The Soul as First Act of a Natural Body Composed of Tools; How Body and Soul Are One

Orientation #

He says the church council text calling the soul “the form of the body” will be looked at “next time,” after the definition is completed here. Next time will begin at “one nineteen” (down to the end of the chapter, “2nd Lectio, I think it is in St. Thomas”), where Aristotle manifests the definition by likenesses. The previous class treated the equivocal senses of “body” and matter/form; the next works through the axe and eye analogies and the question of how the soul is “in” the body.

The class, in order #

1. Paragraph 114: the transition from body-as-substance to body-as-part (“bodies seem to be substances”) #

Point: the text seems to contradict what he said last time about “body” (it starts “all natural bodies sharing in life will be substances… as a composite”), but Aristotle makes the transition to body as composing part within the paragraph.

1. Living bodies are substances of the composite kind (body taken as species of substance).
2. But since they are such bodies, having life, “the soul could not be the body, for the body is not among things which are according to an underlying subject, but are rather as underlying in matter” — here body is taken as composing part.
3. Therefore the soul is substance as the species or form of a natural body having life potentially — i.e. the soul is in the genus of substance, as form; “therefore the soul is the act of such a body.” He notes this is the first place it is spoken of as substantial form, “the form of the body,” as the church text speaks of it.

2. Paragraph 115: first act, not second act (“both sleep and waking are”) #

Point: the third division recalled — act said in two ways, science vs. considering according to the science one has acquired; the soul is act as science is, i.e. first act.

• Aristotle’s reason: sleep and waking are both present with the soul; waking is analogous to consideration, sleep to having science and not using it. The sleeper is not operating (except perhaps on the plant level) yet is alive. “Very concrete.” Hence the soul is act, but first act, rather than the operations of life.
• “In the same person, science is prior in generation”: this is why, he says, he was going back to the first sense of “before” (before in time), since before in generation is before in time, though something of the second sense a student mentioned may be there too.
• Thus: the soul is the first act of a natural body having life potentially — “having life potentially” meaning the operations of life.

3. Paragraph 116: organikon — “composed of tools” (“the common word for tool”) #

Point: the phrase “natural body having life potentially” is re-expressed as natural body that is organikon; the translations “organic” / “organized” lose the concreteness.

• Organon is the ordinary Greek word for tool: a hammer, a knife. De Koninck translated “equipped with tools”; he prefers “composed of tools,” because the tools are parts: the eye a tool for seeing, ear for hearing, heart for pumping blood, hand for grasping, front teeth for biting, back teeth for chewing; even in plants, roots and leaves have different functions. Soldiers are equipped with tools; a living body is composed of them (the carpenter’s belt is not the carpenter).
• Application: Aristotle later attacks the Pythagorean/Platonic transmigration of souls (Pythagoras stopping a man beating a dog: “I recognize the soul of my old friend”; Shakespeare mocking it in Twelfth Night when they try to make a man out mad). Argument: the soul is like an art, and one art cannot use the tools of another — his wife sews a dress with needle and thread, his brother-in-law builds with hammer and saw; neither can swap; the carpenter cannot use a piano. So one soul going into another body would be like one art using another art’s tools. “All that’s lost” with the word organic.
• Aside: “organism,” “organic chemistry” (chemicals found naturally only in living bodies) — organic has lost its meaning; but Aristotle’s logical works are called the Organon because logic is the tool of philosophy, not for its own sake.
• Aside: names in natural science are usually taken from human art (“law” from the practical order; “clavicle,” key), because things were named in art first.
• The definition, then: the soul is the first act of a natural body composed of tools — natural, “not an automobile.”
• Difficulty: one can live one’s whole life without knowing what the soul is; it took the Greeks hundreds of years. Oliver Wendell Holmes on Aristotle (as he recalls it): it took centuries to understand him, centuries to unlearn him, and will take centuries again to learn him.
• Student: what about “having life potentially”? — Not that the body is not now alive; it has the operations of life in potency.
• Student: is the opening sentence of 116 part of the definition? — Yes; it expresses the same thing differently: a natural body having life potentially is a natural body composed of tools.
• Greek read: entelecheia hē prōtē sōmatos physikou organikou (soma — cf. “soma” in Brave New World); and on plants, organa de kai ta tōn phytōn merē — even the parts of plants are tools, root vs. leaves vs. trunk; the root compared to the mouth, since the plant draws nourishment there: the plant is “upside-down man.”

4. Paragraph 117: the most common definition; Greek order and logical order (“closer to the logic order”) #

Point: this is the definition common to every soul — plant and animal as well as man: ti koinon epi pasēs psychēs… entelecheia hē prōtē sōmatos physikou organikou.

• Greek (like Latin) puts the adjective after the noun, so its grammatical order is closer to the logical order: genus first, then difference. In English one must say “an equilateral right-angled quadrilateral,” though in thought “quadrilateral” comes before its differences. Don’t confuse grammatical with logical order, but here Greek makes it clearer; the Greek ends with “composed of tools.”
• If one wanted one English word: “a natural tooled body”; but “composed of tools” is clearer, and it makes plain the tools are parts.
• Student: the Greek word for plant parts being tools? — organa (plural); merē, parts; meros singular. Aristotle adds that plant tools are “much more simple.”

