What's that a doctorate dissertation?
Why would you think you might get help with that here?

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It’s actually summer work for my first year at university since exams have been cancelled, I just want to explore ideas with people as I can’t access my lecturers too easily at the moment.. I’m not expecting an essay just some help

So to answer that question, you need to read, and thoroughly understand "Categories", "Physics", and "Metaphysics". To understand "Metaphysics" you'll need to understand "on the Soul".

Have you read all these yet?

I have, my struggle is fully understanding the connection between Aristotle’s four fold distinction and his three degrees of soul.. because of the pandemic we were unable to have a lecture and have been sent some very weak notes and without my lecturer responding to any emails, I’m struggling to construct an in-depth understanding

I have, my struggle is fully understanding the connection between Aristotle’s four fold distinction and his three degrees of soul.. — Millie Regler

If you've read these things, then likely you're in the 99th percentile of people who have read them, in your class! So credit to you! As to "fully understanding," a caveat, in reading Aristotle, sometimes what you see is what you get. Try to recapitulate in your own mind how you imagine Aristotle's thought processes worked, what questions he was asking, and what sort of answers he was looking for. And in particular try to discern what he was pre-supposing in all of this - what his working beliefs were. For example. the word that "soul" usually translates is psyche, ψυχή. Aristotle had zero notion of any Christian idea of soul. His purpose was not to attribute anything mysterious, but instead to descriptively account as reasonably as possible for him for what was in front of him.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Idea_of_Nature/KmPmCwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover

At this site you should find a reading copy of The Idea of Nature, R. G. Collingwood. On page three, in the introduction, sec. 2 is titled "The Greek View of Nature." Three paragraphs worth reading.

Bottom line: you will get most of the way there by applying the rule of keeping it simple. A lot of the mystery of Aristotle is created by his readers. (Simple not equal easy; where it's difficult, again insist on simple, but in a different sense of simple.) Tell yourself there is nothing mysterious or even difficult in Aristotle, just ideas you're not used to. That isn't completely true, but close enough to work with

Here's a trick that may work for you. Grab a notebook. Reading Aristotle a manageable section at a time - as you might read a play by scenes, when you finish a section, or a scene, immediately write down in your own words, as few words as possible, a restatement of what you read. Make it at most a phrase for each thought. A Shakespeare play in this way can be rendered in a sentence or two for each scene - and not all scenes necessary for understanding. The poetry will be gone, but that's not a concern with Aristotle.

Last, you're a student. Show your instructor that you're learning what he's teaching, in reasonable and readable English, and you'll both get the material (if he or she is any good) and the A.

I have, my struggle is fully understanding the connection between Aristotle’s four fold distinction and his three degrees of soul. — Millie Regler

By "four fold distinction" due you mean the four ways in which "cause" is used, describe in Physics. I think the three degrees of soul are self-nourishment (vegetative), self-movement (sensitive), and intellection. Each of the three being a potency, or capacity of the soul, while the soul itself is an actuality.

Aristotle's conceives of different causes as different explanations; or more precisely, different "whys" or "becauses."

Matter (hyle) is an "out of which" that a thing consists of or comes out of (i.e. potentiality) -- the letters of syllables, the brass of a statue, the parts of a whole, etc.
Form (eidos) is the thing conceived as a whole; that is, its essence or composition; the organization or function (i.e. actuality)
The moving cause, or efficient cause, is that which does something or starts something (e.g. the doctor, the plotter, the father, the seed, etc.).
End (telos) is the "for the sake of which" something is or happens; that is, what something is for, or what is good about it, in relation to itself and other things.

*End and form often coincide. Not all natural changes are generations; there is also growth and decay, quality change and locomotion

I have, my struggle is fully understanding the connection between Aristotle’s four fold distinction and his three degrees of soul.. — Millie Regler

For Aristotle the connection is this: a soul's essence is defined by its organic composition (i.e. self-nourishment, self-movement, intellect, etc.), and its organic composition can be analyzed, determined, or explained in terms of its causes.

self-movement (sensitive), and intellection. Each of the three being a potency, or capacity of the soul, while the soul itself is an actuality. — Metaphysician Undercover

"...while the soul itself is an actuality." Are you able to give a cite on that? It's not my understanding of A. But I can learn (in this case).

"On The Soul", BK 2 Ch 1, 412a, 20 -30.
29: "That is why the soul is the first grade of actuality of a natural body have life potentially in it".

This is a very important principle and the entire description needs to be understood. First he distinguishes matter as potentiality, and form as actuality (10). A living body is a composite of matter and form. Because the soul is the form, or actuality of that natural body, it is responsible (as actual cause) for the actual existence of that natural body. "Actual" refers to the form, and the form of that natural body is an organized body, having the potential for self-nutrition and growth, along with the correlative implied by "potential", decay. The type of actuality he assigns to the soul is described as "possessing knowledge" as distinguished from exercising knowledge.

