Aristotle's Metaphysics, Ethics & Hellenistic Philosophy

Aristotle's Core Philosophical Concepts

Metaphysics: The Study of Being

Being and Substance

Aristotle observed that the concept of "being" has multiple meanings. However, he argued that these meanings ultimately relate to a primary concept: substance (ousia). Substance is fundamental because it exists independently, serving as the underlying subject for its various properties or accidents (e.g., quality, quantity, relation). Accidents cannot exist on their own but must belong to a substance.

Categories

The Categories represent the different fundamental ways predicates can apply to a substance, classifying the types of accidents and also including what Aristotle termed secondary substance (universal concepts like genera and species, e.g., "human" or "animal").

Hylomorphism: Matter and Form

According to the doctrine of hylomorphism, natural beings are composites of:

• Matter (hyle): The underlying stuff or potentiality from which something is made.
• Form (morphe or eidos): The essence or structure that makes a thing what it actually is.

In natural objects, matter and form cannot exist separately. Aristotle distinguished between:

• Prime Matter: Pure potentiality, without any form itself, the ultimate material substrate of the cosmos.
• Proximate Matter: Matter that already possesses some form (e.g., bronze is the proximate matter for a statue).

Form is considered ontologically superior because it determines the identity and actuality of a thing.

Actuality and Potentiality

Change and development are explained through the concepts of actuality and potentiality:

• Actuality (entelecheia or energeia): The state of being fully realized or complete; what something is currently.
• Potentiality (dynamis): The inherent capacity or power within a thing to become something else or to change; what something can be.

Actuality takes precedence over potentiality; potentiality is always directed towards a specific actuality, and its existence implies the possibility of becoming actual.

Degrees of Reality

Aristotle conceived of reality as having degrees:

1. Lowest Degree: Prime matter, pure potentiality, capable of becoming anything but actually nothing specific.
2. Intermediate Grade: Natural beings (plants, animals, humans), composed of varying degrees of potentiality and actuality.
3. Highest Degree: Pure Actuality (Actus Purus), identified with the Unmoved Mover – fully actualized being, the ultimate cause of motion and change in the cosmos, without any potentiality itself.

Theory of the Soul

Definition and Mortality

The soul (psyche) is defined as the substantial form, or the first actuality, of a natural body potentially having life. It is the principle that animates the body. For Aristotle, the soul (except possibly the active intellect) is mortal and inseparable from the body it animates. Souls are not exclusive to humans.

Types of Soul

Aristotle identified a hierarchy of soul functions, corresponding to different kinds of living beings:

• Vegetative Soul: Found in plants, responsible for nutrition, growth, and reproduction.
• Sensitive Soul: Found in animals, includes vegetative functions plus sensation, desire, and locomotion.
• Rational Soul: Found in humans, includes vegetative and sensitive functions plus the capacity for reason and thought (nous).

Theory of Knowledge

Basis of Knowledge

All knowledge originates from sensible things. The process begins with sensation (receiving data about particular objects), proceeds to memory (retaining sensory impressions), and involves imagination (combining sensations into images).

Degrees of Knowledge

Knowledge progresses through several stages:

1. Experience (empeiria): Knowledge of particular facts gained through repeated sense perceptions and memory.
2. Art/Skill (techne): Practical knowledge of how to do or make things, involving an understanding of universals related to production.
3. Wisdom (sophia): Theoretical knowledge of first principles and ultimate causes, the highest form of understanding, encompassing both scientific knowledge (episteme) and intuitive reason (nous).

Forms of Understanding (Intellect)

Aristotle distinguished two aspects of the rational intellect:

• Passive Intellect (or potential intellect): The capacity to receive the forms abstracted from sense images. It becomes informed by the intelligible forms.
• Active Intellect (or agent intellect): The power that illuminates the sense images, abstracting the universal, intelligible forms, making them understandable by the passive intellect. Aristotle suggested this part might be immortal and separable.

Ethics and Politics

Ethics: The Pursuit of Individual Good

The ultimate goal (telos) of human action is happiness (eudaimonia), often translated as flourishing or living well. This is achieved by performing activities in accordance with human nature's specific excellence. Since reason is the highest human faculty, happiness involves rational activity. Virtue (arete) is crucial for happiness. Aristotle distinguishes:

• Moral Virtues: Dispositions or habits developed through practice, enabling one to choose the rational mean between two extremes (vices of excess and deficiency) in feelings and actions. Examples include courage (mean between rashness and cowardice) and temperance (mean between self-indulgence and insensibility). This choice is guided by reason and practical wisdom.
• Intellectual Virtues: Excellences of the rational part of the soul, acquired through teaching and learning. The main ones are sophia (theoretical wisdom) and phronesis (practical wisdom or prudence), which guides ethical choice.

Politics: The Pursuit of the Common Good

Humans are inherently social and political beings (zoon politikon), naturally needing to live in communities (polis or city-state). The State exists not just for survival but for the sake of the good life, pursuing the common good. A well-ordered state is necessary for individuals to achieve full human flourishing and virtue.

Classification of Governments

Governments are classified based on who rules and whether they rule for the common good (just) or their own self-interest (unjust):

• Just Forms (rule for common good):
  • Monarchy: Rule by one
  • Aristocracy: Rule by the few (best)
  • Polity (Constitutional Republic): Rule by the many
• Unjust/Deviant Forms (rule for private interest):
  • Tyranny: Deviation from Monarchy
  • Oligarchy: Deviation from Aristocracy
  • Democracy (Mob Rule): Deviation from Polity

Brief Notes on Hellenistic Philosophy

Epicureanism: Pleasure as the Goal

Founded by Epicurus, this school identified happiness with pleasure. However, this primarily meant the absence of pain (aponia) in the body and the absence of disturbance (ataraxia) in the mind, rather than constant sensual gratification. They distinguished:

• Kinetic Pleasure: Experienced during the act of satisfying a desire (e.g., eating when hungry).
• Static Pleasure: Experienced after a desire is satisfied; the state of equilibrium and freedom from want (considered superior).

Achieving this state involved simple living, understanding the natural world (to eliminate superstitious fears), and cultivating friendships.

Stoicism: Virtue and Acceptance

Founded by Zeno of Citium, Stoicism taught that happiness lies in living virtuously, in accordance with nature and universal reason (logos). The key was to focus on what is within our control (our judgments and responses) and accept what is not (external events). Key elements for achieving this include:

• Virtue as the Sole Good: Only moral virtue is truly good; external things like health or wealth are indifferent.
• Apatheia: Freedom from disturbing passions (like fear, excessive desire, grief), achieved through reason.
• Ataraxia: Tranquility or imperturbability of mind.
• Self-Sufficiency (autarkeia): Independence from external circumstances for one's happiness.
• Acceptance of Fate: Voluntarily accepting the natural and rational order of the universe.