Mark A. Elvy
Professor Ryan Shea
PHL 103-009
22 February 2017
On the Soul by Aristotle
Analysis
1. Classification
a. Aristotle’s On the Soul is a treatise.
2. Summary
a. Aristotle discusses the nature of the soul of not only humans but all living things, and as to why they are considered living. The question surrounding the work is what makes the soul? To answer this Aristotle concludes that the soul is natural and entelecheia or "being-at-work-staying-itself".
3. Structure
a. Overview of the soul
i. Defining the soul is the most difficult to define. (402a)
1. There is a variety of methods are used to define the soul.
a. Thinking causes us to bring up questions about what we know about the soul and prevents us from creating logical
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"the soul could not be a body, since it is not the body that is an underlying thing, but rather the body has being as an underlying thing and material [for something else].” (412a10)
d. “So, everything that lives and has a soul at all necessarily has the nutritive soul from birth and up to death...” (434a 20)
3. Argument
a. “…harmony is some ratio or putting together of things that have been mixed or joined and the soul cannot be either of these.” (407b 30)
i. Argument: Some people define the soul to be a harmony or as a blending of contraries, but that’s not what the soul is. ii. Analysis: Aristotle argues that the soul isn’t harmony rather that there are several souls that make up the body that work in harmony.
b. “the soul could not be a body, since it is not the body that is in an underlying thing, but rather the body has being as an underlying thing and material [for something else].” (412a10)
i. Argument: The soul is not a body. ii. Analysis: Aristotle is arguing that the soul cannot be a body because the soul does not have self-nourishing abilities only natural bodies do. The soul is instead everlasting so it has the ability of being-at-work-staying-itself.
4. Solutions
a. After finding everything the soul isn’t, Aristotle
6. “If the deathless is indestructible, then the soul, if it is deathless, would also be indestructible? - Necessarily.” (106e-107a)
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Aristotle came to this conclusion because the soul for him means potentiality and actuality. He starts by explaining the three types of substance, the first one been the matter which he describes as potentiality (being alive), secondly the form which he calls first actuality and thirdly is the second actuality which is the matter and form that he says it engages in having action. Aristotle uses the axe as an example to describe the two concepts. The axe needs potentiality to have all materials ready in order to gain an identity. First actuality of the axe is to be properly configured (identity) and its functions to be discover as yet. The second actuality is for the axe to be actually used to cut. The second example that Aristotle uses is the eye because it gains its identity, in which the eye has the capacity of eyesight. He says that the components of the eye are present and it does not mean that the eye will gain its identity, because it does not necessary has to see. This shows that the eye does not have a soul because it depends of the organism. This just means that the eye does not have a soul because what controls it is the body because it is a natural organized body. This is why Aristotle came to this
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It is also important to say that he also believes the soul is the form of the body in part, because the soul is the organization of the parts the body, the body is matter and it or soul is the form-the actual living body. To reiterate this point Aristotle offers us the example of a corpse and a bronze or wooden hand and states that these are not forms as they “lack the potentiality to perform the function of a hand”.7this would also suggest that once we are dead we undergo a material change which stops function and makes us akin to a statue. Aristotle then goes on to discuss matter which he says is “the matter that is the subject necessarily has a certain sort of nature....fire has a hot and light nature”8. He states that matter is what earlier philosophers focused on and it was how they explained the order of the world. Aristotle however does not believe that this is the way in which we should study nature, he believes we should ask what gives each natural substance its characteristic and we should look at “how each thing has naturally come to be, rather than how it is...then state their causes”9. Therefore he concludes that a prior observational investigation is best and that we should study the form.
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