ARISTOTELIAN IMMORTALITY

C.D.C. REEVE

The Nicomachean Ethics is largely free of moral injunctions and rules.

It contains no equivalent of the principle of utility or the categorical
imperative. In one famous instance, however, it attempts to tell us explic-
itly what to do and what not to do:
We ought not to follow (kata) the makers of proverbs and “Think human
(anthrôpina phronein), since you are human,” or “Think mortal, since you
are mortal.” Rather, as far as we can, we ought to be pro-immortal (athan-
atizein), and go to all lengths (panta poiein) to live a life (to zên) in accord
with (kata) our supreme element (to kratiston tôn en hautôi) (NE X 7
1177b31-34, trans. Irwin 1999).

I shall take this text as my interpretative stalking horse, commenting

on each element of it in turn.

1. What we should not be kata are the makers of proverbs. What we

should be kata is “our supreme element” (Irwin 1999) — or “what is
highest of the things in us” (Broadie and Rowe 2002). It ought to be the
case, then, that makers and element require incompatible things of us.
Hence to zên must be or involve some sort of thinking. But what sort?
Aristotle uses two words corresponding to the English word “life”
— zôê and bios. The first is the sort of life biologists, zoologists, and
other scientists (including psychologists and — as we shall see — theo-
logians) study. The second refers to the sort of life a biographer might
investigate. Both are ambiguous. The ambiguity in zôê is diagnosed in
the process of specifying the human function (ergon):
The remaining possibility, then, is some sort of life (zôê) of action of the
[part of the soul] that has reason. One [part] of it has reason as obeying
reason; the other has it as itself having reason and understanding. Moreover,

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life is also spoken of in two ways [as potential and as activity], and we must
take [a human being’s special function to be] life as activity, since this
seems to be called life more fully (NE I 6 1098a3-7).

The ambiguity in bios is of a different sort. Bios refers, in the first

instance, to a biographical life, to a span of time throughout which some-
one possesses the (second) potential whose activation is zôê-as-activity:
“The good and the bad person are least distinct while asleep, which is
why happy people are said to be no worse off than wretched ones for half
their life (bios)” (NE I 13 1102b5-7). In the second instance, bios refers
to a mode of biographical life, distinguished from others by its aim or
goal: “Cultivated people, those active [in politics], conceive the good as
honor, since this is more or less the end of the political life (bios)” (NE
I 5 1095b22-23).
We can now see why “live a life in accord with” (Irwin 1999) is a
potentially misleading translation of to zên kata — as to a lesser extent is
plain “live” (Ross 1980). For both suggest that to zên refers to biographi-
cal life (or a mode thereof) rather than, as word-choice makes plain, to an
activity. But we do not have to rest our case on terminology alone. The
function argument itself points decisively in the same direction:
We take the human function to be a certain kind of life (zôê), and take this
life to be activity of the soul … so the human good turns out to be activity
of the soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more virtues than one,
in accordance with the best and the most complete. But furthermore it will
be this in a complete life (bios) (NE I 7 1098a12-19).
To zên refers to an activity, then, which Aristotle is urging us to do
everything to engage in, since engaging in it will, in a complete biologi-
cal life, constitute the achievement of the human good — eudaimonia
(happiness).

2. To kratiston tôn en hautôi is “some divine element” (theion ti), Aris-

totle tell us, which is identical to nous (understanding) (NE X 7 1177b27-
31), and which “alone [of the things in the human soul] is immortal and
eternal” (De An. III 5 430a23). To zên kata to kratiston tôn en hautôi,
we may infer, refers to noêsis (active understanding), which is itself a
sort of life: “the activity of understanding is life (zôê)” (Met. L 7
1072b26-27). The life Aristotle is recommending, in other words, is a
kind of thinking — but one quite different from the kind recommended
by the makers of proverbs.

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3. “Think of human things” (Ross 1980) removes an ambiguity in

