These two elements, however, are crucial in the Aristotelian conception of habit. This article will review, very briefly, the mainstream view of habit in neuroscience, its philosophical inspiration, as well as the challenges that recent research projects are encountering due to their reliance on this definition. Finally, we suggest certain novel approaches to experimental research on habits, in order to attain a deeper understanding of the human mind.
In this article, our main purpose is not just to expose a terminological confusion that exists between neuroscience and philosophy. In fact, the common view of habit in neuroscience derives from a more specific view, which has its own history Barandiaran and Di Paolo, ; Blanco, In our opinion, the notion of habit drawn from classical philosophy allows a better understanding of learning, including the role of routines and automatisms, in human behavior.
An extensive review of the notion of habit in neuroscience is beyond the scope of this article, and we refer the reader to the works and reviews cited below for further reading. However, we summarize in a few paragraphs the conceptual background where habits reside in neuroscience, mainly based on the works by Anthony Dickinson and Ann Graybiel. The explicit investigation of habits in neuroscience is quite recent. All throughout the twentieth century, research on habits has centered on animal research, specifically on how behavioral patterns, i.
One of the most important topics when studying habits in the field of neuroscience has been the relationship between actions, habits and goals. In that sense, the work by Dickinson was the seminal contribution. In his work, habits are overtly opposed to teleological actions, and identified with stimulus-response pairings.
The main difference between these two processes is that, whereas actions are outcome-oriented and thus sensitive to reward devaluation or extinction, habits are just guided by the stimulus itself, and not by the outcome it leads to Adams and Dickinson, Thus, a behavior is considered a habit when the animal insists on its performance in spite of outcome devaluation, or of the degradation of the contingency between the action and the outcome Balleine and Dickinson, ; Yin and Knowlton, This is the mainstream view of habits in various subdisciplines within neuroscience, such as experimental psychology Dickinson et al.
Graybiel wraps this view up stating that habits are largely learned after extensive experience, remaining fixed and performed automatically, and they involve a structured action sequence triggered by a stimulus.
Goals are explicitly present during action evaluation and selection, but they increasingly blur the more an action is repeated. The main examples of habits Graybiel proposes are fixed action patterns, i. Therefore, a habit completely disengaged from a goal becomes either a stimulus-response pair in animals, or a pathological trait in humans.
Graybiel also thinks that habits play an important role in societal terms, when they are shaped as mannerisms and rituals. However, the link between the anatomical and physiological bases of habits and their social expression is not clear at all, mostly because the majority of the experiments are carried out in laboratory animals.
Good habits would be those we strive to incorporate in our behavior, whereas bad habits are those that powerfully take control of our behavior. This is, very broadly, the current view of habits in neuroscience. In our opinion, it is of great interest to analyze the theoretical foundations of this conception, and to consider other alternatives that could enrich the study of habits in human neuroscience.
As Seger and Spiering state in their recent review, the notion of habit in neuroscience is inspired by the view of the psychologist and philosopher William James James is also credited by Dickinson and Graybiel in their works. A succinct but clear explanation of the influences received by James in the formulation of his conception of habit has been recently published Blanco, , and we outline it here.
According to James, habits can be innate or learned. However, the main philosophical branch that influenced James was associationism, as understood by Alexander Bain and John Stuart Mill. This is the theoretical background that has had the greatest impact on the study of habit by neuroscience. The main idea is as follows: habits are based on the plasticity of matter, and they subserve adaptive purposes.
Moreover, a habit can be chunked into smaller pieces that are automatically assembled: this is the main feature of associationism, and the start point of the Pavlovian stimulus-response pairing. Another recent publication gives an extremely interesting genealogy of the concept of habit over the course of the history of philosophy and neuroscience Barandiaran and Di Paolo, Interestingly for the purpose of our manuscript, Barandiaran and Di Paolo acknowledge that the first description of habits was developed by Aristotle, and further interpretations of his findings have given rise to two opposed branches: organicism and associationism.
According to these authors, the latter is the only theoretical influence in the study of habits in neuroscience. It is based on the idea that mental states are formed by the association of simpler units. Habits, then, are intended to preserve homeostasis of the organism, a view that differs from the original Aristotelian view, since according to the Greek philosopher good habits imply an increasing improvement of the agent.
