Faculties of the soul

The living being differs from the nonliving, and life signifies the following characteristics: intellect, sensation, movement or rest in space. But the movement has a broader meaning -- it also means change, growth and decay. The living organisms have faculty and principle. Life belongs to the living by inheritance of this principle. But what originally constitutes an animal is the ability of sensation, the touch, growth and decay. The soul is the principle of various kinds of life that is defined by various faculties: nutritive and reproductive (threptikon kai gennetikon); appetitive (orektikon): desire, courage, reasoned wish; sensitive (aisthetikon); mobile (in space) (kinetikon kata topon); dianoetic (discursive thinking) (dianoetikon). Plants have only the nutritive faculty; all animals have at least touch for sensitivity; humans and all other who might resemble man have dianoetic faculty and intellect.

The special function of the soul is "imagination" fantasía. The imagination is different from the thought and sensation, but it does not exist without sensation. It is a basis for believing, intellectual operations. Imagination is in our power when we want it, it is possible to imagine an object through the eyes of the soul. Aristotle uses the term fantasía for visualization, retention or recovery of the past sensation, something that could be called ideation as the occurrence of perception without the corresponding external stimulation.(22) Fantasía occurs at two levels -- the sensitive and the deliberative or rational, since animals have the power to recall which is a prerequisite to desire without sharing the human faculty of reason.

The scale of life

Nature is organized in a hierarchy of beings starting with the inanimate objects. Aristotle developed a scale of living beings which anticipated the evolutionary scale.

Aristotle's scale of life

Plants and animals                                     Animals

                                                                        appetitive

                                    physical desire + courage                    + rational will

                                                      (epithemia thumos boulesis)

                                                                        imaginative

                                             sensitive                                      deliberative

                                           (aisthetike)                                   (bouleutike)

But Aristotle never expressed the idea of temporal evolution. His hierarchy was static, inspired by the conviction of permanency of forms and their priority to matter. This concept again fits into the Aristotelian scheme of act and potentiality, form and matter. Aristotle was removed from the idea of evolution -- the cosmic structure, the species and genus were fixed from eternity. Though individuals do not live for ever, they share a collective immortality.

Thus also for beings whose generation is not spontaneous the most natural function is to realize another similar being - e.g. animal for an animal, a plant for a plant -- through this they all participate in the eternal and divine. For a being the end is the eternal, the divine though it is not individually. So the soul as the cause and the principle of the living thing is determined in the three ways: principle of the end (aneka), a cause of an essential form of the body of animals and an actualization of the potentiality. It is a cause and essence. So the cause for being of all things is the essence. The soul for the living beings is their cause and principle, and as actualization is the form of potentiality. Thus the soul is the cause as the end -- the formal cause; the same is with the intellect -- it acts with the end (telos). As to the nature of the living things -- the soul is the end of the animals, natural bodies are the instruments of the soul.

Sensations are a result of the whole living organism -- the soul and the body. They are the results of movement; the passions are as well results of a kind of alteration. But without exterior objects there would be no sensation. What can be sensed? The objects of sense, the sensibles, can be divided into three groups. 1. The sensible things which are proper to every sense. They are essentially perceptible i.e. they are specific or proper to each sense which is especially affected. E.g. color is a special object to the sight, sound to hearing, flavor to taste etc. Such objects cannot be perceived by other senses. Touch is a sense that is sensitive to several qualities. 2. The sensible things which are incidentally perceptible i.e. common to all senses e.g. motion, rest, number, shape, size. These are not proper to any of the specific senses. The sensible here is detected by accident because it is associated with another sensible. E.g. a motion is detected by touch and sight. Aristotle gives, as an example of an incidental sensible, the sight of a white object as "the son of Diares." He is perceived incidentally as an accident of a white patch. Thus there are also objects of which we become aware through the senses -- but themselves they are incidentally objects of sensation as a whole of sensible qualities. In perceiving the special object of a particular sense we cannot be mistaken. But if we use the senses to perceive the phenomena detected by several senses (e.g. motion) or objects that are perceived only incidentally we may make errors.

Common sensibles, objects of a "common sense" or a sensation in common (koine aisthesis), affect the faculty of sensation as a whole not differentiated into five senses. Sensation is a unity in the same meaning as a soul -- it is numerically one but divisible in essence or form. The soul as a form or entelechy of the living body manifests itself through different organs so the sensation is manifested through different ways i.e. senses. In the detection of the common sensibles by a common sense there is a union of two things and this is the reason why the common sense may be mistaken. The common sensibles otherwise would not appear and would not be perceived. The common sense allows us clearly to perceive that every thing is another thing, since all things contain also other sensibles.

