ABSTRACT
Over the last 30 years, scholars have made significant advances by using Aristotle’s scientific theory and methodology in the Posterior Analytics to shed light on his scientific practice. The present paper contributes to this enterprise by analysing the methodology applied by Aristotle in De anima II.1–2 to identify the essence of the soul. In the reading presented here, the inquiry into the essence of the soul presents two sequential and complementary stages. In De anima II.1 Aristotle arrives through division at his first and formal definition of the soul; in De anima II.2 he uses induction to arrive at the second and causally informative definition of the soul. While the first definition states the fact that the soul is the form and first actuality of the natural organic body, the second definition explains the reason why this is so, namely, because the soul is the principle and primary cause of all life functions of such a body. Although this is the correct general definition of the soul, it is merely a “rough outline,” which needs to be supplemented by systematic accounts of the fundamental parts or capacities of the soul. It is only at the end of this analysis, which occupies the remainder of the treatise, that the reader will gain a full understanding of it.
