Misha Davidoff Humanities Center

Species-Being in Aristotle

Gott allein ist die wahrhafte bereinstimmung des Begriffs

und der Realitt; alle endlichen Dinge aber haben eine
Unwahrheit an sich, sie haben einen Begriff und eine
Existenz, die aber ihrem Begriff unangemessen ist. Deshalb
mssen sie zugrunde gehen, wodurch die Unangemessenheit
ihres Begriffs und ihrer Existenz manifestiert wird. Das Tier
als Einzelnes hat seinen Begriff in seiner Gattung, und die
Gattung befreit sich von der Einzelheit durch den Tod.
-Hegel, Enzyklopdie, 24, Zusatz 2.

A cursory look into the secondary literature reveals that most commentators assume that

Aristotle uses the term soul (psuch) to refer to a particular, rather than a universal,

form. Indeed, this view seems to be held to stand on such firm ground that, in the more

general controversy concerning whether Aristotle so much as countenanced particular

forms, it is cited as a par excellence case in support of the claim that he did. 1 To the novice,

this view gathers all the more authority by the unguardedness with which scholars

assume it, as if, notwithstanding the recognized controversies regarding substantial form

in Metaphysics Z, the particularity of the soul required no argument. It is out of humility,

1
For example, in A Question about the Metaphysics of Souls, a supplement to his entry, Aristotles
Psychology, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Winter 2016 Edition)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-psychology/suppl2.html, C. Shields references De Anima in order
to defend the view that Aristotles substantial forms are particulars. He claims there is a simple argument
drawn from the hylomorphic account of souls and bodies in De Anima which tells in favor of particular
forms. The argument is the following: (i) the soul is a form; (ii) the soul is something particular;
therefore, (iii) there are particular forms, namely souls. The crucial premise is clearly (ii). Shields is so
confident of its credentials that he takes detractors of particular forms to be constrained to bite the bullet
of rejecting it. He goes on to dismiss the possibility that psyche may be a universal as not especially
attractive either in fact or as an interpretation of Aristotle. The only hard textual evidence Shields
produces in favor of (ii) is that Aristotle, at the beginning of DA ii 1, writes that form is tode ti, some this
and a few lines later characterizes the soul as form. (As we will see below, however, being tode ti does not
necessarily entail being a particular.) Even opponents of the particularity of forms often concede that souls
(being special kinds of forms of special kinds of substances) may be particular forms, though, they argue,
souls are such special cases that their particularity cannot be valid for substantial forms generally. For
instance, J.H. Lesher contends, Aristotle's account of the soul provides only a partial defense of the
particularity of substantial form, a defense that is untenable as a general theory about substance. See
Lesher, Aristotle on Form, Substance, and Universals: A Dilemma, Phronesis, Vol. 16, No. 2 (1971), pp.
169-178 (pp. 174-75 in particular).

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then, that the student conscientiously seeks out such an argument (or, even better, a

quotation from the Aristotelian text where the view should find its ground), if only to

understand what is already clear to all. The argument, however, is more difficult to find

in the commentary than might be expected and there are no ready citations from De

Anima to unequivocally confirm that the soul is a particular form. The status of this view

seems to depend, rather than weigh, on the wider debate about whether Aristotles

substantial forms are particulars or universals: if substantial forms are particulars, then

the soul is a particular. Evidently, the context and scope of this paper does not permit me

to attempt to make a very substantial contribution to the broader question, which would

require an interpretation of Metaphysics Z (at least) much more detailed than I am able to

provide here. Rather, I am interested in carving against the grain toward an

interpretation of soul as a universal in De Anima. I understand that this corners me into

rejecting the view that essence and substantial form in the Metaphysics are particulars

for, I concede, no form seems better suited to be a particular than the soul. Taking this

position thus does require drawing a definite notion of substantial form as universal from

Metaphysics Z. I thus discuss this text to some extent in order to articulate the general

account of form through which I interpret the concept of soul in De Anima. The main

target, nevertheless, will be De Anima, especially chapters 1-4 of book II, where Aristotle

most directly characterizes the soul as the substantial form of the living beings.

Ultimately, I would like to bring forward the plausibility of a certain type of

metaphysical reading of Aristotle, which, if nowadays unpopular, seems to have attracted

thinkers such as Ibn Rushd and Hegel.

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1. a tension in Aristotles definition of soul

Let us begin by considering the very beginning of Aristotles definition of the soul from

DA ii.1: the soul is a substance as the form of a natural body (412a20). 2 The first thing

to pay attention to is that the soul is a substance (ousia). As G. Fine notes, Aristotle uses

this verbal noun derived from einai (to be) in two types of grammatical construction: it

can be used as an identity predicate, such as in x is an ousiaa being, reality, or

substance; or, accompanied by a genitive, we can say that the ousia of x is F, where F

answers the What is it? question about x.3 The first use refers to those entities one

takes as basic or fundamental, or, as Aristotle also refers to them, primary substances; that

x is an ousia means that x is a being, something that is in some important or fundamental

sense. The second use identifies the essence (to ti en einai) or nature of a thing; the ousia of

x is the essence of x, literally, the what it was to be x (or, more colloquially, what it

means for this sort of thing to be the sort of thing it is).4 Fine reminds us that in the

Categories Aristotle explicitly argues that only particulars (such as an individual man or

horse) are primary substances (Cat. 2a11), while he rejects this status to the universals

(such a the species man or the genus animal) predicated of such particulars as their

essence (Cat. 2b7-14). Aristotle calls such universals secondary substance; they tell us

what a particular is but they are not to be confused with the particulars themselves.

According to the Categories, then, the two senses of ousia mentioned here refer to different

things; the first sense refers to a particular, the second to the universal predicated of it.5

Since Aristotles definition of soul begins with the first sort of grammatical construction:

2
Translated and commented by Christopher Shields, De Anima (Oxford, 2016).
3
G. Fine, Plato and Aristotle on Form and Substance, in Plato on Knowledge and Forms. Selected Essays.
(Oxford, 2003), p. 398.
4
Ibid, p. 399.
5
Ibid, p. 399.

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the soul is a substance (tn psuchn ousian einai), we can understand why interpreters are

tempted to think of the soul as a particular.

Nevertheless, Aristotle immediately qualifies this characterization with the second

sort of grammatical constructionthe soul is a substance as the form of a natural body

(hs eidos smatos phusikou) which indicates that the soul is also substance in the second

sense, as an essence predicated of a particular. Furthermore, form translates the Greek

eidos. In the Categories, Aristotle identifies eidos with secondary substance and

characterizes it as said of many things, that is, as a universal (Cat. 3b14-16).6 Let us

note the tension that thus emerges in Aristotles definition of soul (soul = primary

substance = eidos) when it is read in the light of the Categories. By the criteria of this

work, the soul in De Anima is ousia in two mutually exclusive senses: as a (particular)

primary substance and as the (universal) essence or form of a natural body.7 Therefore,

in order to understand Aristotles concept of the soul in De Anima we must somehow

alter the conceptual schema of the Categories, according to which (primary substance =

particular) (eidos = universal).

6
Categories, translated by J. L. Ackrill, (Oxford, 1963). Ackrills translation consistently renders eidos as
species, and never form. This choice is shared, e.g., by the translations of Owen (London, 1853) and
Edgehill (Oxford, 1928). In contrast to this, it is noteworthy that translations of other Aristotelian works,
most notably (for our purposes) of the Metaphysics and De Anima, render eidos in different ways, according
to the context: either as species, form, shape, or as idea (cf. Shields translation of De Anima [Op. cit.]
and Ross translation of the Metaphysics [Oxford, 1924], cited here). With this contrast in mind, it is
interesting to consider that, in the Categories, eidos is straightforwardly to be taken as a universal, since it is
clearly said of many things and clearly distinguished from primary substance, which, according to the
criteria of that work, is necessarily particular. Everyone agrees that the Aristotle of the Categories did not
countenance particular eid; hence the confidence and consistency with which translators of that work
render eidos as species. Yet this choice reveals the opinion that form is an unsuitable translation for eidos
when the latter unambiguously refers to a universal, which in turn entails that form is to be reserved for
cases when (they believe) Aristotle, in his later works, uses eidos to refer to particular forms. It bears
saying, however, that there is no terminological distinction between species and form, as far as Aristotles
Greek is concerned.
7
A few lines down, Aristotle again characterizes the soul in these two seemingly contradictory ways at
412b9-10: the soul is a substance corresponding to the account; and this is the essence of this sort of
body.

