Aristotle's Physics and Psychology

Physics

According to Aristotle nature is the totality of object which are "material" and subject to movement. Aristotle never officially defines nature, this totality consists of substances which are capable of initiating change and of bringing it to an end as well as which have an inner tendency to change. Thus it is obvious that to Aristotle, nature is something dead or unmovable. On the contrary it is essentially characterized by motion and change. This however must be qualified by the doctrine that the passage of lifeless bodies from a st ate of rest to a state of movement must be initiated by an external agent.
Movement or change in the wider sense is divided into

1) generatio (gignésthai or coming-to-be) and corruptio (passing-away) on the one hand,and
2) hé kinésis (motion or movement in the narrower sense) on the other.
This kinésis is to bed divided into the three kinds---
2-1) qualitative change (hé kinésis kata to poion or hé kinésis kata pathos) = hé alloioosis,
2-2) quantitative change (hé kinésis kata poson or hé kinésis kata megethos) = hé syxésis and
2-3) locomotio (hé kinésis kata pou or kata topon) = the local change or hé phora.

The conditions of locomotion and of all motion of a physical substance, are Time and Place.
It is proved, according to Aristotle, that ho topos or place exists,

1)by the fact of displacement, e.g., by the fact that where there is water, there may come to be air; and
2) by the fact that the four elements have their natural places. The fire is the highest, the next is air, and then water, the lowest is the earth. These distinctions are not to us, but by themselves.
Thus place exists. Aristotle defines place as the limit within which a body is, a limit considered as immobile (ho topos = to tou periechontos peras akinéton).
Once we accept this Aristotelian definition of place, there would not be empty place, nor any place outside the universe or world, for place is the inner limit of the containing body.
Therefore, Everything in the physical universe is in a place, while the universe itself is not. Since motion occurs through change of place, the universe itself cannot move forwards, but only by turning.
Aristotle contends that a body can only be moved by a present mover in contact with the moved. the original mover (= the unmoved mover) communicates to the medium, e.g. air or water, not only motion but also the power of moving. The first particles of air moved move other particles and the projectiles. This power decreases in accordance with the distance, which Aristotle did not know or did not believe inertia at least.
Aristotle considers that time cannot be simply identified with movement or change. For movements are many, while time is one. Aristotle's definition of time in the narrower sense is closed associated with motion. "The arithmetic (numerable) time is the movement according to 'prior' and ' posterior'." (ho chronos arithmos esti kinéseoos kata to proteron kai hysteron.) Thus, Copleston for example, interprets that "unless we are aware of change, we are also not aware of time." This arithmos (numerable) should be understood as those which are numbered, numberable aspects of change. Time is a continuum, as movement is, but it does not consist of discrete points (this was against Eleatic Zeno's argument of infinite divisibility of motion).
In other words, only things which are in motion or at rest in such a way that they are capable of motion, are in time.
Therefore, according to Aristotle, what is immobile or eternal is not in time. Movement can be and is eternal, while it is not immobile. (From this it seems to follow that time is eternal, in the sense that it never first began and will never end.) Although time is that in movement which is counted, What Aristotle means is that when one is conscious of time, one is recognizing manyness of phases. Thus, David Ross interprets Aristotle's time to be the aspect of element of change or motion, which makes it possible for the mind to recognize a plurality of phases (Physics p. 65).
For the standard of measurement for time, it is not a straight line, but the movement in a circle is named for its uniformity and naturalness by Aristotle. He means that naturalness comes from the motion of the rotating the heavenly spheres. Thus the motion of the sun is justified.
Now if the nature of time is considered as the above by Aristotle, can time exist without the mind which counts? The answer seems to be 'No!" although there would be the substratum of time!
Since time or duration is countable, the "nows" within duration are brought into actual existence b y a mind which distinguishes the "nows" there.
To the question of whether infinite is possible in nature, Aristotle says,
1) an infinite body is impossible, since very body is bounded by a surface, and no body which is bounded by a surface can b e infinite. Furthermore, since an infinite body is to be either simple or composite in order to exist, he says that it is neither simple nor composite, so it does not exist.
2) In actuality whether it is a body or number, Aristotle denies the existence of infinite, but potentially infinite exists because space is infinitely divisible.
Aristotle holds that all natural motion is directed towards an end. And this teleology is inherent in nature. This is understood as the development from a state of potency to that of actuality, the embodiment of form in matter. In Aristotle, the teleological view of nature prevails over the mechanical. However, the teleology is not all-pervasive, because sometimes matter obstructs the action of teleology. For example, physical handicapped are born. Thus, the contingency exists in nature, which Aristotle calls to automaton or the fortuitous, which is "by nature", but not "according to nature". What is fortuitous is distinguished by Aristotle from the luck or hé tyché, whose result is desirable.
Aristotle maintains that the universe consists of two distinct worlds--1) the superlunary and 2) the sublunary. In the former are the stars, which are imperishable and undergo no change other than that of locomotion. Their motion is not rectilinear but circular, Aristotle concludes that the stars are composed not of the four elements, but of a different material element, that is aether.
The earth, spherical in shape, is at rest in the center of the universe, and round it lie the layers, concentric and spherical, of water, air and fire or the warm (hypekkauma). Beyond these lie the heavenly spheres, and on its outermost the fixed stars are, and they owe their motion to the prime mover or the unmoved mover, God. The numbers of those spheres are, accepting Calippus, thirty three and they explain the motions of the planets. Aristotle believes that there are twenty-two spheres moving backward. the latter and the former counteract each other to balance the universe.
The concrete particular things in this world come into being and pass away, but species and genera are eternal, according to Aristotle.
He holds an evolutionary theory concerning the structure of the universe, a theory of the scale of being, in which form is ever more predominant as the scale is ascended. At the bottom of the scale comes inorganic matter, and above this organic matter, the plants being less perfect than the animals. Nevertheless, even the plants possess the soul, which is the principle of life.

