Thomism: Why is the Mind Immaterial?

Consider that "the mind is potentially all things." In this, it is somewhat akin to prime matter (indeed, some commentators speak of "intellectual matter").The formal object of sight is color, for smell odor. These are quite limited. For the intellect, it is the whole of being itself, actuality and intelligibility. In order for the intellect to be all forms thought, it cannot be itself any prior form. The intellect is able to receive form not by being "made of stuff/building blocks" but rather by being formless.

Also, consider that "our thoughts can be elsewhere." Aristotle does not fall into the trap of the much maligned but often reproduced Cartesian theater, whereby all we experience and think about is "in our head." But the mind's ability to "be anywhere" is also an indication of its immateriality.

Obviously, we can know an apple. Yet when we know an apple, our heads don't become apples, nor are there physical apples in our head. The mode of existence in the intellect is different, immaterial.

This leads to a helpful way to understand the real distinction between essence and existence. Suppose we think of a purple horse. Well, for so long as we think of it, if has mental existence, but it doesn't have real existence; two different modes. The mental being is not composed of form received by material substrate. But this is also where Thomas departs most radically from Aristotle, who identified form/essence with actuality, whereas for Thomas being is ultimately existence, which is an act/actuality, and cannot be reifed into a concept because it is beyond concepts, beyond essence. This makes all beings "participatory."

1. What is Aristotle's view of the mind here? Is it a nothingness, a negativity, like Hegel? Is it pure form that is immaterial?

This is far from clear because those passages on De Anima have produced tons of speculation. The Islamic commentators take these in very different directions. It definitely isn't pure actuality though because we have the passive ("material" for Averoese and some others) intellect. The solution to the Meno Paradox lies in our knowing things potentially prior to that potential being actualized.

The difficulty is that there is often an equivocation between matter as simply potency and matter as what receives form in composite physical (changing) beings. This is a tension right into Thomas, one he resolves with the act of existence and the essence existence distinction (from Avicenna). Material beings are in some sense constrained by their physicality. But, we must not make the mistake of the moderns here in thinking that this must make physical "substance" a sort of subsistent building block. Ultimately, it is anything at all only as respects it's form, and material being itself is a sort of limiting determination (we might say act). Hence, one way to put it is that it is all inside the "mind" of God, God as ground, since it is God "in whom we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

2. How does Aquinas argue for the soul being immaterial? Is it just that thinking cannot have a sense-organ?

In many different ways. The most obvious is its grasp of universals outside any materiality.

So consider the famous Nietzsche quote:




Actually, guys like Saint Augustine were very aware that nature had no perfect circles or triangles. This is precisely why they thought the intellect must be immaterial (or one reason at least, they had many).

So, if you ask GPT or Google around, this will be the most common answer, and the idea that the intellect, in order to be able to receive all form, cannot itself be materially limited. However, I think Thomas' case is more compelling as you layer on more and more of his philosophy, which all touches on it.

Going back to Parmenides, there is the idea that "the same is for thinking as for being." A thing's eidos, form, is its whole intelligible quiddity, what makes it appear as any thing at all and not nothing in particular. To be untinelligible would be to be nothing, no thing. So, being itself is like a two headed coin, being and being experienced/known. Plotinus makes just this point. These are unified in the One.

So, from Perl's Thinking Being:

The key insight of phenomenology is that the modern interpretation of knowledge as a relation between consciousness as a self-contained ‘subject’ and reality as an ‘object’ extrinsic to it is incoherent. On the one hand, consciousness is always and essentially the awareness of something, and is thus always already together with being. On the other hand, if ‘being’ is to mean anything at all, it can only mean that which is phenomenal, that which is so to speak ‘there’ for awareness, and thus always already belongs to consciousness. Consciousness is the grasping of being; being is what is grasped by consciousness. The phenomenological term for the first of these observations is ‘intentionality;’ for the second, ‘givenness.’ “The mind is a moment to the world and the things in it; the mind is essentially correlated with its objects. The mind is essentially intentional. There is no ‘problem of knowledge’ or ‘problem of the external world,’ there is no problem about how we get to ‘extramental’ reality, because the mind should never be separated from reality from the beginning. Mind and being are moments to each other; they are not pieces that can be segmented out of the whole to which they belong.”* Intended as an exposition of Husserlian phenomenology, these words hold true for the entire classical tradition from Parmenides to Aquinas...

In arguing that being qua intelligible is not apart from but is the content of intellectual apprehension, Plotinus is upholding what may be called an 'identity theory of truth,’ an understanding of truth not as a mere extrinsic correspondence but as the sameness of thought and reality. The weakness of any correspondence theory of truth is that on such a theory thought can never reach outside itself to that with which it supposedly corresponds.1 Thought can be ‘adequate’ (literally, ‘equal-to’) to reality only if it is one with, the same as, reality. In Aristotle’s formulation, which as we have seen Plotinus cites in support of his position, knowledge is the same as the known.2

If thought and reality are not together in this way, then, as Plotinus argues, there is no truth, for truth just is the togetherness of being with thought. Plotinus’ arguments against the separation of intellect and being thus resonate profoundly with the nihilistic predicament of modernity. If thought and reality are conceived in modern terms, as ‘subject’ and ‘object,’ extrinsic to and over against one another, and truth is conceived as a mere correspondence between them, then thought cannot get to reality at all, then there can be no knowledge, and in the end, since nothing is given to thought, no truth and no reality. We must rather understand thought in classical Platonic, Aristotelian, and Plotinian terms, as an openness to, an embracing of, a being-with reality, and of reality as not apart from but as, in Plotinus’ phenomenological terms, “given” (V.5.2.9) to thought. This, again, is the very meaning of the identification of being as ????? or ????. Being means nothing if it is not given to thought; thought means nothing if it is not the apprehension of being. Hence at the pure and paradigmatic level of both, intellect as perfect apprehension and the forms as perfect being, they coincide. “We have here, then, one nature: intellect, all beings, truth” (V.5.3.1–2).

The idea of truth as a transcendental also comes into play here. Truth cannot be convertible with being if there unintelligible, eidos-free noumena that are, but exist in a sort of intellect free space (which also implies they could never make any difference to anyone ever). The only being free of limiting essence and eidos is not "a being" but rather infinite being itself, God. In a sense then, everything is intellect.

However, there is still a real distinction between mental being in our intellects and what has a true/full act of existence through participation with God (even though our intellects are also a participation in divine being). The intellect is immaterial, in part, because it is not limited by material existence, it has access to these mental beings, "ens rationis," as well as "conceptual but not real distinctions" (e.g. a cup being half full versus half empty—you won't find this distinction in material existence).

Quoting Bob Ross

2. How does Aquinas argue for the soul being immaterial?

Apparently there is a whole book on the subject, "Thomas Aquinas on the Immateriality of the Human Intellect," by Adam Wood.

Here is one of Aquinas' arguments for the incorporeality of the intellect:

Quoting Aquinas, ST I.75.2.c - Whether the human soul is something subsistent?

I answer that, It must necessarily be allowed that the principle of intellectual operation which we call the soul, is a principle both incorporeal and subsistent. For it is clear that by means of the intellect man can have knowledge of all corporeal things. Now whatever knows certain things cannot have any of them in its own nature; because that which is in it naturally would impede the knowledge of anything else. Thus we observe that a sick man's tongue being vitiated by a feverish and bitter humor, is insensible to anything sweet, and everything seems bitter to it. Therefore, if the intellectual principle contained the nature of a body it would be unable to know all bodies. Now every body has its own determinate nature. Therefore it is impossible for the intellectual principle to be a body. It is likewise impossible for it to understand by means of a bodily organ; since the determinate nature of that organ would impede knowledge of all bodies; as when a certain determinate color is not only in the pupil of the eye, but also in a glass vase, the liquid in the vase seems to be of that same color.

Therefore the intellectual principle which we call the mind or the intellect has an operation per se apart from the body. Now only that which subsists can have an operation "per se." For nothing can operate but what is actual: for which reason we do not say that heat imparts heat, but that what is hot gives heat. We must conclude, therefore, that the human soul, which is called the intellect or the mind, is something incorporeal and subsistent.

Reply to Leontiskos :up:

Do you find his arguments compelling?

Also, if the form of an organism extends to some other substantial, immaterial aspect (of a thinking faculty), then how would that work with interacting with the body? It seems like this view loses that edge that Aristotle has of the form being nothing more than the self-actualizing principle of the body and ends up in Cartesian territory.

Quoting Bob Ross

Do you find his arguments compelling?

I do, yes. I also think his premise is widely accepted, namely . Some people use this to affirm the immateriality of the intellect; others use it to deny that man can have knowledge of all corporeal things.

Quoting Bob Ross

Also, if the form of an organism extends to some other substantial, immaterial aspect (of a thinking faculty), then how would that work with interacting with the body? It seems like this view loses that edge that Aristotle has of the form being nothing more than the self-actualizing principle of the body and ends up in Cartesian territory.

Well even in your OP you point out that Aristotle holds that the mind is not "blended with the body," and therefore must apparently be somehow incorporeal. So he isn't altogether off the hook.

But what do Thomists say about "the interaction problem"? I would have to revisit the issue, to be honest. Feser offers accessible blog posts on Thomism, and he has at least four entries on the interaction problem (one, two, three, four). That's where I would begin. The fourth one looks like it is the most concise.

Quoting Bob Ross

or Aristotle, apart from an obscure passage in De Anima, thinks of the soul as the form of an organism in virtue of which the organism is alive. It is the self-actualizing principle that unifies the organism into the kind of alive thing it is. This seems to suggest that the soul is not substantially distinct from the body insofar as it is analogous to the imprint of the ring on the wax which makes wax a wax seal. Thusly, it seems like the soul does not survive the body and is not immaterial in the sense that it is pure form (although it isn't matter either: it's the self-actualizing principle of matter in virtue of which makes it alive).

You say, Aristotle says it is "the form". Then you go on to say it is not "pure form'. That is contradiction. For Aristotle, as "the form", it is pure form.

Quoting Bob Ross

1. What is Aristotle's view of the mind here? Is it a nothingness, a negativity, like Hegel? Is it pure form that is immaterial?

I think that the key to understanding this is that Aristotle distinguishes between the soul, and the intellect, or mind, which is a capacity of the soul. He explained that prior philosophers. like Plato, did not properly distinguish between soul and mind, and often used the words interchangeably.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

By pure form, I just meant substantial form like Aquinas thinks of. A kind of being which is not received by matter: it is just form itself subsisting.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

In terms of distinguishing soul and mind, I agree; but that doesn't explain if Aristotle thought the mind is pure/substantial form like Aquinas; and if he does, then how does this not entail a sort of interaction problem even if it is not the same problem as Cartesian dualism? It would be an immaterial mind interacting with a materially body even if the soul is the form of a living being.

Reply to Leontiskos

namely . Some people use this to affirm the immateriality of the intellect; others use it to deny that man can have knowledge of all corporeal things.

When you say 'man can have knowledge of all corporeal things', is this in the sense that if the a particular of any kind of given to the senses that the mind could abstract out it's form? Or are you saying the mind can know all corporeal things indirectly through testing and self-reflective reason?

I would have to revisit the issue, to be honest. Feser offers accessible blog posts on Thomism, and he has at least four entries on the interaction problem (one, two, three, four). That's where I would begin. The fourth one looks like it is the most concise.

I haven't found a Thomist that addresses tbh. I read Ed Fezer's elaborations and his doesn't focus on how the immaterial mind interacts with the material body. He just vaguely states that there is no interaction problem for hylomorphisists because the soul is the form of the body. The problem I have with that is that it ignores the fact that the immaterial mind is not the soul: the soul would be the form of the body and the mind (together unified); so how could they interact or be unified together like that?

Quoting Bob Ross

When you say 'man can have knowledge of all corporeal things', is this in the sense that if the a particular of any kind of given to the senses that the mind could abstract out it's form? Or are you saying the mind can know all corporeal things indirectly through testing and self-reflective reason?

Either one. Obviously some things require instruments, and are therefore known indirectly.

Quoting Bob Ross

I haven't found a Thomist that addresses tbh. I read Ed Fezer's elaborations and his doesn't focus on how the immaterial mind interacts with the material body. He just vaguely states that there is no interaction problem for hylomorphisists because the soul is the form of the body. The problem I have with that is that it ignores the fact that the immaterial mind is not the soul: the soul would be the form of the body and the mind (together unified); so how could they interact or be unified together like that?

I think Feser is wondering why, as a non-Cartesian, a critique of Cartesian dualism would stick to him.

But let's try to identify your argument. Is it this?

1. The mind is not the soul
2. The soul is the form of the unified body-mind composite
3. Therefore, the soul and the mind cannot interact or be unified together

I don't see how (3) follows. The question here asks what is supposed to be objectionable about Aquinas' view.

Reply to Leontiskos

What I am arguing is more like this:

1. Abstraction of a universal from phantasms requires interaction between the phantasm and the thing which abstracts.

2. The immaterial mind abstracts.

3. The brain produces phantasms.

4. Therefore, the brain and mind interact.

5. A material thing and an immaterial thing cannot interact.

6. Therefore, either the mind is not immaterial or it does not interact with the brain.

By "interact", I mean some sort of process of impact from one to the other; instead of like the participation matter has in receive form. I get form is act, but if there's a subsistent form that can think then I don't see how it doesn't have a part of it that interacts with the matter that is informed in a way not like participation. Somehow the subsistent rational form not only provides the self-actualizing principle for self-development, but it also comes equipped with a mind that somehow interacts with the brain.

Quoting Bob Ross

What I am arguing is more like this:

Okay.

Quoting Bob Ross

5. A material thing and an immaterial thing cannot interact.

Why think that?

Is the concept of triangularity material? No. Do we interact with it? Yes.

Quoting Bob Ross

3. The brain produces phantasms.

Why do you say the brain produces phantasms? Why couldn't the mind do it?

Reply to Leontiskos

Is the concept of triangularity material? No. Do we interact with it? Yes.

But triangularity is a form: the mind isn't a form. If it isn't a form then wouldn't it have to interact with things? Likewise, wouldn't that have to be an interact where something that is not involved with matter whasoever extracts from matter something?

Reply to frank

I was using Aquinas' view that brain is capable of and does in fact produce images of things based off of the sensations; but that the agent intellect, which is immaterial, abstracts the form from it for the passive intellect to receive it.

Reply to Bob Ross
Oh, so he's saying the intellect witnesses the images. And you're saying it couldn't do that?

Reply to frank

According to Aquinas, if I understand correctly, the intellect does not just witness the images: it (viz., the agent intellect) actively extracts the form from the image and passes it along to the understanding (viz., the passive intellect).

The image of this particular apple is used by the agent intellect to extract the form of appleness and received and retained for reasoning by the passive intellect. This seems to imply that the agent intellect somehow operates on images which are material and yet the agent intellect itself is completely void of matter. @Leontiskos, how does the form of a particular thing (which is in the state of sense-matter) get transferred into immaterial thought?

Quoting Bob Ross

According to Aquinas, if I understand correctly, the intellect does not just witness the images: it (viz., the agent intellect) actively extracts the form from the image and passes it along to the understanding (viz., the passive intellect).

So do you think the intellect can or cannot witness the images? If it can, it would just abstract based on what it saw. In this scenario the brain would be an interface between the world and the intellect. The intellect is a central processing unit and the brain is an analog to digital converter. That sort of thing.

Reply to frank

I guess it is metaphysically possible, but how does that work? Wouldn't there have to be some medium which supplies the imaginery to the agent intellect? Otherwise, why doesn't the agent intellect receive imaginery from other bodies?

Quoting Bob Ross

I guess it is metaphysically possible, but how does that work? Wouldn't there have to be some medium which supplies the imaginery to the agent intellect? Otherwise, why doesn't the agent intellect receive imaginery from other bodies?

I guess the soul is supposed to be fused to one brain. You could think of the way a computer's software interacts with the hardware. Or maybe it's like a tuning fork and it picks up vibrations. Or by electromagnetism. I mean, Aquinas was in the 13th Century. Our idea of materiality has expanded a lot since his day.

Reply to frank But, again, then that admits that there is interaction, not in the sense of merely participation in a form, by the mind and body. No?

Quoting Bob Ross

But, again, then that admits that there is interaction, not in the sense of merely participation in a form, by the mind and body. No?

Aquinas believed the soul is fused to the body by supernatural means. They aren't really separate. The intellect is an aspect of the soul, right?

Quoting Bob Ross

But triangularity is a form: the mind isn't a form.

You made a claim about "things," not "forms." In fact the very vagueness of that word "thing" is doing most of the work in your premise. For example, if you had used "substance" instead of "thing" the premise would not do any work (except against Descartes).

Quoting Bob Ross

But, again, then that admits that there is interaction, not in the sense of merely participation in a form, by the mind and body. No?

I think your basic idea here is correct. Whether or not we want to talk about brains, there will still be "interaction" between the material and the immaterial.

Quoting Bob Ross

In terms of distinguishing soul and mind, I agree; but that doesn't explain if Aristotle thought the mind is pure/substantial form like Aquinas; and if he does, then how does this not entail a sort of interaction problem even if it is not the same problem as Cartesian dualism? It would be an immaterial mind interacting with a materially body even if the soul is the form of a living being.

I believe that Aristotle thought the soul is pure substantial form. Aquinas also thought the soul is pure substantial form. However, maintaining the already mentioned distinction between soul and mind, the mind is not necessarily pure substantial form. Aristotle distinguished passive and active intellect, and Aquinas upheld this distinction. Since form is actuality, and the intellect has a passive aspect, I think it is impossible that the intellect is pure form.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

If the mind is immaterial, then it has to be pure form because there is only form and matter. Are you suggesting an immaterial 'matter' that the intellect would be of?

Aristotle distinguished passive and active intellect, and Aquinas upheld this distinction. Since form is actuality, and the intellect has a passive aspect, I think it is impossible that the intellect is pure form.

From my understanding, something that is pure form is not necessarily purely actual; and what you are noting is that beings which are purely being in idea (such as angels, the mind, etc.) have potency and thusly are not purely actual. That is true, but they are pure form nevertheless because they do not exist in matter.

The potency that an angel has is not like our potency as material beings. My body is what received my form; but an angel is form that was not received by matter.

Perhaps you are denying the distinction between potency and matter; but I would say passive vs. active potency are different, and beings with matter have passive potency.

Reply to Leontiskos

You made a claim about "things," not "forms." In fact the very vagueness of that word "thing" is doing most of the work in your premise. For example, if you had used "substance" instead of "thing" the premise would not do any work (except against Descartes).

True, but my point is that the mind is not a form and it is immaterial and it is infused with the body that is material; so the question arises: "how does the mind interact with the body in this sort of fusion?". It may not be a hard problem like descartes', but it is still a problem.

I think your basic idea here is correct. Whether or not we want to talk about brains, there will still be "interaction" between the material and the immaterial.

How does that work, then? Is it a mystery we cannot solve?

Quoting Bob Ross

True, but my point is that the mind is not a form and it is immaterial and it is infused with the body that is material; so the question arises: "how does the mind interact with the body in this sort of fusion?". It may not be a hard problem like descartes', but it is still a problem.

For Aquinas the intellect is a power of the soul. So it's not a separate "thing" from the body. It's not like we have three separate "things": a body, a soul, an intellect (and also a will), and then we have to figure out how to weld them all together.

(This is another instance where you are running up against reverse mereological essentialism, and want to place parts before wholes.)

I have a thread about "Physical cannot be the cause of its own change" (you can find the argument here); therefore, the mind is needed to cause the change.

Quoting Bob Ross

If the mind is immaterial, then it has to be pure form because there is only form and matter. Are you suggesting an immaterial 'matter' that the intellect would be of?

No, I'm suggesting that for Aquinas, (following the lead of Aristotle), the human intellect is not purely immaterial, it is dependent on the material body. This is actually the reason Aquinas gives for why human beings cannot adequately know God, and separate Forms. The human intellect is deficient in this sense, and that is why we cannot adequately know God until the soul is disunited from the body.

Quoting Bob Ross

From my understanding, something that is pure form is not necessarily purely actual;

I would say that this is a misunderstanding of Aristotle, and Aquinas.

Quoting Bob Ross

Perhaps you are denying the distinction between potency and matter; but I would say passive vs. active potency are different, and beings with matter have passive potency.

No, I do not deny that distinction. Matter is a type of potency, or potential, it is placed in that category. This means that potential defines matter, in a way similar to how animal defines human being. All matter is potential, but not all potential is matter. Notice that Aristotle defines the essence of human ideas as potential also. So potency, or potential, is the broader term, such that not all potential is matter. In a similar way "actual" defines form, such that all form is actual. But not necessarily all actualities are form. Aristotle distinguishes two very distinct senses of "actual", one being "what is the case" (the form, or formula), the other being active, activity.

Quoting Bob Ross

Aristotle seems to be regarding the mind (viz., the thinking aspect of the soul) as 'unmixed' with the matter and that, for some reason, this mind is not real prior to knowing something.

It seems like Aquinas picks up on this and leverages it as epistemic points in favor of the mind being immaterial.

I have two questions:

1. What is Aristotle's view of the mind here? Is it a nothingness, a negativity, like Hegel? Is it pure form that is immaterial?

2. How does Aquinas argue for the soul being immaterial? Is it just that thinking cannot have a sense-organ?

The reason why the mind must be immaterial, is illustrated with the tinted glass analogy. The mind's apprehension of the material world, is like seeing through a glass lens. If the lens is tinted, the person seeing will not correctly see the colour of things. So the person will not correctly see every aspect of the world, because the colour will be incorrect. Likewise, if the mind is in anyway material, it could not correctly know the entirety of the material world.

The analogy is good, but there is more than one way to look at it. If it is the case that the human mind cannot correctly know the entirety of the material world, this may be because the mind is not immaterial.

Reply to Leontiskos

Let me ask you a point of clarification: would you agree with the following?

A soul is a substantial form and a substantial form is the self-actualizing principle which unites a substance towards its natural ends. A self-actualizing principle can be reduced to the way matter is organized, with the right materials, to self-actualize towards certain ends: there is no unity which subsists that directs the matter itself. Therefore, a robot that has been designed to self-actualize from its own inward principles towards its own natural ends has a soul.

