- ficino
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Re: Disembodied soul in Aquinas: a substance?
seigneur wrote:
That is not Aristotle's definition of substance, since he thinks the unmoved movers are immaterial substances.
A quote (from Aristotle) would be nice. As far as I have read Aristotle's Metaphysics, his examples of substances are a man and a horse, not unmoved movers.
In Metaphysics Lambda, the unmover mover is said to be "eternal and substance and actuality" (ἀΐδιον καὶ οὐσία καὶ ἐνέργεια οὖσα), 1072a25-26. A few lines later, still talking about the UM, Ari says that the first of substances (ousia = substance) is simple and exists in actuality, a31-32.
Aquinas says a lot about the "separated, intellectual substances," which are a development of Ari's unmoved movers and which amount to angels. They do not have matter; they have potentiality only in that an act of existence has to be conferred by God upon their essence, so their existence is not identical with their essence.
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Re: Disembodied soul in Aquinas: a substance?
Yeah, it is not a controversial point of Aristotle interpretation that he holds that the unmoved movers are substances without matter.
One reason Aristotle's working examples are things like men and horses is that at the outset of Aristotle's philosophy it is an open question whether there is a meta-physical science, because it is an open question whether there is anything that is not changeable.
Aristotle's principal notion of substance is that of what is neither said of nor in anything else (Categories II, Metaphysics VII.11). But he wants to use the term for all sorts of things.
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Re: Disembodied soul in Aquinas: a substance?
It's not terribly obvious to me that survivalism has any greater tendency toward reincarnation than corruptionism. Both, I think, would resist the thought that the resurrected person has a "new" body on the same basis, that such a description seems to require "bodies" to have a priority to the composites of which they are parts.
I fully agree that both survivalists and corruptionists, insofar as they are Christians, would resist the idea that the soul keeps acquiring and shedding bodies through the cycles of return. However, as philosophers, what is their basis for resisting that idea? How do they, particularly survivalists, explain reincarnation away?
Because if the soul survives death, and there is another, eternal, life, after this death, then whatever body we have in that other life is another body. It bdoes not matter if the bodies are just two or of indefinite number like on Hinduism, the same basic question of reincarnation remains.
As far as I have understood, substance on Aristotelianism is form+matter. That is, substance is composite. When it comes to a human being, the soul is the form of human, just the form. Lacking matter, it is not a substance.
I disagree with this definition of substance, but it is what it is. Aristotelianism stands on it.That is not Aristotle's definition of substance, since he thinks the unmoved movers are immaterial substances.
Some commentator (S. Marc Cohen) seems to explain that Aristotle, after getting past the famous first examples of substances, such as man and horse, settles for the conclusion that (created) things are composites of form and matter, they constitute substances of various kinds where the form is essential and matter is accidental, and where substance is not an element (certainly not a third element in addition to form and matter) and also not a composite of elements, but a "principle".
This explanation would, in my opinion, ultimately take away all justification of talking about man and horse as substances. There would be no substances of various kinds, but Substance as metaphysical principle (which is a definition/explanation I happen to agree with, by the way, it's something I'd never pluralize) according to which things (d)evolve/emanate/are created in kinds. So man and horse would be "kinds" (which I also happen to agree with, by the way).
Yet Aristotle talks of man and horse as substances at length, individual substances, primary substances, and this is commonly viewed as the primary focus of Aristotelianism. Lots of pluralized substance-talk for no good purpose, where the more appropriate terms would be individuals, kinds, or species.
S. Marc Cohen has the following statement, "For Aristotle, the form of a compound substance is essential to it; its matter is accidental." So, there are both compound substances and simple substances? A sure way to miss the substance for the kinds, looks like. A tree does not make a forest, and a forest is not a bunch of trees. It's an ecosystem. Similarly, contra Aristotle, I'd say a kind is not a substance.
I'd conclude that Aristotle is just too hard to decipher on this point. He probably engaged in overanalysis on the term "substance" because he wasn't sure himself what to think about it.
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- Greg
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Re: Disembodied soul in Aquinas: a substance?
I fully agree that both survivalists and corruptionists, insofar as they are Christians, would resist the idea that the soul keeps acquiring and shedding bodies through the cycles of return. However, as philosophers, what is their basis for resisting that idea? How do they, particularly survivalists, explain reincarnation away?
I said what the basis is where you quoted me: to describe resurrection as reincarnation, you need "'bodies' to have a priority to the composites of which they are parts."
I still have no idea why you think there is any difference between survivalists and corruptionists on this point. All Christians have to understand resurrection in such a way that they are not embarrassed by the fact that what we call "John's body" after John has died may decompose, be incinerated, get digested by a shark, or any other number of things, and that the matter which was part of his body could, eventually, be part of the bodies of lots of humans in subsequent generations. So both survivalists and corruptionists are going to want to say that what makes John's body after the resurrection "the same" body as he had before he died is that it is joined to the same form. And fortunately Aquinas, at least, unlike some of the later medieval writers, holds for independent reasons that matter is not of itself individual.
Because if the soul survives death, and there is another, eternal, life, after this death, then whatever body we have in that other life is another body.
This frankly just seems to be a non sequitur. In any case, the soul survives death on both survivalism and corruptionism.
I'd conclude that Aristotle is just too hard to decipher on this point. He probably engaged in overanalysis on the term "substance" because he wasn't sure himself what to think about it.
Large chunks of the Metaphysics are devoted to the question of what substance is, so yes, I think Aristotle wasn't clear about it and was trying to get clear. I think it is rather quick to suggest that he in the end was not sure what to think about it. There's an interpretative puzzle about why Aristotle says that man and animal are secondary substances in the Categories but also seems to say that these are species and genera ("kinds") and then goes on to argue in the Metaphysics that universals are not substances. Aquinas thought that the Categories was a logical work, and that from the standpoint of logic, kinds are substances (because kinds are the mode of existence that substances have in the intellect, and logic examines the order that the intellect puts into its own acts), but the Metaphysics is a metaphysical work, and universals, considered insofar as they are beings, are not substances in the proper sense (because they are said of something else).
But the other thing to appreciate is just that Aristotle's relation to the word "ousia" is not the same as our relation to the word "substance". Philosophy was less developed then, and Aristotle was always taking words from language and putting them to new uses, and also trying to put some order into their various senses, and to find their primary sense. I do not know Greek, but it is not as though there has to be one notion of ousia which it was Aristotle's task to capture.
Our notion of substance is indebted to Aristotle. Our notion of what the term should mean is not independent of his philosophizing about it. (Of course, what he means by "ousia" is no longer the most common meaning of "substance" in English--but where we have arrived is also not independent of his notion, as in the case of other Aristotelean notions which have been transformed over the years, e.g., matter, form, virtue, habit.) So our inclination to deny that what he wants to call secondary substances are really substances at all, is an inclination of which we should be suspicious, informed as it is by centuries of people agreeing that he was right about what substances are in the proper sense.
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Re: Disembodied soul in Aquinas: a substance?
...to describe resurrection as reincarnation, you need "'bodies' to have a priority to the composites of which they are parts."
Why would I need to assume that bodies have a priority to anything on reincarnation? Reincarnation is recurrent acquisition and shedding of bodies through the cycles of life and death. On this view, any particular body is as irrelevant as it gets, purely accidental. In one life you could be an angel, in another an earthworm - same soul, very different bodies.
[/color]Because if the soul survives death, and there is another, eternal, life, after this death, then whatever body we have in that other life is another body.[color=#333333]
This frankly just seems to be a non sequitur. In any case, the soul survives death on both survivalism and corruptionism.
Hmm, yes, the soul survives, but the body doesn't. Hence in the other life it's another body...
Anyway, seems like there would be no reincarnation challenge to Christians, if they assume that souls belong strictly to their natural kinds, so that a human would definitely resurrect as a human, so that the body can indeed be said to be the same. But how this is reconciled with the passages that say that resurrection bodies would be different? (e.g. 1 Cor 15:44, 50)
But the other thing to appreciate is just that Aristotle's relation to the word "ousia" is not the same as our relation to the word "substance".
Yes, I thought of that too. Translate it as "nature" and I would probably have no quibble.
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Re: Disembodied soul in Aquinas: a substance?
Aquinas definitely thinks that a human soul cannot be joined to just any body. Not every body has the potentiality to receive every form. It would have to be a human body. (There are of course no human bodies which are not the bodies of some human. A human corpse is not a human body.) So any form of reincarnation according to which someone could be reincarnated as something other than a human is ruled out. I took the distinction between resurrection and reincarnation to be that in resurrection, one has the same body, whereas in reincarnation, one does not.
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Re: Disembodied soul in Aquinas: a substance?
Large chunks of the Metaphysics are devoted to the question of what substance is, so yes, I think Aristotle wasn't clear about it and was trying to get clear. I think it is rather quick to suggest that he in the end was not sure what to think about it. There's an interpretative puzzle about why Aristotle says that man and animal are secondary substances in the Categories but also seems to say that these are species and genera ("kinds") and then goes on to argue in the Metaphysics that universals are not substances. Aquinas thought that the Categories was a logical work, and that from the standpoint of logic, kinds are substances (because kinds are the mode of existence that substances have in the intellect, and logic examines the order that the intellect puts into its own acts), but the Metaphysics is a metaphysical work, and universals, considered insofar as they are beings, are not substances in the proper sense (because they are said of something else).
I'm pretty much in line with what you say here, Greg. I have been putting off getting back to do a serious study of Metaphysics Z-H. I think a developmental hypothesis helps somewhat, i.e. that the Categories are early, that the middle books of the Meta are late. What you attribute to Aquinas above is sort of like what I suggested out of my own pate to Joe, so I'm heartened to hear I was sort of groping along lines that the saint already had set out.
Passages like this keep a whole industry going: "By 'form' (eidos) I mean the essence (to ti hn einai) of each thing and the first substance (ousian)," Meta. Z.7, 1032b1-2.
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Re: Disembodied soul in Aquinas: a substance?
I think a developmental hypothesis helps somewhat, i.e. that the Categories are early, that the middle books of the Meta are late. What you attribute to Aquinas above is sort of like what I suggested out of my own pate to Joe, so I'm heartened to hear I was sort of groping along lines that the saint already had set out.
Yeah, it is also possible that Aristotle simply changed his view, which is not really a possibility that Aquinas ever entertains.
However, I think that Aristotle does in the Metaphysics occasionally say that species and genera can be said to be substances. Aquinas may express that view just because the medievals like to consider as many objections as they can, and as he is introducing Aristotle's arguments against universals as substances, he asks how that might be consistent with the Categories. (Realistically, it doesn't strike me as a serious tension. Even in the Categories it is clear that to call man and animal substances is not to use the term in its focal sense.)
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Re: Disembodied soul in Aquinas: a substance?
However, I think that Aristotle does in the Metaphysics occasionally say that species and genera can be said to be substances.
Yes, in the famous intro to Meta. Z.3: "Something is said to be substance, if not in more ways, at any rate most of all in four. For the essence, the universal, and the genus seem to be the substance of each thing, and fourth of these, the underlying subject." (tr. Reeve) Then Ari goes on to exclude matter from being substance.
We've reached the question that RomanJoe was also asking about, i.e. how essence fits in with these other terms. Any light anyone can shed now is to the good! I have too much other stuff right now to step back and grapple anew with substance/essence/form.
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Re: Disembodied soul in Aquinas: a substance?
I don't think it's a mystery. In both Aristotle and Aquinas the relevant terms are ambiguous, because they are either terms of ordinary language or terms which philosophy is more or less violently co-opting. So in, e.g., Metaphysics VII and De ente et essentia, one finds Aristotle and Aquinas acknowledging the multiple senses and distinguishing.