Is there then a special master organ for the faculty of common sensation? Though in the De anima Aristotle claims that there is no sense-organ for common sensibles, in other works he claims that there is one central faculty for all senses -- faculty of sensation so there is a single master sense organ.(23) It is to the sense as the whole animal body is to the soul. This master organ in the sanguineous animals is the heart, and also the source of animal life. The heart provides the innate natural heat which is necessary to life as a whole. According to ancient physiological concepts the heart was the central organ of digestion where the inner heat was generated, related to the divine element ether, of which the heavenly bodies were made. Aristotle missed the brain as location of the mind. He associated the brain with the quality of "cold" which was contrary to "heat." The brain served, however, the "mind organ" -- the heart, in a way.

How does sensation work?

Using the universal ontological principle, Aristotle developed the theory of sensation. The essence of each sense is determined by relation to the sensible. E.g. what is visible, it is so because of the color which is allowed to pass through the transparent, the diafanes. The color is the actualization of the diafanes, whereas obscurity is the diafanes in potentiality. It is brought into the actualization by fire or something similar. Thus light is an immanence (parousia) of fire or something similar contrary to obscurity. Thus color moves diafanes. At the same time the sense-organ is moved by the air which is used as an intermediary in space to carry color, sound etc. (Democritus said that one could see the vacuum, however, Aristotle denied it). Aristotle asserts a need for an intermediary in space to carry color, the same is true for sound. Air seems to Aristotle to be a universal carrier, though the intermediary for odor is water. Touch according to Aristotle is the only sense that does not require an intermediary -- the body itself is an intermediary and the sense organ is a sort of membrane. Sensation thus is the power to receive sensible forms without matter e.g. color, sound, flavor etc. This power is possessed by the sense-organs:

Thus, speaking generally, the sensation is the power which receives the sensible forms (aistheton eidon) without matter, just like wax that receives the imprint of a signet-ring without its iron or gold and receives the gold or bronze object, but without gold or ronze as such. Similarly the sensation specific for each sensible object is affected by the influence of color, flavor or sound, not because the individual object is that quality, but because it possesses that quality as its form. The sense-organ is primarily the device in which resides the faculty of sensation in general. This faculty and its organ are numerically one thing but their concept is different. Because what perceives must be corporeal but the quiddity of the sensitive and the sensation is the form and the power of the body. Hence it is clear why the excess of the intensity in the sensible objects will destroy the sense-organs. It is because if the motion in the sense-organ produced by an object is too strong, its form, logos, which is the sensation, will dissolve, as the tone and harmony are destroyed when the cords are struck with excessive force. Also one can see why plants do not have sensation though they possess one part of the soul and they are affected in some way by the influence of the tangibles, since they can be cooled or warmed up. The reason is in fact that they do not have the organ nor the principle capable of receiving forms of the sensibles, but they are affected by receiving the form together with the matter.(24).

Thus, what acts here are the bodies, the tangibles, in which the forms reside -- e.g the hot, the cold, the sound, the light, the obscurity, the odor act through the intermediary or directly. We sense fire through an intermediary, simple body, air or water which constitutes the sense-organ. All sense-organs are detected in animals that are not imperfect. As already indicated there is no special one sense-organ for the common sensibles. They are detected by accident. Aristotle, through his ontological concept, abolished earlier explanations of sensations which postulated intervention of material bodies. Empedocles believed e.g. that the sense-organs had pores of the right size to admit actual material particles. In Aristotle's concept, the sense-organs are informed in a material way about the quality they detect that is the physical alteration. But the sensation itself is a purely psychical event. The difference between e.g eye and sight is real, just as between body and soul. Also the plants lack sensation -- they are affected only when matter itself of an external object acts on them just as in the explanation given by Empedocles and the atomists for general sensation.

The Philosophy of Sensation

Sensation is a result of a movement or alteration in a material organ by an exterior objects of sense. But this result is a movement or alteration of the psyche. Its alteration cannot be material, so it means the reception of a form, an immaterial essence. Thus every sense-organ is a receptacle of the sensible without matter. What is detected are images (fantasmata) without the object being present. Thus the act of the sensible and of the sense is the same, but their concept (logos) is not the same. An example of this phenomenon can be given: The sound in actualization or hearing in actualization, what has a potentiality of being heard passes to the actualization. What has potentiality of resounding passes to the actualization -- it resounds. The sound and hearing in actualization resides in the hearing in potentiality. Actualization is the active motor, it is not necessary for the motor to move -- hearing as sound designates one thing. The same is true with other sensations. Thus the action of the affection resides in one who is affected and not in the agent. Thus the actualization of the sensible and of the sensitive resides in the sensitive. The actualization of the sensible and of the sensitive has the specific name e.g. hearing, resonance, audition; the act of seeing opsis is called sight orasis. The actualization of color is not named. The actualization of the sensible and of the sensitive are different concepts. It is necessary that they cease being at the same time. This necessity is not required for sense and the sensible in potentiality. This is why the ancients were not right. The object of the sensation is the sensible, it resides in the sensorium as such, it discerns among the different sensibles which is specific for it. But how do we differentiate the white and the sweet? Both are perceived by the same principle -- it perceives and pronounces the difference; it affirms that the sensibles are different. But this principle is indivisible and it perceives simultaneously different sensibles. And it is impossible for one thing to be contrary movements and to differentiate simultaneously indivisible and inseparable divided logically. Thus, in potentiality what discerns is the same and is indivisibly contraries, but is not logically. Only in the actualization it is divisible thus, it is not possible to be in actualization white and sweet at the same time in the way that it receives the forms of white and of sweet.

