Use case diagram

Aristotle (384-322 BC), in his work De Anima investigates the soul’s faculties and the relation between them. He sustains, that all living beings have soul, and constructs a hierarchical model of the types of souls:

Faculty	Plant’s soul	Animal soul	Human soul
Nutrition	includes	includes	includes
Reproduction	includes	includes	includes
Perception	–	includes	includes
Desire	–	–	includes
Imagination	–	–	includes
Mind (intellect, nous)	–	–	includes

“The reasons why this should be so are broadly teleological. In brief, every living creature as such grows, reaches maturity, and declines. Without a nutritive capacity, these activities would be impossible… So, Aristotle concludes, psychology must investigate not only perceiving and thinking, but also nutrition.”

The following UML Use Case diagram shows the main concepts in Aristotle’s philosophy of mind:

Use cases:

Faculty	Use Case	Relations
NUTRITION	Use NUTRITION (UC7): “Mind includes the non-human animal level sense-perception, which includes the plant level nutrition.”
REPRODUCTION	Use REPRODUCTION (UC8): “… any creature with perception will also have the ability to take on nutrition and to reproduce”
PERCEPTION	Use TASTE, TOUCH, SMELL, HEAR, SEE (UC1-UC5) perception to recieve sensible species: “Aristotle claims that [sense] perception is best understood on the model of hylomorphic change generally: just as a house changes from blue to white when acted upon by the agency of a painter applying paint, so ‘perception comes about with <an organ’s> being changed and affected… for it seems to be a kind of alteration’. So in line with his general account of alteration, Aristotle treats perception as a case of interaction between two suitable agents: objects capable of acting and capacities capable of being affected.” Sensible species is the representation of the object in the sense-organs.
PERCEPTION	Use COMMON SENSE (koine aisthesis) to unify and monitor 5 senses (UC6)	includes UC1-UC5, UC7, UC8
MIND (or intellect)	Use MIND (intellect, nous) for knowing an understanding (UC9): Mind or intellect is a faculty posessed just by humans; it has 2 sub-types: Theoretical and Practical mind. “Human minds do more than understand, however. It is equally essential to the human being to plan and deliberate, to ponder alternatives and strategize, and generally to chart courses of action.”	includes UC6, UC12, UC14
MIND (or intellect)	Use THEORETICAL MIND (sophia): from experience grasps of first principles (ta próta); generate Knowledge (epistemê) (UC10)	inherits from UC9
MIND (or intellect)	Use PRACTICAL MIND (phronēsis) to initiate change (UC11): “desire and practical reason (De Anima iii 10, 433a17–19), though they do not work in isolation from one another. Rather, practical reason, broadly construed to incorporate the kind of image-processing present in non-human animals, is a source of movement when it focuses upon an object of desire as something desirable. So, practical reason and desire act corporately as the sources of purposive motion in all animals, both human and non-human (De Anima iii 10, 433a9–16), even though, ultimately, it is desire whose objects prick practical intellect and set it in motion (De Anima iii 10, 433a17–2).”	inherits from UC9; includes UC15
MIND (or intellect)	Use MEMORY for storing and recollection of images (UC13).
MIND (or intellect)	Create Experience (empiria) (UC12): “experience (empiria)—…a technical term in this connection, reflecting the point at which a single universal comes to take root in the mind”	includes UC13
IMAGINATION	Use IMAGINATION (phantasia) to produce images (UC14): “Aristotle identifies imagination as ‘that in virtue of which an image occurs in us’, where this is evidently given a broad range of application to the activities involved in thoughts, dreams, and memories…” Aristotle regards the images used in cognitive processes in two ways: ● as having its very form in the mind (conformity), ● a mental image in the mind that naturally resembles the object (resemblance).
DESIRE	Use DESIRE (orektikon) to initiate motion (UC15): “Aristotle concludes, there is a faculty of desire whose activities and objects are primarily, if not autonomously or discretely, responsible for initiating end-directed motion in animals. What animals seek in action is some object of desire which is or seems to them to be good.”

Actors:

ACTOR	DESCRIPTION	RELATIONS
Object in External World	An object in the external world.	UC1, UC2, UC3, UC4, UC5
User of the Soul	A human person.	uses UC10, UC11

Observations:

Aristotle in the analysis of the Soul uses the hylomorphic model (see in [1.3.5]) for explaining the unity of the body and soul, and the working mechanism of perception and mind.
All living things have Soul, as their Form. Hence the Human Soul encompasses the faculty of mind (reason), which includes the non-human animal level sense-perception, which includes the plant level nutrition. Mind, sense-perception, and nutrition are the differentia specifica in Aristotle’s 10-fold categorization (see in [1.3.2]).
The existence of the living things is teleological (see in [1.3.4]).

The following OntoUML diagram presents the main classes in Aristotle’s theory of soul:

Sources:

All citations and more about the topic in: Shields, Christopher, “Aristotle’s Psychology“, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
Richard Sorabji, “Aristotle on demarcating the five senses”, Philosophical Review, 1971

First published: 11/4/2019
Updated: 16/4/2019: some use case relations changed
Updated: 27/4/2019: added 5 Senses and Common Sense
Updated: 14/7/2019: added reproduction
Updated: 10/8/2020
Updated: 8/6/2021
Updated: 30/11/2021 added OntoUML diagram

Faculty	Use Case	Relations
SENSE PERCEPTION	SENSE PERCEPTION gets information about ordinary objects (particulars) (UC1): “Perception, unlike discursive thought or belief, is aligned not with the so-called rational part of the soul, but with the desiderative part…, the senses are disparaged as a source of confusion and falsehood. The senses mislead us.” The cause of this misleading is the fact that we perceive particulars, ordinary material objects, not Forms.”
APPETITE	APPETITE (epithumêtikon) gives rise to desire for instant gratification through food, drink, sex…(UC2): “Appetite is primarily concerned with food, drink and sex (439d, 580e). It gives rise to desires for these and other such things which in each case are based, simply and immediately, on the thought that obtaining the relevant object of desire is, or would be, pleasant. Socrates also calls appetite the money-loving part, because, in the case of mature human beings at least, appetite also tends to be strongly attached to money, given that it is most of all by means of money that its primary desires are fulfilled.”	includes UC1
SPIRIT	SPIRIT aiming/motivating for esteem by others (UC3): “The natural attachment of spirit [thumoeides] is to honor and, more generally, to recognition and esteem by others. As a motivating force it generally accounts for self-assertion and ambition.”
REASON	Use REASON (logos) to generate Knowledge (nous) (UC4): “Reason is the part of the soul that is, of its own nature, attached to knowledge and truth. It is also, however, concerned to guide and regulate the life that it is, or anyhow should be, in charge of, ideally in a way that is informed by wisdom and that takes into consideration the concerns both of each of the three parts separately and of the soul as a whole.”	includes UC2, UC3, UC5, UC6, UC7, UC8
IMAGINATION	Use IMAGINATION (eikasia) to grasp images (UC5): “there is the intelligible realm and the visible realm… At the bottom of the visible one finds images, shadows and such. Set over the images is the faculty of eikasia, imagination.”
BELIEF	Use BELIEF (pistis) to grasp properties of ordinary objects (UC6): “there is the intelligible realm and the visible realm… The ordinary physical objects of which the images are images occupy the upper portion. Set over the physical world is the faculty of pistis, literally faith or conviction, but generally regarded as belief.“
THINKING	Generate hypothesis through THINKING (dianoia) (UC7): “A critical question then is how one obtains the appropriate kind of justification to tie down or convert a belief into knowledge. Plato offers little in the way of detail on this score, but twice he alludes to a method of hypothesis, suggesting both in the Phaedo and Republic that hypotheses and their ultimately being rendered ‘non-hypothetical’ is part of the process by which one comes to know a Form.”
RECOLLECTION	RECOLLECTION of what it once grasped of the forms (UC8): “recollection… our disembodied, immortal souls have seen the Forms prior to their incarceration in the body. If Forms are the (basic) objects of knowledge, and Forms are not in the physical world, then we must have acquired that knowledge at some point prior to our commerce with that world.”

