This post is a rough summary / transcribed version of my hand-written notes of Aristotle’s De Anima; in particular, the Christopher Shields English translation (and an occasional glance at the OCT Greek). This post, like all my posts, is intended just for me, but if it is interesting or helpful for anyone else, that would of course make me happy. 🙂
I am currently taking a course on De Anima with Andreas Anagnostopoulos and Philipp Brüllmann at the Munich School of Ancient Philosophy (MUSAΦ) of the University of Munich (Ludwig Maximilians Universität München). This post will be further updated as the course progresses.
De Anima [περὶ ψυχῆς]
Thus Far: I.1-5
[Note to self:] the Bekker numbers are off by a line every so often.
Book Alpha
I.1
In this chapter Aristotle gives a broad overview of the issues he finds important for the study of the soul.
Aristotle thinks cognition is one of the best things ever and thus the soul, which partakes in cognition, is a worthwhile object of study [402a1-5]. In this chapter Aristotle, as he always does in the beginning of any of his works, tells us what he’s interested in (the soul), his objectives in studying it, and some issues that are going to have to be figured out while studying it.
What he wants to know!
- the soul’s nature & essence
- its properties
Aristotle thinks that this is going to be super difficult and that it isn’t clear what the best method of inquiry is going to be to get the best results, because “different fields have different starting points” [402a20].
What we want to know about the soul!
- the genus, what is it? (options come from the Categories, e.g. substance, quality, quantity, etc.) [402a23-25]
- existing in potentiality or is it an actuality? [402a25-b1]
- have parts or not have parts? [402b2]
- all souls the same kind or not? [402b3-4]
- if not, do they differ in genus or in species?
If the soul has parts, would we study the whole soul or its parts first? What parts are there? Do we study the parts of the soul first or their functions first? If we study the functions first, do we need to study the objects of the functions first!?
Aristotle thinks that not only does knowledge become acquired in a downstream way, i.e. knowing what X is gives us information about the properties of X, but also it can be acquired in reverse, i.e. knowing the properties of X gives us information about what X is [402b17-23]. [My note: The latter is a rather methodological departure from Plato, honestly, and is a large part of why people draw a stark contrast between Plato and Aristotle with regards to philosophical emphasis towards theoretical vs. empirical stuff, though obviously both of them have nuanced views much of which are overlapping…]. You’re going to need knowledge acquired in both ways to really get it (it = the soul).
A passage I think may be important for my own research [Note to self: also the lines directly preceding this]:
[402b25] For the starting point of every demonstration is what a thing is, so that those formulas which do not lead us to ascertain the properties of a substance, or at least to know of them in a ready sort of way, will clearly and in every case be dialectical and vacuous.
[403a] Aristotle spends the rest of the chapter raising questions about this huge—and he says very difficult—topic: Are “affections of the soul” separable from the body? Well, he says, most seem deeply intertwined with the body:
“neither is affected nor acts without the body, as, for instance, with being angry or confident or appetitive, or, generally, with perceiving;”
But then, Aristotle thinks, if you think about the case of reasoning, it seems like this is peculiar to the soul, i.e. separable from the body… but then if you think reasoning is similar to imagination, well then imagination isn’t separable, so then maybe even reasoning is inseparable from body.
This is a big and important question because: “If, then, some one of the functions or affections of the soul is peculiar to it, it would be possible for the soul to be separated; but if there is nothing peculiar to it, it would not be separable.”
Passage I include only because it’s SUPER INTERESTING:
[403a17] For at the same time as these, the body is affected in some way. This is shown by the fact that sometimes, even though strong and evident affections are present, we are not provoked or made afraid, while at other times we are moved by something small and obscure, whenever the body is agitated and in the condition it is in when angry. This is even clearer from the fact that sometimes though nothing frightful is present, people come to have the affections of a frightened person.
From what I understand, there are three cases happening here for person P:
- there’s some very real stimulus (for which it would be appropriate to be angry/afraid), but P is not [at all?] angry/afraid
- there’s some mild(/no) stimulus (for which it would not be appropriate to be angry/afraid), but P is [disproportionately?] angry/afraid and because the body is somehow prone to or primed for anger/fear
- there’s (mild/)no stimulus, but P is [for no reason?] angry/afraid
I would think that he imagines a fourth case in between 1 & 2 that is the “virtuous agent”‘s response, i.e. there’s some very real stimulus (for which it would be appropriate to be angry/afraid), and P is proportionately angry/afraid.
Aristotle is going to want an understanding of body, soul and their relationship to one another that explains these scenarios. And at least his immediate/preliminary thoughts on these is that if these cases are real cases, then it has to be the case that these “affections of the soul” are definable only with reference to matter, i.e. they are inseparable from body. He thinks these “affections”‘s definitions would have a format like this:
[403a26] ‘being angry is a sort of motion of a body of such a sort, or of a part or capacity of a body, brought about by this for the sake of that.’
Aristotle seems (I think) to think that with a definition like this, the natural scientist is more well-suited to think about and inquire after the soul than a dialectician. He says that the natural scientist and the dialectician would come at this question “what is anger?” from very different perspectives:
[403a30] “The dialectician will define it as desire for retaliation, or something of this sort, while the natural scientist will define it as boiling of the blood and heat around the heart.”
Aristotle says that one is concerned with the matter, and the other with the form and the account. Both, Aristotle seems to be saying in the various statements and rhetorical questions he asks from [403b2-15], are missing an important piece of the puzzle for what anger really is.
In his spiel from [403b2-15], Aristotle raises the question as to what domains of information concern the natural scientist, the mathematician, the first philosopher, and honestly I don’t think I at this point have any clear idea on what parts of the subject belongs to whom, other than that the mathematician seems to me to be someone that would only be concerned with the form. Perhaps, then, the natural scientist should be concerned with the matter (i.e. boiling of the blood), and the first philosopher would be concerned with the combination of the matter and the form, but I don’t know.
I.2
In this chapter Aristotle gives an overview of the endoxa he finds worth mentioning.
[403b20] As per usual, Aristotle thinks its important to examine the endoxa (opinions that matter, See Topics I.1) for this field. The goal in doing this is to accept/work with the good stuff and reject the bad (wrong) stuff.
Aristotle thinks we should first figure out what belongs to the soul by nature…. what differentiates things with soul and things without soul? Everyone agrees that things with soul, unlike things without soul, have:
- motion
- perception
But everyone disagrees on the details. Aristotle goes through many dudes’ opinions in this chapter (Democritus, Leucippus, Pythagoreans, Plato, Anaxagoras, Empedocles!, Thales, Diogenes, Heracleitus, Alcmaeon, and even “crude thinkers” like Hippo or Critias). I personally can’t by heart keep track of all these thinkers’ different positions, but these dudes broadly disagree on:
- focus on ensouled things being in motion; they assume that the soul is what is most productive of motion
- Does soul initiate motion?
- Yah bish: If so, is it itself in motion?
- Yah bish: Says basically everyone before our BAE.
- Nah: Our BAE! Sneak I.3.
- Also, does it move itself?
- Yah: Plato, etc.
- Yah bish: If so, is it itself in motion?
- Does soul initiate motion?
- focus on ensouled things in terms of knowing and perceiving, they speak of the soul in terms of first principles
- How many? One or a plurality?
- Ugh why can’t you make up your mind, Empedocles: “he makes the soul from all the elements, but also says each of them is a soul”
- Anddd, Plato, Aristotle thinks, is obviously driving under the influence in the Timaeus. He spouts stuff like:
- “reason is the one; knowledge the two; opinion the number of the plane; and perception the
number of the solid” [404b22-24]
- “reason is the one; knowledge the two; opinion the number of the plane; and perception the
- Anddd, Plato, Aristotle thinks, is obviously driving under the influence in the Timaeus. He spouts stuff like:
- Ugh why can’t you make up your mind, Empedocles: “he makes the soul from all the elements, but also says each of them is a soul”
- What are the first principles?
- How many? One or a plurality?
- And, separate from the 1/2 approaches, everyone cares about whether or not soul is corporeal or incorporeal? Or [f*dging] both?
These are just a few… minor… differences… that add up to hugely different views. Here’s a super broad overview of the ones Aristotle mentions from 405a7-b10:
[Note: the following is particularly sassy for the purpose of making scholar Leah D. Rotsia (who works on Aristotle’s Meteorology) happy, because she is my best friend on the European continent.]
Democritus: soul’s gotta be made outta fire, because it’s gotta move around a lot, and thus has to be spherical and the only atom shape that’s spherical in my theory is fire! Your soul is FIRE, Leah! xx 😉 btw, Democritus thinks soul = reason. [403b31-404a16]
Anaxagoras: reason = first principle from which both knowing and moving came, thus reason set the whole universe in motion; soul and reason shares the same nature but are not the same. [Noteee: Anaxagoras has a special place in Plato’s and Aristotle’s hearts: clearly he was very smart and also Plato and Aristotle reference his ideas a lot, and many scholars think that the two incorporated a lot of Anaxagoras’ ideas into their works… i.e. Plato and Aristotle are frauds and plagiarized Anaxagoras, no I’m just kidding, but it’s possible.] [404a25-404b6]
Thales: soul for sure initiates motion; fun fact! he thought magnets had souls bc they caused movement.
Diogenes: soul is the element of air [I think the rest is not worth mentioning].
Heracleitus: soul = first principle, it is rising vapour (wtf?) from which everything else is constituted… it is most (dunno what that means) incorporeal and is in flux (yes, yes OK)… soul exists, therefore it is in motion… *sigh*.
Alcmaeon: soul is immortal, but get this–the reason for this thought is great–because it resembles the immortal gods! So if I resemble a corgi, maybe I can be one!! Okay, in all seriousness, he thinks soul is always in motion, because all divine things (like the moon, sun, stars, heavens) are always in motion.
Aristotle thinks that Hippo and Critias are idiots for thinking that soul is made of water and of blood, respectively.
Earlier in the chapter he also of course mentioned the Pythagoreans (some think soul is the “motes in the air” or moves the “motes”), Plato, and Empedocles, as is clear from the numbered/bulletted list of differences in views, above.
I.3
In this chapter, Aristotle argues against others’ view that in order to initiate motion (that the soul initiates motion is uncontested), the soul needs to be in motion itself. Most of his arguments are reductio arguments.
[405b31] Aristotle says, let’s first look into motion, because basically everyone is SUPER off-base. What are all these hoes saying, that the soul is in motion itself? They think that since the soul initiates motion of the body, it itself must be in motion… but bruh, this must be wrong.
Aristotle thinks everything in motion is in motion in virtue of:
- something else
- itself
We want to know: Is the soul moved (and thus shares in motion) in virtue of itself? The answer is going to be: nah.
Aristotle says, here, there are 4 types of motion:
- locomotion
- alteration
- decay
- growth
If the soul is itself in motion, it’s going to share in one or some combination of these four options. So, what if the soul is moved “non-coincidentally”? Then that means that it moves by nature (i.e. moves itself), but then that means that the soul is in ‘place’, because all movement happens in ‘place’. And, if this coincidental/non-coincidental distinction holds, then the other things which move coincidentally, like for example white or some measurements, wouldn’t have place. This is weird. And, if the soul moves by nature, then force would be moving it (movement happens by force), similarly to being in rest by nature. But how the fudge would this work? Aristotle thinks this is ridiculous and a account for this would be difficult “even for those willing to fabricate one” (406a27).
[Side note, or so I think:] If they are right that it is corporeal (and thus made of elements), then if the soul moves up, it will be made of fire (because fire is the element that moves upward), but if the soul moves down, it will be made of earth (because earth, converse), etc with the other three elements.
If the soul it itself in motion (what we are investigating) and it moves the body (a given), it would make sense for it to share in the motion that the body also shares in, namely, locomotion. But that’s so weird! From which place to which place is soul locomoting!? It could go back into bodies then and resurrect dead bodies. This is ridiculous.
With all these mini reductio ad absurdum arguments, Aristotle does a reductio on the option of the soul moving non-coincidentally and the soul moving itself.
Okay, so now how about the other option? The soul is moved coincidentally. Aristotle thinks that if it’s the case that the soul is moved by itself, then it’d be unnecessary for it to be moved coincidentally (i.e. by something else). The analogy he draws in this passage is interesting to me, so I quote it here and bold it so that I remember to think about it later:
[406b6-10] It is not necessary for that which is moved by itself, in its essence, to be moved by another, except and unless it is moved co-incidentally, just as it is not necessary for that which is good in virtue of itself to be good for the sake of something else, or for what is good because of itself to be good because of something other.
I cannot claim to understand the analogy above, so I move on for now.
Aristotle thinks that if the soul is moved by anything external, well, then it’s probably most moved by perceptible objects, i.e. perceptible objects give us sensory input that we necessarily respond to, I think is the thought.
He now explores why the soul is moved coincidentally. I won’t go through them in severe detail, but here they are, broadly:
1. [406b12-15] “if every motion is a dislodging of what is moved insofar as it is moved, the soul too would be dislodged from its essence, if, that is, it does not move itself coincidentally, but motion belongs to its essence in virtue of itself.” I think that Aristotle is basically saying if the soul moves non-coincidentally, then from what space to what space is it moving itself to!? What part of it moves the other parts or the whole or wtf!?
2. [406b16-26] Democritus says the soul is in motion and thus moves the body within which it is… Aristotle’s opinion for this idea: then how does the body rest? No answer? Yeah I thought so.
Aristotle also adds that souls seem to initiate motion in animals through some sort of decision and reasoning. So he also gives us some positive claims. <3
3. [406b26-407a2] Timaeus, Aristotle says, also presents a soul-is-in-motion view, this, also with an entangled-with-the-body view and thus-it-moves view. The soul is made of elements in accordance with the harmonic numbers (and thus endowed with a natural perceptual capacity to perceive harmonics… woahhh) and the universe is created out of harmonious orbits… woahhh (See Plato’s amazing dialogue Timaeus).
Bae, naturally, has some things to say… here are some claims he makes in the rest of the chapter that I found interesting (other claims may be more important, but whatever):
- Yo, first of all, the soul doesn’t have magnitude… [407a2]
- [407a6-10] “…reason is one… and is either without parts or is continuous in a way other than the way a magnitude is.”
- [407a34-5] “reasoning is more like resting or dwelling upon something than like moving; and the same holds for a syllogism.”
All in all, Aristotle thinks the accounts for the soul-moves-itself view suck because “These accounts merely endeavour to say what sort of thing the soul is without articulating anything further about the body which is to receive the soul, as if it were possible, as according to the Pythagorean myths, for just any soul to be outfitted in just any body.” [407b20-24] [Fun Note:] Thus Pythagoreans were vegetarians, because all living things had souls and you could be eating your grandfather. Damn, man.
Aristotle thinks the Pythagoreans were ridiculous about this, and that each body and its soul seem to have its own peculiar form and shape.
I.4
In this chapter, Aristotle discusses and rejects the endoxa that the soul is a certain harmony (“attunement” in the Shields’ translation).
So the people who think this think that “an attunement is a blending and compounding of opposites” and this is characteristic of the human body.
Aristotle is thinking, how the fudge does that make sense?! because, he thinks an attunement must be some certain proportion of whatever elements are mixed together, and how would this be a good characterization of the soul? And, how the fudge would an attunement initiate motion!? Idiots, Aristotle thinks. Attunement makes more sense with health or the virtues, given how hard it is to achieve those well.
Aristotle thinks there are two types of attunement:
- a compounding of magnitudes for things with motion (which the last chapter just ruled out) and position (which wasn’t even an option really)
- a proportion of mixed things (basically Empedoclean)
Empedocles would have lots of questions to answer (which Aristotle thinks he can’t answer): “is the soul a proportion or is it rather something more, something which comes to be in the parts? Further, is Love the cause of any chance mixture or of the mixtures which are proportional? If the latter, is Love the proportion or something more, beyond the proportion? [408a20-22]
So though the options for attunement are ruled out, let’s suppose the overarching claim that ‘soul is an attunement’ is correct, then, Aristotle thinks, there are these difficulties:
- “if the soul is something other than a mixture, why is it that the soul is destroyed at the same time as the being of flesh and of the other parts of an animal?” [408a25-27]
- if it is indeed not the case that each of the parts of the body has a soul of its own, as they will not if the soul is not the proportion of a mixture, what is it that perishes when the soul departs? [408a27-29]
Aristotle does bring up that someone else might criticize his negative claims regarding the fact that the soul is not in motion itself. He thinks someone might raise to him to answer: how do you explain the following: the soul experiences pleasure and pain, confidence, fear and anger, and perception and thought. These are all motions, are they not?
Yeah okay, I get your worry, Aristotle thinks, but it still isn’t necessary for the soul to be in motion itself by nature. All these examples you raise can be effected by the soul without the soul being in motion itself. It’s the wrong way to think about it, to say that the soul is angry—this is like saying the soul weaves or builds. It is instead better to think of it like this: “the human being [pities or learns or thinks] with the soul” [408b12-15]
Example 408b17: “Perception, for instance, is from these objects, whereas recollection is from the soul, ranging over the motions or traces in the sense organs.”
From 408b17-29 Aristotle says some things that I don’t yet know what to make of, so instead I just quote it:
Reason would seem to come about in us as a certain substance and not to be destroyed…. old age occurs not because of the soul’s having been affected in a certain way, but rather because that in which it is [the body] has been affected, just as in drunkenness and illness. So too reasoning and contemplating wither away when something else within is destroyed, but are themselves unaffected…. [loving and remembering] did not belong to reason, but to the common thing [the body], which has perished. But reason is presumably something more divine and unaffected.
HILARIOUS: Aristotle says of all the claims so far discussed, the most irrational is the one that claims the soul is a number that moves itself. [408b33] He spends the rest of the chapter refuting this view, argument after argument destroying it, and ends with this very sassy conclusion which I include here only because it is a joy to read:
“…not only is it impossible for [soul is a number that moves itself] to be a definition of the soul: it cannot even be a property of it. This would be clear if someone endeavoured to specify the affections and actions of the soul… it is not easy to divine what might be said about these on the basis of their claims.” [409b11-18]
Basically Aristotle is here saying: if they had thought about it at all, it would have been clear to them how stupid of an idea this is. I love ittt.
I.5
In this chapter, Aristotle discusses and rejects the endoxa: the soul is made of elements.
Those who claim this apparently say this because the soul can perceive and come to know all the things that exist. The like-for-like principle is behind this. [I need to ask Professor Oliver Primavesi where the origin of the like-for-like principle comes from, but the application of it here:] Basically, something can only come to know like for like, so for me (or in this case my soul) to perceive or know that there is fire in front of me, there must be some fire in my soul (or in my eye…. *rolls eyes* but people actually thought this). So in order for our souls to perceive all the things in the world (which are made of elements), our souls must be made up of all the elements….
And, of course, Aristotle thinks this is a horrible view for many reasons, and in this chapter he presents a bunchhh of arguments against this view. The first (and what I perceive to be the main) one is that it’s not clear what good having all the elements in the soul would do, given that everything in the world is a composite of the basic elements and thus if you don’t have the combinations of the elements in particular ratios also in your soul, how would your soul perceive those composites? i.e. do we keep bits of rock and table in our souls too? [409b27-410a13]
It also goes against his Categories, but haha… okay, Aristotle, we get it, you think you’re right. [410a13-22]
Aristotle also thinks that their like-for-like principle is internally fudged up: “It is, moreover, absurd to say that like is unaffected by like, but that like is perceived by like and that one knows like by like” [410a22-24]. And why wouldn’t our bones perceive the bones it sees, or every other element perceive every other element like it? [410a27-410b4]
I don’t find it a good use of my time to spell out all of his arguments against Empedocles, but this is great so I quote:
[410b4-8] “It also turns out, at least for Empedocles, that god will be the most unintelligent of all: god alone will fail to know one of the elements, strife, whereas mortals will know them all, since each one is from them all.”
LOL.
Further difficulties for the view that the soul is made of elements:
[410b8-9] Why is it that not everything which exists has a soul, since everything is either an element, or from one, several, or all of the elements?
[410b11] Whatever is it that unifies the elements?
It is quite funny I think, the next objection Aristotle raises: that these other thinkers aren’t thinking of the soul as a whole, i.e. the soul as is applicable to all living things. I think this is funny because Empedoclean philosophy include a lot of regard/emotional care for animals and plants (not eating animals), etc. but Aristotle is raising the objection that, yo, you haven’t taken these animals and plants into consideration, or at least you haven’t studied them properly enough. [410b17-24]
[411a] If, Aristotle continues, the soul is made of the elements, well then it doesn’t need all the elements, it would only need one of each contrary pair of elements. e.g. for straight and curve, you only need straight to understand curve or curve to understand straight. So you only need one of them in your soul to understand both.
[Yada yada yada, he just annihilates this view.]
Okay, one thing he says here I want to take note of is the following. At 411a26 he gives us a really nice list of functions that the soul has:
- knowing, perceiving, believing
- being appetitive and wishing and desires in general
- motion in respect of place comes to be in animals as effected by
the soul, as, further, do growth and maturity and decay
And he then asks, how does knowing that the soul gives rise to all of these things affect the question he posed in I.1 regarding whether or not the soul has parts? [411b1] And, if it has parts, what holds them all together? because it’s surely not the body. When the soul disappears, the body decays. [411b5-13]
