The main thesis for the book, On the Soul in Book II Chapter 1, is about how Aristotle illustrates soul cannot be separated from the body. The reason is because the soul is the being-at-work-staying-itself (entelecheia) while the body has being in potency (dunamis). The goal for this paper is to explicate how Aristotle explains the soul is not separated from the body.
Firstly, Aristotle distinguishes thinghood by sorting it as material, which he clarifies is potency and it is an manner of knowledge; the form or look of a thing, which is clarified as being-at-work-staying-itself and it is the manner of the act of contemplating; and the combination of material and the form. He also states that since bodies are independent things, bodies are the sources of all the others in the nature. After clarifying the basis, Aristotle continues that every natural body having a share in life would be an independent thing having thinghood as a composite of material and form, (412a 15) which is the third sort according to the basis of thinghood. In addiction, soul could not be a material since the body is already a material and it has being an underlying thing. Therefore, the soul is sorted as a form and the body is sorted as a material when we think in the way of thinghood.
Once the soul and the body are defined and sorted based on the concept of thinghood, Aristotle intends to show the difference between the body and the soul by using axe as an example (412b 13). It is obvious that axe is acted as the body and being-an-axe would be the thinghood of it, or namely its soul. If being-an-axe is separated from itself, it would no longer be an axe. However, Aristotle reckons that the example is not persuasive since axe is hard to sort as a body because it does not move. Therefore, Aristotle changes his mind by using eye as an example (412b 18). Eye can be sorted as a body while the sight is the soul of the eye. He proves it does make sense because if the eye (body) exists without...