Aristotle's Philosophy of Soul

Aristotle's Philosophy of Soul
Author(s): Fred D. Miller Jr.

Source: The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Dec., 1999), pp. 309-337
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ARISTOTLE'S PHILOSOPHY OF SOUL
FRED D. MILLER, Jr.
.Ltebate continues over whether an "Aristotelian philosophy of

mind" is still credible.1 Recent commentators wonder whether Aristo
tle's view lies somewhere in the constellation of modern theories of
mind, or whether he might point to an uncharted theory. Because he
viewed his own account as an alternative to both Platonic dualism and
Presocratic materialism, moderns seeking a middle way between Car
tesian dualism and reductionist physicalism have looked to Aristotle
for inspiration. As Jonathan Barnes observes, "Philosophy of mind
has for centuries been whirled between a Cartesian Charybdis and a
scientific Scylla: Aristotle has the look of an Odysseus."2
The interpretation of Aristotle is problematic because he dis
cusses what moderns call mental phenomena in the context of his
own philosophy of soul (tyvxr\), which has certain distinctive features.
Because he viewed soul as a principle of life, he saw nothing odd
about a plant having a soul, although he would have dismissed as ab
surd the suggestion that a complicated artifact might have a soul. In
contrast, many modern philosophers think that computers have as
much a claim to consciousness as humans; but the idea that plants
have a secret mental life strikes most moderns as bizarre. Moreover,
certain problems might not have the centrality for Aristotle which
they have for moderns: for example, he would not regard qualia and
intentionality as necessary features of psychic states, because plants
and lower animals do not exhibit them. Also, modern controversies
involve notions such as reducibility and scientific laws which lack
clear correlates in Aristotle. In view of all this it might be concluded
Correspondence to: Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling

Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio 43403.
*See especially Myles Burnyeat, "Is an Aristotelian Philosophy of Mind
Still Credible?" in Essays on Aristotle's De Anima, ed. M. Nussbaum, and A.
O. Rorty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 15-25, who answers in the nega
tive. Several of the essays in Nussbaum and Rorty take up Burnyeat's chal
lenge.
2Jonathan Barnes, "Aristotle's Concept of Mind," Proceedings of the Ar
istotelian Society 72 (1971): 114.
The Review of Metaphysics 53 (December 1999): 309-337. Copyright ? 1999 by The Review of
Metaphysics
310 FRED D. MILLER, JR.
that Aristotle's psychology is sui generis or incommensurable with

modern theories of mind.
Yet such difficulties are unavoidable whenever one philosopher
tries to understand another with a different conceptual scheme. We
may be able to offer a plausible reconstruction of Aristotle's psychol
ogy by drawing on some of our own concepts. One method is to find
counterparts in another framework to concepts of our own: even
when there are different conceptual distinctions and interconnec
tions, we still may be able to detect important overall similarities be
tween the two networks of ideas. It would, of course, be incredible
and suspicious if such a reconstruction turned out to resemble any
modern concept of mind too closely. But this technique might shed
valuable light on Aristotle's theory or modern theories or both.
In using the method of reconstruction, however, let us not forget
that what we think of as Aristotle's philosophy of mind is only part of
what he would have thought of as his philosophy of soul. We should
not emulate Heinrich Schliemann ploughing headlong through the
mound of Hissarlik in pursuit of Priam's Troy. We should try to re
spect and understand the broader framework to which Aristotle's dis
cussions of mind belong.
A satisfactory exegesis of Aristotle's philosophy of soul must pay

close attention to De Anima 2.1, where he says that he is trying to de
termine what is the soul and what is the most common account of the
soul.3 By "most common account" (xoiv?xaxoc X?yoc), he evidently
means the most inclusive account, an account of what souls of all
kinds have in common.4 Although his discussion is very abstract, we
may reasonably expect it to set parameters of a defensible interpreta
tion. This account of the soul has two interrelated stages: in the first
the soul is an actualization,5 and in the second it is an essence.6
The first stage begins with the category of substance (o?oia),
which is distinguished into three types: (1) matter, which is
3 De Anima 2.1.412a4-6.
4 By this, he could mean the souls of different kinds of living things or
the different parts or powers of the soul. It seems most likely from what fol
lows that he means "most common" in both of these senses. Cf. naQokov at
2.1.412bl0.
5 De Anima 2.1.412a6-b9.
6De Anima 2.1.412bl0-413a3.
ARISTOTLE'S PHILOSOPHY OF SOUL 311
intrinsically or in itself not a this (xo?e xi); (2) shape or form, through
which we call something a this; and (3) the composite of matter and
form.7 This analysis is immediately related to the distinction between
actualization and potentiality: "Matter is potentiality (?vvafii?) and
form is actualization (?vxeX?xeia)."8 Actuality has two levels. This is
briefly explained in De Anima 2.1 by an analogy with knowledge,
which is developed more fully in De Anima 2.5.417a21-b2: Human be
ings are knowers in the potential sense because they are the sort of
beings who have knowledge. They are knowers at the first level of ac
tuality when they have knowledge?for example, the grammatical
knowledge that subject and verb should agree in number. They are
knowers at the second level of actualization when they are actually
aware of or using this knowledge?for example, in correcting the sen
tence, "They is going."
Aristotle next remarks that bodies are especially believed to be
substances, especially natural bodies (x? cjwoix?, se. oc?âxa), for
these are principles of other bodies. This recalls the account of nature
in Physics 2.1, which distinguishes between things that exist by nature
(including animals and their parts, plants, and simple elements) and
things that exist by other causes (including a bed and a cloak, which
exist by art).9 He clearly has this account in view, because a few lines
later10 he refers to the Physics 2.1 concept of a natural body as having
a nature ((?r?oic), an internal principle or source of movement and
rest.11 Aristotle divides natural bodies into living and nonliving: by
"life" he means self-nutrition, growth, and decay. Every natural body
which shares in life is a substance.12
Aristotle declares that a natural body is a substance in the third
sense of a composite (ovvQ?xK]), and that the living body and soul
stand to each other as matter (yfor\) to form (el?o?, |iOQ(j)r|). This is
customarily referred to as Aristotle's hylomorphic analysis of body
7 De Anima 2.1.412a6-9.
8 De Anima 2.1.412a9-l 1.
9 The Physics account of natural body is explicitly invoked later on at De
Anima 2.1.412bl6-17.
10 De Anima 2.1 A12b6-7.
11 This internal principle of movement or rest?also called "an innate im
pulse for change" (?Q[xr|v ... (lexa?oXfic ejxcjwxov)?is identified as the na
ture (((r?oi?) of a thing in Physics 2.1.192bS-23. Aristotle adds the qualifica
tion that the nature of X is a cause by itself and not accidentally: that is, it
must be a cause in virtue of what X is. If Hippocrates cures himself, this does
not happen by nature, even though the art of medicine is present in Hippo
crates. For Hippocrates merely happens to be a doctor; he is not a doctor in
trinsically. See also Physics 2.1.1 92b22-32.
and soul. For the body is a subject and matter, and is not an attribute
of a subject (xa63 vkoxei\??vov). Hence, the soul is not the body13;
rather, the soul is substance in the sense of form of a natural body
which potentially partakes of life. Substance in this sense is a first
level actualization, however, since having a soul corresponds to
knowledge as an actual state and being awake corresponds to the ex
ercise of such knowledge. So the soul is the first-level actualization of
a natural body which potentially partakes in life.14 Aristotle does not
defend here the crucial premiss that the body is subject and matter,
but, as we shall see, he does subsequently argue for it.
Next he characterizes the body which potentially partakes of Ufe
as an organic body.15 An organic body is able to use its own parts as
tools (?QYCxva) the way a plant uses roots like a mouth to take in food.
The plant example underscores that Aristotle is offering an account
which is common (xoiv?v) to all souls: namely, the soul is a first-level
actualization of a natural organic body.16
The second stage of Aristotle's general account of soul empha
sizes its role as the essence (xo x? f?v e?vai) of the natural body.17
First, "if a tool like an axe were a natural body, the substance of the
axe would be the essence of the axe, and this would be its soul. If
this soul were separated, it would no longer be an axe except in a
homonymous sense."18 Aristotle's point is evidently that the account
(k?yo?) of the axe includes the function of cutting, and the axe which
lost this function would no longer have this account.19 The axe does
not have a soul, however, because it is not a natural body with an
12 De Anima 2.1.412al3-16. It is noteworthy that Aristotle uses the term

