While, yes, from my understanding the "Formal Cause," as seen in Metaphysics, denotes that there is a "form" that exists outside of a particular, its existence is still dependent upon particulars. While some might not see the importance of this difference, this alteration in view (from Plato's top down to Aristotle's bottom up) completely changes the progression of thought. This focus on substance as the primary "stuff" causes universals to be viewed as the result of particulars. In the same way you couldn't have the species "human" without individual humans (that man, that woman, etc), things like beauty cannot exist without particulars onto which they can map themselves.
I may have a friend in this class that feels this change in perspective is not as important as I believe it to be**. Were such a friend to exist, s/he might say that "Aristotle's forms are interestingly enough very similar to Plato's forms," since both forms exist outside of any one particular. In one sense, s/he is right, they both exist outside of the particular, but in (almost) every other sense, s/he may be missing the mark. The importance concept here is that Plato's forms are that which cause everything, they have that (fancy phrase incoming!) ontological priority, they color everything that is said about anything. Aristotle's forms, however, are definitions*** (whats more, they are definitions constructed from grouping particulars to map out essential characteristics), they are, then, just explanations of what is already and not that which causes it to be.
*Wiki is your friend, but SEP is better. Ontological priority (in a quick and dirty explanation) is that which all other things come from. The thing with ontological priority can exist without all other things that do not have ontological priority.
**I think we aren't suppose to address each others views via blog posts. But he'll be ok.
***I know he says "causes" but his causes are more like answers to ontological questions (you did read those links I posted, right?)
Good post.
ReplyDeleteBut, ok, here is what I don't get about Aristotle:
So, he doesn't like Plato's overarching forms. Check.
So how do we come up with the definitions of the particulars?
I walk into a room and notice that all the "men" have something in common and thus group them into a group together and then start identifying what makes them alike?
Could I not just as easily have walked into a room and accidentally grouped a woman with them (who also shares essential characteristics with them) and then we would end up with a whole different set of essential characteristics ascribed to the classification "man" (and whatever makes her different would just be labeled something additional or unique to her as a person)?
Maybe this example would be better with an intersexed person or a transgendered person instead of a woman.
I mean isn't it necessary that we have to define a group of particulars with a word (in this case "man") and then (only AFTER we have called them "man") identify a set of essential characteristics?
Isn't this some sort of circular reasoning?
Or am I just being picky because Aristotle pretty much screws us women (and blacks, and non-greeks and anything else) over with his definition of human?
I mean really, who says, Aristotle? Why do you get to decide what the essential characteristics are? And doesn't the fact that we are generalizing seem problematic to begin with. I mean how can you have an abstract man or an abstract woman? When has a man or woman ever existed outside of a sociohistorical situation that fundamentally shapes and limits them?
Rant over.
Erin, you completely stole my thunder!
ReplyDeleteI spent the last half of Wednesday's class working out a critique very similar to the one that you bring up here (though yours is far more readable than mine, which involved way too much symbolic logic).
Basically, I came to the conclusion that either
1. There is some other underlying system that gives original power to the Aristotelian one (in other words, something what allows us to originally group particulars)
OR
2. This is the primary system but can only be formalized AFTER it is already been put in place.
Either way there is a deeper question:
Say you encounter a sample of horses, H1-H1000 that all have tails. Thus your definition of Horses is that they have tails as an essential characteristic.
Now, in some remote land you encounter some new group, H1001-H2000, and see that they don't have tails. They are otherwise similar to the first subset.
Does one revise their definition of Horse by removing tails as essential, or does one put the second subgroup into an entirely new species?
If you go with the first answer, you have created an incredibly constructivist system. This isn't a bad thing, per se, but does not seem to be Aristotle's intent.
If you go with the second answer, the system is set up along the lines of your complaint about Aristotle screwing women, and this is, essentially, the logic used to justify maltreatment of Blacks in America and Jews pretty much everywhere (and so on).
sidenote: Horse tails are a bad example because they are obviously non-essential (the horse does not actually need its tail), but I think it suffices in getting the point across.
C'est la vie.
ReplyDeleteWithout Aristotle I probably wouldn't have a major. There is the upside among the many down sides.