Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

300
David Charles
There are, it seems, four basic stages in the antecedents of action in
MA:
[1] The object of pursuit is seen or imagined or thought about (or remembered,
expected, hoped for etc). Such objects may include
your friend, enemy, a cool drink etc.
[2] Fear, confidence or sexual desire occur, accompanied by heat or
coldness. (701b18 ff., b22 – 3, 702a7 ff.)
[3] The connate pneuma expands or contracts. (701b16 ff., 701b25)
[4] The limbs are moved [organika merÞ].
There are several major questions about these stages. Here are three.
(1) What is involved in stage [2]? What is the connection between
heating and cooling (on the one hand) and fear, confidence or sexual
desire (on the other)?
(2) Where does desire fit into this model? Is it at stage [2] or stage [3]?
(3) How are the movements in the connate pneuma caused? What is their
nature?
I shall address each of these in turn:
(1) Confidence and cooling: We already have gained some understanding
of how fear and confidence can generate changes in the connate
pneuma. Like anger they are inextricably psycho-physical processes,
essentially types of heating or cooling around the heart. If so, it is
not correct to define them as a combination of purely psychological
phenomena realised by distinct physical processes of heating and
cooling. Rather the relevant psychological aspect cannot be defined
without reference to heating or cooling.
(2) The role of desire: Aristotle replaces fear, confidence and sexual desire
with his general term ‘desire’ (orexis, 702a18; compare de
An. 433b15 ff.) and talks of desire as preparing the organic parts.
This should not surprise us. In 702a2 Aristotle is using confidence,
fear and sexual appetite to introduce a general point, which is especially
vivid in their case. These passions occur when something perceived
is painful or pleasant (and as such to be avoided or pursued).
Here, there is cooling and heating in attendance (702a2 ff.). As in
the case of anger, heating and cooling will ‘attend’ in that they
are required to make these the processes they are: fear, confidence
etc. As in de An. I.1, emotions such as anger and fear are introduced
as intuitively convincing cases of psycho-physical processes. In MA,
Aristotle indicates the more general point they illustrate: when we