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As we have seen, many commentators seem to agree that the necessary change is

to drop the Categories characterization of all eid as universals and to observe the

distinction between (at least) two sorts of eid: particular forms and universal species. If

the soul is a particular form, then nothing in the Categories speaks against the souls

being a substance in the primary sense, for what prevents eidos from being primary

substance is its universality. 8 In this juncture, commentators will point to Metaphysics Z,

where Aristotle characterizes certain forms as primary substances and as essences. This

identification of essence and primary substance, they claim, supports the interpretation

of form as particularin light, especially, of those passages where Aristotle stringently

denies the status of substance to any universals.9 There is, however, another way to

accommodate the definition of soul in De Anima, and that is to drop the Categories

requirement that substances be particulars. Such a solution can also help itself to

Metaphysics Z and its identification of substance, essence and form and can, in turn, find

strong evidence against the particularity of substantial form. I propose to consider such

evidence here.

2. the universality of form according to Metaphysics Z

Let us first consider briefly the argument in favor of reading eidos in Metaphysics Z as

sometimes referring to a particular form. The main thrust of this reading is the

8
According to Fine, all of Aristotles criteria for substance require that all substances be particulars (Op.
cit., p. 401). The Categories requires of primary substances that they be particulars but does not require this
of secondary substances (essences). The Metaphysics requires, she claims, that both primary substance and
essence be particulars, since it argues for their identity (cf. Met. Z.6, 1032a4: each primary and self-
subsistent thing is one and the same as its essence). My interpretation of Metaphysics Z diverges from
Fines by insisting on the universality of substantial form.
9
See, for example, M. Frede, Substance in Aristotle's Metaphysics, in his Essays in Ancient Philosophy
(Minneapolis, 1987), p. 77: in Z.13 [Aristotle] argues at length that no universal can be a substance. But
since he also wants forms to be substances, he has to deny that forms are universal.
Among of the passages in question are Met. Z.13 1038b9-19, primary substance is that kind of substance
which is peculiar to an individual, which does not belong to anything else, but the universal is common,
and 1038b35-1039a1, it is plain that no universal attribute is a substance.

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following. Metaphysics Z identifies eidos with essence and essence with substance: By

form [eidos] I mean the essence of each thing and its primary substance, (1032b1-2).

Given Aristotles claim mentioned above (from Met. Z.13) that universals cannot be

substances, eidos, then, when it is identified with essence (as what is called substantial

form), cannot be a universal. Therefore substantial form must be particular. The

question to ask at this point is thus why universals cannot be substances.

M. Cohen helpfully lists two points commonly cited against the attribution of

substantiality to any universal.10 The first is Aristotles claims that a substance is

separate and some this (christon kai tode ti, .3 [1029a26]). The second is that there

are no universals apart from their particulars (.13 [1038b33]). Concerning the first

point, Cohen remarks that being tode ti (some this) does not does not exclude being a

universal (katholou); for tode ti refers to somethings being an individual, not its being a

particular (kath hekaston):

What makes something a tode ti is its being a fully determinate thing, not further
differentiable; what makes something a kath hekaston is its being a particular thing,
unrepeatable, and not predicated of anything else. There is thus the possibility of a
universal tode tia fully determinate universal not further divisible into lower-level
universals, but predicated of numerous particulars.11

The requirement that substance be tode ti does not entail that it be a particular but that,

as Aristotle argues in Metaphysics Z.12, it have a special sort of unity. The unity that

being tode ti requires is that of an individual, a thing whose logos (its concept or formula)

10
M. Cohen, Aristotle's Metaphysics, 10, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition),
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/.
11
G. Fine is entirely in agreement with Cohen on this point. She remarks that, in contrast to the doctrine
of the Categories, according to which it [is] both necessary and sufficient for being a this that something be
a particular, the criteria for being a this change in the Metaphysics, where thisness is no longer explicated
in terms of particularity, but rather in terms of determinateness, perhaps of countability, and of being a
stable object of reference. In concordance with her defense of the particularity of substantial forms in the
Metaphysics, however, Fine maintains that, notwithstanding this change in criteria, thisnessstill applies
only to particulars (Op. cit., pp. 402-3). In this last point, obviously, she diverges from Cohens (and my)
interpretation.

