From our point of view, there seems to be a considerable distance between Plato and Aristotle. Plato was a marked adherent of an introspective method in philosophy. "Only the soul herself can see the soul", that is his firm conviction. By the way, what can see anything at all? The physical eye certainly cannot. Only the soul can. Consequently, the analytical method, a method of close, internal observation, is considered the only one leading to a real knowledge of man. The soul must isolate herself from her physical abode, so to speak. To Platonism science is actually a process of purification. "And what is that purification if not the separation of the soul from the body?" In order to arrive at truth, in any form worth while, the soul has a tremendous effort of seclusion to perform "gathering and collecting herself into herself from all sides out of the body" (Phaidon, 67). Frankly speaking, nothing short of literal death can appear to Plato as the absolutely perfect outward condition really appropriate for a profound diving into the source of all knowledge which is the Soul Herself. For what really is death? Simply the one perfect "separation and release of the soul from the body". And nothing is more antagonistic to true knowledge or a greater hindrance from reaching it than the presence of the body. So Plato's conclusions, regarding scientific excellence, actually remind us of those which seem to prevail in some quite modern societies of popular spiritualism. He says:
The body is always breaking in upon us, causing turmoil and confusion in our inquiries, and so amazing us that we are prevented from seeing the truth. It has been proved to us by experience that if we would have pure knowledge of anything, we must be quit of the body the soul in herself must behold things in themselves: and then we shall attain the wisdom which we desire, and of which we say that we are lovers; not while we live, but after death; for if, while in company with the body, the soul cannot have pure knowledge, one of two things follows--either knowledge is not to be attained at all--if at all--after death.[1]
These are Plato's words, and we do not hesitate to call him the grandfather of modern spiritism.
It is against this radically spiritualistic conception of scientific research that Aristotle rises up in all the imposing historic grandeur of his empirical realism. To scientists today he may still seem sadly lacking in scientific method, and the first generation of scientists who turned with iconoclastic violence against the prejudice and superstition of antiquity and the Middle Ages despised him as a superannuated figure. But from Plato's spiritualism to Aristotle's comparatively well-balanced realism, in an almost modern sense of the term, there is an infinite distance. Aristotle has an approach in matters of research almost diametrically opposite to that of his teacher. We would say he used a method of "extro-spection", to a large extent. Not that he despises self-analysis entirely. On the contrary, he may resemble Descartes considerably when he states:
It is inconceivable that a person should, while perceiving himself or aught else in a continuous time, be at any instant unaware of his own existence. (De sensu 448 a,--J. I. Beare's transl. here quoted)
He has a clear preference, however, for observing others rather than himself. For that observation is superior, he thinks, and he does not understand investigators who limit their investigation to the soul only. Personally he is most vividly interested in all kinds of physical phenomena. And his method is essentially synthetic.
One reason, one vividly feels, why Aristotle is so fond of the study of nature, is the stimulating fact that nature is constantly in motion. He deeply enjoys, and implicitly believes in, this multifarious activity which his physical senses permit him to follow and intimately share with creatures and things all around him. And he is admirably able to grasp the aspect of perfect totality in this fascinating play of sense perception. He knows that not only those external objects perceived, but also the subject who perceives them must be in active motion. And these two phases of motions, inherent in the sense perception, although quite distinguishable, still form a perfect totality (De anima, 425 b, 25 to 426a).
In the Phaidon Plato established the Idea as the original cause and reason for everything coming into existence. But Aristotle prefers to look more prosaically at this phenomenon, which is, after all, an everyday event. "What is it, then, that is visibly seen to produce things now?" asks the sober-minded Aristotle. What produces a man, for instance, such as everyone can see for himself in biological reality? Is it the Idea of a man (as a man)? No, it is another man, a man of flesh and bones, called a father.
Certainly, to a broad and versatile mind like that of Aristotle, ideas alone must necessarily appear somewhat too motionless and sterile. By the way, even Plato himself had admitted that "ideas are without motion". So how could his restless pupil look to them for a discovery of the actual causes of things in nature?
Above all one might discuss the question, what on earth the Forms contribute to sensible things, either to those that are eternal or to those that come into being, and cease to be? For they cause neither movement nor any change in them. (Metaphysica, I, 9, 9a, 8-- W. D. Ross" transl. Great Books, Vol. 8, p. 509)
His whole theory of being and becoming is also built upon the same sturdy principles. In fact, in his search for the true causes of being, Aristotle is inclined to go back to the old Ionian "materialists", rather than remain in the ethereal regions of Platonic idealism.
An important distinction he makes is that between potential being and actual being. All matter is susceptible of taking a certain form. In fact, its whole reality consists in that inherent aptitude it possesses of receiving its form.