(j)uaix?v for bodies which have internal intrinsic principles of change, in
cluding living organisms. Although c|)uoix?v is the ancestor of the modern
term "physical," Aristotle uses it in a very different way: a horse or a gera
nium is a (?xuoix?v body, but a bed or cloak is not. Alan Code and Julius
Moravcsik, "Explaining Various Forms of Living," in Essays on Aristotle's De
Anima, ed. M. Nussbaum, and A. O. Rorty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992),
argue convincingly that the modern concept of physical is not equivalent to
Aristotle's idea of (Jwoixov and is indeed alien to his thought.
13 Reading oux ?v eir] xo acomia r\ tyv%r\ at De Anima 2.1.412al7 with
manuscript X and Philoponus. The text is difficult: xo is omitted in manu
script U and in Themistius and Alexander apud Philoponus, and f| is missing
in manuscripts C and e and in Simplicius. At any rate xo must be understood,
given the following yaQ clause.
14 De Anima 2.1.412al6-28.
15 De Anima 2.1.412a28-b6.
16De^mma2.1.412b5-6.
17De Anima 2.1.412M0-U.
18De Anima 2.1.412bl2-15.
internal principle of change. The second analogy is with a bodily or

gan: "if the eye were an animal, its sight would be its soul; for this is
the eye's substance corresponding to the account. But the eye is the
matter of sight, and if sight is taken away, it is no longer an eye, except
in a homonymous sense, like a stone or a painted eye."20 He then
draws an analogy between the part and the whole living body. The
implied conclusion is that the soul is the essence of the body, and if
the soul were taken away from the body it would be a body only hom
onymously.
Aristotle restates the eye analogy in hylomorphic terms.21 The
pupil of the eye has the potentiality to see; sight is its first-level actual
ization in the sense of the power (?uvajw?) of the organ to see, and
seeing its second-level actualization in the sense of the exercise of this
power. Correspondingly, the body is potentially alive; the soul is its
first level-actualization, and being awake its second-level actualiza
tion. He finally restates the analogy in hylomorphic terms: "Just as the
pupil and sight are an eye, so the soul and the body are an animal."22
19 See Politics 1.2.1253a20-5 which uses the premise, "everything is de

fined in terms of its function and power," to argue that a hand or foot sepa
rated from the whole animal should no longer be called a hand or foot except
homonymously. See also Parts of Animals 1.1.640b35-641a6.
20De Anima 2.1.412bl8-22.
21 De Anima 2.1.412b27-413a2.
22 De Anima 2.1.413a2-3. Aristotle's implicit claim that his two accounts
of soul are equivalent has been challenged by J. L. Ackrill, "Aristotle's Defini
tions ofpsuche, "Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 73 (1972-3): 119-33.
The first account of soul as actualization?and especially the analogy of the
wax and seal (412b7)?implies that the body can be identified in such a way
that it could be conceived as existing without the soul, but the second ac
count of soul as essence relies on the homonymy argument, which implies
that the body and its organs could not exist without the soul. However, this
objection can be met by noting that Aristotle speaks of the body in different
ways in De Anima 2.1. When he employs the homonymy argument, he is
speaking of an actually living natural body such as an animal. Accordingly he
compares the axe to a natural body and the eye to an animal. However, in his
final analogy, which again treats soul as a first-level actualization, he com
pares sight to the soul, the pupil to the body, and the eye to an animal. Thus,
the soul is the essence of the natural body, that is, a body which has an inter
nal principle of change or rest. When he speaks of the body as the subject of
the soul which is its actualization or substance, he is considering an aspect of
the natural body: namely, having the potential to live and use organs. In so far
as it is potentially alive, it is a body in the sense of a component of the natural
body. As such it is presumably thought of as composed of matter, and, ulti
mately, composed of the basic elements: earth, air, fire, and water. Although
Aristotle speaks of the body in two different ways, his account is consistent.
In the following chapter (De Anima 2.2) Aristotle offers a justifi

cation of his definitional account (?qioxox?? X?yoc) of the soul.23 The
key idea is that living things possess internal powers or principles by
which they qualify as natural bodies of the sort assumed in the general
account of the soul. He first remarks that ensouled things are distin
guished by living, and that living is said in many ways, and any of the
following is sufficient for living: intellect (vofi?), perception
(a?oorjoi?), locomotion and rest, and nutritive movement and growth
and decay.24 This explains the belief that plants are alive: they evi
dently possess an internal power (?uvafxi?) and principle (aQxr\) by
means of which they grow in all directions.25 Moreover, the nutritive
power can be separated from the others, but in mortal things the
other powers cannot be separated from it.26 Plants have only this
power of the soul (?x>va|ii? ipuxfj?), but, he points out, some animals
with the power of perception have only the sense of touch and lack
other senses.
This presents a new difficulty: if being alive involves distinct
powers, and different species have different sets of powers, how can
there be one common definition of the soul? Aristotle argues that
soul will have one account (Xoyoc) in the way that figure does. Just as
there is not a figure apart from the triangle, rectangle, and so forth, so
there is not any soul apart from the aforementioned powers. As in the
case of figure, there might be a common account (koyo? xoivo?) of
soul, but it would be absurd to seek such a definition and neglect defi
nitions peculiar to actual entities (such as plants or animals), that is,
definitions which correspond to proper and indivisible species.
Therefore, in addition to the common definition of soul?the one set
forth in De Anima 2.1?one should seek specific definitions of the
soul of plants, of lower animals, and of human beings.27
The psychic powers constitute a series such that each is a neces
sary condition for its successor. In plants the nutritive power occurs
alone, but the perceptive power never occurs without the nutritive.
There is a similar interdependence in the perceptual faculty itself,
where the sense of touch is basic. Further, some things able to per
ceive also have the locomotive power, while others do not. "Finally
and most rarely, some have reasoning and cognition. For perishable
23 De Anima 2.2.413all-20.
24 De Anima 2.2.413a20-5.
25 De Anima 2.2.413a25-31.
26De Anima 2.2.413a31-2.
27De Anima 2.2.414b20-8,32-3.
beings which have reasoning also have the other powers, but it is not
the case that all the beings with the other powers also have reason
ing."28 A complete account of soul must include an account of each of
the powers and in addition explain their interlocking relationships.29 A
satisfactory interpretation of Aristotle must therefore iUuminate his
view of the nutritive soul, since this will provide a context for his dis
cussion of the other psychic powers. The nutritive soul will, conse
quently, be a principal concern of this essay.30
II
Aristotle rejects the doctrines of Plato and the Pythagoreans

which assert that the soul was a substance which could leave a human
body at death and enter another body of a human being or even of a
lower animal or plant. Aristotle complains that these philosophers
contended that a soul could be fitted into a body without explaining
the cause or the condition of the body into which it allegedly en
tered.31 They did not recognize that each body has a peculiar form and
shape. Aristotle compares them to "someone who says that the art of
carpentry could be implemented in flutes; for an art must use its in
struments, and the soul must use its body."32 This implies that a soul,
like an art, has a distinctive function or set of functions, to which the
body must be adapted. Aristotle criticizes these earlier theorists for
failing to grasp that the soul is the actuality of the body, and that "the
actualization of each thing naturally comes to be in that which has the
potentiality [for it] and in the appropriate matter."33
This repudiation of traditional dualism might be taken to imply
that Aristotle would embrace a psychological theory of materialism,
the view that the soul is basically material. This interpretation might
also seem to be supported by his hylomorphic account in De Anima
2.1, where body stands to soul as matter (uA,r)) to form ([xoQ(j)f|).
Aristotle advises us not to inquire whether the soul and the body are
28 De Anima 2.4.415a28-415al0.
29De Anima 2.4.415al2-13, see also 414b34-415al.
301 discuss Aristotle's views on the perceptive soul in a forthcoming es
say, "Aristotle's Philosophy of Perception," in Boston Area Colloquium in
Ancient Philosophy, ed. J. J. Cleary and W. Winans (forthcoming). I also plan
to treat the appetitive soul and the intellect in the future.
31 De Anima 1.3.407bl5-17.
32 De Anima 1.3.407b24-6.
33 De Anima 2.2.414a25-7.
one, just as we should not ask whether the wax and the seal are one,
or generally whether the matter of each thing and that of which it is
the matter are one. "For although one and being are said in many
ways, that which is said in the leading way is the actualization."34
Since he has defined the soul as the actualization of the natural body,
this implies that the soul will be one with the body. Although he does
not spell out the sense of "one" he has in mind, his position seems
closer to materialism than it is to the dualistic doctrines of Plato and
the Pythagoreans.
However, as is so often the case, Aristotle's claims are guarded
and nuanced. The general account of De Anima 2.1 concludes, "It is
not unclear, therefore, that the soul is not separable from the body; or
else certain parts of the soul are not separable, if the soul is naturally
divisible; for the actuality of some belongs to the parts themselves."
Although this seems to rule out dualism, he adds: "But nothing pre
vents some parts from being separable because they are not actualiza
tions of any body. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the soul is the
actualization of the body just as a sailor is the actualization of a
ship."35 The comparison of the soul with a sailor might imply dualism,
but it is not clear whether this is the point of his brief, cryptic remark.
At any rate he allows here that it is possible for some parts to be sepa
rable from the body, if they are not actualizations of bodily parts. In
deed, he elsewhere takes this possibility seriously. After enumerating
the different powers of the soul, he comments, "Concerning the intel
lect and the power of contemplation nothing is evident yet, but it
seems to be a different kind (y?vo?) of soul, and this alone can36 be
separated, like the everlasting from the perishable."37 Earlier in De
Anima he said that "intellect (vou?) seems to come to be in [us] as a
kind of substance and not to be destroyed."38 And he will later argue?
admittedly somewhat obscurely?that because the intellect can think
all things, it is reasonable that it is "not mixed with the body," and that
it does not have a peculiar material organ like the perceptual faculty.39
Moreover, he will conclude that one thing in the soul is separable, im
mortal, and everlasting, namely, the productive (or agent) intellect
34 De Anima 1.1.412b6-9.
35 De Anima 2.1.413a3-9. Omitting f\ with the manuscripts.
36 Reading ?v??/stai with the Oxford Classical Text and most manu
scripts. Some manuscripts and Themistius have ?v??xeaSai.
37De Anima 2.2.413b24-6.
38De Anima 1.4.408bl8-19.
39 De Anima 3.4.42918-27.
(votS? jroi?ycixo?).40 These claims about the intellect pose insurmount

