Aristotle is one of the first real systematic thinkers. He is considered a “prototypical empiricist” (wikipedia.org) and is probably best known for his analytics and use of inductive reasoning i.e. Aristotelian logic. This essay will outline the basics of Aristotle’s approach to the problem of universals. Aristotle’s views, especially regarding substantial form, heavily influenced St. Thomas Aquinas. Aristotle speaks about universals primarily in Categories, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics, where he generally develops the basic categories of things into fundamental types and their relation to each other. The crux of Aristotle’s argument lies in his ontological position as a pluralist substance theorist. Because of this, Aristotle differs in opinion from Plato (a bundle theorist) over the existence of the Forms.
Aristotle divides ‘being’ into four categories:
- Beings that are said-of others are universals
- Beings that are not said-of others are particulars
- Beings that are present-in others are accidental (qualities)
- Beings that are not present-in others are essential.
These conditions then pair up into four types:
- Not Said-Of and Not Present-in=essential particulars (substances)
- Not Said-Of and Present-in=accidental (non-substantial) particulars (primary substances)
- Said-Of and Not Present-in=essential universals
- Said-Of and Present-in= accidental universals.
Aristotle speaks much about ‘substance’ (the material cause of his Four Causes). On the topic of substance in Categories, Aristotle makes a distinction between “primary” and “secondary” substances. Primary substances are essential particulars, (not said-of and not present-in).
Substance, in the truest and primary and most definite sense of the word, is that which is neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject; for instance, the individual man or horse (Categories, Section I, Part 5).This is an important point that primary substances are not predicable. Substances are particulars, and thus cannot be universal.
Secondary substances are universals, to which Aristotle gives the example of “the species 'man' and the genus 'animal’” (Categories). Accidental universals are said-of and present-in. Things are ‘said-of’ in the respect that “the genus (e.g., animal) is ‘said of’ the species (e.g., man) and both genus and species are ‘said of’ the particular” (Cohen). “There is identity between universals.” In Categories, he uses the term “present in,” to define universals as being part of objects. According to Aristotle, universals are in things, not separate from things. That is, each non-substance “is in something, not as a part, and cannot exist separately from what it is in” (Aristotle's Categories, plato.stanford.edu).
This last type- accidental universals (or ‘Said-Of and Present-In’)- sets up Aristotle’s method of “exhibiting marks” on ‘substance’ and ‘form,’ and reasoning through the fundamental philosophical problem of whether qualities exist (Robinson). Paul Studtmann (from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) summarizes, “...a being is both said-of and present-in a primary substance if it is an accidental universal. Aristotle's example of such an entity is knowledge; but again, whiteness, provides a somewhat more intuitive example. The universal whiteness is said-of many primary substances but is only accidental to them.”
‘Whiteness’ in that case is an accidental characteristic in the sense that ‘white’ is a quality that inheres in a body. ‘White’ is said-of the ‘whiteness’ of an object or body. “In the category of quality, for example, the genus (color) is ‘said of’ the species (white) and both genus and species are ‘said of’ the particular white” (Cohen). It is crucial that this “particular white” is of many. In Categories (Section I, Part 5) Aristotle makes the argument that universals cannot exist without being predicated by a primary substance or present-in a primary substance:
'Animal' is predicated of the species 'man', therefore of the individual man, for if there were no individual man of whom it could be predicated, it could not be predicated of the species 'man' at all. Again, color is present in body, therefore in individual bodies, for if there were no individual body in which it was present, it could not be present in body at all. Thus everything except primary substances is either predicated of primary substances, or is present in them, and if these last did not exist, it would be impossible for anything else to exist.
As S. Marc Cohen puts it, “neither whiteness nor a piece of grammatical knowledge, for example, is capable of existing on its own. Each requires for its existence that there be some substance in which it inheres” (plato.stanford.edu). Aristotle explains accidental versus essential qualities in Metaphysics, Book V, Part 7:
In an accidental sense, e.g. we say 'the righteous doer is musical', and 'the man is musical', and 'the musician is a man', just as we say 'the musician builds', because the builder happens to be musical or the musician to be a builder; for here 'one thing is another' means 'one is an accident of another.’
Aristotle’s logic on substance and universals consists of the three following claims (from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘Aristotle’s Metaphysics’ by S. Marc Cohen):
- Substance is form
- Form is universal, and
- No universal is a substance.