The truth is that what desires the form is the matter, as the female desires the male, and the ugly the beautiful--only the ugly or the female not per se but per accidens. (Physica, 1a, 20)
Thanks to this constantly inherent possibility, matter is in a state of "potency". But only at the moment when a definite form has been realized in matter, one may speak of a state of real act:
Matter exists in a potential state, just because it may come to its form; and when it exists actually, then it is in its form. (Met. 1050a, 15)
Now, if we apply this to a human being, the soul is his form, as it were. But Aristotle does not speak of that form as something ethereal, nor as something superior to matter. He does not at all think of the two as separate in actual reality. The form is the substantial principle of all things. And as such it is immanent in matter:
The substance is the indwelling form, from which the matter, the so-called concrete substance, is derived. (Met., 1037 a, 25)
The real substance is the concrete substance, a composite entity of form and matter. The form is nothing but the being in actuality; that is, the only accomplished being that ever exists.
Applied to the human individual, who interests us above all things, this amounts to saying that the soul is not an entity separable from the body. The soul is the act of the living body (the entelechy of the living body). It is that man, as far as he really exists at all--as a living being. It is, in fact--according to Aristotle--just the intimate union between form and matter which constitutes the concrete substance of things and makes up the reality of all beings, such as we know them in actual life. And in that reality the form (soul) is never separated from the matter (body).
In fact, even in making a sort of halt after the word "body"--or matter--we here feel that we are rendering ourselves guilty of an abstraction which does not agree with the living reality. A body without a soul is no body--no human, living body. A corpse is not a man, not even a part of a man. In Aristotle's mind there must have been very much of that sentiment characterizing the conception of unlimited human totality. His standpoint is unambiguous: a statement about from as the great principle of determination, the true cause deciding all reality. But this is no Platonic abstraction. For in that reality the form is always intimately united with matter. The form is the substantial principle of things and beings, but always immanent in matter. There is no entity, no absolute whole that can prove sufficient in itself unless it is composed in that way.
Considered from the viewpoint of perfect totality, this is, indeed, a philosophy that makes sense, quite unlike the philosophy of the Ideas versus the shadows. The form and the matter, the soul and the body, are one and the same being--the being "in potentia" and the being "in actu", respectively. Only together do they constitute a real unit, a substantial whole.
We do not want to overemphasize the distance between Plato and Aristotle. They certainly still had a lot of things in common. That applies to their philosophical ideas, and not less to the peculiar cast of their respective minds.
Professor Paulus Svendsen of Oslo University has obligingly called our attention to a statement by the Swedish author Anders Wedberg (1958), for which we are truly thankful as an appropriate reminder in this respect:
It has become a tradition to translate the same Greek word as "Idea" when it occurs in Plato, and as "Form" when it occurs in Aristotle. This logically rather arbitrary ("sakligt tämligen godtyckliga") tradition of translations has contributed towards obscuring the very essential agreements which do exist between Plato's and Aristotle's standpoints.[2]
We shall presently show also another side of Aristotle. We shall openly state his belief in "real universals", in the "immateriality of essences", in "God, the eternal and supernatural cause of changes even in the natural world". Above all, we shall not pass in silence his belief in "the immortality of our intelligent souls".
But so far it is permissible to stress the profound metaphysical divergences which exist between the two. We think Plato had some very good reasons to complain that his pupil spurned him "as colts do their mothers".
That "colt" had the boldness of stating for instance, straight against the dearest theories of his old master (whose memory he always continued to revere, by the way), that reality is not only far up there somewhere in the skies above, but also down here on this despised earth. Moreover, universals and forms--the one and the many--are certainly real in the platonic sense of the word (and in the sense cherished by all philosophical "realists" following Plato), but they are not separate realities!
And now back to our "problem" of a union between soul and body. Thanks to that remarkable Aristotelian "theory of wholeness", as we should like to call it, that whole problem simply seems to vanish into thin air. It is certainly not too much to say that Platonic dualism was triumphantly overcome by Aristotle. And it is not only regrettable, but, indeed, astonishing that the philosophy of subsequent centuries has, after all, been so poorly influenced by this part of Aristotelian thought. And what about the philosophers of Christianity? We do know, of course, to what extent they tried to base thinking upon the great Aristotle for centuries. But how, then, could they fail to draw the full consequences of this truly anti-dualistic interpretation of man's nature? What could have been more in keeping with the conception of man originally transmitted to them both by Judaism and Christianity? Here their highly respected master of philosophy is doing his best to bring back to them an anthropology which is their own venerable heritage from the very cradle of their sacred creed. But just on this point they meet him with an indifferent "No, thank you". And what do they do instead? As we shall soon see, they make the most heroic efforts to adapt Christian anthropology to the postulates of Plato's dualism, so basically foreign to both Judaism and Christianity. Indeed, there must be a furiously strong fear in the hearts of men of losing their identity by suffering a sudden and total interruption of their conscious existences. At least there is obviously a frenetic scramble for immortality, leaving no peaceful moment for any sound deliberation as to the costs involved, or as to whether there might be another alternative, perhaps even more satisfactory, and perhaps infinitely more in accordance with both anthropological facts and scriptural revelation. No, "immortality" is the cry, immortality, regardless of the costs--in fact, even at the expense of the human body. We say, "even at the expense of", for we can still hardly believe that men in general have an actual preference for an immortality of that purely spiritualistic type.
Of course it must frankly be admitted: to religious minds not so familiar with the peculiar idea of a bodily resurrection (or rather a whole-man resurrection), as taught by the Christian Gospel, Aristotelian metaphysics might easily convey the impression of a certain "materialism", as compared to Plato's lofty idealism. In fact, viewed towards a pagan background, there would here seem to be little hope of any survival whatsoever for dying man--either immediately or "in due course". Aristotle simply denies--with "cynical, materialistic unconcern", some might allege, the existence of any soul separated from the body. He even openly states his opinions in a way clearly implying that he would deem the possibility of a resurrection simply absurd. In fact, how in the worlds of wonders could the soul leave the body to enter it again at some later period? (De anima, 406 b, 3-5)
In the same way he polemicizes strongly against the Pythagoreans for their absurd theories of metempsychosis: how could a sensible person imagine the soul of one particular individual entering any kind of body presented to him for a new habitation? Take for instance the human soul: that soul is the form of the human body, isn't it? So how can it ever enter the body of another animal? That human soul is entirely different from any soul realizing the body of any brute. In fact, it assumes an activity called human thought. So have no fears! Such transmigration of human souls into animal bodies take place only in the Pythagorean myths.
We feel justified in taking this to apply not only to transmigration from species to species, but also from individual to individual within the same species. For Aristotle says, "Each body seems to have a form and shape of its own." So, "that any soul could be clothed upon with any body" is, indeed, an absurd view.
It is as absurd as to say that the art of carpentry could embody itself in flutes; each art must use its tools, each soul its body. (De anima, 407 b, 20)
Nowhere does the difference between Plato and Aristotle appear more clearly. According to Plato it was contrary to the nature of the soul that it should be "imprisoned" in a body. Aristotle's viewpoint is not necessarily "more materialistic". By no means. It sees the soul as a supreme force of life. But the view is more wholistic, more realistic. For now that vital force called a human soul simply takes possession of the body, pervades it entirely. And what is the actual result? That "other thing" called matter no longer has any right to exist as matter exclusively ("pure matter"). For now the soul has organized it as a living body.
We believe that Aristotle has here touched the very core of an essential truth. That is the mystery of a more organic identity, as it reveals itself in a living being like man. The whole being is a unity of all the various organs constituting it. Thus it becomes an individual organism destined for the great functions of life. That organization, however, expresses itself above all in its form. (Of course this actually applies to all things. Take a river as an example: it remains identical to itself solely by virtue of its organization, its proper form. This is the thing remaining the same all the time, however rapid and radical may be the change of its matter--that hurrying water, gliding continually along the river bed.)
The form, as Aristotle conceives it, is the essence by which things are what they are. But the essence is of course determined by the function which the thing is to exert. Thus the form expresses the function. The human soul, for instance, is just the form by virtue of which the living human body is an organism able to accomplish the functions of human life.
"Suppose the eye were an animal, then sight would have been its soul", says Aristotle, "for sight is the substance or essence of the eye (we might also add: the function of the eye)."
When seeing is removed, the eye is no longer an eye, except in name. It is no more a real eye than the eye of a statue or a painted figure. (De anima, 4b, 15-25)
But if the soul is the form of the living body, in other words, the power of life by which the body is organized in its special way and able to perform its special functions, then it goes without saying that the soul and the living body can by no means be two separate things. To suppose them separate would be just as nonsensical as to imagine that the wax is a thing separate from the imprint whose form it has received.
We can wholly dismiss as unnecessary the question whether the soul and the body are one: it is as meaningless as to ask whether the wax and the shape given to it by the stamp are one, or generally the matter of a thing and that of which it is the matter. Unity has many sense ... but the most proper and fundamental sense ... is the relation of actuality to that of which it is the actuality. (De an., 212b, 5)
True enough, the brass, for instance, the matter contained in the statue, may exist independently of the form a sculptor is able to give it. It may have an existence as crude, unwrought matter, too. But that is just what does not take place in the case of a human body. For that body is already a living organism. In other words: it is comparable to the statue as it exists only after the sculptor has done his work--or to the wax after it has received its peculiar imprint. The body cannot be considered at all without considering at the very same moment a soul constituting its deepest reality.
But does Aristotle conserve the simplicity of this monism all the way through? We have no intention of concealing the extent to which he was to disturb it in the further elaboration of his system. But first we feel that we should dwell precisely on various trends in his thoughts, and in his life, which cannot possibly be conceived without admitting a considerable degree of true totality.
Notes: