Transcript Aristotle and Descartes on being a person

Plato, Aristotle and
Descartes on body
and soul
Michael Lacewing
Plato’s Phaedo
 Death is the separation of
the soul from the body
 When it is joined to a body, “the
soul is only able to view
existence through the bars of a
prison, and not in her own
nature; she is wallowing in the
mire of all ignorance”
A separate soul I
 Souls can’t be destroyed
 The soul is unseen
 All unseen things are ‘simple’,
they have no parts
 To destroy something is to
break it into parts
 Objection: perhaps there are
other types of destruction
A separate soul II
 Change is change from what
something (currently) is to what
it (currently) is not
 Life changes into not-life, death
 Becoming alive involves a
change from not being alive
 Upon life, the soul is joined to
the body - so the soul exists
before birth
 Objection: not all change is like
this - coming into existence is
not a change into an opposite
Aristotle
 A person is an ‘ensouled body’
 The soul is the ‘form’ of the living
body - what does this mean?
 Four types of ‘cause’ or
explanation
 Material: ‘that out of which a thing
comes to be, and which persists’,
e.g. marble of a sculpture
 Efficient: brings about change or
rest, e.g. the sculptor
Four causes (cont.)
 Final: ‘the end (telos), that
for which a thing is done’,
e.g. the answer to why the
sculptor made the statue
 Formal: ‘the account of the
essence’, e.g. what a
‘sculpture’ is, so that we
understand what the
sculptor was doing
What is a heart?
 Material: muscle (flesh)
 Formal: pumps blood
 Final: sustain life by
pumping blood
 Efficient: cell development
guided by genes aiming at
creating a living organism
What is a soul?
 ‘living is the being [the
essence] of living things,
and the soul is the cause
and principle of this.’ (415b).
 What it is to be a living being
is to live; and the soul is the
formal, efficient and final
cause of a living thing.
What is a soul?
 Final: living things live in order to
live (stay alive)
 Efficient: living changes and
develops our bodies; it changes
and develops us as persons
 Formal: the activity of living
provides an account of what it is
to be what we are, a particular
kind of living being.
Soul as form
 Matter endures (material cause).
But we always identify matter by
some form it has.
 With living beings, matter
constantly changes. Living
things are forms embodied in
ever-changing matter. Even to
refer to a ‘living thing’ is to
privilege form over matter.
Human soul and body
 Different living things are
capable of different kinds of
lives:
 plants: growth and
reproduction;
 animals: sensation;
 human beings: rational
activity
 So each has a
corresponding type of soul.
The intellect
 No part of the body corresponds
to the intellect
 Each sense is limited to a type of
experience
 But thought can be about anything
 So the intellect ‘seems to be
another kind of soul, and this
alone admits of being separated,
as that which is eternal from that
which is perishable’ (428b)
Descartes on the soul
 Aquinas developed Aristotle’s
ideas, claiming the soul, intellect
and the form were the same
thing, and a separable
substance
 Descartes agrees, but drops
reference to ‘form’: The soul is
the intellect and a separate
substance from the body.
 Bodies work mechanically - they
don’t need explaining in terms of
the soul.
What am ‘I’?: the narrow view
 ‘I’ am essentially a soul, a
thing that thinks that can be
separated from a body.
(Meditation II)
 But is Descartes right to
think souls can be separated
from bodies?
What am I?: the broad view
 ‘I am not only lodged in my body
as a pilot in a vessel, but…I am
very closely united with it, and
so to speak so intermingled with
it that I seem to compose with it
one whole.’ (Meditation VI)
 I am a person - an embodied
soul.
 the soul takes on bodily
experiences as its own, i.e. we
refer our sensations, emotions, etc.
to our selves.
What am I? essentially
 I am not essentially a person,
because I could be the same
‘thing’ - a soul - without a body.
 I am essentially a person, since I
am my psychological properties,
and these depend on my body.
 I am essentially a person,
because the unity of soul and
body creates a new, distinct kind
of thing.