Aristotle

Aristotle

BC. 384-

 

As one of Plato's best students, spent 20 Y

 

One or Two world

1.     Heraclitus: stability is an illusion

2.     Parmenides: motion is an illusion

3.     Plato:

Heraclitus-> visible world

Parmenides -> world of Forms

 

 

Aristotle

A Distinction is drawn between form and matter (distinguished only in thoguht, not I fact)

 

Forms are:

1) not separate entities - forms always exist together w/ matter (except for the divine form)

2.     Embedded in particular things

·         Therefore, they are in the world.

 

Substance

Substance: defined, "that which exists in itself"

a.     The most common substances are individual things (chairs, tables,…)

b.     Each is composed of both form and matter, except for the divine substance, which is pure form.

 

1.     Form ('what-ness')

a.     Form gives to every substance its shape, size, its qualities (a thing's essence or nature, related to function).

b.     Things, therefore, are knowable because of their form ('it's a tree,'….

 

2.     Matter ('this-ness')

a.     Matter is that which is formed, that on which the form operates.

b.     As such it has no qualities; it constitutes an irrational principle.

c.     Thus things resist formation and knowledge. Matter is the source of imperfection and evil.

 

Plato: Dualism (eternal Forms vs. visible matter)

Aristotle: Pluralism (plurality of substances)

 

 

Potentiality and actuality

Ari's solution to the problem of motion and change:

a.     The acorn grows into an oak as its form is actualized. It is always an oak potentially.

But the form is actualized by process.

b.     As things become more and more actualized, the form predominates over the matter.

c.     The less actualized things are, the more potentiality (potency) they have, the more matter predominates over form.

 

 

The prime mover

A.    Accounts for change, the constant movement from potentiality to actuality.

B.     He is the ultimate cause of motion, but is not himself moved(else he would require a more ultimate cause)./

C.     He is not a creator in time, for Aristotle the changing world is itself eternal. Rather he "underlies" the whole process. (basis for the "cosmological argument for G's existence" in Thomas Aquinas.