Aristotle (348-322 B.C.)

· Plato's student.

· Credited with being a “practical man of earth.” (Largely due to his metaphysics)

· A biologist, physicist- Championed Observation as a means to knowledge (Contra Plato-this makes him an Empiricist)

· Tutor to Alexander the Great (Got him into some political trouble in Athens after the death of Alexander)

Rationalism	Empiricism
There are Innate Ideas	There are no innate ideas
The Senses are a poor, unreliable means to knowledge	The senses are a reliable, indeed the only means to knowledge.
The most reliable means to gain knowledge and truth is via a priori reason and introspection	A priori reasoning is fine as far as it goes, but it is very limited as to what is can provide us in the way of knowledge. The most reliable way to useful knowledge is through observation and experience.
Representative Philosophers:	Representative Philosophers:
(Parmenides?) Plato Augustine Anselm Descartes Spinoza Leibnitz	(Heraclitus?) Aristotle Aquinas Locke Berkley Hume

Key points to understanding his Metaphysics

Disagrees with Plato on the following:

1. There is no real relationship between the 'Forms' (which Aristotle did hold to be eternal and unchanging) and particular things because Forms only exist as instantiated in particulars. By contrast Plato had argued that Forms exist independently of their particular instantiations.

2. This Visible World, our world which we encounter through our senses and reflect on with our minds, was reality, By contrast Plato had argued that reality was divided into two realms, the invisible realm being “more real” than the world of sense.

3. Believed that more concrete individual things, particular humans for instance, are more real than abstract items like the species Homo sapiens since there could not be a form of human if there were not humans for it to belong to (unlike Plato, who believes the more abstract is more real).

Agrees with Plato on the following:

1. Some Realities were not subject to change (Forms, God, heavenly objects, and biological species) and therefore fixed, (eternal) knowledge of these was indeed possible.

2. Evolution was not true.

3. There was a Hierarchy of reality or “degrees of existence.” (but unlike Plato's, i.e. upside down).

4. Knowledge (to be worthy of the title “knowledge”) must be of Timeless and Universal truths and concerned with what things have in common.

5. Forms are real, objective and eternal, however, Aristotle argues that they cannot exist separately from the particular substances whose forms they are.

6. Philosophical/ Dialectical Project is the worthwhile goal of theoretical reason. The successful conclusion of a philosophical inquiry (which must include observations as well as argument) will yield the correct definition of the concept under discussion or the essence of the species under consideration. (E.g. What it is that all and only courageous acts have in common by virtue of which they ARE courageous acts. What is it that all cats have in common by virtue of which they are cats.) These discovered essences are critical for scientific demonstrations. (More on this in a bit.)

That damn change things again:

The problem of change persisted despite Plato’s best efforts to resolve the dilemma. In fact, he did not so much resolve the dilemma an he did entrench the dilemma. Aristotle’s resolution required being much more careful about what it means to say that something “is.”

Change and Being in actuality and potentiality

I do not speak French. However I do possess the ability to speak French. So there is a sense in which I “am” a French speaker. I am a French speaker in potentiality, though not in actuality. That is, I AM (be) the sort of thing (human) whose nature permits him to learn and speak French. Thus Aristotle would say I have the ability to speak French in potentiality, but not in actuality. An apple tree possesses the potentiality to speak French NEITHER in potentiality nor in actuality. Apple trees are not even the sort of thing that could speak French[1]. And even French speakers possess the ability to speak French in potentiality only when they are sitting quietly doing a water color painting or knitting etc. (that is when not ACTUALLY speaking French).

So a change did not require a substance moving from being to being (which would not really be a change) nor moving from non-being to being (which is impossible) but rather when a substance moves from potential being to actual being. Any change in a substance is the “actualization” of a pre-existing potentiality. What actual and potential characteristics a thing has are determined by the thing’s nature or “form.” Note further the only thing that could “move” a thing from potential to actual is a mover (impetus) outside the moved thing.[2]

What a being “Is”/ What “Being” is.

There are several senses in which a thing can be said to 'be' That is, there are several correct answers to the question “What is that?”

1. 'being,' means 'what a thing is'

You might see me walking down the hall, point and ask “what is it?” Were someone to respond, “That’s a human being.” he or she would have answered correctly. But that would not be the ONLY correct answer since that is not the only thing that I “be.” One might also correctly respond, that’s an FIU professor, or, less kindly, that an overweight middle-aged consumer.

