Did Aristotle believe in an immortal soul?

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Does Aristotle have a clear stance on the question of the immortality of the soul?

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  Please do more research before posting here, or at least google. Wikipedia has an article concerning Aristotle's On the Soul, which reads:"Aristotle also argues that the mind (only the agent intellect) is immaterial, able to exist without the body, and immortal".
  – Conifold
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Does Aristotle have a clear stance on the question of the immortality of the soul?

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asked 3 hours ago

snflurry

162

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  Please do more research before posting here, or at least google. Wikipedia has an article concerning Aristotle's On the Soul, which reads:"Aristotle also argues that the mind (only the agent intellect) is immaterial, able to exist without the body, and immortal".
  – Conifold
  2 hours ago
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

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up vote
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Does Aristotle have a clear stance on the question of the immortality of the soul?

aristotle

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asked 3 hours ago

snflurry

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Does Aristotle have a clear stance on the question of the immortality of the soul?

aristotle

aristotle

share|improve this question

asked 3 hours ago

snflurry

162

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asked 3 hours ago

snflurry

162

share|improve this question

share|improve this question

asked 3 hours ago

snflurry

162

asked 3 hours ago

snflurry

162

asked 3 hours ago

snflurry

162

162

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  Please do more research before posting here, or at least google. Wikipedia has an article concerning Aristotle's On the Soul, which reads:"Aristotle also argues that the mind (only the agent intellect) is immaterial, able to exist without the body, and immortal".
  – Conifold
  2 hours ago
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  Please do more research before posting here, or at least google. Wikipedia has an article concerning Aristotle's On the Soul, which reads:"Aristotle also argues that the mind (only the agent intellect) is immaterial, able to exist without the body, and immortal".
  – Conifold
  2 hours ago
  

  
  
  
  

Please do more research before posting here, or at least google. Wikipedia has an article concerning Aristotle's On the Soul, which reads:"Aristotle also argues that the mind (only the agent intellect) is immaterial, able to exist without the body, and immortal".
– Conifold
2 hours ago

Please do more research before posting here, or at least google. Wikipedia has an article concerning Aristotle's On the Soul, which reads:"Aristotle also argues that the mind (only the agent intellect) is immaterial, able to exist without the body, and immortal".
– Conifold
2 hours ago

add a comment | 

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The human intellect / "intellective soul" is immortal

As St. Thomas Aquinas writes in Sententia De anima a. 14 co., Aristotle

proves in the De anima III, 4, 429^b3 [that] intellection is not an act executed by any bodily organ.

_Aristotle:

^{ἀλλ' ὁ νοῦς ὅταν τι νοήσῃ σφόδρα νοητόν, οὐχ ἧττον νοεῖ τὰ ὑποδεέστερα, ἀλλὰ καὶ μᾶλλον· τὸ μὲν γὰρ αἰσθητικὸν οὐκ ἄνευ σώματος, ὁ δὲ χωριστός.}

^{But when the intellect understands something highly intelligible, it does not understand what is inferior to these less than before, but more so. For whereas the sensitive faculty is not found apart from the body, the intellect is separate.}

and Aristotle proves

that the intellect is something divine and everlasting

in De anima, III, 5, 430^a22:

_Aristotle:

^{χωρισθεὶς δ' ἐστὶ μόνον τοῦθ' ὅπερ ἐστί, καὶ τοῦτο μόνον ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀΐδιον}

^{Only separated, however, is it what it really is. And this alone is immortal and perpetual.}

^{J. A. Smith's translation:
When mind is set free from its present conditions it appears as just what it is and nothing more: this alone is immortal and eternal}

One soul in man

Plato held that there are several souls in man:

1. the intellective soul (intellect),


2. nutritive soul, and


3. sensitive soul,

^{cf. St. Thomas's Summa Contra Gentiles II cap. 58}

but Aristotle refutes this in De Anima I, 5, by a reducio ad absurdam:

