Cole Phelps

Summary of doctoral thesis: My research primarily concerns the centrality of the Parva Naturalia in Aristotle’s philosophical psychology and its importance for his broader metaphysical programme. This project has two main components, one textual and one conceptual. Textually, I reject the traditional scholarly emphasis on De Anima and instead foreground the Parva Naturalia as the controlling source for Aristotle’s philosophical psychology. Conceptually, I examine the account of mental content in the Parva Naturalia as a central case for illuminating how Aristotle understands the metaphysics of properties and powers in context. These two components jointly generate a more satisfactory explanation than any currently available of issues ranging from the role of Aristotle’s comparative zoology in his natural philosophy to the relationship between his metaphysics and philosophy of action. This approach also has the potential to shed new light on cognate areas such as the influence of Hippocratic medicine on Aristotelian science and ancient contributions to continuing debates about the ontology of powers.

Other research interests: History of Medicine, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Art.