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READING NOTES ON ST I, QQ. 75-76

The Summa Theologiae:

The Summa Theologiae (ST), of which Aquinas Treatise on Human Nature is a part,
is divided into three main parts: Prima Pars (ST Ia), Secunda Pars (ST IIa), Tertia
Pars (ST IIIa). The second part, because of its length, is divided in turn into two
parts: the Prima Secundae (ST IaIIae) (lit., the first part of the second part) and the
Secunda Secundae (ST IIaIIae) (lit., the second part of the second part). Each part
is divided into a number of Quaestiones or questions. The English translation
question here isnt really apt (though it is traditional), since in Latin quaestio literal-
ly means a seeking, i.e., an investigation. So a quaestio, in the case of the Summa
Theologiae, is a kind of investigation into some issue. For example, ST Ia, Q. 75 (=
Summa Theologiae, Part 1, Question 75) is an investigation into the essence of the soul
considered in itself, setting aside the question of its union with the body. Each quaes-
tio is divided, in turn, into articles, wherein a particular question (in the proper Eng-
lish sense of question) is raised and addressed. For example, ST Ia, q. 75, a. 1 (=
Summa Theologiae, Part I, Question 75, article 1) addresses the question: Is the human
soul a body?
Standardly, the article begins with an answer to the question (typically this an-
swer is rejected at the end of the article), followed by a number of arguments in sup-
port of this answer. (These arguments are numbered.) After these arguments are
given, one gets a short section that begins with the phrase, On the contrary (Ad
contrarium), in which some different answer (often precisely the opposite answer to
the one given at the beginning of the article) is given. An appeal to some authority
(e.g., a Church Father, such as Augustine) is common, though not invariable, here.
After that, one gets the body or corpus of the article, labeled Reply (Respondeo).
Here, explanations are given, arguments laid out, and the correct answer (sc. Thom-
as answer) is stated. (This correct answer is typically the one given in the On the
contrary, but not always. Thomas will sometimes claim, e.g., that the question is
ambiguous, and that, understood in one way, the question must be answered as it is
at the beginning of the article, while, understood in another way, the question must
be answered as it is in the On the contrary.) After the Reply, Thomas typically
offers responses to the arguments presented at the beginning of the article. These are
labeled Ad 1, Ad 2, etc. (as in, Ad primum, dicendum esti.e., To the first
it must be said). Ad 1 introduces Thomas response to the first of the argu-
ments given at the beginning of the article, Ad 2 Thomas response to the second
of the arguments given at the beginning of the article, etc.

The Aristotelian Background:

Many of Aquinas arguments in the Summa are unintelligible without at least a
basic understanding of some important Aristotelian doctrines. I here explain some of
these.
1. Scientific inquiry, according to Aristotle, is often directed at the formulation of
definitions (real definitions). A definition of x specifies xs essence, according to Aris-
totle; it is therefore to be distinguished from the sort of definition that one finds in a
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dictionary (a nominal definition), which specifies, not the essence of a thing, but the
meaning of a word.
2. A things essence is its whatness (quidditas, quiddity), i.e., its nature. Notice,
however, that the human essence is something common to all human beings. There-
fore, although its true to say that Aristotles definitions are definitions of things, ra-
ther than definitions of words, there is a sense in which what gets defined, according
to Aristotle, are not individual things (like this human being or that one), but the
species of things (e.g., human being in general).
3. Human being is an example of a species (pl. species). So is horse. Animal is an ex-
ample of a genus (pl. genera). A species is invariably a species of some genus. E.g.,
according to Aristotle, human being and horse are both species of animal. Some genera
are also speciesnamely, those which are species of some higher genus. E.g., animal
is a species of living thing. The only genera that are not species are the highest genera
or categories, each of which is not the species of some higher genus (otherwise the
categories wouldnt be highest genera). The only species that are not genera are the
so-called lowest speciesi.e., those species that are not subdivided into further
species. E.g., the human species is not subdivided into different species. All human
beings, according to Aristotle, have the same essence.
4. Species and genera are natural kindsthey divide nature at its joints, as it were,
into classes that are naturally different. A non-natural kind is artificial or arbitrary
and does not cut nature at its joints. E.g., I might choose to distinguish human beings
into those taller than me and those shorter than me, but this distinction doesnt re-
flect a difference that is natural.
5. Every species is defined, according to Aristotle, by appeal to its genus and its
differentia. Thus, in defining human being, one first states its genusi.e., the genus
of which human being is a species. The genus of human being is animal. Next, one
states the differentia (or difference) of human beingi.e., that characteristic which (i)
forms part the human beings essence and (ii) serves to distinguish the human being
from all other species of the same genus. According to Aristotle, the differentia of
human being is rational: of all animals, only (and all) human beings are rational. Thus,
human being, according to Aristotle, is defined as rational (differentia) animal (genus).
6. As mentioned, there are, according to Aristotle, ten most basic kinds or genera
of being. They are: (i) substance (e.g., dog, horse), (ii) quantity (e.g., four-feet), (iii)
quality (e.g., pallor, grammar), (iv) relative (e.g., being double, being half, being
larger), (v) where/place (e.g., being in the Lyceum, being in the marketplace), (vi)
when/time (e.g., yesterday, last year), (vii) position (e.g., sitting, lying), (viii) having
(e.g., has shoes on, has armor on), (ix) action (e.g., cutting, burning) and (x) passion
(e.g., being cut, being burned). Items (ii) through (x) are collectively called acci-
dents. Accidents differ from substances inasmuch as they must exist in some-
thing else, as in a subject, if they are to exist at all. E.g., theres no such thing as a pal-
lor that is not the pallor of some body or other. Here, we say that pallor exists in a
body as in a subject. (The Latin subjectum answers to the Greek hupokeimenon,
which literally means: underlying thing. The idea is that a subject underlies the
accidents that exist in it.) Similarly, there is no quantity that is not the quantity of
some body or other. Substances are different from accidents in this respect: a sub-
stance need not exist in, or belong to, something else. Otherwise put, substances sub-
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sist, or have subsistence, whereas accidents dont. Aristotle and Aquinas commonly
speak of accidents as existing in substances even where we might find such talk
strange. E.g., although we might be willing to speak of a colours existing in a body
(or its surface), we wouldnt normally speak of a quantitys existing in a body. The
relation that an accident bears to the subject in which it exists was commonly termed
inherence: accidents inhere in substances.
6a. Note that, unlike Aristotle, many medieval Aristotelians held that some acci-
dents could, at least by means of divine intervention, exist without existing in some
subject. They believed this in part because it helped them to make sense of the Eu-
charist, in which the substance of the bread is thought to be replaced by the sub-
stance of Christs flesh and the substance of the wine is replaced by the substance of
Christs blood. Of course, in the Eucharist, the bread and wine undergo no sensible
change. Scholastic Aristotelians commonly explained this by saying that the acci-
dents of the breadits quantity or extension, its colour, its taste, etc.abide unsup-
ported by any subject after the substance of the bread is removed.
7. Aristotle distinguishes between two basic kinds of substance: (i) corporeal sub-
stances (i.e., bodies) and (ii) separate substances. The latter are called separate be-
cause they exist separate from matter and are therefore incorporeal. According to
Aristotle, moreover, every corporeal substance is (in some sense) composed of matter
and form. Here its important to realize that for Aristotle, matter is not the same as
body. Rather, matter, like form, is a metaphysical component of any body or corpo-
real substance.
8. Aristotle uses the term matter in a variety of ways, but in one sense, at least,
the matter of a corporeal substance is the stuff out of which it comes to be. In this
sense, matter pre-exists the corporeal substance. The form, on the other hand, is
what gets added to the matter so as to yield a corporeal substance. Aristotle com-
monly explains what he has in mind by matter and form by appealing to an analogy:
just as one gets a statue when the shape of (say) a human being is introduced into a
chunk of bronze, so also does one get a corporeal substance when the appropriate
form is introduced into the appropriate matter.
9. Notice, however, that the comparison to a statue here is imperfectmost im-
portantly because Aristotle does not think that a statue is a substance. (What is a
substance, according to Aristotle, is the bronze. The shape brought to bear on the
bronze is merely an accident.) Moreover, in most (if not all) cases of form-matter
composition, the matter does not exist in the corporeal substance in the way that the
bronze exists in the statue. Consider, for example, the case of a human being: the
matter out of which a human being comes to be is, according to Aristotle, blood
more specifically, menstrual blood. But a human beingi.e., the collection of its or-
gans, tissues, and the likeis not blood (though a human being does have some
blood within him- or herself) in the way that a statue arguably is bronze. A human
being is not blood, according to Aristotle, but bloody. Aristotle sometimes tries to
make the same point by appeal to artifacts (which doesnt work quite so well), as
when he says that a coffin (say) is not wood, but wooden.
1


1
See Metaphysics Z.8, 1033a5-7: Some things, when they have come into being from a
certain matter, are said to be, not that from which they came, but rather of that, or that-en;
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10. As mentioned, Aristotle sometimes uses the term matter in another sense. For
example, he speaks of an animals bodily parts as its matter, and sometimes also
speaks of the animals entire body as its matter. The latter use might be thought
strange, since Aristotle often characterizes the animal itself as a bodysc. a living
body.
11. In any case, regarding the first sense of matter, the distinction between mat-
ter and corporeal substance is relative, according to Aristotle, in the sense that one
and the same thing can be a corporeal substance in its own right while also being
matter for some other corporeal substance. Thus, according to Aristotle, the four ele-
mentsearth, air, water and fireare substances in their own right but also serve as
matter for other corporeal substances. Indeed, Aristotle holds that all the things in
the sublunary world (on the sublunary, see below), are composed from all four ele-
ments as from matter. Thus, earth, for example, is a composite of matter and form,
though it also serves as matter for other corporeal substances.
12. The most basic kind of matteri.e., that which ultimately underlies every
formis what Aristotle calls prime matter or first matter. Medieval followers of
Aristotle were divided on the question of what prime matter is in itself. Some, such
as Aquinas, held that prime matter is actually nothing but potentially many things. On
this view, prime matter has no entity or existence of its own but comes to exist only
through a form that is introduced into it. Others held that prime matter is not, as
Aquinas would have it, pure potentiality; in itself, they held, it possesses some de-
gree of actuality. (Aristotle himself characterizes the matter of x as potentially x.
Thus, he commonly speaks of matter as potency or potentiality. X exists actual-
ly, according to Aristotle, only once the relevant form has been introduced into xs
matter. Just as matter is characterizes as potentiality, so is form characterizes as ac-
tuality. The form of a corporeal substance is its actuality.) By contrast, when the
matter of some corporeal substance already contains formas it does when this
matter is nothing other than the four elements mentioned earlierthe matter in this
case is called secondary matter. This kind of matter is not, according to Aquinas, pure
potentiality. It is actually somethinge.g., earth.
13. When Aristotle talked of forms, he almost invariably had in mind something
that combines with matter so as to yield a corporeal substance. Aquinas and other
medieval Aristotelians, however, commonly speak instead of substantial forms. This
is because they conceived of accidents, too, as formsi.e., accidental forms. They also
differed from Aristotle in calling separate substances pure forms. In what follows,
I too will speak of substantial and accidental forms.
14. Medieval Aristotelian philosophers were divided on the question of whether
there can be more than one substantial form in a corporeal substance. Everyone was

for instance, a statue is not said to be [some] stone, but rather of stone. (Translation
from: Aristotle: Metaphysics Books Z and H, trans. David Bostock (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1993).) A little later (1033a16-19), Aristotle continues: This explains why, as we do not
in that case say that the thing is what it has come from, nor do we say in these cases that
the statue is [some] wood, but with a change of ending that it is wooden (or of wood),
and not that it is [some] bronze but that it is bronzen (or of bronze), not that it is [some]
stone but that it is of stone; and similarly we do not say that the house is bricks, but that
it is of bricks.
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agreed that substantial form confers various perfections on a corporeal substance.
Some, however, held that different perfections are conferred by different substantial
forms. Thus, some thought that the first form that comes to be in prime matter is the
form of corporeity, by which prime matter first becomes a body. The resulting
composite of prime matter and the form of corporeity then serves as subject for some
additional substantial formsay, the substantial form of earthso as to yield ele-
mental earth. Proponents of the plurality of forms held, moreover, that in the case of
human beings, there is one form that confers on them the ability for nutrition and
growth (which is something found in all living things), another that confers on them
the ability to engage in sensory perception (which is found in all animals), and yet
another that confers on them the ability to reason (which is peculiar to human be-
ings). (The question of how these forms are all related in the composite was a tricky
issue.) The position is not unreasonable, given the fact that a corporeal substance of a
given type (e.g., a human being) can normally come to be only out of secondary mat-
ter of a certain type (e.g., human blood): the substantial form of blood seems neces-
sary for whatever subsequent forms need to be added in order to yield a human be-
ing. So its natural to think that the form of human blood exists in the resulting com-
posite, though perhaps it is somehow co-opted by the forms that follow it.
15. Aquinas and various other philosophers denied this, however. They held that
every substantial form comes to exist directly in prime matter, i.e., that prime matter
serves as the immediate subject of every corporeal form. Its not the case, on their
view, that the composite of human bloods matter and substantial form serves as a
subject for further substantial forms. Rather, they held that whatever forms exist in
prime matter within human blood are displaced in the process of generation by
some further substantial form which, in addition to conferring perfections that the
form of human blood does not confer, also confers all the perfections that the form of
human blood conferred.
16. Aristotle distinguishes between three different kinds of change (metabol!, muta-
tio): (1) motion (or movement), (2) generation and (3) corruption. Generation and
corruption are called substantial changes, since generation is the coming-to-be of a
substance (which happens when a substantial form is introduced into some matter),
while corruption is the ceasing-to-be of a substance. Motion, on the other hand, is
accidental change, since in motion an accident comes to be in a substance or ceases
to be in a substance, but no substance comes to be or ceases to be when there is mo-
tion.
17. Aristotle distinguishes three kinds of motion: (a) local motion (or locomotion),
(b) alteration and (c) growth/diminution. Local motion occurs when a corporeal
substance goes from being here to being therei.e., when it changes with respect to
its place. Alteration occurs when a corporeal substance acquires or loses some quali-
ty. (Often acquiring some quality involves losing another, and losing one quality in-
volves acquiring another.) Thus, when I go from being (say) pale to being tanned, I
undergo an alteration. Finally, growth and diminution are changes with respect to
quantity. Thus, when I go from being four feet tall to being five feet tall, I grow.
17a. In all change, according to Aristotle, something remains and something else
is lost or gained. What remains persists through the change. In generation or corrup-
tion, what persists through the change is matter. One substantial form is replaced by
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another. In accidental change, what persists is the substance: it exchanges one acci-
dent for another.
18. Its important to realize that the term accident in Aristotle and the medieval
Aristotelians is ambiguous. In one sense, an accident is any being that is not a sub-
stancei.e., any item present in one of the nine so-called accidental categories
listed above. But in another sense, an accident is something that is predicated in a
particular way of some subject. In this latter sense, an accident is one of the five so-
called predicables.
19. The five predicables are: (i) genus, (ii) species, (iii) differentia, (iv) property,
and (v) accident. The first three of these were discussed above. Where x is a genus of
y, x is predicated of y as a genus and thereby asserts something about the essence,
nature, or quiddity of yi.e., that x is part of the essence of y. Similarly for species
and differentia. However, some things that form no part of another things essence
can also be truly predicated of it. The former things include (a) characteristics that
are found in some, but not all, members of a given speciese.g., the colour of a do-
mestic cats fur. Some domestic cats have grey fur, some black, some orange, but
since domestic cats of different colour nonetheless belong to one and the same low-
est species, they all have the same essence, from which it follows necessarily that the
colour of any given cats fur is not essential to iti.e., forms no part of its essence.
20. There are also (b) characteristics that belong to all and only members of some
species, but which nonetheless form no part of that species essence. Such character-
istics, though they form no part of the species essence, are nonetheless thought to be
necessary consequences of this essence. The standard example is risibilityi.e., the
capacity to laughwhich is common to all human beings but is found in nothing
belonging to any other species. (Only a rational being can discern absurdity.) Anoth-
er common example is hinnibilityi.e., the capacity to neighwhich is common to
all and only horses.
21. Note that both characteristics of type (a) and characteristics of type (b) are ac-
cidents in the sense that they are beings but not substances. However, in another
sense of accident, we say, in line with Aristotle, that characteristics of type (a) are
accidents, whereas characteristics of type (b) are not accidents, but rather properties
(idia, propria). (Aristotle and Aquinas do not use the term property as promiscuous-
ly as 20th and 21st c. philosophers do.) A property, in Aristotelian terminology, is
proper to some species or genus, in the way that risibility is proper to human beings.
An accidenti.e., a characteristic of type (a), on the other hand, is accidental in the
sense that it is not a necessary feature of some species, and this in either of two ways:
first, not every member of that species has it (e.g., the pale complexion of some Eu-
ropeans), or second, one and the same member of that species can have it at one time
and not have it at another (e.g., grey hair). Note that characteristics of type (b) are
often called proper accidents.
22. Since properties are accidents in the sense that they are beings but not sub-
stances, Aristotle and Aquinas sometimes refer to them as per se or necessary acci-
dents. To speak of a per se accident is to speak of an accident that belongs per se to
some subject.
23. There are two ways in which x can belong per se to y (= in which x can be pred-
icated per se of y). In the first mode of perseity, x is predicated per se of y when x
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figures in the definition of y. Thus, animal is predicated of human being (a human
being is an animal) in the first mode of perseity, since animal figures in the defini-
tion of human being. In the second mode of perseity, x is predicated per se of y
when y figures in the definition of x.
2
This happens, according to Aristotle, because
properties are defined by appeal to the subjects in which they necessarily exist. For
example, Aristotle holds that colour must be defined by appeal to surface, as such-
and-such a feature of surface.
24. The substantial form of a living thing is none other than its soul. Not all sub-
stantial forms are souls, however: only the substantial form of a living thing is a soul.
On this view, not only do both human beings and animals have souls, plants do as
well.
24a. Aristotle defines the soul (i.e., soul in general) in various ways. According to
one definition, the soul is the first actuality of potentially living body. Re: potential-
ly living body according to Aristotle, life consists in an assortment of activities,
e.g., breathing, seeing and thinking. To say of a body that it is potentially living is to
say that it is capable of engaging in activities constitutive of life. Notice, however,
that for Aristotle any thing that is capable of engaging in such an activity is already
engaged in some such activity. (Even in sleep were engaged in some such activity.)
Re: first actuality a first actuality is to be contrasted with a second actuality. A
second actuality is invariably an operation, while a first actuality is, or affords, the
capacity to engage in an operation. Thus, my knowledge of French is a first actuality
because it constitutes, or confers, a capacity to engage in the operation of speaking
French. The claim, in other words, is that the soul is what is primarily responsible for
the various capacities that define a living thingi.e., the capacities to engage in ac-
tivities constitutive of life. The second actuality is the activity itself.
25. The soul of a living thing is primarily responsible for all of its life functions,
e.g., nutrition, reproduction, sensation, self-caused locomotion, imagination, re-
membering and reasoning. Notice that some of these are not in any sense mental
e.g., nutrition. So whereas we, nowadays, might conceive of the soul as responsible
entirely for processes involving consciousness (such as sensory perception and rea-
soning), this is not so for Aristotle. This should come as no surprise, given that Aris-
totle thinks that plants have souls.
25a. To say that the soul is primarily responsible for such life functions is not to
deny that there are other things that also make such functions possible. Indeed, Aris-
totle thinks of various bodily parts, such as the eye or foot, as instruments that the
soul uses, as it were, in its performance of various operations. The Greek word for
instrument is organon, from which we get our words organ and organic. In Aris-
totles terminology, to say that a body is organic is to say that it has organs, such as
the eye or the foot.
26. According to Aristotle and his medieval followers, souls are invested with var-
ious powers or capacities. Thus, animal souls generally have the capacity to engage
in sensory perception. This capacity is exercised when the animal actually perceives
something by means of the senses. The act of perceiving something by means of the

