Aristotle On Soul and Body

University of St.
Andrews
Scots Philosophical Association
Aristotle's Treatment of the Relation Between the Soul and the Body
Author(s): W. F. R. Hardie
Source: The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-), Vol. 14, No. 54, Plato and Aristotle Number
(Jan., 1964), pp. 53-72
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Scots Philosophical Association and
the University of St. Andrews
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2955441
Accessed: 29-03-2018 13:34 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
University of St. Andrews, Oxford University Press, Scots Philosophical Association

are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Philosophical
Quarterly (1950-)
This content downloaded from 66.171.203.86 on Thu, 29 Mar 2018 13:34:32 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
53
ARISTOTLE'S TREATMENT OF THE RELATION

BETWEEN THE SOUL AND THE BODY
In this article I shall try to show that there are no goo

holding that, in the surviving works of Aristotle other tha
of his dialogues, there are to be found two different, and
sistent, doctrines concerning the nature of the human soul an
or lack of connection, with the human body. The view tha
doctrines were held at different periods by Aristotle wa
length by M. Nuyens in his study of the evolution of Aristotl
and his main thesis has been accepted by a number of distingu
M. Nuyens' book has been the subject of criticism, as was
on many points of detail. But the only unqualified and re
known to me of its main thesis is in the first part of the arti
of Aristotle's Psychological Writings ", by Mr. Irving Block
Journal of Philology, 1961. I did not see Mr. Block's article unt
after I had written this paper. My first impression on read
since Mr. Block had expressed crisply and convincingly mu
less explicitly thought, there was no need or case for publi
In particular Mr. Block adduces, along with other passage
Z 10, 1035 b 14 if. as evidence that the two doctrines assert
to be inconsistent were not regarded as inconsistent by A
passage had a place also in the argument of my paper. In
incidence I came to think that my discussion might for so
an acceptable supplement to Mr. Block's argument. It w
agreed that there is much that we still find difficult in A
admired treatment in the De Anima of the relation between the soul and
the body. If this is so, no apology is needed for another attempt to answe
some of the questions which it raises.
The two views which Nuyens claims to find in Aristotle's works other
than the dialogues are both to be distinguished from the view of the sou
held by Aristotle when he was still an orthodox Platonist. The chief evidence
for this earliest view is the Eudemus, a work written in memory of Eudemus
of Cyprus who was killed in an engagement outside Syracuse in 354 B.C
his death being the fulfilment of an oracle which had ambiguously predicted
his return from exile in that year.2 The Eudemus expounds a doctrine
pre-existence and immortality on the lines of the Phaedo, and follows th
Phaedo in its criticism of the doctrine that the soul is the " harmony "
'L'hvolution de la psychologie d'Aristote, Louvain 1948 (preface par Augustin
Mansion). The book was first published in Dutch in 1939.
2Cicero, De Divinatione I 25, 52.
54 W. F. R. HARDIE
the body. The soul is an inco

in which the soul's exile is s
curtailment of its natural ca
may say, is a two-substance
separable things which, in the
In the Eudemus, then, acc
accepts the view of Plato on t
Similarly Ross takes the Eude
totle, when he wrote them, was an "enthusiastic member" of Plato's
school.5 This Platonic theory of the soul can fairly be contrasted with the
doctrine expressed by the definition of the soul, in the De Anima B 1, as
the entelechy of the body. It is true that the entelechy doctrine is held only
with important reservations about the element in the soul with which we
think. Nevertheless it is clear that Aristotle, when he wrote the De Anima,
had moved a long way from his original Platonism. Man is not now a being
composed of two things, a soul and a body; he is one thing, a besouled body
or embodied soul, formed matter or enmattered form.
According to Nuyens, Aristotle's progress from Platonism to the hylo-
morphism, as we may call it, of the De Anima was gradual or graduated,
and he halted for a time at a station on the way. Nuyens claims to have
discovered an intermediate doctrine, and this claim is accepted by Pro-
fessor Mansion in his Preface to the French translation : ". . .c'est le grand
merite et l'originalite de M. Nuyens d'avoir decouvert entre les vues initiales
d'Aristote, encore tout impregnees de platonisme, et la doctrine classique
du Traite de l'Ame, ou la th6orie hylemorphique est appliqu6e au compose
humain, une theorie intermediaire qui fait la transition entre ces deux
positions extremes .6
The intermediate theory is found by Nuyens in Aristotle's biological
works, except the De Generatione Animalium, and in the Eudemian and
Nicomachean Ethics. The theory, he thinks, can be distinguished sharply
both from the doctrine of the Eudemus and from that of the De Anima ;
it is a transition stage (" stade de transition ") between the two. He does
not say that there is anywhere an exposition of this doctrine; for the De
Anima is Aristotle's only scientific treatise on the soul. The doctrine is
not expounded; it is suggested or implied in " brief assertions and incidental
remarks ".7 The doctrine is transitional, or intermediate, because, while it
agrees with the Platonism of the Eudemus in holding that the soul is a
thing distinct from the body, each acting on the other, it differs from the
Eudemus in denying that the soul's association with the body is unnatural
and degrading. The soul collaborates with the body, as a ruler with a
3Phaedo 80c-84b, Eudemus fr. 7 (Walzer), 45 (Rose).
40p, cit., p. 84.
6" The Development of Aristotle's Thought ", Dawes Hicks Lecture (DHL), 1957,
p. 73.
60p. cit., ix-x.
70p. cit., p. 57.
ARISTOTLE ON THE SOUL AND THE BODY 55
willing subject or a workman with a friendly to

"transitional" view Nuyens offers 'instrumentisme vitaliste'. Ross,
reporting Nuyens, expresses the view as follows: "the soul is no longer
the prisoner of the body, and has its seat in a particular organ, the heart;
and soul and body are described as acting on one another ".8 This is still,
in Ross's view, a two-substance theory; a dualism but not an other-worldly
dualism.
Nuyens claims that the " brief assertions and incidental remarks " in
which alone, outside the De Anima, Aristotle's general views about soul and
body are expressed enable us to assign to successive periods the works
containing such remarks. " I1 nous est, donc, possible de classer, par ordre
de date, les differents ouvrages du Stagirite, en fonction de ses vues sur les
relations entre l'ame et le corps : il nous suffit d'observer si, en cette question,
ils s'accordent avec l'Eudeme, avec les ouvrages caracteristiques du 'stade
de transition' ou avec le De Anima ".9 Nuyens appears indeed to know
the rate at which Aristotle's mind could change, move from one position to
the next. Thus he suggests that, on the evidence of the differences or alleged
differences between Aristotle's views on the soul in the Nicomachean Ethics
and the De Anima, we can estimate that the gap between their dates o
composition must have been as much as ten years: " et pour cette ante
orite une periode de quelque dix ans a toute l'etendue requise ".10
It will be seen that Nuyens speaks sometimes in rather mechanical
terms about the evolution of Aristotle's thought. In phrases like 'inter
mediate theory' and 'transition stage ' there is a built-in suggestion th
since Aristotle's mind on this topic is known to have moved from the Phaedo
to the De Anima, we ought to be able to catch him at a station, or statio
en route. There is even, as we have seen, a suggestion that the velocity
his movement along the line can be measured. In fact, of course, the me
phor of rectilinear movement could be highly misleading. The spat
representation of a thinker's changes of view might have any shape; i
might go round in a circle. Aristotle might have ceased at any time, a
with any degree of completeness, to hold the Platonic doctrine of the so
The metaphor of travel cannot lighten the burden of proving that he e
held an intermediate theory at all. This burden is, of course, accept
by Nuyens.
The scholars who accept the main thesis of Nuyens are still unlikely to
share fully his confidence in the criterion which it would set up for the
relative dating of the works of Aristotle.. Even if the criterion itself is sound
and usable, the assumption that all parts of one work were written at ap-
proximately the same time is often questionable. But for the main con-
tention of Nuyens, that we find in Aristotle three distinct and successive
views concerning soul and body, there is impressive support. Augustin
8DHL, p. 65.
90p. cit., p. 53.
1Op. cit., p. 193.
56 W. F. R. HARDIE
Mansion, as we have seen, spe

covery by Nuyens of the " inte
a ruiner plus d'une des conclu
Ross, in his edition of the P
of the three stages in the evo
Dawes Hicks Lecture (1957) he
his main point: that there
belong the biological writing
some of the psychological wr
Ross repeats this endorsem
L'Avolution de la Psychologie
that there are three stages i
soul ".14 Pierre Louis, in the
Animalium (Paris 1956), says
of the relation of the soul to
mediate between the Platonism
ism of the De Anima.15 The h
Gauthier and J. K. Jolif, of
as its framework the three s
and the Nicomachean treatis
hylomorphic theory of the
last years; he had not even an
Ethics--" ne la soup9onnait m
Mr. D. A. Rees, in his essay on
says that " it is the great and p
and analysed " the "phase of
than the De Anima ".17 A vi
Aristotelian scholars must, it
must now examine the evidence
tions are.
" A distinct entity which inhabits the body, and has its seat in a particular
organ, the heart ".18 A passage frequently adduced by Nuyens as expressing
this concept of the soul19 is the following from Ch. 10 of the De Motu Animal-
ium : " We have now explained what the part is which is moved when the
soul originates movement in the body, and what is the reason for this. And
the animal organism must be conceived after the similitude of a well
governed commonwealth. When order is once established in it there is no
"Op. cit., xi.
12pp. 3-8.
13DHL, p. 65.
14p. 9.
1xxv.
16p. 34.
17Aristotle and Plato in the mid-4th Century, pp. 198-9.
18DHL, p. 65.
190p. cit., pp. 55, 160, 243, 247, 260.
more need of a separate monarch to preside over e

individuals each play their assigned part as it is or
follows another because of custom. So in animals there is the same orderli-
ness-nature taking the place of custom-and each part naturally doing
its own work as nature has composed them. There is then no need of a so
in each part, but she resides in a kind of central governing place of th
body (Ev TIVI pXpXj Tro oc1jccroS), and the remaining parts live by continuit
of natural structure, and play the parts Nature would have them play ".2
The same comparison between the heart and the centre of government is
conveyed by a passage in the De Partibus Animalium; here the heart is
described first as like a hearth which holds the kindling fire, and then a
being the citadel, as it were, of the body--corrEp dcKpobroXs ooacr TOU -cbjycoT.os."
The passage here quoted from the De Motu Animalium occurs toward
the end of Aristotle's treatment of the origination of animal movement.
The same subject is treated more briefly in the De Anima itself, in r 9-11.
For details the De Anima refers us to the De Motu Animaliurn ; "the
instrument which appetite employs to produce movement is no longer
psychical but bodily (f56r T-roTO coacrJrliKv); hence the examination of it
falls within the province of the functions common to body and soul ".22
Ross takes this reference as being to De Motu Animalium 698a14-b7,
702a21-bll. There is no change of doctrine between the two treatments.
It follows that, if the De Motu Animalium belongs to the intermediate
stage, so also does the treatment of voluntary movement in De Anima
r 9-11. Nuyens, whose index makes no mention of the important passage
which I have quoted from F 10, fails to make this inference. He assigns
the whole of the De Anima, along with the De Sensu and De Memoria, to
the third stage. Ross, in this respect more consistent, assigns the later
chapters of F to the second stage. He finds the doctrine of entelechy, the
hylomorphic stage in the evolution of Aristotle's view of the soul, " only
in part of the De Anima-in B and the first eight chapters of r ".23 He
claims that, apart from a single reference,24 the view is absent from the
De Anima A, and states that, in the De Sensu and De Memoria, he found
" no trace of the entelecheia view . .., and considerable evidence of the
two-substance view ".25 I hope to show later that " the entelecheia view"
(hylomorphism) is manifest in De Anima A and also in the De Sensu and
the De Memoria.
In trying to decide whether Aristotle's account of the origination

bodily movement is, or is not, inconsistent with his hylomorphic defin
of the soul, our main task will be to understand his definition, to see
he conveys by it. That there should be an appearance of inconsistenc
20703a28-b2.
21III 7, 670a23-26. Cf. 665a10-13.
22r10, 433b19-21.
23DHL, p. 66. Cf. Parva Naturalia, p. 16.
24402a26.
26DHL, p. 66.
58 W. F. R. HARDIE
not surprising. Among famil

which make it natural to sp
others which make it natur
thus, as we think, some states
causes; other states of mind
have bodily effects. Hence w
observed psycho-physical co
things of two different kin
seem, cannot allow that a be
help us to see the problem thr
the De Anima, I say a littl
Animalium. Aristotle's ph
detained by the difficulty o
worked. But it is difficult to
that better scientific informa
lems which the facts present t
The originating cause of b
Anima, in the faculty of d
originates the movement by b
Desire, then, depends on ima
is based on the repercussions
organ of sense, the heart. It
the source of the sensitive, a
chain connecting sense-perce
with the voluntarily initiate
chain are mentioned, in the
Chapter 8 of the De Motu An
one ought to go and going ar
thing else to hinder action. T
affections, these again by de
its turn depends either upon
In these chapters of the De M
but not very clear, story abou
in the region of the heart, o
limbs. We learn in Chapter 8
pleasure, or avoided, pain, n
of the body . . &. vvayK&ris 8'daXK
KaCd uiiS.31 The affections
the rest "-are all accompanie
26E.g. Sherrington in The Phys
27r 10, 433b11-12.
28433b28-9.
29De Juventute 469a5-7. Cf. De Part. An. 672b13-22, 678b2-4, 667b21-31 and refer-
ences in Ross, Aristotle, p. 143 n.l.
30702a15-19.
31701b34-5.
body, or the body generally, and so "memories and a

as it were the reflected images of these pleasures and
and now less causes of the same changes of temperatu
and cold contracts; it is by expansion and contraction
movement, is imparted to the limbs.33 After an elabor
we need not try to follow, in the rest of Chapter 8 and i
proposition that there must be a single central organ
Descartes' pineal gland), Aristotle proceeds, in Chapte
the causal efficacy of the central organ depends upon
a peculiar stuff which he calls " connatural spirit " (ao
stuff which " possesses a kind of force or power ".34 S
movement, the functions of which are thrusting (cbi
and must be able to increase and contract.35 " It con
naturally, and so is able to pull and to thrust from on
exhibiting gravity compared with the fiery element and
with the opposites of fire".36 The Oxford Translator
ments: " Aristotle seems to have conceived the contra
giving a pull (EXKTIKIr), and its expansion as loosening
The initiation of movement in and by the central o
a sequence of changes involving bones and sinews; a m
or starts to walk. This sequence is compared by Arist
passage, to the movement of puppets (-rcauToi aTa) o
The bones of the animal correspond to the wooden le
the tendons to the strings; when the tendons are tig
movement begins.38 "And it is not hard to see that a sma
at the centre makes great and numerous changes at th
as by shifting the rudder a hair's breadth you get a w
prow ".39 But Aristotle notes a significant difference b
anisms and mechanical toys. In the parts of the toys t
quality (&XXoicoals), while "in an animal the same pa
becoming now larger and now smaller, and changing it
increase by warmth and again contract by cold and c
This change of quality is caused by imaginations and
ideas".40 Mr. Farquharson comments: "i.e. the body
duced physiologically (by alteration) and not mechan
here made, that processes in a living body differ fro
mechanical toy to which they are compared, is, I t
32702a5-7.
33701b13-17.
34703a9-10. On connatural spirit see Appendix B of the translation of the De Gener
atione Animalium, by A. L. Peck in the Loeb Classical Library.
35703a20.
36703a22-5.
37701bl ff. Cf. De Gen. An. 734b9-17, Met. 983a14.
38701b10.
39701b24-8.
40701b13-17.
60 . F. R. RHADIE
suggests that we should no

from the De Motu Animaliu
but she resides in a kind o
fact which Aristotle is stat
the consequential movemen
Perception, imagination an
soul which perceives, imag
citadel. But we can hardly,
the doctrine that parts of
The view about Aristotle'
volves the assertion of two
diction between the definitio
and the doctrine that the h
second is that Aristotle knew or believed that there was such a contra-
diction. It is suggested that, in the middle period, Aristotle had not
arrived at the hylomorphic definition, and that, when he did so arr
he ceased to hold the doctrine of the central citadel. In order to discover
whether there is a contradiction we must consider how much, or how little,
is asserted by the hylomorphic definition. As evidence for the claim th
Aristotle was aware, or thought he was aware, of a contradiction, Ross,
his edition (1955) of the Parva Naturalia, points to the fact that very li
is said about the heart in the De Anima. " In the De Anima no such
significance is attributed to the heart, which is mentioned only in
and in other connections .42 It is difficult to estimate the force of this
observation since Ross does not say where, in the De Anima, grea
prominence for the heart as the central organ of the soul might have b
expected. The obvious answer is the treatment of the motive faculty
r 9-11. But, as we have seen, Ross agrees with other commentators in
thinking that there is no doctrinal difference between this treatment
the fuller account in the De lfotu Animalium. In his notes on 433b21-29
he says that Aristotle was thinking of the heart as " the central seat
life ", the "part which does not move, but initiates movement ", and
takes 433b20 to be a reference to the discussion in the De Motu Animalium.
Thus the inclusion of this topic in the De Anima might be taken as evidenc
that Aristotle did not see a contradiction between the hylomorphic definition
and the doctrine that the heart is the central seat of the soul. But the
evidence would be decisive only if the De Anima can be taken to be a
unitary treatise. Ross might be right in confining the doctrine of entelechy
to B and r 1-8. The De Generatione Animalium, which Nuyens and Ross
assign to the hylomorphic stage, contains several references to the heart as
a central organ of the soul. Thus in II 6 we are told that the heart develops
first in the embryo because it is the central organ of sense.43 Nuyens does
41703a36.
42p. 12. Cf. pp. 7-8.
43743a25-6. Cf. II1, 735a22-6; 115, 741b15-22; II6, 742b35-743al; IV1, 766a34-6.
not refer to these passages. This evidence seems to b

in Metaphysics Z10 where the hylomorphic doctrine
recognition of the special function of the central or
considering what parts of a living body are prior t
tains that some bodily parts, e.g. a finger, are in a s
but in a sense not, since a dead finger is a finger on
on to say that certain bodily parts are neither prior no
which are most important and in which the for
substance, is immediately present (oaa KOpia KiCi ?v c T
ouiia), e.g. perhaps the heart or the brain; for it do
the two has this quality .44 Thus in this passage Ar
doctrine that the soul of an animal is " the form an
of a certain kind "45 with the doctrine that the soul is
ily present in one part of the body, the heart or the br
fore, have seen any inconsistency between hylomo
significance and determinate function which, for p
ascribed to the heart. Nuyens, who takes this and o
physics Z and H as conveying the same general doctr
makes no comment on the mention of the heart.47 Y
with his assertion that the soul, conceived as subst
son siege en quelque endroit du corps ".48
It is claimed that, in the De Anima, we reach a new
in the evolution of Aristotle's thought about the re
and the body.49 The standard expression of this,
mature view is the definition of the soul in B1. "If, then, we have to
give a general formula applicable to all kinds of soul, we must describe it as
the first grade of actuality (vTErXExEia 1 Twrpc Tfn) of a natural organized body.
That is why we can wholly dismiss as unnecessary the question whether the
soul and the body are one : it is as meaningless as to ask whether the wax
and the shape given to it by the stamp are one, or generally the matter of
a thing and that of which it is the matter ".50 The word ' entelechy ' is not
used outside the De Anima to express the relation of the soul and the body.
But Nuyens is clearly right in saying that the same doctrine is expressed
in a number of passages in the Metaphysics where the soul is referred to as
the form (Esi8o), essence (oviaia) and as the actuality (EvEpyeta) of the body.51
In De Generatione Animalium II 4 the soul is said to be the essence (ovicra)
of the body. On the basis of this passage, and some others, Nuyens assigns
441035b25-7.
451035b15-16. Cf. De An. B1, 412b9-11.
460p. cit., pp. 177 ff.
471035b25-7 is not included in his index of passages.
48p. 58. Cf. Ross, Parva Naturalia, p. 7.
49Nuyens, op. cit., p. 58.
50412b4-8.
51Met. Z10, 1035b14-16; Zll, 1037a5-7; H3, 1043a29-36; A10, 1075b4-7; M2,
1077a32-4,
62 W. . R. HARDIE
the De Generatione Animal

de l'ame et du corps est de
the passages adduced from
they occur, ZHAM, "in thei
series of biological and psy
and the central part of the
to rest on an implied assur
written before the doctrine
excogitated.
The hylomorphic doctrine is present, then, in the De Anima (along with
the De Sensu and De Memoria, as Nuyens but not Ross holds), the Meta-
physics and the De Generatione Animalium. Anywhere else ? Nuyens has
to allow that the doctrine is explicit in the First Book of the De Partibus
Animalium: " Dans le livre 1 du De Partibus apparait, pour la premiere
fois, l'idee que l'ame est principe essentiel ou forme substantielle du corps
vivant .54 But he argues that the De Partibus belongs to an earlier phase
than the De Anima in the evolution of Aristotle's thought on the ground
that, in the former, it is not the whole soul, but one or more parts of it,
which is said to be the form of the body.55 He thus implies that in the
De Anima this is asserted of the entire soul. But it is not. The doctrine
that the thinking part of the soul has an exceptional status is stated
length in r 4 and 5, and is anticipated in a number of passages in A an
The definition of the soul in De Anima B1 is offered as only "a general
mula applicable to all kinds of soul ".57 It is referred to also as a " s
or outline determination of the nature of the soul ".58 A general defin
of soul, like a general definition of figure, will be applicable to each kind
will not express the peculiar nature of any.59 Thus the generic sketch
to be supplemented by detailed accounts of the specific kinds of soul
it is these specific accounts which will make clear to us, if it can be
clear, what it means to say that the soul is the entelechy of the body. " H
we must ask in the case of each order of living things, what is its sou
What is the soul of plant, animal, man? ?"60
In its application to plants the general formula does not trouble
What it conveys is that the soul of a plant, by which we understan
life, is not a part additional to its bodily parts but rather its form or struc
the way it lives and has its being.
52p. 257.
53DHL, p. 67.
54p. 215.
55P. 216. Cf. De Part. An. I1, 641b9-10.
56A1, 403a3-12; B1, 413a5-7; B2, 413b24-7; B3, 415a11-12.
57412b4-6. Cf. 412a5-6.
58413a9-10.
59B3, 414b22-5. Cf. Al, 402b5-8 where it is suggested that the generic definition o
an animal, as opposed to the definition of species, is " either nothing or posterior "-
fT'ro o*O0v Eo riv or"rEpov.
60414b32-3. Cf. Topics 148a23-6.
Plants have psyche in Greek; but the processes wh

not psychical in English. There is animal psychology
plants. We do not believe that plants feel and th
But we know, or think we know, that at least many
only, have at least feelings and perceptual experien
we pass from vegetables to animals, from biology to
totle's definition of the psyche becomes elusive and
elucidation in De Anima A 1.
Aristotle asks whether all affections of the soul are common to soul
and body, and answers that, with the possible exception of thinking,
are: " passion, gentleness, fear, pity, courage, joy, loving and hating
all these there is a concurrent affection of the body (&Oa yap TOUTOtS 1TaaX
-TO acoica).61 He goes on to speak of the bodily manifestations of the emot
states of fear and anger, and points out that, when the bodily manifestatio
occur without an external cause or in response to only a feeble stimu
we tend to experience the corresponding feelings. From all this it foll
that the affections of soul are, in the words of the Oxford Translator, " en
mattered formulable essences " (A6yol evvuol). The formula (A6yos) wh
defines an affection (wiraos) is incomplete unless it mentions both a bo
and a psychical factor. A physicist would define anger as " a boiling of
blood or warm substance surrounding the heart "; a dialectician w
define it as " the desire to return pain for pain "; the former gives the ma
the latter the form or essence. The genuine physicist will offer a comp
formula which covers both. Similarly the definition of a house must r
to its purpose, to give shelter from the weather, as well as to the mate
used in its construction.62
"A concurrent affection of the body ". The fact on which Aristotle
imposes his hylomorphic concept is that experiences are regularly accom-
panied by bodily changes. In many cases such concomitances are matters
of common experience and observation: men turn red with anger and pale
with fear. Again the dependence of sense-perception on bodily organs is
obvious.63 But it is true also, according to Aristotle, of imagination and
even of thinking, if thinking is a kind of imagination or is inseparable from
imagination.64 Imagination, as Ross expresses Aristotle's view, is "a sort
of by-product of sensation". The image is a relic of the actual sensation,
and is due either to the continued but enfeebled movement which at first
conditioned a sensation or to a similar movement initiated from within the
body. For an image to occur "the repercussion in the sense-organ has to
be transmitted with the blood by the ' connate spirit ' to the central sense-
organ, the heart ".65 In the De Sensu memory is mentioned, along with
61403a16-19.
62403a3-b9.
63De Sensu 1, 436b6-7.

64De An. Al, 403a8-10.
65Aristotle, pp. 142-3. De Somniis 461b2. Cf. 461a14-25, 462a8.
64 W. F. R. HARDIE
sensation and desire as well as

common to the soul and the b
states that memory depends o
ment for his view based on the
remember and then later rem
especially in the case of the m
mobility in the central organ
bodily process which results in r
The life of a plant is not an e
but rather the arrangement an
is expressed not unhappily by
vegetable matter. But sensatio
manifestations of supra-vital
processes. A sensation or sense-
of corporeal elements. So also
it is a psychical effect of whic
jointly the cause. Aristotle doe
he insists that we must enquir
man.68 But he is sometimes r
explicitness in his awareness of t
the soul of an animal. Thus, i
suggests that " anger should b
such and such a body . . . by t
and that such a definition is c
an arrangement of bricks and
comparison has several flaws.
stituents of anger always promo
to feet. If this were clear, it wo
the suggestion that purpose is
we are here concerned is that,
anger is a process, or complex of
and at least in part psychical.
Why did Aristotle stretch and
applying it to the relationship b
No doubt one merit which the f
rejection of a two-substance a
suggested that, although for h
lifeless and living and not the
ignore the obvious difference
recognizes it when he speaks
16-19). In this sense he cannot
66436a6-10.
67450a25-bll, 453a14-23.
68De An. B3, 414b32-3.
69403a26-7, b3-7.
reservations about the " thinking part ", he d

which regards the soul as a psychic thing, con
physical body. This rejection is forcibly, but per
that the soul is the form or entelechy of the bod
soul, or psychical substance, is not to deny th
psychical processes coexist and interact. Hence
which fits the plant-soul misfits the animal-so
ently not troubled by this misfit or strain ? If i
Aristotle's doctrine of the soul is less than pe
sources of confusion; two ways in which lack
to the idea that the involvement of the psych
as in fact it is, contingent.
The first is the ambiguity of the assertion
involve, do not occur without, the body, accordin
stood in a verbal or a non-verbal sense. As app
the assertion that the body is involved is fac
conditioned by a physical or neural trace is an
covery. But the assertion that there is no hun
analytic or conveys information about the use
with anger if we accept Aristotle's proposal to
bodily process. In general, if we follow Arist
any psychical affection that it involves the bo
is analytic. But the definitions, and the tauto
pirical connections between kinds of physical and
If we are not clear about this, we may fall in
some sort of logical tie between the physical a
then, that the limitation of Aristotle's logical
between different kinds of proposition, and diff
have something to do with his failure to insis
connections between the physical and the psy
and emotional states.
There is a second way in which the illusion of a logical or conceptua
tie between psychical and physical processes may be generated. In describ
ing experiences we naturally, and sometimes inevitably, mention parts o
our bodies : hair stands on end, flesh creeps, blood boils and sensations a
located in parts of our bodies. Now it is logically impossible for me to ha
a pain in my foot unless I have a foot. And it is logically impossible, in
virtue of the meaning of 'hallucination', for me to have an hallucinator
pain in my foot unless there are bodies in the world and some of them ha
feet. Similarly it is inconsistent to say that this thing looks like a tomat
and there are no tomatoes. But it is possible to learn to use 'tomato-red
in a sense which does not imply that there are tomatoes. Similarly it is
possible in principle to use 'pain in my foot' without implying that ther
are feet and I have one. Thus the fact from which we started, that in
describing experiences we actually mention bodies, does not forbid us to
66 W. F. R. HARDIE
deny, as deny we must, that

which entails the existence of
ences and bodily processes are
sequence and not by any logic
nected in ways which tend, a
are such ties. When we reflect
and psychical processes, and on
them, we are inclined, and right
in terms of form and matter
question whether the soul and
less, like the question " wheth
stamp are one ",70 is hard i
defend it but rather to under
so strange.
We have seen that Aristotle's generic definition of the soul, in its specific
application to the souls of men and other animals, conveys his affirmative
answer to the question whether affections of the soul are common to the
soul and the body: when a psychical process occurs, there also occurs a
" concurrent affection of the body ".71 Nuyens hits this nail on the head:
" c'est precisement sur le caractere psycho-physique des manifestations de
la vie qu'Aristote a fonde sa definition de l'ame ".72 Similarly Ross, in his
Aristotle, has remarked that Aristotle's question whether affections of the
soul are common to the soul and the body " takes us into the heart of his
psychology ".73 It takes us to the doctrine that, as Ross puts it in his edition
of the Parva Naturalia, " all psychological phenomena are essentially psycho-
physical ",74 the doctrine which Aristotle expresses in the De Anima by
saying that psychical affections are "essences involving matter "-A6yoi
evvAoi.75 Ross points out that " exactly the same doctrine " is found also
in the De Sensu76 and the De Memoria.77 This fact supports the opinion
of Nuyens that the De Sensu and the De Memoria belong, like the De Anima,
to a time when Aristotle already held his hylomorphic doctrine about the
soul. But Ross, in his edition of the Parva Naturalia and in the Dawes
Hicks Lecture, disagrees and finds " the entelecheia view of the soul . . .
only in part of the De Anima-in Book II and the first eight chapters of
Book III ".78 He claims that, apart from a single reference,79 the view is
absent from Book I, and states that, in the De Sensu and De Memoria, he
has found " no trace of the entelecheia view . . ., and considerable evidence
70B1, 412b6-7.
71Al, 403a18-19.
720p. cit., p. 251.
73P. 131.
74P. 14.
75403a25.
76436a6-10.
77453a14-18.
78DHL, p. 66. Cf. Parva Naturalia, p. 16.
79402a26.
of the two-substance view ".80 Ross now adduces, as ev

substance view, precisely the passages which assert th
of the soul are " common" to the soul and the body.
seen and as Ross had pointed out in his Aristotle, th
psychological phenomena are essentially psycho-physi
view in its application to human beings and in genera
Two other passages in the Parva Naturalia are taken
a " two-substance doctrine " because they speak of t
element in it, as located in a part of the body. But w
Aristotle finds no inconsistency between the hylom
localization in the heart. We can now go further. The
doctrine conveys in its specific application to the an
the concept of matter and form on the one hand and the
psychical functions and particular parts of the body
two doctrines, or two stages in a doctrinal evolution,
doctrine. Thus it is not surprising that in De Anima
implies that a part of the soul is the entelechy of a pa
first of the two localizing passages adduced by Ross a
is from the De Sensu. Here Aristotle says that the so
part, is not situated at the external surface of the
somewhere within .83 He appeals to the fact that wo
sometimes produce blindness because " the passages of
Ross takes " somewhere within" to mean the interio
argument from wounds seems to fit better Alexander's v
to a deeper region, perhaps the heart as the seat of th
second passage is from the De Memoria : " It is clear t
that which is generated through sense-perception in
in the part of the body which is its seat, viz. that affect
we call memory, to be some such thing as a picture ".8
experiences depends on an impression made through
the central organ of sense, the heart. We can now se
to oppose this doctrine to " the entelecheia view ". O
a typical application of the hylomorphic idea that psy
common to the body and the soul. The physical side of
involve the perceptual and the orectic soul is inevitabl
I am angry, the blood that boils is round my heart
body.87
The view of Ross that the De Sensu and the De Memoria, and also much
80DHL, p. 66.
81De Sensu 436a6-10, bl-3. Cf. De An. 403a16-19; Parva Naturalia, p. 16.
82413a5-6.
83438b8-10.
8436, 7-19.
85De Juv. 469a5-12; De Gen. An. 743b25-6, etc.
86450a27-9. Cf. De An. B12, 424a17-21; Plato, Theaetetus 191d.
87De An. Al, 403a30-bl.
68 W. F. R. HARDIE
of the De Anima, were written

has to meet the difficulty th
ences to De Anima B, the bo
echeia theory is expounded. T
ences are to an earlier version of the De Anima " written before Aristotle
had adopted the entelecheia theory of the soul ", or that the references
" late additions to the text of the Parva Naturalia, made after the second
book of the De Anima had been written ".88 Ross claims that " most " of
the references " are not firmly rooted in their context but can easily
removed ". He omits to notice in this connection a passage from the D
Generatione Animalium, discussed by Nuyens,89 which deals with the consti
tution of the eye. Here Aristotle speaks of the De Sensu as later than
De Anima : " as was stated before in the treatise on the senses, and still
earlier than that in the investigations concerning soul ".90 The refere
is to De Sensu 2 and the same doctrine about the eye is in De Anima 1
1.91 The passage in the De Sensu contains, at 437a19, a reference to
Anima B 7-11. Unless we assume " an earlier version" of the De Anima,
this passage shows that the writing of the De Sensu cannot have preced
the adoption of the entelecheia view. No such assumption is needed if,
I have argued, the entelecheia view is present in the De Sensu which ma
tains, in agreement with the De Anima, " that all psychological phenom
are essentially psycho-physical ".
I quoted earlier the claim made by M. Nuyens to be able to assig
relative dates to works of Aristotle, on the evidence of references to the
relation of the soul to the body, according as, on this question, they ag
with the Eudemus, with the works characteristic of the transitional " instru
mentist" stage or with the De Anima.92 The application of this criteri
shows, as he thinks, that the Nicomachean Ethics is considerably earli
than the De Anima. I certainly do not wish to maintain against this th
there is a wide and close agreement between Aristotle's moral psycholog
and the De Anima. Indeed, the possibility of such agreement is exclude
by the well-known reference in E.N.I 13 to the question how far the stu
of psychology is necessary for political science.93 No scholar is likely
deny the difficulty of reconciling at all points the doctrine of the E.N. with
that of the De Anima concerning reason or the thinking part of the sou
Any attempt to penetrate the ghostly labyrinth of what Nuyens calls t
" noetic problem " is beyond the scope of this essay. I have been concer
with the general problem of the relation of the soul to the body. If I h
succeeded in showing that there is no sufficient evidence for the existen
of the transitional view, it follows that Nuyens' case for the relative dat
88p. 17.
890p. cit., p. 261.
9?V1, 779b21 ff.
91425a3 ff.
92p. 53.
931102a23-8.
of the E.N. and the De Anima, in so far as it rests

the development of Aristotle's doctrine, is unsoun
clusion, try to confirm this result by examining N
opinion, in which he is followed by Gauthier and Jolif
doctrine of the De Anima is wholly absent from the
ground alone, we can conclude that the E.N. is " nota
Nuyens adduces the list of passions (-rart) in E.N
anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, friendly feeling, ha
tion, pity, and in general the feelings that are acco
pain . . .") and their description as " things that ar
He points out that when Aristotle in De Anima A
(" passion, gentleness, fear, pity, courage, joy, lov
asserts that " in all these there is a concurrent affe
Nuyens regards as significant the omission, in this
mention the bodily aspect of these affections, and
the De Anima Aristotle formally retracts (veut form
ideas expressed in the E.N. But the De Anima refer
" affections of the soul " (iratrl rjis vuxiis); and there a
in the E.N. which refer to their bodily concomitant
Again there are references in the E.N. to the nutrit
was certainly never conceived as not intimately boun
Thus Aristotle in the E.N. accepted as true, if not as a t
logical phenomena are essentially psycho-physical ".
prising or significant in the fact that, holding this,
times refer to emotional states as affections of the soul without at the same
time remarking on their bodily aspects. It is fanciful to treat such passag
as evidence for a difference of view, and an interval of time, between the
two works.
I have suggested that the E.N. can be understood as tacitly taking for
granted the hylomorphic view of emotional states. But is there any evidence
that, when he wrote the E.N., Aristotle was ready for the explicit formula
tion of such a view ? In E.N. X 7, 8, human activities are ascribed to our
" composite nature ". " Being connected with the passions also, the moral
virtues must belong to our composite nature, and the virtues of our com-
posite nature are human ".99 The elements in our composite nature are
the soul and the body. Bonitz and Stewart understand the composition of
the E.N. to be a composition of matter and form. In the Metaphysics the
expression " composite being " (avw(eTos ouaica) is regularly applied to the
union of form and matter.100 If this interpretation is right, Aristotle had
already reached, and was implying, the hylomorphic doctrine.
94P. 193.
95P. 191. E.N. 1105bl9-23.
96403a16-19.
97IV9, 1128b10-15 (fear and shame); VI3, 1147a14-18 (anger, sexual appetite, etc.);
X8, 1178a14-16.
98I7, 1098al; 13, 1102a32 and bll-12.
991178a19-21. Cf. 1177b26-29.
100?24, 1023a31 ff; H3, 1043a29-b4, b28-32.
70 W. F. R. HARDIE
How does Nuyens deal with

posite nature "? The passages are not mentioned in his Index, and are
not discussed. But they are mentioned in a footnote as evidence which
supports the assertion that Aristotle's views in E.N. X on the relations be-
tween the soul and the body are not in accord with those of the De Anima.101
This claim is disputed by P. Leonard who, understanding " composite " in
a hylomorphic sense, finds in these passages an assertion of the intimate
unity, as in the De Anima, of soul and body.102 In support of Nuyens
Gauthier and Jolif argue that " composite " does not necessarily denote a
unity of the hylomorphic kind. In the Phaedo'03 the same word is used to
express a very different view of the combination of soul and body. Perhaps,
in view of Aristotle's usage in the Metaphysics, the onus probandi lies on
those who reject the hylomorphic interpretation. How do Gauthier and Jolif
sustain this burden ? They point out that, according to the hylomorphic
doctrine, a body and a soul are two elements which together constitute a
single substance, a man. "II est trop clair que, dans cette psychologie,
l'homme c'est le compose, et non l'Intellect Actif". They contrast what
Aristotle says about reason in E.N. X 7: " This would seem, too, to be
each man himself, since it is the authoritative and better part of him. It
would be strange, then, if he were to choose not the life of his self but that
of something else ".104 Now it is difficult to deny that there is an incon-
sistency, or at least an unreconciled difference, between the doctrine of
reason in E.N. X and the doctrine of active reason which is obscurely indi-
cated in De Anima r 5. For the latter doctrine seems to imply that all
human thinking involves the embodied mind as well as the separable element,
active reason, whereas in the E.N. it seems that only separable mind is in-
volved in the highest kind of human knowledge, the contemplation of divine
objects. I do not claim to be able to extract from the E.N. a coherent view
of the nature of man. But the peculiar claims made for theoretical reason
and its activities do not seem to me to have any tendency to disprove the
hylomorphic interpretation of the references in the E.N. to our " com-
posite" nature. While it is true that, in the passage quoted, reason is said
to be the man himself, Aristotle also, in the immediate context, contrasts
the life of reason, as something superhuman, with the life of man: "if
reason is divine, then, in comparison with man, the life according to it is
divine in comparison with human life ".105 And in the following chapter we
are told that " the virtues of our composite nature are human; so, therefore,
are the life and the happiness which correspond to these ".106 Thus it is
the composite nature which is man in the everyday sense, man engaged in
101Op. cit., p. 192 n. 140.
102Le bonheur chez Aristote, pp. 204-5, quoted in their commentary on the E.N. by
Gauthier and Jolif, pp. 893-4.
10378bc.
1041 178a2-4.
1051177b30-1.
106 1178a20-2.
the actions and passions which are typically human.

understand this composite nature in the hylomorph
body, and not, as as Gauthier and Jolif maintain, "
of a substantial intellect and a substantial body ".1
SUMMARY
For the convenience of the reader I add a descript
preceding discussion.
Nuyens has maintained that we find in Aristotle's
fragments of his dialogues, two different views on t
soul and the body, held at different stages of his li
transition stage between the Platonism of the dialo
doctrine of the De Anima. The main thesis has been
of scholars, including Ross, but has been rejected b
the American Journal of Philology, 1961.
The chief evidence for the Platonic stage is the Eudem
a " two-substance " theory on the lines of the Phaed
The alleged second (transitional) theory, expressed
and incidental remarks ", is named " vitalistic instrumentism ". The soul
is a " distinct entity" which has its seat in the heart. The doctrine is to
be found in the biological works except the De Generatione Animalium and
in the ethical treatises.
It is claimed that references to the soul enable us to assign the work
which contain them to three successive periods in Aristotle's developmen
to conclude, for example, that the Nicomachean Ethics is considerably earlier
than the De Anima.
Scholars who have expressed at least partial agreement with the vi
of Nuyens include Augustin Mansion in his preface to the French translatio
of Nuyens' book (1948); Ross in his edition of the Parva Naturalia (195
Dawes Hicks Lecture (1957) and edition of the De Anima (1961); R.
Gauthier and J. Y. Jolif in their edition of the Ethica Nicomachea (19
and others.
A paradigm statement of the transitional doctrine is found in the treat-
ment of the origination of animal movement in the De Motu Animalium.
Hence Ross, unlike Nuyens, assigns Aristotle's similar, but briefer, discussion
of the same subject in De Anima P 9-11 to the transitional stage, and finds
the mature (" hylomorphic ") view only in De Anima B, r 1-8.
A description of voluntary movement tends naturally to be in terms of
mind acting on body, and this is true of Aristotle's detailed psycho-physical
doctrine: movement starts from the faculty of perception and desire of
which the heart is the central organ. But the sequence of changes thus
originated in the body is not merely mechanical; the body is a living body.
Is the doctrine that the heart is a central organ inconsistent with the
definition of the soul as the form or entelechy of the body ? Ross argues
from the silence of the De Anima on the significance of the heart, but admits
0711 78a10-14.
108p, 895,
72 W. F. . R HARDIE
that r 9-11 takes this significa

De Generatione Animalium to
Z 10 the hylomorphic doctrine
organ. Hence Aristotle cannot
decide whether there is in fac
the hylomorphic view asserts.
The soul is defined as the en
doctrine, but not the word, is
Generatione Animalium. Nuyen
and De Memoria. But the same
is stated in De Partibus Animalium I.
The definition of the soul is offered as only a generic account, a sketc
or outline. In its specific application to plants it conveys that the life
an organism is the arrangement and working of its parts and not an ext
entity. In De Anima A 1 Aristotle explains how the concept of form an
matter applies to affections of the soul; psychical states and processes,
perception imagination and memory as well as emotions, are associated
with corresponding bodily states and processes. His definition conveys t
rejection of a substantial soul, but does less than justice to the fact tha
psychical states are not just arrangements of bodily elements. It suggest
a non-contingent involvement of the psychical with the physical. Why
Aristotle apparently untroubled by the misfit between the definition an
the facts ?
Two possible sources of confusion are suggested. The first is the ambiguity
of the assertion, which may be understood in a verbal or a non-verbal sense,
that affections of the soul involve the body. The second is the fact that,
while there is no logical tie between the physical and the psychical factors
in a psycho-physical transaction, it is often impossible to describe a psychical
state without mentioning parts of the body.
The doctrine of entelechy, in its application to emotional states, conveys
that " psychological phenomena are essentially psycho-physical ". Never-
theless, Ross adduces passages in the Parva Naturalia about the involvement
of physical states with the body as evidence for an earlier " two-substance
view ". Other passages which he adduces, asserting the localization of
elements in the soul, do not exclude " the entelecheia view ". The Parva
Naturalia contains references to De Anima B, and the De Generatione
Animalium apparently refers to the De Sensu as later than the De Anima.
Nuyens claims to prove that the Ethica Nicomachea is significantly
earlier than the De Anima. But his contention that, on the nature of
emotional states, the Ethica Nicomachea is repudiated by the De Anima
is mistaken. Moreover, the doctrine of the Ethica Nicomachea concernin
the " composite " nature of man is probably, in spite of the argument t
the contrary of Gauthier-Jolif, to be understood in a hylomorphic sense.
But this is not to say that the two works are mutually consistent in their
doctrines concerning the thinking part of the soul.
W. F. R. HARDIE
Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Aristotle On Soul and Body

Transféré par

Informations du document

Description originale:

Titre original

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Aristotle On Soul and Body

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

University of St.

University of St. Andrews, Oxford University Press, Scots Philosophical Association

ARISTOTLE'S TREATMENT OF THE RELATION

In this article I shall try to show that there are no goo

the body. The soul is an inco

willing subject or a workman with a friendly to

Mansion, as we have seen, spe

more need of a separate monarch to preside over e

In trying to decide whether Aristotle's account of the origination

not surprising. Among famil

body, or the body generally, and so "memories and a

suggests that we should no

not refer to these passages. This evidence seems to b

the De Generatione Animal

Plants have psyche in Greek; but the processes wh

63De Sensu 1, 436b6-7.

sensation and desire as well as

reservations about the " thinking part ", he d

deny, as deny we must, that

of the two-substance view ".80 Ross now adduces, as ev

of the De Anima, were written

of the E.N. and the De Anima, in so far as it rests

How does Nuyens deal with

the actions and passions which are typically human.

that r 9-11 takes this significa

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi