灵魂论

论灵魂（希腊语： Περὶ Ψυχῆς, ) 是亚里士多德于约公元前350年写成的一部哲学专著。其论述聚焦于不同生命体拥有的灵魂类型，例如植物具备获取营养与繁殖能力——这是所有生物必须拥有的最低限度的灵魂类型；低等动物在此基础上增加感官知觉与自主运动能力；人类则兼具以上所有机能及理性思维。

On the Soul (Greek: Περὶ Ψυχῆς, Peri Psychēs; Latin: De Anima) is a major treatise written by Aristotle c. 350 BC classifying organisms' souls by their operations. In it, he alleges plants have the capacity for nourishment and reproduction, the minimum that must be possessed by any kind of living organism. Lower animals have, in addition, the powers of sense-perception and self-motion (action). Humans have all these as well as intellect.

Aristotle holds that the soul (psyche, ψυχή) is the form, or essence of any living thing; it is not a distinct substance from the body that it is in. It is the possession of a soul (of a specific kind) that makes an organism an organism at all, and thus the notion of a body without a soul, or of a soul in the wrong kind of body, is simply unintelligible. (He argues that some parts of the soul—the intellect—can exist without the body, but most cannot.)

In 1855, Charles Collier published a translation titled On the Vital Principle. George Henry Lewes, however, found this description also wanting.

Division of chapters

The treatise is divided into three books, and each of the books is divided into chapters (five, twelve, and thirteen, respectively). The treatise is near-universally abbreviated "DA", for "De anima", and books and chapters generally referred to by Roman and Arabic numerals, respectively, along with corresponding Bekker numbers. (Thus, "DA I.1, 402a1" means "De anima, book I, chapter 1, Bekker page 402, Bekker column a [the column on the left side of the page], line number 1.)

Book I

DA I.1 introduces the theme of the treatise; DA I.2–5 provide a survey of Aristotle’s predecessors’ views about the soul

Book II

DA II.1–3 gives Aristotle's definition of soul and outlines his own study of it, which is then pursued as follows: DA II.4 discusses nutrition and reproduction; DA II.5–6 discuss sensation in general; DA II.7–11 discuss each of the five senses (in the following order: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch—one chapter for each); DA II.12 again takes up the general question of sensation;

Book III

DA III.1 argues there are no other senses than the five already mentioned; DA III.2 discusses the problem of what it means to "sense sensing" (i.e., to "be aware" of sensation); DA III.3 investigates the nature of imagination; DA III.4–7 discuss thinking and the intellect, or mind; DA III.8 articulates the definition and nature of soul; DA III.9–10 discuss the movement of animals possessing all the senses; DA III.11 discusses the movement of animals possessing only touch; DA III.12–13 take up the question of what are the minimal constituents of having a soul and being alive.

Summary

Book I contains a summary of Aristotle's method of investigation and a dialectical determination of the nature of the soul. He begins by conceding that attempting to define the soul is one of the most difficult questions in the world. But he proposes an ingenious method to tackle the question:

Just as we can come to know the properties and operations of something through scientific demonstration, i.e. a geometrical proof that a triangle has its interior angles equal to two right angles, since the principle of all scientific demonstration is the essence of the object, so too we can come to know the nature of a thing if we already know its properties and operations. It is like finding the middle term to a syllogism with a known conclusion.

Therefore, we must seek out such operations of the soul to determine what kind of nature it has. From a consideration of the opinions of his predecessors, a soul, he concludes, will be that in virtue of which living things have life.