Compare And Contrast Descartes And Aristotle

As we investigate the different views on the soul-body relation that our great philosophers have defined, we can dive into the contrasting debate on how Aristotle and Descartes have created and developed their definition and perspective of the human person. The philosopher Aristotle tends to relate the human person as a soul-body union. In contrast to Aristotle’s claim, Descartes views the human person as being mostly res cogitas, a thinking thing. For both Descartes and Aristotle, it is intriguing to discover how these philosophers have developed their perspective of their own personal conclusions of what the human being is composed of.

Diving into how Aristotle views the human person, we can begin by examining that there needs to be a soul-body union and certain capability distinctions within his level of souls. Regarding the soul-body union for the human being, we can examine the three levels of soul that he has organized and observed through the world around us to view where the human person fits within certain capabilities. With the various capabilities that different souls can have, the last level, the rational soul, is where we can specifically determine the distinction of the human person which shows the capability to obtain reason. This capability that only human beings have is what makes them unique to other living things. Considering all the levels that he has defined; the human person does possessess all capabilities from each level yet possess only one soul. Now, going deeper into the fundamental aspects of how Aristotle has defined the human person, we can note that he has come to his claims through observing the real world around us in detail. Through real-life observations, we can see how Aristotle has determined the level of capabilities that living beings can have and especially define the extent of capabilities that the human soul possesses. The third level, the level of reason, can show how the human person not only perceives the world around them like plants and animals but they fully understand and know the actuality of what is going on in the world around them. 

Going into more detail on how Aristotle gets to the conclusion of the human person being a soul-body union, we can see how the idea of form and matter can be helpful in this aspect. For Aristotle, we are substances and with being a substance, we must have both form and matter to be a so-called thing. The Matter is seen as the thing in which makes us unique or such as our body, blood, and cells. On the other hand, Form is what makes our matter the same and shows us how our matter is shaped such as our soul. With this, Aristotle has concluded through his real-world observations that specifically human beings share the same form, which relates to his third level of soul, the rational soul. 

In contrast to his opponent, Descartes sees the soul and body as two separate things which affect how he defines the human person. As for the body, it is categorized and defined as res extensa which is an extended, physical thing that can be changed. In contrast, the human being’s soul fits under Descartes’ res cogita which is the thinking thing that takes up space and ‘drives’ the body which cannot be changed. Instead of being in union with each other like Aristotle, Descartes believes the soul is known to be the thinking thing that is the pilot which controls the body that reacts to the soul. Before going into how Descartes defined the human person, we need to examine how he comes to his answer. His methodology correlates with him being a rationalist and starting all over to truly determine true certainty through our knowledge. Through Descartes checking and rechecking our knowledge that we previously had to determine absolute certainty, we can see how he gets to the conclusion on what makes up the human person and how we can be sure about it. Furthermore, Descartes believes that being a human person correlates to an individual being certain of oneself as a person. With this conclusion that he has developed, he proves it with his cogito ergo sum, “I think therefore I am”. From then, we can further define this statement as an individual believing that they are nothing while at the same time, they think they are something. The thing that makes them think of something is known as the soul, or in Descartes’s words, res cogita. Descartes’s reasoning behind his conclusion on the soul is the most important factor of the human person can be seen through the idea of the human being imagining themselves without a body but not being able to imagine themselves without a mind. The way that Descartes has shown the importance of the soul, res extensa and its role in defining the human being is very different compared to the soul-body relationship for Aristotle. Reiterating what was said before, human beings are most importantly the soul and through the soul, we can be sure of our existence of being a human. 

When we look at both philosophers’ ideas of what makes up and defines the human being, we can see this through their contrasting claims of the soul and body relationship. The soul overall plays an important aspect of the human being for both philosophers, but Descartes clearly states and shows higher importance of the soul and how that specifically defines the human being. As for Aristotle, he believes to qualify as a human being, you need to be in a soul-body union with possessing the capabilities of having a reason.