Aristotle’s De anima

G.W.F. Hegel, in the Introduction to the Philosophy of Spirit, writes the following: 'The books of Aristotle on the Soul, along with his discussions on its special aspects and states, are for this reason’ — namely, because they integrate ‘Rational’ and ‘Empirical’ psychology — 'still by far the most admirable, perhaps even the sole, work of philosophical value on this topic.’ He continues: 'The main aim of a philosophy of mind can only be to reintroduce unity of idea and principle into the theory of mind, and so reinterpret the lesson of those Aristotelian books’ (Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Part III, §378). Statements such as these are not easily mustered nowadays, not even by Aristotle's warmest admirers. Still they do prick the curiosity, and so in this course we will spend the quarter on a close reading of Aristotle’s De anima. (IV)