Aristotle distinguishes himself from Plato. He moves from principles to causes. For Plato, "Idea" is the basic category, for Aristotle, it is "substance." Some of his fundamental concepts are: thing, being, substance, essence, relation, change, goal.
The Object of Metaphysics
Being as Being: "If there were no other independent things besides the composite natural ones, the study of nature would be the primary kind of knowledge; but if there is some motionless independent thing, the knowledge of this precedes it and is first philosophy, and it is universal in just this way, because it is first. And it belongs to this sort of philosophy to study being as being, both what it is and what belongs to it just by virtue of being." Metaphysics (1026a 16)
Knowledge: The book "Metaphysics" opens with a famous statement: “All men by nature desire to know.” So what does knowing mean? One speaks of knowing, says Aristotle, when one knows the “why” of things. For this reason, he develops a theory of causation that addresses the different ways in which we can answer the question: why? We wish to know what it is, what it is made of, what brought it about, and what it is for.
First Philosophy
First philosophy or “metaphysics” can be any of these four things:
an etiology (a theory of first causes or principles),
a universal ontology (introduced as a science of Being as Being, but which must also deal with the major principles of thought),
an ousiology (a universal theory of Being in its fullest sense—that is, as substance) or
a theology. It is easy to understand how etiology can be coupled to theology (a term that Aristotle, in fact, uses rather infrequently), but it remains to be seen how first philosophy can also be a universal ontology that explains the notion of substance. The various interpretations of Aristotle’s Metaphysics differ on the important question of its object.
Even if they are our only source, Aristotle’s texts must be treated with caution. First, it is uncertain whether they were all written by Aristotle (it is rather certain that the compiling of the texts that make up the Metaphysics was not done by him).
The different Meanings of Being
Aristotle wants to investigate being as being, so he has to distinguish between different meanings of being. Here are the four major ways in which we attribute being:
Being can be attributed to something as an accidental quality. In this sense, it does not exist autonomously, as substance does, but is predicated of a substance. (i.e. the paper is white).
Being can also be expressed according to the categories in which it exists. Aristotle’s categories are the major rubrics by which Being is articulated and thought. Aristotle generally lists ten such categories: substance ( α/ousia), quality (posón), quantity (potón), relation (prós ti), place (poú), time (poté), position (keîstai), possession (échein), action (poieîn), and passion (páschein).
We can also designate Being as potentiality or as actuality. This thesis (of Being as potentiality and actuality) is a response to the immobilism of Parmenides. Change involves a transfer from possibility to actuality, and without this dimension of potentiality, the science of physics would be impossible. because how else can you provide an account of movement?
Being can also mean “being true.” This sense of being is more a language-effect: To say that something "is" is equivalent to saying that it is true. In English, German, or French, we have phrases like "...isn't it?" This is similar to the workings of the Greek language as well, and it adds another layer to being: the linguistic affirmation of it.
The most elementary sense of being is the being of a substance, it is that which exists autonomously. A universal theory of Being is primarily a theory of substance. All the other senses of Being relate to substance as their ultimate ground. At the beginning of Book 10 of Metaphysics, he says: For it is in virtue of the concept of substance that the other [ways of being] also are said to be.” And in Book 7, or Z, he states:
There are several senses in which a thing may be said to “be,” as we pointed out previously in our book on the various sense of words [Metaphysics, Δ, 7]; for in one sense it means what a thing is or a “this,” and in another sense it means that a thing is of a certain quality or quantity or has some such predicate asserted of it. While ‘Being’ has all these senses, obviously that which is primary is the “what” [prôton on ti estin], which indicates the substance of a thing [tèn ousian].
What is meant by Substance? Metaphysics as Ousiology
If substance (ousia) expresses the primary meaning of Being, then first philosophy must be an "ousiology." If we inquire into the meaning of Being, then we quickly reach the question: what is substance? Aristotle distinguishes four ways in which we use this term:
Substance first means “quiddity” (to ti èn einai). In Aristotle’s Greek, it literally means “what it is for it to be.” The expression derives from the Latin term "quidditas," which responds to the question "quid?" or "what is it?" In simple terms, "quidditas" means "whatness?" In this definition of substance, Aristotle searches for the definition that allows us to know what a thing is. Aristotle’s idea is that a thing’s substance first means what its definition indicates. It is easy to hear an echo of Plato’s ideas (eidos), which were said to express the essence (ti esti) of things.
