Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

Aristotle on desire and action 301
are aware of what is pleasant we pursue it in a way accompanied by
heating (702a3 – 5). This model will apply to all cases of desires for
the pleasant: sensual desires (epithymia). These are the desires they
are because they essentially involve heating (or cooling) of the relevant
type: they are (let us say) heat-involving-desires for pleasure.
There remains some unclarity in MA about the precise extension of the
term ‘desire’ (orexis). 8 Aristotle must intend it to apply more widely than
to sensual desire alone since he speaks of thought as well as imagination
and perception as bringing about the states which (in turn) lead to
changes in the organ which causes the limbs etc. to move (see
701b33, 701b16 ff., picking up the reference in 701a33). Since the desire
which precedes the relevant movement (701a35) can be brought
about by thought, it will sometimes be the result of reasoning from general
premisses (as set out in 701a15 ff.). For, as Aristotle remarks, the
final desire can be brought about by reasoning (701a36) and may be
(or be based on) a rational wish (701a37). It seems that his earlier account
of ‘desire’ (orexis) applies to all cases of desire and not just to sensual
desire. Perhaps he took all such desires to involve being attracted to
the object of desire (the fine) in ways similar to that in which sensual
desire is attracted to the pleasant (involving heating and cooling). But,
if so, this extension is not spelled out in MA. 9
(3) Movements in the connate pneuma: There are several points to be made
about these:
[A] The types of process are common to body and soul: Processes which are
‘common’ to the body and the soul, as we have seen, cannot be defined
as a combination of psychological and physical components. One cannot
say what they are in purely psychological terms as they involve heat-
8 Nor is this the only unclarity in MA: in 702a19 Aristotle replaces his earlier talk
of thought, perception or imagination (701a16, see 701b35: thought and imagination)
with a reference to imagination brought on by perception or thought.
The latter point may simply be a comment on the example he is considering in
the immediately preceding lines: one perhaps based on walking towards some
non-present object which one may remember or hope for (702a7 ff.). But the
former is more central. Aristotle, it appears, wishes to generalise his account already
deployed for confidence, fear and sexual appetite to desire. If this is correct,
it too will be the type of psycho-physical process which we have detected
in de An.
9 Gabriel Richardson Lear develops this line of thought in 2006, 116–136.