Faculty

Use Case

Relations

SENSE PERCEPTION

SENSE PERCEPTION gets information about ordinary objects (particulars) (UC1): “Perception, unlike discursive thought or belief, is aligned not with the so-called rational part of the soul, but with the desiderative part…, the senses are disparaged as a source of confusion and falsehood. The senses mislead us.” The cause of this misleading is the fact that we perceive particulars, ordinary material objects, not Forms.”

APPETITE

APPETITE (epithumêtikon) gives rise to desire for instant gratification through food, drink, sex…(UC2): “Appetite is primarily concerned with food, drink and sex (439d, 580e). It gives rise to desires for these and other such things which in each case are based, simply and immediately, on the thought that obtaining the relevant object of desire is, or would be, pleasant. Socrates also calls appetite the money-loving part, because, in the case of mature human beings at least, appetite also tends to be strongly attached to money, given that it is most of all by means of money that its primary desires are fulfilled.”

includes UC1

SPIRIT

SPIRIT aiming/motivating for esteem by others (UC3): “The natural attachment of spirit [thumoeides] is to honor and, more generally, to recognition and esteem by others. As a motivating force it generally accounts for self-assertion and ambition.”

REASON

Use REASON (logos) to generate Knowledge (nous) (UC4): “Reason is the part of the soul that is, of its own nature, attached to knowledge and truth. It is also, however, concerned to guide and regulate the life that it is, or anyhow should be, in charge of, ideally in a way that is informed by wisdom and that takes into consideration the concerns both of each of the three parts separately and of the soul as a whole.”

includes UC2, UC3, UC5, UC6, UC7, UC8

IMAGINATION

Use IMAGINATION (eikasia) to grasp images (UC5): “there is the intelligible realm and the visible realm… At the bottom of the visible one finds images, shadows and such. Set over the images is the faculty of eikasia, imagination.”

BELIEF

Use BELIEF (pistis) to grasp properties of ordinary objects (UC6): “there is the intelligible realm and the visible realm… The ordinary physical objects of which the images are images occupy the upper portion. Set over the physical world is the faculty of pistis, literally faith or conviction, but generally regarded as belief.“

THINKING

Generate hypothesis through THINKING (dianoia) (UC7): “A critical question then is how one obtains the appropriate kind of justification to tie down or convert a belief into knowledge. Plato offers little in the way of detail on this score, but twice he alludes to a method of hypothesis, suggesting both in the Phaedo and Republic that hypotheses and their ultimately being rendered ‘non-hypothetical’ is part of the process by which one comes to know a Form.”

RECOLLECTION

RECOLLECTION of what it once grasped of the forms (UC8): “recollection… our disembodied, immortal souls have seen the Forms prior to their incarceration in the body. If Forms are the (basic) objects of knowledge, and Forms are not in the physical world, then we must have acquired that knowledge at some point prior to our commerce with that world.”

ACTOR	DESCRIPTION	RELATIONS
Object in External World.	A material object in the external world.	in relation with UC1
Form(Platonic)	Platonic form (see [1.2.1])	in relation with UC7
User of the soul	A human person.	uses UC4

ACTOR

DESCRIPTION

RELATIONS

Object in External World.

A material object in the external world.

in relation with UC1

Form(Platonic)

Platonic form (see [1.2.1])

in relation with UC7

User of the soul

A human person.

uses UC4

Faculty	Realm	Object
REASON (logos)	Intelligible (high)	Knowledge, forms – grasped with the help of recollection and the lower-level faculties
THINKING (dianoia)	Intelligible (low)	Hypothesis, scientific knowledge
BELIEF (pistis)	Visible (high)	Ordinary physical objects
IMAGINATION (phantasia)	Visible (low)	Images, shadows of ordinary physical objects

Philosophy Models

Notes on philosophy presented in OntoUML, UML, OWL/BFO, OWL/GUFO diagrams and codes

[1.3.6] Aristotle on the Soul and Mind

[1.2.2] Plato on the Soul

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