From Aristotle to consciousness and intentionality

pp. 11-44

in: Grant Gillett, From Aristotle to cognitive neuroscience, Berlin, Springer, 2018

Abstrakt

Neo-Aristotelian accounts of the human psyche incorporate our meaningful contact with the world such that complex connectivity within the brain and between brain and world is the basis of consciousness and mental function (a "contact view"). Intelligent contact with things shapes human consciousness and cognition in ways reflecting truth-related thought and talk about the world in a context of communication, judgement, and knowledge. Human intersubjectivity thus allows us to triangulate on the objects we encounter and configure our dealings with them in communicable ways grounded in truth and falsity. Aristotle's naturalistic view of the soul as an active, self-organising system implies that distinctively human life corresponds to a progressive integration of neural functions, enabling us to tell (in both senses) what is happening and what things really are.