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

Intellectual History, Logic, Metaphysics, Natural Theology, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science

The Pre-Socratics: What Have We Learned?

by Dave Seng

For this post, we will conclude our series on the pre-Socratics and the problem of the one and the many.

Part one can be found here, part two here, and part three here.

I want to provide a short summary of what we have learned about the metaphysical thinking of the pre-Socratics and provide a short note about what I have in mind for the next couple of essays.

In our recent series exploring the intellectual contributions of the pre-Socratics, we focused on the ancient problem of the one and the many (what I will call the one-many problem, OMP). The OMP is the underlying theme of Western metaphysics. When philosophers examine the intelligible along with the sensible, the definite and infinite, the universal and particular, the nature of change, or the role of the state and the individual, the question of the OMP is always underneath the inquiry.

As we have seen, the OMP is central to Being, Nonbeing, Becoming, and the nature of change in the physical world. In this sense, metaphysics is closely related to physics. (One of the best books on this topic is Roger Trigg’s Beyond Matter: Why Science Needs Metaphysics.)

We also learned that the OMP is a question that relates to the nature, character, and origin of the cosmos. The earliest philosophers where exploring the metaphysical foundations of the universe as they looked for the source of Being and the nature of Becoming in our world. The field of metaphysics seeks to discover, explicate, and lay out the most basic principles and properties of the world (and all of Being) and the pre-Socratics were the first ones to apply reason and develop this method. Since it is impossible to deny that something such as the universe is, the next question is, “is it one or many?” Errors occur when either unity or the many is made primary. We also saw that the pre-Socratics were the first to apply the laws of logic, such as the law of identity and the law of noncontradiction, to the nature of reality (the Being-Becoming relationship) and discovered the metaphysical emphasis of the laws of logic. The OMP only makes sense in a world governed by logic, order, and uniformity in the natural world and the pre-Socratics understood this point. It is also the reason Aristotle focuses so much of his attention on it in his Physics.

Although it not always explicit in every philosopher, the OMP is the underlying central metaphysical concern of much of Western intellectual history. In the next couple of essays, we will discover how the OMP leads Plato to the discovery of form and how it enlightens Aristotle in his doctrines of immanent form, change, act, and potency.

Metaphysics, Natural Theology, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science

The Nature of Reality and The One and The Many, Part Three

by Dave Seng

Part one of the series can be found here.

Part two of the series can be found here.

It is impossible that what is, can also be what is not. (Restatement of the Law of Noncontradiction.)

Do you believe that all of reality came from one source? If you do, you are in agreement with one of the oldest cosmological and metaphysical theories of all intellectual history. You also might find yourself in agreement with the pre-Socratic monists who believed that Being is unified into one essential metaphysical scheme. If you disagree with the monists, however, you too might find yourself at home with the pre-Socratic pluralists whose understanding of reality also enjoys an ancient provenance. At this point, we will not answer this important conversation but I do hope to point out some things that we can learn from it. First, the question itself, whether reality ultimately came from one source, is one in nature, or is simply a collection of random diverse things, is still alive and with us today. We see this in debates about the fine-tuning of the universe (mostly from physicists), and various intelligent design theorists (generally from biology), who point to a theistic God as the source of reality, and those who would fall into a similar category as the pluralists who point out the diversity, randomness, and chaotic aspects of the natural world. The great question of the one and the many just will not go away. The other thing we can learn about this conversation is how it centers on what the ancient philosophers called Being (the nature of all reality). As we will see in future posts an important reformulation of the question of the one and the many has come to be known as Being (the one) and Becoming (the many). We can use the terms interchangeably. Everything we discussed in parts one and two about the problem of the one and the many can be applied to the concepts Being and Becoming. This brings us to the important discussion between Heraclitus and Parmenides.

We will begin with Parmenides. Parmenides (ca. 475) was a philosopher who lived in Italy, founded the Eleatic school of philosophy, and taught that it is rationally necessary that reality be one and immutable. Parmenides went as far as to deny motion and change, teaching that such things are an illusion. Being (the principle which unites all reality) must be one. If Being is one, it can not change, and it can not be many. Being can not include nonbeing or becoming as that would be a defect in Being. For Parmenides, change involves imperfection, temporality, and mutability. Change in particular things must be counted among the many (the diversity of all things around us). If change is imperfect, according to Parmenides, it can not be one. If all reality is essentially one, change must be illusory. Parmenides is famous for such pronouncements as “It is necessary to say and think what is. For Being is, and Not-Being is not” and “whatever is, is.” Essentially, Parmenides utterly denied the reality of the sensible world along with all plurality and motion. As radical as Parmenides sounds, there might be an element of truth in his position. He was, after all, making a statement about reality and the essential nature of things. Most philosophers think things have an essential nature that makes them the kind of things they are. A cat has an essential nature that makes it different from a cephalopod. If the essential nature of a cat changes, it is no longer a cat but something else. This is known logically to us by way of the logical laws of identity and the law of noncontradiction (here we notice the metaphysical implications of the laws of logic). Something can not be what it is and something else in the same way and the same relationship. Essence, essential being, is what it is. This has to be for things to make conceptual sense to us.

