Excerpts from the 1996 translation by J. O. Urmson, with page numbers of the translation.
From the opening
(p. 15)
"The primary and most important object of concern is the truth about things themselves, both about other things and concerning the soul, which is the most relevant of all for us. Second to this is awareness of the opinions of those who have reached the summit of scientific knowledge. That is why I think it necessary to study very carefully Aristotle’s work On the Soul. Indeed, many divine insights about the soul have been handed down by Plato also; but these have been studied and clarified by Plato’s interpreters sufficiently and with unanimity. But, while Aristotle brought the study of the soul to completion, as is the opinion of Iamblichus, that excellent judge of truth, there is much dissension among those who explain his work, not merely about the interpretation of Aristotle’s text, but also greatly about the subject-matter itself.
That is why I myself decided to investigate and write of the consistency of the philosopher both with himself and also with the truth. I shall avoid rejoinders to others, but confirm my views on doubtful matters from the clear opinions and statements of Aristotle. Everywhere I shall strive to the uttermost for the truth about things in accordance with the teaching of Iamblichus in his own writings about the soul. That is my sole concern. And now, under the Guide who is the cause of all souls and all reasoning, let us start upon the projected work."
The study of the soul is partly physical, partly metaphysical
(p. 16)
"[W]hatever is intellective is the province of first philosophy, which is cognisant of the intelligible and of the intellect which contemplates the intelligible – not only transcendent intellect but also that in us. For things THERE are intelligible to intellect in us, and the intellect and the intelligible, being correlatives, are studied by one and the same discipline, as are the sensitive and the sensible. So the study of the soul is neither simply natural nor simply metaphysical, but belongs to both, as was determined by Aristotle[.]"
On the same
(p. 17)
"Or, it may be put in another way, which the text will make clear, when Aristotle also investigates the same matter: summing up, Aristotle, in the passage before us says: ‘So it is clear that we (natural
scientists, obviously) are not to speak of all soul; for not all soul is natural, but some one or more parts of it.’ Since he himself includes the intellect of the soul in his discussions and not only the natural parts, it is clear that the investigation of the soul is not entirely natural. So let that be our conclusion."
Aristotle's De anima is only about the souls of mortals, not the gods
(p. 17)
"But the scope of the investigation seems to include only the soul of mortal animals. For he seems to take no account of the soul of the heavenly beings, except so far as in his strictures on the mathematical demonstrations about it in the Timaeus. Perhaps he was satisfied with the Platonic insights about it as sufficient, merely commenting that one should not rely on what appears from mathematics. Perhaps also he judged that it was fit to refer to the heavenly soul by what was said about the sublimity of our intellect. ‘For’, he says, ‘it is clear that he <Plato> intends the soul of the universe to be such as is the so-called intellect. For it is not like the sensitive or desirous element.’ For the soul of the universe is pure and intellective reason, wholly and throughout unmixed with secondary lives, because it does not itself come to belong to bodies, but they <come to belong> to the
soul, while it remains at rest in itself. Therefore its travel is circular because of its reversion, whole to whole, upon itself. Also he clearly is not concerned with the various destinies of the human soul nor
most of the choices among ways of life, knowing that the account of these matters has been sufficiently worked out by our leader. But he does not take the soul to be inseparable from the body; for he gives the explanation of our not remembering separated life in Book 3, clearly as existing before our arrival into bodies. Studying primarily the soul of mortals alone, he leaves not one of
its powers and character uninvestigated."
The souls of the celestial bodies
(p. 41)
"For in whatever it resides, nature is the principle of that thing’s being moved, not of its initiating motion. But the soul is not so simply, but <is the principle> of internally initiated living motion. So it does not merely bring about the motion of living things, but it itself moves them. So the life introduced to the body is the principle of such motion in that which moves in a living way. But, since he terms this not simply soul but either a part of the soul or not without soul, we went on to the soul that endows bodies with motion, a more powerful kind of soul than is life, which he distinguishes as the source of motion. He himself treats the soul as the source of motion, but not primarily and especially the soul of generated things, which is now the subject under discussion. But the souls of the heavenly beings are such primarily and especially, unless indeed intellect precedes even these. But our souls do not move mortal bodies, to speak summarily, completely on their own, but they determine the end in relation to something arising from outside, as is said in the Physics, and, because of their inclination towards bodies, they are in motion accidentally and could not be primarily and especially sources of motion. Here not even the moving causes of the planets are so, whether they
be souls or intellects, since they do not on their own control their entire motion."
