T h e radical dualism of ideas and things remains, and infects every phase of the system; so, at

least, it seemed to Plato’s pupil

evolutionary and teleological

Substance
 vs rational insight and dialectic

taken by Kant
This is Aristotle’s somewhat abstruse way of saying that a substance is something ultimate and independent of all other things, while the latter must depend upon sub
Mitra IAS aristotle criticism of Plato's theory of forms

1) According to Aristotle no essence of anything can be outside of it

2)How can Ideas explain the world of particular things? There is no logical relation between them

3) Movement is not explained. Plato's view is static as we see later in Spinoza. Aristotle's is dynamic like Leibniz

4)Acc to Plato idea is a substance which can exist in the intelligible world without being instantiated. However according to
Aristotle, idea must exist only in particulars i.e. individuals. Hence, substance is a concrete individual. Ubstance has 3
elements universal; qualities,relations ; matter(unknown substratum)

5)If sensible is like non-sensible then idea too will be like sensible . In that case we require another pattern which will explain
the likeness between both of them. It leads to the fallacy of third man

6)Plato held that each idea is one and indivisible and non-sensuous. If individual horses participate in one indivisible
horseness .
if so then idea will be in many places and the idea of horseness gets divided.
if only a part of horseness participates then again the idea gets divided

7) Acc to Plato Idea is a pattern that individual things copy. Contradiction. Man is a pattern of men but itself becomes a copy
in relation to its genus called animals

nothing is explained by saying that things are the “copies of” or “participate in” ideas; to say
that the individual man participates in the ideal man adds nothing to our understanding of the
individual
 There can be no form without matter
Nor can the changing reality perceived by us be explained by mere purposeless matter in motion, as the materialists hold;there can be no matter without directing purpose or form

matter and form are inseparable aspects of the individual thing.

 On this point, Aristotle differs radically from Plato, who asserted the separation of the form from the thing; Aristotle strongly insists that the universal
and the particular are fused into the complete unity of the individual. The individual object changes or grows; all that is perceived is changeable. It
assumes now these qualities, now those, it is now seed, now sapling, now tree, now fruit
as conceived by Aristotle it is not the self-sufficientsubstance of the early materialistic philosophers
 Form realizes itself in the thing; it
causes the thing to move and to realize an
end or purpose

by which heunderstands the crude and

relatively undifferentiated stuff, that
from which the thing in question is
made.
the material cause, by which he
understands the crude and relatively undifferentiated stuff, that from which
the thing in question is made.

The formal cause is the pattern or structure which is to become embodied in the thing when it is fully
realized;

The efficient or moving cause is the active agent which produces the thing as its effect, it is that through
which the thing is produced. This type of cause corresponds closely to cause in the modern scientific
sense. The efficient cause of the statue includes the chisels and other instruments used by the sculptor in
his work

The fin d cause is the end or purpose toward which the process is directed; it is that for the sa\e of which a
thing is made.

W e must not make the mistake of supposing that each individual thing has only one type of cause;
everything, whether it be a natural object, a living plant or animal, or a manufactured article is explicable by
means of all four types of cause.

The four causes which are so readily distinguishable in the creative activities of man are at work in
nature.particularly in the organic world; the only difference is nature the artist and his product are not
separate, but one; the artist is his work so to speak;the form or plan and end or purpose coincide

the purpose of an organism is the realization of its form, and the form or idea is also the cause
of the motion, so that, after all, we have only two essential causes—form and matter—which constitute one
indivisible whole, distinguishable only by thought

these 4 causes are given in his book METAPHYSICS

Motion is the realization of the potentialities of a thing.

How is this brought about by the mere presence of the idea? Matter strives
to realize the form, it is aroused to action by the presence of the form, it has
a desire for the form, and, since form and matter are eternal, motion is
eternal
 form controls matter then
why does failure occur

If the first cause of motion were itself in motion it

would have to be moved by something else that
moves, and so on ltd infinitum, and this would
leave motion unexplained.

God thus constitutes the one exception to the principle that matter and form are inseparable.

Has not the Platonic dualism between the world of forms and the world of things been revived in a new
guise P It must be admitted that this objection has considerable cogency. God is complete actuality
Aristotle on Causation

At the beginning of the Metaphysics, Aristotle offers a concise review of the results reached by his
predecessors (Metaph. I 3–7). From this review we learn that all his predecessors were engaged in an
investigation that eventuated in knowledge of one or more of the following causes: material, formal, efficient,
and final cause.

However, Aristotle makes it very clear that all his predecessors (no one excluded) merely touched upon
these causes.Put differently, their use of causality was not supported by an adequate theory of causality.
According to Aristotle, this explains why their investigation, even when it resulted in important insights, was
never entirely successful.

This insistence on the doctrine of the four causes as an indispensable tool for a successful investigation of
the world around us explains why Aristotle provides his reader with a general account of the four causes.
This account is found, in almost the same words, in Physics II 3 and Metaphysics V 2.

The Four Causes

In the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle places the following crucial condition on proper knowledge: we think we
have knowledge of a thing only when we have grasped its cause

Since Aristotle obviously conceives of a causal investigation as the search for an answer to a why-question,
and a why-question is a request for an explanation, it can be useful to think of a cause as a certain type of
explanation.

His conception of a cause has both a metaphysical and an epistemological component.

In thinking about the four causes, we have come to understand that Aristotle offers a teleological explanation
of the production of a bronze statue; that is to say, an explanation that makes a reference to the telos or end
of the process.

Final Causes Defended

Physics II 8 contains Aristotle’s most general defense of final causality. Here Aristotle establishes that
explaining nature requires final causality by discussing a difficulty that may be advanced by an opponent who
denies that there are final causes in nature.

Aristotle shows that an opponent who claims that material and efficient causes alone suffice to explain
natural change fails to account for their characteristic regularity.

Final causality is here introduced as the best explanation for an aspect of nature which otherwise would
remain unexplained.

The difficulty that Aristotle discusses is introduced by considering the way in which rain works. It rains
because of material processes which can be specified as follows: when the warm air that has been drawn up
is cooled off and becomes water, then this water comes down as rain (Phys. II 8, 198 b 19–21). It may
happen that the corn in the field is nourished or the harvest is spoiled as a result of the rain, but it does not
rain for the sake of any good or bad result. The good or bad result is just a coincidence (Phys. II 8, 198 b 21–
23). So, why cannot all natural change work in the same way? For example, why cannot it be merely a
coincidence that the front teeth grow sharp and suitable for tearing the food and the molars grow broad and
useful for grinding the food (Phys. II 8, 198 b 23–27)? When the teeth grow in just this way, then the animal
survives. When they do not, then the animal dies. More directly, and more explicitly, the way the teeth grow is
not for the sake of the animal, and its survival or its death is just a coincidence
Aristotle’s reply is that the opponent is expected to explain why the teeth regularly grow in the way they do:
sharp teeth in the front and broad molars in the back of the mouth. Moreover, since this dental arrangement is
suitable for biting and chewing the food that the animal takes in, the opponent is expected to explain the
regular connection between the needs of the animal and the formation of its teeth. Either there is a real causal
connection between the formation of the teeth and the needs of the animal, or there is no real causal
connection and it just so happens that the way the teeth grow is good for the animal. In this second case it is
just a coincidence that the teeth grow in a way that it is good for the animal. But this does not explain the
regularity of the connection. Where there is regularity there is also a call for an explanation, and coincidence
is no explanation at all. In other words, to say that the teeth grow as they do by material necessity, and to say
that this is good for the animal by coincidence is to leave unexplained the regular connection between the
growth of the teeth and the needs of the animal. Aristotle offers final causality as his explanation for this
regular connection: the teeth grow in the way they do for biting and chewing food and this is good for the
animal.

Predecessor of theory of evolution(But his evolution is teleological. Darwin's is not)

The study of nature was a search for answers to why-questions before and independently of Aristotle. A
critical examination of the language of causality used by his predecessors, together with a careful study of
natural phenomena, led Aristotle to elaborate a theory of causality. This theory is presented in its most
general form in Physics II 3 and in Metaphysics V 2. In both texts, Aristotle argues that a final, formal, efficient
or material cause can be given in answer to a why-question.

Aristotle explores the systematic interrelations among the four modes of causality and argues for the
explanatory priority of the final cause.The problem that here concerns Aristotle is presented in the following
way: since both the final and the efficient cause are involved in the explanation of natural generation, we have
to establish what is first and what is second (PA 639 b 12–13). Aristotle argues that there is no other way to
explain natural generation than by reference to what lies at the end of the process. This has explanatory
priority over the principle that is responsible for initiating the process of generation.

Consider, for example, house-building. There is no other way to explain how a house is built, or is being built,
than by reference to the final result of the process, the house.

Although Aristotle’s theory of causality is developed in the context of his science of nature, its application
goes well beyond the boundaries of natural science. This is already clear from the most general presentation
of the theory in Physics II 3 and in Metaphysics V 2. Here the four causes are used to explain human action
as well as artistic production. In addition, any theoretical investigation that there might be besides natural
science will employ the doctrine of the four causes.

