The Model of Explanation in Aristotelian Psychology

c h a p ter 2
The Model of Explanation in Aristotelian Psychology
1 Introduction
Questions bearing on mind and thinking fall under the more general Aris-
totelian heading of psychology, and Aristotelian psychology falls under the
more general heading of natural science or “physics.” Answers to ques-
tions in Aristotelian psychology, or “explanations,” have a particular sort
of structure, derived from the more general discipline of natural science, or
physics. Two terms are involved in such explanations – matter and form –
and, where an explanation is arrived at, those terms connect in the con-
ditional form: “If there will be A, there must be B,” where A is a form
and B a matter or material configuration. This conditional form yields two
different sorts of explanation: a “formal” explanation (of A) and a “mate-
rial” explanation (of B), where A is the explanans and B the explanandum.
Mind, being a psychological faculty or function, must fit one or the other
pattern, or both patterns, of explanation. The intent of the present chapter
is to contemplate how mind and thinking can be seen to conform to this
structure.
I argue that mind functions only, for Aristotle, as an explanans, never an
explanandum. This means that the sort of explanations of mind we ought
to expect from Aristotelian psychology tell us what must be the case, at the
level of matter, if there is to be mind. And it means that the sort of expla-
nations of mind we should not expect to find in Aristotelian psychology
are why there are minds.
This chapter has backward- and forward-looking purposes. I have just
argued that Aristotelian mind is a state of intellectual excellence, and not a
potentiality like sensation. It is for this reason, among others, that the sort
of explanation of mind to be expected in Aristotle’s psychology will differ
from that of other sorts of psychological capacities. This consequence is
an important companion to the actuality-first view argued for above. It
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34 Part I: Preliminaries to Aristotle’s Concept of Mind
also illuminates further reasons to treat the introductory mind-sensation
comparison of DA III.4 as limited and partial.
My forward-looking purpose is to argue that, although there are only
formal explanations of Aristotelian mind, that is not to say that mind has
no relation to matter, or to the body. It is rather to circumscribe the sorts
of ways in which mind can be situated in relation to the body. As I shall
argue, establishing such a relation is an essential part of the Aristotelian
puzzle about mind. Separating mind from body (i.e., from matter) would
be consigning mind to irrelevance or mystery. As I shall argue in Chapter 3,
this is nothing like what Aristotle has in view, though many commentators
have claimed he does. Nor, however, does he see mind as simply material.
One purpose of this chapter, then, is to develop tools for situating and
assessing the relation between mind and body.
This chapter proceeds in three steps, from the general to the specific. In
the following §2, I introduce the general schema of Aristotelian psycholog-
ical explanation. In §3, I demonstrate how that schema is used in Aristotle’s
explanations of sensation and nutrition. Finally, in §4, I outline how the
schema is deployed in reference to mind.
2 Necessity and Teleology in Psychological Explanation

At the beginning of DA, Aristotle raises the question how acts and affects
of the soul, in the formal or functional sense, relate to acts and affects of the
body, in the physical or material sense. Here, his response to this question
exemplifies the distinctive stratification of form and matter that will be
employed throughout his psychology, not only in relation to mind, but in
relation to other functions also.
Definitions [ὅροι] [in psychology] should be like this: “Anger is a particular
sort of movement of a particular sort of body, body part, or potentiality by
this thing for the sake of this other thing.” The study of soul should, for these
reasons, belong to physics, either all [of the study of soul] or this respect.
Now the physicist and the dialectician will define each of these things dif-
ferently, such as what anger is. For the latter calls it a desire for revenge or
something of that sort, and the physicist a boiling of blood or heat around
the heart. Of these, the second gives us the material, the first the form or
account. Now, the account given in the latter case does touch on the matter
at hand [τοῦ πράγματος], but 1 it is necessary for the thing to exist that it exist
in this particular material if it is to exist. The dialectician’s account of a house
is like this, that it is “a structure preventative of destruction by wind, rain,
and heat,” whereas the physicist says it is “stone, bricks, and wood.” Another
account, however [which is the sort of account Aristotle will endorse – ERJ],
The Model of Explanation in Aristotelian Psychology 35
would be that it is the form of house [sc. “a structure preventative of destruc-
tion by wind, rain, and heat”] existing in these particular things [sc. “stone,
bricks, and wood”], 2 for the sake of this particular end. (DA I.1, 403a25–b7)
The point of the general stream of argument from which this passage is
excerpted is a constructive one, but in the present slice Aristotle’s intent is
critical. The criticism, in sum, is that the “physical” explanation described
here appeals only to matter; the “dialectical” explanation appeals only
to form. The insufficiency of these explanations, Aristotle argues, is that
the matter and form championed, respectively, by the physicalist and the
dialectician stand in relations of mutual causal dependence. These depen-
dencies are marked by 1 and 2 in the passage above. Forms require partic-
ular material configurations in order to come about. Matter is configured
in the way that it is owing to the form and purpose it realizes. Because
form and matter are mutually dependent, the physicalist’s and the dialec-
tician’s respective omissions of form and matter amount to explanatory
insufficiencies.
Aristotle’s suggestion for remedying this insufficiency is not simply addi-
tive – as if joining the material propositions of the physicalist to the formal
propositions of the dialectician would account for the mutual dependence
of form and matter that Aristotle himself champions. Rather, the solution
consists in discerning a certain structure involving form and matter.
2.1 Matter: Necessity in Psychological Explanation

