ARISTOTLE - The Works of Aristotle - On the Soul

THE WORKS OF ARISTOTLE: ON THE SOUL (De anima)

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

From biographical note on Aristotle:

He [Plato] is said to have been called by Plato the intellect of the school. There is also a tradition that he taught rhetoric. “The more I am by myself and alone, the fonder I have become of myths.”

If there is any way of acting or being acted upon proper to soul, soul will be capable of separate existence; if there is none, its separate existence is impossible.

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 1 ch.1, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 632

It therefore seems that all the affections of soul involved a body – passion, gentleness, fear, pity, courage, joy loving, and hating; in all those there is a concurrent affection of the body. In support of this we may point to the fact that while sometime on the occasion of violent and striking occurrences, there is no excitement or fear felt, on others faint and feeble stimulations produce these emotions, viz. when the body is already in a state of tension resembling its condition when we are angry.

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 1 ch.1, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 632

This implies the view that soul is identical with what produces movement in animals. That is why further, they regard respiration as the characteristic mark of life…

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 1 ch.2, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 633

Mind is the monad, science or knowledge the dyad (because it goes undeviatingly from one point to another), opinion the number of the plane, sensation the number of the solid; the numbers are by him expressly identified with the Forms themselves or principles, and are formed out of the elements; now things are apprehended by either by mind or science or opinion or sensation, and these same numbers are the Forms of things.

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 1 ch.2, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 634

Let the foregoing suffice s our account of the views concerning the soul which have been handed on by our predecessors; let us now dismiss them and make as it were a completely fresh start, endeavouring to give a precise answer to the question, What is soul? i.e. To formulate the most general possible definition of it.

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 2 ch.1, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 642

… what has soul in it differs from what has not, in that the former displays life. Now this word has more than one sense, and provided any one alone of these is found in a thing we say that things is living. Living, that is, may mean thinking or perception or local movement and rest, or movement in the sense of nutrition, decay and growth.

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 2 ch.2, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 643

Sounds, colours, and odours contribute nothing to nutriment; flavours fall within the field of tangible qualities. Hunger and thirst are forms of desire, hunger a desire for what is dry and hot, thirst a desire for what is cold and moist; flavor is sort of seasoning added to both.

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 2 ch.3, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 644

That is also why the objects of sense are (1) pleasant when the sensible extremes such as acid or sweet or salt being pure and unmixed are brought in to the proper ration; then they are pleasant; and in general what is blended is more pleasant than the sharp or the flat alone; or to touch, that which is capable of being either warmed or chilled; the sense and the ratio are identical: while (2) in excess the sensible extremes are painful or destructive.

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 3 ch.2, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 658

For imagining lies within our own power whenever we wish (e.g. we can call up a pictures, as in the practice of mnemonics by the use of mental images), but in forming opinions we are not free; we cannot escape the alternative of falsehood or truth. Further, when we think something to be fearful or threatening, emotion is immediately produced, and so too with what is encouraging; but when we merely imagine we remain as unaffected as persons who are looking at a painting of some dreadful or encouraging scene.

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 3 ch.3, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 660

Thinking is different from perceiving and is held to be in part imagination, in part judgment; we must therefore first mark off the sphere of imagination and then speak of judgment. If then imagination is that in virtue of which an image arises for us, excluding metaphorical uses of the term, it is a single faculty or disposition relative to images, in virtue of which we discriminate and are either in error nor not? The faculties in virtue of which we do this are sense, opinion, science, intelligence.

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 3 ch.3, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 660

And because imaginations remain in the organs of sense and resemble sensations, animals in their actions are largely guided by them, some (i.e. the brutes) because of the non-existence in them of mind, others (i.e. men) because of the temporary eclipse in them of mind by feeling or disease or sleep.

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 3 ch.3, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 661

If thinking is like perceiving, it must be either a process in which the soul is acted upon by what is capable of being thought, or a process different from but analogous to that. The thinking part of the soul must therefore be, while impassible, capable of receiving the form of an object; that is, must be potentially identical in character with its object without being the object. Mind must be related to what is thinkable, as sense is to what is sensible.

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 3 ch.4, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 661

Actual knowledge is identical with its object; potential knowledge in the individual is in time prior to actual knowledge but in the universe it has no priority even in time; for all things that come into being arise from what actually is.

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 3 ch.7, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 663

If then Nature never makes anything without a purpose and never leaves out what is necessary (except in the case of mutilate or imperfect growths; and that here we have neither mutilation nor imperfection may be argued form the facts that such animals can (a) reproduce the species and (b) rise to completeness of nature and decay to an end), …

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 3 ch.9, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 665

Lastly, appetite too is incompetent to account fully for movement; for those who successfully resist temptation have appetite and desire and yet follow mind and refuse to enact that for which they have appetite.

Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: On the Soul, Book 3 ch.9, Great Books Volume 8, pg. 665

VOCABULARY - ARISTOTLE: ON THE SOUL

Great Books Volume 8

Analogous, pg 661

1. Similar or alike in such a way as to permit the drawing of an analogy.

2. Biology Similar in function but not in structure and evolutionary origin.

[From Latin analogus, from Greek analogos, proportionate : ana-, according to; see ana- + logos, proportion; see leg- in Indo-European roots.

Dyad, pg. 634

according to the Pythagoreans, is the principle of "twoness" or "otherness" Two people speaking is a dyad; the smallest unit of communication. Relationships between people; employer employee, etc., are dyads as well.

In music: a set of two notes or pitches

Impassible, pg 661

1. Rare not susceptible to pain or injury

2. impassive; unmoved

monad, pg. 634

a term used by ancient philosophers Pythagoras, Parmenides, Xenophanes, Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus as a term for God or the or the first being, or the totality of all being

In music: a single note