Physiological Theory and the Doctrine of the Mean in Plato and Aristotle () || APPENDIX II....

APPENDIX II

CONCERNING THE THEORY OF FRANCOIS NUYENS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARISTOTLE'S PSYCHOLOGY

(L'Evolution de la psychologie d'Aristote, Louvain, 1948)

That Aristotle conceives the nutritive-sensitive soul as the form or "first activation" of the living body while at the same time re-garding it as centered in the heart is a position which will not be acceptable, I realize, to those who agree with Francois Nuyens that "l'idee que l'äme siege dans une partie bien definie du corps est absolument incompatible avec le concept de 1'έντελέχεια" (p. 165). This incompatibility is assumed throughout Nuyen's study (cf. pp. 45, 47, 55-58, 119, 159-171, 173-180, etc.) and serves as his chief norm for distinguishing the works of Aristotle's "transi-tional period" (the ethico-political treatises and the bulk of the biological works) from those of the "terminal period" of hyle-morphism (De Anima, De Partibus /, De Generatione Animalium, the first six of the Parva Naturalia, etc.). It would be out of place here to attempt an extended critique of Nuyen's study, but the acceptance of his hypothesis by scholars of eminent rank (e.g. W. D. Ross, Aristotle: Parva Naturalia, [Oxford, 1955], p. 3ff.) demands some justification for disregarding it in the present context.

Nuyens' main criterion for distinguishing the works of the "transitional period" from those of the "terminal period" is, as we have said, the conviction that "il y a contradiction entre cette idee d'une union de l'äme avec un organe determine et la concep-tion de l'äme entelechie du De Anima suivant laquelle le corps tout entier doit etre considere comme le substrat de l'äme" (p. 45). Other commentators also have considered these notions incom-patible or contradictory, as Nuyens points out (pp. 44-47, 54-56).

However, before denying the authenticity of any work or dis-

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tinguishing different periods of development on this basis, it seems that, as historians of Aristotle's thought, we should first ask whether Aristotle himself found these notions contradictory or incompatible. I do not find in Nuyens' study convincing evidence that he did. Rather, one general criticism of Nuyens' approach might be that it tends to read back into Aristotle's mind what appears as contradictory to the commentator. "Au sujet du Pro-bleme des rapports entre l'äme et la corps, on se trouve place en face de declarations qu'il est impossible d'accorder entre elles; cela, pour la raison tres simple que pour Aristotle lui-meme elles sont incompatibles" (pp. 164-165, note 49). Whether (1) the com-mentator finds two notions irreconcilable, and whether (2) Aris-totle regards them as such, — these appear to me to be separate problems. Only the latter is of primary importance to the histo-rian, and should be clearly established independently of the former, on the basis of evidence that Aristotle explicitly rejects one notion in favor of the other, or at least that the two notions never occur simultaneously in the same context or work. It is just this kind of evidence that I miss in Nuyens' discussion.

On the other hand, there seems to me to be evidence that Aris-totle does speak of the soul in the same context or work as both the form of the body and as centered in a particular organ, the heart, governing the life processes through the innate heat. A few instances must suffice:

1. Metaphysics 1035bl4ff. is cited by Nuyens (pp. 176-177), and quite rightly, as illustrating the hylemorphic concept of the body-soul relationship, and he uses the passage as evidence {contra Werner Jaeger) that this book of the Metaphysics must be at least contemporary with, if not later than, the De Anima. The passage treats the relation of parts to the whole, introducing without pre-vious explanation the statement that "the soul of animals, for this is the substance (ούσία) of a living being, is their substance accord-ing to the formula (ή κατά τον λόγον ούσία), i.e. the form and the essence of a body of a certain kind . . ." (1035bl4-16). Aristotle explains that the soul and its parts, as essential substance, are prior to the animal and to the body and its parts, though in a sense they are not, since they cannot exist apart from the concrete whole,



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the composite of body and soul. Then, speaking of the relation-ship of parts of the composite to the whole, he goes on to remark, again without qualification: "Some parts are neither prior nor posterior to the whole, i.e. those which are dominant (κύρια) and in which the formula, i.e. the essential substance (ό λόγος και ή ουσία) is immediately present (έν φ πρώτφ), e.g. the heart, or perhaps the brain, — for it does not matter which of the two is of such a nature" (1035b25-28). Thus, immediately after stating as evident the notion that the soul is the substance, form, or es-sence of the animal Aristotle assumes as equally evident that there is a dominant part of the animal body in which this exists primarily, though he does not care to argue at present whether the organ be the heart or, as Plato and others held, the brain. (On this last, see the remarks of R. D. Hicks in his commentary on the De Anima, p. 274 ad 408b9. Cf. De Part. An. 667b22ff. where the heart is said to be the part [μόριον] possessing the sensitive soul primarily [πρώτως]).

This is brought out clearly in Alexander's comment (ad Met. 1035b25ff., Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca I, 508, lines 26-35):

And when certain of the parts are separated from it, the whole can exist without them; but certain other parts on being separated destroy the whole at the same time, i.e. such parts as are dominant (κύρια) and in which first of all the λόγος and ούσία exist, that is, the soul; for the soul of living things is their form (είδος). Therefore, whether the heart is the source and center (άρχή) of animals and in this the soul exists primarily (as Aristotle thinks) or whether it be the brain (as Hippocrates and Plato think), these parts simultaneously with their separation from it destroy the whole. But in saying "... the heart, or perhaps the brain ..." Aristotle adds, "for it does not matter which of the two is of such a nature", that is, whether it is the heart in which the soul happens to exist or whether it is the brain makes no difference to the argument...

Here, then, Aristotle espouses in the same context the two aspects of soul which Nuyens considers "absolument incompatible". Ap-parently, therefore, Aristotle was capable of entertaining both notions simultaneously, and if they are contradictory he does not seem to be aware of it. Nuyens offers no comment on Metaphysics 1035b25ff.



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2. In the De Anima, as Nuyens rightly maintains, the notion of soul as form and "entelechy" of the organism is most explicitly and fully developed. Yet even in this work there are clear indica-tions that Aristotle still considers the heart as the center and source of the vital functions, as we have seen it described in the biological works. In the De Anima he is not, of course, primarily concerned with the material aspect of the organism, i.e. with the heart or any other particular organ. The references to the heart are consequently few, but perhaps not quite so insignificant as Nuyens (p. 247, note 77) and Ross (pp. 7, 8, 12) suggest. For example:

A. Nuyens (p. 159-160, 165-167) and, later, Ross (p. 5-13) assign the De Partibus Animalium and the last of the Parva Naturalia to Aristotle's "transitional period" on the principle that these works portray the soul as "closely associated with heat and with the hottest organ of the body, the heart" (Ross, p. 6), that is, the soul uses heat as a tool or instrument in nutrition and in imparting motion (cf. De Part. An. 652b7-16), both processes being centered in the heart.

However, turning to Book II of De Anima (which Ross con-siders, — p. 17 — "in all probability the latest of Aristotle's writings on psychology") we find Aristotle denying that "the nature of fire" is the sole cause of nutrition and growth, but asserting that: "A co-cause (συναίτιον) in a sense it certainly is; but not a cause absolutely (άπλώς αίτιον); that is rather the soul" (416al3-15). A little later (416b20ff.) Aristotle explains that in the nutritive process a) it is the body that is nourished, b) the nutritive soul that nourishes, c) while that by which (φ) the body is nourished must be understood to include (1) the food, which must be concocted (i.e. changed without changing another, like a ship's rudder) and (2) the vital heat, which effects concoction (i.e. is moved by the soul, and itself changes the food, like the helmsman's hand on the rudder, — implying that the soul, like the helmsman, effects change while remaining unchanged: cf. Hicks, pp. 348-349 ad 416b26 and 27). Clearly, then, in the De Anima as in the biological works, the soul is closely associated with the vital heat, using it as its co-cause or instrument to effect nutrition and growth.



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Furthermore, to complete the parallel with the biological works, in De Anima II Aristotle evidently implies that the heart is the center of this vital heat, i.e. "the hottest organ of the body", when he explains that nature uses the breath as a necessary means of regulating the internal heat (420b20-21), and that the area which needs cooling before all others (πρώτος) is the one surrounding the heart (420b25-26).

Therefore the De Anima contains both the hylemorphic concept of soul and the notion that soul operates by means of the vital heat centered in the heart. And the same may be said of the De Generatione Animalium, which Nuyens also considers a work of the "period of hylemorphism" (pp. 256-263). Cf. De Gen. An. 740a2-23, 740b26ff.

B. Again Ross, following Nuyens, contends that the biological writings of Aristotle's "mechanistic period" locate the seat of sen-sation and of movement in the heart, while "in the De Anima no such significance is attributed to the heart" (p. 12). However, examining the references to the heart in the De Anima (403a29-bl, 408b 1-9, 432b33) we find it invariably singled out as the specific organ in which psychic states are immediately manifested in the body. It is the heart which is said to move with the basic drives of anger and fear, and even with the effort of deliberation (δια-νοεΐσθαι).

The passage at 408bl-19 is especially interesting. Aristotle here emphasizes the bodily aspect of psychic states, the aspect which, he says, is often overlooked when we speak of the soul as being pained, pleased, bold, fearful, etc. Each of these states is a move-ment (which implies matter) having its origin in the soul. "For example, to be angry or to fear is for the heart to be changed (moved) in this or that way, and to reason (διανοενσθαι) involves this organ or some other." The nature and manner of the change does not concern him here. (Sic 408bl-ll). The point is, Aristotle con-tinues, that to say the soul is moved, e.g. feels anger, is like saying it weaves or builds. Hence it is better perhaps not to speak of the soul as feeling angry, but rather to say that the composite, the man, does so, understanding that the change involved in sensation



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and emotion does not occur in the soul, but reaches to or starts from the soul. (Ibid. 11-19).

The latter half of the passage (lines 11-19) is employed often (17 times) by Nuyens as illustrative of the hylemorphic concept, and properly so. But it would be helpful to have his comment on the first half also (lines 1-11), in which the heart is singled out as the organ immediately involved in the movements of anger, fear, etc. which are said to have their origin in the soul. For Aris-totle's reference to the heart here, as in the other passages cited above, seems to imply that even in the De Anima he regards it as the center of sensation and emotion or movement.

Finally, unless this is granted, it is difficult to see how we can explain the cryptic passage (433M9-27) where Aristotle speaks of the "bodily part" which the appetitive faculty uses as its instrument to move the animal. This part is found "at the point where be-ginning and end coincide". "For everything is moved by pushing and pulling, so that something must remain fixed, like the center point of the moving circle, from which motion has its origin." (For the mechanics involved here, cf. Pseudo-A. Mechanica 847b-16ff.). This becomes intelligible only by relating it to Aristotle's remarks elsewhere on the heart as the center from which the soul moves the body (e.g. De Part. An. 647a25-34, 665alOff., bl8ff., 666b 14-17, 667a4-7; De Motu An. 698a 14 ff.). Thus Hicks, p. 565 ad 433b26, and the Greek commentators cited by him there. It is surprising to find Ross himself agreeing with this in his own com-mentary on the De Anima (Aristotle: De Anima, Oxford, 1961, p. 317), identifying the unnamed source of movement as the heart, "which is for A. the central seat of life".

Thus the references to the heart in the De Anima, though they are few and incidental, nevertheless reveal clearly enough that Aristotle even in this work regards the heart as the center of nutri-tion and sensation, the source of emotion and movement in the rest of the organism, the organ in which the vital heat is centered. And the vital heat, operating in both nutrition and emotion (cf. 403a33), is a co-cause with the soul, used by the soul as its instru-ment in these life functions.

In the De Generatione Animalium, as we have indicated above,



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the soul is regarded as operating through the vital heat centered in the heart. Accordingly the heart is singled out in that work also as the source and center from which soul principally operates in nutrition, growth, sensation, and motion. Cf. 735al-26; 742a33-b3; 742b33-743al; 743b26-30; 744b2-6, 12-14, etc. Yet Nuyens quite rightly points out (p. 257) that the De Generatione Animalium contains numerous passages expressing the substantial unity of soul and body in the same terms as the De Anima.

This must suffice at present to indicate that Aristotle could entertain simultaneously in the same context or work the notions of soul which Nuyens regards as contradictory. In view of this fact, I do no think we can safely say that Aristotle regarded them as contradictory also; rather the opposite is suggested. So that, despite the difficulties of understanding how he reconciled these notions, it seems to me best not to separate the De Anima and De Generatione Animalium from the rest of the biological works on this basis.1

1 Views similarly critical of Nuyens' position have appeared in print since this appendix was first written in 1958. See I. Block, "The Order of Aristotle's Psychological Writings", AJP, LXXII (1961), 50-77, especially 50-61; J. J. Walsh, Aristotle's Conception of Moral Weakness (New York, 1963), 66-83; W. F. R. Hardie, "Aristotle's Treatment of the Relation Between the Soul and the Body", Philosophical Quarterly XIV (1964), 53-72. W. Theiler, Aristoteles: Über die Seele (Berlin, 1959), 73-77, indicates some of the positive reasons for regarding the De Anima and Parva Naturalia as closely integrated, and perhaps contemporaneous in composition, with the other biological works.



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