Episode 130: Aristotle's "De Anima": What Is Life?
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
Mark Linsenmayer
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 28 December 2015
⏱️ 118 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On De Anima or On the Soul (350 BCE), books 1 and 2, after some listener mail. What can this ancient text tell us about biological life? What counts as a scientific explanation? A. describes life as "the first actuality of a natural body which has organs," so bodies express their nature only when they're growing and reproducing and all that stuff that bodies do. The body is potential, and life is its actuality. So what the heck kind of explanation is that, and how does it tie into Aristotle's convoluted metaphysics?
End song: "Intermission Song" by Mark Lint from Spanish Armada: Songs of Love and Related Neuroses (1993).
Transcript
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| 0:53.0 | You're listening to the partially examined life, a philosophy podcast by some guys who |
| 0:57.0 | read one point, said on doing philosophy for living, but then thought better of it. |
| 1:01.0 | Our question for episode 130 is something like what is biological life? |
| 1:05.5 | When we read books one and two of Aristotle's day anima, usually translated as on the |
| 1:10.4 | soul from around 350 BCE. |
| 1:13.8 | You can join the discussion, get the text and lots more information at partiallyexaminedlife.com. |
| 1:18.9 | This is Mark Linton-Meier, focusing mostly on my nutritive functions in Madison, Wisconsin. |
| 1:24.0 | This is Seth Pascon, both form and matter in Austin, Texas. |
| 1:28.8 | This is Wes All-One completing myself at the Monaco Hotel in Washington, D.C. |
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