The Soul, Kinds of Soul, Subdivisions.

412a13: What are the essential life processes? Can you think of forms of life hat do not have them? Would you define life differently?

413a21: One of the things mentioned here is sufficient for life. Which one is it? What about the other features? Can they obtain independently? Do you find relations of presupposition between them? (413a32; 415a1-12)

413a24: What kind of movement do you find in decay and growth. Characterize that movement by its medium (the medium of spatial movement is space).

Using Book II, Chapters 2 and 3, make a list of the different ‘movements’ found in different kinds of living beings.

Make a list of the soul faculties characteristic of and united in plants, non-human animals, and human animals.

There seems to be a hierarchy of different kinds of beings in terms of soul functions or faculties. What might be Aristotle’s reasons for placing humans on top?

414a6-12: Difference between Aristotle’s health and Eryximachus.’

414a16-27: Summary of soul-body relations. Make a list of the theses contained in this paragraph.

414a31: In which way are faculties of the soul potentialities, and not, in the perspective of ‘faculty,’ actualities?

415a23-415b8: What is the relation between nutrition and reproduction for living beings? Does Aristotle say that individuals are there for the species? What does that imply?

415b10: Note the three things that the soul brings about, and of which the soul is the first principle (i.e. as the most basic explanatory device).

416b14: How does Aristotle distinguish self-preservation from reproduction?

Read Book III, Chapter 1 on the senses.

Intellect, Contemplation, Reason in Action: (403a7; 408b18-30, Selected passages in Book III.)

429a22: Intellect. Its main function? What is it to think, as distinct from desiring, perceiving, feeling? Try to imagine a purpose for the intellect? In which way is the intellect said to be different from the other faculties of the soul? Does thinking involve more than just the use of the intellect?

429b6-9 (with 403a7, 408b18): Aristotle seems to think that the intellect is not tied to the body in the same way affects and perceptions are. Try to conceptualize that distinctness of intellect from body.. If it does not mean that there is a thinking part of the soul that can be unembodied, what else can this distinctness consist in?

433a18: The two sources of movement.

433b5-12: the opposition between reasons and wants. How the two play into motivation ands the reasons for action.

Study Question:

Faculties and parts of the soul (412a12; 413a20-414a14; 414a31-414b19; 415a15-415b2); also look up Nicomachean Ethics Book I. chapter 13.

Try to define the specific function each one has for the life of the individual living substance whose soul that is. Think about features that distinguish those faculties, in particular for the triad ‘appetitive soul/soul element, perceptive soul element, intellectual soul element. Do the different divisions serve purposes that contribute to the life of the living being? What are they?