On the other hand, it would seem foolish to deny that things change. After all, cars, airplanes, and great Blue Whales (among other things) are all capable of traversing large amounts of land, airspace, and water. We understand that movement, motion, growth, and change are part of everyday experience and it does not seem reasonable to deny this aspect of reality. This brings us to Heraclitus (ca 500 B. C.) who taught that all things are in a state of flux governed by a divine, cosmic Law. Several of Heraclitus’s statements have been preserved. He is known for saying things like, “the sun is new every day,” “we are and we are not,” and in reply to Parmenides, “whatever is, is changing.” He is probably most famous for the phrase, “you can not step twice into the same river.” The idea is that once you put your foot into a river, different water will be flowing by the time you put your other foot into it. For Heraclitus, all reality is constantly changing, dynamic, and in flux. It is important to realize that, Heraclitus too, is making a statement about reality. As we move and do things throughout our day, we are changing. As all things exist in time, everything we experience is in a different segment or time frame. In some sense, things are constantly changing.

The tension remains, however, that if everything is in a state of becoming as Heraclitus taught, what is it that perdures when things change? Things do not change into nothingness because nothing (or non-being) is not a thing. Nothing in the physical cosmos can violate the law of conservation. On the other hand, if things have an essential nature and are not completely changing, then rational communication, law and justice, and science are possible. These are important metaphysical concerns that are sometimes overlooked by scientists and others working in the social and behavioral sciences.

This is the difficulty—the tension between Being and Becoming—that was given to Plato to address in his day and has become a central part of the Western intellectual tradition and how we understand that nature of the world around us. The tension is still with us today and the conversation is still alive. In our next post, we will see how Plato attempted to answer the question of Being and Becoming and then we will look at how Aristotle answered the problem.

Metaphysics, Natural Theology, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science

The Nature of Reality and The One and the Many, Part Two

by Dave Seng

We cannot stop at a principle containing separate parts; there must always be a yet higher, a principle above all such diversity. – Plotinus.

In a recent post, I discussed the metaphysical problem of the one and the many. Although this question of reality has largely been forgotten in contemporary philosophical literature, it is very significant and does not seem to go away. After all, the human impulse to make sense of the many different and changing things around us is deep and profound. We can see this drive in almost every human endeavor. Whenever a historian creates a powerful story of the past using a multiplicity of evidence, he or she is confronting the question of the one and the many. When an attorney seeks an action in the court of law and gives diverse reasons or causes for that action, we see the question of the one and the many at work (or the legal question “how ought justice be correctly distributed?” is another form of the same question). The whole point of science is not to leave us with a diverse set of facts but to attempt a singular unified theory that makes the most sense out of those facts. That is why Aristotle devotes the first part of his Physics (a work about the foundation of science and the natural world) to the question of the one and the many. Even the postmodern critical theorist who wants to privilege the diversity of things to the detriment of unity and coherence still provides a narrative of why that is so (for to reject a “metanarrative” or to provide a “metanarrative” of another kind, is still to give a narrative in the attempt to make sense out of things). The question of the one and the many is with us today.

Some scholars think that the question of the one and the many was the original question of philosophy. One of the reasons for this is that it was the central question of the pre-Socratics who handed it over to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the rest of Western intellectual history. As the name suggests, the pre-Socratics were a group of philosophers that lived before Socrates. In fact, this group laid out the basic question that all philosophy and other fields still attempt to answer today. But who are these philosophers?

I can only give a brief overview of the pre-Socratics here. I will provide a list of resources at the end of this post for those who want to explore the topic further. For our purpose, and by way of introduction, I will discuss the important schools and ideas of the pre-Socratics, and in our next post, I will discuss the primary significance of Heraclitus and Parmenides. For now, let us examine the earliest of Western philosophers, Thales.

Thales, the first metaphysician in recorded history, lived around 600 B.C. and came from what is called the Ionian tradition. He lived in the city of Miletus on the western coast of Ionia (now Turkey). Thales and his followers have come to be known as the “Miliesian Monists” due to the fact that as they sought an answer to the question of the one and the many, they emphasized that all reality can be reduced to one basic principle. (Monism is the idea that all reality is in some sense one and unified in its essence or nature.) If all things have an essence or basic nature, they reasoned, so does the cosmos. In Thales’ case, he posited water as the basic essence of reality. It might seem odd that such an ancient thinker has become famous due his idea that water is the essence of reality. However, Thales is among the first thinkers in the Western intellectual tradition to ground his thinking on evidence, examination, common sense perception, and evaluation as authoritative in all matters of belief and conduct, what is now called rationalism. He did not turn to the Greek anthropomorphic gods, goddesses, or other mysterious forces to explain the natural world around him. He was the first to provide an argument based on evidence and reason regarding the natural world. We do not, however, know exactly why he chose water and not some other element. Perhaps he chose water due to the fact that all living things need it to survive, or that it exists in three different states (liquid, gas, solid), or that it is the most plentiful substance on the planet. After all, it is reported that Thales wrote a book about navigating the seas. The important thing to understand at this point is that Thales emphasized unity and “the one” when it came to the question of the one and the many and chose water as the essential nature of reality. Other early monists lived and worked in this tradition as well, such as Anaxemines (550 B. C.), who proposed that air was the basic essence of reality because it is a sort of life-principle, and Heraclitus (500 B. C.), who taught that although reality is always changing, fire was the one element that holds all things together and provides balance and order in the cosmos.

There also were pre-Socratics who emphasized change, the many, and the diversity we see all around us. These thinkers are known as “the Pluralists” because they sought to identify reality with a plurality of substances while maintaining that each particular thing is a Being and one and immutable. Of this school is Empedocles (450 B. C.), who taught that reality is combined of the four elements of earth, fire, water, and air and are held together by the force of Love which combines things, and torn apart by the power of Strife which separates. Among the Pluralists, we find the first atomists, Democritus (425 B. C.) and Leucippus (450 B. C.) who identified reality with an infinite number of indivisible material particles (atoms) moving randomly in space. The Greek word atomos means “uncuttable” or something that is irreducible. These thinkers believed that the universe came about by a mechanical combining or coagulation of an infinite number of atoms.

No matter which school of thought these pre-Socratic philosophers came from, it can now be understood why they are considered the first metaphysicians and cosmologists due to their investigation of nature and their desire to find a unifying reason or cause for the universe.

Things get really interesting when we come to Parmenides and Heraclitus. It has been said that all of Western philosophy is just a series of footnotes to Plato and Aristotle. (Dr. Mortimer Adler once joked that it was Aristotle who wrote the footnotes.) Nonetheless, the metaphor might be more complete to say that all of philosophy is a series of footnotes to Parmenides and Heraclitus because of the foundational questions they raised about reality. The discussion between Parmenides and Heraclitus is so important that it will be the topic of my next post. For now, it is important to know that the problem of the one and many can also be understood as what philosophers call Being and Becoming, universal and particular, appearance and reality, unity and diversity.

Science still struggles to maintain a balance between these concepts (and we will talk more about that in future posts). For now, just one quick example of this tension between the one and the many can be seen in “chaos theory” and similar fashionable theories we see today. When scientists say things like chaos is an agent of order or that there is a thing called “sensitive chaos” they are really violating the law of noncontradiction and speaking nonsense. If chaos were to be an organizing process of a whole, or a creative agent, it would not be chaos. It is really a reformulation of the problem of the one and the many. If the one is many, it is not one. If reality is one, it is not many. The problem persists and it was the pre-Socratics who first pointed out this metaphysical situation. In additional posts, we will explore how Plato and Aristotle attempted to solve this problem (through the discovery of form or essence) and we will learn that how we answer this problem will affect how one does science and ultimately shapes our world view.

To dig deeper into the pre-Socratics, explore these resources:

Jonathon Barnes. The Presocratic Philosophers. Revised ed. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982

James N. Jordan. Western Philosophy: From Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Macmillan Publishing Co., 1987.

John Burnet. Early Greek Philosophy. Fourth Ed. Macmillan Publishing Co., 1930. (One of the best standard treatments of the pre-Socratics, although from a positivist perspective. Excellent selected fragments and commentary.)

Fredrick Copleston. A History of Philosophy. Baltimore: Newman Press, Vol. 1.