Aristotle on Feelings of Bodily Changes

Five ARISTOTLE ON FEELINGS OF BODILY CHANGES

For Aristotle, cognition is embodied. His psychology is based on the assumption that the affective aspects of embodiment, ranging from emotions and moods to bodily states such as thirst and hunger, play a meaning-generating role. This chapter enquires into how he thinks feelings of bodily changes enter and inform cognitive processes. Section One draws mainly on Aristotle's zoological works and illustrates the influence that the material make-up of an animal's body has on its affective responses. Section Two turns to his theory of animal movement and examines the importance of thermal alterations, with their corresponding pleasant and painful sensations, in exciting desire. Section Three discusses the homeostatic role of perceived affects and the relational nature of the connection that Aristotle envisages between what an animal perceives as pleasant and what is conducive to its preservation and flourishing. As a biologist, Aristotle believes strongly in continuity. Therefore he believes that the basic psychological mechanisms of sentience, motivation, and movement to which this chapter refers are shared by all animals, including humans.

Five point one Embodiment

The philosophical investigation of animals and a careful description of their attributes and habits are one of the enduring legacies of Aristotle's biological enterprise. In the History of Animals Aristotle's study is organized around four kinds of animals' differences, including their parts, characteristic activities, ways of life, and characters. Book One of the Parts of Animals outlines the method for the study of animals and establishes the priority of teleological explanations appealing to what Aristotle calls 'form' or 'soul' (that is not something immaterial and separable from the 'matter' or 'body', but the capacity of living beings to be active in various ways). The three books that follow provide an account of the internal organs and the external parts of blooded and bloodless animals, whose features are explained with reference to their different functional needs. Here too Aristotle discusses animals' characters and dispositions. Let us consider the following descriptions of different forms of fear-related behaviour in different animals:

when they [the dung beetles] are frightened they become motionless, and their body becomes hard.

when it [the cuttlefish] is frightened and terrified, it darkens and 'inks' the water. Part an. six hundred seventy-nine a six; trans. Lennox if it [the nautilus] is frightened it sinks under water after filling the shell. Hist. an. six hundred twenty-two b fourteen-fifteen; trans. Balme it [the bison] defends itself by kicking and by voiding dung at them [its assailants], throwing it up to four rods from itself; it uses this easily and frequently, and it scorches the hounds' coats so that they rub off. Now it is when the bison is distressed and frightened that its dung does this, but when it is free it does not scorch. Hist. an. six hundred thirty b nine-thirteen; trans. Balme

Fear, we learn, excites different reactions: when scared, the dung beetle freezes, the cuttlefish hides by discharging ink, the nautilus flees by sinking under water, and the bison defends itself by fighting back. Why is it so? Aristotle believes it is because emotional reactions and behaviour depend on character and dispositions, and these, in turn, depend on the constitution of one's body. More specifically, Aristotle thinks that whether a scared animal reacts by freezing or fighting back depends on factors such as the size of its heart and the quality of its blood. In embodied terms, he believes that emotions come about as alterations of the temperature of the body. Fear, for example, causes cooling: because water is solidified by the cold, animals whose blood is watery are especially inclined to fear and, when scared, tend to freeze. Conversely, since more fibrous blood is easily heated and heat is the effect of spirit (thumos, sometimes also translated 'anger'), animals with this blend of blood typically react to danger by becoming aggressive.

The animals that are excessively watery are more timid. This is because fear cools; accordingly, those having such a blend in the heart are predisposed to this affection, since water is solidified by the cold. This is also why the other bloodless animals are, generally speaking, more timid than the blooded, and when afraid become immobile, discharge residues, and in some cases change their colours. However, those with excessively fibrous, thick blood are more earthen in nature, and both spirited in character and excitable because of their spirit. For spirit is productive of heat, and solids that have been heated give off more heat than liquids; and the fibres are solid and earthen, so that they become like sparks in the blood, and produce a boiling in the spirit. That is why bulls and boars are spirited and excitable; their blood is most fibrous, and indeed the blood of the bull solidifies more quickly of all. Part. an. six hundred fifty b twenty-seven-six hundred fifty-one a four; trans. Lennox

Following the same line of reasoning and taking a broader look across species, Aristotle claims that 'hotter' males are more courageous than 'colder' females and the 'colder' elderly are less spirited than the 'hotter' young. In humans, too, thermal differences of this kind lead to significant variations in emotional dispositions. In the Rhetoric, for example, when discussing the various types of human character, the young are described as confident and courageous because they are diathermoi, warmed up by nature as with excess of wine (Rh. one thousand three hundred eighty-nine a eighteen-nineteen; trans. Roberts), whereas the elderly are 'always anticipating danger; unlike that of the young, who are warm-blooded, their temperament is chilly; old age has paved the way for cowardice; fear is, in fact, a form of chill' (Rh. one thousand three hundred eighty-nine b twenty-nine-thirty-two; trans. Roberts). One consequence of this thermal variation is, for example, that even if both the young and the old are inclined to feeling pity,

und 'inks' the water. an. six hundred seventy-nine a six; trans. Lennox g the shell. six hundred twenty-two b fourteen-fifteen; trans. Balme

: at them [its assailants], equently, and it scorches : bison is distressed and hot scorch. six hundred thirty b nine-thirteen; trans. Balme

; beetle freezes, the cuttlefish r, and the bison defends itself notional reactions and behav- epend on the constitution of red animal reacts by freezing ad the quality of its blood. In ons of the temperature of the :d by the cold, animals whose 1, tend to freeze. Conversely, of spirit (thumos, sometimes react to danger by becoming

'his is because fear cools; disposed to this affection, her bloodless animals are, en afraid become immo- urs. However, those with and both spirited in char- luctive of heat, and solids d the fibres are solid and I produce a boiling in the :able; their blood is most ickly of all. six hundred fifty b twenty-seven-six hundred fifty-one a four; trans. Lennox across species, Aristotle claims and the 'colder' elderly are less rences of this kind lead to sig- r example, when discussing the nfident and courageous because wine (Rh. one thousand three hundred eighty-nine a eighteen-nineteen; trans. unlike that of the young, who ved the way for cowardice; fear 'ne consequence of this thermal old are inclined to feeling pity,

they do so for very different reasons: the former 'out of kindness; old men out of weakness, imagining that anything that befalls anyone else might easily happen to them, which is a thought that excites pity'.

It is apparent, therefore, that the bodily constitution of living beings does not only underpin the way they act out of emotion: it also determines their dispositions, that is, whether they are more inclined to feel emotions of one kind or another. In Parts of Animals Two point two, Aristotle summarizes the relation between the quality of an animal's blood and its cognitive and affective dispositions as follows:

Thicker and hotter blood is more productive of strength, while thinner and cooler blood is more perceptive and intelligent. And the same difference obtains among the attributes analogous to blood. This is why both bees and other such animals are more discerning in their nature than many blooded animals, and why among blooded animals those having cold and this blood are more discerning than their opposites. But those with hot, thin, and pure blood are best; for such animals are at once in a good state relative to both courage and discernment.

Because the temperature of the blood is so important in determining the animal's character, the size of its heart also matters. Animals with a large heart, for example, are dispositionally fearful. 'The affection resulting from being afraid is already present' in them because, relative to the size of their heart, the amount of heat in their blood is too little:

The differences of the heart with respect to largeness and smallness, and hardness and softness, extend somehow even to the characters of animals. For the imperceptive animals have a heart that is hard and solid, while the perceptive ones have a softer heart; and those with larger hearts are timid, while those with smaller or medium-sized hearts are more bold. For the affection resulting from being afraid is already present in these animals, because the heat in their heart is not in balance (being small in quantity, it is weakened in large animals), and because the blood is colder. The hare, deer, mouse, hyena, ass, leopard, and marten have large hearts, as do virtually all the others that are evidently timid or devious on account of fear.

In this regard, it is important to remember that, in human beings, Aristotle draws a distinction between natural inclinations, that are biologically determined, and ethical dispositions, that emerge from the former thanks to some connection with reason. Aristotle acknowledges the embodied nature of character traits, but he is not a biological determinist. For him, the virtuous and vicious dispositions that one acquires by training and education also count as nature and this is the case because they rely on corporeal sensations as much as natural inclinations do: virtuous and vicious dispositions are the product of the habituation to feel pleasure and pain for the right things, in the case of virtues, and for the wrong ones, in the case of vices.

Importantly, besides conditioning behaviour and dispositions, different physical characteristics correlate with differences in the entire suite of an organism's life activities that Aristotle calls bios. They therefore contribute significantly to the way specific living beings experience their environment. What counts as food, for example, depends on the material constitution of an animal: 'their food differs chiefly according to the matter out of which they are constituted'

of beasts, some are gregarious, others are solitary; they live in the way which is best adapted to sustain them, accordingly as they are carnivorous or herbivorous or omnivorous: and their habits are determined for them by nature with regard to their ease and choice of food. But the same things are not naturally pleasant to all of them; and therefore the lives of carnivorous or herbivorous animals further differ among themselves.

Finally, if differences in the physical make-up account for variations of character and behaviour between different kinds of animal, individual changes are accounted for by the alteration of the animal's bodily states. At the level of basic cognition this means, for example, that the same animal perceives the same smell as pleasant, when hungry, and as unpleasant, when sated. But more complex processes such as evaluation and appraisal are also embodied, that is, they are neither separable nor abstractable from bodily states:

Sometimes when faced with strong and manifest stimuli there is no indication of excitement or fear, but on other occasions people are moved by weak and dim stimuli, that is when the body is aroused and is in the condition it is in when angry. Here is an even clearer case: in the absence of anything fearful people find themselves experiencing what someone who is afraid does.

What Aristotle is telling us here is that bodily feelings guide our value orientation by lowering or raising our thresholds for emotional reactions, so that we accentuate or downplay the salience of eliciting conditions on the basis of our own internal states. On the other hand, emotions, once aroused, involve the body in the same way, so that they influence perceptions and evaluations of all sorts. Indeed, not only are we 'easily deceived with respect to our perceptions when we are in emotional states', but emotions underpin judgements as well:

When people are feeling friendly and placable, they think one sort of thing; when they are feeling angry or hostile, they think either something totally different or the same thing with a different intensity.