Kant and Aristotle: Key Philosophical Concepts
Kant’s Philosophy
Social Contract
The origin of political power and the state is the social contract, which explains how men left the state of nature and came to live in a political community. According to Kant, the state of nature is wild; the driving force of individuals in nature is to meet their goals and desires without any hindrance. In nature, there is no morality; no beings are moral by nature. We have by nature a hostile sociability that Kant called “unsocial sociability.” Motivated by reason and by the desire for security, men leave the state of nature and natural law and enter into a civil state by a covenant or contract. The agreement or contract is not a historical fact or a scientific hypothesis likely to be confirmed; it is an idea of reason, a guiding idea by which the legislature should be guided. In the civil state, men lose their natural freedom and acquire legal freedom. Kant justifies civil obedience, that is, obedience to a law because we do not agree with it, but Kant explicitly denies the right to civil disobedience. It is the legislator who has to think when enacting legislation.
Legal Freedom
Legal freedom is opposed to natural liberty. According to Kant, in the state of wilderness, the driving force of individuals is to meet their goals and desires. Moved by reason and by the desire for security, men leave the state of nature for the state governed by positive law, which Kant called political right. In the civil state, men lose their natural freedom and acquire legal freedom. Kant justifies civil obedience, that is, obedience to a law because we do not agree with it. It is the legislator who has to think when enacting legislation. The agreement or contract is not a historical fact or a scientific hypothesis likely to be confirmed; it is an idea of reason, a guiding idea by which the legislature should be guided.
Aristotle’s Concepts
Substance
Reality for Aristotle is nature, this world, the sensible world consisting of individual beings. Individual beings are the primary substance of reality. “Substance” is an ontological category that refers to that which exists by itself, which is not attached to anything else, and therefore does not need anything else to be.
But of individual beings, subject, substance, first, we can predicate attributes, that is, we can say more things besides that they exist; we can attribute to them other realities beyond existence. Not all attributes have the same rank of reality. It’s different to say “John is human” than to say “John is blonde.” In the first case, for John to be human is necessarily what he is. In the second case, John might not be fair and remain John; he does not lose his identity, while he would no longer be what he is if he were not human. Accidents are not substances because the individual beings in which they are inserted can dispense with them without ceasing to be what they are. For example, if a table is green, it does not cease to be a table, while a chair would lose its identity if it were not a chair. If the green table instead of green were yellow, it would not lose its identity, as what is essential is that it is a table.
Nature
For Aristotle, nature is the sensible world of Plato and the only reality that exists. He claims that there is only this world we see and touch, consisting of material things, imperfect and perishable. Aristotle calls things sensitive nature, containing individual beings, and says that every individual is composed of matter and form: matter is the substrate or material that something is made of. Form is the outline of a thing and the functions it performs. Each thing is what it is and is different from others because of its shape. The soul is the principle that breathes life in people, the vital principle, and therefore all living things have souls. There are three souls:
- Vegetative soul: animates the processes of feeding and reproduction.
- Sensitive soul: gives life to feelings, states of pleasure and pain, and desires.
- Rational soul: encourages reasoning and intellect.
The soul performs, enacts the vital functions that the body has potential. Aristotle offers the following example: the eye is the subject of hearing, and sight is the soul of the eye; if sight is missing, an eye could not see and would not be a human eye but the same as a painted eye. So much are body and soul united, Aristotle believed that the soul does not do anything by itself. Even the psychic life of the body needs and is a function of the body.