ASSIGNMENT

NAME: ERNEST, BENITA JULIUS

LEVEL: 100 LEVEL

COURSE CODE: GST 104

COURSE TITLE: LOGIC, PHILOSOPHY AND HUMAN

EXISTENCE

QUESTION: HOW WOULD YOU EVALUTE THE STATEMENT

THAT ARISTOTLE’S METAPHYSICS IS PLATO DILUTED WITH
COMMON SENSE

ARISTOTLE’S METAPHYSICS IS PLATO DILLUTED

WITH COMMON SENSE
Plato was a classical Greek philosopher and one of the top 5
contributors to Western philosophy, educator after his mentor,
Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. His sophistication as a writer
started while under the tutelage of Socrates, continued through his
establishing of his own academy, (The Academy of Athens which has
been labeled as the first institution of higher learning in the Western
World) and throughout his many years as an open minded author. Many
of his works in early adulthood displayed his willingness to ask
questions of any type, no preference to scope, difficulty withstanding,
political and intellectual current issues. Plato believed that concepts
had a universal form, an ideal form, which leads to his idealistic
philosophy and Plato, thought experiments and reasoning would be
enough to "prove" a concept or establish the qualities of an object and
in terms of logic he had scan inductive reasoning. Aristotle is among
the most important and influential thinkers and teachers in human
history, often considered — alongside his mentor, Plato — to be a
father of Western Philosophy.” Born in the northern part of ancient
Greece, his writings and ideas on metaphysics, ethics, knowledge, and
methodological inquiry are at the very root of human thought. Aristotle
believed that universal forms were not necessarily attached to each
object or concept, and that each instance of an object or a concept
had to be analyzed on its own and also while in logic, he used
deductive reasoning.

However, both Aristotle and Plato were philosophers in ancient

Greece who critically studied matters of ethics, science, politics, and
more. Though many more of Plato's works survived the centuries,
Aristotle's contributions have arguably been more influential,
particularly when it comes to science and logical reasoning. While
both philosophers' works are considered less theoretically valuable in
modern times, they continue to have great historical value.

Since we have gotten to know about them let’s get to know about
Aristotle’s metaphysics and common sense by Plato, Metaphysics, for
Aristotle, was the study of nature and ourselves. According to Aristotle
is What is known to us as metaphysics is what Aristotle called "first
philosophy”. Metaphysics to this world of sense experience–where we
live, learn, know, think, and it is a study of the universal principles of
being, the abstract qualities of existence itself. Perhaps the starting
point of Aristotle's metaphysics is his rejection of Plato's Theory of
Forms. In Plato's theory, material objects are changeable and not real
in themselves; rather, they correspond to an ideal, eternal, and
immutable Form by a common name, and this form can be perceived
only by the intellect. Thus a thing perceived to be beautiful in this
world is in fact an imperfect manifestation of the Form of Beauty.
Aristotle's arguments against this theory were numerous. Ultimately
he rejected Plato's ideas as poetic but empty language; as a scientist
and empiricist he preferred to focus on the reality of the material
world. So according to Plato showed this common sense to be riddled
with errors, prejudice, and superstition and the problem is that popular
opinions edge us toward the wrong values. Plato, believed that we
can't trust our senses to show us the true form of an object. Also Plato
had a quote which says “Anyone who has common sense will
remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and
arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from
going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as
of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one
whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he
will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter
life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having
turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he
will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will
pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes
from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the
laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into
the den”.

Furthermore, we would breakdown metaphysics. Metaphysics, or

alternatively ontology, is that branch of philosophy whose special
concern is to answer the question ‘What is there?’ These expressions
derive from Aristotle, in a collection of his works, the most detailed
treatise on the general topic of things that are comes after a treatise
on natural things, ta physical (from which English derives ‘physics’).
Since the Greek for ‘after’ is meta, this treatise is titled ‘Metaphysics’.
In that work one finds the famous formula that (first) philosophy
studies being—the Greek for which is on—qua being. Hence the
account of being is ‘ontology’—the English suffix ‘-ology’. Metaphysics,
then, studies the ways in which anything that is can be said or thought
to be.

However, we will discuss Plato’s metaphysics in this paragraph. A

basic introductory account of Plato’s metaphysics that wished to steer
as clear of controversy as possible might claim that Plato, at some
point in his career, came to hold the following views. Whenever a
plurality of sensible things is so-and-so (e.g., beautiful), they are so-
and-so in virtue of bearing the appropriate relation (which can be
variously described as “possession,” “participation,” or “imitation”) to
an abstract object that explains or grounds their being so-and-so. If we
adopt the convention of using “F” as an abbreviation for “so-and-so,”
then this object can be referred to by such expressions as “the F
itself” or “F-ness itself” (e.g., “the beautiful itself,” “beauty itself”), as
distinct from ordinary, sensible F things (e.g., particular beautiful
items). Forms are immaterial, changeless, and eternal; they constitute
the realm of perfect Being; they are the primary referents of general
terms (“beautiful”) and the proper objects of definition and knowledge.
By contrast, sensible particulars are always subject to all sorts of
change, can at most be the objects of belief or opinion, and are
ontologically inferior to forms. The sensible universe as a whole has a
rational, teleological order, in which everything contributes to an
ultimately good purpose, and is arranged according to a mathematical
structure. Now, this basic, generic account leaves room for plenty of
questions and controversies.

Background of Plato’s metaphysics, Three predecessors heavily

influenced Plato's thoughts on metaphysics and epistemology,
Heraclitus (c. 540 B.C.–480–70), Parmenides (c.515 B.C.–449–40), and
Socrates (470 B.C.–399). Only fragments remain of the writings of
Parmenides and Heraclitus, including some contained in the dialogues
of Plato. Socrates wrote nothing. Plato's depiction of his teacher is our
primary source of evidence for his philosophy. Parmenides argued that
there is and could be only one thing, Being. One could not even think
or say what is not. Moreover, since change implies that something
comes to be what it was not—I change from not being tan to being tan,
nothing can change. Reality is static. The appearance of change is just
that, a deceptive appearance. Unfortunately, what little we have left of
Parmenides does not allow us to decide whether he argued that there
is just one item, Being, in his universe—strict numerical monism—or
whether there is just one kind of thing, beings or things that are.
Parmenides' account of Being seems to have contributed to Plato's
doctrine of Forms. In the opinion of most scholars, the seminal
influence on all of Plato's thinking was Socrates. However, it appears
from the writings of Plato, as well as those of the historian Xenophon
and the comic poet Aristophanes, that Socrates was almost
exclusively interested in ethics. This is not to say that metaphysical or
epistemological issues were of no concern to him. Rather, these
sources convey the impression that Socrates was not particularly
interested in articulating a metaphysical or epistemological theory.
Rather, concerned with caring for the soul so that one might live
happily, he uses both epistemological and metaphysical theses in
search of answers to his ethical questions. However, it is not easy to
distinguish when one is engaged in metaphysical theorizing from when
is merely using metaphysical notions. The claim that Socrates was not
a metaphysician or epistemologist is particularly hard to evaluate, for
we have basically only Plato's dialogues as evidence. Since Plato uses
Socrates as a mouthpiece in many of his writings, readers are forced
to ask when or whether one is reading the doctrines of Socrates, or
Plato, or neither. This ‘Socratic question’ is intimately involved with
the question of Plato's development and the chronology of his
dialogues.

Forms of Plato’s metaphysics, In Metaphysics, two of Plato's

central theses about the forms come in for vigorous criticism: (I) that
things that would, if they existed, be “inactive” (the forms) could be
the primary beings, the “most real” things, and (ii) that the attributes
of things exist “separately” from the things whose attributes they are.

We shall talk about the simplicity of forms of Plato’s metaphysics,

Throughout the dialogues, Forms are said to be one, hen, or
monoxides. (See especially the Affinity Argument in the Phaedo, 78b-
84b.) These passages suggest that the self-predication nature of
Forms implies that the only property predicable of a Form is itself: i.e.,
Justice is just and the only thing Justice is just but other passages
suggest that Forms cannot be simple in this strict sense. From the
Republic we know that all Forms are related to the Good. While it is
difficult to be certain, Plato seems committed to the claim that each
Form is good, that is, that each Form is a good thing or is
characterized by goodness. More doubts about the strict simplicity of
Forms emerge from reflection on the nature of definition in Plato's
middle period. Ontologically, all definitions predicate the essence of
the Form whose essence it is. Plato is attempting to discover through
scientific investigation, or (inclusive or) through an analysis of what
words mean, or through any other method, what the nature of, say,
Justice is—compare the ways in which philosophers and scientists
work to discover what, e.g., gold, or red, or justice, is. Ultimately, then,
the answer to any ‘what is X?’ question will be some specific formula
unearthed at the end of much study. According to this line of
reasoning, the self-predication statements in the texts are promissory
notes, shorthand for what will turn out to be the fully articulated
definition. Plato is thus committed to there being Forms whose nature
or essence will ultimately be discovered. To say that ‘Justice is just’ is
then to stake a claim to the ultimate discovery of the nature of
Justice. The problem is that the fully articulated linguistic definition,
when it is ultimately discovered, will turn out to be complex.

