Un inutile fuorviante effetto accidentale ? L'affezione psicofisica del sogno secondo Aristotele

Aristotle devotes three of the Parva Naturalia treaties, focused on the study of psychophysical affections common to and proper to living beings, to sleep, dreaming, and divination through dreams, respectively. By examining the psychophysical conditions under which sleep is given, explaining the cause and nature of dreaming in the light of these, and clarifying what the dream activity of the living being affected by sleep entails at the cognitive level, Aristotle seems to be aiming to shed light on the supposed divinatory function of dreaming. In the present contribution we aim to specifically investigate how Aristotle’s treatment of the dream is primarily intended to deny any veridical purpose of it. More specifically, it will be shown that Aristotle describes the dream as a cognitively misleading, and deceptive, psychophysical process that occurs concurrently with the psychophysical affection of sleep, necessary for the preservation of the living being due to the interaction and accidental combination of residual perceptual activity and digestive activity of the animal organism. It will also be explained why, despite its inherent marginality, an analysis of such an affection turns out to be highly relevant for Aristotle to consolidate certain aspects of his psychology and confirm its rigorously hylomorphic framework.