I argue that a study of the Nicomachean Ethics and of the Parva Naturalia shows that Aristotle had a notion of attention. This notion captures the common aspects of apparently different phenomena like perceiving something vividly, being distracted by a loud sound or by a musical piece, focusing on a geometrical problem. For Aristotle, these phenomena involve a specific selectivity that is the outcome of the competition between different cognitive stimuli. This selectivity is attention. I argue that Aristotle studied the common aspects of the physiological processes at the basis of attention and its connection with pleasure. His notion can explain perceptual attention and intellectual attention as voluntary or involuntary phenomena. In addition, it sheds light on how attention and enjoyment can enhance our cognitive activities.
For Aristotle, human cognition has a lot in common both with non-human animal cognition and with divine cognition. With non-human animals, humans share a non-rational part of the soul and non-rational cognitive faculties (DA 427b6-14, NE 1102b29 and EE 1219b24-6). With gods, humans share a rational part of the soul and rational cognitive faculties (NE 1177b17-1178a8). The rational part and the non-rational part of the soul, however, coexist and cooperate only in human souls (NE 1102b26-9, EE 1219b28-31). In this chapter, I show that a study of this cooperation helps to uncover some distinctive aspects of human cognition and desire. Humans have a peculiarly expanded non-rational perceptual and desiderative range. This difference in sophistication is not merely a matter of enhanced discriminatory capacities: humans also have the peculiar ability to exercise deliberative phantasia at will and the peculiar ability to synthesise many phantasmata into one. 1 Human rational cognition, in turn, differs from divine cognition because it can be hindered or supported by non-rational cognition. Human rational cognition also involves peculiar abilities, including the ability to direct non-rational cognition and non-rational affections by means of concentration and the appropriate kinds of pleasures, pains, exhortations and reproofs. Uncovering these peculiarities of human cognition is important in order to solve a puzzle about the links between Aristotle's psychology and his ethics. Aristotle thinks that ethicists and political scientists should have some knowledge of psychology and in particular of the rational part and the non-rational part of the human soul (NE 1102a23-8). He also endorses a "peculiarity criterion" according to which ethicists and political scientists
In this paper, I reconstruct the reasons why Aristotle thinks that musical education is important for moral education. Musical education teaches us to appropriately enjoy and to recognize fine melodies and rhythms. Fine melodies and rhythms are similar to the kind of movements fine actions consist in and fine characters display. By teaching us to appropriately enjoy and to recognise fine melodies and rhythms, musical education can thus train us to perceptually recognise and appropriately enjoy fine actions and characters. This is how musical education leads us, up to a point, toward the actions and character dispositions a virtuous life requires.
ELENA CAGNOLI FIECCONI 1 Elements of biology in Aristotle's political science Aristotle's political science studies the human good. This includes the good for individuals and the good for the community, which is greater, more complete and more divine (EN 1.2.1094a27-1094b11). Thus, while we tend to treat ethics and politics as separate disciplines with some points of common interest, Aristotle treats them as the same discipline (Schofield 2006). A paradigmatic example of this aspect of Aristotle's thought is his study of virtues of character like generosity or temperance. Studying the virtues is obviously important to understand individual moral excellence and happiness. However, the virtues are also interesting for political scientists who focus on the good for the community, because their main aim is to make the citizens virtuous (EN 1.13.1102a5-10).Political science (epistêmê) is not the only discipline that concerns itself with the virtues.From the perspective of a contemporary reader, Aristotle is peculiar because he studies ethically relevant phenomena like the virtues in his biological treatises. The History of Animals 8-9 (esp. 9) catalogues character traits like mildness and courage in different non-human animal species. At EN 6.13.1144b1-16, these are "natural virtues", they are shared between non-human animals and human children and they are the source of fully blown virtues in human adults. 2 Related passages of the Parts of Animals discuss the physiological basis of these virtues and connect it to the constitution of the animal's blood (PA 2.2.648a9-11; PA 2.4.650b20-651a2; PA 2.4.651a12-14; PA 4.10.686b25-27).The case of the virtues is not isolated: there are many instances of overlap between topics in Aristotle's biology and political science. These include the natural sociability of human beings (Pol. 1.2.1252b28-33) and the controversial idea that humans have a function or characteristic activity (ergon, EN 1.7).Political science and biology clearly are not the same discipline. Political science is practical and aims at guiding action, biology and natural science in general aim at discovering the 3
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