Time and the soul in the seventeenth century
My thesis considers the complex and productive relationship established between theories of time and theories of the soul in the late sixteenth and early to mid-seventeenth century. The first chapter examines treatments of how time relates to the soul in commentaries on Aristotleâs Physics in this period. It shows that these late Aristotelian theories of the ontology of time were diverse and philosophically interesting, and that new, eclectic answers to this question emerged in textbooks of natural philosophy in the early seventeenth century. I argue that this period saw a shift from describing time in terms of its relationship to the soul towards a notion of <i>being in time.</i> The second chapter examines the role of time in early modern commentaries on Aristotleâs De anima. It shows how assumptions about time and duration drawn from contemporary metaphysics and natural philosophy related (sometimes uneasily) to theories of how the bodies and souls of human and animals operated in time, in a complex and unjustly-neglected âpsychologyâ of time. The third chapter concerns the role of the concept of time in French and English theories of the passions of the soul in the early seventeenth century. These
Edwards, M. J.
Time and the soul in the seventeenth century. My thesis considers the complex and productive relationship established between theories of time and theories of the soul in the late sixteenth and early to mid-seventeenth century. The first chapter examines treatments of how time relates to the soul in commentaries on Aristotleâs Physics in this period. It shows that these late Aristotelian theories of the ontology of time were diverse and philosophically interesting, and that new, eclectic answers to this question emerged in textbooks of natural philosophy in the early seventeenth century. I argue that this period saw a shift from describing time in terms of its relationship to the soul towards a notion of <i>being in time.</i> The second chapter examines the role of time in early modern commentaries on Aristotleâs De anima. It shows how assumptions about time and duration drawn from contemporary metaphysics and natural philosophy related (sometimes uneasily) to theories of how the bodies and souls of human and animals operated in time, in a complex and unjustly-neglected âpsychologyâ of time. The third chapter concerns the role of the concept of time in French and English theories of the passions of the soul in the early seventeenth century. These
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