As a student of Plato, Aristotle spent twenty years at his Academy. However, the habit of thinking independently led to the fact that in the end the philosopher began to come to his own conclusions. They markedly differed from the theories of the teacher, but the truth was more expensive than personal affection, which gave rise to the famous saying. In fact, having created the foundations of modern European science and logical thinking, the philosopher distinguished himself in the field of psychology. What Aristotle wrote about the soul is still being studied now in high school.
First of all, the thinker believes that this element of the human psyche has a dual nature. On the one hand, it is material, and on the other, divine. Having written a special treatise On the Soul, Aristotle pays attention to this issue in his other works. Therefore, we can say that this problem is one of the central in his philosophical system. It is known that he divided everything that exists into two parts. The first is physics, that is, the material world. The second is the kingdom of the gods. He called it metaphysics. But when we try to understand what Aristotle thought about the soul, we see that from his point of view both of these worlds have an impact on the psyche.
The philosopher divided the book devoted to this question into three parts. In the first, he analyzed what his predecessors thought of the soul. But in the second part, he considers the problem in detail, based on his logical and systematic approach. Here he comes to the conclusion that the soul is a practical realization of the ability of a natural body to live (“entelechy”). Therefore, it is possessed by all creatures - and plants, and animals, and people. In addition, Aristotle reflected on the soul, since the essence of any thing is its form, the ability to live can be characterized in the same way.
But there is a difference between the different types of “body entelechy”. The plant and animal souls cannot exist either without matter or without it. The psyche is wherever life can be ascertained. The vegetative soul is distinguished by the ability to eat. Therefore, the plant can develop. The animal soul has this ability and the ability to feel and touch. This is the sensuality inherent in a higher level of development. But there is a third kind of life form, as Aristotle said about the soul. It is inherent only to
sentient beings. They must be able to reason and reflect.
In fact, the philosopher believed that man has three souls. It has both a vegetative and a plant form. Unlike Plato, Aristotle proves that the presence of these souls in a person is connected with matter, and their condition directly depends on the body. However, these forms have their own hierarchy. A rational soul dominates all of them. It is also “entelechy”, but not the body, because it belongs to eternity. The philosopher suggests
that such a soul does not die, because there is in fact a different kind of "higher form" that can exist separately from matter and in no way come into contact with it at all. And that is God. Therefore, the rational soul belongs to metaphysics. The ability to think can and should exist separately from the body. This conclusion Aristotle makes about the soul. A summary of the treatise of the same name you read in this article.