The Soul Lecture 1

Difficult reading! Many undefined technical terms. Don’t give up too fast! First read through Book I and Book II, Chapters 1 and 2. You may want to put the reading questions next to your text. Turn to the question when one of the indicated passages comes up.

After a first run, go to the study questions you find further down.

Reading Questions:

Q: 402a6: Of what is the soul supposed to be the ‘first principle, and what does it mean to be ‘the first principle of something? [Plants also have a soul] First principles account for something in a basic (“first”) way.

Q: 403a6, 403a16: Note those features of the soul, which seem to require that the soul be ‘with body?’ How might the body be involved in anger, wanting or perceiving, or in fear, pity, love, hatred? Does Aristotle mention an activity of the soul that might not involve the body?

Q: 403a30-33: A first distinction between form and matter: Aristotle offers a material and a formal account of anger. What does the formal account say? And what the material account? Which account says something about the soul, which about the body?

Q: 408a34: Note ‘movements’ of the soul. What might be Aristotle’s reason for saying that it is not the soul that pities but the man? Do these movements include activities that are not those of the soul? Look at the examples in 408b3 and 408b16 & 17.

Q: 412a13: Aristotle enumerates three traits that characterize life. What are they? Do they hold of everything we call life today? (Viruses?).

Q: 412a18-412a21 and 412a27 introduce opaque definitions of soul. Think about the technical terms: substance, form, potentially. Substance is actuality. If individual living beings are substances, what might count as their form? And what might count as their matter? For a first understanding: what is it to have ‘potential’ in our normal way of speaking? For example: What does the “actually” say when we answer the question: “are you busy right now?” - by saying: “actually I’m not!”? What could a non-natural body be?

Q: 412b6-9: If soul and body relate like wax and impression, what prevents the two from being one? Does it make sense to see in the wax and the impression in it two different beings, different like this apple and this orange? If not, why does this not make sense?

Q: 412b17: Living bodies “have in themselves a source of movement and rest”. Try to come up with an idea what it is for a being to be self-moving (have a source of movement in itself), as distinguished from a being that is not self-moving? (You may find some help by going back in our Reader to Physics 192b14).

Q: 413a20: How does Aristotle link life and having a soul? Are all the different performances listed in the same paragraph soul-functions? Which ones do not look as if they belonged to the soul? Do those, which seem to qualify as ‘soul’ have something in common? What could it be?

Q: 413a23: What are movements that establish that a living being is alive? Which ones are specific to plants, which ones do plants lack? Why does Aristotle not just say that plants grow and decay, and instead emphasizes their potentiality to do that? What kind of a distinction could he have in mind by distinguishing the potentiality of plants from the actuality of that plant?

Q: 413a25-35: What is the only potentiality of soul in plants? Do all plants realize this potentiality?

Q: 413b1-27; 414a31-414b19: In a hierarchy of soul elements, plants, non-human animals and human beings have souls that distinguish their kinds of life. What soul elements or combinations of soul elements do each of these realms have?

Q: 414a13: Aristotle’s says the soul is the form, and implies that the body the matter of a living being. Think of the form as an active principle. What could the activity of the soul in a body be and mean for the living being?

Study Questions:

What is it to be a soul? (412a19; 412a27; 414a13).

How is the soul related to the body? (403a5-403b4; 412b17).

Can either of them exist without the other? (403a16-18; 408b18).

What roles does the body play for the soul – what roles does the soul play for the body? (415b8-415b28; 416b14415b23).