Aristotle's Metaphysics and Logic: Understanding Being

Aristotle's Logic

3. Logic. Aristotle is credited with creating logic as a tool for scientific inquiry. He demonstrated that in science, problems are resolved by navigating between the singular and the multiple, the universal and the particular.

The syllogism expresses a relationship that illustrates how the universal applies to the particular. For example: "Every man is mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal."

• Induction (Inverse Process): If we know all particular cases and arrive at a general conclusion, the induction is complete. Example: Men, horses, and mules live long, and they are animals without gallbladders; therefore, animals without gallbladders are long-lived.

We possess scientific knowledge if we know: that something exists, what its essence is, and why it exists.

Demonstration = Scientific Syllogism (based on first principles):

• Axioms: Common to all sciences or specific to a few.
• Thesis: Specific to a particular science (hypotheses, definitions).

Definition = Essence (what a thing is).

Aristotle's Metaphysics

4. Metaphysics. Metaphysics deals with the most universal aspect: "Being qua being and its essential attributes." This is also known as Ontology, the science of Being. "Being and unity are one."

1. We refer to things as "being" in various ways: substances, changes in substances, processes leading to substances, or their destruction.
2. Substance: Despite changes in the underlying material, the substance (physis) remains unaffected. Each individual possesses its own substance, which is unchanging.
   • Primary Substance: The subject, the real (concrete individuals: a lantern, Socrates, etc.).
   • Secondary Substance: The species and genus (human, animal, etc.).

   Accidents (quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and passion) cannot exist separately from a base substance.

3. Matter and Form: The primary/secondary substance cannot be static (e.g., an embryo) (hylomorphic theory). This contrasts with Plato, who believed in static, eternal ideas. Matter has the potentiality to become form.
   • Form: Secondary substance. The species is eternal but only exists within the subject. It has priority because it is 1) the essence of a thing and 2) what makes it definable by its nature.
   • Matter: Primary/secondary substance (e.g., bronze/wood). Raw material that is absolutely unlimited, eternal, without form or qualities (similar to Anaximander's ápeiron).
4. Potency and Act: A physical explanation of change and movement within substance. Being (act) and non-being (potential). Even 'non-being' possesses a form of 'being'.
   • Potency (the capacity to produce an action) resides in the agent (e.g., fire has the power to burn).
   • Passive Potency: The capacity to be affected by an agent (e.g., a match has the potential to be burned).
   • Act:
     1. Energeia: Energy, activity, force, action. Action is the manifestation of an active power. For example, the action of fire is burning.
     2. Entelechia: What has reached its completion. The actualization and finishing of what was in potency. For example, a seed reaching its full potential as a tree.

Types of Change:

1. Substantial Changes: Generation (non-being -> being) and corruption (being -> non-being).
2. Accidental Changes: Quantitative, qualitative (alteration), and locative.