Lynne Spellman-Substance and Separation in Aristotle(2002)

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Substance and Separationin Aristotle





Substance and Separationin Aristotle

LY N N E S P E L L M A N

University of Arkansas

CAMBRIDGEUNIVERSITY PRESS



Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of CambridgeThe Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1 RP

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© Cambridge University Press 1995

First published 1995

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Spellman, Lynne, 1948-Substance and separation in Aristotle / Lynne Spellman.

p. cm .ISBN 0-521-47147-8

1. Aristotle — Views on substance in philosoph y. 2. Substan ce(Philosophy) 3. Aristotle - Views on separation of substances.

4. Separation (Philosophy) I. Title.

b491.s8s64 1995H I M - d c 2 0 9 4- 31 45 0

CIP

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 0-521-47147-8 hardback



for James





Contents

Acknowledgments page ix

Introduction 1

I The Separation of Platonic Forms 5

II Referential Opacity in Aristotle 21

III A Theory of Substance 40

IV Substance and Aristotle's Epistemology 63

V The Separation of Substance 83

VI Substance and Teleology 100

Bibliography 123Index 129

vn





Acknowledgments

In the course of the argument of this book I draw heavily on recentscholarship. I have been aided in understanding the contemporary de-bates by the Ancient Greek Philosophy Workshops at the University ofTexas, the Conference on Aristotle's Metaphysics at Florida State Uni-versity in 1983, the Institute on Aristotle sponsored by the NationalEndowment for the Humanities and the Council for Philosophical Stud-ies in 1988, and an academic year at Cambridge University as the Ful-bright College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Fellow at Lucy Cavendish

College in 1990-91. I am grateful to the University of Arkansas andLucy Cavendish for the year abroad, as well as, in the case of Arkansas,for support for the academic year 1985-86, during which work wasbegun. Chapters II and III are revisions of two published papers, "Re-ferential Opacity in Aristotle," History of Philosophy Quarterly 7 (1990),and "Specimens of Natural Kinds and the Apparent Inconsistency ofMetaphysics Z-H," Ancient Philosophy 9 (1989), and I thank the editorsof these journa ls for permission to reuse this material. Much of ChapterV was presented at the meeting of the Society for Ancient Greek Phi-

losophy held in conjunction with the American Philosophical Associa-tion, Central Division, in the spring of 1994. Finally, thanks are owedto James Spellman, who read the aforementioned papers in many ver-sions, for his philosophical insight and unfailing support for the project,and to the referees for Cambridge University Press for their helpfulcomments on the penultimate draft of the manuscript.





Introduction

We are sufficiently assured of this, then, even if we should examine itfrom every point of view, that that which entirely is is entirely knowable.(Republic 477a)1

This is a study of Aristotle's theory of substance, more precisely of histheory of sublunary substance. Although some philosophers, upon read-ing the Metaphysics, see the influence of Aristotle's biology, 2 others -and I am on e of them - see Plato. Indee d (although Aristotle wou ldnot have put the point in this way), I would go so far as to say thatAristotle can be seen as attempting to offer a defensible version ofPlatonism. What I mean when I say a version of Platonism is that forAristotle, as for Plato, there is something which is first in knowledge,definition, and time, and that for Aristotle, as for Plato, whatever isknowable must be eternal and unchanging. In the case of Plato, it is,of course, the Forms which are intended to meet these requirements.But Aristotle finds the Forms problematic on both metaphysical andepistemological grounds, and while Plato himself certainly struggledwith some of the difficulties that Aristotle complains of, Aristotle be-lieves that Plato's solutions fail, chiefly on account of separation. Spe-cifically, Aristotle seems to believe that separation creates a gap thatrecollection cannot fully bridge and that Plato's blurring of the dis-tinction between universality and particularity not only leads to regressbut casts doubt upon the very intelligibility of Forms. What I intend toargue, how ever, is that desp ite all his criticisms Aristotle's own accou ntof substance is nevertheless very like Plato's Theory of Forms but forthe denial - or more accurately, the reassessment - of separation.

1 All quotations from Plato follow the translations in Edith Hamilton and HuntingtonCairns, eds., The Complete Dialogues of Plato (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,1961). Emphasis in all quotations follows the sources cited unless otherwise indicated.

2 This view was most recently explor ed in Furth (19 88) .

1



2 SUBSTANCE AND SEPAR ATION IN ARISTO TLE

In Chapter I, a chapter that lays the groundwork for Aristotle's the-ory, I examine Aristotle's criticism of Plato for separating the Forms,arguing that by 'separation ' Aristotle has in mind numerical distinctness,and I cite passages to show that he believes that the numerical distinct-ness of the Forms from sensible objects causes insoluble metaphysicaland epistemological problems. To see Aristotle's theory as a responseto Plato inevitably raises questions about the accuracy of Aristotle'spresentation of Plato's Theory. Even though in Chapter I and elsewhereI do from time to time sketch, in a very broad way, various interpre-tations of Plato's own views, in a sense the question is irrelevant to myproject - if Aristotle's theory is a response to what he took Plato to besaying, the impact on his own views will be the same regardless of hisskill as an interpreter. Nevertheless I must admit that upon readingPlato and Aristotle, I find the view that Aristotle misunderstood or failedto appreciate Plato's Theory to be largely false. Rather, I agree withthose3 who say that it is jus t inherently implausible that one of the finestphilosophers who ever lived should, after twenty years in Plato's com-pany, have failed to grasp his views and the issues that underlie them.But, as I have said, the cogency of my project does not depend onagreement with this claim.

Having discussed Aristotle's criticisms of Plato in Chapter I, I turnto Aristotle's own views in the subsequent chapters. If Aristotle is tosay, as his criticism of Plato makes it plausible that he should, thatsubstances are not numerically distinct from sensible objects, one mightreasonably expect that he holds them to be identical with sensible ob-jects. But it has to be remembered that, like Plato, Aristotle wantssubstances to be unchanging if they are to be epistemologically fun-damental. One might suppose that if substances are forms and if formsare universals this requirement could be met. But then again Aristotlewants substances to be ontologically fundamental as well, a fact thatseems to argue for their being objects, not properties. In Chapter II Idiscuss the problem of referential opacity in Aristotle, claiming thatAristotle uses a distinction between numerical sameness and identity toaddress many sorts of metaphysical problems, and in Chap ter III I arguethat this distinction is the key to Aristotle's theory of substance. WhatI hold is that substances are for Aristotle specimens of natural kinds,where specimens, as particular forms lacking the accidents introducedby matter, are numerically the same as sensible objects yet not identicalwith them. While specimens of kinds are no t eternal, within a kind theyare indistinguishable from one another, with the result that unlike sen-sible objects they are knowable.

3 One of them is Russell Dancy, to whom, as a result of a conversation in the summerof 1988, this description of the stance and my confiden ce in its reasonableness are inpart owed.



INTRODUCTION 3

Thus by the conclusion of Chapter III, an acc ount of substance hasbeen given which, despite the denial of separation, makes it possiblefor Aristotle to say that substances are knowable objects. B ut, of cours e,when Aristotle objects to Plato's Theory of Re col lect ion , his difficultyis not with the knowability of Forms in this sense - Forms are, afterall, eternal and unchanging in a way that eve n specim ens of kinds arenot. His complaint is rather that it is by no means assured that Plato'sForms can now be known by us. In Chapter IV I consider Aristotle'sepistemology, that is, his account of the progression from perceptionto knowledge, and argue that what supports it is precisely a theory ofsubstance of the sort I have propo sed , namely, one characterized byrejection of the Platonic separation of form. Indee d I argue here toothat Aristotle's lack of conc ern for certain skeptical que stions can beexplained quite naturally by the fact that his epistemology is addressedspecifically to Platonic problem s arising from separation.

Yet even if it is agreed that Aristotle intend s substances to be spec-imens of natural kinds and even if it is conc eded that specimens arenot only knowable but such as to make possible a credible account ofthe acquisition of know ledge, there rem ain two problem s. Th e first isthat, although I have tagged separation as the crux, Aristotle himselfsays that substances must be separate. In Chapter V I address thisques tion, su ggesting that by 'separation' what Aristotle en dors es is whatI call the ontological counterpart of separation in definition. That is tosay, while he wants more than separation in definition (something onlyconceptually separate from sensible objects could hardly be ontologi-cally more fundamental than they), the separation of Aristotle's sub-stances is not, I argue, the numerical distinctness characteristic of theForms.

Finally, in Chapter VI, I address what has to be the most seriousinternal challenge for my interpre tation. The p roblem is jus t that it isby no m eans obvious that specimens of natural kinds will be ontologicallyfundamental, as Aristotle's criteria for substance require. Here I takeon the question and argue that Aristotle does believe, contrary to ourinclinations, that specime ns of natural kinds are more fundamental thansensible objects. The argument in this chapter is admittedly more spec-ulative in that it attempts to assess how it is , if I am right about histheory, that Aristotle could think that something like a specimen of thekind lion is mo re fundam ental than a given individual lion in all itspeculiarity, that sensible object with which it is numerically the same.In this chapter I argue that the grounds for Aristotle's view are teleo-logical, a case I try to make m ore plausible by drawing som e parallelswith art before embarking on a general d iscussion o f Aristotle's agent-less teleology and the understanding o f the go od which sustains it.

To summarize, the project is to def end the follow ing claims:



4 SUBSTANCE AND SEPARATION IN ARISTOTLE

(i) Rejection of Platonic separation is the starting point for Aristotle'saccount of substance.

(ii) In order to avoid separa tion while keeping the Platonic criteria ac-cording to which substances must be first in knowledge, definition,and time, Aristotle distinguishes between numerical sameness andidentity.

(iii) Having done so, he holds that substances can be specimens of naturalkinds.

Yet even as I have been writing, others have also, and the two mostrecent accounts of substance in Aristotle, Michael Loux's Primary 'Ous-iai' (Cornell University Press, 1991) and Frank Lewis's Substance andPredication in Aristotle (Cambridge University Press, 1991), came afterI had essentially completed this manuscript. As it happens, both Louxand Lewis argue for forms as universals while my argument requiresthem to be particulars, yet I have not a ttempted to provide an exhaustiveexamination of all the texts that bear on this long-standing controversy.Instead I have tried to consider a somewhat different cluster of issuesin such a way that they illuminate one another. For what I want tocontend is that, if read as criticism and revision of Plato in the way I

propose, Aristotle has a coherent view which, even if different from ou rown, is nevertheless a philosophically challenging response to the ex-perienced world.



I

The Separation of Platonic Forms

And Socrates gave the impulse to this theory, as we said before, by meansof his definitions, but he did not separate them from the particulars; andin this he thought rightly, in not separating them. This is plain from theresults; for without the universal it is not possible to get knowledge, butthe separation is the cause of the objections that arise with regard to theIdeas.

(Metaphysics XIII 9 1086b2-7)1

That Aristotle criticizes Plato for separating the Forms is a fact knownto every reader. However, what exactly it is that Aristotle wants tocriticize has, until recently, seldom been discussed explicitly and atlength, and indeed as exploration of the question has occurred, viewshave differed considerably. It has been proposed by some interpretersthat when he criticizes Plato for separating the Forms, by 'separation'Aristotle means their independent existence,2 that is, their capacity forexisting even if there were no sensible objects. But other interpretershave held that he means their numerical distinctness from sensible ob-jects,3 and some writers have thought that he means both of these.4

Thus despite the considerable importance Aristotle places on Plato'sseparation of the Forms, there is disagreement about just what he isobjecting to. Moreover, besides our uncertainty about what Aristotlemeant, there is a further problem. For even as he criticizes Plato, Ar-istotle tells us that substances must be separate (Metaphysics VII 11028a34). Only after an account of Aristotle's theory of substance is

1 Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from Aristotle follow The Complete Works ofAristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, N.J.: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1984). The page, column, and line numbers have where necessarybeen corrected against the edition of the Greek text prepared by Immanuel Bekkerfor the Berlin Academy, published in 1831. Emphasis follows Barnes except whereindicated.

2 Fine (1984); Hardie (1936), 7 3; Irwin (1977 ), 154 .3 Mabbott (1926). See also Morrison (1985), esp. 138-39 and 149-50.4 Allen (1970), 131-32.



6 S U B S TA N C E A N D S E PA R AT I O N IN A R I S TO T L E

given will it be possible to decide whether the separation he intends toassert is the same as that he intends to deny and, if so, whether in lightof his criticism of Plato, the assertion of it is problematic. These taskswill be undertaken in later chapters. In this chapter, however, I wantto try to clarify what Aristotle means when he says Plato separated theForms and why he should think it a cause for objection. For I plan totake seriously the idea that what Aristotle rejected in Plato's Theorywas principally the separation of the Forms 5; indeed, as I have said, myoverall argument will be that Aristotle's account of substances can bestbe seen as an attempt to preserve much that is Platonic by rethinkingseparation.

I

In Prior Analytics 1 1 1 Aristotle says, For there to be forms or som eone thing apart (para) from the m any is no t necessary if there is to bedemonstration; however, for it to be true to say that on e thing holdsof many is necessary (7 7a 5- 7) . In addition to the many passages suchas this where Aristotle implicitly criticizes Plato fo r separating theForms, there are, fortunately, several where he tries to explain whyPlato separated the Forms and two where he explicitly describes thepriority of Forms over phenomena, a relation that has sometimes beenthought to explain what is meant by separation. I will begin with thelatter group.

At Metaphysics V 11 in the course o f a number o f de finitions o fpriority, Aristotle says:

Some things then are called prior and posterior in this sense, others in respectof nature and substance, i .e. those which can be without other things, w hile the otherscannot be without them, a distinction which Plato used. (1019al— 4 ; emphasisadded; boldface indicates Barnes's emphasis)

This sense of priori ty - the pr ior i ty of whatever can exis t wi thout o therth ings which in turn cannot exis t wi thout i t - seems to be i l lustrated atEudemian Ethics I 8 in Ar is to t le ' s d iscu ss ion o f t he Form o f t h e G o o d .There he says:

We must then examine what is the best, and in how many senses we use theword. The answer is principally contained in three views. For men say that thegood per se is the best of all things, the good per se being that whose propertyis to be the original good and the cause by its presence in other things of their

being good; both of which attributes belong to the Idea of good I mean by'both' that of being the original good and also the cause of other things beinggood by its presence in them); for good is predicated of this Idea most truly(other things being good by participation in and likeness to this); and this is the

5 Morrison (1985) suggests a similar line. See 14 9-50 . See also Mabbott (1926).



S E PA R AT I O N O F P L ATO N I C F O R M S

original good, for the destruction of that which is participated in involves also thedestruction of that which participates in the Idea, and is named from its participationin it. But this is the relation of the first to the later, so that the Idea of goodis the good per se\ for this is also (they say) separable [choristen] from whatparticipates in it, like all other Ideas. (1217b 1-16; emphasis added)

Following Gail Fine, let us call the capacity to exist without the ex-istence of some other thing the capacity for independent existence withrespect to that thing. 6 Citing the passage jus t qu oted , Fine argues thatwhen Aristotle talks of 'separation' he means a capacity for inde pen den texistence7 and thus that in his criticism of Plato he (in the m ain, wrongly,as she sees it) attributes to Plato the view that Forms are separate from

sensible objects in the sense that they are able to exist independentlyof them. She says:

Aristotle is probably correct to say that at least some Forms, in some dialogues,are separate. But he and others are incorrect to suggest that Plato, beginningwith the Phaedo, heralds separation as a new feature of Forms. On the contrary,so far from this being the case, Plato never even says that Forms are separate;it proves surprisingly difficult to uncover any commitment to separation; andcommitment to it emerges in unexpected ways and in unexpected cases. 8

Fine understands Plato's Forms to be universals, and thus when shedenies that the independent existence of Forms is a key component ofPlato's Theory of Forms, what she is denying is that it is especiallyimportant to Plato that the Forms be able to exist uninstantiated. Butwhatever Forms are, Fine's conclusion about the role of separation is,as she admits, very surprising. T. H. Irwin, for example, who agreesthat Forms are universals, thinks that even though Plato does not for-mulate it clearly and even though his arguments justify only the claimthat Forms are not defined in terms of sensible properties and are notidentical with such properties (which leaves open the possibility thatthey might be identical with nonsensible properties of sensible objects),he does in fact believe that he has established their capacity for inde-pendent existence. 9

Since my conc ern is with the nature of separation, Irwin's c onclu sionnee d be pursued only if it is plausible to hold that Forms are universals

6 Fine (1984 ), 35 . 7 See Fine (198 4), 33 .8 Fine (1984), 3 3 -3 4 . According to Fine the most likely candidates for separate Forms

are Forms of artefacts (as in the Cratylus and Republic X) since there would have beena time when they existed which was prior to the work of human artisans, that is to say,

they would have existed in the absence of instances (76). If the account of creation inthe Timaeus is taken in such a way that, while Forms have always existed , th ere was atime at which there were no sensibles, then, says Fine, many Forms are separate (79).However, even in that case not all Forms would be so. For even before creation thereare some Forms that would have instances; traces of fire are found in the chaos, thedemiurge exemplifies justice and goodness, and so on (79).

9 See Irwin (1977), 154-55.



8 SUBSTANC E AND SEPA RAT ION IN ARIST OTL E

and that * separa tion' does in fact mean a capacity for independen texistence. That Forms are not universals will be argued in a later chap-ter. But as to the question of whether a capacity for independent ex-istence is what 'separation' means, it seems to me that the case has notbeen proved. In Metaphysics V 11 natural priority is defined in termsof independent existence and then the definition is illustrated by anappeal to Plato, that is to say, by the Forms, and there is no mentionat all of separation . Adm ittedly, in Eudemian Ethics 18 when independentexistence and natural priority are said to be characteristic of the Formof the Good, that the Idea of the Good is also said to be separable isadded in a way which suggests its connection with these other notions.But the difficulty is that 'separation' need not mean a capacity for in-dependent existence for separation and natural priority to be linked;rather, if a capacity for independent existence were merely entailed bythe nature of the Forms, that is to say, by the attributes that Forms areable to have in virtue of being separate, the connection between sep-aration and the natural priority of the Forms would also follow.10

I have argued against Fine that neither Eudemian Ethics I 8 nor Me-taphysics V 11 clearly identifies a capacity for independent existencewith separation. But there is also another reason for holding that acapacity for independent existence is not what Aristotle means. For ifone takes Aristotle to attribute to Plato the separation of the Forms,meaning by that their capacity for independent existence, then Aristotleseems to attribute to Plato an argument for separated Forms whichwould have no persuasiveness at all. That is to say, as will be made clearin the passages to be discussed in Section II of this chapter, Aristotletakes flux to be Plato's primary motive for the postulation of separatedForms. W hether he is right in this assessment is disputed.11 But if beingin flux is supposed to be an obstacle to being knowable and indeed fullyreal, then given that there are in fact things that meet these criteria,

10 For example, in his commentary on 1 2 l7 b l4 - 1 5 Woods (1992), 68, refers the readerto his discussion of 1 218al—15 where he says of separation: [Unlike NicomacheanEthics I 10 96a34 -b5, in Eudemian Ethics I 8] there is ment ion also of the status ofthe Form as something separate. Does that mean that it does not depend for itsexistence on particulars? Or is it rather that it has to be conceived of as a distinctgood? The argument does seem to assume that the Form of the Good is itself a good,and argue from that that it will be a good after a different fashion from other goods,and hence not the com mon character (80).

11 Owens (1963), 199, cites Plato's concentration on definitions. Cornford (1939), 74,and, more cautiously, Burnyeat (1979), 59, cite recollection as the motive; Mabbott

(1926), 74, thinks that separation is entailed by the fact that Forms are originals ofwhich phenomena are copies. However, if the reason the originals must be separateis that only in this way can they be perfect, for example, and if, as Plato sees it,whatever is perfect and thus a suitable object of definition must be eternal and un-changing, then it seems that Aristotle is still right: the basis for the separation of theForms is the argument from flux. As will become clear in Chapter IV, I take recol-lection to be a consequ ence of the inaccessibility of Forms to our present e xperience.






those who say substances are universal combined these two views in one, is thatthey did not make them the same 13 [autas] with sensible things. They thoughtthat the sensible particulars were in a state of flux and none of them remained,

but that the universal was apart [para] from these and different. And Socratesgave the impulse to this theory, as we said before, by means of his definitions,but he did not separate them from the particulars; and in this he thought rightly,in not separating them. This is plain from the results; for without the universalit is not possible to get knowledge, but the separation is the cause of the ob-jections that arise with regard to the Ideas. His successors, treating it as nec-essary, if there are to be substances besides the sensible and transient substances,that they be separable, had no others, but gave separate existence to theseuniversally predicated substances, so that it followed that universals and indi-viduals were almost the same sort of thing. (1086a31-bll)

Passages such as this will be mined for another purpose in ChapterV. At presen t, how ever, my poin t is that when Aristotle says that Formsare both separate and universal, his diagnosis of Plato's error wouldseem to be no t, as Fine claims, that he m ade the Forms universals while,if they are to be substances, they must be separate and therefore par-ticular. Rather Aristotle's complaint is that Plato failed to make Formsthe same as sensible things (1086a36). To be sure, this claim could meanthat he failed to make them the same in kind - in other words, that he

failed to make them particulars - but since in fact Aristo tle here alsosays that Plato makes Forms both particular and universal, this wouldbe, to say the least, a peculiar complaint and, anyway, the manner inwhich he continues suggests a different explanation. For if the reasonfor postulating something not the same as sensibles is that the latterare in flux, this reason tells neither for nor against the universality orparticularity of Forms - it counts only for the postulation of somethingthat does not have the property of being in flux. Thus their numericaldistinctness from things in flux would seem to be what is asserted.

