Medieval Philosophy

by Peter S. Adamson

potentiality with materiality.12 So while it’s true that all things other than God have powers which they may or may not use, this does not mean that the soul or angels have matter. In fact, Albert will even admit that insofar as the soul is conceived as a form, it remains incomplete without its body. For, as a form, it is nothing but a source of bodily activities, like nutrition or sensation. It does need the body as an instrument to carry out those activities and realize its potential, and when the body dies, the opportunity to do this is lost (104). Yet the soul survives because it is a substance in its own right. Its activities are destroyed, while it lives on, like a blacksmith who can survive the destruction of his anvil and hammer. By demoting the lower functions of soul to mere activities realized in a body, Albert can avoid embracing a notion we’ve found in Olivi and Kilwardby, namely that there is a plurality of forms in every single human. Like Aquinas after him, Albert instead insists that the soul is a single substance and act (104).