2
See APo I.4.
3
The translation quoted here is that found in: The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised
Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
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senses is called an operation. In other words, every power or capacity of the soul is a
capacity to engage in some operation. These operations are all characteristic of living
thingsthey are, as it were, life functions.
27. The more perfect a living thing is, the more powers does its soul have. Thus,
according to Aristotle, the soul of a plant has only two powers (or one power that
performs two functions): the nutritive and reproductive powers. All plants nourish
themselves and reproduce. Their souls are commonly called nutritive or vegeta-
tive souls. The souls of animals, however, have all the powers found in plant souls,
but they have, in addition, a power that is not found in plant souls: the capacity to
perceive by sense. Indeed, this capacity enters into the definition of animal, accord-
ing to Aristotle: an animal is essentially a sensitive living substance. For this reason,
animal souls are normally called sensitive souls. Some animals, the most primitive
ones, possess only the sense of touch, according to Aristotle. Examples are various
sea creatures which give evidence of tactile sensitivity but are attached to rocks. (An-
imals capable of touch alone are invariably incapable of moving themselves local-
lyi.e., in space.) Animals possessed of any of the so-called distance senses (i.e.,
senses that enable one to sense something at a distance) are also endowed with self-
motion, i.e., the power to move themselves locally. (What point is there in being able
to move locally if one cannot sense things at a distance?) Animals even higher up the
chain of perfection possess all five senses. More perfect still are animals which, in
addition, possess imagination and memory. Finally, the highest animalthe human
beingpossesses all the powers found in lower animals, but also possess, in addi-
tion, reason and understanding. The souls of human beings are often called rational or
intellective souls.
28. Aristotle sometimes refers to the different powers of the soul as different parts
of the soul. Thus, the human soul is often said to have a sensitive part and an intel-
lectual part. (In what sense Aristotle uses the term part here is an open question.)
29. For Aristotle, the souls of plants and brutes (a brute is a non-human animal)
are enmattered or material formsthat is, they exist in matter and must exist in
matter in order to exist at all. This is evidenced by the fact that all the operations of
plants and animals involve both the body and the soul.
29a. According to Aristotle, moreover, the same is largely true of the human
soulwith one qualification. That is, according to Aristotle, most parts of the human
soul are enmatteredi.e., exist in matter. Most parts of the human soul are forms of
some organ. E.g., the power of sight exists in the eye. However, Aristotle thinks that
there is one part of the human soul, the intellect, that is not enmattered. Aquinas
sometimes makes the same point by saying that the human soul has an operation
i.e., understanding or intellectionthat is proper to it or wholly its own (as distin-
guished from other operations, such as seeing, which are common to both the soul
and the body, or belong to the entire animal composed of matter and form). For Aris-
totle, this part of the soul is alone capable of surviving the death of the human being.
29b. Note that, according to Aristotle, the intellect cannot perform its operation in
the absence of a phantasm. A phantasm (phantasma) is something produced by the
imagination (phantasia), which is an enmattered capacity of the soul that is distinct
from the intellect. The production of phantasms by the imagination is in turn de-
pendent on sensory perception.
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30. Medieval Aristotelians couldnt accept Aristotles view that only the intellect
of a human beings soul survives the death of a human being. For Aristotle was quite
clear that the intellect is something impersonal, and so not a bearer of personal iden-
tity. Accordingly, people like Aquinas claimed that the human soul, unlike the sensi-
tive souls of brutes or the nutritive souls of plants, is itself a subsistent thing, and
therefore a (complete) substance; as such, it is capable of existing independently of
matter. Thus, for Aquinas, the human soul is peculiar inasmuch as it is both (i) a sub-
stantial form, and therefore naturally suited to exist in matter, and (ii) a complete
substance, and therefore capable of existing without existing in any sort of subject.
31. Corporeal substances, according to Aristotle, typically have four different
kinds of cause: (i) a formal cause, (ii) a material cause, (iii) an efficient cause, and (iv)
a final cause. A corporeal substances formal cause is none other than its substantial
form, while a corporeal substances material cause is simply its matter. Both of these
causes are called intrinsic causes, for obvious reasons: they are intrinsic to their effect,
the entire corporeal substance. The efficient cause of a corporeal substance is what
introduces the substances form into its matter. The final cause of a corporeal sub-
stance is its purpose, goal or end. E.g., the final cause of a horse is to lead a certain
kind of life (sc. a horses life), the final cause of a house is to provide shelter for per-
sons and goods, and the final cause of a human being is to lead a certain kind of life.
The human being who leads the human life well is, as such, a happy human being.
31a. For both thinkers, moreover, causes are principles. A principle is a kind of
source or origin. Thus, the soul is a principle of life in the living thing. It is by virtue
of having a soul that the living thing counts as a living thing.
31b. Not all principles are causes, however. For example, Aristotle holds that in
every change, three things are involved: form, subject and privation. Thus, when
something acquires some feature during a change, prior to that change it lacks that
feature. This lack is what Aristotle has in mind when he speaks how a privation is
involved in any change. The feature that is acquired during the change is what Aris-
totle means by the form. And the subject is what comes to have that feature or form
during the change. But although Aristotle considers the privation at issue here a
principle, he denies that it is cause.
31c. For Aristotle, as for Aquinas, to understand a thing is to possess a complete
explanation of it. It is important to realize, moreover, that causes and principles are
understood by both thinkers to be explanatory of their effects. Accordingly, for Aris-
totle and Aquinas, to understand a thing requires an understanding of its causes and
principlesall of its causes and principles.
32. Accidents also have causes, but they dont have all four types of cause. E.g.,
the eclipse that sometimes exists in the moon has no matter, since it is not a compo-
site of matter and form, although it does exist in a subjectsc. the moon. In one text,
Aristotle seems prepared to accept that there is no final cause of a lunar eclipse, ei-
ther. If this is right, a lunar eclipse has no purpose.
33. The Earth is at the centre of the universe, according to Aristotle. It is sur-
rounded by a series of concentric spheres, the lowest of which is that in which the
moon is embedded. The outermost sphere is the sphere of the fixed stars (as distin-
guished from the wandering stars, i.e., the planets, which move from night to night
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relative to the fixed stars). Other spheres carry the planets or simply contribute to
the observed motions of heavenly bodies embedded in other spheres.
34. Aristotles universe is divided into two principal parts: the part that lies below
the sphere of the mooncalled the sublunary regionand the part that includes the
sphere of the moon out to the sphere of the fixed starscalled the celestial or heav-
enly region. Generation and corruption occur, according to Aristotle, only in the sub-
lunary region. That is, substances come to be and pass away by natural means only
in the region below the sphere of the moon. The substances of the celestial region are
neither generated nor corrupted. According to Aristotle, in fact, they are eternal.
(Medieval Aristotelians denied the eternity of the heavens: on their view, the bodies
of the celestial region were created. These thinkers, however, were divided on the
question of whether the creation of the heavenly bodies could be demonstrated
without recourse to revelation.)
35. As mentioned, every body in the sublunary region is composed of all four sub-
lunary elementsearth, air, water and fire. According to Aristotle, even those bodies
that we call earth, air, water and fire are actually composed of all four elements. In
other words, elemental earth, elemental air, elemental water and elemental fire no-
where exist in a pure and unmixed state. Aristotle also recognizes a fifth element:
ether, which is the element from which the heavenly bodies are composed.
36. According to Aristotle, each sublunary element is composed of prime matter
and two qualities: earth is prime matter plus the cold and the dry, water is prime
matter plus the cold and the wet, air is prime matter plus the hot and the wet, and
fire is prime matter plus the hot and the dry. Of course, the wet is opposed to the dry
and the cold is opposed to the hot. Aquinas supposes that these qualities are mere
properties or per se accidents and not really substantial forms. The substantial form
of a given element is, on his view, what makes that element hot or cold, dry or wet.
Prime matter, as the matter that underlies the forms of the elements, is that which
remains when one element (e.g., air) is transformed into another element (e.g., wa-
ter).
37. According to Aristotle, each sublunary element has a natural place, that is, a
place to which it will naturally move if nothing prevents it. The natural place of ele-
mental earth, and of things composed primarily of elemental earth, is the centre of
the cosmos. For this reason, motion downward is natural to earthy things. When,
however, I take an earthy thing and toss it in the air, its motion upward is not natu-
ral, but violent. The natural place of fire is at the periphery of the sublunary world.
The natural place of air is just below the natural place of fire. And finally, the natural
place of water is between the natural place of air and the natural place of earth.
38. The ether, or celestial element, also has a natural locomotion: unlike the natu-
ral locomotions of the four sublunary elements, all of which are rectilinear, the natu-
ral locomotion of ether is circular. Hence the circular motions of the heavens.
39. Notwithstanding the fact that Aristotle took the heavenly bodies to move nat-
urally in a circle, he also held that every body must be moved by something that is in
some way distinct from it. That is, a body in motion is invariably being moved by
something else. For Aristotle, moreover, each heavenly sphere had what he called an
unmoved moveri.e., something that moves the relevant sphere without itself
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being in motion. The unmoved movers of the heavenly spheres are all separate sub-
stances.
40. Aristotle also held that in the case of animals capable of moving themselves
locally, the soul of such an animal serves as an unmoved mover of its body.


Page 2

Re: Having considered spiritual and also corporeal creatures, we should now con-
sider human beings, who are composed of a spiritual and corporeal nature.

ST I, QQ. 53-64 is devoted to the angels, the spiritual creatures mentioned here. ST
I, QQ. 65-74 is devoted to corporeal (i.e., material) creatures. A human being is
composed of both a corporeal and a spiritual nature insofar as he or she is com-
posed of body and soul.

Re: And first we should consider the nature of human beings [QQ75-89], then se-
cond their production [QQ90-102].

Questions 90 through 102 of ST I consider the human beings coming-to-bee.g.,
the production of the human beings soul, the production of her body, the pur-
pose of the human beings production, etc.

Re: And because, as Dionysius says in Celestial Hierarchy 11.2, three things are
found in spiritual substancesessence, power, and operationwe will consid-
er

On Dionysius, see: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-dionysius-areopagite/
A spiritual substance is a separate or immaterial substance. The human soul is
such a substance, according to Aquinas, as are angels, which are also called intel-
ligences. Of course, for Aquinas every spiritual substance has an essence. It also
has various powers or capacities, all of which are capacities to perform operations.
E.g., the human intellect is a power or capacity of the human soul; it is the human
souls power or capacity to engage in acts of understanding (or acts of intellec-
tion). Finally, the act of understanding itself is an operation of the human soul.


Page 3

Re: Also, if something produces motion without being in motion, then that causes a
motion that lasts forever and continues in the same way, as is proved in Physics
VIII [259b32-260a5].

The numbers 259b32-260a5 are references to the relevant portion of Aristotles
Physics. (They are, of course, inserted here by our translator and do not appear in
the Latin text of Aquinas Summa Theologiae.) They are known as Bekker numbers,
after Immanuel Bekker, who published a complete, original language edition of
Aristotles works in 1831. The pagination of this edition has become standard; it is
reproduced in the margins of any decent edition or translation of one of Aristo-
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tles works. The number 259 in 259b32 refers to page 259 of Bekkers edition.
Each page of this edition is double columned, the left column being labeled a,
the right b. Hence the 259b in 259b32 refers to the right column of page 259 in
Bekkers edition. The number 32 that follows is a line number. (You can find a
reproduction of a Bekker page at the end of this document.)

In Bk. VIII of the Physics, Aristotle is concerned to prove that there must be an
unmoved mover that is ultimately responsible for all the motion that takes place
in the cosmos. On his view, a body in motion, b, can be in motion only because b is
being moved by something elsenormally, by a moved mover (i.e., by something
that causes motion in body b by virtue of the fact that it is itself in motion). Since
only bodies can be in motion, strictly speaking, a moved mover must necessarily
be a body. According to Aristotle, however, there cannot be an infinite regress of
moved movers: the regress must end with something that moves without being
movedi.e., it must end in an unmoved mover. On his view, at least as it is pre-
sented in Physics VIII (the picture presented in Metaphysics XII is somewhat differ-
ent), the unmoved mover is responsible for the eternal and constant motion of the
heavens, which is in turn responsible for the motions that take place in the sublu-
nary region. Of course, the soul does not move the body in this wayi.e., by im-
parting a motion to the body that lasts forever and continues in the same way.
Therefore, the argument concludes, the soul must produce motion by being in
motion, and since bodies are the kinds of things that produce motion by being in
motion, the soul must be a body.

Re: Reply. In order to investigate the souls nature one must start by pointing out
that the soul (anima) is said to be the first principle of life in the things that are
alive around us. For we say that living things are animate, whereas inanimate
things are without life.

Anima is the Latin word for soul. By calling the soul the first principle of life
Aquinas means that the soul is the ultimate internal source (or origin) of life in the
living thing, where life is conceived as an assortment of activities that the living
thing engages in insofar as it is a living thing (e.g., breathing, sensing, moving).
The soul is the ultimate internal source of life. The fact that we call living things
animate (animatus), and do so precisely by virtue of the fact that they are living,
is for Thomas significant, since the Latin term animatus is derived from the Latin
word for souli.e., anima. To call a living thing animate is to say that it is ensouled.
What is inanimate is not ensouled.

Re: Now life is displayed above all by two functions: cognition and movement.

In other words, cognition and movement are activities constitutive of life.

Re: But the ancient philosophers, unable to transcend their imaginations, claimed
that the principle behind these functions is body. They said that the only things
that exist are bodies, and that what is not a body is nothing.

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By the ancient philosophers here, Aquinas does not mean Aristotle or Plato, but
the so-called Presocratic philosophers that preceded them, like Thales, Anaxime-
nes and Anaximander, all of whom were (as we would say nowadays) material-
ists.

The imagination (phantasia in Greek) is a faculty or capacity of the soul. Thanks to
it, we can form mental pictures or pictorial mental representations. Note that only
bodily things admit of being imagined or pictured. Incorporeal things must be
conceived by means of a higher faculty, according to Aquinas. Thus, if one holds
that there is nothing that cannot be imagined, then one holds that everything is
corporeali.e., bodily. Thus, Aquinas says, the so-called ancient philosophers
held that operations like cognition and movement had their (sc. ultimate) origin in
a body, and not in something incorporeal.