2. a quality or a quantity of a thing- (e.g. ‘being’ good or bad, red, many)

You might see a certain red bird landing on a tree branch, point and ask “What is it?” Were someone to answer, “That’s a cardinal,” he or she would have answered correctly. But that would not be the ONLY correct answer since that is not the only way the thing can be said to “be.” A person might truly reply, That’s red.” Now “redness’ DOES exists, to be sure, but redness only exists as a property of things that can exist on their own. Since “redness” cannot exist on its own Aristotle classified it as a “secondary substance” but since individual cardinals can exist on their own, Aristotle called them “primary substances.” . Aristotle would say that “redness” is a secondary substance, while the (actual, particular) cardinal is a primary substance. Further, while being a cardinal is essential to that primary substance’s nature, being red is accidental. We could spray-paint it blue, not that I would ever, and the thing would still be a cardinal. (Being human is essential to my nature; being 185 pounds is accidental… let’s hope.)

So primary substances have natures/forms (formal causes or essences) which determine why they are the way they are and why the develop/ move change as they do (potential and actual properties). Some of these properties are accidental and others are essential.

The primary sense of "to be" is to be a substance.

e.g. To Be a human

The secondary sense of “to be” to is be an instance of a quality or quantities.

e.g. To Be a Tall (secondary) human.

So note that I am essentially a human; I am only accidentally a 185 pound philosophy professor. I could lose weight (undergo an quantitative change) or get another job (undergo a qualitative change) but I would still be a human. When I die, I undergo a substantial change. I am no longer a human; in fact “I” no longer “am” at all. In my place in a new substance: an human corpse.

Doctrine of the Four Causes:

Aristotelian Doctrine which holds that to truly know what a thing is, one must know four things about it. That is, to explain what a thing is as it is and behaves as it does one must know four things about it:

1. Material Cause: (What's it made of?)

2. Efficient Cause: (Who or what brought generated it.)

3. Formal Cause: (To what species and genus does it belong?)

4. Final Cause: (What is it supposed to do?)

Imagine a thousand years from now someone is digging around in his backyard and comes across a curious object that he can see is very old, but he does not know what it is. And he wants to find out. So he takes it to his chemist friend. “What is this?” he asks. And his chemist friend replies, “Why I can tell you what it is: it is steel with some iron and chrome. There is also a bit of rubber here.”

Despite the fact that what the chemist has said is true, our discoverer is not satisfied. “Yes, that’s fine, he says to himself, but what is it?” So he takes it so another friend of his, this time an Economic Historian. “What is it?” he asks. “Oh my, that’s an artifact, that is.” she says. “It was designed by Franz Wagner. It was produced in Underwood factories in New York sometime in the very early 1900s.”

Ok, so now this guy knows how it came to be and who made it, but still, “What is it?” He sees a third friend, an archeologist this time. “Yes I’m certain I can help you. I know precisely what it is. It is an Underwood number 5. It is very similar to the Densmore, but differs from that kind in that it is a 4-bank frontstrike version. It differs from the Daugherty in that it was less likely to have its keys jam. Well now our discoverer understands the object’s type, that is, he can recognize another one of the same type when he sees it and he can distinguish it from things of a different type. He knows that class of things it belongs to in that he knows its form, but there is a sense in which he still does not know what the thing is.

Finally he takes it to an expert on Religion and Culture from the early 20^th Century. “I understand your difficulty,” she says. “You know what it is made of (Material Cause) and how it came to be (Efficient Cause) and the class of things it belongs to (Formal Cause), but what you what to know is ‘What is it supposed to do; what’s it for?’ (Final Cause). Well I can help you there. This was called a Typewriter. This was a machine by which people in the early 20^th Century communicated with their gods. They would sit in front of it all day and use the keyboard to type messages of praise or petitions for help to the deities.“

Now another friend is walking by and overhears this and says, “What? Don’t be ridiculous! That was not the telos[3] of this thing. The telos of this machine was to make music. It was a percussive instrument and people would use it to play all sorts of complicated rhythms throughout the day, Note the little bell on the side.”

Well. if our discoverer believed either one of these stories he would be wrong, of course, and there is a sense in which he would still not know what this thing is. He would still not know what the telos of a typewriter was and thus his knowledge of the typewriter would consequently be incomplete, this despite the fact that he knew the material cause, the efficient cause, and the formal cause. He would still not know the final cause of the object. And of course, eh still could not tell a good one from a bad one Thus knowing what a things is for, what it’s supposed to do, to what end it is directed, is part of any adequate understanding of what a thing is.

A bit more about Primary and Secondary Substances

Primary Substances can stand alone. (ontologically independent e.g. The Cardinal).

Secondary substances cannot. (ontologically dependent e.g. The Redness of the Cardinal)[4]

A Primary Substance is a combination of Form and Matter.

Note: For Aristotle Form does not/ cannot exist apart from matter, though separable in thought- We can imagine Michelangelo’s "David" for instance apart from the marble that actually constitutes it- (done instead in cheese, say).

Primary Substances are individually existing objects with inherent essential natures.

Humans, Cardinals, Lumps of Gold

Secondary substances are those “objects” constituted by particular individual primary substances.

Philosophy Teachers, Blonds, wedding rings.

A change of the Primary Substance is a Substantial Change. It destroys the thing in question and replaces it with a new thing.

· If I cut a Sphere in half, the sphere no longer exists; instead two hemisphere exist.

· If I separate water into oxygen and hydrogen, water (along with its water nature/form) no longer exists. The new substances (oxygen and hydrogen) have quite different potentialities and actualities (i.e. different nature/ form) than does water.

· Accidental properties are those properties of things which are not essential. The individual could gain or lose those properties but remain the same unique individual (i.e.. wart).

· Death is a substantial change; the human is destroyed and the corpse come into existence.)

· Forms themselves can never (do not) change, nor can the matter, but they combine in different ways.

Human-made products cannot be considered to be true substances because they do not have their

own immutable nature. They are not “natural kinds.” Therefore they cannot be identified with an immutable nature. (Ex: table, chair, or bed.)[5]

Note: For Aristotle, a “Nature” is what a substance is supposed to do, what it will do if nothing stops it. (Think “Natural Tendency” or Activity)

In order to know what apple trees are supposed to do, (what the “apple tree things” are- apple tree nature- the apple tree telos) one must engage in an empirical study of the species and see what they do do. Through careful observation one will be able to distinguish the healthy, thriving apple trees from the sick, diseased, withering apple trees. Studying the characteristic behavior of the healthy ones will reveal the “nature” and thus the function of the species. Hence there is an inherent normative quality to these judgments, at least when applied to human kind; the normative force is provided by health vs. disease (i.e. one ought to be healthy/ excellent, one ought not be sick/ pathetic.)

Suppose you, a native Floridian, move up to my hometown in Pennsylvania and you buy a house, in part, because of the big apple tree in the front yard. However, in the middle of September, you notice that all the leaves are turning funny colors and start falling off. “Oh no!” you think, “There’s something terribly wrong with my apple tree.” You call me up in a panic and tell me what’s going on. “Calm yourself.” I would reassure you. That how apple trees are supposed to behave. It is natural for apple trees to lose their leaves in the autumn.” However, if all the leaves start turning funny colors and falling off your tree in the middle of May, when then, yah, you got a problem.

Teleology

A. Telos the Greek word For "purpose' or 'goal.'

B. Teleology explains an event or object in terms of its purpose, goal, or end. (She skipped dessert because she is trying to lose weight. The heart contracts in order to pump blood.) A Teleological investigation is one in which one is looking for the goal, function or purpose of a thing. A teleological world view is one which contends that reality itself has (or items is reality have) goals, functions or purposes.

C. Aristotle's Science/Philosophy seeks to explain why (for what purpose) something came about,

while Modern science seeks to explaining how (causal). (Biology/Ecology may have a problem here.)

D. Causal explanation Vs. teleological explanation (theory of falling objects).

Three Ways of Characterizing a Substance

1. A Substance is an essence, what is essential. (Common Noun: Cat)

2. A Substance is anything referred to as any noun, that is, that can act as the subject of a predication, which is independent of anything else. Other things might depend upon substance, but a substance does not depend upon them.

3. “Substance” (in the sense of substratum) is that which underlies all of the properties and changes in something, usually the most basic realities. (This is the sort of use of substance that the Pre-Socratics had in mind –a substratum.) For Aristotle, it was “matter.”

Matter

• “Is discovered” (the concept is introduced and utilized) by Aristotle.
• What things are “made out of.”
• This theoretical device makes it possible for Aristotle to explain change.
• Given its shape, structure and potentials by form.
• Cannot exist without Form and more than form can exist without matter

The Prime Mover

1. Everything which is moved (changed) is moved by some other thing.

2. That which moves a thing is itself moved or it is not.

3. A system, even infinite system, comprised only of moved movers is impossible. (infinite regress).

Therefore

There must be a mover which is not itself moved.

