Aristotle on Human Nature: The Animal with Logos

Exploring Aristotle’s concept of logos, this volume advances our understanding of it as a singular feature of human nature by arguing that it is the organizing principle of human life itself.

Tracing its multiple meanings in different contexts, including reason, logic, speech, ratio, account, and form, contributors highlight the ways in which we can see logos in human thinking, in the organizing principles of our bodies, in our perception of the world, in our social and political life, and through our productive and fine arts. Through this focus, logos reveals itself not as one feature amongst others, but instead as the feature that organizes all others, from the most ＂animal＂ to the most ＂spiritual.＂ By presenting logos in this way, readers gain a complex account of the philosophy of human nature.

Gregory Kirk is Associate Teaching Professor of Philosophy at Northern Arizona University, USA.

Joseph Arel teaches in the Philosophy Department at the University of Southern Maine, USA.