Aristotle’s Philosophy: Reality, Ethics, and Society
Reality
Aristotle believed that only Physis (nature) exists, opposing Plato’s theory of Ideas. He posited that Physis is studied by both physics and metaphysics. Physics, according to Aristotle, is based on hylomorphism: beings are composed of matter and form, complementing each other for their existence. These beings change, seeking to perfect themselves. This change is the actualization of potential. The change is a shift from potentiality to actuality, guided by essence.
To explain the nature of things, Aristotle introduced four causes:
- Formal cause (what it is)
- Material cause (what it is made of)
- Efficient cause (who made it)
- Final cause (what it was made for)
These causes can be intrinsic (change from within) or extrinsic (change from external agents). Metaphysics, meanwhile, investigates the different ways of understanding being. Being is manifested in ten categories: substance (the fundamental class) and nine accidents or modifications predicated of the substance. The substance is the authentic self from which accidents emanate. Finally, Aristotle studied the “pure act,” the root cause and end of all things, from which all things are born, change, and disappear. He stated that everything is in constant motion, distinguishing that its essence is the potentiality of being, and existence is an act of being. Accidents can change, but the substance remains constant; that is, the subject matter changes, but not the form.
Man, Knowledge, and Ethics
Man, according to Aristotle, is composed of form and matter. Because form and matter are always linked, he stated that the soul is *not* immortal. He distinguished three types of soul:
- Vegetative: Allows for development; typical of plants, animals, and humans.
- Sensitive: Allows for sensation; typical of animals and humans.
- Rational: Enables rational knowledge; unique to humans.
Man begins with sensory experience and moves to imagination and memory, thereby effecting abstraction. To understand how the rational soul works, one must recognize the concept of form and separate it from the matter. This process of abstraction from the senses advances universal knowledge, where the patient intellect (the ability to know the form) and the agent intellect (the ability to separate form from matter) operate.
Aristotle advocated for a eudaimonistic ethic, an ethic of happiness achieved through rational activity. The pursuit of knowledge leads to complete happiness, characterized by the exercise of what is natural to man. Every action seeks an end, symbolized as good. The ultimate goal is complete happiness, which is the contemplation of truth and is achieved through rational activity (the perfection of man as such) and is self-sufficient. The other two virtues of the soul, called ethical virtues, address social and biological needs, enabling balance in the individual. The exercise of contemplation enables man to attain character virtues, but man cannot always devote himself to it; therefore, enjoying happiness requires external goods. Alongside intellectual virtues are ethical virtues, which are a way of being, consistent in the habit of taking the mean between two vicious extremes. This means that we are neither virtuous nor vicious by nature, but that virtue and vice are achieved by exercising them. Virtue is a state of perfection, while vice is absolutely bad.
Society
Aristotle focused on the collective good. He believed that man is, by nature, a social being. Human happiness can only be achieved within a society whose laws allow for the development of virtues in citizens. The state has priority because it is self-sufficient. Within the state, man can attain perfection through education, both intellectual and moral.
Aristotle distinguished between three just forms of government: Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Polity (which he sometimes refers to as Democracy). He contrasted these with Tyranny, Oligarchy, and Demagoguery. He believed Polity/Democracy to be the best regime when a state is self-sufficient and rigorously pursues the common good. Finally, he preached that the state is logically prior to the family and the village, not chronologically, since the individual outside the state is not fully human. This is illustrated by Aristotle’s famous example of the hand and the body.