Intellectual History, Metaphysics, Philosophy

Empty Words and Poetical Metaphors: Aristotle’s Critique of Platonic Forms

by Dave Seng

For more context about Plato’s metaphysics these posts should be helpful. For Aristotle, these might provide a helpful background.

It is important to realize that Aristotle did not entirely reject Plato’s view of reality. He did, however, believe it needed improvement. In this essay, we turn to Aristotle’s view of ultimate reality and contrast it with Plato’s because that is where the biggest difference lies between the two thinkers. It is certainly the most significant difference when it comes to the development of metaphysics in Western intellectual history.

We saw in our series on Plato, that his conception of Forms1 (or universals) were his answer to the classical problem of the one and the many. He believed that by positing universal forms he could explain the unity of the diversity we see all around us. Aristotle agreed with Plato on this point. Only by the objective essences of things, can we account for the order around us, both in nature and in morality. Further, essences account for the very possibility of knowledge about things. The difference, however, between Plato and Aristotle, rests in how the Forms or essences are related to particular things.

Early in the Metaphysics, Aristotle provides his own summary of Plato’s conceptual scheme:

…[Plato], having in his youth first become familiar with Cratylus2 and with the Heraclitean doctrines (that all sensible things are ever in a state of flux and there is no knowledge about them), these views he held even in later years. Socrates, however was busying himself about ethical matters and neglecting the world of nature as a whole but seeking the universal in these ethical matters, and fixed thought for the first time on definitions; Plato accepted his teaching, but held that the problem applied not to sensible things but to entities of another kind—for this reason, that the common definition could not be a definition of any sensible thing, as they were always changing. Things of this other sort, then, he called Ideas, and sensible things, he said, were all named after these, and in virtue of a relation of these; for the many existed by participation in the Ideas that have the same name as they.3

Aristotle goes on in his Physics, Nichomachean Ethics, and Metaphysics, to critically examine Plato’s theory of Forms. Some scholars have found twenty five or more arguments against the Platonic theory in Aristotle’s works. Here, we will only focus on a few of the more important ones.

The first one, is famously known as the “third man argument.” He develops this argument in his Metaphysics and Sophistic Refutations. In this argument, Aristotle states that in order to explain the similarity between a man (1) and a second man (2) we must posit a third ideal man or form of a man, a third man. But then we must explain the similarity between the first two men and the form of a man with another, “higher” form of a man. The situation becomes an endless regression of positing further higher forms and the original instance of the first man or thing is never explained. Because the forms are not only patterns of sensible things, but of Forms themselves, nothing gets resolved.

In book two, chapter two of his Physics, Aristotle argues against the existence of separated Forms based on the mathematical properties inherent in physical objects. Here, Aristotle makes the point that physical bodies contain surfaces and volumes, lines, and points, and these are all mathematical properties. Aristotle makes the common-sense observation that material objects have mathematical properties and uses this fact to mount an interesting critique of Plato’s Forms. Remember, for Plato, forms are separate from matter. Forms exist in an ideal transcendent realm away from the realm of becoming and change. According to Plato, there are not any Forms in material objects. Aristotle finds this situation incredibly hard to believe. Plato’s theory of the Forms says that among the Forms are mathematical objects such as the form of equality, the form of a triangle, the form of a triad, and so forth. Aristotle reasons that mathematical objects can not be separated from material objects because material objects have mathematical properties. He concludes that if mathematical objects (a sample of Forms) could not be separated from material objects (physical things), then forms can not be separated from matter. Physical things have mathematical order to them.

In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle makes an important ethical objection. He points out that Plato’s Form of the Good is only an ideal to to be contemplated. It does not have effective power itself. The Form of the Good is an ideal that can not effect change or transmit potency. If, on the other hand, particulars have no form in them and are only matter, what then inclines the particular towards orderliness, beauty and to its good? What is there in matter, material beings, that gives them their natural impetus and direction towards the good, if Forms are transcendent and not immanent in matter?

All these questions and objections, point to the biggest problem that Aristotle believes is at the center of Plato’s theory. It is the problem that the Forms are separated from matter and sensible things. Aristotle correctly represents Plato as having placed the ultimate causes of things (the Forms) in a transcendent world and thus separated from the things they are supposed to be the causes of. Aristotle’s great concern was to discover the cause of a thing or the cause of a property of something. He thought that by studying individual things, one could rationally discern the basic causes and principles of all Being. To understand why something is the case, we must first examine its cause.

In book one, chapter nine of his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes what he thinks is the biggest problem with Plato’s view of reality:

Above all one might discuss the question what on earth the Forms contribute to sensible things, either to those that are eternal or to those that come into being and cease to be. For they cause neither movement nor any change in them. But again they help in no wise either towards the knowledge of the other things (for they are not even the substance of these, else they would have been in them), or towards their being, if they are not in the particulars which share in them; though if they were, they might be thought to be causes, as white causes whiteness in a white object by entering into its composition …

But, further, all other things cannot come from the Forms in any of the usual senses of “from.” And to say that they are patterns and the other things share in them is to use empty words and poetical metaphors …

Again, it would seem impossible that the substance and that of which it is the substance should exist apart; how therefore, could the Ideas, being the substances of things exist apart? In the Phaedo the case is stated in this way—that the Forms are causes both of being and becoming; yet when the Forms exist, still the things that share in them do not come into being, unless there is something to originate movement.4

Aristotle points out that, by definition, Forms do not change because they exist in an unchangeable realm of being without becoming. The result is that Forms have no potency or ability to effect change. The separation between being and becoming, Form and matter, is very significant indeed. Platonic Forms have no way to account for the change, motion, coming into being and ceasing to be that one experiences every day.

As we have seen, Aristotle does not reject the idea of essence or Form entirely. In the next post, we will explore the most important elements of Aristotle’s metaphysics and his solution to the Platonic separation of Form and matter.

1It may not be entirely correct, but for our purposes, we’ll use “forms,” “universals,” and “essences” synonymously. The term “idea” is also used to describe the Platonic Form.

2Cratylus was a follower of Heraclitus but pushed the teaching of his master even further, for he said that one could not step into the same river even once!

3Aristotle, Metaphysics, 987a-b, tr. W. D. Ross, in Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941).

4Ibid., 991a-b.

Metaphysics, Philosophy

Plato, Final Thoughts, and Aristotle

by Dave Seng

In my recent series on Plato, we discussed his primary metaphysical ideas, how he addressed the philosophical problem of the one and the many, and what he thought the best way to view reality is. We also explored some significant problems that occur in Plato’s metaphysics. If you missed those posts, you can start here and end here. For more context about Aristotelian metaphysics, this post should be helpful.

I want to set out the general context and broad similarities between Plato and Aristotle before developing the significant differences that exist between the two thinkers. It will take another post to really highlight the differences between these philosophers and how they have shaped the conversation regarding metaphysics for the Western intellectual tradition. I plan to make that post soon.

Before we move on to Aristotle, I think it is important to understand that Plato really is a significant thinker in Western thought and it would be impossible to be genuinely educated without reading him or knowing about his ideas. Plato’s political thought, for example, is an important corrective to those who desire an unbridled democratic regime. In education, we learn from Plato that dialectic (the careful analysis of ideas) always involves critical reflection, the free exchange of ideas, and the Socratic conviction that the unexamined idea is not worth having. These are valuable and important gifts that Plato gave to Western civilization. The questions Plato raises in the Republic and all of his other dialogues are still with us today in many ways.

To get started, then, Aristotle was a student of Plato’s and studied with him for about twenty years. In many ways, Aristotle had a very high regard for his teacher and was broadly sympathetic to his views. He believed that his critiques were important correctives to Plato’s metaphysics. In many ways, Aristotle thought he was helping to improve and advance Plato’s overall philosophical project. There is a kind of Platonism, although very different at some points, in Aristotle’s work.

There are other points of contact as well. Aristotle shared Plato’s concern for the improvement of the soul. In his ethics, and in the area of knowledge, Aristotle like Plato, is very anxious to distinguish between what appears good to some people and what is really and genuinely good as both believed in a good which has eternal intrinsic value and should be pursued by all people everywhere. Further, Aristotle agreed with Plato that there are unchanging Forms or essences which represent what is the ideal good for various classes of things (qualities, relationships, properties of objects and so forth). When something is developing, growing, thinking, or acting as it should, it is good.

