L’intelligenza divina come forma di vita in Aristotele

Abstract

On the grounds of Met. xii, 7 this contribution construes the Aristotelian god as a form of biological life and intelligence, its essential connotation, as a form of life. Life (zoè), a term that strictly means biological life, thought or rather the reflexivity of thought, whose “act is also a pleasure” belongs to the Aristotelian god. The latter characteristic is the main reason to argue that the Aristotelian god is, like the “heart”, “a living being in a living being”, in that living organism which amounts to the universe. Accordingly the skies and the cosmos itself are self-propelled and intelligent to Aristotle, who in De Philosophia wonders whether they are also endowed with sensations. Therefore the divine principle of the universe should not be interpreted as transcendent but instead as the fulcrum at the heart of the (biological) life of the universe.