Aristotle's Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Cite this entry Search the SEP • Advanced Search • Tools • RSS FeedTable of Contents• What's New• Archives• Projected ContentsEditorial Information• About the SEP• Editorial Board• How to Cite the SEP• Special CharactersSupport the SEPContact the SEP ©Metaphysics Research Lab,CSLI,Stanford University  Open access to the SEP is made possible by a world-wide funding initiative. Please Read How You Can Help Keep the Encyclopedia FreeAristotle's MetaphysicsFirst published Sun Oct 8, 2000; substantive revision Mon Jun 9, 2008The first major work in the history of philosophy to bear the title“Metaphysics” was the treatise by Aristotle that we havecome to know by that name. But Aristotle himself did not use that titleor even describe his field of study as ‘metaphysics’; thename was evidently coined by the first century C.E. editor whoassembled the treatise we know as Aristotle's Metaphysics outof various smaller selections of Aristotle's works. The title‘metaphysics’ — literally, ‘after thePhysics’ — very likely indicated the place thetopics discussed therein were intended to occupy in the philosophicalcurriculum. They were to be studied after the treatises dealing withnature (ta phusika). In this entry, we discuss the ideas thatare developed in Aristotle's treatise. 1. The Subject Matter of Aristotle's Metaphysics2. The Categories3. The Role of Substance in the Study of Being Qua Being4. The Fundamental Principles: Axioms5. What is Substance?6. Substance, Matter, and Subject7. Substance and Essence8. Substances as Hylomorphic Compounds9. Substance and Definition10. Substances and Universals11. Substance as Cause of Being12. Actuality and Potentiality13. Unity Reconsidered14. Glossary of Aristotelian TerminologyBibliographyOther Internet ResourcesRelated Entries1. The Subject Matter of Aristotle's MetaphysicsAristotle himself described his subject matter in a variety of ways: as‘first philosophy’, or ‘the study of being quabeing’, or ‘wisdom’, or ‘theology’. Acomment on these descriptions will help to clarify Aristotle's topic. In Metaphysics A.1, Aristotle says that “all mensuppose what is called wisdom (sophia) to deal with the firstcauses (aitia) and the principles (archai) ofthings” (981b28), and it is these causes and principles that heproposes to study in this work. It is his customary practice to beginan inquiry by reviewing the opinions previously held by others, andthat is what he does here, as Book A continues with a history of thethought of his predecessors about causes and principles.These causes and principles are clearly the subject matter of whathe calls ‘first philosophy’. But this does not mean thebranch of philosophy that should be studied first. Rather, it concernsissues that are in some sense the most fundamental or at the highestlevel of generality. Aristotle distinguished between things that are“better known to us” and things that are “betterknown in themselves,”[1] and maintained that we should begin ourstudy of a given topic with things better known to us and arriveultimately at an understanding of things better known in themselves.The principles studied by ‘first philosophy’ may seem verygeneral and abstract, but they are, according to Aristotle, betterknown in themselves, however remote they may seem from the world ofordinary experience. Still, since they are to be studied only by onewho has already studied nature (which is the subject matter of thePhysics), they are quite appropriately described as coming“after the Physics.”Aristotle's description ‘the study of being qua being’is frequently and easily misunderstood, for it seems to suggest thatthere is a single (albeit special) subject matter — being quabeing — that is under investigation. But Aristotle's descriptiondoes not involve two things — (1) a study and (2) a subjectmatter (being qua being) — for he did not think that there is anysuch subject matter as ‘being qua being’. Rather, hisdescription involves three things: (1) a study, (2) a subject matter(being), and (3) a manner in which the subject matter is studied (quabeing).Aristotle's Greek word that has been Latinized as ‘qua’means roughly ‘in so far as’ or ‘under theaspect’. A study of x qua y, then, is a studyof x that concerns itself solely with the y aspect ofx. So Aristotle's study does not concern some reconditesubject matter known as ‘being qua being’. Rather it is astudy of being, or better, of beings — of things that can be saidto be — that studies them in a particular way: as beings, in sofar as they are beings.Of course, first philosophy is not the only field of inquiry tostudy beings. Natural science and mathematics also study beings, but indifferent ways, under different aspects. The natural scientist studiesthem as things that are subject to the laws of nature, as things thatmove and undergo change. That is, the natural scientist studies thingsqua movable (i.e., in so far as they are subject to change). Themathematician studies things qua countable and measurable. Themetaphysician, on the other hand, studies them in a more general andabstract way — qua beings. So first philosophy studies the causesand principles of beings qua beings. In Γ.2, Aristotle adds thatfor this this reason it studies the causes and principles of substances(ousiai). We will explain this connection in Section 3below.In Book E, Aristotle adds another description to the study of thecauses and principles of beings qua beings. Whereas natural sciencestudies objects that are material and subject to change, andmathematics studies objects that although not subject to change arenevertheless not separate from (i.e., independent of) matter, there isstill room for a science that studies things (if indeed there are any)that are eternal, not subject to change, and independent of matter.Such a science, he says, is theology, and this is the“first” and “highest” science. Aristotle'sidentification of theology, so conceived, with the study of being quabeing has proved challenging to his interpreters. We will deal withthis issue in a future update, when Section 14 is completed.Finally, we may note that in Book B, Aristotle delineates hissubject matter in a different way, by listing the problems orperplexities (aporiai) he hopes to deal with. Characteristicof these perplexities, he says, is that they tie our thinking up inknots. They include the following, among others: Are sensiblesubstances the only ones that exist, or are there others besides them?Is it kinds or individuals that are the elements and principles ofthings? And if it is kinds, which ones: the most generic or the mostspecific? Is there a cause apart from matter? Is there anything apartfrom material compounds? Are the principles limited, either in numberor in kind? Are the principles of perishable things themselvesperishable? Are the principles universal or particular, and do theyexist potentially or actually? Are mathematical objects (numbers,lines, figures, points) substances? If they are, are they separate fromor do they always belong to sensible things? And (“the hardestand most perplexing of all,” Aristotle says) are unity and beingthe substance of things, or are they attributes of some other subject?In the remainder of Book B, Aristotle presents arguments on both sidesof each of these issues, and in subsequent books he takes up many ofthem again. But it is not always clear precisely how he resolves them,and it is possible that Aristotle did not think that theMetaphysics contains definitive solutions to all of theseperplexities.2. The CategoriesTo understand the problems and project of Aristotle'sMetaphysics, it is best to begin with one of his earlierworks, the Categories. Although placed by long tradition amonghis logical works (see the discussion in the entry on Aristotle's logic),due to its analysis of the terms that make up the propositions out ofwhich deductive inferences are constructed, the Categoriesbegins with a strikingly general and exhaustive account of the thingsthere are (ta onta) — beings. According to this account,beings can be divided into ten distinct categories. (Although Aristotlenever says so, it is tempting to suppose that these categories aremutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive of the things there are.)They include substance, quality, quantity, and relation, among others.Of these categories of beings, it is the first, substance(ousia), to which Aristotle gives a privileged position.Substances are unique in being independent things; the items in theother categories all depend somehow on substances. That is, qualitiesare the qualities of substances; quantities are the amounts and sizesthat substances come in; relations are the way substances stand to oneanother. These various non-substances all owe their existence tosubstances — each of them, as Aristotle puts it, exists only‘in’ a subject. That is, each non-substance “is insomething, not as a part, and cannot exist separately from what it isin” (Cat. 1a25). Indeed, it becomes clear thatsubstances are the subjects that these ontologically dependentnon-substances are ‘in’.Each member of a non-substance category thus stands in thisinherence relation (as it is frequently called) to some substance orother — color is always found in bodies, knowledge in the soul.Neither whiteness nor a piece of grammatical knowledge, for example, iscapable of existing on its own. Each requires for its existence thatthere be some substance in which it inheres.In addition to this fundamental inherence relation acrosscategories, Aristotle also points out another fundamental relation thatobtains between items within a single category. He describes this asthe relation of “being said of a subject,” and his examplesmake clear that it is the relation of a more general to a less generalthing within a single category. Thus, man is ‘said of’ aparticular man, and animal is ‘said of’ man, and therefore,as Aristotle points out, animal is ‘said of’ the particularman also. The ‘said of’ relation, that is to say, istransitive (cf. 1b10). So the genus (e.g., animal) is ‘saidof’ the species (e.g., man) and both genus and species are‘said of’ the particular. The same holds in non-substancecategories. In the category of quality, for example, the genus (color)is ‘said of’ the species (white) and both genus and speciesare ‘said of’ the particular white. There has beenconsiderable scholarly dispute about these particulars in nonsubstancecategories. For more detail, see the supplementary document: Nonsubstantial Particulars The language of this contrast (‘in’ a subject vs.‘said of’ a subject) is peculiar to theCategories, but the idea seems to recur in other works as thedistinction between accidental vs. essential predication. Similarly, inworks other than the Categories, Aristotle uses the label‘universals’ (ta katholou) for the things that are“said of many;” things that are not universal he calls‘particulars’ (ta kath’ hekasta). Although he doesnot use these labels in the Categories, it is not misleadingto say that the doctrine of the Categories is that eachcategory contains a hierarchy of universals and particulars, with eachuniversal being ‘said of’ the lower-level universals andparticulars that fall beneath it. Each category thus has the structureof an upside-down tree.[2] At the top (or trunk) of the tree are themost generic items in that category[3] (e.g., in the case ofthe category of substance, the genus plant and the genus animal);branching below them are universals at the next highest level, andbranching below these are found lower levels of universals, and so on,down to the lowest level universals (e.g., such infimaespecies as man and horse); at the lowest level — the leavesof the tree — are found the individual substances, e.g., thisman, that horse, etc.The individuals in the category of substance play a special role inthis scheme. Aristotle calls them “primary substances”(prôtai ousiai) for without them, as he says, nothingelse would exist. Indeed, Aristotle offers an argument (2a35-2b7) toestablish the primary substances as the fundamental entities in thisontology. Everything that is not a primary substance, he points out,stands in one of the two relations (inhering ‘in’, or being‘said of’) to primary substances. A genus, such as animal,is ‘said of’ the species below it and, since they are‘said of’ primary substances, so is the genus (recall thetransitivity of the ‘said of’ relation). Thus, everythingin the category of substance that is not itself a primary substance is,ultimately, ‘said of’ primary substances. And if there wereno primary substances, there would be no “secondary”substances (species and genera), either. For these secondary substancesare just the ways in which the primary substances are fundamentallyclassified within the category of substance. As for the members ofnon-substance categories, they too depend for their existence onprimary substances. A universal in a non-substance category, e.g.,color, in the category of quality, is ‘in’ body, Aristotletells us, and therefore in individual bodies. For color could not be‘in’ body, in general, unless it were ‘in’ atleast some particular bodies. Similarly, particulars in non-substancecategories (although there is not general agreement among scholarsabout what such particulars might be) cannot exist on their own. E.g.,a determinate shade of color, or a particular and non-shareable bit ofthat shade, is not capable of existing on its own — if it werenot ‘in’ at least some primary substance, it would notexist. So primary substances are the basic entities — the basic“things that there are” — in the world of theCategories.3. The Role of Substance in the Study of Being Qua BeingThe Categories leads us to expect that the study of being ingeneral (being qua being) will crucially involve the study ofsubstance, and when we turn to the Metaphysics we are notdisappointed. First, in Metaphysics Γ Aristotle arguesin a new way for the ontological priority of substance; and then, inBooks Ζ, Η, and Θ, he wrestles with the problem of whatit is to be a substance. We will begin with Γ's account of thecentral place of substance in the study of being qua being. As we noted above, metaphysics (or, first philosophy) is the sciencewhich studies being qua being. In this respect it is unlike thespecialized or departmental sciences, which study only part of being(only some of the things that exist) or study beings only in aspecialized way (e.g., only in so far as they are changeable, ratherthan in so far as they are beings).But ‘being’, as Aristotle tells us in Γ.2, is“said in many ways”. That is, the verb ‘to be’(einai) has different senses, as do its cognates‘being’ (on) and ‘entities’(onta). So the universal science of being qua being appears tofounder on an equivocation: how can there be a single science of beingwhen the very term ‘being’ is ambiguous?Consider an analogy. There are dining tables, and there are tidetables. A dining table is a table in the sense of a smooth flat slabfixed on legs; a tide table is a table in the sense of a systematicarrangement of data in rows and columns. But there is not a singlesense of ‘table’ which applies to both the piece offurniture at which I am writing these words and to the small bookletthat lies upon it. Hence it would be foolish to expect that there is asingle science of tables, in general, that would include among itsobjects both dining tables and tide tables. Tables, that is to say, donot constitute a single kind with a single definition, so no singlescience, or field of knowledge, can encompass precisely those thingsthat are correctly called ‘tables’.If the term ‘being’ were ambiguous in the way that‘table’ is, Aristotle's science of being qua being would beas impossible as a science of tables qua tables. But, Aristotle arguesin Γ.2, ‘being’ is not ambiguous in this way.‘Being’, he tells us, is ‘said in many ways’but it is not merely (what he calls) ‘homonymous’, i.e.,sheerly ambiguous. Rather, the various senses of ‘being’have what he calls a ‘pros hen’ ambiguity —they are all related to a single central sense. (The Greek phrase‘pros hen’ means “in relation toone.”)Aristotle explains his point by means of some examples that he takesto be analogous to ‘being’. Consider the terms‘healthy’ and ‘medical’. Neither of these has asingle definition that applies uniformly to all cases: not everyhealthy (or medical) thing is healthy (medical) in the same sense of‘healthy’ (‘medical’). There is a range ofthings that can be called ‘healthy’: people, diets,exercise, complexions, etc. Not all of these are healthy in the samesense. Exercise is healthy in the sense of being productive of health;a clear complexion is healthy in the sense of being symptomatic ofhealth; a person is healthy in the sense of having good health.But notice that these various senses have something in common: areference to one central thing, health, which is actually possessed byonly some of the things that are spoken of as ‘healthy’,namely, healthy organisms, and these are said to be healthy in theprimary sense of the term. Other things are considered healthy only inso far as they are appropriately related to things that are healthy inthis primary sense.The situation is the same, Aristotle claims, with the term‘being’. It, too, has a primary sense as well as relatedsenses in which it applies to other things because they areappropriately related to things that are called ‘beings’ inthe primary sense. The beings in the primary sense are substances; thebeings in other