On Anaxagoras and Empedocles
(p. 41)
"... Anaxagoras ... does not clearly call the intellect, which he treats as the first mover, soul, ...
Empedocles... says that love and strife, not souls, cause motion, ..."
The First and subsequent Movers
(p.42)
"[T]he mover is the cause and motion the effect, it is necessary that the first cause should not be in motion in any way, in order that it may rest purely in the cause of producing motion. But Plato requires intermediate causes to be in motion, as descending from the intellect that is the first mover, but not in motion of a bodily kind which is lowest in the chain and belongs to things that are merely moved. For in the Laws the motion of the soul is mentioned tenth, after the eight bodily motions, and the natural motion that is ninth. For in Plato nature also is in motion, because of its descent from the undivided state, and still more the soul. But Aristotle names only bodily motion, and forbids it being added to any of the causes of motion."
On the First Mover; Democritus and Anaxagoras on intellect
(pp. 44f)
"For even if intellect is the first mover while itself altogether motionless, still it is so together with the soul and nature. So if the soul and nature are in motion, the complex from them and intellect will be a
moving cause of motion. He recalled Anaxagoras who made intellect the cause of motion as himself also saying that it was soul that initiated motion; but he adds ‘but not entirely in the same way as Democritus’. For, since Democritus does not distinguish even the inerrant cognitive faculty that we call intellect from that which is sometimes deceived, such as the life of perception, imagination and
belief, because he claims that all appearance is true, Aristotle says that he treats intellect as identical with soul – clearly such as is cognitive. So he recounts the praise of Democritus for Homer, who depicted Hector as lying with wits distraught because of the blow, although it is the discerning power of the composite that is damaged by the blow to the body, and not that separate from body. This he calls a faculty of the soul receptive of truth, – clearly the intellect as the source of wisdom, being capable of knowledge. It is nothing remarkable that Homer uses words indifferently by poetic licence. But Democritus, by praising him, clearly calls all forms of knowledge intellect in the sense of wisdom.
But he says that Anaxagoras does not altogether treat soul and intellect as the same, because he does not do so clearly and because he seems to say the opposite. For sometimes he assigns only true knowledge to intellect, and thus separates it in a way from soul as not being all of it receptive of truth, except by its highest faculty. But sometimes he declares intellect to be present in all living things and treats it as the same as soul. For soul is present in all, but not intellect, unless someone were to call imagination intellect. With this Aristotle contrasts intellect as wisdom, and says that this is not present in all, seeing that it is not present in all men. For they are few who can contemplate the truth by scientific wisdom. So it is not present in all men, not because they lack the intellectual faculty, since the soul is a unit possessing all powers, but because they do not use it."
Opinions about the soul
(p. 48)
"Since, as he himself narrates, those who have philosophised about the soul compound it from principles, they composed the soul out of such and so many principles as each of them posited. The students of nature made them corporeal, the Pythagoreans and Plato incorporeal, while Empedocles and Anaxagoras made it a mixture of both."
Thales contrasted with Hippo
(p. 51)
"Thales also made water the element, but of bodies, and he did not think that the soul was in any way body. But as one would expect, Hippo (who, they say, was also an atheist, which is why in the Metaphysics Aristotle did not class him with the natural scientists) also here calls worthless, not merely because he says that the soul is a more dense element – for he even thought fit to defend him on that count, by setting out the ground for this conception – but especially because of his atheism."
This is essentially Aristotle's interpretation of Thales' teaching, which makes him something of a Platonist.
On traditional opinions
(p. 53)
"The aim is to examine traditional opinions and to refute whatever is said falsely; also to spell out anything traditional that is not in accord with the customary use of words, so that we may not through it be deceived into accepting the opinions of our ancestors and approving them as true because of the prestige of their authors."
The resurrection of the dead
(p. 57)
"For if the body originates the same changes as the soul undergoes, and, conversely, it undergoes the same changes as are originated by the soul, it will change in no way other than those in which the body does, the changes in the body by the soul being predominantly of place. Also the vital changes of the soul will be of place, since it lives only by being present through bodily motion within and dies only through its departure. From this follows the resurrection of the dead, the soul being able to be moved spatially and to go in and out."
The resurrection of the dead is meant as an absurdity.
How the Pythagoreans philosophised
(p. 61)
"The Pythagoreans were accustomed to philosophise symbolically via mathematics about the supernatural, the soul and natural phenomena. Plato makes Timaeus play the part of a Pythagorean, and so, as he assigns the five straight-sided solids to the simple bodies, so he depicts the being of the soul of the universe by straight lines and lines curved in a circle, in order to display at the same time its mean place between the undivided and the substance divided amongst bodies, just as the line is a mean between the point and solids, and, at the same time, a descent most close to intellect. It also depicts the undistorted procession from itself, which the straight line signifies, and its reversion upon itself by the line curved in a circle, just as by the bisection of the one straight line and division again into seven of the interior line, it displays its causal comprehension of the heavenly spheres through its own mean place. For it does not do so indivisibly, like intellect, but by development, as soul of which the circular lines are symbols, just as the motion of these lines is symbolic of the life of the soul. For even if intellect also moves the heavens, it is with the soul as well which, through its own developing life as intermediate, leads the indivisible kinetic energy of the intellect into the continuous and divisible activity of the heavens. It is this alone that this philosopher calls motion, and he contradicts Timaeus about his ascription of a divided extension and activity to the soul, lest we, following the customary use of words, should so understand Plato, or think it to be a magnitude or motion in a bodily manner. It is clear also that its connection with the body is not to be understood as spatial, but because of its immediate and essential presence throughout the body."
Cognition in the hypostasis of Intellect and in divine souls
(pp. 69f)
"The intellect superior to ours does have the same object of thought always, but not many times. The thought is not repetitive nor at all in extended form, nor at different instants; rather it stays at a single now, indivisibly comprehending the whole temporal infinitude, so that it does not have the same thought many times but once, as the eternal is once. But our thought that moves on, does not do so from the same to the same but from one thing to another, and it returns to the same object through intermediates. But if intellection were the revolution, it would recur and not be eternal and would move on from itself to itself without any other intermediates.
Perhaps it is nothing odd that the same thing should recur at different instants, being within temporal duration, finite for generated things but infinite for those in the heavens, since the being of natural things is not eternal, so as to rest in a single now. Why, then, is the intellection also of divine souls not one in this sense that it is always of all things and not in transition, but does not, as if being eternal, remain in a single now (since the eternal is superior to the psychic), but, while identical, remains from instant to instant in infinite continuity? In this way it is subordinated to the intellect above soul, as also in its contact with the intelligible; the thinking of the latter intellect is through undivided unity, that of the former <i.e. the divine souls> by a sort of touch. In the former case the manifold of intellections is separated only in form, while, by its indivisible connection, each intellection is what the others are, and thus complete. In the case of the divine souls the connection of the cognitions with each other and that of the objects of cognition with themselves, not being purely indivisible, is already pregnant with division. So, if now and now there is the same intellection, why is it absurd that it should many times think of the same object? It is, I shall say, because in the hypothesis it is not the same thing, but is in transformation, if the rotation is intellection. So intellection is not a simultaneous whole but like ours, who do not yet know the whole but whoprogress towards it through having previously known the essence, then the animate, and in turn the sensitive and thus the whole living thing. But it is absurd for this to recur again and again. For intellection, once complete, has no need of this in the case of divine souls, for it is more evident in their case – not to mention the need for infinite repetition when not once is it needed. But ‘it is more like a pause and a halt than a change’, especially since in our case, who draw different conclusions from different things, which is argument, the stopping point is more evident than change, since we proceed always from one determining principle to another. For intellection occurs not in transitions but in a halt at each determining principle."
