In "De anima" 3.5, Aristotle argues for the existence of a second intellect, the so-called "Agent Intellect." The logical structure of his argument turns on a distinction between different types of soul, rather than different faculties within a given soul; and the attributes he assigns to the second species make it clear that his concern here -- as at the climax of his other great works, such as the "Metaphysics," the "Nicomachean" and the "Eudemian Ethics" -- is the difference between (...) the human and the divine. If this is right, we needn't go on a wild goose chase trying to invent a role for the so-called Agent Intellect to play. God moves our intellects as he moves the heavenly spheres, "as a beloved": he constitutes the complete actualization towards which all of our intellectual striving is directed. Aristotle regards such final causation as an efficient cause, but not in a way that would make it part of what we would call the causal processes or mechanisms of human psychology. But, he would insist, it is essential for appreciating who we are and what our place is in the world. (shrink)

ARISTOTLE PRESENTS HIS DOCTRINE OF GOD as the first unmoved mover as the crown of his metaphysics, and thus of his entire theoretical philosophy. He obviously considers it an important achievement. Yet the doctrine has been peculiarly resistant to interpretation. It is difficult to know where to break in to Aristotle's theology: certainly not with his proof that the first mover must be unmoved. The proof has clearly been developed for the sake of the conclusion and not vice versa. How (...) did this conclusion occur to Aristotle, and why did he want it to be true? (shrink)