the doctoral project ‘Aristotle on Parts of the Soul’ Francesca Pedriali examines the notion of a part of soul and its relevance in the Aristotelian account of the soul. The aim of the project is to highlight the methodological relevance of the notion of a part in Aristotle’s scientific account of the soul and to justify the systematic use of this notion not only in De Anima, but also in the biological and zoological works of the Corpus Aristotelicum. The underlying idea is that the notion of part of soul plays a relevant role in the account of different types of soul because of the particular ontological structure that souls exhibit.
The approach is therefore distinct from the standard analysis of the Aristotelian partition of the soul insofar as the main focus of the proposed analysis goes beyond the conceptual relation between parts and capacities of the soul (the internal structure of the soul, “horizontal analysis”) and the conceptual relation between parts and kinds of soul (the classificatory role of parts of soul, “vertical analysis”). The goal of the project is to gain a fundamental understanding of why the account of the parts of the soul is for Aristotle the most appropriate account of the soul and what precise role these parts play in the Aristotelian scientific account of the soul.
Ioannis Papachristou is writing a dissertation on Philoponus’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics IV (on place, time, and void) with a special emphasis on the Corollaria de loco et inani (Excursus on Place / Space and Void). His aim is to explain why Philoponus maintains, against Aristotle, the existence of a vacuum. In the context of this dispute with Aristotle, Philoponus introduced the concept of impetus, which constituted a radical innovation in the science of motion.
István Baksa, born in 1980, has studied philosophy at the University of Miskolc in Miskolc, Hungary. He is currently working on the first book of Olympidorus’ commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorology. This dissertation project will include a translation of the first book with full notes and an interpretative essay. After completing his dissertation, he would like to continue with the second and the third book of the commentary.
Research Group D-III-E-II-2 focuses on spatial models in ancient medicine and ancient philosophy of mind. It seeks to investigate which concepts of the localization of faculties of the soul and of the diseases of mind were developed in ancient times and how these ancient theories contributed to the concepts of modern times. In order to develop a comparative approach, texts by Plato, selected Platonists, Aristotle, selected Aristotelians, Galen, and modern Aristotelians are to be analyzed.