Unmoved Mover (Ultimate Final Cause)

Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover has some of the characteristics of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God;

but According to Aristotle:

1. He (it) did not create the universe.
2. He (it) has no special concern for man.
3. The prime mover is more of a metaphysical necessity than a proper object of worship.

Epistemological Ramifications of this Metaphysical View:

Forms are learned through experience. We see particulars and our minds “abstract” the forms.

(No need to posit an immortal soul to explain knowledge of abstract forms.) But you must not imagine that we “generalize” to the “essence.” Locke would say something like that, but not Aristotle.

Aristotle advocated what today we would call direct realism. (Also known as naive realism). In On the Soul he claims that a seer is informed of the object itself by way of the “hylomorphic form carried over the intervening material continuum with which the eye is impressed.” Hylomorphism refers to Aristotle’s theory that being (ousia) is always a composite “matter” and “form.”

Experience is the source of any real knowledge of Ultimate Reality. (This makes him an Empiricist)

Note: Aristotle directs attention to observation of the physical world.

Intellect (Nous, Active intellect, and Passive intellect)

So how does the mid get to the Forms of things if NOT through a process of generalization? Aristotle says that the intellect (nous), the ability to apprehend the forms directly. This active function of the intellect has no bodily organ (in contrast with other psychological abilities, such as sense-perception and imagination). Indeed, Nous is not mixed with the body. Note if the mind/soul took on the form of the cat directly but the mid/soul was itself matter, well.. matter plus cat from equals CAT. The mind would become a cat. Since that doesn’t happen, the mind must take on the From without the mind itself being matter.

Now the idea that the mind/soul is one thing and the body is something else, seems to contradict Aristotle's claim that the soul is nothing other than the form pf the body.

Scholars disagree on how best to resolve this apparent contradiction in Aristotle.

1. A person's ability to think (unlike his other psychological abilities) belongs to some incorporeal organ distinct from his body.

This would amount to a form of dualism.

But if the intellect belongs to an entity distinct from the body, and the soul is the form of the body, then how is the intellect part of the soul?

2. The passive intellect is a property of the body, while the active intellect is a substance distinct from the body. (two alternatives)
1. each person has his own active intellect
2. active intellect as a single divine being/force, perhaps the Unmoved Mover, Aristotle's God
3. Form can have properties of their own. The soul is a property of the body, but the ability to think is a property of the soul itself, not of the body. If that is the case, then the soul is the body's form and yet thinking need not involve any bodily organ.

Philosophical/ Dialectical Project:

Philosophical argument must be informed by details observations and will take the form of reflections and abstractions from these.

Ethical Ramifications of this Metaphysical View:

The attainment of knowledge of eternal forms is only PART of human nature. It is a worthy life activity, but only part of a full human life. (Man is the Rational Animal.)

What are the most real and attainable goals, worthy of our attention and service is the fulfillment of

our own (human) nature.

As Rational Animals, the excellent human is the one who most fully expresses Unique Human

Nature, that is, who lives a life guided by reason which culminates in the fulfillment of one's natural

human capacities (i.e. social, familial, political, creative, etc.- in short, a functional human life).

It is not clear whether Aristotle believed in some sort of afterlife, but probably the most consistent position with everything else he said would be “No.”

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[1] Modern philosophy treats possibility and impossibility differently than the ancients and the medieval. For moderns, if something is “conceivable without logical contradiction: as Hume might put it, it is thought to be “possible. On this view, a married bachelor is impossible, but an apple tree speaking French is not. But for Aristotle, since Apple Tree Nature is a timeless and eternal immutable essence that does not possess the potentiality to speak French, a French speaking apple trees is as impossible (metaphysically impossible) as is a married bachelor. How we come to KNOW the impossibility of the former may differ in who we come to know the impossibility of the latter, but they are equally impossible nonetheless.

[2] Could it be that every actualizing agent derives is actualizing ability from some other actualizing agent? That is, can every case of moving a thing from potentially X to actually X be brought about by some other prior thing which itself was moved from potential Y to actual Y? No. Why not? Short answer: infinite regress. Long answer, read Aristotle’s unmoved mover argument and/or Aquinas.

[3] Telos is the Greek word for end or purpose.

[4] Note the difference with Plato here. While for Plato, the more abstract the reality the more “real” it was, for Aristotle, the particulars are more real than the secondary abstractions.

[5] Now, if a human artifact is a necessary byproduct of human nature, say, like politics, then it would have a nature as immutable as human nature.