Although there are clearly disputes over what Aristotle truly meant to say in Categories and Metaphysics (whether substantial forms (not present-in) are particulars or universals), Cohen outlines the supporting claims of both sides:
The idea that substantial forms are particulars is supported by Aristotle's claims that a substance is “separate and some this” (chôriston kai tode ti), that there are no universals apart from their particulars, and that universals are not substances. On the other side, the idea that substantial forms are universals is supported by Aristotle's claims that substances are, par excellence, the definable entities, that definition is of the universal, and that it is impossible to define particulars.
The claim that ‘universals are not substances’ is discussed in Categories:
For 'man' is predicated of the individual man, but is not present in any subject: for manhood is not present in the individual man. In the same way, 'animal' is also predicated of the individual man, but is not present in him…Thus substance cannot be present in a subject.
Plato (as a bundle theorist) claimed that the qualities of something are the object, or what make it what it is. The object and its qualities are indistinguishable. Since Aristotle is a substance theorist, the qualities (or “form”) of something are inseparable from the object. Take the qualities away and you have an unqualified substance- ‘non-substance,’ which Aristotle asserts cannot exist. Qualities (like ‘whiteness’) have to be qualities of something (a particular ‘body’).
And when all predicates have been removed (in thought), the subject that remains is nothing at all in its own right—an entity all of whose properties are accidental to it (1029a12–27). The resulting subject is matter from which all form has been expunged (Cohen).
Realism is the term given to the philosophy that universals are real (thus Platonic realism, and Aristotelian logic). Plato and Aristotle agree that understanding is not based on particulars. We can only understand particulars by their generalities (not uniqueness). The main idea is that universals are the only thing knowable. Where Aristotle differs from his tutor is that he does not believe that abstract universals exist. Plato’s Theory of the Forms posits a ‘form-land’- a separate location where abstractions exist. For Plato, Forms are abstract general things. For Aristotle, universals are abstract qualities in things. There is no ‘redness’ without the quality of ‘red’ in something. There is no abstract “redness” that exists. “Redness” only exists in something that is red. Aristotle does not believe that abstract universals exist. Only concrete universals really exist.
Aristotle criticized Plato’s Theory of the Forms, thusly developing his own theory on substance and form (which is called “hylomorphism”)(Shields). In Metaphysics (Book V, Part 8), Aristotle outlines hylomorphism in terms of the material and formal cause:
It follows, then, that 'substance' has two senses, (A) ultimate substratum, which is no longer predicated of anything else, and (B) that which, being a 'this', is also separable and of this nature is the shape or form of each thing.
Although, Aristotle says that substances are the “definable entities,” he maintains that the Formal cause is prior to the substance (the bronze statue’s form is what makes it a statue of something, not that it is made from bronze).
For Aristotle, "form" still refers to the unconditional basis of phenomena but is "instantiated" in a particular substance (wikipedia.org).
I mention the difference between Plato and Aristotle’s philosophies because they have significantly different approaches to epistemology. Once again, knowledge is an accidental universal. “Definition is of the universal and of the form” (Metaphysics, Book VII, Part 11). While knowledge for Plato necessitates knowledge of the Forms, knowledge for Aristotle begins with understanding particulars (“Aristotle”).
Bibliography
"Aristotle." 16 Dec. 2013. Wikimedia Foundation. 16 Dec. 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle>.
Aristotle. "Categories." 2009. The Internet Classics Archive. 19 Dec. 2013 <http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/categories.1.1.html>.
Aristotle. "Metaphysics." 2009. The Internet Classics Archive. 19 Dec. 2013 <http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.5.v.html>.
Cohen, S. Marc, "Aristotle's Metaphysics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/>.
Koch, Michael. "Lectures on Aristotle.” Philosophy. State University of New York at Oneonta, HIRC4, Oneonta, NY. Nov-Dec 2013.
"Problem of universals." 12 Nov. 2013. Wikimedia Foundation. 19 Dec. 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_universals>.
Robinson, Howard, "Substance", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/substance/>.
Shields, Christopher, "Aristotle", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/aristotle/>.
Studtmann, Paul, "Aristotle's Categories", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/aristotle-categories/>.
December 19th, 2013
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