Dillon Precious Aristotle
Aristotle’s belief about the soul:
Consciousness: being aware of and responsive to one’s surroundings and how well we
perceive them.
Aristotle said that “the soul is the essence of the self” – key quote.
The soul, in many religious, philosophical psychological, and mythological traditions, is the
incorporeal (non – body) and immortal (but not for Aristotle) essence of a living person or
living thing.
o According to Christian and Jewish teachings in most of their forms, souls, or at least
immortal souls – belong only to human beings.
Aristotle’s beliefs:
o Everyone has one
o It is not immortal, it dies with the body
o Souls are unique to every individual, no two are the same or shared.
o There is no afterlife, movement, or transmigration of the soul.
Unlike Plato and the medieval religious tradition, Aristotle did not consider the soul to be a
separate, immortal occupant of the body; just as the rower needs a boat to row, the soul
ceases to exist at the death of the body.
o The soul, which Aristotle calls “de anima” is the animating force within out body.
o He argues that the soul must exist as there is no other way to explain movement.
The body cannot move itself, so movement must originate in some other place.
o Aristotle argued in his book “De Anima” that the soul finds its source in the heart
(not made by God)
o Aristotle believed in a sort of hierarchy of souls – with a human soul being the
highest, followed by animals and vegetables. He argued that its rationality that gives
our souls this higher status.
Three types of souls:
o Vegetative
o Appetitive / sensitive
o Intellectual
What is Aristotle’s Prime Mover?
The four causes explain individual changes within the world
So therefore, the Prime Mover explanation is Aristotle’s belief that the world needs
explaining.
The final cause = God.
o He shows that everything has a purpose (or telos).
It then follows that the universe has a purpose or final cause.
o For Aristotle this final cause is God.
Aristotle is a teleological philosopher.
Aristotle’s God is completely transcendent and not the immanent God the Abrahamic
religions believe in. He also believed that God was perfect and everlasting, as in the universe
did not have a beginning.
o Immanent – God is present and involved with life on universe
o Transcendent – God is beyond and outside life on Earth and the universe.
Aristotle never prayed as he believed it was redundant as God was never listening and didn’t
care.
