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NDIAS Quarterly 2015 - 2016
is intrinsic and a part of their very nature. Aristotle recognizes “matter [as] potentiality, [and] form [as] actuality” and explains substance as existing in the following senses: “(a) in the sense of matter or that which in itself is not ‘a this,’ and (b) in the sense of form or essence, which is precisely in virtue of which a thing is called ‘a this,’ and thirdly (c) in the sense of that which is compounded of both (a) and (b)” (Aristotle 412a7-10). Consequently, for Aristotle, the soul (ψυχή), which is the “actuality” (414a19) and the “form” of a “natural body having life potentially within it” (412a20-21) comes together with the matter, a “natural, organized body” (412b6), in order to create a human being, who is a substance in the third sense above—i.e., sense (c)— such that a human being is inherently a compound of both matter and form. Therefore, under Aristotle’s conception, there is no “interaction problem” because matter is “always already informed by indwelling rational causes, and thus open to—and in fact directed toward—mind” (Hart 167). This occurs in such a way that “the soul is [the intrinsic] final cause of its body”— i.e., the “end” or “that for the sake of which” the body “does whatever it does” (Aristotle 415b15-16)—and is the intrinsic formal cause, or “essence, of the whole living body”—i.e., that which gives “actuality” to the body and makes a human what he is (415b12-14). For Aristotle there is no external, “push-pull” physical interaction that needs to occur in something like the pineal gland, as in Descartes’ view, because the relationship is purely internal between body and form. As such, the interaction critique does not damage the hylomorphist’s position. Further, Aristotelian hylomorphism avoids the difficulty of physicalism— i.e., the unity of consciousness or immaterial “I” critique—by regarding mind, i.e., “that whereby the soul thinks and judges” as not “blended with the body” or “hav[ing] an organ” but, rather, as being the “potential…place of forms” (429a23-28). Thus, the thinking, rational part (or power10) of the soul is immaterial and, as such, is capable of being a metaphysical simple whereby unity of consciousness and the immaterial “I” are able to occur. This dispenses with the issue related to physicalism. Accordingly, it seems that Aristotelian hylomorphism is the best way to think about the kind of thing that human beings are, though this view faces several objections of its own. First of all, if Aristotelian hylomorphism is to be deemed fully correct, it must explain what Pasnau calls the “mindsoul problem” (Pasnau 160)—namely what the relation is between the mind (which is said not to be blended with the body) and the soul (which is the form and actuality of the body). Additionally, Aristotle’s view must overcome the fact that modern science has taken “formal and final causes out of consideration altogether and confined scientific inquiry to material and efficient causes” (Hart 56). However, both of these obstacles seem surmountable, and particularly more so than the highly damaging critiques of physicalism and Cartesian dualism, though their solutions are beyond the scope of this paper. Therefore, I posit that we should, at this time, tentatively accept Aristotelian hylomorphism as the answer to the metaphysical question “What kind of thing are we human beings?” (van Inwagen 224).
Sean Costello ‘16 International Economics and Philosophy 2015-2016 Templeton Undergraduate Research Assistant for David Bentley Hart
Notes
1. For a source of this argument, see Kant’s On the Progress of Metaphysics (Gesammelte). 2. For an explanation of the “mind-soul problem,” see: Pasnau,Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature. For more on the resistance of modern science to positing final and formal causes, see, for example, Hart, The Experience of God. See also Mayr, Ernst. “The Idea of Teleology.” 3. There is, however, a sense—unimportant to our discussion—in which these terms differ. This difference is explored by Daniel Stoljar in the “Terminology” section of his article “Physicalism” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at plato.stanford.edu/ entries/physicalism/. 4. Kant’s argument here is as follows: “That [man] is not wholly and purely corporeal may be strictly proven, if this appearance is considered as a thing in itself, from the fact that the unity of consciousness, which must be met with in all cognition (including that of oneself) makes it impossible that representations divided among various subjects could constitute a unified thought; therefore materialism can never be used as a principle for explaining the nature of the soul” (Kant, Gesammelte 308). 5. For instance, Kant says: “If, however, as commonly happens, we seek to extend the concept of dualism and take it in its transcendental sense, neither it nor the two counter-alternatives – [idealism and physicalism] – would have any sort of basis, since we then should have misapplied our concepts, taking the difference in the mode of representing objects, which as regards what they are in themselves, still remain unknown to us, as a difference in the things themselves” (Critique A379). 6. “According to the Multiple Drafts model, all varieties of perception – indeed, all varieties of thought or mental activity – are accomplished in the brain by parallel, multitrack processes of interpretation and elaboration of sensory inputs. Information entering the nervous system is under continuous ‘editorial revision’” (Dennett, Consciousness 111). 7. Searle’s thought experiment is as follows: “Imagine that you carry out the steps in a program for answering questions in a language you do not understand. I do not understand Chinese, so I imagine that I am locked in a room with a lot of boxes of Chinese symbols (the database), I get small bunches of Chinese symbols passed to me (questions in Chinese), and I look up in a rule book (the program) what I am supposed to do. I perform certain operations on the symbols in accordance with the rules (that is, I carry out the steps in the program) and give back small bunches of symbols (answers to questions) to those outside the room. I am the computer implementing a program for answering questions in Chinese, but all the same I do not understand a word of Chinese. And this is the point: if I do not understand Chinese solely on the basis of implementing