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, Philosophy of Science

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

by Dave Seng

“The most practical and important thing about a man, is still his view of the universe.” – G. K. Chesterton

It is important to think about our most basic ideas, conceptions, and assumptions. After all, our foundational principles and ideas shape and inform what we think and how we act towards many other things in life. It is even more important to think about the first things of all reality. How we decide these questions will determine how and what we think about other things. For example, someone thinks that all reality is really mass and energy in motion, then it will be easy to understand where they fall on moral issues regarding the beginning and ending of life. On the other hand, if one believes in a supernatural or incorporeal reality then we know what he or she thinks in a variety of other things. Our most commonplace expressions of political policy, ethical decisions, and our understanding of the natural world such as change, cause, mass and energy, reflect assumptions about our basic ideas of the universe and our place in it. As G. K. Chesterton explained, “The most practical and important thing about a man, is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy’s numbers, but still more important to know the enemy’s philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them.”1 Everyone, whether we realize it or not holds basic ideas—a philosophy—regarding humankind’s curiosity about itself and the universe of which he or she is a part. I’m convinced that the most important questions in life are metaphysical in nature. All the important questions we can explore are, in the final analysis, a result of what we think about the nature of reality.

This is just as true today as it was for a collection of philosophers who lived in the ancient world known as the pre-Socratics. I will explain who the pre-Socratics were and what they believed in an upcoming post. For now, it is enough to know that the pre-Socratics were the world’s first metaphysicians and in one way or another shaped the field of philosophy ever since. This post will focus on their influence and seek to explain why their primary question—the problem of the one and the many—is a significant difficulty for us today. I will post an essay or two to explain how different pre-Socratic philosophers answered the question. Then, we will discover how nearly every philosopher from Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Augustine through Aquinas, Kant and Hegel and even postmodern and critical theorists today still struggle with the question of the one and the many and its relevance for us in our current intellectual and cultural climate. First, however, let’s examine the classical problem of the one and the many and why it is still important.

What is this problem of the one and the many? Philosopher Ed Miller articulates the problem this way: The problem of the one and the many is “the problem of identifying the ultimate reality (the One) that underlies all things (the Many) and of explaining the relation between them or how the Many derives from the One”.2 It is a problem because logically the many can not be one (or it would not be many) and the one can not be many (or it would not be one). According to the law of noncontradiction, the one cannot be many at the same time and in the relationship.

The pre-Socratic philosophers were perplexed by the question of reality. They were puzzled by the nature of existence and what it means to exist in a world of change, contingency, and finitude. Yet somehow something holds this world together in unity. How do all things relate to one reality? Not everything is pure chaos. Finite things have unity or oneness. At the same time, all of reality (Being) seems to be coherent, ordered, and rationally discernible. Could it be there is an underlying reality that is revealed in the many things around us? If so, how is this underlying reality related to or connected to the individual things we encounter every day?

The fundamental issue is, coming from the fact of existence (Being), what do all things have in common? It seemed to the pre-Socratics that behind the vast multiplicity of things that make up the universe, there is some principle of unity, the very insight that is embodied in our word universe, which means “combined into one”.3

This quest to find unity out of diversity demonstrates the human impulse to seek an explanation for things. Generally speaking, the best explanation is the one that is simple, unified, and rationally coherent—what philosophers call the principle of simplicity. This principle states that one explanation is preferred over another by virtue of its employment of fewer and/or simpler factors. In philosophy, science, and everyday life, we tend to accept the simplest explanation that makes the most reasonable sense out of the given facts. We take unity as a principle of explanation because it unites, integrates, and encompasses that which is known. We do not like needlessly complex answers to questions. Complex answers certainly can be found for complex questions but the principle of simplicity explains why a single simpler answer that incorporates and makes sense out of a diversity of facts is often preferred. As we shall see in upcoming posts, the pre-Socratics may seem to be naive and unscientific, but their quest for an account for the unity from the many and what it means to provide an explanation for something is not at all unreasonable or irrelevant. 

The question of the one and the many shapes how we think about a variety of things. It is not an abstract problem strictly for the amusement of philosophers. In history of Western thought, the basic themes of being and becoming, the intelligible (mental and conscious) and sensible, the definite and infinite, same and other, particular and universal, and existence and nothingness all relate to the question of what reality is and how the many diverse things that exist relate to it. These themes point to the relationship everything takes part in and the underlying reality that makes things one, in other words, the unity of Being. The question of the one and the many may take on different names but in various ways, the inquiry is the same.

We can see how the issue works out today. Physicists have been concerned with the divisibility or indivisibility of matter and the strange behavior of sub-atomic particles for a long time. Why is it that physics is fairly regular and ordered at the macro level but not at the quantum level? Nevertheless, something unites the two. This is what John Boslough was getting at when he wrote, “Only by reconciling the two seemingly irreconcilable areas of physics can theorists hope to find a unified field theory that will explain the workings of the entire universe”. In some ways, the question of the one and many has become more relevant today than it was for the pre-Socratics. The quest, however, to find an underlying reality which unites everything else remains. How is it that time keeps moving forward when sensible particular things stop? What keeps time continuous? Time seems to be divisible yet there is an underlying unity to it. This is a question of the one and the many. In the realm of politics, one might ask, does the individual exist for the benefit of the state or the state for the individual? If so, in what way? How should the state be united for the common life of the many? What unites a community into a state? During the founding of America, the Federalists solved this problem with the slogan, e pluribus unum, “from the many, one”. But what happens when unity breaks down? These are important existential questions that will affect everyone at one time or another.

In the following posts, I hope to explore the ramifications of important metaphysical questions that center around the problem of the one and the many. We’ll discover how physics is applied metaphysics, social science is applied metaphysics and why Kant was right when he argued for a metaphysical foundation for ethical decisions.

We will continue to explore the question of the one and the many. For now, I hope that we can see that we all have been influenced and impacted by this most practical and metaphysical question of reality.

[Note, some of my readers have indicated that my posts are conceptually difficult for them. I apologize. I have tried to write at the beginning and intermediate levels but I know I often fail. In light of this, I have created a philosophical glossary to help out. In the meantime, I will still try to explain things more carefully because philosophy is important for all human flourishing.]

1G. K. Chesterton, Heretics (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1905) P. 15.

2Ed Miller, Questions that Matter, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, 1996) P. 59.

3Daniel Sullivan, An Introduction to Philosophy: Perennial Principles of the Classical Realist Tradition, (Tan Books, 2009), P. 12.