FUNDAMENTALS OF PHILOSOPHY​

(PRESENTATION)
​
ARISTOTLE’s
METAPHYSICS
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
ARISTOTLE METAPHYSICS
SUBSTANCE and MATTER
UNIVERSALITY
CAUSALITY
ACTUALITY & POTENTIALITY
COMPARISON WITH PLATO
SUMMARIZATION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
Aristotle was an Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His
intellectual range was vast, covering most of the sciences and
many of the arts, including biology, botany, chemistry, ethics,
history, logic, metaphysics, rhetoric, philosophy of mind,
philosophy of science, physics, poetics, political theory,
psychology, and zoology.AREAS OF
LOGIC CONTRIBUTIO METAPHYSICS
N

POETICS ETHICS
POLITICS

Aristotle’s writings fall into two groups: those that were

published by him but are now almost entirely lost, and those
that were not intended for publication but were collected and
preserved by others. The first group consists mainly of popular
 ARISTOTLE’S METAPHYSICS
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of
things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, identity, time, and
space.

The first major work in the history of philosophy to bear the title “Metaphysics” was
the treatise by Aristotle that we have come to know by that name. But Aristotle
himself did not use that title or even describe his field of study as ‘metaphysics’;
the name was evidently coined by the first century C.E. editor who assembled the
treatise we know as Aristotle’s Metaphysics out of various smaller selections of
Aristotle’s works.
Aristotle himself described his subject matter in a variety of ways: as ‘first
philosophy’, or ‘the study of being qua being’, or ‘wisdom’, or ‘theology’. A
comment on these descriptions will help to clarify Aristotle’s topic. In Metaphysics
Α.1, Aristotle says that “everyone takes what is called ‘wisdom’ (sophia) to be
concerned with the primary causes (aitia) and the starting-points (or principles,
Aristotle’s vision of the cosmos also owes much to Plato’s
dialogue Timaeus. As in that work, the Earth is at the centre
of the universe, and around it the Moon, the Sun, and the
other planets revolve in a succession of concentric
crystalline spheres. The heavenly bodies are not compounds
of the four terrestrial elements but are made up of a superior
fifth element, or “quintessence.” In addition, the heavenly
bodies have souls, or supernatural intellects, which guide
them in their travels through the cosmos.
 SUBSTANCE AND MATTER
Change, for Aristotle, can take place in many different categories. Local motion, as
noted above, is change in the category of place. Change in the category of quantity
is growth (or shrinkage), and change in the category of quality (e.g., of colour) is
what Aristotle calls “alteration.” Change in the category of substance, however—a
change of one kind of thing into another—is very special. When a substance
undergoes a change of quantity or quality, the same substance remains throughout.
But does anything persist when one kind of thing turns into another? Aristotle’s
answer is yes: matter.

He says, ‘By matter, I mean what in itself is neither of any kind nor of any size nor
describable by any of the categories of being. For it is something of which all these
things are predicated, and therefore its essence is different from that of all the
predicates.’

Aristotle believes that all sensible substances can be analyzed into matter and form,
but such an analysis is not restricted to the things he calls substances. Matter can
Origin by nature occurs in the case of those things whose
origin is through the processes of nature. The substance of
which they are formed we call MATTER; the source from
which they arise is some thing in nature; the kind of thing
which they become is ‘man’ or ‘planet’ or some other thing
of the kind which we are especially accustomed to call
SUBSTANCES. The MATTER can be regarded as the pure
matter which has probability & potential while the
SUBSTANCE is the pure form or form of forms which has
actuality.
 UNIVERSALITY
A substantial form is the essence of a substance, and it corresponds to a species.
Since it is an essence, a substantial form is what is denoted by the definiens of a
definition. Since only universals are definable, substantial forms are universals.
That substantial forms are universals is confirmed by Aristotle’s comment, at the
end of , that “Socrates and Callias … are distinct because of their matter … but
the same in form” (1034a6–8). For them to be the same in form is for them to
have the same form, i.e., for one and the same substantial form to be predicated
of two different clumps of matter. And being “predicated of many” is what makes
something a universal (De Interpretatione 17a37).

Some maintain that Aristotle’s theory is ultimately inconsistent, on the grounds

that it is committed to all three of the following propositions:
(i) Substance is form.
(ii) Form is universal.
(iii) No universal is a substance.
 CAUSALITY
Aristotle distinguishes four types of cause, or explanation. First, he says,
there is that of which and out of which a thing is made, such as the bronze of
a statue. This is called the material cause.
Second, there is the form or pattern of a thing, which may be expressed in its
definition; Aristotle’s example is the proportion of the length of two strings in
a lyre, which is the formal cause of one note’s being the octave of another.
The third type of cause is the origin of a change or state of rest in something;
this is often called the “efficient cause.” Aristotle gives as examples a person
reaching a decision, a father begetting a child, a sculptor carving a statue,
and a doctor healing a patient.
The fourth and last type of cause is the end or goal of a thing—that for the
sake of which a thing is done. This is known as the “final cause.”
MATERIAL FORMAL
CAUSE CAUSE

TYPES OF
CAUSES

EFFICIENT FINAL
CAUSE CAUSE
 ACTUALITY & POTENTIALITY

In metaphysics, Aristotle introduces the distinction between matter and form

synchronically, applying it to an individual substance at a particular time.

The matter of a substance is the stuff it is composed of; the form is the way

that stuff is put together so that the whole it constitutes can perform its

characteristic functions. But soon he begins to apply the distinction

diachronically, across time. This connects the matter/form distinction to

another key aristotelian distinction, that between potentiality (dunamis) and

actuality (entelecheia) or activity (energeia). He distinguishes between

priority in logos (account or definition), in time, and in substance.

(1) Actuality is prior in logos since we must cite the actuality when we give an
account of its corresponding potentiality. Thus, ‘visible’ means ‘capable of being
seen’; ‘buildable’ means ‘capable of being built’(1049b14–16).
(2) As regards temporal priority, by contrast, potentiality may well seem to be prior
to actuality, since the wood precedes the table that is built from it, and the acorn
precedes the oak that it grows into. Nevertheless, Aristotle finds that even
temporally there is a sense in which actuality is prior to potentiality: “the active
that is the same in form, though not in number [with a potentially existing thing],
is prior [to it]” (1049b18–19). A particular acorn is, of course, temporally prior to
the particular oak tree that it grows into, but it is preceded in time by the actual
oak tree that produced it, with which it is identical in species. The seed (potential
substance) must have been preceded by an adult (actual substance). So in this
sense actuality is prior even in time.
(3) He argues for the priority in substance of actuality over potentiality in two ways.
(a) The first argument makes use of his notion of final causality. Things that come to
be move toward an end (telos).
(b) offers an “even stricter” argument for his claim that actuality is prior in
substance to potentiality. A potentiality is for either of a pair of opposites; so
anything that is capable of being is also capable of not being. What is capable of not
being might possibly not be, and what might possibly not be is perishable. Hence
 COMPARISON WITH PLATO
For some 20 years Aristotle was Plato’s student and colleague at the Academy in Athens,
an institution for philosophical, scientific & mathematical research & teaching founded by
Plato. Although Aristotle revered his teacher, his philosophy eventually departed from
Plato’s in many respects.
Aristotle investigated areas of philosophy and fields of science that Plato did not seriously
consider.
According to a conventional view, Plato’s philosophy is abstract and utopian, whereas
Aristotle’s is empirical, practical, and commonsensical.
Whereas most of Plato's works have survived through the centuries, roughly 80% of what
Aristotle wrote has been lost. He is said to have written almost 200 treatises on an array
of subjects, but only 31 have survived. Some of his other works are referenced or alluded
to by contemporary scholars, but the original material is gone.
What remains of Aristotle's works are primarily lecture notes and teaching aids, draft-
level material that lacks the polish of "finished" publications. Even so, these works
influenced philosophy, ethics, biology, physics, astronomy, medicine, politics, and religion
for many centuries. Plato's works can be roughly divided into three periods. His early
period featured much of what is known about Socrates, with Plato taking the role of the
dutiful student who keeps his tutor's ideas alive. Most of these works are written in the
 SUMMARY
Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, who
made important contributions to logic, criticism, rhetoric,
physics, biology, psychology, mathematics, metaphysics, ethics,
and politics. He was a student of Plato for twenty years but is
famous for rejecting Plato’s theory of forms. He was more
empirically minded than both Plato and Plato’s teacher, Socrates.

A prolific writer, lecturer, and polymath, Aristotle radically

transformed most of the topics he investigated. In his lifetime, he
wrote dialogues and as many as 200 treatises, of which only 31
survive. These works are in the form of lecture notes and draft
manuscripts never intended for general readership.
Nevertheless, they are the earliest complete philosophical
treatises we still possess.
Aristotle was the founder of the Lyceum, a school based in
Athens, Greece; and he was the first of the Peripatetics, his
followers from the Lyceum. Aristotle’s works, exerted
tremendous influence on ancient and medieval thought and
continue to inspire philosophers to this day.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 16

 INTERNET ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
PHILOSOPHY

 STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
PHILOSOPHY

 BRITANNICA

 WIKIPEDIA
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