anthrôpina phronein that “think human thoughts” (Broadie and Rowe
2002) nicely reveals. Thoughts might be human, after all, either because
they are the sort had about human beings or because they are the sort
human beings have. We might imagine that the ambiguity is then easily
resolved: though human beings can think about lots of things, they can-
not have any thoughts except the sort had by themselves. But if the ambi-
guity is resolved in the have way, Aristotle’s advice not to anthrôpina
phronein is incoherent. On the other hand, if it is resolved in the about
way, the advice to anthrôpina phronein is plainly stupid: sheep aren’t
human, but even the makers of proverbs can hardly have believed there
was anything wrong with thinking about them from time to time.
Apparently, then, Aristotle has other fish to fry — fish that his phra-
seology, by encouraging commonsensical rather than theory-laden inter-
pretations, somewhat camouflages. The following text from the Meta-
physics identifies these fish:
It might be justly regarded as not human to possess this [free science]; for
in many ways human nature is in bondage … and it would be unfitting that
man should not be content to seek the science that accords with (kata)
himself. If, then, there is something in what the poets say, and jealousy is
natural to the divine, it would probably occur in this case above all, and all
who excelled in this science would be unfortunate. But the divine cannot be
jealous …, nor should any science be thought more prestigious than one of
this sort. For the most divine science is also the most prestigious; and this
science alone would be most divine in two ways: if God most of all would
have it or if it were a science of divine things. But this science alone hap-
pens to be divine in both of them (Met. A 2 982b28-983a8).

Human thoughts are neither the thoughts humans think about themselves,
therefore, nor the thoughts they, as opposed to other beings, think.
Instead, they are the contents of a certain science — identified here only
as the one that accords with (or is kata) man. Similarly, the contrasting
thoughts are also those that constitute a science, namely, theology — the
science that has God both as its subject and as its preeminent practitioner.
In the Nicomachean Ethics the same contrast is spelled out in a way
that tells us what the former science comprises:
It is clear, that of the [various sorts] of scientific knowledge it is theoretical
wisdom that is the most exact … For it would be absurd to think that
political science or practical wisdom is most excellent, since the best thing
in the universe isn’t a human being … That is why we say that Anaxagoras

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and Thales and people of that sort are wise men, but not practically wise
ones, when we see them to be ignorant of what benefits themselves, and
why what they know is said to be extraordinary, amazing, difficult, and
divine, but useless, because it is not human goods they seek. Practical wis-
dom, on the other hand, is concerned with human things and what can be
deliberated about (NE VI 7 1141a16-b9).

Hence the way to express our target contrast is this: the poets urge us
to restrict our thoughts to practical wisdom or political science (phronê-
sis or politikê), while Aristotle urges us to devote them to the most exact
theoretical science, the one that deals with “the best thing in the uni-
verse” — God.

4. “Pro-immortal” (Irwin 1999) and “assimilate to the immortals”

(Broadie and Rowe 2002) seek to finesse or ameliorate the problems
athanatizein raises. For one can readily be pro or assimilate to what one
cannot possibly be. But what Aristotle is encouraging us to do seems to
go well beyond such things. This is made fairly clear in Fr. 645 R3 (Ath-
enaeus 697a), which, though omitted by most editors, is revelatory in its
use of athanatizein nonetheless:
And Aristotle himself, in his defense against the charge of impiety (if the
speech is not a forgery) says: “If I had decided to sacrifice to Hermeias as
an immortal I would not have prepared a memorial to him as a mortal, and
if I had wished to immortalize (athanatizein) his nature I would not have
adorned his body with burial honors” (trans. Barnes 1984).
âllà m®n kaì aûtòv ˆAristotéljv ên t±Ç ˆApologíaç t±v âsebeíav, eî
m® katéceustai ö lógov, fjsín· ‘oû gàr ãn pote ¨Ermeíaç qúein Üv
âqanátwç proairoúmenov Üv qnjt¬ç mn±ma kateskeúahon kaì
âqanatíhein t®n fúsin boulómenov êpitafíoiv ån tima⁄v êkósmjsa tò
s¬ma.’

Our task, it seems, must be to make sense of literal immortalizing as

something we can intelligibly do. It is a problem sharpened by particular
doctrine. For if our understanding is already immortal, how can it fail to
immortalize? And if it alone is immortal how can we (whose souls
include so much more) immortalize ourselves?

5. The various types of soul Aristotle recognizes are found, hierarchi-

cally organized, in the human soul, with higher ones presupposing lower
ones (NE I 13). On the lowest rung in the hierarchy is the potential for
nutrition, and so for growth. It is the only psychological potential

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possessed by plants. The next rung up includes the perception, emotion,

and appetite responsible for sensory awareness of the world and locomo-
tion. Together with nutrition, these potentials are found in all animals. In
human beings, they are constituents of the non-rational part of the soul.
The third type of psychological potential, found only in human beings,
is reason, which comprises boulêsis (rational desire or wish for the good),
phronêsis (practical wisdom), and nous (understanding) (De An. III 9
432b5-6, Rhet. I 10 1369a1-4, NE VI 2).
Looked at from the bottom up, this hierarchy is teleological: lower
parts and their functions are for the sake of higher ones. For example, the
homoeomerous parts and their functions exist for the sake of the non-
homoeomerous or structured parts and their functions. Among the latter,
the sense organs are particularly important for survival, which is essential
for all other functioning (De An. III 12 434a22-b27). In animals with
practical wisdom, however, the senses — especially smell, hearing, and
sight — “inform us of many distinctions from which arise practical wis-
dom about intelligible objects as well as those of action and so also exist
for the sake of doing well or being happy” (Sens. 1 436b10-437a3).
Finally, practical wisdom itself, though it exists for its own sake, also
exists for the sake of understanding (NE VI 13 1145a6-11), which, as the
teleological peak of the organization, is the final or teleological cause of
everything else in it.
This entire teleological system is in the human soul, but the human
being whose soul it is stands in a special relation to his understanding:
“Each of us would actually seem to be this, given that each is his supreme
and better element” (NE X 7 1178a2-3). But this special relation is a
particular instance, apparently, of a general feature of all teleological
systems: “Just as a city and every other system seems to be most of all
its most supreme part, the same is true of a human being” (NE IX 8
1168b31-32; cf. Pol. III 6 1278b11). I do not say that this makes the
special relationship philosophically intelligible, only that it shows it not
to be peculiar to the soul.

6. Our understanding, however, is two-fold. One constituent of it is

pathêtikos nous, which “serves as matter for each kind of thing” and is
“what is potentially each of them” (De An. III 5 430a24-25, a10-11). In
addition, there is a second productive element (poiêtikon), which is
related to the first “as e.g. a craft is related to its matter [or materials]”

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(a11-13). Of this second element, Aristotle gives the following terse char-
acterization:
[a] This understanding is separate, impassive, and unmixed, being in sub-
stance [or essence] an activity (energeia) … [b] it isn’t sometimes actively
understanding and at other times not. [c] And when separated it is just
what it is (hoper esti) and [d] is alone immortal and eternal (De An. III 5
430a17-23).

(c) implicitly contrasts the condition of our understanding at one time

with its condition at another. It must, then, be speaking of it as separated
from something it needn’t always be separate from rather than, as in (a),
timelessly separate. But separated from what? Usually the answer, when
separation is the question, is matter or body of some sort. And that answer
is certainly correct here, too: “bodily actuality is in no way associated with
its [understanding’s] actuality” (GA II 3 736b28-29). Since (a) active under-
standing is in essence an activity, and F is just what G is if and only if G is
in essence what F is (Top. III 1 116a23-28), (c) is a consequence of (a).
(b), which tells us that there is no time at which active understanding is
not active, also follows from (a) — what is in essence an activity cannot
ever be inactive. But this does not mean that we are always actively under-
standing, as a Cartesian ego is always actively thinking: “Understanding
(nous) seems to be born in us as a sort of substance and not to pass away
… But understanding — especially theoretical understanding — is extin-
guished because something else within passes away, but it itself is unaf-
fected” (De An. I 4 408b18-25). Thus when our understanding is not
separated from the sublunary matter of our body it can, for example, be
extinguished even by so humdrum an occurrence as sleep:
When someone changes from drunkenness, sleep, or disease we do not say
that he has acquired scientific knowledge again — even though he was unable
to use his scientific knowledge [while drunk, asleep, etc.] … In some cases
nature itself causes the soul to settle down and come to a state of rest, while
in other cases other things do so. But in either case the result is brought about
through the alteration of something in the body, as we see in the case of the
use or activity [of practical wisdom or scientific knowledge] when someone
becomes sober or wakes from sleep (Phys. VII 3 247b13-248a6).

(Just what the relevant alteration in the body consists in is described

in Somn. 3 456b17-28.) It seems, then, that sleep constitutes part of the
reason we aren’t always actively understanding (noein) that Aristotle
promises to consider at De Anima III 4 430a5-6 but never explicitly does.

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All of which brings us to (d). What can it mean to say that our active
understanding is immortal and eternal, when, even though it is in essence
an activity, we aren’t always actively understanding? In lieu of a detailed
explanation, I offer a simplified picture. Imagine our active understand-
ing separate from the slavery of our body and so, of course, always
active. Then imagine it being born in our bodies as a sort of substance.
At this point, it becomes associated with passive understanding. Put
another way, it becomes the actualization of a potential, which — like all
psychological potentials — is based in a special sort of body:
The potentiality of all soul seems to be associated with a body different
from and more divine than the so-called elements … This is not fire or that
sort of potential, but the pneuma enclosed within the seed and within the
foamy part — more precisely, the nature in the pneuma, which is analogous
to the element that constitutes the stars (GA II 3 736b29-737a1).

