Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

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Christopher Shields
of the body; given hylomorphism, the soul is existentially dependent
upon the body. Given hylomorphism, the body is existentially independent
of the soul; given the homonymy principle, the body is existentially
dependent upon the soul. Altogether, then: the body is and
is not existentially dependent upon the soul; and the soul is and is
not existentially dependent upon the body.
These various prima facie problems in Aristotle’s theory ultimately all
stem from the same source: the priority of the soul. In consequence, a
proper understanding of that priority may offer a co-ordinated solution
to them all simultaneously.
IV. Priorities and tools
The way forward involves re-assessing ontological priority. Although it
is natural to suppose that x is prior in being to y only if x can exist without
y while y cannot exist without x, in fact Aristotle’s conception of
ontological priority is more fine-grained than mere asymmetry with respect
to implication of existence. Rather, his conception involves an appeal
to a teleologically specified sortal dependency.
This can best be understood by revisiting a passage we have already
considered, but now with greater attention to its teleological dimensions.
When contending in Metaphysics V 11 that actuality is prior in
substance or being (oqs_ô), Aristotle does not in fact assert asymmetry
with respect to existential implication, as the passage at first seems to require.
Rather, his meaning is to be explicated with reference to the sort
of priority of entelecheia developed in Metaphysics IX 8, where the actuality
is characterized as a “source towards which everything coming to be
proceeds” (ûpam 1p’ !qwµm bad_fei t¹ cicm|lemom; Metaph. 1050a7 –8).
In this latter passage, Aristotle makes plain that every potentiality is acquired
for the sake of an end conceived as actuality. This implies not
existential independence, but rather the thought that whatever comes
to be has the potentialities it has only as arrayed towards some end –
a thought which helps explain the way in which, in Aristotle’s view,
an end may yet be a beginning. The “end is a source” (!qwµ c±q t¹
ox6meja; Metaph. 1050a8) in the sense that some potentiality is the potentiality
it is in the first instance precisely because it is ordered towards
some end.
Developing this clue, we find in Aristotle a more nuanced account
of priority in actuality: