This post is a roughly transcribed version of my hand-written notes on David Charles paper, “Aristotle’s Psychological Theory”, Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 24 Volume XXIV (2008). Like all my posts, this is intended just for me, but if it is helpful for anyone else, that would make me happy 🙂
"Aristotle's Psychological Theory" (2008)
David Charles (Yale University)
He’s still very much alive so I don’t think it makes much sense to add a bio, but he is a cool and a bit eccentric Aristotelian from what I understand of his views.
In this paper, Charles argues for an interpretation of Aristotle that he believes provides an alternative to the contemporary (post-Cartesian) bad options, i.e. materialism, functionalism, dualism and spiritualism, for understanding emotions and desire. He argues that in De Anima I.1 Aristotle’s account for the ‘passions of the soul’, which include emotions and desire, is such that they are “inextricably psycho-physical, non-decomposable into two separate types of activities: a psychological and a physical one. Either process cannot be defined without reference to the other.
1. Contemporary Context
Charles first offers a quick sketch of the contemporary discussion on passions and sense perceptions in De Anima. There are two predominant and opposing views:
- non-reductive materialist Aristotle in a Putnam/Davidson-esque way
- Further disagreement on:
- what does “underlying” mean?
- what type of physical process is involved?
- Further disagreement on:
- spiritualist, or at-least-definitely-not-materialist!, Aristotle
- Why? because Aristotle says things like matter is “pregnant with consciousness” or “essentially alive and capable of awareness”. In any case, this position holds that a physical process is not part of the picture
Both, Charles thinks, share two post-Cartesian assumptions that:
- Aristotle’s account “[involves] a purely psychological activity type… which can be properly defined without reference to any underlying, or grounding, physical process.” (p. 3), and
- “all the types of process or activity involved must be either purely psychological or purely physical, or else a combination of one purely physical and another purely psychological type of process or activity.” (p. 3)
Charles thinks both assumptions have to be trashed to understand Aristotle’s account of passions and sense perceptions in De Anima.
2. Fear and Anger: the Basic Model of De Anima A 1
In this section, Charles presents Aristotle’s paradigm cases, fear and anger, spelled out in DA I.1 to show that Aristotle’s model for passions and sense perceptions include two important ‘ingredients’: the inextricability (non-decomposability) and essentiality [of a psycho-physical process]. Aristotle explicitly states that his account of anger and fear are important to understand sensual desire and sense perception (403a5-8), so we should expect these accounts to give us good hints (p. 4).
Charles first addresses inextricability. Aristotle’s concluding remarks of I.1 is relevant for this claim:
We have said [or sought to say] that the affections of the soul are inseparable from the physical matter of living beings in the way in which anger and fear are inseparable and not in the way in which line and plane are. (403bl7-19)
What is the relevant difference between anger and fear and lines and planes… that helps to elucidate the way in which affections of the soul are inseparable from the physical matter of living beings?
Lines and planes are separable from physical matter in the following two ways:
- they do not require the existence of any specific types of such matter to exist (403bl4-15, Charles’ paraphrase)
- they are grasped by successful abstraction from such matter (403b15, Charles’ paraphrase)
They are abstractable in a way such that they are not properties of perceptual matter. Thus, Aristotle claims that “the definition of mathematicals does not involve perceptual matter at all” in Physics B 2 193b35. That the “mathematician is able to separate his objects from all perceptual matter in thought without error arising as a result” is attested also in Metaphysics M 3, 1078a17.
On the other hand, affections of the soul are neither abstractable nor separable from matter. Why? Because, Charles thinks, “If one does not think of fear and anger as enmattered in certain types of perceptual matter, one will, in his view, make mistakes in one’s reasoning about those affections” like a house (p. 5).
For example, “the definition of anger must involve reference to certain specific bodily states” as Aristotle seems to say at 403a25-27 (p. 6). This is true also for fear and thus, Charles thinks, also for all the affections of the soul.
[Very Fun Side Note:] Aristotle has three very interesting states that he seems to think helps to explain what is or isn’t considered a case of anger. The first is one where there is a stimulus for which it would be appropriate to have a physical response of anger or fear but one is not physically affected. This case is interesting potentially for psychopathy literature, because it suggests that something is going amiss by the absence of a physical response, even if, say an agent thinks to himself “oh I should get out of this situation because I could get hurt”. This is interesting because psychopaths, for example, don’t sweat like non-psychopaths do when under stress, among other physical abnormalities.
What is important for Charles is that “the body’s state is part of what accounts for the person’s being angry, or afraid” (p. 6). Aristotle basically concludes this himself:
It is clear that the passions are enmattered formulae and so their definitions
will be of the following form: to be angry is a process of this type of body or
part or capacity of such a body caused in this way for the sake of such and
such a goal. (403a24-27)
And, immediately following this, Aristotle seems to give what he considers is a full-blown definition for anger: being angry is a given type of process, the boiling of the blood around the heart, for the sake of revenge (403a31). It seems to include both what we would consider a psychological (for the sake of revenge) and a physical (boiling blood around the heart) component.
That both components are included in the definition surely do not entail Charles’ suggestion that the ‘passions of the soul’ are inextricably psycho-physical and each component cannot be independently definable. Thus Charles expounds three reasons that would favor his understanding of anger, that it “is essentially enmattered because its form is itself essentially enmattered: it is the very form it is because it is enmattered in this type of physical process”:
- Physics B 2, 194a1-5, snubness is an example of something inseparable in thought from matter, a feature it shares with flesh, bone and man. “Its definition essentially involves a reference to matter because the type of matter partially determines the type of shape snubness is…. Take away (in thought) nasal-concavity and no generic property of concavity survives (in thought).” (p. 7) “As snubness is not for Aristotle a combination, however complex, of two separable parts, concavity and the nose, so anger is not a combination of two separable parts, desire for revenge and boiling of the blood.” (p. 8)
- “If the definition of anger were made up of two separable parts, desire for revenge and boiling of the blood, the former could be grasped in abstraction from the latter” (p. 8) BUT: “in 403b14 Aristotle is at pains to distinguish anger and geometrical entities on precisely this point” (p. 9). Charles spells out their differences like this:
- anger and fear: their formula is existentially inseparable and inseparable in thought from perceptual matter
- geometrical objects: their formula is existentially inseparable from but separable in thought from perceptual matter.
- “In Aristotle’s account of anger (403a18-24), reference to the type of bodily process mentioned appears to play a role analogous to that of fire being quenched in his definition of thunder.” (p. 9). Thunder cannot be defined without its efficient cause. Anger similarly, Charles thinks, cannot be defined without its efficient cause, for without its efficient cause its account becomes a desire for revenge “which fails to make determinate which type of desire is in question” (p. 9).
- Support for this can be found in the Rhetoric, where old men plan revenge without feeling any anger hahaha (1390a15).
Charles next pushes for the essentiality of a psycho-physical process for anger. The difference between the way a physicist and the way a dialectician defines anger, he thinks, gives us a huge clue:
The physicist and the dialectician might be tempted to define anger differently. The latter as desire for revenge… the former as the boiling of the blood or heat around the heart. …the physicist will give the matter, the dialectician the form and formula. For this (desire for revenge) is the formula of the phenomenon (anger) but it (the formula) must be in this kind of matter if it is to be the formula of this phenomenon. (403a29-b3)
It is clear, Charles thinks, that “the desire for revenge has to be enmattered in this kind of matter if it is to be the type of desire which defines anger, and not be, for example, the cold calculating desire of the aged” (p. 11).
However, he thinks, both definitions are incomplete, not just the dialectical one. The definition of the house is a big piece of support for Charles, makes sense I think.
The physicist’s definition for anger, which focuses on the physical process, is this (“the boiling of the blood or heat around the heart”) bodily process directed at some psychological goal and is incomplete. Why? “because it is directed towards this goal [i.e. revenge] that the type of material process is the one it is [i.e. anger]. Indeed, had blood boiled around the heart for the sake of some different psychological goal, the type of material process would have been a different one.”
[Not crucial to his argument but interesting side note in his footnote 23:] “The physicist is concerned with all the actions and affections which are inseparable from this type of body (perceptual body) as inseparable actions and affections of this type of body. Aristotle contrasts the physicist with three others who are not concerned with all these affections in this way.
(i) The craftsman is concerned with only some of the inseparable affections of this type of body (403b12-13) [as inseparable affections of this type of body].
(ii) The mathematician is concerned with those affections which are inseparable from this type of body but not as affections of this type of (perceptual) body, that is in abstraction (403b14-5). Unlike the physicist, the mathematician does not think of such affections as (inseparable) affections of perceptual matter. So, for example, he does not think of the straight line as an entity which is made up of perceptual matter.
(iii) The first philosopher studies affections of this type of body “in so far as they are separated” (403b15-16).
Anyway more importantly than the fun side note, Charles believes that because Aristotle’s account is one in which the type of desire involved in anger (and other such phenomena) “is essentially a psycho-physical phenomenon, not itself further decomposable into a combination of purely psychological and purely physical phenomena” (p. 15). And thus, he is rejecting the Cartesian assumption that functionalists, non-reductive materialists and spiritualists all share, namely that one can define anger (and other such phenomena) as a certain type of desire fully determinate without reference to perceptual matter.
Charles thinks that “Aristotle is seeking to extend his specific account of the passions of the soul (understood as in the narrower list 403a16) to all inseparable affections and doings of bodies of a given kind” (p. 16).
It appears that most of the affections of the soul cannot be suffered or acted out without the body: take for example anger, confidence, sensual desire and perception generally. (403a5-7)
Basically, Charles thinks that this essentially and inextricably psycho-physical model for anger laid down in DA I.1 is setting the agenda for the rest of DA and that “Perception and desire will be inseparable affections of the soul in just the way anger and fear are since they too will be defined as processes of a given type of body (403a26f), understood as the inextricably psychophysical processes of the type exemplified by fear and anger. Had Aristotle intended to confine this model just to the passions, he should have signalled (as he does in the case of thought: 403a8, 413b24f) that perception and desire are to be treated differently.” (p. 17).
3. Some Comments on the Model Proposed in De Anima A 1
- Aristotle’s position is not that of a materialist! (p. 17-18)
- Aristotle’s position is not that of a spiritualist! (p. 18-19)
- Aristotle’s discussion in DA is one of processes, not of capacities! (p. 19).
- DA I.1 is prepping his later claim that the proper subject of weaving, anger, grief, pity, is not the soul but the body/soul composite (406a1-2, 408b30) (p. 19).
- The account Charles suggests is presented in DA I.1 for being angry, perceiving and desiring, makes them all common to body and soul in a particularly demanding way. And this version of hylomorphism is not popular right now. Charles thinks that this is because these ho*s are committed to distinct psychological and physical parts. They are committed to this because they think that “matter does not play the role of the determinant, determining the specific type of psycho-physical process essentially involved in being angry or perceiving” (p. 20). Charles thinks this is dumb.
4. Can Aristotle Generalise this Account to Perception and Desire?
Answering this question is a major exegetical task, so instead Charles will only deal with one objection to the possibility. The objection is that perception cannot be a process strictly speaking, it is just a Cambridge change… ugh. The objection runs, Charles thinks, like this:
1. All genuine processes involve a specific type of transition from one contrary to another, involving the destruction of the first contrary.
2. Any apparent process which does not involve transition from one contrary to another, of the type just specified, is a mere ‘Cambridge’ change: one in relation, or form, alone. As a mere ‘Cambridge’ change, it cannot be a material change. It is not even a genuine process.
#1 reflects well Physics V. But, Charles thinks, #2 is awful, because why the fudge would it be the case that Aristotle thinks if something isn’t a process then it’s simply a formal change? Think of the process of weaving: not a contrary but not a Cambridge change.
Moreover, “If Aristotle really thought that apart from processes between contraries there were only mere Cambridge changes he would have made a serious mistake, unduly restricting his conceptual alternatives” (p. 21-22). In fact, he didn’t think such a stupid thing. There’s this important other process: completions/perfections of what something potentially is. Charles uses putting a roof on a house as an example. “There isn’t one determinate state of failing to be a house.”
[Insert lots of stuff from the Physics V-VII] Basically, Charles thinks there is “no inconsistency in something’s being a completion and its being a material change, provided that it is not essentially from one contrary to another” (p. 24). Charles thinks that yes, anger, etc. can be completions of this type: completions essentially and inextricably involving material change. And further, he thinks that this psycho-physical, matter-involving completion model is one that could also work for perception.
Basically he thinks the Cambridge change objection fails.
5. Spiritualism vs. Materialism: Diagnosis of the Contemporary Debate
These positions are understandable, given that there was no space in the conceptual map after Descartes to think of an inextricably psycho-physical account for perception. I think Charles offers a very concise & clear picture of what he thinks Aristotle is doing to reject both spiritualist & materialist conclusions while agreeing with their starting points, here:
In his view (1) recognising/being aware of A and desire for revenge both essentially involve a bodily change involving changes in shape, size, temperature or spatial position [the materialist starting point] (2) recognising/being aware of A and desire for revenge essentially involve certain aspects which are irreducible to purely physical ones [common assumption]; (3) there is no distinct physical process underlying the psychological process of recognising/being aware of A and desiring revenge [the spiritualist starting point]. Aristotle could accept all of (1)-(3) because, in his account, desiring revenge (in the way required for being angry) and recognising/being aware of A are (in the way I have suggested) essentially inextricably psycho-physical phenomena (activities). In developing this picture, he was in effect offering an alternative to the Platonic picture in which, in the Philebus at least, perceiving is a purely psychological process separable in thought from all material processes, even if not separable in existence. (p. 27).
6. Philosophical Setting
Basically, Charles thinks that Aristotle is sidestepping the Cartesian question ‘how can purely physical states give rise to purely psychological ones?’.
The closest available position to Aristotle’s, Charles thinks, is Strawson’s in Individuals, but Strawson goes a totally different way so w/e… but fun fact! It’s interesting because one of Strawson’s main accounts is that of tying a know, quite similar to Aristotle’s weaving example :).
He suggests “that non-reductive materialist and spiritualist interpreters alike have erred in locating Aristotle’s views on the conceptual map they, and we, have inherited from Descartes. Aristotle’s account, rightly understood, shows that there are more ways of understanding the mind-body relation than are dreamed of in standard post-Cartesian philosophy.” (p. 29).
Bibliography
Charles, David. “Aristotles Psychological Theory.” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 24 Volume XXIV (2008), 2008, pp. 1–29.
