Aristotle on God's Life-Generating Power and on Pneuma as Its Vehicle

Abraham P. Bos is Professor Emeritus of Ancient and Patristic Philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His books include Aristotle, On the Life-Bearing Spirit (De Spiritu): A Discussion with Plato and His Predecessors on Pneuma as the Instrumental Body of the Soul; The Soul and Its Instrumental Body: A Reinterpretation of Aristotle's Philosophy of Living Nature; and Cosmic and Meta-cosmic Theology in Aristotle's Lost Dialogues.

• 1. God’s Life-Generating Power and Its Transmission in Aristotle’s Biology and Cosmology2. The Dependence of All Nature upon God3. The Natural Desire of All Things for God4. God as Object of Eros and Source of Attraction5. God as Unmoved Principle of Motion and Source of Power6. Reproduction: A Power Transmitted by the Begetter7. Life Begins at the Moment of Fertilization8. The Magnet as Model of a Mover at a Distance9. God as Begetter of All Life According to On the Cosmos 10. Pneuma as the Vehicle of Divine Power in the Sublunary Region11. Desire as a Form of Nostalgia for the Origin12. Why Doesn’t Pneuma Play an Important Role in Ancient and Modern Interpretations of Aristotle?13. The Dubious Lines of On the Soul II 1, 412b1–414. Why Can’t the Words Sôma Organikon in Aristotle’s Definition of the Soul Refer to the Visible Body?15. Collateral Damage of the Hylomorphistic Explanation of Aristotle’s Psychology16. Resulting Damage to the Assessment of On the Cosmos and On the Life-Bearing Spirit (De Spiritu)17. Damage to the View of the Unity of Aristotle’s Work18. Intellect, Soul, and Entelechy: The Golden Rope19. Aristotle on Life-Bearing Pneuma and on God as Begetter of the Cosmos: Brief Survey of ResultsBibliographyIndex of Modern NamesIndex of Ancient NamesIndex of Texts

"A must-read for any student and scholar interested in Aristotle's view of pneuma. In short, this book is a masterpiece, distilling many years of research of a great Aristotelian scholar." — Review of Metaphysics"[Bos's] knowledge of the Aristotelian corpus is impressive … the book deserves to be taken seriously as a valuable contribution to Aristotelian scholarship." — Philosophia Reformata"Bos offers a fresh, interesting, and important perspective. His interpretation will be very controversial, but if he is right, the standard Anglo-American interpretation of Aristotle will have to change radically." — Malcolm Wilson, author of Structure and Method in Aristotle's Meteorologica: A More Disorderly Nature