able difficulties for an uncompromisingly materialistic interpretation
of Aristotle's psychology. On such an interpretation, the alleged sepa
rability of the productive intellect can only appear as an aberration or
an embarrassing slip by a philosopher whom one recent commentator
dubs "every physicalist's ideal role-model."41
But the primary concern of this essay is not the enigma of vo?j?
but the general philosophy of soul to which the account of vov? is sup
posed to belong. We should try to assess materialism as an interpreta
tion of Aristotle's general psychology. If materialists agree that living
things have souls, then it seems they hold either that (1) the soul is
one or more material components of the body (for example, fire), or
that (2) the soul consists of some condition, disposition, or alteration
of the material components of the body (for example, blood boiling
around the heart).
Elemental Materialism. Aristotle himself dismisses the first ver
sion of materialism as absurd, arguing that the soul could neither be a
particular element nor be a compound of elements. "For if the soul is
fire only such affections as belong to fire qua fire will belong to the
soul." Hence, we will not be able to explain how the soul learns, re
members, or forgets.42 Further, the first version of materialist psy
chology is inimical to Aristotle's distinction in the Metaphysics be
tween a natural substance and a mere heap of material components.43
For if the soul were an element (axotxetov) or material component
added to the elements which make up the body, there would merely
result a larger heap. A natural body must be a composite of material
components and something which is not an element but a form, a
cause which organizes the materials into a natural whole. If the soul is
to serve as a form or organizing principle, it cannot be a material com
ponent.
40 De Anima 3.5.430al3-25.
41 See K. V. Wilkes, uPsuche versus the Mind," in Essays on Aristotle's
De Anima, ed. M. C. Nussbaum and A. 0. Rorty (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1992), 109-27, esp. 125.
42 Generation and Corruption 2.6.334al0-15.
43 See Metaphysics Z.17.1041bll?33. Cf. Richard Sorabji, "Intentional
ity and Physiological Processes: Aristotle's Theory of Sense-Perception," in
Essays on Aristotle's De Anima, ed. M. C. Nussbaum and A. O. Rorty (Ox
ford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 195-225, esp. 48; and Terence Irwin, Aristotle's
First Principles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 291. However, as Robert
Heinaman points out, this passage only argues that the form is not an element
or material component, not that it is not a component in any sense. See "Ar
istotle and the Mind-Body Problem," Phronesis 35 (1990): 83-102, 88 n. 14
Central-State Materialism. However, the second version of ma

terialism?that the soul is some condition, disposition, or alteration of
the material components within the body?does receive support from
some of Aristotle's remarks.44 For when he repudiates Platonic and
Pythagorean dualism, he agrees with those "who think that the soul is
not without a body and that it is not a body; for it is not a body, but
something that is of a body, and that is why it is in a body, and in a
body of a certain sort."45 Although it is uncertain who these thinkers
are,46 their opinion seems consistent with the second version of mate
rialist.47
Aristotle claims along similar lines that states of the soul such as
perceptions and emotions involve the body. For example, occur
rences of seeing, hearing, and smelling "are neither bodies (being an
affection or movement... ) nor without bodies."*8 Again, he argues in
De Anima 1.1.403al.6-25 that all the affections or emotions (jt?Gr]) of
the soul are "with a body," because we are sometimes not excited or
frightened even though we undergo violent or obvious things, and we
are sometimes moved by small and feeble things when our body is in
the sort of condition it is when we are angry. Further, we may have
the affections of fear even when nothing frightening is occurring. He
concludes that the affections are "enmattered accounts" (Xoyoi
?vuXoi), and later remarks that affections like fear and anger are
inseparable from the natural matter of the animals in which they oc
cur.49
However, this materialist interpretation faces an apparent
difficulty, because Aristotle treats the form, in distinction from the
44 See L. A. Kosman, "Perceiving That We Perceive: On the Soul HI, 2,"

Philosophical Review 84 (1975): 499-519, esp. 518, who characterizes Aristo
tle as "a 'materialist' or, as we might now say (using "mind" as Descartes
did), a mind-body identity theorist." This is at least as far as perception is
concerns. Cf. Wilkes, 125.
45 De Anima 2.2.414al9-22.
46 Bonitz, cited in R. D. Hick, Aristotle. De Anima (Cambridge: Cam
bridge University Press, 1907), 330, sees a parallel with the theory that the
soul is a kind of attunement (aQôvta) of material components of the body,
which is set forth by Simmias in Plato's Phaedo 85e3-86d3 and discussed by
Aristotle in De Anima 1.4.407b30-408a5. However, Aristotle finds the attune
ment theory thoroughly defective, so it is unlikely that he is alluding to its
proponents.
47 Aristotle makes similar statements about material stuffs, for example,
"the wet and the moist are not without body, but must be water or contain
(8X8LV) water"; De Anima 2.11.423a24-6.
48 De Sensu 6.446b25-6
49 De Anima 1.1.403M6-17.
matter, as the nature or internal principle of change.50 He mentions

earlier theorists like Empedocles who claimed that earth, air, fire, and
water were the nature and substance of things, but objects, "What is
potentially flesh or bone does not yet have its own nature and does
not exist by nature, until it acquires the form corresponding to its ac
count, which we state when we define what flesh or bone is." Thus,
the nature or internal principle of change must be the form rather than
the matter. Again, "the form rather than the matter is nature, for each
thing is said to be what it is when it is actually rather than when it is
potentially." When we consider flesh or bone in so far as it is com
posed of material stuffs such as earth, air, fire, and water, we under
stand it as something only potentially flesh or bone. We understand
why it is actually flesh or bone only when we consider it as acquiring
the distinctive form of flesh or bone. Aristotle also observes that a hu
man being comes from a human being.51 What develops out of a natu
ral process is a being with a particular shape (fxoQcj>r|). "Nature when
it is spoken of as a coming-to-be is a path (??o?) to nature."52 There is
a directedness in nature from a parent to an offspring of the same
form. Natural processes thus have a goal-directed character which is
not due to the material, but requires an internal principle distinct from
them, namely the form.
Aristotle's discussions of particular states of the soul such as
emotions and perceptions present related difficulties for the material
ist interpretation which I can only briefly touch on here. For example,
the discussion of the affections of soul in De Anima 1.1, which I men
tioned earlier, offers what might be regarded as a model definition
(oqo?) of an affection of the soul: "being angry is a certain movement
of such and such a body (or part or power) by this for the sake of
this."53 The definition is hylomorphic and teleological in character,
specifying not only the bodily movement but also the end or goal.
Some theorists give only a partial definition: A dialectician would
define anger as, for example, "an appetite of returning pain for pain,"
whereas a natural scientist like Empedocles would define it as "a boil
ing of the blood and hot stuff around the heart." "The latter gives the
matter, and the former the form and account; for this [that is, the ap
petite] is the account, and it must be in a matter of such and such a
^Physics 2.1.193a31-b8.
51 Physics 2.1.193b8-13.
52 Pesics 2.1.193M3-14.
53 De Anima 1.1.403a26-7.
kind if it is to exist." Aristotle's own view is evidently that the genuine

natural scientist will define anger as a composite of matter and form.54
Therefore, it would seem that the materialist interpretation we have
been considering is inadequate, because it does not take into account
the distinctive forms of psychic states such as the emotions.
Nonreductionist Materialism. In the face of such difficulties
one might try to argue that Aristotle is a materialist in a subtler, less
overt way, corresponding to contemporary nonreductionist material
ism.55 That is, when Aristotle says, for example, that the sensory
power and the sense organ are the same, but different in essence, he
means to distinguish psychological descriptions of living beings from
descriptions of their material components. To ascribe a psychic state
to an organism is to describe or understand its behavior in a manner
different from explaining it in terms of a material cause. For exam
ple, psychological statements might be analyzed along functionalist
lines,56 for example, as in the aforementioned dialectical definition of
anger as an appetite of returning pain for pain. According to function
alism, "something belongs to a kind F just in case it can perform the
function definitive ofthat kind."57 On this functionalist interpretation,
what is essential to psychic states is that they play a specific role in
the teleological explanation of the development or behavior of a living
thing. A state like anger must be realized in a material event such as a
boiling of the blood and hot stuff around the heart, but it is not essen
54 De Anima 1.1.403 a27-b9.

55 An interpretation along these lines is defended by David Charles, Ar
istotle's Philosophy of Action (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), 2:13
34. The position is only a rough counterpart to modern nonreductionist ma
terialism, which is usually characterized in terms of the irreducibility of sci
entific theories or laws, for example, of the irreducibility of psychology to
neurophysiology. One theory or system of laws is reducible to another theory
or system of laws if the former can be derived from the latter supplemented
by suitable and credible "bridge laws." The proponent of this materialistic in
terpretation does not impute these ideas to Aristotle. Instead, the point is
that we may describe or understand certain states of affairs in psychological
terms, but such descriptions are not "reducible" in some other sense to mate
rial-cause explanations.
561 am here concerned with fimctionalism only in so far as it is allied
with non-reductionist materialism. There is a version of functionalism de
fended by Christopher Shields, "The First Functionalist," in Essays on the
Historical Foundations of Cognitive Science, ed. J.-C. Smith (Dordrecht:
Kluwer, 1990), 19-33, and others which is ostensibly neutral concerning how
psychic states are realized and what sort of causation they involve. I shall not
consider this neutral version of functionalism.
tial to anger that it be realized in any specific material state. Aristotle

on this interpretation could accept a thesis of "compositional plastic
ity": since no particular sort of composition is essential to psychic
states, it is possible for the same type of psychic state to be realized in
different ways.58
According to nonreductionist materialism, one can provide a
causally sufficient explanation of whatever happens, on the level of
material bodies and their corporeal qualities, in terms of states of af
fairs involving material bodies with their conditions, dispositions, and
alterations. In the case of a plant, growth can be explained in terms of
material causes which result in more matter being added in certain
proportionate mixtures. This can also be described on the psycholog
ical level as the plant nourishing itself and growing in order to survive
and reproduce. Nonreductionist materialism will countenance such
statements, although it might reinterpret the statement that "the plant
nourishes itself in order to survive" as equivalent to, for example, the
statement that "certain material processes within the plant result in
survival, which is good for the plant." However, the theory will not
admit that there is any real ideological cause at work which is inde
pendent of material causes, because this would entail a causal
57 See Shields who argues that this general form of functionalism is illus
trated, for example, in Meteorology 4.10.390al0-15: "All things are defined by
their function: for [in those cases where] things are able to perform their
function, each thing truly is [F], for example, an eye, when it can see. But
when something cannot [perform that function], it is homonymously [F], like
a dead eye or one made of stone, just as a wooden saw is no more a saw than
one in a picture."
^Defenders of functionalism include (to name a few): Michael V. Wedin,
Mind and Imagination in Aristotle (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1988); Christopher Shields, "The First Functionalist"; T. Irwin, "Aristotle's
Philosophy of Mind," in Companion to Ancient Philosophy: The Philosophy
of Mind, ed. S. Everson (Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1991), 56
83; and Martha Nussbaum and Hilary Putnam "Changing Aristotle's Mind,"
Essays on Aristotle's De Anima, ed. M. Nussbaum, and A. O. Rorty (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1992), 27-56. However, the functionalist interpretation of
Aristotle has been subjected to devastating (in my view) criticisms by
Howard Robinson, "Aristotelian Dualism," Oxford Studies in Ancient Phi
losophy 1 (1988): 123-44; Herbert Granger, "Aristotle and the Functionalism
Debate," Apeiron 23 (1990): 27-49; Heinaman, "Aristotle and the Mind-Body
Problem"; Alan Code and Julius Moravcsik, "Explaining Various Forms of
Living"; and Thomas M. Olshewsky, "Functionalism Old and New," History of
Philosophy Quarterly 9 (1992): 265-86.
overdetermination of the plant's behavior. This theory can only ac

commodate a supererogatory or "as if" teleology.59
Although subtle and ingenious interpretations have been devel
oped along these lines, they all face the formidable difficulty that Aris
totle expressly treats the soul as a real cause. This is true throughout
his philosophy of soul, including plant psychology.60 Plants possess
the nutritive faculty (to 8q?jtcix?v) or nutritive soul (r\ 0Q8JiXLxf)
tyvxr\), which is, according to Aristotle, "the first and most common
power of soul, according to which life belongs to everything and
which has as its functions reproduction and the use of nourish
ment."61 Aristotle maintains that the soul is not only a formal cause
and a final cause but also an efficient cause: it is the primary source of
locomotion (??ev jiqcdtov f| xax? t?jiov xtvrjoi?), and the cause of
growth and decay as well as perception.62 On the level of nutrition,
he argues that the soul is an efficient cause because explanations in
terms of material efficient causes fail to explain even plant behavior.
To appreciate Aristotle's argument we should keep in view the neo
Empodoclean chemistry63 which he finds most plausible: Sublunary
bodies are composed of four homogeneous elements?earth, air, fire,
and water?each of which has two distinguishing qualities, which are
drawn from each of the opposed pairs: hot or cold, and wet or dry.
59 Charles, Aristotle's Philosophy of Action, 216, offers a similar account

for human actions. We are permitted to say that Callicles struck Coriscus be
cause he believed that Coriscus had insulted him and he wanted to return
pain for pain. Alternatively, we could explain Callicles' behavior in terms of
a chain of cause and effect from the boiling of the blood around Callicles'
heart to his fist making contact with the chin of Coriscus. Given a certain
state of affairs, such as the boiling of blood around Callicles' heart in certain
circumstances, it would also be true that he wants revenge. However, to say
that Callicles desires revenge is to redescribe or understand his behavior on
another level, not to give a separate causal explanation of the outcome of his
fist contacting Coriscus's chin. For this outcome has a sufficient condition
on the level of material causes, and to admit Callicles' desire for revenge as
an independent cause would over determine the outcome.
60 See Alan Code, "Soul as Efficient Cause in Aristotle's Embryology,"
Philosophical Topics 15 (1987): 51-9. for a discussion of soul as efficient
cause in Aristotle's embryology. Code and Moravcsik, "Explaining Various
Forms of Living," also correctly emphasize the centrality of causation in Aris
totle's psychology.
61 De Anima 2.4.415a23-5.
62 De Anima 2.4.415b21-8.
63 Aristotle's chemistry departs from Empedocles in that he rejects the
latter's thesis that love and hate are distinct principles causing the four oth
erwise inert elements to combine and separate. On the contrary, Aristotle
holds that the elements have an innate tendency to move to their natural
places. The elements move otherwise only as a result of accidental colli
sions.
Further, each element has a natural place: earth moves naturally

downward, and fire moves upward, and so forth. According to this
chemistry all things are a mixture of these elements, and all of their
properties derive from the properties of the constituent elements. Ar
istotle argues that such a theory fails to answer three crucial questions
about growth.
(1) Why do organisms grow in particular directions?^ Accord
ing to the neo-Empedoclean theory, the downward growth of the roots
must be explained as due to the natural movements of the materials in
the plant, namely, the downward movement of earth and the upward
movement of fire. Aristotle objects that parts are different or the
same in respect to their functions, and they are located where they are
so that they can perform their functions. Although the roots of a plant
correspond to the head (more precisely, the mouth) of an animal, the
roots are only incidentally located at the bottom, where they can ob
tain nourishment for the plant.65
(2) What holds the organism's body together?^ "What is it that
holds the fire and earth together even though they are moving in oppo
site directions? For they will be torn apart unless there is something
which prevents it. But if there is, it is the soul, that is, the cause of
growth and nutrition."
(3) Why is growth a self-limiting process ?67 Some theorists (like
Heraclitus) explain growth as due to fire. Because it alone of the ele
mental bodies68 is evidently nourished and grows, one might think that
it is what is functioning when a plant or animal grows. "But fire is
surely a collateral cause (ouvaitiov) and not the cause without qualifi
cation. But the soul instead is the cause without qualification. For the
growth of the fire is unlimited, as long as there is combustible stuff,
but everything established by nature has a boundary (jt?Qa?) and pro
portion (Xoyo?) of size and growth, and these belong to soul but not to
fire, and to the principle (koyo?) rather than to the matter." Fire here
serves as merely a collateral cause (ouvaixiov) which cannot account
for the self-Umiting property of growth. A plant or animal has through
its soul the innate capacity to attain and remain at a predetermined
limit of mature growth, and this capacity is not reducible to the
64 De Anima 2.4.415b28-416a5.
65 They are at the bottom from the standpoint of the universe, but at the
top if we define the top in terms of plant functioning.
66 De Anima 2.4.416a6-9.
67 De Anima 2.4.416a9-18.
68 Retaining f\ xa>v oxoi/e?cov (bracketed in the Oxford Classical Text).
The phrase is explanatory, to indicate that the bodies in question are elemen
tal rather than natural bodies like plants.
material potentials in the organism's body.69 Although the arguments