In the passage above, Aristotle describes under 1 the thought that certain
psychological explanations fail because they fail to describe the necessary
material conditions of a form. Inversely, making out the necessary material
conditions of a form is precisely a first criterion of success in Aristotelian
science or understanding (ἐπιστήμη), in particular in natural science, or
physics.
When we understand something, in the strict and technical sense, our
understanding is necessarily true.1 The path toward understanding begins
with taking note of a fact (τὸ ὅτι, “the that”), and culminates in having
an explanation as to why that fact is as it is (τὸ διότι, “the on-account-
of-what”).2 We understand something when the fact we claim to explain
is necessarily as it is, and when our explanation of it holds necessarily.3
Hence understanding begins with the taking note of facts that are necessar-
ily true. Facts, in the relevant sense, are propositionally expressible. Thus,
1 APo I.4, 73a21f.; and I.6, 74b5f. 2 See APo II.1, 89b23f.; and II.2, 89b38f. 3 APo I.2, 71b9f.
more specifically, a necessarily true fact is expressible as “A is B,” where A
(the subject) is or has B (the attribute) necessarily.
In psychology, as in all physics, the facts about which we pursue expla-
nations are material ones. Hence the first thing to do toward progress in
psychology is to discern certain necessary material facts. Now it is certainly
the case that soul itself and many of the “acts and affections” of soul are not
themselves material. In general, physics is concerned, as Aristotle argues in
Phys. II.2, with form primarily, and with matter only in its relation to form.
As he puts it at the end of that discussion, physics is concerned with what is
“formally separable, but nevertheless material” (χωριστὰ μὲν εἴδει, ἐν ὕλῃ
δέ).4 Hence the first thing to do in psychology is to make out how certain
material configurations correlate necessarily with certain forms.
In DA, we find just such an attempt at the beginning of DA II.1, where
Aristotle defines the particular subject matter of psychology. He begins
by noting three senses of the expression “substance” – matter, form, and
matter-form composite. He then claims, in a formulation that evokes the
sort of “factual” basis of scientific inquiry just described, that “every nat-
ural body having life is a substance, and a substance in the sense of a
composite” (DA II.1, 412a6–16). The parts comprising this composite are
soul as form, and “natural body potentially having life” as matter (DA II.1,
412a16–22). Most importantly, Aristotle says that soul is necessarily this sort
of substance-as-form – that is, that it is joined to a certain body-as-matter.5
Thus our basic, necessarily true fact: Living bodies have souls necessarily.
To see the role of matter in Aristotelian psychological explanations, we
might consider touch and the material constituents associated with it. Aris-
totle describes touch as “most necessary” to animals (see DA II.2, 413b4f.;
414a2f.; II.3, 414b3f., 15f.; etc.). Given the link between materiality and
necessity, explanations of touch may helpfully showcase how matter func-
tions in the sort of explanations at issue. The following two rather different
explanations are of interest.
In the first, Aristotle employs the presence of touch in order to explain
a particular physiological trait of animal bodies (DA II.3, 414b3–10). The
explanation at issue is this: (1) Animals must have touch (sensation of food);
(2) food is complex; (3) animal bodies must be correspondingly complex;
(4) animals must therefore have tangible bodies. Here the complex body
4 Phys. II.2, 194b12–3.
5 Notice that it probably doesn’t matter whether ἀναγκαῖον at 412a19 is construed in a logical or
metaphysical sense – i.e., whether it is saying “such and such necessarily follows about soul” or “soul
is necessarily such and such.” For purposes of establishing the subject matter of a science, either
reading will conform to the same view. I am tempted to read it in a logical vein. However, that soul
is necessarily embodied (in a metaphysical sense) is claimed, in this passage, at 412b6f. I argue in
favor of this claim in Chap. 3 below.
(matter) is explained by means of the appeal to the faculty of touch (form).
In this case, the complexity of animal bodies plays the role described in
condition 1 in the passage above.
We can also ask the question why all animals have touch at all. The
answer that Aristotle himself gives runs, roughly, as follows: (1) Animals
have to eat in order to survive; (2) they must therefore have sensation of
food; (3) touch is sensation of food; (4) animals must therefore have touch.6
The presence of touch is explained by the need to survive. That is, on the
condition that animals have to survive, they must have the ability for touch.
In this way, touch plays the role assigned to matter in the passage above,
under condition 1.
In the first explanation, touch played the explanans role of form. In the
second, it played the explanandum role of matter. In both cases, however,
the explanatory schema described above seems to be in play: A matter is
necessitated by a form. This suggests that form and matter, as placeholders
in Aristotelian psychological explanations, should not be understood in any
metaphysically determinate way. Indeed, supposing we mean the faculty,
touch itself does not appear to be “material” at all, even though it fulfills the
material role in the second explanation. Supposing the pattern for explana-
tion described previously is realized in the preceding explanations, matter
and form appear not to fit to metaphysically determinate characterizations.
Moreover, touch – and, as it turns out, many other psychological func-
tions – appears to be susceptible to material and formal explanations. In
one guise, touch is a reason that explains some fact; in another, it is itself a
fact to be explained. This feature of Aristotle’s psychology might be called
“term drift.” To be capable of term drift, a term must be capable of both
material and formal explanations, as touch is in the above examples.
It may be noticed immediately that not everything can be subject to
term drift. If that were the case, then explanations generally would be led
into infinite regress or circularity. So it is to be expected, on these meta-
epistemic grounds, that there will be some things that will be capable only
of formal explanations, and others capable only of material explanations.
2.2 Form: Purpose in Psychological Explanation

