A Critique of Aristotle's Metaphysics

Essay , 2011 , 6 Seiten , Note: A

Philosophie - Philosophie der Antike

The paper shows that it is possible to find dissenting views to Aristotle’s text "The Categories". However, the author argues that Aristotle’s metaphysics is credible and influential even today. When considering for example substance, place, time, quantity and quality are inescapable when seeking to understand properties of matter. They also can explain properties of incorporeal beings. Granted Aristotle’s metaphysics is better understood by abstraction, his definitions are explicable, and understandable.

Aristotle was born in 384 B.C, at Stagira in Thrace¹. He was a student of Plato in Athens until 384-7 when Plato died. He later founded the Lyceum and wrote most of his books from 335B.C-323B.C². it is in his book the Categories that Aristotle addresses the concepts of Categories, Substance and Accidents.

In the second chapter of the Categories, Aristotle gives two very general divisions, first of ‘things that are said’ into two kinds, those said with and those said without, combination (sumploke), and then that of ‘the things that are’ into four kinds³.

Lawson-Tancred, H, notes that this first division is mysterious since it is not clear whether things said with combination are meant to be sentences or merely elements of language more complicated than the most basic units⁴. However the second division or reality is divided into four. All ‘the things that are’ are either said-of something or not and either in something or not.

According to Aristotle there are four types of things, (i) things said-of something else, but not in something else, (ii) things said-of something and in something else, and (iii) things in something else, but not said-of something else, and (iv) things neither in something else nor said-of something else. He goes on to add a further distinction between things being in a particular way and things being in a universal way and that the former, while they cannot be said-of anything, can certainly be in something else⁵.

In chapter four of the Categories, in addition to the two divisions of things that are said-of and things that are, Aristotle gives us a list of ten categories as a refinement of the division of things that are said. The first category is that of substance (ousia)⁶. In Aristotle, a ‘substance’ is shown by a proper name. Proper names apply to ‘things’ or ‘persons’, each of which is the only thing or person to which the name in question applies. A substance is defined as a ‘this’ a universal as a ‘such’-it indicates the sort of thing, not the actual particular thing. ‘…the substance of each thing is that which is peculiar to it, which does not belong to it, which does not belong to anything else’⁷

This notion of substance has two uses for Aristotle. He identifies (i) primary substances as individual particular things in the world and (ii) secondary substances as the classificatory entities species and genera: into which all particulars must fall⁸. In addition there are three kinds of substances : (i) those that are sensible and perishable, (ii) those that are sensible but perishable and (iii) those that are neither sensible nor perishable⁹. What other categories does Aristotle identify?

According to Aristotle, the most important categories are substance, quantity and quality. Others are place, time, position, relative, extension, action and reaction. The category of substance alludes to entities that are formally specified and never being in anything else. The other nine categories subdivide the entities that are in other things, namely in substances.

It must be noted that not all philosophers have agreed with Aristotle’s categories, especially his conception of substance. Among them are Spinoza and Leibniz. Russell defines Spinoza’s metaphysic as ‘Logical monism’-the doctrine, that the world as a whole is a single substance¹⁰. Spinoza, admitted God alone. He held the view that both extension and thought are attributes of God. Leibniz on the other hand differed with both Aristotle and Spinoza on the number of substances.

Leibniz believed in an infinite number of substances as opposed to Aristotle and Spinoza’s one substance. Leibniz’s substances are called ‘monads’. Each monad is a soul. No two monads can ever have any causal relation to each other. Monads are ‘windowless’. Every monad mirrors the universe because God has given it a nature which produces the result. He also held the view that extension cannot be an attribute of substance¹¹.

What this paper shows is that it is possible to find dissenting views to Aristotle’s categories and substance. However, my position is that Aristotle’s metaphysic is credible and influential even today. When considering for example substance, place, time, quantity and quality are inescapable when seeking to understand properties of matter. They also can explain properties of incorporeal beings. Granted Aristotle’s metaphysics is better understood by abstraction, his definitions are explicable, and understandable. A concept not defined in this paper is the concept accident. Put simply, an accident is any modification on a substance. Much has not been said on this but overall, I support Aristotle’s metaphysics of categories, substance, accidents while at the same time highlighting some dissenting views on the same.

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¹ Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, pg. 157

² Ibid.

³ Hugh Lawson-Tancred writing in Philosophy 1: A guide through the study, pg 404

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid, pg. 406

⁷ Op. Cit, pg. 160

⁸ Hugh Lawson-Tancred writing in Philosophy 1: A guide through the study, pg 405

⁹ Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, pg. 164

¹⁰ Ibid, pg. 528

¹¹ Ibid, pg. 533

• Hochschule: University of Nairobi
• Note: A
• Autor: Mbogo Wa Wambui (Autor:in)
• Erscheinungsjahr: 2011
• Seiten: 6
• Katalognummer: V703976
• ISBN (eBook): 9783346188205
• Sprache: Englisch
• Schlagworte: aristotle, critique, metaphysics