Once pneumaticized, however, understanding ceases to be impassive

— not directly or intrinsically, of course, but because something else in
us, something in the body, is affected, namely, pneuma. We stop actively
understanding, not because active understanding stops, but because,
reverting to De Somno, too much vaporized food mixed in with the
pneuma in which its potential correlate is based occludes it.
We now have the distinction we need. Our understanding is always
immortal. But we are actively immortalizing — actively living our
immortal life — only when actively understanding. When we aren’t, we
are only potentially immortalizing. It is by no means a doctrine peculiar
to Aristotle. Plato, too, expresses it in the Timaeus:
So if a man has become absorbed in his appetites or ambitions and takes
great pains to further them, all his thoughts are bound to become merely
mortal. And so far as it is at all possible for a man to become thoroughly
mortal, he cannot help but succeed in this, seeing that he has cultivated
his mortality all along. On the other hand, if a man has seriously devoted
himself to the love of learning and to true wisdom, if he has exercised
these aspects of himself above all, then there is absolutely no way his
thoughts can fail to be immortal and divine. And to the extent that human
nature can partake of immortality, he can in no way fail to achieve this
(90b1-c4).

In the end, though, the ideas may go back at least as far as Heraclitus
B62 DK: “Immortals are mortal, mortals immortal, living the others’
death, dead in the others’ life.”

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7. Since active understanding is alone immortal and eternal, it, not its
passive correlate, is the immortal element in us: “That which can receive
the intelligible object, i.e. the substance [or essence], is [passive] under-
standing, and is active when it possesses it, so that this [active under-
standing] rather than the former seems to be the divine element under-
standing possesses” (Met. L 7 1072b22-23). But for the understanding
to be fully active — or as active as possible — the essence in question
must be of a certain sort. And it is this requirement that uncovers the
second crucial strand in the idea of immortalization.
“By the form I mean the essence of each thing, i.e., the primary sub-
stance,” (Met. H 7 1032b1-2) Aristotle tells us. But not all essences are
forms, just as not all are primary substances. For some are like snub,
others like concavity: “These differ in that snub is bound up with matter
(for snubness is concavity in a nose), while concavity is without percep-
tible matter” (Met. E 1 1025b32-34). Now form in general is actuality,
while matter in general is potentiality. So an essence that is bound up
with matter will not be a complete actuality. And that means that when
passive understanding receives, possesses, and so actualizes it, what gets
actualized is not the essence as a whole, but only its formal component:
“understanding is a potential for being such things without their matter”
(De An. III 4 430a7-8). In these cases, therefore, what is understood is
not identical to the understanding of it.
When the substance or essence our passive understanding receives, pos-
sesses, and so actualizes is like concave in including no matter, however,
things are different: “In the case of those things that have no matter, that
which understands and that which is understood are the same, for theo-
retical scientific knowledge and what is knowable in that way are the
same” (De An. III 4 430a3-5). And this identity gives us the second strand
present in immortalization. God is immortal, immaterial, and in essence an
activity. So in theologizing — in having active theoretical scientific knowl-
edge or understanding of him — our active understanding, to which we are
identical, becomes temporarily identical to that truly immortalizing being,
and we in that yet fuller sense also immortalize. But only temporarily! For
God is always (aei) in the good state of actively knowing himself theo-
retically which we are in only sometimes (pote) (Met. L 7 1072b24-26).

8. “As far as we can we ought to immortalize and do everything to live

in accord with the supreme element in us,” Aristotle instructs us. Clearly,

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as a practical instruction about what to do to achieve happiness, it is

addressed to practical wisdom, not to theoretical wisdom — “for theo-
retical wisdom will theorize about nothing from which a human being
will come to be happy” (NE VI 12 1143b19-20). But what more spe-
cifically is it instructing practical wisdom to do?
Aristotle’s answer must surely be sought in the entirety of his practical
philosophy. And what we find there is (roughly) the following story. In
ideal circumstances, practical wisdom, in the shape of political science,
should design an ideal constitution which will guarantee to its practically
wise, and so virtuous-charactered, male citizens as much leisure time as
possible, within which to philosophize and theologize (Pol. VII 1-3). For
practical wisdom “doesn’t control theoretical wisdom or the better part
[of the soul] … but sees to its coming-into-being; it prescribes for its
sake, therefore, but not to it” (NE VI 13 1145a6-9). When circumstances
are less than ideal, however, just what practical wisdom will have to do
is less amenable to precise formulation — much depends, no doubt, on
what sort of political community it finds itself in. The apparent immoral-
ism that some have detected in panta poiein meets then the apparent
ruthlessness that others have detected in the description of political sci-
ence in Politics IV-VI.

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