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The Receptivity Of Νοῦς In De Anima Iii.4, Joseph M. Magee

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

• For Aristotle, the faculty of thought is legitimately characterized as being receptive of its objects. To construe Aristotle as holding that it is not renders a significant part of DA 3.4 to be of highly questionable internal coherence, since it makes it seem that he is claiming that something foreign might intrude into a power that has no organ and render that power inoperable. Moreover, failure to acknowledge the intellect's receptivity renders what is clearly supposed to be an explanation (mind is unmixed because it 7 knows all things) otiose and virtually unrelated to the logic of his argument. Finally, …