Psychology or On the Soul

Aristotle defines the soul or hé psyché as "the entelechy of a natural body endowed with the capacity of life" or as "the first entelechy of a natural organic body (psyché estin entelecheia hé prooté soomatos physikou dynamei zoon echontos toiouton de, ho an hé organikon or entelecheia hé prooté soomatos physikou organikou). Being the actuality or entelechy of the body, the soul is at the same time form, principle of movement, and end. The body is for the soul, and every organ has its purpose, that purpose being an activity.
The composite substance is a natural body endowed with life, the principle of this life being called the soul. The body cannot be the soul, for the body is not life but what has life. The body then is matter to the soul, while the soul is as form or actuality to the body. the soul is the entelechy or act of the body that possesses life in potency--"potentiality of life."
Thus the soul as the principle of living body is a) the source of motion,b) its final cause, c) the real substance (i.e., the formal cause) of animated bodies.
Aristotle distinguishes different types of the soul, whereby the higher presupposes the lower.

1) The lowest form of soul is nutritive or vegetative soul, to threptikon, which exercises the activities of assimilation and reproduction. It found not only in plants, but also in animals; yet it can exist b y itself (without the other type of soul), as it does in plants.
2) Animal soul. Because the nutrition is necessary for the preservation of life, Aristotle reveals the necessity of touch in order to find the food, and the taste to articulate the food from the rest. The other senses are not necessary for the animal, Aristotle argues, they serve the well-being of the animal.
2-1) Sensation or sensitive soul (h € € QQ œ€«€), which the animal, endowed with the power of motion, must have (while the plants do not have as they draw nourishment automatically). The sensitive soul exercises three powers of a) sense-perception (to aisqhtkon‹to aisthétikon), b) desire (to prektikon) or desiring soul and c) locomotion (to kinétikon kata topon) or locomotive soul.
2-2) Imagination (phantasma) or imaginative soul which follows the sensitive soul.
2-3) Memory is the further development of this.
3) Human soul. The human soul unites in itself the powers of the lower souls (to threptikon, to aisthétikon, to orektikon, to kinétikon kata topon ) but has a peculiar advantage in the possession of nous or Reason (which is sometimes translated into intellect) or to dianoétikon (the discriminating or analytic soul).
This human soul is active in two ways:
3-1) The power of scientific or theoretical Reason (hé dianoia theoorétiké = to epistémonikon). The theoretical reason has truth as its object, truth for its own sake.
3-2) The power of deliberation (dianoia praktiké). This deliberative soul has truth not for its own sake, but for practical and prudential purposes.
All the powers of the soul, with the exception of nous or Reason, are inseparable from the body and perishable: Nous or Reason, however, pre-exists before the body and is immortal.
This nous or Reason entering into the body, requires a potential principle--a tabula rasa (a blank tablet), on which it may imprint forms; and so we have the distinction between the nous poiétikos (the active Reason) and the nous pathétikos (passive Reason). Aristotle himself speaks of to poioun.
The active Reason or intellect abstracts forms form the images or phantasmata, which, when received in the passive intellect, are actual concepts. Only the active Reason or intellect is immortal!
There is no such a problem as the mind-body problem for Aristotle, for the soul as the form or entelechy of the body is united to the body to form a substance. Unlike Plato's notion that the soul is captured and imprisoned in the body, Aristotle considers that it is good for the soul to be in the body.
There is a question of the principium individuationis, i.e., that which makes a concrete, particular substance to be a particular individual. Is the soul after death, i.e., the "liberated" soul is no longer a individual soul, but a person is an individual as long as one is alive, i.e., as a combination of the soul and the body. For matter is the principle of individuation.
Finally Aristotle doctrine of the active Reason or intellect purports,

"This nous is separable and impassible and unmixed, being essentially an actuality. For the active is always of higher value than the passive, and the orginative principle than the matter. Actual knowledge is identical with its object; potential knowledge is prior in time in the individual, but in general it is not temporally prior; but nous does at one time function and at another not. When it has been separated it is that only which it is in essence, and this alone is immortal and eternal. we do not remember, however, because active reason is impassible, but the passive reason is perishable, and without the active reason nothing thinks."

Logic
It gives a strange impression that, allthough Aristotle worked intensely and made many invaluatgle contributions to logic, he did not classify Logic under the Theoretical Sciences. According to Aristotle, logic is not a "substantive" science, but a part of general education or culture which every youth should undergo before any study of sciences.
The term Logic does not originated from Aristotle and was not known to him, but Aristotle used the term Analytics instead. Many people believe that Logic could go back to even the time of Cicero. Even in that time, logic did not mean what we understand today under logic, but rather dialectic. Alexander was supposed to be responsible to use ÿQ€ in the sense of logic.
Analytics primarily refers to the analysis of syllogism in regard to its method of ascertaining its validity and invalidity. (To be continued)

Aesthetics

To be continued.