Introduction
The goal of this paper is to compare and contrast the descriptions of the soul as put forth by Aristotle and Rene Descartes. The main works I will be drawing from are the “Meditations on First Philosophy” by Rene Descartes and “On the Soul” by Aristotle. These two thinkers have had a massive impact on what we mean by the term soul. Despite their differences in era (one ancient and one modern), a detailed comparison can get to the root of what we mean by the soul. By contrasting these two thinkers, we can gain an even better appreciation for the implications of their beliefs on anthropology.
I will begin by outlining Aristotle’s definition of the soul, and how he differentiates types of souls. Next, I will describe Descartes' understanding of the soul. With this basis, we will be able to compare the two thinkers perspectives. Following this, I will contrast their thoughts. Finally, before concluding, I will look at the implications of these differences.
Aristotle On the Soul
Aristotle lays out his treatment of the soul in 3 books. In Book 1 he lays out the theme and describes the views of his predecessors. In Book 2 he seeks to define what he means by the soul and to give a general account. He defines the soul as “substance in the sense which corresponds to the account of a thing.” He goes on to give an analogy. He says that if you consider an axe to be a living thing, its soul is what helps it continue to be an axe, once the axeness of the axe has left it, the soul is no longer present in it. Further, he gives an analogy of the eye. Since the essence of the eye is sight, when an eye is not able to see, it’s an eye in name only, because the soul or essence has left it. He makes clear at the close of Chapter 1 that the soul and the body are both necessary to make a thing alive, although he allows for the possibility that certain powers or parts of the soul might be able to exist without the body.
From this definition, he goes on to differentiate between 5 powers of the soul. “The nutritive, the appetitive, the sensory, the locomotive, and the power of thinking.” From this, he differentiates between three classes of souls. Plants, he thinks, have the nutritive power. Sensory and appetitive go together, because you can’t have a desire (appetite) without sensing an object. All animals possess these two powers, but some have the additional power of locomotion. And so the second class of soul is the sensitive or animal soul. The third class has all of the above powers, but they also have the additional powers of rationality. And so these have the rational soul.
Throughout the rest of Book 2, he outlines the nutritive and the sensitive souls. We’ll start with the nutritive and reproductive soul. The nutritive power is that which gives a thing the capability of life. By taking in resources, we are able to incorporate those resources into our own life and being. Those resources truly become a part of us. The reproductive aspect is what allows things to pass their being down to future generations. It is a small participation in the eternal and the divine.
The Sensitive Soul is that which can use the 5 senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste) in order to better act in its environment. He spends a chapter on each power. Each power has a medium through which the object must be perceived through. For example, for sight, we require light to be able to see things. All of the senses also have a proper object. For example, the sense of smell seeks “the odorous and the inodorous.” It is rather remarkable, Aristotle points out, that we can take objects from the external world and reformulate it into our minds. We can grasp the form of the thing, and recreate it in our minds, without the matter. This is what separates animals from plants.
Finally, the rational soul is able to know the objects which are brought about through sense perception. This can be done perfectly or imperfectly. We are also able to, with this power, unite different concepts and ideas together based on similarities and differences. Oddly enough, we are also able to conduct the very power that we are using, when we think about thought. This knowledge, and knowledge like it is speculative.
As we have seen, Aristotle thinks that the soul is what animates, or makes the body to be alive in accord with the thing it is. A corpse and a man are different from each other because of the presence of the soul. He thinks there are 5 different powers of the soul that increase in complexity. He also argued that there are three types of souls: the nutritive, the sensitive, and the rational.
Descartes Description of the Soul
It is important to start by saying that the goal of Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy is to prove God’s existence and the Human Soul is distinct from the body. His methodology is to be skeptical about everything that he possibly can, so that skeptics will be converted to belief in God’s existence and in the soul. His project is really an experiment to see if he can prove God and the soul with intellect alone.
He begins by comparing the body and the soul. The body is made up of these parts which are rather indistinguishable from a corpse. The soul is that which powers the body and engages in sensation and thought. He says that the soul is “something thin and filmy-like a wind or fire or ether-permeating my more solid parts.” However, most of these powers, when starting with pure skepticism can be rejected. The body can be illusory. And the parts of the soul that are related to the body (movement and sensation) would also therefore be illusory. The one certainty that can’t be an illusion is the rational perception of one’s existence. The cogito: “I am, I exist.” From this he goes on to define himself as a thinking thing that is capable of doubt, understanding, affirmation, denial, desires, and also imagination and sensation. He concludes Meditation 2 with the realization that his mind is very capable of being wrong and that we can begin with intellect alone in our pursuit of knowledge of God and the Soul, if we are to be certain. Because of this, he thinks that the mind or soul is more trustable than the body (which was his initial intuition).
In his 3rd Meditation he gives an argument from God’s existence and proves that he is good. From this, he can go on in Meditation 4 to the knowledge that God cannot deceive him, that God gave him judgement, and therefore that he can also trust his judgement. Now, this judgement can be incorrect, but it cannot be outright deceived. The test, for Descartes, as to whether knowledge is genuine or not, is whether the knowledge is clear and distinct. Since he can clearly and distinctly perceive material things, the material world must exist, and so sense knowledge can be trusted.
Next, he argues that the mind and body are really distinct. The mind is indivisible, whereas the body is divisible. Only one part of the mind immediately interacts with the brain, whereas the rest of the body interacts in a more distant and confused way. This is why thought that is detached from all sense knowledge is more trustworthy than thought that relies on sense knowledge, even though this can be trusted if clear and distinct.
And so, we could summarize by saying that for Descartes the soul is the most real part of man. The soul is where man does his thinking. Thought that is clear and distinct is most truly conformed to reality. Although sense knowledge is trustable (if clearly and distinctly perceived), knowledge that is received through pure reason has a stronger basis. The lower parts of the soul (movement and sensation) are more bodily centered and are therefore distantly related to the soul.
Compare
I think that we can compare Descartes and Aristotle’s notions of the soul in 3 ways. First, both appreciate the fact that the soul and body are in some way related to each other. Secondly, both think that there are particular powers of the soul which can be immortal. Thirdly, both break down the soul into higher and lower parts, with rationality being higher and sensation being lower. We will discuss each of these in more detail.
The first comparison is that both thinkers recognize a relationship between the soul and the body. Aristotle held that the majority of the soul's powers rely on the material body in some way. Even the highest power of rationality recreates and uses things perceived materially to conduct rational inquiry. Descartes also thought that, although distinct from each other, the mind and body are related to each other, distantly. The sensitive and locomotive aspects of living things are not conducted wholly by the body, but require an immaterial element, a soul, to coordinate them.
The second comparison is that both Aristotle and Descartes think that some elements of the soul can be immortal. Aristotle, who is committed to a tight relationship between soul and body, is unwilling to admit that no parts of the soul can exist without the body. He says that “some [powers] may be separable because they are not the actualities of the body at all (6-7).” He doesn’t address this in this work, but I think here he means the ability to grasp universals, among other abilities. Although the Meditations lack any explicit reference to the immortality of the soul, I think it's reasonable to conclude from his hard division between mind and body that the mind is not affected by the death of the body. He certainly believes this by faith, even if he doesn’t demonstrate it by reason here.
The third comparison is that both break the soul down into higher and lower parts. Aristotle lists the 5 powers as nutritive, appetitive, sensitive, locomotive, and rational. Descartes puts sensation and locomotion as parts of the soul that are connected with the body, whereas rationality is unique to the soul alone. He interestingly places the appetitive power within rationality, along with the will as indistinguishable from the power of intellect.
Contrast
To contrast, there is one fundamental difference between the two thinkers. They differ profoundly in how the soul relates to the body. Aristotle describes the soul as intimately connected with the body. The soul animates the body in such a way that without a soul, there is only a corpse left behind. The soul is so connected with the body for Aristotle that all of the bodily processes we tend to think of in biology (metabolism, homeostasis, reproduction, movement and thought) all derive themselves from the powers of the soul. The ability for us to take in food and to convert it into usable energy for our own fuel is nothing less than the soul exercising its power of nutrition in and through the body. And so the two parts of a human being, body and soul, are not opposites that work to dominate over the other, but rather partners cooperating towards the good of the whole. Man is a composite of body and soul, which are utterly united.
Descartes, on the other hand, conceives of the soul (or mind) as largely disconnected and separate from the body. In the opening Meditations, he admits of very Aristotiliean notions of the soul. He describes the soul in three different categories, “ate and drank, moved about, and that I engaged in sense-perception and thinking.” However, as we move throughout the Meditations he seems to want to cut off the lower powers (eating and moving) from the higher powers (intellect and will). These powers are disconnected from the body except through perhaps one part of the brain. So profound is this difference that part of the title reads “the distinction between the human soul and body.” He describes how because the mind is not made up of parts, it must be distinct from the body which is made up of parts.
Further points could be added in contrasting these two thinkers. For example, Descartes describes the soul as not made of parts. Aristotle conceives of the soul of having different powers which constitute different parts. Be that as it may, the fundamental difference is most important: that Aristotle sees the body and soul as intimately united in the being, whereas Descartes thinks that the mind is radically distinct from the body.
Implications
Since this is an Anthropology course, I think it would be helpful to look at the implications of these two perspectives of the soul on anthropology. I will describe three implications to anthropology. First, the role of the body. Second, the role of the mind, or how we come to know. Third, our final end.
These two theories have very different perspectives on what role the body has in life. For Aristotle, the body is just as much a part of your being as the mind is. He conceives of man as the rational animal. As an animal, we have bodily needs which need to be met in order to thrive. As humans we need to take care of our bodies with a healthy and regimented life that integrates diet, exercise and other bodily cares that work towards the good of the whole person.
For Aristotle, man is also a political animal. This means that man lives in the context of a family and community in which he seeks to contribute to the common good. As a bodily creature, we do this in a bodily way. We greet people, communicate, and act in and through our bodies. So, for Aristotle’s part, the question of what is the body to human life is like asking what is it to be soda for Coca Cola? It’s a fundamental and basic part of human existence. Without it, there is no life.
For Descartes, on the other hand, the body is radically severed from the true self. Man is a thinking thing, in which thought is done in the intellect (in the immaterial mind). The body is a secondary part of the human being. We need to beware of what it communicates to us, lest it not be clear and distinct. Only if we are sure of the data that it gives us can we trust it. Otherwise, the body is solely a hindrance to the mind’s thought.
The second implication relates to epistemology. For Aristotle all knowledge begins in the senses. We begin by perceiving physical objects, and then abstracting the form from said object. So, if we see a dog, we will begin by perceiving it as a being, then as an animal, then as a furry animal, then as a dog. From this, we can then use our intellect to use that conception to do a multitude of things (like write a compare and contrast paper). And so similar to the first point, Aristotle see’s the body as having a giant contribution into our knowledge (it provides the sense data by which thought is possible).
Descartes, on the other hand, thinks that thought begins in the intellect. Knowledge that is derived purely through the intellect, like his proofs for God, or mathematical truths are the best form of knowledge. Knowledge that comes from the senses is less sure. Only if it has been cleared by the intellect as clear and distinct can it be trusted. So knowledge begins and ends in the intellect, and is highly skeptical of what can be trusted from our senses.
A third implication of these two thinkers relates to our final end. This one, I will argue is complimentary between both philosophers. Both thinkers would argue that our final end is to contemplate God. Aristotle argues at the end of the ethics that since man is a rational animal his happiness should come through rational activity that occurs for its own sake. The highest form of contemplation is to contemplate the divine essence, which is God himself. Similarly, Descartes after giving his first proof for God’s existence says something striking: “I want to pause here and spend some time contemplating God: to reflect on his attributes and gaze with wonder and adoration on the beauty of this immense light, so far as the eye of my darkened intellect can bear it….experience tells us that this same contemplation...provides the greatest joy we can have in this life.” Despite their differences in conception of the soul, both thinkers agree that the human person is directed toward the same final end: to contemplate God.
Conclusion
In this paper, we have compared and contrasted the thought of Aristotle and Descartes in regard to the soul. First, both thinkers' perspectives on the subject were outlined. Next, Aristotle and Descartes were compared to each other by three similarities: that the body and soul are related, that the soul is immortal, and that the human person is divided into parts. Then, they were contrasted in one fundamental way; namely, that Aristotle conceives as the body and soul as unified, whereas Descartes thinks they are separate. Finally, the implications of their perspectives on the soul on anthropology were reflected upon. These implications were threefold. First, that Aristotle gives a higher view of the body than Descartes. Secondly, Aristotle incorporates the bodily senses more into human knowledge than Descartes does. Third, that both thinkers believe that the ultimate purpose in life is to contemplate God and his attributes.
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