Key Arguments

• He begins from the premise that 'knowing' is noble and that some kinds of knowledge are more estimable 'either in virtue of its exactness or by being about better and more wondrous things', and on both grounds he elevates psychology (the study of soul).
• He says 'we may quite reasonably place the study of soul in the first rank', explicitly ranking it at the top of sciences.
• He claims that 'to truth as a whole, knowledge of the soul makes a great contribution', suggesting that understanding soul is epistemically central for philosophy in general.
• He notes that this contribution is 'especially with respect to nature, since the soul is as it were a starting-point of living things', so natural science in particular depends on grasping what soul is.
• He characterizes the project as inquiring 'to get a theoretical grasp on, and to know, both the nature of the soul and its substance, and then on all the coincidents belonging to it', marking it as a fundamental investigation into being and causation in living things.

Source Quotes

I 1 Supposing that knowing to be a noble and an estimable thing, | 402 a 1 | and one sort more so than another either in virtue of its exactness or by being about better and more wondrous things. 1 On both these grounds we may quite reasonably place the study of soul in the first rank.

I 1 Supposing that knowing to be a noble and an estimable thing, | 402 a 1 | and one sort more so than another either in virtue of its exactness or by being about better and more wondrous things. 1 On both these grounds we may quite reasonably place the study of soul in the first rank. It seems too that to truth as a whole, knowledge of the soul makes a great contribution, | 402 a 5 | especially with respect to nature, since the soul is as it were a starting-point of living things.

1 On both these grounds we may quite reasonably place the study of soul in the first rank. It seems too that to truth as a whole, knowledge of the soul makes a great contribution, | 402 a 5 | especially with respect to nature, since the soul is as it were a starting-point of living things. 2 And we are inquiring to get a theoretical grasp on, and to know, both the nature of the soul and its substance, and then on all the coincidents belonging to it—some of which seem to be special attributes of the soul, whereas others seem to belong because of it to living things as well.

It seems too that to truth as a whole, knowledge of the soul makes a great contribution, | 402 a 5 | especially with respect to nature, since the soul is as it were a starting-point of living things. 2 And we are inquiring to get a theoretical grasp on, and to know, both the nature of the soul and its substance, and then on all the coincidents belonging to it—some of which seem to be special attributes of the soul, whereas others seem to belong because of it to living things as well. 3 But in every way and altogether | 402 a 10 | it is most difficult to attain any conviction concerning it.

Key Concepts

• Supposing that knowing to be a noble and an estimable thing,
• one sort more so than another either in virtue of its exactness or by being about better and more wondrous things.
• On both these grounds we may quite reasonably place the study of soul in the first rank.
• It seems too that to truth as a whole, knowledge of the soul makes a great contribution,
• especially with respect to nature, since the soul is as it were a starting-point of living things.
• we are inquiring to get a theoretical grasp on, and to know, both the nature of the soul and its substance, and then on all the coincidents belonging to it

Context

Opening of Book I, Chapter 1, where Aristotle motivates and ranks the inquiry into the soul at the outset of the treatise.