Let’s speak on the separation of forms, the best guide to the

separation of Forms is the claim that each Form is what it is in its own
right, each is an auto Kath auto being. In asking ‘What is (the Form)
F?’, Plato seeks what F is in a particular and special way: He seeks
what F is independent from any of its material instances, and in some
sense independent of anything else, whether another Form or the soul.
What each Form is, what each Form is in its own right, it is in virtue of
its essence, oasis. The connection between the Form and the essence
being predicated of it is exhibited in the Republic's formula that a
given on (being) is completely or perfectly, as well as the so-called
self-predication statements. According to the predicationalist reading,
the relation connecting an essence with that Form of which it is the
essence is Being. (I capitalize the ‘is’ used to represent the predication
relation of Being, e.g., Justice Is just.) The predicate in such self-
predication statements stands for the (real) definition of the Form,
conveniently captured by Nehamas' ‘what it is to be F’. Each Form,
then Is its essence. The special relationship between a Form and its
essence is captured in two principles are each essence is the essence
of exactly one Form and each Form has (or is) exactly one essence;
and the second one captures the ontological force of the expression
that each Form is monoeides: of one essence. In light of these
principles, and in keeping with the account of the ontological relation
of Being, it follows that each Form self-predicates, in so far as each
Form Is its essence. Self-predication statements are thus required of
Forms, since every Form Must Be its respective essence. Self-
predication, then, is a constitutional principle of the very theory of
Forms. A Form, then, is what it is in its own right in that it Is its
essence, and since the only thing it Is its essence, each Form is
monoeides, ‘of one essence’.

However, we are through with the metaphysics of Plato let’s get to

the metaphysics of Aristotle. Metaphysics, for Aristotle, was the study
of nature and ourselves. In this sense he brings metaphysics to this
world of sense experience–where we live, learn, know, think, and
speak. Aristotle himself described his subject matter in a variety of
ways: as ‘first philosophy’, or ‘the study of being qua being’, or
‘wisdom’, or ‘theology’. A comment on these descriptions will help to
clarify Aristotle’s topic. In Metaphysics Α.1, Aristotle says that
“everyone takes what is called ‘wisdom’ (Sophia) to be concerned with
the primary causes (aitia) and the starting-points (or principles,
archai)”, and it is these causes and principles that he proposes to
study in this work. These causes and principles are clearly the subject
matter of what he calls ‘first philosophy’. But this does not mean the
branch of philosophy that should be studied first. Rather, it concerns
issues that are in some sense the most fundamental or at the highest
level of generality. Aristotle distinguished between things that are
“better known to us” and things that are “better known in themselves,”
and maintained that we should begin our study of a given topic with
things better known to us and arrive ultimately at an understanding of
things better known in themselves. The principles studied by ‘first
philosophy’ may seem very general and abstract, but they are,
according to Aristotle, better known in themselves, however remote
they may seem from the world of ordinary experience. Still, since they
are to be studied only by one who has already studied nature (which is
the subject matter of the Physics), they are quite appropriately
described as coming “after the Physics.”
The categories, to understand the problems and project of Aristotle’s
Metaphysics, it is best to begin with one of his earlier works, the
Categories. Although placed by long tradition among his logical works
(see the discussion in the entry on Aristotle’s logic), due to its analysis
of the terms that make up the propositions out of which deductive
inferences are constructed, the Categories begins with a strikingly
general and exhaustive account of the things there are (—beings).
According to this account, beings can be divided into ten distinct
categories. (Although Aristotle never says so, it is tempting to suppose
that these categories are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive of
the things there are.) They include substance, quality, quantity, and
relation, among others. Of these categories of beings, it is the first,
substance (ousia), to which Aristotle gives a privileged position.
Substances are unique in being independent things; the items in the
other categories all depend somehow on substances. That is, qualities
are the qualities of substances; quantities are the amounts and sizes
that substances come in; relations are the way substances stand to
one another. Each member of a non-substance category thus stands in
this inherence relation (as it is frequently called) to some substance or
other—color is always found in bodies, knowledge in the soul. Neither
whiteness nor a piece of grammatical knowledge, for example, is
capable of existing on its own. Each requires for its existence that
there be some substance in which it inheres. In addition to this
fundamental inherence relation across categories, Aristotle also
points out another fundamental relation that obtains between items
within a single category. He describes this as the relation of “being
said of a subject,” and his examples make clear that it is the relation
of a more general to a less general thing within a single category.
Similarly, in works other than the Categories, Aristotle uses the label
‘universals’ for the things that are “said of many;” things that are not
universal he calls ‘particulars’. Although he does not use these labels
in the Categories, it is not misleading to say that the doctrine of the
Categories is that each category contains a hierarchy of universals
and particulars, with each universal being ‘said of’ the lower-level
universals and particulars that fall beneath it.
 The Role of Substance in the Study of Being Qua Being, The
Categories leads us to expect that the study of being in general (being
qua being) will crucially involve the study of substance, and when we
turn to the Metaphysics we are not disappointed. First, in Metaphysics
Γ Aristotle argues in a new way for the ontological priority of
substance; and then, in Books Ζ, Η, and Θ, he wrestles with the
problem of what it is to be a substance. We will begin with Γ’s account
of the central place of substance in the study of being qua being. As
we noted above, metaphysics (or, first philosophy) is the science
which studies being qua being. In this respect it is unlike the
specialized or departmental sciences, which study only part of being
(only some of the things that exist) or study beings only in a
specialized way (e.g., only in so far as they are changeable, rather
than in so far as they are beings). But ‘being’, as Aristotle tells us in
Γ.2, is “said in many ways”. That is, the verb ‘to be’ has different
senses, as do its cognates ‘being’ (on) and ‘entities’. So the universal
science of being qua being appears to founder on an equivocation: how
can there be a single science of being when the very term ‘being’ is
ambiguous? Consider an analogy.

The Fundamental Principles: Axioms, before embarking on this

study of substance, however, Aristotle goes on in Book Γ to argue that
first philosophy, the most general of the sciences, must also address
the most fundamental principles—the common axioms—that are used
in all reasoning. Thus, first philosophy must also concern itself with
the principle of non-contradiction (PNC): the principle that “the same
thing cannot at the same time belong and also not belong to the same
thing and in the same respect”. This, Aristotle says, is the most
certain of all principles, and it is not just a hypothesis. It cannot,
however, be proved, since it is employed, implicitly, in all proofs, no
matter what the subject matter. It is a first principle, and hence is not
derived from anything more basic. What, then, can the science of first
philosophy say about the PNC? It cannot offer a proof of the PNC,
since the PNC is presupposed by any proof one might offer—any
purported proof of the PNC would therefore be circular. Aristotle thus
does not attempt to prove the PNC; in the subsequent chapters of Γ he
argues, instead, that it is impossible to disbelieve the PNC. Those who
would claim to deny the PNC cannot, if they have any beliefs at all,
believe that it is false.

What is Substance? Let’s talk about to find out. In the 17chapters

that make up Book Ζ of the Metaphysics, Aristotle takes up the
promised study of substance. He begins by reiterating and refining
some of what he said in Γ: that ‘being’ is said in many ways, and that
the primary sense of ‘being’ is the sense in which substances are
beings. Here, however, he explicitly links the secondary senses of
‘being’ to the non-substance categories. The primacy of substance
leads Aristotle to say that the age-old question ‘What is being?’ “is just
the question ‘What is substance?’’’. One might have thought that this
question had already been answered in the Categories. There we were
given, as examples of primary substances, an individual man or horse,
and we learned that a primary substance is “what is neither in a
subject nor said of a subject”. This would seem to provide us with both
examples of, and criteria for being, primary substances. But in
Metaphysics Ζ, Aristotle does not seem to take either the examples or
the criteria for granted.

Substance, Matter, and Subject; it begins with a list of four

possible candidates for being the substance of something: essence,
universal, genus, and subject. A subject, Aristotle tells us, is “that of
which the other things are said, but which is itself not further said of
any other thing”. This characterization of a subject is reminiscent of
the language of the Categories, which tells us that a primary
substance is not predicated of anything else, whereas other things are
predicated of it. In the Categories, individual substances (a man, a
horse) were treated as fundamental subjects of predication.

Substances as Holomorphic Compounds, since individual

substances are seen as hylomorphic compounds, the role of matter
and form in their generation must be accounted for. Whether we are
thinking of natural objects, such as plants and animals, or artifacts,
such as houses, the requirements for generation are the same. We do
not produce the matter (to suppose that we do leads to an infinite
regress) nor do we produce the form (what could we make it out of?);
rather, we put the form into the matter, and produce the compound.
Both the matter and the form must pre-exist but the source of motion
in both cases—what Aristotle calls the “moving cause” of the coming
to be—is the form.

Substances and Universals, therefore produces a fundamental

tension in Aristotle’s metaphysics that has fragmented his
interpreters. Some maintain that Aristotle’s theory is ultimately
inconsistent, on the grounds that it is committed to all three of the
following propositions:

(I)Substance is form.

(ii)Form is universal.

(iii)No universal is a substance.

Others have provided interpretations according to which Aristotle

does not maintain all of (i)–(iii), and there is a considerable variety of
such interpretations, too many to be canvassed here. But there are
two main, and opposed, lines of interpretation. According to one,
Aristotle’s substantial forms are not universals after all, but each
belongs exclusively to the particular whose form it is, and there are
therefore as many substantial forms of a given kind as there are
particulars of that kind.

Substance as Cause of Being, Aristotle proposes a new point of

departure in his effort to say what sort of a thing substance is.
Aristotle tells us, is “said in many ways.” Although Aristotle is careful
to distinguish four different kinds of cause (or four different senses of
cause’), it is important to note that he claims that one and the same
thing can be a cause in more than one sense. As he puts it, “form,
mover, and telos often coincide”. And in De Anima he is perfectly
explicit that the soul, which is the form or essence of a living thing, “is
a cause in three of the ways we have distinguished”—efficient, formal,
and final.

Similarities between the metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle, another

similar idea Aristotle has to Plato’s metaphysics is his idea on
leadership. To Aristotle the integrity pf the society is just as
imperative as it is to individualized man. Aristotle also agreed with
Plato that those who should rule are those of the best character.

Differences on the metaphysics of both Plato and Aristotle, these

different approaches to metaphysics lead to the issue of Aristotle’s
imminent reality versus Plato’s dualistic, transient reality. Aristotle’s
beliefs lead to him seeing only one level of reality. He felt there was
only one imminent world and that forms existed within particular
things. Plato believed that everything real takes on a form but doesn't
embody that form. This is the position of Plato that there are two
worlds, the being and the becoming. These two different approaches
lead to the biggest idea that Plato and Aristotle differed on: their view
on forms. Plato originated the Theory of Forms. Plato saw forms a
description. A form applies to more than a single thing, such as
something as good. For Plato, two or more items (flagstones) can both
be said to be round if they participate in the Form roundness.
According to Plato, the Form roundness exists apart or separately from
individual flagstones (and other round things). Round things depend
upon the Form roundness for their existence. So Plato's answer to the
basic metaphysical question - what is reality? - is that fundamentally it
is the Forms of things that are real and not physical matter. Aristotle
concerned himself with the relation of matter and form. Aristotle saw
only four ultimately basic questions that could applied to anything, or
as he called them, four causes: the formal cause, or what is the thing?
the material cause, or what is it made of? the efficient cause, or what
made it? and the final cause, or what purpose does it serve?
Conclusion, these two great thinkers were quite different in many
quite a number of manners. Plato believed in an inside/out view of
metaphysics which shows two realms to our reality: the realm of
changing, becoming things and a realm of fixed, and being forms,
which are unchanging and that all things owe their reality. Aristotle
saw in his outside/in view, that there was only one level to our reality
and that in it; forms are found only within particular things, which have
both form and matter.

In conclusion, Plato and Aristotle were great philosophers with a

different line of thinking. It has often been questioned if metaphysics
is a good pursuit. At times the doubt is based on the admitted fact that
it has been revolving the same questions for years. Such criticism, is
not very telling partly since the question are so difficult that a rapid
solution is not to be expected, partly because in the point of fact much
progress has been made at least in the closing of alleys and in the
sharper defining issues.