All readings are in Ancient Greek Philosophy, ed. Cohen, Curd, and Reeve

Metaphysics VII, Selections

Ch. 1. Being is spoken of in many ways (cf. the Categories). Substance is primary: in nature, in account (definition), and in knowledge.

Ch. 2. The most evident examples of substances are bodies, perhaps the simple bodies, and/or the limits/surfaces of bodies. We can ask many questions here: which things are substances? Are there non-perceptible substances?

Ch. 3. There are four main candidates for substance: essence, universal, genus, and subject. [This chapter focuses on subject, and seems to rule it out.] What is subject? It seems most of all to be substance: other things are said of it, and it is not said of other things. The subject may be the matter, the form, or the compound (bronze, shape of a horse, a bronze statue of a horse).

However: this is an inadequate answer to the question, what is substance?

• a. It is unclear, and

• b. It makes matter=substance.

  Why is b. unacceptable? Matter is the underlying thing; everything else, such as quantity, quality, etc., is predicated of it. But this means matter has nothing definite or specifiable about it. Yet substance is supposed to be separable (identifiable, distinct) and a "this."

  Also, if form is prior to matter in a compound, we can rule out the compound (as candidate for subject) just as much as the matter.

Ch. 4. Let us next study essence: what a thing is said to be in its own right. First, we need to rule some things out. Essence is not just anything said in its own right. [This chapter is mainly devoted to ruling out unacceptable kinds of essences, the essences of non-substance things.]

• a. One kind of thing without the right sort of essence is a non-substance such as a quality like pale. Basically, such a quality will always have to include a substance in its definition.

  Pale belongs in its own right to surface (compare Post. An. I,4), yet surface is not the same as being pale, nor is pale some combination of pale plus surface. The account of a thing's essence describes but does not mention the thing. [Aristotle does not give an example. Presumably he means something like this: The account of man's essence is rational animal.]

• b. Another kind of thing without a true essence is the composite, e.g. pale plus man. Aristotle calls such a composite "cloak" as if to suppose that it is really some one thing we can call by one name.

  Is there an essence of cloak? No, there is no essence for things that occur by addition. Either they require something else to be added to them (to get an essence) (like pale does), or they are adding in too much (like cloak or pale man is). Probably being a cloak is not an essence at all.

• c. The moral of the story: Just as being is said in many ways, and substance is primary, so also is essence said in many ways, and the essence of substances is primary, because only substance is a this.

• d. More explanation: Things that have an essence are those whose account is a definition. A definition is an account made of names; but it has to be of the right sort of thing, and have unity. (Otherwise even something with a lot of words like The Iliad might turn out to be an account.)

• e. Conclusion: Hence essence will only belong to species of a genus, and to nothing else (1030a13). It only belongs without qualification to substance, but to other things derivatively.

Ch. 6. Is a thing the same as or different from its essence? [Answer Aristotle will give: the same as. Substance = essence, and a thing = its substance (a thing= its being); hence, a thing = its essence. Part of the problem building up here is that this means that two individuals, Socrates and Callias, who have the same essence, will be equal to each other.]

• a. One type of problem case: Pale man. Here, the thing is not = its essence, but that's because it's a composite, not a true substance.

• b. Another type of problem case: Ideas. Aristotle argues they too must = their essence. If the essence is separated from Ideas, then two unacceptable things follow: (i) the essence would not be a being, and (ii) the being or the Idea would not be knowable in itself.

• c. So, things are identical with their essence.

Ch. 10. How are parts of an account related to the thing? Definition is an account, something complex with parts. [The definition of man is rational animal; this is complex and has parts. Another way to consider this is to say that man's definition must include some parts, perhaps eating, reproducing, perhaps a brain, stomach, or perhaps fingers, etc. Aristotle leaves it a bit open at first here.] Parts of an account correspond with parts of the thing defined (if eating is part of the account of man as rational animal, since all animals eat, then it seems that stomach is part of the man.)

So does this mean that matter is part of the definition of substance? Yes and no. Aristotle seems to say that some functional sort of definition of matter may be part of the definition, but not actual materials. He uses the example of a syllable: the syllable "eat" has the letters "e" "a" and "t", but these are conceptual letters not material letters made of wax.

In a way, the body's parts like finger are prior to the compound, but in a way they are not (the finger cannot exist apart from the compound, so it is posterior to it). But perhaps some parts are more essential or simultaneous with the compound, such as heart or brain.

