Reasoning and the Unity of Aristotle’s Account of Animal Motion

Abstract

This chapter starts with an introduction to the notion of animal motion. Our actions are those of an animal, it states. It asks the following questions: are we the sort of animal that can think about what to do? What difference does that capability make when our actions are compared with those of the other animals that act? Aristotle has important things to teach us on these questions. The chapter starts its examination of these questions with a detailed description of what Aristotle had to say on this topic. The chapter argues that a unifying reading of Aristotle's employment of the practical syllogism is possible and philosophically attractive. Even if there might be independent reasons to prefer a non-unifying reading, the chapter submits, the relevant texts alone do not force it on us. Briefly stated, the chapter argues that Aristotle saw rational action as a specific kind of animal locomotion, and the account of rational action that makes essential reference to thought as the specific form that the general account of animal locomotion adopts when applied to the self-motion of a rational animal.

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