HWK: Aristotle’s Forms

>> HB says that Aristotle thought concepts referred to a metaphysically special form “inside” substances. But even some medieval scholastics interpreted this logically, not metaphysically. << The conventional interpretation of Aristotle, which Ayn Rand took, is that he believed in essence as metaphysical, as an element or form shared identically among all concrete instances of a class. But there are other reputable interpretations. Robert Mayhew mentioned them at least once in his lectures on Aristotle. Curious, I tried reading Aristotle directly to see what I thought. I went straight to Book Zeta of the metaphysics, which is arguably the hardest most technical part of his writing. In his book he wrestles hard with the question: what is primary being? e.g. what is an entity? Its fascinating, difficult, technical reading, and I certainly confess that I read it as an amateur. However, that said, for what it’s worth, my opinion after reading the material itself is that the conventional view is correct and that Aristotle clearly held the view that “essence” is metaphysical. It’s just all over the place as a background premise of his thought.

>> But, at least, he discusses reality so the difficulty is acceptable, unlike Kant.

Agreed. And unlike Kant, the difficulty was not deliberate! The difficulty is caused by the loss of original text and the mangling over the centuries. Not Aristotle’s fault in the least.

The conventional interpretation is not correct.

I work from the principle of interpretive charity.  This means several things.  First, it means that Aristotle’s system is a whole – and Aristotle knew that.  Second, that when an idea found in Aristotle blatantly contradicts the framework of his system – that section is in all probability an emendation by a church father somewhere along the line.  Thirdly, modern translations are filled with Latin terminology, terminology which is highly misleading.  (Joe Sach’s translations are the best in my opinion.)

Taking Aristotle’s work as a whole, I do not believe that he believed that forms were contained somehow within entities.

Apart from “History of Animals”, some of the clearest evidence is in “The Categories.”

“Yet this is not peculiar to substance, for it is also the case that differentiae cannot be present in subjects.  The characteristics of ‘terrestrial’ and ‘two-footed’ are predicated of the species ‘man’ but not _present in it_. . . for in explaining the phrase ‘being present in a subject, we stated that we meant ‘otherwise than as parts in a whole.'”

The Latin “substance” is “ousia” in Greek – it means entity.

The Latin “predicated of” is the translation for “said of” in Greek.  

“Thus ‘man’ is predicable [said of] of the individual man, _and is never present in a subject [never present in the actual man].  By being ‘present in a subject’ I do not mean as parts are present in a whole, but being incapable of existence apart from the said subject.”

Thus, the concepts of “terrestrial” or “biped” or even “man” are said of/spoken of the entity man to describe him.  These concepts are not found inside him.

Further, in “The Categories”, Aristotle clearly gives many examples of ideas being formed using the “more and the less” – that is, measurements within a range compared against a background.

Ayn Rand is not to be faulted for accepting the standard interpretation of Aristotle since she did not read him in the original nor was she a scholar.

Ray, thank you for your very interesting post. I see you have a different interpretation than mine. I certainly consider the possibility that you may be correct.

Second, that when an idea found in Aristotle blatantly contradicts the framework of his system – that section is in all probability an emendation by a church father somewhere along the line.

That’s a very strong statement. I would mean that we should expect Aristotle’s system to be almost perfectly consistent. I remember Dr. Mayhew warning against exactly that approach in his lectures on Aristotle. That approach would mean that some pretty major parts of Aristotle were invented.

For example, “prime matter” which is pure potentiality, and the “prime mover” which is pure actuality. These are major elements in Aristotle which do contradict the spirit and letter his entire system. These ideas contradict Aristotle’s “primacy of the entity” approach, in which potentiality and actuality are entity-based concepts, e.g. the potentiality or actuality of an entity, not free floating “bare potentiality” or “pure actuality”.

Yet I think Aristotle was driven to the concepts “prime matter” and the “prime mover” by the workings of logic on incorrect premises, going from Dr. Peikoff’s lecture. It doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing that church father could just slip in.

Of course, there are things that do seem like a church father could have slipped in. For example, Aristotle’s nod to immortality in one section could have been slipped in or re-worded. Wouldn’t surprise me.

Any idea why Aristotle thought inventing Categories were necessary. From Objectivist perspective I think Categories are a good way to understand the CCD of early concepts of entities, actions, attributes etc. Though objectivist categories of entity,attribute, adverbs, spatial and temporal relationships like prepositions is better.

The best book here is _The Discovery of Things_.  It is an analysis of _The Categories_ with a revolutionary position.  Amazon it.