Substance can also designate the universal (the katholou). This expression is more familiar to us than the first, because we are used to think in universals. Aristotle distinguishes two meanings of substance: firstly, what is it when we look at something specific, and secondly, what is the general category of things to which it belongs. This second meaning, therefore, literally signifies “what is grasped in general”—that is, what applies to “all” beings of a given type or species. For example, all humans have in common the same “universal substance” and its associated properties. This meaning of substance or “that what it is really.” Again, this use of "substance" is quite close to Platonism.
Substance can also be the "genus," the general class itself, according to Aristotle. This use can be seen as analogous to the “secondary substances” of the book "Categories," which ascribed the status of substance to genera and species.
Finally, substance can also designate the subject or substrate (to hypokeimenon). This expression, which is Aristotle’s own, literally designates what underlies (“what lies under” or "is the foundation of…") the thing that is in front of us. This idea is preserved in Latin in the terms substantia and subjectum, subject).
Aristotle favors this last meaning since it fulfills the conditions required of any notion of substance. A substance cannot be a predicate of something else because it is that “of which all else is predicated” (Metaphysics Z, 3, 1029 a 7).
It is important to remember that the substrate (to hypokeimenon) also designates in Greek and in English the grammatical subject of a clause, which is the subject of which things are predicated. This criterion for substantiality is insufficient, however, because linguistically, all predicates can also be employed as subjects.
Jean Grondin explains Aristotle's understanding of substance further: "the decisive criteria of substantiality, of ousia, are “separability and individuality” (khôriston kai tode ti). “Separability” means that substance must exist for itself or independently. “Individuality,” or being a this or a that (tode ti), specifies that the being in question must be a particular, or, as translators often say, an individual.
"For this reason, neither universals nor genera can be substances for Aristotle, or at least for the Aristotle of the Metaphysics. They may be grammatical subjects, but they cannot exist separately or as an easily indicated “this.” Aristotle then moves on to consider three other possible candidates for the title substance (Z, 3, 1029 a 2): matter (λ), form (μ, δ / morphè) and the compound of matter and form ( λ / to sunolon). Matter is immediately excluded because it does not exist autonomously—that is, without having been given some form: A pile of wood is always a pile of wood and not of straw. And for this reason, Aristotle says matter is “posterior” to the form that it receives and always presupposes. Could form then be the ultimate meaning of substance, as the Platonists claimed? As we will see, Metaphysics Z, which evokes such a possibility without taking sides, will eventually settle on a modified version of this solution. Posterity will especially remember the third possibility, which consists in identifying substance as the compound of form and matter. It will frequently use Aristotle’s most important argument for it: Substance must be a “this,” which the eidos cannot be since it is a universal or genus." Grondin, Jean. Introduction to Metaphysics (p. 62, my highlight).
Definitions: Forms, Change, Motion, and Causation
Prime matter. An incomplete corporeal substantial principle which is potential, indeterminate, and common to all corporeal bodies.
Substantial form: An incomplete corporeal substantial principle which is actual. and which gives a substance its first substantial determination.
Secondary matter: A complete corporeal substance of some species (e.g., oxygen, wax. marble, beans, etc.). It serves as the material principle in accidental changes. It is called unum per se, i.e., it possesses a single existence and a single principle of operation. (This is opposed to an unum per accidens which indicates several substances or several units of one sub- stance that enjoy some sort of unity (e.g., a heap of potatoes, a group of people. a house, etc.)
Accidental form: The principle which actualizes and determines secondary matter in accidental changes (e.g., the shape, color. quantity, etc.)
Body: A substance composed of prime matter and substantial form.
Substantial generation: The coming into being of a new substance.
The discovery of the first principles of motion.
