(taken from example of presentation)

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/republic/section4.rhtml

The Republic (book IV) and De Anima, by Aristotle are both concerned with the soul.
In The Republic, there are three main points: the soul parallel, the argument of the
soul as divided, and the necessity of unity of the parts of the soul.

Plato develops here his famous psychology; he begins by introducing us to the

guardians. Adamantius questions what will make them guard the city, if they are not
happy…His conception for the money-making class of happiness is material wealth.
The guardians are not apart of this class, so this pleasure seeking is not applicable
to their conception of happiness…which is based on virtues.

There is also the ruling class, which is supposed to rise from the guardian class.

The relevant virtues for each class (and soul) are as follows:

For the moneymaking class it is temperance (sobriety, “sophrosone”, moderation);

this corresponds to the part of the soul called the appetitive, or desiring – which are
concerned with the problems of pleasure and pain. This is going to be the biggest
constituent of both the state, and of the soul. This is associated with the passive
mechanical drive. This is controlled externally by the thing being sought…which
may not be known.

For the guardian class the corresponding virtue is courage (valiance) – correlates to
the spirit (anger, heart, thymos) – which are concerned with honor. Honor is what
matters to the guardian class, not pleasure or pain.

For the ruling class the corresponding virtue is wisdom – correlates to the part of the
soul called the mind (reason, thought) – which are concerned with the truth/good
(the platonic Forms).

Why should we accept this notion of the synonymity of the individual and the State?
Plato’s conception of Justice is the same both for men and for the state…He says
that there is a Form that governs each individual thing so that the variances
(whether it is the ruling class or the reason) when taken away, will allow the
remainder of Justice to be the same…

There is a problem between the movement of the State: the individual as an

aggregate makes up the State…There can be an unjust person within a just city.
Can an individual be a bad man, but a good citizen? Or a good man, and not a good
citizen? Is the state just as a whole, or in itself, by the fact that it contains those
who are in themselves just.

Also, for each person, is the relative relation of the three types of the soul the same
(in order to be just?) For a money maker, is the appetitive more dominant? All of the
goods mentioned are goods in and of itself…whatever the good, it will be modulated
by reason (wisdom) and also the spirit. Any individual may be bent in any given
direction (the moneymakers towards appetitive for instance); but as long as the
balance is maintained between the other two parts, justice is maintained. Plato
believes this is what gives us our nature. Also, in order to be successful the soul
needs to be just. For instance, the moneymakers don’t need to have a moral
knowledge be the overriding interest (self interest is the motivation). But are there
degrees of justice? Is the man who (by nature) is seeking after truth, is he more just
than the man who is seeking after pleasure? Is truth not a better good? (Plato plays
both ways; there is an inequality, but the justice itself is the same); his justice can
be fair insofar as each of the classes gets the good that is relevant to it, but
unequal, in the sense that the goods which are sought after are unequal. For
instance truth is greater than pleasure.

Is there any class of goods that may be left out? If so, then the argument that this is
not the natural order will hold. Plato feels that his three distinctions cover
everything. Before modernity, nature is just – people are supposed to align
themselves to nature. It was only in modern times when the idea that there is
nothing moral about nature at all. It is not that it is bad – but rather neutral;
morality is a construction which we apply.

There is a causal connection: because the state through education will exacerbate
the justice of the individual, who will cause the justice of the city.

Justice..Plato says, is the remainder of these three virtues; it is somehow the

relation or proportion between the three virtues.

Plato argues for the divided soul through common sense: “if we are to talk about
self-mastery, then there must necessarily be a master and a slave;” he also gives us
a phenomenological description of a point where the soul is divided against itself…
he gives the example of thirst, being thirsty yet denying drink. This points to conflict
and division. (this leads to two divisions)

So why are there three parts instead of two? We not only have appetites and
reason…but we make these judgementsabout them. What is the spirit? Achilles is
the archetype of the spirited soul; when he loses his lover to Agamemnon is when
he goes back to fight the war. This is not appetitive; it is spirit. Is it something akin
to conscience – or the thing that which makes the judgments. Plato also associates
this with passion…so in that sense it can be seen as emotional.

However, there is also a conception of this with will (this happens later, the Greeks
had no conception or word for will). Either way, this is the site of the conflict; it can
go either way toward appetite or towards reason. What becomes of free will in this
case? Appetites in this case are external…in this case there is no freedom. Likewise,
there is no freedom in intellect – in truth. Both are external forces. But with the
spirit…which can throw it’s weight between either; the very fact that it is conflicted
and is a motive force makes it something like free will.
This conflict shows up on the state level, as the classes battle between laws that are
in favor of some but not others; yet, in the end it is for the common good.

In discussion of the unity of the soul, Plato points out that there must be a ruling
element in any given situation among the divided; the self is divided descriptively,
yet ethically or morally we should be unified. Practically this is so as well. This is not
given however, it is accomplished. The spirit is necessary for this unity. Just as the
guardians are the means of protection -protecting from external and internal
threats – the spirit protects from the dispersion of pleasure (the internal threat) and
the reason (which is the external sort) – both of which by themselves are sort of
powerless.

Question: if each individual is able to be just, is able to maintain these various

virtues, then what is the necessity of a just State? Plato doesn’t think that one can
exist without the other. Desires he think will take over, and without the State as an
example, and as an educator, individuals will not be able to be able to stay unified.

De Anima:

The relevant points from De Anima are: the definition of the soul, the methodology
used by which to gain the definition, and dualism

The definition that Aristotle gives (he says that it is hard to find) provincially is that
most people think of the soul as a sort of life force; de anima (latin…anima,
animation, what animates); it is not the conception of the eternal soul…but the
principle that animates. He says this is present in plants, animals, and humans.

Methodology: he begins phenomenologically (with what appears); he says we

should begin with its properties and its affect and that through this investigation the
nature and the thing itself will be revealed. He also brings up the mind and the soul.

Dualism: There is a sort of implied dualism…at the very least, he is arguing against
Democritus’ materialism (he said that the soul is made of atoms). He asks whether
there is any way of acting or being acting upon for the soul (without the body); he
says all the affectations of the soul involve the body. Thought may be part of the
soul, and not a part of the body, but the affections are necessarily expressed with
the body.

I(1)” A further problem presented by the affections of soul is this: are they all
affections of the complex of body and soul, or is there any one among them peculiar
to the soul by itself? To determine this is indispensable but difficult. If we consider
the majority of them, there seems to be no case in which the soul can act or be
acted upon without involving the body; e.g. anger, courage, appetite, and sensation
generally. Thinking seems the most probable exception; but if this too proves to be
a form of imagination or to be impossible without imagination, it too requires a body
as a condition of its existence. If there is any way of acting or being acted upon
proper to soul, soul will be capable of separate existence; if there is none, its
separate existence is impossible. In the latter case, it will be like what is straight,
which has many properties arising from the straightness in it, e.g. that of touching a
bronze sphere at a point, though straightness divorced from the other constituents
of the straight thing cannot touch it in this way; it cannot be so divorced at all, since
it is always found in a body. It therefore seems that all the affections of soul involve
a body-passion, gentleness, fear, pity, courage, joy, loving, and hating; in all these
there is a concurrent affection of the body. In support of this we may point to the
fact that, while sometimes on the occasion of violent and striking occurrences there
is no excitement or fear felt, on others faint and feeble stimulations produce these
emotions, viz. when the body is already in a state of tension resembling its
condition when we are angry. Here is a still clearer case: in the absence of any
external cause of terror we find ourselves experiencing the feelings of a man in
terror. From all this it is obvious that the affections of soul (things like the emotions,
which show up through the body) are enmattered formulable essences”(logos).

The only example of self-affection (the soul affecting itself) is that of thought
thinking itself (see itself). The essence of the soul (thought it is the form of the
body) is its capacity to be affected; also, if this is so, then he can not be a dualist.

Another possible definition of soul is: “a power to be affected”

Unlike Plato’s “kinds” of souls – appetitive, spirited and intellectual – Aristotle talks
about the soul as having four “levels”, being the nutritive, sensitive, appetitive and
the intellect. Different animals have different levels. Humans only have intellect.

This idea shows up in the Aristotilian tradition, in the academic tradition, the
scholastic philosophers – Occam, St. Thomas Acquinas, attempted to reconcile
Aristotle’s ideas to Christian tradition; they themselves were influenced by the
Jewish interpreters in Spain, and the Middle Eastern thinkers, who had their own
problems with religious reconciliation. Our modern interpretation is shaped by that.
We are unable to remove ourselves from this in our interpretation…

The nutritive is growing directly out of A’s trying to associate soul with life – that
which grows and reproduces can be said to have life, and have this part of the soul.

The sensitive soul (which is focused on in the treatise) is shared by man and
animals.

II(5) – Sensation – “depends, as we have said, on a process of movement or

affection from without, for it is held to be some sort of change of quality”

…” why do we not perceive the senses themselves as well as the external objects of
sense, or why without the stimulation of external objects do they not produce
sensation, seeing that they contain in themselves fire, earth, and all the other
elements, which are the direct or indirect objects is so of sense? It is clear that what
is sensitive is only potentially, not actually”
The objects act upon our senses actively – the sensation is not the active, it is the
passive.

“In the case of what is to possess sense, the first transition is due to the action of
the male parent and takes place before birth so that at birth the living thing is, in
respect of sensation, at the stage which corresponds to the possession of
knowledge. Actual sensation corresponds to the stage of the exercise of knowledge.
But between the two cases compared there is a difference; the objects that excite
the sensory powers to activity, the seen, the heard, etc., are outside. The ground of
this difference is that what actual sensation apprehends is individuals, while what
knowledge apprehends is universals, and these are in a sense within the soul. That
is why a man can exercise his knowledge when he wishes, but his sensation does
not depend upon himself a sensible object must be there. A similar statement must
be made about our knowledge of what is sensible-on the same ground, viz. that the
sensible objects are individual and external”

For instance, the organ of the eye possesses the potentiality of sight, but it is light
acting upon it that brings it about.

II. 6 - The term 'object of sense' covers three kinds of objects, two kinds of which
are, in our language, directly perceptible, while the remaining one is only
incidentally perceptible. Of the first two kinds one (a) consists of what is perceptible
by a single sense, the other (b) of what is perceptible by any and all of the senses. I
call by the name of special object of this or that sense that which cannot be
perceived by any other sense than that one and in respect of which no error is
possible; in this sense colour is the special object of sight, sound of hearing, flavour
of taste. Touch, indeed, discriminates more than one set of different qualities. Each
sense has one kind of object which it discerns, and never errs in reporting that what
is before it is colour or sound (though it may err as to what it is that is coloured or
where that is, or what it is that is sounding or where that is.) Such objects are what
we propose to call the special objects of this or that sense.

'Common sensibles' are movement, rest, number, figure, magnitude; these are not
peculiar to any one sense, but are common to all. There are at any rate certain
kinds of movement which are perceptible both by touch and by sight.

Is it the case that ‘movement’ is accessible to both senses? Or, is it the case that
you need both sight and touch to perceive the movement – it resulting from both of
them working together. Also, are these common sensible sense objects themselves?
Or do they require other things…From a rationalist perspective, movement is
perceptible only with association – requires theories of space and time (Locke).

Touch, being the sense which has the medium of flesh, has been speculated to be
the common sense. It is common because it is at all.
III(2) – “Since it is through sense that we are aware that we are seeing or hearing, it
must be either by sight that we are aware of seeing, or by some sense other than
sight.” The common sense is a reflexive act by which we are aware of our senses…

Example – those who sleep with their eyes open…the potentiality is there, light may
be falling on the retina, but there is still no sight because there is no awareness. It is
the common sense that gives us this awareness. This is sort of like thought thinking
itself. What we perceive or sense is coming from the external world …but the
common sense gives us the awareness of this perception.

“If it is true that the movement, both the acting and the being acted upon, is to be
found in that which is acted upon, both the sound and the hearing so far as it is
actual must be found in that which has the faculty of hearing; for it is in the passive
factor that the actuality of the active or motive factor is realized; that is why that
which causes movement may be at rest. Now the actuality of that which can sound
is just sound or sounding, and the actuality of that which can hear is hearing or
hearkening; 'sound' and 'hearing' are both ambiguous. The same account applies to
the other senses and their objects. For as the-acting-and-being-acted-upon is to be
found in the passive, not in the active factor, so also the actuality of the sensible
object and that of the sensitive subject are both realized in the latter. But while in
some cases each aspect of the total actuality has a distinct name, e.g. sounding and
hearkening, in some one or other is nameless, e.g. the actuality of sight is called
seeing, but the actuality of colour has no name: the actuality of the faculty of taste
is called tasting, but the actuality of flavour has no name. Since the actualities of
the sensible object and of the sensitive faculty are one actuality in spite of the
difference between their modes of being, actual hearing and actual sounding
appear and disappear from existence at one and the same moment, and so actual
savour and actual tasting, etc., while as potentialities one of them may exist without
the other. The earlier students of nature were mistaken in their view that without
sight there was no white or black, without taste no savour. This statement of theirs
is partly true, partly false: 'sense' and 'the sensible object' are ambiguous terms, i.e.
may denote either potentialities or actualities: the statement is true of the latter,
false of the former. This ambiguity they wholly failed to notice”…

…Each sense then is relative to its particular group of sensible qualities: it is found
in a sense-organ as such and discriminates the differences which exist within that
group; e.g. sight discriminates white and black, taste sweet and bitter, and so in all
cases. Since we also discriminate white from sweet, and indeed each sensible
quality from every other, with what do we perceive that they are different? It must
be by sense; for what is before us is sensible objects. (Hence it is also obvious that
the flesh cannot be the ultimate sense-organ: if it were, the discriminating power
could not do its work without immediate contact with the object.)

For to get the difference of some object as being both white and sweet for instance,
we need something single to associate the two. This unity Aristotle sees as a
“boundary” – III(7) – this may be the means by which to separate the external and
internal world.

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The appetitive soul is more akin to Plato’s spirited soul than his appetitive soul –
brings into in to question the ideas of will and motility...motive force. He says we
have appetites in relation to sensation, pleasure/pain, and knowing (wish). He says
that we need the intellect in order to have the appetitive wish or will, and only
which belongs to creatures who have a sense of time. This is split up among the
other features of the soul…the sensitive and the appetitive. *

The intellect – the mind, that which thinks and the thoughts. III(3) – Aristotle makes
a division between practical thinking and perceiving, and furthermore judging.
Imagination is connected to sensation (which is connected to the body)…thinking
involves judgment, which can be true or false. He thinks that thinking itself is
connected to a store of universals. He thinks it is possible that this part of the
intellect can exist without the body.

4) “If thinking is like perceiving, it must be either a process in which the soul is
acted upon by what is capable of being thought, or a process different from but
analogous to that. The thinking part of the soul must therefore be, while impassible,
capable of receiving the form of an object; that is, must be potentially identical in
character with its object without being the object. Mind must be related to what is
thinkable, as sense is to what is sensible.”

“Observation of the sense-organs and their employment reveals a distinction

between the impassibility of the sensitive and that of the intellective faculty. After
strong stimulation of a sense we are less able to exercise it than before, as e.g. in
the case of a loud sound we cannot hear easily immediately after, or in the case of
a bright colour or a powerful odour we cannot see or smell, but in the case of mind
thought about an object that is highly intelligible renders it more and not less able
afterwards to think objects that are less intelligible: the reason is that while the
faculty of sensation is dependent upon the body, mind is separable from it.”

Descartes would say that the more he thinks about something, the clearer in his
mind it becomes. Aristotle believes that the thought object or idea, which is
separate from the material object it represents. Example: you see a table, and then
you have an idea of it in your mind, which after time can lead to thinking about
things like geometry, rectangles, etc. He says that sensation leads us upon to being
affected by the objects (imagination), making impressions on us, allowing us to
imagine them in their material absence.

Aristotle does not provide a good basis for individuation – based on his discussion;
there exists no self or personal identity. An empiricist like Locke would view the
impressions that come upon us as making us individuated through differentiation
over time. In Aristotle the body is not a presupposed unity.

Without the intellect…there is a soul; there is animation, there is life. With the fact
that thinking is self-reflexive, that is comes from within as opposed from directly
outside, it may be separated from the body. This according to Descartes, is the Self,
the individuation (I think, therefore I am).

Aristotle is basically not concerned with this. He wants to examine the essence of
the body, which makes it animate – assuming that the soul is the essence or
actuality or form of the body.

Aristotle does not talk explicitly about emotions – he does not have a “spirited soul”
like Plato.