Dr. Myrna Gabbe at the April 2011 meeting of the Ancient Philosophy Society

Dr. Myrna Gabbe will read “Aristotle on the Starting-Point of Thinking,” at the 2011 annual
meeting of the Ancient Philosophy Society,

The penultimate chapter of the Eudemian Ethics investigates the causes of good fortune. Aristotle concludes that the naturally fortunate are those who desire what they should, when they should, as they should (1247b24), without the guide of reason. But this conclusion generates a question: “Is luck the cause of …desiring what one should and when one should? Or will luck in that way be the cause of…thinking and of deliberating”(1248a16-18). To avoid the undesirable conclusion that luck is source of thoughts and deliberations, Aristotle posits god as their starting-point.

The parallels between the god of EE VIII 2 and the productive intellect of De Anima III 5 make identification hard to deny. But if these two are the same entity, then the EE chapter provides new information about what the productive intellect is and the role it plays in human psychic activity. I argue that a careful consideration of the arguments that lead Aristotle to posit god as a source of thinking and desiring shows the implausibility of the immanent, deflationary reading of ‘god,’ and reveals an argument for why a transcendent god must be posited as a final and formal cause of psychic activity.