Aristotle is one of the first philosophers who attribute special significance to the most basic part of the soul, namely, the nutritive part. The importance of this psychic part stems not only from the fact that it is possessed by all living things and constitutes a necessary prerequisite for the existence of the soul’s other parts, but also from the fact that it is responsible for the manifestation of a variety of vital functions, such as generation, nutrition, growth and cooling of the living body.
Research
Aristotle is one of the first philosophers who attribute special significance to the most basic part of the soul, namely, the nutritive part. The importance of this psychic part stems not only from the fact that it is possessed by all living things and constitutes a necessary prerequisite for the existence of the soul’s other parts, but also from the fact that it is responsible for the manifestation of a variety of vital functions, such as generation, nutrition, growth and cooling of the living body. The project focused on two of them, nutrition and cooling, in order to shed full light on the physical ‘mechanisms’ the nutritive part of the soul is in charge of activating within the body. Aristotle is careful to note that the functions of nutrition and cooling, although they are shared by all things that are alive and thus appear to contribute fundamentally to the common goal of survival, are nonetheless neither identical nor do they take place in the same way amongst distinct genera or even different animal species. The environment where living things live proves to be most decisive for their internal ‘organic’ arrangement and the complexity of their biological functions.