^{τί οὖν δή ποτε συνέχει τὴν ψυχήν, εἰ μεριστὴ πέφυκεν; οὐ γὰρ δὴ τό γε σῶμα· δοκεῖ γὰρ τοὐναντίον μᾶλλον ἡ ψυχὴ τὸ σῶμα συνέχειν· ἐξελθούσης γοῦν διαπνεῖται καὶ σήπεται. εἰ οὖν ἕτερόν τι μίαν αὐτὴν ποιεῖ, ἐκεῖνο μάλιστ' ἂν εἴη ψυχή. δεήσει δὲ πάλιν κἀκεῖνο ζητεῖν πότερον ἓν ἢ πολυμερές. εἰ μὲν γὰρ ἕν, διὰ τί οὐκ εὐθέως καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ ἕν; εἰ δὲ μεριστόν, πάλιν ὁ λόγος ζητήσει τί τὸ συνέχον ἐκεῖνο, καὶ οὕτω δὴ πρόεισιν ἐπὶ τὸ ἄπειρον.}

^{If then the soul is of its very nature divisible, what holds it together? Not the body, certainly: much rather the contrary seems to be true, that the soul holds the body together; for when it departs, the body expires and decomposes. If there is some other thing which makes it one, this other is rather the soul. One would then have to ask, concerning this other, whether it be one or of many parts. If it is one, why not call it the soul straightway? But if it is divisible, reason again demands, what it is that holds this together? And so on ad infinitum.}

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edited 2 hours ago

answered 2 hours ago

Geremia

3,7341125

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  Interpretations of DA III,5 are controversial, and Aquinas is certainly not an impartial interpreter. Extracting a major category like agent intellect from a single obscure passage is entirely the handiwork of medieval commentators. According to others, "when isolated it is its true self and nothing more, and this alone is immortal and everlasting (…) and without this nothing thinks" refers to the divine intellect of Metaphysics XII, 7, and not to the "immortal soul". See Intellection and divine causation in Aristotle by Côté
  – Conifold
  2 hours ago
  
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

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I basically agree with Geremia's answer. Here is similar perspective.

According to Dominic J. O'Meara, who is writing about the philosophical influences Plotinus had to address claimed Aristotle did not believe in an immortal soul, but he did consider the intellect to be immortal (page 14):

One of Plotinus' first writings, Ennead IV. 7 [2], is devoted to
showing that the soul is immortal. Plato had argued for this in the
Phaedo and in the Phaedrus (245ce), Plato's claim that soul is an incorporeal, non-composite reality not suject to desctruction is
rejected by Aristotle. For Aristotle, soul, as the structure (or
'form') responsible for the various functions of a living body, cannot
escape death. Yet one living function, intellect, seems to be an
exception: in Aristotle's view thinking is not the function of a
particular bodily organ. Intellect thus seems to have a claim to
immortality (De anima, 2. 2. 413b24-7; 3. 4-5). However, Aristotle
is at his most obscure here and in any case the question of immortality
lies far from his primarily biological interests in the De anima.

This seems to agree with D. W. Hamlyn's translation of De anima (On the Soul) (page 168) although I don't know if I have the exact location O'Meara referenced.

For the present let it be enough to say only that the soul is the
source of the things above mentioned and is determined by them--by the
faculties of nutrition, perception, thought, and movement. Whether
each of these is a soul or a part of a soul, and if a part, whether it
is such as to be distinct in definition only or also in place, are
questions to which it is not hard to find answers in some cases,
although others present difficulty.

And as for the intellect:

Concerning the intellect and the potentiality for contemplation the
situation is not so far clear, but it seems to be a different kind of
soul, and this alone can exist separately, as the everlasting from the
perishable.

---

Reference

O'Meara, D. J. (1995). Plotinus: an introduction to the Enneads. Oxford University Press on Demand.

Hamlyn, D. W. (1989). A New Aristotle Reader Edited by JL Ackrill Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987

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answered 30 mins ago

Frank Hubeny

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2 Answers
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2 Answers
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up vote
2
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The human intellect / "intellective soul" is immortal

As St. Thomas Aquinas writes in Sententia De anima a. 14 co., Aristotle

proves in the De anima III, 4, 429^b3 [that] intellection is not an act executed by any bodily organ.

_Aristotle:

^{ἀλλ' ὁ νοῦς ὅταν τι νοήσῃ σφόδρα νοητόν, οὐχ ἧττον νοεῖ τὰ ὑποδεέστερα, ἀλλὰ καὶ μᾶλλον· τὸ μὲν γὰρ αἰσθητικὸν οὐκ ἄνευ σώματος, ὁ δὲ χωριστός.}

^{But when the intellect understands something highly intelligible, it does not understand what is inferior to these less than before, but more so. For whereas the sensitive faculty is not found apart from the body, the intellect is separate.}

and Aristotle proves

that the intellect is something divine and everlasting

in De anima, III, 5, 430^a22:

_Aristotle:

^{χωρισθεὶς δ' ἐστὶ μόνον τοῦθ' ὅπερ ἐστί, καὶ τοῦτο μόνον ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀΐδιον}

^{Only separated, however, is it what it really is. And this alone is immortal and perpetual.}

^{J. A. Smith's translation:
When mind is set free from its present conditions it appears as just what it is and nothing more: this alone is immortal and eternal}

One soul in man

Plato held that there are several souls in man:

1. the intellective soul (intellect),


2. nutritive soul, and


3. sensitive soul,

^{cf. St. Thomas's Summa Contra Gentiles II cap. 58}

but Aristotle refutes this in De Anima I, 5, by a reducio ad absurdam:

^{τί οὖν δή ποτε συνέχει τὴν ψυχήν, εἰ μεριστὴ πέφυκεν; οὐ γὰρ δὴ τό γε σῶμα· δοκεῖ γὰρ τοὐναντίον μᾶλλον ἡ ψυχὴ τὸ σῶμα συνέχειν· ἐξελθούσης γοῦν διαπνεῖται καὶ σήπεται. εἰ οὖν ἕτερόν τι μίαν αὐτὴν ποιεῖ, ἐκεῖνο μάλιστ' ἂν εἴη ψυχή. δεήσει δὲ πάλιν κἀκεῖνο ζητεῖν πότερον ἓν ἢ πολυμερές. εἰ μὲν γὰρ ἕν, διὰ τί οὐκ εὐθέως καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ ἕν; εἰ δὲ μεριστόν, πάλιν ὁ λόγος ζητήσει τί τὸ συνέχον ἐκεῖνο, καὶ οὕτω δὴ πρόεισιν ἐπὶ τὸ ἄπειρον.}

^{If then the soul is of its very nature divisible, what holds it together? Not the body, certainly: much rather the contrary seems to be true, that the soul holds the body together; for when it departs, the body expires and decomposes. If there is some other thing which makes it one, this other is rather the soul. One would then have to ask, concerning this other, whether it be one or of many parts. If it is one, why not call it the soul straightway? But if it is divisible, reason again demands, what it is that holds this together? And so on ad infinitum.}

share|improve this answer

edited 2 hours ago

answered 2 hours ago

Geremia

3,7341125

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  Interpretations of DA III,5 are controversial, and Aquinas is certainly not an impartial interpreter. Extracting a major category like agent intellect from a single obscure passage is entirely the handiwork of medieval commentators. According to others, "when isolated it is its true self and nothing more, and this alone is immortal and everlasting (…) and without this nothing thinks" refers to the divine intellect of Metaphysics XII, 7, and not to the "immortal soul". See Intellection and divine causation in Aristotle by Côté
  – Conifold
  2 hours ago
  
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

up vote
2
down vote

The human intellect / "intellective soul" is immortal

As St. Thomas Aquinas writes in Sententia De anima a. 14 co., Aristotle

proves in the De anima III, 4, 429^b3 [that] intellection is not an act executed by any bodily organ.

_Aristotle:

^{ἀλλ' ὁ νοῦς ὅταν τι νοήσῃ σφόδρα νοητόν, οὐχ ἧττον νοεῖ τὰ ὑποδεέστερα, ἀλλὰ καὶ μᾶλλον· τὸ μὲν γὰρ αἰσθητικὸν οὐκ ἄνευ σώματος, ὁ δὲ χωριστός.}

^{But when the intellect understands something highly intelligible, it does not understand what is inferior to these less than before, but more so. For whereas the sensitive faculty is not found apart from the body, the intellect is separate.}

and Aristotle proves

that the intellect is something divine and everlasting

in De anima, III, 5, 430^a22:

_Aristotle:

^{χωρισθεὶς δ' ἐστὶ μόνον τοῦθ' ὅπερ ἐστί, καὶ τοῦτο μόνον ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀΐδιον}

^{Only separated, however, is it what it really is. And this alone is immortal and perpetual.}

^{J. A. Smith's translation:
When mind is set free from its present conditions it appears as just what it is and nothing more: this alone is immortal and eternal}

One soul in man

Plato held that there are several souls in man:

1. the intellective soul (intellect),


2. nutritive soul, and


3. sensitive soul,

^{cf. St. Thomas's Summa Contra Gentiles II cap. 58}

but Aristotle refutes this in De Anima I, 5, by a reducio ad absurdam:

^{τί οὖν δή ποτε συνέχει τὴν ψυχήν, εἰ μεριστὴ πέφυκεν; οὐ γὰρ δὴ τό γε σῶμα· δοκεῖ γὰρ τοὐναντίον μᾶλλον ἡ ψυχὴ τὸ σῶμα συνέχειν· ἐξελθούσης γοῦν διαπνεῖται καὶ σήπεται. εἰ οὖν ἕτερόν τι μίαν αὐτὴν ποιεῖ, ἐκεῖνο μάλιστ' ἂν εἴη ψυχή. δεήσει δὲ πάλιν κἀκεῖνο ζητεῖν πότερον ἓν ἢ πολυμερές. εἰ μὲν γὰρ ἕν, διὰ τί οὐκ εὐθέως καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ ἕν; εἰ δὲ μεριστόν, πάλιν ὁ λόγος ζητήσει τί τὸ συνέχον ἐκεῖνο, καὶ οὕτω δὴ πρόεισιν ἐπὶ τὸ ἄπειρον.}

^{If then the soul is of its very nature divisible, what holds it together? Not the body, certainly: much rather the contrary seems to be true, that the soul holds the body together; for when it departs, the body expires and decomposes. If there is some other thing which makes it one, this other is rather the soul. One would then have to ask, concerning this other, whether it be one or of many parts. If it is one, why not call it the soul straightway? But if it is divisible, reason again demands, what it is that holds this together? And so on ad infinitum.}

share|improve this answer

edited 2 hours ago

answered 2 hours ago

Geremia

3,7341125

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  Interpretations of DA III,5 are controversial, and Aquinas is certainly not an impartial interpreter. Extracting a major category like agent intellect from a single obscure passage is entirely the handiwork of medieval commentators. According to others, "when isolated it is its true self and nothing more, and this alone is immortal and everlasting (…) and without this nothing thinks" refers to the divine intellect of Metaphysics XII, 7, and not to the "immortal soul". See Intellection and divine causation in Aristotle by Côté
  – Conifold
  2 hours ago
  
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

up vote
2
down vote

up vote
2
down vote

The human intellect / "intellective soul" is immortal

As St. Thomas Aquinas writes in Sententia De anima a. 14 co., Aristotle

proves in the De anima III, 4, 429^b3 [that] intellection is not an act executed by any bodily organ.

_Aristotle:

^{ἀλλ' ὁ νοῦς ὅταν τι νοήσῃ σφόδρα νοητόν, οὐχ ἧττον νοεῖ τὰ ὑποδεέστερα, ἀλλὰ καὶ μᾶλλον· τὸ μὲν γὰρ αἰσθητικὸν οὐκ ἄνευ σώματος, ὁ δὲ χωριστός.}

^{But when the intellect understands something highly intelligible, it does not understand what is inferior to these less than before, but more so. For whereas the sensitive faculty is not found apart from the body, the intellect is separate.}

and Aristotle proves

that the intellect is something divine and everlasting

in De anima, III, 5, 430^a22:

_Aristotle:

^{χωρισθεὶς δ' ἐστὶ μόνον τοῦθ' ὅπερ ἐστί, καὶ τοῦτο μόνον ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀΐδιον}

^{Only separated, however, is it what it really is. And this alone is immortal and perpetual.}

^{J. A. Smith's translation:
When mind is set free from its present conditions it appears as just what it is and nothing more: this alone is immortal and eternal}

One soul in man

Plato held that there are several souls in man:

1. the intellective soul (intellect),


2. nutritive soul, and


3. sensitive soul,

^{cf. St. Thomas's Summa Contra Gentiles II cap. 58}

but Aristotle refutes this in De Anima I, 5, by a reducio ad absurdam:

^{τί οὖν δή ποτε συνέχει τὴν ψυχήν, εἰ μεριστὴ πέφυκεν; οὐ γὰρ δὴ τό γε σῶμα· δοκεῖ γὰρ τοὐναντίον μᾶλλον ἡ ψυχὴ τὸ σῶμα συνέχειν· ἐξελθούσης γοῦν διαπνεῖται καὶ σήπεται. εἰ οὖν ἕτερόν τι μίαν αὐτὴν ποιεῖ, ἐκεῖνο μάλιστ' ἂν εἴη ψυχή. δεήσει δὲ πάλιν κἀκεῖνο ζητεῖν πότερον ἓν ἢ πολυμερές. εἰ μὲν γὰρ ἕν, διὰ τί οὐκ εὐθέως καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ ἕν; εἰ δὲ μεριστόν, πάλιν ὁ λόγος ζητήσει τί τὸ συνέχον ἐκεῖνο, καὶ οὕτω δὴ πρόεισιν ἐπὶ τὸ ἄπειρον.}

^{If then the soul is of its very nature divisible, what holds it together? Not the body, certainly: much rather the contrary seems to be true, that the soul holds the body together; for when it departs, the body expires and decomposes. If there is some other thing which makes it one, this other is rather the soul. One would then have to ask, concerning this other, whether it be one or of many parts. If it is one, why not call it the soul straightway? But if it is divisible, reason again demands, what it is that holds this together? And so on ad infinitum.}

share|improve this answer

edited 2 hours ago

answered 2 hours ago

Geremia

3,7341125

The human intellect / "intellective soul" is immortal

As St. Thomas Aquinas writes in Sententia De anima a. 14 co., Aristotle

proves in the De anima III, 4, 429^b3 [that] intellection is not an act executed by any bodily organ.

_Aristotle:

^{ἀλλ' ὁ νοῦς ὅταν τι νοήσῃ σφόδρα νοητόν, οὐχ ἧττον νοεῖ τὰ ὑποδεέστερα, ἀλλὰ καὶ μᾶλλον· τὸ μὲν γὰρ αἰσθητικὸν οὐκ ἄνευ σώματος, ὁ δὲ χωριστός.}

^{But when the intellect understands something highly intelligible, it does not understand what is inferior to these less than before, but more so. For whereas the sensitive faculty is not found apart from the body, the intellect is separate.}

and Aristotle proves

that the intellect is something divine and everlasting

in De anima, III, 5, 430^a22:

_Aristotle:

^{χωρισθεὶς δ' ἐστὶ μόνον τοῦθ' ὅπερ ἐστί, καὶ τοῦτο μόνον ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀΐδιον}

^{Only separated, however, is it what it really is. And this alone is immortal and perpetual.}

^{J. A. Smith's translation:
When mind is set free from its present conditions it appears as just what it is and nothing more: this alone is immortal and eternal}

One soul in man

Plato held that there are several souls in man:

1. the intellective soul (intellect),


2. nutritive soul, and


3. sensitive soul,

^{cf. St. Thomas's Summa Contra Gentiles II cap. 58}

but Aristotle refutes this in De Anima I, 5, by a reducio ad absurdam:

^{τί οὖν δή ποτε συνέχει τὴν ψυχήν, εἰ μεριστὴ πέφυκεν; οὐ γὰρ δὴ τό γε σῶμα· δοκεῖ γὰρ τοὐναντίον μᾶλλον ἡ ψυχὴ τὸ σῶμα συνέχειν· ἐξελθούσης γοῦν διαπνεῖται καὶ σήπεται. εἰ οὖν ἕτερόν τι μίαν αὐτὴν ποιεῖ, ἐκεῖνο μάλιστ' ἂν εἴη ψυχή. δεήσει δὲ πάλιν κἀκεῖνο ζητεῖν πότερον ἓν ἢ πολυμερές. εἰ μὲν γὰρ ἕν, διὰ τί οὐκ εὐθέως καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ ἕν; εἰ δὲ μεριστόν, πάλιν ὁ λόγος ζητήσει τί τὸ συνέχον ἐκεῖνο, καὶ οὕτω δὴ πρόεισιν ἐπὶ τὸ ἄπειρον.}

^{If then the soul is of its very nature divisible, what holds it together? Not the body, certainly: much rather the contrary seems to be true, that the soul holds the body together; for when it departs, the body expires and decomposes. If there is some other thing which makes it one, this other is rather the soul. One would then have to ask, concerning this other, whether it be one or of many parts. If it is one, why not call it the soul straightway? But if it is divisible, reason again demands, what it is that holds this together? And so on ad infinitum.}

share|improve this answer

edited 2 hours ago

answered 2 hours ago

Geremia

3,7341125

share|improve this answer

share|improve this answer

edited 2 hours ago

edited 2 hours ago

edited 2 hours ago

answered 2 hours ago

Geremia

3,7341125

answered 2 hours ago

Geremia

3,7341125

answered 2 hours ago

Geremia

3,7341125

3,7341125

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  Interpretations of DA III,5 are controversial, and Aquinas is certainly not an impartial interpreter. Extracting a major category like agent intellect from a single obscure passage is entirely the handiwork of medieval commentators. According to others, "when isolated it is its true self and nothing more, and this alone is immortal and everlasting (…) and without this nothing thinks" refers to the divine intellect of Metaphysics XII, 7, and not to the "immortal soul". See Intellection and divine causation in Aristotle by Côté
  – Conifold
  2 hours ago
  
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  Interpretations of DA III,5 are controversial, and Aquinas is certainly not an impartial interpreter. Extracting a major category like agent intellect from a single obscure passage is entirely the handiwork of medieval commentators. According to others, "when isolated it is its true self and nothing more, and this alone is immortal and everlasting (…) and without this nothing thinks" refers to the divine intellect of Metaphysics XII, 7, and not to the "immortal soul". See Intellection and divine causation in Aristotle by Côté
  – Conifold
  2 hours ago
  
  

  
  
  
  

Interpretations of DA III,5 are controversial, and Aquinas is certainly not an impartial interpreter. Extracting a major category like agent intellect from a single obscure passage is entirely the handiwork of medieval commentators. According to others, "when isolated it is its true self and nothing more, and this alone is immortal and everlasting (…) and without this nothing thinks" refers to the divine intellect of Metaphysics XII, 7, and not to the "immortal soul". See Intellection and divine causation in Aristotle by Côté
– Conifold
2 hours ago

Interpretations of DA III,5 are controversial, and Aquinas is certainly not an impartial interpreter. Extracting a major category like agent intellect from a single obscure passage is entirely the handiwork of medieval commentators. According to others, "when isolated it is its true self and nothing more, and this alone is immortal and everlasting (…) and without this nothing thinks" refers to the divine intellect of Metaphysics XII, 7, and not to the "immortal soul". See Intellection and divine causation in Aristotle by Côté
– Conifold
2 hours ago

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up vote
1
down vote

I basically agree with Geremia's answer. Here is similar perspective.

According to Dominic J. O'Meara, who is writing about the philosophical influences Plotinus had to address claimed Aristotle did not believe in an immortal soul, but he did consider the intellect to be immortal (page 14):

One of Plotinus' first writings, Ennead IV. 7 [2], is devoted to
showing that the soul is immortal. Plato had argued for this in the
Phaedo and in the Phaedrus (245ce), Plato's claim that soul is an incorporeal, non-composite reality not suject to desctruction is
rejected by Aristotle. For Aristotle, soul, as the structure (or
'form') responsible for the various functions of a living body, cannot
escape death. Yet one living function, intellect, seems to be an
exception: in Aristotle's view thinking is not the function of a
particular bodily organ. Intellect thus seems to have a claim to
immortality (De anima, 2. 2. 413b24-7; 3. 4-5). However, Aristotle
is at his most obscure here and in any case the question of immortality
lies far from his primarily biological interests in the De anima.

This seems to agree with D. W. Hamlyn's translation of De anima (On the Soul) (page 168) although I don't know if I have the exact location O'Meara referenced.

For the present let it be enough to say only that the soul is the
source of the things above mentioned and is determined by them--by the
faculties of nutrition, perception, thought, and movement. Whether
each of these is a soul or a part of a soul, and if a part, whether it
is such as to be distinct in definition only or also in place, are
questions to which it is not hard to find answers in some cases,
although others present difficulty.

And as for the intellect:

Concerning the intellect and the potentiality for contemplation the
situation is not so far clear, but it seems to be a different kind of
soul, and this alone can exist separately, as the everlasting from the
perishable.

---

Reference

O'Meara, D. J. (1995). Plotinus: an introduction to the Enneads. Oxford University Press on Demand.

Hamlyn, D. W. (1989). A New Aristotle Reader Edited by JL Ackrill Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987

share|improve this answer

answered 30 mins ago

Frank Hubeny

3,4202834

add a comment | 

up vote
1
down vote

I basically agree with Geremia's answer. Here is similar perspective.

According to Dominic J. O'Meara, who is writing about the philosophical influences Plotinus had to address claimed Aristotle did not believe in an immortal soul, but he did consider the intellect to be immortal (page 14):

One of Plotinus' first writings, Ennead IV. 7 [2], is devoted to
showing that the soul is immortal. Plato had argued for this in the
Phaedo and in the Phaedrus (245ce), Plato's claim that soul is an incorporeal, non-composite reality not suject to desctruction is
rejected by Aristotle. For Aristotle, soul, as the structure (or
'form') responsible for the various functions of a living body, cannot
escape death. Yet one living function, intellect, seems to be an
exception: in Aristotle's view thinking is not the function of a
particular bodily organ. Intellect thus seems to have a claim to
immortality (De anima, 2. 2. 413b24-7; 3. 4-5). However, Aristotle
is at his most obscure here and in any case the question of immortality
lies far from his primarily biological interests in the De anima.

This seems to agree with D. W. Hamlyn's translation of De anima (On the Soul) (page 168) although I don't know if I have the exact location O'Meara referenced.

For the present let it be enough to say only that the soul is the
source of the things above mentioned and is determined by them--by the
faculties of nutrition, perception, thought, and movement. Whether
each of these is a soul or a part of a soul, and if a part, whether it
is such as to be distinct in definition only or also in place, are
questions to which it is not hard to find answers in some cases,
although others present difficulty.

And as for the intellect:

Concerning the intellect and the potentiality for contemplation the
situation is not so far clear, but it seems to be a different kind of
soul, and this alone can exist separately, as the everlasting from the
perishable.

---

Reference

O'Meara, D. J. (1995). Plotinus: an introduction to the Enneads. Oxford University Press on Demand.

Hamlyn, D. W. (1989). A New Aristotle Reader Edited by JL Ackrill Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987

share|improve this answer

answered 30 mins ago

Frank Hubeny

3,4202834

add a comment | 

up vote
1
down vote

up vote
1
down vote

I basically agree with Geremia's answer. Here is similar perspective.

According to Dominic J. O'Meara, who is writing about the philosophical influences Plotinus had to address claimed Aristotle did not believe in an immortal soul, but he did consider the intellect to be immortal (page 14):

One of Plotinus' first writings, Ennead IV. 7 [2], is devoted to
showing that the soul is immortal. Plato had argued for this in the
Phaedo and in the Phaedrus (245ce), Plato's claim that soul is an incorporeal, non-composite reality not suject to desctruction is
rejected by Aristotle. For Aristotle, soul, as the structure (or
'form') responsible for the various functions of a living body, cannot
escape death. Yet one living function, intellect, seems to be an
exception: in Aristotle's view thinking is not the function of a
particular bodily organ. Intellect thus seems to have a claim to
immortality (De anima, 2. 2. 413b24-7; 3. 4-5). However, Aristotle
is at his most obscure here and in any case the question of immortality
lies far from his primarily biological interests in the De anima.

This seems to agree with D. W. Hamlyn's translation of De anima (On the Soul) (page 168) although I don't know if I have the exact location O'Meara referenced.

For the present let it be enough to say only that the soul is the
source of the things above mentioned and is determined by them--by the
faculties of nutrition, perception, thought, and movement. Whether
each of these is a soul or a part of a soul, and if a part, whether it
is such as to be distinct in definition only or also in place, are
questions to which it is not hard to find answers in some cases,
although others present difficulty.

And as for the intellect:

Concerning the intellect and the potentiality for contemplation the
situation is not so far clear, but it seems to be a different kind of
soul, and this alone can exist separately, as the everlasting from the
perishable.

---

Reference

O'Meara, D. J. (1995). Plotinus: an introduction to the Enneads. Oxford University Press on Demand.

Hamlyn, D. W. (1989). A New Aristotle Reader Edited by JL Ackrill Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987

share|improve this answer

answered 30 mins ago

Frank Hubeny

3,4202834

I basically agree with Geremia's answer. Here is similar perspective.

According to Dominic J. O'Meara, who is writing about the philosophical influences Plotinus had to address claimed Aristotle did not believe in an immortal soul, but he did consider the intellect to be immortal (page 14):

One of Plotinus' first writings, Ennead IV. 7 [2], is devoted to
showing that the soul is immortal. Plato had argued for this in the
Phaedo and in the Phaedrus (245ce), Plato's claim that soul is an incorporeal, non-composite reality not suject to desctruction is
rejected by Aristotle. For Aristotle, soul, as the structure (or
'form') responsible for the various functions of a living body, cannot
escape death. Yet one living function, intellect, seems to be an
exception: in Aristotle's view thinking is not the function of a
particular bodily organ. Intellect thus seems to have a claim to
immortality (De anima, 2. 2. 413b24-7; 3. 4-5). However, Aristotle
is at his most obscure here and in any case the question of immortality
lies far from his primarily biological interests in the De anima.

This seems to agree with D. W. Hamlyn's translation of De anima (On the Soul) (page 168) although I don't know if I have the exact location O'Meara referenced.

For the present let it be enough to say only that the soul is the
source of the things above mentioned and is determined by them--by the
faculties of nutrition, perception, thought, and movement. Whether
each of these is a soul or a part of a soul, and if a part, whether it
is such as to be distinct in definition only or also in place, are
questions to which it is not hard to find answers in some cases,
although others present difficulty.

And as for the intellect:

Concerning the intellect and the potentiality for contemplation the
situation is not so far clear, but it seems to be a different kind of
soul, and this alone can exist separately, as the everlasting from the
perishable.

---

Reference

O'Meara, D. J. (1995). Plotinus: an introduction to the Enneads. Oxford University Press on Demand.

Hamlyn, D. W. (1989). A New Aristotle Reader Edited by JL Ackrill Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987

share|improve this answer

answered 30 mins ago

Frank Hubeny

3,4202834

share|improve this answer

share|improve this answer

answered 30 mins ago

Frank Hubeny

3,4202834

answered 30 mins ago

Frank Hubeny

3,4202834

answered 30 mins ago

Frank Hubeny

3,4202834

3,4202834

add a comment | 

add a comment | 

 

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