Theology

The science of being qua being is a science of form. But it is also theology, the science of god. The question
now is, how can it be both? And to it Aristotle gives a succinct answer:

If there is some immovable substance, this [that is, theological philosophy] will be prior and will be primary
philosophy, and it will be universal in this way, namely, because it is primary. And it will belong to it to get a
theoretical grasp on being qua being, both what it is and the things that belong to it insofar as it is being. (E.1,
1026a29–32)
So the primacy of theology, which is based on the fact that it deals with substance that is eternal, immovable,
and separable, is supposedly what justifies us in treating it as the universal science of being qua being.
Actuality and potentiality

In Metaphysics , Aristotle introduces the distinction between matter and form synchronically, applying it to an
individual substance at a particular time. The matter of a substance is the stuff it is composed of; the form is
the way that stuff is put together so that the whole it constitutes can perform its characteristic functions.

But soon he begins to apply the distinction diachronically, across time. This connects the matter/form
distinction to another key Aristotelian distinction, that between potentiality (dunamis) and actuality
(entelecheia) or activity (energeia). This distinction is the main topic of Book .

syncronic(at a time) vs diachronic(how it evolves)

Aristotle distinguishes between two different senses of the term dunamis. In the strictest sense, a dunamis is
the power that a thing has to produce a change(ie efficient cause). A thing has a dunamis in this sense when
it has within it “a starting-point of change in another thing or in itself insofar as it is other” (.1, 1046a12; cf.
.12). The exercise of such a power is a kinêsis—a movement or process. So, for example, the housebuilder’s
craft is a power whose exercise is the process of housebuilding. But there is a second sense of
dunamis—and it is the one in which Aristotle is mainly interested—that might be better translated as ‘
potentiality’

For, as Aristotle tells us, in this sense dunamis is related not to movement (kinêsis) but to activity (energeia)
(.6, 1048a25). A dunamis in this sense is not a thing’s power to produce a change but rather its capacity to
be in a different and more completed state. Aristotle thinks that potentiality so understood is indefinable
(1048a37), claiming that the general idea can be grasped from a consideration of cases. Activity is to
potentiality, Aristotle tells us, as “what is awake is in relation to what is asleep, and what is seeing is in
relation to what has its eyes closed but has sight, and what has been shaped out of the matter is in relation to
the matter”

This last illustration is particularly illuminating. Consider, for example, a piece of wood, which can be carved
or shaped into a table or into a bowl. In Aristotle’s terminology, the wood has (at least) two different
potentialities, since it is potentially a table and also potentially a bowl. The matter (in this case, wood) is
linked with potentialty; the substance (in this case, the table or the bowl) is linked with actuality.
Considered as matter, it remains only potentially the thing that it is the matter of.

Since Aristotle gives form priority over matter, we would expect him similarly to give actuality priority over
potentiality. And that is exactly what we find (.8, 1049b4–5). Aristotle distinguishes between priority in logos
(account or definition), in time, and in substance. (1) Actuality is prior in logos since we must cite the actuality
when we give an account of its corresponding potentiality.

Nevertheless, Aristotle finds that even temporally there is a sense in which actuality is prior to potentiality: “
the active that is the same in form, though not in number [with a potentially existing thing], is prior [to it]”
(1049b18–19). A particular acorn is, of course, temporally prior to the particular oak tree that it grows into, but
it is preceded in time by the actual oak tree that produced it, with which it is identical in species. The seed
(potential substance) must have been preceded by an adult (actual substance). So in this sense actuality is
prior even in time.

Aristotle also offers (1050b6–1051a2) an “even stricter” argument for his claim that actuality is prior in
substance to potentiality. A potentiality is for either of a pair of opposites; so anything that is capable of being
is also capable of not being. What is capable of not being might possibly not be, and what might possibly not
be is perishable. Hence anything with the mere potentiality to be is perishable. What is eternal is
imperishable, and so nothing that is eternal can exist only potentially—what is eternal must be fully actual.
But the eternal is prior in substance to the perishable. For the eternal can exist without the perishable, but not
conversely, and that is what priority in substance amounts to (cf. .11, 1019a2). So what is actual is prior in
substance to what is potential.
PYQ

2. Very difficult-

4 difficult- Aristotle links the notion of essence to that of definition (horismos)—“a definition is an account
(logos) that signifies an essence”
potentiality not change or movement but activity or actuality. both are linked. In terms of actuality we know it
actuality is prior.In this sense everthing definable in terms of auctus purus

5 given above in detail