Ancient Greek PhilosophyInstructor: Dr. Jason Sheley

Aristotle on the Psyche

• Aristotle’s theory of the soul is notoriously difficult to classify.

• Scholars have attempted to frame Aristotle’s theory as a champion of their own preferred theories, often incompatible ones: materialism, dualism, functionalism, and so on.

Some views onthe

relationship between mind and

body

From Richard Taylor,

Metaphysics

Towards a Definition of Psyche

• Aristotle discusses and rejects the theories of his predecessors on what the psyche is.

• One problem concerns what sort of definition Aristotle takes himself to be giving.

• Some scholars take this to be only a definition within a particular science — working out truths pertaining to particular souls.

• Other scholars interpret Aristotle as doing first philosophy — that is, as giving an account of something without reference to particulars.

The Definition of the Soul

• Aristotle defines the soul as "the first actuality of a natural body which potentially has life."

• What does this definition mean? Let's analyze it.

• Substance (ousia) is spoken of in three ways: matter, form, and the compound of matter and form.

• Matter is potentiality

• Form is actuality

• Knowledge is one kind of actuality. Exercising the knowledge is a second kind of actuality.

Example:• Some lumber is potentially a table.

• When given shape and structure, it is actually a table (though not yet in use). This is the first actuality.

• When in use, the table fully actualizes its potential. This is the second actuality.

• A child is potentially a mathematician. She acquires knowledge. She exercises knowledge.

Apply to the living body• Soul is a substance in the sense of being the

form

• It is actuality of the first kind, first actuality

• What this means is that the soul is properly ascribed to an organism which potentially has life. The thing is alive, therefore realizing that first actuality.

• For Aristotle, a living creature with a soul has certain capacities.

• It is not necessary that the creature exercise all of its capacities. It is enough that it has them.

• Aristotle amends his definition to add: “the soul is the first actuality of a natural body which has organs.”

• He says it does not matter, then, on his analysis whether the body and soul are one. This is like asking whether the wax and its shape are one. To be a first actuality is to be a compound in the required sense.

• On Aristotle’s view, then, the soul and the body are inseparable.

The Capacities of the Soul

• Book 2, chapter 3

• Nutritive - growth, change

• Perceptive - appetites

• locomotive - motion

• Thinking (planning, deliberative, theoretical)

• Book 2, chapter 3

• Nutritive - growth, change

• Perceptive - appetites

• locomotive - motion

• Thinking (planning, deliberative,

• theoretical)

Tree

Barnacle

Dog

Human

Aristotle on Knowledge

Homonymy

• Recall that Meno objected to Socrates on the grounds that he thought the concept of virtue had many parts, and that identifying a single definition to cover all cases was impossible

UNIVOCAL VS. HOMONYMOUS

• We might say that what Socrates wanted was a UNIVOCAL concept of Virtue: that is, one concept that will cover all instances of virtue and show what unifies all instances governed by that concept.

• The alternative view (which Aristotle seems to embrace concerning some concepts in philosophy) is HOMONYMY: the idea that some concepts are “said in many ways,” although having the same name.

UNIVOCAL VS. HOMONYMOUS

• Core-dependent homonymy (from Shields, 2007):

• a and b are homonymously F iff: (i) a is F; (ii) b is F; (iii) the accounts of F-ness in ‘a is F’ and ‘b is F’ do not completely overlap; (iv) the account of F in ‘b is F’ necessary makes reference to the account of F in ‘a is F’ in an asymmetrical way (or vice versa).

• Example: Socrates is healthy. Socrates’ complexion is healthy. Socrates’ diet is healthy.

Aristotle on Knowledge...

• In Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6, Aristotle says there are two kinds of knowledge:

• 1) Practical wisdom

• 2) Theoretical knowledge

• These amount to very different categories (we’ll consider practical wisdom later)

First Principles• From Posterior Analytics:

• All instruction given or received by way of argument proceeds from pre-existent knowledge. This becomes evident upon a survey of all the species of such instruction. The mathematical sciences and all other speculative disciplines are acquired in this way, and so are the two forms of dialectical reasoning, syllogistic and inductive...” (71a1-5)

• The pre-existent knowledge required is of two kinds. In some cases admission of the fact must be assumed, in others comprehension of the meaning of the term used, and sometimes both assumptions are essential.” (71a11-12)

• Assuming then that my thesis as to the nature of scientific knowing is correct, the premises of demonstrated knowledge must be true, primary, immediate, better known than and prior to the conclusion, which is further related to them as effect to cause. Unless these conditions are satisfied, the basic truths will not be ‘appropriate’ to the conclusion. (Mure trans.) (71b19-22)

FP: Undemonstrated

• Aristotle notes that the First Principles must be undemonstrated (that is, derived from nothing else). They are “believed through themselves”

• This is because, if they were not, we would either get an infinite regress, or a circular argument.

• On this latter point, why so?

The Argument

• Suppose that the first principle (arche) can be demonstrated.

• Then, either we reach an infinite regress, or else a circular argument. Why?

• What does it mean to know something in the theoretical sense, according to Aristotle?

How do we acquire First Principles?

• We get an answer to this question in two ways.

• First, Aristotle gives us a story in Posterior Analytics, Bk II, chapter 19 (what is going on in this story? how does it work?)

• Second, we get another method for finding first principles.

“like a surge in battle...”

• Recall again the paradox of inquiry from Plato.

• Does Aristotle’s theory of the soul and its capacity for knowledge provide an adequate answer to the paradox? How?

• What about the dilemma in the Euthyphro? Does Aristotle give us any conceptual machinery to answer that puzzle? How would it go?