Analysis Of Aristotle's Explorations Of The Human Soul

According to Michael L. Morgan, editor of Classics of Moral and Political Theory, the centre of Aristotle’s life, and of the theories of science, psychology, politics, and ethics, was a desire to know (252). Aristotle’s search for knowledge led to many ideas, not just about the way the world is, but also about the way the world should be; his work on the excellence of the emotional or desiderative part of the soul is an example of a blending of the two, producing a contemplation of the human soul as it is and a comprehensive structure for building it to what it should be. This essay will show that Aristotle’s work reveals a belief that the excellence of the emotional or desiderative part of the human soul involved the process of tempering human

For Aristotle, the soul is not a vague part of humanity separate from its physical trappings or relegated to relevance only upon death; instead, it is a multi-faced encompassment of all of the essential elements of being human. There are three of these facets. First, there is the nutritive soul, the part of the soul that “has no share in human virtue” because it has no reason (Aristotle 1102b); as its name suggests, it is solely involved in the basic nutrition of humanity, in the growth of the physical faculties that produce the more important parts of being alive (Aristotle 1144a). Second, there is the appetitive soul, related to the nutritional part in that it, too, lacks reason, but different in that it still partakes of reason by following the lead of the rational (“Nicomachean Ethics 1102b). Finally, there is the rational part of the soul, which is divided into two parts—one that possesses reason in itself, and one that is receptive to reason (Aristotle 1103a). Together, these three parts comprise the human soul as Aristotle sees

Using Aristotle’s outlined process of seeking balance and tailoring one’s behaviour accordingly, one would become accustomed to behaving in a virtuous way, and would no longer see one’s behaviour as a direct consequence of one’s ungovernable emotions. Those emotions, flaring up uncontrollably but fed by one’s own decisions, would cool, and begin to take the shape of the reservoir being built in one’s consciousness. Although one’s journey to an ethical and virtuous life can never be said to be finished, in the mature stages of this journey, the excellence of the emotional or desiderative part of the soul would be characterized by emotional moderation—reactions that are neither immediate nor entirely unreasoned; neither a lack of emotion nor an indulgence in its full capacity—and desirousness of those things that are rationally defensible, or even explicably virtuous. To wit, Aristotle’s emotional and desiderative excellence would consist of a predictable emotional climate, and a desire for learning and continuing to perfect one’s