The argument of Aristotle's Metaphysics

Preface

This essay is the result of a study of Aristotle's Metaphysics undertaken in the history of philosophy seminar at Columbia University. The need for an acquaintance with Aristotle's own statement of his philosophical doctrine is generally recognized. To many students of philosophy, however, the difficulties presented by the original are almost insuperable. Yet, pending the appearance of an authoritative English translation, there seems to be no way of gaining an adequate appreciation of the Metaphysics except through recourse to the Greek text. Under the best of circumstances it will always remain a difficult task to master Aristotle's system of philosophy. The difficulty, it appears to the writer, is needlessly aggravated by obscurities in composition which prevent the student from centering his energies upon what is fundamental. In the following pages an attempt has been made to give without criticism a statement of what have appeared to one student to be the main currents of Aristotle's thought. In this attempt

6 PREFACE

the Metaphysics is taken as an existing document, and no endeavor is made to enter into questions of historical origin and textual criticism.

In the preparation of this essay the author has been greatly indebted to Professor Frederick J. E. Woodbridge, of Columbia University, at whose suggestion the work was begun and under whose able direction it has been brought to completion. To Dr. H. B. Alexander, who has assisted with criticism and kindly advice, the author owes acknowledgment; and especially to her husband, Dr. Alvin S. Johnson, Adjunct Professor of Economics in Columbia University, she is indebted for invaluable aid and unfailing encouragement.

Contents

PAGE

Introductoby 11

CHAPTER I Preliminary Inquiries

I. Nature and Origin of Scientific Thouglit 21

II. Rank of Philosophy in the Hierarchy of the Sciences . . 23

III. Fundamental Objects of Philosophical Inquiry 26

IV. Manner and Method of Philosophical Exposition .... 29 V. The Questions of the Book of Doubts 32

CHAPTER II The Scope of Philosophy

I. Philosophy as the Science of Existence as Such .... 38

n. The Unity of Philosophy 39

III. Primal and Relational Existence 44

IV. The Principles of Demonstration and Fundamental Con-

cepts . • 46

V. Philosophy and Theology 51

CHAPTER VI The Unity of Matter and Form — Potentiality

I. The Statement of the Problem of Unity 132

II. The Logical Basis of Change 140

III. The Unity of Individual Existence as Expressed in the

Terms of Actuality and Potentiality 142

IV. The Actual and the Potential 146

V. The Primacy of the Actual 153

CONTENTS 9

PAGE

CHAPTER VII The Ideas and Mathematical Entities

I. The Necessity for the Existence of the Eternal 157

II. Mathematical Existence and the Pythagorean Doctrine . 160

III. Criticism of the Doctrine of Ideas 163

CHAPTER VIII DiYiNE Existence

I. The Conception of a First Cause 167

II. The First Cause as a Final Cause 170

III. The Divinities of the Stars 177

IV. The Nature of God 183

To a few admirers of Aristotle it will forever appear an excellent thing that the discussion in the Metaphysics is variously interrupted and, without an always evident reason, frequently turned in new directions. In the same manner any good teacher might pause to repeat, to bring in historical example, to press home a point against opposing doctrine or to take up the argument from a new approach. But for the majority of readers the obscurities of the Metaphysics are undoubtedly increased by what appear as somewhat serious defects of composition. Aside from certain omissions and passages repeated or evidently misplaced, such as we should expect in an ancient writing, there is a lack of co-ordination among its various divisions which is almost certain to give rise to perplexity. It is for this reason that an attempt has been made to bring together in the following pages the main theses of the argument. Only a few indications occur in the text of the Metaphysics regarding its plan ; and these on a first reading

12 INTBOD UCTOR Y

are easily overlooked. It may even appear that the work hardly forms a connected whole. The literary devices upon which the modern reader has grown dependent are lacking. The abrupt transitions and the frequent introduction of controversial matter tend to obscure the unity of the argument.

However many the indications that the Metaphysics, if it be essentially an integral, is at any rate an unfinished work, the judgment of incompleteness applies only in an editorial sense. Logically incomplete the Metaphysics is not. Its very defects of form indirectly disclose the completeness of its argument. That it has preserved through, we know not what historical vicissitudes, the unity which it undoubtedly possesses, is due wholly to the powerful structure of the original thought. Aristotle's argument has survived a measure of literary disintegration which would have been fatal to one not genuinely coherent. It can fail to impress no student of the text of the Metaphysics that, whatever interruptions the presentation may suffer, the thought is recovered with a firmness which would be impossible were it in fact less adequately conceived.

The confused impression which is likely to result from a first reading of the Metaphysics is not dismissed until one has learned to recognize those portions which are essential to the argument. In the form preserved from antiquity the work is divided into fourteen books, indicated by the letters of the Greek alphabet in their order from Alpha to Nu inclusive, the second division, however, being known as Alpha the Less, while the third book is Beta. Several of the books are in whole or in part of slight importance for the development of the argument. In fact, were the Metaphysics a modern philosophical writing, it is probable that the material would be so reduced as to represent only six of the fourteen books. The view has indeed been held that the Metaphysics is a collection of relatively independent and unfinished treatises. Upon a close examination of the text, however, this view does not appear to be tenable. It seems rather that we have in the body of the work a well connected argument, and that this is supported by discussions relating to the historical development of thought or devoted to the elaboration of concepts of which the argument makes use. While certain of the books are not essential to the statement of Aristotle's theory, the linkage is after all close. The recapitulations which are natural in view of the probable conditions under which the Metaphysics took its present form might readily be spared. But to dispense with large portions of the text would mean a distinct philosophical loss.

It remains true, however, that a treatise might have been formed which would approach more nearly than does the Aristotelian work the modern standard of compact composition. While Aristotle's view will for different readers begin to take shape at various points, such a treatise would conceivably begin with what as the work stands is the fourth division, Book Gamma. It would omit Delta, and from the beginning of Book Epsilon to the close of Theta would adopt the general procedure much as it is in the Aristotelian text. Neglecting Iota and Kappa, it would find the materials for its concluding chapters in Book Lambda. It is in Gamma that Aristotle gives his definition of philosophy or First Science and clearly marks out its subject-matter. In Book Epsilon the province of what has been called the science of existence as such is further defined by the elimination of irrelevant meanings of the term existence. With the opening chapters of Book Zeta the problem is completely defined : What constitutes primal existence? Zeta gives the critical part of the argument. It is here that Aristotle tries the various modes of solving what he has stated to be the central philosophical problem and that his own definition of existence is finally reached. Between Books Zeta and Theta, Book Eta forms a natural link. It carries

INIRODUCIORY 15

further the question raised in Zeta regarding the unity of form and matter in the individual or the concrete object, and suggests the answer in terms of the actual and the potential — conceptions which are fully developed in Theta. It is a principle of Aristotle's exposition that philosophical inquiry should begin with what is apparent to sense perception ; thence it should pass, if possible, to reality beyond the reach of sense — to the existence of the divine. Accordingly the earlier part of the Metaphysics is consistently devoted to the determination of what constitutes the existence of objects in ordinary experience. Upon the completion of this study the logical necessity of positing an existence beyond sense perception is indicated, and in Book Lambda Aristotle brings all the resources of his philosophy to bear upon what he conceives to be the highest object of philosophical inquiry, the nature of the divine. The plan of the present essay requires chief emphasis upon those portions of the Metaphysics which contain the more prominent indications of the movement of the argument. These portions, as has been indicated in the preceding paragraph, can be discussed with but slight departure from the order in which they stand in the text. Since, however, the books which are not actively occupied with the direct exposition of the theory do nevertheless contribute to its more complete elucidation, they can not be entirely disregarded. In many cases they afford indications concerning the motives underlying Aristotle' s procedure, and elsewhere they complete inquiries which the main discussion has suggested but cannot pursue.

Book Alpha forms so admirable an introduction to the whole work that a modern presentation would hardly care to dispense with its tracing of the development of knowledge, its masterful characterization of the highest knowledge, or even with its obviously biased account of earlier philosophy. The second book is a brief one and consists largely of general remarks on method ; but what is of more importance, it announces what is later to appear as a highly significant doctrine, viz. that no causal series whatever can be infinite. Book Beta passes in rapid summary the questions which historically have arisen or must naturally arise in the pursuit of the inquiry. As a result of the decision in Book Gamma to consider the study of general terms a proper part of philosophy. Book Delta records the detailed examination of about thirty concepts. It is more, however, than the glossary which its construction suggests ; it is genuinely philosophical in intention. The study of concepts recurs in Book Iota, which is chiefly occupied with unity and its derivative concepts. Iota is more detached than any other of the books, and yet the relation to the main development is probably more intimate than at first sight appears. When one considers the central position occupied in the chief inquiry by the concept of change, and its necessary implication, the concept of contraries, which in turn is made to depend upon the distinction between unity and plurality, the connection with the main argument is at least indicated. Kappa is of all the books of smallest special value. Aside from the very considerable doubt as to its right to a place in the MetaphysicSy^ the fact that the first half is made up of repetitions from the other books, with negligible differences as to expression, while the latter half is largely quotation from the Physics^ renders this division of slight significance. Books Mu and Nu, on the other hand, form the most valuable commentary there remains from antiquity on the doctrines of Plato and the Pythagoreans. Owing to the preservation of Plato's Dialogues such a commentary cannot have the importance as regards the system of Plato that it has for the study of the Pythagoreans. Aristotle is supposed to have prepared a treatise upon

^ Cf. Christ's edition of the Metaphysics, p. 218, 1059a, 18, note.

the Pythagorean teachings, but as this has not survived we are largely dependent for their reconstruction upon the criticisms in the last two books, together with briefer comment occurring elsewhere in the Metaphysics. While Books Mu and Nu appear chiefly in the light of a criticism of the doctrines of the Ideas and mathematical entities, they serve also to bring out with some clearness Aristotle's own conception of number.

Refutation of opposing doctrine is of such common occurrence in the Metaphysics as to constitute one of Aristotle's most usual means of exposition. No important position is taken without an endeavor to reach out against possible objection. Instances of this occur when in the course of developing the thesis that all that is real is concrete and individual, that there is an essential diversity in the world, repeated attacks are made on those who would advance the universals as the most genuine forms of existence, and especially on those who would reduce everything to Being or Unity; again, in defence of the plea for the acceptance of what is essential in demonstration and fundamental for knowledge, as against Protagoras and the followers of Heraclitus ; once more in the answer to the Megarians, who had called in question the concept of potentiality. Again, after the inquiry has passed from what is sensibly perceived to the consideration of what may exist beyond reach of perception, and the conclusion is reached that there is a First Mover, who is one, Aristotle not only tests the belief in many supreme beings, but further enters upon an elaborate inquiry concerning other proposed existences beyond the realm of sense, the Ideas and mathematical entities. Reference to other thinkers is by no means always adverse, although it is improbable that Aristotle was himself fully aware of the extent to which he may actually have been indebted to them. In the main he follows his own precept, critically to observe what others have said in order that one may see wherein one may agree and wherein one must disagree with them. An interesting tendency exhibited in the Metaphysics is the endeavor towards a more or less psychological account of the origin of the views criticised, notably in the case of the theory of Ideas and of the doctrine of numbers. It is of course now impossible to determine how far these analyses are correct, but they are at any rate full of suggestion.

Characteristic of the constructive work of the Metaphysics is the unceasing care to discriminate in any problem between the essential and the non-essential ; and when the discrimination has been made, steadfastly to disregard in the pursuit of the inquiry the irrelevant and accidental — although never to deny its existence. No less pronounced is the tendency to introduce wherever possible the most concrete examples obtainable. The directness and lucidity of presentation is largely owing to these two facts. Aristotle announces as part of his method, to proceed from that which is less clear in itself, though early evident to sense perception, to that which is by nature most clear but difficult to recognize. The result of philosophy should be to attain that which in itself is the most transparent truth, the most unwavering and necessary. It is difficult only because ' ^ like birds of the night we are blinded by that which in its own nature is bright as the day.''

CHAPTER I Preliminary Inquiries I

The first three books of the Metaphysics constitute an introduction to the body of the work. Before undertaking a formal definition of philosophy, Aristotle offers a theory as to the origin of speculative thought and indicates its place in the development of knowledge. Apart from any possibly practical value, Aristotle observes, men desire knowledge for its own sake. That there is in all men a natural desire for knowledge on its own account he conceives to be indicated by the fact that the sense of sight is universally prized above the other senses. This is not merely because vision is the most useful of the senses. Entirely apart from practical motives, we place the highest value upon vision because we derive from it more knowledge than from any other sense. Vision makes evident more distinctions in the external world, and this is the reason why it is preferred. It may be said, then, that although the development and formulation of knowledge for its own sake is a late product of human activity, the need which it satisfies is nevertheless an important need experienced by almost all human beings. Such bodies of knowledge as arise through the mere impulse to know, Aristotle calls the speculative or theoretical sciences. He later classifies these sciences as mathematics, natural science and philosophy.

Whenever sense perception does not of itself satisfy the desire to know, questions arise which can be satisfactorily answered only when many instances of a given kind have been observed. Facts must stand not isolatedly nor fortuitously joined as they do in sense perception, but must be grouped according to their kind. Mere generalization of observed fact is, however, not in itself sufficient. The inquirer is not content with the knowledge that one fact resembles another; he will not rest satisfied with the mere noting of likenesses and differences. When the observation of many instances of a class of phenomena leads to an investigation of their causes, knowledge becomes scientific.

Science builds upon empirical knowledge. Nevertheless science is not merely empirical knowledge; it is in a way independent, and the truer it is to its nature, the more complete is that independence. That

PRELIMINAR Y INQ UIRIES 23

is the higher science which covers the wider range of facts and which passes the farther from the concrete. The most thoroughly formulated knowledge, the highest science of all — First Science, Aristotle calls it — must be farthest from the ordinary knowledge of any particular fact, since it must take cognizance of every fact — since, Aristotle implies, the world and all contained therein is its province.

II

It follows then that in Aristotle's thought the rank of a science in the hierarchy of knowledge is not determined by its practical utility. A man's capacity for action bears no direct relation to his acquaintance with general truth. Action, Aristotle emphatically asserts, proceeds from the concrete to the concrete. In a particular situation where something is to be done, the man who has frequently confronted the same conditions may be counted upon to succeed, while one who has wide knowledge, but who has not been called upon to act under similar conditions, will most probably fail. Nevertheless we rightly hold in the highest esteem the disinterested search for knowledge. It is because, as has been suggested, we are not purely practical beings. If those sciences ranked highest which are most intimately related to action we should consider the merely clever practitioner superior to him who has the most comprehensive knowledge of the healing art. Now the one who has the widest knowledge can most clearly unfold the causes ; he it is who is able to communicate his knowledge to others, and this is one reason we rank him highest. Moreover, he excels in that which is man's chief claim to superiority over other terrestrial beings — the ability to attain a knowledge of causes. ^

As the end of practical endeavor is to make and to do, so the aim of philosophy is to know. Those who have a predominantly practical interest care for knowledge of causes only in so far as such knowledge bears immediately upon the accomplishment of some particular purpose. In the knowledge of causes as revealing truth, and especially in the knowledge of the highest causes or eternal principles as embodying

* Artistotle makes an interesting comparison between human and animal psychology, which brings out the fact that the desire for knowledge is, so far as may be discovered, possessed by man alone. Animal intelligence does not exhibit it. Knowledge builds upon experience, and experience is impossible without memory. Animals apparently possess memory in only a limited degree. Therefore it is to be presumed that it is impossible for them to attain to a perception of causes.