so far considered pertain mainly to the nutritive faculty, it should also
be noted that, on the level of animal behavior and human action, Aris
totle treats the appetitive faculty as the efficient cause of movement.70
It might be objected nonetheless that all efficient causes must be
materially embodied for Aristotle, because a thing can produce move
ment only if it comes into contact with the thing it is moving.71 He
maintains that a corporeal mover must make contact with a corporeal
moved object, since both bodies have places and extended
magnitudes.72 However, he does not agree that all movers must be in
contact with what they move,73 because he also recognizes incorpo
real movers: apart from the great unmoved mover, all natural bodies
capable of self-motion must contain something which primarily im
parts movement without being moved (xo jcqcoxo? xivo?v
?xLvrixov74). The soul is for Aristotle such an unmoved mover.75 The
soul is not in motion as such (xaG3 avx?), and one of the main reasons
for this is that the soul is not a magnitude (\x?yeQo?).76 Although
movement does not occur in the soul, movement does proceed up to
it and start from it.77 Consequently, although the soul is an efficient
cause of motion, it does not have spatial magnitude, and as such it
cannot itself be a material being.78
69 Allan Gotthelf, "Aristotle's Conception of Final Causality," Review of

Metaphysics 30 (1976): 226-54, persuasively cites the third passage concern
ing limited growth as evidence for his interpretation that Aristotle's final
cause involves "irreducible potential for form" (irreducible, that is, to ele
mental potentials).
70 De Anima 3.10.433a3 1-2.
71 See Charles, Aristotle's Philosophy of Action, 218.
72 Generation and Corruption 1.6.322b32-323al2.
73 Although this is a requirement for bodies which move other bodies "in
a natural way" ((Jyuoix ?); Physics 3.1.201a24-5. Aristotle clearly has in
mind interactions of natural bodies.
^Physics 8.5.258al8-259a3.
75 De Anima 1.3.406a3-4. See Heinaman, "Aristotle and the Mind-Body
Problem," 98-9, for a full statement of this criticism. Shields, "The First
Functionalist," 163^1, also argues persuasively that Charles does not estab
lish his crucial premise that material effects must have material causes. The
passage Charles cites, Motion of Animals 10.703al8-29, does not support
this premise.
76 De Anima 1.3.40712-3, 4.409al-3.
77De Anima 1.3.408bl5-16.
78 This argument (assuming Leibniz's Law) is developed in greater detail
by Shields, "The First Functionalist," 114-18; Heinaman, "Aristotle and the
Mind-Body Problem," 84-8; and Robinson, "Aristotelian Dualism," 131.
Shields also appeals to Aristotle's statement at De Anima 1.5.41 lb27 that
"the whole soul is not divisible" (ou ?iaQexfj?), but the text is difficult: the
ou is missing from several manuscripts (CUXE).
III
It appears, then, that Eduard Zeller was right to declare, "The

soul, considered as the form and moving principle of the body, must it
self be incorporeal; and here Aristotle contradicts the interpreters of
his theory who represent it as being material in nature."79 Yet, as we
have seen, Aristotle also criticized the traditional dualistic theories of
soul for failing to grasp that the soul is the actuality of the body, and
that it must have a body of the appropriate kind. In addition, he ap
plies the hylomorphic account to psychic states such as emotions and
perceptions, which must also be embodied in the appropriate matter.
Superveniente (Epiphenomenalism). This intimate connection
between psychic states and material correlates suggests that Aristo
tle's view might be a counterpart to the modern theory of superve
niente: that mental states are nonphysical states supervening on phys
ical states. There are different formulations of the concept of
supervenience, but a widely accepted version is that a group of prop
erties *P supervenes on a group of properties <I> if, and only if, neces
sarily any two things that have the same properties in <I> also have the
same properties in W. In other words, if a thing is indiscernible on the
<I> level it must also be indiscernible on the W level. If two persons
have their brains in a certain state (for example, their C-fibers are fir
ing) then they will also have the same mental state (for example,
pain). There are many complications in supervenience theory regard
ing the sort of necessary link which obtains between the property in
the supervenience base and the property which supervenes on it.80
Moreover, the necessity is often explicated in terms of a possible
worlds semantics which is foreign to Aristotle. However, it does seem
possible to formulate a counterpart of supervenience which would
79 Eduard Zeller, Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics, trans. B. F. C.

Costelloe and J. H. Muirhead (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897; repr.
New York: Russell and Russell, 1962), ii, 2,4.
80 One issue concerns whether the supervenience relation is weak (nec
essarily holding within a given possible world) or strong (necessarily holding
between possible worlds). Influential discussions of the modern superve
nience theory of mind are offered by Jaegwon Kim, "Psychophysical Superve
nience," Philosophical Studies 41 (1982): 51-70; and "'Downward Causation'
in Emergentism and Nonreductive Physicalism," in Emergence or Reduc
tion? Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism, ed. Ansgar
Beckermann, Hans Flohr, and Jaegwon Kim (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,
1993), 119-38, who defends the strong version of supervenience. Both Shields
"The First Functionalist," and Michael V. Wedin, "Aristotle on the Mechanics
of Thought," Ancient Philosophy 9 (1989): 67-86, impute a counterpart of the
strong version of supervenience theory to Aristotle.
have been intelligible to him. The affections of soul could be said to

supervene on alterations of the body in the sense that if persons are in
the same material state (for example, if the blood was boiling in a par
ticular way around their hearts) they necessarily experience the same
psychic affection (for example, anger). On this interpretation, when
Aristotle says that the soul is the substantial form or actuality of the
body, he means that the soul as a whole supervenes on the body as a
whole. Given that the body is in a specific condition, the soul must
also be in a corresponding specific condition: it cannot be other
wise.81
The supervenience interpretation can account for why Aristotle
rejects materialism as well as Platonic dualism in as much as it re
quires that psychic states differ from corporeal states, while requiring
that psychic states be realized in "appropriate matter."82 However,
the supervenience theory leaves unresolved the crucial issue of psy
chic causation. Many, if not most, modern supervenience theorists
embrace a version of epiphenomenaiism according to which psychic
states supervene on material states but play no causal role on their
own.83 The implication that the psychological realm is determined en
tirely from the bottom up makes supervenience attractive to modern
philosophers, because it suggests a way in which we can have a com
plete physicalistic explanation of human behavior and still evade the
thorny objections raised by dualists. However, as we have seen, Aris
totle maintains that souls are real efficient causes, even on the level of
plant psychology. Moreover, all self-moving animals have souls which
operate as unmoved movers. Human beings act on the basis of
thought and choice. These causal claims cannot be reconciled with
an epiphenomenalist supervenience interpretation.84
81 On this interpretation any state of the soul which is an actualization of

a state of the body supervenes on that state. However, there may be particu
lar states of the soul (for example, thoughts) which do not supervene on any
particular corporeal states. See De Anima 2.1.413a3-9. Still, on this inter
pretation the soul as a whole, together, with all its particular states, super
venes on the body as a whole, together with all its particular states.
82 See De Anima 2.2.414a25-7.
83 See Kim, "'Downward Causation' in Emergentism and Nonreductive
Physicalism," 47: "If this be epiphenomenaiism, let us make the most of it."
84 Christopher Shields, "Soul and Body in Aristotle," Oxford Studies in
Ancient Philosophy 6 (1988): 134 n. 53, notes the difficulty a nonepiphenom
enalist version of supervenience theory entail causal over determination of
bodily movements, but he does not offer a solution.
IV
Emergence. This problem may be surmounted by another inter

pretation of Aristotle, which shares some features with the superve
nience interpretation. According to the emergence interpretation,
"the soul of a living thing is not an organization of bodily parts, but
rather something which supervenes on bodily parts when they have
been organized in a certain way."85 The attractiveness of this interpre
tation may be appreciated by contrasting it with another view which
Aristotle himself criticizes: namely, the theory that the soul is a sort of
attunement (aQfxovia).86 According to this theory87 the attunement of
the body is a certain blend (xqcxoi?), proportion (k?yoc), or combina
tion (o?v6eoic) of opposites (hot and cold, wet and dry) which are
mixed together. One of Aristotle's main objections to this theory is
that "an attunement (aQfxovicx) does not impart motion, but nearly ev
eryone ascribes this to the soul."88 He relates this view to Empe
docles' theory that each of the bodily parts is what it is because of a
certain proportion of elements, and asks, "is the soul the proportion,
or is it instead something different which comes to be in (eYY?vexai)
the parts?"89 The soul qua form is not a mere arrangement of material
components. Rather it is a causal power that comes to be in the body
85 Heinaman, "Aristotle and the Mind-Body Problem," 90. See also Robin
son "Aristotelian Dualism," and Theodore Scaltsas, "Biological Matter and
Perceptual Powers in Aristotle's De Anima," Topoi 15 (1996): 25-37. Victor
Caston, "Epiphenomenalisms: Ancient and Modern," The Philosophical Re
view 106 (1997): 309-63, gives the most thorough and rigorous explication of
the emergence interpretation of Aristotle. Although I had substantially fin
ished this paper before I read Caston's essay, I found that we had indepen
dently arrived at a very similar understanding of emergence as an interpreta
tion of Aristotle.
86De Anima 1.4.407b27-408a28.
87 The theory is advanced in a similar version by the Pythagorean Sim
mias in Plato's Phaedo 85e3-86d4. Simmias' original version sounds like
epiphenomenalist supervenience, because he says the attunement of a musi
cal instrument is invisible and incorporeal, but it is located in a tuned instru
ment which is itself corporeal and composed of materials. Similarly, the
body is held together at a certain tension between the extremes of hot and
cold, and wet and dry, and the soul is a blend (xqcxoi?) and attunement
(?pîovia) of these opposites when they are blended nobly and in measure.
Although the soul is invisible and incorporeal, it depends entirely upon the
condition of the body (cf. 92e4-93al0).
88De Anima 1.3.407b34-408al. See also Pha?do 94c9-e95a2 for a simi
lar criticism.
89De Anima 1.4.408a20-l.
when it has reached a certain level of organization. However, the soul

depends on the physical features of matter, so that emergence theory
differs from Platonic and Pythagorean dualism, as well as Cartesian
dualism.
Alexander of Aphrodisias, the great commentator of Aristotle, of
fers a similar refutation of the attunement theory of soul, in his own
work called De Anima:
When we say that the soul is a form which comes to be on (yivopievov

8Jti) the mixture and blend of the bodies which underlie it, we should
not suppose that it is an attunement. Even if the soul cannot exist apart
from such a blend and mixture, it does not follow that they are the
same. For the soul is not this sort of blend of bodies, which would be
the attunement, but it is the power which has come to be on this sort of
blend. It is analogous to the powers of medicinal drugs which are con
centrated when several of the drugs are mixed together. For the har
mony is the proportion and combination of things mixed together, but
the power of the compound is not the proportion according to which
they are mixed. And the soul is this sort of thing [that is, a power]. For
the power and the form coming to be on (?myivoîevov) the blend of
bodies according to this sort of proportion is a soul, but it is neither the
proportion of the blend nor the combination.90
Alexander's analogy is to a pharmaceutical cocktail fashioned by mix

ing drugs together, which has an enhanced power to cure the patient.
The causal power of the mixture is not identical with the materials in
the drugs nor with the proportion by which they are combined; rather
it "comes to be upon" (ejtiYLYvexoa) these material properties. The
soul stands in a similar relation to an organic body.
This theory of soul resembles certain modern versions of emer
gence according to which the mind or consciousness emerges from
on a complex physical system. A modern theory of mind of this sort is
defended by John Searle:
The brain causes certain "mental" phenomena, such as conscious men
tal states, and these conscious states are simply higher-level features of
the brain. Consciousness is a "higher-level" or emergent property of the
brain in the utterly harmless sense of "higher-level" or "emergent" in
which solidity is a higher-level emergent property of H20 molecules
when they are in a lattice structure (ice), and liquidity is similarly a
higher-level emergent property of H2O molecules when they are, roughly
speaking, rolling around on each other (water). Consciousness is a
mental, and therefore physical, property of the brain in the sense in
which liquidity is a property of systems of molecules.91
90 Alexander of Aphrodisius, De Anima, ed. I. Bruns (Berlin, 1887), 24,

18-25, 4. Heinaman, "Aristotle and the Mind-Body Problem," 90, points out
the similarity to his own interpretation.
Significantly, emergence theory also claims that the emergent mac

rostates are efficient causes in their own right. Hence this theory re
jects epiphenomenaiism.
It is tempting to see modern emergence theory as a counterpart
to Aristotle's philosophy of soul. If the soul were understood as an
emergent state of a natural body, we would have a plausible account
of his hylomorphic claim that the soul is the actualization of the body,
and that it is in one sense one with the body but in another sense dif
ferent from it. An emergence psychology would also support Aristo
tle's holism: here the organism as a whole (as well as its individual or
gans) is in a sense more than the sum of its parts, because it possesses
macroproperties which emerge from the properties of the part but are
not reducible to them. Teleological directedness might qualify as such
an emergent macroproperty. Finally, because emergence theory
treats emergent macrostates as causal, there is a parallel with Aristo
tle's persistent claims that the soul (along with states of the soul) is a
real cause: an efficient and final cause, and not merely a formal cause.
The form of an organism can control and guide the growth and devel
opment and behavior of its parts. This ascribed capacity to control
and guide might suggest that Aristotle means to reify the soul, that is,
to treat it as a separate substance which acts in tandem with the body.
But it is more accurate on the emergence interpretation to say a living
organism has formal as well as material properties and that each
makes a different causal contribution to the activities of the organism
as a whole.92 The emergence approach seems to capture much that is
distinctive in Aristotle's psychology. Nonetheless, in all candor, it
91 John Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind (Cambridge: MIT Press,

1992), 14.
92 The emergence interpretation could also account for Aristotle's reluc
tance to move from the premise that the soul is a moving principle and that
anger or pain is a movement of the hearty and that the soul is the cause of
such movement (to ?? xiveto?cd ?onv eoitv im? tfj? xpuxfj?, De Anima
2.4.408b7), to the conclusion that the soul itself is angry or afraid. He says, "to
say that the soul is angry is as if one said that the soul weaves or builds a
house. It is doubtless better not to say that the soul pities, learns, or fears, but
that the human being does this with his soul"; De Anima 2.4.408M1-15. Al
though the soul is a cause of change it is not the subject in which these
changes occur. Rather the acts are performed by the natural substance which
has the soul. Similarly, on the modern emergence view, a human being (or a
human brain) performs certain mental acts because it has a macro-state of
consciousness, but the human (or the brain) is still the agent performing
these acts.
must be conceded that emergence cannot accommodate Aristotle's fi

nal mystery?the immortality of the intellect.93
Let us consider, however, whether emergence theory is a satis
factory interpretation of the rest of Aristotle's psychology. This obvi
ously depends on whether there is a place for emergence in Aristote
lian natural philosophy.94 The most influential modern analysis of this
concept was offered by C. D. Broad.95 An explanation in terms of
emergence presupposes two distinct levels of existence: a basal level
and an emergent level. At each level there are entities with properties
and causal relations. Whether a property is basal or emergent is rela
tive to a framework of explanation. For example, a property such as
being alive might be emergent in relation to certain chemical pro
cesses, but basal in relation to a higher-level psychological feature
such as conscious awareness. Modern emergence theories of mind
like John Searle's hold that mental properties are macroproperties of
certain physical systems such as the brain. In general, a property E is
an emergent feature of a physical system S with components Ch . . . ,
Cn in a certain complex relation R, provided that E results from the
causal interactions of the components belonging to this system, and
that E is novel in that it "cannot, even in theory, be deduced from the
most complete knowledge of the properties of Ch . . . ,Cn taken sep
arately (that is in isolation or in other systems).96 Emergence theory,
therefore, involves the following theses97:
93 John Searle, "Response: The Mind-Body Problem," in John Searle and

