Ancient perspectives on Aristotle s theory of the soul as a hylomorphic form from Aristotle to Plotinus: Epiphenomenalism, Emergentism and Dualism

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1 Ancient perspectives on Aristotle s theory of the soul as a hylomorphic form from Aristotle to Plotinus: Epiphenomenalism, Emergentism and Dualism Abstract Riccardo Chiaradonna Rome, Nov. 28, 2016 The present paper offers an outline of Aristotle s hylomorphism and of its ancient developments, intended in this context as the background of the modern philosophical developments of the theory. According to a recent version of the theory, hylomorphism claims that structure (or organization, form, arrangement, order, or configuration) is a basic ontological and explanatory principle. Some individuals, paradigmatically living things, consist of materials that are structures or organized in various ways (W. Jaworski. Structure and the Metaphysics of Mind. Oxford 2016: 1). Aristotle s own account of the relation between body and soul broadly satisfies this description (with a number of qualifications, such as the status of active intellect). On the other hand, the historical approach to the theory as Aristotle and his immediate successors developed it allows us to draws attention to some interesting philosophical aspects and internal tensions of the theory. Some of Aristotle s early students developed his view in a way that we could label in modern terms as epiphenomenalist, since they conceived of the soul/structure as nothing more than the causally inert arrangement of the underlying body. This is the harmoniaview, which is actually criticised by Aristotle, but is taken over and developed by Aristotelian philosophers such as Aristoxenus, Dicaearchus (4 th century BC), and Boethus of Sidon (1 st century BC). This is how Victor Caston describes Aristoxenus s view: Behavior issues not from the soul, but from the nature and configuration of the entire body, as sounds do from an instrument. In both cases, the aggregate of material forces is entirely sufficient to cause the effects that follow. Nothing here requires distinct mental powers (V. Caston. Epiphenomenalisms, Ancient and Modern. The Philosophical Review. 106 (1997): 340). So according to this reading of Aristotle the form/structure is neither an ontological nor an explanatory principle. Boethus of Sidon equates Aristotle s substantial form with a bundle of non-substantial properties (presumably particular properties or tropes, in modern terms, since Boethus rejects the existence of universals) occurring in matter. This reading of Aristotle is interestingly criticised by Alexander of Aphrodisias (2 nd AD), whose defence of the substantial and causal status of hylomorphic forms can be set in parallel with some recent neo- Aristotelian views based on emergentism and causal powers ontology. As Victor Caston noted in regard to Alexander s view, the forms of natural substances, and hence souls, are ultimately to be understood as causal powers or dispositions. Forms are the features of substances that enable them to do or undergo the activities characteristic of their kind in Aristotelian terminology, a form just is the ability to perform one s specific function or ergon. Aristotelians in the last forty years have taken this approach to be pivotal and placed great emphasis on it. But the first person to make this central is Alexander. A striking feature of his treatise, as a quick glance at the Greek-English Index will show, is how prevalent the word dunamis or power is much more so, in 1

2 fact, than energeia or activity, which one might otherwise have assumed would be more important, given the ontological and definitional priority Aristotle assigns it in the Metaphysics. But there is no substantive or doctrinal difference here, only one of emphasis. A power must inevitably be defined as the power to perform or undergo a certain activity, just as this activity can in turn be understood as its culmination and fulfilment (V. Caston. Alexander of Aphrodisias. On the Soul. Part 1. Translated with an Introduction and Commentary. London 2012: 8). Indeed, Alexander s critical engagement with the previous Peripatetic tradition is one of the most intriguing, and still neglected, philosophical debates in Antiquity (for details, see. M. Rashed. Essentialisme. Alexandre d'aphrodise entre logique, physique et cosmologie. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter 2007). After Alexander, Plotinus (3 rd AD) levels an interesting criticism to hylomorphism. To cut a long story short, Plotinus argues that the distinction between structure and the underlying matter is insufficiently grounded. His position is somewhat similar to that, in recent times, has regarded hylomorphism merely as a moderate form of materialism,. In this perspective, according to Plotinus, while Aristotle and Alexander are right in claiming that the soul is an ontological and explanatory principle, the Peripatetic notion of hylomorphic form is not an adequate expression of that idea. Plotinus claims that only a self-subsistent and extra-physical substance, such as a Platonic soul, is able to solve the internal tensions of hylomorphism. In particular, he rejects the view that life can be seen as some kind of structural or emergent property of the underlying matter. This ancient philosophical debate runs in a direction that is contrary to recent discussions. Hylomorphism is currently regarded as an attractive theory, which is able to solve the difficulties caused by materialism, on one side, and by substance dualism, on the other. In antiquity, instead, hylomorphism was taken to be a materialist theory and the distinction between matter and structure was often seen an insufficiently grounded. Texts 1: Aristotle s account of substance and the form/matter distinction T1: Aristotle, On the Soul, b34-408a5 Harmony, however, is a certain proportion or composition of the constituents blended, and soul can be neither the one nor the other of these. Further, the power of originating movement cannot belong to a harmony, while all concur in regarding this pretty well as a principal attribute of soul. It is more appropriate to call health (or generally one of the good states of the body) a harmony than to predicate it of the soul. (tr. Smith) T2: Aristotle, On the Soul, b10-17 We have now given a general answer to the question, What is soul? It is substance in the sense which corresponds to the account of a thing. That means that it is what it is to be for a body of the character just assigned. Suppose that a tool, e.g. an axe, were a natural body, then being an axe would have been its essence, and so its soul; if this disappeared from it, it would have ceased to be an axe, except in name. As it is, it is an axe; for it is not of a body of that sort that what it is to be, i.e. its account, is a soul, but 2

3 of a natural body of a particular kind, viz. one having in itself the power of setting itself in movement and arresting itself. (tr. Smith) T3: Aristotle, Categories, 2a11-19 A substance that which is called a substance most strictly, primarily, and most of all is that which is neither said of a subject nor in a subject, e.g. the individual man or the individual horse. The species in which the things primarily called substances are, are called secondary substances, as also are the genera of these species. For example, the individual man belongs in a species, man, and animal is a genus of the species; so these both man and animal are called secondary substances. (tr. Ackrill) T4: Aristotle, Metaphysics, a7-30 We have now outlined the nature of substance, showing that it is that which is not predicated of a subject, but of which all else is predicated. But we must not merely state the matter thus; for this is not enough. The statement itself is obscure, and further, on this view, matter becomes substance. For if this is not substance, it is beyond us to say what else is. When all else is taken away evidently nothing but matter remains. [ ] For those who adopt this point of view, then, it follows that matter is substance. But this is impossible; for both separability and individuality are thought to belong chiefly to substance. And so form and the compound of form and matter would be thought to be substance, rather than matter. (tr. Ross) T5: Aristotle, Metaphysics, b22-32 Therefore to bring all things thus to Forms and to eliminate the matter is useless labour; for some things surely are a particular form in a particular matter, or particular things in a particular state. And the comparison which Socrates the younger used to make in the case of animal is not good; for it leads away from the truth, and makes one suppose that man can possibly exist without his parts, as the circle can without the bronze. But the case is not similar; for an animal is something perceptible, and it is not possible to define it without reference to movement nor, therefore, without reference to the parts and to their being in a certain state. For it is not a hand in any state that is a part of man, but the hand which can fulfil its work, which therefore must be alive; if it is not alive it is not a part. (tr. Ross) 2: The epiphenomenalist reading of the form: 4 th BCE-2 nd CE T6: Cicero, Tusc. disp Aristoxenus, who was a musician as well as a philosopher, [said that the soul is] a certain tension of the body itself, just like what is called harmonia in singing and in lyres: various changes are thus produced from the nature and configuration of the entire body, just as tones are in singing. (tr. Caston) T7: Nemesius, De nat. hom. 2, Morani Dicaearchus [says the soul is] a tuning of the four elements in place of a tempering or concord of the elements. For he does not mean a tuning composed of notes, but rather the hamornious tempering and concord in the body of hot, cold, wet, and dry things. (tr. Caston) 3

4 T8: Simplicius, In Cat Kalbfleisch However, Boethus wants to put these enquiries aside at this point; for [he says that] the discussion is not about intelligible substance. Rather, he says, one should raise the further difficulty that elsewhere where he divides up substance [Aristotle] said that in one way matter is said to be substance, in another form is, and in another the compound of the two; but here he posits substance as a single category. So which is this, and how will he arrange under [substance] these three which are not spoken of according to a single account? In response Boethus says that the account of primary substance fits both matter and the compound. For of both it is the case that they are neither said of some subject nor present in some subject. For neither of them is in something else. But the compound, even if it is not in something else, possesses the form which is in it [as] something which is in something else, [namely the form is in] the matter, while the matter possesses nothing which is in something else. So they have something in common and something different, inasmuch as the matter, as matter, is the matter of something, as it is also a subject, whereas the compound substance is not of anything. In this way, Boethus says, matter and the compound will be brought under the category of substance; but form will be outside [the category of] substance but will fall under another category, quality or quantity or some other. (tr. Sharples) T9: Galen, That the Faculties of the Soul Follow the Temperament of the Body, IV.774 K. Yet, if all such bodies [i.e. the natural and homogeneous bodies] are composed of matter and form, and it is Aristotle s own belief that the natural body comes about through the four qualities arising in the matter, it is necessary for him to posit the mixture of these qualities as the form of it [i.e. of the body], so that it seems as if the substance of the soul, too, will be some mixture of the four whether you wish to use the terminology of qualities hotness, coldness, dryness and wetness or of bodies that are hot, cold, dry and wet. (tr. Singer, slightly modified) T10: Galen, That the Faculties of the Soul Follow the Temperament of the Body, IV K. [ ] and as for Andronicus the Peripatetic, because he dared to make a declaration on the substance of the soul altogether, as a free man and without unclear verbal complications, I approve him highly, and accept the opinion of the man (and I find him similar in many other areas, too). Where, however, he says that it is either a mixture or a capacity dependent on the mixture, I disapprove of the addition of capacity. For if the soul has many capacities, while itself being a substance, and this has been correctly stated by Aristotle, also making a fine distinction on the homonymy here for, while substance is used in the sense of matter, and of form, and of composite of both, he declared that soul is substance in the sense of form then it is not possible to say anything other than the mixture, as was shown a little earlier. (tr. Singer) 3: Alexander s hylomorphic position T11: Alexander of Aphrodisias, On the Soul Bruns For a natural form is a substance, just as matter is, since the parts of a substance are substances; or better still, it is because each of them is a substance that what is composed out of both is also a substance and a single nature of some kind. This is 4

5 unlike artefacts, which are substances in virtue of the underlying matter and qualities in virtue of their forms. (tr. Caston) T12: Alexander of Aphrodisias, On the Soul, Bruns Nor is the soul in the body in the way that an extrinsic characteristic is in an underlying subject. For the soul is a substance and can receive contraries. But no extrinsic characteristic is a substance. Moreover, what is in some underlying subject is not responsible for the being of what underlies it, since what underlies it can also exist separately from it, whereas the organic body in which the soul is present gets what it is to be organic from the soul. (tr. Caston) T13: Alexander of Aphrodisias, On the Soul, Bruns One should not assume that people who claim that 1. the soul is a form that supervenes on a particular sort of mixture and blend of the bodies underlying it [also] claim that 2. the soul is a harmony. For suppose that the soul cannot be separate from this sort of blend and mixture; it does not thereby follow that it is the same as the soul. For the soul is not a particular kind of blend of bodies which is what a harmony is but a power that emerges above a particular kind of blend, analogous to the powers of medicinal drugs, which are assembled from a blend of many [ingredients]. For in their case too, the mixture, composition, and proportion of drugs such that one of them, it might turn out, is 2:1, another 1:2, and another 3:2 bear some analogy to a harmony. The power, however, which emerges from the blend of drugs exhibiting this harmony and proportion is not likewise a harmony too. For while the harmony is the proportion and composition of the mixed ingredients, the ointment s power is not the proportion by which the ingredients are mixed. The soul is also of this sort. For the soul is the power and form that supervenes on the blend of bodies in a particular proportion, not the proportion or composition of the blend. For it would make more sense for someone to say that health is a harmony than to say that the soul is, since the former comes closer to a harmony than the soul does. For health is a balance of various things, where this balance is just a composition and mixture of certain things in a certain proportion. The soul, in contrast, is not a balance, but the power [that supervenes] on the balance: it cannot be without this balance, but is not [the same as] it. (tr. Caston) 4: Plotinus revival of substance-dualism against hylomorphism T14: Plotinus, If then it [the soul] is assimilated to the body by being applied to it, as the form of the statue is to the bronze, then when the body was divided the soul would be separated into parts along with it, and when a part was cur off there would be a bit of soul with the cutoff piece of body [ ] further, if the soul was an entelechy there could be no opposition of reason to desire, but the whole wouid be affected throughout in one and the same way without disagreeing with itself. (tr. Armstrong) T15: Plotinus,

6 But soul does not have life in this way, as if it was underlying matter and life come upon it and made it soul, for life is rather a substance, and soul is a substance of this kind, living of itself which is the thing we are looking for and they will admit that this is immortal, or they will treat it also as a composite and separate its parts until they come to an immortal thing moved by itself; [ ] Or if they say that life is an external affection of matter, they will be compelled to admit that the very thing from which this affection came into rnatter is immortal, unable to receive rhe opposite of the life it brings. But there really is one single nature which is actually alive. (tr. Armstrong) T16: Plotinus, But soul will certainly not be in body as in a substrate, either: for that which is in a substrate is an affection of that in which it is, colour and shape for instance, and soul is something separable. [ ] How then is it that the soul is said by everyone to be in the body? lt is because the soul is not visible, but the body is, so we see the body and are aware that it is ensouled because it moves and perceives, and so say that it has soul. It would then be a natural consequence for us to say that he soul is actually in the body. But if the soul was visible and perceptible, in every way surrounded by life and extending equally to all the extremities of the body, we shouid not have said that the soul was in the body, but that the unimportant was in the more important, and what is held together in what holds it together, and that which flows away in that which does not. (tr. Armstrong) T17: Plotinus, But if what is composed of rational soui and body is the rational fonn of man, how could it be something eternally existent, since this rational form of this kind of man comes into existence when body and soul come together? For this rational form will be explanatory of what is going to be, not the sort we say is absolute man, but more Iike a definition, and the kind of definition which does not explain the essential nature. For it is not even a definition of the form in matter, but explains the composite, which already exists. But if this is so, the man is not yet found: for he was going to be the one according to the rationai form. But if someone were to say The rational form of such beings must be something composite, this in this, he does not think fit to say by what each exists; but one must, however much one must also speak of the rational forming principles of forms in matter as including matter, grasp the forming principle itself which makes, for instance, man; this applies especially to those who claim to define the essential nature in each case, when they define strictly and properly. (tr. Armstrong) T18: Plotinus, But since here below also in the mixture and composition one element is body and the other soul for the All is a living thing and the nature of soul is in that intelligible All and will not fit into the classification of what is called substance here below, we must, even if it is difficult to do so, all the same leave soul out of the investigation in which we are at present occupied; just as if someone wishing to classify the citizens of a city, by their property assessments or skills for instance, left the resident foreigners out of account. (tr. Armstrong) T19: Plotinus,

7 I do not mean this in the sense that when it [a certain property] is there with the others it is substance, completing one mass of a particular size and quality, but elsewhere when it is not contributing to completion it is a quality, but that even in the former case each particular one is not a substance, but the whole made up from them all is substance. And there is no need to object if we make sensible substance out of non-substances; for even the whole is not true substance but imitates the true substance, which has its being without the others which attend on it, and the others come into being from it, because it truly is; but here what underlies is sterile and inadequate to be being, because the others do not come from it, but it is a shadow, and upon what is itself a shadow, a picture and a seeming. (tr. Armstrong) 7

Vol 2 Bk 7 Outline p 486 BOOK VII. Substance, Essence and Definition CONTENTS. Book VII

Vol 2 Bk 7 Outline p 486 BOOK VII Substance, Essence and Definition CONTENTS Book VII Lesson 1. The Primacy of Substance. Its Priority to Accidents Lesson 2. Substance as Form, as Matter, and as Body.