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is a definition, i.e., is entirely composed of differentiae that cannot be further

subdivided.12 The unity of substance is the unity of the attributes in the definition

(1037b25), that is, the necessary belonging-together of the attributes (the differentiae)

which identify a natural kind with sufficient specificity. Accordingly, the sense in which

substance is a one and a this (1037b26) is to be understood as the completion of a

process of differentiation, or specification: If then a differentia of a differentia be taken at

each step, one differentiathe lastwill be the form and the substance (1038a24-25).13

Insofar as the differences that could further arise within the species are only accidental

qualitiesof which there will be as manyas there are [ways of dividing] (1038a25-

26), the form of an individual can thus be the same as its species (a universal).

Cohens answer to the second point relies precisely on this line of thought.

Aristotle, says Cohen,

is just as likely to be referring to the particular kinds of animals as he is to

particular specimens. If so, his point may be that a generic kind, such as animal, is
ontologically dependent on its species, and hence on the substantial forms that are
the essences of those species.14

12
See Met. Z.12: we arrive at the unity of substance by specifying the genus according to differentiae till
we come to the species that contains no differences and the last differentia will be the substance of the
thing and its definition (1038a15-19).
13
By suggesting that formand not merely species, which would also be a possible translationis the
result of a completed specification, Ross translation here pushes us to an identification of form and
species, which speaks against the possibility of particular forms.
14
The same argument is advanced by R. Albritton: The thesis of Z.13 is primarily that nothing universal
in relation to species, nothing common to species, as their genus or otherwise, is the substance of any of them
(1038b6-16, 1038b34-1039a3) and, further, that no such universal is a substance present in any species as
one among a number of (universal) substances composing the species (1038b16-1039a14) (emphasis
added). R. Albritton, Forms of Particular Substances in Aristotle's Metaphysics, The Journal of Philosophy,
Vol. 54, No. 22, pp. 699-708 (p. 705, in particular). By making points such as these, these commentators
(but especially Cohen) imply that the relation of universality to substance can be construed in terms of
intension rather than of extension. A universal is not ontologically dependent on the range of particulars
falling under its scope but rather on the unity and completeness of its own conceptual content. This
thought is suggested by the text of Met. Z.12. I find it particularly interesting that, in this regard, some
modern commentators in the Anglo-American school of philosophy come so close to a kind of idealism, on
the repudiation of which their tradition was founded.

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Since the relevant opposition is not between particularity and universality but rather

between (determinate) specificity and (to-some-extent-indeterminate) generality, the

dependence, asserted at 1038b33, of animal on particular animals (ta tina) can refer to

the dependence of genus on species.15

To my mind, the strongest textual support for the universality of substantial form

is a remark Aristotle makes regarding the conditions of particularity, 16 i.e., what

distinguishes something even from those things that fall under the same universals as it

does. When we ask what makes something a particular, we ask, as Cohen above

suggests, what makes it in principle unrepeatable, that is, what distinguishes it from all

other things, even from those that are not different from it. Aristotles answer to this

question is as clear as it could be:

when we have the whole, such and such a form in this flesh and in these bones,
this is Callias or Socrates; and they are different in virtue of their matter (for that is
different), but the same in form; for their form is indivisible. (Met. Z.8 1034a7-8, emphasis
added)

Cohen points out that the difference between cospecific individuals (such as Callias

and Socrates) can be no more than their being numerically distinct.17 Insofar as the

two share the same form, there is no determinate difference between them, no way to

specify what makes the one unlike the other, for, as Aristotle declares, their form is

indivisible, that is, cannot be further differentiated. The sheer difference in number

