ὕλη ύλη hyle
Κάχληκα chalíki
ύλη χαλίκι
υπολογισμό ypologismó
υλουπολογισμό yloypologismó
υπολογίζω compute, count, calculate, estimate, reckon, gage
νομίζω think, opine, guess, reckon, methinks, reckon on
λογαριάζω tally, count, calculate, figure, account, reckon
χαλίκι gravel, pebble, grit, rubble
Calculate comes from the Greek word Κάχληκα or gravel because Greeks used gravel for counting.
According to Chris B. Behrens's humble opinion, calculation involves numbers and the word usually connotes a simple
process, but computation may be done by applying specific rules, with or without numbers, and the word is chosen for
more complex tasks.[1]
Aristotle's Psychology
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-psychology/#toc
Shields, Christopher, "Aristotle's Psychology", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/aristotle-psychology/>.
First published Tue Jan 11, 2000; substantive revision Mon Aug 23, 2010
Aristotle (384–322 BC) was born in Macedon, in what is now northern Greece, but spent
most of his adult life in Athens. His life in Athens divides into two periods, first as a
member of Plato's Academy (367–347) and later as director of his own school, the
Lyceum (334–323). The intervening years were spent mainly in Assos and Lesbos, and
briefly back in Macedon. His years away from Athens were predominantly taken up with
biological research and writing. Judged on the basis of their content, Aristotle's most
important psychological writings probably belong to his second residence in Athens, and
so to his most mature period. His principal work in psychology, De Anima, reflects in
different ways his pervasive interest in biological taxonomy and his most sophisticated
physical and metaphysical theory.
Because of the long tradition of exposition which has developed around Aristotle's De
Anima, the interpretation of even its most central theses is sometimes disputed.
Moreover, because of its evident affinities with some prominent approaches in
contemporary philosophy of mind, Aristotle's psychology has received renewed interest
and has incited intense interpretative dispute in recent decades. Consequently, this entry
proceeds on two levels. The main article recounts the principal and distinctive claims of
Aristotle's psychology, avoiding so far as possible exegetical controversy and critical
commentary. At the end of appropriate sections of the main article, readers are invited to
explore problematic or advanced features of Aristotle's theories by following the
appropriate links.
• 1. Aristotle's Psychological Writings
• 2. Hylomorphism in General
• 3. Hylomorphic Soul-body Relations
• 4. Psychic Faculties
• 5. Nutrition
• 6. Perception
• 7. Mind
• 8. Desire
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries
1. Aristotle's Psychological Writings
Aristotle investigates psychological phenomena primarily in De Anima and a loosely
related collection of short works called the Parva Naturalia, whose most noteworthy
pieces are De Sensu and De Memoria. He also touches upon psychological topics, often
only incidentally, in his ethical, political, and metaphysical treatises, as well as in his
scientific writings, especially De Motu Animalium. The works in the Parva Naturalia are,
in comparison with De Anima, empirically oriented, investigating, as Aristotle says, “the
phenomena common to soul and body” (De Sensu 1, 436a6–8). This contrasts with De
Anima, which introduces as a question for consideration “whether all affections are
common to what has the soul or whether there is some affection peculiar to the soul
itself” (De Anima i 1, 402a3–5). That is, in De Anima Aristotle wants to know whether all
psychological states are also material states of the body. “This,” he remarks, “it is
necessary to grasp, but not easy” (De Anima i 1, 402a5). In this way, De Anima proceeds
at a higher level of abstraction than the Parva Naturalia. It is generally more theoretical,
more self-conscious about method, and more alert to general philosophical questions
about perception, thinking, and soul-body relations.
In both De Anima and the Parva Naturalia, Aristotle assumes something which may
strike some of his modern readers as odd. He takes psychology to be the branch of
science which investigates the soul and its properties, but he thinks of the soul as a
general principle of life, with the result that Aristotle's psychology studies all living
beings, and not merely those he regards as having minds, human beings. So, in De
Anima, he takes it as his task to provide an account of the life activities of plants and
animals, along side those of humans (De Anima ii 11, 423a20–6, cf. ii 1, 412a13; cf. De
Generatione Animalium ii 3, 736b13; De Partibus Animalium iv 5, 681a12). In
comparison with the modern discipline of Psychology, then, Aristotle's psychology is
broad in scope. He even devotes attention to the question of the nature of life itself, a
subject which falls outside the purview of psychology in most contemporary contexts. On
Aristotle's approach, psychology studies the soul (psuchê in Greek, or anima in
Latin); so it naturally investigates all ensouled or animate beings.
There is, however, one telling point of contact between Aristotle's investigations into the
soul and the contemporary discipline of Psychology: in each case, different questions
yield different directions and methods of inquiry, with the result that it is sometimes hard
to appreciate how so many variegated enterprises, though conducted under one and the
same rubric, could really belong to any one coordinated discipline. Someone studying
methods of Freudian psychoanalysis will not, after all, have any immediate overlap of
either interest or method with a brain physiologist or a behavioral geneticist. In a similar
way, Aristotle seems reluctant to regard an inquiry into the soul as belonging exclusively
to natural science, which is for him the branch of theoretical science devoted to
investigating beings capable of undergoing change. (He contrasts "physics", that is,
natural science, with both mathematics and "first philosophy" along these lines; Meta. vi
1 1025b27–30, 1026a18; xi 7 1064a16–19, b1–3.) On the one hand, he insists that
because various psychological states, including anger, joy, courage, pity, loving, and
hating, all involve the body in central and obvious ways, the study of soul "is already in
the province of the natural scientist" (De Anima i 1 403a16–28). At the same time,
however, he insists that the mind or intellect (nous) may not be enmeshed in the body in
the same way as these sorts of states, and so denies that the study of soul falls in its
entirety to the natural scientist (Meta. vi 1 1026a4–6; De Partibus Animalium i 1 645a33b10). This is presumably why in the opening chapter of De Anima Aristotle reports a
deep and authentic perplexity about the best method for investigating psychological
matters (De Anima i 1 402a16–22). If different sciences employ different methods and
the study of soul is bifurcated so that it belongs to no one science, there will indeed be a
genuine difficulty about how best to proceed in any inquiry concerning it. It seems fair to
say that these sorts of quandaries have not left us altogether. Although purely naturalistic
approaches to philosophy of mind have found staunch champions in contemporary times,
it would nevertheless be safe to say that much of the discipline continues to employ
traditional a priori methods; some branches of cognitive science seem an admixture of
both. In any case, in view of the difficulties concerning the soul he enumerates, Aristotle
evinces an appropriate modesty when undertaking its investigation: "Grasping anything
trustworthy concerning the soul is completely and in every way among the most difficult
of affairs" (De Anima i 1 402a10–11).
2. Hylomorphism in General
In De Anima, Aristotle makes extensive use of technical terminology introduced and
explained elsewhere in his writings. He claims, for example, using vocabulary derived
from his physical and metaphysical theories, that the soul is a “first actuality of a natural
organic body” (De Anima ii 1, 412b5–6), that it is a “substance as form of a natural body
which has life in potentiality” (De Anima ii 1, 412a20–1) and, similarly, that it “is a first
actuality of a natural body which has life in potentiality” (De Anima ii 1, 412a27–8), all
claims which apply to plants, animals and humans alike.
In characterizing the soul and body in these ways, Aristotle applies concepts drawn from
his broader hylomorphism, a conceptual framework which underlies virtually all of his
mature theorizing. It is accordingly necessary to begin with a brief overview of that
framework. Thereafter it will be possible to recount Aristotle's general approach to soulbody relations, and then, finally, to consider his analyses of the individual faculties of
soul.
‘Hylomorphism’ is simply a compound word composed of the Greek terms for matter
(hulê) and form or shape (morphê); thus one could equally describe Aristotle's view of
body and soul as an instance of his “matter-formism.” That is, when he introduces the
soul as the form of the body, which in turn is said to be the matter of the soul, Aristotle
treats soul-body relations as a special case of a more general relationship which obtains
between the components of all generated compounds, natural or artifactual.
The notions of form and matter are themselves, however, developed within the context of
a general theory of causation and explanation which appears in one guise or another in all
of Aristotle's mature works. According to this theory, when we wish to explain what
there is to know, for example, about a bronze statue, a complete account necessarily
alludes to at least the following four factors: the statue's matter, its form or structure, the
agent responsible for that matter manifesting its form or structure, and the purpose for
which the matter was made to realize that form or structure. These four factors he terms
the four causes (aitiai):
The material cause: that from which something is generated and out of which it is made, e.g. the bronze of a
The formal cause: the structure which the matter realizes and in terms of which the matter comes to be somet
e.g., the Hermes shape in virtue of which this quantity of bronze is said to be a statue of Hermes.
The efficient cause: the agent responsible for a quantity of matter's coming to be informed,
e.g. the sculptor who shaped the quantity of bronze into its current Hermes shape.
The final cause: the purpose or goal of the compound of form and matter,
e.g. the statue was created for the purpose of honoring Hermes.
For a broad range of cases, Aristotle implicitly makes twin claims about these four
causes: (i) a complete explanation requires reference to all four; and (ii) once such
reference is made, no further explanation is required. Thus, when appropriate, appeal to
the four causes is both necessary and sufficient for completeness and adequacy in
explanation. Although not all things which admit of explanation have all four causes, e.g.,
geometrical figures are not efficiently caused, even a brief overview of his psychological
writings reveals that Aristotle regards all four causes as in play in the explanation of
living beings. A monkey, for example, has matter, its body; form, its soul; an efficient
cause [GENERATIVE CAUSE], its parent; and a final cause, its function. Moreover, he
holds that the form is the actuality of the body which is its matter: an indeterminate lump
of bronze becomes a statue only when it realizes some particular statue-shape. So,
Aristotle suggests, matter is potentially some F until it acquires an actualizing form,
when it becomes actually F. Given his overarching explanatory schema, it is hardly
surprising that Aristotle should advance a hylomorphic account of soul and body; this is,
for him, standard explanatory procedure.
Still, it is noteworthy that this four-causal framework of explanation was developed
initially in response to some puzzles about change and generation. Aristotle argues with
some justification that all change and generation require the existence of something
complex: when a statue comes to be from a lump of bronze, there is some continuing
subject, the bronze, and something it comes to acquire, its new form. Thus the statue is,
and must be, a certain kind of compound, one of form and matter. Without this type of
complexity, generation would be impossible; since generation in fact occurs, form and
matter must be genuine features of generated compounds. Similarly, but less obviously,
qualitative change requires much the same apparatus: when a statue is painted, there is
some continuing subject, the statue, and a new feature acquired, its new color. Here too
there is complexity, and complexity which is readily articulated in terms of form and
matter, but now of form which is evidently inessential to the continued existence of the
entity whose form it is. The statue continues to exist, but receives a form which is
accidental to it; it might lose that form without going out of existence. By contrast,
should the statue lose its essential form, as would happen for example if the bronze which
constitutes it were melted, divided, and recast as twelve dozen letter openers, it would
cease to exist altogether.
For the purposes of understanding Aristotle's psychology, the origin of Aristotle's
hylomorphism is significant for two reasons. First, from its inception, Aristotle's
hylomorphism exploits two distinct but related notions of form, one of which is essential
to the compound whose form it is, and the other of which is accidental to its subject. In
advancing his view of the soul and its capacities, Aristotle employs both of these notions:
the soul is an essential form, whereas perception involves the acquisition of accidental
forms. Second, because Aristotle's hylomorphism was initially developed to handle
puzzles of change and generation, its deployment in philosophical psychology is
sometimes strained, insofar as Aristotle is not immediately willing to treat every instance
of perception and thought as a straightforward instance of change in some continuing
subject. Moreover, as we shall see, it is sometimes difficult to appreciate how Aristotle
can justifiably regard the body as the matter of a human being in the way that the bronze
is held to be the matter of a statue. Bronze can exist as an indeterminate lump, being
potentially but not actually the statue of a great hero. There is no ready analogue in the
case of the body: the body is not so much stuff lying about waiting to be enformed by a
soul. Rather, in one important sense, human bodies become human bodies by being
ensouled. [NO. HUMAN BODY IS GROWN FROM MATERIALS INTO
STRUCTURES THAT SUPPORT SOULS. NON-LIVING BODY HAS A RUPTURESEIZURE-DAMAGE WHICH UNDERMINES ITS PROCESS OF LIFE (ITS SOUL).
HERE ARISTOTLE HAS A PROBLEM WITH COMPLEX SYSTEM AND LEVELS
OF ORGANIZATION (EMERGENT PROPERTIES). IF “BODY” WITHOUT FORM
WOULD DENOTE EXACT CONSTITUENT MATERIALS OF THE BODY, THE
PROBLEM IS TO UNDERSTAND GENERATION OF A BODY (BODY’S
EFFICIENT CAUSES). THEY ARE NOT AS SIMPLE AS OBJECTS OF HUMAN
MAKING – THEY ARE COMPLEX.] If so, then they seem ill-suited to play the role of
matter in precisely those terms given by Aristotle's hylomorphic theory of generation.
(For further discussion of this topic, after reading the next section, see Supplement: A
Fundamental Problem about Hylomorphism.)
3. Hylomorphic Soul-Body Relations: Materialism, Dualism, Sui Generis?
In applying his general hylomorphism to soul-body relations, Aristotle contends that the
following general analogy obtains:
soul : body : : form : matter : : Hermes-shape : bronze
If the soul bears the same relation to the body which the shape of a statue bears to its
material basis, then we should expect some general features to be common to both; and
we should be able to draw some immediate consequences regarding the relationship
between soul and body. To begin, some questions about the unity of soul and body, an
issue of concern to substance dualists and materialists alike, receive a ready response.
Materialists hold that all mental states are also physical states; substance dualists deny
this, because they hold that the soul is a subject of mental states which can exist alone,
when separated from the body. In a certain way, the questions which give rise to this
dispute simply fall by the wayside. If we do not think there is an interesting or important
question concerning whether the Hermes-shape and its material basis are one, we should
not suppose there is a special or pressing question about whether the soul and body are
one. So Aristotle contends: “It is not necessary to ask whether soul and body are one, just
as it is not necessary to ask whether the wax and its shape are one, nor generally whether
the matter of each thing and that of which it is the matter are one. For even if one and
being are spoken of in several ways, what is properly so spoken of is the actuality” (De
Anima ii 1, 412b6–9). Aristotle does not here eschew questions concerning the unity of
soul and body as meaningless; rather, he seems, in a deflationary vein, to suggest that
they are readily answered or somehow unimportant. If we do not spend time worrying
about whether the wax of a candle and its shape are one, then we should not exercise
ourselves over the question of whether the soul and body are one. The effect, then, is to
fit soul-body relations into a larger hylomorphic pattern of explanation in terms of which
questions of unity do not normally arise.
It should be emphasized, however, that Aristotle does not here decide the question by
insisting that the soul and body are identical, or even that they are one in some weaker
sense; indeed, this is something he evidently denies (De Anima ii 1, 412a17; ii 2, 414a1–
20). Instead, just as one might well insist that the wax of a candle and its shape are
distinct, on the grounds that the wax could easily exist when the particular shape is no
more, or, less obviously, that the particular shape could survive the replenishment of its
material basis, so one might equally deny that the soul and body are identical. In a fairly
direct way, though, the question of whether soul and body are one loses its force when it
is allowed that it contains no implications beyond those we establish for any other
hylomorphic compound, including houses and other ordinary artifacts. [MATTER AND
FORM BEING ASPECTS OF EXISTENCE]
One way of appreciating this is to consider a second general moral Aristotle derives from
hylomorphism. This concerns the question of the separability of the soul from the body, a
possibility embraced by substance dualists from the time of Plato onward. Aristotle's
hylomorphism commends the following attitude: if we do not think that the Hermesshape persists after the bronze is melted and recast, we should not think that the soul
survives the demise of the body. So, Aristotle claims, “It is not unclear that the soul – or
certain parts of it, if it naturally has parts – is not separable from the body” (De Anima ii
1, 413a3–5). So, unless we are prepared to treat forms in general as capable of existing
without their material bases, we should not be inclined to treat souls as exceptional cases.
Hylomorphism, by itself, gives us no reason to treat souls as separable from bodies, even
if we think of them as distinct from their material bases. At the same time, Aristotle does
not appear to think that his hylomorphism somehow refutes all possible forms of dualism.
For he appends to his denial of the soul's separability the observation that some parts of
the soul may in the end be separable after all, since they are not the actualities of any part
of the body (De Anima ii 1, 413a6–7). Aristotle here prefigures his complex attitude
toward mind (nous), a faculty he repeatedly describes as exceptional among capacities of
the soul.
Still, in general, the soul is the form of the body in much the same way the form of a
house structures the bricks and mortar from which it is built. When the bricks and mortar
realize a certain shape, they manifest the function definitive of houses, namely that of
providing shelter. Thus, the presence of the form makes those bricks and that mortar a
house, as opposed, e.g., to a wall or an oven. As we have seen, Aristotle will say that the
bricks and mortar, as matter, are potentially a house, until they realize the form
appropriate to houses, in which case the form and matter together make an actual house.
So, in Aristotle's terms, the form is the actuality of the house, since its presence explains
why this particular quantity of matter comes to be a house as opposed to some other kind
of artifact.
In the same way, then, the presence of the soul explains why this matter is the matter of a
human being, as opposed to some other kind of thing. Now, this way of looking at soulbody relations as a special case of form-matter relations treats reference to the soul as an
integral part of any complete explanation of a living being, of any kind. To this degree,
Aristotle thinks that Plato and other dualists are right to stress the importance of the soul
in explanations of living beings. At the same time, he sees their commitment to the
separability of the soul from the body as unjustified merely by appeal to formal
causation: he will allow that the soul is distinct from the body, and is indeed the actuality
of the body, but he sees that these concessions by themselves provide no grounds for
supposing that the soul can exist without the body. His hylomorphism, then, embraces
neither reductive materialism nor Platonic dualism. Instead, it seeks to steer a middle
course between these alternatives by pointing out, implicitly, and rightly, that these are
not exhaustive options.
Further Discussion of Hylomorphism:
Supplement: A Fundamental Problem about Hylomorphism
Supplement: A Question about the Metaphysics of Souls
4. Psychic Faculties
Although willing to provide a common account of the soul in these general terms,
Aristotle devotes most of his energy in De Anima to detailed investigations of the soul's
individual capacities or faculties, which he first lists as nutrition, perception, and mind,
with perception receiving the lion's share of attention. He later also introduces desire,
evidently as a discrete faculty on par with those initially introduced. The broadest is
nutrition, which is shared by all natural living organisms; animals have perception in
addition; and among natural organisms humans alone have mind. Aristotle maintains that
various kinds of souls, nutritive, perceptual, and intellectual, form a kind of hierarchy.
Any creature with reason will also have perception; any creature with perception will also
have the ability to take on nutrition and to reproduce; but the converse does not hold.
Thus, plants show up with only the nutritive soul, animals have both perceptual and
nutritive faculties, and humans have all three. The reasons why this should be so are
broadly teleological. In brief, every living creature as such grows, reaches maturity, and
declines. Without a nutritive capacity, these activities would be impossible (De Anima iii
12, 434a22–434b18; cf. De Partibus Animalium iv 10, 687a24–690a10; Metaphysics xii
10, 1075a16–25). So, Aristotle concludes, psychology must investigate not only
perceiving and thinking, but also nutrition.
There is some dispute about which of the psychic abilities mentioned by Aristotle in De
Anima qualify as full-fledged or autonomous faculties. He evidently accepts the three
already mentioned as centrally important. Indeed, he is willing to demarcate a hierarchy
of life in terms of them. Even so, he also discusses two other capacities, imagination
[ANTICIPATION] (De Anima iii 3) and desire [INTENTION, GOALDIRECTEDNESS] (De Anima iii 9 and 10), and appeals to them in both his account of
thinking and his philosophy of action. He does little, however, to characterize either in
any intrinsic way. He evidently regards imagination as a sort of subordinate faculty,
integrated in various ways with the faculties of nutrition, perception, and thought. Desire
is still more complex. Despite its not occurring without the sensory faculty (De Anima iii
7 412a12–14), desire seems in the end elevated to a full capacity, primarily because of its
role in the explanation of purposive behavior. His discussions of imagination and desire
raise interesting questions about how Aristotle views the various capacities of soul as
integrating into unified forms. They also raise questions along with his discussions of the
other faculties as to how Aristotle conceives the unity of the whole soul. Some scholars
seem content to characterize an Aristotelian soul as a set or sum of capacities, whereas
Aristotle himself evidently demands a non-aggregative form of unity (De Anima ii 3
414b28–32, cf. iii 9 432a–b6).
5. Nutrition
When turning to these individual faculties of the soul, Aristotle considers nutrition first,
for two related reasons. The first is straightforward: psychology considers all animate
entities, and the nutritive soul belongs to all naturally living things, since it is “the first
and most common capacity of soul, in virtue of which life belongs to all living things”
(De Anima ii 4, 415a24–25). The second is slightly more complex, being at root
teleological. Given that the higher forms of soul presuppose nutrition, its explication is
prior to them in the order of Aristotle's exposition.
Aristotle approaches his account of the nutritive soul by relying on a methodological
precept which informs much of his psychological theorizing, namely that a capacity is
individuated by its objects, so that, e.g., perception is distinguished from mind by being
arrayed toward sensible qualities rather than intelligible forms (De Anima ii 4, 415a20–
21). This induces him to offer what may sound initially like a pedestrian observation, that
in nutrition there are three components, “that which is nourished, that by which it is
nourished, and what nourishes (i.e. that which engages in nutrition).” This, however,
Aristotle unpacks by maintaining that “what nourishes is the primary soul; what is
nourished is the body which has this soul; and that by which it is nourished is
nourishment (i.e. food)” (De Anima ii 4, 416b20–23). The interest of this suggestion lies
in the implication that all and only living systems can be nourished, a consequence
Aristotle makes more explicit by claiming that “nothing is nourished which does not have
a share in life” (De Anima ii 4. 415b27–28) and that “since nothing is nourished which
does not partake of life, what is nourished will be the ensouled body insofar as it is
ensouled, with the result that nourishment (i.e. food) is related to the ensouled, and not
coincidentally” (De Anima ii 4, 416b9–11). Here Aristotle means that food, as food, is
definitionally related to life. Whatever is food is already such as to be necessarily related
to living beings.
The significance of this observation resides in the thought that any adequate account of
nutrition will make ineliminable reference to life as such. This in turn entails that it will
not be possible to define life as the capacity for taking on nutrition. For then we would
have a vicious circularity: a living system is the sort of thing which can take on nutrition,
while nutrition is whatever stuff is such as to sustain a living system. So, if living systems
cannot be reductively defined in some other way, it will follow that no reductive account
of life will be forthcoming. Consequently, Aristotle's discussion of nutrition provides
some reason for thinking that he will resist any attempt to define life in terms which do
not themselves implicitly appeal to life itself. That is, he will resist any reductive account
of life.
This also seems to be the purport of Aristotle's rejection of the simple mechanistic
accounts of growth which he considers when discussing the nutritive soul (De Anima ii 4,
415b27–416a20; cf. De Generatione et Corruptione i 5). Aristotle objects to those who
want to account for growth merely in terms of the natural tendencies of material
elements. For growth is a constrained pattern of development, the source of which
Aristotle ascribes to the soul. He takes it as evident that growth in organisms proceeds
along structured paths, in end-directed ways. These structures in turn manifest capacities
whose explication cannot be given in crude materialistic terms; for materialistic terms, as
Aristotle understands them, fail to account for the fact that mature members of species
cease growing, having realized the structures characteristic of their kind. Fire, for
example, by contrast “grows” haphazardly, without directionality, flowing towards the
combustible without end, until hindered by external impediments or lack of fuel.
Now, the forms of materialist explanations Aristotle considers are primitive. One critical
question about his treatment of these explanations concerns whether he is right to suggest
that facts about constrained patterns of development are incompatible with more
explanatorily advanced forms of materialism, and, if so, whether those forms of
materialism will be reductive in the sense that they will avoid all implicit or explicit
reference to life. So far, there is little reason to think that Aristotle has been proven
wrong; that is, there is at present no reductive account of life which enjoys universal or
even broad support.
In any case, Aristotle's discussion of nutrition is characteristic of his general approach to
the soul's faculties. His discussions often proceed on two levels. On the one hand, he
simply seeks to provide an account of the relevant phenomena. At the same time, his
interests in definition are conditioned by a host of broader methodological and
metaphysical concerns. Consequently, he attempts to capture the nature of the individual
faculties while at the same time investigating whether reductive accounts of them are
plausible. In this way, at least, Aristotle's investigations reflect sensitivity to an array of
interlocking questions in definitional methodology, including most notably questions
about the plausibility of reductive approaches to life's most characteristic features. These
same interests are apparent in his discussions of perception and mind.
6. Perception
Aristotle devotes a great deal of attention to perception, discussing both the general
faculty and the individual senses. In both cases, his discussions are cast in hylomorphic
terms. Perception is the capacity of the soul which distinguishes animals from plants;
indeed, having a perceptive faculty is definitive of being an animal (De Sensu 1, 436b10–
12); every animal has at least touch, whereas most have the other sensory modalities as
well (De Anima ii 2 413b4–7). In broad terms at least, animals must have perception if
they are to live. So, Aristotle supposes, there are defensible teleological grounds for
treating animals as essentially capable of perceiving (De Anima ii 3, 414b6–9, 434a30–
b4; De Sensu 1, 436b16–17). If an animal is to grow to maturity and propagate, it must be
able to take in nourishment and to navigate its way through the world. Perception serves
these ends.
This much, however, does not explain how perception occurs. Aristotle claims that
perception is best understood on the model of hylomorphic change generally: just as a
house changes from blue to white when acted upon by the agency of a painter applying
paint, so “perception comes about with <an organ's> being changed and affected … for it
seems to be a kind of alteration” (De Anima ii 5, 416b33–34). So in line with his general
account of alteration, Aristotle treats perception as a case of interaction between two
suitable agents: objects capable of acting and capacities capable of being affected. That
the agents and patients must both be suitable is important, since we need to distinguish
between two ways, e.g., an odor might affect something. By being placed in its vicinity, a
clove of garlic might affect a block of tofu. The tofu might well come to take on the odor
of the garlic. But we would not want to say that the tofu perceives the garlic. By contrast,
when an animal is affected by the same clove, it perceives the odor. Since the garlic is the
same in both cases, the difference in these cases must reside in the character of the object
affected. When animals receive perceptual forms, perception results; when non-living
entities are affected by what seem to be the same forms, only non-perceptual alteration
occurs.
In both kinds of alterations, Aristotle is happy to speak of an affected thing as receiving
the form of the agent which affects it and of the change consisting in the affected thing's
“becoming like” the agent (De Anima ii 5, 418a3–6; ii 12, 424a17–21). So there is in both
cases a hylomorphic model of alteration involving enforming, that is, a model according
to which change is explained by the acquisition of a form by something capable of
receiving it. Consequently, whatever is changed in a given way is necessarily such that it
is capable of being changed in that way. This is not the mere triviality that whatever
becomes actually F must already be possibly F. Instead, it is the recognition that specific
forms of change require suitable capacities in the changing subjects, and that,
consequently, analyses of specific forms of change will necessarily involve consideration
of those capacities. No marshmallow can receive the form of an actual automobile; and
only entities capable of perceiving can receive the perceptible forms of objects. This is
Aristotle's meaning when he claims: “the perceptive faculty is in potentiality such as the
object of perception already is in actuality” and that when something is affected by an
object of perception, “it is made like it and is such as that thing is” (De Anima ii 5,
418a3–6).
This hylomorphic restriction on the suitability of subjects of change has the effect of
limiting cases of actual perception to those instances of form-reception which involve
living beings endowed with the appropriate faculties. It does not, however, explain just
what those faculties are, nor even how they are “made like” their objects of perception.
Minimally, though, Aristotle claims that for some subject S and some sense object O:
S perceives O if and only if:
(i)
S has the capacity requisite for receiving O's sensible form;
(ii)
O acts upon that capacity by enforming it; and, as a result,
(iii)
S's relevant capacity becomes isomorphic with that form.
Each of these clauses requires unpacking. The plausibility of Aristotle's theory turns on
their eventual explications. The first clause (i) is intended to distinguish the active
capacities of animals from the merely passive capacities of lifeless material bodies,
including the media through which sensible forms travel. (Just as we do not want to say
that the tofu in the refrigerator perceives the garlic next to it, we do not want to say that
air perceives the color blue when affected by the color of a car.) But it does not yet
specify what is required for having the requisite active capacities. Also difficult is the
notion of isomorphism appealed to in (iii). As stated, (iii) invites, and has received,
scrutiny. Interpretations range from treating the form of isomorphism as direct and literal,
so that, e.g., the eyes become speckled when viewing a robin's egg, to attenuated, where
the isomorphism is more akin to that enjoyed between a house and its blue-print. Here
especially the plausibility of Aristotle's hylomorphic analysis of perception hangs in the
balance.
Further Discussion: Perception and Imagination
Supplement: A Controversy Surrounding Aristotle's Conception of Perception
Supplement: Imagination
7. Mind
Aristotle describes mind (nous, often also rendered as "intellect" or "reason") as “the part
of the soul by which it knows and understands” (De Anima iii 4, 429a9–10; cf. iii 3,
428a5; iii 9, 432b26; iii 12, 434b3), thus characterizing it in broadly functional terms. It
is plain that humans can know and understand things; indeed, Aristotle supposes that it is
our very nature to desire knowledge and understanding (Metaphysics i 1, 980a21; De
Anima ii 3, 414b18; iii 3, 429a6–8). In this way, just as the having of sensory faculties is
essential to being an animal, so the having of a mind is essential to being a human.
Human minds do more than understand, however. It is equally essential to the human
being to plan and deliberate, to ponder alternatives and strategize, and generally to chart
courses of action. Aristotle ascribes these activities no less than understanding and
contemplation to mind and consequently distinguishes the "practical mind" (or "practical
intellect" or "practical reason") from "theoretical mind" (or "theoretical intellect" or
"theoretical reason") ( Nicomachean Ethics vi 8 1143a35-b5; see Aristotle: ethics). In all
these ways, investigating this capacity of soul thus has a special significance for
Aristotle: in investigating mind, he is investigating what makes humans human.
His primary investigation of mind occurs in two chapters of De Anima, both of which are
richly suggestive, but neither of which admits of easy or uncontroversial exposition. In
De Anima iii 4 and 5, Aristotle approaches the nature of thinking by once again deploying
a hylomorphic analysis, given in terms of form reception. Just as perception involves the
reception of a sensible form by a suitably qualified sensory faculty, so thinking involves
the reception of an intelligible form by a suitably qualified intellectual faculty (De Anima
iii 4, 429a13–18). According to this model, thinking consists in a mind's becoming
enformed by some object of thought, so that actual thinking occurs whenever some
suitably prepared mind is “made like” its object by being affected by it.
This hylomorphic analysis of thinking is evidently a simple extension of the general
model of hylomorphic change exploited by Aristotle in a host of similar contexts.
Accordingly, Aristotle's initial account of thinking will directly parallel his analysis of
perception (De Anima iii 4, 429a13–18). That is, at least in schematic outline, Aristotle
will offer the following approach. For any given thinker S and an arbitrary object of
thought O:
S thinks O if and only if:
(i)
S has the capacity requisite for receiving O's intelligible form;
(ii)
O acts upon that capacity by enforming it; and, as a result,
(iii)
S's relevant capacity becomes isomorphic with that form.
Unsurprisingly, the same questions which arose in the case of perception also arise here.
Most immediately, to understand Aristotle's approach to thinking, it is necessary to
determine what it means to say that a thinker's mind and its object become isomorphic.
Here, at least, Aristotle points out what is obvious, that when a thinker's soul is made like
its cognitive object, it does not become one with some hylomorphic compound, but with
its form: “for it is not the stone which is in the soul, but its form” (De Anima iii 8,
431b29–432a1; cf. iii 4, 429a27). The suggestion is, then, that when S comes to think of a
stone, as opposed to merely perceiving some particular stone, S has a faculty which is
such that it can become one in form with that stone. Aristotle sometimes infers from this
sort of consideration that thought is of universals, whereas perception is of particulars
(De Anima ii 5, 417b23, Posterior Analytics i 31, 87b37–88a7), though he elsewhere will
allow that we also have knowledge of individuals (De Anima ii 5, 417a29; Metaphysics
xiii 10, 1087a20). These passages are not contradictory, since Aristotle may simply be
emphasizing that thought tends to proceed at a higher level of generality than perception,
because of its trading in comparatively abstract structural features of its objects. A person
can think of what it is to be a stone, but cannot, in any direct and literal sense of the term,
perceive this.
However that may be, Aristotle's conception of thinking implicates him in supposing that
thought involves grasping the structural features of the objects of thought. To take an
initially favorable case, when thinking that tree frogs are oviparous, S will be in a
psychic state whose internal structural states are, among other things, one in form with
tree frogs. Since S's soul does not become a tree frog when thinking of tree frogs (De
Anima iii 8, 431b24–30), this form of isomorphism cannot be mere instantiation of the
form being a tree frog. Rather, S's mind will evidently be one in form with the tree frog,
to revert to our earlier analogy, in something like the way a blueprint and the house of
which it is the blueprint are one in form. There must be a determinate and expressible
structural isomorphism, even though one could not say that the blueprint realizes the form
of the house. Houses are, after all, necessarily three-dimensional.
For Aristotle, it is not a contingent state of affairs that S's mind does not realize the form
being a tree frog in the way that tree frogs themselves do. On the contrary, the mind
cannot realize a broad range of forms: the mind is, according to Aristotle, not “mixed
with the body”, insofar as it, unlike the perceptual faculty, lacks a bodily organ (De
Anima iii 4, 429a24–7). As such, it would not be possible for the mind to realize the form
of a house in the way bricks and mortar instantiate such a form: houses provide shelter,
something a mind, so understood, cannot do. Consequently, when claiming that minds
become isomorphic with their objects, Aristotle must understand the way in which minds
become enformed as somehow attenuated or non-literal. Perhaps, though, this should be
plain enough. If a mind thinks something by being made like it, then the way it is likened
to what it thinks must be somehow representational. Consequently, Aristotle is
reasonably understood as holding that S thinks some object of thought O whenever S's
mind is made like that object by representing salient structural features of O by being
directly isomorphic with them, without, that is, by simply realizing the form of O in the
way O does. [TODAY WE THINK THAT BRAIN ACTIVATES THE SAME
EXCITATION PATHWAYS WHEN WE RECOGNIZE THE SAME OBJECTS.
WHEN WE LEARN OBJECTS IT IS DONE BY PHYSICAL PROCESSES LIKE IN
DEEP LEARNING WHERE NO SIMILARITY OF REPRESENTATION AND ITS
OBJECT IS INVOLVED BUT CONSTANT “RESONANCE” OF THE MIND TO THE
SAME EXCITATIONS FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD.]
This approach to the nature of thinking has some promising features. Both in its own
terms and in virtue of its fitting into a broader pattern of explanation, Aristotle's
hylomorphic analysis merits serious consideration. At the same time, one of its virtues
may appear also as a vice. We noted in discussing Aristotle's hylomorphic analysis of
change generally that his account requires the existence of suitably disposed subjects of
change. Only surfaces can be affected so as to be changed in color. An action, such as
Socrates' becoming unnerved by a glance of Alcibiades, cannot be made white; it is
simply not the appropriate sort of subject.
So, hylomorphic change requires at least the following two components:
(i)
(ii)
something pre-existing to be the patient of the change, and
that thing's being categorially suited to be changed in the way specified.
Already at the first stage, however, Aristotle's application of this hylomorphic analysis of
change to thinking may seem an over-extension. For he maintains directly that mind is
“none of the things existing in actuality before thinking” (De Anima iii 4, 429a24). [I
THINK THIS SAYS THAT MIND IS A PROCESS] His reasons for maintaining this
thesis are complex, but derive ultimately from the forms of plasticity Aristotle believes
the mind must manifest if it is to be capable of thinking all things (De Anima iii 4,
429a18). Now, if the mind is indeed nothing in actuality before thinking, it is hard to
understand how the hylomorphic analysis of change and affection could be brought to
bear in this arena. If some dough is made cookie-shaped, it is actually dough before being
so enformed; even the sense organs, when made like their objects, are actually existing
organs before being affected by the objects of perception. So, given a conception of mind
as not existing in actuality before thinking, it is hard to appreciate how thinking lends
itself to an analysis in terms of any recognizable hylomorphic approach to change.
How great a problem this will be depends in part upon how entrenched Aristotle's
commitment to the mind's being nothing in actuality before thinking turns out to be. It
equally turns on how adaptable Aristotle's hylomorphic account of change proves to be.
On this latter point, Aristotle notes that according to his account, there are various
different types of change and alteration, illustrated by the difference between a brown
fence's being painted white and a builder's taking up his tools and beginning to build. In
the first case, there is a destruction and a loss, of the fence's original color; in the second
case, nothing is destroyed, but rather that which is already dispositionally F becomes
occurently F by engaging in some F-ish activity. A builder is as such already able to
build. When he begins building he becomes fully and actually a builder for the duration
of his working. In this way, he loses nothing, but instead realizes an already established
potential.
This second type of change, which Aristotle maintains is the appropriate model for many
psychic activities, is either “not an instance of alteration … or is a different kind of
alteration,” where one “should not speak of being affected, unless <one allows that> there
are two kinds of alteration” (De Anima ii 5, 417b6–16). Perhaps Aristotle's position will
then be that the mind, at least insofar as its cognitive capacities for thought are
concerned, is simply such as to be enformed by any of an infinite range of objects of
thought. This would involve its being nothing determinate in itself; and far from being
anomalous for Aristotle, the mind would be in the cognitive realm precisely what the
most basic stuff, if there is a most basic stuff, would be in the material realm. Both would
manifest unconstrained plasticity; and so each would be characterized essentially in terms
of their range of potentialities.
That said, it should be noticed that when it is detached from the idiosyncratic thesis that
the mind is nothing in actuality before thinking, Aristotle's hylomorphic analysis of
thought retains whatever plausibility it may have independently. For the suggestion that
thinking is to be understood at least partially in terms of isomorphisms between our
representational capacities and the objects of our cognition has had, for good reason, a
durable appeal. To the degree that hylomorphism is generally defensible, then, its
application in this domain provides a theoretically rich framework for investigating the
nature of thought.
Supplement: The Active Mind of De Anima iii 5
8. Desire
In both perception and thinking, animal souls are in some ways active and in some ways
passive. Although both mind and the sensory faculty receive their correlative forms when
perceiving or thinking, neither is wholly passive in its defining activity. Perception
involves discrimination, while thinking involves selective attending and abstraction, both
activities, in the sense that each requires more than mere passive receptivity. Still, the
sorts of activity required for cognition and perception do not explain in any obvious way
another central fact about human beings and other animals: animals propel themselves
through space in pursuit of objects they desire. Even in his first characterizations of soul
in De Anima, Aristotle is alive to the widely held conviction that the soul is implicated in
motion (De Animai 2, 405b11; i 5 409b19–24). Of course, this is a natural connection for
him to make, given that every animate being, that is, every being with a soul, has within
it a principle of motion and rest. So, it seems deeply characteristic of living systems that
they are able to move themselves in ways likely to result in their survival and flourishing.
Animals move themselves, however, in a distinctive way: animals desire things, with the
result that desire is centrally implicated in all manner of animal action. Why did ostrich
run from the tiger? Because, one says easily, it desired to survive and so engaged in
avoidance behavior. Why did the human being drive to the opera and sit quietly in her
seat? Because, it seems, she desired to hear the music and to observe the spectacle.
In these, as in countless other cases, the explanation of animal action, human and nonhuman alike, easily and unreflectively appeals to desire. This is why Aristotle does not
end his De Anima with a discussion of mind. Instead, after discussing mind, he notes that
all animals are capable of locomotion, only to deny that any one of the faculties of the
soul so far considered (viz. nutrition, perception, or mind) can account for desire-initiated
movement. Although he had initially identified only these three faculties of soul (De
Anima ii 2, 413b12), Aristotle now notes that something must explain the fact that
animals engage in goal-directed behavior in order to achieve their conscious and
unconscious goals. The wanted explanation cannot, he urges, be found somehow in the
nutritive faculty, since plants, as living beings, have that power of soul, but do not move
themselves around in pursuit of their goals; nor is it due to perception, since even some
animals have this faculty without ever moving themselves at all, in any way (Aristotle
evidently has in mind sponges, oysters, and certain testacea, Historia Animalium i 1,
487b6–9; viii 1 588b12; Partibus Animalium iv 5, 681b34, 683c8); nor again can it be a
product of mind, since insofar as it is contemplative, mind does not focus upon objects
likely to issue in directives for action, and insofar as it does commend action, mind is not
of itself sufficient to engender motion, but instead relies upon appetite (De Anima iii 9,
432b14–33a5). Indeed, using the same form of reasoning, that a faculty cannot account
for purposive action if its activity is insufficient to initiate motion, Aristotle initially
concludes that even desire itself (orexis) cannot be responsible for action. After all,
continent people, unlike those who are completely and virtuously moderate, have
depraved desires but do not, precisely because they are continent, ever act upon them (De
Anima iii 9 433a6–8; cf. Nicomachean Ethics i 13, 1102b26). So their desires are
insufficient for action. Consequently, he concludes, desire alone, considered as a single
faculty, cannot explain purposive action, at least not completely.
Ultimately, though, Aristotle does come to the conclusion that there is a faculty of desire
(orektikon) whose occupation it is to initiate animal motion. (Perhaps his initial
reservations pertained only to one species of desire considered in isolation.) In any case,
he says plainly: “It is manifest, therefore, that what is called desire is the sort of faculty in
the soul which initiates movement” (De Anima iii 10, 433a31-b1). He understands this
conclusion, however, in tandem with another which also serves as a qualification of his
earlier finding that mind cannot be the source of motion. He holds, in fact, that it is
reasonable to posit two faculties implicated in animal movement: desire and practical
reason (De Anima iii 10, 433a17–19), though they do not work in isolation from one
another. Rather, practical reason, broadly construed to incorporate the kind of imageprocessing present in non-human animals, is a source of movement when it focuses upon
an object of desire as something desirable. So, practical reason and desire act corporately
as the sources of purposive motion in all animals, both human and non-human (De Anima
iii 10, 433a9-16), even though, ultimately, it is desire whose objects prick practical
intellect and set it in motion (De Anima iii 10, 433a17–2). For this reason, Aristotle
concludes, there is a faculty of desire whose activities and objects are primarily, if not
autonomously or discretely, responsible for initiating end-directed motion in animals.
What animals seek in action is some object of desire which is or seems to them to be
good.
Aristotle displays some hesitation in his discussion of desire and its relation to practical
reason in the aetiology of animal action. Some have consequently concluded that his
treatment can be regarded as at best inchoate or, worse, as positively befuddled. There
seem to be no grounds for any such harsh assessment, however. Equally likely is that
Aristotle is simply sensitive to the complexities involved in any approach to the
intertwining issues in the philosophy of action. Unlike some later Humeans, he evidently
appreciates that the data and phenomena in this domain are unstable, wobbling and
retreating at the approach of taxonomizing theory. The antecedents of action, he rightly
concludes, involve some sort of faculty of desire; but he is reluctant to conclude that
desire is the sole or sufficient faculty implicated in the explanation of purposive behavior.
In some way, he concludes, practical reason and imagination have indispensable roles to
play as well.
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Aristotle, General Topics: ethics | Aristotle, General Topics: metaphysics
Aristotle on Causality
http://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=aristotlepsychology
Falcon, Andrea, "Aristotle on Causality", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/aristotle-causality/
First published Wed Jan 11, 2006; substantive revision Mon Oct 15, 2012
Each Aristotelian science consists in the causal investigation of a specific
department of reality. If successful, such an investigation results in causal
knowledge; that is, knowledge of the relevant or appropriate causes. The emphasis
on the concept of cause explains why Aristotle developed a theory of causality which
is commonly known as the doctrine of the four causes. For Aristotle, a firm grasp of
what a cause is, and how many kinds of causes there are, is essential for a successful
investigation of the world around us.
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Four Causes
• 3. The Four Causes in the Science of Nature
• 4. Final Causes Defended
• 5. The Explanatory Priority of Final Causes
• 6. Conclusion
• 7. Glossary of Aristotelian Terminology
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries
1. Introduction
Aristotle was not the first person to engage in a causal investigation of the world
around us. From the very beginning, and independently of Aristotle, the
investigation of the natural world consisted in the search for the relevant causes of a
variety of natural phenomena. From the Phaedo, for example, we learn that the socalled “inquiry into nature” consisted in a search for “the causes of each thing; why
each thing comes into existence, why it goes out of existence, why it exists” (96 a 6–
10). In this tradition of investigation, the search for causes was a search for answers
to the question “why?”. Both in the Physics and in the Metaphysics Aristotle places
himself in direct continuity with this tradition. At the beginning of the Metaphysics
Aristotle offers a concise review of the results reached by his predecessors (Metaph.
I 3–7). From this review we learn that all his predecessors were engaged in an
investigation that eventuated in knowledge of one or more of the following causes:
material, formal, efficient and final cause. However, Aristotle makes it very clear that
all his predecessors merely touched upon these causes (Metaph. 988 a 22–23; but
see also 985 a 10–14 and 993 a 13–15). That is to say, they did not engage in their
causal investigation with a firm grasp of these four causes. They lacked a complete
understanding of the range of possible causes and their systematic interrelations.
Put differently, and more boldly, their use of causality was not supported by an
adequate theory of causality. According to Aristotle, this explains why their
investigation, even when it resulted in important insights, was not entirely
successful.
This insistence on the doctrine of the four causes as an indispensable tool for a
successful investigation of the world around us explains why Aristotle provides his
reader with a general account of the four causes. This general account is found, in
almost the same words, in Physics II 3 and Metaphysics V 2.
2. The Four Causes
In the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle places the following crucial condition on proper
knowledge: we think we have knowledge of a thing only when we have grasped its
cause (APost. 71 b 9–11. Cf. APost. 94 a 20). That proper knowledge is knowledge of
the cause is repeated in the Physics: we think we do not have knowledge of a thing
until we have grasped its why, that is to say, its cause (Phys. 194 b 17–20). Since
Aristotle obviously conceives of a causal investigation as the search for an answer to
the question “why?”, and a why-question is a request for an explanation, it can be
useful to think of a cause as a certain type of explanation. (My hesitation is
ultimately due to the fact that not all why-questions are requests for an explanation
that identifies a cause, let alone a cause in the particular sense envisioned by
Aristotle.)
In Physics II 3 and Metaphysics V 2, Aristotle offers his general account of the four
causes. This account is general in the sense that it applies to everything that
requires an explanation, including artistic production and human action. Here
Aristotle recognizes four types of things that can be given in answer to a whyquestion:
The material cause: “that out of which”, e.g., the bronze of a statue.
The formal cause: “the form”, “the account of what-it-is-to-be”, e.g., the shape
of a statue.
The efficient cause: “the primary source of the change or rest”, e.g., the
artisan, the art of bronze-casting the statue, the man who gives advice, the
father of the child.
The final cause: “the end, that for the sake of which a thing is done”, e.g.,
health is the end of walking, losing weight, purging, drugs, and surgical tools.
All the four (types of) causes may enter in the explanation of something. Consider
the production of an artifact like a bronze statue. The bronze enters in the
explanation of the production of the statue as the material cause. Note that the
bronze is not only the material out of which the statue is made; it is also the subject
of change, that is, the thing that undergoes the change and results in a statue. The
bronze is melted and poured in order to acquire a new shape, the shape of the
statue. This shape enters in the explanation of the production of the statue as the
formal cause. However, an adequate explanation of the production of a statue
requires also a reference to the efficient cause or the principle that produces the
statue. For Aristotle, this principle is the art of bronze-casting the statue (Phys. 195 a
6-8. Cf. Metaph. 1013 b 6–9). This is mildly surprising and requires a few words of
elaboration. There is no doubt that the art of bronze-casting resides in an individual
artisan who is responsible for the production of the statue. But, according to
Aristotle, all the artisan does in the production of the statue is the manifestation of
specific knowledge. This knowledge, not the artisan who has mastered it, is the
salient explanatory factor that one should pick as the most accurate specification of
the efficient cause (Phys. 195 b 21–25). By picking the art, not the artisan, Aristotle
is not just trying to provide an explanation of the production of the statue that is not
dependent upon the desires, beliefs and intentions of the individual artisan; he is
trying to offer an entirely different type of explanation; an explanation that does not
make a reference, implicit or explicit, to these desires, beliefs and intentions. More
directly, the art of bronze-casting the statue enters in the explanation as the efficient
cause because it helps us to understand what it takes to produce the statue; that is
to say, what steps are required to produce the statue. But can an explanation of this
type be given without a reference to the final outcome of the production, the statue?
The answer is emphatically “no”. A model is made for producing the statue. A mold
is prepared for producing the statue. The bronze is melted and poured for producing
the statue. Both the prior and the subsequent stages are for the sake of a certain end,
the production of the statue. Clearly, the statue enters in the explanation of each
step of the artistic production as the final cause or that for the sake of which
everything in the production process is done.
In thinking about the four causes, we have come to understand that Aristotle offers a
teleological explanation of the production of a bronze statue; that is to say, an
explanation that makes a reference to the telos or end of the process. Moreover, a
teleological explanation of the type sketched above does not crucially depend upon
the application of psychological concepts such as desires, beliefs and intentions. This
is important because artistic production provides Aristotle with a teleological model
for the study of natural processes, whose explanation does not involve beliefs,
desires, intentions or anything of this sort. Some have contended that Aristotle
explains natural process on the basis of an inappropriately psychological
teleological model; that is to say, a teleological model that involves a purposive
agent who is somehow sensitive to the end. This objection can be met if the artistic
model is understood in non-psychological terms. In other words, Aristotle does not
psychologize nature because his study of the natural world is based on a teleological
model that is consciously free from psychological factors. (For further information
on the role that artistic production plays in developing an explanatory model for the
study of nature, see Broadie 1987, pp. 35–50.)
One final clarification is needed. By insisting on the art of bronze-casting as the most
accurate efficient cause of the production of the statue, Aristotle does not mean to
preclude an appeal to the beliefs and desires of the individual artisan. On the
contrary, there are cases where the individual realization of the art obviously enters
in the explanation of the bronze statue. For example, one may be interested in a
particular bronze statue because that statue is the great achievement of an artisan
who has not only mastered the art but has also applied it with a distinctive style. In
this case it is perfectly appropriate to make reference to the beliefs and desires of
the artisan. Aristotle seems to make room for this case when he says that we should
look “for general causes of general things and for particular causes of particular
things” (Phys. 195 a 25–26). Note, however, that the idiosyncrasies that may be
important in studying a particular bronze statue as the great achievement of an
individual artisan may be extraneous to a more central (and more interesting) case.
To understand why let us focus on the study of nature. When the student of nature
is concerned with the explanation of a natural phenomenon like the formation of
sharp teeth in the front and broad molars in the back of the mouth, the student of
nature is concerned with what is typical about that phenomenon. In other words,
the student of nature is expected to provide an explanation of why certain animals
typically have a certain dental arrangement. We shall return to this example in due
course. For the time being, it is important to emphasize this important feature of
Aristotle's explanatory project; a feature that we must keep in mind in trying to
understand his theory of causality. This theory has in fact been developed primarily
(but not exclusively) for the study of nature.
3. The Four Causes in the Science of Nature
In the Physics, Aristotle builds on his general account of the four causes by
developing explanatory principles that are specific to the study of nature. Here
Aristotle insists that all four causes are involved in the explanation of natural
phenomena, and that the job of “the student of nature is to bring the why-question
back to them all in the way appropriate to the science of nature” (Phys. 198 a 21–
23). The best way to understand this methodological recommendation is the
following: the science of nature is concerned with natural bodies insofar as they are
subject to change, and the job of the student of nature is to provide the explanation
of their natural change. The factors that are involved in the explanation of natural
change turn out to be matter, form, that which produces the change, and the end of
this change. Note that Aristotle does not say that all four explanatory factors are
involved in the explanation of each and every instance of natural change. Rather, he
says that an adequate explanation of natural change may involve a reference to all of
them. Aristotle goes on by adding a specification on his doctrine of the four causes:
the form and the end often coincide, and they are formally the same as that which
produces the change (Phys. 198 a 23–26). This is one of the several times where
Aristotle offers the slogan “it takes a man to generate a man” (for example, Phys. 194
b 13; Metaph. 1032 a 25, 1033 b 32, 1049 b 25, 1070 a 8, 1092 a 16). This slogan is
designed to point at the fundamental fact that the generation of a man can be
understood only in the light of the end of the process; that is to say, the fully
developed man. What a fully developed man is is specified in terms of the form of a
man, and this form is realized in its full development at the end of the generation.
But this does not explain why it takes a man to generate a man. Note, however, that
a fully developed man is not only the end of generation; it is also what initiates the
entire process. For Aristotle, the ultimate moving principle responsible for the
generation of a man is a fully developed living creature of the same kind; that is, a
man who is formally the same as the end of generation.
Thus the student of nature is often left with three types of causes: the formal/final
cause, the efficient cause, and the material cause. However, the view that there are
in nature causes besides material and efficient causes was controversial in antiquity.
According to Aristotle, most of his predecessors recognized only the material and
the efficient cause. This explains why Aristotle cannot be content with saying that
formal and final causes often coincide, but he also has to defend his thesis against an
opponent who denies that final causality is a genuine mode of causality.
4. Final Causes Defended
Physics II 8 contains Aristotle's most general defense of final causality. Here
Aristotle establishes that explaining nature requires final causality by discussing a
difficulty that may be advanced by an opponent who denies that there are final
causes in nature. Aristotle shows that an opponent who claims that material and
efficient causes alone suffice to explain natural change fails to account for their
characteristic regularity. Before considering how the defense is attempted, however,
it is important to clarify that this defense does not perform the function of a proof.
By showing that an approach to the study of nature that ignores final causality
cannot account for a crucial aspect of nature, Aristotle does not thereby prove that
there are final causes in nature. Strictly speaking, the only way to prove that nature
exhibits final causality is to establish it on independent grounds. But this is not what
Aristotle does in Physics II 8. Final causality is here introduced as the best
explanation for an aspect of nature which otherwise would remain unexplained.
The difficulty that Aristotle discusses is introduced by considering the way in which
rain works. It rains because of material processes which can be specified as follows:
when the warm air that has been drawn up is cooled off and becomes water, then
this water comes down as rain (Phys. 198 b 19–21). It may happen that the corn in
the field is nourished or the harvest is spoiled as a result of the rain, but it does not
rain for the sake of any good or bad result. The good or bad result is just a
coincidence (Phys. 198 b 21–23). So, why cannot all natural change work in the same
way? For example, why cannot it be merely a coincidence that the front teeth grow
sharp and suitable for tearing the food and the molars grow broad and useful for
grinding the food (Phys. 198 b 23–27)? When the teeth grow in just this way, then
the animal survives. When they do not, then the animal dies. More directly, and
more explicitly, the way the teeth grow is not for the sake of the animal, and its
survival or its death is just a coincidence (Phys. 198 b 29–32).
Aristotle's reply is that the opponent is expected to explain why the teeth regularly
grow in the way they do: sharp teeth in the front and broad molars in the back of the
mouth. Moreover, since this dental arrangement is suitable for biting and chewing
the food that the animal takes in, the opponent is expected to explain the regular
connection between the needs of the animal and the formation of its teeth. Either
there is a real causal connection between the formation of the teeth and the needs of
the animal, or there is no real causal connection and it just so happens that the way
the teeth grow is good for the animal. In this second case it is just a coincidence that
the teeth grow in a way that it is good for the animal. But this does not explain the
regularity of the connection. Where there is regularity there is also a call for an
explanation, and coincidence is no explanation at all. In other words, to say that the
teeth grow as they do by material necessity and this is good for the animal by
coincidence is to leave unexplained the regular connection between the growth of
the teeth and the needs of the animal. Aristotle offers final causality as his
explanation for this regular connection: the teeth grow in the way they do for biting
and chewing food and this is good for the animal.
One thing to be appreciated about Aristotle's reply is that the final cause enters in
the explanation of the formation of the parts of an organism like an animal as
something that is good either for the existence or the flourishing of the animal. In
the first case, something is good for the animal because the animal cannot survive
without it; in the second case, something is good for the animal because the animal
is better off with it. This helps us to understand why in introducing the concept of
end (telos) that is relevant to the study of natural processes Aristotle insists on its
goodness: “not everything that is last claims to be an end (telos), but only that which
is best” (Phys. 194 a 32–33).
Once his defense of the use of final causes is firmly in place, Aristotle can make a
step further by focusing on the role that matter plays in his explanatory project. Let
us return to the example chosen by Aristotle, the regular growth of sharp teeth in
the front and broad molars in the back of the mouth. What explanatory role is left
for the material processes involved in the natural process? Aristotle does not seem
to be able to specify what material processes are involved in the growth of the teeth,
but he is willing to recognize that certain material processes have to take place for
the teeth to grow in the particular way they do. In other words, there is more to the
formation of the teeth than these material processes, but this formation does not
occur unless the relevant material processes take place. For Aristotle, these material
processes are that which is necessary to the realization of a specific goal; that which
is necessary on the condition (on the hypothesis) that the end is to be obtained.
Physics II 9 is entirely devoted to the introduction of the concept of hypothetical
necessity and its relevance for the explanatory ambition of Aristotle's science of
nature. In this chapter matter is reconfigured as hypothetical necessity. By so doing
Aristotle acknowledges the explanatory relevance of the material processes, while
at the same time he emphasizes their dependency upon a specific end.
5. The Explanatory Priority of Final Causes
In the Physics, Aristotle builds on his general account of the four causes in order to
provide the student of nature with the explanatory resources indispensable for a
successful investigation of the natural world. However, the Physics does not provide
all the explanatory resources for all natural investigations. Aristotle returns to the
topic of causality in the first book of the Parts of Animals. This is a relatively
independent and self-contained treatise entirely devoted to developing the
explanatory resources required for a successful study of animals and animal life.
Here Aristotle completes his theory of causality by arguing for the explanatory
priority of the final cause over the efficient cause.
Significantly enough, there is no attempt to argue for the existence of four
fundamental modes of causality in the first book of the Parts of Animals. Evidently,
Aristotle expects his reader to be already familiar with his general account of the
four causes as well as his defense of final causality. The problem that here concerns
Aristotle is presented in the following way: since both the final and the efficient
cause are involved in the explanation of natural generation, we have to establish
what is first and what is second (PA 639 b 12–13). Aristotle argues that there is no
other way to explain natural generation than by reference to what lies at the end of
the process. This has explanatory priority over the principle that is responsible for
initiating the process of generation. Aristotle relies on the analogy between artistic
production and natural generation, and the teleological model that he has developed
for the explanation of artistic production. Consider, for example, house-building.
There is no other way to explain how a house is built, or is being built, than by
reference to the final result of the process, the house. More directly, the bricks and
the beams are put together in the particular way they are for the sake of achieving a
certain end: the production of the house. This is true also in the case of natural
generation. In this context Aristotle' slogan is “generation is for the sake of
substance, not substance for the sake of generation” (PA 640 a 18–19). This means
that the proper way to explain the generation of an organism like an animal, or the
formation of its parts, is by reference to the product that lies at the end of the
process; that is to say, a substance of a certain type. From Aristotle we learn that
Empedocles explained the articulation of the human spine into vertebrae as the
result of the twisting and turning that takes place when the fetus is in the womb of
the mother. Aristotle finds this explanation unacceptable (PA 640 a 19–26). To begin
with, the fetus must have the power to twist and turn in the way it does, and
Empedocles does not have an explanation for this fact. Secondly, and more
importantly, Empedocles overlooks the fact that it takes a man to generate a man.
That is to say, the originating principle of the generation is a fully developed man
which is formally the same as the final outcome of the process of generation. It is
only by looking at the fully developed man that we can understand why our spine is
articulated into vertebrae and why the vertebrae are arranged in the particular way
they are. This amounts to finding the role that the spine has in the life of a fully
developed man. Moreover, it is only by looking at the fully developed man that we
can explain why the formation of the vertebrae takes place in the particular way it
does. (For further information about the explanatory priority of the final over the
efficient cause, see Code 1997, pp. 127–143.)
Perhaps we are now in the position to understand how Aristotle can argue that
there are four (types of) causes and at the same time say that proper knowledge is
knowledge of the cause or knowledge of the why (APost. 71 b 10–12, 94 a 20; Phys.
194 b 17–20; Metaph. 981 a 28–30). Admittedly, at least at first sight, this is a bit
confusing. Confusion dissolves when we realize that Aristotle recognizes the
explanatory primacy of the final/formal cause over the efficient and material cause.
Of course this does not mean that the other causes can be eliminated. Quite the
contrary: Aristotle is adamant that, for a full range of cases, all four causes must be
given in order to give an explanation. More explicitly, for a full range of cases, an
explanation which fails to invoke all four causes is no explanation at all. At the same
time, however, the final/formal cause is the primary cause and knowledge of this
cause amounts to knowledge of the why. There is, however, a caveat to be
considered when interpreting this claim. Aristotle is not committed to the view that
everything has all four causes, let alone that everything has a final/formal cause. In
the Metaphysics, for example, Aristotle says that an eclipse of the moon does not
have a final cause (Metaph.1044 b 12). What happens when there is no final/formal
cause like in the case of an eclipse of the moon? An eclipse of the moon is
deprivation of light by the interposition of the earth which is coming in between the
sun and the moon. The interposition of the earth, that is, its coming in between the
sun and the moon, is to be regarded as the efficient cause of the eclipse.
Interestingly enough, Aristotle offers this efficient cause as the cause of the eclipse
and that which has to be given in reply to the question “why?” (Metaph. 1044 b 13–
15). The example of the eclipse of the moon suggests that Aristotle's view is
something like this: in each and every case there is some cause that is the primary
cause about which one needs to know in order to have proper knowledge or
knowledge of the why, and where there is a final/formal cause, this is the cause that
one needs to know, but where there is not, the efficient cause may fill its role. This
may explain why Aristotle can confidently say that “we claim we know each thing
when we think we know its primary cause” (Metaph. 983 a 25–26. Cf. Phys. 194 b
20).
6. Conclusion
The study of nature was a search for answers to the question “why?” before and
independently of Aristotle. A critical examination of the use of the language of
causality by his predecessors, together with a careful study of natural phenomena,
led Aristotle to elaborate a theory of causality. This theory is presented in its most
general form in Physics II 3 and in Metaphysics V 5. In both texts, Aristotle argues
that a final, formal, efficient or material cause can be given in answer to a whyquestion.
Aristotle further elaborates on causality in the rest of Physics II and in Parts of
Animals I. Aristotle explores the systematic interrelations among the four modes of
causality and argues for the explanatory priority of the final cause. In so doing
Aristotle not only expands on his theory of causality; he also builds explanatory
principles that are specific to the study of nature. Aristotle considers these
principles an indispensable theoretical framework for a successful investigation of
the natural world. Both Physics II and Parts of Animals have a foundational
character. More directly, Aristotle expects the student of nature to have mastered
these principles before engaging in the investigation of any aspect of the natural
world.
Although Aristotle's theory of causality is developed in the context of his science of
nature, its application goes well beyond the boundaries of natural science. This is
already clear from the most general presentation of the theory in Physics II 3 and in
Metaphysics V 5. Here the four causes are used to explain human action as well as
artistic production. In addition, any theoretical investigation that there might be
besides natural science will employ the doctrine of the four causes.
Consider, briefly, the case of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Here Aristotle is seeking
wisdom. Part of the argument of the Metaphysics is in an attempt to clarify what sort
of wisdom Aristotle is seeking. Suffice it to say that Aristotle conceives of this
wisdom as a science of substance that is, or is a part of, a science of being qua being
(for further information about this argument, see the entry Aristotle's Metaphysics,
especially Sections 1 and 3.) What is important is that this science consists in a
causal investigation, that is, a search for the relevant causes. This helps us to
understand why the most general presentation of Aristotle's theory of causality is
repeated, in almost the same words, in Physics II 3 and in Metaphysics V 5. Although
the Physics and the Metaphysics belong to two different theoretical enterprises, in
both cases we are expected to embark on an investigation that will eventuate in
causal knowledge, and this is not possible without a firm grasp of the interrelations
between the four (types of) causes.
7. Glossary of Aristotelian Terminology
account: logos
art: technê
artisan: technitês
cause: aitia, aition
difficulty: aporia
end: telos
essence: to ti ên einai
form: eidos
generation: genesis
goal: telos
knowledge: epistêmê
necessity: anankê
principle: archê
substance:ousia
why: dia ti, dioti
wisdom: sophia
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Christopher Shields, Greg Salmieri, István Bodnár, and Mark Goodwin for
commenting on drafts of this entry.
Copyright © 2012 by Andrea Falcon <afalcon@alcor.concordia.ca>