Aristotle was the most influential student of Plato. He was born in the half Greek kingdom of Macedon, and at a young age studied at Plato’s academy. He was a philosopher, scientist, and researcher who left his finger prints on most academic interests, from the digestion of animals, to theories of ethics and metaphysics; he was truly the first and greatest cosmopolitan thinker.
In his mature thought, he discarded large portions of his teachers, Plato’s, thought. He rejected Plato’s radical dualism in metaphysics, epistemology, and anthropology. Metaphysically Aristotle denied the forms the independent existence which Plato had given them. Although forms do exist, they are intrinsically tied to their physical manifestations in the world. All things, other than God, have a material substance to which their form is bound up in (substance being what a thing is made up of). Forms do exist, but they exist out of all the essential (things that an object must have to be itself) elements of a thing. Epistemologically then, Aristotle taught that knowledge is not gained via contact with the forms, but by the sensation of essences observed by the mind (passive intellect) from which the mind (active intellect) abstracts the essence, or form. In terms of human nature also, Aristotle portrays a more unified human; one to whom both the body and the soul are equally part of human nature.
For Aristotle all beings, except God, are made up of form and matter with four causes. Matter is what a thing is made of, whereas form is a set of given properties that makes it the kind of thing it is. There are some substances which make up an object that are essential to the object, i.e. a table must have legs, and there are nonessential objects, i.e. the color of the paint used on the table. All things have four causes. The material cause, or the stuff a thing is made of. The formal cause, or the set of essential properties that a thing must possess to exist. An efficient cause, or the means of a thing’s creation. And a final cause, or the purpose to which a thing belongs. A similar teaching of the four causes appears in the works of Plato.
For Aristotle, all the world can be drawn up into nine categories which are dependent on the prior substance of a thing. One could say a subject is a place, relation, state, action etc. By his system anything in the world can be classified, which is one of Aristotle’s key interests.
All things, for Aristotle, possess potentiality and actuality. Potentiality is what a thing could be, i.e. a stick could become a broom handle or an ax handle. Actuality is what a thing currently is, in this case its actuality is in being a stick of wood. For a thing to possess potential a thing can change; it may have many potentialities or only a few, but in nature each thing has a final or natural form to which, if nothing causes to change the substance, a thing will become; he refers to this as entelechy. Because God is the final cause of all things he cannot change, for change involves a cause, and a final cause cannot have a prior cause, and therefore God is pure form and possesses no potentiality.
In the thought of Aristotle, all things possess substance and properties. A substance is an actual object, a red table for example; this table can change over time, but if its essential properties are stripped from it, then it will cease to be as a table; as long as it is a table, its essential properties must remain intact. The properties are the universal things found within a substance, i.e. the redness in a red table exists whether the table is or is not, since it is in many different substances across the world.
In terms of the relationship of Aristotle’s metaphysics to humanity Aristotle has a much more holistic view of epistemology, the body and soul, as well as virtue being a balance than his teacher Plato. Since he denied that forms exist in a world apart, knowledge is gained by what he refers to as the passive intellect from physical sensation, and via the active intellect the essences of a thing are abstracted out, and thus the universal or form can be known. For both Plato and Aristotle, true knowledge is found in knowing the form or essence of a thing. The soul, as seen in his writings, especially his De Anima, is bound up with the body, in that is the form behind the physical. There is therefore no distinction of a good spiritual realm and a morally suspect physical is Aristotle (whether one lives on after death is unclear, there is an idea of the eternally of the active intellect in Aristotle, which thinkers like Augustine took to be a part of God, Muslim thinkers to be a nebulous state of union like Nirvana, and Thomas Aquinas thought was proof of an eternal soul). Virtue, for Aristotle, is the right acting out of the virtues which is consistent with the end or telos of humanity, which he identified with eudaemonia, or a state of happiness and well being. Virtue is a golden mean between two extremes (i.e. rashness and cowardness are extremes, whereas courage is the mean). There are some things which are downright wrong, like adultery. The blessed or happy man is one who lives out, in community and virtues and attains a blessedness and a rightness in his living. This happiness culminates in contemplation of God (the highest good, since rationality is what makes man above the animals, the use of this to consider the highest good, God, is the happiest state, which can only be reached by secondary excellences of virtue.)
Originally written for and intellectual of property of Whitefield College. Used by permission. PHL 209. Ronald Nash, Life’s Ultimate Questions chapter 4 notes.
Reflective Wanderer 