In Search of Aristotle’s Soul
In his exploration of the meaning that is entailed in the word “soul,” Aristotle in his De Anima neither entertains the familiar dichotomies which the modern reader is familiar with nor many of the popular theories of his day. Assumptions of a pure soul corrupted by impure sensory desires and passions do not enter the equation, because sense comes to be viewed as one of the primary activities of the interaction between soul and body. The Pythagorean and Ionian concepts of souls being independent essences that can float around in the air at will (the ones that float the highest win!) or change bodies whenever it suits them do not pass his infamous scrutiny unscathed either.
The questions that he puts forth are not always answered completely, and even the preconditions of the existence of a soul he limits to categories of sensory perception such as touch (McKeon 603), an admittedly limited determinant. However, ascertaining the building blocks or definitive terms of the soul was not an easy task, even for the likes of Aristotle, and for that he must be credited. The categories that he utilizes encompass more than our modern concepts presuppose, and the possibilities that he attributes to the soul essentially grant it more freedom than we may have assumed. On these counts alone, it can be considered beneficial from a modern perspective to grant Aristotle’s ideas on this matter a closer look.
From any perspective, modern or ancient Greek alike, presuppositions are made in regard to fundamental issues, the principle of life being obviously the most fundamental of all. It is in this context that Aristotle’s investigation begins, because it is announced at the beginning of his inquiry that this is precisely his initial definition of the soul itself (McKoen 535). But quickly issues arise that become very hard to define. Does a soul exist independently of itself, or is it an essence or actualization of something else?
Commonly held beliefs are the starting ground for his investigation, getting closer to knowing what the soul is by gaining a definite feel for what it isn’t. In Aristotle’s day, it seems that the soul was considered to be closely tied to two defining factors: “movement and sensation” (McKeon 538). Not only were these factors infused with the very definition of a soul, they were used as qualifying agents. If something did not have movement or lacked sensation, then it was considered soulless.
Aristotle is notorious for critiquing many of his former teachers’ theories, and Plato’s Timaeus serves as a suitable target for this topic because it sets up a basic structure for the soul that entails the elements as its basic components, which in turn entails definitive material substance. But if the soul is an independent substance and not merely an attribute of the body, then and only then can it be said to be capable of motion. Otherwise, the application of such terminology could not apply. An example of this would be watching a brown stick being thrown in the air. It cannot be said that what is perceived is the independent and self-existent color “brown” is in motion; “Oh, hey, look out, that color brown is about to bust you in the head!” Rather, the color is merely a defining, recognizable aspect of the stick. A brown stick could not be a brown stick without the color brown. At the same time, the color brown cannot be thrown through the air without the stick. Aristotle insists that “if the soul naturally partakes in movement, it follows that it must have a place” (McKeon 543). But it does not have a place of its own. In fact, it is only perceived in the context of what it actualizes, which is the given body that it is said to inhabit.
Still, is a soul capable of motion? If it is taken to be the essence of a living body, and that living body in question is engaged in motion, then it must by its intimacy with the body also be in motion. But if something that contains a soul moves and two motions take place, one of the body and the other the motion of the essence that caused the motion to begin with, then that raises another vitally important issue. Bodies can be observed to lose the ability of motion during the phenomena of death and sleep. If the soul comprises a separate motion within the body, then the possibility arises for the soul to travel, to move independently of the body (McKeon 543). If it comprises the actuality of motion within a physical body, however, then it is stuck there. This can be observed in the involuntary twitching of body parts when they are removed. However, the mystery of why the soul is in the living body or what keeps it there remains.
Aristotle’s categories of what has a soul and what does not are set in place by his initial definition of a soul being the essence of a living thing. It therefore extends into two basic groups, plants and animals (McKeon 557). However, sensory perception, another basic presupposition of what denotes life, is not observable in plants. Plants still can be observed in the process of something Aristotle calls “self-nutrition,” a primal denominator for the fact that life indeed is taking place. Rocks and clouds cannot be fed; so “since nothing except what is alive can be fed, what is fed is the besouled body and just because it has soul in it” (McKeon 563). In this sense, because moss feeds on rotten wood, it has a soul in an Aristotelian context. This places his theory in between the two extremes of attributing everything in existence with life and therefore a soul, and confining besouled things to the category of things that can sense, either through perception or thought.
He continues with an exploration of the latter category, stating that there is a fundamental difference between sensation and thought or knowledge: “the ground of this difference is that what actual sensation apprehends is individuals, while what knowledge apprehends is universals” (McKeon 566). He uses this deduction to further delineate besouled things, knowledge separating soul-body complexes of a higher category from those of animals (587). In fact, he continues from this point to attach critical importance to the mind, now a different construct than the soul, that thinks.
However, it is precisely in this theory that his famous clarity is found falling short of its own assertion. He apparently upholds immortality as a characteristic of the thinking mind, concluding that “Actual knowledge is identical with its object,” and therefore the process never ends (592). This smacks of a hasty conclusion, drawn from a desire to conclude an opinion as a fact.
It is finally in the immediate organ that touches tangible things that he seems to house the soul, touch being the most direct form of perception (603). It is thought by Aristotle to be the very catalyst or determinant to separate besouled and living animals from all other things, fundamentally because it is precisely tangible, “touchable” things that have the potential of destroying life and therefore taking away “besouled-ness”.
These theories lead the reader to reinvestigate the preconceived notions and beliefs in regard to what the soul is, what it does, and what it seems to be separate from. For, in Aristotle’s case, it is shown to be fused with sensory perception and thought in a very dynamic way. The claim of immortality that he attributes to the mind, and not necessarily the soul in general, may seem inconclusive; despite this, his deductions and insights in De Anima seem advanced beyond their years, and well worth looking at.
WORKS CITED
McKeon, Richard, ed. The Basic Works of Aristotle. New York: Random House, 1970.
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