© Springer International Publishing AG 2017
Pascual Ángel Gargiulo and Humberto Luis Mesones-Arroyo (eds.)Psychiatry and Neuroscience Update – Vol. II10.1007/978-3-319-53126-7_44. Aristotelian Hylomorphism: A Framework for Non-physicalist Philosophers About Philosophy of Mind
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Universidad Austral, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, CONICET, Mariano Acosta s/n y Ruta Nacional 8 Pilar, Buenos Aires, B1629WWA, Argentina
Abstract
The results of a recent survey on the philosophical views of contemporary, mainly Anglo-Saxon professional philosophers have shown that a supposed predominance of physicalist reductionist positions in the philosophy of neurosciences is far from unanimous. This paper explores one possible philosophical position rooting a non-physicalist reductionist conception of mind. It suggests and argues that a classical philosophical frame, Aristotelian hylomorphism, provides adequate non-reductionist answers that do not fall into dualisms. Finally, it offers the corresponding conclusions.
Keywords
Philosophy of neurosciencesNon-reductionist positionsHylomorphismThe results of a recent survey on the philosophical views of contemporary, mainly Anglo-Saxon professional philosophers, have surprised me (see Bourget and Chalmers [1]). While I believe that we are witnessing an increasing prevalence of materialist reductionist positions in the philosophy of neurosciences, this survey shows that this conception is not undisputed. Only 12.2% of philosophers surveyed deny free will, and only 16.9% hold a biological view of personal identity. In addition, 56.5% uphold a physicalist position about mind; consequently, 43.5% maintain a non-physicalist position.
Some philosophers distinguish physicalism from materialism for specific reasons (see Stoljar [2], p. 1). Some physical entities do not seem to be material: waves, energies, and so on. However, “while ‘physicalism’ is no doubt related to ‘physics’, it is also related to ‘physical object’ and this in turn is very closely connected with ‘material object’, and via that, with ‘matter’(ibid.). In fact, today, these terms are regularly used interchangeably” (ibid.). Consequently, 43.5% of philosophers hold a non-materialist position about mind. What does this mean? It could be that they believe that the mind is not physical, and they are dualists. Another, more likely possibility is that they are non-reductive physicalists with regard to the mind. There are different non-reductivist positions, such as the “multiple realizability” thesis proposed by Hilary Putnam [3], “Supervenience” (see Davidson [4], p. 218, and McLaughlin and Bennett [5]), epistemological and ontological emergentism (see Timothy O’Connor and Hong Yu Wong [6]), and dualism (for example, Hasker [7]). Other non-reductivist positions are developed by authors belonging to a “family” of neuro-phenomenological currents: “autopoiesis”, the “enactive approach”, “organizational teleology”, and top-down causation conceptions, stressing the teleological and self-organizational character of living organisms. See, for example, Varela and Thompson [8], Thompson [9], Di Paolo [10], Mossio, Saborido, and Moreno, [11], and Auletta et al. [12]. Here I do not discuss these theories, but I introduce an alternative classical position: Aristotelian hylomorphism. Finally, I offer the corresponding conclusions.
The Hylomorphic Aristotelian Conception of the Human Being
Pre-Socratic philosophers, or physicoi, as Aristotle called them, searched for the principles or origins of natural phenomena, that is, the fundamental constituents of all natural objects. In Metaphysics, Aristotle reviews the different pre-Socratic proposals about the nature of these principles and develops his own position with regard to them (which he also developed in his Physics). A thing may be said to be in different senses, but the primary sense is the substance (book Z [VII], 1 [13]). In Physics, Aristotle deals with the movements and changes happening in substances. These are of different types: qualitative, quantitative, and local—all three inhering in the substance—and a fourth type, the generation or corruption of the very substance. This fourth type calls for a different subject (from the substance). He concludes:
“… If, then, we grant that the things of Nature have ultimate determinants and principles which constitute them, and also that we can speak of them ‘coming to be’ not in an incidental but in an essential sense—[…]—then it is obvious that they are composed, in every case, of the underlying subject and the ‘form’ which their defining properties give to it” (Physics I, 7, 190b 18–21 [13]).
He calls this underlying subject of substantial changes, próte hýle, ultimate underlying or prime matter (Physics II, 1, 193a 29 [13]). (On Aristotle’s metaphysical conceptions, see, e.g., S. Marc Cohen [14], Aquinas is clear in sustaining the essentially pure potentiality, formlessness, and absolute inseparability (from form) of prime matter. See Lang [15] on prime matter for Aquinas.) For Aristotle, this substantial composition does not imply that matter and form are parts of the substance: they “cannot even exist if severed from the whole” (Metaphysics VII, 10, 1035b 24–25 [13]). He also affirms: “the final matter and the form are one and the same thing, the one potentially, and the other actually” (Metaphysics VIII, 6, 1045b 18–19 [13]). The form is the primary cause, the actuality of being, the unifier of the substance, and it is not an element but a principle (cf. Metaphysics VII, 17, 1041b 25–31 [13]). As Anna Marmodoro synthesizes, “the substance is a composite of matter and form, and yet one” ([16], p. 20).
Aristotle applies his theory of hylomorphism to living beings. For him, the psyche (soul) “is the first actuality of a natural organic body” (On the Soul II, 1, 412b 4 [13, 17]), namely, the form. It provides actuality, identity, and persistence to the living being (cf. Irwin, [18], p. 288). In Stephen Brock’s expression ([19], p. 342), it is its “ontological energy”. The body, according to Irwin’s interpretation of Aristotle ([19], pp. 285; see also p. 294), is not the “remote” matter—the chemical stuffs, i.e., what Descartes considers the body—but the “proximate” matter, which is the ensouled body: the body does not exist outside an ensouled body. Body and soul only exist as a living being—an ensouled body—which is not body or soul or a composite of both, as if they were different entities, but an ontological unity. They are not united accidentally. Soul and body are one as form and matter are one, and the actions are from the unity:
… It is not necessary to ask whether soul and body are one, just as it is not necessary to ask whether the wax and its shape are one, nor generally whether the matter of each thing and that of which it is matter are one. For even if one and being are spoken of in several ways, what is properly so spoken of is the actuality (On the Soul II, 1, 412b 6–9 [13, 17]).
They are one at the level of the substance which is the living being, and they are two at the level of substantial principles, but they do not outlive if separated (cf. On the Soul I, 1, 413a 5 [13, 17]). In a sense, we have a dualism, but it is not the Cartesian (and probably the emergentist) dualism in which two different substances are accidentally united.
Consequently, the activities of living beings—including human beings—are not of the soul or of the body, they are activities of the whole: “human beings are psychophysical wholes”, as Jaworski expresses it ([20], p. 307). David Bostock ([21], p. 97) maintains “the soul is not ‘the ghost in the machine’ that makes the machine work as it does, but is rather the working of the ‘machine’ itself.” Even to think cannot be performed without the body (On the Soul I, 1, 403a 10 and 403b 19 [13, 17]). Aristotle affirms: “still to say that the soul gets angry is as if one were to say that the soul weaves or builds a house. Probably it is better not to say that the soul pities, or learns, or thinks, but to say rather that the man with its soul does this things” (On the Soul I, 4, 408b 13–15 [13, 17]). Michael Frede explains: “there is just one subject, the animate object, which in virtue of the particular kind of form or soul it has, is capable of all these things [actions]” ([22], p. 97). This conception avoids the problem of mental causation. Frede clarifies: “I do not mean to commit Aristotle to the view that there is no way in which a useful distinction might be drawn which extensionally comes reasonably close to the distinction between mental doings and physical doings” ([22], ibid.).
While avoiding a dualistic view of the human being, Aristotle’s hylomorphic conception of the soul as the form of the body allows for two compatible explanations (On the Soul 403a 39 -403b 2 [13, 17]):
… The natural philosopher [the scientist] and the logician [philosopher, psychologist] will in every case offer different definitions, e.g., in answer to the question what is anger. The latter will call it a craving for retaliation, or something of the sort; the former will describe it as a surging of the blood and heat around the heart. The one is describing the matter, the other the form or formula of the essence.
The form is closely related with Aristotle’s “cause for the sake of which” (later called, final cause). The final cause is the most excellent perfection to which the form tends for the very fact of being this form. Aristotle emphasizes the role of the form and the final cause because they provide an ontological root to the unity of the human being.
We could be tempted to consider the soul (only) as the organization of the material constituents of the human being. However, as Frede remarks ([22], p. 98), Aristotle’s proposal goes beyond this. Aristotle himself argues this point (On the Soul I, 4 [13, 17]). Frede indicates: “we do not try to understand the configuration in terms of the material constituents and their properties, but rather the other way round; we try to understand the material constituents and their properties in terms of the form or organization” ([22], p. 99). The body is not simply matter, it is ensouled matter, “we understand why parts, organs, structure, and other bodily processes of animals are as they are when we understand them in psychic terms” (Irwin [18], p. 290): they are teleologically oriented by the form–soul. At the same time, “we correctly believe that psychic states are not reducible to purely material states, because psychic states have a teleological role that resists reduction” (Irwin [18], pp. 291–2).
According to Aristotle’s conception, soul is a natural and non-material reality (Irwin speaks of “non-material”). It opens up the door to non-physicalist naturalism. Consequently, it obviously fits into the non-physicalist view of the mind–body question. However, things are not so easy. Aristotle takes a further step in book III 4 of On the Soul that introduces conflict into this explanation. This step concerns the intellect or mind that apprehends forms. Aristotle states: “the mind (noûs) is separable” (429b 5) from the body; “as objects [by abstraction] are separable from their matter so also are the corresponding faculties of the mind” (429b 18–23) [13, 17]. The intellect has to be receptive of the form of an object, and thus it has to be immaterial and separable from matter as it is the form from its object. The final consequence is that “when isolated it is its true self and nothing more, and this alone is immortal and everlasting” (On the Soul, III, 5, 430b 23–24 [13, 17]). These are some of the most debated passages of Aristotle’s work (see Shields [23]). If the correct interpretation is that the argument is deeply flawed or that for one or other reasons we can disregard it (as most Aristotelians think), hylomorphism as a non-dualist and non-physicalist position can still be sustained. But if we take Aristotle’s words literally into account we are in problems, for if this part of the soul remains after death, aren’t we being strongly dualists when it comes to human beings?
Aristotle’s possible proposal of an immortal mind implies a lot of problems. When the human being is alive, the soul is united with the body, constituting an inseparable substance. But then, when the human being passes away, that part of the soul remains immortal, implying that it is separable. However, given its mentioned dependence on the body, it is difficult to conceive its condition after death. To know might be a not exclusively material activity, but it also depends on matter (external senses, imagination); it is an activity of the person. The separable mind cannot interact with the external world separated from the body.
Taking immortality as given implies that “non-materiality” of mind is of a special kind, because it is also separable from matter. There are other non-material realities, like form and accidents, which are non-material but cannot exist without matter. Accidents inhere in substances. Aristotle asserts that “to on polachos legetai” (Metaphysics IV, 2, 1003a 33 [13])—“being” has several meanings—of which the primary one is substance, but which also includes “weaker” kinds of being. For example, though supported by matter, structures, forms, actions, and thoughts are non-material things, but they are natural. However, they do not exist without matter. Soul as a form falls under this condition but, additionally, it seems that for Aristotle, the human soul includes a non-material subsistent substance. This position looks like an extremely ad-hoc explanation which implies a sort of strong dualism: if this substance which is mind was previously part of the whole, weren’t there actually two substances? As Norman Kretzmann ([24], p. 128) remarks, human beings have a “uniquely problematic status among creatures in virtue of the peculiar character of the human soul.”
Hylomorphism Re-examined
According to Aristotle, the living human being, like all living beings, is oriented towards ends. This orientation is rooted in the form, and concerns the whole living being. Some of these ends are sought spontaneously, and others more or less consciously. This consciousness is somehow present in animals through their senses, feelings, and desires, while human beings have high levels of consciousness on account of their superior faculties, i.e., mind and will. This teleological characteristic of animals and human beings stemming from their forms (their souls) unifies and identifies them.
Aristotle identifies form with nature and essence (Physics II, 1; Metaphysics VII, 10 [13]), essence with form (e.g., Metaphysics VII, 13 [13]), and form with actuality (e.g., Metaphysics VII, 17[13]). As Irwin explicates,
… In identifying substance with form and form with actuality, Aristotle explains his view of the basic subjects. Their continuity is determined by continuity of form, not by continuity of matter; and form is continuous when the organization, structure and modifications of the matter are explained by the same teleological laws ([18], p. 237).Related posts:
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