Aristotle’s Principles and the Soul

Foreword

This was the final tutorial for Philosophy 430: History of Ancient Philosophy. As with all other tutorials, the majority of the first part of this paper was guided long answer questions. I believe all were correct, except which predicable the soul is. My only original discussion was based on a false assumption that the Greek's defined Psyche in the same way we define Soul in a modern context, which was incorrect. However, I hope this is a nice little summary of some ideas presented in De Anima.

Body

Aristotle believed that the true natural scientist is the person who when confronted with defining something will seek both the matter and form definition. For example, when concerned with the house, the real natural scientist would give an account of both “a shelter to protect against the elements” and “stones, brick, and timber”. Aristotle thinks that both of these types of definitions are useful and worth considering when defining a human being. This argumentation gives specific justification for how the soul relates to an organic being.

Aristotle claims that the soul would fall under the substance category (De Anima, II.1, 412a18-20). The substance here is not meant as the physical entity in which the soul exists, but rather the form of a living being. This substance category could be misleading, as one may mistakenly assume that this means that it can be separated from a body. This is not the case, as the soul is the form of the living being. One might be enthusiastic about putting it into the quality category, but qualities seem to either be accidental or intrinsically alter the status of the substance to which they are attributed. This cannot be the soul, as it is intrinsically a part of the living body.

Furthermore, it seems like the soul is in the genus predicable. Everything has a soul, so it can’t be primary, and Aristotle states that different living things experience different functionalities of the soul, meaning there are appropriate distinctions to be made between them that are not primary, and thus those distinctions must be species-dependent. Therefore, the concept of a soul would be in the genus. 

The soul is well-defined in three of the four of Aristotle’s causes in relation to the living being; “The soul is likewise a cause in three of the ways distinguished” (De Anima, II.4, 415b7). It is a formal cause, as the soul is necessarily a living being's capacity to do anything beyond merely existing. Therefore, any living thing is firstly actualized through the soul, and it must be a formal cause. Furthermore, it is also an efficient cause because all living things require it to initiate movement and growth. It is also the final cause, as the soul is a necessary aspect of whatever each living being’s goal is. It is distinctly not a material cause, as that must be the body. The soul is the immaterial form that is the reason that a living thing is alive.

We can differentiate between the first and second actuality of something. The first actuality is the initial existence of a thing’s ability to immediately perform an action, without using it to a beneficial extent. This is distinguished from something's potentiality, which is something's potential to gain first actuality. For example, an axe’s first actuality would be its capacity to cut a tree, e.g. being shaped in a way that makes it good for tree chopping. For a human being, Aristotle defines the first actuality as the soul (De Anima, II.1, 412b4-7). This makes sense, as an organism's ability to perform any task relies on the soul, under Aristotle's definition. Second actuality, on the other hand, is the particular use of the first actuality to benefit from the action. For example, an axe would be actually chopping down a tree, where a human is exercising the functions the soul allows, such as seeing, thinking, or communicating.

Aristotle extends his definition of the soul to non-human beings. This is where his definition of natural instrumental bodies comes in handy. It is useful to see organs as being equivalent to instruments to understand this better. The natural instrumental body is a material body that has organs; i.e. the body that has things that can perform a larger function. In practice, this is the material part of some living thing. This is distinguished from a human being, for example, as a human being is the combination of an organic body and soul, whereas the organic body is just the material cause. An organic body can be non-living. Therefore, any single natural body is only potentially alive, because the soul is necessary for life; an organic body existing is not sufficient to prove that it is alive.

In Aristotle’s view, X and Y are homonyms if they have the same name but correspond to different definitions of being. So, take a corpse and a living human being for example. They both can be called a body. If I were to die, someone could see my corpse and exclaim “That is Mark’s body.” just as they could make the same claim if I were alive. Aristotle claims that these are only homonymously comparable, as even though they are called the same thing, a living organism and a corpse are different. Furthermore, they are not different by quality (like how a red car is different from a black car) but are fundamentally different things because the soul is not a quality. Aristotle believes that the soul is the first actuality of a living being, and a living being existing necessitates that the soul and body exist, as they cause the living being. Thus, it is impossible to separate the soul from the living body (De Anima, II.1, 413a5). Furthermore, this is distinguished from the mystical definition of the soul, similar to how Pythagoras thought, where instead of the soul existing separately from the living body, they are necessary for each other. This implies that because they are not separable, one cannot be reincarnated as Pythagoras would have believed. The soul cannot exist outside of the organic body, and therefore cannot be moved to some other being.

I prefer an Aristotelian account to Plato’s. Plato’s account is riddled with weird assumptions and poor arguments. Despite Aristotle’s works feeling rambly, we can attribute this to the vast depth of his arguments; Aristotle's works are justifiably packed. Aristotle’s method of inquiry also seems better than Plato’s. Though there is significant value in approaching such problems metaphysically, it is easy to get swept up in unjustifiable positions without grounding yourself with empirical arguments. Furthermore, my arguments against Aristotle’s account are much more minor and semantic than those against Plato’s Forms. Specifically in relation to Plato’s justification of the soul, his solution to the paradox of inquiry through recollection always seemed weak to me. Furthermore, I also find the Forms to be not well-justified, thus an argument for the immortality of the soul being based on these viewpoints seems weak. It seems like there is very little justification for Plato’s views on the soul. Thus, Aristotle's account is much better.

Overall, I generally like Aristotle’s account of the soul. His investigations are irrefutably valuable and I have no issues with the majority of his account. I will argue though that his use of the term “soul” is inappropriate and rather he should use some other term. Traditionally speaking, the soul is used as a non-material metaphysical and mystical explanation as to how the living body has its own essence. It explains why a person has their own identity, memory, psychology, and personality. Furthermore, things like plants wouldn’t have been assumed to have a soul. On the other hand, it seems like Aristotle is simply reducing the definition of the soul to the actualities of the organic body. That being, the soul is the form of the living body. His account goes significantly further than just the psychology of a person, expanding the soul to be the cause of any living being, not just their psychological essence. Furthermore, his account could be used as a justification against the traditional definition of the soul, defining all of the human as purely substance and nothing mystical. It seems inappropriate considering how different such definitions are to call them the same; they seem like different theories answering similar questions.

An Aristotelean may dislike my criticisms, pushing an argument like “This definition does not refute the idea of the soul, it expands upon it. We redefine and expand other words all the time, and there is no issue.” My response would be that the soul usually heavily implies such a mystical essence in people, and though redefinition is not inherently problematic, it is more useful to have distinct words for distinct ideas, and it seems like these ideas are distinct enough to warrant their own theory names. This is more analogous to coming up with different ethical theories than it is to refining a specific theory.

Though I think most discussions of what the traditional soul is could rather be described through life, psychology, or consciousness, Aristotle defining what he is describing as the soul seems unsound. I also must acknowledge the historical significance, as it seems like the soul is the only way that people know how to describe what it is a human being is experiencing, and thus this book is moving the discussion towards more material and physical explanations. Nonetheless, this redefinition seems inappropriate for actually refuting what other people thought of as the soul.