Sorry for confusion, I mean the four fold distinction of things that are... being said of, being said in etc

I think you covered it. Thank you.

With a little difficulty I've found an online version of De Anima online at books.google.com . I cannot copy and paste. And I read there what you referenced.

On the basis of that, or, arguing from that, do you hold that the soul is any kind of a thing at all? I'm not interested in what I think, or a fortiori what you think, but rather only in what Aristotle said, and meant, if we can get to it. And it could be on that we agree!

To fill in my side, I hold Aristotle to be in all cases not trying to invent or discover mysteries but instead trying to make sense. Admittedly in some areas he does both, as in his cosmology. My problem is with the word "actuality." I argue that "actuality" is too easily mistaken for, and has been mistaken for, understood as, something actual.

"Soul is substance in the sense that it is the form of a natural body having in it the capacity of life. Such substance is actuality.... [in that] it answers to knowledge [as opposed to the exercise of knowledge]."

An example might help, here. We meet our friend and ask him how he gets to work, and he answers, by car. And we and everyone else understands exactly what he means. Now, Aristotle might say that the car itself is matter, its form being a vehicle, that is, that-which-is-what-it-is-for-when-it-is-functioning-as-what-it-is-for. The short word for which is actualization, or if you like, realization. But to extract any thing actual or real from either word, I argue, is a brutal misreading. The car itself as it is in itself, never got anyone to work and never will.

And so (e.g.) the body is not in, of, and by itself as it is in itself, anything alive. It becomes alive when its capacity to be alive is actualized (or realized), and for so long as it is alive. In this Aristotle is marking a difference with a distinction, that between a body and what makes it alive, which he calls psyche, ψυχή.

But specifically I do not find in this any notion or even suggestion of anything like a Christian soul. In other words, neither actualization or that which is actualized is any kind of material or substantial thing at all. To my way of thinking, the best we can do is call them ideas. Are we in agreement?

On the basis of that, or, arguing from that, do you hold that the soul is any kind of a thing at all? I'm not interested in what I think, or a fortiori what you think, but rather only in what Aristotle said, and meant, if we can get to it. And it could be on that we agree! — tim wood

I'll go through what he says at 412a and see if we can make sense of it:
10. Matter is potentiality, form actuality,
15. A natural body which has life in it is a composite substance.
20. The soul is a substance in the sense of the form of a natural body having life potentially in it.
22 Substance in the sense of form, is an actuality, hence the soul is the actuality of the mentioned body.
23. The word actuality has two senses corresponding to the possession of knowledge and the exercising of knowledge.
25. The soul is an actuality in the sense of possession of knowledge.

So it appears clear that the soul is a substance in the same sense that a form is a substance.

I argue that "actuality" is too easily mistaken for, and has been mistaken for, understood as, something actual. — tim wood

If to be a substance is to be "actual", then I don't see the problem. An actuality, is a substance and therefore actual. Notice though that he distinguished two types of "actuality", one possessing knowledge, the other exercising knowledge. The latter is necessarily an "activity" as we use the word. But the former may be an actuality which is not an activity, and that's the type of actuality he said the soul is.

But to extract any thing actual or real from either word, I argue, is a brutal misreading. — tim wood

I think you're wrong here. He clearly states that the soul is "substance". Substance for Aristotle is what grounds logic in reality. So I don't see how you can remove reality from the soul, which is said to be an actuality as a substance. That would leave you with an odd concept of "real", if Aristotelian substance and actuality are not interpreted as real.

It becomes alive when its capacity to be alive is actualized (or realized), and for so long as it is alive. In this Aristotle is marking a difference with a distinction, that between a body and what makes it alive, which he calls psyche, ψθχή. — tim wood

The body does not "become" alive. It has no actual existence without a soul. There is no body without the soul. Aristotle is explicit in his metaphysics that there is no such thing as matter without a form. And, the form of a natural body is prior in time to the material existence of that body, because material things are generated, they come into being. And the form of the body must be prior to the material body to ensure that the body comes into being as the body which it comes into being as. Bodies are not random, they have ordered existence. And, a body cannot be other than the body it is, by the law of identity. Therefore the form of the body must be prior to the material body, as the cause of it being the body which it is.

But specifically I do not find in this any notion or even suggestion of anything like a Christian soul. In other words, neither actualization or that which is actualized is any kind of material or substantial thing at all. To my way of thinking, the best we can do is call them ideas. Are we in agreement? — tim wood

You make the mistake of equating "substantial" with "material". This is not consistent with classical metaphysics.

There is no body without the soul. — Metaphysician Undercover

This sounds like a claim absent evidence. But it could be just the claim that this is how Aristotle saw it and described it. Except I do not think that's correct. He troubled to reason that body and soul were different. Maybe a living body has, arguably, in his terms, ψυχή, But I am unaware of anywhere he posits a dead body as having that.

You make the mistake of equating "substantial" with "material". This is not consistent with classical metaphysics. — Metaphysician Undercover

But I'll buy this. Wouldn't be my first mistake, although in fact it's not quite the mistake that I'm making. But are you buying my:

the best we can do is call them ideas. Are we in agreement? — tim wood

What I oppose is the double reification of ψυχή as soul and soul as something with either material or spiritual existence. Still, though, in whatever sense anyone cares to take it as, that sense stands as an idea. which is the best we can do with it.

Near as I can tell from my read of Aristotle, his ψυχή is a that-which. He knows what he needs for his account, so he embodies it into a that-which meets that need as account. In accounting terms a contra-asset - not a thing in itself but an offset, something set off, against something else. And in his account (as I understand it), it makes sense. If life and body are not inextricably together such that a living body just is the account of its life, then he has to account for it some other way, and a soul seems reasonable. But I remain to be persuaded that there's anything more to it than that.

But it could be just the claim that this is how Aristotle saw it and described it. Except I do not think that's correct. He troubled to reason that body and soul were different. Maybe a living body has, arguably, in his terms, ψυχή, But I am unaware of anywhere he posits a dead body as having that. — tim wood

It is how Aristotle described it, and you don't seem very well versed in the principles he outlined in his Metaphysics, so I'll take the claim that you don't think it's correct, as insignificant. Are you familiar with what is commonly called "the cosmological argument"?

To my way of thinking, the best we can do is call them ideas. Are we in agreement? — tim wood

No we're not at all in agreement here. Human ideas, as dependent on the human body, are complete distinct from the soul, which the living body is dependent on. This is the significant advancement which Aristotle made over Pythagorean idealism, in response to the problems of such idealism which Plato exposed. Aristotle demonstrated that human ideas cannot be eternal, and depend upon the human mind to receive actual existence, thus refuting Pythagorean idealism, and what he called that type of Platonism, which assigned eternal existence to these ideas through the theory of participation. However, the same argument which is used in this refutation, the cosmological argument, also demonstrates the necessity for an actuality, a form, which is prior to all material existence.

So Neo-Platonists reject Pythagorean idealism (what we call Platonism), accepting the cosmological argument which demonstrates a separation between human ideas and the immaterial Forms required for material existence. Christian theologians accept this division between human ideas which require the material body, and the immaterial Forms which we are required to assume in order to account for the reality of material existence. This separation is necessary to account for the reality of human mistakes. Human ideas are often wrong, and therefore cannot be the same as the independent Forms which are responsible for material existence.

Here's an example which may help you to understand this. Many people make a distinction between "the laws of physics", and "the laws of nature". Both of these refer to immaterial forms. The laws of physics are artificial, created by human beings, as descriptions of physical existence. They are wrong when human beings misunderstand. The laws of nature are the actual immaterial laws which govern the way matter behaves.

Near as I can tell from my read of Aristotle, his ψυχή is a that-which. He knows what he needs for his account, so he embodies it into a that-which meets that need as account. In accounting terms a contra-asset - not a thing in itself but an offset, something set off, against something else. — tim wood

You seem to be completely ignoring the fact that Aristotle defines the soul as a substance, trying to rationalize some other idea which makes more sense to you because you refuse to take the time required to understand immaterial substance, being consumed by materialist presuppositions. Do you accept the principle of sufficient reason from Leibniz? Each and every material object must have a reason for it being the object which it is, because an object cannot be a disorderly random occurrence. If random disorderly things existed, they would not appear to us as objects. Only orderly things appear as objects. Order is a necessary requirement of "object". And, if a thing has order there is a reason for that order, a cause of it (PSR). This necessitates the conclusion that there is a cause which is prior to material existence. This is necessarily an immaterial cause.

the soul, which the living body is dependent on. — Metaphysician Undercover

However, the same argument which is used in this refutation, the cosmological argument, also demonstrates the necessity for an actuality, a form, which is prior to all material existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

The laws of nature are the actual immaterial laws which govern the way matter behaves. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. I get it that these are all parts of a construct. But it's best we part company here. The difference in our thinking is that you seem to have bought the theory as real, or at least here and elsewhere you use language that strongly implies you think that, while I do not. I think of it as just a theory, an account. Our relative positions being not entirely unlike those between a religious fundamentalist and an agnostic/atheist.

You seem to be completely ignoring the fact that Aristotle defines the soul as a substance, trying to rationalize some other idea which makes more sense to you because you refuse to take the time required to understand immaterial substance, being consumed by materialist presuppositions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not at all. I have acknowledged, do so now, and will forever, that Aristotle defines left and right, this way and that. In not buying immaterial substance I believe I am in respectable company, even as I recognize that it is a part of the thinking of some people. And how can I be a materialist and at the same time talk about ideas? I appreciate your effort and general civility, but I'm not a member of the congregation.

@Metaphysician UndercoverLate edit: but in terms of my question above, you win. That is, I asked and you answered and your answer I accept as competent and correct.