Lecture Notes: Aristotle's Metaphysics

UC Davis Philosophy 1

G. J. Mattey

Aristotle's Metaphysics is one of the most profound and puzzling books in the history of philosophy. It has been intensively studied since it was written. There are serious questions about its ultimage meaning and even about its consistency. Its subject-matter is what is, insofar as it is, or "being qua being." The focus of the discussion is on substance, which had been introduced in the Categories as the primary kind of being. The name Metaphysics has nothing to do with being, however. It simply indicates a book that came after the Physics in the Aristotelian corpus. Our readings are from the introductory and historical Book I (Alpha) and the notorious Book VII (Zeta).

For an advanced discussion of many of the issues raised here, see S. Marc Cohen's entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Aristotle's Metaphysics" and his lecture notes "Aristotle on Substance, Matter, and Form."

The Origins of Knowledge

Aristotle can be classified broadly as an empiricist, as embodied in the medieval slogan, "there is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses" ("nihil est in intellectu, quod prius non fuerit in sensu") . He considered the human being to be an animal endowed with the same sort of sensory faculties as other animals, only with an intellect as well. Knowledge begins with the animal function of sense-perception. Those animals endowed with memory are able to unite their sense-perceptions that allows for a single experience. This allows recognition of recurring patterns in things. An animal with intellect is able to form universal judgments about things which are similar. This process is known as induction. Science and craft are made possible in the moment when the accumulated perceptions of similar things crystalizes into a thought of what they have in common. We may call this process of concept-formation induction.

Knowledge of Causes

Craft is based on our giving a rational account of particular objects, and that rational account is the application of the universal to the particular. This is not possible in non-intellectual experience. It is true that craft requires knowledge of particulars as well as universals, and that we frequently fail to apply the universals to the particulars correctly. But by grasping the universal through the intellect, we are able to know the cause, or the reason why, of things. Greater knowledge of the cause is what distinguishes the master craftsman from the manual craftsman. The latter may know how assemble the pieces of a bed, but the master knows how to design the bed itself. The theoretical scientist, the physicist, possesses even greater knowledge. He will know why it is that the bed supports the sleeper properly. He knows causes that are even more universal than those known by the master craftsman.

Wisdom

What the master craftsman, and even more so the theoretical scientist, attains through knowledge of causes is wisdom (sophia) The wise man is the man who understands the causes and principles of things. As was noted in the last section, there is a hierarchy of causes, ranked by their universality. And so there are higher forms of wisdom. The highest form is that which grasps the most universal causes and principles. Someone who has attained this state is able to understand how less universal causes, and individual objects, fall under the universal causes. We seek wisdom because by nature we have a sense of wonder which must be satisfied. When we attain wisdom, we wonder no more.

The highest wisdom is something divine. This is so in a two-fold way. First, the highest causes of things are themselves divine. Aristotle held that the ultimate cause of motion is an unmoved mover, a purely intellectual being that he called God. This mover is the highest principle of motion. The second way in which the highest wisdom is divine has to do with the being who is wise. Abd the gods are precisely of the nature to have wisdom. Metaphysics, which treats of the highest causes of things, is thus a divine science.

Early Attempts at Science

Aristotle's method of investigating the highest causes was dialectical (see Topics, Book I, Part 1). His reasoning began with opinions held by his most distinguished predecessors and tried to discover the difficulties with them. This in turn would set the requirements that an adequate account would have to meet.

Most of the early philosophers followed the lead of the first philospher, Thales, and looked for a material cause of the universe. They proposed various of the elements, such as water (Thales), air (Anaximenes), or fire (Heraclitus). Leucippus and Democritus had claimed that the universe is composed of indivisible atoms, with properties such as size, shape, and motion or rest. The atomists are a good illustration of the deficiency of the materialist approach to causes. Change is supposed to be explained by the motion of atoms, but how is the motion of atoms to be explained? Heraclitus held that the universe begins in fire and is consumed in fire, but what makes fire do its work? In general, those seeking material causes fail to explain the cause of motion.

Others did try to explain the cause of motion by various principles. Aristotle was most taken by the proposal of Anaxagoras, that change is controlled by a cosmic mind (noûs). This account had the virtue of explaining why things turn out well. It was, however, clumsy and vague. Moreover, they overlooked the role of the formal and final causes. They do not say why things have the shape and function they do, or why they change in order to fulfill their ends.

Platonic Forms

As we saw in the Phaedo, Plato saw that forms must be understood as causes. The reason why a thing changes is that one form withdraws as another approaches. Forms allow us to say what it is that things have in common: a Platonic Form is a single thing which unifies many things ("one over many"). For Plato, the Forms also exist separately from the things which "participate" in them. For example, a particular being, Socrates, participates in the form Man-itself. This participation is what explains why Socrates is what he is (a man), and in this way it can be said to be a cause of Socrates.

Some Criticisms of the Forms

Although Aristotle believed that forms are crucial in explaining what a thing is, he raised numerous objections to the Platonic account of them.

The first objection is that Plato's account is too extravagant. Since the Form explains the "one over many," whenever there is a many which can be classified as one kind, there must be a Form for it. Aristotle had shown in his Categories that there are many things in a subject, which he called coincidentals. There would have to be a Form for each of these. An example is the relative, such as larger. Suppose Plato is larger than Socrates. Then there would have to be a Form "larger-than-itself." If Plato is larger by one inch in height and ten pounds in weight, there would have to be a Form for that as well, and so on. But there are no forms for these things.

A second kind of extravagence involves the relation between the Form and the particular thing which participates in it. Since the Form and the thing participating in the Form have something in common, there must be a Form for this thing. Socrates the man participates in the Form Man-itself. So Socrates and Man-itself have something in common. There would have to be a Form for this, a "third man." This third Form would have something in common with the others, engendering yet more Forms, and there is no end to this.

Forms as conceived by Plato could not really be causes, either. The Form exists separately from what "participates" in it. It cannot really "approach" or "withdraw" from a thing, since it is never tainted by being in the thing in the first place. What functions as a cause has to be at least in the same universe as what it causes, so Plato's Forms are inefficacious.

Aristotle brings his empiricism into play against the Platonic Forms. As detailed above, Aristotle held that we grasp the universal only through the particular, which in turn in perceived by the senses. We can come to know that form man in Socrates in this way. But what is it to speak of the Form Man-itself? How can we arrive at this by induction through perception? Aristotle concludes that the addition of "itself" is merely verbal and does not signify a separately-existing thing. For that matter, the relation between Form and particular, "participation" is only a metaphor and is not intelligible except as a relation between particular things.

Substance

Now we move to Book Zeta, which principally treats of substance. The Metaphysics is about what is insofar as it is, and the fundamental being is substance. That it is primary can be seen from the fact that substance exists of itself, while the attributes or coincidents of substance cannot be apart from substance. The position sitting exists only insofar as there is a sitting thing, but the sitting thing can exist perfectly well without being in the position sitting.

That substance is prior to its attributes tells us something about the relation of substance to other things, but it does not tell us what substance is. Again proceeding dialectically, Aristotle lists what the earlier philosophers had singled out as primary.

It will turn out that most of these proposals do not meet Aristotle's requirements for a being to be a substance.

What is Substance?

So what sort of thing would qualify as a fundamental being? Three possibilities are plausible: Aristotle had singled out in the Categories the primary subject: what is neither in a subject nor said of a subject. Thus Socrates would qualify as a substance on this view. The essence is what makes a thing the kind of thing it is. Socrates is essentially a man. So it might seem as if man is more fundamental than Socrates himself. The universal is what is shared by many things. It might seem that what a thing is depends on what it has in common with other things, in which case the universal would be substance. The Primary Subject Aristotle seems to have built in the Categories a strong case for the primary subject as substance. The essence and universal would seem to be the sort of things that are said of a subject, whereas we can understand the primary subject in itself, as something not in a subject or said of a subject. But what is the primary subject? Consider a statue of Zeus, made of bronze. This statue could be considered in one of three ways: Each of these will be examined in turn.

The Matter

Matter would seem to be primary in that it is what survives all changes of form. The bronze might be mined, smelted, melted, cast, cooled, re-melted, etc., while remaining the same bronze. In fact, the matter remains when everything which is said of it is taken away. But we must ask what it would be if nothing is said of it. Under these circumstances, we could not even say that we have bronze, or metal, or even earth. "In its own right," matter is completely indeterminate. Could this indeterminate something be a substance? John Locke, writing in the seventeenth century, was willing to concede that substance is "something, I know not what," but Aristotle was not prepared to make such a concession (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter XXIII).

Matter is not a suitable candidate for substance. Even though we can separate it in thought from what is said of it, it cannot be so separated in reality. So it is not really more fundamental than form. Moreover, because it is indeterminate, it is not a "this." We want to be able to describe the fundamental being in the manner of "this man" if it is to be the primary subject of which things are said.

Perhaps it is the compound of form and matter that is the substance. Aristotle dismisses this possibility very abruptly, for the reason that a compound cannot be an ultimately fundamental being. It depends on both the matter and the form for its being. This would leave only the form left as a candidate for substance. But note that in rejecting the compound, Aristotle seems to be rejecting his original example of substance. Socrates would seem to be a composite of form and matter, and in the Categories he is described as being a substance. This has led to many charges of inconsistency, and even that Aristotle did not write the Categories!

One possible way to avoid the difficulty is to describe what Aristotle is doing in Metaphysics Zeta as explaining the substance-of Socrates, rather than trying to describe substance itself. This tack is taken by my colleague Michael V. Wedin. The Metaphysics is taken to explain what has already been established in the Categories:

Thus, in [Chapter 17] the cause of a certain portion of matter constituting a man is held to be the form; and so the fact that a certain form is realized in a certain matter explains the fact, familiar from the Categories, that Socrates falls into the species man. Likewise, the unity involved in the Categories claim that [Categories-primary-]substances remain one and the same across contraries is explained by appeal to the relation between the form and matter of the [Categories-primary-]substances. (Aristotle's Theory of Substance: The Categories and Metaphysics Zeta, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 5)
We will not be able to pursue this suggestion, which is developed in some 454 pages in Professor Wedin's book. Nor will we be able to canvass other suggestions.

The Essence

If the form is to be considered as substance (or perhaps as explaining the substance), it should be thought of as what makes something the kind of thing it is, i.e., as the essence. There are several reasons for this, which can be illustrated with the example of Socrates, whose essence is man. Socrates is said to be man in his own right, not by virtue of something else, i.e., those coincidents that are in him. We could give an account of Socrates by describing some of his characteristics: that pale, snub-nosed character lurking in the marketplace. But this is not a definition of Socrates, and only the essence can be given through the definition. And the essence must be given through something that is not in something else, as Socrates's paleness is in him. So we are looking for what is said of Socrates but not in him, and this will be his species, man. (Man is a species of the genus animal.) It is true that we can give definitions of what is in something else, as we can say that Socrates's paleness is white-colored skin, but this is an essence only in a secondary sense. It is an essence of the paleness, not of Socrates.

Coming to Be

Most substances come to be and pass away (an exception being the unmoved mover, who is eternal). There are three ways in which a thing can come to be. We account for coming-to-be through an agent which is responsible for the production of the thing (the "efficient case") and through the matter which potentially is that thing (the "material cause"). As noted above, Aristotle held that any explanation must also involve the form.

Form and Production

What role does form play in the production of material things? In crafts, there is a form in the soul of the craftsman. This form is the desired end. We produce something with that form by first thinking how that form might be realized, then how this realization can take place, until we finally arrive at an action that we can undertake. So if the end is a healthy body, we recognize that heating the body promotes health. Rubbing the skin produces heat, and so we rub the body. In so doing, we do not produce a form, nor do we produce matter. Instead, we produce a form-in-matter. As mentioned above in the criticism of Plato, we do not explain the production of things by forms which exist separately from the universe.

