Aristotle

1

• Aristotles Metaphysics Z.
• The Problem of the account of Primary Being in
  the Categories Aristotles early theory of
  substance
• Said of and in a subject.
• Not said of and in a subject.
• Said of and not in a subject.
• Not said of and not in a subject.
• Said of substances, nouns a/the
• In qualities or properties.
• Primary being ousia concrete individuals
  (particulars) of natural kinds Socrates/Red
  Rum, this man/this horse.

2

• Problem One.
• Definitions can only be given of secondary
  substances.
• Not Socrates, but man. E.g.
• Man is a rational animal.
• Man is a two-footed animal.
• Square is an enclosed four sided figure with four
  right angles.
• Definitions are the essence of a thing since they
  give the most complete account of what a thing is
  its form or formula.
• Individuals or concrete particulars (Socrates,
  this horse) cannot be defined. See Met VII 10,
  1036a5

3

• When we come to a concrete thing, e.g. this
  circleof these there is no definition, but they
  are known by the aid of thought or perception
  1036a5
• Therefore only secondary substances are
  thoroughly intelligible.
• So only primary substances are ontologically
  basic and
• only secondary substances are thoroughly
  intelligible.
• Insofar as substance is ontologically basic it
  is not as such intelligible, and insofar as it is
  intelligible it is not ontologically basic.

4

• What Aristotle is after in the Metaphysics is an
  account of substance in which the properties of
  self-sufficiency ontological basicness (being
  dependent only on itself and not being predicable
  of anything else) and intelligibility coincide.
• In Metaphysics Z (VII) Aristotle offers up three
  candidate answers to the question What is
  primary being?
• Primary being with regard to each thing is the
  essence of that thing (to ti estin - the what
  that it is.)
• Primary being with regard to each thing is the
  ultimate subject of predication with regard to
  that thing (to hypokeimenon the underlying
  thing/substrate). Aristotles earlier view.
• Primary being with regard to each thing is the
  universal.
• Plato and his followers.

5

• If we suppose that
• Essence
• Subject
• Universal
• Exhaust the field of possible candidates for
  primary being then, one way to establish what
  primary being is to find arguments that rule two
  of the candidates out.
• This is in fact what Aristotle does. He attacks
  his former view (2) and the Platonist thesis (3),
  leaving him to develop and defend (1).
• Seminar Question What are the arguments or
  considerations that Aristotle adduces against 2)
  and 3)?

6

• A Puzzle with Metaphysics Z
• No substance is universal.
• (No substance can consist of universals
• 2. Only substances can be defined.
• (Only substance is definable. 1031a11)
• Definition is (possible) of the universal, not
  the particular). (Definition is of the universal
  and of the form 1036a 28. Also When we come to
  a concrete thing, e.g. this circleof these there
  is no definition, but they are known by the aid
  of thought or perception 1036a5.

7

• But 1) 2) and 3) form an inconsistent triad so
  one of them must be wrong.
• Lear suggests that the problem lies in 2) and in
  particular in the interpretation of Aristotles
  repeated central claim (also in the Categories
  that a substance must be a this something
  (tode ti).
• Surely all the attributes in the definition
  must be one for the definition is a single
  formula and a forumla of substance, so that it
  must be a formula of some one thing for
  substance means a one and a this, as we
  maintain.
• Lear a this something determinate thing is
  neither universal nor particular. Lear p. 286.

8

• Another way of stating the puzzle is this.
  (Morris)
• 1. Substances are ontologically basic.
• What is ontologically basic is the form (n.b.
  form eidos - species) of each thing.
• The form of each thing is the universal.
• No universal is a substance.