What Aristotle gives us is not a theory of mind, but a theory of soul. For him, the soul explains mental events like seeing, desiring, and thinking; yet it also explains functions like digestion, reproduction, and growth. It is obvious to him that plants have souls, whereas it is equally obvious to us that plants do not have minds. In short, what Aristotle talks about in On the Soul is a principle of life, not a principle of mental life, which we usually call consciousness.
