Nous Poiêtikos

This project offers an interpretation of De Anima III.5., which is one of the most controversial passages in Aristotle's philosophical corpus. In this chapter, Aristotle claims that there is a passive cause of understanding and a productive cause of understanding. Many commentators have argued that this means there are two different minds, one that is productive and one that is passive. This has led to an ongoing debate about whether each human being has two minds or if humans possess only the passive mind, while the second mind is the divine mind of the unmoved mover (Aristotle's god and the primary cause of motion in the universe). In this paper, I argue for an amalgamation of the two interpretive trends, those that describe the productive intellect as something divine, and those that describe it as a purely human capacity. My interpretation inherits elements from both of these to circumvent the difficulties that face either of these trends separately. This approach divides the chapter into two parts, one where Aristotle discusses the human productive intellect and one where Aristotle discusses the divine productive intellect.