Re: It is clear, first, that not just any principle of an operation associated with life is
a soul.

Aquinas will grant that a bodily part of a certain sort can serve as a principle (or
source) of some life-activity or operation (such as sensation). But of course he de-
nies that the soulwhich is the first principle or source of life in a living thing, i.e.,
the ultimate or most fundamental principle of life in a living thingis a body.

Re: For if so then the eye would be a soul, since it is a principle of seeing, and the
same would have to be said for the souls other instruments.

Seeing is an operation or life-activityi.e., an activity constitutive of that more
complex activity that we call life or living. And an eye is indeed a source or
originand therefore a principleof this particular activity. But Aquinas will ar-
gue that the eyes role of serving as a principle of the operation of seeing is itself
dependent on some more fundamental principle, sc. the soul. (Recall that Aristotle
and Aquinas commonly conceive of organs, such as the eye or ear, as instruments
of the soul.)

Re: For it is clear that to be a principle of life, or to be living, does not hold of a
body as a result of its being a body: otherwise every body would be living, or a
principle of life. Therefore it holds of some body that it is living, or a principle of
life, through its being such a body.

In other words, a particular body cannot be a principle of life merely insofar as it
is a body. For if that were the case, all bodies would be principles of life. Therefore,
only bodies of a particular sort can be principles of life. A body is a principle of
life, as Aquinas puts it, through its being such a body.


Pages 3-4

Re: But as for the fact that it is actually such, it has this from a principle that is
called its actuality. Therefore, the soul, which is the first principle of life, is not a
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body but the actuality of a body. And this is so in just the way that heat, which is
the principle of heating, is not a body, but a certain actuality of a body.

According to Aquinas, a form or actuality is what is responsible for a given
bodys being a body of a particular sort. (Thus, the form of gold is what is respon-
sible for the fact that this body here is gold.) For this reason, the form or actuality
of body b is a principle and cause of body b itself. (Recall that the substantial form
of a corporeal substance is the formal cause of that corporeal substance.) There-
fore, if some particular body or bodily part is a principle of life, it must be a prin-
ciple of life by virtue of its form or actuality, which is not a body. So a body cannot
be a first principle of life. Therefore, the soul, which is a first principle of life, can-
not be a body.


Page 4

Re: Since everything that is in motion is in motion due to another, and this cannot
continue on into infinity, it is necessary to say that not every mover is in motion.

As mentioned, Aristotle thinks that everything that is in motion is in motion only
because it is moved by some mover that is somehow distinct from it. Let A be
moved by B, which moves A by virtue of the fact that it is itself in motion. Clearly,
there must be some third thing, C, which causes Bs motion, then. According to
Aristotle, however, one cannot have an infinite regress of moved moversi.e., an
infinite regress of things that move other things by virtue of being in motion them-
selves. The regress must stop, therefore, in something that moves without being
movedi.e., the regress must stop in an unmoved mover. There must be a mover
that moves without being in motion.

Re: For since to be in motion is to pass from potentiality to actuality

According to Aristotle, the matter which preexists the corporeal substance (out of
which that corporeal substance comes to be) is at first potentially a corporeal sub-
stance and later (sc. after the corporeal substance has come to be) actually a corpo-
real substance. The passage here from potentiality to actuality is the sort of change
Aristotle calls generation. Similarly, I am first potentially tanned (but actually
pale) and then later actually tanned. This passage from potentiality to actuality is
alteration, change with respect to quality. In the first case, the actuality is the form
of the corporeal substance. In the second, the actuality is the accidental form of
tannedness (as it were).

Re: There is one mover that is completely immobilein motion neither per se nor
per accidensand such a mover can produce a motion that is always uniform.
There is another mover that is not in motion per se, but is in motion per accidens,
and for that reason it does not produce a motion that is always uniform. The soul
is such a mover.

To be in motion per se is to be in motion intrinsically or in ones own right. On-
ly a body can be in motion per se, according to Aristotle. Some incorporeal things,
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however, can be in motion per accidense.g., the soul, inasmuch as it is the sub-
stantial form of a body that is in motion per se. Finally, there is, according to Aris-
totle, something that is absolutely immobile or immoveablesomething that can
be moved neither per se nor per accidens. This is the unmoved mover ultimately
responsible for all the motion in the universe.

Recall that the first argument offered in support of the thesis that the soul is a
body alleged that what produces motion without being in motion causes a mo-
tion that lasts forever and continues in the same way. Of course, this is not how
the soul moves the bodyno motion of an animals body continues forever in the
same way. The implication, then, is that the soul is in motion, and therefore must
be a body. Aquinas response is to distinguish two ways in which a thing is un-
moved or immobile: a thing can be completely immobile, by being something that
can be in motion neither per se nor per accidens, or a thing can be in one way
immobile and in another way notsc. by being something that can be in motion
per accidens, but not per se. The unmoved mover that causes the motion of the
heavens is completely immobile, and can, for this reason, cause only eternal mo-
tion. The soul, however, admits of being moved per accidens, but not per se, and
need not cause eternal motion. Note that something which is moved only per ac-
cidens need not be a body.

Re: It is not necessary for a likeness of the thing cognized to exist actually in the na-
ture of the thing that cognizes. But if there is something that is at first potentially
cognizing and then later actually doing so, the likeness of the thing being cog-
nized must be in the nature of the thing cognizing not actually, but only potential-
ly. (In this way, color is in the pupil not actually, but only potentially.) Hence
there is no need for the likeness of bodily things to exist actually in the souls na-
ture; instead, that nature must be in potentiality for likenesses of this sort.

The argument that Aquinas is responding to here alleges that the soul must be a
body, since otherwise the likeness or similarity necessary for cognition would be
lacking, in which case the soul wouldnt be able to cognize bodies.

According to Aquinas and Aristotle, when the soul cognizes x it becomes like x.
But, Aquinas holds, before the soul cognizes x it need not be like x actually; it need
only be potentially like xi.e., the likeness of bodily things need exist only po-
tentially in the souls nature.

Note that Aquinas does not mean to imply here that the soul becomes a body on
the occasion of its cognizing a body. On his view, the form of the body cognized,
without the matter of that body, comes to exist in the soul. Of course, there is a
kind of community of nature between the soul and such a form.

Re: But because the ancient natural philosophers did not know to distinguish be-
tween actuality and potentiality, they claimed that the soul is a body, so that it
could cognize bodies. And, so that it could cognize all bodies, they claimed that it
was composed out of the basic principles of all bodies.

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Again, the reference here is not to Plato or Aristotle, but to early Presocratic phi-
losophers, and in particular to those whom Aristotle named the physikoi (physi-
cists or natural philosophers), such as Anaximenes and Anaximander. Several of
these thinkers were, or at least were thought by Aristotle to be, material monists.
That is, they thought that all bodies in nature are essentially one and the same
thing, though variously modified. Thus, Thales held that all was water, while An-
aximenes held that all was air. Others were material pluralists, such as Empedo-
cles, who was the originator of the view that all things are composed of the four
elements, earth, air, water and fire. In any case, these thinkers sometimes held
that like knows likei.e., that there must be some community of nature between
the thing known and the knower. Accordingly, they often claimed that the soul
was composed of the same basic stuff or stuffs out of which all bodies are made.
Aquinas claim is that they did this because they failed to recognize the distinction
between what is potentially x and what is actually x. This led them to hold that
the soul must actually be such as the bodies cognized by it are, whereas he and
Aristotle hold that the soul need only be potentially such as its objects of cognition
are.


Page 5

Re: It seems that the human soul is not something subsistent.

Recall that x is subsistent if and only if it need not exist in a subject in order to ex-
ist at all. (I here set aside the complication arising from the view that certain acci-
dentsso-called real accidentscan exist without support by divine interven-
tion). Recall, too, that only a complete substance subsists (= is something subsist-
ent). Thus, if it should turn out that the human soul subsists, it follows immedi-
ately that it is a complete substance.

Re: That which is subsistent is said to be a particular thing (hoc aliquid [Greek: !"#$
!%]). It is not the soul which is a particular thing, however, but rather the compo-
site of soul and body. Therefore the soul is not something subsistent.

The Latin expression hoc aliquid (here translated as particular thing) is some-
times translated more literally as this something. The idea is that the this (hoc)
is used to indicate particularity, as opposed to commonness or universality, while
the something (aliquid) designates a kindi.e., a species or genus. So a particu-
lar human being or horse counts as a hoc aliquid.

The argument alleges that the soul is not a hoc aliquidi.e., a particular thing be-
longing to some speciesand therefore not a subsistent thing, since a subsistent
thing is invariably a hoc aliquid. What is a hoc aliquid is the entire human being
composed of soul and body.

Re: Everything that is subsistent can be said to engage in some operation. But the
soul is not said to do so, because (as is said in De anima I [408b11-13]) to say that
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the soul senses or thinks is like someones saying that it weaves or builds. There-
fore the soul is not something subsistent.

The passage in Aristotles De anima (= On the Soul) reads as follows: Yet to say
that it is the soul which is angry is as if we were to say that the soul weaves or
builds houses. It is doubtless better to say that it is the man who does this with his
soul.
3
At issue in this passage is the question of whether certain operations are
best attributed to the soul or to the entire human being composed of body and
soul.

Re: If the soul were something subsistent, then some operation would belong to it
without the body. But no operation does belong to it without the body, not even
understanding, because it is not possible to understand without a phantasm, and
there are no phantasms without the body. Therefore, the human soul is not some-
thing subsistent.

According to Aristotle, most of the human souls powers are enmatteredi.e., ex-
ist in matterwith the result that most of its actions and affections are common to
both the soul and the body.
4
The exception is the intellect or the faculty of under-
standing, which is responsible for the operation of thinking, as well as the opera-
tion of understanding or intellection. This power is not enmattered, according to
Aristotle, with the result that its operation is proper to the soul, rather than com-
mon to both the soul and the body. Recall, however, that for Aristotle there is no
thought without a phantasm. Recall, too, that phantasms are produced by the im-
agination (phantasia), which is an enmattered power of the souli.e., a power
whose operation involves both the soul and the body.

Re: It is necessary to say that the principle of intellectual operation, which we call
the soul of a human being, is a nonbodily and subsistent principle.

The soul of a human being is the principle, source or origin of the intellectual op-
eration by virtue of its possessing a powerthe intellect or faculty of understand-
ingwhich is a capacity to engage in the operation of understanding. Souls are

3
The translation quoted here is that found in: The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised
Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
4
See De anima I, 403a3-12, where, speaking of the human soul, Aristotle says: A further
problem presented by the affections of the soul is this: are they all affections of the com-
plex of body and soul, or is there any one among them peculiar to the soul all by itself?
To determine this is indispensable but difficult. If we consider the majority of them [sc.
the majority of the souls affections], there seems to be no case in which the soul can act
or be acted upon without involving the body; e.g. anger, courage, appetite, and sensa-
tion generally. Thinking [&'$(&] seems the most probable exception; but if this too
proves to be a form of imagination or to be impossible without imagination, it too re-
quires a body as a condition of its existence. If there is any way of acting or being acted
upon proper to the soul, soul will be capable of separate existence [i.e., of existence sepa-
rate from matter and therefore separate from the body]; if there is none, its separate ex-
istence is impossible. (Trans. Barnes)

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often classified in accordance with their highest power or capacity. The human
souls highest power is the intellect. Therefore, it is commonly called the intellec-
tive soul (anima intellectiva), as distinguished from the soul of a brute, which is
commonly called a sensitive soul (anima sensitiva). (Note that Pasnau renders
anima sensitiva into English as sensory soul.)

Re: For it is clear that through the intellect a human being can cognize the nature of
all bodies. But that which can cognize certain things must have none of those
things in its own nature, because that which exists in it naturally would impede
its cognition of other things. In this way we see that a sick persons tongue, infect-
ed with a jaundiced and bitter humor, cannot perceive anything sweet; rather, all
things seem bitter to that person. Therefore if the intellectual principle were to
contain within itself the nature of any body, it could not cognize all bodies. But
every body has some determinate nature. Therefore it is impossible for the intel-
lectual principle to be a body.

This is an argument for the incorporeal nature of the soul, understood as a princi-
ple of intellectual operations. Crucial here is the claim that, if the soul were a body,
it would have actually to have some determinate nature, which would prevent it
from cognizing bodies of a different nature. As a matter of fact, however, the soul
can cognize, by means of the intellect, all bodies. Therefore, it cannot be a body.


Page 6

Re: It is likewise impossible for it to operate through a bodily organ

Read instead: And it is likewise impossible for it [sc. the soul] to understand
through a bodily organ [Et similiter impossibile est quod intellegat per organum cor-
poreum]. The claim is that the faculty of understanding cannot be enmattered
i.e., cannot be a capacity realized in some body the way (for example) the power
of sight is realized in the eye.

Re: a thing operates in the same manner that it exists.

I.e., if it operates independently of other things, it exists independently of other
things, and if it exists independently of other things, it operates independently of
other things. (The independence at issue here is precisely the sort of independ-
ence that substances have and accidents lack.) For the text referred to in n. 8 by
our editor, see the final sentence of the passage quoted in n. 4 of this document.

Re: (For this reason we say not that heat heats, but that the thing that is hot does
so.)

Heat is an accident or accidental form and is therefore not subsistent, i.e., not ca-
pable of existing without a subject to support it. In line with his claim that a
thing operates in the same manner that it exists, Aquinas therefore claims that
heat does not have an operation of its own. It is not the heat in the fire that makes
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something else (e.g., a piece of metal) hot; rather, it is the fire in which heat exists
that makes this other thing hot.

Re: Ad 1. The phrase particular thing [hoc aliquid] can be taken in two ways: first,
for anything subsistent; second, for something subsistent and complete within the
nature of some species.

Aquinas will argue that the soul counts as subsistent in the first way, but not the
second. As he explains, the second sense of subsistent identified here is such that
a part of some whole cannot count as subsistent. (A part is incomplete; the whole
is complete.) Therefore, the soul, which is a part of the human being, is not sub-
sistent in the second sense.

Re: The first rules out something inhering as an accident or a material form.

A material form is not a form that contains mattersuch an arrangement is im-
possible, according to Aquinasbut a form that must exist in matter in order to
exist at all. (Since it is subsistent, the human soul is not a material form.) Recall
that forms are said to inhere in their subjects, whether this subject is a complete
substance (as in the case of accidental forms) or matter (as in the case of substan-
tial forms).

Re: Ad 2. Aristotle says those words not with respect to his own position, but with
respect to the view of those that were claiming that to think is to be in motion. (So
much is clear from the preceding remarks he makes there [408a34-b11].)

In the passage that Aquinas has in mind (and which is referred to in the second
argument on p. 5), Aristotle states:

We speak of the soul as being pained or pleased, being bold or fearful, being
angry, perceiving, thinking. All these are regarded as modes of movement,
and hence it might be inferred that the soul is moved. This, however, does
not necessarily follow. We may admit to the full that being pained or pleased,
or thinking, are movements (each of them a being moved), and that the
movement originated by the soul. For example, we may regard anger or fear
as such and such movements of the heart, and thinking as such and such an-
other movement of that organ, or of some other; these modifications may
arise either from changes of place in certain parts or from qualitative altera-
tions (the special nature of the parts and the special modes of their changes
being for our present purposes irrelevant). Yet to say that it is the soul which
is angry is as if we were to say that it is the soul that weaves or builds houses.
It is doubtless better to avoid saying that the soul pities or learns or thinks,
and rather to say that it is the man who does this with his soul. (408b1-15,
trans. Barnes)

The passage is strange inasmuch as Aristotle lumps thinking, which is an opera-
tion of the intellect, together with weaving and building. The last two operations,
like all operations of human the soul save thinking or understanding, involve both
the soul and the body, according to Aristotle, and so it is not surprising that he
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claims that it is better to speak of the human being as weaving or building. Aristo-
tle, however, thinks that the operations of the intellect are different: they involve
no corporeal organ in the way that seeing (for example) does. And so one would
expect Aristotle to admit that, in the case of thinking, it is perfectly fine to say that
the soul thinks.

Aquinas handles this problematic text by suggesting that Aristotle is not here
working with his own conception of thought as an activity that occurs without a
bodily organ. Rather, he is working with some of his predecessors conception of
thought as a kind of movement or motion.


Pages 6-7

Re: Alternatively, one can reply that. But one speaks more strictly in saying that
the human being thinks, through the soul.

Aquinas here offers another way of handling the problematic text from Aristotle
that was quoted in the last note. The suggestion is that Aristotle, in claiming that
it is better to say that the man, rather than his soul, thinks, is in no way concerned
to deny that the soul has an operation of its own and is therefore a subsistent
thing in the first of the two senses of subsistent identified in Ad 1. He may in-
stead be motivated to make this claim in recognition of the fact that the soul is not
a subsistent thing in the second of subsistent. After all, anything which is sub-
sistent in the first sense, but not in the second, is a part of some whole. And where
this is the case, one might think, the best way to express oneself is to say, not that
the part performs some operation, but that the whole performs this operation
through the part.