I think you are going to deny this on grounds that I am implicitly thinking in terms of reverse mereology again; but if an unsubstantial form, like that of a chair, is reducible to way the material and organization of parts suit the natural end(s) of 'chairness', then a substantial form is the same but the addition that it is organized to self-organize: this doesn't seem to entail some sort of subsistent unity that directs the self-movement. Let me know what you think.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

No, I'm suggesting that for Aquinas, (following the lead of Aristotle), the human intellect is not purely immaterial, it is dependent on the material body. This is actually the reason Aquinas gives for why human beings cannot adequately know God, and separate Forms. The human intellect is deficient in this sense, and that is why we cannot adequately know God until the soul is disunited from the body.

Aquinas, as far as I understand, did think the mind is immaterial. It is not half material and half immaterial (or something like that). In fact, he forwards many arguments for why it is immaterial. Aristotle vaguely alluded to it being immaterial in De Anima, but didn't explicate it like Aquinas did.

I would say that this is a misunderstanding of Aristotle, and Aquinas.

Why? Aquinas thought that, e.g., Angels are pure form and not purely actual.

All matter is potential, but not all potential is matter.

Agreed. To be precise: matter is that which has passive potency, and not that which has potency simpliciter. An, e.g., Angel has active potency but no passive potency; and this is because an Angel has no matter which can be affected; but they still can learn.

The reason why the mind must be immaterial, is illustrated with the tinted glass analogy.

That is a very interesting analogy and I am inclined to agree; but it contradicts your point that humans cannot adequately separate forms. The whole point of the analogy is that if we have a proper intellect (that can apprehend forms with clarity), then it cannot be material AT ALL. Aquinas uses similar arguments to affirm that the mind is completely immaterial; others, as you noted, will use it to deny we have a proper intellect (like Hume).

Quoting Bob Ross

I think you are going to deny this on grounds that I am implicitly thinking in terms of reverse mereology again;

Right.

Quoting Bob Ross

but if an unsubstantial form, like that of a chair, is reducible to way the material and organization of parts suit the natural end(s) of 'chairness', then a substantial form is the same but the addition that it is organized to self-organize: this doesn't seem to entail some sort of subsistent unity that directs the self-movement. Let me know what you think.

Without trying to parse your argument too closely, what I would say is that "chairness" is not a natural end. It is an artificial end, imposed by humans. On the other hand, the acorn's end of oakness is a natural end, given that acorns are ordered to oak trees whether or not humans decide that they are.

Regarding premise 5:

Quoting Bob Ross

5. A material thing and an immaterial thing cannot interact.

Feser's point seems appropriate:

Quoting Edward Feser, Mind-body interaction: What’s the problem?

in fact Descartes’ account of matter as pure extension makes causal interaction even between corporeal substances themselves problematic

On Cartesian thinking it is no more obvious how corporeal things could interact with one another, than how corporeal things could interact with incorporeal things.

Reply to Leontiskos

To clarify, are you saying that a robot that has an inward self-actualizing principle towards specific ends (which provide its whatness) does not thereby have a soul?

Do you believe, then, that the soul, even in material souls (viz., non-subsistent souls), is a unity that directs the organism (and this unity is not merely how the parts behave in unison together)? If so, then how does, e.g., an oak tree produce another oak tree with an oak tree soul? I was thinking it would just provide it with the intial spark to get it's parts self-actualizing towards the natural ends of an oak tree.

Quoting Bob Ross

To clarify, are you saying that a robot that has an inward self-actualizing principle towards specific ends (which provide its whatness) does not thereby have a soul?

I would say that a robot has no inward self-actualizing principle towards specific ends. It has no substantial form because it is not a substance. It is a mere aggregate of parts and instructions.

Quoting Bob Ross

Do you believe, then, that the soul, even in material souls (viz., non-subsistent souls), is a unity that directs the organism (and this unity is not merely how the parts behave in unison together)?

Yes, I think so.

Quoting Bob Ross

If so, then how does, e.g., an oak tree produce another oak tree with an oak tree soul? I was thinking it would just provide it with the intial spark to get it's parts self-actualizing towards the natural ends of an oak tree.

Let's call the act of procreating "begetting." I don't know precisely how an oak tree begets an acorn. Does it bear on your point about whether the soul is a unity?

Reply to Leontiskos

Quoting Leontiskos

I would say that a robot has no inward self-actualizing principle towards specific ends. It has no substantial form because it is not a substance. It is a mere aggregate of parts and instructions.

But wouldn't a robot that could mechanistically grow, heal, etc. be self-unified towards certain ends?

Quoting Leontiskos

Let's call the act of procreating "begetting." I don't know precisely how an oak tree begets an acorn. Does it bear on your point about whether the soul is a unity?

What I wondering is how would a material soul ever be begotton by another material soul if the soul is a unity which is not merely received by the matter in the same way a chair's matter receives unity from the form bestowed onto it by its creator.

I was envisioning that all Aristotle meant by a material soul (viz., non-subsisting soul), like a vegetative soul, is that it is analogous to how a chair receives its form but that it is a form when received that self-actualizes.

Reply to Leontiskos I was thinking the material soul is baked into the matter like the form of a chair is baked into a chair; but it sounds like in your view that is not true. The material soul is not merely baked into the matter as a way materials are arranged to self-actualize: instead, there's a quasi-subsistent unity that directs its self-actualization.

Quoting Bob Ross

But wouldn't a robot that could mechanistically grow, heal, etc. be self-unified towards certain ends?

If I write a computer program that starts with an integer and adds 1 every second, is it self-unified towards the end of larger sums? The crucial point here is that the program or the robot is not self-moving, given that it is a human artifact which is being moved by the instructions given to it by a human.

Quoting Bob Ross

What I wondering is how would a material soul ever be begotton by another material soul if the soul is a unity which is not merely received by the matter in the same way a chair's matter receives unity from the form bestowed onto it by its creator.

Put differently, you seem to be saying, .

I don't follow. I don't understand why that would make the possibility of begetting "hard to see."

Quoting Bob Ross

I was envisioning that all Aristotle meant by a material soul (viz., non-subsisting soul), like a vegetative soul, is that it is analogous to how a chair receives its form but that it is a form when received that self-actualizes.

I suspect not. Aristotle would see quite a difference between an artifact and a substance. The generation of a new substance is a rather mysterious thing, I grant you that. But I think it is mysterious on any account, not just Aristotle's.

Quoting Bob Ross

I was thinking the material soul is baked into the matter like the form of a chair is baked into a chair; but it sounds like in your view that is not true. The material soul is not merely baked into the matter as a way materials are arranged to self-actualize: instead, there's a quasi-subsistent unity that directs its self-actualization.

Yes, I think that's right. First I don't want to deny that a plant is subsistent. It is. Substances are precisely subsistent, and a plant is a substance. By "subsistent" you apparently mean, "subsistent apart from matter," and it is true that this does not occur with plants. Second, I'm not sure I would want to call a plant's substantial form "material." Forms in general are not material. Presumably this again comes back to the fact that the plant's form does not subsist apart from matter.

The more general difficulty here is the question of whether and how the human soul exists apart from the body. For Aquinas this gets rather complicated. He would basically say that the human soul can exist apart from the body, but only unnaturally and imperfectly. The eventual resurrection of the body remedies the imperfect situation for him.

Quoting Bob Ross

Aquinas, as far as I understand, did think the mind is immaterial. It is not half material and half immaterial (or something like that). In fact, he forwards many arguments for why it is immaterial. Aristotle vaguely alluded to it being immaterial in De Anima, but didn't explicate it like Aquinas did.

I don't think the answer is as simple as you make it out to be. As a power of the soul, the intellect is immaterial, as the soul is immaterial. However, the human soul is united with the material body, and the human intellect is dependent on this union.

Quoting Bob Ross

The whole point of the analogy is that if we have a proper intellect (that can apprehend forms with clarity), then it cannot be material AT ALL.

The problem is that the human intellect is deficient, due to its dependence on the material body. Therefore it is not a "proper intellect (that can apprehend forms with clarity)". Human beings understand forms by abstracting from "phantasms", which are sense impressions derived through corporeal organs. So our understanding of the immaterial is derived from the phantasms produced by corporeal organs.

Q 85 Art 1

I answer that, As stated above (I:84:7), the object of knowledge is proportionate to the power of knowledge. Now there are three grades of the cognitive powers. For one cognitive power, namely, the sense, is the act of a corporeal organ. And therefore the object of every sensitive power is a form as existing in corporeal matter. And since such matter is the principle of individuality, therefore every power of the sensitive part can only have knowledge of the individual. There is another grade of cognitive power which is neither the act of a corporeal organ, nor in any way connected with corporeal matter; such is the angelic intellect, the object of whose cognitive power is therefore a form existing apart from matter: for though angels know material things, yet they do not know them save in something immaterial, namely, either in themselves or in God. But the human intellect holds a middle place: for it is not the act of an organ; yet it is a power of the soul which is the form the body, as is clear from what we have said above (I:76:1). And therefore it is proper to it to know a form existing individually in corporeal matter, but not as existing in this individual matter. But to know what is in individual matter, not as existing in such matter, is to abstract the form from individual matter which is represented by the phantasms. Therefore we must needs say that our intellect understands material things by abstracting from the phantasms; and through material things thus considered we acquire some knowledge of immaterial things, just as, on the contrary, angels know material things through the immaterial.

Quoting Bob Ross

Aristotle seems to be regarding the mind (viz., the thinking aspect of the soul) as 'unmixed' with the matter and that, for some reason, this mind is not real prior to knowing something.

Not what I got from the passage... Aristotle is saying before a thought is SHAPED and comes into the mind... it has no form. Not that the two are seperate.

Just as Nietzsche details in Aphorism 17 of BGE. Thoughts come from this unformed place that we call "I" when really it's just that the unconscious body thinks. "I think" ... yet the thought came to you ... it was unformed, but within the multiplicity of the will. "I" is just the ego, the mask the body wears, but certainly "I" doesn't do the thinking. "I" is the form projected from the tyranny of that multiplicity of undercurrents. Perhaps you think "seperate" because of how dialectical your approach is? It seems a mistake to say Aristotle would seperate a dual orbit... when he is quite a famous case of "too little too much" between two opposites. But to even call these two opposites is too much also as they're one in the same, as Nietzsche details in BGE 2. It's more of a growth out of.

"I" is like the metaphysical attack surface of a person, it's a place where forms go to thrive or die. Hence why pluralism has become so big these days... because there are, in reality, so many fucking forms, anything is possible...

Wait, whats that, Schizo Analysis? a form of unformed forms formulating over different forms of a form in an unformulated manner? My gosh what will that do other than give a multiplicity of perspectives! Osh Kosh By Gosh! Perspective seems to be a fundamental condition of life... oh wait also in BGE.

And a mod can see how many times I edit and Update because all the forms of these words were mostly formless a moment ago before I spooled up the good old "I" for churning mental butter.

Reply to Leontiskos

I agree with you, but I do see the form of an alive being as analogous to how a form is baked into the chair. I think the robot example is going to further the discussion best, so let's dive in.

Quoting Leontiskos

If I write a computer program that starts with an integer and adds 1 every second, is it self-unified towards the end of larger sums? The crucial point here is that the program or the robot is not self-moving, given that it is a human artifact which is being moved by the instructions given to it by a human.

Imagine you made a robot that was not hardcoded to move in certain ways, but was comprised of an elastic algorithm that facilitated its ability to will in accord with its ends (e.g., survival, reproduction, regeneration, etc.). Would you not consider that analogous to an non-subsistent, substantial form (viz., a material soul like a zebra's)? If so, then why not?

This isn't like a hardcoded machine program. It is programmed to be self-unified towards its ends and to will towards it.

Quoting Bob Ross

I agree with you, but I do see the form of an alive being as analogous to how a form is baked into the chair.

A substantial form is analogous to an artificial form in one sense, just as a car tire is analogous to an airplane wing in one sense. What remains to be seen is whether that sparse analogy is sufficient for the argument at hand.

Quoting Bob Ross

Imagine you made a robot that was not hardcoded to move in certain ways, but was comprised of an elastic algorithm

Is the elastic algorithm hardcoded or not? Given that it is, the robot is hardcoded to move in certain ways. It's just that the "ways" are a bit more subtle than someone doing a robot dance.

Quoting Bob Ross

This isn't like a hardcoded machine program. It is programmed to be self-unified towards its ends and to will towards it.

It has no intrinsic ends. It has no will. It is just blindly following the hardcoded algorithm. There is no extra-algorithmic aspect to its principles of motion.

Quoting Leontiskos

Is the elastic algorithm hardcoded or not? Given that it is, the robot is hardcoded to move in certain ways. It's just that the "ways" are a bit more subtle than someone doing a robot dance.

The algorithm is hardcoded, but it only dictates the structure for the being to will towards its ends. We aren't talking about a being that has a proper intellect (as that would require an immaterial soul): we are talking about a robot akin to a mechanical zebra.

Quoting Leontiskos

It has no intrinsic ends. It has no will. It is just blindly following the hardcoded algorithm. There is no extra-algorithmic aspect to its principles of motion

Notwithstanding persons, organisms blindly follow how its soul is programmed to will towards in the sense you described: the soul moves towards the ends it is supposed to have relative to its nature. There's nothing absolutely free about it: wouldn't you agree?

In the case of improper intellects (like a zebra's) that just pattern matches, it is just the processing of sense-data without abstraction of the form; and so it does also abide by whatever natural algorithm is in place for it to think. This doesn't mean the zebra cannot will against its nature whatsoever: it might will against avoiding an injury to preserve itself from a predator.

Quoting Bob Ross

The algorithm is hardcoded, but it only dictates the structure for the being to will towards its ends.

I don't think that is true. I think the algorithm dictates, deterministically, the movements of the mechanical zebra. That's how computer code works.

Quoting Bob Ross

Notwithstanding persons, organisms blindly follow how its soul is programmed to will towards in the sense you described: the soul moves towards the ends it is supposed to have relative to its nature. There's nothing absolutely free about it: wouldn't you agree?

A plant has no will, that's true. But your claim that a plant is "programmed" in the same sense that a mechanical zebra is "programmed" is not at all evident.

Again, my point is that a human artifact such as a mechanical zebra is merely following the instructions provided by its human creator. It has no substantial form. A plant is not merely following the instructions provided by its human creator. It has an intrinsic essence apart from human will.

Quoting Bob Ross

and so it does also abide by whatever natural algorithm is in place

This is another metaphor. A living, breathing zebra does not abide by an algorithm. To say that the zebra and the mechanical zebra are both "algorithmic" is an equivocation.

This is always the crux of the matter with mechanistic philosophy, by the way. Mechanistic philosophers think that natural phenomena are identical to machines. They think there is no qualitative difference between a zebra and a mechanical zebra. That seems to be the working thesis of much of your thought, especially when it comes to the way you give parts priority over wholes. With machines parts really do have priority over wholes, and so if nature is just a machine then reverse mereological essentialism is false.

Quoting Bob Ross

This doesn't mean the zebra cannot will against its nature whatsoever: it might will against avoiding an injury to preserve itself from a predator.

Would you say that a reckless and injurious flight from a predator is contrary to a zebra's nature? I wouldn't.

A zebra does have a nature, and a mechanical zebra does have an algorithm. The question is whether the nature and the algorithm are the same thing, and whether we can swap the two terms without loss of truth.

Quoting Bob Ross

1. What is Aristotle's view of the mind here? Is it a nothingness, a negativity, like Hegel? Is it pure form that is immaterial?

I'll let Aristotle experts argue about what he means by "pure from all admixture". Maybe he was thinking of Mind/Soul as the Ideal Form (actualizing principle) aspect of HyloMorph, which by analogy, converts amorphous clay into a meaningful or representative sculpture. But the purity specification (unadulterated) sounds like a reference to the 19th century notion of transparent Spiritual Energy (essence ; ectoplasm ; ghost) compared to the opaque Material Body (admixture of many substances).

However, my personal understanding of Mind is as a process (thinking) instead of a thing (physical entity). By that I mean : Mind is the function or purpose of Brain. For example, to coordinate all the various body parts, and to determine its place in space. Again, the material brain has many interacting parts (complexity), but the immaterial Mind, as a singular activity, is no-thing. Perhaps, as A.N. Whitehead suggested, it's a value-creating process. Yet, as in the notion of HyloMorph, Mind & Brain go together like clouds & weather; they are a team. :smile:

Reply to Leontiskos

Ok, I think I am understanding it better now. My mistake was that I was thinking a substantial form is merely the self-actualizing principle of a being; but it is really the [s]self[/s] actualizing principle of a substance. Iron has a substantial form: it's parts are essentially ordered towards the whole whereby if you destroy that ordering so goes the iron itself; whereas a chair has an unsubstantial form: it's parts are unessentially ordered towards the whole whereby if you destroy the ordering the parts remain the same kind of thing it was to begin with (e.g., the metal constituting the chair does not cease to be metal if the chair is taken apart).

A soul, then, is not identical to a substantial form; instead, it is a kind of substantial form that has a self-actualizing principle. This would entail, then, that a robot could never have a soul, even if it were self-actualizing, because it is not a substantial form: the parts are not essentially ordered to the whole.

Likewise, the unity in a robot, even if it were self-actualizing, would be accidental and not an essential one; so it would not be alive proper.

Assuming I am more on-point in this assessment than before, going back to how a soul begets another soul, the parents would have to somehow actualize the matter so that it can receive the soul; but the soul would have to somehow be educed from that process. I guess this chalks up to the basic and mysterious question of how a life-organism can be created; which is not a unique problem for Aristotle.

For the problem of interaction, I would say that Aquinas doesn't have the hard problem (since the soul and body are one substance); however, it does have the soft problem of how something immaterial can interact with something material. I'm not sure if he ever addresses that problem or not.

However, for Aquinas, since the rational soul is immaterial and subsistent and thusly has to be infused by God instead of being educed from a natural process, there is a further soft problem of how organisms which clearly did not have a rational soul could have evolved to have a rational soul (such as is the case with our transitionary species'). What do you think about that?

Quoting Bob Ross

Assuming I am more on-point in this assessment than before

I think it's definitely good progress. :up:
The general point is that a substance and an aggregate are two different kinds of things, and therefore it is hard to apply any single word to both of them. The mechanical zebra mimics the zebra, but for Aristotle at bottom they are two very different kinds of things.

Quoting Bob Ross

For the problem of interaction, I would say that Aquinas doesn't have the hard problem (since the soul and body are one substance); however, it does have the soft problem of how something immaterial can interact with something material. I'm not sure if he ever addresses that problem or not.

Yes, I don't think the question occurred to him, much like the question of how two corporeal substances interact perhaps never occurred to Descartes. Aquinas is very explicitly beginning with and discovering the whole before he discovers its parts. If he thought he discovered the parts before he discovered the whole, then he might have asked that question.

Quoting Bob Ross

However, for Aquinas, since the rational soul is immaterial and subsistent and thusly has to be infused by God instead of being educed from a natural process, there is a further soft problem of how organisms which clearly did not have a rational soul could have evolved to have a rational soul (such as is the case with our transitionary species'). What do you think about that?

Yes, I see that as another mysterious and common problem. It is the question of whether Evolution is sufficient to account for rationality.

Reply to Leontiskos :up:

Reply to Gnomon Ah, so you are a functionalist, then?

Functions point to ends; ends point to a form; and a form points to an essence.

A "mind" as a mere function is an abstraction of any being which has those kinds of faculties; but it does not suffice for accounting for what a mind is for such-and-such. E.g., my mind as a human a human mind, instead of an alien mind, because it inheres in my human substance.

The function of a leg may be the same for a human and an ostrich, but they have different kinds of legs in virtue of their nature. It seems like if we define a leg in terms of its function, then human's and ostriches both have legs in the same manner.

Quoting Bob Ross

then human's and ostriches both have legs in the same manner.

They do certainly seem to. As with chairs.

Quoting Bob Ross

Ah, so you are a functionalist, then?

I suppose you mean a Functionalist*1, as opposed to a Behaviorist or Materialist or some other theory of Consciousness. Technically, a Function is the relationship between Inputs (sensory data) and Outputs (reasoning & acting). Mind is a Process which coordinates multiple physical (running) & metaphysical (thinking) Functions, and seems well designed (by evolution) to serve those disparate Purposes.

But, as a layman, I am not well informed about all those alternative theories of Mind. I simply observe that the primary business of the human brain*2, with its cerebral cortex & frontal lobes, seems to be designed to negotiate our complex social & cultural organizations with Reasoning, Learning, and Predicting the behavior of other minds*3. :chin:


*1. "Functionalist" generally refers to an approach that emphasizes the function or purpose of something in relation to the whole, often in the context of social systems, psychology, or design. In sociology, it describes a theoretical perspective that views society as a complex system with interconnected parts, each playing a role in maintaining stability and order. In psychology, it focuses on the mind's adaptive functions and how mental processes help individuals interact with their environment. Additionally, "functionalist" can describe an approach in architecture and design that prioritizes utility and practicality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_(philosophy_of_mind)

*2. The primary function of the brain is to act as the central command center for the body, coordinating and regulating all bodily functions. This includes processing sensory information, initiating movement, controlling emotions, and enabling complex cognitive functions like thinking, learning, and memory.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=primary+function+of+brain

*3. The evolution of large human brains is likely due to a combination of factors, including environmental challenges, social complexity, and dietary changes. These factors likely influenced each other, driving the evolution of larger, more complex brains capable of processing more information and supporting advanced cognitive abilities.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=reason+for+big+brain


Quoting Bob Ross

Functions point to ends; ends point to a form; and a form points to an essence.

Yes. For example, an engineer designs a machine with a particular Function (end) in mind, and the Form of the machine is organized to serve that end, its Purpose. Yet, the Form of the machine is not the Material it's made of, but the Essential interrelationships of its construction (design). Those inter-acting functions seem to indicate that a human brain was designed (by evolution?) for a different Purpose (function) from that of an Ostrich. The tiny ostrich brain is well suited (designed) for its physical & social habitat : a bunch of long-legged bird-brains.

However, the human brain layout was originally "designed" (by evolution) for an ape's jungle environment. Nevertheless, in only a few generations, it has spawned & adapted to an un-natural cultural habitat --- cars, planes, phones, etc. --- which tend to minimize use of the leg functions, and maximize the brain functions. And yet, the functional flexibility of the human Mind allows a few athletes to run like an ostrich, while others become obese couch potatoes, or nerdy phone swipers. Somehow, evolution seemed to anticipate that, since the 19th century, we homo sapiens would need a body & brain designed for thinking instead of running, and swiping instead of swinging. :joke: