Aristotle

1. Aristotle • Aristotle: 384-322 BC • born in Stagira in northern Greece • maps: • http://www.plato-dialogues.org/tools/gk_wrld.htm • http://iam.classics.unc.edu/map/download/area_a7_outline.pdf • Plato’s student in the Academy • Leaves Athens after Plato’s death in 347 BC • Teaches Alexander for 3 years • Returns to Athens in 335BC & establishes the Lyceum • Alexander dies in 323 BC, when Aristotle flees Athens

2. Range of Aristotle’s Work • Virtually all areas of philosophy • metaphysics (note the term) • epistemology • ethics & aesthetics • logic • protoscience: physics, biology, astronomy

3. Plato v Aristotle • The General Structure of Universe • Plato’s two realms • the world of forms • the world of sensible objects • Aristotle’s unified universe • forms exist only in individual objects = substances

4. Plato v Aristotle • Knowledge • Plato’s nativism • Aristotle’s empiricism • Self • Plato: individual souls are immortal • Aristotle: soul is immortal but not individualized or personalized

5. Matter, Form & Substance • The Problem of Change • Plato, Parmenides & Zeno deny the reality of change • They variously hold that the sensible world is “illusory” • Aristotle accepts the reality of the changing, physical world & needs a fundamental principle to accommodate change

6. Matter • Matter = Pure Potentiality • that which, in itself, is nothing but which can become anything • compare malleable clay • that which permits persistence through change • compare the enduring clay • that which is unintelligible but fundamental???

7. Form • Form = Pure Actuality • that which disciplines, directs, constrains matter • shape of the malleable clay • that which makes matter become what is real • definable & intelligible • exists in what is real • even in sensible objects

8. Substance • Particular objects = what really exists • e.g. Socrates, tree, electron • Substance = that which is the subject of predication but not itself predicated • target of thought and language

9. Material v Immaterial Substance • Some substances can change while retaining their identity • they contain matter + form • I.e. all sensible substances • Some substances cannot change • they do not contain matter • I.e. Celestial Objects, God (the unmoved mover) • they retain their identity be

10. Identity and Essence • How change works in material substance • matter remains (compare Soc. Security Number) • form exchanged • distinguish essential (substantial) from accidental form

11. Essential Form • determines genus/species • makes a substance be thekind of object it is • e.g. the rationality of Socrates • Accidental Form • characterizes or qualifies a substance without affecting its identity • e.g. the snubnosedness of Socrates

12. What’s Really Essential? • Contrast generic and personal essence • Socrates, the rational animal • Socrates, the inquisitive philosopher • Two types of essential forms?

13. What’s Really Essential? • All and only rational animals are featherless bipeds • which form is essential? • How do we tell? • Socrates is both a philosopher and a convicted criminal • which form is essential? • How do we tell?

14. Is Essence Subjective? • The role of language • Edward Sapir/Benjamin Whorf Hypothesis • Edward Sapir (1884-1936): American linguist and anthropologist • Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941): American linguist; student of Sapir • The language you speak determines or strongly influences how you conceive of the world and may even influence how you perceive the world • compare • “red,” “white,” and “blue” • “red-or-white” and “blue” • Is essence what we find or what we fabricate?

15. Forms as Universals • Form as that which is commonly and simultaneously present in different but similar individuals as the basis of similarity • How can one thing, i.e. a form, simultaneously be in different places?

16. The Nature of Thought • A person = (body + soul) • (body + soul) = (matter + form) • Hence, a person = (matter + form) • Soul = form • soul is that which gives life in virtue of giving rational animality • soul = essential form

17. Universal Soul • Soul = essential form • Essential forms are Universals • Plato’s essential form = Socrates’ essential form • So, Plato’s soul = Socrates’ soul • This generalizes for all people • So, there is but one soul! • Immortality is not personal!

18. Thought and Form • Soul is seat of cognition/thought • Thought = recognition of form • Recognition of form = reproduction of form in the soul • So, to think of a cat is to have the form of the cat in the soul

19. Objections • Why doesn’t a thinker become what he/she thinks? • Matter is in the object represented by thought but not in the soul • Is it possible to distinguish similar things in thought since thought is the reproduction of universal forms?

20. The Four Causes • Aristotle is convinced in the reality of sensible objects & change • Thus, he must offer a theory of how it is possible to understand the structure of sensible objects and change • Aristotle proposes four basic types of causation or explanation aiming at showing why, of necessity, things are as they are by showing them to be instances of Universal Laws

21. Causation Fourfold Universality • Material Causation • based in the varieties of matter • Efficient Causation • based in the (infinite) sequence of antecedent motion • Formal Causation • based in the varieties of form • Final Causation • based in intelligent or natural purpose

22. The Unmoved Mover • The universe must be temporally eternal since the idea of the (causal) beginning/end of the universe is nonsense • Still, why does the universe have the structure that it does in fact have? It could have been other than it actually is.

23. There must exist something that is not part of the changing, structured universe whose existence serves to explain the universe’s structure • This = the Unmoved Mover who affects the world in the manner of a beloved/desired object

24. Unmoved Mover • Immaterial • Unique • Pure Form • Unchanging • Eternal • Thinks, but only of itself • The Final Cause of the physical universe

25. Agental Causation • Aristotle allows that agents cause things to happen as a result of their deliberation • Perhaps this “agental” causation is simply a type of final causation or perhaps it is “sui generis”

26. Questions • Questions: • is agental causation “free” or itself the effect of other causes? • does agental causation lead to inexplicable or chance events • the unintented result of intentional action?

27. Jones decides to go to the market to purchase food • At the market he happens to meet Smith & happily collects a debt from Smith • The debt collection was • unplanned • not universal = not what normally happens • is it a chance event?

28. Chance • The debt collection is a chance event • Chance events do have causes! • Causes of chance events are Accidental Causes

29. Accidental Causation? • A accidentally causes B iff • A (normally) causes C • C happens to be identical to B • Eg: Planning to go to the market (normally) causes one to visit the store. Visiting the store happens to be identical to collecting the debt

30. Objection to Aristotle’s Notion of Chance • Contingent Identity A happens to be identical to B means that A is contingently identical to B • Chance presupposes contingent identity

31. Contingent identity is introduced into chance explanations as a matter of happenstance or coincidence • This violates the condition that causation is universal • So causation by chance fails to explain why things are as they are! • Aristotle errs, then, in saying that chance is a kind of causation