Metaphysics (substance, cause, form, potentiality)

Slide 10…..
Aristotle soon expanded on the concept of forms in his Metaphysics. He
believed that in every change there is something, which persists through
the change
For example, Socrates), and something else which did not exist before, but
comes into existence as a result of the change (musical Socrates). To explain
how Socrates comes to be born (since he did not exist before he was born)
Aristotle says that it is ‘matter’ (hyle) that underlies the change. The matter has
the ‘form’ of Socrates imposed on it to become Socrates himself. Thus all the
things around us, all substances, are composites of two radically different
things: form and matter. This doctrine is sometimes known
as Hylomorphism(from the Greek words for matter and form).
Hylomorphism (or hylemorphism) is a philosophical theory developed
by Aristotle, which conceives being (ousia) as a compound of matter and form.
The word is a 19th-century term formed from the Greek words ὕλη hyle, "wood,
matter", and μορφή, morphē, "form".

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature

of existence, being and the world. Metaphysics has effectively become the study of
that which transcends physics. Metaphysics is the part of philosophy that deals with
concepts like being, substance, cause and identity. To really oversimplify, we could say
it's the study of how things came to be and what caused them.

main branches of metaphysics

Slide 14

 Ontology (the study of being and existence, including the definition and
classification of entities, physical or mental, the nature of their properties, and the
nature of change)
 Natural Theology (the study of God, including the nature of religion and
the world, existence of the divine, questions about the creation, and the various
other religious or spiritual issues)
 Universal Science (the study of first principles of logic and reasoning, such as
the law of non contradiction)
Slide 15

SUBSTANCE AND FORM

A house is created when bricks, boards, etc., are put together according to a certain plan
and arranged in a certain form. It is destroyed when the bricks, boards, etc., lose that
form.

For Aristotle, the form of a compound substance is essential to it; its matter is accidental.
(Socrates could have been composed of different matter from that of which he is actually
composed.)

Form may be accidental to the matter that it informs, but it is essential to the compound
substance (i.e., the compound of matter and form) that it is the form of. Form is what
makes the individual plants and animals what they are. Therefore, it is the substance of
those individuals.

Aristotle analyses substance in terms of form and matter. The form is what kind of
thing the object is, and the matter is what it is made of. The term ‘matter’ as used by
‘Matter’ is rather the name for whatever, for a given kind of object, meets a certain role or
function, namely that of being that from which the object is constituted. Relative to the
human body, matter is flesh and blood.

Aristotle acknowledges that there are three candidates for being called substance:

matter, form and the composite of form and matter.

Aristotle acknowledges that matter can be a subject of predication and of change. Matter
is not an individual, but that from which an individual is made. The elimination of matter
as a good candidate for being substance, leaves either form alone or the composite of
form and matter. The composite seems more consonant with the doctrine of Categories,
for the composite is the individual. Aristotle, however, chooses the form as more
paradigmatically substance.

• Matter underlies and persists through substantial changes. A substance is

generated (destroyed) by having matter take on (lose) form.
• Aristotle suggests that a compound cannot be a substance.

Slide 16…..

4 CAUSES

When speaking of Aristotle's metaphysics, lots of sources center on his idea of cause.
According to his ancient work, there are four causes behind all the change in the world.
Material - is the actual physical properties or makeup of a thing that is. It's the stuff we
can see, touch, taste, and so on. Using my table, the wood is the material cause of the
table. The table is made of wood, and therefore, the wood is the material cause. It's a
rather simple one to grasp.

Formal - is the structure or design of a being. In layman's terms, we can call it the
blueprints, or the plan. The formal cause is what makes it one thing rather than another.

Going back to my table, we already know its material cause is wood. That's what it's
made of. However, the original carpenter could have chosen to make the very same
wood into a chair, but he didn't. Instead, his plan, or design, called for putting the wood
together as a table. According to Aristotle, our carpenter's design is the formal cause.

Efficient - this is the thing or agent which actually brings something about. It's not what
it's made of or the plan for how to make it. The actual force brings something into being.
Again using our table, Aristotle would tell us the carpenter is the efficient cause. It's his
swinging of a hammer and sawing that actually brought the table into being.

Final- Being a bit more abstract, the final cause is the ultimate purpose for being.
Turning one last time to my table, its final cause is to give me and my family something
to eat on, to do homework on, and play cards around, making it a very, very special
family heirloom.