PRELIMINAR Y INQ UIBIES 25

the most complete truth, whence lesser truths are derived, the interest is purely philosophical.

Although the desire to know is pronounced by Aristotle to be a universal human trait, he observes that in the order of development those bodies of knowledge which exist to satisfy this desire appear only after the practical needs of mankind have been met. The cultivation of the reflective sciences presupposes leisure. Man must first have turned his attention to those facts the mastery of which was necessary for his existence. Of the various bodies of knowledge the first to develop, therefore, were probably those most intimately bound up with practical interests. It may be supposed that the knowledge upon which is based the art of building or of navigation, or the practice of medicine, must in some degree have been formulated at a very early time. Next to develop, Aristotle suggests, was the knowledge underlying arts ministering to the enjoyment of life, such, possibly, as music, poetry. Latest to become the subject of thought were the sciences which in no way contribute to material well-being, and which in distinction from the sciences pursued for practical ends may be called speculative or reflective.^ It was accord-

ingly natural that the speculative sciences, which may be regarded as the highest product of human activity, should first have been cultivated in that region of the earth where the practical needs were first fully provided, and where first there arose a class of persons freed from the care of procuring the means of material well-being. Thus the earliest development of mathematics appeared in Egypt among the priestly class/

III

It is shown in the Physics that there are four fundamental types of question, the answers to which are technical^ known as causes. One may ask as the ultimate questions concerning any object of inquiry, what is its essential nature ; from what has it arisen ; by means of what has it been brought into existence ; and to what end does it exist ? The answers are known respectively as the formal, the material, the efficient and the final causes.^ The four questions when

* Without testing the example which Aristotle has employed, it is necessary to observe the complete isolation which he gives the reflective life. The highest form of reflective thought, "First Science," or philosophy, is entirely without practical reference.

^aiTiov. This term is essentially an answer to a question. To translate it as "cause" is to incur the risk of its being identified with "efficient agent." This translation, however, has the sanction of usage, and another term could not well be substituted.

PRELIMINAR Y INQ UIBIES 2 7

developed in their widest possible significance constitute philosophical inquiry. Philosophy must as a science treat of causes, and as the highest science, must survey the highest or universal causes.

In the historical development of philosophy Aristotle measures progress according to the recognition given by the various thinkers to what he calls the primary ''causes and origins." The object of the historical survey which is undertaken in the latter part of Book Alpha is quite evidently two-fold. Aristotle would exhibit his predecessors serving as unconscious witnesses of the validity and completeness of his formulation of the causes. He would, in other words, offer the claim that the recognition of the four types of cause was a natural development, which reason could scarce avoid. But of no less importance to the purpose in hand, he would show that the development was carried on by men who were by no means clearly aware of what they were doing. All the names which figure in the history of early Greek philosophy are introduced in approximately the usual chronological order ; and besides these there is mention of several thinkers who have now passed from notice. It is indicated that they developed the causes one by one, partially and often maladroitly. What the facts of the world announced in clearest tones they heard but indistinctly. The earlier thinkers failed / to realize that all the four causes were absolutely essential to adequate explanation. They grasped the modes of explanation separately — one, two, or at most three; thence the incompleteness of their systems. And in the case of those they recognized, they had not so steady a vision as to preserve them from confusion ; hence many of the positive errors of the early doctrines. Thus, all did not have a clear recognition even of the material cause ; some ignored the efficient cause or misconceived it ; few attained any idea of the formal cause ; nearly all who recognized the final cause confused it with the efficient, and no one had an abidingly clear conception of it. Aristotle likens the early thinkers to untrained fencers, who may make some fine strokes without knowledge of what they are doing.

The historical account of the causes contains nothing that is essential to Aristotle's argument. It has, however, exercised a great influence in the traditional presentation of early Greek philosophy, and for all but the more recent writing on the history of the period has constituted a powerful precedent. A closer scrutiny of the obtainable evidence as to what were the actual opinions of the philosophers in question has diminished the prestige of the Aristotelian account. It appears

PRELIMINAR Y INQ UIBIES 29

that Aristotle, comparatively near as he was in time to the period under consideration, had only a limited success in its reconstruction. Lacking the accuracy of an impartial historical account, the survey is evidently a synthesis controlled by a dominating interest.

IV Of the value of comparing one's own views with those of others, Aristotle is strongly convinced. He says at the beginning of Book Alpha the Less that no one can get at the whole of truth or miss it altogether, but all must contribute toward the complete explanation of nature. This is the reason we should give recognition not only to those whose opinions seem accordant with our own, but also to those whose investigations now appear as of slight value. If, for example, Timotheus had never lived, the progress in music would not be what it is, and without Phrynus, Timotheus would not have accomplished what he did. In the last chapter of the book there are some suggestions as to the method of presenting any doctrine. People are prone to welcome that which comes in a familiar garb. Approval will vary according as some have been trained to require mathematical exactness, others concrete examples, while others will be captivated by sonorous phrases from the poets. But in all one at-

30 ABISIOTLE' S METAPHYSICS

tempts, he must take care not to confuse the method of presentation with the study of the subject-matter itself. The mathematically exact method, which some scorn even in scientific discussion as unworthy of a free soul, is indeed appropriate in a science where the material cause does not enter, but it is evidently inadequate for the study of nature in its entirety.

In the absence of all certain knowledge as to the conditions under which the Metaphysics received the form in which we know it, the construction of Book Alpha the Less will continue to give rise to much conjecture. ^ Individually its three chapters show a more studied composition than any other chapters of the Metaphysics. Yet they fall together in such a way as to suggest that the grouping has been adventitious. While the first and third chapters consist of discussion on the method of conducting the inquiry, there appears in chapter two an exposition, given in more detail than seems consonant with the decidedly general character of the book as a whole, of the necessity that in every causal series there is an absolutely first term as there is an absolutely last term. Infinite regress^ is by specific arguments

*The authenticity of the book is doubtful. Cf. Christ's edition, p. 35, 993a, 28, note. ' TO I3a6i^eiv elg aizeipov.

PBELIMINAB Y INQ UIRIES 31

debarred from the conceptions of the material, the efficient, the final and the formal cause. In the infinite all alike are middle terms ; there is no first term, there is strictly no cause of any kind. In any mode of production the material cause is not exhaustless, nor the agency capable of being ceaselessly shifted from one term to a new one ; in any effort at definition the factors which serve to define are not indefinitely resolvable ; and in no action is the aim capable of incessant transmutation. Were it so, there would strictly speaking be no aim, and no definiteness in the constitution of things. Rationality could not have appeared in the world and science would have been impossible, for science depends absolutely upon definiteness in conceptions and determinate sequences in things. Even were it otherwise, were causes in fact infinite, knowledge of causes would nevertheless be unattainable ; for how in a limited time could the mind exhaust infinite series of ^^ causes ? If this chapter is viewed in the light of the discussions that are to follow, it no longer appears as of so special a character as not to belong in the body of the work. Wherever in later argument an infinite series of causes begins to emerge there is an immediate condemnation of the position. In Aristotle's judgment the conception of cause rising above cause forever higher and more remote is not only erroneous but would prove an insuperable obstacle to scientific knowledge. There is then no reason for regarding as misplaced or for otherwise discrediting the chapter which brings forward what is to serve in subsequent argument as an instrument of the most general utility. It is appropriate that a principle of such importance should receive some emphasis in a statement of the general procedure.

Book Beta with its massed questions might be considered to correspond to the guide an author prepares for his own use during the construction of an extensive work, which is not allowed to appear in the work itself except, perhaps, in the guise of a table of contents. It is customary to find in a finished writing that after an introductory statement of the general problem the particular questions are allowed to emerge gradually in the course of the argument. Thus the development seems a more natural one, and it is thought that the interest of the reader is better maintained, than if a great many questions are brought into array before he is at all acquainted with their significance or assured of their relevancy. In Book Beta, however, this latter method is pursued with vigor and not without a conspicuous success. To