15
The nature of the dependence in question is indicated by Hegels joke about the man who rejects
cherries, pears, and grapes because he just wants fruit: wie wenn z. B. einer, der Obst verlangte,
Kirschen, Birnen, Trauben usf. ausschlge, weil sie Kirschen, Birnen, Trauben, nicht aber Obst seien.
Hegel, Enzyklopdie, 13 (Frankfurt am Main, 1970)
16
Or individuation, as it is commonly referred-to in the secondary literature. In this case, what makes
something an individual is evidently to be taken as what makes it a particular and not a tode ti in the
sense above discussed. This must be the case, at least, for Cohen (lest he contradict himself) whose
arguments in Aristotle and Individuation (Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Suppl. Vol. 10: 4165 [1984]) I
now consider. I assume Cohen would revise the terminology of this earlier article in view of his arguments
on behalf of the possibility of a universal individual. With this in mind, I prefer to speak of the conditions
of particularization, and not of individuation, at this point of my account.
17
Op. cit., p. 48.

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distinguishing particulars as such is thus nothing more than a difference in matter.18

Indeed, When all else is taken away nothing but matter remains (Z.3 1029a10). Such a

difference, however, is wholly indeterminate, for matter is neither a particular thing nor

of a particular quantity nor otherwise positively characterized; nor yet negatively

(1029a24).

If matter distinguishes between two essentially identical particulars, and

something is a particular just to the extent that it is numerically distinct (i.e.

unrepeatable, i.e. in principle distinct from any and all things that are not it), then

matter is the necessary and sufficient condition of their particularity. Furthermore,

matter, as ultimate substratum, cannot be predicated of anything (1029a6-10) and can

thus never be common to several things, such that if two things share the same matter,

they are not two but one thing.19 Therefore, Aristotle makes it clear that only matter can

particularize a thing, i.e. pick it out as a particular among all others, even among those

that are otherwise identical to it.20 Form cannot be particular precisely because it cannot

perform this function; it can only specify the essence of a thing to the point where there

is no longer anything left to say about what this thing is.

That such specification cannot identify something as a particular (since it cannot

differentiate between two essentially identical things) just shows that something is a

particular exactly to the extent that it is different from its own essenceand that this difference
18
Ibid, p. 49. See also p. 51: the difference between two cospecific individuals, such as Socrates and
Callias, is a difference in their matter.
19
Frede, Op. cit. p. 77: it is of the very nature of ultimate subjects that they cannot be predicated and,
hence, cannot be universal.
20
Cohen further claims that matter individuates a particular independently of the accidental qualities that
may characterize it, since other things could also share them. Hence qualitatively different matter (or
accidental form) is not enough to individuate a particular (Op. cit. pp. 48-50). In other words, Leibniz
principle of the identity of indiscernibles does not hold for Aristotle only because of his adherence to
matter as a principle of individuation (beyond any determinate difference, either essential or accidental).
Accordingly, a name exclusively referring to a given particular would have to be, as Cohen suggestively
puts it, a Kripkean rigid designator (Op. cit. p. 58 n.).

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consists in the matter that makes it a particular.21 Form, however, is the essence of each

thing and its primary substance (Z.7 1032b1-2), such that the very notion of a

particular eidos (an essence different from itself) is incoherent. 22

These arguments establish that eidos in Metaphysics Z must be a universal. To close

this section, and to lead us back to our discussion of psuch in De Anima, I want to draw

the strongest implication of such a conclusion, namely, that ousia is universal. As we saw

in the first section, commentators search for particular forms is often an attempt to

make sense of Metaphysics Zs identification of primary substance with essence and of

essence with form, given the Categories characterization of primary substances as

particulars. By differentiating eidos into form (particular) and species (universal), it

becomes possible to identify form with essence and essence with substance without

compromising the (seemingly unquestionable) principle that ousia is particular. I have

argued, however, that eidos is necessarily universal (hence that there is no principle for

distinguishing form from species) and happily embrace that Metaphysics Zs collapse of

primary substance and essence entails that primary substance is universal. Indeed, given

the incoherence of the notion of particular form, such a conclusion is required for

making sense of the identity of primary substance, essence, and form.

21
Cf. Z.3 1029a21, where Aristotle says of matter (as subject of predication): its being is different from
that of each of the predicates. I interpret this as implying that something is identical to the sum of its
predicates except insofar as it has matter; that is, matter is the only thing distinguishing the being a
particular from the being of its universal form.
22
This is also supported by Aristotles account of definition: only substance is definable (Z.5 1031a1).
The definition, however, is always of the universal and of the form (Z.11 1036a28-29). Furthermore,
primary substance is one and the same as its essence (Z.6 1032a4), such that the essence identified by
the definition is identical to the substance of which this essence is predicated. Aristotle moreover denies
that particulars, sensible individual substances, have definitions at all. And the reason for this is that
particulars have matter (Z.15 1039b26)for matter is unknowable in itself (Z.10 1036a8) and to
know something is to know its essence (Z.6 1031b6). In other words, precisely that by which particulars
are individuated as particulars is also what disqualifies them from having a definition and thus from
being substance. This line or argument gives strong support to the universality, not only of form and
essence, but also of substance itself.

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Perhaps the solution, one may think, is to relinquish this identity, repeated

throughout Metaphysics Z, and insist, with the Categories, on the difference between

primary and secondary substance. The essence of a substance x would be neither

identical to x nor itself a substance in its own right; accordingly, only particular (i.e.

material) things would be substances. This solution, although it is coherent, would also

prevent us from making sense of De Animas characterization of soul as substance and

form, which basically repeats Metaphysics Z: the soul is the primary substance and the

body is matter (Z.11 1036a28). Lest soul be denied the dignity of substance, then, an

interpretation of De Anima cannot abandon the Metaphysics identification of substance

and essence.

3. the cause of being alive

We have seen that the substantial form of a thing is the essence of that thing. Now, the

soul is a substantial form of a special sort in that it is the form of a special sort of thing.

As the form of those things which belong to this special sort, the soul tells us what it is

to be a thing of such a kindso that a thing will be of this kind if the soul is its form.

Aristotle calls this special kind of thing a natural body having life in potentiality (DA

412a20) or an organic natural body (412b5). Leaving aside the question of

potentiality, the important point is that a natural organic body, the sort of thing of

which soul is the form, is characterized by having life. As Aristotle puts it: what is

ensouled is distinguished from what is not ensouled by living (413a20-21). If something

has a soul then it lives; and the reason for this is that soul is the cause and principle of

living (415b14). But living is being for living things (415b13), i.e., having life is the

essence of the kind living thing. Thus, by being the cause of living, the soul is also the

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cause and principle of the living body (415b8). Having a soul, in other words, is the

reason why a natural body is of a special, living, kind.23

We could thus conclude that the soul is as universal as the class of bodies of which

it is the form. If soul is the cause of living and the activity of living essentially

characterizes the kind living bodies, then the soul is a substantial form common to all

living bodies. But this is not an acceptable conclusion, for Aristotle writes, living is

spoken of in several ways; and he goes on to enumerate some of the ways the activity of

living can be differentiated: reason, perception, motion and rest with respect of place,

and further the motion in relation to nourishment, decay and growth (413a22-25). If

living defines the kind living body, then more specific ways of living will define more

specific kinds of living bodies. Accordingly, Aristotle differentiates among kinds of

living bodies through the respective capacities they exercise and which define what it is

to be alive for them. Therefore, in treating the soul as a universal (as I still insist we do),

we must follow Metaphysics Z and observe the dependence of generic on specific

23
This causal-explanatory power of the soul shows why Aristotle qualifies the natural body of which soul
is the form as having life in potentiality. A natural body has life only if the soul is its form, and it is only a
living body to this extent. The nature of body as body, i.e. as the matter underlying the soul, is not
sufficient to determine it as a living body. Now, a body has life potentially if it is well enough suited to
bear a soul. Shields, in his commentary to De Anima, explains Aristotles qualification of natural bodies (of
which soul is the form) as potentially alive in the same way. If it expresses more than a trivial
metaphysical possibility, this qualification characterizes the body as adequate for life in some distinct
sense: [Aristotle] means that not every body is appropriately arrayed to be a living body (Op. cit., p. 170).
I think, however, that the causal-explanatory power of the soul clarifies the qualification in question in yet
another way, found in Met. Z.17. As a principle and cause, substance answers the question why
concerning the being of things, but, Aristotle takes pains to emphasize, this question must have the proper
form. The question why a thing is itself (or why the man is a man) can only yield a tautological or trivial
answer. Substance must explain, rather, the predication of one thing of another (1041a26), or why the
matter is some individual thing (1041b5). So, for instance, we can explain why these bricks are a house
by reference to the plan (the form) according to which the bricks are set, but it is trivial to explain that the
house is a house because the the house has the form of a house (since all things of a given kind have the
form of that kind). Substance explains why something more specific can be predicated of something more
general. Hence, having a soul explains why a natural body is a living natural body, but it would be
vacuous to explain why a living body is a living body. While the definition of soul must sufficiently
delineate the type of body of which soul can be predicated, it cannot do so with such specificity that it
would become a tautology to predicate the soul of it. In other words, if the soul is the form of a natural
body which has life (already), what do we need the soul for?

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universals, for only the fully determinate species, containing the last differentia, will be

the form and substance.

As C. Shields points out, living is a homonymous concept, that is, a non-univocal

concept of which no synonymous account can be given. 24 Shields adds that because

living things have different natures, they also have different causes of being, i.e. a

different substance.25 Since it is the substance of living beings, the soul (as the form of

all living beings) would also be a homonym corresponding to no common essence among

living things (a kind that, in turn, would be merely nominal).

Nevertheless, Shields clarifies, life is a core-dependent homonym, such that the

various meanings of living, like (by extension) the various kinds of living things, will

be related around some single principle, which organizes them in a explanatorily co-

ordinated way.26 Shields calls this principle a determinable form of end-directedness,

which accounts for certain core features of living beings as such. Hence, even at this

level of generality, where living bodies are not differentiated by their respective and

specific ways of living, the soul is in some meaningful sense the universal substantial

form of the living body as such, described as an end-directed, intentional system

engaging in behavior which typically eventuates in reproduction and the perpetuation

of the species.27

In other words, the soul is the generic substance of living things in general. As such,

it is already a tode ti, i.e. a fully determinate universal, which (though it can still be

further specified) is self-sufficient as an individual nature. Nothing proves this point

24
Substance and Life in Aristotle, Apeiron 41 (2008), pp. 129-151, p. 140, in particular
25
Ibid.
26
Ibid, pp. 140-141.
27
Ibid, pp. 141-142.

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better than the case of plant life. Plants instantiate the activity of living in a way that is

fully captured by Shields core-dependent notion of living. The core-dependent

substantiality of the soul corresponds to what Aristotle calls the first and most common

capacity of the soul, in virtue of which living belongs to all living things, a capacity

whose functions are generating and making use of nutrition (415a25-26). Nourishment

and generation, i.e. reproduction, are what living means in its core-dependent sense.

These activities are common to all living beings, but while they do not exhaust the

meaning of living for all living things, they do for some. That is, the species-being of

plants, the activities they perform as plants, coincides with their generic being as living

things. The essence of plants is exhausted by their being alive at all.

In contrast, what living means for animals and humans cannot be captured by

their generic being. Generation and nourishment do not exhaust the specific ways in

which animals live. Any account of animal life must include the capacities for desire,

perception and locomotionjust as any account of how human beings lead a life is

fundamentally incomplete if it does not include the exercise of rationality. Animals and

humans are essentially more than just living things, they are desiring, thinking, living

things. As Shields articulates it, in addition to its core-dependence (or genericity),

living must also to be understood in a sortally-determinate sense. As such, living

means the exercise of specifically differentiated capacities. Accordingly, the soul is the

substance of a specific kind of living thing defined by this exercise. Shields explains: as

sortally-determinate, the soul is the cause of being in the sense of being responsible

for [a things] being the F kind of thing it is.28 This means that the soul is the explanatory

cause of the specific activities and behavior of a living thing. However, in order to be

28
Ibid, p. 141.

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able to explain the difference between patterns of behavior essentially defining different

kinds of living things, the soul will itself have to be sortally-determinate. That is, there

have to at least be as many souls as there are species of organic natural bodies. Or put

more strongly, the soul is the species-being of living thingsit is the substance of living

things considered as specifically determinate.

