The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

The concept of the human person as an embodied spirit is central to philosophy. It refers to the inseparable union of body and soul, where the human person is the convergence of material and spiritual entities. This understanding helps in knowing our potentialities, limitations, and unique nature as creatures united by body and soul.

Aristotle's view of the embodied spirit is largely a reaction to Plato's. Plato believed in a metaphysical dichotomy between body and soul. The body is material, mutable, and destructible, while the soul is immaterial, immutable, and indestructible. For Plato, the soul existed prior to the body and the human person is essentially a soul using a body.

Plato identified three parts of the soul: rational (located in the head), spiritual (in the chest), and appetitive (in the abdomen). The spiritual and appetitive souls contribute to motion and activity, while the rational soul guides them. The appetitive drives physical wants, the spiritual fuels emotions like anger, and the rational enables thought, reflection, and analysis. The rational soul is the highest and guides the other two, leading to a well-balanced personality if successful.

Plato argued that the soul is distinct and separable from the body, believing it is 'imprisoned' in the body and survives death. When a person dies, the body decomposes, but the soul returns to the 'world of forms,' living eternally. Plato's doctrine posits two worlds: the world of forms (from which everything originates and returns) and the world of matter.

Aristotle disagreed with Plato's dualism and the concept of 'other-worldliness.' He believed there is no dichotomy between the body and soul; they are in a state of unity and are inseparable. For Aristotle, the soul is the 'principle of life' (psyche), meaning anything with life possesses a soul. The soul animates the body, with the soul being the 'form' of the body and the body being the 'matter' to the soul. Matter and form are inseparable, thus body and soul constitute the human person as a whole.

Since anything with life has a soul, Aristotle distinguished three levels: vegetative (plants), sensitive (animals), and rational (humans). Vegetative souls have the capacity to grow, reproduce, and feed. Sensitive souls also possess sensation, experiencing pleasure and pain, and thus desire. Rational souls have all these capacities plus the ability to think. Aristotle concluded that the human person is a 'rational animal,' possessing all characteristics of animals plus rationality.