Chapter 8: Aristotle’ On the Soul: the definition of soul and the faculties of the soul
Random number: 42
In the De Anima Book 2, Aristotle introduces a two-tier system of actuality. Aristotle postulates that the human body is the first potentiality for life, or in other words the bare minimum required for life. The human body is a natural organic body, i.e. one with with the capacity to live, it is said to be organic because it has organs.
Then the soul is the second potentiality, or the first actuality, of the body, which actually allows the body to carry out the functions of life. The second actuality corresponds to a body that is actively performing the functions of life, like breathing or digesting food.
We can explain this system of potentiality/first actuality/second actuality with a metaphor, for instance that of a child learning a new language. The poentiality of a child to learn a new language would be having a mouth and the ability to speak, the first actuality would be the child developing a stable disposition for speaking the new language (i.e. learning the syntax of the language, learning how to construct sentences, etc.), the second actuality would be the child actually using this knowledge to speak the new language.
Aristotle then claims that the soul has various capacities. The lowest capacity is that of the Nutritive/Vegetative (that all living things have, including plants) Then there is the Perceptive capacity (that Humans share with other animals). Finally, there there is Reason, which is unique to humans alone.