Aristotle (384–322 BC) was born in Macedon, in what is now northern Greece, but spent most of his adult life in Athens. His life in Athens divides into two periods, first as a member of Plato’s Academy (367–347) and later as director of his own school, the Lyceum (334–323). (1)Aristotle is often regarded as the father of psychology, and his book, De Anima (On the Soul), the first book on psychology. He was concerned with the connection between the psychological processes and the underlying physiological phenomenon. Many believe he contributed more to prescience psychology than any other person, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Although Aristotle attended Plato's Academy, he became convinced of the need for empirical observations and criticized many of Plato's philosophies. (3)
Aristotle devotes most of his energy in De Anima to detailed investigations of the soul’s individual capacities or faculties, which he first lists as nutrition, perception, and mind, with perception receiving the lion’s share of attention. He later also introduces desire, evidently as a discrete faculty on par with those initially introduced. The broadest is nutrition, which is shared by all natural living organisms; animals have perception in addition; and among natural organisms humans alone have mind. Aristotle maintains that various kinds of souls, nutritive, perceptual, and intellectual, form a kind of hierarchy. Any creature with reason will also have perception; any creature with perception will also have the ability to take on nutrition and to reproduce; but the converse does not hold. Thus, plants show up with only the nutritive soul, animals have both perceptual and nutritive faculties, and humans have all three. The reasons why this should be so are broadly teleological. In brief, every living creature as such grows, reaches maturity, and declines. Without a nutritive capacity, these activities would be impossible. (1)
|Aristotle regarded psychology as a part of natural philosophy, and he wrote much about the philosophy of mind. This material appears in his ethical writings, in a systematic treatise on the nature of the soul (De anima), and in a number of minor monographs on topics such as sense-perception, memory, sleep, and dreams. (4)
Perception
This much, however, does not explain how perception occurs. Aristotle claims that perception is best understood on the model of hylomorphic change generally: just as a house changes from blue to white when acted upon by the agency of a painter applying paint, so “perception comes about with <an organ’s> being changed and affected … for it seems to be a kind of alteration”.
As Aristotle describes the process, the sense receives 'the form of sensible objects without the matter, just as the wax receives the impression of the signet-ring without the iron or the gold.' (Britannica Online, "Physiological Psychology")." Sensitivity is stimulated by phenomenon in the environment, and memory is the persistence of sense impressions. He maintained that mental activities were primarily biological, and that the psyche was the "form" part of intellect. Aristotle insisted that the body and the psyche form a unity. This idea is known as hylomorphic. (3)
Perception puts us in touch not only with a disjointed array of distinct sensory qualities, but also with objects, which we perceive through multiple senses as unities that have sensory qualities. Furthermore, we ordinarily perceive objects as having not only those features we access only through a single sense (the Aristotelian "special sensibles," such as colors, sounds and smells), but also those features we can perceive through multiple senses (the Aristotelian "common sensibles," such as shape, size, and movement). How does Aristotle account for these facts? Answering this question occupies Marmodoro for the remainder of her book (chapters 4-7), and may fairly be regarded as her central goal.
Essentially, Marmodoro argues that Aristotle responded to this challenge by attributing to the perceptual faculty as a whole a distinctive kind of unity. For Aristotle, on her account, our perceptual faculty is no mere aggregate of the five individual senses; but neither does it subsume the five senses in such a way as to undermine their distinctness. Rather, Aristotle posited a "common sense" (aisthêsin koinên) in addition to the five individual senses, which performs various functions no individual sense can perform on its own. These functions include simultaneously perceiving qualities belonging to different sensory modalities, discriminating between them, "binding" them together into a single perceptual content, and perceiving the "common sensibles," features of objects that can be perceived through more than one sense. These functions all involve complex (i.e., multimodal) perceptual content. For this reason, Marmodoro argues, no one sense could perform them -- for Aristotle was firmly committed to the view that no one sense can access sensory qualities that are special and exclusive to any of the other four senses. (7)|
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Mind
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Mind
At the same level within the hierarchy as the senses, which are cognitive faculties, there is also an affective faculty, which is the locus of spontaneous feeling. This is a part of the soul that is basically irrational but is capable of being controlled by reason. It is the locus of desire and passion; when brought under the sway of reason, it is the seat of the moral virtues, such as courage and temperance. The highest level of the soul is occupied by mind or reason, the locus of thought and understanding. (4)._
Aristotle describes mind (nous, often also rendered as “intellect” or “reason”) as “the part of the soul by which it knows and understands” (De Anima iii 4, 429a9–10; cf. iii 3, 428a5; iii 9, 432b26; iii 12, 434b3), thus characterizing it in broadly functional terms. It is plain that humans can know and understand things; indeed, Aristotle supposes that it is our very nature to desire knowledge and understanding (Metaphysics i 1, 980a21; De Anima ii 3, 414b18; iii 3, 429a6–8). In this way, just as the having of sensory faculties is essential to being an animal, so the having of a mind is essential to being a human. Human minds do more than understand, however. It is equally essential to the human being to plan and deliberate, to ponder alternatives and strategize, and generally to chart courses of action. Aristotle ascribes these activities no less than understanding and contemplation to mind and consequently distinguishes the “practical mind” (or “practical intellect” or “practical reason”) from “theoretical mind” (or “theoretical intellect” or “theoretical reason”) ( Nicomachean Ethics vi 8 1143a35-b5; see Aristotle: ethics). In all these ways, investigating this capacity of soul thus has a special significance for Aristotle: in investigating mind, he is investigating what makes humans human. (1)
In a notoriously difficult passage of De anima, Aristotle introduces a further distinction between two kinds of mind: one passive, which can “become all things,” and one active, which can “make all things.” The active mind, he says, is “separable, impassible, and unmixed.” In antiquity and the Middle Ages, this passage was the subject of sharply different interpretations. (4)
Aristotle describes mind (nous, often also rendered as “intellect” or “reason”) as “the part of the soul by which it knows and understands” (De Anima iii 4, 429a9–10; cf. iii 3, 428a5; iii 9, 432b26; iii 12, 434b3), thus characterizing it in broadly functional terms. It is plain that humans can know and understand things; indeed, Aristotle supposes that it is our very nature to desire knowledge and understanding (Metaphysics i 1, 980a21; De Anima ii 3, 414b18; iii 3, 429a6–8). In this way, just as the having of sensory faculties is essential to being an animal, so the having of a mind is essential to being a human. Human minds do more than understand, however. It is equally essential to the human being to plan and deliberate, to ponder alternatives and strategize, and generally to chart courses of action. Aristotle ascribes these activities no less than understanding and contemplation to mind and consequently distinguishes the “practical mind” (or “practical intellect” or “practical reason”) from “theoretical mind” (or “theoretical intellect” or “theoretical reason”) ( Nicomachean Ethics vi 8 1143a35-b5; see Aristotle: ethics). In all these ways, investigating this capacity of soul thus has a special significance for Aristotle: in investigating mind, he is investigating what makes humans human. (1)
In a notoriously difficult passage of De anima, Aristotle introduces a further distinction between two kinds of mind: one passive, which can “become all things,” and one active, which can “make all things.” The active mind, he says, is “separable, impassible, and unmixed.” In antiquity and the Middle Ages, this passage was the subject of sharply different interpretations. (4)
Desire
The sorts of activity required for cognition and perception do not explain in any obvious way another central fact about human beings and other animals: animals propel themselves through space in pursuit of objects they desire.
Even in his first characterizations of soul in De Anima, Aristotle is alive to the widely held conviction that the soul is implicated in motion (De Animai 2, 405b11; i 5 409b19–24). Of course, this is a natural connection for him to make, given that every animate being, that is, every being with a soul, has within it a principle of motion and rest. So, it seems deeply characteristic of living systems that they are able to move themselves in ways likely to result in their survival and flourishing. Animals move themselves, however, in a distinctive way: animals desire things, with the result that desire is centrally implicated in all manner of animal action. Why did ostrich run from the tiger? Because, one says easily, it desired to survive and so engaged in avoidance behavior. Why did the human being drive to the opera and sit quietly in her seat? Because, it seems, she desired to hear the music and to observe the spectacle.
In these, as in countless other cases, the explanation of animal action, human and non-human alike, easily and unreflectively appeals to desire. This is why Aristotle does not end his De Anima with a discussion of mind. Instead, after discussing mind, he notes that all animals are capable of locomotion, only to deny that any one of the faculties of the soul so far considered (viz. nutrition, perception, or mind) can account for desire-initiated movement. Although he had initially identified only these three faculties of soul (De Anima ii 2, 413b12), Aristotle now notes that something must explain the fact that animals engage in goal-directed behavior in order to achieve their conscious and unconscious goals.
The wanted explanation cannot, he urges, be found somehow in the nutritive faculty, since plants, as living beings, have that power of soul, but do not move themselves around in pursuit of their goals; nor is it due to perception, since even some animals have this faculty without ever moving themselves at all, in any way (Aristotle evidently has in mind sponges, oysters, and certain testacea, Historia Animalium i 1, 487b6–9; viii 1 588b12; Partibus Animalium iv 5, 681b34, 683c8); nor again can it be a product of mind, since insofar as it is contemplative, mind does not focus upon objects likely to issue in directives for action, and insofar as it does commend action, mind is not of itself sufficient to engender motion, but instead relies upon appetite (De Anima iii 9, 432b14–33a5).
Indeed, using the same form of reasoning, that a faculty cannot account for purposive action if its activity is insufficient to initiate motion, Aristotle initially concludes that even desire itself (orexis) cannot be responsible for action. After all, continent people, unlike those who are completely and virtuously moderate, have depraved desires but do not, precisely because they are continent, ever act upon them (De Anima iii 9 433a6–8; cf. Nicomachean Ethics i 13, 1102b26). So their desires are insufficient for action. Consequently, he concludes, desire alone, considered as a single faculty, cannot explain purposive action, at least not completely.
The wanted explanation cannot, he urges, be found somehow in the nutritive faculty, since plants, as living beings, have that power of soul, but do not move themselves around in pursuit of their goals; nor is it due to perception, since even some animals have this faculty without ever moving themselves at all, in any way (Aristotle evidently has in mind sponges, oysters, and certain testacea, Historia Animalium i 1, 487b6–9; viii 1 588b12; Partibus Animalium iv 5, 681b34, 683c8); nor again can it be a product of mind, since insofar as it is contemplative, mind does not focus upon objects likely to issue in directives for action, and insofar as it does commend action, mind is not of itself sufficient to engender motion, but instead relies upon appetite (De Anima iii 9, 432b14–33a5).
Indeed, using the same form of reasoning, that a faculty cannot account for purposive action if its activity is insufficient to initiate motion, Aristotle initially concludes that even desire itself (orexis) cannot be responsible for action. After all, continent people, unlike those who are completely and virtuously moderate, have depraved desires but do not, precisely because they are continent, ever act upon them (De Anima iii 9 433a6–8; cf. Nicomachean Ethics i 13, 1102b26). So their desires are insufficient for action. Consequently, he concludes, desire alone, considered as a single faculty, cannot explain purposive action, at least not completely.
Ultimately, though, Aristotle does come to the conclusion that there is a faculty of desire (orektikon) whose occupation it is to initiate animal motion. (1)
Aristotle's psychology proposed that allowing desire to dominate reason would lead to an unhealthy imbalance and the tendency to perform bad actions. Here, Aristotle's thought created a paradigm that remained unchallenged for centuries and one that still underpins the work of modern psychology and philosophy, where desire is renamed as emotion and reason as rationality. (2) This agrees with his teacher's psychological model of the "soul."
Habit and Happiness
To positive psychology practitioners, happiness refers to having a sense of well-being that is achieved through “good living” (Seligman, 2002). This is similar to Aristotle’s eudaimonia, which refers to activities that are in accordance with our virtues and having a noble purpose in those activities. (5)
Habit and Happiness
To positive psychology practitioners, happiness refers to having a sense of well-being that is achieved through “good living” (Seligman, 2002). This is similar to Aristotle’s eudaimonia, which refers to activities that are in accordance with our virtues and having a noble purpose in those activities. (5)
“Happiness,” the term that Aristotle uses to designate the highest human good, is the usual translation of the Greek eudaimonia. Although it is impossible to abandon the English term at this stage of history, it should be borne in mind that what Aristotle means by eudaimonia is something more like well-being or flourishing than any feeling of contentment. Aristotle argues, in fact, that happiness is activity of the rational soul in accordance with virtue. Human beings must have a function, because particular types of humans (e.g., sculptors) do, as do the parts and organs of individual human beings. This function must be unique to humans; thus, it cannot consist of growth and nourishment, for this is shared by plants, or the life of the senses, for this is shared by animals. It must therefore involve the peculiarly human faculty of reason. The highest human good is the same as good human functioning, and good human functioning is the same as the good exercise of the faculty of reason—that is to say, the activity of rational soul in accordance with virtue. There are two kinds of virtue: moral and intellectual. Moral virtues are exemplified by courage, temperance, and liberality; the key intellectual virtues are wisdom, which governs ethical behavior, and understanding, which is expressed in scientific endeavor and contemplation. (4)Only if he is gifted with intelligence will he make an accurate assessment of the circumstances in which his decision is to be made. It is impossible, Aristotle says, to be really good without wisdom or to be really wise without moral virtue. Only when correct reasoning and right desire come together does truly virtuous action result. (4)
References:
2. https://explorable.com/aristotles-psychology
3. https://www.intelltheory.com/aristotle.shtml
4. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aristotle/Philosophy-of-mind
5. https://positivepsychology.com/aristotelian-principle/
6. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195389661/obo-9780195389661-0174.xml
7. https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/aristotle-on-perceiving-objects/
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