Does Aristotle successfully show that the body requires the soul, and the soul requires the body? Aristotle uses his matter/form distinction to answer the question “What is soul?” and explains through his hylomorphic composition (matter, form, the compound of matter and form) to show that the body requires the soul and vice versa. He believes that compounds which are alive, are things that have souls and it is their souls that make them living things. In this essay, I will present Aristotle’s argument of the soul and whether he is successful in arguing for the mutual dependance of soul and body.
In Book II of De Anima, Aristotle seeks to “formulate the most general possible account of soul” (Aristotle 350BC/1994). In Aristotle’s account
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He differentiates between types of actuality and potentiality: one as knowledge, the other as reflecting. He uses the example of how a person can be described as a knower, meaning that a “man falls within the class of beings that know or have knowledge, or…as when we are speaking of a man who possesses a knowledge of grammar”(Aristotle 350BC/1994) and thirdly that the knower is actively exercising his “possession of sense of grammar” (Aristotle 350BC/1994). A knower in the first sense is a human being, who has the potential to know something and in the second sense, the knower has some knowledge, but unlike the third sense, is not thinking about it or using it. In the third sense, the knower is putting their knowledge into practise. The notion of the first actuality can be seen in Aristotle’s definition of the soul, “The soul is the first actuality of a natural body that is potentially alive” (Aristotle 350BC/1994)). The first actuality can also be seen as being a type of potentiality; it is the ability to participate in the activity of the next actuality. This therefore suggests that the soul is a form of capacity whereby actions or activities that are characteristic of a thing, for example a human, are able to engage in. These activities include movement, contemplating and perception and so on. For this reason, Aristotle …show more content…
Further, Aristotle defines the soul as “an actuality in the first sense” (Aristotle 350BC/1994) with “first” being understood as “prior in time and existence” (Aristotle 350BC/1994) and it can be argued that the exercising or engaging with these capacities cannot define the essence of the soul, because that would inhibit the dormant plant, the sleeping animal and the unthinking man from possessing a soul. (Wedin
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.
In his Metaphysics, Aristotle defines essence as “what the thing is said to be in its own right” without qualification (1029b14). Essence includes the fundamental or necessary properties of a substance, the properties that if taken away would cause the substance to cease existing as that substance. Essence also ignores accidents whose existence is contingent upon a primary substance. Essence is found in a species (secondary substance) and is not indicative of particular referents of that species (primary substance). In order for a thing to qualify as being part of a certain species, its qualities must meet the definition or criteria of this species; these qualities are its essence. Essence is the most fundamental quality of a substance that
This paper is an initial attempt to develop a dynamic conception of being which is not anarchic. It does this by returning to Aristotle in order to begin the process of reinterpreting the meaning of ousia, the concept according to which western ontology has been determined. Such a reinterpretation opens up the possibility of understanding the dynamic nature of ontological identity and the principles according to which this identity is established. The development of the notions of energeia, dynamis and entelecheia in the middle books of Aristotle’s Metaphysics will be discussed in order to suggest that there is a dynamic ontological framework at work in Aristotle’s later writing. This framework lends insight into the dynamic structure of being itself, a structure which does justice as much to the concern for continuity through change as it does to the moment of difference. The name for this conception of identity which affirms both continuity and novelty is "legacy." This paper attempts to apprehend the meaning of being as legacy.
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.
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Aristotle's Theory of the Soul in the De Anima centres on the kinds of souls possessed by different kinds of living things, distinguished by their different operations. He holds that the soul is the form, or essence of any living thing; that it is not a distinct substance from the body that it is in; that it is the possession of soul (of a specific kind) that makes an organism an organism at all, and thus that the notion of a body without a soul, or of a soul in the wrong kind of body, is simply unintelligible. Aristotle uses his familiar matter/form distinction to answer the question “What is soul?” he says that there are three sorts of substance which are matter, form and the compound of the matter and form. Aristotle is interested in compounds that are alive. These - plants and animals - are the things that have souls. Their souls are what make them living things. Aristotle also argues that the mind is immaterial, able to exist without the body, and immortal by “Saying that something has a soul just means that it is alive”
One of Aristotle’s conclusions in the first book of Nicomachean Ethics is that “human good turns out to be the soul’s activity that expresses virtue”(EN 1.7.1098a17). This conclusion can be explicated with Aristotle’s definitions and reasonings concerning good, activity of soul, and excellence through virtue; all with respect to happiness.
St. Thomas Aquinas adjusts this theory. He claims that the soul and body are inseparable, and he states that the soul is the form of the body. St. Thomas further believes that God creates the soul and matter (physical body) simultaneously, and the body affects the nature of that soul. His conception of redemption is distinctly different from Augustine; he a...
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...
Aristotle, a name well known even now like the gods of ancient Greece such as Zeus and Poseidon, his name is well known because of the questions he asked and the way he viewed the world that would make those of a simple mind scratch their heads. People whom do not question anything think he is insane and by right he may have been a little mad, but we as humans are all a little off kilt. As this you can look at the views of Aristotle and if you are not one of a simple mind and can look at it in a critical thinking way, you can analyze his views to see if you agree or disagree that in fact he thinks that all things in this world are physical, and that everything has a purpose. Aristotle is correct in the case that all things are physical, because are matter, he also does not bring religion into his statement, yet does not discredit an artisan; he also states that all things do in fact have a purpose, and are something believable.
Rather, Aristotle attempts to tackle some of the most fundamental questions of human experience, and at the crux of this inquiry is his argument for the existence of an unmoved mover. For Aristotle, all things are caused to move by other things, but the unreasonableness of this going on ad infinitum means that there must eventually be an ultimate mover who is himself unmoved. Not only does he put forth this argument successfully, but he also implies why it must hold true for anyone who believes in the ability to find truth through philosophy. Book XII of the Metaphysics opens with a clear statement of its goal in the first line of Chapter One: to explore substances as well as their causes and principles. With this idea in mind, Chapter One delineates the three different kinds of substances: eternal, sensible substances; perishable, sensible substances; and immovable substances.
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
...rts of the soul in order to find the function of human beings which is activity in accordance with reason. It is first in this function that men ought to be virtuous. It is thanks to the same distinction that Aristotle gives the different types of virtues. However while Aristotle dedicates most of his piece to the practical, active aspects of virtue it is necessary to keep in mind the virtues of the life of study which is reintroduced in the chapters 7 and 8 of book X. Thus what appears as a contradiction in these chapters is in fact a reminder and a justification of the honourable and divine aspect of the life of study which is necessary to reach complete happiness.
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
Aristotle made contributions to logic, physics, biology, medicine, and agriculture. He redesigned most, if not all, areas of knowledge he studied. Later in life he became the “Father of logic” and was the first to develop a formalized way of reasoning. Aristotle was a greek philosopher who founded formal logic, pioneered zoology, founded his own school, and classified the various branches of philosophy.