Aristotle’s Anthropology: Exploring the Soul and Life Functions
Aristotelian Anthropology
The Reality of the Soul
“Living things have life because of their soul,” according to Aristotle’s treatise “On the Soul” (within “Physics”). He studied two types of natural beings: the inert and the living. The living have peculiar qualities: they move themselves, perceive external reality and react to it, transform what they eat into their own substance, and generate similar individuals without losing their integrity.
Aristotle observed that living things, like inert matter, are composed of the elements in nature (earth, air, water, and heat). So, what distinguishes the living from the inert, and what disappears when life ceases, causing the complex material world to crumble? As the living being is nothing but death, their material remains unchanged. That which departs at death cannot be material; it must be immaterial. As all nature is composed of raw material and substantial form, the substantial form of living beings is the cause of their life. For example, when a candle is extinguished, only remains, not a living being. The cause of a living being is his life: “for the living, to live is to be”; “Eat, grow, move are” acts seconds, “things that the animal makes. Living is not something that makes the animal, but the cause of what he does “act first”.
Overcoming Platonic Soul-Body Dualism
Aristotle gives several definitions of the soul:
- “Shape of a natural body having life potentially.”
- “That by which a living being conducts its own operations.”
- “Perfect first act of a natural organic body. Acts latter are its operations as walking, eating, etc.., One must first be alive.”
- “Soul means life principle.”
Thanks to the soul, men “live, feel, move, and think.” This explains the “substantial union” of being alive that failed to explain Plato (who remained in an “accidental union” of soul and body). Soul and body are two substantial co-principles incomplete: they call each other to form the complete substance which is all living things. Aristotle does not support the preexistence of souls, nor their transmigration. He also does not believe in their immortality as individual substances. Soul is the name we give to an “unknown” which no doubt: we know its effects: the real properties of living beings.
Life Functions or Types of Soul
Aristotle distinguishes three basic functions of life, i.e., three types of soul:
- Vegetative Soul: Carries out the functions of birth, eating, growing… (Plants + Animals + Men)
- Sensitive Soul: Performs motor functions, such as feeling, moving… (Animals + Men)
- Intellect: Conducts rational functions, like thinking, deliberating, choosing… (Men)
As shown, Aristotle’s types of soul are very different from those of Plato. Aristotle classifies them to explain all life functions, while Plato classified them to explain human behavior.
Man
In the living, there is a gradation:
- Plant: They possess only the vegetative soul: it is the most elementary principle of life and governs the following functions: generation, growth, nutrition, and reproduction.
- Animals: You have the sensitive vegetative soul, which has three functions:
- Sensations: As nutrition is treated area, in the sense of form. Stems from the feeling imagination (imaging) and memory (image retention). From the accumulation of memorized facts, derived from experience.
- Appetites: Arises because of the feeling: it is desire, passion. All animals have at least one sense: touch. Moreover, where there is sensation, there is pleasure and pain.
- Movement: Derives from the desire of the appetite, which is the only engine (how nice appetite).
Being human has three types of soul. As the sensitivity is not confined to the vegetative life, the thought is not reducible to the sensitive, contains something more, a larger principle: the rational soul.