Abstract
Aristotle sternly rejects Platonic dualism, but nevertheless resists an ancient version of the identity theory of mind and body.1 Equally dissatisfied with each of these alternatives, he endeavors to analyze the relationship between soul and body by employing the notions of form and matter introduced in the Physics and articulated and expanded in the Metaphysics (Meta.). Thus, in the De Anima (DA) we find the familiar claim that “the soul is a substance as form of a natural body having life in potentiality” (DS 412a19–22),2 which Aristotle proceeds to illustrate by suggesting that the soul bears the same relation to the body as the shape of a candle does to its wax (DA 412b6–7). Both the claim and its illustration are in some ways obscure. But it is reasonably clear that these remarks represent Aristotle’s attempt to provide a workable alternative to both Platonism and an austere form of the identity theory. Aristotle is perhaps the first philosopher to seek an account of mind-body relations which captures the insights of these theories while avoiding their individual shortcomings. Indeed, Aristotle self-consciously views his position in the philosophy of mind in much the same way contemporary functionalists view their own. Like the contemporary functionalist, Aristotle seeks a theory of the mental which avoids what he regards as the excesses of his predecessors: his preferred account would capture the supervenience of the mental on the physical without identifying mental state types with physical state types. Moreover, beyond having analogous historical vantage points, Aristotle and contemporary functionalists share deep theoretical commitments. So deep are these commitments that it is fair to regard Aristotle as the first functionalist.
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Notes
See, e.g., Ned Block, “Introduction: What is Functionalism?” in N. Block (ed.), Readings in Philosophy of Psychology. Vol I (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980). p. 172: “The functionalisms of philosophy of psychology are, however. a closely knit group: indeed. they appear to have a common origin in the works of Aristotle.”
Paul Churchiand, Matter and Consciousness (Cambridge: The MIT Press. 1984). Chapter Two. Cf. Block. Readings. Vol. I. pp. 268–275; Jerry Fodor, Psychosemantics (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1987), pp. 67–68: and Georges Rey. “Functionalism and the Emotions” in A. O. Rorty (ed.), Explaining Emotions ( Berkeley: University of California Press. 1980 ). pp. 164–165.
This analysis of functional properties derives from Stephen Schiffer, Remnants of Meaning (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1987 ). Chapter Two. Of course. not all functionalists agree on precisely this analysis. but such differences as there are will not affect the present discussion.
See, e.g., Hilary Putnam, “Philosophy and Our Mental Life,” in Mind. Language, and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 291–303. Putnam rightly suggests that “two systems can have quite different constitutions and be functionally isomorphic” (p. 292) and cites Aristotle favorably in claiming: …what we are really interested in. as Aristotle saw [citing DA 412a6–64 is form and not matter. What is our intellectual form? is the question. not what the matter is. And whatever our substance may be, soul-stuff. or matter or Swiss cheese. it is not going to place any interesting restrictions on the answer to this question. (p. 302: his emphases)
See, e.g., Sydney Shoemaker, Personal Identity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984). p. 139: It is because I believe that there is an acceptable account of the mental and personal identity that is compatible with materialism. and because I believe there are independent reasons (roughly. the explanatory success of the physical sciences) for believing materialism to be true, that I am a materialist.
This •is not to suggest that all who call themselves functionalists are in agreement about the commitments of their theories. One main source of disagreement concerns whether (with “analytical functionalism”) functional definitions are formulated a priori or (with “psychofunctionalism”) are products of an empirical investigation. See Sydney Shoemaker. “Some Varieties of Functionalism.” Identity, Cause, and Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). p. 272. Also cf. Block. Readings. Vol. I. pp. 171–184 and 268–306. The account of functional ism I have just provided is intended only to sketch the minimal commitments any theory must satisfy to be regarded as functionalist. Although the theory I attribute to Aristotle does not move significantly beyond satisfying these minimal conditions, he would seem inclined toward what Shoemaker calls analytical functionalism.
Translations from the Greek incorporate brackets where I have expanded Aristotle’s characteristically terse prose for clarity of meaning.
Several points must be made about this passage from the Meteorologica: (1) it comes from a work whose authenticity has been doubted: (2) some translators regard it as locally qualified (it occurs in a passage concerning homoeomerous bodies. and some, e.g.. Lee. suppose it concerns these entities only): and (3) it states in an unrestricted form what elsewhere Aristotle tacitly restricts to classes with clear functions (erga). e.g.. natural kinds. But these observations do not undermine its utility here. since: (1) the Meteorologica is not spurious, or at any rate Book IV is genuine (cf. Konrad Gaiser. Iheophrast in Assos: Zur Entwicklung der Naturalwissenschaft zwischen Akademie and Peripatos (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1985), pp. 64–65, with review by Troels Engberg-Penderson. Classical Review. N. S.)(XXVII, 1987, pp. 53–57): (2) the language Aristotle uses suggests that he intends a general rather than qualified principle, and he elsewhere in similar contexts extends it beyond this restricted class, e.g.. De Partibut Animalium (PA). 640b18–23 (and even within this passage it is unclear why Aristotle would mention the eye if he were concerned only with homoeomerous bodies): and (3) human beings and mental states will certainly be included in any restricted formulation of the claim that function determines kind membership. Cf. Meta. 1029b23–1030a17 and Nicomachean Ethics. 1098a7–8.
This •is a common claim of Aristotle’s. Cf. DA 412b17–22. Meta. 1036b31–33, and esp. PA 640b34–641a5: “And yet a dead body has exactly the same configuration as a living one; but for all that it is not a man. So also no hand of bronze or wood constituted in any but the appropriate way can possibly be a hand except homonymously. For like a physician in a painting, or like a flute in a sculpture, it will be unable to perform its function. Precisely in the same way, no part of a dead body, e.g., as its eye or its hand, is really an eye or a hand.” T. H. Irwin, “Homonymy in Aristotle,” Review of Metaphysics 34 March, 1981 ), pp. 523–544.
See DA 403b3 (with Hicks’s note, Aristotle: De Anima (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1908), p. 202), 412b11, and esp. 414a25–27: “…the actuality of anything naturally comes to be in what is present potentially [as that thing]. i.e., in suitable manner,”
See W. D. Ross, Metaphysics,Vol. II, p. 207, n. 14, for the motivation for translating this difficult passage as I have. Shortly after this passage Aristotle rejects the position of one Socrates the Younger (Meta. 1036b25ff.) and insists that some matter must figure into the definition of man. I take him to mean only that since in humans non-intellective states are realized in functionally suitable matter, such matter must figure into the definition of man. See esp. 1036b30; cf. PA 645b15–22.
In this sense, Aristotle’s functionalism derives from a broadly based analysis of properties and kind membership. It is striking that on his account, mental states will not be peculiar in being susceptible to functional definitions. At least one contemporary functionalist, Shoemaker, has adopted this more comprehensive approach advocated by Aristotle. Shoemaker suggests that his commitment to a causal theory of properties (C1’P; roughly the view that a property is identified by its causal potentialities) entails weak functionalism, where weak functionalism is the view that mental properties, like all other proper ties, are individuated in terms of their causal features. Though Cif P neither entails nor is entailed by FD, the positions are analogous in that both Aristotle and Shoemaker suggest that functionalism in the philosophy of mind tumbles out of a broader analysis of properties and state types. The principal difference is that we find in Aristotle no clear attempt to differentiate strong from weak functionalism. (See section VI below.) Cf. Shoemaker, “Causality and Properties,” and “Some Varieties of Functionalism.” sections V-VIII together with McGuinn’s review of Shoemaker’s Identity, Cause, and Mind, Journal of Philosophy LXXXIV (April, 1987 ), p. 230.
See also PA 656a35–37, 658b27–659b19: DA 421b9–422a6.
Indeed, Artistotle suggests at DA 403a22–24 that simply being in a token of a certain physiological state type normally associated with a given mental state type is not sufficient for being in that mental state. Thus, having one’s blood boil is not sufficient for anger. This suggests: (a) that Aristotle rightly resists any type-type identification of the mental with the physical, and more importantly. (b) that a given physiological state will have the property of being a certain mental state only when that state has the appropriate causal inputs and outputs, as when it plays the functional role constitutive of anger (cf. Meta. 1036b25–27); and (c) that Aristotle marks a rudimentary distinction between what Shoemaker calls core and total realizations of mental states. See Some Varieties of Functionalism,“ section II. Cf. also Edwin Hartman. Substance, body. and Soul ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977 ). p. 147.
See. e.g., R. Manning, “Materialism. Dualism. and Functionalism in Aristotle’s Philosophy of Mind.” Apeiron DOC (1985), pp. 11–23. In an unpublished manuscript, “Changing Aristotle’s Mind.” M. Nussbaum and H. Putnam establish some similarities. An earlier discussion of some of these issues occurs in A. Kosman. ‘Perceiving That We Perceive: On the Soul III. 2.“ Philosophical Review 84 (1975). pp. 499–519. Two philosophically sophisticated discussions of this topic are Edwin Hartman, Substance, Body, and Soul. Chapter Four, section V. and S. Sparkman. ”Aristotle’s Philosophy of Mind: Does He Give a Functionalist Account?,“ M. A. Thesis. University of Arizona. 1987.
H. M. Robinson. “Mind and Body in Aristotle.” Classical Quarterly 28 (1978), pp. 105–124. A more concessive rejection of my thesis is to be found in D. K. W. Modrak, Aristotle: The Power of Perception (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1987 ). Chapters One and Two.
Modrak, p. 28.
Modrak, p. 184, n. 18; cf. also p. 187. n. 53, and p. 190, n. 26.
Modrak. p. 28.
Modrak, p.28.
The account of functionalism one often sees advanced is, then, properly weak functionalism. See, e.g., Ned Block. “Are Absent Qualia Impossible?”, Philosophical Review’ 89(1980), p. 257: cf. Georges Rey. “Functionalism and the Emotions.” esp. p. 165: “Suffice it to say that philosophers [viz. functionalists] gradually came to find mental states inextricably intertwined, in such a way that no one state could properly be identified without mention of the others, no one of them. there fore, being ‘reducible’ to nonmental terms.” Consequently, even if Aristotle’s functionalism is non-reductive, this will not distinguish him from many practicing contemporary functionalists.
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Shields, C. (1991). The First Functionalist. In: Smith, JC. (eds) Historical Foundations of Cognitive Science. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 46. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2161-0_2
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