There are some general differences we should address before getting to more specific dissimilarities between the two philosophers. Aristotle’s conception of metaphysics demonstrates a different approach than Plato’s. It is important to keep in mind, however, that Plato never systematized his thought in the way Aristotle did. The difference in approach between Plato and Aristotle has interesting and significant ramifications for intellectual history. Aristotle’s method is much more systematic in nature and scope. He is analytic, descriptive, and demonstrates a love for cataloging and ordering ideas and things. Aristotle’s work has the feel of a disinterested scientist as he was intensely focused on classifying things, defining their important concepts and properties, and setting it all in proper order. In modern terms, it is not too far off to say that Aristotle was the first Analytic philosopher (due to his careful focus on language and logic) and Plato could be considered the first of the Continental philosophers (with his impulse for difficult narrative and language). Readers of Aristotle, however, will have no problem at getting at his main themes while Plato’s structure is often difficult to discern.

In future posts, we will discover how Aristotle’s conceptual framework of reality avoided Plato’s inherent Gnosticism. It is no surprise that when Socrates was to be executed, he thanked his executioners. What could be better, for one who believed that the body is the prison house of the soul, than to be released from a physical body? For the Platonist, the body just gets in the way of things. It prevents true disembodied union with the Good. For Plato, Plotinus, and the Platonic tradition generally, the goal of the individual is to escape the physical world of becoming, time, and instability of which the physical body is a part. Death and disembodiment are to be welcomed. On the other hand, Aristotle’s view that all things are made of a composition of form and matter—what has become known as hylomorphism (the view that all natural things require for their existence both passive “stuff” and an active, determining essence)—escapes the problem of Gnosticism.

Metaphysics simply means “after physics” it is a sub-field of philosophy which is interested in the principles, laws, and axioms which make all other sciences possible.

Aristotle believed that metaphysics is a science in a broad or general sense. In German, the word Wissenschaft refers to any theoretical study. In this sense, theology is a science, the study of ethical theory is a science, and the study of political thought is a science. Any theoretical study is a science and that is the way Aristotle approaches metaphysics.

But he distinguishes between particular sciences and what he calls “first wisdom,” “first philosophy” or “first principles,” what he calls the proper areas of focus for metaphysics.1 For Aristotle, metaphysics is the study of “being as being” in the most general sense. Metaphysics is the science of sciences. It is the overarching science of all the sciences. The most general of all the sciences. Now, particular sciences, are concerned with the various principles that are at work in a particular area of things and in different kinds of things. And it is Aristotle who introduces classification in terms of species and family and so forth. “First Philosophy” according to Aristotle, is the “science of sciences” or the science of all being and reality. It is the study of the universe and its basic properties that are not empirical. There are sciences having to do with animals, sciences having to do with plants, there are sciences having to do with heavenly bodies and their movements, sciences having to do with all sorts of things. All of the things that the physical sciences are about are beings. They are all particular sciences about specific things.

When it comes to metaphysics, however, Aristotle is concerned with what makes it all possible in the first place. Metaphysics is the investigation of “being as being” or being in the most general and richest sense. He wants us to think about the most universal principles and questions of reality. Why is there something rather than nothing? What makes unity out of the diversity we see all around us? These are the great metaphysical questions of being.

For Aristotle, then, metaphysics is the science which supplies the knowledge and foundation for which all other fields are grounded. The science of metaphysics applies non-empirical truths to the world around us by developing common-sense reasoning through studying the nature of existing things and developing philosophical principles from them. Ultimately, the study of metaphysics is concerned with foundational first principles such as the laws of logic, the law of noncontradiction, the principle of causality, the principle of predictive uniformity, and the principle that an effect can not be greater than its cause, an event can not precede itself, and other first principles of reality. What is to be … and to become? What is being itself? What does it mean to exist and stand out of nothingness? Now those are questions for the science of sciences, the science of being, the first wisdom we call metaphysics.

1It is true that Aristotle never used the term “metaphysics” in his work. He used the term “first philosophy,” “first wisdom” or “first principles” which marked out the field of metaphysics. His work entitled Metaphysics was a title given to a collection of works that went beyond physics by an early editor. Nonetheless, his work clearly laid the foundation for what we now think of as metaphysics as the primary field of philosophy and that which has to do with the ultimate principles of reality. I will use the term “first philosophy” for his understanding of metaphysics.

For those who want to dig more deeply into the important ideas that Aristotle gave us, here are some great resources:

A. E. Taylor, Aristotle

Mortimer J. Adler, Aristotle: Difficult Thought Made Easy

Henry B. Veatch, Aristotle: A Contemporary Appreciation