Anton Wilhelm Amo's Philosophical Dissertations on Mind and Body PDF
Preview Anton Wilhelm Amo's Philosophical Dissertations on Mind and Body
Anton Wilhelm Amo’s Philosophical Dissertations on Mind and Body Anton Wilhelm Amo’s Philosophical Dissertations on Mind and Body Edited, translated, and with an Introduction by STEPHEN MENN AND JUSTIN E. H. SMITH 1 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Menn, Stephen Philip, 1964– editor, translator. | Smith, Justin E. H., editor, translator. | Amo, Anton Wilhelm, approximately 1700-approximately 1754. Dissertatio inauguralis de humanae mentis apatheia. | Amo, Anton Wilhelm, approximately 1700-approximately 1754. Dissertatio inauguralis de humanae mentis apatheia. English. | Amo, Anton Wilhelm, approximately 1700-approximately 1754. Disputatio philosophica continens ideam distinctam eorum quae competunt vel menti vel corpori nostro vivo et organico. | Amo, Anton Wilhelm, approximately 1700-approximately 1754. Disputatio philosophica continens ideam distinctam eorum quae competunt vel menti vel corpori nostro vivo et organico. English. Title: Anton Wilhelm Amo’s philosophical dissertations on mind and body / edited, translated, and with an introduction by Stephen Menn and Justin E. H. Smith. Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019058016 (print) | LCCN 2019058017 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197501627 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197501641 (epub) | ISBN 9780197501658 Subjects: LCSH: Amo, Anton Wilhelm, approximately 1700-approximately 1754. | Philosophy, Ghanaian. Classification: LCC B5619.G43 A4624 2020 (print) | LCC B5619.G43 (ebook) | DDC 199/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019058016 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019058017 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America Contents I. Introduction 1 1. The Life of Anton Wilhelm Amo 4 2. The History of Amo Reception 39 3. The Political and Intellectual Context at Halle and Wittenberg 51 4. On Dissertations and Disputations, and Amo’s Two Dissertations 60 5. Ancient and Modern Debates on Action and Passion and on Sensation 88 6. The Argument of the Impassivity and the Distinct Idea 101 II. Note on the Text and Translation of Amo’s Dissertations 148 III. Inaugural Dissertation on the Impassivity of the Human Mind (1734) (Latin and English) 153 IV. Philosophical Disputation Containing a Distinct Idea of Those Things That Pertain Either to the Mind or to Our Living and Organic Body (1734) (Latin and English) 199 Bibliography 227 Index of Names 235 Index of Places 238 Index of Subjects 239 Anton Wilhelm Amo’s Philosophical Dissertations on Mind and Body I Introduction Stephen Menn and Justin E. H. Smith 1. The Life of Anton Wilhelm 4. On Dissertations and Amo— JEHS 4 Disputations, and Amo’s Two 2. The History of Amo Dissertations— SPM 60 Reception— JEHS 39 5. Ancient and Modern Debates 3. The Political and Intellectual on Action and Passion and on Context at Halle and Sensation— SPM 88 Wittenberg— JEHS 51 6. The Argument of the Impassivity and the Distinct Idea— SPM 101 Early in the eighteenth century Anton Wilhelm Amo was taken, while still a small boy, from West Africa to Amsterdam.1 From there he was soon sent to Germany to work as a servant in the court of Duke Anton Ulrich of Braunschweig- Lüneburg in Wolfenbüttel. He was baptized in 1708, and in 1727 matriculated at the University of Halle. Two years later he defended a law thesis, De jure Maurorum in Europa (On the Right of Moors in Europe), with implications for the freedom or enslaved status of black 1 We would like to thank for their comments, especially on our translations, the participants in two Amo workshops in summer 2016, at the Humboldt-U niversität Berlin (supported by the Research Training Group “Philosophy, Science and the Sciences”) and at McGill University, namely Moritz Bodner, Sonja Brentjes, Victor Emma-A damah, Kosta Gligorijevic, Alison Laywine, Brandon Look, Calvin Normore, Robert Roreitner, Paolo Rubini, and Roland Wittwer; Paolo Rubini in particular gave extraordinarily helpful comments on the translations. And we would like to thank, for their comments on much of the material of our introduction, and for discussion on many things related to Amo, the participants in the excellent Amo conference organized by Falk Wunderlich and Dwight Lewis in Halle in October 2018, namely Rana Brentjes, Sonja Brentjes, Corey Dyck, Dag Herbjørnsrud, Paulin Hountondji, Andreij Krause, Dwight Lewis, Jacob Mabe, Paola Rumore, and Falk Wunderlich. We would also like to thank our four readers for Oxford University Press, Danielle Allen, Kwame Anthony Appiah, François Duchesneau, and Alison Simmons; we are particularly grateful to Duchesneau for his helpful suggestions on the translation, many of which we have adopted, and for catching several mistakes and omissions both in our translations and in our Latin transcriptions. Some sections of the Introduction are primarily by JEHS, and others primarily by SPM, as listed in the table of contents, but we have revised and occasionally supplemented each other’s work. Anton Wilhelm Amo’s Philosophical Dissertations on Mind and Body. Stephen Menn and Justin E. H. Smith, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197501627.001.0001
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