Chapter 22 Chapter 19 Aristotle's Metaphysics

To read any important philosopher, but especially to read Aristotle, we need to study him from two aspects: that is, referring to his predecessors and referring to his descendants.As far as the former aspect is concerned, Aristotle’s advantages are extremely great; as far as the latter is concerned, his shortcomings are also extremely great.However, for his shortcomings, his descendants are more responsible than he is.He was born at the end of the creative period of Greek thought; and it was not until two thousand years after his death that the world produced any philosopher who might be regarded as roughly equal to him.To the end of this long period his authority was almost as unquestionable as that of the Christian Church, and it was always a serious obstacle to progress in science as in philosophy.Since the beginning of the seventeenth century almost every serious intellectual advance has necessarily begun with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine; in logic this is still the case today.But it would have been at least as disastrous had any of his predecessors (except perhaps Democritus) acquired the same authority as he.In order to prejudice him fairly, we must first forget his excessive posthumous popularity, and the equally excessive posthumous disapproval it entailed.

Aristotle was born around 384 BC in Stagira, Thrace.His father inherited the position of physician to the King of Macedon.Aristotle came to Athens when he was about eighteen years old to be Plato's student; he remained at the Academy for nearly twenty years until Plato's death in 348-347 BC.After this he traveled for a time, and married the sister or niece of a tyrant named Hermias. (It was rumored that she was either Hermias' daughter or a concubine, but the fact that Hermias himself was a eunuch disproves both of these.)In 343 B.C. he was tutor to Alexander, who was then thirteen years old; and he held this office until Alexander was sixteen, when Alexander was declared a man of majority by his father Philip, and appointed He was regent in Philip's absence.Everything one could wish to know about the relationship between Aristotle and Alexander was uncertain, especially since legends were soon being invented on the subject.There were other correspondences between the two of them, which have been recognized as forgeries.Those who adore both men imagine that the teacher influences the student.Hegel believed that Alexander's career showed the practical use of philosophy. Regarding this point, A. V. Bain said: "If philosophy has no other better evidence to show itself than Alexander's character, That would be unfortunate. . . . Arrogant, drunken, cruel, vengeful, and superstitiously vulgar, he combined the wickedness of a mountain chief with the rage of an Eastern despot." As for me, though I agree with Bain about Alexander's character, but I think Alexander's exploits were of the utmost importance and usefulness; for but for him the whole tradition of Greek civilization would probably have perished long ago.As to the influence of Aristotle on him, we are free to guess at whatever seems most reasonable to us.As for me, I like to imagine it equal to zero.Alexander was an ambitious and impulsive boy, who had a bad relationship with his father and was presumably unwilling to be educated.Aristotle taught that each country should have no more than a hundred thousand citizens, and also preached the doctrine of the golden mean.I can't imagine his pupils thinking of him as anything other than some boring old pedant his father put in charge of him to keep him from messing around.Alexander did have a snobbish respect for the civilization of Athens, but it was shared by his entire dynasty, which hoped to prove that they were not barbarians.This is very similar to the feelings of the Russian aristocrats for Paris in the nineteenth century.So this cannot be attributed to the influence of Aristotle at all.And in Alexander, I don't see anything else that might have come from Aristotle's influence.

What is even more astonishing is that Alexander's influence on Aristotle was so small that Aristotle's thinking about politics so easily missed the fact that the age of the city-state had given way to the empire. It's time.I suspect that Aristotle had always thought of Alexander as nothing more than "a dissolute and obstinate boy who could never understand a little philosophy."On the whole, the contact of these two great men seemed fruitless, as if they lived in different worlds. From 335 BC to 323 BC (the last year in which Alexander died), Aristotle lived in Athens.During these twelve years he established his academy and wrote most of his works.As soon as Alexander died, the Athenians rebelled and attacked Alexander's friends, including Aristotle; Aristotle was convicted of impiety, but unlike Socrates, he fled to avoid punishment .He died the following year (322 BC).Aristotle as a philosopher was very different from all his predecessors in many ways.He was the first to write like a professor: his treatises were systematic, his discussions classified, he was a professional teacher rather than an inspired prophet.His work is critical, meticulous, and banal without any trace of Backusian passionism.The Orphic element of Plato's thought is watered down in Aristotle, and mixed with a strong dose of common sense; His training was overwhelming.He is not passionate, and not religious in any profound sense.The error of his predecessors was that honorable error of youth when it prays for the impossible; but his error is that of old age who cannot free itself from the prejudices of custom.He is best at detail and critique; but lacking in basic clarity and giant firepower, he doesn't accomplish much construction work.It is difficult to decide where to begin with Aristotle's metaphysics, and perhaps the best place to begin is with his critique of the theory of ideas and his own alternative theory of universals.He presents a whole host of good arguments against the Idea, most of which have already been dealt with in Plato's Parmenides.The strongest argument is that of the "third man": that is, if a man is a man because he resembles the ideal man, then there must be another more ideal man, and the ordinary man and the ideal All people should be like this more ideal person.Secondly, Socrates is both a man and an animal, so the question arises whether the ideal man is an ideal animal; if so, how many kinds of animals are there, and how many ideal animals must there be? .We need not pursue this statement; for Aristotle has made it clear that when several individuals share the same predicate, it cannot be due to their relation to something of their kind, Rather, it must be because they are related to something more ideal.This point can roughly be considered as a conclusion, but Aristotle's own theory is very unclear.It is this lack of clarity that makes the medieval nominalist-versus-spiritualist debate possible.

Aristotle's metaphysics can, roughly speaking, be described as Plato watered down by a sense of common sense.Aristotle is difficult to understand precisely because Plato and common sense do not mix easily.Sometimes, when we try to understand him, we think he expresses the usual views of a philosophic man, and at other times we think he is elaborating Platonism in a new vocabulary.It is not acceptable to place too much emphasis on a single passage, because there will be corrections or revisions to it in some other passage.In general, the easiest way to understand his theory of universals and his theory of form and matter is to lay out the common-sense half of his position first, and then consider what he has done about it. Platonic correction.

Within certain limits, the theory of universals is quite simple.In language, there are proper nouns and adjectives.Proper nouns apply to "things" or "persons," and each of these is only the only thing or person to which the noun applies.Sun, Moon, France, Napoleon, etc., are unique; there are not many instances to which these names apply.On the other hand words like "cat", "dog" and "person" apply to many different things.The question of universality is to explore the meaning of these words, as well as the meaning of adjectives like "white", "hard", "round", and so on.He said: "The word 'universal' I mean something that has such a quality that it can be used to describe many subjects, and the word 'individual' means that it cannot be described in this way. something to say."

What a proper noun refers to is a "substance," and what an adjective or class name (such as "human" or "person") refers to is called a "universal."Substance is "this", and universal is "this kind" - it refers to the kind of thing. It does not refer to the actual special thing.A universal is not an entity because it is not "this". (Plato's heavenly bed is also a "this" for those who can see it; but this is where Aristotle disagrees with Plato.) Aristotle says, "It seems impossible for any noun of a universal to be a noun of a substance. For . The phase is common, for what is called a universal is that which can belong to more than one thing".As such, the gist of this statement is that universals cannot exist by themselves, but only in ... particular things.

Aristotle's doctrine is superficially easy.Suppose I say, "There is such a thing as a football game," and most people will regard this statement as the plain truth.But if I mean that a football game can exist without footballers, I will rightly be considered nonsense.Likewise, one would think there is such a thing as parenthood, but only because there are many parents; there is such a thing as sweetness, but only because there are many sweet things; there is redness, but only because There are many red things.And the interdependence is not supposed to be mutual: football players are still there even if they never play football; what is usually sweet can become sour; and my face is usually Red, but it can also turn pale and still be my face.In this way we are led to the conclusion that the existence of an adjective depends on what a proper noun signifies, but not vice versa.I thought that was what Aristotle meant.On this point, as on many others, his doctrine is a pedantic expression of a common-sense prejudice.

