CfP: Aristotle's De Anima and the Science of Living Beings

TIDA (Text and Idea of Aristotle’s De anima) is a research project funded by the European Research Council (grant agreement no. 101053296). TIDA is devoted to developing a new overall interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of mental phenomena. TIDA’s central idea is to break with the interpretative approached that has dominated research on Aristotle’s ‘psychological treatises’, and especially research on his De anima. On that approach, Aristotle’s De anima presents us with Aristotle’s ‘philosophy of mind’. Against this approach, TIDA aims to show that Aristotle’s De anima is concerned with the definition of the first principle of the of the science of living beings, namely the soul. TIDA aims to study how Aristotle defines that principle, how the results reached in his De anima structures the science of living beings (animals and plants), and how those results divide the explanatory labor among the treatises that pertain to the science of perishable living beings.

TIDA held its inaugural conference in Gargnano, Italy, in May 2023 [insert link here]. The conference was devoted to discussing the aims and methods of Aristotle’s De anima and its implications for how the science of living being is carried out in the so-called ‘biological writings’. The co-organizers of the conference (Klaus Corcilius, Tübingen, and Andrea Falcon, Milan) will jointly edit a volume of essays that contains a selection of the papers presented at the conference plus a few other essays devoted either to the aims and methods adopted for arriving at a definition of the soul in the De anima or to the implications for the way in which Aristotle envisions his science of living beings.

To propose an essay, send a paper in the range of 8,000-10,000 words under the subject heading “Essay Proposal” to Andrea Falconi. Please provide your contact information in the email but no identifying information in the essay. The essay must be anonymized and must be final. It must be written in English and must contain a brief abstract (300-500 words) at the beginning and a bibliography of the cited works at the end.

Even if the paper is accepted for inclusion in the volume, the co-editors may request substantial changes and revisions as a condition for publication.

The call is open to both senior and junior scholars, but we especially welcome submissions from young scholars. Having a PhD in hand at the time of the submission is not a prerequisite.

Anyone who is considering responding to this call, should have a look at the TIDA website [https://uni-tuebingen.de/forschung/zentren-und-institute/carl-friedrich-von-weizsaecker-zentrum/projekte/tida/] with a special focus on the ‘research hypotheses’ specified.

Submission deadline: October 1, 2024.