Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Logic, Ethics, and Politics
Aristotle: Historical Context
Natural from a Greek colony, Aristotle’s philosophy aligns more with science than with Platonic theory. He educated Alexander the Great for a couple of years and then returned to Athens, where he founded his own school.
Plato and Aristotle
Aristotle denied the existence of an intelligible world and developed a theory of motion.
Theory of Physics and Metaphysics
Metaphysics is considered the first philosophy, studying the cause of beings and all things prior to existence. Physics, the second philosophy, studies sensible reality and change, including motion and cosmology. Aristotle’s science is qualitative, focusing on the qualities of objects.
Substance
Substance is behind all beings, the essence. Aristotle distinguishes between primary substance (particular individuals) and secondary substance (gender or species). Substance is what determines what something is, while accidents change the substance.
Hylomorphism Theory
Hylomorphism posits that physical reality is composed of matter and form.
- Subject: What exists physically; the material of which things are made.
- Form: The structure or essence that we perceive through the senses.
- Deprivation: Explains motion as a transition from not-being to being.
Initially influenced by Plato, Aristotle later incorporated empiricist thought, suggesting that substance can be the way.
Theory of Potency and Act
Aristotle analyzed movement, a characteristic of pre-Socratic thought, denying a direct relation between substances and the existence of motion. He argued that motion is part of nature.
- Act: What a being currently is (form).
- Potency: What a being can become (subject).
- Active Potency: The power to produce an effect.
- Passive Potency: The potential to change due to an external action.
Movement is the passage from being in potency to being in act. Only compounds of matter and form can change, as matter involves potential gain.
Theory of Causality
Aristotle believed that knowing something scientifically means knowing its causes. He identified four causes:
- Intrinsic Causes:
- Material: That from which a thing is made.
- Formal: The resulting shape or idea of a thing.
- Extrinsic Causes:
- Efficient: The agent or principle of motion.
- Final: The purpose or end for which something is done.
The final cause is the most important for Aristotle, reflecting teleological thinking: everything tends towards its natural end.
Physics
Aristotle distinguished between supersensible (abstract) and sensible (physical) substances. He considered natural things subject to change, with their essence being their form.
Types of Movement
- Substantial: Generation (birth) and corruption (death).
- Accidental:
- Qualitative: Changes in properties.
- Quantitative: Increase or decrease in quantity.
- Locative: Movement from one place to another.
Changes of place can be natural (e.g., wind and fire moving up, earth and water moving down) or violent (caused artificially).
Cosmology
Aristotle’s cosmology involved a series of astronomical movements.
Conception of Man and Society
Unlike Plato, who believed in an immortal soul that transmigrates, Aristotle saw the soul as the principle of life, inseparable from the body.
The Soul
The soul is what animates the body. Aristotle identified three kinds of soul:
- Vegetative: Found in plants, responsible for growth, nutrition, and reproduction.
- Sensitive: Found in animals, including desires, wishes, and local motion perceptions.
- Rational: Unique to humans, encompassing sensory principles, thinking, and understanding.
Understanding is divided into:
- Patient Understanding: Linked to the body, receiving images through the senses.
- Agent Understanding: Responsible for abstracting the essence of things.
Biological Research
The study of life has applications in Aristotelian teleology.
The Logic
Logic is the science of the formal structure of arguments. Aristotle created logic to substantiate and verify his studies, providing a proven method for his research.
Ethics and Politics
Aristotle’s ethics are guided by teleology, where the telos (end) determines the virtue of an action. The supreme goal is happiness (eudaemonia).
Virtue
Virtue is the mean between extremes of excess and deficiency. There are two types of virtues:
- Dialectical: Influence thinking (wisdom, science, art, common sense).
- Ethical: Influence actions (temperance, justice, generosity).
Happiness is the actualization of human potentialities, particularly the ability to reason. Theoretical activity is the greatest happiness, but desires and life in society require practical understanding (phronesis).
Phronesis (Prudence)
Phronesis is a moderate assessment that guides actions to be virtuous. Achieving moral virtues requires a certain level of material welfare.
Politics
Politics is the supreme science in practical reason, seeking the happiness of society. Humans are social by nature and can only test their virtues in the polis.
Society
Society is a sum of different families, with the family being the core unit. A stable government is essential for a harmonious society. Aristotle favored a middle-class government to balance the ambitions of the upper class and the protests of the lower class.
Types of Governance
Aristotle identified three types of governance, which can degenerate into unjust forms:
- Monarchy: Rule by one (can become despotism).
- Aristocracy: Rule by the best (can become oligarchy).
- Democracy: Rule by the people (can become demagoguery).