Desire and Action

2021 ◽  
pp. 94-117
Author(s):  
David Charles
Keyword(s):  
Physical Process ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Positive Theory ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
Harmony Theory ◽  
Bodily Movements

Aristotle held, it is argued, that desire, like anger, is to be defined as inextricably psycho-physical process (or activity), a specific type of bodily change. It is the realization of a goal-directed essentially material capacity. This is the type of capacity required if desire is to be the efficient cause of bodily movements, their origin and controller. Its form, if constituted by this capacity, needs to be, in its own nature, an enmattered form to be their cause. This account of desire is an instance of the Impure Form Interpretation developed in Chapters 1 and 2. It is argued that this interpretation best capatures Aristotle’s own positive theory and his critical remarks on alternatives, such as the ‘harmony theory’. Attempts to understand his account of desire in terms of two definitionally distinct components, one purely psychological, one purely physical, are rejected as inadequate because they cannot properly accommodate the efficient causal role he attributed to its form.

ἡ κίνησις τῆς τέχνης: Crafts and Souls as Principles of Change

Phronesis ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricio A. Fernandez ◽  
Jorge Mittelmann
Keyword(s):  
Causal Role ◽  
Causal Efficacy ◽  
First Principle ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
Productive Disposition ◽  
Principles Of Change ◽  
The Way

Aristotle’s soul is a first principle (an ‘efficient cause’) of every vital change in an animal, in the way that a craft is a cause of its product’s coming-to-be. We argue that the soul’s causal efficacy cannot therefore be reduced to the formal constitution of vital phenomena, or to discrete interventions into independently constituted processes, but involves the exercise of vital powers. This reading does better justice to Aristotle’s conception of craft as a rational productive disposition; and it captures the soul’s continuous causal role as that which brings about all forms of vital change and underwrites their unity.

Do Writing Directions Influence How People Map Space onto Time?

2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 173-184
Author(s):  
Wenxing Yang ◽  
Ying Sun
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Horizontal Axis ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Temporal Cognition ◽  
Japanese Speakers ◽  
Psychological Experiments ◽  
Vertical Up

Abstract. The causal role of a unidirectional orthography in shaping speakers’ mental representations of time seems to be well established by many psychological experiments. However, the question of whether bidirectional writing systems in some languages can also produce such an impact on temporal cognition remains unresolved. To address this issue, the present study focused on Japanese and Taiwanese, both of which have a similar mix of texts written horizontally from left to right (HLR) and vertically from top to bottom (VTB). Two experiments were performed which recruited Japanese and Taiwanese speakers as participants. Experiment 1 used an explicit temporal arrangement design, and Experiment 2 measured implicit space-time associations in participants along the horizontal (left/right) and the vertical (up/down) axis. Converging evidence gathered from the two experiments demonstrate that neither Japanese speakers nor Taiwanese speakers aligned their vertical representations of time with the VTB writing orientation. Along the horizontal axis, only Japanese speakers encoded elapsing time into a left-to-right linear layout, which was commensurate with the HLR writing direction. Therefore, two distinct writing orientations of a language could not bring about two coexisting mental time lines. Possible theoretical implications underlying the findings are discussed.

Moving to Solution

2013 ◽  
Vol 60 (6) ◽  
pp. 403-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Werner ◽  
M. Raab
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Functions ◽  
Problem Space ◽  
Arm Swing ◽  
String Problem ◽  
Problem Solving Process ◽  
Problem Solving Task ◽  
Bodily Movements

Embodied cognition theories suggest a link between bodily movements and cognitive functions. Given such a link, it is assumed that movement influences the two main stages of problem solving: creating a problem space and creating solutions. This study explores how specific the link between bodily movements and the problem-solving process is. Seventy-two participants were tested with variations of the two-string problem (Experiment 1) and the water-jar problem (Experiment 2), allowing for two possible solutions. In Experiment 1 participants were primed with arm-swing movements (swing group) and step movements on a chair (step group). In Experiment 2 participants sat in front of three jars with glass marbles and had to sort these marbles from the outer jars to the middle one (plus group) or vice versa (minus group). Results showed more swing-like solutions in the swing group and more step-like solutions in the step group, and more addition solutions in the plus group and more subtraction solutions in the minus group. This specificity of the connection between movement and problem-solving task will allow further experiments to investigate how bodily movements influence the stages of problem solving.

The Moving Cause of Artefacts: the role of techne in metaphysical explanation

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-83
Author(s):  
Margaret Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Theory ◽  
Metaphysical Explanation ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
The Creation

The essence of artefacts is typically taken to be their function: they are defined in terms of the goals or aims of the artisans that make them. In this paper, an alternative theory is proposed that emphasizes, via a reconstruction of Aristotle's various comments about the nature of artefacts, the role of the moving, or efficient, cause of artefacts. This account shifts the emphasis to the role played by the investment of expertise into the creation (and subsequent being) of artefacts. It turns out that expertise is prior in being and prior in explanation to the function of artefacts, and thus plays the most fundamental role in the explanation of the ontology of artefacts.

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