senses are the qualities, quantities, etc., that belongto substances. An animal, e.g., a horse, is a being, and so is a color,e.g, white, a being. But a horse is a being in the primary sense— it is a substance — whereas the color white (a quality)is a being only because it qualifies some substance. An account of thebeing of anything that is, therefore, will ultimately have to make somereference to substance. Hence, the science of being qua being willinvolve an account of the central case of beings —substances.4. The Fundamental Principles: AxiomsBefore embarking on this study of substance, however, Aristotle goes onin Book Γ to argue that first philosophy, the most general of thesciences, must also address the most fundamental principles — thecommon axioms — that are used in all reasoning. Thus, firstphilosophy must also concern itself with the principle ofnon-contradiction (PNC): the principle that “the same attributecannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject andin the same respect” (1005b19). This, Aristotle says, is the mostcertain of all principles, and it is not just a hypothesis. It cannot,however, be proved, since it is employed, implicitly, in all proofs, nomatter what the subject matter. It is a first principle, and hence isnot derived from anything more basic. What, then, can the science of first philosophy say about the PNC?It cannot offer a proof of the PNC, since the PNC is presupposed by anyproof one might offer — any purported proof of the PNC wouldtherefore be circular. Aristotle thus does not attempt to prove thePNC; in the subsequent chapters of Γ he argues, instead, that itis impossible to disbelieve the PNC. Those who would claim to deny thePNC cannot, if they have any beliefs at all, believe that it is false.For one who has a belief must, if he is to express this belief tohimself or to others, say something — he must make an assertion.He must, as Aristotle says, signify something. But the very act ofsignifying something is possible only if the PNC is accepted. Withoutaccepting the PNC, one would have no reason to think that his wordshave any signification at all — they could not mean one thingrather than another. So anyone who makes any assertion has alreadycommitted himself to the PNC. Aristotle thus does not argue that thePNC is a necessary truth (that is, he does not try to prove the PNC);rather, he argues that the PNC is indubitable. (For more on the PNC,see the discussion in the entry on Aristotle's logic)5. What is Substance?In the seventeen chapters that make up Book Ζ of theMetaphysics, Aristotle takes up the promised study ofsubstance. He begins by reiterating and refining some of what he saidin Γ: that ‘being’ is said in many ways, and that theprimary sense of ‘being’ is the sense in which substanceare beings. Here, however, he explicitly links the secondary senses of‘being’ to the non-substance categories. The primacy ofsubstance leads Aristotle to say that the age-old question ‘Whatis being?’ “is just the question ‘What issubstance?’” (1028b4). One might have thought that this question had already been answeredin the Categories. There we were given, as examples of primarysubstances, an individual man or horse, and we learned that a primarysubstance is “what is neither in a subject nor said of asubject” (2a10). This would seem to provide us with both examplesof, and criteria for being, primary substances. But inMetaphysics Ζ, Aristotle does not seem to take either theexamples or the criteria for granted.In Ζ.2 he recounts the various answers that have been given tothe question of which things are substances — bodies (includingplants, animals, the parts of plants and animals, the elements, theheavenly bodies), things more basic than bodies (surfaces, lines, andpoints), imperceptible things (such as Platonic Forms and mathematicalobjects) — and seems to regard them all as viable candidates atthis point. He does not seem to doubt that the clearest examples ofsubstances are perceptible ones, but leaves open the question whetherthere are others as well.Before answering this question about examples, however, he says thatwe must first answer the question about criteria: what is it to be asubstance (tên ousian prôton ti estin)? Thenegative criterion (“neither in a subject nor said of asubject”) of the Categories tells us only which thingsare substances. But even if we know that something is asubstance, we must still say what makes it a substance —what the cause is of its being a substance. This is the question towhich Aristotle next turns. To answer it is to identify, as Aristotleputs it, the substance of that thing.6. Substance, Matter, and SubjectZ.3 begins with a list of four possible candidates for being thesubstance of something: essence, universal, genus, and subject.Presumably, this means that if x is a substance, then thesubstance of x might be either (i) the essence of x,or (ii) some universal predicated of x, or (iii) a genus thatx belongs to, or (iv) a subject of which x ispredicated. The first three candidates are taken up in later chapters,and Ζ.3 is devoted to an examination of the fourth candidate: theidea that the substance of something is a subject of which it ispredicated. A subject, Aristotle tells us, is “that of which everythingelse is predicated, while it is itself not predicated of anythingelse” (1028b36). This characterization of a subject isreminiscent of the language of the Categories, which tells usthat a primary substance is not predicated of anything else, whereasother things are predicated of it. Candidate (iv) thus seems toreiterate the Categories criterion for being a substance. Butthere are two reasons to be wary of drawing this conclusion. First,whereas the subject criterion of the Categories told us thatsubstances were the ultimate subjects of predication, the subjectcriterion envisaged here is supposed to tell us what the substanceof something is. So what it would tell us is that ifx is a substance, then the substance of x —that which makes x a substance — is a subject thatx is predicated of. Second, as his next comment makes clear,Aristotle has in mind something other than this Categoriesidea. For the subject that he here envisages, he says, is either matteror form or the compound of matter and form. These are concepts fromAristotle's Physics, and none of them figured in the ontologyof the Categories. To appreciate the issues Aristotle israising here, we must briefly compare his treatment of the notion of asubject in the Physics with that in theCategories.In the Categories, Aristotle was concerned with subjects ofpredication: what are the things we talk about, and ascribe propertiesto? In the Physics, his concern is with subjects of change:what is it that bears (at different times) contrary predicates andpersists through a process of change? But there is an obviousconnection between these conceptions of a subject, since a subject ofchange must have one predicate belonging to it at one time that doesnot belong to it at another time. Subjects of change, that is, are alsosubjects of predication. (The converse is not true: numbers aresubjects of predication — six is even, seven is prime — butnot of change.)In the Categories, individual substances (a man, a horse)were treated as fundamental subjects of predication. They were alsounderstood, indirectly, as subjects of change. (“A substance, oneand the same in number, can receive contraries. An individual man, forexample, being one and the same, becomes now pale and now dark, now hotand now cold, now bad and now good” 4a17-20.) These are changesin which substances move, or alter, or grow. What theCategories did not explore, however, are changes in whichsubstances are generated or destroyed. But the theory of changeAristotle develops in the Physics requires some other subjectfor changes such as these — a subject of which substance ispredicated — and it identifies matter as the fundamental subjectof change (192a31-32). Change is seen in the Physics as aprocess in which matter either takes on or loses form.The concepts of matter and form, as we noted, are absent from theCategories. Individual substances — this man or thathorse — apart from their accidental characteristics — thequalities, etc., that inhere in them — are viewed in that work asessentially simple, unanalyzable atoms. Although there is metaphysicalstructure to the fact that, e.g., this horse is white (acertain quality inheres in a certain substance), the fact that thisis a horse is a kind of brute fact, devoid of metaphysicalstructure. This horse is a primary substance, and horse, thespecies to which it belongs, is a secondary substance. But there is nopredicative complex corresponding to the fact that this is a horse inthe way that there is such a complex corresponding to the fact thatthis horse is white.But from the point of view of the Physics, substantialindividuals are seen as predicative complexes (cf. Matthen 1987); theyare hylomorphic compounds — compounds of matter and form —and the subject criterion looks rather different from the hylomorphicperspective. Metaphysics Ζ.3 examines the subjectcriterion from this perspective.Matter, form, and the compound of matter and form may all beconsidered subjects, Aristotle tells us, (1029a2-4), but which of themis substance? The subject criterion by itself leads to the answer thatthe substance of x is an entirely indeterminate matter ofwhich x is composed (1029a10). For form is predicated ofmatter as subject, and one can always analyze a hylomorphic compoundinto its predicates and the subject of which they are predicated. Andwhen all predicates have been removed (in thought), the subject thatremains is nothing at all in its own right — an entity all ofwhose properties are accidental to it (1029a12-27). The resultingsubject is matter from which all form has been expunged. (Traditionalscholarship calls this “prime matter,” but Aristotle doesnot here indicate whether he thinks there actually is such a thing.) Sothe subject criterion leads to the answer that the substance ofx is the formless matter of which it is ultimatelycomposed.But Aristotle rejects this answer as impossible (1029a28), claimingthat substance must be “separate”(chôriston) and “some this” (todeti, sometimes translated “this something”), andimplying that matter fails to meet this requirement. Precisely what therequirement amounts to is a matter of considerable scholarly debate,however. A plausible interpretation runs as follows. Being separate hasto do with being able to exist independently (x is separatefrom y if x is capable of existing independently ofy), and being some this means being a determinate individual.So a substance must be a determinate individual that is capable ofexisting on its own. (One might even hold, although this iscontroversial, that on Aristotle's account not every “this”is also “separate.” A particular color or shape might beconsidered a determinate individual that is not capable of existing onits own — it is always the color of shape of some substance orother.) But matter fails to be simultaneously bothchôriston and tode ti. The matter of which asubstance is composed may exist independently of that substance (thinkof the wood of which a desk is composed, which existed before the deskwas made and may survive the disassembly of the desk), but it is not assuch any definite individual — it is just a quantity of a certainkind of matter. Of course, the matter may be construed as constitutinga definite individual substance (the wood just is, one mightsay, the particular desk it composes), but it is in that sense notseparate from the form or shape that makes it that substance (the woodcannot be that particular desk unless it is a desk). Soalthough matter is in a sense separate and in a sense some this, itcannot be both separate and some this. It thus does not qualify as thesubstance of the thing whose matter it is.7. Substance and EssenceAristotle turns in Ζ.4 to a consideration of the next candidatefor substance: essence. (‘Essence’ is the standard Englishtranslation of Aristotle's curious phrase to ti êneinai, literally “the what it was to be” for a thing.This phrase so boggled his Roman translators that they coined the wordessentia to render the entire phrase, and it is from thisLatin word that ours derives. Aristotle also sometimes uses the shorterphrase to ti esti, literally “the what it is,” forapproximately the same idea.) In his logical works,Aristotle links the notion of essence to that of definition(horismos) — “a definition is an account(logos) that signifies an essence” (Topics102a3) — and he links both of these notions to a certain kind ofper se predication (kath’ hauto, literally, “inrespect of itself”) — “what belongs to a thing inrespect of itself belongs to it in its essence (en tôi tiesti)” for we refer to it “in the account that statesthe essence” (Posterior Analytics, 73a34-5). Hereiterates these ideas in Ζ.4: “there is an essence of justthose things whose logos is a definition” (1030a6),“the essence of a thing is what it is said to be in respect ofitself” (1029b14). It is important to remember that forAristotle, one defines things, not words. The definition of tiger doesnot tell us the meaning of the word ‘tiger’; it tells uswhat it is to be a tiger, what a tiger is said to be in respect ofitself. Thus, the definition of tiger states the essence — the“what it is to be” of a tiger, what is predicated of thetiger per se. Aristotle's preliminary answer (Z.4) to the question “What issubstance?” is that substance is essence, but there are importantqualifications. For, as he points out, “definition(horismos), like ‘what it is’ (ti esti),is said in many ways” (1030a19). That is, items in all thecategories are definable, so items in all the categories have essences— just as there is an essence of man, there is also an essence ofwhite and an essence of musical. But, because of the pros henequivocity of ‘is’, such essences are secondary —“definition and essence are primarily (protôs) andwithout qualification (haplôs) of substances”(1030b4-6). Thus, Ζ.4 tells us, it is only these primary essencesthat are substances. Aristotle does not here work out the details ofthis “hierarchy of essences” (Loux, 1991), but it ispossible to reconstruct a theory of such a hierarchy on the basis ofsubsequent developments in Book Ζ.In Ζ.6, Aristotle goes on to argue that if something is“primary” and “spoken of in respect of itself(kath’ hauto legomenon)” it is one and the same as itsessence. The precise meaning of this claim, as well as the nature andvalidity of the arguments offered in support of it, are matters ofscholarly controversy. But it does seem safe to say that Aristotlethinks that an “accidental unity” such as a pale man is nota kath’ hauto legomenon (since pallor is an accidentalcharacteristic of a man) and so is not the same as its essence.Pale man, that is to say, does not specify the “what itis” of any primary being, and so cannot be an essence of theprimary kind. As Ζ.4 has already told us, “only species of agenus have an essence” (1030a11-12) in the primary sense.Man is a species, and so there is an essence of man; butpale man is not a species and so, even if there is such athing as the essence of pale man, it is not, at any rate, a primaryessence.At this point there appears to be a close connection between theessence of a substance and its species (eidos), and this mighttempt one to suppose that Aristotle is identifying the substance of athing (since the substance of a thing is its essence) with its species.(A consequence of this idea would be that Aristotle is radicallyaltering his conception of the importance of the species, which in theCategories he called a secondary substance, that is, asubstance only in a secondary sense.) But such an identification wouldbe a mistake, for two reasons. First, Aristotle's point at 1030a11 isnot that a species is an essence, but that an essence of the primarykind corresponds to a species (e.g., man) and not to some morenarrowly delineated kind (e.g., pale man). Second, the word‘eidos’, which meant ‘species’ in thelogical works, has acquired a new meaning in a hylomorphic context,where it means ‘form’ (contrasted with‘matter’) rather than ‘species’ (contrastedwith ‘genus’). In the conceptual framework ofMetaphysics Ζ, a universal such as man orhorse — which was called a species and a secondarysubstance in the Categories — is construed as “nota substance, but a compound of a certain formula and a certain matter,taken universally” (Z.10, 1035b29-30). The eidos that isprimary substance in Book Ζ is not the species that an individualsubstance belongs to but the form that is predicated of the matter ofwhich it is composed.