Agency and Production

Substance plays a role in agency, which is another explanation of the "why" and hence another cause. In the case of the production of motion, a thing either moves itself in a given circumstance or it does not. Animals move themselves, as do bodies composed mainly of elements which out of their natural place. A stone, for example, is made primarily of earth, whose place is in a sphere around the center of the planet (and also the universe). When it falls from a cliff, it moves by its own agency, but when it is launched from a catapault, it is moved by something else. If it hits its target, it is not through its own agency. Although it might have been launched by a person with the deliberate end of destruction, viewed from the standpoint of its own agency, it hits the target only by chance.

Besides being the subjects of change, substances themselves are produced, i.e., they come to exist when they did not exist before. Non-substances, such as a table, come to be through form and matter that already exist, such as lumber that already has a certain shape that will give shape to the bed. Substance, on the other hand, comes to be only from another substance. Aristotle rather notoriously explained the production of animals by holding that the form is provided by the father and the matter by the mother (On the Generation of Animals, Book IV, Chapter 1).

The Universal

Having completed his discussion of the essence (the form), which appears to be what he takes to be substance (or what explains substance), Aristotle moves to the last candidate, the universal. Is the universal, what things have in common, the most basic cause and principle? Aristotle answers in the negative. Substance is what is distinctive of a thing, while the universal is common. Moreover, the universal (e.g., man) is said of a substance, while substance is not said of any thing. If substance is the universal, then the same substance would be in many things. Finally, the universal is not a "this," while substance is a "this."

The denial that substance is the universal seems to pose a fundamental problem for Aristotle's account of substance in the Metaphysics. This is because he apparently has already endorse the form as substance (or what explains substance), and form would seem to be universal. Marc Cohen describes this puzzle as "perhaps the largest, and most disputed, interpretive issue concerning Aristotle's Metaphysics. Here is how Mary Louise Gill describes the problem:

The chapter is problematic because Aristotle's objections to the universal appear to tell against his own favoured candidate, the substantial form, as well. Earlier in Z[eta], in the section on essence, he argued that form is substance. That section appeared to treat form as a universal. But if form is a universal, then the arguments in Z[eta] 13 that no universal is substance defeat substantial form as well. ("Aristotle's Attack on Universals, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy XX, 2001, pp. 235-260.
As with the problem mentioned earlier, one can charge Aristotle with inconsistency here or try to find an interpretation that will avoid the charge. One obvious possibility is to hold that the substantial form is not a universal. Another is that there is some form that is both universal and individual. We will not be able to pursue the matter any further here. See Marc Cohen's Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry for more details.

The Unity of Substance

Now that what substance is (or what explains substance) has been settled, Aristotle has something to say about what kinds of objects can count as substance. It was noted earlier that a candidate that had been proposed was the elements. But they are not unified. A clod of earth exists only as a heap. A more promising candidate is some of the parts of substances. For example, it might seem that the heart of a human being is a substance. It fits the description of substance in that it is an agent with its own principle of motion. But it can only function as a self-mover when it is part of an organic unity that is the living human body. A heart existing by itself no longer has its function, so it has this aspect of substantiality, moving itself, only potentially in that situation. Substances, then, are not composed of substances, but are fundamental unities.

Final Account of Substance

We may now summarize the account of substance. The substance of a thing is the primary cause of its being the kind of thing that it is. (Note, Aristotle does not say here that the substance itself is the primary cause of its being, which is most implausible.) Substances are unities by nature. What unifies a number of elements is not a member of the group of elements unified. The heart, for example, does not unify the human body and make it a man. What provides unity is a form, which explains why a thing is what it is. Such a form is the essence, so the substance (or the substance of a thing) is essence.
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