Being a disciple of Plato, Aristotle spent twenty years in his Academy. However, the habit of thinking independently led to the fact that in the end the philosopher began to come to his own conclusions. They differed markedly from the theories of the teacher, but the truth was more valuable than personal attachments, which gave rise to the famous saying. In fact, having created the foundations of modern European science and logical thinking, the philosopher distinguished himself in the field of psychology. What Aristotle wrote about the soul is still being studied in high school.
First of all, the thinker believes that this element of the human psyche is of a dual nature. On the one hand, it is material, and on the other - divine. Writing a special treatise on the soul, Aristotle pays attention to this issue in other of his works. Therefore, we can say that this problem is one of the central in his philosophical system. It is known that he divided all existing into two parts. The first is physics, that is, the material world. The second is the kingdom of the gods. He called it metaphysics. But when we try to understand what Aristotle thought about the soul, we see that from his point of view both these worlds have an influence on the psyche.
The book devoted to this issue, the philosopher divided into three parts. In the first, he analyzed what his predecessors thought about the soul. But in the second part, he looks at the problem in detail, based on his logical and systemic approach. Here he comes to the conclusion that the soul is the practical realization of the possibility of the natural body to live ("entelechy"). Therefore, it has all the creatures - and plants, and animals, and people. In addition, Aristotle thought about the soul - since the essence of any thing is its form, the ability to live can be characterized in the same way.
But there is a difference between the different kinds of "entelechy of the body". The plant and animal soul can not exist without matter, nor outside it. A psychic is everywhere where one can state the existence of life. The vegetative soul is characterized by its ability to nourish. Therefore, the plant can develop. The animal soul has this ability and the ability to sense and feel. It is the sensuality inherent in a higher level of development. But there is a third kind of life form, as Aristotle said of the soul. It is inherent only to intelligent beings. They must be able to reason and reason.
In fact, the philosopher believed that a person has three souls. He has both a vegetative and a vegetative form. Unlike Plato, Aristotle argues that the presence of these souls in man is connected with matter, and their state directly depends on the body. However, these forms have their own hierarchy. Above them all, the intelligent soul dominates. It is also an "entelechy", but not of a body, since it belongs to eternity. The philosopher suggests that such a soul does not die, because there is after all another kind of "higher form", which can exist separately from matter and generally do not come into contact with it at all. And this is God. Therefore, a rational soul belongs to metaphysics. Ability to think can and should exist separately from the body. Such a conclusion makes Aristotle of the soul. The summary of the same treatise you read in this article.