In Nicomachean Ethics (NE) I.13, Aristotle asserts that a politician should know the human soul as an eye-doctor knows the whole body. I will try to make sense of this odd claim, arguing that it illuminates crucial features of Aristotelian psychology and our understanding of ‘the human’. Given the size of his corpus, it might be not surprising to find some apparent inconsistencies in his employment of the notion ‘the soul’. Perhaps the most infamous concerns its divisibility: In De Anima (DA) III.9, Aristotle criticizes those, like Plato, who divide the soul in terms of rationality; yet in NE I.13, he asserts that the human soul divides into rational and irrational parts. I argue that we should see this apparent contradiction as evidence of his attentiveness to the different kinds of inquiries, and so the different ways in which we think about souls and persons—either in the theoretical mode of DA or the practical mode of NE. In practical inquiries, we are concerned with a claim's contribution to some relevant practical goal. Hence, the politician seeks knowledge of the soul to the extent that it helps their practical aims (i.e., to improve souls)—much as an ophthalmologist seeks relevant ‘working knowledge’ of the whole body. Finally, I argue that ordinary life, filled with political and ethical deliberations, exhibits this approach to the human, and so is itself a practical inquiry.

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Rory Hanlon joined UNC in 2023 as a teaching assistant professor in the Program for Public Discourse and the Department of Philosophy. Before that, he was a Humanities Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago. And before that, he studied at St. John’s College, Santa Fe (BA, 2014) and the University of Chicago (PhD, 2021). He focuses on Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy—in particular, ancient philosophers’ (especially Aristotle’s) conceptions of mind, soul, and life. He also examines the influences of these conceptions throughout the history of philosophy, and their relevance for contemporary philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and moral psychology. He also has a strong interest in the philosophy of film, film theory, and the presentation of philosophy through film. Finally, he attempts to incorporate these disparate interests in an overarching interest in philosophy as a “way of life”, especially (but not exclusively) as this came about in the Greco-Roman world.

📷: Raphael Sanzio, "The School of Athens" (1509-1511) & Popular Science Monthly Volume 1, "Eye focal structure" (1872) | Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons