Abstract
Recently, a strong hylomorphic reading of Aristotelian emotions has been put forward, one that allegedly eliminates the problem of causal interaction between soul and body. Taking the presentation of emotions in de An. I 1 as a starting point and basic thread, but relying also on the discussion of Rh. II, I will argue that this reading only takes into account two of the four causes of emotions, and that, if all four of them are included into the picture, then a causal interaction of mind and body remains within Aristotelian emotions, independent of how strongly their hylomorphism is understood. Beyond the discussion with this recent reading, the analysis proposed of the fourfold causal structure of emotions is also intended as a hermeneutical starting point for a comprehensive analysis of particular emotions in Aristotle. Through the different causes Aristotle seems to account for many aspects of the complex phenomenon of emotion, including its physiological causes, its mental causes, and its intentional object.
A first version of this paper was read at the Colloquium ‘Soul and Mind in Greek Thought . Psychological Issues in Plato and Aristotle’ in Santiago de Chile. I warmly thank all the participants of the conference for their comments and suggestions, and especially Marcelo Boeri and Javier Echeñique : both made observations that saved me from oversimplifying some important points. All the remaining flaws are on my account. The final version of this article was produced while the author held a FONDECYT Grant 1170125.
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- 1.
- 2.
Cf. Leighton 1996, p. 230.
- 3.
- 4.
Aristotle makes clear then that the arousal of emotions he will discuss is the one produced by the orator through speech (διὰ τοῦ λόγου, Rh. I 2, 1356a1 or ὑπὸ τοῦ λόγου, 1356a14), for this is precisely what distinguishes a technical from a non-technical rhetorical move (1355b35–39).
- 5.
R. Solomon , one of the prominent contemporary theorists on emotions, claims that in Rh. Aristotle ‘developed a strikingly modern theory of emotion that stands up to most contemporary criticism’ which he associates with modern cognitivist theories of emotions (Solomon 2003, p. 1; cf. also Goldie 2000, pp. 23–28, for a modern appraisal of Aristotle’s discussion of emotions in Rh. II). Solomon himself, being a cognitivist, finds an antecedent of his own position in the Aristotelian conception of emotions of Rh. Modern so-called cognitivist theories of emotion tend to ascribe a prominent role to beliefs in emotions; to this extent, they stand against Jamesian theories, that understand the emotion as the perception of a physiological disturbance, this physiological factor having causal and essential priority in the emotion. There is also, however, some debate among Aristotelian scholars about the cognitive nature of the emotions in Aristotle, but I am afraid that in this debate the term ‘cognitivist’ is used in a slightly different way than in the above mentioned debates, namely it refers to the view that an intellectual, intelligent or rational element is essential to the Aristotelian emotions. This view which sometimes is also called ‘doxastic reading’ is not necessarily opposed to some form of Jamesianism but to the tenet that the emotions are essentially irrational for Aristotle. For a defense of a strong cognitivist (or doxastic) reading of Aristotelian emotions see especially Fortenbaugh 2002; a different view is held by Cooper 1996, based mostly on the treatment of Rh. I 10, and more recently J. Moss 2012 argues extensively for the reading that emotions are not functions of the intellect but are essentially non-rational. Outside Aristotelian scholarship, a robust position against the over-intellectualization of emotions in the contemporary debate is maintained by Goldie 2000.
- 6.
A probable reason that appetite (ἐπιθυμία) is present within the list of emotions in Rh. I 10; cf. infra note 16.
- 7.
Cf. MA 8, 702a3–19. For a good discussion of chapters Rh. I 10–13 and the role of emotions in the Aristotelian theory of action and in the forensic context, see Viano 2010.
- 8.
- 9.
Aristotle also sees emotions as playing a relevant part in excellence of character, which is characterized precisely as lying in a mean relative to us concerning actions and emotions. In other words, it is the acquired disposition of doing and feeling what is right or appropriate in the particular circumstance of action. In the ethical writings there is not a systematic and unitary treatment of emotions comparable to the one in Rh., however. From the point of view of practical reason, emotions are also a point of intersection between the rational and the irrational: according to EN I 13, they belong to the irrational part of the soul, which can ‘listen’ to reason. What does Aristotle exactly mean by this figure is not clear: according to more intellectualist readings, the image means that the irrational part is (or can be) open to reasoned persuasion or admonition apparently each time it feels an emotion (cf. Fortenbaugh 2002, pp. 29–32); other readings focus on the way the rational part ‘shapes’ the irrational part through early education (cf. esp. Sherman 1989, pp. 162–164, 171–174, cf. 27, 31; cf. Moss 2012, pp. 168–169). I will not deal here with this problem: the place of emotions in relation to excellence and their relation to practical reason falls out of the scope of this article. For a good discussion of this issue, see esp. Sherman 1989, pp. 44–50, 165–174; and the lucid observations of Striker 1996, pp. 293–299 and Nussbaum 1996.
- 10.
This is a theoretical episteme; for a discussion about the possibility of a full-fledged science of soul, see R. Polansky 2007, pp. 34–5.
- 11.
All English translations of Aristotle’s texts are based on the ROT edited by J. Barnes , with minor modifications.
- 12.
This is the kind of accidents that belong per se to a substance–for this reason Aristotle calls them ‘essential’ (καθ’ αὑτό)–, like ‘having the interior angles equal to a right angle’ belongs to the triangle. These accidents can be demonstrated from the definition of the substance; cf. APo. I 10, 76b12–22; Metaph. V 30, 1025a30–35.
- 13.
δῆλον ὅτι διαλεκτικῶς εἴρηνται καὶ κενῶς ἅπαντες (403a2). The use of διαλεκτικῶς and λογικῶς (both expressions can be synonymous, cf. Bonitz 1961, 432a9) in a negative sense in methodological passages is common in Aristotle; cf. GC I 2, 316a8–13, I 8, 325a13; EE I 8, 1217b21; GA II 8, 747b28–30, and esp. 748a13–14.
- 14.
ὀργίζεσθαι, θαρρεῖν, ἐπιθυμεῖν, ὅλως αἰσθάνεσθαι (403a7). Polansky 2007, p. 50, claims that the affections mentioned here are actually operations (ἔργα) of the soul. All these have in common, also, that they are temporary and not permanent; this is what distinguishes affections from other sorts of qualities according to Cat. 9b28–35, 10a6–10.
- 15.
Cf. also Cat. 9b5–9.
- 16.
The case of appetite (ἐπιθυμία) in particular is controversial. Appetite is sometimes mentioned by Aristotle within lists of emotions (cf. for instance EN 1105b21–23, MA 8, 702a2–4) as one of them. Moreover, in Rh. I 10 ἐπιθυμία and θυμός are mentioned as irrational desires (1369a4) and, as causes of actions, both seem to fall under the class of emotions (as opposed to reasoning) in 1369a17–18. (On the θυμός here see Cooper 1996, p. 238 and 249.) The ἐπιθυμία is also mentioned in passing in Rh. II 1, 1378a3, as one of the factors that can influence judgment, and again in II 12, 1388b32–33 as one of the emotions, alongside anger. One could conjecture that the reason that ἐπιθυμία and its intentional object (real or apparent pleasure) are discussed within the treatment of Rh. I 10–11 is that this affection seems suitable to explain why someone performs an action. However, the question remains why, if it is also a factor that affects judgment, ἐπιθυμία is not discussed in the chapters Rh. II 2–11, together with other emotions. However this may be, the debate about the status of ἐπιθυμία in relation to πάθη is one of the battlefields of the discussion between cognitivists (or doxastic) and non-intellectualist readings or Aristotelian emotions.
- 17.
παθημάτων in 403a20 must allude to the mental aspect of the emotion, for Aristotle claims immediately that excitement or fear (i.e. the full-fledged emotion) do not happen.
- 18.
‘Reason’ is one of the (many) possible meanings of λόγος, and it seems to me that it fits well with the general drift of the passage: the idea is that emotions involve mental states that are due to some cognitive representation (more on this below), and that cannot happen without a body or matter. Another possible translation is ‘form’, understood as the ontological component of the emotion that corresponds to the soul, and surely Aristotle has this sense in mind also, for in the next lines he goes on to argue that the definition of any emotion should include its form as well as its matter.
- 19.
In the same line, see Chap. 8, Sect. 8.5, for a detailed analysis of the emotions as particularly clear examples of Aristotle’s ‘co-dependence of soul and body view’. It is true that in some emotions the physical experience is more distinct than in others. The physical sensations of joy or pity, for instance, seem to be more diffusing than those of fear or anger. However, in general, the bodily alterations that occur when one feels an emotion are a matter of common self-awareness. The paradigmatic value of emotions in de An. is also not without problems; there is a debate in the literature among spiritualists and literalists about the extent to which these can indeed be taken as a paradigm for every affection of soul, and particularly to sense-perception. While literalists tend to take Aristotle’s claims in de An. I 1 seriously and hence consider the physiological component as an essential necessary condition of sense-perception, the spiritualists (notably M. Burnyeat) deny that sense-perception involves essentially a bodily or physiological component, and hence deny the extension of the casual scheme of emotions to every affection of soul; for a good treatment of this debate, see Boeri 2010, pp. cxxxvii-cxlvii.
- 20.
This condition is not met when the body has the opposite temperature to that required by the emotion, either by the influence of another emotion or due to an illness, age, etc. For this reason Aristotle claims in Rh. II 13, 1389b29–32, that old people are more prone to feel fear than young people (the old men’s body is usually cold because of their age, as fear requires it to be; while young people are normally warmer). References to the bodily temperature that belongs with different emotions are also in EN 1149a30 (the θυμός has a hot nature), PA 650b27–30 (animals with watery blood are cooler and hence more prone to feel fear), Resp. 479b19–26 (fear is associated with a cooling of the heart). There is also an interesting suggestion in EN 1178a14–16 that some excellences of character are also due to the body, and cf. also 1178a19–21, quoted below in section 4 (b).
- 21.
Cf. 403b1–3.
- 22.
From this passage it already emerges that what triggers the emotion, including the movement of the body involved in it, is in the last term a mental or representational stimulation (more on this below).
- 23.
Cf. also Metaph. Z 11, 1037a16–17.
- 24.
This seems to be precisely the methodological error former thinkers made when studying the relationship between soul and body, according to Aristotle (cf. de An. I 3, 407b12–25).
- 25.
Cf. Charles 2011.
- 26.
Natural things are not what they are because of being in accordance with their matter (κατὰ τὴν ὕλην), but that does not mean that they can be what they are without that particular matter (οὔτ’ ἄνευ ὕλης) (194a14–15); cf. 194b12–13, Metaph. E 1, 1026a6, and also the parallel expression about matter as hypothetical necessity in Ph. II 9, 200a 5–6, 8–10.
- 27.
Rapp 2006.
- 28.
Charles 2011.
- 29.
Charles 2011, p. 81.
- 30.
- 31.
Charles 2011, pp. 82 ff.. It should be noted, though, that not all the emotions are defined (or easily understood) as desires. Actually, the only emotion explicitly defined in Rh. as a desire (ὄρεξις) is anger; cf. also Top. VIII 1, 156a31 (ὁ ὀργιζόμενος ὀρέγεται τιμωρίας) and 32 (ἡ ὀργὴ ὄρεξις εἶναι τιμωρίας).
- 32.
Cf. MA 8, 701a33ff.
- 33.
- 34.
As D. Charles defines them, post-Cartesian readings hold the two component reading, i.e. they understand that there is a purely mental item and a purely corporeal item which interact. Among the ‘familiar options’ of post-Cartesian philosophy Charles counts dualism, materialism , functionalism and spiritualism (cf. Charles 2011, p. 76). Aristotle’s position would be a radical alternative to all these, according to this author. A contemporary version of this sort of reading in experimental psychology is the theory of emotions of Schachter-Singer, which sometimes is actually called the ‘two factor’ of ‘two component’ theory of emotion.
- 35.
Rapp 2006, p. 207. This author claims, moreover, that this is an intentional move on Aristotle’s part: ‘Since Aristotle ... pleads ... for the model of emotions as psycho-physical units it seems safe to conclude that he deliberately avoids a setting which allows of causal interaction between body and soul.’ (207). A lucid analysis showing that Aristotle in fact perceived this causal interaction as a problem can be found in Chap. 8 in this volume.
- 36.
A necessary condition for this reading to hold is that the components of the emotion have themselves no purely physical and mental components; against this last tenet see the critical arguments of Caston 2008, pp. 30–49. Charles 2011, pp. 87–89, has an argument to defend himself against this objection, for he pleads that the connate pneuma (which extracts and expands thanks to the heat / cold that accompanies desire, thus causing bodily movements, cf. MA 10, 703a9–24) is also itself an inextricably psychophysical phenomenon and its movements cannot be defined without reference to its goals. I’m not sure that Charles argument works, for it seems to put on the same level psychophysical phenomena involving mental events as formal causes (such as desire), and psychophysical phenomena which do not involve a mental event as its formal cause (such as the movements of pneuma in the processes of nutrition and reproduction). This becomes more problematic, I think, if one remembers that Aristotle’s explanation of the matter’s movements in general (and not only of organic matter) is not mechanistic but rather qualitative, so that a teleological dimension of a movement is not a warrant of the presence of soul (much less of mind).
- 37.
The discussion in Fortenbaugh 2002 is an important antecedent of this sort of reconstruction. This author emphasizes the role of beliefs and opinions as the efficient cause of the emotion based on passages of Top., APo and of course Rh. II, along the formal and material causes presented in de An. I. After his seminal work, there has been much debate about whether it is opinion or φαντασία that have this role. I will refer to this debate below. Rapp 2008, p. 52, also acknowledges that the causal structure of emotions should be analyzed from the Aristotelian perspective of the four causes, but his subsequent analysis is restricted to only to two of them: form and matter.
- 38.
For a different reading, see Rapp 2006.
- 39.
Cf. Ph. I 1; I 6, 189b 16, 27–29; Metaph. XII 4 passim.
- 40.
This is essentially the same claim Aristotle makes in de An. I 4, 408a34-408b18: it is the man who experiences these things (being bold or fearful, being angry, etc.).
- 41.
Probably for this reason, Aristotle claims that arousing emotions in the audience is especially useful in forensic oratory, i.e. when the orator tries to influence judges when he defends or charges somebody with a crime (Rh. II 1, 1377b29-1378a5; cf. I 2, 1356a15–16; 1354b3–11). Due probably to the physical alteration the involve, they also have a distorting effect on sense-perception, cf. Insomn. 460b3–11 (for a good discussion of this passage see Leigthon 1996).
- 42.
This is not as easy to detect in every emotion described by Aristotle; the clearest counterexample is hatred (cf. Rh. 1382a11–13). There has been some debate about whether pleasure and pain are the genus of emotions (as it happens in Plato’s Phlb.) or not; D. Frede 1996 has argued for this reading which is also endorsed by Cooper 1996, but the majority of interpreters nowadays are inclined to think that Aristotle abandoned the Platonic position on this point, even when pain and pleasure are important components of emotions (cf. for instance Dow 2011, Moss 2012, Rapp 2013).
- 43.
Cf. EN II 1104b14–15.
- 44.
This sort of priority is not usually expressed as the form ὑπὸ τοῦδε matter happens, for this reason I understand that form is not in part (b) of the definition, but is together with matter in (a).
- 45.
Anger is defined as a desire in Rh., in de An., and also in Top. VIII 1, 156a32–33. Of course, this is not the only case: in Rh. I 10, emotions are closely linked to irrational desires, such as appetite (for the discussion about ἐπιθυμία see supra note 16), and the reason is probably that emotions are considered in this chapter as probable causes of actions. This accent on their motivational role accounts for their being treated as desires, for desire (rational or irrational) is the efficient cause of action (de An. III 11). There is also a reference to hatred being ἔφεσις ... κακοῦ in Rh. II 4, 1382a8, and to friendly feelings as wishing (βούλεσθαι) for someone what one deems good (1380b36–37). I admit that it is not easy, though, to reconstruct every emotion or feeling as a desire for something (even when it is possible to say that all emotions have intentional objects).
- 46.
Cf. de An. I 4, 408b11–13. For the bodily aspect of emotions also in Rh. see supra note 20.
- 47.
The role of a representational factor as the moving cause of the supra emotion is mostly uncontroversial. There is a standing debate, though, about the exact nature of this representation, especially about whether it is a φαντασία or a belief. More on this below. Given the closeness between rhetoric and dialectic, some authors claim that the treatment and definitions of emotions of Rh. II are dialectical (cf. Cooper 1996; and esp. Rapp 2006) in the sense that Aristotle describes in de An. I 1; i.e. that they pick up only the form-cause or account of the emotion. A closer look at the matter shows that it is really the moving cause that is mainly discussed in Rh.
- 48.
The causal vocabulary to refer to this factor in these chapters of Rh. II appears more than once (cf. for instance 1380a1, 1380b35, 1388b29). This cause of the emotion is often referred to as the object of the emotion (for instance: what is feared, hated, etc.).
- 49.
Cf. esp. MA 7, 701b16–23, Ib. 8, 701b34-702a7, and esp. 702a17–19 for the role of φαντασία in the production of emotions.
- 50.
Some places where verbs associated with intellectual assent are mentioned as the trigger of emotion are Rh. II 1378b2, 1382b31–34, 1383a26, 33, 35, 1385b20–22 (diverse forms of οἴομαι), 1383a4, 1385b24 (diverse forms of νομίζω).
- 51.
- 52.
- 53.
Cf. de An. III 3, 428a18-b9. Some places where φαντασία and derivatives are mentioned as the trigger of emotion are Rh. II 1382a21,25,28, 1383a17, 1385b13, 15–16, 1387b23, 26. In Aristotle’s treatment of pleasure found on Rh. I 11, φαντασίαι are more clearly given a central role. Around twelve sources of pleasure (mentioned for the orator to be able to arouse that sensation in the hearers) are mentioned, and in at least four of them a φαντασία is the cause of the subsequent pleasure; cf. 1370b33–34, 1371a9, 1371a19–20.
- 54.
- 55.
- 56.
- 57.
- 58.
Cf. Leighton 1996, p. 211.
- 59.
Cf. MA 8, 701b35–36.
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Rossi, G. (2018). The Causal Structure of Emotions in Aristotle: Hylomorphism, Causal Interaction between Mind and Body, and Intentionality. In: Boeri, M.D., Kanayama, Y.Y., Mittelmann, J. (eds) Soul and Mind in Greek Thought. Psychological Issues in Plato and Aristotle. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78547-9_9
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