Aristotle Metaphysics: Being, Substance & Hylomorphism

Aristotle's Metaphysics

Metaphysics: Aristotle's Metaphysics begins with the phrase "Everyone wants to know," which he calls first philosophy. The word metaphysics has two meanings:

• Metaphysics as the study of realities not demonstrable experimentally; that is, what is beyond empirical demonstration.
• Metaphysics as the science of being, including the study of first principles and the highest causes.

Ways of Being

Being is said in many ways; that is, "being" is analogical and has multiple senses. To understand it one must approach it from different perspectives. These include:

• Being in an essential sense
• Being in an accidental sense
• Being in a dynamic sense
• Being in a causal sense
• The supreme being in a logical sense

Hylomorphic Theory of Substance

Hylomorphic theory of substance. That "being is said in many ways" means that a being can be affected by many categories; Aristotle lists ten categories. There is a basic category called substance, the essence of each thing that exists by itself and is not predicated of anything else. Aristotle distinguishes two types of substances:

• Primary substance — the individual, unique being that always functions as a subject.
• Secondary substance — the species or class to which individuals belong.

There are nine accidental categories, which cannot exist by themselves but attach to some substance. The hylomorphic account tells us that substance, the concrete reality, consists of a composite: matter and form. This explains why being is dynamic and why change and movement are possible. There are not two worlds but one: beings made of substance together with their accidents.

Knowledge, Sensibility, and Empiricism

Epistemological position. The pre-Socratic philosophers often regarded the senses as deceptive and thus unreliable as a source of knowledge, so they emphasized reason as the only reliable tool. Likewise, for Plato, sensibility can be a hindrance that must be overcome to achieve true knowledge. Aristotle, by contrast, took a position that can be characterized as empiricist: knowledge should be directed to our sensible world, and, within this world, what is truly real is the individual, corporeal substance. Natural beings possess a principle of intelligibility that comes from their immanent form or essence. Therefore, knowledge is primarily concerned with sensible things in this world. For all knowledge we must rely on:

• Sensation — which allows us to obtain data from the reality around us.
• Memory — which preserves the traces of our senses.
• Imagination — which can bring together different sensations and develop a unitary image.

The capacities of sensation, memory, and imagination are not exclusive to humans; animals also possess them.