The question, then, is whether there are more souls than there are species of living

things, more substantial forms explaining the essential nature of living things than there

are species. To answer this question affirmatively would require that the essence of

living things be further determined beyond their species, which would in turn require a

further criterion of essential differentiation among cospecific living things. To my

knowledge, such a criterion is absent in De Anima; and this seems to force on us the

conclusion that there are only as many souls as there are different kinds of living things,

specifically characterized by the capacities through the exercise of which they live.

Now, one may object that the principle I am suggesting for counting how many

souls there are is erroneous. On my reading, there are as many souls as there are kinds of

living things. To the contrary, one may argue that in accordance with different kinds of

living things we should count kinds of souls, and that in accordance with the number of

particular living things, we should count particular souls. To every particular member of

the same species would thus correspond a particular soul of a common species, and

there would be as many souls as there are particular living things. This objection falls

flat, however, for it assumes form can be particular. But we have seen that only in virtue

of matter can something have the numerical distinctness required of particularity (that

is, a distinctness regardless of sameness in form). Form is by definition independent of

matter, and the only way one form can be distinguished from another is by specific

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differentiation. Thus, forms can only be distinguished on the basis of the difference in

their intensions; so two forms with the same intension (i.e. two identical forms) are just

one formor, incoherently: a form different from itself. But the soul is uncontroversially

a form. There can be distinct living things with the same soul, for they are numerically

distinct by virtue of their bodies, but the notion of two identical souls is as incoherent as

that of particular form.

* * * *

In this paper I have aimed to draw from the Aristotelian corpus to provide

evidence to the claims that the soul is a substantial form; that substantial form is

universal; and that the soul is a universal substantial form in two senses: one generic, the

other specific. One important discovery we have made on this argumentative path has

been that particularity is numerical distinctnessnot difference in formand that

matter is a necessary condition of numerical distinctness. The particular is such because

of matter. As a corollary to this discovery, we have also seen that particulars are distinct

from their own universal essence precisely to the extent that they are numerically

distinct, and that matter is thus what separates them from what it is to be what they

are. Matter, that is to say, is the distance of things from their own primary substance

which is their form (1032b1-2), or to put it dramatically, matter is the measure of

their nonbeing. This thought, extreme as it may sound, finds resonance in a passage

from De Anima, which, though it is among the most beautiful, is accorded little

importance by contemporary commentators:

For the most natural among the functions belonging to living things, at least those
which are complete and neither deformed nor spontaneously generated, is this: to
make another such as itself, an animal an animal and a plant a plant, so that it may,
insofar as it is able, partake of the everlasting and the divine. For that is what
everything desires, and for the sake of that everything does whatever it does in

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accordance with nature [] Since, then these things are incapable of sharing in
the divine by existing continuously [], each has a share insofar as it is able to
partake in this, some more, some less, and remains not itself but such as it is, not
one in number but one in form. (DA ii.4 415a26-415b7)

The numerical identity of particular living things dissolves into the essential unity of

their specific and (as emphasized especially in this passage) generic being. The

fundamental core-dependent capacity of living beings is nutrition and reproduction. The

exercise of this capacity by living things is oriented by the telos of perpetuating their own

substance, their species-being, their soul. This point brings out, after all, a peculiarity of

the soul as a substantial form. As Aristotle expresses clearly, the soul (as such, in

contrast to nous) is not in itself imperishable, nor separable from the body of living

beings (413b26). The eternity of the soul depends on the generation and regeneration of

particular living beings. The being of the soul, between eternity and ephemerality, is

captured by the words of Ibn Rushd on the being of intelligibles: It is as if that being is

intermediate for them between being which perishes and being which persists.29 The

persistence of the soul depends on the generic, or core-dependent activities of particular

living things. Among these, I propose we include death; for by dying the living separate

the non-being (matter) that makes them particulars from their being. I find it hard to

imagine that Hegel was not thinking of De Anima ii.4 when he declared: the species frees

itself from the particular through death.

29
Averroes (Ibn Rushd) of Cordoba, Long Commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle, translated and with
introduction and notes by Richard C. Taylor with Therese-Anne Druart, subeditor (New Haven:Yale
University Press, 2009), p. 407.

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