De Anima
Aristotle
tr. Joe Sachs

"[A]ll the attributes of the soul seem also to be with a body - spiritedness, gentleness, fear, pity, boldness, and also joy, as well as loving and hating - for together with these the body undergoes something." (402a16-19)

"The one who studies nature and the logician [dialektikos] would define each attribute of the soul differently, for instance what anger is. The one who say it is a craving for revenge, while the other would say it is a boiling of the blood and heat around the heart. Of these, the one gives an account of the material, the other of the form [eidos] and meaning [logos]. For the one is the articulation [logos] of a thing, but this has to be in a certain sort of material if it is to be at all." (403a29-403b3)

"[I]t seems that it is not in this way that the soul moves the animal, but rather by means of some sort of choice [prohairesis] and thinking [noesis]." (406b24-25)

"In thinking about matters of action there are limits (since all such thinking is for the sake of something else), while contemplative thinking is likewise bounded, by reasoned speech." (407a23-25)

"[T]hinking seems like some sort of stillness [ēremēsei] or coming to rest [epistasei] rather than motion, and inference [sullogismos = reasoning] seems to be the same way. And surely what is not easy but forced is not supremely happy [makarion] either..." (407a32-407b1)

"[B]y the partnership [koinōnia] of soul and body the one acts and the other is acted upon, and the one is moved while the other moves it, but none of these things belongs to just any two things in relation to each other." (407b17-19)

"[T]he art has to use [chrēsthai] tools and the soul has to use the body." (407b25-26)

"Now the material is a potency, but the form is a being-at-work-staying-itself, and this in two senses, one in the manner of knowledge, the other in the manner of the act of contemplating." (410a10-11)

"[T]he most governing thing is that which holds the elements together, whatever it might be; but it is impossible that anything should be more powerful than the soul and rule it, and more impossible still that anything should rule the intellect [nous], for it is reasonable, in accordance with nature, that *this* comes first and is what governs." (410b11-15)

"[R]ecognizing things does belong to the soul, as well as perceiving and having opinions, and also yearning [epithumia] and wishing [boulēsis] and desires [orexeis] in general, while also motion with respect to place comes about in animals by means of the soul..." (411a26-30)

"By life we mean self-nourishing as well as growth and wasting away. So every natural body having a share of life would be an independent thing having thinghood as a composite [of material and form]. And since this is a body, and one of a certain sort, namely having life, the soul could not be a body, since it is not the body that is in an underlying thing, but rather the body has being as an underlying thing and material [for something else]. Therefore it is necessary that the soul has its thinghood as the form of a natural body having life as a potency. But this sort of thinghood is a being-at-work-staying-itself [entelecheia]; therefore the soul is the being-at-work-staying-itself of such a body. But this is meant in two ways, the one in the sense that knowledge [epistēmē] is a being-at-work-staying-itself, the other in the sense that the act of contemplating [theōrein] is. It is clear, then, that the soul is a being-at-work-staying-itself in the way that knowledge is, for both sleep and waking are in what belongs to the soul, and waking is analagous to the act of contemplating but sleep to holding the capacity for contemplating but not putting it to work [mē energein]. But in the same person it is knowledge that is first in coming into being; for this reason the soul is a being-at-work-staying-itself of the first kind of a natural body having life as a potency." (412a14-28)

"So what soul is has been said in general, for it is thinghood as it is unfolded in speech, and this is what such-and-such a body keeps on being in order to be at all. It would be as though some tool, such as an axe, were a natural body, since its being-an-axe would be the thinghood of it, and would be its soul; for if this were separated from it, it would no longer be an axe, other than ambiguously." (412b10-15)

"So just as the act of cutting is for the axe and the act of seeing for the eye, so too is the waking condition a being-at-work-staying-itself, but as the power of sight is to the eye and the capacity of the tool to the axe, so is the soul a being-at-work-staying-itself, while the body is what has being in potency." (412b27-413a2) [PSA: on being-in-capacity see BEERE]

"[T]he soul is that by which in the primary sense we live and perceive and think things through." (414a12-13)

"[T]he being-at-work-staying-itself of each thing naturally comes to be present in something that is it in potency and in the material appropriate to it. That, then, the soul is a certain being-at-work-staying-itself and articulation of that which has the potency to be in that way, is clear from these things." (414a25-28)

"If the perceptive potency is present, then so is that of appetite [orexis], for appetite consists of desire [epithumia] and spiritedness [thumos] and wishing [boulēsis], while all animals have at least one of the senses, that of touch, and in that in which sense perception is present there are also pleasure and pain, as well as pleasant and painful sensations, and there these are present so is desire, since this is an appetite for the pleasant." (414b1-6)

"[T]he most natural thing for a living thing to do ... is to make another like itself, for an animal to make an animal and a plant to make a plant, in order to have a share in what always is and is divine, in the way that it is able to. For all things yearn [oregetai] for that, and for the sake of it do everything that they do by nature.... But since it is impossible for them to share continuously in what always is and is divine, since no destructible things admist of remaining one and the same in number, each of them does share in it in whatever way it can have a share, one sort more and another less, enduring not as itself but as one like itself, that is one with it not in number but in kind." (415a26-415b7)

"Now the soul is the cause and source of the living body. This is meant in many ways, but the soul is alike a cause in three distinct ways, for as that from which the motion is, that for the sake of which it is, and as the thinghood of ensouled bodies, the soul is the cause. That it is the cause in the sense of the thinghood is clear, for the thinghood is responsible for the being of everything, while the being of living things is life, and of this the cause and source is the soul. Also, it is the being-at-work-staying-itself that is the articulation of what has being in potency. And it is clear that the soul is the cause in the sense of that for the sake of which, for just as intelligence [nous] acts for the sake of something, nature too acts in the same way, and that for the sake of which it acts is its end [telos]. But the soul is such an end by nature in living things, since all natural bodies are instruments of the soul, the bodies of plants in just the same way as those of animals, as though having being for the sake of the soul; and the soul is that for the sake of which they are in the twofold sense of being that to which they belong and that for which their actions are. But surely also the soul is the first thing from which their motion with respect to place comes, though this potency does not belong to all living things; but alteration and growth also come from the soul. For sense perception seems to be a kind of alteration, but nothing that has no share of soul has sense perception; and it is the same with growth and wasting away, since nothing that does not nourish itself either wastes away or grows naturally, and nothing nourishes itself which does not share in life." (414b8-28)

"But we must divide up the senses of potency and being-at-work-staying-itself; so far we have been speaking about them as unambiguous. There is something that has knowledge in the way that we say any human being is a knower, because humanity is part of the class of what knows and has knowledge, but there is also a sense in which we mean by a knower the who already has, say, grammatical skill; and each of these is in potentcy but not in the same way, but the former is because his kind and his material are of a certain sort, while the latter is because he is capable of contemplating when he wants to, if nothing outside prevents it. But the one who is already contemplating is a knowwer in the governing sense, since he is at-work-staying-himself knowing, say, this letter A. The first two, then, are both knowers in potency, but in the former of them becaomes so in activity [ἐνεργείᾳ] when he has been altered by learning and has changed often [pollakis] from the contrary condition [hexis], while the latter does by changing, in a different way, from having grammatical or arithmetical skill but not being at work with it, into being at work." (417a21-417b2) [PSA: Aristotle's mention of having "changed often" is consistent with the battle metaphor at Post. An. 99b33-100b5, and likely applies to hexeis other than episteme.]

"But 'being acted upon' is not unambiguous either; in one sense it is a partial destruction of a thing by its contrary, but in another it is instead the preservation [σωτηρία], but something that is at-work-staying-itself, of something that is in potential and is like it in the way that a potency is like its corresponding state of being-at-work-staying-itself. For the one who has knowledge comes to be contemplating, and this is either not a process of being altered (since it is a passing over [epidosis] into being oneself, namely into being-at-work-staying-oneself), or is a different class of alteration. This is why it is not right to say that a thinkign being, when it thinks, is altered, any more than a housebuilder is altered when he is building a house. So the leading of one who contemplates and thinks into being-fully-at-work from being in potency is not teaching, but it is right for it to have a different name given to it; and the one who, out of being in potency, learns and acquires knowledge by the action of one who is fully at work and is disposed in the way we call teaching, either ought not to be said to be acted upon, or one must say there are two ways of being altered, the one a change to a condition of lacking something, the other a change to an active condition [hexis] and into a thing's nature." (417b2-16) [PSA: epidosis might be better rendered as 'advancement'; see FURTH pp. 266-267.]

"[R]ecognition of meaning [ἡρμενεία] is for the sake of well-being." (420b19-20)

"Perceiving is a way of being acted upon, in which what acts makes another thing, which is potentially such as it, be of that attribute that the former has actively. For this reason, we do not perceive what is as hot or cold, or hard to soft, as we are, but what exceeds us, since the sense is a kind of mean between the contrary attributes in the things perceived. In vitue of this it discriminates the things perceived, for the mean has the discriminating power, since it comes to be either of two extremes in relation to the other." (424a1-7)

"Now if sound is a kind of consonance, and there is a way in which sound and hearing are one, and consonance is a ratio, the hearing too is necessarily a kind of ratio. For this reason each kind of excess, the high as well as the low pitch, shuts off hearing, and similarly an excess among flavors shuts off taste, among colors the too-bright or too-dark shuts off sight, and among smells, a strong mess, sweet or bitter, shuts off that sense, inasmuch as the sense is a particular ratio. This is also why something purified and unmixed is pleasant when it is brought into a ratio. such as something sour or sweet or salty, for that is when they are pleasing, and generally what is mixed is more harmonious than what is sharp or flat, and what is warmed or cooled is more pleasant to touch; sense perception is ratio, and what is excessive undoes or destroys [φθείρει] ratio." (426a27-426b7)

"Hence this [episteme] is a different kind of event from a motion, since motion is a being-at-work of something incomplete, while being-at-work in the simple sense, that of something complete, is different again. And perceiving is similar to simple declaring and thinking contemplatively [νοεῖν - nothing about theoria in the Greek]; but when the thing perceived is pleasant or painful, the one perceiving pursues it or flees it, as though affirming or denying. Being pleased or pained is the being-active of the mean state in the perceptive part, in relation to the good or bad as such, and the fleeing and the desiring, in their being-at-work, are the same thing, nor are the desiring part and the fleeing part different from each other or from the perceiving part, though the being of them is different. And for the soul that thinks things through, imaginings are present in the way perceptible things are, and when it asserts or denies that something is good or bad it flees or pursues; for this reason the soul never thinks without an image." (431a6-17)

"[S]ometimes, by means of the imaginings and thoughts in the soul, just as if one were seeing, one reasons out [logizetai] and plans [bouleuetai] what is going to happen in response to what is present. And then the soul declares, as it would in the case of perceving, something pleasant or painful, here in this case too one flees or pursues it, and so in all matters of action." (431b7-10)

"[T]he soul is distinguished by two potencies of living things, that of discriminating [kritikos], which is the work [ergon] of reasoning [dianoia] and of sense perception [aisthesis], and that of causing motion with respect to place..." (432a15-18)

"[I]f nature neither does anything in vain, nor leaves out anything necessary except in living things that are mutilated or incompletely developed [atelesis], while such animals are fully developed [teleia] and are not mutilated (an indication is that they are able to beget offspring and have a peak [akme] and decline [phthisis] of life) - then they too would have parts that were instruments of passage." (432b21-26)

"It is certainly not the reasoning part [logistikos], or intellect [nous] in the way that word is used, that causes motion, for the contemplative intellect [theoretikos] does not contemplate anything that has to do with action [prakton], and says nothing about what is to be fled from or pursued, while motion always belongs to a being that is fleeing something or pursuing something; and even when the thinking part does contemplate something of that sort, it still does not urge that one flee or pursue it, such as often when it thinks about something frightening (or pleasant) but does not urge one ot feat it, even though the heart is moved (or, if it is pleasant, some other part). And even when the intellect enjoins and the reasoning part declares that something is to be fled or pursued one does not necessarily move, but acts instead in accordance with desire [kata ten epithumian], as does one without self-restraint [akrates]." (432a26-433b2)

"But it is obvious that these two things cause motion, desire [orexis] and intellect [ous], if one includes imagination [phantasia] as an activity of intellect, since many people follow their imaginings contrary to what they know [para ten epistemen], and in the other animals there is no intellectual [noesis] or reasoning [logismos] activity, except imagination. Therefore both of these are such as to cause motion with respect to place, intellect and desire, but this is intellect that reasons for the sake of something and is concerned with action [praktikos], which differs from the contemplative intellect [theoretikos] by its end [telos]. Every desire is for the sake of something, since that for which the desire is, is the starting point for the intellect concerned with action, and its last step is the starting point of the action. So it is reasonable that there seem to be two things causing the motion, desire and pracatical thinking [dianoia praktike], since the thing desired causes motion, and on account of this, thinking causes motion, because it is the desired thing that starts it. Imagination, too, when it causes motion, does not do so without desire. So it is on ething that causes motion, the potency of desire; for if the two, intellect and desire, caused the motion, they would do so as a result of some form common to them, but in fact the intellect obviously does not cause motion without desire (for wishing [boulesis] is desiring, and whenever one is set in motion in accordance with reasoning [kata ton logismon], one is also set in motion in accordance with wishing [kata boulesin]), while desire causes motion even contrary to reasoning [para ton logismon], since a passionate impulse [epithumia] is a kind of desire. And while every act of the contemplative intellect [theoretikos] is right [orthos], desire and imagination can be both right and not right. Hence it is always the desired thing that causes motion, but this is either the good or the apparent good, and not every apparent good, but the good as contained in action. But what concerns action is what admits of being otherwise." (433a9-30)

"But since desires [orexeis] come to be opposite to one another, which happens whenever reason and impulses [epithumiai] are opposed, and comes about in beings that have perception of time (for the intellect [vous] urges one to resist impulses on account of the future, while the impulse urges one to resist reason on account of what is immediate, since what is immediately pleasant appears to be both simply pleasant and simply good, on account of not looking to the future), then while the thing that causes motion would be one in kind, the desiring part as desiring - or first of all the thing desired, since it causes motion without being in motion, by being thought or imagined - there come to be a number of things that cause motion. And since there are three kinds of thing, of which one is the thing causing motion, the second that by which it causes motion, and the third is the thing moved, while the thing causing the motion is of two sorts, the one motionless and the other in motion as well as causing motion, the motionless cause of motion is the good sought by action, while the cause of motion that is in motion is the desiring part of the soul [orektikon] (for the thing moved is moved by desiring something, and the desire when at work [ἐνεργείᾳ] is itself a kind of motion), the thing moved is the animal, and the instrument [organon] by which desire causes motion is already part of the body, for this reason one must study what concerns animal motion among the acts performed by the body and soul in common." (433b5-21)

"So everything that lives and has a soul at all necessarily has the nutritive soul, from birth and up to death; for what has been born must have growth, a peak of life [akme], and a decline [phthisis], and these are impossible without nourishment. Therefore it is necessary that the nutritive potency be in everything that grows and decays, but perception is not necessary in all living things, for those of which the body is simple are unable to have it, as are those which are not receptive of forms without material; but an animal needs to have perception, and without this it is not possible to be an animal, if nature does nothing in vain. For everything that is by nature is present for the sake of something, or else is something that necessarily accompanies the things that are for the sake of something. And if any body were such as to pass through distance, but did not have perception, it would be destroyed and would not reach the end [telos] which is the work [ergon] of its nature." (433a22-434b1)

"So touch and taste are necessary senses for an animal, and it is clear that without touch it is impossible for the animal to be, but the other senses are for the sake of well-being [τὸ εὖ]." (434b23-25)

END