Teleology and Necessity
D.M. Balme
In Gotthelf and Lennox, eds., Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology
Cambridge, 1987

"Aristotle too expresses the distinction between the causes as betwen necessity and 'the better' or 'the good', although he makes it clearer than Plato does that 'good' is not an extrinsic value-judgment but means the useful or advantageous from the animal's viewpoint. [fn5: The useful: PA II 654a19; III662a33, b3, 7; IV 677a16, 678a4-16, 683b37, 684a3, 685a28, 687b29, 691b1; Resp. 476a12; Sometimes he gives precedence to 'the valuable' (timion: e.g. PA II 658a22; III 672b20; IV 687a15). But the part's value derives from its usefulness, not vice versa: IA 706b14; PA III 672b15.]" (BALME-1987d, p. 277)

"[S]oul is not an independent entity but is the form of the body. It is the body's entelechy, its activity and actualization. In GA ... Aristotle equates the soul with 'movements' in the bodily tissues and blood, and because these movements form a self-limiting complex they control the body's constituents, so that the soul is at once the expression and the controller of bodily activity." (BALME-1987d, p. 279)

"Aristotle did not regard the automatic physical interaction as capable of producing animal tissues and organs; for when the elements act without being used by nature or soul, they do not impose limit and definition upon themselves. (DA II 416a15; GA II 734b31)" (BALME-1987d, p. 281)

"The elements act in their own natural ways, but the actions are unlimited. This is the sense of the 'indeterminacy' (aorista) that Aristotle attributes to proximate matter (GA IV 778a6). It does not mean uncertain quality of action, nor an inscrutable intractability as some have suggested, but simply that the matter has not yet been formally determined into a precise state." (BALME-1987d, p. 283) [PSA: cf. natural virtue vs. phronesis as well as the object of deliberation vs. the object of choice.]

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