Page - 107 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

There certainly are good reasons for thinking that according to Aristotle every alteration with respect to a psychological quality is accompanied by a corresponding alteration of a perceptible quality, and hence, as we have seen, one of touch. That Aristotle thinks that certain changes in the body correspond to certain changes in the soul is clear. For instance he seems to think that anger goes hand in hand with a heating of the blood in the area of the heart and that blushing is concomitant with feeling ashamed, while turning pale with being afraid.99 There are no grounds for saying that Aris- totle denied that a similar relation exists in general between alteration of psychological and of perceptible qualities, an assumption which from our point of view seems very reasonable.100 But if I am right, and every alteration of psychological qualities indeed goes hand in hand with an alteration of the perceptible qualities of the respective body, then from what I stated above it follows that psychological alterations, too, involve alterations of tangible qualities and thus also with respect to the elements and principles of the substance’s body to which they belong. That is to say, a change of state, for example becoming a virtuous person, also goes hand in hand with certain changes that the elemental bodies undergo with respect to the four basic qualities. Therefore, there are very good reasons for saying that the claim about change in quality from GC II 4 is correct, i.e., that indeed every alteration is also an alteration in respect of tangible qualities, insofar as any such change involves a change with respect to the four basic qualities of hot-cold and dry-moist. As we have seen, however, this does not mean that alterations in general can be reduced to such changes. Now that it is clear that when something under- goes alteration it also undergoes a change with respect to the four basic qua- lities, it remains to show that a change in the basic qualities, again, always goes hand in hand with condensation or rarefaction in some way. For then it will become clear that in this way all alterations also involve condensation or rarefaction. This will be accomplished in what follows. 99 For the first example see de An. I 1, 403a31–b1, for the second EN V 9, 1128b13–14. In de An. I 1, 403a3–25, Aristotle states that affections of the soul in general most likely cannot occur without a corresponding affection of the body. 100 We would say for instance that a learning process, be it becoming educated or virtu- ous, goes hand in hand with the formation of new synapses in the brain and hence has a material correspondent. What changes in quality changes with respect to place 107 ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen