Metaphysics

1. Metaphysics Philosophy 1 Spring, 2002 G. J. Mattey

2. The Origins of Knowledge • Sense-perception is the first requirement for knowledge, and is found in animals • Memory with sense-preception allows for a single experience • Experience gives rise to science and craft • Craft arises through induction: “many thoughts that arise from experience result in one universal judgment about similar things”

3. Knowledge of Causes • Experience concerns particulars, while craft gives a rational account, using universals • If one does not know particulars, rational accounts may be misapplied • Craft is superior to mere experience because it knows the cause, the reason why • Knowing the reason why makes the master craftsman superior to the manual craftsman • The theoretical scientist is more superior still

4. Wisdom • Wisdom is a science of causes and principles • The highest wisdom is the study of the most universal causes and principles • We know subordinate things through the most universal things • Wisdom is motivated by wonder • The highest wisdom is divine • The gods themselves are the highest causes • The gods would have this wisdom • Wisdom removes wonder

5. Early Attempts at Science • Most early philosophers thought the only causes of things are material • This does not explain why things happen, so philosophers turned to a source of motion • The best such source is mind, because it also explains why things turn out well • But all the early attempts were clumsy and overlooked the form and the end as causes

6. Platonic Forms • Plato recognized the need to describe the form as cause • The common formula of things (“one over many”) is the Form, which exists apart • The particular (e.g., Socrates) is said to “participate” in the Form (Man-itself) • Forms are said to be causes of the “what-it-is” of a thing

7. Some Criticisms of the Forms • Extravagance: there is a Form for whatever something has in common with another • Some things (e.g., relatives), do not have forms • A Form has something in common with a particular thing participating in it, so there would be a Form for the Form/particular (the “third man”) • Inefficacy: Forms cannot be causes if they are not in the world of caused things • Unknowability: knowledge comes from perception, and “itself” adds only a word • Unintelligibility: “Participation” is a metaphor

8. Substance • Substance is separable while the other ways of being (attributes) are not • Sitting implies a sitting thing, but a sitting thing need not sit • There are several candidates for substance • Animals, plants, and their parts • The elements: fire, water, earth, air • What is composed of elements • Geometrical limits of bodies • The Platonic Forms

9. What is Substance? • There are three kinds of thing that might be substance: • The primary subject • The essence • The universal • Each of these will be considered in turn • Substance will be shown to be the essence

10. The Primary Subject • Substance is a subject that has other things said of it but is not said of anything • This primary subject may be: • The matter (the bronze) • The form (the shape of the bronze) • The compound (the statue) • Which is most fundamental?

11. Matter • When all that is said of a thing is taken away, only the matter remains • Matter is “in its own right” something indeterminate, and not what is predicated of it • But matter cannot be substance • It is not separable from its form • It is not a “this,” a particular thing • The composite of form and matter is derivative and cannot be substance

12. The Essence • Form will be studied through essence • The essence is what a thing is in its own right • It is given in a definition, not a mere account of the thing • A definition is an account given by something is not in another (hence, not by an attribute) • So the definition will be the species of a genus • For example, the essence of Socrates is man • Attributes have definitions, but these are only secondarily essences (there is a definition of pale)

13. Coming to Be • Things come to be something in three ways • By nature • By craft • By chance • In each case, an agent is responsible for their coming to be • There is also a matter, which is potentially what the thing comes to be

14. Form and Production • What comes to be from craft has its form in the soul • We think of the end we desire and build a chain back to something we can produce • Healthy body  heated body  rubbing • One does not produce form or matter, but form in matter (bronze sphere, not sphere) • Separate forms cannot explain production

15. Agency and Production • Some things can be moved by their own agency in some circumstances but only by other things in others (a stone) • If a thing attains an end when moved by another agent, the end is attained by chance • Non-substances come to be through existing form and matter (a table from shaped wood) • Substance comes to be only through another substance (animal from animal)

16. The Universal • Some think that the universal is the most basic cause and principle, and hence that substance is the universal • But substance is not the universal • The universal is common, but the substance is what is distinctive of a thing • The universal is said of a subject, but substance is not said of a subject • The same substance would be in different things • The universal is not a “this”

17. The Unity of Substance • Some substances are composed of parts that are thought to be substances • Animals are composed of parts that have their own principles of motion • But because they are united in one substance, they are substances only in potentiality • There are no substances composed of substances

18. Final Account of Substance • The substance of a thing is the primary cause of its being what it is • Things that are substances are unities by nature • What unifies a number of elements is not an element itself • It is a form, which explains why a thing is what it is • This form is the essence of the thing, so substance is essence