Aristotle on the matter of mind 219
some things by nature itself, with regard to others by other factors, but in either
case while certain qualitative changes take place in the body, just as with the use
and the activity [of the intellect] when a man becomes sober or wakes from sleep. It
is clear, then, from what has been said, that being changed and qualitative change
occurs in the perceptible objects and in the perceptive part of the soul, but in no
other [part], except incidentallyK1 < <#!L.
The passage stands in the context of an argument in which Aristotle is
trying to prove that dispositions of the soulK4D
:Lare not
qualitative changesK"
L, and in the case of thinking he even goes
further to deny that any activity of the intellectual part of the soul is a
process of ‘coming to be’K
L, although it is accompanied by such
processes taking place in the body, that is, in the perceptual part of the
soul. In the passage quoted it is clearly stated that thinking, while carefully
distinguished from bodily motions, is accompanied by, and is the result
of, these bodily motions. The acquisition of knowledge is compared with
the transition from having knowledge to using it which takes place when
somebody wakes up from sleep or emerges from drunkenness, states which
are said to impede theuseof knowledge, namely the transition from ‘first’
to ‘second actuality’.^45 This comparison, and the remark about children’s
inability to think and judge because of their physical constitution, clearly
indicates that thinking, though not equated with physical movement, is
very much dependent on bodily states and processes; it is said to result
from ‘thesoulK:Lcoming to a rest’ or even from ‘reasoningK
L
coming to a standstill’. The use of these two terms may be significant:
‘soul’ apparently refers to the embodied nutritive and perceptual powers as
a whole, and as fordianoia, there are indications in Aristotle’s works that
this is a wider concept covering a variety of cognitive actions in the border
area between perceiving and thinking (see below).
The idea that thinking consists in ‘rest’ or ‘standing still’ is a tradi-
tional notion which also occurs elsewhere in Greek literature and which
(^45) In his discussion of this and related passages, Tracy ( 1969 ) 274 comments: ‘Now the very nature
of thought and knowledge demands that the phantasm upon which they depend be undisturbed
and tranquil. For, psychologically, thought and knowledge are not a movement but thetermination
of movement, asettling downor repose of the mind in the possession of its object, which depends
upon a corresponding tranquillity in the sense power serving it... Thus the original acquisition
and subsequent actualization of intellectual virtues like scientific knowledge or wisdom are brought
about not by any movement in the intellect itself, but by “something elsecoming to be present” so
that the intellect “rests” or “halts” upon it. From what we have seen of the intellect and its operation
we may infer that Aristotle has in mind here thephantasm, which presents theuniversal, – the
intelligible form – as embodied inparticularsensible qualities... Thus the virtue of knowledge and
its activation, being dependent upon the phantasm produced by the sense power, are impeded or
rendered impossible by the physical disturbances accompanying drunkenness, sleep, disease and
growth, as well as the dissolution of old age.’