Ch. 15. Compound and form are different sorts of substance. Compounds perish, form does not. Because of this, forms, not particulars, are objects of knowledge. Particulars are not permanent enough; they cannot be defined. Nor can Ideas be defined: they are allegedly separable and particular. We would need some special idiosyncratic name to define them that picked out them alone. But the names we use are general and apply to more than one thing. Actually we cannot define anything that is unique or particular, even the sun and the moon.

Ch. 17.

• a. Let's start our inquiry over again, focusing on the fact that substance is a principle (arche). Substance is then a sort of cause or reason why. We don't ask why a thing is itself (why is man man?), but why one thing belongs to another (why is a man musical?)

• b. In some cases, we are asking, why does this belong to that? When we ask, why is thunder, we're asking, why does noise belong to the clouds? Or when we ask, why is man, we're asking, why does this feature belong to animal (e.g., rationality)? We're searching for the cause=essence. This can be the final or the efficient cause.

• c. There is no searching or teaching about simple (incomposite) things. [Seemingly, they just are what they are.] But in a composite thing, we wonder how the whole gets its unity. Why are these letters a syllable? For example, what is the difference between the syllable "ba" and the syllable "ab"? Both have the same elements, yet they are different. So the syllable itself is "something more," but what is this something more?

• Option 1: another element. (But what would join this element to the a and the b?)

• Option 2: some sort of composite. (But what explains the unity of this composite? We have the same problem all over again.)

  Answer: The syllable is something more, but it's added to the elements not as another element, but as a cause. This is the substance or primary cause of being.

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Metaphysics H (VIII)

Ch. 1. Summary of where we've come so far (see points 1-7, p. 624). The subject is a substance: the matter, the form, or the composite. Only the composite is really subject to coming-to-be and perishing; it is separable (a "this") without qualification. Matter as well as the composite is substance.

Ch. 2. Substance that is matter is something potentially. So, we must describe the substance of perceptible things that is actually. This has something to do with differentiae (aspects of the matter that will determine how it is actually arranged or constituted into a thing).

There are many kinds of differentiae of matter--more than just the three Democritus mentioned in discussing his atoms. Material things are organized or unified, and differentiated, by such factors as combining or blending, tying together, gluing, nailing, their position, their time, their place, or other attributes.

Examples:

• What makes this water ice? Freezing.

• What makes the boards a table? Nailing.

• What makes the pages a book? Gluing.

• What makes the stone a threshhold? Its position (at your doorstep).

• What makes this meal breakfast? Its time of day.

• What makes this arrangement of wood and bricks a house? Its purpose.

These things are not substances, but substance-analogues. [They are somewhat more unified than mere ³heaps.²] In each case, the differentia in question is the analogue of actuality (form), or, what makes the thing what it is.

In the case of natural things, which are truly substances, the differentiae are what makes the matter actually be something. [Put another way: the form is what actualizes the matter of a thing into being what it really is. Your form of human being, or rational animality, makes your matter, flesh and blood and bones, into the thing you are, a person. Your form and matter are the same thing (a person): one actually (form), the other potentially (matter).]

Ch. 6.

• a. What is the cause of unity in a definition? A definition is one not by being a string of words tied together (like the long poem The Iliad), but by being the definition of one thing. What makes the parts of a definition, like the definition of man (rational+animal) one?

• b. Maybe they're not really one. The Platonists would deny this: they say that a man participates in several things, animality, rationality, the form of man, etc.; they can't really explain any unity here.

  [Note 1: Aristotle seems to be worrying about what would make things relate to one another in the real of Forms. If there is a Form of Animal, it would need to be related to lots of other Forms: Man, Chimpanzee, Cockroach (!), Whale, etc. How can each Form be the kind of simple unity Plato had in mind, then? Aristotle thinks this is one reason to reject the theory of Forms.]

• c. We can solve the puzzle about how elements in a definition are unified by saying that matter and form are one, as potentiality to actuality. [Note 2: Here Aristotle is expanding his account of the role of actuality and potentiality. Earlier, he said that in a house, the form (shelter) is the actuality, and the matter (bricks) the potentiality: actuality unites with potentiality when the bricks are arranged so as actually to serve the purpose of sheltering. Much the same is true of human form and matter. However, now he is saying that in a definition there is matter and form. Perhaps the genus is matter and the differentia is form. So, animal is matter and rational is form, and the two are united in a definition. This is the theory that genus is matter.]

• d. SImple things, things with no matter, are essentially one. (Perhaps Aristotle is thinking of God here.)

• e. What causes something that is potentially to be actually? It just is; these two things go together into a unity. (There is no cause, except perhaps what started the thing going. Your form and your matter just are unified, and there's no other cause of their unity, but you do have a cause--your father.)