His Critics, ed. Ernest Lepore and Rovert Van Gulick (Cambridge: Blackwell
Publishers, Inc., 1991), 105-136, makes this point in his reply to Alan Code,
"Aristotle, Searle, and the Mind-Body Problem," in John Searle and His Crit
ics, ed. Ernest Lepore and Rovert Van Gulick (Cambridge: Blackwell Pub
lishers, Inc., 1991).
94 The following discussion is indebted to the comparison and contrast
of Aristotle and John Searle in Code, "Aristotle, Searle, and the Mind-Body
Problem."
95 C. D. Broad, The Mind and Its Place in Nature (London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1925), 6,1-9.
96 This closely follows Ansgar Beckermann, "Supervenience, Emer
gence, and Reduction," m Emergence or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects
of Nonreductive Physicalism, ed. Ansgar Beckermann, Hans Flohr, and Jae
gwon Kim (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1993), 103, who in turn follows Broad,
The Mind and Its Place, 61. A great deal hinges on how "deducible" is under
stood here. Other versions of emergentism understand the emergent proper
ties as "novel" in the sense that they cannot be "explained" or "predicted."
97 This discussion is indebted to Kim, "'Downward Causation' in Emer
gentism and Nonreductive Physicalism."
(l)Basal materialism: there is an ultimate basal level, consisting of ma
terial objects and their physical properties.
(2)Holistic emergence: when collections of objects on the basal level

become interrelated in certain ways, the collections acquire certain
properties on the emergent level; and the aggregates can acquire such
properties only when the basal objects are related in such complex
ways.
(S)Irredudbility: the emergent properties of systems are novel in the

sense that they are not deducible from basal objects and their basal
properties.
(4) Causal efficacy: emergent properties are themselves causally effi

cacious: physical systems possess causal powers which are not merely
the sum of the causal powers of the components of the system.
According to thesis (2), underlying basal conditions?that is, the inter

relationships of basal components?explain the emergence of the
higher-level state. In this respect emergence theory presupposes su
pervenience, in that if any two systems are in the same physical state
they must also be in the same mental state. However, contemporary
proponents of emergence theory, such as John Searle, maintain that it
is not dualistic, because it does not assert the existence of nonphysi
cal states, but of higher-level physical properties of complex physical
systems.98 Thesis (3) distinguishes emergence theory from various
forms of materialism (those which Broad called "mechanistic"), for
physical aggregates are alleged to have holistic states which are not
fully explainable in terms of lower-level data. For example, it is
claimed that conscious processes cannot be fully explained in terms
of biochemical and physiological occurrences in the brain. Thesis (4)
distinguishes emergence theory from epiphenomenaiism and material
ism. For example, bodily movements can be explained as caused by
desires and beliefs, which are emergent mental states.
In addition, emergence theory entails the following thesis:
(5) Downward causation: emergent states can cause changes on the
basal level.
98 John Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind, 111-12. Although Searle

does not mention Broad, his account of emergence is substantially the same
as Broad's.
For example, a brain can bring about changes in its own basal-level
neurophysiological properties.99
Because emergence theory is committed to downward causation
it seems to be a close counterpart to Aristotle, who, as we have seen,
maintains that the soul is an efficient cause limiting and directing the
movements of the material components of the body. However, there
remains a difficulty for this interpretation which involves the notion
of emergence itself. For according to theses (1) and (2) above,
higher-level psychic properties emerge from a basal level of material
properties. This thesis evidently conflicts with Aristotle's own claim
that the soul exercises a causal power which cannot itself be ex
plained in terms of more elementary powers in the living organism's
body. Even in a plant, psychic causation is needed to explain why
growth is directed, why opposed materials are held together, and why
growth is self-limiting. The presence of such a psychic power cannot
be explained as the mere result of the material components or their
combination.
This point is made clearly by Alexander of Aphrodisias in his fur
ther critique of the attunement theory of the soul:
The doctrine that the soul is an attunement or combination based on an
attunement of bodies is more often held by [theorists] who generate the
99 The argument is due to Kim, '"Downward Causation' in Emergentism

and Nonreductive Physicalism," 136. According to theses (3) and (4) emer
gent states are causally efficacious irreducible states. Suppose higher-level
state El, which emerged from a basal-level condition Bl is a cause of future
states. Then it either causes a basal-level state B* or it causes another emer
gent state E2. But E2 can occur only if some basal-level condition B2 occurs,
from (1) and (2). Hence, higher-level states must bring about lower-level
states in order to produce higher-level states. Thus, either way, emergent
states must exercise downward causation on the basal material level. Kim
also argues (less convincingly) in this essay that nonreductionist materialists
generally are committed to downward causation. The implication that emer
gentism involves downward or top-down causation seems problematic to
Kim (p. 137), who sees the combination of upward determination and down
ward causation of emergent properties as potentially incoherent. However,
Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind, 112, points out that emergence theories
in fact take two forms: According to the weaker version, endorsed by Searle
himself, emergent mental states have only causal powers which result from
the causal interactions of the components of the physical system. According
to a stronger version, rejected by Searle, emergent mental states also have in
dependent causal powers (that is, which cannot be solely explained by the
causal interactions of the physical components of the system). Such a view
might allow for genuine freedom of the will, but Searle worries that it "would
seem to violate even the weakest principle of the transitivity of causation."
soul out of a such mixture or combination of bodies. These include the
Stoics, who say that it is breath (jzvev\ia) composed somehow from fire
and air, and the Epicureans, who say that soul is combined from several
different bodies. According to Plato, also, the substance of the soul
[arises] out of a combination of things composed according to a certain
proportion or ratio, as he says in the Timaeus [34e ff.]. The doctrine
that the soul is an attunement is, as I said, held by those who say the
foregoing things, rather than by the [theorist] who says that the soul is a
state and a power and a form which comes to be on (Emyivoiievov) this
sort of blend and mixture of the simple bodies. For those who hold that
these components themselves are somehow the soul also hold that it is
from (jcapa) the combination that the essence of soul belongs to the
composition. If such a combination is an attunement, then it is from
(jtcxqcO the attunement that the composition will have the essence of
soul. But the [theorist] who holds the soul is not without qualification
the things brought together, but it is a power which comes to be on this
sort of blend and mixture of the primary bodies, will maintain that the
blend will possess a material proportion, but the essence of soul will not
be due to the attunement and blend (as the previous thinkers assert) but
due to the power which comes to be on it.100
Although Alexander uses the participle ?mYivOM-evov from the

verb ejtiY?YveoOai, "come to be on," also translated as "supervene"?to
describe the relation of soul and life to the material condition of attun
ement, he explicitly denies that soul and Ufe arise from (jtap?) the
combination or attunement of material components. He thus rejects
the view that the presence of the power is as such determined by ma
terials reaching a certain level of complexity or organization.
Hence, although emergence theory more closely approximates
Aristotle's view than any other modern counterpart, it shares with
these modern theories the assumption that the ultimate ontological
level of explanation consists of material objects and their physical
properties. If consciousness does emerge, it must do so from this on
tologically more basic level. Emergence reflects the modern view
point that features of the soul will be ultimately comprehensible only
if they are determined in a bottom-up manner. This viewpoint is pro
foundly un-Aristotelian. Aristotle's philosophy of soul has a deep and
recalcitrant top-down character, putting it odds with any currently
popular counterpart in the philosophy of mind.
100 Alexander, De Anima, 26,13-30.
V
Epig?nesis. This difficulty, however, suggests an alternat

terpretation of Aristotle's claim that the immaterial soul super
on the body, which I shall call the epig?nesis interpretation,101
the verb ejuYiyveooai used by Alexander of Aphrodisias in the
passage.102 According to this interpretation, the soul makes a d
and indispensable causal contribution to the development a
tinuing existence of a living organism. The body itself, wi
material constituents in complex combinations and dispositions,
also exist in a condition suitable to receive the contribution o
The Pythagoreans and Plato failed to take into account the indis
able role of the body. The epig?nesis interpretation agrees th
soul can be present only if there is matter of sufficient complexi
it also holds that psychic causation cannot be reduced to m
causation. As Aristotle says, the material factors serve as a colla
cause (ouvoltlov) which must be present but cannot by them
account for the distinctive features of organisms, such as the s
iting property of growth. The matter is a cause only in the sen
sine qua non.103 According to the epig?nesis account the hylom
compound results from coordinated causal inputs: on the ma
level matter must be produced in a certain proportion; but,
tion, on the formal level a structure or organization must be su
posed upon the matter by an independent cause. On Aristotl
this independent cause is a preexisting compound, such as the f
in the case of an animal. The form of the offspring derives fr
form of the parent. Sexual reproduction involves the replicatio
form, and growth and survival the development and perpetuati
such a form in a suitable material base.
101 This interpretation is probably closest to that of Code and Mo