Potentiality

Actuality (energeia in Greek) is that mode of being in which a thing can bring other
things about or be brought about by them, the realm of events and facts.

potentiality (dynamis in Greek) is not a mode in which a thing exists, but rather the
power to effect change, the capacity of a think to make transitions into different states.

dunamis is the power that a thing has to produce a change. A thing has a dunamis in this
sense when it has within it a “source of change in something else (or in itself qua other)”
(Θ.1, 1046a12; cf. Δ.12). The exercise of such a power is a kinêsis—a movement or
process. So, for example, the housebuilder’s craft is a power whose exercise is the
process of housebuilding. But there is a second sense of dunamis—and it is the one in
which Aristotle is mainly interested—that might be better translated as ‘potentiality’. For,
as Aristotle tells us, in this sense dunamis is related not to movement (kinêsis) but to
actuality (energeia)(Θ.6, 1048a25). A dunamis in this sense is not a thing’s power to
produce a change but rather its capacity to be in a different and more completed state.
Aristotle thinks that potentiality so understood is indefinable (1048a37), claiming that the
general idea can be grasped from a consideration of cases. Actuality is to potentiality,
Aristotle tells us, as “someone waking is to someone sleeping, as someone seeing is to
a sighted person with his eyes closed, as that which has been shaped out of some
matter is to the matter from which it has been shaped” (1048b1–3).
Nicomachean Ethics (soul, happiness, virtue, friendship)
The Chief Good
The inquiry which serves to guide the entire enterprise of the Nichomachean Ethics is
answering the question as to what is the chief human good. The chief good, still familiar
to us today through use of the Latin term, summum bonum, is that thing at which all
people aim, and for which all other things are done. Aristotle says that happiness is the
chief good, and famously says that happiness is an “activity of reason in accordance
with virtue… and this is in a full life” (1098a16-18).2) This last point is meant to
emphasize that in order to achieve the chief good one must live a complete life of
excellence, all the way unto death.

A question of high importance in any investigation of ethics is how we can teach people
to be good. Aristotle is quite clear that he does not think virtue can be taught in a
classroom or by means of argument. His Ethics, then, is not designed to make people
good, but rather to explain what is good, why it is good, and how we might set about
building societies and institutions that might inculcate this goodness

SOUL
Aristotle, is soul, which he defines in essence as “the actuality of a natural body having
life potentially in it.” So soul is to body, as form is to matter, as actuality is to
potentiality. ... The soul for Aristotle, therefore, is not a thing, not an entity, but simply
an aspect of a living entity.

HAPPINESS
That is, happiness depends on the cultivation of virtue, though his virtues are
somewhat more individualistic than the essentially social virtues of the Confucians. Yet
as we shall see, Aristotle was convinced that a genuinely happy life required the
fulfillment of a broad range of conditions, including physical as well as mental well-
being. In this way he introduced the idea of a science of happiness in the classical
sense, in terms of a new field of knowledge.
Aristotle argues that virtue is achieved by maintaining the Mean, which is the balance
between two excesses. Aristotle’s doctrine of the Mean is reminiscent of Buddha’s
Middle Path, but there are intriguing differences. For Aristotle the mean was a method
of achieving virtue. Everywhere we see people seeking pleasure, wealth, and a good
reputation. But while each of these has some value, none of them can occupy the place
of the chief good for which humanity should aim. To be an ultimate end, an act must be
self-sufficient and final, "that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of
something else" (Nicomachean Ethics, 1097a30-34), and it must be attainable by man.
Aristotle claims that nearly everyone would agree that happiness is the end which
meets all these requirements. It is easy enough to see that we desire money, pleasure,
and honor only because we believe that these goods will make us happy. It seems that
all other goods are a means towards obtaining happiness, while happiness is always an
end in itself.
It is not something that can be gained or lost in a few hours, like pleasurable sensations.
It is more like the ultimate value of your life as lived up to this moment, measuring how
well you have lived up to your full potential as a human being. For this reason, one
cannot really make any pronouncements about whether one has lived a happy life until
it is over, just as we would not say of a football game that it was a "great game" at
halftime (indeed we know of many such games that turn out to be blowouts or duds).
For the same reason we cannot say that children are happy, any more than we can say
that an acorn is a tree, for the potential for a flourishing human life has not yet been
realized. As Aristotle says, "for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a
spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy."
(Nicomachean Ethics, 1098a18)
The Hierarchical View of Nature
In order to explain human happiness, Aristotle draws on a view of nature he derived
from his biological investigations. If we look at nature, we notice that there are four
different kinds of things that exist in the world, each one defined by a different purpose:
It seems that our unique function is to reason: by reasoning things out we attain our
ends, solve our problems, and hence live a life that is qualitatively different in kind from
plants or animals. The good for a human is different from the good for an animal
because we have different capacities or potentialities. We have a rational capacity and
the exercising of this capacity is thus the perfecting of our natures as human beings. For
this reason, pleasure alone cannot constitute human happiness, for pleasure is what
animals seek and human beings have higher capacities than animals. The goal is not to
annihilate our physical urges, however, but rather to channel them in ways that are
appropriate to our natures as rational animals.
The Pursuit of Happiness as the Exercise of Virtue
In this last quote we can see another important feature of Aristotle's theory: the link
between the concepts of happiness and virtue. Aristotle tells us that the most important
factor in the effort to achieve happiness is to have a good moral character — what he
calls "complete virtue." But being virtuous is not a passive state: one must act in
accordance with virtue. Nor is it enough to have a few virtues; rather one must
strive to possess all of them. According to Aristotle, happiness consists in achieving,
through the course of a whole lifetime, all the goods — health, wealth, knowledge,
friends, etc. — that lead to the perfection of human nature and to the enrichment of
human life. This requires us to make choices, some of which may be very difficult. Often
the lesser good promises immediate pleasure and is more tempting, while the greater
good is painful and requires some sort of sacrifice. For example, it may be easier and
more enjoyable to spend the night watching television, but you know that you will be
better off if you spend it researching for your term paper. Developing a good character
requires a strong effort of will to do the right thing, even in difficult situations.
Another example is the taking of drugs, which is becoming more and more of a problem
in our society today. For a fairly small price, one can immediately take one’s mind off of
one’s troubles and experience deep euphoria by popping an oxycontin pill or snorting
some cocaine. Yet, inevitably, this short-term pleasure will lead to longer term pain. A
few hours later you may feel miserable and so need to take the drug again, which leads
to a never-ending spiral of need and relief. Addiction inevitably drains your funds and
provides a burden to your friends and family. All of those virtues — generosity,
temperance, friendship, courage, etc. — that make up the good life appear to be
conspicuously absent in a life of drug use.
Aristotle would be strongly critical of the culture of "instant gratification" which seems to
predominate in our society today. In order to achieve the life of complete virtue, we
need to make the right choices, and this involves keeping our eye on the future, on the
ultimate result we want for our lives as a whole. We will not achieve happiness simply
by enjoying the pleasures of the moment. Unfortunately, this is something most people
are not able to overcome in themselves.
Later in the Ethics Aristotle draws attention to the concept of akrasia, or weakness of
the will. In many cases the overwhelming prospect of some great pleasure obscures
one's perception of what is truly good. Fortunately, this natural disposition is curable
through training, which for Aristotle meant education and the constant aim to perfect
virtue. As he puts it, a clumsy archer may indeed get better with practice, so long as he
keeps aiming for the target.
Note also that it is not enough to think about doing the right thing, or even intend to do
the right thing: we have to actually do it. Thus, it is one thing to think of writing the great
American novel, another to actually write it. When we impose a form and order upon all
those letters to actually produce a compelling story or essay, we are manifesting our
rational potential, and the result of that is a sense of deep fulfillment. Or to take another
example, when we exercise our citizenship by voting, we are manifesting our rational
potential in yet another way, by taking responsibility for our community. There are
myriad ways in which we can exercise our latent virtue in this way, and it would seem
that the fullest attainment of human happiness would be one which brought all these
ways together in a comprehensive rational life-plan.
There is yet another activity few people engage in which is required to live a truly happy
life, according to Aristotle: intellectual contemplation. Since our nature is to be
rational, the ultimate perfection of our natures is rational reflection. This means having
an intellectual curiosity which perpetuates that natural wonder to know which begins in
childhood but seems to be stamped out soon thereafter. For Aristotle, education should
be about the cultivation of character, and this involves a practical and a theoretical
component. The practical component is the acquisition of a moral character, as
discussed above. The theoretical component is the making of a philosopher. Here there
is no tangible reward, but the critical questioning of things raises our minds above the
realm of nature and closer to the abode of the gods.
VIRTUE
The Golden Mean
Aristotle’s ethics is sometimes referred to as “virtue ethics” since its focus is not on the
moral weight of duties or obligations, but on the development of character and the
acquiring of virtues such as courage, justice, temperance, benevolence, and prudence.
And anyone who knows anything about Aristotle has heard his doctrine of virtue as
being a “golden mean” between the extremes of excess and deficiency. Courage, for
example, is a mean regarding the feeling of fear, between the deficiency of rashness
(too little fear) and the excess of cowardice (too much fear). Justice is a mean between
getting or giving too much and getting or giving too little. Benevolence is a mean
between giving to people who don’t deserve it and not giving to anyone at all. Aristotle is
not recommending that one should be moderate in all things, since one should at all
times exercise the virtues. One can’t reason "I should be cruel to my neighbor now
since I was too nice to him before." The mean is a mean between two vices, and not
simply a mean between too much and too little.
Furthermore, the mean is “relative to ourselves,” indicating that one person’s mean may
be another person’s extreme. Milo the wrestler, as Aristotle puts it, needs more gruel
than a normal person, and his mean diet will vary accordingly. Similarly for the moral
virtues. Aristotle suggests that some people are born with weaker wills than others; for
these people, it may actually be a mean to flee in battle (the extremes being to get
slaughtered or commit suicide). Here we see the flexibility in Aristotle’s account: as
soon as he begins to lay down some moral rules, he relaxes them in order to take into
consideration the variety and contingency of particular temperaments.
Similarly with health in the soul: exhibiting too much passion may lead to reckless acts
of anger or violence which will be injurious to one’s mental well-being as well as to
others; but not showing any passion is a denial of one’s human nature and results in the
sickly qualities of morbidity, dullness, and antisocial behavior. Aristotle concludes that
goodness of character is “a settled condition of the soul which wills or chooses the
mean relatively to ourselves, this mean being determined by a rule or whatever we like
to call that by which the wise man determines it.” (Nicomachean Ethics, 1006b36)

We cannot pick and choose our virtues: we cannot decide that we will be courageous
and temperate but choose not to be magnificent. Nor can we call people properly
virtuous if they fail to exhibit all of the virtues.
A virtuous person is someone who is naturally disposed to exhibit all the virtues, and a
naturally virtuous disposition exhibits all the virtues equally.
FRIENDSHIP
is one of the most important virtues in achieving the goal of eudaimonia (happiness).
While there are different kinds of friendship, the highest is one that is based on virtue
(arête). This type of friendship is based on a person wishing the best for their friends
regardless of utility or pleasure. Aristotle calls it a “... complete sort of friendship
between people who are good and alike in virtue ...” (Nicomachean Ethics, 1156b07-
08). This type of friendship is long lasting and tough to obtain because these types of
people are hard to come by and it takes a lot of work to have a complete, virtuous
friendship. Aristotle notes that one cannot have a large number of friends because of
the amount of time and care that a virtuous friendship requires. Aristotle values
friendship so highly that he argues friendship supersedes justice and honor. First of all,
friendship seems to be so valued by people that no one would choose to live without
friends. People who value honor will likely seek out either flattery or those who have
more power than they do, in order that they may obtain personal gain through these
relationships. Aristotle believes that the love of friendship is greater than this because it
can be enjoyed as it is. “Being loved, however, people enjoy for its own sake, and for
this reason it would seem it is something better than being honoured and that friendship
is chosen for its own sake” (Nicomachean Ethics, 1159a25-28). The emphasis
on enjoyment here is noteworthy: a virtuous friendship is one that is most enjoyable
since it combines pleasure and virtue together, thus fulfilling our emotional and
intellectual natures.
Politics (best states, utopias, constitutions, revolutions)
What kind of government did Aristotle believe in?
Among forms of majority rule such as democracy, Aristotle prefers politeia, or
constitutional government. Aristocracy - Aristotle highly esteems aristocracy,
literally "the rule of the best," and considers it superior to oligarchy because it
values everyone's interests.
What does Aristotle say about politics?
Politics as defined by Aristotle himself is a "practical science" because it deals
with making citizens happy. His philosophy is to find the supreme purpose of life,
virtue as he puts it. One of the most important roles of a politician, though, is to
make laws, or constitutions.
What does Aristotle mean by political?
In his Politics, Aristotle believed man was a "political animal" because he is a
social creature with the power of speech and moral reasoning: Hence it is evident
that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal.
What is the ideal form of government for Aristotle?
 However, since that ideal is hard to achieve, and even harder to
sustain, Aristotle advocated a form of mixed government, or "politeia", in which
all citizens "rule and are ruled by turn", and power is monopolized by no
particular class. Aristotle was a vigorous critic of democracy.
If a community contains an individual or family of outstanding excellence, then,
Aristotle says, monarchy is the best constitution. But such a case is very rare,
and the risk of miscarriage is great, for monarchy corrupts into tyranny, which is
the worst constitution of all. Aristocracy, in theory, is the next-best constitution
after monarchy (because the ruling minority will be the best-qualified to rule), but
in practice Aristotle preferred a kind of constitutional democracy, for what he
called “polity” is a state in which rich and poor respect each other’s rights and the
best-qualified citizens rule with the consent of all.
Rhetoric (elements of forensic and political debate)
Aristotle organized the art of rhetoric into three parts:
 Ethos is how your character as a speaker or writer affects the audience. For
example, you will be more effective persuading your audience to switch to
reusable shopping bags and reduce or eliminate their use of plastic bags if you
can establish your expertise on the topic. If you are a biologist who studies the
impact of discarded plastic on wildlife, this will help establish credibility with the
audience. You also can relate on an everyday level by sharing your own
examples of how switching to reusable bags has impacted your shopping habits.
 Pathos is how emotion plays a role in speech and arguments. Following the
same example, you might begin your speech by showing your audience the
impact of discarded plastic bags in the wild. Images and descriptions of large
animals suffering after consuming the bags or smaller animals becoming caught
or tangled in them can impact your audience and perhaps inspire them to change
their habits.
 Logos is how you structure an argument and the use of logic. Consider the order
in which you introduce the information in the examples above. First, show your
audience why you are an expert on the topic. Then, appeal to their emotions and
convince them there is a problem. Finally, show them there is a practical solution
and how they can be a part of it.
He also identified three types of debates:
 Past, or forensic, is concerned with determining facts and assigning guilt or
innocence. In the context of a political debate, this might involve a candidate from
one political party arguing that, for example, a poor economy is the fault of
policies enacted in the past by his opponent or his opponent's political party.
  Present is concerned with values, praise and blame, and right and wrong. This
approach might involve the candidate from the example above arguing that he is
the right person to fix the economy because he is the one most concerned with
the best interests of his constituents. He might also accuse his opponent of being
more concerned with outside influences, such as lobbyists, than with his
constituents.
 Future is deliberative and focuses on making decisions about what to do in the
future. Here, the candidate lays out his solution. He details his plan and explains
why it is the best option for improving the economy.

Poetics (tragedy, epic poetry)

The poet’s job is to describe not something that has actually happened but something
that might well happen—that is to say, something that is possible because it is
necessary or likely. For this reason, poetry is more philosophical and more important
than history, for poetry speaks of the universal, history of only the particular. Much of
what happens to people in everyday life is a matter of sheer accident; only in fiction can
one witness character and action work themselves out to their natural consequences.

TRAGEDY
tragedy helps people to put their own sorrows and worries in perspective, because in it
they observe how catastrophe can overtake even people who are vastly their superiors.
The larger-than-life qualities of epic poetry are also brought about by the heroic meter.
This contrived and elevated meter further removes the characters in the story from
realistic portrayal, their extraordinary speech meshing well with their extraordinary
deeds. By contrast, tragedy employs an iambic meter that closely resembles the
rhythms of everyday speech.
In spite of these differences, Aristotle seems to think that epic poetry and tragedy can
be judged according to similar criteria. Most important to both is that they maintain unity
of plot. Epic poetry, by virtue of its length, is more suited to episode and digression, but
these digressions must be tied to the plot as tightly as the fewer digressions found in
tragic poetry. Similar requirements regarding character presumably apply to the epic
hero as to the tragic hero. In spite of the differences in genre, it would seem that the
basic criteria for judging quality remain the same.