Page 7

Re: Ad 3. The body is required for the intellects action not as the organ through
which such an action is carried out, but on account of its object. For phantasm is
related to intellect just as color is to sight. But needing a body in this way does not
preclude intellects being subsistent. Otherwise an animal would not be some-
thing subsistent, since it needs sense objects in order to sense.

While its true that, in this life at least, the operation of the intellect requires a
phantasm, which in turn requires the imagination, which is a capacity of the soul
realized in some corporeal organ, it is not the case, Aquinas here explains, that the
operation of the intellect requires an organ in the way that the souls sensitive
powers require a corporeal organ (e.g., an eye, in the case of the power of sight)
for their operation.

Re: On the contrary is what is said in On Church Dogma

The work mentioned here, Liber de Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus, was authored by
Gennadius Massiliensis (Gennadius of Marseille), a fifth c. Christian thinker.

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Page 8

Re: And so it is clear that the sensory [or sensitive] soul does not have some special
operation, on its own; rather, every operation of the sensory soul belongs to the
compound.

By a special operation Aquinas means an operation that is proper to the sensitive
soul. By the compound he means the compound of soul and body.

Re: A difference in species, however, is marked by a difference in form. And not
every difference in form must yield a distinction in genus.

The first claim is that, if x and y differ with respect to their species, then their sub-
stantial forms differ in kind as well. The second claim is that, just because x and y
have substantial forms that differ in kind, it doesnt follow that x and y belong to
different genera.

Re: And if thinking tires the body, this occurs accidentally, inasmuch as the intel-
lect needs the operation of the sensory powers, through which phantasms are
provided to it.

The faculty of the imagination (phantasia) was standardly classed among the sen-
sory (or sensitive) powers and was often regarded as the highest of them.

Re: There are two motive powers. One, the appetitive power, commands the mo-
tion, and the operation of this power within the sensory soul does not occur with-
out some body. Instead, anger, joy, and all such passions occur with some trans-
formation of the body.

The appetitive powers operations include anger, joy and passions of this sort.
These operations invariably involve the body.


Pages 8-9

Re: The other motive power is what carries out the motion; through it the bodys
parts made ready to obey appetite. Its act is not to produce motion but to be put
in motion.

Read: Its act is not to produce motion but to be moved [cuius actus non est mov-
ere, sed moveri]. It is important to realize that not all acts are actions in Aquinas
terminology. An action is generally contrasted with a passione.g., hitting is an
action, being hit is a passion, moving (sc. something else) is an action, being
moved is a passion. A passion, roughly speaking, is what you experience when
youre on the receiving end of an action. An act, on the other hand, is an actuality
and is therefore contrasted with a mere potency (= potentiality or power). Some
powers, potencies or potentialities are passive, others are active. An active power
is a capacity to perform some action. A passive power is a capacity to be acted
Duarte
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upon. Thus a passion, or being-acted-upon, is the act or actuality of a passive
power.


Page 9

Re: The human soul is a kind of substance. But it is not a universal substance
[substantia universalis]. Therefore it is a particular substance [substantia particu-
laris].

A particular is an individual thing that differs numerically from other things. A
universal is something common, rather than individual. In the Categories Aristotle
distinguishes between primary and secondary substances. Primary substances are
particularse.g., this dog, that cat. Secondary substances are species and genera
of substancee.g., dog (in general), cat (in general).

Re: Therefore it is a hypostasis, a person. But if so, then it is none other than a hu-
man person. Therefore the soul is the human being, since a human person is a
human being.

See Pasnaus remark beginning at the bottom of p. 231 of our edition.

Re: There are two ways of understanding the claim that the soul is the human be-
ing. First, that human being [homo] is the soul, but that a particular human being
[hic homo]Socrates, sayis not the soul, but a composite of soul and body.

The suggestion is that the species human being is to be identified with the soul, dis-
regarding the body, whereas the individual human being is nothe or she is a
composite of soul and body.

Re: I say this because some have claimed that only form belongs to the defining ac-
count (ratione) of the species, whereas matter is part of the individual rather than
the species.

Most medieval Aristotelian thinkers were agreed that an individual substance like
Socrates is not identical with the essence that is specified in the definition of hu-
man being. But they disagreed on why this is the case. Some held that this was due
to the fact that the definition of the species human being applies only to the soul of
the human being, and not to the matter. (There is some support for this position in
Aristotle, since in Metaphysics Z.7, 1032b1-2 Aristotle seems to equate a things es-
sence with its form.) Aquinas, however, held that this definition includes the mat-
ter of the human being, taken universally, though not the particular matter of the
individual human being.

Re: For this reason the matter is part of the species in natural thingsnot signate
matter, of course, which is the principle of individuation, but common matter. For
just as it belongs to the account of this human being to be composed of this soul,
this flesh, and these bones, so it belongs to the account of human being to be com-
posed of soul, flesh, and bones.
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As Pasnau notes on p. 231, signate matter is the particular matter of an individual
corporeal substance, existing under definite dimensions. Common matter, on the
other hand, is the matter of such a substance conceived generallye.g., not this
human flesh, but human flesh in general. To say that signate matter is the princi-
ple of individuation is to say that it explains or accounts for the distinctness of dif-
ferent members of one and the same lowest species. It is what allows human na-
ture, say, to be diversified in different individual human beings.


Page 10

Re: The claim that the soul is the human being can be understood in another way,
so that even a particular soul is a particular human being. And this could be
maintained, if it were held that the sensory souls operation belongs to it alone,
without the body. For in that case all the operations assigned to a human being
would hold of soul alone.

See Pasnaus note on this passage, on the lower half of p. 232.

Re: But any given thing is identified with what carries out the operations of that
thing, and so a human being is identified with what carries out the operations of a
human being.

In other words, if it turns out that human operations are the work of the soul
alone, without involving the body, then it will turn out that the human being is
properly identified with his or her soul.

Re: Sometimes the intellective part is so called (and truly so); this is spoken of as
the inner human being. Sometimes, on the other hand, the sensory part is so
called

Of course, Aquinas means the intellective and sensory parts of the soul.

Re: Not every particular substance is a hypostasis or person, but only one that has
the complete nature of the species.

Although the human soul is a particular substance, it does not possess the com-
plete nature of the species human being, since a human being is a composite of
body and soul.

Re: It seems that the soul is composed of matter and form

The suggestion that the human soul, a substantial form, could itself be composed
of matter and substantial form may come as a surprise. But a number of thir-
teenth-century thinkers (such as Bonaventure and Peter John Olivi) held that eve-
ry created substance, whether corporeal or spiritual, is composed of matter and
form, God alone being altogether immaterial. From this, and the fact that the hu-
man soul (unliked the soul of a plant or brute) is a substance, it follows that the
human soul is composed of matter and form. Of course, proponents of this
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viewsometimes called universal hylomorphism or the doctrine of spiritual
matterheld that not everything containing matter is corporeal or extended in
three dimensions. Motivating the view was the belief that all change requires mat-
ter, since all change requires potentiality and matter is invariably the source of po-
tentiality. If Aristotle denied that separate substances are composed of matter and
form, this was in large part because he held that separate substances are immune
to change, unlike the angels of the Christian religion. (Aristotles separate sub-
stances were often identified with the angels of the Christian religion.)


Page 11

Re: Potentiality is divided against actuality.

The claim is that no potentiality is an actuality.

Re: But each and every thing that is actuality participates in the first actuality,
which is God.

Aristotle held that God is pure act, without any admixture of potentiality. The
claim here is that, to the extent that anything is actually x (or actually an x), it par-
ticipates or shares in, and therefore depends on, God. As Aquinas goes on to say,
all things are good, are beings, and are living through participation in God.

Aquinas notion of participation has its roots in Plato and Neoplatonism. Plato, of
course, held that the things of the sensible world are whatever they are by virtue
of participating in some form. (A Platonic form is different from an Aristotelian
form. Platos forms are hypostasized essences or universals existing in a realm of
pure being outside of space and time. There is, for example, a form of the human
being, participation in which makes the human beings of this world what they
arei.e., human beings. For Aristotle, however, a form is immanent in its effect
i.e., it exists, in some sense, within the relevant thing. For example, the form of the
human being exists within the individual human being.)

Re: Therefore since the human soul is in potentiality in a certain way, as is evident
from the fact that a human being is sometimes [only] potentially thinking

Human beings are not always actually engaged in thinking. When not actually
engaged in thinking, the human being is only potentially thinking, or thinks only
potentially. Therefore, there is an element of potentiality in the human soul.

Re: For the soul is the subject of knowledge and virtue, and undergoes change from
ignorance to knowledge, and from vice to virtue.

Knowledge and virtue are both conceived of as accidents which exist in the soul
as in a subject. Of course, the acquisition of an accident such as knowledge (which
happens when one goes from ignorancei.e., lack of knowledgeto knowledge)
is a change. The soul is what undergoes the change, just as I undergo a change
when, from being pale, I come to be tanned.
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Re: Things that do not have matter do not have a cause for their existence, as is said
in Metaphysics VIII [1045a36-b7].

The relevant passage from Aristotles Metaphysics reads as follows:

Let us now consider the problem we have already mentioned concerning
both definitions and numbers, namely: what is the cause of their unity?
Whenever anything which has several parts is such that the whole is some-
thing over and above its parts, and not just the sum of them, like a heap, then
it always has some cause. Indeed, even in the case of bodies there is a cause of
their unitysometimes contact, sometimes stickiness, or some other attribute
of this sort. A definition, however, is a unitary formula, not by being bound
together (as the Iliad is) but because it is the formula of a unity. What is it,
then, that makes man a unity rather than a pluralityfor instance animal
[genus] and two-footed [differentia]? This problem is especially acute if, as
some say [e.g., Plato], there is an animal-itself [i.e., a Platonic form of animali-
ty] and a two-footed-itself [i.e., a Platonic form of two-footedness]. For then
why is a man not these two things [sc. animal and two-footed], so that men
exist not by participation in the one thing man [sc. the Platonic form of man]
but in the two things animal and two-footed? In short, on this view man is
not one thing at all, but two, namely animal and two-footed.
So it is clear that those who proceed with definitions and explanations in
this way, as they usually do, cannot give an account which solves the prob-
lem [sc. the problem of how a thing like the human being is one thing rather
than many things]. However, if as we say, there is on the one hand matter
and on the other hand shape [sc. form, in Aristotles sense of the term], and
the one is potentially while the other is actually, the question will no longer
seem a difficulty. For this problem is the same as would arise if the definition
of a cloak were a round bronze. The word [sc. cloak] would then be a sign of
the formula [sc. a sign of the definition of cloak], and the question would be:
what is the cause of the roundness and the bronze being one? The difficulty
has thus disappeared, since the one is matter and the other form. What, then,
is the cause of what is potentially being in actuality except, in the case of gen-
erated thing, whatever produces it [sc. its efficient cause]? There is no further
cause of the potential sphere being actually a sphere; this is precisely what
being is for each of them.
There is intelligible matter as well as perceptible matter, and a formula al-
ways consists part of matter and part of actuality. (For instance, a circle is a
plane figure.) But things that have no matter, either perceptible or intelligiblea
this, a quality, a quantityare each at once just what is some unity, as too they are
at once just what is some being. (That is also why neither being nor unity occurs in a
definition.) Also a what-being-is [i.e., an essenceAristotle probably means a
form] is at once some being. That is also why there is nothing else that is the cause
for these things of their being a unity, or of their being a being. Each is at once a be-
ing and a unity (and not because being or unity is their genus, nor because
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they are separable from particulars). (1045a7-b7, trans. Bostock, slightly modi-
fied)

Re: That which does not have matter, but is solely form, is pure and infinite actuali-
ty. But this holds only of God. Therefore, the soul has matter.

Bonaventure, at least, considered prime matter to be the principle of every imper-
fection and therefore something that is found in every created substance, since
God alone is absolutely perfect.
5


Re: Therefore it is a form either in respect of its whole or in respect of some part of
itself.

In other words, either (i) the entire soul is the form of the living body or (ii) some
part of the soul is the form of the living body.

Re: As for the matter that it is the actuality of first

In other words: As for the matter which it first actualizes or makes actual.


Page 12

Re: Second, our conclusion can be observed in one specific case, from the defining
characteristic of the human soul

The previous argument took as its basis the true concept of soul in general. This
argument appeals to a proper understanding of the human soul in particular.

Re: For it is clear that everything received in something is received in it according
to the mode of the recipient.

This is a pretty general metaphysical principle to which Aquinas often appeals.
For example, Aquinas holds that when a created substance comes to be, existence
or being (esse) is received in its essence, and that how this esse is received is de-
termined by the recipient (i.e., by the creatures essence). On Aquinas view, esse is
received from God, and esse is something that comes in degrees, the more esse a
thing has, the more perfect it is. Thus, the divine esse is greater than the human es-
se, and the human esse is greater than the esse that a stone has. On Aquinas view,
moreover, the essence determines how the esse coming from God is received inso-

5
See Bonaventure, Quaestiones disputatae de Mysterio Trinitatis [Disputed Questions on the
Mystery of the Trinity], q. 4, a 1, arg. pro 13 in: S. Bonaventurae Opera omnia, vol. 5 (Ad
Claras Aquas [Quaracchi]: Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1891), p. 79b: Again,
the principle of every limitation is matter or something material; but the divine being [or
existencethe Latin is esse], since it is pure act, is lacking in every condition of matter:
therefore, it lacks all limitation and finitude: therefore it is infinite without qualification.
(Item, principium omnis limitationis est materia vel aliquid materiale; sed divinum esse,
cum sit actus purus, est carens omni conditione materiae: ergo caret omni limitatione et
finitate: ergo est infinitum simpliciter.)
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far as it limits or contracts this esse. Only an unreceived esse can be infinite. So
Gods esse is infinite, since it is not received in anything. For the divine esse and
the divine essence are one and the same. But a received esse is invariably contract-
ed or limited by the recipient, since no creatures esse is identical with its essence.

Another example of how the recipient determines the way something is received
in itself is offered by Aquinas in the text that follows. According to him, when the
intellect cognizes something, it receives within itself the form, but not the matter,
of the thing that it cognizes. Moreover, the human intellect invariably conceives
the thing universallyit cognizes not (say) this or that human being, but human
being in general. This is significant in the context of the debate over spiritual mat-
ter because, according to Aquinas, if the soul contained matter within itself, the
intellect, in receiving somethings form within itself, would cognize that thing not
universally, but as an individual or particular. Why? Because, according to Aqui-
nas, matter makes a form individual or particular. It contracts it, so to speak, into
particularity. The basic claim, in other words, is that human intellectual cognition
would be altogether different from what it is if the human soul contained matter.

Re: Ad 1. The first actuality is the universal principle of all actualities, since it is in-
finite and virtually prepossesses all things within itself, as Dionysius says.

Recall that the first actuality is God. He is the principle, source, or origin of all ac-
tualities. God contains all things within himself inasmuch as he is the source of all
thingsi.e., he possesses all the perfections to be found in his creatures, although
some of these are possessed virtually or eminently (i.e., in some higher form that
is compatible with his utter perfection).

Re: Thus things participate in it, not as if it is a part [of them], but in virtue of the
diffusion of its procession.

See Pasnaus note on p. 234.

Re: Now potentiality, since it is receptive of actuality, must be proportioned to ac-
tuality. But received actualities, which proceed from the first infinite actuality and
are various participations in it, come in different kinds. So there cannot be one po-
tentiality that receives all actualities, in the way that there is one actuality infusing
all the participated actualities.

In line with the claim that whatever is received is received in accordance with the
mode of the receiver, Aquinas alleges here that different kinds of actuality must
be received in different kinds of potentiality, even if all actualities proceed from
the first actuality (i.e., God). The argument hes responding to here, it will be re-
called, holds that prime matter is the potentiality in which all actualities are re-
ceived.

Re: (If there were, then that receptive potentiality would be equal to the active po-
tentiality of the first actuality.)

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As Pasnau remarks (see p. 234), the word potentia (here translated potentiality) is
used in several connected senses by Aquinas. Sometimes, potentia is used to mean
the potentiality which is a complement to actuality. In this sense, what is only po-
tentially A is not actually A, and change involves passing from potentiality to actu-
ality (e.g., from being potentially 6 feet tall to actually 6 feet tall). In this sense of
potentia, God contains no potentiality but is pure actuality. In another sense, how-
ever, a potentia is an active or passive poweri.e., a capacity to act (active potentia)
or to be acted upon (passive potentia). In this sense, God has active potentia,
though not passive potentia.

Re: The receptive potentiality in the intellective soul, however, is different from the
receptive potentiality of prime matter. This is clear from the difference in things
being received. For prime matter receives individual forms, whereas the intellect
receives unconditioned forms. Hence the existence of such a potentiality in the in-
tellective soul does not show that the soul is composed of matter and form.

The fact that the receptive potentiality of the intellective soul is different from the
receptive potentiality of prime matter is made clear by the difference between the
way in which prime matter receives form and the way the intellective soul re-
ceives form. Therefore, the receptive potentiality of the intellective soul does not,
as the first argument alleges, require that we posit prime matter in the human
soul.


