The Politician as Opthalmologist of the Soul: Aristotle's Conceptions of the Soul and the Aims of Inquiry

The Politician as Opthalmologist of the Soul: Aristotle's Conceptions of the Soul and the Aims of Inquiry

Audio recording of a lecture given by Rory Hanlon on February 7, 2025 as part of the Dean’s Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean’s Office has provided this description of the event: “In Nicomachean Ethics (NE) I.13, Aristotle asserts that a politician should know the human soul as an eye-doctor knows the whole body. I will try to make sense of this odd claim, arguing that it illuminates crucial features of Aristotelian psychology and our understanding of ‘the human’. Given the size of his corpus, it might be not surprising to find some apparent inconsistencies in his employment of the notion ‘the soul’. Perhaps the most infamous concerns its divisibility: In De Anima (DA) III.9, Aristotle criticizes those, like Plato, who divide the soul in terms of rationality; yet in NE I.13, he asserts that the human soul divides into rational and irrational parts. I argue that we should see this apparent contradiction as evidence of his attentiveness to the different kinds of inquiries, and so the different ways in which we think about souls and persons—either in the theoretical mode of DA or the practical mode of NE. In practical inquiries, we are concerned with a claim’s contribution to some relevant practical goal. Hence, the politician seeks knowledge of the soul to the extent that it helps their practical aims (i.e. to improve souls)—much as an ophthalmologist seeks relevant ‘working knowledge’ of the whole body. Finally, I argue that ordinary life, filled with political and ethical deliberations, exhibits this approach to the human, and so is itself a practical inquiry.”

Santa Fe, NM

2025-02-07

Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.

sound

mp3

English

SF_HanlonR_The_Politician_as_Opthalmologist_of_the_Soul_2025-02-07

M4A

00:54:41