Aristotle’s Metaphysics as Conceptual Analysis
How Language Guides Aristotles Understanding of the World
Aristotle: the First Analytic Philosopher
Aristotle, along with Plato, are often see as the founders of western philosophy. They are some of the first philosophers students read when studying philosophy.
However, despite being from Ancient Greece, Aristotle’s methodology has a lot in common with modern academic philosophers. This is because at the heart of Aristotle’s philosophy is a focus on the use of words.
A perfect example of this is his approach to metaphysics.
Aristotle’s sees metaphysics (the study of the nature of things) as being first philosophy. In fact, Aristotle does not use the word ‘metaphysics,’ only ‘first philosophy’ in describing the most fundamental study of reality.
So what is first philosophy?
First philosophy is the most fundamental scientific study one can do. According to Aristotle, this can be understood in three ways:
The study of the first principles of all reality.
The study of being qua being.
The study of causes, substance, and essence of things.
Let's look at each in turn.
Metaphysics as Wisdom Seeking
For Aristotle, metaphysics as first philosophy starts from our desire to know. In other words, we want to know the ‘why’ of things.
In particular, we want to know not just any ‘why’ but the most general, and thus fundamental, account of ‘why’.
In other words we seek what Aristotle calls ‘wisdom.’
The Metaphysics (where we get the word metaphysics) opens with Aristotle giving an account of the ways in which we go about trying to understand the ‘why’ of things. The way in which we go about studying the ‘why’ of everything, is to study the original causes of things as they are, or what he calls first principles.
The original cause of things are first principles in that the original causes do not require any other knowledge to understand them; they literally come first. Aristotle says “for by reason of these and from these, all other things are known.” [1]
What then are the original causes of things; these first principles?
Metaphysics as the Study of “Being” Itself.
Aristotle claims that the original causes are the four causes that he outlined in his Physics as applied to “being” itself.
The four causes that he gives are:
Formal Cause
Material Cause
Efficient Cause
Final Cause
Aristotle says that there are many ways to investigate these four causes of things. However, the most fundamental way is to study being qua being. He says:
“The mode of existence and essence of the separable it is the business of first philosophy to define.” [2]
This is because all other investigations start with being and “cut off a part,” going on to investigate what it is to be like in regard to that particular part only.
For example, mathematics, or the study of being as quantity, is concerned with what it is like to be in regard to things such as numbers and magnitudes. But does not concern itself with say colors.
The four causes when applied to being qua being, considers what causes something to exist and be the kind of thing that it is.
For example, the formal cause of existing is that which makes something the kind of thing that it is. A tree is a tree because it has the form of a tree. The material cause of the tree is to be made out of a certain kind of wood and have leaves. The efficient cause of a tree is the seed, from which the tree grows. The final cause of a tree is to be a tree; to do the sorts of things a tree does like grow leaves, take in water, and drop seeds.
A discussion into the causes of existence necessarily leads to the idea that all of these causes must be of something, that is, something unifies them and makes them all the cause of the same thing.
While the four causes make a thing what it is, there first must be a thing which the causes can shape.
Metaphysics as the Study of Substance
Aristotle posits substance as the thing of which everything else is predicated. It literally “stands under” (sub-stance) everything else about a thing. Thus, it can unify the four causes.
He says that we speak of substance in three different ways: form, matter, and the hylomorphic compound of form and substance, or the particular.
Aristotle argues that there are ways in which substance can be taken to be either form or matter only. However, both accounts are dependent on the combination of the two as we never experience form or matter by itself.
The only real possibility for what substance might be is then the particular.
Furthermore, all the causes must be able to act on a substance, it is, after all, what unifies them. This is only possible in the combination of form and matter as matter alone would lake a formal cause and form alone would lack a material cause.
The notion of substance further points to philosophy as the study of first principles. Aristotle says:
“If there is not substance other than those which are formed by nature, natural science would be the first science; but if there is an immovable substance, the science of this must be prior and must be first philosophy, and universal in this way, because it is first.” [3]
Aristotle claims that since we naturally understand substance as not being essentially a material thing, the nature of being cannot be understood from a study of the material properties.
The only way to study something without regard for its material properties is to study it in its own right (being qua being), which is the definition of the study of first principles and falls under the purview of metaphysics as first philosophy.
Metaphysics as the Study of Lingusitic Terms
In giving his account of metaphysics, Aristotle depends heavily on his philosophy of language.
Recall that we started with the desire for knowledge, in particular for the best knowledge possible (i.e. wisdom).
The investigation of first principles, being qua being, substances, etc. all flow out of the meaning of the words being investigated. In other words, the construction of the realm of metaphysics follows from how the terms related with it are used (at least in Ancient Greek).
For instance, Aristotle says:
“There are many senses in which a thing may be said to ‘be’, but they are related to one central point, one definite kind of thing, and are not homonymous.” [4]
Investigating one of the meanings of the verb ‘to be’ is a science, with the study of ‘to be’ itself being metaphysics, the study of being qua being, which is not something that can be reduced to a study of another meaning of ‘to be’.
Perhaps the best proof of how influential Aristotle’s view of language is in his discussion of metaphysics can be seen in his proof for the most certain of the first principles of being, the law of non-contradiction.
Things Must be Meaningfull; or The Law of Non-Contradiction
Aristotle statement of the law of non-contradiction is as follows:
“the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject in the same respect.” [5]
He argues that the law of non-contradiction can be proven via an indirect proof.
Let one assume that the law of non-contradiction is false.
However, this assumption leads to a self-contradiction.
In order to assert any claim, including the claim that the law of non-contradiction is false, one must be able to say something meaningful, namely that something is a certain way.
But if the law of non-contradiction is false, then any assertion is meaningless for it asserts both that something is and is not.
Thus, in order to assert the falsity of the law of non-contradiction, one must assume the law of non-contradiction for the claim to be meaningful.
Therefore, it is impossible to deny the law of non-contradiction.
Aristotle says that there are those who still reject the law of non-contradiction by arguing such things as the existence of substance and that attributes are not essential to a thing, merely accidental. Such arguments are supposed to allow something to be both true and false at the same time and in the same respect.
However, Aristotle replies that such a view results in predicates being about other predicates and not some-thing like our language would suggest. This results in an infinite regress of predicates being applicable to each other and again one is left asserting a meaningless claim.
Conclusion
From Aristotle’s use of language as the guide to what metaphysics studies, it is clear that he holds to a correspondence theory of truth. What makes the claims we make in language true or false is whether or not it corresponds to reality.
Our words and grammar are about things in the world and the relationship between them respectively. This is what ensures that in exploring the meaning of terms, such as cause, being, and substance, one is actually coming to understand the nature of reality.
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[1] Metaphysics book 1 982b2–3
[2] Physics Book II 194b14–15
[3] Metaphysics Book VI 1026a27–31
[4] Metaphysics Book IV 1003a33–34
[5] Metaphysics Book IV 1005b19–20