Pages 12-13

Re: Being a subject and being changed hold of matter inasmuch as it is potentiality.
Therefore, just as intellects potentiality is different from prime matters, so too
there is a different account of how it is a subject and how it is changed. For intel-
lect is the subject of knowledge and undergoes change from ignorance to
knowledge inasmuch as it is in potentiality for intelligible species.

Recall that the second argument considered at the start of this article alleged that
being a subject and being changed are features distinctive of matter, and that,
since these features exist in the human soul, there must be matter in the soul.
Aquinas response here is that the intellective soul is a subject and is changed in a
way different from that in which prime matter is a subject and is changed, since
being a subject and being changed are features that hold of prime matter inas-
much as it is in potentiality, and it has already been shown (in Ad 1.) that the in-
tellects potentiality is different from prime matters potentiality.


Page 13

Re: Ad 3. For serves as a cause of existence for matter, but so too does an agent.

Aquinas holds that prime matter exists only by means of a form existing in it. In-
deed, on his view, it is impossible for there to be prime matter without form.
Aquinas claim here is that form is not alone the cause of matters existence. There
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must also be an agenti.e., an efficient causewho introduces the form into the
matter.

Re: Thus an agent, insofar as it brings matter to the actuality of form by changing it,
is a cause of existence for it.

An agent brings matter to the actuality of form when it introduces a substantial
form into matter. The matter, which is the subject of change, acquires the relevant
form during the change brought about by the agent.

Re: But if something is a subsistent form, it does not have existence through any
formal principle, nor does it have a cause changing it from potentiality to actuali-
ty.

Recall that a subsistent form is a form that need not exist in matter in order to ex-
ist at all. The claim that a subsistent form does not have existence through any
formal principle distinguishes it from matter, which does have existence through
a formal principlei.e., thanks to a substantial form. Nor, Aquinas adds, does a
subsistent form have an efficient cause that brings it from potentiality to actuality,
in the way that matter is brought from potentiality to actuality.

Re: That is why, after the words cited above, the Philosopher concludes [1045b16-
23] that in things that are composed of matter and form, there is no other cause
except that which produces the movement from potentiality to actuality. But
those that do not have matter, they are all, without qualification, truly particular
beings.

Aquinas might be interpreted here as asserting that in the passage quoted in the
third argument Aristotle is merely concerned to claim that things without matter
are not generatedi.e., brought from potentiality to actuality by some agent or ef-
ficient cause. Note that for Aquinas, this is perfectly compatible with the claim
that the soul has a cause for its existence, since the soul, though not generated, is
created by God. (Creation and generation are different things.)

Re: Ad 4. Everything participated in stands as actuality relative to that which par-
ticipates in it. But any created form that is held to be subsistent per se must partic-
ipate in existence, since even life itself, or anything spoken of in this way, partic-
ipates in existence itself, as Dionysius says in Divine Names 5.5.

See the second note on Page 12 above. As Aquinas explains in the second sentence
of this passage, existence or esse is something participated in. Thus, given the
claim made in the first sentence of this passage, what participates in esse stands to
the participated esse as potency stands to act. Although Aquinas doesnt make it
clear here, he holds that what participates in esse is the creatures essence, which
he understands to be really distinct from the creatures esse. Thus, the creatures
essence stands to its esse as potency stands to act. (For this reason, he sometimes
calls the creatures esse its actus essendii.e., its act of being.)

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Re: But participated existence is limited to the capacity of what participates in it.
Hence only God, who is his own existence, is pure and infinite actuality. In the
case of intellectual substances, in contrast, there is a composition of actuality and
potentiality: not that of matter and form, to be sure, but of form and participated
existence. For this reason, some say that these substances are composed of that by
which [quo est] and that which [quod est], because existence is that by which a
thing exists.

Recall that the fourth argument offered in the first part of the article alleges that
the soul would be pure and infinite actuality if it lacked matter. This is prob-
lematic because it was held that God alone is pure and infinite actuality.
6
Aquinas
here rejects the implicit assumption of the argumenti.e., the assumption that
matter alone can serve as a principle of limitation.

To be pure and infinite actuality, on Aquinas view, amounts to having infinite es-
se. This is possible only for God, on his view. For: (i) wherever esse is received
from elsewhere (sc. through participation), it is necessarily contracted by what re-
ceives iti.e., necessarily contracted by the things essence; (iii) all creatures re-
ceive esse from elsewhere; and (iv) God alone does not receive esse, since in him
esse and essence are not really distinct, as they are in creatures. Both human souls
and angels are intellectual substances. The distinction between quo est and quod est
has its roots in Boethius De Hebdomadibus and was variously interpreted by later
medieval thinkers. Aquinas equated quo est with esse and quod est with essence.


Page 14

Re: 3. Nothing exists without its proper operation. But the souls proper operation,
to understand with phantasms, cannot take place without the body.

Recall that phantasms are the work of the imagination, which is an enmattered
power of the souli.e., a power of the soul that exists in a corporeal organ.

Re: For there are two ways in which something is corrupted: either per se or per ac-
cidens.

See p. 236, near the top. What is corrupted, strictly speaking, is the composite of
matter and form. For this is the thing that is generated, strictly speaking. Hence
the composite is corrupted per se, while accidents (which exist in a substance) and
material forms (which exist in matter) are corrupted per accidens (upon the occa-
sion of the composite substances being corrupted per se). Recall that a material
form is a form that must exist in matter in order to exist at all.

Re: For a thing is generated or corrupted in the same way that it existsexistence
being what a thing acquires through generation and loses through corruption.


6
Bonaventure held that matter is the principle of all limitation, which implies that what
lacks matter altogether must be absolutely infinite. Accordingly, Bonaventure held that
God alone is altogether immaterial.
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The thought, perhaps, is that just as the existence of subsistent things is inde-
pendent of other things in precisely the way that an accidents existence is not (i.e.,
a subsistent thing need not exist in something else in order to exist at all), so also
the corruption of a subsistent thing is independent of the corruption of other
things in a way that an accidents corruption is not.

Re: So the souls of brute animals are corrupted when their bodies are corrupted,
whereas the human soul cannot be corrupted, unless it is corrupted per se.

Recall that the souls of brutes are forms that must exist in matter in order to exist
at all. Regarding the human soul, the claim here is that, since it cannot be corrupt-
ed per accidens, if it is corruptible, it must admit of being corrupted per se. Of
course, Aquinas will go on to argue that the human soul does not admit of being
corrupted per se.


Pages 14-15

Re: For it is clear that what holds of something in its own right [id quod secundum se
convenit alicui] is inseparable from it. Existence, however, holds per se of form,
which is actuality.

Notice the assumption that if A holds per se of B, then A holds of B in its own right.
Recall that for Aquinas form is what makes matter exist in actuality; without form,
matter is actually nothing and only potentially something existent. Presumably,
Aquinas holds that forms role as a principle of existence requires that existence
be inseparable from form.


Page 15

Re: For corruption is found only where contrariety is found, since generation and
corruption are contrary to one another.

All change, according to Aristotle, proceeds from contrary to contrary (e.g., from
hot to cold).
7
So generation and corruption is change from contrary to contrary.
8

This is important because it entails that matter which is not receptive of contraries
cannot be involved in generation and corruption. (I.e., anything composed of such
matter can be neither generated nor corrupted.) According to Aristotle, moreover,
the matter of the heavenly bodies is not receptive of contraries (or is at least not
receptive of the relevant contraries), with the result that the heavenly bodies do
not admit of generation or corruption.
9


7
Where the contraries have intermediates, change can also go from intermediate to con-
trary, from contrary to intermediate, or from intermediate to intermediate.
8
There is no intermediate between the relevant contraries.
9
Aristotle held that the heavens are eternal; Christian philosophers of the medieval pe-
riod granted that the heavenly bodies do not admit of generation or corruptionboth of
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Re: But there cannot be any contrariety in the intellective soul. For it receives in
keeping with the mode of its existence, and those things that are received in it are
without contrariety. This is because even the concepts of contrary things are not
contraries within the intellect; instead, the same knowledge embraces contraries.
Therefore it is impossible for the intellective soul to be corruptible.

The claim is that, even if the soul is composed of matter and form, nevertheless,
the soul is not receptive of contraries. Note that it was often held by proponents of
spiritual matter that the souls receptivity is due to its matter. So in claiming that
the soul is not receptive of contraries, Aquinas is probably to be understood as
implying that the matter of the human soul (assuming that there is such a thing) is
not receptive of contraries.

Aquinas supports the claim that the soul is not receptive of contraries by alleging
that, even where A and B are contrary, nevertheless, the concepts of them (which
exist in the soul) are not contrary. The latter claim is in turn supported by appeal
to the claim that the same knowledge embraces contraries. To say this, as Aris-
totle often does, is to say that, where A and B are contrary, ones knowledge of A
is at the same time knowledge of B. For example, anyone who knows what health
is necessarily knows what disease is. Perhaps Aquinas thinks that if knowledge of
A is the same as knowledge of B (where A and B are contraries), knowledge of (or
the concept of) A cannot be contrary to knowledge of (or the concept of) B, since
they are one and the same.

Re: Now in the case of things that are cognitive

See Pasnaus note on p. 237. Things that are cognitive are things that have the ca-
pacity for cognition.

Re: But a natural desire cannot be pointless.

See Pasnaus note on pp. 237-8.

Re: But the claim is not true as regards the soul. For the soul of brute animals is
produced by a bodily power, whereas the human soul is produced by God.

According to Aquinas, the human soul is created by God, whereas the brutes soul
comes to be naturally when the animal is generated.


Page 16

Re: Ad 2. A thing is said to be able to be created not through a passive capacity, but
only though the active capacity of a Creator who can produce something from
nothing.


which are natural processesbut they denied that the heavens are eternal. On their view,
the heavens were createdcreation being a miraculous or supernatural process.
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The point is that, in saying that something can be created (potest creari), we are not
crediting the creature with some real power (potestas) or capacity, since the crea-
ture doesnt exist before its creation.

Re: Understanding with phantasms is the souls proper operation insofar as it is
united to its body. Once separated from its body, however, it will have a different
mode of understanding, like that of other substances that are separate from body.
This will become clearer below [Q89].

Aquinas is claiming that the understanding requires phantasms in order to think
only when it is united with the body. When separated from the body, its manner
of understanding is different, and so it does not require phantasms. This manner
of understanding is like that found in other substances that are separated from
bodyi.e., like that found in the angels.

Re: Any given thing is directed to its own distinctive end through the nature of its
species, through which it has an inclination toward its end. But the soul and an
angel have the same endnamely, eternal blessedness. Therefore they belong to
the same species.

Aristotle held that different species of living thing have different functions. Thus,
the function of a horse is to lead a particular kind of life, while the function of the
human being is to lead a different kind of life. (Unlike the horses life, the human
beings life involves the use of reason.) According to Aristotle, the highest end of a
human being (i.e., happiness) is to perform its function well, which is made possi-
ble by the human beings possession of the virtues or excellences (aretai). Aquinas,
however, held that happiness, as conceived by Aristotle, is merely the highest end
that a human being can achieve in this life, and that a higher end is achievable af-
ter deathnamely, contemplation of the divine essence (= the beatific vision),
which makes for eternal blessedness.

Re: The ultimate specific differentia is the one that is loftiest, since it fills in the defin-
ing character (rationem) of the species.

One and the same lowest species (e.g., human being) can have several differentiae
insofar as the higher genera to which the species belongs (e.g., animal, living sub-
stance, composite substance) are themselves defined by appeal to their genera and
differentiae. Thus, sensitive will count as a differentia of human being inasmuch as
human beings are animals and animal is defined as a sensitive living substance. Sen-
sitive, however, is not the ultimate specific differentia of human being; rational is
the ultimate specific differentia of human being.

Re: But nothing is loftier in an angel and the soul than intellectual being.

Intellectual being = intellectuale esse, i.e., the kind of esse or existence that be-
longs to an intellectual substance insofar as it is intellectual.

Re: But the body, since it is outside the souls essence

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The body is part of the essence of the human being (= soul + body). The claim im-
plicit here is that the body is not part of the souls essence.


Page 17

Re: He later says the opposite of this, regarding the soul.

In other words, Dionysius later states or implies that what is true of angels (sc.
that they have simple and blessed intellects and do not accumulate their di-
vine cognition from sensible things) is not true of human souls.

Re: This cannot be, because incorporeal substances cannot differ numerically unless
they differ in species, and unless their natures are unequal.

Since Aquinas holds that matter (signate matter) individuates human beings (i.e.,
makes it possible for the species human being to have a plurality of members),
while also holding that angels are without matter, he thinks that any given angelic
species can only have one member. In other words, he denies that two angels can
differ only numerically (and not specifically) in the way that human beings can.
(Two things differ specifically when they differ with respect to their speciesi.e.,
belong to different species. Two thingse.g., Lucia and Evediffer only numeri-
cally when they belong to the same species but are numerically distinct.) Of
course, if several angels cannot belong to the same species, neither can human be-
ings and angels belong to the same species.

Re: Specific difference, however, always implies a concomitant difference in na-
ture

In other words, where A and B belong to different species, the natures of A and B
must differ somehow. This should be obvious given that the definition of a spe-
cies is an account of its essence.

Re: Specific difference, however, always implies a concomitant difference in nature,
just as among species of colors one color is more perfect than another, and like-
wise in other cases. The reason for this is that the differentiae that divide up a ge-
nus a genus are contraries. Contraries, however, are related in terms of being
more and less perfect, because the basis of contrariety is lacking [privatio] and hav-
ing [habitus], as is said in Metaphysics X [1055a33: pr"t! de enanti"sis hexis kai ster!sis
estin].

The claim is that the opposition of contrariety is invariably rooted in the opposi-
tion between possession and lack. Granted this, and the claim that the differentiae
which divide a genus (e.g., rational andby implicationirrational exhaustively
divide the genus animal) are contraries, it follows that different species of the same
genus differ from each other in their degrees of perfection. (The less perfect lacks
something that the more perfect possesses.)

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Re: The same conclusion would also follow if substances of this sort were com-
posed of matter and form.

Proponents of the view that the human soul is composed of both matter and form
typically held that angels, too, are hylomorphic composites. (A hylomorphic
composite is a composite of matter and form hyle is Greek for matter and
morph!, shape, is one of the terms that Aristotle uses to refer to form.)

Re: For if the matter of one is distinguished from the matter of another, then neces-
sarily either (i) the form is the principle distinguishing the matter (in such a way
that matters are different because of a disposition for different forms) and then
specific difference and inequality in nature still results; or (ii) matter will be the
principle distinguishing the forms. But one matter could be said to be different
from one another only with respect to quantitative division, which has no place in
incorporeal substances like an angel and the soul. Therefore it cannot be the case
that an angel and the soul belong to a single species.

The argument goes something like this. If the spiritual matter of a human soul dif-
fers from the spiritual matter of an angel, then either: (i) this difference is a conse-
quence of the difference between the form of the human soul and the form of the
angel, in which case the human soul and the angel differ specifically; or (ii) this
difference between the spiritual matter of each must account for the difference be-
tween the human soul and the angel, in which case the difference between the
human soul and the angelic substance can be merely numerical. But (ii) is impos-
sible, since matter can serve as a principle of mere numerical difference only inso-
far as it possesses a determinate magnitude (i.e., extension in three dimensions),
and this sort of magnitude is not to be found in the spiritual matter that is alleged
to be contained in the human soul and the angelic substance.

Re: Ad 1. That argument holds for an end that is proximate and natural. But eternal
blessedness is an end that is ultimate and supernatural.

See the note on the first argument of article 7 (above). The claim is that only a dif-
ference between the natural ends of different things establishes a specific differ-
ence between them. What Aristotle took to be the highest end of the human being
is such an end. The beatific vision, on the other hand, is the supernatural end of
the human being.


Page 18

Re: The ultimate specific differentia is loftiest inasmuch as it is most determinate

The generic or general is less determinate than the specific. Since there are differ-
ent kinds of intellectuality, intellectuality lacks the determinacy required for an
ultimate specific difference. Accordingly, the fact that both angels and human
souls are intellectual isnt enough to show that they belong to the same species,
just as the fact that both horses and elephants are sensitive doesnt by itself imply
that horses and elephants belong to the same lowest species of animal.
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Re: It seems that the intellective principle is not united to the body as its form.

The intellective principle is none other than the intellective soul. At issue here is
the question of whether the human soul is the substantial form of the human
body. Aquinas answer will, of course, be yes, it is.


Page 19

Re: 2. Every form is determined by the nature of the matter whose form it is; oth-
erwise no proportion would be required between matter and form.

To say that a proportion is required between matter is form is to imply that differ-
ent kinds of form have different kinds of matter appropriate to them. The human
soul, for example, cannot exist in any old matter. It must exist in matter of a par-
ticular sort. According to the argument that follows, if the human intellect existed
in matter, it would possess a determinate nature that is incompatible with its ca-
pacity to cognize all things. The argument seems to take for granted that if the
human intellect is not enmatteredi.e., not the form of some body or corporeal
organthen the human soul in its entirely cannot be enmattered.