Thesis: The first real principles of motion, different from each other, which constitute the essence of mobile beings, are prime matter and substantial form.
Requisites for discovering the first principles of motion:
A substantial change. If all changes in mobile beings are accidental, then there is no possibility of proving the existence of prime matter and substantial form.
In every motion there is:
a subject which does not change.
a term ad quem (towards which) which is some new perfection.
a term a quo (from which) which is some lack of perfection.
If "B" was already in "A" in act, there is no substantial change.
From nothing, nothing comes. ‘Therefore B does not come from nothing.
There is then a dilemma: either "A" is annihilated and "B" is created or "B" comes from "A."
If "A" is annihilated and "B" is created, there is no substantial change. There is rather a divine intervention, since God alone can annihilate and create.
If "B" comes from "A", then the new perfection was in potency in "A", but not in act. There must then be a common subject in "A" and "B" which persists through the change. This common subject (S) is called prime matter.
There must also be a another principle which accounts for the new perfection in "B". Since "A" is not "B", and since "S" in "A" is the same as "S" in "B," there must be another principle which makes "A" to be "A" and "B" to be "B". This principle is called substantial form.
Although the material principle or substrate ("S") remains the same in "A" and "B", one substantial form (F1) makes the wood to be wood, while another substantial form (F2) makes the ashes to be ashes.
"S" (the substrate or prime matter) is a passive, indeterminate principle (pure potency).
"F" (the substantial form) is an active determining principle which gives the being its first substantial act.
If we assume (as we have good reason for doing) that substantial changes are the most profound changes of mobile beings, then we must say that these two principles (prime matter and substantial form) are absolutely the first principles of mobile beings.
Only if we were to assume (but we have no reason for doing so) that there is a kind of change which is more profound than substantial change would we have reason for believing that these principles were themselves made up of other more fundamental principles.
These principles are not derived from others, because no principles in the order of substantial change are more profound than they are. Nor are they derived from each other since they are opposites (potency and act). But everything else is derived from them. All accidental determinations presuppose these principles.
These principles are incomplete principles in the sense that neither one can exist without the other. Prime matter cannot exist without substantial form, and the substantial form of a material thing cannot exist without prime matter, except in the case of the human soul as Thomas Aquinas later argues.
The prime matter / substantial form complementary leads to a theory of causality. Aristotle distinguishes four types of causes: ( the example which is used often is a ship)
material cause: wood
formal cause: the idea /form of the boat)
efficient cause (tools, glue, labor, etc.)
final cause (purpose: travel from island to island)
Nature: Form and Matter (Hylemorphism)
According to Aristotle, "nature" is what contains the principle of its own movement and rest (Physics II, 1). How do you explain movement? Movement means change, so the question can be generalized to: what is change? Aristotle also says: If [motion] were unknown, the meaning of “nature” too would be unknown. (Physics, III, 1, 200 B 14–15)
"Change" always means that there is a unity of difference and identity: A to A', something remains identical, something changes (see the diagram below.)
Plato's view of the existing world is that it is not quite real: everything is always in a state of becoming, transition, and incompleteness. That's why Socrates can walk out of his life without regret.
Aristotle accepts the reality we inhabit as given, and thinks that his principles as ontologically prior to what exists, but not superior. Proto hyle, first matter, is a mental abstraction, reality minus its forms.
If you destroy a coin you still have its matter. You destroyed the coin, but it's material still exists somehow. You can also not destroy the form itself, because they are not material. Creation ex nihilo is not possible, and neither is total destruction.
Another example: If you drop a book, it falls down not because it is a book, but because it is material that has weight. The basis of reality is matter, but matter only exists in the form of "something," it needs form in order to be actualized. Everything exists only as such and such, and therefore we require a concept of "substantial form," or "entelechy".
Things come into being (become real) only through the composition of two complementary principles, prime matter and substantial form. This is the process of creation.
With this philosophical approach, Aristotle opens a new front for philosophical inquiry: reality and possibility. It is necessary to think every existing thing as composed of form and matter, but the prime elements, form and matter, are not real in themselves: they are the principles that we need to assume in order to explain what things are and how they change.
The space of possibility exists in the substratum, prime matter, and it gets actualized through its substantial form.
This whole construction (hylomorphism) is necessary to explain why things can move by themselves, they have the principle of movement in themselves.
Movement is the reality of possibility as possibility. It is not the transition from possibility to reality. (this would be a circular definition - we want to understand transition.) To say it differently: Movement is the presence of the future.
Commentary on Hylemorphism
After examining the opinions both of those who denied the possibility of change (Parmenides) and those who denied that there was anything stable and unchanging in nature (Heraclitus), Aristotle explained the origin of new substances by introducing the notion of potency.
Parmenides had run into problems in his philosophy since he considered only two terms, being and non-being. Aristotle saw that, although there is nothing between being and non-being, yet there is something between being in act and non-being, namely, being in potency.
A potency is a capacity or a possibility for something which is not yet possessed, but which can be acquired. Thus, being is divided into being in act and being in potency. A being in potency possesses a possibility that, when attained, is transformed into being in act.
Parmenides had argued that there are only two alternatives, being and non-being, because he omitted the notion of potency. No new being can come from non-being since nothing can come from nothing. Nor can new being come from being since what has being, already is and does not begin to be: "being cannot come from being since it is already."
Aristotle accepts that nothing can come from nothing, but argues that it is not entirely true that being cannot come from being. Distinctions are important! Being-in-act cannot come from being-in-act since it would already be, but being-in-act can come from being-in-potency.
Aristotle discovered the concept of potency by observing accidental changes or accidental motion. He observed, for instance, that an artist can shape a statue from a block of clay. How is this possible? It is possible only because the clay is endowed with a certain property - the possibility and capacity of being transformed. The figure of the statue exists in potency in the clay. This potency is real, not with the reality of being-in-act, but with the reality which corresponds to being-in-potency. (Not every material has the capacity (potency) for becoming a statue. While clay can be shaped into a statue, liquids cannot.)
In any change, there must be a subject which initially lacks a certain quality or perfection (privation), but has a possibility (potency) of acquiring that quality. Through the influence of some agent, the subject acquires the perfection or actuality which it initially lacked. The subject of motion (e.g., a block of clay) is always the same, but through its motion it acquires something new and loses what it previously had. Thus motion involves the acquisition of one thing and the corruption of something else. (The clay, for example, acquires the property of having a certain shape but loses the shape it previously had.)
Motion involves a subject which is characterized initially by both the privation of a certain quality or perfection and the possibility or potency (passive principle) for acquiring that quality. When that possibility is actualized, the new quality or perfection (active principle) comes to be actually possessed. Thus motion always implies a certain multiplicity of principles. It involves at least the multiplicity of a subject, a privation, a principle of potency, and a principle of act. For this reason, a simple being cannot be the subject of motion. An absolutely simple being, such as God, must be absolutely unchanging.
Discussion Questions
How would Aristotle explain the platonic concept of "Soul?"
What does he think about history? Does nature have history?
What would Aristotle think about Darwin's theory of evolution?
Is change integral to the identity of humans, or of natural things?
How does he solve the "individuation problem," the step from being the expression of a general category (genus) to being an individual?
Being is predicated of substance. So in what sense is a human being human? Can you predicate "being," reality, to a person?
Plato and Aristotle look at the world as a a whole, they create a system that explains reality. Is it not hypocritical of these philosophers to take a stance where they look at everything as "sub specie aeternitatis" (from the standpoint of eternity)?
Is Plato's and Aristotle's philosophy not just one giant anthropomorphism? (Everything gets explained though analogy with the human being.)
What should we do with the idea of a subject notion, as opposed to a predicate? Consider this example: There is an x, x is a bird, and x sings. How is the idea of being expressed in these attributions?
Being can only be spoken of as equivocal.
Being is not a genus. As accidental being, (how we attribute being to something) It exists only as a category term: being pale, bald, married to someone, or being human.
What does "being in itself" mean for the bird? Does it exist even if it does not sing? How does the later philosophy capture this pure-subject dimension of meaning? Do we need notions that express only the subject, without qualities?