5. Paragraph 118: no need to ask whether soul and body are one (“the sailor in the boat”) #

Point: Aristotle’s definition removes a problem that is insoluble for Plato, Descartes, and anyone who takes soul and body as two complete substances.

1. If soul and body are each a complete substance, they are no more one than a man and his car, the sailor and his boat (Plato’s position as he always describes it); or the air-like soul in the shape of a man standing beside the body in comic movies — what makes them one, how are they even in the same place?
2. Descartes’ absolute distinction of mind and matter sought a connection in some part of the brain — like saying he and his car are one through the starter.
3. Two actual things can only be juxtaposed, or must be screwed, tied, glued together — bricks in the fireplace need cement, a third thing.
4. But form is nothing other than the act of the ability of the matter: the wax and its shape, the clay, the chalk and its shape. So soul and body are not two actual things; one is act, the other ability. This is how Aristotle understands the unity of man. Consequences of not understanding the soul: “like Humpty Dumpty” — they cannot put man together again; either awkward attempts (Phaedo, Descartes), or “the ghost in the machine,” or they stop talking about the soul at all — “even the church itself” is in that position, though its text is very clear: the soul is the form of the body, and Aristotle’s distinctions obviously support it.

• To arrive at the definition one must know the terms of the Physics (natural hearing), matter and form, the categories, first and second act, and what a tool is.

6. The two opinions of the Phaedo and the truth between them (“Both opinions have a part of the truth”) #

Distinction: soul as harmony of the body (Simmias, a probable opinion) vs. soul as complete spiritual, immaterial substance (Socrates).

• Truth in the first: the soul is a form of the body; error: it is an accidental form.
• Truth in the second: the soul is in the genus of substance, not accident; error: a complete substance in its own right.
• Aristotle: substantial form of the body — in between the two mistakes. Why each fails: if the soul were an accidental form, it would do nothing except in the body — yet the human soul understands the universal not in the body, and sometimes opposes the body. If it were a complete substance, one cannot explain the unity of man: the one who feels the pain (muscle cramp, headache) and the one thinking how to relieve it are, by inward experience, one and the same; to deny this is to deny the obvious. “With the truth, all things harmonize”: the true definition explains both the unity of man and the operations not in the body.

7. Analogy: form of government and the ethos of a people (“the people are like the matter”) #

Point: political philosophy has something analogous — the form of government is like form (taxis, order), the people like matter, needing certain experience, customs, dispositions.

• Aristotle: it is not enough to treat the best form of government (kat’ euchēn, “according to a prayer/wish” — requiring circumstances one prays for rather than expects); one must treat the best for most men, and the best for these particular people. The State Department trying to give African nations a Western form gets only its appearance and some tyranny. Changing the ethos changes the government even if it looks the same. Russia and its ethos; Italy changing governments; the added American states had similarly disposed peoples.
• Application to the soul: the disposition (accidental form) of the body is not the soul but connected to it, as the ethos is not the form of government but connected to it. The soul can be only in a body properly disposed; when the dispositions are lost, the soul is lost — not because the soul was the accidental form, but because the dispositions are necessary on the side of the body.
• Matter and form are spoken of as relatives, like 2 and 4, half and double: this kind of soul only in this kind of body, and conversely — a one-to-one correspondence. Hence, in the Physics, matter and form belong to the same science (the same science treats opposites, and relatives are a form of opposition). So the modern division of political science (form) from sociology (customs) is a false division. Philip Rieff, The Freudian Ethic: the Freudian ethic replacing the Protestant ethic has implications for government — he understood the point. “Art imitates nature”: political philosophy imitates what we learn of body and soul.

8. Extended uses of “soul” (“plot is the soul of tragedy”) #

Aristotle in the Poetics: plot is the soul of tragedy; Leo XIII (inferred; “the 13th”) on the study of the sacred page as the soul of theology; grace the soul of the soul; “brevity is the soul of wit”; Ammonius’ Greek for a definition, syntomos, brief. The definition of the soul is in a way the soul of this whole understanding; likewise Shakespeare’s definition of reason studied earlier was the soul of the whole development.

9. Looking ahead: manifestatio by likeness; manuductio (“lead you by the hand”) #

Point: from 119 to the chapter’s end Aristotle manifests the definition by likenesses — as Monsignor Dion would say, leading by the hand.

• Summa I, q. 117, a. 1 (on the teacher): the teacher leads from known to unknown in two ways — by proposing definitions and arguments (principles, conclusions), and before that by the hand (manuductio), proposing less universal statements, sensible examples, likenesses, opposites.
• Manuductio by opposites (his own earlier example): “Come bitter conduct, come unsavory guide” — the fool is bitter and unsavory, so wisdom is sweet and savory (dulce sapere, of Christ in the Eucharist). His work on defining comedy: the laughable is an ugliness not painful; the Metaphysics gives the beautiful’s three forms — order, symmetry, the limited — so the ugly’s are disorder, the unsymmetrical, the unlimited; the comic poets confirm it (painting oneself into a corner; putting underwear on over the clothes). “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God” shows wisdom is knowledge of God.
• Manuductio by likeness here: an axe or saw, then the eye — artificial first, then natural (Dion: in Physics I Aristotle’s examples go from the more known). If the saw were a natural body, would sawing be its soul (second act) or the ability to saw? If the eye were the living body, would seeing be its soul, or the ability to see? Needed because substance, and substantial form, is not sensible; we falsely imagine the soul as an air-like thing shaped like us (Dante represents it so for the imagination, without believing it).
• Aside on books: Oxford texts expensive and cheaply bound; Ross’s “nonsense notes”; Loebs proverbially bad — in the Physics luck (chance in human affairs, the narrower word) and chance are translated “chance” and “spontaneity,” mixing them. “Until translators are philosophers or philosophers are translators, you are going to have bad translations.”

10. After class: how separated souls are distinct (“my soul is made for my body”) #

Student: separated from bodies, how are souls distinct, since forms alone differ formally, in kind? — Just as human soul is relative to human body, my soul is made for my body uniquely and yours for yours; separated, it is still the soul that fits that body. This is how Thomas argues against those who say only one soul is separated from all bodies: among immaterial substances there cannot be two of one kind, but our soul is by nature form of a body, so the distinction has its basis in matter — not that its existence depends on the body, but that it fits this body. Hence the separated soul wants to rejoin its body; Thomas’s probable arguments for the resurrection: the soul existing without the body is unnatural, and the unnatural is not forever. Student: why can’t my soul animate your body of the same nature? — It cannot (Poe’s “Ligeia,” the dead wife’s soul taking over another body: horrible and impossible); a demon might possess a body but would not be its form. So we are totally unique, body and soul. A final question on the definition of nature (“first and as such, and not by happening”) is cut off.

His words #

• body (two senses): species of substance vs. composing part, “underlying, as matter”
• first act / second act: as science vs. as considering according to science one has
• having life potentially: having the operations of life in potency (not: not yet alive)
• organon: tool; organikon body: “composed of tools” (De Koninck: “equipped with tools”) [ed.: organic body]
• entelecheia: act
• natural hearing [ed.: Physics]
• ability [ed.: potency]; form as “act of the ability of the matter”
• harmony of the body: accidental form; soul: substantial form
• taxis: order (form of government); ethos: customs of a people
• kat’ euchēn: “according to a prayer/wish” (best form of government simply)
• matter and form as relatives (2 and 4, half and double)
• manuductio: leading by the hand; manifestatio: manifesting by less universal statements, examples, likenesses, opposites
• syntomos (Ammonius): brief, of definition
• luck vs. chance: luck is chance in human affairs

Texts #

Read in class

• Aristotle, De Anima II 1, paragraphs 114-118 of his translation, with the Greek of 116-117 (entelecheia hē prōtē sōmatos physikou organikou; organa de kai ta tōn phytōn merē)

Mentioned

• Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on De Anima II, lectio 2 (inferred, “2nd Lectio, I think”)
• Church council text: the soul as form of the body (locus not given)
• Plato, Phaedo (Simmias’ harmony; Socrates’ spiritual substance)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 117, a. 1 (the teacher)
• Aristotle, Physics (matter and form belong to one science; luck and chance; Book I examples)
• Aristotle, Poetics (plot the soul of tragedy); Metaphysics (order, symmetry, the limited)
• Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; “Come bitter conduct, come unsavory guide”; “brevity is the soul of wit”
• Leo XIII on the sacred page (inferred); Ammonius on definition; Philip Rieff, The Freudian Ethic; Huxley, Brave New World; Dante; Poe, “Ligeia”; Oliver Wendell Holmes on Aristotle

His questions #

• Is the soul act as science is, or as considering is? As science: first act, since in sleep one is alive but not operating.
• What does “having life potentially” mean? Having the operations of life in potency, not a body that is not yet alive.
• What is the Greek organikon, and why not “organic”? Organon is tool; the body is composed of tools; “organic” loses the concreteness and the argument against transmigration.
• Why can one soul not pass into another body? The soul is like an art, and one art cannot use the tools of another.
• Why need one not ask whether soul and body are one? Form is the act of the ability of matter, not a second actual thing needing a third to join it.
• What is true and false in the two Phaedo opinions? Harmony: a form, but accidental; spiritual substance: substance, but not complete; the truth is substantial form.
• Why is the soul lost when the body’s dispositions are lost? Not because it is an accidental form, but because the dispositions are required on the side of the body, as an ethos is required for a form of government.
• How are separated souls distinct if only formally? Each soul is by nature the form of its own body; the basis of distinction goes back to matter.