Notes on Aristotle’s “On the Soul”.

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Book I

Ch. 1 (402.0)

What is the “Soul”?

• By genus
  • nature – Is it physical , illusory, or supernatural?
  • form – is the soul a form?
  • matter – is it material?
• By category
  • substance – Is it a separately existing being?
  • quality – Is it a property of a body?
  • quantity – Are there many souls, or is there ultimately just one “Oversoul”?
  • Is it an “affection” of the body? (Epiphenomenalism)
  • etc.
• By potentiality/actuality (See Metaphysics Book IX)
• Divisible or not?
  • Are souls discrete units, one per organism,
  • Or is it a subtle form of matter  that is fungible or not localized?

Questions for the study of the soul to answer.

• Are all souls “the same”?
  • If not the same do they differ by species or by genus?
  • Most people tend to study the human soul only.
    • Are all animals a species of “animal soul”?
    • Or are each type of soul different in definition? “horse, dog, man, god”. (402.6-7
  • Are all souls separate of are they parts of one soul? (402.9)
• The middle path between materialism and dualism.
  • “There is also the problem whether the properties of the soul are all common also to that which has it or whether they are peculiar to the soul itself; for it is necessary to deal with this, but not easy. It appears in most cases that the soul is not affected nor does it act apart from its body, e.g. in being away, being confident, wanting, and perceiving in general; although thinking looks most like being peculiar to the soul. But if this too is a form of imagination or does not exist apart from imagination, it would not be possible for even this to exist apart from the body.” (403.10)
  • For Aristotle, the separation of the soul and body is not like supernaturalistic dualism, but rather more like an abstract “software” for the hardware of the body.
    • For this reason, the Aristotelian “soul” is physically causal.
  • “It seems that all the affections of the soul involve the body – passion, gentleness, fear …for at the same time as these the body is affected in a certain way.  …  If this is so, it is clear that the affection of the soul are principles involving matter. Hence their definitions are such as ‘Being angry is a particular movement of a body of such and such a kind, or a part of potentiality of it, as a result of this thing and for the sake of that.’ And for this reason inquiry concerning the soul either every soul of this kind of soul, is at once the province of the student of nature.” (403d25-28)
  • “But the student of nature and the dialectician would define each of these differently, e.g. what anger is. For the latter would define it as a desire for retaliation or something of the sort, the former as the boiling of the blood and hot stuff around the heart. Of these, the one gives the matter, the other the form and principle.” (403d28ff)
    • Similarly, for the explanation of a computer system:
      • Physicist – As an electrical device
      • System analyst (“Dialectician”)-
        • Serves a function
        • Has form (software’s logical structure).
    • How similar is Aristotle’s soul theory to software?

According to G.M.A Grube (“Aristotle” page 97) the final cause of every organism is reproduction “after their own kind.” (415b26ff)

Question: Is this true? How similar is this to the modern evolutionary concept of adaptation? In the modern view, each organism is optimized to pursue a certain strategy of perpetuating its genotype.

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