Aristotle on the Soul

Definition of the Soul: The Soul is the first actuality of natural body that is potentially alive (On the Soul, 412a28-29).

The soul is what makes something a living thing.

Form is associated with actuality, while matter is associated with potentiality. So the soul is the form of a living
thingthe soul is that in virtue of which any living thing is the kind of living thing it is.

What does first actuality mean, however, in Aristotles definition of the soul?

There are two levels of potentiality and two levels of actuality:

First Potentiality: An example is a child who has the capacity to learn Spanish but doesnt yet
speak it.

Second Potentiality: An example is a silent adult who not only has the capacity to speak
Spanish, but could, if she wanted or needed to do so.

First Actuality is the same as second potentiality. An example is a silent adult who not only
has the capacity to speak Spanish, but could, if she wanted or needed to do so.

Second Actuality: An example is an adult speaking or actively listening to and understanding

Spanish.

So the soul is a capacity.

What kind of capacity is the soul?

The soul is the capacity of a living thing to participate and engage in the characteristic activities of
living things of its natural kindthe characteristic activities of the members of its species.

What are the characteristic activities of living things?

Living things nourish themselves, grow, decay, move, rest, perceive and think.

The soul, then, is just the living thing itself at work, doing what it and its kind doexercising its natural
capacities. (In other words, the soul is what is responsible fro the living behavior of a living thing.

If the eye were a living thing, then vision would be its soul (412b18-19)

Hierarchy of Souls

There are three degrees of soul, each corresponding to the three possible functions of the soul. (The Greek word
for function is ergon.)

The Nutritive Soul is responsible for growth, nutrition and reproduction; all plants have a nutritive soul.

The Sensitive Soul is responsible for locomotion and perception; all animals have a sensitive soul.

The Rational Soul is responsible for thought; all human beings have a rational soul.

In the Metaphysics, Aristotle defines human beings as rational animals.

Anything that has a rational soul also has a sensitive and nutritive soul; anything that has a sensitive soul also has
a nutritive soul.

Form and Matter, Soul and Body: Aristotles Hylomorphism

[T]he soul does not exist without a body and yet is not itself a kind of body. For it is not a body, but something which
belongs to a body, and for this reason exists in a body, and in a body of such-and-such a kind (414a20ff).

The soul is not separable from the body, as it is for Plato.

The soul is not an independently existing substance, as it seems to be for Plato.
The soul is the capacity of a thing that allows it to do what it does; it is not itself a thing with capacities.
The soul is not individual in the sense that it makes us who we are; the soul of one human being is the same as
the soul of any other human being, because the human soul is just the human capacity for distinctively human
activities.
One last note: Later in On the Soul (book III), Aristotle suggests that the intellect is immortal and eternal; what
Aristotle means here is unclear. Yet, it seems that, in the end, Aristotle is not concerned with arguing for the
immortality of the soul or with showing that human beings have a life after death. In the Nicomachean Ethics
(book X), Aristotle says that the happy is life is god-like and dearest to the gods, but this god-like life is one lived
in the here and now, not one lived after death.