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Aristotle's Clivus Naturae, John Thorp
Aristotle's Clivus Naturae, John Thorp
Philosophy Presentations
It is usually thought that Aristotle's understanding of the soul sees it has having four distinct parts, cumulatively arranged, resulting in a kind of scala or ladder: all living things have the nutritive and reproductive soul; animals have, in addition, the sensitive soul, and most of them also the locomotive soul; only humans have all these plus the intellective soul. This ladder-like picture emerges from his theoretical work de Anima. In his more empirical studies, though, the discreteness of these levels is softened, and the image is more that of a clivus or slope, rather than a scala or ladder …