But it is not an easy task to make this theory precise.Suppose the football game cannot exist without the football player, but it can very well exist without this or that football player.And suppose that a man can exist without playing football, but he cannot exist without doing anything.The red quality cannot exist without some subject, but it can exist without this or that subject; likewise a subject cannot exist without a certain quality, but it can exist without this or that quality.Then the supposed grounds for distinguishing things from qualities appear to be illusory. In fact, the real ground for making this distinction is linguistic; it follows from grammar.We have proper nouns, adjectives and relative words; so we can say: "John is smart, James is stupid, John is taller than James".Here, "John" and "James" are proper nouns, "wise" and "foolish" are adjectives, and "higher" is a relative word.Since Aristotle, metaphysicians have explained these grammatical differences metaphysically: John and James are substances, wise and stupid are universals. (Relational words are ignored, or misinterpreted.) Perhaps if we pay enough attention, we can find that some metaphysical differences are somehow related to these grammatical differences; but if it is true In this case, it can only go through a very long process, and must create a set of artificial philosophical language.And this language will not contain names like "John" and "James," and adjectives like "wise" and "foolish"; all words used in ordinary language must be analyzed and replaced by words with less complex meanings.It is not until this work has been done that the question of the individual and the universal can be properly discussed.When we finally get to the point where we can discuss it, we will find that we are discussing a very different problem than we originally imagined.

So if I have not been able to make Aristotle's theory of universals clear, it is (I insist) because it is not clear.But it is indeed an advance in the theory of ideas, and it does touch on a real and very important problem. Another term is very important among Aristotle and his scholastic successors, and that is the term "essence".This term is by no means synonymous with "universal".Your "essence" is "what you are according to your nature."It is, so to speak, those attributes of you without which you would not be yourself.Not only does an individual thing have an essence, but each category has an essence.The definition of a category should include its essence.Later I will talk about the relationship between the concept of "essence" and Aristotelian logic.For the moment suffice it to say that I find it to be an act of confusion and impossible to be precise.

Another point of Aristotle's metaphysics is the difference between "form" and "matter". (It must be understood that "matter" in the sense opposite to "form" is different from "matter" in opposition to "mind".) Here too Aristotle's theory has a common-sense basis, but here the Platonic transformation is more important than in the question of universals.We may begin with a marble statue; here the marble is the matter, and the shape the sculptor makes is the form.Or, to use Aristotle's example, if one makes a brass ball, then the copper is the matter and the ball is the form; in the case of a calm sea, the water is the matter and the calm is the form.So far, everything is simple.

It is by means of form, he goes on, that matter becomes something definite, and this is the substance of things.What Aristotle means seems to be plain common sense: a "thing" must have limits, and limits constitute its form.For example, there is a certain volume of water: any part of the water contained in a bottle can be separated from the rest, and this part becomes a "thing"; but as long as this part cannot be completely separated from the rest It is not a "thing" when it is divided from the one body of matter.A statue is a "thing," while the marble of which it is composed remains in a sense part of a stone, or part of the content of a rock, without changing.We do not automatically say that it is form that creates substance; but this is because the atomic hypothesis has become entrenched in our imagination.However, every atom, if it is a "thing", is a "thing" by virtue of its being able to distinguish itself from other atoms, so there is also a "thing" in a sense. form". We now turn to a new formulation, which at first glance seems difficult.He tells us that the soul is the form of the body."Form" here does not mean "shape", that is quite obvious.I shall return later to what it means for the soul to be the form of the body; for the present I will suffice to say that in the Aristotelian system the soul is that which makes the body a thing, having unity of purpose and The various characteristics that we consider to be associated with the term "organism."The purpose of the eye is to see, but it cannot see without its body.In fact, it is the soul that is watching. It thus seems as though "form" is that which confers a unity on some part of matter, and this unity is usually, if not always, always teleological.But there are much more "forms" than this, and the many parts are very difficult to understand. He tells us that the form of a thing is its essence and its original substance.Forms have substance, while universals have no substance.When a man makes a ball of brass, both matter and form already exist; all he has done is to combine the two; he does not make form any more than he makes copper. .Not everything has matter: there are many eternal things of which, except those that move through space, have no matter.Things increase their reality by acquiring form, and matter without form is nothing but potentiality. Form is substance, which exists independently of the matter in which it embodies—this view seems to expose Aristotle to the arguments he himself used against Plato's theory of ideas.His formal meaning refers to something quite different from the universal, yet it has many of the same characteristics.He tells us that form is more real than matter; this suggests that the Idea has a unique reality.It seems that Aristotle actually made far fewer changes to Platonic metaphysics than others thought.This is the view taken by Zeller, who says on the question of matter and form: "A final explanation, however, of Aristotle's lack of clarity on this subject may be found in the following found in the fact that—as we shall see—he had only half freed himself from Plato's tendency to materialize the Idea. 'Form' was to him as 'Idea '; like Plato, it has a metaphysical existence in itself, which determines all individual things. Although he is so sharply tracing the process of the growth of ideas from experience, it is equally true that It is these ideas, especially when they are the furthest removed from experience and immediate perception, that at last are transformed from a logical product of human thought into an immediate representation of the supersensible world, and in this sense into an object of intellectual intuition".I do not see how Aristotle could find an answer to this criticism. The only answer I can imagine is that he should claim that no two things can have the same form.If one makes two brass balls, each (we must say) has its own particular roundness, which is both substantial and particular, an instance of "roundness" in general, But it is not the same as the general "roundness".I do not think that the passages I have quoted above support this interpretation very well.And it might also be objected to that particular roundness should be unknowable on Aristotle's view; yet his metaphysics essentially says that as the forms multiply and As the amount of matter becomes less and less, things gradually become more and more knowable.If this is to be consistent with his other views, it must allow the form to be embodied in many individual things.If he were to say that there are as many forms as there are spherical things (and these forms are instances of spheres), he would have to make a fundamental modification of his philosophy.For example, his view that every form is equal to its essence is incompatible with the way out suggested above. The doctrine of matter and form in Aristotle's philosophy is connected with the distinction between potentiality and actuality.Matter alone is thought of as a potentiality of form; all change in the sense that something has more form after change than before change is what we would call "evolution." plant something.Anything with more form is considered more "realistic".God is pure form and reality; therefore God cannot change.We can see that this theory is optimistic and teleological: in this theory, the whole universe and everything in it is developing towards something that is constantly becoming better than before. The concept of potentiality is convenient in certain respects, provided that we use it in such a way that we can translate our expression into a form which does not include it. "A block of marble is a potential statue", that is to say, "from a block of marble a statue can be produced by proper working."But when potentiality is used as a fundamentally irreducible concept, it often conceals confusion of thought.Aristotle's use of it is one of the shortcomings of his system. Aristotle's theology is very interesting, and closely related to the rest of his metaphysics—indeed "theology" is one of the names he uses for what we call "metaphysics" . (The book we know to be named after Metaphysics, Aristotle himself did not call it that.) He says that there are three substances: namely, one sensible and perishable, one perceptible but indestructible, and one neither perceptible and indestructible.The first includes plants and animals, the second includes the celestial bodies (which Aristotle believed to be immutable except in motion), and the third includes the rational soul of man as well as the gods. The chief argument for God is the first cause: there must be something that causes motion, and this thing itself must be immobile, eternal, substance and reality.In this way, says Aristotle, the objects of desire and of thought are brought into motion, while they themselves are immobile.God thus moves by being loved, while all other causes of movement function by being themselves in motion (like a billiard ball).God is pure thought; for thought is the best thing. "Life also belongs to God, because the reality of thought is life, and God is that reality; and the reality of God's self-dependence is the best eternal life. Therefore we say that God is an eternal best creature, and thus eternal Continuing life and continuity belong to God; for this is God." (1072b) "From what has been said it is clear that there is a substance which is eternal and immovable and independent of sensible things. It has also been shown that this substance cannot be of any size, but contains neither many parts nor is indivisible.... and has also been shown to be insensible and immovable; for every other change must be preceded by a change of position". God does not possess the attributes of the Christian gods, because to think of anything other than perfection (that is, God himself) would detract from his perfection. "It must itself be the divine thought thinking (for it is the best of all things), and its thinking is thinking of thinking."We must infer that God is unaware of the existence of our earthly world.Aristotle also insisted, like Spinoza, that although man must love God, it is impossible for God to love man. God cannot be defined as "the only immovable mover".On the contrary, astronomical studies have concluded that there are forty-seven or fifty-five immobile movers.The relationship of these immobile movers to the gods is not made clear; indeed, the most natural explanation would be that there were forty-seven or fifty-five gods.For Aristotle, after the above passage on God, goes on to say: "We must not neglect the question, whether we suppose only one such substance or more than one," and then proceeds to the point from which Arguments from forty-seven or fifty-five immobile movers. The concept of an immobile mover is a difficult one to grasp.It seems to a modern mind that the cause of one change must be another preceding change; and that if the universe was ever perfectly at rest, it will always be at rest.To understand what Aristotle meant, we have to talk about what Aristotle said about causes.According to him, there are four causes; they are respectively called material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, and final cause.Let us take the man of the statue again as an example.The material cause of the statue is the marble, the formal cause is the essence of the image to be fashioned, the dynamic cause is the chisel in contact with the marble, and the final cause is the purpose in mind of the sculptor.In modern terminology the word "cause" is restricted to efficient causes.The immobile mover can be seen as a final cause: it provides a purpose for change, which is essentially an evolution towards godlikeness. I said that Aristotle was not very religious, but this is only partially true.We may perhaps, somewhat loosely, explain his religious aspect as follows: God exists eternally as pure thought, bliss, complete self-realization, without any unfulfilled purpose.The world of sense, on the other hand, is imperfect, but it has life, desires, thoughts and aspirations of the imperfect kind.All living beings are to some degree aware of God and acted upon by love and respect for God.God is thus the final cause of all activity.Variation consists in giving form to matter, but when it comes to sensible things there is always a matter as an underlying basis.Only God contains form but not matter.The world is constantly evolving towards greater degrees of form, and thus becoming more and more like gods.But this process is impossible because the matter cannot be completely destroyed.It is a religion of progress and evolution, for the static perfection of God moves the world only through the love of finite beings for God.Plato was mathematical, Aristotle biological; this explains the difference in religion between the two. However, this would be a one-sided view of Aristotle's religion; in fact, Aristotle also had the Greek's love for static perfection, and the Greek's preference for contemplation. Rather than love action.His doctrine of the soul shows this side of his philosophy. Whether Aristotle taught the immortality of the soul in any form is a nagging question among commentators.Averroes believed that Aristotle had never taught; and Averroes had many followers in Christian countries, the most extreme of which were called Epicureans. Dante found these Everyone is in hell.In fact, Aristotle's teachings are complex and easily misunderstood.In his "On the Soul", he regards the soul as united with the body and ridicules the Pythagorean doctrine of reincarnation.It seems that the soul perishes with the body: "therefore there can be no doubt that the soul is inseparable from its body"; but then he adds: "or, at any rate, some parts of the soul are so."The relationship between body and soul is the relationship between matter and form: "The soul must be a kind of substance in the sense that there is life hidden in the form of an object. But the substance is reality, so the soul has the above characteristics. bodily reality".The soul "is the substance in the sense that conforms to the prescribed formula of the nature of things. This means that it is an 'essential thing' of a body having the above-mentioned prescribed characteristics (accordingly, having life). "The soul is the primary reality of a natural body in which life exists. Such a natural body is an organic body."To ask whether the soul and the body are one and the same is as meaningless as to ask whether the wax and the image of the wax cast in a mold are one and the same.Self-nourishing is the only psychic capacity a plant possesses.The soul is the final cause of the body. In this book, Aristotle distinguishes between "soul" and "mind", and puts the mind higher than the soul, and is not bound by the body.Having spoken of the relation of the soul to the body, he said: "The case of the mind is different; it seems to be an independent substance embedded in the soul, and impossible to destroy." "Additionally: " We have no evidence of the mind, or of the faculty of thought; it seems to be a very different kind of soul, as the eternal is from the perishable; it alone exists in isolation from all other mental faculties.From the above it is evident (though somewhat to the contrary) that all other parts of the soul cannot exist alone". The mind is the part of us which understands mathematics and philosophy; its objects are timeless, so It is itself considered timeless. The soul is that which moves the body and perceives sensible objects; it is characterized by self-nourishing, feeling, thinking, and dynamics; but the mind has the higher function of thinking, It has nothing to do with the body or the senses. Therefore the mind can be immortal, though the rest of the soul is not. To understand Aristotle's doctrine of the soul, one must remember that the soul is the "form" of the body, and the shape of space is only one type of "form."What then is the common ground between soul and form?I think what they have in common is that both endow unity to a certain amount of matter.That part of a block of marble that will later become a statue has not yet been distinguished from the rest of the marble; it is not yet a "thing" and has no unity of any kind.But after the sculptor has shaped the statue, it has a unity derived from its shape.The most essential characteristic of the soul—in which the soul is the "form" of the body—is that it makes the body an organic whole and has purpose as a unity.A separate organ has purposes external to itself; the eye, for example, cannot see in isolation.So many things, though that may be said of an animal or plant as a whole; the same cannot be said of any part of it.It is in this sense that organic organization or form confers substance.Whatever gives substance to plants or animals, Aristotle called it "soul".But the "mind" is a different thing, less closely connected with the body; it may be part of the soul, but it is possessed by only a very small number of creatures.The mind as a speculative process cannot be the cause of motion, because it never thinks of everything practical, and never says what to avoid or what to pursue. A similar doctrine is presented in the book Nicomachean Ethics, albeit with a slight change in terminology.There is one element in the soul that is rational and one that is irrational.The irrational part is twofold: namely, the growth part which is found in all living things (including plants), and the lust part which exists only in all animals.The life of the rational soul consists in contemplation, and this is man's complete happiness, though not entirely attainable. "Such a life is probably too high for man: for man does not live in this way simply by being a man, but by virtue of something divine in him; and it的活动之优越于其他各种（实际的）德行的作用，正与它之优越于我们复合的本性的程度是一样的。所以，如果与人比较起来理性乃是神圣的，那末与人的生活比较起来符合于理性的生活也就是神圣的。但是我们绝不能听从有些人的话，那些人劝告我们说我们既是人就该去想人的事情，既然有死就该去想有朽的事物。我们应当是尽我们的力量使自己不朽，尽最大的努力依照我们生命中最美好的东西而生活；因为即使它在数量上很小，但是它在力量上和价值上却远远超过了一切事物” 。 从这些段话看来，则似乎个性——这是区别开一个人与另一个人的东西——是与身体和非理性的灵魂相联系着的，而理性的灵魂或者心灵则是神圣的、非个人的。一个人喜欢吃蠔肉而另一个人喜欢吃菠萝；这就区别开了人与人。但是当他们都想到乘法表的时候，只要他们想得正确，他们之间就没有任何的分别了。非理性的灵魂把我们区分开来；而有理性的灵魂则把我们结合起来。因此心灵的不朽或理性的不朽并不是个别的人的个人不朽，而是分享着神的不朽。我们看不出亚里士多德是相信柏拉图以及后来基督教所教导的那种意义上的个.人.的灵魂不朽的。他只是相信就人有理性而论，他们便分享着神圣的东西，而神圣的东西才是不朽的。人是可以增加自己天性中的神圣的成份的，并且这样做就是最高的德行了。可是假如他真的完全成了功的话，他也就会不再成其为一个个别的人而存在了。这也许并不是对于亚里士多德的话的唯一可能的解释，但是我以为这却是最为自然的解释。