Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

Aristotle on desire and action 295
What do these considerations show? In the last two examples, the
body’s state is an important part of what accounts for the person’s
being angry (or afraid). Omit reference to it and one fails to state the
conditions under which someone is (e.g.) angry. The first example establishes
that the presence of some bodily state or other is necessary if
one is to be angry. Indeed, its absence explains why one is not angry
in certain situations. If one assumes (as Aristotle seems to) that the
type of bodily state is the same in all three examples, being angry requires
the presence of one specific type of bodily state whose presence
(partially) explains its onset. From these considerations Aristotle concludes:
It is clear that the emotions are enmattered formulae and so their definitions
will be of the following form: to be angry is a process of this type of body
or part or capacity of such a body caused in this way for the sake of such
and such a goal. (403a24 – 27)
This conclusion is spelled out more fully in his next remarks: “To be
angry is a given type of process, the boiling of the blood around the
heart for the sake of revenge” (403a31). Aristotle’s conclusion seems
to be, in line with [B] above, that the relevant type of desire is inseparable
in definition from (and not abstractable from) the boiling of the
blood. So understood, the type of desire for revenge which defines
anger is a-boiling-of-the-blood-type of desire for revenge. Anger is essentially
enmattered because its form is an enmattered form: one which
is to be understood as essentially enmattered in this type of physical
process. Armed with this understanding of anger, Aristotle further
claims that
No one considers the properties of matter which are inseparable [from this
type of body/matter] not that is as properties separable [from this type of
body/matter] but the physicist considers all the deeds and properties of
this type of body and matter of this type … (403b10 – 12)
The physicist, unlike the mathematician, studies the inseparable properties
of this type of body as inseparable properties of this type of body,
designed to play the role they do in this type of matter. If so, in studying
the type of boiling of the blood involved in being angry, the physicist
will study precisely that: the type of boiling of the blood whose goal
is revenge. He is not concerned with a purely physical description of
this type of blood boiling which does not refer to the specific goals of
the organism in question. In his view, there is no other process essentially
involved in being angry other than the type of boiling of the