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

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27, ff., 291 b 13). On this reading, furthermore, the definition would require that nothing kept alive, as we say, by external artificial means can really be alive, even if it continues to engage in all its proper life functions. This would not only be an unfortunate thing for Aristotle to say, it would put the fourth definition in conflict with the second and third. On those definitions, it is enough for something to be alive that it engage in organic life functions, whether with external or artificial assistance or not.8 We might try to treat the fourth claim as giving only sufficient conditions for being ensouled. The definition could be read as saying that soul is the form of a natural body of the type which has an internal source of change, bul perhaps of another type as well. But this interpretation, besides apparently making rocks alive, would seem to spoil Aristotle's argument. If something with another sort of body than the one mentioned can be ensouled, how can the fact that an axe doesn't have that sort show that it's not ensouled? Aside from these problems it is worth reviewing the old troubles mentioned earlier which bear on all the definitions. In the very chapter where these definitions occur, and in many other places, Aristotle claims that some of the parts, that is some of the life functions, which make up the soul are separable from the body since they are not the actualities of any body or bodily organ (413 a 6-7).9 This seems to be ruled out in advance by all the definitions, since any non-bodily entity which exercised any one of the life functions (as the intellect does, 430 a 17-22) would have to be alive (413 a 22-25)10 and hence ensouled (a 21-22). All of the definitions seem to rule out the possibility that anything other than a natural body can be ensouled or, hence, alive. The third definition, which supposedly mentions something common to every soul, is especially problematic in this regard since it is later explicitly claimed that "the soul which can think" (i] VOqTLXyL [iuxid) is connected with no organ (429 a 22-29). Aristotle also claims at the end of De A nima II, 1 that it is not yet clear whether the whole soul11 of a living thing is the source of the activity (6v?eXVXeLa) of its body as a sailor is the source of the activity of a ship (413 a 8-9) - apparently leaving the door open to various forms of dualism. Since he has just said that, given the third definition, "it is unnecessary to inquire further whether the soul and the body are one" (412 b 6, f.), it is a long-standing puzzle why Aristotle should make this remark.12 The prime mover gives rise to the final problem. It is alive and is, hence, an ensouled entity (Metaphysics 1072 b 13, ff., cf. De Anima 402 b 5-8). But the life function of the prime mover does not belong to any natural body and is, afortiori, not the first actuality of any body. The standard ways out of these difficulties involve attributing to Aris- 262
totle inconsistency, change of mind, or mystery-making.13 But the inconsistency, if such there be, is so bald that it is hard to see how Aristotle could have failed to face it. And the hypothesized change of mind on Aristotle's part is unacknowledged and has been hard to establish in any convincing way.14 So solutions depending on these things have not been satisfying. And it seems too much out of character that Aristotle should simply have regarded the whole matter as an impenetrable mystery for that proposal to be satisfying. 4. Do the remarks which Aristotle makes at the beginning of De A nima II, 2 about various types of definition and about the defects in the account of the soul in II, 1 help us to more satisfactorily resolve any or all of these difficulties? As we saw earlier, the definition, or definitions, of the soul in De A nima II, 1 are implied by II, 2, 413 a 16, to be like conclusions (OuuR%ep&ixlrx). That word is used in Posterior A nalytics II, 10 to describe one of the three types of definition discussed there (94 a 7-9, 13-14). This type of definition is contrasted both with the indemonstrable account of what something is and with the syllogistically based account of what something is.'5 The third type of definition,16 and hence the sort we are dealing with in De Anima II, I, is the so-called nominal definition - the account of what a name signifies (93 b 30).'7 What implications of this result are relevant for our purposes? A nominal definition is the account of some entity or phenomenon which we have at the initial stages of inquiry before we have an account of its essence. The definition encapsulates the central items of information about an entity which we have at a given pre-terminal stage.'8 These central items of information'9 will, in Aristotle's view, typically concern explicable features of the entity under investigation. So he characterizes the definitions which display these features as "conclusions"(avRnpep&u- iu,rr).20 There are, for Aristotle, two characteristic types of definition which function as conclusions of syllogisms - those which exhibit a feature (but not the whole) of the essence of the entity defined, and those which do not exhibit even an element of the essence but do exhibit some proper (xLO' o0'r6) feature which is explicable by reference to the essence.2' The first type will exhibit a feature necessary but not sufficient for the presence of the thing. The second will, characteristically, exhibit a feature sufficient but not necessary for the presence of the thing.22 Aristotle takes it that nominal definitions signify a kind and delineate the reference of the name of a kind.23 How do they do this when they only exhibit features necessary or sufficient for membership in the class denoted by the name of the kind but not both? Aristotle holds that grasping a 263
Page 1 and 2: Aristotle's Definitions of the Soul
Page 3 and 4: common to every soul (nrL XOLVOV rr
Page 5: organs.6 This apparent inconsistenc
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

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