Aristotle's use of the ontological doctrine of matter and form to sensation is an advance on the earlier speculations of Greek philosophers. Primarily, it is a criticism of the philosophers who thought they could describe the soul while ignoring the body. For him the potentiality of the sense-organ to receive the form in the act of sensation is the same statement as the potentiality of a seed to grow and become a flowering plant -- both are natural processes. Even today, we cannot say anything more beyond what Aristotle said about the function of the soul. W.A. Sinclair (25) describing the process of vision says that, when light-waves fall on the eye "they cause changes in the retina, and this in turn causes changes in the nerve behind the eye, which in turn causes changes in the brain, after which, in some way we do not understand, we have the experience we call seeing."

The Mind, Reason, Thought or Intellect

The term nous is used loosely meaning an intellectual intuition or all the operations of reason. Aristotles introduces mind in the third book of his treatise as that part of the soul which knows and thinks. He poses a problem from the outset whether intellection (to noein) resembles sensation (to aisthanesthai), that is, whether it is being acted upon by the objects of thought: "The intellect must be therefore impassible but receptive of the form potentially without actually being its object; intellect is to its object, just as sense is to sensation."(26) The notion of being acted upon has two meanings: It may mean the destruction of something by its contraries (as the destruction of the sense-organ by an excessive agent), or its development and progress from potency to act by its agency of the actual. So there is a significant analogy with sensation. Mind is potentially its object and it becomes actually when it thinks, i.e. it receives the intelligible form, the essence. The difference is, however, that the object of thought, the intelligible, is form only, without matter. Consequently this part of the soul which is called intellect is not in any act before it thinks. Therefore it is improbable that it would be mixed with body and that it would have physical qualities or would have a physical organ.(27)

But if mind is a unity and a part of the psyche, and body and soul form a single complex (syntheton), its independence cannot be absolute. Moreover, if it is unmixed in terms of not acting through a bodily organ, it is unaffected by the body's decay and in this sense impassible. Aristotle explains this impassibility by resemblance to the organ e.g. the eye, claiming that in the defective sight it is not the soul that is impaired but the physical agent: "If an old man could get the right sort of eye, he would see like a youth."(28) But Aristotle falls into contradiction saying that if the mind would be destroyed it would be by effects of old age since senility results, not from the affection of the soul, but of the body as it happens in drunkenness and in disease. So how can Aristotle say that drunkenness does not have any effect on the psyche? Instead he says: "Consequently, intellection and contemplation are impaired by loss of some other internal organ, but intellect itself remains impassible... Mind is probably something more divine and impassible."(29)

We learn next that the mind works through an intermediary -- images (fantasmata ): "Intellect is the form of forms (nous eidos eidon), sensation the form of sensibles. Since it seems that nothing exists separately besides perceptible extended bodies, precisely, the intelligible forms exist in the sensible forms; both abstract concepts as well as various states and affections of the perceptible objects. For this reason no one would be able to learn or understand anything without sensation. Thus, also in intellection, one must contemplate with images fantasmata. These resemble the things perceived, but are without matter. "How do the first thoughts differ from images? One has to say that they not only are images but that they cannot occur without them."(30) So Aristotle extends his ontological principle on the sphere of intellection, where immaterial images are the perceptible objects of the intellect. Imagination fantasía extends to reason as deliberative imagination and to sensation as the sensitive imagination. The first one is available only to man. Deliberative kind of imagination is present in animals with reason for they can make decisions between two courses of action -- which is reasoning (logismos). Thus reason can make a unity out of a number of images. Reason is the peculiar faculty of man by which we can perceive universals by the process of generalization from perceived individuals in the act of sensation. Universals reside in the soul itself.

Still, mankind occupies a special place in the universe. The term divine "theion" applies to all things in the philosophy of Aristotle, but man is something more divine on account that he possesses reason. He contains more vital heat (not fire), analogous to the elements of the stars ether. "The human race is either the only known kind of animal to partake of the divine, or shares it more fully than any others."(43)

Summary

1. The Aristotelian concept of the soul does not correspond to any religious tradition, perhaps with the exception of the Hebrew tradition. The religious concept is fundamentally dualistic, though it may be camouflaged by the assumption of temporary psychosomatic unity with the body in the living organism.

7. The Aristotelian idea of the First Cause, with all its consequences, is based on the erroneous Law of Motion (corrected by Galileo and Newton) and on the anthropomorphic transposition of the relationship between the cause and effect, "matter" and form (idea), from the sphere of human activity (crafts) to the Universe.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

43. Aristotle in De partibus animalium quoted in Guthrie, op. cit., p. 326.