Different souls and intellects
(pp. 70-73)
Aristotle:
407b1 If change were not the soul’s essence, it would change contrarily to its nature.
"For what is contrary to nature is forced, but what is forced is not blessed. Aristotle has already shown by a general argument applicable to all soul that motion does not naturally occur in the heavenly soul. As a sequel, he uses a special argument in its case. So if it changes it changes contrary to its nature. So much, then, is clear. But why, ‘if change is not the soul’s essence’, as he says, would it ‘change contrarily to its nature’? For change is not the heaven’s essence, and yet its change is not forced. Is it because, as he will say in Book 3, intellect is in essence activity, not only that which is superior to souls, but our soul also, when, having contracted all external projection, it lives a life that is as far as possible separate and undivided, and therefore includes activity in its essence? Still more so, and not at times but unceasingly, the divine soul of the universe will be activity in its essence, and, if its activity were change, change would be its essence. So, if this is not so, either it will not change or it will change contrarily to its nature.
By the foregoing he has shown that the intellective element in the soul, i.e. the whole of rational life, is neither a body nor any sort of magnitude; for what has been primarily proved in the case of the soul of the universe applies secondarily to our soul. Now he reminds us that all rational soul whatsoever is naturally separate from body, arguing more especially with regard to the soul of the universe, by concentrating on the absurdities in it. How, then, does he prove the separation of the rational soul, which he calls intellect? Because it isbetter for it not to be associated with body, not merely as being accepted by Plato but as a majority opinion, since theoretical is superior to practical philosophy, and, of theoretical, that concerning things separate superior to natural philosophy, and that which makes no use of the body to that which uses it, and that which is enfolded in itself to that which goes outside. But this is not better for the soul unseparated from bodies; for its own good is better for each. So for the life that is unseparated from bodies it is better to be with a body, and, if to be without body is better, then the soul is separated from body. So the life with body, which he calls mixture, since it is not pre-eminently natural, is painful for the separate soul; for this happens to it not as separate but as having, in a way, departed from itself, and abandoning what is one’s own is painful. That is why such a life is not pre-eminently to be chosen, but bearable for our souls since they can escape from it; for the mixture is temporary. But in the case of the soul of the universe it would be a life to be avoided, since it could never escape from it. The pain is protracted in the case of the soul of the universe, since it is everlasting. That seems to be why he attacks Plato’s words ‘mixture’ and ‘interweaving’; for they would seem to assign to it also an inclination and tendency towards the body and a use of it as an instrument, and thus always the better and its good in separation.
So perhaps we should not so understand Plato’s words, nor, still more, believe that the facts are such, interpreting ‘inclination or tendency towards the body’ as meaning that it makes use of the body as being mixed with it, but as meaning that by remaining within itself it reverts to itself and makes the body its own by transcendentally guiding its motion, and putting this forward as an object of desire, in order that we may have a pattern of our own separated life, the everlasting and primary of the occasional and secondary.
‘That’ being clearly the body. He adds ‘rather’ because, even if nature be the cause of change, still rather the soul. For the origin of change is superior to the principle according to which things change. For that is how nature is a principle, as being that in accordance with which, not that by the agency of which. Perhaps that which is also Iamblichus’ opinion is suggested, namely, that the celestial body has also life through itself, and not derivatively as our bodies do, but as part of its essence and a life that originates change, as being roused to change by itself, but more basically by its soul. Therefore the soul is rather the cause for the body than the body for itself.
Everything in its own proper state also exhibits goodness. For badness being a deprivation, it is truly something non-existent and thus not good, and, to the extent that it exists it does so by existing parasitically upon a trace of goodness. Therefore he well estimates that he who studies beings should view the good suited to each thing, but should also make an examination of the one from the other from what remains. So now, if motion is not fitting for the soul, the good suited to motion will also not harmonise with it, and he who has seen the good that contributes to the soul will know that it also is exempt from such a motion. He rightly thinks it fitting to attribute the good to the god, and to look to the fact that the good is also the best in all things. He well bears witness to Plato that he does not say that motion is better in the case of the soul, as he himself understands it. For Plato defines both its form and its perfection, attributing to it a being between the undivided and that which is divided among bodies, a complete being, and clearly a simplicity which sustains and preserves such a being, in which itself is the good and the better for the soul."
