Aristotle’s Ensouled Body
When reading On The Soul, I found myself asking what role the soul and body play as a combination. This question came about because Aristotle’s notion differs from the usual concept of a soul acting as a sort of substance simply occupying a body, but existing distinctly separate, and eternally. Such is the notion that I choose to believe, due to the death of my brother. The truth is that the soul is an enigma to mankind, and we may never fully understand it, as no rational explanation exists to date. To Aristotle, the soul is the essence of a living being. The soul is what makes a person a person by actualizing its potential for life, and for its capacity for activities that are essential to the specific being.
As two separate entities, the soul and the body have their own strengths and weaknesses individually, but they align and combine to form one entity. Aristotle explores the soul and how it relates to a living being, or an “ensouled body”. Aristotle says, “So if one needs to say what is common to every soul, it would be that it is a being-at-work-staying-itself of the first kind of a natural, organized body” (412b). According to Aristotle, being alive is to be self-nourishing, with the ability to grow and waste away, or die. The soul needs a body with which to become one with in order to be present, and the soul is constantly at work doing so. To be a natural body alone is not enough to have life – something more is necessary. Aristotle describes this as having composition of both material and form.
Aristotle explains the role of the body in feeling sensations: “When living being perceives through senses, becomes like that thing despite not actually becoming something else” (418a). How...
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...es the materials a house, as opposed to, for example, a playground. So, in Aristotle’s terms, the form is the actuality of the house, since its presence explains why the matter becomes a house as opposed to something else. In the same way, the presence of a soul explains why this matter is the matter of a human being, as opposed to some other thing. This is a way of looking at the soul and body relationship as a case of form-matter relations, whereas the soul is an integral part of any living being. Unlike Plato and others, even though Aristotle’s view allows that the soul is distinct from the body, and is the actuality of the body, he sees these as no grounds to consider that the soul can exist without the body. He states, “It is not unclear that the soul – or certain parts of it, if it naturally has parts – is not separable from the body” (413a3-5).
Elizabeth writes a letter to Descartes asking him to explain to her the relationship “there is between the soul, which is immaterial, and the body, which is material” (Margaret A.: p16). She seeks this clarification particularly on the aspect of how the soul influences the body movements. This question comes following a claim that Descartes had made “regarding the body and the soul” (Gordon B. and Katherine J.: p17 -19). He intimated that the body and the soul exist as single entities and that each has autonomous function. This is found in the philosophy of the dualism.
The differences of mind and soul have intrigued mankind since the dawn of time, Rene Descartes, Thomas Nagel, and Plato have addressed the differences between mind and matter. Does the soul remain despite the demise of its material extension? Is the soul immaterial? Are bodies, but a mere extension of forms in the physical world? Descartes, Nagel, and Plato agree that the immaterial soul and the physical body are distinct entities.
The first of these goods is that of the soul, which is moral character and practical wisdom. Aristotle explains that in order to maintain the soul, we must also have external and bodily goods. He says we need external goods such as friends, food, and some money; without these, we are not able to flourish. Furthermore, we need goods of the body, which are the basic supplies for health, strength, and beauty.
It seems that there is one thing that most ancient Greeks can agree on, and that is the existence of the human soul. The obviousness of the soul’s existence could be related to the Latin word for soul, anima, which also means spirit, breath, and life. We also get the word animate from anima, something that is animated has the ability to move of its own accord. It follows from this that humans, being living things with the ability to move of their own accord, have souls. Though there is no disagreement about the existence of souls, the views of human souls vary. Homer, Heraclitus, Democritus, and Socrates all have different views of what the human soul is, what it does, and its level of importance.
...of the body, and no problem arises of how soul and body can be united into a substantial whole: ‘there is no need to investigate whether the soul and the body are one, any more than the wax and the shape, or in general the matter of each thing and that of which it is the matter; for while “one” and “being” are said in many ways, the primary [sense] is actuality’ (De anima 2.1, 12B6–9).Many twentieth-century philosophers have been looking for just such a via media between materialism and dualism, at least for the case of the human mind; and much scholarly attention has gone into asking whether Aristotle’s view can be aligned with one of the modern alternatives, or whether it offers something preferable to any of the modern alternatives, or whether it is so bound up with a falsified Aristotelian science that it must regretfully be dismissed as no longer a live option.