although they do not describe it in these terms.
102 Aristotle himself uses this verb in describing how pleasures co
be upon activities in the sense of completing or fulfilling them: "
completes the activity not as the corresponding permanent state does
immanence, but as an end which supervenes (emY?YV?îevov) as th
of youth does on those in the flower of their age"; Nicomachean
10.4.1174b31-3, Ross translation; cf. 11.2.1104b4. Aristotle also sp
form as supervening or "coming to be upon" the matter; Metap
Z.11.1036a31-b7.
103 See Physics 2.9.200a7-10, Parts of Animals 1.1.640b22-8, G
tion of Animals 11.1.734b28-30.
This interpretation is supported by Aristotle's account of sexual

reproduction in the Generation of Animals: "what the male contrib
utes to sexual generation is the form and the principle of movement,
while the female contributes the matter."104 The principle through
which a thing is ensouled or alive comes from the male semen:105 be
fore the organism is born the formal principle is present as a power
(?uva[XL?). For in sexual reproduction the animal is constituted out of
the matter from the mother by "the power from the male and present
in the semen."106 The form operates via movements which are present
in the semen and later in the blood of the embryo.107 Reproduction in
volves the transfer of movement from the male parent through its resi
due (semen) to the female residue (menses) and is perpetuated in the
fetus and offspring.108 In order for the power to be operative the
organism must contain vital heat which is the locus of the animating
principle109 and source of motion.110 This vital heat is indispensable for
the concoction of the semen,111 for the integration and constitution of
the menstrual fluid into a fetus,112 and for the concoction of nutrients
throughout the life process.113 The movements are inherently propor
tional, self-limiting, and directive. The proportionality is due to the
parent's nature.114 The vital heat thus provides a physiological expla
nation of how the form is imposed on the matter. However, it does
not provide the full explanation. The distinctive form of the progeny
is determined by the form of the father.115
The three different versions of the immaterialist interpretation of
Aristotle's psychology may be represented by the following three dia
grams (arrows indicating direction of causation):
104 Generation of Animais 1.20.729a9-ll.

105 De Anima 2.3.737a32-3
106 Generation of Animals 1.19.727bl4-16.
107Generation of Animals 2.4.740b32-3.
108 Generation of Animals 2.3.737al 8-22.
109 Generation of Animals 3.1.751b6.
110 Generation of Animals 2.1.732al9-20.
111 Generation of Animals 2.4.739al 1-13.
112 Generation of Animals 2.4.739b20-33.
113 See Dejuventute 4.469b6-13; Generation of Animals 3.11.762b7-8;
4.1.766bl4-15, 5.6.786al7.
114 Generation of Animals 2.6.743a26-9,34.
115 See Michael Bradie and Fred D. Miller, Jr., "Teleology and Natural Ne
cessity in Aristotle," History of Philosophy Quarterly 1 (1984): 133-46; Code
(1987), and John M. Cooper, "Metaphysics in Aristotle's Embryology," Pro
ceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 214 (1988): 14-41 on Aristo
tle's embryology.
Si S2 Si ? S2 Si ? S2
? ? ? 1 1 i
Bi ? B2 Bi ? B2 Bi ? B2
Epiphenomenalist Emergence Epig?nesis
Supervenience
The epig?nesis interpretation alone has no recent counterpart, since

contemporary philosophers of mind favor bottom-up determination of
mental states. However, the epig?nesis view seems closest to Aristo
tle's view because he clearly holds that the soul has a causal effect on
the body and that material causes provide only a necessary condition
for the hylomorphic compound.
The epig?nesis interpetation helps to explain why Aristotle in
sists that a living organism can come to be with a soul only if it is
brought into existence by another substance which has this soul in
actuality: he says, "the movement of nature exists in the product it
self, issuing from another nature which has the form in actuality
(?veQYBta)."116 This is why he insists that the movement involved in
sexual reproduction is "the movement set up by the male parent, who
is in actualization (evxeyex8^) what that out of which the offspring is
in potentiality (?uvaîsL)."117 Again, his rejection of evolution and in
sistence that species are eternal118 are easier to understand on the epi
g?nesis view. The chain of actually existing forms can be traced back
ward ad infinitum.
This interpretation also has the distinct advantage that it, alone,
seems able to accommodate Aristotle's claims about the intellect. As
we have seen, in several places in De Anima, Aristotle claims or im
plies that the intellect?or at least the productive intellect?can exist
separately from the body. In addition, in the Generation of Animals
he holds that the powers of the soul?nutritive, perceptive, and cogni
tive?all develop from a potential to an actual state, and that the fac
ulties whose activity is essentially corporeal cannot enter from the
outside. He adds, "It remains then for the intellect alone so to enter
and alone to be divine, for no bodily actuality has any connection with
the actuality of the intellect."119 Only on the epig?nesis interpretation
116 Generation of Animals 2.1.735a4.

117 Generation of Animals 2.1.734b34-6
118 Generation of Animals 2.1.731b35-732al.
119 Generation of Animals 2.3.736b28-30.
is this super-injection of intellect a possibility, because this interpreta

tion assumes that the form of the organism is immaterial. But it also
offers a nondualistic interpretation of the suggestion that the intellect
is an actualization of the body in the way that a sailor is the actualiza
tion of a ship. In conclusion, the epig?nesis interpretation would
seem to have this decisive advantage over its competitors: that it takes
fully into account Aristotle's claims about the soul as an efficient
cause of biological processes and animal behavior, while accommo
dating Aristotle's claims that the intellect is an independent, and even
separable principle.120
Bowling Green State University
120 Earlier drafts of this paper were presented in a conference at the

Ohio State University and in a colloquium at the Catholic University of Amer
ica. I am grateful to the participants for valuable criticisms and suggestions.

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Aristotle's Philosophy of Soul

Author(s): Fred D. Miller Jr.

.Ltebate continues over whether an "Aristotelian philosophy of

Correspondence to: Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling

that Aristotle's psychology is sui generis or incommensurable with

A satisfactory exegesis of Aristotle's philosophy of soul must pay

12 De Anima 2.1.412al3-16. It is noteworthy that Aristotle uses the term

internal principle of change. The second analogy is with a bodily or

19 See Politics 1.2.1253a20-5 which uses the premise, "everything is de

In the following chapter (De Anima 2.2) Aristotle offers a justifi

Aristotle rejects the doctrines of Plato and the Pythagoreans

(votS? jroi?ycixo?).40 These claims about the intellect pose insurmount

Central-State Materialism. However, the second version of ma

44 See L. A. Kosman, "Perceiving That We Perceive: On the Soul HI, 2,"

matter, as the nature or internal principle of change.50 He mentions

kind if it is to exist." Aristotle's own view is evidently that the genuine

54 De Anima 1.1.403 a27-b9.

tial to anger that it be realized in any specific material state. Aristotle

overdetermination of the plant's behavior. This theory can only ac

59 Charles, Aristotle's Philosophy of Action, 216, offers a similar account

Further, each element has a natural place: earth moves naturally

material potentials in the organism's body.69 Although the arguments

69 Allan Gotthelf, "Aristotle's Conception of Final Causality," Review of

It appears, then, that Eduard Zeller was right to declare, "The

79 Eduard Zeller, Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics, trans. B. F. C.

have been intelligible to him. The affections of soul could be said to

81 On this interpretation any state of the soul which is an actualization of

Emergence. This problem may be surmounted by another inter

when it has reached a certain level of organization. However, the soul

When we say that the soul is a form which comes to be on (yivopievov

Alexander's analogy is to a pharmaceutical cocktail fashioned by mix

90 Alexander of Aphrodisius, De Anima, ed. I. Bruns (Berlin, 1887), 24,

Significantly, emergence theory also claims that the emergent mac

91 John Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind (Cambridge: MIT Press,

must be conceded that emergence cannot accommodate Aristotle's fi

93 John Searle, "Response: The Mind-Body Problem," in John Searle and

(2)Holistic emergence: when collections of objects on the basal level

(S)Irredudbility: the emergent properties of systems are novel in the

(4) Causal efficacy: emergent properties are themselves causally effi

According to thesis (2), underlying basal conditions?that is, the inter

98 John Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind, 111-12. Although Searle

99 The argument is due to Kim, '"Downward Causation' in Emergentism

Although Alexander uses the participle ?mYivOM-evov from the

100 Alexander, De Anima, 26,13-30.

Epig?nesis. This difficulty, however, suggests an alternat

101 This interpretation is probably closest to that of Code and Mo

This interpretation is supported by Aristotle's account of sexual

104 Generation of Animais 1.20.729a9-ll.

The epig?nesis interpretation alone has no recent counterpart, since

116 Generation of Animals 2.1.735a4.

is this super-injection of intellect a possibility, because this interpreta

Bowling Green State University

120 Earlier drafts of this paper were presented in a conference at the

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