"Mythical veil"
(p. 74)
"He rightly knows and says that they used a mythical veil when they said that the rational was inserted into non-rational vehicles, dramatising its passionate and irrational form of life."
Empedocles' god Sphaerus
(p. 95f)
"For they say this in order that like may be known by like ‘as if holding that the soul is these things’, being unwilling to grant that objects themselves are in the soul. The absurdity of supposing this is particularly manifest in the case of bodies, because it is necessary to suppose that not only the four elements are in it but also all composites. For they are known not just by their elements but also by the ratio of their composition. So the ratio of each element must be present in the soul if it is going to know the whole – that is, the composite. He says that according to Empedocles a god, the heavenly sphere, consists of the elements. He calls Empedocles himself to witness, as recounting the ratio of construction in the case of bones. For earth is said to be pleasing, i.e. harmonic, as being a cube according to the Pythagorean tradition. For because the cube has twelve edges, eight angles and six sides, making an harmonic series, they called it a harmony. The word ‘crucibles’ occurs also in the poet; they are vessels in which the mixture of the ingredients occurs:
‘Twenty bellows were all blowing in the crucibles.’
These Empedocles also calls ‘well-bosomed’ as being broad through their capacity. He mixes for the creation of bones four parts of fire (perhaps saying that bone contains mostly fire because it is dry and white in colour), two of earth, one of air and one of water, both of which he calls shining liquid, liquid <nêstin> because wet, from ‘flow’ <naein>, i.e. ‘run’, shining as being transparent."
Other authorities take Nêstis as a local goddess's name.
Spirit (pneuma) is the medium of sensation in touch
(p. 98)
"He includes sinews among things insensitive since he regards the sense-organ of touch also as the pneuma. The remaining arguments are clear. For the genuine principle knows itself and knows itself as being a principle, and by its knowledge of itself has also knowledge of all subordinate things through its causative comprehension of them all."
An absurdity in Empedocles
(p. 98)
"The result for those who divide up the principles and introduce knowledge by similarity is that they allow knowledge of one thing only to each principle and ignorance of the rest, but to the subordinate compounded of the principles knowledge of everything save of the sphere, which Empedocles hymns as god. For it alone of composites will not have knowledge of strife since strife is not part of its make-up."
Cf. the verses of Empedocles cited in Sextus Empiricus' Against the Logicians.
Soul in air and fire
(p. 103f)
411a9 But this raises certain problems. [For through what cause does the soul in air or fire not make a living thing, but only in mixtures of elements, and that when being present in these as superior?]
"As was his custom, he elucidates the truth about the present question by problems. Of these, one is why our body that is composite becomes a living thing by the presence of the soul, but not fire, which seems to be animated by a superior soul, and rightly so, since our whole body is perishable, but that is so only in its parts, and if one of them is particular, the other is a whole. So if the whole is superior to the particular, and that which is everlasting in its wholeness to the altogether perishable, and souls enter bodies that are suited to them, as already explained, it is clear that that which animates fire is superior to ours. How, then, is it not a living thing? Perhaps just because its soul is better. For first, as Plato also holds, there is THERE no composition of soul and body, but its body comes to belong to the soul while the soul remains within itself. For the living thing is by composition. Secondly, because this visible fire is not pre-eminently the vehicle of this soul, but something greater which is itself secondarily of heavenly composition. If someone were to say that this is so in our case also, let him know that in our case the greater vehicle also tends downwards with the soul to the mortal body, so that it is composed of everything. In their case the visible also is raised up by the greater and is itself given life by it, but, indeed, both do not contribute to the composition of a unit. So the visible living thing is not composed as such out of all things, since it lives not independently but by attachment to the greater, and since it does so altogether as a part, even if one were to allow that it becomes one from all things."
411a11 One might also investigate for what reason the soul in the air is superior to, and more immortal than, that in living things.
"He does not enquire whether it is superior, but why it is. And he did not raise the problem why it seems so, but why it is, as being so, but the reason needing to be openly enquired into, though it has already in a way been stated by him, by his attacking those who say that it is intermingled, and not calling fire a living thing. For it is clear that through its separate presence, which is not intermingled with a body nor makes up a composite with it, it is superior to that which is so mixed and makes up a unit with the body. This is the reason for its superiority, its transcendent creation of life for dependent bodies with no inclination to the inferior. It is more immortal, not because that in living things is mortal (it is more immortal in the way that the more white is whiter than the white), but because it endures by stricter standards of immortality than does the soul of wholes. That is why Plato calls ours souls in a different sense from those of the immortals, and says that the form of life itself and god are far more immortal."
Mortal and heavenly bodies
(p. 118f)
"[E]ven when already alive the mortal body is potentially alive, since life is not fused with body, but comes in from without by the presence of soul, and the body receives life then and as it becomes suitable through a certain mixture and constitution. So the heavenly soul also determines the everlasting body, but not inclining towards it, nor using it as an instrument. But perhaps the heavenly body also does not have life potentially. For it does not have life by mere acquisition, but as even part of its essence. So that body is animate in a different way, as already living in activity, and doing so as being in a way self-changing and reaching up from itself to soul, and itself belonging to the soul, while the soul does not belong to it but makes it part of itself. But the soul of mortal living things is the actuality of a natural body, not a form but a discursive expression, and discursive expressions are secondarily formal causes. So the soul is a discursive actuality, and does not belong to itself nor remain as a whole within itself as its own, and either as a whole thus has its essence in determining bodies without reverting upon itself, or, if it has two forms of life, through its inclination to body which tends outside from itself, either as giving life to the body or as using the living thing. For also it is the actuality of the natural body that potentially has life, like the steersman of a ship, since it activates and uses the living body. For an instrument is so called because it serves the soul that uses it, not in the way that inanimate natural bodies do, which are themselves given a form, but by no means as organisms, since they have neither their activator nor their user within. For that is specific to animate beings, since the soul is different from other natural forms by being doubly an actuality, as determining and activating the instrument.
He seems to have first set out its determining role, and to have added later the role of originating change as being more perfect, since he assigns the instrumental role to every body that has a mortal life. So being an instrument seems to run in harness with having life potentially, but is not the same in account, nor is it so named without variation with reference to the same form of life; but it has life as given a form vitally in accordance with the form of life that it receives, and becomes an instrument for its user, by which it is also given life in order that it may use it in a fused manner and by a single impulse. But that by the agency of which it is changed is utterly different from that in accordance with which, in the way that the efficient cause is different from the formal. So the whole soul of the living thing is one, but it has an element that is transcendent, which initiates change and is the user, and another that reaches out and belongs to the living thing as that which determines it."
"Heavenly beings also are practical"
(p. 145f)
"He intends next to add the reason, as he promised earlier on, why some vital powers exist without the others, but not the others without these, but first he declares which are the powers of each sort. What he says is clear. But since eternal beings also partake in reasoning, while reasoning manifests practical intellect, and he himself says that heavenly beings also are practical in On the Heavens <De Caelo>, and it is clear that reasoning among them is not imperfect and that their practice is not to satisfy some need, he rightly states that the other forms of life are not present in all beings that can reason, but only in the perishable."
Striving towards divinity
(p. 148)
"He is including growth also in nourishment. So nourishment also contributes to existence, but generation is the most natural function in vegetative life, i.e. it is first and most important as contributing to everlastingness in the way that is possible for mortals, which he rightly praises as divine. For by existing, and still more by living for ever, things partake of the divine. Therefore, in striving towards divinity, everything seeks everlastingness in the way that is possible for it. But it is not surprising that among the individuals of a species some are defective, either naturally impaired like the sterile or externally like eunuchs. But that there are whole species that are born spontaneously is worth consideration, no individual in them contributing to the birth of another. For there might be, through being at the lowest end, even whole species proceeding thus, so that all the individuals of the species exist without offspring, and such as to be collective defectives among living things. Even plants seek divinity through their very vitally aroused grasp of the form. For one should not take seeking an end to be always cognitive, but also to be a grasp of the superior by essential power, if even matter may be said to aim at the divine."
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