Aristotle on Body

1
Aristotle on Body Soul

• Bethany, Sam, Catherine and Alice.

2
General Points about Aristotle

• Aristotle came to Athens to study and joined
  Platos Academy in 367 BCE.
• He became Platos best student and was generally
  felt to be Platos successor. He stayed at the
  Academy until Platos death in 347 BCE.
• When bypassed in the election of the Academys
  next president, Aristotle left Athens with a few
  students and friends.

3
His Works

• Politics
• Physics
• Metaphysics
• Generation of Animals
• History of Animals
• Nicomachean Ethics
• Rhetoric
• Poetics
• On The Heavens
• Meteorology
• Prior Analytics
• De Anima

4
Aristotles Ideas on the Soul

• It is the structure and organisation of the body.
• The type of soul it is depends on the kind of
  organism it is, this is arranged in a hierarchy
• Plants have vegetative souls
• Animals have more complex (can have desires and
  move etc)
• Humans are at the top (they have the power of
  reason)
• Through the soul people develop their character.
• The soul is the thing that makes a living thing
  what it is. E.g. an axe (if it was alive) -its
  soul would be what makes it an axe, which would
  be its ability to chop.
• It is the bodys form.

5
Aristotles Ideas on the Body

• Body matter of a living thing.
• The soul is the structure of the body its
  function and its organisation.
• Though the soul is not a material object it is
  not separable from the body.
• The body is just material it is the soul that
  makes it a person.
• Characteristics and function of a person (soul)
  cannot exist with out any material person.
• In his book de anima
• Does not consider possibility that soul is
  immortal.
• The Body and soul are always inseparable except
  for one exception to the rule.
• It is not very clear but he seems to suggest that
  reason lives on when the soul and body are dead.
• Though reason does not live on in a personal way.

6
Comparing with Plato
Even though Aristotle was taught by Plato, he had
very different ideas to him. Aristotle even
criticised Platos theories.