As Aristotle argues in Phys. II.1, forms and purposes are ultimate in the Aris-
totelian natural world.7 They are the ultimate reasons why natural things
are the way they are. Hence the paradigmatic case of a form or purpose is
6 On this argument, see DA II.3, 414b3–10; DA III.12 generally; and DA III.13, 435a11f.
7 Phys. II.1, 193b6f.
something for which there is no material explanation – no answer, strictly
speaking, to the question why it exists. The reason there is no answer to
that question, in short, is that such a form is itself the answer to that ques-
tion for other attributes; and, on the Aristotelian rule just alluded to, such
questions cannot go on infinitely or in a circle.
A chief example of purpose in Aristotelian psychology is soul itself. For,
on the one hand, soul is a reason why psychological functions have the
sort of orientation and sense that they have; and on the other, soul is an
ultimate explainer in psychological explanations. On the model Aristotle
describes in PA, soul is not just a principle but a final cause,8 and final causes
are ultimately explanatory. Hence attributes of living things are ultimately
explained by appeal to the animal’s “soul.”
Forms and purposes, in the sense of principles, require a unique sort of
belief. By way of contrast, the sort of understanding of matter that suc-
cessful explanations give us is demonstrative, in the Aristotelian sense, and
expressible in a deduction. For example, the conclusion of the first expla-
nation of touch above – that animals must have complex bodies – is known
demonstratively through the premises. Ultimate forms and purposes, how-
ever, are not known demonstratively; they are grasped in terms of γνῶσις,
or simply “knowledge.”9 As a “principle of living things” (DA I.1, 402a6–
7; cf. PA I.1, 641a15f.), soul is grasped non-demonstratively. Thus, at the
beginning of DA, Aristotle describes grasping soul as a form of γνῶσις or
simply “belief” (πίστις) (DA I.1, 402a4–6, 11).
According to the schema adapted from the dialectician-physicist passage,
it would be misleading to infer from this that soul cannot be understood at
all, that is, explained. For there are two ways we can have “explanations-of”
something. In one way, we explain something (materially) when we show
that it is necessitated by something else. In another, we explain something
(formally) when we show what is necessitated by it.
As I shall argue, mind is like soul in this respect. Since, like soul, it is
an ultimate form and purpose (specifically, for human beings), then it will
always function as an explanans, never an explanandum. Unlike touch and
other faculties, mind is not susceptible to term drift.
2.3 Necessity and Teleology: The Structure of Physical Explanation

