Kenelem Foster, tran. Aristotle’s “De Anima” in the Version of William of Moerbeke and the Commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951, 504 pgs.

Summary: A paragraph by paragraph commentary by the theologian Thomas of Aquinas (c. 1224-1274) of the philosopher Aristotle’s (384-322) De Anima or On the Soul. The book is arranged with Aristotle’s text and then Thomas’ commentary. Differences and deficiencies in Thomas’ translation by Moerbeke are compared to other Latin translations and the Greek text.

According to Aristotle the soul is the non-material substance that provides the form of living things. Or as Thomas summarizes “the soul is a certain actuality and formal principle of that which exists accordingly, namely as potentially animate” (2.2.278).

This conception allows Aristotle and then Thomas to view the soul as neither wholly dualistic (absolutely separate physical and spiritual parts) nor monistic (only physical or only spiritual parts), but instead provides holism with internal distinctions.

It also allows Thomas and Aristotle to think of the soul as existing in plants as merely life seeking nourishment, in animals as sensitive soul, and in man as intellectual. Each higher animate creature has the faculties of the lower within its single soul. Non-animate things have no soul and receive their form from matter. The vegetative and animal faculties then exist in man. The soul is the life principle of the animate object and to take away the soul leads to the decline rather than the maintenance or growth of life. The form or the body of a plant or animal therefore dies when the soul is extinguished. The matter of the soulless body then returns to its material organization.

Benefits/Detriments: There are three basic benefits: 1.) Thomas provides helpful graduate-level lectures on the meaning of Aristotle’s work with a few asides to correct Averroes and Avicenna. 2.) Students of philosophical theology have an opportunity to study both Aristotle and Thomas’ interpretation of him. 3.) And finally, Thomas provides both a positive and negative example for considering non-Christian theology as a Christian theologian.

The example is positive in that Thomas carefully attempts to understand what Aristotle was teaching and appropriate the true elements into Christian theology.  But there is an almost complete lack of critique of Aristotle from revelation. As far as I can tell from Aristotle, he believed that the person was extinguished at physical death, but Thomas has such a charitable reading of Aristotle that the philosopher is found as believing in the continued existence of the soul.

Exemplar quotes: §841. And this deliberation requires some sort of rule or end by which to reckon what most needs to be done. Clearly, a man will ‘follow’, i.e. seek for, the better and more suitable alternative: which is always measured by some standard. We need therefore a measure for our actions, a criterion for discerning what is most worth doing. And this will be the middle term of the syllogism of the practical issuing in a choice. It follows that reason, deliberating, can form several images into unity—three, to be precise; for one object is preferred to another, and a third gives the standard of preference.

Thomas’ commentary and Aristotle’s De Anima are important for thinking through reintroducing non-material substances into the sciences particularly the concept of hylomorphism. Currently, the prevailing view is all that is is material substances. The general outline of Aristotle’s position on the soul, especially as described by Thomas, does not contradict the Bible. (Cf. Cooper and Muller reviews.) Recommended for theologically minded pastors and students of philosophy.