Re: 3. Any receptive capacity that is the actuality of a body receives a form materi-
ally and individually, since the thing received exists in the recipient in keeping
with the mode of the recipient.

If x is the actuality of a body, then it is the form of that body. See the second note
on Page 12 above.

Re: 4. The capacity and the action belong to the same thing, because that which is
capable of acting is the same as that which is acting. But intellectual action does
not belong to any body, as is clear from earlier discussions [75.2, 75.5]. Therefore
neither is the intellective capacity a capacity that belongs to a body.

The argument alleges that, since the action of understanding does not belong to
the body, the capacity to understand (i.e., the intellect or faculty of understand-
ing) must belong not to the body, but to the soul.

Re: But no power or capacity can be more abstract or simple than the essence from
which the power or capacity is derived. Therefore neither is the substance of the
intellect the form of the body.

The essence from which the power or capacity to understand is derived is none
other than the essence of the soul. Aquinas holds that the powers of the human
soul are related to it as properties or per se accidents are related to their proper
subject. Thus, just as risibility is not itself part of the human essence, but is a nec-
essary consequence of it, so also is the intellect not itself a part of the souls es-
sence, although it is a necessary consequence of it.

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In claiming that no power or capacity can be more abstract or simple than the es-
sence from which the power or capacity is derived, the argument is alleging that,
if the intellect is a power of the soul that is not enmattered, neither can the entire
soul be enmattered (i.e., neither can the human soul be the substantial form of a
body).

By the substance of the intellect (substantia intellectus), I would suggest, Aquinas
here means the substance to which the faculty of understanding belongsi.e., the
human soul. (Aristotle and Aquinas often speak of the substance of A to refer to
As essence. If the human soul is identical to its essence, then the expression sub-
stance of the intellect might be taken as referring to the essence from which the
intellect proceeds, and this essence will be none other than the human soul.)

Re: 5. That which has existence on its own is not united to the body as its form. For
a form is that by which a thing exists, and so the existence that belongs to a form
does not belong to it in its own right. But the intellective principle has existence in
its own right, and it is subsistent, as was said above. Therefore it is not united to
the body as its form.

The claim is that the existence which a substantial form confers belongs per se to
the composite, and not to the form itself. Accordingly, this existence does not be-
long to the form in its own right. Moreover, since the intellective principle (i.e.,
the human soul) is subsistent and has existence in its own right, it follows that the
intellective soul cannot be the form of a body.


Pages 19-20

Re: 6. That which holds of a thing in its own right always holds of it. But it holds of
form in its own right to be united with matter, since it is the actuality of matter
through its essence, not through any accident. (Otherwise matter and form would
make one thing not substantially, but accidentally.) But the intellective principle,
since it is incorruptible (as was shown above [75.6]), remains when it is not united
to the body, after the body has been corrupted. Therefore the intellective principle
is not united to the body as its form.

Aristotle and Aquinas distinguish between per se unity, which is the kind of unity
that substances have, and per accidens unity, which is the sort of unity that belongs
to a composite of substance and accident (e.g., pale Socrates). The argument goes
something like this. A substantial form is, by its very essence, the actuality of
some matter. It is not the actuality of some matter by the mediation of some acci-
dent, since if it were it would not form a substantial unity with this matter (the
composite of matter and form would in this case have only accidental unity).
From this it follows that being united with matter belongs to a substantial form in
its own right, from which it follows, in turn, that a substantial form is necessarily
united to matter. This, however, is not the case with the intellective principle,
since it continues to exist after the body is destroyed. Therefore, the intellective
principle is not the substantial form of a body.
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Page 20

Re: Reply. It is necessary to say that the intellect, which is the principle of intellec-
tual operation, is the form of the human body.

Aquinas expresses himself misleadingly here. He does not hold that the intellect
which is a power of the rational or intellective soulis the form of the human
body, but that the form to which this power belongs (= the human soul) is the
form of the human body.

Re: For that through which a thing first operates is a form of that to which the op-
eration is attributed []. It is clear, however, that the first thing through which
the body lives is the soul. For the soul is the first thing through which we are
nourished, through which we sense, through which we engage in locomotion,
andlikewisethrough which we first think.

Remember that for Aquinas and Aristotle living consists in an assortment of oper-
ations of which the soul serves as the first principle.

Re: For that through which a thing first operates is a form of that to which the op-
eration is attributed []. And the reason for this is that nothing acts except insofar
as it is in actuality, and therefore it acts through that through which it is in actuali-
ty.

Aquinas might be reasoning here as follows. If an A can act only insofar as it is ac-
tually an A, this must be because an A first acts or performs some operation
through the actuality that makes it actually an A. But the actuality that makes it
actually an A is none other than the As form. Therefore, that through which a
thing first operates is a form of that to which the operation is attributed (= that
through which an A first operates is the form of that A).

Re: And since life is displayed in different grades of living beings through different
operations

Thus, human life will involve the operation of understanding, as well as the oper-
ations of imagining, sensing, reproducing, etc. Different operations constitutive of
life will be exhibited by different species of living thing. The operation of under-
standing, for example, will be distinctive of a human life insofar as no other ani-
mal is capable of understanding.

Re: Now if someone wants to say that the intellective soul is not the form of the
body, then it is incumbent on that person to find a way in which the action that is
thinking is the action of a particular human being.

Aquinas is here challenging those who deny (say) that Socrates intellective soul is
the form of Socrates body to explain how, on this supposition, it could be the case
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that the operation of thinking that originates in Socrates soul can be ascribed to
Socrates (who is, it should be remembered, a combination of body and soul).

Re: (c) per accidens, in the way that something white is said to build, because the
builder accidentally happens to be white.

Aristotle and Aquinas draw a distinction between accidental and per se causes.
Consider: it is not qua pale that a doctor heals (i.e., causes health); rather, a doctor
heals insofar as he or she is a doctor. The connection between being pale and heal-
ing is, we might say, accidental, inasmuch as pallor happens to be a feature of the
one who heals. Its not as though all pale human beings can heal. On the other
hand, the connection between being a doctor (i.e., a healer) and healing is not ac-
cidental or fortuitous, but (so to speak) essential or necessary. As Aristotle and
Aquinas would put it, a doctor is per se cause of health, whereas a pale person is a
per accidens cause of health.


Page 21

Re: Therefore either we must say that (c) Socrates thinks in respect of his whole self,
as Plato claimed in saying that a human being is the intellective soul

Replace (c) with (a). Aquinas understands Plato to have held that a human be-
ing is nothing more than his or her soul.

Re: We can conclude, then, that the intellect by which Socrates thinks is a part of
Socrates, and consequently the intellect is somehow united to Socrates body.

By intellect here Aquinas seems to mean the faculty or power of understanding,
and not the entire soul to which, on his view, the faculty of understanding be-
longs. The idea here is that, since Socrates is a whole of which his intellect is a part,
another part of him being his body, his intellect must be somehow united to his
body.

Re: The Commentator, in De anima III [5], says that this union takes place through
intelligible species.

See Pasnaus notes on pp. 242-3. Note that an intelligible species is not a species in
the way (say) that human being is a species. An intelligible species is something
that exists in the intellect and is that through which an intelligible object (e.g., the
essence of a thing) is known. It is a likeness of what is intelligible about an object.
See Pasnaus note on intelligible species on p. 343.

Re: These species have two subjects, one the possible intellect, the other the phan-
tasms that exist in corporeal organs.

In De anima III.5, Aristotle distinguishes the active, agent or productive intellect
from the passive, potential or possible intellect. This chapter is extremely obscure
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and has served as an occasion for endless disagreements among Aristotles com-
mentators. The text reads as follows:

Since [just as] in the whole of nature there is something which is matter to
each kind of thing (and this is what is potentially all of them), while on the
other hand there is something else which is their cause and is productive by
producing them allthese being related as an art to its materialso there
must also be these differences in the soul. And there is an intellect which is of
this kind by becoming all things [= the passive intellect], and there is another
which is so by producing all things [= the active intellect], as a kind of dispo-
sition, like light, does; for in a way light too makes colours which are poten-
tial into actual colours. And this intellect is distinct, unaffected, and unmixed,
being in essence activity.
For that which acts is always superior to that which is affected, and the
first principle to the matter []; and it is not the case that it sometimes thinks
and at other times not. In separation it is just what it is, and this alone is im-
mortal and eternal. (But we do not remember because this is unaffected,
whereas the passive intellect is perishable, and without this thinks nothing.)
(430a10-25)
10


The claim in the quoted text is that the intelligible species exist in the passive in-
tellect and also in phantasms. They are said to exist in phantasms inasmuch as
they were often thought to be somehow abstracted from, or discerned in, phan-
tasms.

Re: In this way, then, the possible intellect is connected to the body of one or anoth-
er human being through an intelligible species.

Many Christian thinkers held that there was one active or agent intellect common
to all human beings; indeed, a good number of Christian thinkers identified Aris-
totles active intellect with God. Aquinas does not share this view, but neither
does he think that it has consequences incompatible with faith. What he does take
to be incompatible with the Christian faith is the view, famously held by Averroes
(Ibn Rushd) that there is only one passive or possible intellect common to all hu-
man beings.

The claim in the quoted text is that the possible intellect common to all human be-
ings is connected to the body of human being S through intelligible species inso-
far as these species exist both in the potential intellect and in the phantasms that
exist in various organs of Ss body.

Re: But that connection or union is not sufficient for the intellects action to be Soc-
rates action. This is clear through a comparison to the senses (which is how Aris-
totle goes about exploring the characteristics of intellect): for, as is said in De ani-
ma III [431a14], phantasms are to intellect just as colors are to sight. Therefore just
as the species of colors are in sight, so the species of phantasms are in the possible

10
Aristotle, De Anima: Books II and III (with passages from Book I), trans. D. W. Hamlyn
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
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intellect. But it is evident that we do not attribute the action of sight to a wall just
because the wall has the colors whose likenesses are in sight. For we do not say
that the wall sees, but rather that it is seen. Therefore just because the species of
phantasms are in the possible intellect, it does not follow that Socrates (who has
the phantasms) is thinking, but rather that he, or his phantasms, are being
thought of.

Recall that Aquinas holds that, whatever ones account of the relation between
(say) Socrates and his intellect, it must be true to say of Socrates that he is the one
who thinks or understands. The claim here is that on Averroes account of the re-
lation between Socrates and the potential intellect, this cannot be said. For the
phantasms which exist in Socrates body are objects of the potential intellect; their
likenesses or species exist in the potential intellect, but they themselves do not.
Socrates does not think or understand insofar as his phantasms are objects of the
potential intellect any more than a wall sees when the likeness of its colours exist
in the power of sight or (equivalently) when its colours are objects of the power of
sight.

Re: Now some have wanted to say that the intellect is united to the body as its
mover, with the result that from intellect and body one thing comes about, so that
the action of intellect can be attributed to the whole. But this is futile for a variety
of reasons.

The view that Aquinas is entertaining here would have it that the intellect and the
body can, merely by virtue of the fact that the intellect moves the body, form a
whole in a way that licenses the attribution of the intellects operations to this
whole. Recall that for Aquinas, whatever the relation of Socrates intellect to Soc-
rates (the composite of body and soul), it must be true to say that it is Socrates who
thinks or understands.

Re: 1. The intellect moves the body only through appetite, and appetites move-
ment presupposes the operation of the intellect. Therefore, Socrates does not think
because he is moved by the intellect, but rather the converse: because Socrates
thinks, he is accordingly moved by the intellect.

A possible reconstruction of the argument: The intellect moves the body by giving
rise to the motion called appetite. Moreover, it gives rise to this motion by think-
ing. But this thinking is supposed to be attributable to Socrates, the whole com-
posed of intellect and body. Thus, the fact that Socrates (as a whole) thinks ex-
plains why Socrates body is moved. However, on the view under consideration,
it is the alleged fact that Socrates intellect moves Socrates body that is supposed to
explain the fact that Socrates (as a whole) thinks. Therefore, this view is false.


Page 22

Re: But thought is an action that stays within the agent; it does not pass into anoth-
er, as heating does.

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Presumably, the point is that thought will not pass into Socrates from the intel-
lect, in which case it is impossible to attribute the thought to Socrates on this view.

Re: 4. Although we attribute the action of a part to the whole

See Pasnaus notes on this paragraph, p. 243.

Re: For this reason, too, Aristotle in the Ethics [1177a12-19] founds our ultimate
happiness on this operationas on what is special to humans.

In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle argues that happiness, strictly speaking, con-
sists in theoretical contemplation of God. This is to be distinguished from the vi-
sion of Gods essence which, according to Aquinas, is possible after death.

Re: A human being must obtain its species, then, in accord with the principle of this
operation.

The operation that Aquinas has in mind is the special operation of the human
beingi.e., thinking. The principle of this operation is, of course, the intellective
soul.


Page 23

Re: For this reason we see that the form of a mixed body has an operation that is
not caused by the elemental qualities.

See Pasnaus note on this, p. 243. Indeed, from here on in, do be sure to look at all
of Pasnaus notes on the text, which are signaled by means of a .

Re: Ad 1. As the Philosopher says in Physics II [194b8-15], the last of the natural
forms toward which natural philosophy directs its attentionthat is, the human
soulis indeed separate, but is nevertheless in matter.

Natural philosophy concerns itself with forms that are principles or causes of
things that have natures in the strict sense of nature. (Bodies are the kinds of
things that have natures in this sense, since only bodies undergo motion, and a
nature, in the strict sense, is a sort of internal principle of motion in the thing that
has a nature.) Forms that are subsistent and not substantial forms of corporeal
substances are dealt with, not by the physicist or natural philosopher, but by the
metaphysician of first philosopher. (First philosophy is what Aristotle calls
metaphysics.)

Re: It is in matter, on the other hand, inasmuch as that soul to which this power be-
longs is the form of the body, and the end product (terminus) of human genera-
tion.

The form is the terminus of generation in the sense that the process of generation
is complete once the substantial form of the thing generated has been introduced
into the matter out of which the thing generated is generated.
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Page 24

Re: 1. No immaterial substance is multiplied numerically within a single species.

See the second note on Page 17 above.


Page 25

Re: Therefore the species of things would be received individually in my intellect
and in yours. This runs contrary to the nature of the intellect, which is cognitive of
universals.

The claim is that if the intellect were something individual, its cognition would
not be universal (e.g., of human being in general), but particular (e.g., of this hu-
man being or that one). But the human intellects cognition is universal. Therefore,
etc.

Re: On the contrary. The Philosopher says in Physics II [195b25-28] that just as uni-
versal causes are related to universals, so particular causes are related to particu-
lars.

The philosopher is, of course, Aristotle. (Similarly, Averroes is the commentator.)
The passage referred to here appears below in its context:

In investigating the cause of each thing it is always necessary to seek what
is most precise (as also in other things): thus a man builds because he is a
builder, and a builder builds in virtue of his art of building. This last cause,
then, is prior.
Further, generic effects should be assigned to generic causes, particular effects to
particular causes, e.g., statue to sculptor, this statue to this sculptor; and powers
are relative to possible effects, actually operating causes to things which are
actually being effected. (trans. Barnes)

The claim is that generic effects should be correlated with generic causes, specific
effects with specific causes, and particular effects to particular causes. Thus, the
individual sculptor is the cause of the individual statue, sculptor (in general) is
the cause of statue (in general), and artist (in general) is the cause of art (in gen-
eral). Aquinas takes this to imply that, just as the universal cause stands to the
universal effect, so also does the particular cause stand to the particular effect.

Re: But it is impossible for animals that are different in species to share a soul that
is singular in species. Therefore it is impossible for things that are numerically dif-
ferent to share in an intellective soul that is numerically one.

Things that are merely generically the same cannot share specifically the same
soul. Therefore, neither can things that are merely specifically the same share nu-
merically the same intellective soul.


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Page 26

Re: The reason is that form is the source of existence.

A better translation would be: The reason is that the form is principle of exist-
ence. Recall that for Aristotle and Aquinas a corporeal substances substantial
form is what makes it actually exist. Aquinas takes it to be obvious that Platos ex-
istence (or esse) is numerically different from Socrates existence (or esse), assum-
ing that Plato and Socrates themselves are numerically distinct.

Re: For the sensory powers obey and serve the intellect.

In other words the intellect stands to a sensory power as an agent stands to his in-
strument.

Re: Therefore if one were to imagine two human beings possessing distinct intel-
lects but sharing a single sensee.g., if two human beings had a single eyethen
there would be more than one person seeing but a single act of seeing.

This is like the case of many people pulling a ship with one rope.

Re: But if there is a single intellect, then no matter how different all the other things
are that the intellect uses as instruments, there is no way in which Socrates and
Plato could be said to be anything other than a single thinker.

This is like the case of the human being who touches different things with each
hand. Here, there are two actions but only one agent.


Pages 26-27

Re: And if we add that this thinking, which is the action of the intellect, comes
about through no other organ than the intellect itself, then it will further follow
that there is both a single agent and a single actioni.e., that all human beings are
a single thinker and [have] a single thought (relative to the same object of
thought).

In this case, there is no instrument at all, and therefore no plurality of instruments
through which there might arise a diversity of actions.


Page 27

Re: But the possible intellects form is not the phantasm but rather the intelligible
species, which is abstracted from phantasms.

If the phantasm just were the form in the intellect, then a plurality of phantasms
would be a plurality of forms in the intellect (and there would, therefore, be a
multiplicity of intellectual operations). Aquinas will go on to consider whether a
plurality of phantasms might nonetheless give rise to a multiplicity of forms (= in-
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telligible species) in the intellect. His reply will be that, where all the phantasms
are of the same sort of thing (e.g., a stone), a multiplicity of phantasms does not
give rise to a multiplicity of forms in the intellect.

Re: Ad 1. Although the intellective soul has no matter from which it exists

I.e., although the intellective soul is not itself a composite of matter and form

Re: nevertheless it is the form of some matter

I.e., nevertheless it is a form that exists in matter (i.e., the substantial form of a
corporeal substance)


Page 28

Re: The individuality of what thinks, or of the species through which it thinks, does
not exclude its thinking about universals.

What thinks is the intellect. That through which it thinks is the intelligible species.
It is thanks to the intelligible species that exists in my possible intellect that I am
able to think about or understand something. The intelligible species is a likeness
of what is intelligible about an object. The claim here is that the intellect conceives
a thing universally notwithstanding its own individuality and notwithstanding
the individuality of the intelligible species.

Re: But the materiality of what cognizes, and of the species through which it does
so, does impede the cognition of a universal.

In other words, if the intellect were material (i.e., enmattered), or if the species
through which the intellect cognizes an object were material, then the intellect
would not cognize things as universal.

Re: For just as every action occurs in keeping with the mode of the form through
which it acts (e.g., heating, in keeping with the mode of heat)

The accidental form of heat is the form through which the hot thing heats. Simi-
larly, the intelligible species that exists in the intellect is the form through which
the intellect cognizes.

Re: It is clear, however, that a common nature is distinguished and multiplied by
individuating principles that come from matter. Therefore if the form through
which cognition comes about is material, and not abstracted from material condi-
tions, then it will be a likeness of the nature of the species or genus inasmuch as it
is distinguished and multiplied by individuating principles. The things nature, in
its commonality, could not in that way be cognized.

Since the action of the intellect (i.e., the act of understanding) occurs in accordance
with the mode of the intelligible species through which it acts, if this species were
material, then, since matter individuates (i.e., makes what is common individual),
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the intellect would cognize its object as an individual, and not as universal. As a
result, the common nature would not be cognized.

Re: And it does not matter, in this regard, whether there is a single intellect or
many. For even if there were only one, it would still have to be a certain thing, as
would the species through which it thinks.

The third argument against which Aquinas is here responding might be under-
stood as implying that an intellect which is common to all human beings is some-
how not particular, but universal. If so, Aquinas is denying that here. If not,
Aquinas is here pointing out that what this argument alleges about an intellect
conceived of as proper to a single human being will likewise apply to an intellect
that is conceived of as common to all human beings.

Re: Ad 4. Regardless of whether there is one or many intellects, that which is un-
derstood is one. For that which is understood is in the intellect not in its own right,
but in respect of its likeness. For, as is said in De anima III [431b29], it is not the
stone that is in the soul, but the species of the stone. Still, it is the stone that is un-
derstood, not the species of the stone, except when the intellect reflects on itself.
Otherwise, our knowledge would not be about things in the world (de rebus), but
about intelligible species.

Aquinas insists that when a things intelligible species exists in the intellect, what
the intellect understands is not the intelligible species itself but the thing of which
the intelligible species is a likeness. That is why Aquinas speaks of the intelligible
species as that through which the thing is understood; the intelligible species is
not itself what the intellect understands. (Aquinas is no representationalist like
Locke or Berkeley.) The argument that Aquinas is here concerned to refute as-
sumes, on the other hand, that the intelligible species is what is understood when
it claims that if my intellect is different from yours, there must be one thing un-
derstood by me and another by you. The intelligible species becomes an object of
the intellect only when the intellect reflects on itself and its states. In this case,
however, it does not understand anything in the world.


Page 29

Re: It seems that beyond the intellective soul there are other, essentially different
souls in a human beingnamely, the sensory and nutritive souls

Before Aquinas, most Christian philosophers and theologians believed that the
human being (as well as most corporeal substances) contained many different
substantial forms. This is sometimes known as the doctrine of the plurality of
forms. Aquinas, however, rejected this view: he held that each corporeal sub-
stance has only one substantial form.

Generally, these philosophers and theologians before Aquinas were careful not to
assert that there are several souls in the individual human being. As they under-
stood it, a commitment to multiple substantial formsone conferring the nutri-
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tive power on a human being, a second conferring the sensitive power on a hu-
man being, and a third conferring the rational power on a human beingdid not
entail a commitment to the view that a human being has multiple souls. These
forms, on their view, came together to form a single soul.

Aquinas targets the doctrine of the plurality of souls in art. 4. But much of what
he says here in art. 3 bears on the issue. For example, the text from the Generation
of Animals discussed in the third argument (starting on p. 29) was often appealed
to by proponents of the doctrine of the plurality of forms.

Re: But something is said to be an animal as a result of having a sensory [= sensi-
tive] soul. Therefore animal will not be a single genus common to humans and
other animals, which is unacceptable.

Given that the corruptible and the incorruptible differ in genusi.e., belong to
different generait follows that, if the sensitive soul of a brute animal is corrupti-
ble, while the sensitive soul of a human being is incorruptible, the sensitive soul
of a brute will belong to a genus different from that to which the sensitive soul of
a human being belongs. But this is unacceptable, according to this argument, since
humans and brutes belong to the same genusi.e., the genus animalby virtue of
the fact that both the sensitive soul of a human being and the sensitive soul of a
brute belong to the same genus.

Re: The Philosopher says in the Generation of Animals [736a35-b15] that an embryo is
an animal before it is a human being.

The passage from the Generation of Animals, together with its context, reads as fol-
lows:

It is not only necessary to decide whether what is forming in the female re-
ceives anything material, or not, from that which has entered her [sc. the se-
men], but also concerning the soul in virtue of which an animal is so called
(and this is in virtue of the sensitive part of the soul)does this exist original-
ly in the semen and in the embryo or not, and if it does whence does it come?
For nobody would put down the embryo as soulless or in every sense bereft
of life (since both the semen and the embryo of an animal have every bit as
much life as a plant), and it is productive up to a certain point. That then they
possess the nutritive soul is plain (and plain is it from the discussion else-
where about the soul why this soul must be acquired first). As they develop
they also acquire the sensitive soul in virtue of which an animal is an animal.
For, to take an example, an animal does not become at the same time an ani-
mal and a man or a horse or any other particular animal. For the end is de-
veloped last, and the peculiar character of the species [i.e., that which distin-
guishes the species from other species of the same genus] is the end of the
generation in each individual. Hence arises a question of the greatest difficul-
ty, which we must strive to solve to the best of our ability and as far as possi-
ble. When and how and whence is a share in reason acquired by those ani-
mals that participate in this principle? It is plain that the semen and the em-
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bryo, while not yet separate, must be assumed to have the nutritive soul po-
tentially, but not actually, until (like those embryos that are separated from
the mother) it absorbs nourishment and performs the function of the nutritive
soul. For at first all such embryos seem to live the life of a plant. And it is
clear that we must be guided by this in speaking of the sensitive and the ra-
tional soul. For all three kinds of soul, not only the nutritive, must be pos-
sessed potentially before they are possessed in actuality. (736a27-b15, Barnes)


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Re: 4. The Philosopher says in Metaphysics VIII [1043a2-21] that the genus is drawn
from the matter, the differentia from the form.

I dont think that Aquinas has in mind the text referred to in brackets. I would
suggest that he has in mind the longish text quoted above in the notes on Page 11.

Re: Therefore the intellective soul is related to a body animated by a sensory soul
just as form is related to matter.

Proponents of the view that there are multiple substantial forms in the human be-
ing often held that these substantial forms come to be in matter successively, the
composite of matter and an earlier substantial form serving as matter for a later
substantial form.


Page 31

Re: First, an animal with several souls would not be one thing unconditionally
[simpliciter].

According to Aquinas, the composition of prime matter and a single substantial
form gives rise to a genuine unity which cannot itself form part of a genuine unity.
(A thing possessed of genuine unity can at best form part of an accidental unity
e.g., the pale human being, which is a composite of substance and accident.)

Re: because a things being existent and its being one thing come from the same
source.

Recall that for Aquinas form makes a thing be. (Substantial form makes a thing be
simpliciter or unconditionally, as when the substantial form of a horse makes the
horse be (= exist). Accidental form makes a thing be secundum quide.g., pallor
makes a human being be pale.

Re: For things that are drawn from different forms are predicated of one another
either (i) per accidens, if the forms are not ordered to one another (e.g., when we
say that white is sweet [quod album est dulce])

The Latin words rendered white is sweet here could just as easily be rendered
the white is sweet, where by the white Aquinas means the white thing.
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Note that whiteness and sweetness are forms, according to Aquinasi.e., acci-
dental forms.

Re: or (ii) if the forms are ordered to one another, the predication will be per se
in the second more of speaking per se, since the subject is contained in the defini-
tion of the predicate. (A surface, for instance, is a prerequisite of color; therefore, if
we say that the bodys surface is colored, this will be the second mode of per se
predication.

See the explanation of the second mode of perseity in note 23 in The Aristoteli-
an Background.

Re: But each of these is clearly false.

Animal is predicated of human being in the first mode of perseity, according to both
Aquinas and Aristotle. See, again, note 23 in The Aristotelian Background.


Page 32

Re: Accordingly, then, it must be said that the soul in a human beingsensory, in-
tellective, and nutritiveis numerically the same.

In other words, it must be said that there is one soul in the human being and that
this soul is at once sensory, intellective, and nutritivei.e., possessed of nutritive,
sensory and intellectual powers.

Re: For the species and forms of things are found to differ relative to one another in
terms of being more or less complete [secundum perfectius et minus perfectum].

Its worth noting that the expression more complete in this paragraph is used to
translate the Latin perfectior, which can likewise be rendered more perfect. In
Latin there is a close connection between the notion of being perfect and the no-
tion of being complete. Indeed, the Latin adjective perfectus comes from the Latin
verb perficio, which can mean to bring to completion, finish, perfect.

Aquinas point here is that different species of the same genus are often related to
each other in such a way that, where species A and B are species of the same ge-
nus, members of species A possess a certain number of perfect-making attributes
while members of species B possess the same perfect-making attributes and, in
addition, certain further perfect-making attributes. For example, plants possess
the capacity for nutrition and reproduction. Brute animals have the same capaci-
ties, but certain other capacities in addition (various sensory powers). And human
beings have all the power found in lower living things as well as the power to
understand.

Re: In this way, therefore, the intellective soul virtually contains whatever is pos-
sessed by the sensory soul of brute animals and the nutritive soul of plants.

See the note near the top of p. 248.
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Re: Ad 1. The sensory soul is not incorruptible because it is sensory. Rather, it is
made incorruptible by being intellective.

The human soul is of course both intellective and sensory, since it is possesses both
understanding and the various sensory powers. A brute animals soul, by contrast,
is merely sensory. The claim here is that the human soul is incorruptible by vir-
tue of its being intellective (and not by virtue of its being sensory or nutritive).


Page 33

Re: Ad 3. An embryo first has a soul that is merely sensory. When that is displaced,
a more complete soul [perfectior anima] arrives, one that is at the same time senso-
ry and intellective.

Aquinas grants that at a certain stage of development, the human embryo pos-
sesses only sensory powers, since its soul is, at that stage, merely sensitive. At this
point, the embryo is not, strictly speaking, human, but merely animal. (In other
words, Aquinas denied that human life begins at conception.) Moreover, against
proponents of the doctrine of the plurality of forms, Aquinas denied that the em-
bryo becomes rational by the addition of another soul or form. Rather, the merely
sensitive soul of the embryo is replaced altogether by another soul that is both
sensitive and intellective.

Re: Ad 4. It is not required that one treat diversity among natural things in terms of
the diverse accounts or logical operations that result from how one understands
them. For reason can grasp one and the same thing in different ways.

Aquinas point, generally put, is that the reason, in its role of defining a given
thing, can conceive x and y as distinct when in fact x = y. For reason can conceive
one and the same thing in different ways.

Re: 1. The Philosopher says in De anima II [412a27-28] that the soul is the actuality
of a physical body potentially having life. Therefore the soul is related to the
body as form to matter. But a body has a substantial form through which it is a
body. Therefore the body has some substantial form that precedes the soul.

One might read the quoted definition of soul as implying that the body of a living
thing has life potentially inasmuch as it is capable of receiving the appropriate
kind of soul within itself. Read in this way, the definition implies that the body of
a living thing can exist prior to its receiving a soul within itself. But if this is right,
it follows that, since a body is invariably a composite of matter and form, the liv-
ing thing (= its body + its soul) has more than one form within itselfsc. (i) the
form through which the body is a body and (ii) its soul.

As will become clear, the definition is not properly read in this way. By a body
potentially having life Aristotle does not mean a body that, although not yet en-
souled, is capable of receiving a soul. For life is conceived by Aristotle to consist
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in operations like nutrition, reproduction, sensation, etc. And what is capable of
engaging in operations like these is the ensouled body.

Re: 2. A human being, like an animal, is self-moving

As Aquinas makes clear here, on his view prime matter is not a body. (Hence the
assumption in the last note that every body is a composite of matter and form.)
Indeed, according to Aquinas, prime matter is pure potentialitypotentially any
sort of sublunary body, but actually nothing.


Page 34

Re: 3. The ranking of forms is determined by their relationship to prime matter,
since prior and posterior are specified by comparison to some starting point.
Therefore if in a human being there were no substantial form beyond the rational
soul, and instead it inhered in prime matter without any intermediary, then as a
result it would rank among the most imperfect forms, those that inhere in matter
without any intermediary.

The assumption here is that less perfect forms precede more perfect ones in such a
way that the least perfect forms are ones that combine with prime matter so as to
form a composite which serves as matter for a more perfect form. Once this more
perfect form is added, one has, in turn, a composite that serves as matter for a yet
more perfect form. On this conception of things, any form that inheres directly in
prime matter (as opposed to: in some composite of prime matter and form) is to
be placed among the least perfect forms.

Re: 4. The human body is a mixed body. But mixture does not occur with respect to
matter alone, because that would be merely corruption. Therefore the forms of the
elements must remain in the mixed body, and these are substantial forms. There-
fore the human body has other substantial forms beyond the intellective soul.

Be sure to see Pasnaus note on the bottom half of p. 250. To claim that the human
body is a mixed body is to claim that it is ultimately composed of the four ele-
ments, each of which is a combination of prime matter and some substantial form
(e.g., the substantial form of fire in the case of elemental fire). The worry is that if
the intellective soul inheres directly in prime matter, the various elements out of
which the human body is composed must first be corruptedi.e., the substantial
forms of the elements must cede their place to the intellective soul that comes to
inhere directly in prime matter. But this is inconsistent with the claim that the el-
ements somehow exist in the human body. (Of course, to say that the human
body is a mixed body is to claim that earth, air, fire, and water exist in it some-
how.)

Re: But a substantial form gives substantial being.

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To say that a substantial form gives substantial being (esse) is to say that it gives
the kind of being that substances have. Accidental forms give only accidental be-
inge.g., being red, being tall, being warm.

Re: And so when an accidental form is added, we do not say that something is
made or is generated unconditionally [simpliciter], but that it is made such [tale] or
that it stands in some way. Likewise, when an accidental form departs, we do not
say that something is corrupted unconditionally, but in a certain respect [secun-
dum quid].

The distinction between saying that something is X simpliciterunconditionally
or without qualificationand saying that something is X secundum quidin a cer-
tain respect or qualifiedlyis fairly common in Aquinas and Aristotle. Consider:
John is greedy and John is greedy with his time. In the first sentence, John is
said to be greedy simpliciter or without qualification. In the second, the claim that
John is greedy is qualified. It asserts, not that John is greedy, period, but that John
is greedy with his time.

According to Aquinas and Aristotle, when a new substance is generated, we can
truly say of that substance that it has come to be simpliciter. I speak the truth when
I say this substance has come to be without adding any qualification. However,
when a substance comes to be green, it is not true to say that it has come to be
simpliciter. I speak falsely if, without adding any qualification, I say of this sub-
stance that it has come to be. The claim needs to be qualified: the substance does
not simply come to be; it comes to be green.

Re: A substantial form, on the other hand, gives being unconditionally.

I.e., when a substantial form comes to exist in matter, it is true to say, without
adding any qualification, that something has come to be


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Re: That is why the ancient naturalists, who supposed that prime matter is some-
thing that actually exists (fire, air, or some such thing), said that nothing is gener-
ated or corrupted unconditionally, but that all coming to be consists in being al-
tered, as is said in Physics I [187a30].

The ancient naturalists mentioned here are the Presocratic philosophers whom
Aristotle called hoi phusikoie.g., Thales and Anaximenes. All of these thinkers
seem to have held that the physical world was generated out of some single sort
of basic stuff or prime matter (= first matter). For example, Thales held that the
basic stuff was water, while Anaximenes took it to be air. Note the difference be-
tween these views and Aquinas: for Aquinas, prime matter is actually nothing,
although potentially every sort of sublunary body, whereas for Thales and Anax-
imenes prime matter is actually something (water or air).

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On Aristotles understanding of them, moreover, these Presocratics held, not
merely that there is a single basic stuff out of which everything comes to be; they
also held that everything in the universe just is this basic stuff. Thus, according to
Aristotle, Anaximenes held (for example) that stones and water just are air acci-
dentally modified in various ways. On this view, in other words, there is no genu-
ine coming-to-be, since no substances are generated. When air becomes water, for
example, water is not a new substance, but just air that has acquired certain acci-
dents. (Alteration is an accidental changesc. change of quality.)

Re: Therefore, if it were the case that prior to the intellective soul there were also
some other substantial form in the matter, through which the souls subject were
actually existent, then as a result the soul would not make a thing be uncondition-
ally.

In other words, the intellective soul wouldnt be the form that confers substantial
being (esse) or existence. The substantial form that precedes it would do this.

Re: Consequently it would not be a substantial form, and through the addition of
soul there would not be generation unconditionally, nor through its removal cor-
ruption unconditionally, but only in a certain respect. These consequences are
clearly false.

The claim is that, since the soul, on this scenario, wouldnt confer substantial be-
ing, it could not be regarded as a substantial form, but only as an accidental form.
In that case, the souls coming to exist in the composite of prime matter and the
other substantial form would not count as a case of coming-to-be simpliciter. Nor
would the souls ceasing to be in that composite counts as corruption simpliciter.
But this is false: the arrival and departure of the soul are not mere accidental
changes. Therefore, etc.

Re: One must say, then, that a human being has no substantial form other than the
intellective soul alone, and that just as it virtually contains the sensory and nutri-
tive souls, so it virtually contains all its lower forms, and that it alone brings about
whatever it is that less perfect forms bring about in other things.

By saying that the intellective soul of the human being virtually contains all lower
forms, Aquinas seems to mean that the intellective soul can do what these lower
forms can do.

Re: On this basis it is clear that the soul too is included in that of which it is said to
be the actuality.

The point is that the soul is not something extrinsic to the body of which it is said
to be the actuality. The body at issue is the composite of matter and substantial
form.

Re: But first actuality is spoken of as potential with respect to second actuality,
which is the operation.

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See note 24a in The Aristotelian Background above.


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Re: Ad 3. There are different levels of perfection to be considered in matter, such as
existing, living, sensing, and thinking. But a second thing added onto its prede-
cessor is always more perfect. Therefore a form that provides only the first level of
perfection to matter is the most imperfect, whereas a form that provides the first,
second, and third degrees (and so on) is the most perfect, and nevertheless [in-
heres] in matter without an intermediary.

Argument 3, to which this is Aquinas reply, assumes that different perfections
(e.g., the capacity for nutrition, the capacity for sensation, reason) are conferred by
different substantial forms that come to be successively, the first directly in prime
matter, the second (not directly in prime matter, but) in the composite of prime
matter and the first substantial form, etc. On this view, the later in this series a
form is, the greater the perfection that it confers. On Aquinas view, however, all
substantial forms inhere directly in prime matter, and one and the same substan-
tial form can confer more than one perfection. E.g., the nutritive soul of the plant
confers the capacity for nutrition and reproduction (in addition to the perfections
conferred by lower forms), while the sensitive soul of the brute animal confers
everything that the nutritive soul confers and, in addition, the capacity for sensa-
tion. The intellective soul, of course, confers all the perfections that the sensitive
soul of the brute confers and, in addition, reason.

Re: But this is impossible. For the different forms of the elements cannot exist ex-
cept in different parts of the matter, and this difference among parts must be un-
derstood as involving dimensions, without which there can be no divisible matter.
But matter subjected to dimension is found only in a body. Different bodies, how-
ever, cannot be in the same place. So it follows that the elements in something
mixed would have distinct locations. As a result, this will not be a true mixture,
one that occurs throughout the whole, but an apparent mixture, one that occurs
through minute [parts] being positioned next to each other.

If the forms of the four elements exist in a mixed body actually, rather than virtu-
ally, then the substantial form of fire (say) must exist in a part of matter that is (i)
endowed with three dimensional quantity and (ii) distinct from any such part of
matter in which the substantial form of one of the other three elements exists. But
in this way one does not have a true mixture of the four elements, but a mere ag-
gregate of fire particles, earth particles, water particles, and air particles (however
small these might be). For every quantitative part of a mixture is of the same sort.
E.g., every quantitative part of human flesh is itself human flesh.





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Page 37

Re: Therefore the soul should be united with the most refined bodies (say, fire) and
not with a body that is mixed and more terrestrial.

In his note, Pasnau suggests that we should understand terrestrial here as con-
trasting with celestial, so that terrestrial here is supposed to mean something
like sublunary. I dont think that can be right, since fire is one of the four sublu-
nary elements. By terrestrial, I think, Aquinas simply means earthyi.e., con-
taining elemental earth.

Re: Since the form is the basis of the species

Recall that a things form is determinant of the species to which that thing belongs.

Re: parts belonging to dissimilar species.

The parts mentioned here, of course, are the sublunary elements, sc. earth, air, wa-
ter, and fire. These belong to different species.

Re: But the intellective soul is the most perfect of souls.

Recall that for Aquinas a soul is the substantial form of a body. Since an angel
does not have a body, according to Aquinas, it is not (or does not have) a soul.

Re: On the contrary. The Philosopher says in De anima II [412a27-28] that the soul
is the actuality of a physical body with organs, potentially having life.

Actually, Aristotle says that the soul is the first actuality of a physical body with
organs, etc. Recall that a second actuality is an operation.

Re: Form does not exist for the sake of matter; instead, matter exists for the sake of
form.

Do be sure to read Pasnaus note on the top of p. 254.

Re: But, as was established above [55.2c], the intellective soul holds the lowest rank
among intellectual substances, in terms of natural order.

Intellectual substances are all subsistent forms. Every intellectual substance is ei-
ther an angel or the soul of a human being.


Page 38

Re: But when it comes to what is necessary, nature neglects nothing. For this reason
the intellective soul needed to have not only the power for thought but also the
power for sensation.

Aristotles discussion of how matter is for the sake of form is framed as a discus-
sion of the sense in which a things matter is necessary. See Physics II.9.
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Re: But the organ of touch is required to be intermediary between the contraries
that touch apprehends: hot and cold, wet and dry, and so on

The idea is that the organ of touch will not be able to sense cold if it is itself hot,
nor will it be able to sense heat if it is itself cold. If it is to sense both hot and cold,
then, it must itself be neither hot nor cold, but something between these two ex-
tremes. Hot, cold, wet, and dry, moreover, are properties of the four elements: fire
is hot and dry, air is hot and wet, water is cold and wet, and earth is cold and dry.
Thus the organ of the sense of touch must involve a kind of balancing of ele-
mental qualities if it is to be able to sense these qualities. Hence the organ in
which the sense of touch exists must be composed of all four elementsi.e., it
must be a mixed body.


Page 40

Re: 3. The spiritual is linked to the bodily through the contact of power.

The spiritual and the bodily cannot touch or come into contact in the way that two
bodies can touch or come into contact. The contact of power involves a bodys be-
ing moved by something incorporeal.

Re: On the contrary. Accident comes after substance both temporally and concep-
tually (ratione), as is said in Metaphysics VII [1028a32-33]. Therefore an accidental
form cannot be conceived of in matter before the soul, which is a substantial form.

If the intellective souls union with the body were mediated through an accident,
then an accident would have to exist directly in prime matter, without the media-
tion of any substantial form. But prime matter is not actually a substance (indeed,
it is actually nothing, being pure potentiality), and accidents can only exist in sub-
stances.


Pages 40-41

Re: Because there is a certain order in which matter is in potentiality for all its actu-
alities, it must be that which is unconditionally first among actualities which is
conceived of first in matter. But the first among all actualities is existence [esse].

Note that all forms, both substantial and accidental, are actualities.

Note, too, that for Aquinas substantial existence is in reality always wrapped up
with being a substance of a particular type. There is no mere existence that is not
the sort of existence found in horses, or the sort of existence found in human be-
ings, etc.i.e., there is no esse that is neither divine esse, nor human esse, nor an-
gelic esse, nor feline esse, etc. Nonetheless, Aquinas also holds that one can concep-
tually separate mere existence from being a body, being a living thing, etc. (I.e.,
one can conceive mere existence in isolation from corporeality, etc.) See lines 57-59
on page 41.
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Of course, a thing must exist before it can be green, tall, etc.


Page 41

Re: It is clear, however, that, for each genus, the proper accidents follow from the
genus.

On the notion of a proper accident, see notes 18-21 in The Aristotelian Back-
ground. It is basic to the Aristotelian conception of science that different proper-
ties (or proper accidents) attach to one and the same thing insofar as it is a mem-
ber of multiple natural kinds. Thus, human beings (for example) have such-and-
such properties insofar as they belong to the species human being (e.g., risibility).
But they have other properties insofar as they belong to the genus animal, and yet
further properties insofar as they belong to the genus living thing. (And so on, for
the higher genera to which the species human being belongs.) Take another exam-
ple: an isosceles triangle has the property of having internal angles that sum to
180 degrees not insofar as it is an isosceles triangle, but insofar as it is a triangle.
Otherwise put, it is qua triangle that an isosceles triangle has the property of pos-
sessing internal angles equal to 180 degrees.

Aquinas clearly thinks that this distinction between properties allows us to con-
ceive, for example, of a things existence in isolation from its being a body, a
things being a body from its being alive, etc.

Re: Likewise, those accidents that are proper to being are conceived of before mat-
ter is conceived of as bodily.

All beings possess per se accidents that belong to them precisely insofar as they are
beings. E.g., unity. Such accidents are the concern of first philosophy, i.e., meta-
physics.

Re: And in this way dispositions are conceived of in matter before form: not with
respect to every effect that the form has, but with respect to those that are posteri-
or.

The effects that a form has are probably matters status as a being, as a living
thing, as an animal, etc. The claim is that certain dispositions are conceived to be
in matter before some of thesei.e., the ones that come later in orderbut not be-
fore all of these (in particular, not before matters status as a being).

Re: Ad 2. Quantitative dimensions are accidents that follow from being bodily,
which holds of all matter. Thus matter

Recall that for Aquinas matter is the principle of individuationi.e., it is respon-
sible for the fact that there can be several, numerically distinct members of the
same species. Roughly, there can be several human beings (for example) only in-
sofar as there are different portions of matter in which the human form can be re-
alized multiple times.
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The argument to which Aquinas is responding here alleges that matter must be
extended in three dimensions before it can serve as a principle of individuation,
since only when matter is divided into quantitative parts can there be different
portions of matter in which the human form can be realized multiple times. But
this, the argument continues, can only happen if matter is already endowed with
a form that confers extension in three dimensions. Accordingly, the argument
concludes, a substantial form can exist in matter only through the mediation of an
accident (sc. extension in three dimensions).

How exactly Aquinas response to the argument is supposed to work is unclear.
Again, he appeals to a conceptual priority: the conceptual priority of matters sta-
tus as a body (and hence its status as extended in three dimensions) to matters
status as living, as an animal, etc. But its far from obvious that mere conceptual
priority is sufficient here, since, as Aquinas himself says, it is essentially the same
form that assigns different degrees of perfection to matter. After all, the argu-
ment to which Aquinas is responding requires that matter be divided into quanti-
tative parts prior to the reception of substantial form at all.


Page 42

Re: Therefore spirit, which is a kind of subtle body, is an intermediary in the un-
ion between body and soul.

Be sure to read Pasnaus note on pp. 256-7. Aquinas own understanding of spirit,
where spirit is understood as something corporeal, seems to have its source in Ar-
istotles notion of pneuma.

Re: The reason for this is that a thing is said to be one in just the way it is said to
exist.

Be sure to read Pasnaus note on p. 257. The claim in this paragraph is that, just as
substantial form is immediately responsible for existence, so also is it immediately
and directly responsible for the unity of the composite. There is no room, then, for
a third thing that unites matter and form.

Re: Nor is there anything else that unites, except the agent that makes the matter
actually exist (as is said in Metaphysics VIII [1045b21-23].

By the agent that makes the matter actually exist Aquinas means the efficient
cause that introduces the form into the matter. For the text mentioned here, see
the longish text (in particular, the last two sentences of its third paragraph) quot-
ed above in connection with Page 11.

Re: Still others held that it is united to the body through the mediation of light,
which they hold to be a body and to have the nature of the fifth essence.

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The fifth essence (or quintessence) is the fifth element, from which the heavenly
bodies are composed. (The four elements earth, water, air, and fire are found only
in the sublunary world.)

Re: On this view, the vegetative soul

Be sure to read Pasnaus two notes on the remainder of the paragraph, at the bot-
tom of p. 257 and at the top of p. 258.


Page 44

Re: It seems that the soul is not whole in each part of the body.

See Pasnaus note on this article on p. 258.

Page 45

Re: And for this reason, just as one does not speak of an animal and a human being
once the soul has leftunless equivocally, in the way we speak of a painted or
sculpted animalso too for the hand and the eye, or flesh and bones, as the Phi-
losopher says.

The various corporeal parts of an animal, according to Aristotle, are essentially
characterized by certain capacitiese.g., the eye by the capacity to see, the hand
by the capacity to grasp. Accordingly, an eye that can no longer see (say, because
it has been torn out) is no longer an eye, strictly speaking. It is an eye only in the
sense in which we speak of a statues eye as an eye. Similarly for the entire ani-
mal: a dead human being is not, strictly speaking, a human being.

Re: There is also the kind of whole that is divided into parts of its account and es-
sence: as something being defined is divided into the parts of its definition, and
something composite is analyzed into matter and form.

Thus, the human being is a kind of whole insofar as its account (rational animal) is
composed of parts. Such parts are not parts in the way that bricks are parts of a
whole. The same goes for matter and form: these are not quantitative parts,
though they are parts of the composite.

Re: A third kind of whole, that of capacity, is divided into parts based on power.

The soul is such a whole, according to Aquinas, because we commonly speak of
the nutritive, sensory, and intellective powers as so many parts of the human soul.
But many forms can be conceived as wholes of this type, including accidental
forms.

Re: The first way of being a whole is not applicable to forms, unless perhaps acci-
dentally, and then only to those forms that are related to the whole quantity no
differently than they are to its parts. This is so for whiteness, which is equally dis-
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posed, as regards its defining account, to be in the whole surface and in each part
of the surface.

See Pasnaus note on p. 259 (first full paragraph). An accidental form such as
whiteness does not have quantitative parts per se (or strictly speaking) because it
is not itself composed of quantitative parts. It has quantitative parts accidentally
or per accidens (i.e., derivatively, as it were) insofar as it inheres in something (sc.
the body that is white) which has quantitative parts.

Re: But a form that requires diversity among its parts

See Pasnaus note on p. 259 (second full paragraph).


Page 46

Re: So if one asks, with respect to whiteness, whether it is whole in the whole sur-
face and in each part of that surface, then one has to draw a distinction. For if one
refers to the quantitative whole that whiteness has accidentally, then it would not
be whole in each part of the surface.

Whiteness qualifies as wholes of all three types, although it counts as a quantita-
tive whole only per accidens. Moreover, with respect to the question of whether the
accidental form of whiteness is whole in each part of the body in which it exists,
different answers to this question are to be given depending on what sort of
whole one considers whiteness to be. Understood as a quantitative whole, the
whiteness of a surface does not exist as a whole in each of its parts. For a 16 sq. ft.
patch of whiteness does not exist (qua 16 ft. sq.) as a whole in each sq. ft. of it.

Re: And the same should be said for being whole in power, since the whiteness of
the whole surface is more able to move sight than is the whiteness in any one sec-
tion of it.

The power at issue here is the power of a white thing to affect the sense of sight.
(Of course, the thing has this power insofar as whiteness exists in it.) The claim is
that whiteness, understood as a whole in power, is not whole in each part of the
bodys surface, since the whiteness of the entire surface affects the sense of sight
more strongly than does the whiteness in some part of this surface.

Re: But if one is referring to being whole in species and essence, then the whiteness
is whole in each part of the surface.

In other words, the whiteness of some part of the surface counts as whiteness just
as much as the whiteness of the whole surface does. Thus, insofar as whiteness is
considered as a whole of the second sort listed on p. 45, it is whole in each part of
the surface.

Re: Among the souls capacities, some (namely, intellect and will)

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Aquinas makes it clear here that the will, like the intellect, is not an enmattered
power of the soul. I.e., it is not the form of some corporeal organ.












































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Bekker page:
(Youll find 184 in the margin of the first page of any decent edition of Aristotles
Physics.)