According to the passage cited at the beginning of this section, Aristotelian
psychological explanations pair matter and form or purpose in a certain
8 PA I.1, 641a24f.
9 Consider esp. APo II.19, where Aristotle repeatedly refers to the sort of knowledge that we have of
principles in terms of γνωρίζειν (e.g., at APo II.19, 99b18, 27, 28, 29, 38; 100a11; 100b4, 9).
way. As an example, Aristotle describes a house as (here the form) a struc-
ture preventative of destruction by wind, rain, and heat, requiring (here
the matter) stone, bricks, or wood for its realization, and constructed (here
the purpose) for the sake of living, or living well.
Psychological explanations fitting this schema form not only part of
Aristotelian physics, but more particularly Aristotle’s biology. Hence Aris-
totelian psychology may be helpfully situated in terms of the design of that
specific enterprise, in particular as it is described in the prefatory remarks of
PA. As Aristotle argues in PA, there are many ways to describe or to explain
how things come about in the way that they do, in animal life and more
generally in nature. But the ways of describing or explaining these changes
and generations adhere to a certain structure. According to that structure,
forms or purposes are primary, and matter or material configurations ought
to be explained from them. Thus:
It seems the primary [sort of causal explanation] is what we call “for the
sake of”; for this is the λόγος, and the λόγος is a principle in things com-
posed by art as, similarly, in those by nature. The doctor having defined,
either intellectually or sensibly [ἢ διανοίᾳ ἢ αἰσθήσει], what health is, and
the housebuilder what a house, they then provide accounts and causal expla-
nations of what they are going to do and why it must be done in such and
such a way. But that for the sake of which, or the good [τὸ καλόν], exists
more obviously in works of nature than in works of art.10
Degrees of preeminence or ultimacy in explanation appear to derive, in
Aristotle’s view, from degrees of preeminence or ultimacy in an ontological
or metaphysical sense. That is, the preeminence of λόγος here describes
not just a discursive primacy, but a primacy on which subsequent genera-
tion depends. If something is going to be a C, then all the steps between
now and the accomplishment of being a C will be explained through the
fact that it is going to be a C. The futural aspect of “going to be a C” is
crucial to the process. In order to exemplify it, Aristotle describes a doc-
tor and a housebuilder engaged in their respective crafts, having “already
defined” (ὁρισάμενος) what it is they will have done. The placeholders going
to be healthy and going to be a house play the role of orienting subsidiary or
intermediary concerns: checking a patient’s temperature, recording results
on a chart, administering medicines or other treatments; hewing lumber,
digging a foundation, constructing a frame; and so on. Each of these has,
in the mind of the practitioner, a justification of the form in order to . . . ,
where the ellipsis is filled by some futurally posited goal. The intermediary
steps, moreover, have a certain conditional sense of necessity that derives
10 PA I.1, 639b14–21.
from their relation to that goal, expressible like this: “If I am going to do or
bring about C, and C requires my doing A and B, then I must do A and B.”
A and B become necessary in this way, and C becomes a way of explaining
why I’m doing A and B.
But there is an important qualification, in Aristotle’s view, for under-
standing in what way, and to what degree, forms or purposes necessitate
these intermediary steps. Thus:
Necessity does not inhere similarly in everything that comes to be by nature,
although it is in this vein that nearly all others attempt to give their accounts
[of natural coming-about], not distinguishing in how many ways neces-
sity is said. Simple necessity belongs to eternal things, hypothetical to all
comings-about, as in the products of art, like a house or whatever else comes
about by an art. In this case, such and such material [τοιάδε ὕλη] must be
present if there is to be a house or if some other goal [is to be achieved].
And this must have come about or have been moved first, then that, and so
on in this manner, in succession, until the end for the sake of which each
of the intermediary steps exists has come about. This is how it is in natural
comings-about.11
The sort of necessity at issue here is what Aristotle calls “hypothetical neces-
sity” (τὸ ἐξ ὑποθήσεως ἀναγκαῖον).12 It is necessity, as it were, “on the
hypothesis of” the accomplishment of the end. In the doctor or house-
builder example, the “hypothesis” is health or house. And the intermedi-
ary steps become necessary on the hypothesis that either of these is to be
achieved, or fulfilled. It is also possible to specify, not just the existence or
generation of each of the intermediary steps, but also a particular order:
first this, then that, and so forth.
In Aristotelian natural science, hypothetical necessity of this sort is
closely associated with matter. As Aristotle puts the point in a parallel dis-
cussion of necessity in Phys., “necessity in natural things [τὰ φυσικά] is
what we call matter and its movements.”13 Importantly, necessity in natu-
ral things is not the sort of necessity that attaches to eternal or mathematical
entities, which are “simply,” “absolutely,” “unconditionally” (ἁπλῶς) nec-
essary. Although understanding, for Aristotle, always means to grasp what
or how something is, in terms of necessity, the difference between hypo-
thetical and absolute necessity implies that the sort of understanding we
11 PA I.1, 639b21–30.
12 Note that “hypothetical” here does not mean stipulative or axiomatic, in the Euclidean sense.
Balme’s gloss (ad PA I.1, 640a3, pp. 84–5): “In natural science the deduction is absolutely neces-
sary, but it reports sequences of events that are only hypothetically necessitated.”
13 Phys. II.9, 200a30–2.
can expect of material things will differ from the sort of understanding we
can expect of eternal or mathematical entities. Thus:
The modes of demonstration and of necessity are different in physics and
in the theoretical sciences. We’ve spoken of this elsewhere. The principle in
the second case is what is [τὸ ὄν], in the first what will be [τὸ ἐσόμενον];
for [in physics it is said that] since health or human is like this, there must
be this, or this must come about, but not: Since there is this or it has come
about, that of necessity will be. Nor is it possible to connect the necessity as
it were of such demonstration infinitely, like: This is, hence that is[, and so
on].14
Thus, in physics, one achieves explanations by discerning in natural phe-
nomena a particular sort of temporal or inferential structure. This sort of
structure relates form to matter as future to past, or antecedent to conse-
quent. Form stands for what something will be; matter stands for what sorts
of things or stages are necessary for that thing to become what it will be.
As a sort of research paradigm, natural science begins from a “form-future”
(e.g., the mature animal), and then asks questions retrospectively about the
reasons why the intermediary steps leading to that form, or future, were
necessary. These “intermediary steps” are, as the Phys. II.9 passage claims,
the matter or the material configurations necessary for the achievement
of the form. In a final demonstrative science of nature, we would be able
to answer the question “why” about all natural material configurations by
locating their place and sense along a continuum leading to the accom-
plishment of some purpose, or form.
The passage cited at the beginning of this §2 is preceded by the well-
known, if obscure, formulation that “affections [of soul] are enmattered
accounts [λόγοι ἔνυλοι]” (DA I.1, 403a25). If the analysis of the subsequent
passage that I have offered here is correct, “enmattered λόγοι” are forms or
purposes realized in matter.
3 Form, Matter, and Explanation Exemplified