Through the course of these last few weeks, we as a class have discussed the Soul, both in concept, and as it applies in terms of our readings of The Phaedo and as a philosophical construct. But the questions involved in that: In the ideas of good, of living a ‘good’ life and getting ‘rid of the body and of their wickedness’, as ‘there is no escape from evil’, (Phaedo, 107c), in whether or not the soul is immortal, or if our bodies themselves get in the way of some higher form of knowledge, or even of the importance of philosophy itself are rather complex, simultaneously broad and specific, and more than a little messy. While I discuss these aspects, the singular question that I feel applies to this is, in a sort of nihilistic fashion, does
The relationship of the human soul and physical body is a topic that has mystified philosophers, scholars, scientists, and mankind as a whole for centuries. Human beings, who are always concerned about their place as individuals in this world, have attempted to determine the precise nature or state of the physical form. They are concerned for their well-being in this earthly environment, as well as their spiritual well-being; and most have been perturbed by the suggestion that they cannot escape the wrongs they have committed while in their physical bodies.
The identification of the soul parts as the contributors and main elements for the function of the most important human activity (reasoning), marks the inevitable psychological asset of Aristotle’s thinking; specifically, the classification of human virtues derives from the analysis of the soul’s types, attributing to human beings the ability of reasoning which distinguishes human beings from the rest of ‘natural bodies.’ Indeed, reason exists in two parts of the soul, namely the rational and the appetitive (desires or passions), and so it expresses within two different virtues, the moral and intellectual ones. Moral virtues satisfy the impulses of the appetitive part and the intellectual virtues hav...
In the book Plato 's Phaedo, Socrates argues that the soul will continue to exist, and that it will go on to a better place. The argument begins on the day of Socrates execution with the question of whether it is good or bad to die. In other words, he is arguing that the soul is immortal and indestructible. This argument is contrary to Cebes and Simmias beliefs who argue that even the soul is long lasting, it is not immortal and it is destroyed when the body dies. This paper is going to focus on Socrates four arguments for the soul 's immortality. The four arguments are the Opposite argument, the theory of recollection, the affinity argument, and the argument from form of life. As the body is mortal and is subject to physical death, the soul
The argument that the soul is not a body relies heavily on Aquinas definition of the soul. Also his differentiating between living and non-living beings. It is then concluded that the body is not considered animate or cognitive simply because the body is a body, but due to an intrinsic factor the body becomes capable of performing certain
For Descartes, these are mind and body, and for Plato they are body and soul. Aristotle, in contrast, believes in a singular being where both body and soul are connected. For myself, a Christian who believes in the existence of a life after death, Aristotle 's theory creates an obvious negation. While I could agree with the levels of the soul argument, I cannot agree with the body and soul being one and the same for the simple reason that I do not believe that when the body dies, everything dies. I believe something is left over. What that something is, where it goes and what its purpose is, I may not know for certain, but to believe otherwise would not create a better life for me. Believing the soul lives on beyond the body creates an inner desire to seek morality and goodness, and it is in that endeavor that one creates a “better” life. Similarly, it is intuition that leads me to reject Descartes ' argument because my best judgment would tell me not to believe that everything I know, all that I sense, is a figment of my mind. I cannot know if such a thing is true or false, but far too many questions are raised by such an explanation. For myself, neither Aristotle nor Descartes provide an adequate understanding into the nature of the
Do we have a soul inside ourselves? Does this “soul” make us who we are? Can the “soul” change? There are arguments between philosophers debating each side. Some believe that there is a soul, while others do not. Some believe that the soul can change, while others do not. There is no scientific evidence siding with either side. However, there are many studies that have been conducted in order to attempt to prove one side right. These attempts have not been successful. There have also been cases where individuals claim that they had a soul and lost it. Again, nothing has been proved; there are studies, and testimonials arguing one side or the other. Still we find ourselves asking the same questions over and over again. This essay will discuss
The soul can be defined as a perennial enigma that one may never understand. But many people rose to the challenge of effectively explaining just what the soul is about, along with outlining its desires. Three of these people are Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine. Even though all three had distinctive views, the similarities between their views are strikingly vivid. The soul indeed is an enigma to mankind and the only rational explanation of its being is yet to come and may never arrive.
But, “human persons have an ‘inner’ dimension that is just as important as the ‘outer’ embodiment” (Cortez, 71). The “inner” element cannot be wholly explained by the “outer” embodiment, but it does give rise to inimitable facets of the human life, such as human dignity and personal identity. The mind-body problem entails two theories, dualism and physicalism. Dualism contends that distinct mental and physical realms exist, and they both must be taken into account. Its counterpart (weak) physicalism views the human as being completely bodily and physical, encompassing no non-physical, or spiritual, substances.
Aristotle argued and disagreed with Plato’s views of the self and soul being a separate from the body. Aristotle’s view is that all humans have a soul, yet they cannot be separate from the body in which they reside. To him, there are four sections of the soul; the desiderative and vegetative parts on the irrational side are used to help one find what they are needing and the calculative and scientific parts on the rational side are