The Three Aspects of the Soul and of Society in Plato

          The lowest division in Plato's tripartite psychosomatic organism is the appetitive level of the human person or productive level of society, which Plato connects to the virtue of moderation or temperance.  Moderation is important for both individuals and society as a whole, because the passions and appetites must be governed by right reason if the person or society is to function properly.  The middle section of the body-soul complex is called the spirited (individual) or auxiliaries (body politic) level.  It is associated with the virtue of courage, and it is this level of society which must defend the human community against attacks and at the same time help to maintain order within the community.  Finally, the highest level of Plato's organizational structure is the rational (individual) or guardians (body politic) division, which deals with governing proper behavior (individual) or maintaining order (body politic) within society.  The virtue of this division is that of wisdom, both practical and theoretical wisdom.  The guardians (i.e., as leaders in society) are required to be prudent in their judgments, and individuals must govern their lives as well by the use of right reason.  The controlling virtue which binds the entire tripartite structure together is justice, and it is justice that keeps the human person and society in proper balance.  

          These four virtues are connected to the four causes, which will be examined next. But suffice to say, wisdom is connected to formal causality, and this is so because prudence should be used in decisions and thus it is the form of the body politic.  While courage is connected to efficient causality, because it carries the wings of desire, and as an agent of action the mind cannot take off without the spirited element.  Moderation is connected to material causality, because it is a productive quality that requires self-control; and finally, justice, i.e., the controlling virtue, is connected to final causality because justice is the goal (i.e., telos) of society and the other three virtues.

Aristotle and the Four Causes

          Aristotle recognized four types of causality in the world: material, formal, efficient and final.  Based on the class lecture on February 10th, I will briefly go over the various causes and explain how they differ.  The example given in the class dealt with a "cat and a teapot."  In the initial establishing scenario it is a beautiful spring day and I decide to go outside in order to enjoy it, there is a goldfish bowl on the table and a teapot next to it, but when I leave I forget to put the cat out.  When I come back inside I find the teapot is broken, the goldfish is missing, and the cat is licking its chops.  In this example the cat is the agent, the doer of the deed; the agent (i.e., the doer) can be a person or a force.  In the second scenario I once again leave the house, this time with two teapots on the table, one is made of porcelain the other is made of silver; once again I forget to put the cat out and when I get back both teapots are on the floor, one is broken, the other is not, the fish is missing and the cat is licking its chops.  This is an example of material causality, the teapots are made of different materials and this explains why one is broken and one is not.  In the third scenario I once again leave without putting out the cat.  Two teapots are on the table, and when I get back one is broken and one is not, but this time they are both made of the same material.  The difference between them this time is in their shape (i.e., form), one is round, the other is not, and this is an example of formal causality.  It is important to note that form is not restricted to the external shape of a thing, but includes its internal shape (i.e., its chemical makeup).

          Aristotle held that there are two intrinsic causes, i.e., matter and form; and these two principles compose the particular natural thing (or being).  Though I do not have information in my lecture notes concerning what allows us to analyze individual natural things (or beings) in order to determine their composing principles, I believe that their compositional nature is related to the change and corruption which we see in world.  When something in nature corrupts the matter undergoes change, thus it must be a being composed of matter and form.  Matter is open to all forms, but when it receives a form it locks that form in (temporarily) and becomes individualized.  Aristotle calls the individualized thing a hylomorphic (composite) being.  Finally, we have two extrinsic causes, i.e., an efficient cause and a final cause, both of which are distinct from an effect.  The efficient cause is that from which comes the beginning of change or of rest, thus efficient causality is that principle of change through which one being, by the exercise of its energies, makes something else to be that which it was not before.  While the final cause is an end or goal (i.e., a telos), which as a principle draws a being to its natural end.  Final causality does not act immediately upon a thing (or being) through a physical action, but draws a thing (or being) through its own appetites. Human beings, animals, and even plants, have a final cause.  Both of these latter causes are thus extrinsic to the individual natural thing (or being).

David Knowles' Misapprehension of Aristotle on Matter and Form

          The assertion made by David Knowles in his book The Evolution of Medieval Thought, that, “. . . matter is the unknowable substratum carrying the qualities of a substance” [Knowles, 11], is problematic for various reasons.  So when the agent intellect abstracts the universal from the particular, it lifts off the form from the matter to its universal status, which is then received by the receiving intellect.  In this process the form is known, not the matter, but it would be wrong to infer from this that matter is unknowable.  In fact, matter is knowable as a potentiality, i.e., as a capacity to receive form.  To say it is unknowable would thus be incorrect.  Knowles then says that, “form, or essence, is . . . universal” [Knowles, 11], and this statement is also problematic, if by it he means to say that the form of a thing (or being) is a complete subsistent entity existing apart from the particular thing in question in a natural mode of existence, and in the mind in an intentional mode of being.  

          That said, in Aristotle’s system form exists in two different modes, but even though a form's mode of existence can vary, the form itself remains the same.  The form is particularized in the individual thing (or being) in a natural mode and it is universalized in an intentional mode in the mind.  The example given in class dealt with a patient who had a 101 degree fever, the patient has the fever subjectively, i.e., the form is particularized within him.  While the nurse who takes his temperature, through the abstractive power of Agent Intellect universalizes the form and receives it objectively.  It is the same form, but it exists in two different modes.  It exists subjectively in a natural or physical mode in the patient, and the same exact form exists objectively in an intentional mode in the nurse.  Knowles follows up these problematic statements with another poorly expressed position, a viewpoint he expresses in too wide a manner, for he says that, “the relationship of matter and form . . . extends over the whole range of being” [Knowles, 12], but in saying this he is incorrect.  Reality or being extends beyond the cosmos (i.e., the physical world) and includes immaterial beings.  Aristotle himself recognized that the human mind testifies to the fact that reality is more than the cosmos, that it includes immaterial being.  So “the relationship of matter and form” [Knowles, 12], does not extend over the whole range of being.

Soul and Body from the Apostolic Fathers to the Medieval Period

          The Apostolic Fathers were influenced more by the Biblical understanding of the human person than by Plato, and they used that Biblical viewpoint in order to attack the heretical gnostic movement of the second century.  For example:  St. Irenaeus, who is a prime example of the Biblical perspective on the nature of the human person, stated - in his treatise against the Gnostics - that, "[the] flesh which has been molded is not a perfect man in itself, but the body of a man, and part of a man. Neither is the soul itself, considered apart by itself, the man; but it is the soul of a man, and part of a man. Neither is the spirit a man, for it is called the spirit, and not a man; but the commingling and union of all these constitutes the perfect man" [Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 532].  

          Nevertheless, as the Gnostic movement weakened, many of the later Church Fathers were attracted to the Platonic dualistic viewpoint because of its insistence on the immortal nature of the soul, and they worked to balance its gnostic tendencies by constant recourse to Sacred Scripture.  In Plato’s teaching the soul is a complete substance, and it is thought of as separable from the body.  The soul is like a pilot in a ship, and in a sense can be viewed as a prisoner in the body, which seeks release in order to reach its highest potential and fulfill itself.  This view is of course contrary to the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body, a doctrine which the Church has firmly taught throughout the centuries, and which affirms the necessary unity of body and soul.  In fact, the doctrine of the resurrection is the chief reason why Aristotle’s view of the soul eventually prevailed in the Scholastic philosophy of the high middle ages.

          The problems inherent to Plato’s dualism became apparent with the rise of the Catharist heresy in the 12th and 13th centuries, and Aristotle’s view that the soul is the form of the body, and that together body and soul form one living entity was perfectly suited to fight dualist heresy that arose in southern France during the Medieval period.  Plato’s dualist perspective, which minimize the connection between body and soul, seeing the soul as something that merely inhabits the body for a period of time, leant itself to the Catharist view of existence.  To put it another way, for Plato you are your soul alone (at least in some sense); while Aristotle holds that the two principles (i.e., body and soul) come together to form a single composite being, and thus they are in reality one substance.  The soul and the body need each other in order to be complete, although Aristotle does hold that a higher element in the soul can exist without the body (i.e., the intellect), because it exceeds the potentiality of the matter which is actualizes, and so it does not suffer corruption; he nevertheless insists that they form one hylomorphic being.  

          Now Knowles, in describing Aristotle's view of this higher element of the soul, says that it is a "metaphysical abstraction" [see Knowles, 13-14],  but his terminology is at best imprecise on this point, and can actually be said to be partially in error.  In fact, it would be wrong to conceive of the soul as merely an abstraction, and it would be incorrect to call it metaphysical, because it is not metaphysical; instead, it is natural (physikos).  Now the highest part of the soul are the powers of intellect and will, and Aristotle holds that because they are the elements which exceed the potentiality of matter, they (i.e., intellect and will) can continue to exist in separation from the body.  So, as you pointed out in your lecture on March 14th, the soul - according to Aristotle - is the form of the body, but it has a function that exceeds its formalizing function, and this higher element, which is immaterial, participates in the superlunary world of intelligences, and thus can persist in separation from the body.  Plato, on the other hand, holds that the soul is a complete immaterial substance in itself and thus corresponds better to the idea of a spirit; while - as is clear from what has been said already - for Aristotle the soul is the form of the body and together they are one complete substance.  Aristotle sees the rational soul as the natural principle of human life.  

          Finally, in Aristotle’s system the superlunary intelligences are spirits in the true sense, which is why they remain separate like a pilot in a ship.  Their purpose being to impart motion to the heavenly spheres.  It is clear that for Plato the soul is both immortal and eternal, just as it is a complete substance apart from the body.  Plato thought the soul pre-existed its life in the body and during that time it contemplated the Forms, and so the knowledge it acquires in its earthly life is really recollection.  That said, for Aristotle the higher part of the soul can be seen in a variety of ways.  It is possible that it is immortal in an individualized mode, but some commentators have held that it was no longer existent as an individual after death, but rather exists as a universal principle (e.g., Averroes theory of the soul).  As to the eternity of the soul, since Aristotle has no theory of creation, I would hold that he accepts its eternity in some sense.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

David Knowles.  The Evolution of Medieval Thought.  (London:  Longman Group Limited, 1988).

Alexander Roberts (Editor).  Ante-Nicene Fathers.  (Peabody:  Hendrickson Publishers, 1994).  10 Volumes.

Medieval Philosophy Midterm Examination:  The Tripartite Psychosomatic Organism, the Four Causes, and the Unity of Body and Soul

by Steven Todd Kaster

San Francisco State University

Philosophy 302:  Medieval Philosophy

Midterm Examination

Professor J. Glanville

28 March 2000

Copyright © 2000-2025 Steven Todd Kaster