| Abstract |
My essay on Aristotle’s De Anima tries to answer what the Aristotelian Soul is.
Keywords are the Aristotelian entelechy or else in English actuality, substance and
essence. Entelechy and substance are two terms which describe what the Soul
according to Aristotle is; the term entelechy belongs fully to Aristotle, the term
substance derives from a long platonic tradition. I will try to explore both terms in
their Aristotelian context, since they describe what Aristotle thought of the Soul. The
term essence is generally used to translate in English the Greek terms eidos or to ti en
einai, both of which refer to the notion of form; For the Soul is also understood as
what gives the body, seen as hyle, material, the ability to live. Soul and life are hence
examined as related to each other. Two basic expressions of life in the animal body
are moreover the ability of motion and the ability for sensual perception. The Soul in
Aristotle is examined primarily as part of the living body. A deeper understanding of
what the Soul is, seems to necessarily relate with the fact of the body and Soul
connection. As substances are described both body and soul, but as substances of
different kind: the animated body is “ousia hôs syntheti”, that is of some synthesis,
while the Soul is “ousia i kata ton logon”, that is, according to the Word (Logos). The
notion of the Word-Logos is very important, for Logos can receive various meanings
depending on the context, such as Word, Speech, logical Thought, Analogy, Reason
and is part of a long philosophical tradition which began with the Presocratic, Ionian
Philosophers. In Aristotle however important terms offer a field for scientific and
philosophical exploration, and for this reason I prefer not to give the impression that I
can exhaust the description of the content of important terms in De Anima even
through a very accurate translation; What is needed in Aristotle is rather a special
flexibility of one’s ways to understand a philosophical term or text, for it is not the
mere process of translation that can make Aristotle partly or fully understandable, it is
much more the ability to explore important meanings understood as part of their
context. Of special importance are finally the terms episteme and theoria; Episteme is
generally translated to English as knowledge, and theoria is probably to be translated
as theory, even though according to Rohde (1987, p. 513) “theoria is not a theory”. In
its Aristotelian context theoria is the second of the two stages of entelecheia, and
episteme is the first. There is a connection between episteme and theoria through the
fact that theoria is the inactivated entelecheia, the inactivated episteme of the soul.
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Episteme offers also ground to the search of wisdom according to Aristotle, and for
this reason I examined the two stages of entelecheia, that is, episteme and theoria,
first in reference to the living body and then in reference to the soul as such. The
condition of sleeping is compared by Aristotle with episteme and the condition of
being awake is compared with the condition of theoria. This can practically mean that
whether in sleep or awake, the phenomenon of life is still there in the living body.
And on the other hand the Aristotelian example applied on the Soul can mean: there is
the Soul, dunamei – potentially – giving us humans the ability to aquire knowledge
(episteme), and energeia – that is, when the ability of episteme is inactivated – the
ability to aquire wisdom (sofia) and theorize – the notion of theoria is however rather
to be elaborated separately, since “it is not a theory”.
In conclusion, following the discussion On the Soul can be a rediscovery of
important philosophical terms for many of us modern philosophers, since the term
Soul is often left out of the modern discussion about phenomens of life, even though
the existence of Soul is the reason why the living body lives.
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Η αριστοτελική έννοια της ψυχής στο Περί ψυχής