To see this model at work, consider nutrition and sensation.
As we saw above, achieving any sort of explanation of those abilities or
functions requires establishing, first, a certain factual basis by figuring out
a subject-attribute connection that holds necessarily.
To that end, the attributes nutritive and sensitive imply different sub-
jects. Nutritive is an attribute that belongs to all living things. Sensitive is
14 PA I.1, 639b31–640a8.
an attribute that belongs to all animals. Thus, early in DA, Aristotle estab-
lishes the relevant subject-attribute pairs as follows: “Living is an attribute
of living thing [τὸ ζῆν . . . ὑπάρχει τοῖς ζῶσι] through [διά] this principle
[namely, the nutritive capacity], but animal [τὸ ζῷον] [is an attribute of a
living thing] through [διά] sensation” (DA II.1, 413b1–3). This pair of for-
mulas tells us two things. First, it gives us the appropriate subject for each
of the attributes nutritive and sensitive. Second, it tells us that these subject-
attribute relations are intended to be explanatory, not just descriptive, of
class membership. The claim is that something is living because (διά) it is
capable of nutrition, and something, in turn, is animal because (διά) it has
sensation. These ways of putting the matter express the fact, the ὅτι.
In order to achieve explanation of this fact, we require the introduction
of third or middle terms. The third or middle terms explain the connection
between the subjects living thing and animal, on the one hand, and the
attributes nutritive and sensitive, on the other.
The explanation of the living thing–nutritive pair is as follows:
[A] Everything that lives and has a soul must necessarily [B] have a threptic
[i.e., nutritive] soul, from birth until death; for what is [A] born must nec-
essarily [C] exhibit growth, maturity [ἀκμή], and destruction, and [C] this
is impossible without [B] nourishment; thus [B] the threptic capacity must
exist in [A] everything that is born and dies. (DA III.12, 434a22–6)
Thus, the explanation is of the form outlined above: An A is a B (the fact)
because (now the explanation) an A is a C and a B is a C. What lives has
a nutritive soul because a living thing grows, matures, and decays, and a
growing, maturing, and decaying thing must have a nutritive soul. Here the
role of form and purpose is being played by growing, maturing, and being
destroyed. The role of matter – or of what is hypothetically necessary – is
played by nutritive soul.
We find a complementary, though more complex, passage purporting to
offer an explanation of the presence of sensation in animals:
[D] An animal must necessarily [E] have sensation, if [AA] nature [BB] does
nothing in vain. For it is an attribute of [AA] everything that exists by nature
that it [BB] is for the sake of something or is an attribute of those things
that are for the sake of something. If therefore every [F] forward-moving
[πορευτικόν]15 body did not [E] have sensation, [F] it would [AA & BB]
be destroyed and not achieve its end, that is, its natural task [φύσεως ἔργον].
(DA III.12, 434a30–b1)
15 In HA I.1, 487b16, Aristotle distinguishes between walkers (πορευτικοί), flyers, creepers, and swim-
mers, but I think either that this is not the distinction he has in mind here (for he means all moving
animals) or that he is taking walking animals as paradigmatic for moving animals in general.
In this case, the proposition “every D is an F ” (every animal is a forward-
mover) is clearly implied. From this, and from the proposition “every F
is an E,” we derive the conclusion “every D is an E.” An animal has the
sensitive capacity because an animal is a forward-mover, and a forward-
mover must have sensation. In this case, the role of form and purpose is
played by animal movement; the role of matter and necessity is played by
sensitive capacity.16
For nutrition and sensation, then, we find the two stages of inquiry
described earlier: establishing some fact, then seeking out an explanation of
that fact. Moreover, the explanations given exhibit the characteristic rela-
tion between necessity and purpose that is distinctive of Aristotelian natural
science. Forms articulate purposes; and material configurations fulfill the
intermediary steps requisite to the achievement of these purposes.
We should also note that Aristotle gives both formal and material expla-
nations of nutrition and sensation. It may have been noticed that, in the
DA II.1 passage cited at the beginning of this section, Aristotle accom-
plished two things. The first was to lay out two subject-attribute pairs:
Living things are nutritive; animals are sensitive. The second was to employ
those attributes as explanations of group membership. Thus, Aristotle
claimed that a living thing is a living thing because (διά) it has nutrition,
and that an animal is an animal because (διά) it has sensation. In these cases,
the attributes nutritive and sensitive play a formal, explaining role. In the
later passages, from DA III.12, those attributes themselves become material
explananda: The presence of the nutritive attribute is explained by appeal
to the more general need to live; the presence of the sensitive attribute is
explained by appeal to the more general need to find food.
4 Conclusion
Before looking at the particular ways in which Aristotle does attempt to
provide explanations of mind, it may be helpful to consider what sorts of
16 Aristotle then goes on to connect this argument, in slightly more complex fashion (not to mention
somewhat unclearly), to lower and higher functions and potentialities. We might, for example,
expand the explanation to a more full form: “An animal A is a senser B because it is a natural thing
C, and natural things C are ends-oriented D, and an animal A is a living thing E, and living things
E must eat F. An animal A being a natural thing C must achieve its ends D. An animal A being a
living thing E must, by D, eat F. Now an animal A is a mover G, and if a mover G and an eater F it
must find things to eat H. But it cannot find things to eat H without sensing B. Thus an animal A
must be a senser B.” These steps do not touch on the legitimacy of the form of explanation above.
For the intervening explanatory factors do not affect the “as-such-ness” of the claim that an animal
must necessarily have sensation; the third term is not (above) BB or any of C–H but sensing (F in
the text above; here, B), which holds as such of the other terms animal and forward-mover.
prospects and limits there are for applying the model described above to
mind.
The form-matter (or purpose-necessity) model, as we have seen, is
applied seamlessly to sensation and nutrition. But mind is not like nutri-
tion and sensation in two important and complementary respects. First,
nutrition and sensation are abilities simply given to their respectively liv-
ing and animal subjects, whereas – as I have argued in the last chapter –
mind is an ability achieved through effort. Second, nutrition and sensation
are potentialities that exist in these subjects prior to their being exercised,
whereas mind is actuality-first. Mind is thus a different sort of potentiality,
and also differently acquired.
These conditions create unique explanatory constraints for mind. One
way of capturing these constraints is to see them as reasons why what I have
called term drift is not possible in the case of mind. To make that clear, it
may help to consider the reasons why term drift is possible in the case of
sensation and nutrition.
One of the things that makes term drift possible in the case of sensation
and nutrition is the fact that there are other attributes, in addition to sensa-
tion and nutrition, that are necessarily true of sensitive and nutritive sub-
jects. For example, living, having nutrition, and growing and decaying are
all attributes possessed by the very same things, and in similar, related ways.
Moreover, sensitivity and nutrition are coeval with certain correspondent
organs. Hence they do not demand any sort of account of their develop-
ment as potentialities. Further, as innate, sensitivity and nutrition imply a
vast reservoir of coincident attributes that, being innate also, meet minimal
criteria for the “fact-finding” task of Aristotelian science. The Aristotelian
psychologist has any number of causal and explanatory vantage points from
which to ask and answer questions about nutrition or sensation.
By contrast, if mind is an excellence or virtue, then it does not necessarily
coextend with any innately possessed attributes. Hence there is no causal
nexus from which terms other than terms relating to mind and thinking
also derive. Since, moreover, mind is not possessed simply “by nature,” any
terms we might bring to bear on the explanation of mind would be exter-
nal to natural causes. Consider the explanation: “She understands, because
she has learned.” The explanation invokes factors of habituation – which
fall outside the scope of natural science. It may also be noted that, in some
cases, “having learned” and “understanding” are identical; hence the pres-
ence of the potentiality does not explain the actuality. All of this suggests
that possible explanations of mind will be unlike the explanations of sen-
sation and nutrition.
Consistent with the general design of Aristotelian psychological expla-
nation, whether there is any “explanation-of” mind is really two questions.
The first, formal question is whether mind explains other attributes. The
second, material question is whether mind can be explained by recourse to
other attributes. The conditions for susceptibility to material explanation
seem to be relatively more demanding than the conditions for suscepti-
bility to formal explanation. In order for some psychological principle to
be susceptible to material explanation, it needs to be naturally coexten-
sive with other terms, for example. Mind is not. This suggests that mind
is not susceptible to material explanation. On the other hand, in order
for some psychological principle to be susceptible to formal explanation, it
need only be shown that certain naturally possessed attributes are necessary
for its realization. It is in this respect, I’ll argue, that we find Aristotle look-
ing for an explanation of mind. The question whether mind is “embodied”
(μετὰ σώματος) is a question that ought to be rephrased in terms of this
distinction.

The Model of Explanation in Aristotelian Psychology

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c h a p ter 2

The Model of Explanation in Aristotelian Psychology

2 Necessity and Teleology in Psychological Explanation

2.1 Matter: Necessity in Psychological Explanation

2.2 Form: Purpose in Psychological Explanation

2.3 Necessity and Teleology: The Structure of Physical Explanation

3 Form, Matter, and Explanation Exemplified

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