Going back to the organicist view, a habit includes the organism as a whole and its environment. The main difference between the associationist and the organicist interpretations of habits is, therefore, that the former views habits as an assembly of small mechanisms, whereas the latter considers them to be a resource of the organism—an embodied mind in a complex environment—that works to maintain homeostasis.
Barandiaran and Di Paolo place William James in the associationist branch of the theoretical conceptualization of habit. At this point, we believe it may be useful to move back and forth between William James and the current notion of habit in neuroscience, in order to understand their similarities and differences.
This is the conceptual origin of the physiological chunking proposed by Graybiel and others Graybiel, ; Barnes et al. The decline in conscious attention suggested by James is also supported by current neuroscience, since the consolidated chunked activity in the motor aspects of the striatum during the performance of a well-learned motor sequence correlates with a decreased activity in the cognitive part of this brain area Smith and Graybiel, ; Thorn and Graybiel, We have outlined here the influence of William James on the current notion of habit in neuroscience, although much more could be said about this topic.
However, this view is also limited to some extent, and we suggest overcoming these limitations with a different theoretical interpretation of habits. The main shortcoming is that the opposition between goal-directed actions and habits—founded on the associationist view and developed on the basis of excellent animal research Dickinson, —works experimentally, but it is far from explaining the complexity of human habits. This opposition has the strong point of being impeccable from an experimental point of view: a goal-directed action is driven by the outcome it leads to, whereas a habit is carried out even in the case of outcome devaluation or degradation of the action-outcome contingency.
Therefore, experimentally and by definition, there cannot be goal-directed habits. As we will explain later, the fact of being or not being goal-directed is not necessarily the critical issue for distinguishing non-habitual from habitual behavior.
Thus, habits can be oriented towards a goal. Although we will not discuss the issue here for the sake of brevity, recent neuroscience research works accept that goals and habits are not strangers to each other: they can be intertwined in various ways, and not just during habit acquisition Wood and Neal, ; Dezfouli and Balleine, ; Duncan, Seger and Spiering uncover more limitations of this narrow view of habits, although they do not question the theoretical background that underlies them.
In our opinion, the main problem with applying these categories to human behavior comes from the direct extrapolation of animal experiments to human research.
Human cognitive resources are clearly different from those in animals. An inflexible comparison between the results of animal and human research would only shed light on the lowest levels of human cognition. If we focus our research strictly on those habits that animals are able to perform, or on those that fulfill the current theoretical model, we will constrain research on human neuroscience to investigating very simple habits. This interspecies correspondence could be also a consequence of the associationist heritage of the concept of habit, if the researcher assumes that the smaller units that constitute habits are the same in humans and non-human animals.
Therefore the main limitation is, in our opinion, that habits are held as being apart from cognition, and this is why they are considered ateleological, rigid, unconscious, automatic and insensitive to outcomes. We next intend to demonstrate that the first conception of habit, found in classical Greek philosophy, incorporates cognitive control as a crucial element in its acquisition and performance, and that this theoretical framework may help in overcoming the limitations posed by the associationist view of habits in neuroscience.
As we have seen, the dominant vision of habits in neuroscience conceives of them as a routine, very similar to the releasing mechanism that ethologists employ to analyze instinct Tinbergen, The main difference between the two is that habits are not innate but acquired. After acquisition, they are considered to behave in a similar way as instincts: inflexibly, automatically and unconsciously.
However, this is not the first characterization of habit, historically speaking. The pioneering definition and analysis of habits were carried out by Aristotle, whose view has the great advantage of not being conditioned by the sharp distinction between conscious and unconscious processes, a dichotomy which is frequent in modern and contemporary thought.
He explains his conception of habit in his book Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle, Our analysis is based on the original version in ancient Greek, although we will cite versions translated into English for clarity.
We have also freely translated some terms to show their similarity with concepts currently used in neuroscience, as we explain below. Aristotle characterizes habits as dispositions, that is, particular arrangements of human capacities.
The cornerstone that underlies the Aristotelian theory of action is the following: when an agent does or makes something, there is an effect not only on the receiver of the action or the product made, but also—and more importantly—on the agent. This is mainly explained in Book IX, chapter 8, b 23—38 of Metaphysics Aristotle, and in Book 3, chapter 7, a 5—9 of On the soul Aristotle, Since human actions are driven and controlled by cognition, each new action leaves a footprint in the agent as a kind of learning: a disposition to face further similar situations in a certain way, which includes the interpretation of that situation and the possible ways of dealing with it.
In some types of learning, this disposition also includes affective control and corporal skills. Please note that although Aristotle is highly subtle in his analysis, his conclusions are plain: one acquires a new ability by doing or making things related to that ability. We add: through our actions, we acquire the disposition or habit of being builders, mathematicians, piano players or temperate.
Since these habits are gained through practice, this process is goal directed. In these first paragraphs we have outlined the Aristotelian view on habits, their place in his philosophical system and their characterization as learned dispositions.
As we mentioned above, this categorization has been suggested by Graybiel, who considers good habits as being those which we try to incorporate in our behavior, and bad habits as those that take control of our behavior Graybiel, If we consider a habit to be a mere motor routine or a behavior that remains unchanged after outcome devaluation or degradation of action-outcome contingency , it is hard to categorize it as good or bad in itself, because this usually depends on the context in which it is triggered.
In our opinion, there is a key factor involved in considering habits as good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate: cognitive control. Through it, the agent can direct his or her behavior more adequately to the goal. This, in our opinion, links habits to cognitive control and goals. Please note that the usual view of habit in neuroscience, inherited from associationism, corresponds to that subtype of habit that we have termed habits-as-routine.
Therefore, habits-as-routines could be considered a cognitively-impoverished type of habits-as-learning. This is not surprising if we consider that such view has been elaborated on the basis of animal experiments, whose cognitive abilities are very limited in comparison with adult humans. We will elaborate on this point in the next section of our article, in order to demonstrate how the Aristotelian view gives an account of habits as motor routines, addictions and slips-of-action.
The main reason why Aristotle analyzed the nature of habits was to focus on ethics. However, the path he followed included a classification of acquired dispositions that can be of great interest for neuroscience. He distinguished three kinds of acquired habits, originally termed dianoethical, ethical and technical Aristotle, In order to assist in a better understanding of the three types, we will use an updated terminology: theoretical, behavioral and technical.
First, theoretical habits consist in the retention of learning. This is different from memory, the plain retention of former experiences. Theoretical habits are not acquired through mere experience and repetition, but require comprehension.
A good example is the understanding of a mathematical discipline, like geometry, and the capacity to understand its internal coherence. A human being does not become a mathematician through simple repetition of operational routines; instead, he or she must understand mathematical concepts and theorems along with the deductions that prove them.
Therefore, while comprehension is a key element of this type of habit, this is not the case for repetition: it depends on the quality of the action whether or not repetition improves the ability to understand the internal coherence of the discipline.
Once acquired, a theoretical habit allows the agent to understand new concepts and propositions, and even to improve that particular discipline. In spite of the theoretical nature of these habits, they have a major influence on praxis because they allow cognitive abilities to develop. In neuroscience, this type of habit is usually studied as explicit memory Schacter, ; Gabrieli et al.
The two remaining types of habits, however, improve behavior as well as the cognitive abilities that make it possible, rather than the theoretical abilities of the agent. In any case, Aristotle understands them as cognitive capacities as well, instead of mere routines. The second type is the behavioral habit, which depends on and is oriented towards phronesis : the habit of choosing and carrying out the best option for the agent in every situation.
Phronesis is a Greek term usually translated as prudence, which is the perfection of practical reason. In turn, desires are another kind of behavioral habits connected to emotions. Hence, the key point here is that emotions can be rationally governed, and behavioral habits are the improvement of such control through qualified practice. Phronesis , or practical wisdom, also affects decision making by way of this adaptation of emotional responses to rationally proposed goals.
Therefore, behavioral habits can be defined as knowing how to act; they are the basis of ethics and are studied in neuroscience under the umbrella of decision making Caspers et al. The third type is technical habits, which include those learned skills of doing or making things qua directed to an external goal. They usually entail embodied skills, as in the case of playing a musical instrument, painting or competitive running. Motor routines, understood as habits by the associationist view and by neuroscience, would be included under the umbrella of technical habits, since in general technical habits involve the acquisition of psychomotor skills that, of course, are improved through practice.
However, this third Aristotelian class of habits are not just habits-as-routines, since technical habits are also rationally controlled and, ultimately, goal-directed: knowing how to play the piano involves mastering certain motor skills, but also—and more importantly—putting them into practice in the right way and at the right moment. This third kind of disposition consists therefore in knowing how to make or how to do. In neuroscience today, these habits are mainly analyzed as procedural learning Censor et al.
This section intends to show why the Aristotelian theory of habits should be of interest for neuroscience. Before proceeding, we would like to clarify the main conclusions drawn from our analysis of the Aristotelian conception of habit presented in the previous chapter: 1 an acquired habit is an acquired disposition to perform certain types of actions; 2 this disposition, usually acquired by means of repetition of one or more actions, makes the execution of these actions prompter, more spontaneous and autonomous from continuous conscious supervision, all of which generally leads to a better performance; and 3 if the habit increases cognitive control of the actions, it can be termed a habit-as-learning; if on the contrary it increases their rigidity, it is a habit-as-routine.
As in the case of the notion of habits-as-routines, all these capacities are acquired through a variable amount of practice: we become scientists through correct intellectual activity Aristotle, , and we improve the performance of a sequential finger motor routine through repetition Nissen and Bullemer, However, habits-as-learning are not just the acquisition of a way of acting, but rather involve a cognitive capacity connected to the habit that can be flexibly utilized in different situations.
For example, the pianist who can easily read the notes from the score a mostly theoretical habit , and whose fingers appropriately respond to this reading a technical habit is able to exploit the expressive possibilities of the instrument.
In summary, this feature of habits-as-learning is very important in order that this kind of habit may be read as a cognitive enrichment of behavior rather than as the acquisition of a routine.
In the case of behavioral and technical habits they imply the availability of motor skills for complex activities, as well as the modulation of tendencies and desires to respond positively to conscious and rational goals. Therefore, they involve the acquisition of habits-as-routines, but their critical characteristics go beyond their motor aspects. Second, another important difference between habits-as-routines and habits-as-learning is their differing relation to consciousness.
For the former, habit performance is fully unconscious. In the latter, habits reduce or eliminate consciousness of basic elements of the action in order to concentrate on higher goals, while preserving at all times the possibility of recovering them for conscious attention. Although they seem unconscious and routinely performed, they are at the disposition of consciousness. They are not, in any case, rigid sequences. The possibility of developing habits-as-learning lies precisely in the feasibility of chunking those movements, actions and sequences, in order to organize them in other ways to perform different actions.
Thus, pianists can learn how to play piano by repeating several motor routines, but they are not restricted to playing the routines they practice: their ability goes beyond those fixed movements to include improvisation. Therefore, the definition of habits-as-learning does not depend on the dichotomy of consciousness vs. This is particularly important when this opposition is at stake in certain authors Horga and Maia, ; Cleeremans, The third contribution is two-fold: the Aristotelian view on habits allows us to understand the classification into good and bad habits, as well as to explain habits-as-routines the notion of habit currently used in neuroscience as a subtype of habits-as-learning.
In turn, this goal is enriched by the habit, as we explained in the case of the experienced pianist, who can concentrate on a better interpretation of the musical piece. Thus, addictions Everitt and Robbins, , compulsions Gillan et al. The acquisition of theoretical, behavioral and technical habits requires repetition; however, a high amount of it is not strictly necessary in the case of theoretical habits, since they can be acquired even by a single comprehension.
In any case, it is important to emphasize that this repetition has to be qualified, rather than plain: the budding pianists have to have self-discipline in order to acquire habits that will help them to become virtuous. If they get used to performing the wrong movements, their ability will deteriorate. What is the critical feature that distinguishes a virtuous pianist from a regular piano player?
It is, in our opinion, behavioral plasticity. If a student has acquired a set of cognitive-driven routines such that he or she can use them when they want to, it will result in a flexible performance. On the contrary, when routines have been learned through non-cognitive repetition, the final performance will be reduced to that set of routines. This is also the case for behavioral habits: repetition of wrong behaviors causes the acquisition of habits with a poor or non-existent cognitive content.
We would also include here unconscious biases that lead the agent to make a decision without considering all the relevant information Kahneman, Rigidity is a consequence of the acquisition of habits that do not imply a cognitive enrichment of the action.
Moreover, it is possible that some acquired skills may fall into rigidity and automation as a consequence of the decaying of higher cognitive functions, which by definition are in charge of controlling, reorganizing and reassessing acquired patterns. Finally, the Aristotelian view on habits may provide new insights on the emotional response of the agent after habit acquisition. Since cognitively controlled habits help the agent achieve rationally proposed goals, they tend to increase the enjoyment of the agent when performing such actions.
However, the rigidity of habits-as-routines and the consequent blurring of goals diminish this enjoyment. This results in an increased craving and a decreased pleasure after the outcome Volkow et al. How can the Aristotelian notion of habit be of use in future research in neuroscience? In this last section, we would like to point to possible new directions for research on habits in human neuroscience. Whereas the successful experimental approach employing the associationist view of habits focuses on outcome devaluation and the degradation of the action-outcome contingency Adams and Dickinson, ; Adams, ; Dickinson, , we propose new criteria to be considered when researching human habits as a whole both habits-as-learning and habits-as-routines.
First, a habit will have been incorporated when its related actions are performed more spontaneously, that is, with greater promptitude. This could be quantified by a decrease in the reaction time of the deliberation prior to the action. Second, habit acquisition would imply a more accurate performance of the action, especially in the case of technical habits, measured by a decreased number of errors.
Third, a categorization as habit-as-learning or habit-as-routine could be done by assessing cognitive control; behaviorally, this could be tested by error monitoring and adequately switching to a different task; neuroanatomically, by the recruitment of prefrontal regions and cognitive aspects of the basal ganglia.
After these general experimental considerations, we focus on other topics within neuroscience where the dichotomy between habits-as-learning and habits-as-routines could be of great use. In a recent publication, we highlighted the difficulty of defining conscious vs.
We are aware that this concept may sound provocative in neuroscience, since habits are related with unconscious phenomena, and decision making is mainly considered conscious, at least according to some accounts Newell and Shanks, However, the nature of a decision should be considered with reference to its final goal.
Driving is a technical habit that entails a high number of decisions, most of which are unconsciously made and performed: changing gear, putting the clutch in, switching on the indicator when turning, etc. However, driving is a conscious process overall: we decide to start the process, we consciously set the goal, and our driving is continuously available to conscious supervision.
This framework is similar to the hierarchical model by Dezfouli and Balleine , according to which habits are at the service of goal-directed behaviors. If we keep maintaining the extreme dichotomy between goal-directed actions and habits, we will be ruling most human activities out of the reach of neuroscience. Furthermore, neuroscience can study the interplay between habits and decision making from another perspective.
In short, it seems to be clear that the main players are the ventromedial prefrontal cortex Levy and Glimcher, , striatum and substantia nigra Balleine et al. In addition, more dorsal aspects of the prefrontal cortex supervise the whole process Manes et al.
In a very simplistic—albeit accurate—way, humans decide to perform the action that carries the highest subjective value. This value depends on personal preferences, which in turn rely on the history of actions, decisions, skills and dispositions that the agent has carried out or acquired during his or her life. Thus, in many cases, decision making depends on habits. For example, it is well known that temporal discounting depends on personal preferences: people may tend to be either impulsive or else patient, and temporal discounting has been reported to correlate with the BOLD signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex Kable and Glimcher, But, how do we initially become impulsive or patient?
Is it encoded in our genes or in our neurotransmitters? Can our actions change this feature of our personality, as well as its in-brain correlate? In our opinion, the role of habits in decision making is a key topic for future research in cognitive neuroscience.
In the classical Aristotelian view, when the agent acquires a good habit, he or she performs the action: 1 more easily; 2 more efficiently; and 3 with higher enjoyment.
This can be exemplified with the healthy habit of running: at the beginning, the jogger has to struggle to find the perfect time to go out, he or she can only run a short distance, and finds it definitely painful. However, as days go by, all three nuisances become increasingly tolerable. Habits contribute to improving action performance because they release consciousness from having to focus on immediate goals, and allow all cognitive resources to focus instead on higher goals.
This is the key idea for understanding how habits induce behavioral plasticity. A good pianist is able to improvise and concentrate on the artistic eloquence of the piece, because his or her acquired habit allows the player to go beyond the mere movements of his or her hands.
When a motor task is being learned, it requires the agent to expend a high amount of energy, since many executive brain areas are active; however, after practicing, brain activation is more restricted and energy consumption is thus lower Poldrack et al. At the beginning, different aspects of the prefrontal cortex as well as their striatal targets—mainly the caudate nucleus—are in charge of the process; however, when the task is mastered, the activation of these areas is decreased and the putamen, globus pallidus and supplementary motor area of the cortex have a higher BOLD signal.
This allows the prefrontal cortex and caudate nucleus to engage in a novel task when performing the well learned sequence. This neuroanatomical framework is useful to understand those aspects of habits related with the automation of behavior.
Automation is a condition for developing most habits-as-learning, since it releases executive areas from a continuous supervision of certain tasks. Thus, automations allow a cognitive enrichment of actions.
For example, solving a Sudoku puzzle for the first time may seem overwhelming. With practice, the player discovers that as a result of performing certain intellectual routines the puzzle is easier to tackle. Furthermore, once these routines are acquired, it is easier for the player to monitor for errors and deal with new challenges within the puzzle. An area of possible future research is opened here, since error monitoring and problem solving will find their neural correlate in the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex; will, however, the intellectual routines be coded in the posterior putamen and premotor areas of the cortex?
Another interesting subject to investigate in the future is increased enjoyment in habit performance. Since this could be an extremely broad topic, we will only suggest its outlines here. For a start, it will be necessary to have an adequate characterization of pleasure and enjoyment. Human neuroscience assumes the reward circuit is an analog to that of non-human animals: unquestionably, regions such as the substantia nigra and the ventral striatum are active when an animal—rat, monkey or human—receives a primary reward Schultz, It also happens when humans are granted a secondary reward, such as money Delgado, However, human beings are also able to interpret as rewards things that are far from being pleasurable, including physically painful experiences.
This hylomorphic analysis of thinking is evidently a simple extension of the general model of hylomorphic change exploited by Aristotle in a host of similar contexts.
That is, at least in schematic outline, Aristotle will offer the following approach. For any given thinker S and an arbitrary object of thought O :. Unsurprisingly, the same questions which arose in the case of perception also arise here.
The suggestion is, then, that when S comes to think of a stone, as opposed to merely perceiving some particular stone, S has a faculty which is such that it can become one in form with that stone. Aristotle sometimes infers from this sort of consideration that thought is of universals, whereas perception is of particulars De Anima ii 5, b23, Posterior Analytics i 31, 87b37—88a7 , though he elsewhere will allow that we also have knowledge of individuals De Anima ii 5, a29; Metaphysics xiii 10, a These passages are not contradictory, since Aristotle may simply be emphasizing that thought tends to proceed at a higher level of generality than perception, because of its trading in comparatively abstract structural features of its objects.
A person can think of what it is to be a stone, but cannot, in any direct and literal sense of the term, perceive this. To take an initially favorable case, when thinking that tree frogs are oviparous , S will be in a psychic state whose internal structural states are, among other things, one in form with tree frogs.
There must be a determinate and expressible structural isomorphism, even though one could not say that the blueprint realizes the form of the house.
Houses are, after all, necessarily three-dimensional. As such, it would not be possible for the mind to realize the form of a house in the way bricks and mortar instantiate such a form: houses provide shelter, something a mind, so understood, cannot do. Consequently, when claiming that minds become isomorphic with their objects, Aristotle must understand the way in which minds become enformed as somehow attenuated or non-literal. Perhaps, though, this should be plain enough.
If a mind thinks something by being made like it, then the way it is likened to what it thinks must be somehow representational. This approach to the nature of thinking has some promising features. At the same time, one of its virtues may appear also as a vice.
Only surfaces can be affected so as to be changed in color. His reasons for maintaining this thesis are complex, but derive ultimately from the forms of plasticity Aristotle believes the mind must manifest if it is to be capable of thinking all things De Anima iii 4, a Now, if the mind is indeed nothing in actuality before thinking, it is hard to understand how the hylomorphic analysis of change and affection could be brought to bear in this arena.
If some dough is made cookie-shaped, it is actually dough before being so enformed; even the sense organs, when made like their objects, are actually existing organs before being affected by the objects of perception. So, given a conception of mind as not existing in actuality before thinking, it is hard to appreciate how thinking lends itself to an analysis in terms of any recognizable hylomorphic approach to change.
A builder is as such already able to build. When he begins building he becomes fully and actually a builder for the duration of his working. In this way, he loses nothing, but instead realizes an already established potential. This would involve its being nothing determinate in itself; and far from being anomalous for Aristotle, the mind would be in the cognitive realm precisely what the most basic stuff, if there is a most basic stuff, would be in the material realm.
Both would manifest unconstrained plasticity; and so each would be characterized essentially in terms of their range of potentialities. In both perception and thinking, animal souls are in some ways active and in some ways passive.
Although both mind and the sensory faculty receive their correlative forms when perceiving or thinking, neither is wholly passive in its defining activity. Perception involves discrimination, while thinking involves selective attending and abstraction, both activities, in the sense that each requires more than mere passive receptivity. Still, the sorts of activity required for cognition and perception do not explain in any obvious way another central fact about human beings and other animals: animals propel themselves through space in pursuit of objects they desire.
Even in his first characterizations of soul in De Anima , Aristotle is alive to the widely held conviction that the soul is implicated in motion De Anima i 2, b11; i 5 b19— Of course, this is a natural connection for him to make, given that every animate being, that is, every being with a soul, has within it a principle of motion and rest.
So, it seems deeply characteristic of living systems that they are able to move themselves in ways likely to result in their survival and flourishing. Animals move themselves, however, in a distinctive way: animals desire things, with the result that desire is centrally implicated in all manner of animal action.
Why did ostrich run from the tiger? Because, one says easily, it desired to survive and so engaged in avoidance behavior. Why did the human being drive to the opera and sit quietly in her seat? Because, it seems, she desired to hear the music and to observe the spectacle. In these, as in countless other cases, the explanation of animal action, human and non-human alike, easily and unreflectively appeals to desire.
This is why Aristotle does not end his De Anima with a discussion of mind. Instead, after discussing mind, he notes that all animals are capable of locomotion, only to deny that any one of the faculties of the soul so far considered viz. Although he had initially identified only these three faculties of soul De Anima ii 2, b12 , Aristotle now notes that something must explain the fact that animals engage in goal-directed behavior in order to achieve their conscious and unconscious goals.
The wanted explanation cannot, he urges, be found somehow in the nutritive faculty, since plants, as living beings, have that power of soul, but do not move themselves around in pursuit of their goals; nor is it due to perception, since even some animals have this faculty without ever moving themselves at all, in any way Aristotle evidently has in mind sponges, oysters, and certain testacea, Historia Animalium i 1, b6—9; viii 1 b12; Partibus Animalium iv 5, b34, c8 ; nor again can it be a product of mind, since insofar as it is contemplative, mind does not focus upon objects likely to issue in directives for action, and insofar as it does commend action, mind is not of itself sufficient to engender motion, but instead relies upon appetite De Anima iii 9, b14—33a5.
Indeed, using the same form of reasoning, that a faculty cannot account for purposive action if its activity is insufficient to initiate motion, Aristotle initially concludes that even desire itself orexis cannot be responsible for action. After all, continent people, unlike those who are completely and virtuously moderate, have depraved desires but do not, precisely because they are continent, ever act upon them De Anima iii 9 a6—8; cf.
Nicomachean Ethics i 13, b So their desires are insufficient for action. Consequently, he concludes, desire alone, considered as a single faculty, cannot explain purposive action, at least not completely. Ultimately, though, Aristotle does come to the conclusion that there is a faculty of desire orektikon whose occupation it is to initiate animal motion. Perhaps his initial reservations pertained only to one species of desire considered in isolation.
He understands this conclusion, however, in tandem with another which also serves as a qualification of his earlier finding that mind cannot be the source of motion.
He holds, in fact, that it is reasonable to posit two faculties implicated in animal movement: desire and practical reason De Anima iii 10, a17—19 , though they do not work in isolation from one another. Rather, practical reason, broadly construed to incorporate the kind of image-processing present in non-human animals, is a source of movement when it focuses upon an object of desire as something desirable.
So, practical reason and desire act corporately as the sources of purposive motion in all animals, both human and non-human De Anima iii 10, a9—16 , even though, ultimately, it is desire whose objects prick practical intellect and set it in motion De Anima iii 10, a17—2.
For this reason, Aristotle concludes, there is a faculty of desire whose activities and objects are primarily, if not autonomously or discretely, responsible for initiating end-directed motion in animals.
What animals seek in action is some object of desire which is or seems to them to be good. Aristotle displays some hesitation in his discussion of desire and its relation to practical reason in the aetiology of animal action. Some have consequently concluded that his treatment can be regarded as at best inchoate or, worse, as positively befuddled.
There seem to be no grounds for any such harsh assessment, however. Equally likely is that Aristotle is simply sensitive to the complexities involved in any approach to the intertwining issues in the philosophy of action.
Unlike some later Humeans, he evidently appreciates that the data and phenomena in this domain are unstable, wobbling and retreating at the approach of taxonomizing theory. The antecedents of action, he rightly concludes, involve some sort of faculty of desire; but he is reluctant to conclude that desire is the sole or sufficient faculty implicated in the explanation of purposive behavior.
In some way, he concludes, practical reason and imagination have indispensable roles to play as well. All of the translations of quotations from Aristotle's work, in this main part of the entry and in the supplements, are by the author. Shields nd. Hylomorphism in General 3. Psychic Faculties 5.
Nutrition 6. Perception 7. Mind 8. See the supplementary document Method in Psychology. Hylomorphism in General In De Anima , Aristotle makes extensive use of technical terminology introduced and explained elsewhere in his writings. These four factors he terms the four causes aitiai : The material cause : that from which something is generated and out of which it is made, e.
The formal cause : the structure which the matter realizes and in terms of which the matter comes to be something determinate, e. The final cause : the purpose or goal of the compound of form and matter, e.
In applying his general hylomorphism to soul-body relations, Aristotle contends that the following general analogy obtains: soul : body : : form : matter : : Hermes-shape : bronze If the soul bears the same relation to the body which the shape of a statue bears to its material basis, then we should expect some general features to be common to both; and we should be able to draw some immediate consequences regarding the relationship between soul and body.
Nutrition When turning to these individual faculties of the soul, Aristotle considers nutrition first, for two related reasons. Perception Aristotle devotes a great deal of attention to perception, discussing both the general faculty and the individual senses. For the suggestion that thinking is to be understood at least partially in terms of isomorphisms between our representational capacities and the objects of our cognition has had, for good reason, a durable appeal.
To the degree that hylomorphism is generally defensible, then, its application in this domain provides a theoretically rich framework for investigating the nature of thought. Desire In both perception and thinking, animal souls are in some ways active and in some ways passive. Bibliography All of the translations of quotations from Aristotle's work, in this main part of the entry and in the supplements, are by the author.
Beare, J. Hamlyn, D. Jannone, A. Lawson-Tancred, H. Rodier, G. Ross, G. Ross, W. Theiler, W. Anthologies and Monographs Barnes, L.
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Remarks on De Anima 2. Perler ed. Bynum, T. Cashdollar, S. Frede and B. Reis eds. Gotthelf and J. Durrant ed. Cohen, S. Gotthelf ed. Corcilius, K. De Ley, H. Easterling, H. Ebert, T. Gottschalk, H. Hardie, W. Hicken, W. Kahn, Charles H. Lang, H. Lewis, Frank A. Ley, H. Lloyd, A. Long, A. Lycos, K. Magee, Joseph M. Maudlin, T. Miller, Fred D. Mirus, Christopher V. Osborne, C. Owens, J. Catan ed. Price, A. Richardson, Henry S. Robinson, H. Rosen, S.
Scaltsas, T. Schiller, J. Smith ed. Mesquita and S. Noriega-Olmos eds. Silverman, A. Slakey, T. Solmsen, F. Letterkunde n. Blumenthal and H.
Robinson eds. Taylor, C. Anton and A. Preus eds. Turnbull, R. Machamer and R. Turnbull eds.
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