Aristotle's Definitions of the Soul: "De Anima" ii, 1-3

More documents

Recommendations

Info

3. As commentators have pointed out, the contrasts drawn in brief between different types of definition at the beginning of DeeAnima 11, 2 are laid out at more length in the Posterior Analytics, especially in Book II, chapters 8-10. But the significance of that discussion for our questions concerning the status of the definition of the soul in De A nima II, I has not been fully explored. Before turning to the Analytics, however, it will be useful to describe in some detail various problems of interpretation in De A nima II, 1-3 which are connected with our questions about the definition of II, 1. Light can, I think, be shed on all these problems by attention to the theory of types of definition in the Posterior Analytics. The first group of problems worth our attention here has to do with the content of the definition in II, 1 - or, as we should say, of the definitions in II, 1, since there is more than one. Are these various definitions equivalent? Here are the definitions which Aristotle offers us: (1) Soul is the substance, in the sense of the form, of a natural body which has life potentially (412 a 19-21). (2) Soul is the first actuality of a natural body which has life potentially (412 a 27-28). (3) Soul is the first actuality of a natural body which has organs (412 b 5-6). (4) Soul is the essence and defining principle (Xoyos) of that sort of natural body which has within itself a source (&px~) of its change and stability (412 b 15-17).5 We may allow that the first two definitions which Aristotle gives us pose no problem in relation to each other since he gives the second simply to explain what he means by the first. But the third - the account of soul as the first actuality of a natural body with organs - raises apparent difficulties. Aristotle treats soul as the principle of life; things are ensouled if and only if they have life (413 a 21-2). But must something have organs to be alive? In fact we know that certain microscopic living creatures are composed of undifferentiated living tissue. They engage in life functions such as nutrition and reproduction without employing any organs for those functions and do not possess any organs at all in the sense of parts which perform distinctive functions not performed by other parts (cf. De Partibus Animalium 645 b 3 ff., at 14). We might well suppose that Aristotle didn't allow for this because of his inadequate understanding of biology. But Aristotle himself regards certain material objects, namely the stars, as alive even though he believes that their matter is undifferentiated and cannot be altered or moved internally in any way and that, hence, they do not have 260
organs.6 This apparent inconsistency holds, moreover, not only between the third definition and things Aristotle says elsewhere. It holds between the third definition and the second. The second definition requires only that to be ensouled7 a body must be in a certain state of readiness to engage in one or another life function, whether it has organs or not. It will be said that Aristotle wants to argue in the De A nima that only a body with organs could be in such a state. But he doesn't argue for this. At best he merely claims it (412 a 28, f.). And even this he does not do unambiguously. For he allows that if a thing engages regularly by nature in patterned change of place that is enough to make it alive (413 a 22-25). We know that he believes that the stars and the spheres in which they move do this and that he denies that they have organs. So we have good reason to want the second definition of soul to cover the stars. If it covers the stars, however, then it seems incompatible with the third definition. It might be argued that the second and third definitions are not meant to be equivalent on the ground that the "body with organs" mentioned in the third definition is explicitly introduced in the text as a body of a more restricted type than the "body which has life potentially" of the second definition (412 a 27 - b 1). If this were so we could take the second definition, which covers the stars, as the accurate one and regard the third as covering not all of the living but only a certain part of it. But the third definition is said to mention "something common to every soul" (412 b 4). The fourth definition introduces further problems. It apparently says that any natural body which has an internal source of patterned change is ensouled. But in the Physics (192 b 9-23) Aristotle claims that all the familiar natural bodies have an internal source of patterned change. (Cf. De Caelo 268 b 27, ff.). So on his definition rocks would seem to be alive. And Aristotle would deny that rocks are alive (De Anima 412 a 13-15). Some will urge that this fourth claim is not a definition, that it only gives a necessary condition for being an ensouled body and no more. But it must do more to play the role Aristotle gives to it in its context (412 b 10-17). He argues that the thing that keeps an axe from being alive is that it doesn't as an axe have the kind of natural body that engages in its proper motion - chopping - in the cgurse of nature from some internal impulse. But rocks do engage in their proper motion under internal impulse in the course of nature (Physics 192 b 12, ff. at b 18). So the argument would seem to require that they are alive. Even if we treat the fourth claim as giving only a necessary condition for being alive, moreover, that still creates problems. For, again, the stars are alive and, hence, ensouled and they do not engage in any proper natural movement under internal impulse (De Caelo 290 a 261
Page 1 and 2: Aristotle's Definitions of the Soul
Page 3: common to every soul (nrL XOLVOV rr
Page 7 and 8: totle inconsistency, change of mind
Page 9 and 10: ecognize as ensouled).27 It will no
Page 11 and 12: 6. We need now to look more closely
Page 13 and 14: ut it exhibits a sufficient and not
Page 15 and 16: obtains between soul and body (1045
Page 17 and 18: doctrine of the Metaphysics require
Page 19 and 20: Aristotle never applies this langua
Page 21 and 22: means "that certain familiar." This

Aristotle's Definitions of the Soul: "De Anima" ii, 1-3

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?