Syllabus
Outline of the classes
1) presentation of the text: aims, time and context.
2) The origin of the soul: doxography and interpretation of Aristotle
3) The relation between soul and body
4) Against “Alexander-Themistius-Averroes”: that the soul is the form of the body
5) The relation among the soul’s faculties
6) The intellect: Maldonado’s reading of Aristotle’s On the Soul, III. 4-5
7) Cognition and immortality: some criticisms
Annotation
Summer Term 2019: MA module
Contact: anna.tropia@ff.cuni.cz
Office hours: Wed. 13h-14h
Where: Nám. Jana Palacha 2 2 floor, room P 218
When: Thursday, 14h10-15h45
What does it mean that the mind is independent from the senses and therefore, immortal? Furthermore, what is the relation between the embodied mind and the body? These are the main points that will be addressed in the course. Our textual base will be a class on psychology that the Jesuit professor Juan Maldonado (Extremadura, 1533 - Rome, 1583) taught in Paris in 1564: this “compendium” provides the modern reader with an excellent synthesis of what Descartes himself, for instance, will oppose to in his Metaphysical Meditations (1641). This text, entitled “On the origin, the nature and the immortality of the soul” (De origine, natura et immortalitate animae), has been recently edited by myself. Students will be provided with an English translation during the course.