Aristoteles De Anima On Soul

1
AristotelesDe Anima (On Soul)

• The Nature of Living Things
• (Human Beings Included)

2
The De Anima

• The subject of Aristoteles De Anima (or Peri
  Psukhe) is soul, this being conceived
  simultaneously as
• the thing that makes us human beings human beings
  and
• the thing that makes living things in general
  living things
• In a way, then, this work contains both
  Aristoteles philosophy of manas this sort of
  thing was called well into the 20th centuryand
  the foundations of his biology
• For Aristoteles, theres absolutely nothing
  supernatural about soul soul is present in every
  living thing, from the most primitive of plants
  and animals all the way up to us soul is
  indeed the very nature living things

3
The De Anima

• This is why, at the very beginning of Book I,
  Aristoteles says this
• The study ofsoulcontributes greatly to the
  advance of truth in general, and, above all, to
  our understanding of nature, for the soul is in
  some sense the principle or source of animal
  life (402a4-5)
• Though he doesnt present his own conception of
  soul until the beginning of Book II, Ive
  presented it right at the beginning of my
  discussion of the De Anima in the Study Guide,
  because knowing where Aristoteles is headed in
  this book does a great deal to help one to
  understand the discussions even in the first
  chapter of Book I, so first, a brief review of
  what I say there.

4
The De Anima

• On Aristoteles view
• Soul is simply the complex of powers (i.e.,
  faculties, or in other words, abilities and
  capacities) possessed by living organisms
• The power of self-nourishment, growth, and
  reproduction
• The power of desire (the capacity to feel hunger
  and thirst, etc.)
• The power of sensation (including at least the
  power of touch)
• The power of movement (i.e., the power of
  locomotion)
• The power of imagination (including the power of
  memory)
• The power of thought (including the powers of
  understanding, judgment, and reason)
• These arent powers soul has these are the
  powers of which soul consists
• So to say it once more on Aristoteles view,
  soul just is this complex of vital powers, and
  they are its parts or components

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The De Anima

• Furthermore, according to Aristoteles
• Though the parts of soul might be spoken of as
  souls (in the plural), and though Aristoteles
  himself often speaks in this way, in every other
  sense, soul is onethe one set of vital powers
• Of which every human being has all, and
• Of which every non-human animal and every plant
  has just some
• Being a set of powers, soul never came to be and
  never will cease to be, but it cant be said to
  be immortal, because it isnt a living thing (and
  while were on the subject only the gods are
  immortal according to Aristoteles you and I are
  not)
• While we have soul, we arent souls were living
  things things of flesh and blood alive for a
  time, just as a marble is a bit of glass that can
  roll any which way for just as longprecisely as
  longas it keeps its spherical shape

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The De AnimaBook I

• In the first chapter of Book I, Aristoteles
  begins by
• Talking about the dignity, the usefulness, and
  the difficulty of the study of soul,
• Making a few remarks about his aim and about the
  question of just what methods hell have to use,
  and
• Enumerating the problems his investigation will
  need to solve
• Once hes laid out those problems he turns, in
  chapters 2-5 of Book I (which werent assigned),
  to a discussion of the views of at least some of
  his predecessors on the subject of soula
  discussion thats not at all easy to follow even
  for readers with a good sense of the relevant
  history

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The De AnimaBook I

• So for now, lets just look at that list of
  problems
• In which of the summa genera does soul lie? Is it
  a substance? Or is it an attribute of some
  sortsay a quality or a quantity?
• Is soul divisible or without parts? If it has
  parts, are these alike or do they differ, and if
  so, how? Specifically or generically?
• Can soul be defined in a single, unambiguous
  formula or not?
• If what exists isnt many souls, but many parts
  of one soul, which should we investigate first?
  The whole or the parts?
• Also, should we examine the various parts of soul
  first, or the activities they underlie, and if
  the latter, then shouldnt we really begin with
  these activities objects?
• Are the affections of soul all affections of the
  complex of body and soul, or are any peculiar to
  soul by itself? (Can soul exist apart from body,
  and how are we to define souls affections?)

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The De AnimaBook II

• In Book II, Aristoteles makes his usual fresh
  start, and, in nine pages flat, both answers
  nearly all of his questions and fleshes his
  answers out with concepts that derive from the
  core of his metaphysics
• First, Aristoteles general answers to his
  questions
• Soul is substancespecifically, the form of a
  living thing (i)
• Soul does have parts (or forms), and they differ
  in such a way that one cannot define them in one
  unambiguous formula (ii-iii)
• The right way to proceed, then, is to begin with
  the parts (or forms) of soul and to seek
  definitions of these (iii, end)
• But this means going back to the activities,
  and prior to them, to their objects (iv,
  beginning)
• Unless mind is an exception, soul is inseparable
  from body (i-ii)

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The De AnimaBook II

• And now for the details.
• Soul is first defined (in chapter i) as
• A substance in the sense of the form of a natural
  body having life potentially within it
  (412a19-20) this already implies that its one
• The first grade of actuality of a natural body
  having life potentially in it (412a27-28)
• The first grade of actuality of a natural,
  organized body (412b5)
• The essential whatness of a natural, organized
  body (412b12)
• These definitions all apply to soul in its
  full extent (412b10)
• Next, it is defined (in chapter ii) as
• An actuality or formulable essence of something
  that possesses a potentiality of being besouled
  (414a26-27) this means the definition must
  include a specification of the kind or character
  of the body that possesses soul, and that means
  that our study is a part of physics (cf.
  403a24-403b19)
• But this means (chapter iii) that if we wish to
  give the most adequate definition of soul
  (415a12)

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The De AnimaBook II

• We must seek in the case of each of its forms
  for the most appropriate definition (415a13)
• And this, then, is what Aristoteles proceeds to
  try to do in chapters iv-xii of Book II and
  chapters i-v of Book III, chapters devoted to
  detailed analyses of each of the parts or forms
  of soul.