[4]8. Substances as Hylomorphic CompoundsThe role of form in this hylomorphic context is the topic ofΖ.7-9. (Although these chapters were almost certainly notoriginally included in Book Ζ — there is no reference tothem, for example, in the summary of Ζ given in Η.1, whichskips directly from Ζ.6 to Ζ.10 — they provide a linkbetween substance and form and thus fill what would otherwise be a gapin the argument.) Since individual substances are seen as hylomorphiccompounds, the role of matter and form in their generation must beaccounted for. Whether we are thinking of natural objects, such asplants and animals, or artifacts, such as houses, the requirements forgeneration are the same. We do not produce the matter (to suppose thatwe do leads to an infinite regress) nor do we produce the form (whatcould we make it out of?); rather, we put the form into the matter, andproduce the compound (Z.8, 1033a30-b9). Both the matter and the formmust pre-exist (Z.9, 1034b12). But the source of motion in both cases— what Aristotle calls the “moving cause” of thecoming to be — is the form. In artistic production, the form is found in the soul of theartisan, for “the art of building is the form of the house”(1034a24) and “the form is in the soul” (1032b23) of theartisan. For example, the builder has in mind the plan or design for ahouse and he knows how to build; he then “enmatters” thatplan or design by putting it into the materials out of which he buildsthe house. In natural production, the form is found in the parent,where “the begetter is the same in kind as the begotten, not onein number but one in form — for man begets man”(1033b30-2). But in either case, the form pre-exists and is notproduced (1033b18).As for what is produced in such hylomorphic productions, it iscorrectly described by the name of its form, not by that of its matter.What is produced is a house or a man, not bricks or flesh. Of course,what is made of gold may still be described in terms of its materialcomponents, but we should call it not “gold” but“golden” (1033a7). For if gold is the matter out of which astatue is made, there was gold present at the start, and so it was notgold that came into being. It was a statue that came into being, andalthough the statue is golden — i.e., made of gold — itcannot be identified with the gold of which it was made.The essence of such a hylomorphic compound is evidently its form,not its matter. As Aristotle says “by form I mean the essence ofeach thing, and its primary substance” (1032b1), and “whenI speak of substance without matter I mean the essence”(1032b14). It is the form of a substance that makes it the kind ofthing that it is, and hence it is form that satisfies the conditioninitially required for being the substance of something. Thesubstance of a thing is its form.9. Substance and DefinitionIn Ζ.10 and 11, Aristotle returns to the consideration of essenceand definition left off in Ζ.6, but now within the hylomorphiccontext developed in Ζ.7-9. The main question these chaptersconsider is whether the definition of x ever includes areference to the matter of x. If some definitions include areference to matter, then the link between essence and form would seemto be weakened. Aristotle begins Ζ.10 by endorsing the following principleabout definitions and their parts: “a definition is an account,and every account has parts, and part of the account stands to part ofthe thing in just the same way that the whole account stands to thewhole thing” (1034b20-22). That is, if y is a part of adefinable thing x, then the definition of x willinclude as a part something z that corresponds to y.Indeed, z must stand to y in the same relation thatthe definition of x stands in to x; that is,z is the definition of y. So, according to thisprinciple, the definition of a thing will include the definitions ofits parts.In a way, this consequence of the principle seems very plausible,given Aristotle's idea that it is universals that are definable (Z.11,1036a29). Consider as a definiendum a universal, such as man,and its definiens, rational animal. The parts of thisdefiniens are the universals rational and animal. Ifthese parts are, in turn, definable, then each should be replaced, inthe definition of man, with its own definition, and so on. Inthis way the complete and adequate definition of a universal such asman will contain no parts that are further definable. Allproper, or completely analyzed, definitions are ultimately composed ofsimple terms that are not further definable.But the implication of this idea for the definitions of hylomorphiccompounds is obvious: since matter appears to be a part of such acompound, the definition of the compound will include, as a part, thedefinitions of its material components. And this consequence seemsimplausible to Aristotle. A circle, for example, seems to be composedof two semicircles (for it obviously may be divided into twosemicircles), but the definition of circle cannot be composedof the definitions of its two semicircular parts. For, as Aristotlepoints out (1035b9), semicircle is defined in terms ofcircle, and not the other way around. His point is well taken,for if circles were defined in terms of semicircles, then presumablysemicircles would be defined in terms of the quarter-circles of whichthey are composed, and so on, ad infinitum. The resultinginfinite regress would make it impossible to define circle atall, for one would never reach the ultimate “simple” partsof which such a definition would be composed.Aristotle flirts with the idea of distinguishing between differentsenses in which one thing can be a part of another (1034b33), butinstead proposes a different solution: to specify carefully the wholeof which the matter is allegedly a part. “The bronze is part ofthe compound statue, but not of the statue spoken of as form”(1035a6). Similarly, “the line when divided passes away into itshalves, and the man into bones and muscle and flesh, but it does notfollow that they are composed of these as parts of their essence”(1035a17-20). Rather, “it is not the substance but the compoundthat is divided into the body and its parts as into matter”(1035b21-2).In restating his point “yet more clearly” (1035b4),Aristotle notes parenthetically another important aspect of his theoryof substance. He reiterates the priority of form, and its parts, to thematter into which a compound is divided, and notes that “the soulof animals (for this is the substance of living things) is theirsubstance” (1035b15). The idea recurs in Ζ.11, where heannounces that “it is clear that the soul is the primarysubstance and the body is matter” (1037a5). It is furtherdeveloped, in the Metaphysics, in Ζ.17, as we will seebelow, and especially in De Anima. For more detail on thistopic, see Section 3 of the entry on Aristotle's psychology.Returning now to the problem raised by the apparent need to refer tomatter in the definition of a substance, we may note that the solutionAristotle offered in Ζ.10 is only partially successful. His pointseems to be that whereas bronze may be a part of a particular statue,neither that particular batch of bronze nor even bronze in generalenters into the essence of statue, since being made of bronze is nopart of what it is to be a statue. But that is only because statues,although they must be made of some kind of matter, do not require anyparticular kind of matter. But what about kinds of substances that dorequire particular kinds of matter? Aristotle's distinction betweenform and compound cannot be used in such cases to isolate essence frommatter. Thus there may after all be reasons for thinking that referenceto matter will have to intrude into at least some definitions.In Ζ.11, Aristotle addresses just such a case (although thepassage is difficult and there is disagreement over itsinterpretation). “The form of man is always found in flesh andbones and parts of this kind,” Aristotle writes (1036b4). Thepoint is not just that each particular man must be made of matter, butthat each one must be made of matter of a particular kind — fleshand bones, etc. “Some things,” he continues, “surelyare a particular form in a particular matter” (1036b23), so thatit is not possible to define them without reference to their materialparts (1036b28). Nevertheless, Aristotle ends Ζ.11 as if he hasdefended the claim that definition is of the form alone. Perhaps hispoint is that whenever it is essential to a substance that it be madeof a certain kind of matter (e.g., that man be made of flesh and bones,or that “a saw cannot be made of wool or wood,” Η.4,1044a28) this is in some sense a formal or structural requirement. Akind of matter, after all, can itself be analyzed hylomorphically— bronze, for example, is a mixture of copper and tin accordingto a certain ratio or formula (logos), which is in turnpredicated of some more generic underlying subject. The reference tomatter in a definition will thus always be to a certain kind of matter,and hence to a predicate, rather than a subject. At any rate, if by‘matter’ one has in mind the ultimate subject alluded to inΖ.3 (so-called ‘prime matter’), there will be noreference to it in any definition, “for this is indefinite”(1037a27). Ζ.12 introduces a new problemabout definitions — the so-called “unity ofdefinition.” The problem is this: definitions are complex (adefiniens is always some combination of terms), so what accounts forthe definiendum being one thing, rather than many (1037b10)?Man, for example, is defined as rational animal; “why isthis one and not many — rational andanimal?” (1037b13-14). Presumably, Aristotle has in mindhis discussion in Ζ.4 of such “accidental unities” asa pale man. The difference cannot be that our language contains asingle word (‘man’) for a rational animal, but no singleword for a pale man, for Aristotle has already conceded (1029b28) thatwe might very well have had a single term (he suggestshimation, literally ‘cloak’) for a pale man, butthat would still not make the formula ‘pale man’ adefinition nor pale man an essence (1030a2).Aristotle proposes a solution that applies to definitions reached bythe “method of division.” According to this method (see Aristotle's logic),one begins with the broadest genus containing the species to bedefined, and divides the genus into two sub-genera by means of somedifferentia. One then locates the definiendum in one of the sub-genera,and proceeds to divide this by another differentia, and so on, untilone arrives at the definiendum species. This is a classic definition bygenus and differentia. Aristotle's proposal is that “the divisionshould be by the differentia of the differentia” (1038a9). Forexample, if one uses the differentia footed to divide thegenus animal, one then uses a differentia such ascloven-footed for the next division. If one divides in thisway, Aristotle claims, “clearly the last (or completing,teleutaia) differentia will be the substance of the thing andits definition” (1038a19). For each “differentia of adifferentia” entails its predecessor (being cloven-footed entailsbeing footed), and so the long chain of differentiae can be replacedsimply by the last differentia. As Aristotle points out, “sayingfooted two-footed animal … is saying the same thingmore than once” (1038a22-24).This proposal shows how a long string of differentiae in adefinition can be reduced to one, but it does not solve the problem ofthe unity of definition. For we are still faced with the apparent factthat genus + differentia constitutes a plurality even if thedifferentia is the last, or “completing,” one. It is not surprising, then, that Aristotle returns to the problem of unity later (H.6) and offers a different solution.10. Substances and UniversalsAt this point, we seem to have a clear idea about the nature ofsubstantial form as Aristotle conceives of it. A substantial form isthe essence of a substance, and it corresponds to a species. Since itis an essence, a substantial form is what is denoted by the definiensof a definition. Since only universals are definable, substantial formsare universals. That substantial forms are universals is confirmed byAristotle's comment, at the end of Ζ.8, that “Socrates andCallias are different because of their matter … but they are thesame in form” (1034a6-8). For them to be the same in form is forthem to have the same form, i.e., for one and the same substantial formto be predicated of two different clumps of matter. And being“predicated of many” is what makes something a universal(De Interpretatione 17a37). But Ζ.13 throws our entire understanding into disarray.Aristotle begins by returning to the candidates for the title ofousia introduced in Ζ.3, and points out that having nowdiscussed the claims of the subject and the essence, it is time toconsider the third candidate, the universal. But the remainder of thechapter consists of a barrage of arguments to the conclusion thatuniversals are not substances.Z.13 therefore produces a fundamental tension in Aristotle'smetaphysics that has fragmented his interpreters. Some maintain thatAristotle's theory is ultimately inconsistent, on the grounds that itis committed to all three of the following propositions:(i)Substance is form.(ii)Form is universal.(iii)No universal is a substance.Others have provided interpretations according to which Aristotle doesnot maintain all of (i) - (iii), and there is a considerable variety ofsuch interpretations, too many to be canvassed here. But there are twomain, and opposed, lines of interpretation. According to one,Aristotle's substantial forms are not universals after all, but eachbelongs exclusively to the particular whose form it is, and there aretherefore as many substantial forms of a given kind as there areparticulars of that kind. According to the other, Aristotle's argumentsin Ζ.13 are not intended to show that no universal is a substance,tout court, but some weaker thesis that is compatible withthere being only one substantial form for all of the particularsbelonging to the same species. Proponents of particular forms (oressences) include Sellars 1957, Harter 1975, Hartman 1977, Irwin 1988,Witt 1989b. Opponents include Woods 1967, Owen 1978, Code 1986, Loux1991, Lewis 1991. It would be foolish to attempt to resolve this issue within theconfines of the present entry, as it is perhaps the largest, and mostdisputed, single interpretative issue concerning Aristotle'sMetaphysics. I will, instead, mention some of the mainconsiderations brought up on each side of this dispute, and give myreasons for thinking that substantial forms are universals.The idea that substantial forms are particulars is supported byAristotle's claims that a substance is “separate and somethis” (chôriston kai tode ti, Ζ.3), thatthere are no universals apart from their particulars (Z.13), and thatuniversals are not substances (Z.13). On the other side, the idea thatsubstantial forms are universals is supported by Aristotle's claimsthat substances are, par excellence, the definable entities(Z.4), that definition is of the universal (Z.11), and that it isimpossible to define particulars (Z.15).In my opinion, the indefinability of particulars makes it impossiblefor substantial forms to be particulars. If there were a substantialform that is unique to some sensible particular, say Callias, then thedefinition corresponding to that form, or essence, would apply uniquelyto Callias — it would define him, which is precisely whatAristotle says cannot be done. The question, then, is whether theevidence against substantial forms being universals can be countered.This is less clear, but the following considerations are relevant. (1)Aristotle's claim that a substantial form is an individual (todeti) does not exclude its being a universal (katholou).Universals are contrasted with particulars (kath’ hekasta),not individuals (although Aristotle does sometimes ignore thedistinction between tode ti and kath’ hekaston). Whatmakes something a tode ti is its being a fully determinatething, not further differentiable; what makes something a kath’hekaston is its being a particular thing, unrepeatable, and notpredicated of anything else. There is thus the possibility of auniversal tode ti — a fully determinate universal notfurther divisible into lower-level universals, but predicated ofnumerous particulars. (2) The claim that there are no universals apartfrom particulars needs to be understood in context. When Aristotleasserts (1038b33) that “there is no animal apart from theparticulars (ta tina)” he is just as likely to bereferring to the particular kinds of animals as he is toparticular specimens. If so, his point may be that a generic kind, suchas animal, is ontologically dependent on its species, and hence on thesubstantial forms that are the essences of those species. (3) Thearguments of Ζ.13 against the substantiality of universals arepresented as part of a give-and-take investigation of the perplexitiesinvolved in the notion of substantial form. It is not clear, therefore,whether the blanket claim “No universal is a substance” isintended to be accepted without qualification. Indeed, a closerexamination of the arguments may show that qualifications are requiredif the arguments are to be cogent. For example, the argument at1038b11-15 is based on the premise that the substance of x ispeculiar (idion) to x. It then draws the conclusionthat a universal cannot be the substance of all of its instances (forit could not be idion to all of them), and concludes that itmust be the substance “of none.” But note that thisconclusion does not say that no universal can be a substance, but onlythat no universal can be the substance of any of its instances (cf.Code 1978). Aristotle's point may be that since form is predicated ofmatter, a substantial form is predicated of various clumps of matter.But it is not the substance of those clumps of matter, for it ispredicated accidentally of them. The thing with which it is uniquelycorrelated, and of which it is the substance, is not one of itsinstances, but is the substantial form itself. This conclusionshould not be surprising in light of Aristotle's claim in Ζ.6 that“each substance is one and the same as its essence.” Auniversal substantial form just is that essence.11. Substance as Cause of BeingIn Ζ.17 Aristotle proposes a new point of departure in his effortto say what sort of a thing substance is. The new idea is that asubstance is a “principle and a cause” (archê kaiaitia, 1041a9) of being. Before looking at the details of hisaccount, we will need to make a brief detour into Aristotle's theory ofcauses. The relevant texts are Physics II.3,Posterior Analytics II.11, and MetaphysicsA.3 and Δ.2. See also the entry on Aristotle's natural philosophy and Section 2 of the entry on Aristotle's psychology.The word aitia (“cause” or, perhaps better,“explanation”), Aristotle tells us, is “said in manyways.” In one sense, a cause is “that out of which a thingcomes to be, and which persists; e.g., bronze, silver, and the genus ofthese are causes of a statue or a bowl” (Physics194b24). A cause in this sense has been traditionally called amaterial cause, although Aristotle himself did not use thislabel. In a second sense, a cause is “the form … theaccount of the essence” (194b27), traditionally called theformal cause. A third sense, traditionally called theefficient cause, is “the primary source of change orrest” (194b30). In this sense, Aristotle says, an adviser is thecause of an action, a father is the cause of his child, and in generalthe producer is the cause of the product. Fourth is what istraditionally called the final cause, which Aristotlecharacterizes as “the end (telos), that for which athing is done” (194b33). In this sense, he says, health is thecause of walking, since we might explain a person's walking by sayingthat he walks in order to be healthy — health is what the walkingis for. Note that, as in this case, “things may becauses of one another — hard work of fitness, and fitness of hardwork — although not in the same sense: fitness is what hard workis for, whereas hard work is principle of motion” (195a10). Sohard work is the efficient cause of fitness, since one becomes fit bymeans of hard work, while fitness is the final cause of hard work,since one works hard in order to become fit.Although Aristotle is careful to distinguish four different kinds ofcause (or four different senses of ‘cause’), it isimportant to note that he claims that one and the same thing can be acause in more than one sense. As he puts it, “form, mover, andtelos often coincide” (198a25). And in De Animahe is perfectly explicit that the soul, which is the form or essence ofa living thing, “is a cause in three of the ways we havedistinguished” (415b10) — efficient, formal, and final.Let us return to Aristotle's discussion in Ζ.17. The job of acause or principle of being, he notes, is to explain why one thingbelongs to another (1041a11); that is, it is to explain somepredicational fact. What needs to be explained, for example, is whythis is a man, or that is a house. But what kind of aquestion is this? The only thing that can be a man is a man; the onlything that can be a house is a house. So we would appear to be askingwhy a man is a man, or why a house is a house, and these seem to befoolish questions that all have the same answer: because each thing isitself (1041a17-20). The questions must therefore be rephrased bytaking advantage of the possibility of a hylomorphic analysis. We mustask, e.g., “Why are these things, i.e., bricks and stones, ahouse?” (1041a26). The answer Aristotle proposes is that thecause of being of a substance (e.g., of a house) is the form or essencethat is predicated of the matter (e.g., of the bricks and stones) thatconstitute that substance. The essence is not always just a formalcause; in some cases, Aristotle says, it is also a final cause (hegives the examples of a house and a bed), and in some cases anefficient cause (1041a29-30). But in any case “what we seek isthe cause, i.e., the form, by reason of which the matter is somedefinite thing; and this is the substance of the thing”(1041b6-9) and “the primary cause of its being”(1041b27).Notice that the explanandum in these cases (“why is this aman?” or “why is that a house?”) involves a speciespredication (“Callias is a man,” “Fallingwater is ahouse”). But the answer Aristotle proposes invokes a hylomorphicanalysis of these questions, in which form is predicated of matter. SoCallias is a man because the form or essence of man is present in theflesh and bones that constitute the body of Callias; Fallingwater is ahouse because the form of house is present in the materials of whichFallingwater is made. In general, a species predication is explained interms of an underlying form predication, whose subject is not theparticular compound but its matter. Form predications are thus morebasic than their corresponding species predications. A substantialform, as a primary definable, is its own substance, for it isessentially predicated of itself alone. But the substantial form of amaterial compound, because it is predicated (accidentally) of thematter of the compound, is the cause of the compound's being the kindof thing that it is. The form is therefore, in a derivative way, thesubstance of the compound, as well.12. Actuality and PotentialityIn Metaphysics Ζ, Aristotle introduces the distinctionbetween matter and form synchronically, applying it to an individualsubstance at a particular time. The matter of a substance is the stuffit is composed of; the form is the way that stuff is put together sothat the whole it constitutes can perform its characteristic functions.But soon he begins to apply the distinction diachronically, acrosstime. This connects the matter/form distinction to another keyAristotelian distinction, that between potentiality (dunamis)and actuality (entelecheia or energeia). Thisdistinction is the main topic of Book Θ.Aristotle distinguishes between two different senses of the termdunamis. In the strictest sense, a dunamis is thepower that a thing has to produce a change. A thing has adunamis in this sense when it has within it a “source ofchange in something else (or in itself qua other)” (Θ.1,1046a12; cf. Δ.12). The exercise of such a power is akinêsis — a movement or process. So, for example,the housebuiler's craft is a power whose exercise is the process ofhousebuilding. But there is a second sense of dunamis —and it is the one in which Aristotle is mainly interested — thatmight be better translated as ‘potentiality’. For, asAristotle tells us, in this sense dunamis is related not tomovement (kinêsis) but to actuality(energeia)(Θ.6, 1048a25). A dunamis in thissense is not a thing's power to produce a change but rather itscapacity to be in a different and more completed state. Aristotlethinks that potentiality so understood is indefinable (1048a37),claiming that the general idea can be grasped from a consideration ofcases. Actuality is to potentiality, Aristotle tells us, as“someone waking is to someone sleeping, as someone seeing is to asighted person with his eyes closed, as that which has been shaped outof some matter is to the matter from which it has been shaped”(1048b1-3).This last illustration is particularly illuminating. Consider, forexample, a piece of wood, which can be carved or shaped into a table orinto a bowl. In Aristotle's terminology, the wood has (at least) twodifferent potentialities, since it is potentially a table and alsopotentially a bowl. The matter (in this case, wood) is linked withpotentialty; the substance (in this case, the table or the bowl) islinked with actuality. The as yet uncarved wood is only potentially atable, and so it might seem that once it is carved the wood is actuallya table. Perhaps this is what Aristotle means, but it is possible thathe does not wish to consider the wood to be a table. His idea might bethat not only can a piece of raw wood in the carpenter's workshop beconsidered a potential table (since it can be transformed into one),but the wood composing the completed table is also, in a sense, apotential table. The idea here is that it is not the wood qua wood thatis actually a table, but the wood qua table. Considered as matter, itremains only potentially the thing that it is the matter of. (Acontemporary philosopher might make this point by refusing to identifythe wood with the table, saying instead that the wood only constitutesthe table and is not identical to the table it constitutes.)Since Aristotle gives form priority over matter, we would expect himsimilarly to give actuality priority over potentiality. And that isexactly what we find (Θ.8, 1049b4-5). Aristotle distinguishesbetween priority in logos (account or definition), in time,and in substance. (1) Actuality is prior in logos since wemust cite the actuality when we give an account of its correspondingpotentiality..” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 75:167-180.Woods, Michael, 1991a. “Particular Forms Revisited.”Phronesis 26: 75-87.Woods, Michael, 1991b. “Universals and Particular Forms inAristotle's Metaphysics.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy Suppl. Vol.: Aristotle and the Later Tradition. 41-56.Woods, Michael, 1993. “Form, Species, and Predication inAristotle.” Synthèse 96: 399-415.Woods, Michael, 1994. “The Essence of a Human Being and the Individual Soul in Metaphysics Ζ and Η .” In Scaltsas, Charles, and Gill (eds.). 279-290.Yu, Jiyuan, 1997. “Two Conceptions of Hylomorphism in Metaphysics ΖΗΘ.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 15: 119-45.Yu, Jiyuan, 2001a. “The Identity of Form and Essence in Aristotle.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 39: 299-312.Yu, Jiyuan, 2001b. “What is the Focal Meaning of Being in Aristotle?” Apeiron 34: 205-231.Yu, Jiyuan, 2003. The Structure of Being in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Other Internet ResourcesAn Outline of Metaphysics Ζ. (by S. MarcCohen)Related Entries Aristotle, General Topics: categories | Aristotle, General Topics: logic | Aristotle, General Topics: psychology | Aristotle, Special Topics: causality | Aristotle, Special Topics: natural philosophy Copyright © 2008 byS. Marc Cohen<smcohen@u.washington.edu> |
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ed the acorn; the formal cause is the logosdefining that actuality; the final cause is the telos towardwhich the acorn develops — an actual (mature) oak tree.(b) Aristotle also offers (1050b6-1051a2) an “evenstricter” argument for his claim that actuality is prior insubstance to potentiality. A potentiality is for either of a pair ofopposites; so anything that is capable of being is also capable of notbeing. What is capable of not being might possibly not be, and whatmight possibly not be is perishable. Hence anything with the merepotentiality to be is perishable. What is eternal is imperishable, andso nothing that is eternal can exist only potentially — what iseternal must be fully actual. But the eternal is prior in substance tothe perishable. For the eternal can exist without the perishable, butnot conversely, and that is what priority in substance amounts to (cf.Δ.11, 1019a2). So what is actual is prior in substance to what ispotential.13. Unity ReconsideredIn Η.6, Aristotle returns to the problem of the unity ofdefinition (discussed above in Section 9) and offersa new solution based on the concepts of potentiality and actuality. Hebegins by pointing out (recalling the language of Ζ.17) that thethings whose unity he is trying to explain are those “which haveseveral parts and in which the totality is not, as it were, a mereheap, but the whole is something besides the parts” (1045a8-10).His task is to explain the unity of such complexes.The problem is insoluble, he says, unless one realizes that“one element is matter and another is form, and one ispotentially and the other is actually.” Once one realizes this,“the question will no longer be thought a difficulty”(1045a20-25). He offers the following example (1045a26-35). Supposeround bronze were the definition of ‘cloak’. Ifsomeone were to ask “what makes a cloak one thing, aunity?” the answer would be obvious. For bronze is the matter,and roundness is the form. The bronze is potentially round, and roundis what the bronze actually is when it has received this form. Thecause of the unity of the cloak (in this sense of ‘cloak’)is just the cause of bronze being made round. Since the cloak issomething that was produced, or brought into being, there is no causeof its unity other than the agent who put the form into the matter.Bronze (the matter) is a potential sphere, and the cloak is an actualsphere. But round bronze is equally the essence of both theactual sphere and the potential one. The bronze and the roundness arenot two separate things. The bronze is potentially a sphere, and whenit is made round it constitutes an actual one — a single sphereof bronze.It is easy to see how this hylomorphic analysis explains the unityof a substantial material particular, since neither the matter nor theform of such a particular is by itself a single material individual,and it is only when they are taken together that they constitute suchan individual. But the problem Aristotle is trying to solve concerns“the unity of the thing whose account we call a definition”(Z.12, 1037b11). And since proper definables are universals, it remainsto be seen how the proposed solution applies to them. After all,universals are not material objects, and so it is not clear how theycan be viewed as hylomorphic compounds. But Aristotle has at hisdisposal a concept that can fill this bill perfectly, viz., the conceptof intelligible matter (hulê noêtê). (Themain purpose of intelligible matter is to provide somethingquasi-material for pure geometrical objects that are not realized inbronze or stone, for example, to be made of.) So I surmise that it isfor this reason that Aristotle goes on (1045a33) to introduce matterinto the current context. If this is so, we may conclude that thematerial component in the definition of a species is intelligiblematter. Elsewhere, he explicitly describes genus as matter: “thegenus is the matter of that of which it is called the genus”(I.8, 1058a23). So a species too, although it is not itself a materialobject, can be considered a hylomorphic compound. Its matter is itsgenus, which is only potentially the species defined; its differentiais the form that actualizes the matter. The genus does not actuallyexist independently of its species any more than bronze exists apartfrom all form. The genus animal, for example, is just thatwhich is potentially some specific kind of animal or other. Aristotleconcludes (1045b17-21) that “the proximate matter and the formare one and the same thing, the one potentially, and the other actually... the potential and the actual are somehow one.”This solution, of course, applies only to hylomorphic compounds. Butthat is all it needs to do, according to Aristotle. For he ends thechapter by claiming that the problem of unity does not arise for otherkinds of compounds. “All things which have no matter are withoutqualification essentially unities” (1045b23).14. Glossary of Aristotelian Terminologyaccident: sumbebêkosaccidental: kata sumbebêkosaccount: logosactuality: energeia, entelecheiaalteration: alloiôsisaffirmative: kataphatikosassertion: apophansis (sentence with a truth value,declarative sentence)assumption: hupothesisattribute: pathosaxiom: axiomabe: einaibeing(s): on, ontabelong: huparcheincategory: katêgoriacause: aition, aitiachange: kinêsis, metabolêcome to be: gignesthaicoming to be: genesiscontradict: antiphanaicontradiction: antiphasis (in the sense“contradictory pair of propositions” and also in the sense“denial of a proposition”)contrary: enantiondefinition: horos, horismosdemonstration: apodeixisdenial (of a proposition): apophasisdialectic: dialektikêdifferentia: diaphora; specific difference, eidopoiosdiaphoradistinctive: idios, idionend: telosessence: to ti ên einai, to ti estiessential: en tôi ti esti, en tôi tiên einai (of predications); kath’ hauto (ofattributes)exist: einaiexplanation: aition, aitiafinal cause: hou heneka (literally, “what somethingis for”)form: eidos, morphêformula: logosfunction: ergongenus: genoshomonymous: homônumonimmediate: amesosimpossible: adunatonin respect of itself: kath’ hautoindividual: atomon, tode tiinduction: epagôgêinfinite: apeironkind: genos, eidosknowledge: epistêmêmatter: hulêmovement: kinêsisnature: phusisnegation (of a term): apophasisparticular: en merei, epi meros (of aproposition); kath'hekaston (of individuals)peculiar: idios, idionper se: kath’ hautoperception: aisthêsisperplexity: aporiapossible: dunaton, endechomenon;endechesthai (verb: “be possible”)potentially: dunameipotentiality: dunamispredicate: katêgorein (verb);katêegoroumenon(“what is predicated”)predication: katêgoria (act or instance ofpredicating, type of predication)principle: archê (starting point of ademonstration)qua: hêiquality: poionquantity: posonrefute: elenchein; refutation, elenchosseparate: chôristonsaid in many ways: pollachôs legetaiscience: epistêmêsoul: psuchêspecies: eidosspecific: eidopoios (of a differentia that “makes aspecies”, eidopoios diaphora)subject: hupokeimenonsubstance: ousiaterm: horosthis: tode tiuniversal: katholou (both of propositions and ofindividuals)wisdom: sophiaBibliographyAckrill, J. 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The Structure of Being in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Other Internet ResourcesAn Outline of Metaphysics Ζ. (by S. MarcCohen)Related Entries Aristotle, General Topics: categories | Aristotle, General Topics: logic | Aristotle, General Topics: psychology | Aristotle, Special Topics: causality | Aristotle, Special Topics: natural philosophy Copyright © 2008 byS. Marc Cohen<smcohen@u.washington.edu>
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