II

Even though Plato's Forms do have the capacity to exist independently,as I have argued, a capacity for independent existence would not seemto be what Aristotle has in mind when he says that Plato's Forms areseparate. Rather, as I see it, the attribution of a capacity for inde pen den texistence to the Forms is an assertion of the ontological priority theyhave over the phenomena from which they are held to be separated.

But if this is so, it is necessary to establish what 'separation' does mean,and I have already given a reason for favoring numerical sameness. InMetaphysics I 6 9 87 a3 2- bl O when Aristotle gives his account of the

13 Barnes (1984) has 'identical'. My reason for preferring 'same' will becom e apparen tin Chapter II.



SEPARATION OF PLAT ONIC FO RM S 11

origin of Plato's Theory of Forms and addresses the question of sep-aration, he says:

For, having in his youth first become familiar with Cratylus and with the Her-aclitean doctrines (that all sensible things are ever in a state of flux and thereis no knowledge about them), these views [Plato] held even in later years. Soc-rates, however, was busying himself about ethical matters and neglecting theworld of nature as a whole but seeking the universal in these ethical matters,and fixed thought for the first time on definitions; Plato accepted his teaching,but held that the problem applied not to any sensible thing but to entities ofanother kind - for this reason, that the common definition could not be a definitionof any sensible thing, as they were always changing. Things of this other sort, then, hecalled Ideas, and sensible things, he said, were apart from these, an d wer e all calledafter these; for the multitude of things which have the same name as the Formexist by participation in it. (emphasis added)

The same story seems to be told in Metaphysics X I II 4 1 0 7 8 b l 2 - 1 0 7 9 a 4where Aristot le begins by saying:

The supporters of the ideal theory were led to it because they were persuadedof the truth of the Heraclitean doctrine that all sensible things are ever passingaway, so that if knowledge or thought is to have an object, there must be someother [heteras] and permanent entities, apart [para] from those which are sensible; for

there can be no knowledge of things which are in a state of flux. (1078bl2-17;emphasis added)

After a discussion of Socrates, Aristotle then explains the differencebetween his views and those of Plato:

For two things may be fairly ascribed by Socrates - inductive arguments anduniversal definition, both of which are concerned with the starting-point ofscience. But Socrates did not make the universals or the definitions exist apart[chorista]; his successors, however, gave them separate existence, and this was

the kind of thing they called Ideas. (1078b27-32)What are we to make of these passages? I have argued against Fine

that Eudemian Ethics I 8 does not show 'separation' to mean a capacityfor independent existence and that, because an argument from flux toindependent existence (unless taken in something like the way in whichFine takes it) would be invalid, a capacity for independent existence isnot likely to have been what Aristotle meant. Of course, it is possiblethat Plato's argument for the separation of the Forms, assuming thatAristotle is right about the origins of the Theory, ju st is invalid. Never -theless, as I have already said, the difficulty with the proposal that Platoargues from the need for something that is not in flux to the need forsomething that can exist without the existence of whatever is in flux isthat the two notions seem too obviously unconnected for fallaciousargument to occur. Besides, further and, I think, decisive evidence




against the supposition th at a capacity for inde pe nd en t existence is whatis meant by 'separation' is found as XIII 4 continues. Aristotle says:

Therefore it followed for them, almost by the same argument, that there mustbe Ideas of all things that are spoken of universally, and it was almost as if aman wished to count certain things, and while they were few thought he wouldnot be able to count them, but made them more and then counted them; forthe Forms are almost more numerous than the groups of sensible things, yetit was in seeking the causes of sensible things that they proceeded from theseto the Forms. For to each set of substances there answers a Form which hasthe same name and exists apart [para] from the substances, and so also in theother categories there is one character common to many individuals, whetherthese be sensible or eternal. (1078b32-1079a4)

The passage is parallel to Metaphysics I 9:

But as for those who posit the Ideas as causes, firstly, in seeking to grasp thecauses of the things around us, they introduced others equal in num ber to these,as if a man who wanted to count things thought he could not do it while theywere few, but tried to count them when he had added to their number. Forthe Forms are practically equal to or not fewer than the things, in trying toexplain which these thinkers proceeded from them to the Forms. For to eachset of substances there answers a Form which has the same name and existsapart from the substances, and so also in the case of all other groups in whichthere is one character common to many things, whether the things are in thischangeable world or are eterna l. (990a34—b8)

What Aristotle intends to attribute to Plato when he says that theForms exist apart from sensible things becomes in this cheap shot athis pred ecessor very clear. If P lato's Theory is almost as if a man w ishedto count certain things, and while they were few thought that he wouldnot be able to count them, but made them more and then counted

them , separation - the target of Aristotle's ridicule — must be the sup-posed numerical distinctness of Forms from sensible things.

I l l

In considering those passages in which Aristotle criticizes Plato forseparating the F orms, I have argued that, while Plato did take the Formsto be capable of independent existence and while Aristotle thought thathe did so, such is not the basis of the latter's complaint. Rather, whatthe argument from flux, the argument that Aristotle cites as the originof the Platonic Theory, can reasonably be supposed to show — and whatAristotle takes it to be sup pose d to show - is that Forms are numericallydistinct from sensibles. But if this is so, then when Aristotle objects to




Plato's (as opposed to Socrates') view of Forms, it is most plausible toconclude that by 'separation' Aristotle means numerical distinctness.14

Of course I have not tried to prove that Aristotle's interpretation ofPlato, as I understand it, is correct, and it would take me far beyondthe scope of this work to try to do so. Nevertheless since it is primafacie more plausible to suppose that Aristotle did understand Plato'stheory than that he d id not, it cannot be denied that Plato's actual viewsare relevant, and although Fine denies that separation is a central tenetof Plato's Theory, even she concedes that her stance is unusual. Moretroublesome therefore is the fact that interpreters of Plato who do takeseparation to be important do no t always have the same thing - or evenone thing - in mind when they say that the Forms are separate. RichardPatterson, for example, says of the Form of the Good, "First, the Goodis separate from all sensible things. It is not located where they are, notcontaminated by any admixture with them, nor dependent on them forbeing what it is."15

None of these characteristics is, as it happens, what Fine suggestsAristotle takes the separation of the Forms to mean; however whenGregory Vlastos argues that Plato's proposal that the Forms exist " them -selves by themselves" is equivalent to Aristotle's claim that Plato's Formsexist separately16 he goes on to endorse Fine's interpretation.17 Yet whatis to be noticed is that all the features mentioned by both Pattersonand Vlastos could be seen as consequent upon the nature of separatedForms if 'separation' were understood as numerical distinctness. Oneof Vlastos's concerns can make this point clear. When he argues thatthe separation of Forms means that Forms can exist even if uninstan-tiated, Vlastos finds some difficulty in the fact that Plato also wants tohold that the relation between Forms and phenomena is asymmetric,18

something that independent existence as such does not entail; the soul,which is said to be separate from the body, can exist without the body,and the body, for a short time at least, can also exist without the soul.19

But if separation means, as I have suggested, numerical distinctness,the symmetric relation found in the case of body and soul is unprob-lematic, while what needs to be said of the asymmetric character of therelation between the Forms and phenomena is that it is not to be ac-counted for by separation as such. Rather just as with a capacity for14 Num erical distinctness seems also to have a part in the passage quote d from W oods

(1982), 80 , in my n. 10. That is, if the Form of the Good is a distinct good and good after a different fashion from other goods, and hence not the common char-

acter, it is hard to see how it cou ld be anything oth er than numerically distinct.15 Patterson (1985 ), 123; see also 129 . Spatial separation may also be found in Else (1936 ).16 Vlastos (1991 ), 256 . 17 Vlastos (1991 ), 26 5.18 What Vlastos (1991), 25 9- 60 , says is that the relation is antisymm etric. What he

seems to have in mind is a modal formulation of asymmetry according to which x canexist without y and not conversely.

19 Vlastos (1991), 260.




independent existence, it is at precisely this point that there must beappeal to other facts about Forms, that they are necessarily eternal orthat they are models, for example. But if this is so, then even wheninterpreters argue for - or assume - a different account of separation,there seems to be nothing in such views that is inconsistent with theclaim that numerical distinctness from phenomena is what the sepa-ration of the Forms means.

To return then to Aristotle, we have seen that Aristotle says quiteclearly that separation is the cause of the objections that arise withregard to the Ideas. (In Metaphysics XIII 4 and I 9 the term in questionis para, often translated as ''exists apa rt. Where chbristos does occur,as in the passages from Metaphysics VII 1 and Eudemian Ethics I 8, thereis no reason to think any different sort of separation is intended; Me-taphysics XIII 9, as we have seen, uses both. 20 ) Of course, I certainly donot contend that every criticism of the Theory of Forms Aristotle offersis connected with the separation of the Forms. To take only MetaphysicsI 9, Aristotle there objects that Plato will be saddled with Forms ofnegations, that there are unacceptable consequences to taking Formsto be numbers, and so on. Nevertheless Aristotle repeatedly indicatesthat separation is the crux, in the sense that it is peculiarly characteristicof Plato's Theory and peculiarly troublesome. Thus if I am right thatseparation is numerical distinctness, the question that must be consid-ered is just this: Why, exactly, should Aristotle think the numericaldistinctness of Forms from phenomena to be objectionable?

IV

When Aristotle wants to object to the numerical distinctness of Formsfrom sensibles, what he sometimes says is that whatever is numericallydistinct will be particular and therefore unknowable; at other times heoffers a variation on this objection, arguing that Forms, being knowable,must be universals, in which case if they are also particulars, there resultsincoherence ( this is not possible (1086a34)). That whatever is nu-merically distinct is particular is a claim Aristotle more often assertsthan argues for; perhaps it is thought to follow from the very conceptof numerical distinctness. But the claim leads to some harsh descriptionsof Plato's Theory. For example, at Metaphysics III 2 997b5-12 Aristotlesays:

the most paradoxical thing of all is the statement that there are certain thingsbesides those in the material universe, and that these are the same as sensiblethings except that they are eternal while the latter are perishable. For they saythere is a man-in-himself and a horse-in-itself and health-in-itself, with no further

20 So does Metaphysics XI 2. See 1060a3-b2.




qualification, - a procedure like that of the people who said there are gods,but in human form. For they were positing nothing but eternal men, nor arethey making the Forms anything other than eternal sensible things, (cf. VII 161040b32-34)This complaint is summarized in Nicomachean Ethics I 6 in a way thatmakes the consequences clear:

And one might ask the question, what in the world they mean by 'a thing itselF,if in man himself and in a particular man the account of man is one and thesame. For in so far as they are men, they will in no respect differ; and if this isso, neither will there be a difference in so far as they are good. (1096a34-b3)

Thus Aristotle, beginning from their numerical distinctness, takes

Forms to be particulars and proposes that, if intelligible at all, Formsare no more than eternal sensibles. Moreover in the Third Man Ar-gument he seems to claim that the numerical distinctness of Forms willlead to an infinite regress as well. Although the Third Man Argumentis no more than alluded to in Metaphysics I 9 (990bl7), there is a briefdiscussion in the Sophistical Refutations. The re Ar istotle says: Again,there is the argument that there is a third man distinct from man andfrom individual men. But 'man', and indeed every general predicate,signifies not an individual, but some quality, or quantity or relation, or

something of that sort (1 78 b3 6- 39 ). Even though the steps leading tothe troublesome third man are not spelled out, it seems evident thatAristotle believes that for Plato 'man' signifies a particular and that thisis cited as the cause of a regress of distinct Forms. But since a lengthierversion of the Third Man Argument as given in his lost essay Peri Idemis preserved in Alexand er o f Aphrodisias's com mentary on the first bookof the Metaphysics, I will turn to the presen tation of the Third M anArgument in Alexander.

At 84, 22-85, 3 Alexander records the following objection to the

Theory of Forms:If what is predicated truly of more than one thing is also [some] other thingapart from the things of which it is predicated, being separated from them (forthis is what those who posit the Ideas think they are proving; for the reasonwhy, according to them, there is something, man-himself, is because 'man' ispredicated truly of particular men, who are more than one, and is other thanparticular men) - but if this is so, there will be some third man. For if [the'man'] predicated is other than those of whom it is predicated and subsists byitself, and 'man' is predicated both of particular men and of the Idea, therewill be some third man apart from both particular men and from the Idea. Andin this way there will be still a fourth man, the one predicated of the third manand of the Idea and of particular men, and similarly a fifth, and so on adinfinitum.2X

21 Pages 121-22 of the Dooley translation of Alexander of Aphrodisias (1989). Thebracketed material is supplied by Dooley.



16 SUBSTANC E AND SEPA RAT ION IN ARISTO TLE

It has sometimes been found puzzling that in this argument, unlikethe 'Third Man" of the Parmenides, separation is one of the premisses.But the explanation, it seems to me, is just that since the goal of theargument is to establish that Plato's Theory leads to regress, there isno reason not to begin with Plato's desired conclusion, namely, theexistence of a (first-level) Form for man, numerically distinct from sen-sible particulars .22 Moreover if the humanity shared by individual humanbeings is supposed to lead to the conclusion that the Form for man issomething numerically distinct from phenomena and if to be a numer-ically distinct human being is to be a particular, then something likeself-predication seems at least a plausible charge. To be sure, the ThirdMan Argument has been analyzed in immense detail, and some inter-preters think that what has been called self-predication need not bepart of it. 23 But even if they are right, as long as it is agreed that Aristotlebelieves that Plato can be forced to admit that his views about the Formswill result in regress, the connection between the Third Man Argumentand my claim that * separation' means numerical distinctness clearlyremains.

Following an argument in Section III for the conclusion that whenAristotle criticizes Plato for separating the Forms what he has in mindis their numerical distinctness from sensible objects, I have in this sec-tion considered passages where Aristotle links the numerical distinctnessof Forms from sensibles with their particularity and that with the ThirdMan Argument. But particularity, Aristotle thinks, also creates anotherproblem, namely, the unknowability of the Forms. This difficulty willbe the subject of the next section.

In Metaphysics VII 15 Aristotle says:As has been said, people do not realize that it is impossible to define in thecase of eternal things, especially those which are unique, like the sun or themoon. For they err not only by adding attributes after whose removal the sunwould still exist, e.g. 'going round the earth' or 'night-hidden' . . . but also bythe mention of attributes which can belong to another subject; e.g. if anotherthing with the stated attributes comes into existence, clearly it will be a sun;the formula therefore is general. But the sun was supposed to be an individual,

22 Aristotle's objection at 990b 15 to Ideas of relations, as explained in Alexander, also

begins with Forms: Again, if the equal is equal to an equal, there wou ld be morethan one Idea of the equal; for the equal-itself is equal to the equal-itself, for if itwere not equal to anything it would not be equal at all (83 , 26- 28 ). D ooley, trans.(1989), 120. For competin g explanations of the presence of separation in the premissesof the Third Man Argument, see Fine (1982), 161-69, and Code (1985), 104-10 and3 2 3 - 2 6 .

23 See Code (1985), 106, and Lewis (1991), 15-24, 33-43.



SEPAR ATION OF PLAT ONIC FORMS 17

like Cleon or Socrates. Why does not one of the suppor ters of the Ideas producea definition of an Idea? It would become clear, if they tried, that what has nowbeen said is true. (1040a27-b4)

Aristotle 's support for the claim that particulars are unknowable isin par t the alleged impossibility of coun tere xam ple: Ju st try to pr od uc ea definition of Cleon or the sun or an Idea. But, of course, one reasona definition of Cleon cannot be produced is that Cleon is transitory.Earlier in the same chapter Aristotle has said:

there is neither definition nor demonstration of sensible individual substances,because they have matter whose nature is such that they are capable both ofbeing and of not being; for which reason all the individual instances of them

are destructible. If then demonstration is of necessary truths and definitioninvolves knowledge, and if, just as knowledge cannot be sometimes knowledgeand sometimes ignorance, but the state which varies thus is opinion, so toodemonstration and definition cannot vary thus, but it is opinion that deals withthat which can be otherwise than as it is, clearly there can neither be definitionnor demonstration of sensible individuals. (1039b27-1040a2)

Certainly the correlation found in this argument between differentstates of mind - knowledge, opinion, and ignorance - and distinct ob-jects is reminiscent of Republic V. 24 For Aristotle as for Plato, what is

knowable must be necessary, eternal, and unchanging (e.g., PosteriorAnalytics 7lb9-16, 73a21-3, 74b6, 88b30-89al0; Nicomachean Ethics1139bl8-23, 1140a31-b3), constraints that, as we will see, significantlyaffect his account of substance. But it is hard to see that this sort ofobjection affects the knowability of either the sun, which, unlike Cleon,is supposed to be eternal and unchanging, or of Platonic Forms; indeedeven in the case of the sun, the removal of accidents contemplated inMetaphysics VII 15 would seem to be counterfactual. Moreover, what-ever one says about the sun, it is not clear that one can use such a

reason - namely, the presence of attributes that might, even if only inimagination, be removed - to claim that Forms are unknowable.25

In short, in the case of Forms, it seems most reasonable to supposethe obstacles to definition arise not from the possible removal of at-tributes but rather from the fact that any attributes one gives couldbelong to more than one thing - not just individually, for that wouldnot be troublesome, but taken together. In other words, the complaintseems to be that if one gives a definition, that definition might be

24 Altho ugh Aristotle, like Plato, moves freely betw een know ledge of eternal truths (for

example, that the diagonal is incommensurable) and knowledge of objects, in theMetaphysics it is evident that it must be the knowledg e of obje cts - of substances -that is fundamental.

25 On e would, of course, be able to remove properties if Forms were described in asufficiently peripheral way, for exam ple, the first Form recollected by the slave, butperhaps Plato could say that such descriptions do not correspond to properties ofthe Form.





SEPARATION OF PLATONIC FOR MS 9

the Form of the Good on the grou nds that craftsmen do no t use it,Aristotle then seems to suggest t hat the ir lack of a t tent ion to the Formshould undermine our confidence in its existence.

In the two passages ju st c ited, Aristotle uses the sep aratio n of Formsas grounds for dou bting that knowledge of Form s, even should ther ebe such, would yield knowledge of the sensible world. But in MetaphysicsI 9 he a lso mo unts a general attack on the acquisition o f knowledge ofthe elements of things, an attack that seems to be a imed at Forms:

And how could we learn the elements of all things? Evidently we cannot startby knowing something before. For as he who is learning geometry, though hemay know other things before, knows none of the things with which the science

deals and about which he is to learn, so is it in all other cases. Therefore ifthere is a science of all things, as some maintain, he who is learning this willknow nothing before. Yet all learning is by means of premises which are (eitherall or some of them) known before , - whether the learning be by demonstrationor by definitions; for the elements of the definition must be known before andbe familiar; and learning by induction proceeds similarly. But again, if the scienceis innate, it is wonderful that we are unaw are of our possession of the greatest of sciences.Again, how is one to know what all things are made of, and how is this to bemade evident? This also affords a difficulty; for there might be a conflict ofopinion, as there is about certain syllables; some say za is made out of s and d

and a, while others say it is a distinct sound and none of those that are familiar.Further, how could we know the objects of sense without having the sense inquestion? Yet we should, if the elements of which all things consist, as complexsounds consist of their proper elements, are the same. (992b24-993al0; em-phasis added; boldface indicates Barnes's emphasis)

The problems a t tendant to the Theory of Recollection will be con-sidered in Chapter IV. But it is already ap par en t that in argu me nts suchas these Aristotle is contending, in effect, th at in addit ion to all th emetaphysical problems of the Theory, the Form s ca nnot accomplishwhat he believes to be Plato's aim, nam ely, to explain how there canbe knowledge of anything in a world th at seem s to be full of flux. Yeteven if Plato 's Theory is t hough t by Aristotle to fail, the quest ions itwas intended to answer rem ain, an d it is f rom within their p resu ppo -sitions that Aristotle too has to wrestle with pro blem s of universality,particularity, ontological priority, and knowability. As he says in Meta-physics I I I :

If [the first principles] are universal, they will not be substances; for everything

that is common indicates not a 'this' but a 'such', but substance is a 'this'. -And if we can actually posit the common predicate as a single 'this', Socrateswill be several animals - himself and man and animal, if each of these indicatesa 'this' and a single thing. - If, then, the principles are universals, these resultsfollow; if they are not universals but of the nature of individuals, they will notbe knowable; for the knowledge of anything is universal. (1003a7—15)



20 SUBSTANCE AND SEPAR ATIO N IN ARISTO TLE

Thus it is that Aristotle also will try to say what substances or forms areand how they have the universality and particularity he claims is nec-essary. Likewise he will try to explain what the relation between sub-stances or forms and sensibles is, and how, by encountering sensibleobjects, one knows substances. The examination of his views in thechapters to come will test my contention that what separates Plato andAristotle is - separation.



II

Referential Opacity in Aristotle

At the beginning of Metaphysics VII 6 Aristotle inquires whether eachthing and its essen ce are the same o r different, an inquiry that, he claims,is of use for the investigation of substance. In Chapter III I will arguethat VII 6 does indeed tell us much about substance. What is of rele-vance in this chapter, however, is Aristotle's preparedness to raise sucha question. What Aristotle says of the inquiry into the sameness of eachthing and its essence is that each thing is thought to be not differentfrom its substance and that the essence is said to be the substance of

each thing (1031al5-19). It is easy enough to suppose that 'is notdifferent from' means 'is the same as* and that 'is the same as' means'is identical with'. If this assumption is made, 1 there would not seemmuch need for inquiry: If each thing is identical with its substance andits substance is identical with its essence, then obviously each thing isidentical with its essence.

Nevertheless Aristotle does inquire about the relation between eachthing and its essence, a way of proceeding that suggests that the sortof sameness that interests him may in fact not be identity. It is because

problems of sameness are made evident by the occurrence of referentialopacity that we focus on that concept in this chapter. 2 After presentingseveral responses to referential opacity in Aristotle, I offer my ownanalysis of why, in Aristotle, failures of substitutivity occur. In ChapterIII I will consider the significance of referential opacity for Aristotle's

1 It needs also to be assumed that Aristotle does n ot intend to m ake a distinction between'substance' and 'substance of . I believe that he doe s not, for reasons that will beco meapparent in Chapter III.

2 Th oug h I couch the discussion in terms of referential opacity, my intention is to givea description of certain problems without making any assumptions that would prejudgequestions about the kinds of sameness to be found in Aristotle. That is to say, I donot intend that 'referential opacity' be denn ed in the manner of Lewis (1991 ), 90: Acontext, A, is referentially opaque at a given p osition , if and only if for expr essions aand (3, such that a and 0 denote the identical entity, a context, A , is like A except thatA contains a in that position but A contains /3 there, and A and A do not denote thesame thing (or if A and A are sentences, A and A do not have the same truth value).

21




alternative to Plato's Theory o f Form s, namely, the accou nt o f substancegiven in Metaphysics VII -VIII .

It is W. V. O. Q uine wh o seems to have introdu ced the term 'referentialopacity'. In Refer ence and Modality he points out that a name mayoccur in a statement, for example, 'Tully' in Tully denounced Catiline',and yet not occur referentially in a longer statement which is formedby embe dding the statem ent in the con text 4s unaware that . . .' or'believes that . . .', as for example in 'Philip is unaware that Tully de-nounced Catiline'. Quine proposes that we speak of contexts such as'is unaware that . . .' as referentially opaq ue , 3 and because substitu-tivity is to be expected where there is identity, referential opacity canbe puzzling. As Quine says:

One of the fundamental principles governing identity is that of substitutivity —or, as it might well be called, that of indiscernibility of identicals. It provides that,given a true statement of identityy one of its two terms may be substituted for the otherin any true statemen t and the result will be true. 4

N ot all failures of substitutivity are, of co urse , genuine ly problem atic.Th ough 'Cicero' and 'Tully' refer to the same per son, in 'Cicero'contains six letters replacement of one name with the other changesthe sentence from true to false, 5 yet here the paradox is not deep; itneed only be said that the statement is not about Cicero at all but abouta word that is a name for him. But the difficulty is that the opacityfound in modal and intentional conte xts is not so easily dismissed. Afterall, if a and b are identical, all the properties of a would seem to beproperties of b, and if all the properties of a are properties of b, thensurely it doe s seem reasonable that in any true statement in which som e-thing is predicated of a, if what is predicated of a had been predicatedof by truth should be preserved.

This is not the place to describe contemporary solutions, except in-sofar as they also have be en p rop osed for the interpretation o f Aristotle.But the problem of referential opacity itself is of major significance inAristotle jus t because there are so many con texts - and such importantones - that seem to be opaqu e. To take some exam ples, we can knowCoriscus but fail to know the masked man (who is Coriscus); Socrates

3 Quin e (19 53), 142. Q uine says that the term 'referentially opaq ue' is roughly the opp ositeof Russell's 'transparent' in Appendix C to Principia Malhematica, 2d ed., vol. I.4 Quine (1953), 139. See also Carnap (1947), 98, who gives a clear statement of the

principle even thoug h he rejects it. H e says: If two expression s name the same entity,then a true sentence remains true when the one is replaced in it by the other; in ourterminology: the two expressions are interchangeable (everywhere).

5 Quine (1953), 139.



R E F E R E N T I A L O PA C I T Y IN A R I S TO T L E 2 3

is accidentally the same as the seated man, but Socrates, and not theseated man, is essen tially the same as his essence or form; the builderis a cause of the house, and the musician is not (even if the builder isa musician); the man, but not the pale one, bec om es c ultured. T his list- to which could be added '. . . is a substance', '. . . is per se [roughly,'. . . is necessarily'] F', '. . . is a species o f . . . ' , ' . . . is the genus o f. . .',and so on, as well as \ . . moves', '. . . builds', * . . . sculpts', and allother action verbs - includes not only the modal and propositionalattitude contexts that many philosophers besides Aristotle have thoughtto be opaque, but also contexts that might seem to be paradigm casesof the transparent and conte xts involving Aristotle's technical voca b-ulary.

So far I have explained what is meant by 'referential opacity' and Ihave described why, where identity is concerned, failures of substitu-tivity would seem to be problematic. But in fact whether Aristotle hadsuch a notion as identity is disputed. In the Topics, he himself expresseswhat appears to be the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals or ,as it is often called, Leibniz's Law:

Moreover, examine them in the light of their accidents or of the things of which

they are accidents; for any accident belonging to the one must belong also to

the other, and if the one belongs to anything as an accident, so must the otheralso. If in any of these respects there is a discrepancy, clearly they are not thesame. (152a33-37)

Or again:

Speaking generally, one ought to be on the look-out for any discrepancy any-where in any sort of predicate of each term, and in the things of which theyare predicated. For all that is predicated of the one should be predicated alsoof the other, and of whatever the one is a predicate, the other should be apredicate as well. (152b25-29)

These passages and others from the Topics (for example, 13 2a 27 -28) are usually taken as good evidence that, at least at the time of thattreatise, Aristotle held a standard view of identity. 6 But there is alsoreason to have qualms. At De Interpretatione 11 21 a 7-1 4, for example,Aristotle says:

6 In his definition of 'numerical sameness' in Topics I 7, Aristotle distinguishes threesenses of the expression, namely, sameness where there is an alternative name ordefinition ( its most literal and primary use ), second, sameness rendered by a non-

essential property peculiar to that kind of thing, and third, sameness drawn fromaccident, as in describing Socrates as the creature who is sitting (10 3a2 3-3 1). Whilethese senses may seem to foreshadow later distinctions, 152a33-37 and 152b25-29 ,just quoted, make it clear that, with regard to substitutivity, no use is made of themin the Topics. Moreover Aristotle's example of the first and most literal sen se is at leastpeculiar since the example (doublet and cloak) is not, as it stands, an example ofnumerical sameness.



2 4 S U B S TA N C E A N D S E PA R AT I O N I N A R I S TO T L E

Of things predicated, and things they get predicated of, those which are saidaccidentally, either of the same thing or of one another, will not be one. Forexam ple, a man is white and musical, but * white' and * musical' are not on e,

because they are both accidental to the same thing. And even if it is true to saythat the w hite is musical, * musical white ' will still not b e one thing; for it isaccidentally that the musical is white, and so 'white musical' will not be one.

Moreover in Sophistical Refutations 24 Aristotle clearly says that nu-merical sameness is not sufficient for substitutivity, a claim that raisesserious problems of interpretation. Nicholas White, for example, holdsthat Aristotle's grasp of identity weakens 7; Gareth Matthews argues that,on the contrary, the restrictions Aristotle introduces show that he ismoving toward an understanding of the no tion. 8 What is clear is thatAristotle thinks or com es to think that there are two varieties of numericalsameness, essential sameness and accidental sameness {Metaphysics V 910 l7 b 27 -1 01 8a 9) , such that substitutivity is said to hold in the first casein certain contexts where it fails in the second. The problem thereforeis this: If numerical sameness just is identity, as elucidated by Leibniz'sLaw, what can the distinction between essential and accidental samenesscom e to and how can it be u sed to explain certain failures of substitutivity?On the other hand, if either accidental sameness or essential sameness(or both) is other than identity, what is their relation to identity?

II

One strategy for dealing with failures of substitutivity is that of Frege.When we are presented with a belief context or a modal context inwhich substitutivity seems to fail (for example, 'it is necessary that theMorning Star is the Morning Star' is true but 'it is necessary that theMorning Star is the Evening Star' is false), Frege's response is to say

that, in such sentences, 'the Morning Star' does not, despite appear-ances, refer to the M orning Star and 'the Evening Star' do es not, despiteappearances, refer to the Evening Star. That is, in modal and beliefcontexts, Frege claims, 'the Morning Star' refers not to the ordinaryreferent of the expr ession 'the Morning Star' (namely, Venus) but ratherto the sense of that expression. 9 Since 'the Morning Star' in 'it is nec-essary that the Morning Star is the Morning Star' does not, on Frege'sview, refer to the Morning Star but to its sense and since the sense of'the Morning Star' is different from the se nse of 'the E vening Star', it

is hardly surprising that substituting one for the other fails to preserve7 White (1971), 177. I will not argue against White's view that, after the Topics, Aristotle

confuses 'X and Y are the same' with 'X and Y are one', where the latter is taken tomean that both X and Kmake up a single entity (see 187). However both Miller (1973)and Matthews (1982), 230-35, do so effectively.

8 Matthews (1982), 233. 9 See Frege (1952), 67.



R E F E R E N T I A L O PA C I TY IN A R I S TO T L E 2 5

truth. Thus, on Frege's view, Leibniz's Law is preserved; the MorningStar and the Evening Star do indeed have all the same properties.

Even if the sorts of referents Frege suggested are not suitable, theidea that when failures of substitutivity occur the referents are distinctcan be found in Aristotelian scholarship as well. Frank Lewis, for ex-ample, argues that substitutivity fails in sentences of the sort describedjust because there is not an identity between, for example, Socrates andthe generous (the generous one); the generous one, claims Lewis, is adifferent entity from Socrates. Specifically, when the generous one is saidby Aristotle to be accidentally but not essentially the same as Socrates,what this means, according to Lewis, is that the generous one is anaccidental com pound of which Socrates is a constituent.10 As Lewis says,''When we do ontology, we can set Socrates down as one, single object,and discover later that there remains a second object to be counted,namely, Socrates + pale."11

Although Matthews is more cautious than Lewis and says that Soc-rates and Socrates seated "are not two people, nor, indeed, two ofanything else,"12 pointing out that for Aristotle there is not even aunivocal sense of the verb 'to be' in which they can both be said to be,in the end he too argues along similar lines, saying:

For [Aristotle], after all, 'Coriscus' and 'the masked man' are not really co-referential expressions at all. The one picks out a kooky object [that is, anaccidental unity] that perishes when Coriscus takes off his mask; the otherdoesn't. To be sure, the masked man is accidentally the same as Coriscus. Butaccidental sameness is not identity and accidental sameness does not guaranteethat every attribute of Coriscus is an attribute of the masked man.13

That Aristotle continues, as Lewis admits he does continue, to con-sider essential and accidental sameness varieties of numerical samenesswould seem to be at least puzzling on the view Lewis presents.14 More-over, the ontology Lewis and Matthews attribute to Aristotle may itselfseem surprising. Despite Aristotle's talk of compounds as coming intobeing and passing away when attributes are gained and lost (Physics I7 190a20), the usual explanation of Socrates' becoming pale is not thatsome numerically distinct entity comes into being or ceases to exist butthat an enduring entity, Socrates, has undergone a qualitative change.However, what needs to be considered is whether on such an accountfailures of substitutivity can be explained.

10 Lewis (1982), 2, 4-5, 7, 24. Accidental compound theory is developed further inLewis (1991), 85-140.

11 Lewis (1982) , 22. 12 Matthews (1982 ), 226 .13 Matthews (1982), 22 7- 28 .14 Lewis (19 82) , 17 . Matthews seems to acknowledge that Aristotle's claim that accidental

sameness is a variety of numerical sameness is problematic. See Matthews (1982), 239.



2 6 S U B S TA N C E A N D S E PA R AT I O N IN A R I S TO T L E

I have described a view that explains away referential opacity by theclaim that, where substitutivity fails, the referents of the terms in ques-tion are distinct entities, at least one of which is an accidental unity.These accidental unities include both objects that are referred to bythe conjunction of a proper name and some property (for example,Socrates seated) and objects referred to simply by means of the propertyhad (such as the seated one), where the latter are to be analyzed interms of the former. But there is also an alternative account accordingto which Socrates and the seated one (where Socrates is seated) are notin any way distinct objects; 'the seated o ne ' jus t refers to Socrates. O nthis view, which can be found in Richard Sorabji, Julius Moravcsik, FredMiller, Christopher Kirwan, J. L. Ackrill, and othe rs, acciden tal unitie sturn out to be sensible objects to which reference is fixed by means ofa definite description. 15 That only certain claims are illuminating orexplanatory in the way that seems to Aristotle proper for science is,they hold, the reason why so many contexts in Aristotle are opaque.

In the Physics (195a32-35), Aristotle argues that, properly speaking,it is the sculptor that is the cause of the statue and not Polyclitus (or,as Aristotle would think worse still, a musician), even if the sculptor is,in a given case, Polyclitus (who is also, let it be supposed, a musician).That is to say, it is in virtue of his skills as a sculptor that Polyclitus isable to sculpt; for sculpting, his musicianship is irrelevant. As Sorabjiexplains:

The cause of some statue may be specified by naming the sculptor, Polyclitus.But it is not because Polyclitus is Polyclitus that he produced a statue, and itis only indirectly explanatory to refer to him. For it is only so long as we canassume other things about Polyclitus (e.g. that he is a sculptor) that we get anexplanation of the outcome. 16

Likewise, Aristotle says that the doctor might cure himself but that it

is not insofar as he is a patient that he possesses the art of medicine(192b23-26). That is, the patient, in a given case, may happen to be adoctor, but having the skills of a doctor is not part of what it is to bea patient. As a consequence, these attributes are not always found to-gether (192b26-27). (Compare Metaphysics VI 1026b35 -1027a l2 . )

That 'the builder builds' is true in all possible cases of building mayseem eno ugh to justify A ristotle's prefere nce. W hether all referentiallyopaque contexts in Aristotle could be similarly accounted for, however,is surely problematic. B esides, there is also a mor e ser ious problem . For

to say only that 'the builder builds' is explanatory and that 'the musicianbuilds' is not does not settle the status of 'the musician builds'. That is

15 Sorabji (1980), 5; Moravcsik (1975), 633; Miller (1973), 484; Kirwan (1971), 181;Ackrill (1981), 38-39.

16 Sorabji (1980), 11. See also Kirwan (1971), 181.



R E F E R E N T I A L O PA C IT Y I N A R I S TO T L E 2 7

to say, is 'the musician builds' supposed to be false or merely, from theperspective of a demonstrative science, imperspicuous? This questionis of crucial importance. For if 'the musician builds' is imperspicuousbut nonetheless true, there is no referential opacity to be explained.On the other hand, if 'the musician builds' is false, to say that the claimis not explanatory fails to get to the source of the problem. If 'themusician builds' is false, why is it so? That is to say, if, as this accountpresupposes, the musician is identical with the builder, how could 'themusician builds' be false?

To this point I have considered two sorts of proposals. Accordingto one, 'the builder', 'Socrates seated', and other similar expressionsare said to refer to accidental unities, where accidental unities are en-tities that are numerically distinct from sensible obje cts, thus explainingaway the opacity. On the alternative view these expressions refer tosensible objects such as Socrates. But as we have seen, the second pro-posal, taken by itself, does nothing to remove the problematic characterof failures of substitutivity. But there may be yet another possibility. Forsome philosophers have thought that referential opacity in Aristotle couldbe explained and explained without the multiplication of entities foundin Lewis's view. According to Russell Dancy, for example, Socrates anda given jus t thing are num erically the same yet formally d istinct. W hat itmeans to say that Socrates and that jus t thing are formally d istinct, Dancytells us, is that what it is to be x is not what it is to be y.17

Dancy's account is suggestive, but o ne may still wonde r why, exactly,entities that are formally distinct should be such that substitutivity fails.Irwin suggests a solution, namely, that Aristotle can claim that thingsare identical but differ in bein g if he means not that the being of thissculptor is different from the being of this baker, but that the being ofsculptor differs from the being of baker. 18 That is to say, on Irwin'sview, this baker and this sculptor do not differ in properties whereCallias, say, does both sculpting and baking (the being or essence ofboth is the same, namely, what it is to be a human being), and so asregards reference to Callias there is no referential opacity to be ex-plained. Nevertheless on Irwin's interpretation Aristotle's remarks doseem at least misleading. The reason is that, whereas the sculptor andthe baker, being in fact this sculptor and this baker, should be essentiallythe same, this is jus t what Aristotle appears to deny, wh ile, on the othe rhand, the essen ce o f sculptor and the essen ce o f baker are, like sculptingand baking, too obviously different to make Aristotle's assertion thatthey are different necessary.

We have now seen several proposals for understanding referentiallyopaque contexts in Aristotle. In the course of a discussion of agency

17 Dancy (1975) , 367 . 18 Irwin (1986 ), 73.



2 8 S U B S TA N C E AN D S E PA R AT I O N IN A R I S TO T L E

and patiency in Physics I I I , Aristotle himself seems to offer an expla-nat ion. Here he says:

Nor is it necessary that the teacher should learn, even if to act [to teach] andto be acted on [to learn] are one and the same, provided they are not the samein respect of the account which states their essence (as raiment and dress), butare the same in the sense in which the road from Thebes to Athens and theroad from Athens to Thebes are the same. . . . For it is not things which are inany way the same that have all their attributes the same, but only those to bewhich is the same. (20 2bl0- 16; cf. 202al8-20)

However, as has already bee n said with rega rd to Dancy's presentat ionof it, the problem with Aristot le 's explanation of referen tial opacity,

namely, that only to things the same in definition do all the same pro p-ert ies belong, is tha t it seems to be nothing more than a res ta tementof the difficulty; that is, there are cases in which a is app aren tly identicalwith b wh ere substitutivity fails. In what way is the road from Athensto Thebes the same as the road from Thebe s to Athens? In the nextsection I p ropose an answer to this question.

I l l

We have examined several proposals for und ersta ndin g referential lyopaque contexts in Aristotle, including Lewis's and Matthew's sugges-tion that in such cases the referen ts ar e in fact not the sam e. I n a passageof the sort noticed by Lewis and Matthews, Aristotle says:

For to be a man is not the same as to be unmusical. One part survives, theother does not: what is not an opposite survives (for the man survives), but not-musical or unmusical does not survive, nor does the compound of the two,namely the unmusical man. (Physics I 7 190al7-21; cf. Prior Analytics I 47b29-34, and On Generation and Corruption I 3 1 9 b 2 5 - 3 1 )

Aristotle seems to want to say that the unmusical human being's ceasingto exist is something distinct from a human being's ceasing to be un-musical; the unmusical (that is, this case of it) does not survive and theunmusical human being does not survive. On the other hand, that theaccidental is obviously akin to not-being (Metaphysics VI 2 1026b21)and practically a mere name (1026bl3-14) is said to be shown bythe fact that, although unmusical Coriscus ceases to exist, there is noprocess by which he does so (1026b22-24). Thus what seems to beneeded is a view that is intermediate between saying, on the one hand,that accidental unities are entities numerically distinct from the sensibleobjects that have the accidents in question and saying, on the otherhand, that they just are those sensible objects, inappropriately de-scribed. When Coriscus comes to be musical, Aristotle seems to thinkthere comes to exist not just an instance of the quality musicality but



REFE REN TIAL OPACITY IN AR ISTOTL E 29

musical Coriscus, which is something objectlike. Similarly, what ceasesto exist as a result of the chan ging characteristics of Coriscus is not jus tthe instance of the quality unmusicality; something objectlike, we aretold, also ceases.

The identification of a subsidiary object does, of course, occur else-where in Aristotle, for example, in his account of geometry, and whatI want to argue is that what Aristotle says about geometrical entities isuseful here. Geometry, Aristotle says at Physics io ,4 a 9- ll , investigatesnatural lines but not qua natural [lines] (cf. 10 77 bl 7- 34 ). The concernof the geometer, in other words, is not so-called mathematical entitiesbut rather, for example, doors and tables. Nevertheless the geometerconsiders these things only with regard to their boundaries — their shapeis relevant while their color, their condition, their use, and so on areignored. We might say that not everything true of a certain woodenstructure qua d oor is true of it qua rectangle; as Jona than Lear says inhis discussion of ma thematics in Ar istotle, 'qua' is a filter for theelimination of irrelevant properties. 19

To be sure, Lear's metaphor is not entirely apt for all referentiallyopaque contexts in Aristotle since in some, as will become apparent,proper ties are gained as well as lost. What is to be em phasized, how ever,is Aristotle's insistence that the geom eter investigates natural lines -even though a rectangle would cease to exist should a door becomewarped, the world does not contain both doors and rectangles. Indeedany temptation to multiply entities should be diminished by the reali-zation that 'qua </>' is detachable; that water qua water is not transparent{De Anima II 7 418b7) 20 is equivalent to 'water is not transparent quawater' and to 'it is not qua water that water is transparent'. 21

To generalize then from mathematical contexts to passages of thesort that interest Lewis and Matthews, it seems that Aristotle can denythat there is anything numerically distinct from Socrates and Callias andso on to which 'the musician' refers, while still referring to b oth Socratesand the musician. Just as a geometer refers to rectangles as well as(although not qua geometer) to tables, so, for example, a psychologistresearching the nature of musical talent can refer to musicians as such.Moreover if our language had no expressions such as 'rectangle' and'musician', such reference cou ld be accom plished u sing 'qua', as in 'thisdoor-qua-rectangular object' or 'this human being-qua-musical one'

19 Lear (198 2), 168. For 'qua' as a creator of opacity, see Wiggins (1967) , 23 - 4 . Com pare

Aquinas, who argues in Summa Theologica III Q. 16, Art. 10 that 'Christ as man is ac rea tu re ' [Christus secondum quod homo, est creatura] is true even though 'Christ is acreature' is false. I want to thank my colleague Sandra Edwards for directing me toseveral medieval discussions.

20 I will cite De Anima by its more commonly used Latin title rather than the EnglishOn the Soul, its title in the Barnes edition of Aristotle's works.

21 I owe this point to Richard Grandy.



30 SUBSTAN CE AND SEPAR ATION IN ARISTO TLE

(where the hyphens indicate that now 'qua' is part of a referring ex pres-sion), and because 'qua' whe n u sed referentially is a filter of prop erties,the r esult again is generality. That is, ju st as it is true that rectan gleshave four right angles regardless of the color and age of the tables, inother words, that for purposes of geometry two tables are, assumingtheir size to be irrelevant or the same, indistinguishable, so it is as wellin other cases. Since 'Socrates-qua-musician' abstracts from all the prop -erties of Socrates except musicality and 'Callias-qua-musician' does thesame, then even though they are, in virtue of being numerically thesame as two different sensible objects, two specimens, Socrates-qua-musician and Callias-qua-musician are qualitatively indistinguishable.

In short, on the account which I am proposing, Socrates andSocrates-qua-builder are numerically the same. They are not, however,identical. Because not all the properties of a are true of a-qua-0, in amove which is of crucial importance for his theory of substance, thereis a distinction to be made between numerical sameness and identity.Postponing until later chapters all questions regarding the status ofkinds and the naturalness of any given kind, I want to call x-qua-0 aspecimen of the kind 0, and what I am suggesting is that what Aristotlecalls accidental unities are in fact specim ens of kinds. That is to say,what I take Aristotle to hold is that Callias is numerically the same asthe musician (and also musical Callias). Nevertheless Callias is not iden-tical with either of these, and it is jus t becau se 'the musician' and 'mu-sical Callias' refer not to Callias but in both cases to a specimen of thekind musician, where a specimen of a kind has only the properties es-sential to members of that kind, that failures of substitutivity occur.

I have contended that 'the builder', 'Socrates seated', and other suchexpressions for accidental unities are not, for Aristotle, definite de-scriptions that fix the reference to someone (namely, Socrates) who isshort, snub-nosed, a philosopher, and also a builder and seated. On theother hand, I have also claimed that to deny that 'the seated on e' refersto Socrates does not have to mean that the seated one is, as Lewisthinks, an entity numerically distinct from Socrates, even though Soc-rates and the seated one (where Socrates is seated) differ in propertiesand so are nonidentical. To be sure, the seated one (that is to say,Socrates-qua-one-seated) is identical with what it is to be one seated,and this is what provides the generality required for explanation. Butfrom the fact that Socrates-qua-one-seated is identical with what it isto be one seated, it of course cannot be concluded that Socrates andwhat it is to be one seated are so. Likewise it does not follow that thedefinition of the kind, even though it is a kind to which the sensibleobject can be said to belong, is necessarily the definition of the sensibleobject. If Socrates, for example, belongs to the kind (it is to be re-membered that I am not committed to supposing that it is a natural



REFE REN TIAL OPACITY IN AR ISTOTL E 31

kind) seated thing, then Socrates-qua-one-seated is a specimen of thekind seated thing, but the definition of the kind seated thing, though thedefinition of the specimen of that kind, is not the definition of Socrates.

To return then to Aristotle's examples in Physics III, if the road fromAthens to Thebes is a specimen of the kind road uphill and the roadfrom Thebes to Athens a specimen of the kind road downhill, then theroad from A thens to Theb es is numerically the same as but not identicalwith the road from Thebes to Athens. It is for the same reason truethat the teacher may teach som eon e w ho learns, but even if the activitiesof teaching and learning are the same, a specimen of the (event) kindteaching is not a specime n of the (event) kind learning. 22

Admittedly, I have not given a defense on philosophical grounds forthe distinction I think Aristotle makes between sensible objects andspecimens of kinds; though I have hinted that it will be at the core ofAristotle's account of substance, a metaphysics that confounds countingis, to say the least, problematic. In fact the task of defense is, in largepart, outside the scope of this project. But in Chapter VI I will showan interesting use that a contemporary philosopher has found for adistinction betw een samen ess and identity, a strategy I hop e is sufficientto establish that the distinction may be of philosophical as well as, if Iam right, historical interest. M oreover, as it hap pens , the same exam plewill prove suggestive of grounds for maintaining, as Aristotle certainlywould, that some kinds are ontologically more fundamental than othersand also for a defense of what I will take to b e his claim that sp ecim ensof natural kinds are ontologically more fundamental than the sensibleobjects with which they are numerically the sam e. Now , how ever, I wantto argue that sameness, causal, and knowledge contexts, all of whichare opaque, can also be successfully analyzed in terms of reference tospecimens of kinds.

IV

In Physics III, as we have seen, Aristotle says that it is not things thatare in any way the same that have all their attributes the same, but onlythose to be which is the same (202bl4-16). But that this is so will, ofcourse, affect substitutivity in statements to the effect that essentialsameness or accidental ( in some way ) sameness itself obtains. Thusif, as I have claimed, descriptions that occur in opaque contexts arenames for specimens of kinds, that is to say, for entities that are nu-

merically the same as but not identical with sensible objects, and if theproperties of specimens of kinds are limited to those contained in orentailed by the definition of the kind, it is easy to see why, for claims

22 Charles (19 84) , 1 0- 15 , 29 , claims that for Aristotle processes having different defi-nitions are nonidentical members of an equivalence class.




of essential sameness, sameness in definition is required to preservetruth. In 'Socrates is essentially the same as a specimen of the kindhuman being and (tautologously) 'the builder is essentially the same asa specimen of the kind builder9, reference to specimens prevents sub-stitution for either term flanking 4is essentially the same as', unless whatis substituted is the same in definition as that which it replaces (forexample, 'the kind rational animaV for 'the kind human being 9).

In the case of accidental sameness, the analysis is more complicatedbut similar. As we would expect, that (1) 'Socrates is accidentally thesame as a specimen of the kind human being 9 is false. That (2) 'Socratesis accidentally the same as a specimen of the kind builder 9 is true, andlikewise that (3) 'Socrates is accidentally the same as a specimen of thekind philosopher 9 is true. H owever, just as a contemporary philosophermight assert that Joh n may in fact believe bot h that Cicero de nou nc edCatiline and that Tully did but that his having one belief cannot beinferred from his having the other, so because of the restrictions onsubstitution which reference to specimens introduces, (3) is unobtain-able by inference from the fact that Socrates is both a builder and aphilosopher and (2).

Of course Aristotle sometimes presents the relation of accidentalsameness as holding not between, say, Socrates and a specimen of thekind builder, but betw een tw o specimens of such kinds, for example, thehousebuilder and the fluteplayer Physics II 5 197al4-15). Since I havesaid that specimens of kinds have only the properties given in the def-inition of the kind, such examples of accidental sameness may seem tounde rm ine my view that accidental unities jus t are specim ens o f kinds.However, I believe that it does not do so. Rather, it is sufficient todissolve the problem to say that in Aristotle there are really two kindsof accidental sameness, one a relation between a sensible object and aspecimen of a kind and another a relation between a specimen of onekind and a specimen of another kind, where both specimens are acci-dentally the same as the same sensible object. Though, as we wouldexpect, he analyzes it in terms of compounding, Lewis has suggestedjust such a distinction between accidental sameness and what he callsaccidental sameness*, respectively. 23

Whether, as Lewis thinks, accidental sameness* is a relation betweentwo entities both o f which are com pou nd s or, as I think, betw een entitiesboth o f which are specimen s of k inds, that Aristotle holds n ot jus t thatCoriscus is accidentally the same as the musician but that the house-builder is accidentally the same* as the musician is clear. As he says,

Things are said to be (1) in an accidental sense, (2) by their own nature. (1) Inan accidental sense, e.g., we say the just is musical, and the man is musical and

23 Lewis (1982), 9.



R E F E R E N T I A L O PA C I T Y I N A R I S TO T L E 3 3

the m usical is a man, just as we say the musical builds, because the b uilderhappens to be musical or the musical happens to be a builder; for here 'onething is another' means 'one is an accident of another*. So in the cases we have

mentioned; for when we say the man is musical and the musical is a man, orthe white is musical or the musical is white, the last two mean that both attributesare accidents of the same thing Metaphysics V 7 1017a7-16; cf. 101 5bl6 -27,1017b27-28; emphasis added)

In this section I have analyzed the relations of essential sameness,accidental sameness, and accidental sameness*. However, it is also thecase that Aristotle's remarks about causation can be un der stood in termsof these relations. The builder builds' is true and self-explanatory be-cause specimens of the kind builder are essentially the causes o f b uilding.'Socrates builds' is imperspicuous (because Socrates is not essentiallythe cause of building) but true (because Socrates is accidentally thecause of building, that is to say, he is accidentally the same as that whichis essentially the cause of building, namely, the builder). T h e fluteplayerbuilds' is likewise imperspicuous (because the fluteplayer is not essen-tially the cause of building) but true (because the fluteplayer is acci-dentally the same* as that which is essentially the cause of building invirtue of the fluteplayer's bein g accidentally the same as Socrates, w hereSocrates is accidentally the same as the builder).

Finally my account of accidental sameness provides an explanationof Aristotle's treatment of knowledge claims in Sophistical Refutations.The re, in the Masker Paradox, Aristotle says that we know Coriscus butnot the on e approaching, even though the one approaching is Coriscus.Aristotle's exp lanat ion is brief and cryptic: For only to things that areindistinguishable and one in substance [that is to say, one in essence]does it seem that all the same attributes belong Sophistical Refutationsi7ga37-39). The similarity between Aristotle's solution to the MaskerParadox and his remark in Physics HI 3 that . . . it is not thing s whichare in any way the same that have all their attributes the same, but onlythose to be which is the same (2 0 2b l4 -1 6) is plain. Moreover, as inthe Physics, Aristotle's rule in Sophistical Refutations 24 raises a numberof questions. What is the substance of the one approaching, if notCoriscus? Which expressions can be substituted for one another in con-texts involving knowledge and which cannot? And, even more impor-tant, why should substitutivity be limited if the terms substituted referto the same entity?

In fact, of c ourse , it is hard to know why the paradox is, for A ristotle,a paradox. If, as Aristotle usually thinks, all that can be known of in-dividuals is their essence as given in the definition and the definitionof Coriscus is what it is to be a human being, such a definition, whileenough to distinguish him from some things that might be approaching(for example, a dog), is not enough to distinguish him from other ap-




proaching human beings. 24 But this problem does not affect the generalstructure of the solution I propose. For even if contrary to Aristotle'susual view, there were som e way to know Coriscus as Coriscus and evenif the kind were not approaching thing but something so narrow that theonly approaching thing which could be a member of that kind wouldbe Coriscus (perhaps something like the kind thing now within sight andapproaching the viewer from the only direction from which he can now beapproached), 25 still, as long as being a member of this kind is not Cor-iscus's essence, to know a specimen of this kind is not to know thatCoriscus is the same as this specimen.

In short, despite the peculiarity of the paradox, how my account ofaccidental unities would deal with knowledge contexts is clear. Coriscusis a specimen of the kind approaching thing, and we can know what itis to be a thing approaching. But since the definition of what it is tobe approaching is not the definition of Coriscus, to know Coriscus isnot to know that it is he who is approaching.

I have argued that certain failures of substitutivity in Aristotle can be

explained on the supposition that many opaque contexts involve pre-dicating something of specimens of kinds rather than of the sensibleobjects with which they are accidentally the same, and I have proposedto use instances of 'x-qua-</>' to refer to specimens of kinds, which spec-imens would have only the properties essential to the kind. That Lewisbelieves that musical Coriscus, the m usical on e, and s o on are accidentalcompounds, entities constructed from individuals and their accidentsand ther efore not identical with the individuals in questio n, has alreadybeen said. In the Masker Paradox and likewise in Aristotle's accounts

of change, persistence, and causality, there is no need, Lewis argues,to suppose that reference is made not to Coriscus but, in the mannerof Frege, to the sense of the name Coriscus; rather where there is

24 Aristotle's claim that know ledge is only of the universal (or, as I will argue, of w hatis equivalent to it) is discussed in Chapters III and IV.

25 As I have not com mitt ed myself to the claim that all kinds are natural kinds, any groupof things collected by virtue of a common property will be a kind. However I do notseriously intend to include, as here, kinds which can have only one member. That, asI have said, is made necessary in the case of the Masker Paradox not because ofanything having to do with failures of substitutivity but only because, contrary to hisusual view, Aristotle here considers the possibility of knowing Coriscus in a way that,once he is in sight, would make a difficulty of our not knowing that it is he who isapproaching. It should be noted also that, as I interpret it, there is no equivocationbetween knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge that in either the Paradoxor its solution. The knowledge involved is always knowledge of an entity, either Cor-iscus or a specimen of some kind, and thus is knowledge by acquaintance.



R E F E R E N T I A L O PA C I TY I N A R I S TO T L E 3 5

accidental sameness substitutivity fails just because identity does notobtain.26 But since Lewis also considers - and rejects - the proposalthat, by isolating the intensional component of the sentence, 'qua' (asin 'the doctor qua doctor heals') might provide yet another alternative,I want to make it clear that there is a difference between what I haveadvocated and the approach Lewis criticizes. Specifically, what Lewisconcludes is that, since 'qua' cannot be eliminated without the occur-rence of intensionality in the proposed paraphrase, there is no advan-tage in its introduction.27 Nevertheless my account is unlike the caseLewis has in mind. For I have made use of 'qua' not in an attempt toreconcile referential opacity with the ontology of common sense but torefer to a specimen of a kind, an entity which is not identical to thesensible object with which it is nonetheless numerically the same.

To summarize the concerns of this chapter, it may be said that whenfaced with referential opacity there seem to be roughly four options:(1) to deny that some things true of a subject really are properties, (2)to introduce new nonidentical referents for the expressions in questionwhile not distinguishing numerical sameness from identity, (3) to reviseone's understanding of identity, and (4) to postulate varieties of nu-merical sameness other than identity. The first alternative might lookpromising for predicates such as '. . . is a substance', but it seems im-plausible for, say, '. . . builds'. The second alternative has been illus-trated by Frege and, in the case of the interpretation of Aristotle, byLewis and Matthews.

Ways of accomplishing the third option are varied and problematic;Dancy's suggestion, mentioned earlier in this chapter, that things nu-merically the same might be formally distinct, may be an example.28 Itis likely that ano ther is offered by Irwin when he says that in MetaphysicsVII 6 Aristotle intends to assert the identity of the individual and theparticular form, an identity eased by including in Socrates' essence orform properties of his character and personality which distinguish himfrom Callias.29 Here it seems clear that Irwin wants to distinguish suchproperties from others - that Socrates is tenth in line for the theateror that he has a bit of lint on his sleeve, for example. But if this is so,that is to say, if Irwin would agree that not every trivial property ofSocrates is a property of Socrates' essence or soul, then the identityIrwin asserts to obtain between Socrates and Socrates' soul is not iden-tity, as usually understood.

26 See Lewis (1991), 131 -40 , 19 9-2 21 .27 Lewis (1991) , 208; for the entire discussion, see 19 9- 21 0.28 Dancy (1975 ), 367, says: So Aristotle wou ld not say, simply, that in som e sent ence s

the substitutivity of identity fails because those sentences are referentially opaque: hewould have things to say about identity.

29 Irwin (1988 ), 255. See also 252 .




Thus it would seem that Irwin too attributes to Aristotle a nonstand-ard concept of identity; 30 Sandra Peterson may do so as well. WhatPeterson argues is that Aristotle's handling of opaque contexts is closeto that of Carnap, in who se system a distinction is made b etwe en identityof extension and identity of intension. 31 For Carnap substitution inmodal contexts requires sameness in intension, that is, sameness in allstate descriptions, while substitution in propositional attitude contextsrequires both intensional equivalence and intensional isomorphism. 32

Aristotle does not make the latter distinction. Nonetheless he does claimthat essential sameness (that is, the sort of numerical sameness in whichthere is sameness in definition) is required for substitutivity to hold inmodal and propositional attitude (knowledge) contexts, and that, Pe-terson believes, is en oug h to justify the com parison.

However, if my interpretation is correct, the views of Aristotle andCarnap are not especially close. In the first place, while Carnap's in-dividual con cep t Socrates - the referent of modal con texts in whichthere is seem ing reference to Socrates - includes that which distin-guishes Socrates from Callias in all state descriptions, on Aristotle'saccount, as we have seen, Socrates-qua-human being and Callias-qua-human being turn out to be qualitatively indistinguishable. Moreover,where Carnap would consider 'the fluteplayer' and 'the housebuilder'(in a given state description) as extensionally equivalent definite de-scriptions, Aristotle would, I have argued, take them to refer to spec-imens of different kinds. Finally even th ough whatever is true of Socratesis true of that which is numerically the same as a specimen of the kindhuman being or a specimen of the kind builder, to refer to Socrates-qua-human being or to the builder is not to refer to Socrates but to aspecimen of a given kind, where, as I have said, what is characteristicof specimens is that they (unlike the sensible objects with which theyare numerically the same) have only the defining characteristics of thekind. But if this is so, then the numerical sameness that holds betweenSocrates and Socrates-qua-</> is not identity, and Aristotle's distinction

30 Hartm an (1977) may be yet another exam ple. He says: "As his use of qua suggests,Aristotle distinguishes entities according to their descriptions; thus an entity under acertain description is not fully identical to what would normally be considered thesame entity under a different description. In effect, Aristotle makes mutual logicaldependency a requirement for true identity . . . " (73). To distinguish between trueor full identity, on the one hand, and accidental identity (still said not to involvenumerical distinctness) (75), on the other, would seem to revise our understandingof identity.

31 Peterson (1969), 145-5 0. Hussey (1983), 69 -7 0, argues that Aristotle's treatment ofreferential opacity anticipates parts of Frege's, but Hussey's account is still like Pe-terson's. Hussey says: "Aristotle's point is that . . . 'Leibniz's Law' need not be trueunless there is sameness 'in being' or 'in definition', on top of ordinary identity" (69).

32 See Carnap (1947), 46 -59 , 9-1 1, 100.






same properties belong (202bl5-16), his primary concern seems to beto explain away certain cases of referential opacity involving accidentalsameness. Whether there are other cases of referen tial opacity - that is,whether his conditions are sufficient for substitutivity or only necessary- is a que stion that do es not ge t asked. Yet it may be that it is answerednonetheless in Metaphysics VII 6. Here Aristotle argues:

But in the case of so-called self-subsistent things, is a thing necessarily the sameas its essence? E.g. if there are some substances which have no other substancesnor entities prior to them - substances such as some assert the Ideas to be? Ifthe essence of good is to be different from the Idea of good, and the essenceof animal from the Idea of animal, and the essence of being from the Idea ofbeing, there will, firstly, be other substances and entities and Ideas besides thosewhich are asserted, and, secondly, these others will be prior substances if theessence is substance. And if the posterior substances are severed from oneanother, there will be no knowledge of the ones and the others will have nobeing. (By 'severed' I mean, if the Idea of good has not the essence of good,and the latter has not the property of being good.) For there is knowledge ofeach thing only when we know its essence. (1031a28-b7)

Toward the end of the chapter he restates the point:

The absurdity of the separation would appear also if one were to assign a name

to each of the essences; for there would be another essence besides the originalone, e.g. to the essence of horse there will belong a second essence. (1031b28-30)

If the thing and its essence are not the same, then its essence must itselfbe an individual and thus has itself to have an essence, which, becauseit is not the same as the essen ce of the thing, is itself another individual,and so on, resulting in regress.

Read as an objection to Plato, this argument seems very strange;Aristotle has given us no reason t o conc lude that a Form and its essenc eare not identical. But Aristotle use s his argum ent t o lead us to a differentconclusion. The argument, he tells us, does not apply to Platonic Formsalone; each primary and self-subsistent thing is one and the same as itsessence (1032 a4- 6; cf. 10 31 b l2 -1 4) . As he puts it, Yet why shouldnot some things be their essences from the start, since [or if] essenceis substance? (10 31 b3 1- 32 ). To put the point another way, if the dis-tinctness of a thing and its essence can for some cases be denied, whyintroduce Platonic Forms at all? On the other hand, because for Ar-istotle as for Plato things with accidents and in flux cannot be known,apart from Platonic Forms, what sorts of things could Aristotle be think-ing of? What sorts of things, in other words, can Aristotle hold to bethe same as their essences?

It might seem that the answer is to be foun d at the end o f MetaphysicsVII 6 itself; Ar istotle, after all, says: Now the sophistical objec tions t othis position, and the question whether Socrates and to be Socrates are



REFERE NTIAL OPACITY IN ARIST OTLE 39

the same thing, are obviously answered in the same way . . . (1032a6-8). Yet if this is his answer to the question, it is an answer which proveselusive. For that the question is to be answered in the same way doesnot, unfortunately, tell us what the answer is; some interpreters havethought that Aristotle means us to conclude that Socrates and to beSocrates are the same,33 and others that they are not.34 But since Soc-rates has many accidental properties, if (as I take VII 6 to assert) he isthe same as his essence, then in this case, which is certainly a case ofessential sameness, there will nevertheless be a failure of substitutivity.A defense of the claim that, though not identical, Socrates and hisessence are the same - and with it an interpretation of substance inMetaphysics VII-VIII - is the subject of the next chapter.

33 See, for example, Hartman (19 77), 5 7- 87 , esp. 63; Sellars (1967 ), 11 5; Rorty (197 3),402; Irwin (1988), 218.

34 See Furth (1985), 114.



I l l

A Theory of Substance

Aristotle's account of substance involves yet another case - indeed themost central case - of his use of numerical sameness without identity,and in this chapter I offer an interpretation of Aristotle's views aboutsubstance which depends on that distinction. The task of interpretingVII-VIII has, of course, been undertaken many times, and yet nothingapproaching a consensus has been reached. My strategy is to argue thatAristotelian substances are specimens of natural kinds, where such spec-imens are numerically the same as bu t not identical with sensible objects.

I maintain that, if a distinction between numerical sameness and identityis posited, Aristotle's view is consistent, his claim about the separationof substance is intelligible, and his requirement that substances haveontological and epistemological priority is satisfied. This chapter beginswith a brief discussion of the Categories and proceeds to considerationof how Aristotle's position in that work is affected by the demand inthe Metaphysics for the epistemic priority of substances; separation andontological priority will be considered in later chapters.

IIn the Categories, an early work, Aristotle makes a distinction betweenwhat is present in a subject, what is said of a subject, what is both, andwhat is neither (la20-lb6). Although this classification is unclear withrespect to whether the properties present in a subject are or are notparticulars, that dispute need not be entered into here.1 For to give an

1 For the claim that the properties present in a subject are particularized, see Ansco mb e(1961), 8; Ackrill (1963), 74-5; and Heinaman (1981a). For alternatives, see Owen(1965) and Frede (1987a), 58. I will assume that properties in the Categories are notparticularized or that, if they are, Aristotle has abandoned this view by the time of theMetaphysics. However, should this assumption be false, my views about substances couldbe reconstructed by saying that although properties are particulars (and hence collec-tible into kinds), since the existence of properties depends on the existence of sub-stances, properties are dependent particulars while substances are specimens of in-dependent natural kinds.

4






for which reason it might be suggested that kinds just are classes or

sets. But even if this were so, not all classes would be kinds. For a class

is commonly defined as any collection of objects, 3 while at the very least,

not any arbitrary collection could be a kind; the members of a kind

need be alike with respect to certain nontrivial properties. Some classes,

of course, do meet this condition. All members of the class of white

things are white; all members of the class of human beings are rational.

Yet I would argue that this fact disguises a fundamental difference. For

whereas the identity of any class or set is solely a function of its mem-

bership, the identity of a kind, by contrast, would not seem to depend

upon its extension; 4 that for Aristotle kinds could have had other mem-

bers seems beyond doubt. But if this is true, then even if, for example,

the class of human beings includes all past, present, and future human

beings, it would n ot be the same as the kind human being. More generally,

for any kind, it seems that there could have been other members of

that same kind. 5

I have said that if kinds are not arbitrary collections there must be

some grounds that determine which objects are members of a given

kind. In fact what would seem to determine membership in a kind is

the presence in any object of certain properties; Socrates, for example,

is a member of the kind human being in virtue of his being rational or

two-footed . But - and this is crucial - even though both the kind and

the properties that determine membership in it are counted by Aristotle

as said of a subject, a kind is not identical with the properties essential

for membership in that kind. Laboring without the advantage of an

indefinite article (which is lacking in Greek), in the Categories, Aristotle

explains how kinds are both like and unlike properties. He says:

Every substance seems to signify a certain 'this' [tode ti\. As regards the primarysubstances, it is indisputably true that each of them signifies a certain 'this'; for

the thing revealed is individual and numerically one. But as regards the sec-ondary substances, though it appears from the form of the name - when onespeaks of man or animal - that a secondary substance likewise signifies a certain'this', this is not really true; rather, it signifies a certain qualification \poion ti\- for the subject is not, as the primary substance is, one, but man and animalare said of many things. However, it does not signify simply a certain qualifi-cation [poion ti], as white does. White signifies nothing but a qualification [poiori],whereas the species and the genus mark off the qualification of substance -they signify substance of a certain qualification (3b 10-21).

3 See Massey (1970), 355. See also Mates (1965), 29.4 To be sure Quine (1970), 8, thinks otherwise. He says: There is no call to reckon

kinds as intensional. Kinds can be seen as sets, determined by their members. It is justthat [because not all classes or sets are such that their members share certain properties]not all sets are kinds.

5 See Wolterstorff (1970), 258.






in this scheme, are the ultimate subjects. In the Metaphysics, however,the ultimate subjecthood of the individual hum an being or the individualhorse is threatened by matter. Matter (concerning which more will besaid in Chapter V) is introduced in the Physics and is opposed to form.The problem for the Metaphysics is that if the matter of the horse un-derlies the horse in something like the way in which the horse underliesits attributes, it would seem that, unless substance is matter, being asubject is no longer the criterion for being a substance. Yet even thoughAristotle may find it necessary to refine his understanding of being asubject, that that which underlies a thing primarily is thought to be inthe truest sense its substance is reiterated in VII 3 (1029al). On theother hand, it seems that matter cannot be substance because sub-stances, as we are told (1029a27-28), have both separability (chdriston)and thisness (tode ti).9

Thus the need to accommodate the distinction between matter andform is one difference between the Categories and the Metaphysics. It isnot the only difference, however; the role of substance in Aristotle'stheory has expanded as well. In the Categories substance was said tostand in a relation of priority to the other categories in such a way thatthey are said to depend on it (and not conversely), while in the Meta-physics the priority is explicitly said to be not only ontological butepis temological.

In fact views of the relation between the Categories and the Metaphysicshave varied widely, ranging from Montgomery Furth's claim that theCategories is a model of Aristotle's metaphysical theory using "a cut-down and simplified conceptual apparatus"10 to Daniel Graham's claimthat the discontinuities are so great as to comprise two incommensurablesystems.11 Between these extremes, Michael Loux has argued that evenin the Categories Aristotle's essentialism threatens the asymmetry be-tween individuals (thought to be primary substances in virtue of beingunanalyzable subjects) and their species, thereby encourag ing a differentaccount of substance in the Metaphysics,12 while Lewis offers what he callsa "reconciliationist" view.13 Though nothing in the Metaphysics exactlyfits the subject criterion of the Categories,14 in the Metaphysics Aristotle'splan, claims Lewis, is "to knit together the earlier criteria on substance. . . with the new ontology of form and matter"15 by modifying the oldingredients of his metaphysical thinking from the Categories and mouldingthem to fit the requirements of their new metaphysical context."16

9 In the Complete Works of Aristotle (1984) Barnes translates tode ti as individuality.Smith (1921) argues that to be tode ti is to be both singular and possessed o f a universalnature, a view that would also suit my interpretation.

10 Furth (1988), 4. 11 Graham (1987), esp. 84 -1 18 .12 Loux (1991) , 48. 13 Lewis (199 1), 26 7 and 26 9, n. 12.14 Lewis (1991) , 27 4. 15 Lewis (199 1), 267 .16 Lewis (1991), 269.



THEORY OF SUBSTA NCE 45

Of course one's view of the relation between the Categories and theMetaphysics depends in large part on what one takes Aristotle's theoryof substance in the Metaphysics to be. What I myself want to claim isthat, apart from the addition of the matter of which objects are com-posed, there is a certain continuity between Aristotle's ontology in theCategories and the Metaphysics. How ever, since in the Metaphysics ' sub-stance' ipusia) is an honorific title to be awarded to whatever is first inknowledge, definition, and time (1028a32-33), even that claim, sup-posing that it is correct, does not answer the question "what is to countas substance?" Nevertheless to discover that on a given interpretationAristotle's ontology in the Metaphysics provides a candidate that meetsthe criteria for substance would be some evidence in favor of attribu tingthat ontology to Aristotle; to discover, moreover, tha t the same elementin that ontology disarmed in a plausible way the charge of inconsistencywould provide further evidence in favor of that ontology and the can-didacy of that element. My strategy in this chapter will be to begin byoffering an account of substance in the Metaphysics. In Section V I willthen suggest that even in the Categories what Aristotle says of substanceis more subtle and less at odds with the Metaphysics than might at firstbe supposed.

In Metaphysics VII 3 Aristotle offers a list of candidates for substance;in this chap ter the essence, the universal, the genus, and the substratumare said to be the substance of each thing. But substratum can in turnbe understood as matter, form, or the composite. Having dismissedmatter (at least as matter is understood in VII 317) as neither tode ti norchoriston and the composite as posterior and obvious, of this trio thereremains the form or essence, for these are identified with one anotherin VII 7 (1032bl-2).18

The claims of the universal, including the genus, will be addressedin the course of the present discussion, and more will be said aboutboth the composite and matter in later chapters. But as for form, itseems to me that in VII-VIII there are several senses of the term(including its synonyms such as 'formula' and 'shape'). In VII 4 onlythe form of the genus is said to have an essence (1030all-12); in VII8 Socrates and Callias are said to be the same in form (1034a8). TheseI, along with some (but not all) other interpreters, take to be examplesof form as species. However by 'form' Aristotle more often means notthe species or, more broadly, the kind, but rather, as in VII 12 wherethe last differentia is said to be the form (1038a26), the properties thatenable something to be a member of a given kind. The being glued of

17 How matter in VII 3 is to be understood has generated controversy that need not beconsidered here. For two recent discussions see Loux (19 91), 5 4 - 7 1 , and Lewis (199 1),2 8 2 - 9 9 .

18 This claim too is controversial, but see Irwin (1988), 239-40.




the book or the blending of honey water (1042bl6-18), the principlesthat make the elements a and b a syllable and fire and earth into flesh(1041bl2-19) - in short the arrangement of the matter - each of theseI take to be an example of form as the differentia (1042b32), that is,of form as a thing's essential properties.

It seems reasonable then to think that 'form' sometimes means thekind, that is, a collection of similar particulars which could have hadother members, and sometimes its defining properties. Yet that theexistence of collections depends on the existence of objects that aremembers of the collection is evident, 19 while properties are said to bethemselves not separable entities (1028a23-25) but to exist pros hen(1030a35-bl). Thus because substances are supposed to be first inknowledge, definition, and time, and in order to be first in time, to betode ti and choriston (that is, to have thisness and separation), and be causesubstance is said to be form (1033bl7; 1037a29), if Metaphysics V I I -VIII is to make sense, it must be the case that 'form' sometimes hasneither of these meanings. Rather, if in VII 6 Socrates is said to be insome sense the same as his essence (and form is, as I have said, theessence), the term 'form' must in this case refer in some way to Soc-rates. 20 That is to say, Aristotle's strategy, as I see it, is to argue thatmembers of kinds can in some way be both first in time and first inknowledge.

I have proposed that in Metaphysics VII Socrates is said to b e thesame as his essence or form, in which case 'form' must sometimes meanneither the kind nor its defining characteristics but, in some way, amember of that kind. The problem, however, is that since any memberof a kind, such as Socrates, has characteristics that are unknowable, ifthe particular form of Socrates were thought to include the accidentalfeatures that distinguish him from other human beings, Socrates' formwould be no more knowable than Socrates.

This implication has been denied by David Balme and accepted (butsoftened) by Irwin, but neither of their proposals seems to me satis-factory. What Balme suggests is that Socrates is a process which, whenconsidered at a moment of time, has no matter, so that Socrates at tn

(Socrates' form) can be known by grasping a complete description of

19 For the dependence of kinds, consider for example a club: while it need not have anyof its actual members, it could hardly be said to exist if it had no members.

20 Although it is not for the present purpo se significant, there is also a fourth sense. InVII 7 the building art is said to be the form of a house (1032bl3-14), and the form

of health is said to be found in the mind of the do ctor (1032 b22-2 3). In these cases'form ' seems to mean something like a set of rules or ideas that govern the productionof something. In saying that there are three or even four senses of 'form', I do notmean that the term is simply ambiguous. When the term 'lion' is used of individuallions, the kind lion, and even pictures of lions, it is so used not because of ambiguitybut because of the relations among these things. With 'form' (and 'substance') thesituation is similar.



THEORY OF SUBSTAN CE 47

every detail at that moment. 21 Irwin, on the other hand, concedes thatparticular forms are only indirectly objects of knowledge but arguesthat this is acce ptab le. H e says, Aristotle can not . . . allow that theparticular is in itself an object of definition and scientific knowledge;but he can still fairly insist that scientific knowledge and definition applyto a particular form . 22 On this view, he con tinue s, particular formspartly satisfy the requirements for being objects of knowledge. Notbeing universals, they are not the primary objects of knowledge; butthey are among the objects that scientific knowledge applies to. Wemight say they are what science is about, though not what it is o/] 23

That Balme's proposed ontology is not Aristotle's seems clear. As forIrwin's proposal, the difficulty is that it leaves Aristo tle with the dilem mahe identifies in Metaphysics III 6: universals are knowable but are notsubstances while particulars are not knowable (1003a5-17). To put thepoin t another way, if particulars are primary onto logically and un iversalsare most fundamental epistemologically, there is nothing that meets therequirements for substance.

I have argued that if Socrates' form includes accidental features suchas Socrates' snub-nosedness, Socrates' form will not be knowable. Onthe other hand, if Socrates' form does not include, for example, beingsnub-nosed, 24 then it is open to Aristotle to distinguish what is true ofSocrates and what is true of Socrates' form in such a way that the latteris knowable. However, if he is to avoid Platonism, Aristotle must at thesame time deny (and if Socrates and to be Socrates are said to be thesame, he does deny) that Socrates and to be Socrates are numericallydistinct entities. I will now argue that the notion of a specimen of akind, introduced in the preceding chapter as a solution to the generalproblem of referential opacity, shows how this can be accomplished.

I l lEarlier I pro pos ed to use the expr ession 'Socrates-qua-musician' in sucha way that by abstracting from all properties of Socrates except musi-cality it designates a specimen of the kind musician. Thou gh my use o f4Socrates-qua-</>' to designate a specimen of a kind is an interpreter'sterm of art, it is one clearly derived from Aristotle. Indeed there aremany occurrences of 'qua' in Aristotle; some typical examples are: It isnot qua water or qua air that water or air is transparent (De Anima II

21 See Balme (1984 ), 5. 22 Irwin (198 8), 26 3.23 Irwin (1988), 26 3- 64 .24 For a view of particular forms such that Socrates and Callias do not have qualitatively

different forms, see Frede (1987a), 63-71 and (1987b), 78. Sellars (1967), 112, saysthat the particular form of this bronze sphere is the bronze sphere itself simply quasphere; see also Sellars (1957), 698. Hartman (1977) holds that the particular formof Socrates is Socrates qua man. See 57-87.




7 418b7),25 "what produces the impression is a signet of bronze or gold,but not qua bronze or gold" (De Anima II 12 424a20-21), "but neitheris there friendship towards a horse or an ox, nor to a slave qua slave"(Nicomachean Ethics VIII 11 1161b2-3), "but if anyone actually thoughtof [the snub not qua snub but] qua hollow he would think of it withoutthe flesh in which it is embodied" (De Anima III 7 43 1b l3 -15 ), "firstlyand in the proper sense [there is friendship] of good men qua good"(Nicomachean Ethics VIII 4 1157a30-31), and, most famously, "being as[qua] being" (1003a21).

As these examples show, the expression that follows 'qua' can be amass term, an adjective, a sortal term, or an abstract noun, and whilein some cases the same term either occurs twice or is replaced by anotherterm definitionally related to it (e.g., 'snub' and 'separately existinghollow'), in others this is not so . For example in Physics III 1 Aristotlesays:

It is the fulfilment of what is potential when it is already fulfilled and operatesnot as itself but as movable, that is motion. What I mean by 'as' is this: bronzeis potentially a statue. But it is not the fulfilment of bronze as bronze which ismotion. For to be bronze and to be a certain potentiality are not the same.(201a27-32)

Clearly it is not part of what bronze is that it serve well for statuary("to be bronze and to be a certain potentiality are not the same"),though were bronze not suitable for statues, the qua relation could nothold. Likewise in the case of Socrates, the applicability of 'qua humanbeing' to some true statements about him reflects the fact that Socratesis identical with a given human being and not, say, a given elephant.

Of course there are also cases such as "[friends] wish well alike toeach other qua good" (Nicomachean Ethics VIII 3 1156b8-9) in whichwhat follows 'qua ' is adjectival. However in such cases - to return to

my example, let us suppose the adjectival case to be 'qua musical' -clearly the point is to consider neither musicality (for here 'qua' wouldserve no purpose) nor musical Socrates (for in this case the goal ofknowability would be defeated). Rather the expression 'Socrates quamusical', by abstracting from all properties of Socrates except one,leaves us with 'Socrates qua musician', an analysis that, it can be seen,depends on the distinction between kinds and properties drawn in Sec-tion I of this chapter.

In short, Socrates qua musician is Socrates as - and only as - a

member of the kind musician. More generally, any particular as and onlyas a member of some kind is a thing having only the properties givenin the definition of that kind, which definition is necessarily true of all

25 Barnes {Complete Works of Aristotle, 1984) t ranslates: "Neither air nor water is t rans-parent because it is air or water."



THEORY OF SUBSTANCE 49

its mem bers. Such a thing - that is, a particular as a mem ber o f som ekind - is what I have bee n calling a specim en of a kind. As for thenature of specimens, in the preceding chapter two further points weremade. The first, and here I appealed to Lear's metaphor of 'qua' as afilter, was that whatever is true of 'Socrates-qua-musician' is true of'Callias-qua musician'; put generally, whatever is true of any specimenof a given kind is true of every specimen of that same kind. The secondpoint was that, even though 'Socrates-qua-human being' refers to aspecimen of the kind human being, if identity and numerical samenessare distinguished, the use of 'qua' need not introduce a multitude ofentities. Of course if Socrates-qua-human being is for Aristotle a sub-stance, then certainly Socrates-qua-human being exists and indeed, soAristotle seem s to think, exists in a m ore fund amental way than Socrates.How Aristotle might defend such a claim is the subject of Chapter VI.Nevertheless since Socrates and Socrates-qua-human being are not nu-merically distinct, even in this case, it will be true that there do notexist two entities, Socrates and Socrates-qua-human being.

To recapitulate, on my account Socrates, Socrates-qua-builder, Soc-rates-qua-human being, and so on are numerically the same. Neverthe-less - and this is the point of the hyph enated expres sions - x an d x-

qua-0 are not identical; not all the properties of x are true of x-qua-</>.That this is so is what makes specimens of kinds different from simplymembers of kinds. Socrates is a member of the kind human being (andthe kinds philosopher, builder, and so on); Socrates-qua-human bein g andSocrates-qua-philosopher are specimens of those kinds, respectively.

As it happens, there is a distinct expression to refer to Socrates-qua-hum an being , nam ely, 'Socrates' soul'. What Aristotle says in MetaphysicsVIII 3 is that Socrates' soul and Callias' soul are distinct but not assouls distinguishable; soul and to be soul (Aristotle can in this case mean

identical ) are said to be the same (1043b2). As for man, in otherwords, a given human being such as Socrates, and to be man, Aristotletells us that they are not the same (1043b3), unless Socrates and hissoul are identified. To put the point another way, not everything saidof Socrates is said of Socrates-qua-human being salva veritate.

A similar example is given in the summary at the end of MetaphysicsVII 11:

but in the concrete substance, e.g. a snub nose or Callias, the matter also will

be present. And we have stated that the essence and the individual thing arein some cases the same; i.e. in the case of primary substances, e.g. curvatureand the essence of curvature, if this is primary. (By a primary substance I meanone which does not imply the presence of something in something else, i.e. ina substrate which acts as matter.) But things which are of the nature of matteror of wholes which include matter, are not the same as their essences, nor are




accidental unities like that of Socrates and musical; for these are the same onlyby accident. (1037a32-1037b7)

Of course Aristotle does not mean that curvature exists without matter.The point is rather that, since its matter is not part of what it is, betweencurvature, that is to say, the geometrical shape, and its essence, therewill be identity. But like a snub nose, on the other hand, Socrates is awhole that includes matter. Therefore although Socrates is essentiallythe same as what it is to be a human being and accidentally the sameas the musical, in neither case is there identity.

I have defended the thesis that, as a result of the restrictive functionof 'qua', it is possible to refer not only, for example, to Socrates, but

also, by using the expression 'Socrates-qua-hum an being', to a specimenof the kind human being. I have argued too that, despite the differencesbetween any two members of the same kind, since specimens of a kindinclude no accidental properties there is no difference at all in thequalities had by specimens of the same kind. But of course it is just thisindistinguishability that makes specimens of kinds, unlike the sensibleobjects with which they are numerically the same, knowable. For at leastin the Metaphysics,26 the goals of science and metaphysics are limited tothe necessary and the universal. The result is that even if for Aristotle

the ideal candidates for knowledge would be the Platonic Forms, under-stood as eternally existing, necessarily unchanging patte rns whose prop-erties are all essential, specimens of kinds can be an acceptable ap-proximation of the Forms without their separation.

I have argued that Socrates-qua-musician is knowable for Aristotlebecause there is, in some sense, a definition for what it is to be musical;of course, to say that x-qua-0 is a knowable object is not necessarily tosay that x-qua-0 is first in knowledge. Yet even though Aristotle wouldsay that qualities (and hence specimens of kinds derived from qualities)

have an essence and a definition in a secondary sense (VII 4), I haveas yet given no criteria that would establish that musician is a kind derivedfrom the properties of human beings, rather than conversely. To do sowould make it apparent that the requirement for epistemological prior-ity is not one that is independent; to be not just knowable but first inknowability will turn out to be, in other words, a characteristic not ofspecimens of just any kind. Only specimens of natural kinds can bespecimens that are first in knowledge because it is only they that areontologically fundamental.

26 In fact Aristotle did realize that certain features not co mm on t o all members of aspecies can be genetically transmitted. For a clear discussion of how this fact affectsthe notion of form and the limits of knowability in the biological works, see Sharpies(1985), esp. 120-22.




IV

Although Aristotle says often enough that knowledge is belief about

things that are universal and necessary (e.g., Nicomachean Ethics VI 6

11 40 b3 1- 32 ), in Section III I argued that for Aristotle substances -

specimens of natural kinds - are not universals but nevertheless are

knowable jus t because they, as it were, mimic the universal. However

if this is so, the inconsistency of Metaphysics VII -VI II can be resolved.

That in VII-VIII Aristotle asserts that substance is form, that form is

universal, and that no universal is substance, there is no doubt. 27 Some

philosophers have believed that the inconsistency cannot be overcome,

and others, taking Aristotle's approach to be aporetic, have supposed

that he might not be committed to all three claims. But most have soughtto avoid these conclusions either by reinterpreting one of the three

statements or by declaring one of the three constituent terms to be

ambiguous.

While every permutation has probably been tried, 28 recent solutions

have tended either toward particular forms or toward taking some uni-

versals to be substance. My view, that forms are specimens of natural

kinds, has evident affinity to the view that there are particular forms, 29

although also to a view according to which substances are neither par-

ticulars nor universals. 30 An alternative takes form (substance) to be a

universal, perhaps something like a formal cause, 31 thereby denying

Aristotle's apparent claim in VII 13 that no universal is substance.

What Aristotle says in VII 13 is, in part, as follows:

For it seems impossible that any universal term should be the name of a sub-stance. For primary substance is that kind of substance which is peculiar to anindividual, which does not belong to anything else; but the universal is common,since that is called universal which naturally belongs to more than one thing.Of which individual then will this be the substance? Either of all or of none.

But it cannot be the substance of all; and if it is to be the substance of one,this one will be the others also; for things whose substance is one and whoseessence is one are themselves also one. (1038b8—15)

He then goes on to claim that substance means that which is not pre-

dicable of a subject but that the universal is predicable of some subject

27 For a list of relevant passages, see Lesher (1971), 169. Lesher does not distinguishbetween passages that say only that the substance of a thing is form and those thatsay that it is substance which is form.

28 For an overview of various interpretations, see Lesher (1971 ). For discussion of morerecent papers, see Lewis (1985), 65 -7 .

29 See Sellars (1967) and (1957); Hartman (1977), 57- 87 ; Frede (1987a), 63 -7 1 , and(1987b).

30 See Owens (1963), esp. 3 4 7 - 9 9 , 4 2 6 - 3 4 .31 See, for example, Driscoll (1981); Lewis (1985) and (1991), esp. Pts. III-IV; Code

(1986); Loux (1979); and Furth (1988), 19 2-2 01 .




always (1 03 8b l5 -1 6) , and later conclud es, If, then, we view the matterfrom these standpoints, it is plain that no universal attribute is a sub-stance, and this is plain also from the fact that no common predicateindicates a 'this', but rather a 'such' (1 03 8b 34 -10 39 a2 ), a conclusionhe repeats in VII 16 at 1040b23-24. 3 2

It might appear that VII 13 is decisive evidence in favor of a view,such as mine, which denies that forms are universal. Nevertheless JohnDriscoll, Alan Code, and both Loux and Lewis, among others, haveargued that the VII 13 claim is limited to universals that are predicatedof particulars while substances or forms are universals that are predi-cated of matter, 33 in which case substance can be universal after all. AsDriscoll says, Since the formal cause or essence taken without anymaterial substrate is definable, it cannot be a particular (cf. Z, 15,1039b20-22, 1040a5-7), and since it cannot be a particular, it mustbe a universal in the broad sense that every nonparticular is a univer-sal. 34 Though the arguments of Loux's and Lewis's recent books havemo re com plexity than I can her e d o just ice to, I will indicate so mepoints where there is disagreement.

What Loux argues is that in the Categories primary substances arethe familiar concrete particulars that belong to substance-kinds; a cer-tain horse and a human being such as Socrates are his examples. AsLoux says:

The fact that a basic subject falls under its species cannot rest on or be groundedin some prior instantiation of the said-of or the present-in relation; and, as Ihave said, these two relations exhaust the tools Aristotle has at his disposal inthe Categories for ontological analysis or reduction. But, then, the result of theinteraction of [the basic-subject criterion for ousiahood and the doctrine ofessentialism] is that a basic subject's falling under or belonging to its lowest-level substance-kind is a primitive, bedrock fact about the world, a fact notsusceptible of further analysis. For want of a better name, let us call this result

the Unanalyzability Thesis.35

However, in the Metaphysics an analysis of the unanalyzable is, Louxthinks, just what occurs. Indeed in the Metaphysics the subjects of theCategories are found to be analyzable composites o f matter and form,and it is form that in the Metaphysics is primary substance. As Loux says, It is , then, because form is the only thing that is both the ousia o fother things and its own ousia that the thesis that form is ousia is thedominating claim of the middle books. 36 H e continues:

32 Loux (1991), 203, finds seven arguments in VII 13, but of these the first (1038b9-15) gets most of his attentio n. His interpre tation of it is discussed later in this chapter .33 See Driscoll (1981), 1 50-52 ; Code (1986), 413 ; Loux (1979), 23 ; and Lewis (1985),

66-67. This way of reading VII 13 is derived from suggestions in earlier papers:Woods (1967), 216, and Albritton (1957), 705.

34 Driscoll (1981), 151 . 35 Loux (1991), 35 .36 Loux (1991), 159.




Were it not a necessary fact about a thing that what it is to be that thing andthe thing itself are one and the same, it could not play the kind of explanatoryrole that the Aristotle of Z and H37 wants to reserve for form. Form is to provideus with a final answer to the question why things are what they are, and onlyif a thing is necessarily the same with what it is to be that thing do we have therequisite guarantee that there is no explanation in terms of something else forthat thing's being what it is, for its being the kind of thing it is. Only if a thingis its own essence can it be its own ousia. For a thing of this sort, the question,Why is it that kind of thing? has a ready answer that precludes the possibilityof any further questions. It is the kind of thing it is because it is one and thesame as being that kind of thing; and it could not be otherwise.38

Loux distinguishes form predication and species predication in sucha way that a substance species is predicated of its instances, this beingthe less fundamental sort of predication, while form is predicated ofmatter,39 a view that allows him to come to the conclusion about VII13 already described, namely, that Aristotle's intent in that chapter isonly to exclude universals predicated of particulars from the ranks ofprimary substances.40 But this conclusion having been reached, Louxalso offers other arguments, both philosophical and textual, againstparticular forms. These include claims that ousiai explanations are in-herently general, that the metaphysics of particular forms is "bizarre,"and that if individual forms come into being and pass away universalforms will still be needed in which case individual forms do no work inthe theory.41 His textual argument is that there is no passage in VII-VIII that demands a reading of forms as particulars; the statement inV 18 that Callias is kath* hauto Callias and what it is to be Callias(1022a26-27) and also the claim in XII 5 that your matter and formand moving cause are different from mine but the same in universalformula (1071a27-29) can, he says, refer to the general form.42 As forLewis's interpretation, he shares Loux's account of VII 1343 and thedistinction between kinds of predication which makes it possible, ar-guing for the even stronger conclusion that because in the Metaphysicskinds have no "independent" place in Aristotle's theory sentences thatapparently assign an individual to a kind can be understood in termsof the predication of form of matter.44

37 In Aristotle's works books are referred to sometimes, as I have done, by numbers andsometimes by letters of the Greek alphabet. In the case of the Metaphysics, correlationis complicated by the fact that Book I is A and Book II a. Thus Z and H refer to

Books VII and VIII, respectively.38 Loux (1991), 159-60. 39 Loux (1991), 109-46.40 Loux (1991), 202-10. 41 Loux (1991), 225, 227-28.42 Loux (1991), 230, 233. 43 Lewis (1991), 309-21.44 Lewis (1991), 190-91; see also 184, n. 22, where Lewis argues against Frede and

Patzig's analysis of VII 8 1033a28—31, which they believe shows that a form can bemetaphysically predicated of the composite.




Thus in both Loux and Lewis we find a thoroughgoing defense ofthe claim that substance is form and form universal, a defense madepossible by an interpretation of VII 13 according to which forms, beingpredicated of matter, are not the target of the chapter. The chief ad-vantage of this view, it seems to me, is that it makes it easy to explainhow forms can be knowable. Yet I have argued that particular formsthat are qualitatively indistinguishable from one another are also know-able, and if this is right, it seems to me that this approach is to bepreferred. For there is a serious difficulty with the interpretation ac-cording to which forms are universal, namely, that on such a view thatwhich expresse s a form is, as Lou x says, in its dep th logic adjectival. 45

That a form is how its matter is46 is something Loux does not taketo be a problem. Recognizing that form is said to be a this (that is tosay, not metaphysically predicated of anything else), Lewis, on the otherhand, proposes that in the Metaphysics what counts as a this Jtode ti)changes 47 in such a way that some universals are thises, not just deriv-atively or by cour tesy (that is, in virtue of their relation to what isproperly called a this), but rather becau se being a such is to be re-stricted to things that are universal in relation to thises, 48 somethingthat forms, being universal in relation to matter, are not.

Thus Lewis uses his account of predication to explain how form canbe called a this. Yet I do not find his explanation of how form is to bea this, in other words, a subject of which everything else is predicated(VII 3 1029a27-30, VIII 1 1042a28-29) convincing, and Lewis himselfadmits that it is problematic. He says:

In general, then, form is that in virtue of which the compound substance worksout its characteristic style of life. This influence manifests itself in two distinctways. The fact that form is predicated of matter explains how the creature is amember of its kind in the first place: this gives matter as one kind of subject.

But the fact that a compound substance is a member of a kind is what makesit a fit subject for accidents. It is thanks to form, then, that the subjects thatproperly Have 49 accidents can do so. This gives a second class of subjects, namely,compound material substances.

All of this can make it seem that - without too much exaggeration - almostanything except form can count as a subject. But it may be possible to manu-facture out of these materials a somewhat precarious sense in which form toois a subject. Form has a central role in placing a thing in its kind, so that thething is a suitable subject for accidents. Indirectly, then, and in a suitably ex-tended sense, form too perhaps is a subject. I do not claim to find this reasoning

fully convincing. But, outside of the hypothesis of individual form, it is one of

45 Loux (1991), 8. 46 Loux (1991) , 8.47 Lewis (1991), 325. 48 Lewis (1991), 32 7- 29 .49 The capitalized 'Have' for indicating accidental predication follows the terminology

of Paul Grice and Alan Code.




the only two ready alternatives I know of for explaining Aristotle's expressassertion that forms are subjects.50

In short it seems to me difficult to see how if form is universal, formis a this in any way that allows it to be ontologically fundamental. More-over it may be that there is also ano ther problem. For in Chapter V itwill be no ted that some interp reters have argued that m atter in Aristotleis such that its having the form it has is essential to it and even that, asmatter, matter has no properties other than its potential for form.Although both Loux and Lewis respond by suggesting that Aristotlemay have had more than one way of thinking about matter,51 insofaras such views of matter have plausibility, Loux's and Lewis's claim thatform is predicated accidentally of matter is in jeopardy.

Having considered Loux 's and Lewis's defense of the claim that~formis universal, let us retu rn to the problem with which this section began,namely, that of the apparent inconsistency of Metaphysics V II-VIII. Ifone reads VII 13 in such a way that forms are universals predicated ofmatter, it is clear how inconsistency has been avoided; substance is form,form is universal, and some universals, namely, those that are p redicatedof matter, are substances after all. But if, as I argue, substances arespecimens of natural kinds, the inconsistency is to be resolved ratherby reinterpretation of the claim that form is universal.

Of course, because substance is said to be form, and because thereis, or so I have conceded, a sense of 'form', namely, the differentia, inwhich form is a universal, the triad could also be made consistent bymaintaining that substance is formj while form2 is universal. Neverthe-less, as I see it, Aristotle intends his argument to be m ore cohesive thana solution that appeals to equivocation would produce. For Aristotle'spoint in saying that form is universal is that substances must be know-able, and I have argued that, even though Socrates, the sensible objectwith which Socrates-qua-human being is num erically the same, is notknowable, Socrates-qua-human being is knowable. That is to say, on myproposal, it is, strictly speaking, false that form (in the appropriate senseof the term) is a universal. Likewise it is false that the form - a givenspecimen of a kind - does not come into being and pass away, though,of course, it is true that the species does not do so. W hat is true (andwhat is intended by the claim that form is universal) is that particularforms have in virtue of their indistinguishability the epistemic virtuesof universals.

VI have been arguing that in the Metaphysics Aristotle takes substancesto be specimens of natural kinds that are numerically the same as but

50 Lewis (1991), 30 3- 4.51 See Loux (1991), 180-83, and Lewis (1991), 25 0-58 .




not identical with sensible objects, and I have claimed that specimensof kinds are, as for Aristotle they need to be , knowable. Indeed it seemsto me an interesting fact that even in the Categories, where there areno epistemological issues, Aristotle offers as examples of primary sub-stances neither (as we might have expected) 'Bucephalus' and 'Socra tes'nor even 'this horse' and 'this human being' but the very general ho tishippos and ho tis anthropos (lb 4-5 ) - an individual horse and an individualhuman being.

To be sure, most interpreters of the Categories, including, as we havejust seen, Loux, take Aristotle to intend by primary substances ordinarysensible objects such as Socrates, objects which in the Metaphysics areconsidered to be composites of matter and form and not primary sub-stances. Yet I am far from sure that the Categories is so straightforward.Of course I would not claim that at the time of the Categories Aristotlehad already worked out the implications of distinguishing a human beingas such from Callias, Socrates, and so on; clearly if he had done so hewould have found it necessary to distinguish the subject of which some-thing is said from the subject of which some things are said and in whichothers, namely, accidents, are present. Rather, the point is just thateven in the Categories the differences among individual horses or in-dividual human beings seem not to be of importance.

But if in the Categories the differences between one human being andanother are taken to be less interesting than the similarities and in theMetaphysics it cannot be otherwise as there substances are supposed tobe knowable, what I want to conclude from this fact is, as I have said,that Aristotle differs from Plato chiefly in rejecting the numerical dis-tinctness of Forms from sensible objects. Whether for Aristotle a thingand its essence or form are numerically distinct from one another is,as I indicated at the end of the last chapter, the question of MetaphysicsVII 6; indeed it is well known that G. E. L. Owen once argued that inVII 6 Aristotle rejects what is usually called the Nonidentity Assumptionin cases of strong (essential) predication, thereby providing an answerto the Third Man Argument.

In fact there does seem to be a connection between the Third ManArgument (or more generally, the Theory of Forms) and VII 6; spe-cifically, if 'separation' means, as I argued in Chapter I, numericaldistinctness, a denial of numerical distinctness would just be the rejec-tion of one of its premisses. According to Owen, however, the rejection

of the Nonidentity Assumption leads Aristotle to "embarrassment":[for Aristotle] if we take any primary subject of discourse and say just what itis, we must be producing a statement of identity, an equation which defines thesubject. And this in turn helps to persuade him that the primary subjects of



THEORY OF SUBSTAN CE 57

discourse cannot be individuals such as Socrates, who cannot be defined, butspecies such as man.52

M. J. W oods re ach ed a similar co nclusion:When we use a proper name like 'Socrates' to pick out an individual man, whatwe pick ou t is always the form; though we pick it out as it occurs in a particularpiece of matter. The essence of Socrates is simply the form man, an essencewhich he shares with Callias.53

Again, Woods says: "the essence of Callias will be the essence of thespecies man, which, by the doc trine of Z, will be identical w ith the speciesitself. 54 But if I am right, the result of rejecting the premiss that pro-

duces separated Forms (and that conjoined with other assumptions re-sults in a regress of them) need not be as Owen and Woods suppose.For I have argued that what Aristotle wants to say of Socrates is thathe is a member of the species human being and that he is numericallythe same as but not identical with a particular form that is a specimenof the kind human being.

To say that Aristotle had a certain understanding of Plato's Theoryand its problems is not, of course, to say that Plato held the view Aristotleattributes to him, and, as the interpretation of Plato's Theory of Forms

is as difficult and as much disputed as anything in Aristotle, it is certainlyoutside the scope of this work to investigate the issue. Nevertheless,here as in Chapter I where the question of separation already arose, Iwill say again that I do not find it intrinsically plausible to suppose thatAristotle misunderstood Plato's Theory, or that, in a matter so centralto his own concerns, he intentionally caricatured it. Therefore that somemainstream interpretations of Plato are not only in accord with Aris-totle's criticisms of the Forms, discussed in Chapter I, but can be shownto be such that my claim about the relationship between Platonic Forms

and Aristotle's substances are sustained would be important.

VI

Although Tlatonism' in philosophy and mathematics has come to standfor realism about universals - for any theory, that is, which postulatesthe existence of universals that are extramental and such that they existeven if unins tantiated - the view that Forms are universals is problematicand has, furthermore, been held in several quite different versions.According to one account, Plato began by conceiving the Forms asSocratic universals, came to think of them as separate paradigms, and

52 Owen (1966), 136 -37 . 53 Woods (1975), 177.54 Woods (1975), 168.



58 SUBSTANC E AND SEPAR ATION IN ARISTO TLE

never unraveled the confusion.55 More recently, the opposite sequencehas seemed more promising. According to this view, Plato began bythinking of Forms as particulars, that is, as exemplars, paradigms, orperfect instances of universals, and also, however incompatibly, as uni-versals. In the Third Man Argument he uncovers his error and there-after abandons the notion that Forms are paradigms and along with itthe Theory of Recollection. As Colin Strang says, "In the interval be-tween the second act and the third, which begins with the Parmenides,the paradigmatic eidos and its bro ther, recollection, have been unm askedas imposters and quietly buried."56

If Strang and others are right, in the late dialogues Forms arestraightforwardly universals, universals that are (perhaps) still separatein the sense of being such that they exist even if uninstantiated, andthey are known through dialectic.57 But that Plato's Theory of Formsis a theory of universals at any point has proved more difficult to rec-oncile with the texts than Strang thinks; it requires that the Timaeus bea middle dialogue as well as the explaining away of certain undeniablylate references, such as Statesman 286a, to Forms as paradigms.58 Never-theless Patterson has offered an interesting solution to this difficulty.According to Patterson's view, Plato at all periods intended the Theoryof Forms to be a theory of abstract separate essences, and his describingsensible objects as "images" should be understood as a metaphor foremphasizing how unlike their models sensible objects are.59

Despite Patterson's efforts, however, the view that Plato's Theoryjust is a realist theory of universals remains, I think, problematic. Inthe first place, Plato's own terminology vacillates between the abstractnoun - Largeness - and a construction that consists of the article plusadjective or common noun - The Large Itself. At Phaedo 65d4-13, forexample, Plato uses both the adjectival expressions Just, Beautiful, andGood and the abstract nouns Largeness, Health, and Strength for re-ferring to Forms. Second, if Forms are straightforwardly universals, theThird Man Argument should not even be interesting. Assuming thatPlato was not himself very confused, what reason could there be forhis having Parmenides suppose that Shuttlehood is a shuttle or thatJustice is just, and why should he have Socrates agree to it? Or is oneto suppose that, while Plato himself was not confused, Aristotle was?But if that were the case, why did Plato not do more to answer theThird Man Argument?

Terminology and the Third Man Argument then are two reasons fordoubting that the Forms are universals. A third reason is that such a

55 See Ross (1951), 35 -36. 56 Strang (1963), 162.57 See Strang (1963), 162, and Owen (1953).58 See Cherniss (1957), 248-49, and Rees (1963), esp. 170-7 3.59.Patterson (1985), esp. 25-62, 145, 159-64.



THEORY OF SUBSTANC E 59

view would require explaining away Plato's exploitation of the languageof patterns and images; the descriptions in the Phaedo of phenomenaas falling short, for example, are hardly suggestive of universals. Sim-ilarly, the lover of sights and sounds in Republic V seems to be someonewho does not simply mistake one thing for another but who makesmistakes about ontological status. Indeed the metaphor of ascent isemphasized not only in the Republic's Divided Line and Cave, but alsoin the Symposium, Moreover, in a passage whose echo in the Statesmanhas already been mentioned, the Phaedrus at 250a-d says that someForms such as Beauty have clear visual images, while others, such asJustice , do not, even though they too have likenesses. Then too, howeverit is dated, there remains the Timaeus, where the demiurge looks to theForms as patterns for the created world.

In short the metaphor of patterns and copies is pervasive, and it isdifficult to suppose, as the view that Forms are universals requires, thatsuch passages could be part of an analogy for understanding the relationbetween universals and particulars. In his account of the defectivenessof phenomena, what Patterson says is that the point of the image analogyis that an image of F is not an F at all;60 a reflection of a shuttle is nota shuttle. This seems right, and for Plato it means that a phenomenalshuttle is not really a shuttle. Nevertheless there is a difficulty withPatterson's understanding of the image analogy. On his interpretation,the Form for shuttles, which in terms of the analogy should be thatwhich really is a shuttle, turns out to be the essential nature of a shuttleand not a shuttle at all. At the same time ordinary shuttles, which bythe logic of the metaphor should be relational entities, on Patterson'sinterpretation are not so. That is to say, that element in the metaphorwhich is an independent particular is, as Patterson understands theapplication of the metaphor to Plato's theory, universal,61 and that ele-ment in the metaphor which is a relational entity is, in its applicationto Plato's theory, a particular.

In light of the problems with understanding Forms as universals, itis not surprising that many interpreters have understood Plato's theorynot to be a theory of universals at all. R. E. Allen, for example, deniesthat Forms are what he calls commutative universals on the groundsthat universals "clearly cannot be identified with standards and para-digms; for the latter are things characterized, not characters."62 Like-wise, P. T. Geach suggests that it is The Lion, The Bed, and The Master,not Lionhood, Bedhood, and Mastery, which are Platonic Forms,63 and

60 Patterson (1985), 33.61 Patterson (19 85) de clines to identify what he calls Plato's essential natures with uni-

versals, but his point seem s to be that Forms are not jus t any separated un iversalsbut only those determined by the Form of the Good. See 134-35, 155.

62 Allen (1960) , 157. 63 Geach (195 6), 75.






he says: of any character or prope rty, x, that a particular has, the realityis ho estin x, which it could not be if it were had by anything and whichtherefore must be independent or 'separate' from all manifestations ofitself as a property. 69 The second is that, once Forms are so described,what is striking is the degree to which, but for Plato's inclusion of Formsfor properties, Plato's Forms so understood would indeed be similar toAristotle's substances, except as regards separation. Finally, the third isto suggest that it is at least arguable that Aristotle is right about theconsequences of separation, that is to say, that Cherniss's assessmentnotwithstanding, 70 Aristotle's criticisms are very much on target after all.

Of course to say that Plato's Theory can, not implausibly, be takenas straddling the distinction between particular and universal is not tosay that this is how Aristotle took it, anymore than to say that this ishow Aristotle understood the Theory shows Plato's intent. Neverthelessthat such an interpretation of Plato is not implausible and that it isremarkably compatible w ith Aristotle's allegations, discussed in C hapterI, remains to the point. Indeed in Metaphysics VII 14 there is what Iwould claim is an acute analysis (at the level of the genus) of the problemwith types, if these are understood as real and yet, as Plato supposes,numerically distinct from their tokens:

For if the Forms exist and animal is present in man and horse, it is either oneand the same in number, or different. . . . If there is a man-in-himself who is a'this' and exists apart, the parts of which he consists, e.g. animal and two-footed,must indicate a 'this' and be things existing apart and substances; thereforeanimal too must be of this sort. Now if animal, which is in the horse and inman, is one and the same, as you are one and the same with yourself, how willthe one in things that exist apart be one, and how will this animal escape beingdivided even from itself? Further, if it is to share in two-footed and many-footed, an impossible conclusion follows; for contrary attributes will belong atthe same time to it although it is one and a this. (1039a26-b4)

In short, as I understand Aristotle, the crux of his proposal, workedout in his own theory of substances as a response to the Theory ofForms, is ju st this: that the straddling of universal and particular wh ichis characteristic of Plato's Forms, and indeed which is necessary if whatis ontologically fundamental is also to be knowable, can be made un-problematic only if Plato's separation of Forms from sensible objectsis rejected. However, if Platonic separation is rejected, so Aristotleargues, forms, though particular in virtue of their numerical sameness

with different sensible objects, have on account of their indistinguish-ability the knowability characteristic of universals.In this chapter I have argued for unde rstanding A ristotle's substances

as specimens of natural kinds and have claimed that, so understood,

69 Cherniss (1957), 261. See also 260. 70 See Cherniss (1944), esp. 211.



62 SUBSTANCE AND SEPAR ATION IN ARIST OTLE

Aristotle can be seen as responding to the Theory of Forms by denyingthe numerical distinctness of forms from sensible objects. However,since substances are also not identical with sensible objects, it remainsto be seen whether this solution is tenable and whether it will in factsolve the problems Aristotle identifies as consequent upon separation.For example, even if it is the case that Aristotle's specimens (having asort of generality in virtue of being indistinguishable within a kind) areknowable objects, there remain questions about whether they can beknown by us, a desideratum without which Aristotle could not counthis theory a significant advance. In the next chapter I will first explorethe difficulties of describing the relation between Platonic Forms andsensible objects in such a way that from our experience of the latter aplausible account can be given of how knowledge can be had of theForms. Then I will argue that Aristotle's explanation of how we cometo have knowledge is addressed to Plato's problems and matched to hisown account of substances as specimens of natural kinds. The ontolog-ical aspects of Aristotle's view will be examined in the final chapters.



IV

Substance and Aristotle's Epistemology

On the interpretation of Aristotle's account of substance I have justoffered, substances are specimens of natural kinds that are numericallythe same as sensible objects without being identical with them. Further,in virtue of their indistinguishability from one another (within the samekind), specimens of kinds have the knowability characteristic of theForms without the separation; indeed it would not mischaracterize Ar-istotle's theory to say that it treats each specimen of the kind humanbeing as if it were The Human Being - each specimen of a kind, in o ther

words, as if it were the Platonic Form.But even if specimens of natural kinds meet the requirement set forth

in Metaphysics VII 1 that substances must be first in knowledge anddefinition, mere knowability on the part of substances does nothing toestablish that they can be known by us . After all, one of the most seriousdifficulties with the Theory of Forms is that even though Forms are saidto be eternal, unchanging, and the objects of definition, knowledge ofthem remains problematic. I con tend that Aristotle believes his rejectionof the separation of Forms can address this issue also - that is to say,

he believes that his view enables him to explain how it is that there isknowledge. I begin with Plato's Theory.

IBesides the metaphysical problems concerning the nature of Plato'sForms (see Chapters I and III), there are, as Plato himself recognizes,epistemological problems as well. Given that our experience now is notof Forms, how are Forms to be known? This problem is, of course,addressed by Plato in the Theory of Recollection.1

1 In the Phaedo (73a-76e), but not the Meno, Plato allows for remembering by unlikeness,the transition to knowledge seems not to occur in stages, and recollection begins fromsense experience. I will assume that Plato intends these to be additions to the Theory,but for a more critical discussion, see G ulley (195 4), 197—99. Alth ough Forms do notexplicitly appear in the Meno, the problems discussed there are obviously relevant tothe Theory and certainly Aristotle took them to be so.

6



64 SUBST ANC E AND S E PA R AT I O N I N A R I S TO T L E

In the Meno Plato is faced with the paradox of discovery; how, thedramatic character Socrates asks, paraphrasing a complaint raised byMeno, can one try to discover either what he knows or what he doesnot know? One would not seek what he knows, for since he knows thereis no need of inquiry, nor what he does not know, for in that case hedoes not even know what he is to look for (80d). Plato's answer is toargue that we seek what we in some sense know. Plato illustrates hisproposal, the theory of recollection, by eliciting from an uneducatedslave knowledge of geometry. Challenged to find a way to double thearea of a square, the slave twice proposes procedures that give the wrongresult, is led by Socrates to see that these are wrong, and then, havingconceded that he does no t know, is able to follow Socrates' explanation,worded as an interrogation, of how it is to be done. This knowledge,the knowledge the slave comes to have, is said to result not from teachingbut from questioning (85d).

Plato's claim that Socrates does not teach the slave can look tenden-tious, but perhaps it is not so, given that it is intended to cover a prioriand not empirical knowledge; if Socrates supplies the solution to theproblem, he nevertheless expects the slave to see why what he proposesconcerning squares is true.2 To be sure, the example also suggests thatthe recovery of knowledge may require a guide, and even at that whatis recollected may at first have a "dream like" quality (85c). Nevertheless,Socrates says, "if the same questions are put to him on many occasionsand in different ways, you can see that in the end he will have a knowl-edge on the subject as accurate as anybody's" (85c-d) - he will be ableto produce the proof himself and to see why it is to be done in thisway. His true opinions, Socrates tells us, will then have been turnedinto knowledge (86a). In fact it seems that not only will he have knowl-edge but he will then know that he knows.

With the doctrine of recollection Plato has produced a solution tothe paradox of discovery - he has claimed that we in fact know whatwe do not now seem to know - bu t it is a solution beset by a variety ofdifficulties. On any theory of knowledge there is need to explain ac-quisition and verification, yet that the objects of knowledge are for Platonot now readily available for inspection causes special problems. In theMeno it is said that the soul, since it is immortal and has seen all thingsboth here and in the other world, has learned everything that is (81c);in the Phaedrus Socrates speculates that our souls were then like char-ioteers and their horses that rushed after the gods through the heavensand saw the Forms along the way (246a-248b). But it is interesting thatin the Phaedrus Plato himself worries that we might have been unableto attend properly to our experiences (248b), a state of affairs that

2 See Moravcsik (1971), esp. 65, and Vlastos (1965).



SUBSTANCE AND AR IST OT LE 'S EPISTEMOLOGY 65

would doom at the outset the prospects for successful recollection.Retention, which is mentioned in the Theaetetus, presents related dif-ficulties; if our minds are like soft or crowded wax (194e-195a), whatwe experienced may not wholly govern what remains.3

Whether we did acquire knowledge and whether we did retain whatwe learned are serious questions whose answers cannot be ascertainedwithout criteria for verification. How do we know that what we recollect- that which purports to be knowledge - is after all knowledge and noterror? Perhaps in the Phaedo (72e-76e) Plato hoped that it was sufficientto say that knowledge is like remembering; to maintain that what wehave within us is a trace of previous experience can, after all, be seenas a causal - that is to say, an externalist - justification of the belief.Or perhaps the fact of remembering is being supposed to be supple-mented by some recognition that provides assurance that one is re-membering correctly. White, for example, says of Plato's view: "some-times one simply has the feeling (if 'feeling' is the appropriate word)that one is remembering, which one trusts as a warrant for saying thatone has correctly recollected what has come to consciousness accom-panied by that feeling."4

Yet that what is accompanied by the feeling can nevertheless be w rongis a fact too obvious for Plato to have overlooked, and in the degradingof images impressed upon soft wax Plato himself has given a reasonwhy one should not trust such a feeling. Norman Gulley too believesthat recollection is meant to guarantee what is recollected, but he isvaguer about just what provides the guarantee. He says:

The fact that this process is described as a process of recollection presumablymeans that it is anamnesis which provides the recognition that 'this assumes that*or 'this follows from that'. It must also guarantee the finality of the results ofanalysis by affording the recognition that they are thus final in their corre-

spondence with reality: this completes the

conversion from opinion to

know-ledge.5

"Once the final truth is recognized, Gulley adds, it cannot 'run away'.We know that we have found the truth."6

Problems about the acquisition of knowledge and its verificationarise, as I have said, on any account of knowledge; they are hardlyunique to Plato. But the point is that because for Plato the objects thatwe are said to know are not now experienced and because, indeed, wefor the most part are not even aware of having knowledge of them, the

3 Guthrie (1978), 113, claims that in the Theaetetus Plato cannot be thinking of the Theoryof Recollection because at 197e he says that the aviary is empty at birth. I take this tobe a feature of the story which is without philosophical significance for determiningPlato's overall concerns.

4 White (1976), 51-52. 5 Gulley (1954), 195.6 Gulley (1954), 195.



66 SUBSTANCE AND SEPAR ATION IN ARISTO TLE

means of verification for what is recollected are diminished. Moreover,as we have ju st seen, what is crucial and yet uniquely difficult for Plato 'sTheory is how retrieval of what we learned of Forms "in a previouslife" can be made to happen. In the Theaetetus at 197b-d, Socratesproposes that one can have knowledge in the sense of possession (whatare sometimes now called unactivated beliefs) without having access toor control of that knowledge (activated beliefs).7 But if that knowledgeis to be of the Forms, then , ju st as in the earlier dialogues, it is necessaryto explain how the first sort of knowledge can become the second.

To be sure, if there are enough activated beliefs on the part of eitherthe inquirer or a teacher to serve as a starting point, inquiry seemspossible; given enough pieces of knowledge, dialectic might producemore. On the other hand, where prior control over all relevant knowl-edge is lacking, inquiry - that is to say, investigation of a predeterminedtopic - seems impossible. Even though one might come to have somepiece of knowledge, there is no procedure for coming up with a givenpiece. Philosophical activity at least at the outset will be like reachingblindly into a birdcage.

Though I have argued that Plato's views about the Forms undermineinquiry, one might take issue with this assessment. After all, even if onehas no occurrent knowledge of a given Form, still there are presentexperiences of phenomena, and surely these (as is emphasized in theRepublic and the Symposium as well as in the account of recollection inthe Phaedo) may serve as cues. On the other hand, phenomenal imagesare transitory, and the nature of space is such that the representationsof the Form which can exist in that medium bring no assurance ofknowledge. Certainly one and the same Form can be variously mirrored.For all these reasons, it is little wonder that phenomena are by differentobservers jud ged differently - that is to say, are jud ged to be imagesof different Forms - and little wonder if, beginning with such faultyimages as phenom ena, Forms are imperfectly recollected. In the Phaedoeven as Plato says that recollection begins from sense experience, hesays also that the senses are hindrances and distractions to the soul inits search for reality (65a-67b; cf. 81b-d, 82d-83b).

How we are to have knowledge of Forms is, of course, a problemPlato addresses again and again. Whether the part of the dialecticalprocess known in the later dialogues as "collection" begins from Formsor sensibles is controversial,8 yet only those interpreters who believethat Forms in these dialogues are no longer separate can suppose thatcollection and division have replaced recollection.9 But sometimes Pla-

7 See, for example, Goldman (1986), 202.8 Gulley (1954) seems to think that it begins with sensibles. See 201. Guthrie (1975),

428-29, believes that it is Forms which are collected.9 See Gulley (1954), 209-10, for a refutation of the replacement view. See also Rees

(1963), 173-74.



SUBSTANCE AND ARI STOTLE S EPISTEMOLOGY 67

to's attempts at a solution are more wide-ranging. In the Cratylus Platoseems to consider whether ideal names might not be more satisfactorythan phenomena as cues. In Statesman, he suggests that Forms withoutvisible images might be known by analogy; weaving might provide per-ceptual cues for understanding statesmanship, for example. Yet sinceordinary language is not perfect, the route of the Cratylus seems quiteas inaccessible as its goal, and that the problems with perceptual cueswould only be compounded by their use in analogy is evident.

The obstacles to knowledge posed by the Theory of Forms would beirrelevant to my topic unless Aristotle too identified them. But of thisthere is no doubt. We have already come upon his claim that craftsmendo not look to the Forms - as well as his biting remark that if the scienceis innate, it is wonderful that we are unaware of our possession ofit, after which he adds: Again, how is one to know what all things aremade of, and how is this to be made evident? (992b34-993a3). Likewiseat Prior Analytics 67a22-26 Aristotle explicitly criticizes the Theory ofRecollection when he says: For it never happens that a man has fore-knowledge of the particular, but in the process of induction he receivesa knowledge of the particulars, as though by an act of recognition. Forwe know some things directly; e.g. that the angles are equal to two rightangles, if we see that the figure is a triangle. Similarly in all other cases(cf. Posterior Analytics 71al7-b8).

Thus from passages such as these, it becomes apparent that Aristotledoes see a problem with retrieval. Indeed as D. W. Hamlyn says of thepassage in the Prior Analytics:

Seeing a triangle is ipso facto knowing that it is a figure of a certain general kind.If we put this into relationship with the exposition of the doctrine of recollectionin the Meno, we can see that Aristotle is construing the problem presented inthat dialogue as how one comes to recognise that particular figure as the onewhich . . . (that square as the one which has an area twice that of a given square). 10

That is to say, even supposing that the slave somehow has knowledgeof geometry, his knowledge is of the universal and not of this squarein the dust; how then does he use this square in the dust to activate hisknowledge of squares - without which he cannot see that a square drawnon the diagonal is the solution to the problem?

Of course, where geometry is concerned, the relation between tokenand type is unusually transparent, and Aristotle's own example reflectsthis fact. Nevertheless, as we have seen, the question remains: How out

of all one's knowledge is one able to access a triangle (or to return tothe example of the Meno, how is the slave able to access the correctsquare)? While Aristotle himself agrees that knowledge of the instancescomes by recognizing something as an instance of a given type, he rejectsthe thought that foreknowledge is either necessary or sufficient for

10 Hamlyn (1976), 170. See also McKirahan (1983).



68 SUBSTANC E AND SEPAR ATION IN ARISTO TLE

recognition. Rather he seems to believe that an account of human know-ing can be given which has an immediacy - and also a credibility -lacking in Plato's. In the sections that follow, Aristotle's account willbe examined.

I I

Th e goal of the Theory of R ecollection is to explain how learning o ccur s.Plato chiefly proposes that, starting from perceptual cues, we regainaccess to knowledge already within us. In Posterior Analytics II 19 Ar-istotle himself attempts to explain how, beginning from the perceptionof sensible particulars, scientific knowledge - that is to say, knowledgeof universals resting on ind em ons trable first principles - can be attaine d.That his target is the Meno is plain from the outset. In the first chapterof Book I at 71a 24-30, he has said:

Before the induction, or before getting a deduction, you should perhaps besaid to understand in a way - but in another way not. For if you did not knowif it is simpliciter, how did you know that it has two right angles simpliciter? Butit is clear that you understand it in this sense - that you unders tand it universally- but you do not understand it simpliciter. (Otherwise the puzzle in the Menowill result; for you will learn either nothing or what you know.)

Although the goal is said to be knowledge of "first principles,"whether by first principles Aristotle means primitive concepts or in-demonstrable propositions, or whether he vacillates between them, isunclear. But, as several interpreters have recently pointed out, since afirst principle is for Aristotle a definition and a definition is the artic-ulation of a concept, it really makes no difference.11 Having argu ed thatknowledge of principles is not, on the one hand, innate (Posterior An-alytics II 19 99 b2 6- 7) a nd th at, on the ot he r, i t is impossible for such

knowledge to come about if we are ignorant of it and have no capacityfor it at all (99b30-32), Aristotle concludes that we must have somecapacity from which to derive our knowledge of the principles (99b32-34). Of this capacity, he says:

And this evidently belongs to all animals; for they have a connate discriminatorycapacity, which is called perception. And if perception is present in them, insome animals retention of the percept comes about, but in others it does notcome about. Now for those in which it does not come abou t, the re is no knowl-edge outside perceiving (either none at all, or none with regard to that of which

there is no retention); but for some perceivers, it is possible to grasp it in theirminds. And when many such things come about, then a difference comes abou t,so that some come to have an account from the retention of such things, andothers do not. (99b34-100a3)

11 See Modrak (1987), 161-64, Kahn (1981), 387-97, and Barnes (1975), 249, 259-60.



SUBSTANCE AND ARISTO TLE'S EPISTEMOLOGY 69

Aristotle then co ntinu es by cons idering the steps leading from rete ntio nto the account:

So from perception there comes memory, as we call it, and from memory (whenit occurs often in connection with the same thing), experience; for memoriesthat are many in number form a single experience. And from experience, orfrom the whole universal that has come to rest in the soul (the one apart fromthe many, whatever is one and the same in all those things), there comes aprinciple of skill and of unders tanding - of skill if it deals with how things comeabout, of understanding if it deals with what is the case. (100a3-9)

Next he stakes out the difference between his position and Plato's,offering what has become a famous simile. He says:

Thus the states neither belong in us in a determinate form, nor come aboutfrom other states that are more cognitive; but they come about from perception- as in a battle when a rout occurs, if one m an makes a stand anothe r does andthen another, until a position of strength is reached. And the soul is such asto be capable of undergoing this. (100al0-14)

Finally Aristotle repeats and amplifies the simile as follows:

What we have just said but not said clearly, let us say again: when one of theundifferentiated things makes a stand, there is a primitive universal in the mind

(for though one perceives the particular, perception is of the universal - e.g.of man but not of Callias the man); again a stand is made in these, until whathas no parts and is universal stands - e.g. such and such an animal stands, untilanimal does, and in this a stand is made in the same way. Thus it is clear thatit is necessary for us to become familiar with the primitives by induction; forperception too instils the universal in this way. (100al4— 100b5)

The simile of ending a rout is far from transparent. W. D. Ross andJonathan Barnes do not even attempt to correlate it in any detail withthe progression from perception to knowledge.12 Hamlyn points out

that it is certainly irrelevant that the movement is a regrouping; other-wise knowledge would be recollection, after all.13 Richard McKirahansays of it:

This simile has favorably struck some com mentators and has given rise to muchspeculation over the circumstances imagined in the simile and its precise ap-plication to the matter at hand. However, like some other famous similes ofAristotle's, this one does nothing to make the ideas clearer.14

Deborah Modrak, however, attempts an analysis. She says:

Both the cognitive process and the rout involve a movement from discreteindividuals considered as such to an orderly ar rangem ent of individuals in whichindividual differences are irrelevant. D uring the rout , each soldier is an isolated

12 See Ross (1949), 673-78, and Barnes (1975), 252-56.13 Hamlyn (1976), 178. 14 McKirahan (1992), 244.



70 SUBSTANCE AND SEPA RAT ION IN ARIST OTLE

individual, as are sensible particulars when they are initially apprehended inperception. When the reversal of the rout begins and some soldiers have re-sumed their battle positions, an orderly whole begins to emerge of which the

soldiers are constituents. Similarly, the generalization that is grasped throughexperience orders a number of individual phantasmata - at least to the extentof specifying similarities. When the battle formation is completely restored, theformation can be fully specified in terms of the number, position, and locationof the soldiers; individual soldiers of the same type are interchangeable. 15

In Modrak ' s account i t i s the format ion , the order ly whole , whichcomes to be ful ly specif ied, and i ts specif icat ion is achieved by detai l ingthe relevant features of the soldiers; that is to say, on her account i t isthe fo rma t ion tha t comes to be known and the re fo re co r re sponds tothe universa l . She cont inues :

The battle formation under a general description constitutes an ordering ofindividuals and thus is analogous to a universal principle. The cognition of auniversal principle orders the particular states of affairs that are subsumed underthe universal, and the peculiar features of the phantasmata that embody thesestates of affairs are irrelevant to their role in the cognition (cf. Metaphysics1078a22-31 , [De Mem oria et Reminiscentia] 4 50 a l- 4 ). There is no battle for-mation without soldiers, nor is there a noetic apprehension of a universal with-out the sensory representation of (some of) its instances; nonetheless, the firstmember of each pair cannot be reduced to the second member. 16

I t may be that W. K. C. Guthrie agrees. He says:

The process is illustrated by a vivid simile: it is as in a battle, when an army hasbeen routed, if one man has the courage to turn and make a stand, his examplefires another and then another, until their original order arche) is restored.From our earliest years we are bombarded with a confused mass of sensations.A great many we forget at once: they slip away and flee from us. But therecom es a time when o ne remains in our m emory, then m ore and m ore. Gradually

we are becoming experienced. Finally, being creatures possessed of reason, webecome aware of the arche, which is nothing more or less than the 'one besidethe many' [hen para to polla], a universal of which all the separately rememberedparticulars are examples, and are enabled to produce that definition which isone of the archai of the scientific or apo deictic syllogism. (90b 24) 17

What is f i rs t to be noticed is that on any interpretat ion of the similei t has to be agreed tha t Ar is to t le has to ld us noth ing about how th et rans i t ion f rom percept ion to knowledge i s to take p lace , how, tha t i sto say, it co m es a bou t tha t the so ld iers sta rt not jus t run nin g aro und

but (re)grouping. Yet while the simile presents the act ivi ty entirely inrelat ion to the achievement of i ts result , i t is precisely the possibi l i ty oftha t achievement , the cr i t ic can seemingly protes t , which remains sopuzzl ing . To put the poin t another way, i f Ar is to t le can ge t away wi th

15 Modrak (1987), 169-70 . 16 Modrak (1987), 170.17 Guthrie (1981), 182.






particular sense (as color is to sight), are called proper sensibles; ifdistinguished by two or more senses (as are motion and shape), theyare called common sensibles. Objects such as this man and this horseare said by Aristotle to be perceived incidentally.

Sense perception, whether of qualities or objects, is of the individual Posterior Analytics I 18 81b6; De Anima II 5 4l7b22). Yet as AnalyticsPosterior II 19 m akes clear (cf. Metaphysics I 1), we proceed from sen-sation to memory (sensation retained in a phantasm), to the unificationof memories in experience, and then to a grasp of the universal. How-ever, if the starting point is sense perception or, even more narrowly,the sensation of colors, shapes, and the like, sensory input may seeminsufficient for knowledge; in the gap between perception and knowl-edge there is much to be explained. O ne solution would be to hold thatwhe n we perceive, for exam ple, Callias, besides pe rceiving certain colorsand shapes, we perceive him as a human being. Of this Barnes says:

Yet it is not clear how we are to apprehend man in the first place. Aristotle'stheory of pe rception divides the objects of perception into two classes, essentialand incidental (cf. An [De Anima] B 6). Essential objects are e ither p roper to agiven sense (e.g. colours to sight, sounds to hearing) or common (e.g. motion,shape, size). Incidental objects cover everything else; if X is an incidental objectof perception, then I perceive X only if there is some essential object Y suchthat I perceive Y and Y is X. Individuals are the prime examples of incidentalobjects (An B 6, 418a21; T 1, 425a25). There is very little evidence for man butwhat there is makes it an incidental object (An T 6, 430b29); and it is in anycase hard to see how man could be either a proper or a common sensible. Man,then, is not directly implanted in our minds by our senses, as Aristotle's wordsin B 19 suggest; but in that case we need an account, which Aristotle nowheregives, of how such concepts as man are derived from the data of perception.18

Charles Kahn repeats Barnes 's concerns:

As Barnes has noted, the full account of aisthesis in De an . II makes it difficultto understand how we could properly perceive a universal like man at all - oreven an instance of this universal. The proper objects of perception are aistheta,sense qualities or sensible forms, and these are of two types: (1) qualities uniqueto a particular sense (color for sight, sound for hearing, hot-cold, wet-dry, andothers for touch, plus the various tastes and smells), and (2) the "commonsensibles" distinguished by two or more senses: motion, rest, number, figure,and magnitude (De an. II 6). These are the only properties that are sensible perse, recognized by sense perception as such. All other information receivedthrough the senses, such as the recognition that this pale shape is a man or the

son of Diares, is only an incidental object of sense: "one perceives this inci-dentally, because this property happens to belong to the white object one per-ceives. Hence the perceiver (i.e. his sense of vision) is not acted upon at all bythe incidental sense object as such." (418a21-24)19

18 Barnes (1975), 255. 19 Kahn (1981), 401-2.



SUBSTANCE AND ARISTOTLE'S EPISTEMOLOGY 73

Both Barnes and Kahn cast doubt on the idea that for Aristotle wecan know what a human being is by perceiving Callias and others ashuman beings. Aristotle's psychology d oes not, they believe, allow Calliasto be perceived in such a highly conceptualized way. But in that casehow do we come to know what a human being is? Kahn's suggestion isthat for Aristotle it is the active intellect that permits us to learn fromexperience, by acting on us so as to actualize our potential intellect. 20

Indeed, according to Kahn, far from being a version of empiricism,Aristotle's alternative to Plato is supe rrationa lism. As he says,

As far as the active intellect is concerned, the rationalist doctrines of innateideas and infallible intuition convey too weak a picture of its complete and

unwavering grasp of all noetic truth. As far as we are concerned, however, therationalist model simply does not fit, since our potential intellect is not stockedat birth with noetic principles and does not acquire them by any act of directintuition that we can perform. One may, if one wishes, speak of the activeintellect as continuously intuiting the forms and essences of the natural world.But we can enjoy such an intuition only to the extent that we succeed in realizingits activity in our own thought and knowledge. 21

Despite the fact that, as Kahn understands Aristotle, we have no innateideas, if the intellect can grasp the noetic forms and essen ces in the

phantasms provided by experience, that is because it already knows oris these very forms before experience. 22

Thus Kahn's view of Aristotle can, I think, not unfairly be calledPlatonic - the forms can be known from experience because the formswere known before experience. Nevertheless if Kahn is right about therole of the active intellect and if he is right to supp ose the active intellectto be something apart from us,23 how is it that the knowledge had bythe active intellect comes to be ours as well? What Kahn offers onAristotle's behalf falls very short of being an explanation. He says:

And this process of learning and exercising science, although it has a meta-physical cause and even a metaphysical guarantee in the super-rationalism ofthe active intellect, must be achieved in our own experience by the ordinaryprocesses of induction and hard work: there is no epistemic button we can pushin order to tune in on the infallible contemplation of noetic forms by the activeintellect.24

If Kahn's interpretation is correct, then in the De Anima as much asin Posterior Analytics II 19, how Aristotle's view is an improvement over

Plato's is hard to see. We engage in the hard work of epagoge - but20 Kahn (1981), 410. 21 Kahn (1981), 41 1.22 Kahn (1981), 407 .23 See Guthrie (1981), 322-30, for a summary of the evidence on both sides of this

question.24 Kahn (1981), 41 1.




what is the connection between that and the engagement of the activeintellect on our behalf? Whether the forms are buried within our mem-ories or whether they are known by an active intellect that is distinctfrom us, the problem of access is the same. Nevertheless it must beremembered that the problem the involvement of the active intellect isintended to solve arose because Kahn, in rejecting the idea that we canperceive Callias as a human being, takes Aristotle to be committed toa perceptual content of only proper and common sensibles. But someinterpreters believe Aristotle intends a more generous perceptual con-tent than that which Kahn allows. O ne such prop osal will be the subjectof the next section.

IV

According to Kahn's account of the movement from perception toknowledge, incidental objects of perception fall outside the scope ofperception. Modrak, however, uses Aristotle's remark that though oneperceives the particular, perception is of the universal to suggest a wayin which universals might be grasped through perception after all. Shesays:

[At 10 0a l5 -b 3 Aristotle makes] the crucial point that there is a sense in whichuniversals are grasped through perception. The universals in question are thosethat determine the features of the sensible particular; these include featuresperceived kata sumbebekos as well as those perceived kath * hauta. Indeed, in thecase of substances, the single most important universal, namely, the substancesortal that the particular falls under, is perceived kata sumbebekos. What is in-cidental at one cognitive level becomes essential at another (cf. 89a33-37). Theessential features of a concrete particular are general characteristics. Hence theperceptible individual is not only the object of perception but is also the vehiclefor the apprehension of the universal. 25

She explains how for Aristotle this is possible:The sensible particular is a token of a type, and we apprehend the type in virtueof apprehending the particular. In Aristotle's metaphysics, the substance typeis ontologically prior to the token; the essential characteristics of an individualhuman being are determined by the substance type, the species anthropos. Weperceive a particular man (i.e., a token of a certain type or species), but theperception is of man (i.e., the type is the ultimate determinant of the contentof the perception). Many of the distinctive perceptible features of a particularobject are type-dependent. For instance, the difference between a cat and adog is more easily recognized through perception than the difference betweenone cat and another, (cf. Physics 184a24-bl4)26

One might conjecture that Barnes and Kahn would find Modrak'sview problematic; Kahn, it will be recalled, doubted that we could per-

25 Modrak (1987), 168. 26 Modrak (1987), 168.




ceive either a universal such as man or an instance of the universal.What should be noticed, however, is that the position Barnes and Kahnexplicitly contest is stronger than the one Modrak defends. Both Barnesand Kahn deny that Aristotle is entitled to say, we perceive Callias asa man. But Modrak does not say that we do. Rather what Modrakclaims is that many of the distinctive perceptible features of a particularobject are type-dependent. That is to say, it is consistent with Modrak'sview to say merely that on various occasions we perceive similar clustersof proper and common sensibles.

In short, some interpreters try to find middle ground between per-ceiving colors and shapes and perceiving Callias as a human being.27 Infact it seems to me not implausible to suppose that Aristotle thinks thatwithout knowing what a hum an being is we perceive a cluster of qualitiesthat belong to a particular human being and that this is a sufficientstarting point for coming to know what it is to be a human being. Infact Barnes's definition of incidental perception (if X is an incidentalobject of perception, then I perceive X only if there is some essentialobject Y such that I perceive Y and Y is X) seems to contain just sucha suggestion. To say that Y is X is not to say that I know that Y is X oreven that I perceive Y as an X, the latter being the claim that Barneshimself finds problematic.

I have argued that Barnes's definition presents a more modest anddefensible view of incidental percep tion than that which Barnes himselfcriticizes Aristotle for holding. But given a more modest interpretation,Kahn's remarks, quoted in Section III , to the effect that it is difficultto understand how we could properly perceive a universal, that man isonly an incidental object of sense, that the perceiver is not acted uponat all by the incidental sense object a s such, and that the sense faculty can notbe directly affected by properties that are not sensible in the strict sense(all the italics are mine) would seem to be either vacuously true - in-cidental perception is not nonincidental perception - or tendentious.That is to say, Kahn has said nothing to show that incidental percep tionof the sort prescribed in Barnes's definition is not available to Aristotle.On the contrary, such a view would seem to be required by what Kahnhimself says of Aristotle's understanding of even animal awareness:"[sense perception] permits a dog to recognize its master and distin-guish its master from the master's horse, without knowing that its master

27 Others who have attempted to find middle ground include Ross, Sorabji, and Cash-

dollar. Ross (1949), 678, says of this passage: we perceive an individual thing, butwhat we perceive in it is a set of qualities each of which can belong to other individualthings." Sorabji (1992), 197, argues that for Aristotle some perceiving is propositional(we perceive that something is the case), in other words that "perceiving that" neednot be described as an inference of reason. As he puts it, "Coincidental does notmean inferential." Cashdollar (1973), 156, 161, argues that incidental perception,even though predicative, is nevertheless a case of perception.



76 SUBSTANCE AND SEPARA TION IN ARISTO TLE

is a man or that the horse is a horse. 28 Nor has Kahn shown that (forsuitable perceivers) from such a beginning the universal cannot be at-tained.

Thus I want to agree with Modrak that Aristotle uses incidental per-ception to explain how perceptible particulars can be the vehicle forknowledge of the universal and that it is reasonable for him to do so.Specifically, what Modrak argues is that it is the capacity for represen-tation which allows us to reach knowledge of the universal from sensoryawareness of part iculars . When the content of a perception is retainedin a phantasm or memory image, the image, being an image of Callias,will include some of his accidental features. Nevertheless once imagesof other human beings and other images of Callias are retained as well,then (in the human soul) it is possible for even the essence to be derived.This progression need n ot , M odrak conte nds, involve a su perimpos it ionof the images into a confused general image; that, she maintains, is aview that is neither philosophically plausible nor true to Aristotle.29

Rather, the proposal is that any of these particular images can be reusedto represent the others. She says:

if Callias is perceived as tall, thin and balding, the phantasma of Callias employedin thinking about the essence of human beings would include (some of) these

idiosyncratic characteristics, but the thought would ignore them. To grasp anintelligible form is to reinterpret the content of an appropriate phantasma.Nevertheless, the phantasma is a necessary component of the thought. Just asin the extramental world essences inhere in matter, essences-in-thought inherein the phantasmata that serve as their material substrata.30

We have seen that on Modrak's view the gap between the phantasm,which is still particular, and knowledge of the universal is closed by thecapacity for representation. That is to say, it is representation that takesus from the phantasm to thought (432al2-14). In this i t seems to me

that she is right. I will not pretend that no philosophical problems arisein understanding how representat ion is supposed to work, nor wil l Itry to determine whether Aristotle wants to appeal to a general image.31

But what needs to be emphasized, I think, is the connection between

28 Kahn (1981), 402. Aristotle's motive for considering incidental perception to be acase of perception seems in fact to be animal intelligence; animals, he wants to hold,lack reason and yet they respond appropriately. At Metaphysics I 980 b25- 27, a passagenot unlike Posterior Analytics II 19, Aristotle claims: "The animals other than man liveby appearances and memories, and have but little of connected experience." Of thispassage Ross (1949), 677, says: "I .e. experience is a stage in which there has appeared

ability to interpret the present in the light of the past, but an ability which cannotaccount for itself; when it accounts for itself it becomes art." Sorabji (1992), 195-209, has an excellent account of the problem posed for Aristotle and other ancientphilosophers by animal intelligence.

29 Modrak (1987), 166. 30 Modrak (1987), 169.31 D. Frede (1992), 291, seems, unlike Modrak, to believe that Aristotle does make use

of a general image and that his doing so is not unsatisfactory.



SUBSTANCE AND AR ISTOTL E'S EPISTEMOLOGY 77

Aristotle's metaphysics and his epistemology. I will argue next that thefit between Aristotle's epistemology and his metaphysics, on the inter-pretation of the theory of substance which I have offered, should betaken as a reason for thinking that interpretation to be correct.

I have argued that Aristotle wants his substances to be as much likePlato's Forms as possible, but for separation, and that Plato's Formscan best be seen as types. But although metaphysical issues fall outsidethe scope of her book, in an earlier paper cited in it Modrak gives an

account of substances which, though it may differ to some degree fromthe view I want to propose, nevertheless illustrates why there shouldbe said to be a close connection between Aristotle's metaphysics andhis epistemology. For what Modrak claims is that Aristotelian substancesare types. Specifically, she suggests that the relationship between theform and the individuals having that form is like that between a wordand its occurrences; the form is like 'cat' as the arrangement of theletters 'c,a,t', while the individual is that form or formula in matter, asin the ink marks on the page. Similarly in the case of the human form

and human individuals, the form is the functional organization char-acteristic of human beings and the individual is a particular organizedbody such as Socrates.32

I myself am not entirely comfortable with Modrak's examples. Al-though she says that the form, being that which provides individuation,is not a property, nevertheless "the arrangement of the letters 'c,a,t' and likewise functional organization are propertylike ('c' is to the left of'a'); thus I would contend that even the formula in itself must be theletters arranged (not, of course, inked letters arranged) and not their

arrangement, if one is to preserve the ontological priority required ofsubstances. But of course in its standard use the distinction betweentypes (for example, The Grizzly Bear and The American Flag) and tokens(grizzly bears and American flags) is such that what types are derivedfrom are sortals.

My point is that, if Modrak's examples were made to conform to hersuggestion that forms are types, Aristotle's intention would, I believe,be clear. That Aristotle would think that The Grizzly Bear - that is tosay, the Form supposed to be numerically distinct from sensibles -

cannot exist is undeniable. Yet I maintain that the goal of his meta-physics and epistemology is to achieve the virtues of Plato's Formswithout separation and that this goal is accomplished by the postulationof specimens of kinds that are numerically the same as sensible objects

32 Modrak (1979), 375-76.



7 8 S U B S TA N C E A N D S E PA R A T I O N IN A R I S TO T L E

but do not have the accidental properties of the latter. However, to saythat Aristotle proposes that substances are , as it were, unseparated typesand thus that he must explain how there can be knowledge of thesewould be to hold the same view. Moreover, the result of the processthat Modrak has described, namely, the reuse of a phantasma to arriveat knowledge of the universal, or more precisely, at knowledge of anunsepara ted type, is just knowledge of a specimen of a kind. ThusAristotle's epistemology, as Modrak describes it, would match his me-taphysics as I understand it to be.

In Aristotle's account of the movement from perception to knowl-edge, it has often been noticed that he does not address skepticism ofthe sort that concerns us - or even Plato. As his starting point, forexample, Aristotle claims that in perception the perceiving and theobject perceived are the same (431b20-432al); having postulated thatin perception the form of the object is taken in without the matter insomething like the way a piece of wax takes on the imprint of a signetring (42 4a l7-24 ), Aristotle does not then concern himself with whetherthere might not really be a surface to be seen or whether the whitehuman-shaped surface might nevertheless not be a human being.

In other words, Aristotle never doubts that we have knowledge. Butif he is addressing the problems introduced by Plato's Theory of Forms,the otherwise puzzling limits of his epistemological interests make sense.To start from experience and assume it to be experience of somethingoutside oneself is to do no more than Plato did in granting us awarenessof the phenomenal world. The difference between Plato and Aristotlearises rather in the relation between what is in flux and what is un-changing. If, contrary to Plato, what is perceived is numerically thesame as what is to be known, then, Aristotle believes, the world is suchthat what is perceived is also, in a way, what is both knowable and known.That is to say, if what is perceived is numerically the same as what is tobe known, then Plato's peculiar problem of retrieval on the basis ofvague and ambiguous phenomenal cues vanishes, making inquiry - ra-tional investigation from a base of experience - possible. As T. Engberg-Pederson explains Aristotle's theory, ''[One can attend to] particularcases with the consequence that insight into some universal point isacquired."33

Thus even if we may go wrong on a particular occasion, even if nousis not presumed to guarantee the truth of whatever is grasped,34 by hisclaim that substances are numerically the same as sensible objects,Aristotle believes that he has eliminated reasons of the sort that confrontPlato for doubting that we can and do know that which is ontologicallyfundamental. To put the point ano ther way, in not considering Cartesian33 Engberg-Pederson (1979), 305.34 See Engberg-Pederson (1979), 308, and Lesher (1973), esp. 58 -6 5.



S U B S TA N C E A N D A R I S TO T L E ' S E P I ST E M O L O G Y 7 9

gro un ds for do ub t, i t can fairly be said that Aristotle ju st assumes thatthere is an intelligible world and that we can have knowledge of it.Nev ertheless what nee ds also to be said is that as a con seq uen ce of the seassumptions, Aristotle takes it to be a criterion for a successful meta-physical theory that it propose a world where such knowledge can plau-sibly be obtained and that by his rejection of separation he believes thatthis is ju st what he has do ne .

V I

I have agreed with Modrak that Aristotle 's account of the acquisitionof knowledge depends on the reuse of a phantasm in such a way thatany human being can represent any other. Of course, there are manyfeatures of Aristotle 's epistemology and philosophy of mind which Ihave not considered. Nevertheless I believe that I have said enough toshow that his epistemological view is encouragingly parallel to the meta-physical account of substance given in earlier chapters. For there I hadargued that, as a result of the restrictive function of 'qua', it is possibleto refer no t only to Socra tes but also, by using the expres sion 'Socrate s-qua-human being' , to a specimen or paradigm of the kind human being.I had argued too that s ince accidental propert ies are el iminated thereis no qualitative difference among specimens of the same kind, with theresult that for Aristotle substances are knowable despite no t bein g uni-versals. Now I have argued in this chapter that, in the extraction of theknowable from perception, what are known are in fact specimens ofkinds.

But if the metaphysical grounding of Aristotle 's epistemology is as Ihave argued it to be, then contrary to what is sometimes thought, Pos-terior Analytics II 19 and the parallel account of perceiving and thinkingin the De Anima are consistent with what Aristotle says in M etaphysicsXIII 10. In that chapter Aristotle describes the limits of knowability,saying:

The statement that all knowledge is universal, so that the principles of thingsmust also be universal and not separate substances, presents indeed, of all thepoints we have mentioned, the greatest difficulty, but yet the statement is in asense true, although in a sense it is not. For knowledge, like knowing, is spokenof in two ways - as potential and as actual. The potentiality, being, as matter,universal and indefinite, deals with the universal and indefinite; but the actuality,being definite, deals with a definite object - being a 'this' [tode ti], it deals witha 'this'. But per accidens sight sees universal colour, because this individual colourwhich it sees is colour; and this individual a which the grammarian investigatesis an a. (1087al0-21)

The contrast between potentiality and actuality in this passage isadmittedly problematic. Walter Leszl supposes that it is the contrast



8 0 S U B STA N C E A ND S E PA R A T I O N IN A R I S T O T L E

between, say, Socrates' knowledge of geometry when he has studied thesubject but is not now thinking about o r contem plat ing geometricaltheorems (potential knowledge) and his now thinking, accurately, aboutgeometry (actual knowledge).35 Yet Robert Heinaman, on the otherhand, has argued that the relevant contrast between potential i ty andactuality is not this familiar one; rather by 'potential knowledge' h e

takes Aristotle in this context to mean having knowledge of one object(Heinaman says one proposition) in virtue of having knowledge of someother object (or propo sition) .3 6

Heinaman cal ls the contrast between disposi t ional and occurrentknowledge o f the same object a contras t between potentiali ty andactuality and the con tras t wh ere the objects differ that betw eenpotentiality2 and actuality2. His claim then is that i t i s a distinctionbetween potentiality2 and actuality2 which is at issue in XIII 10, and inthis i t seems t o me that he is right. How ever his application o f thisdistinction is less persuasive. What Heinaman says is:

The problem Aristotle is concerned to answer in M 10 is the problem of howprinciples (substantial forms) can be known if they are not universals. And if weunderstand his answer in terms of the distinction between actual2 and potential*,knowledge he must be saying the following: the knowledge of the universalconstitutes potential knowledge of the individual principles, the individual sub-stantial forms. So, for example, the knowledge of the universal human soulconstitutes potential knowledge of Socrates' soul, Plato's soul, etc.37

He concludes:

In M 10 Aristotle is not giving up his belief that knowledge of the individualrequires knowledge of the universal (cf. 1036a8, 1086b5-6, 32-7), for theindividual is known by actual2 knowledge which is the actuality of the potential.,knowledge which consists in knowing the universal. Ra ther, A ristotle is denyingthat this fact entails that the universal which is known is a substance . So in o rde r

to know that Socrates' soul is ABC I must know that the universal definitionof human soul is ABC. But knowledge of the universal is not knowledge of asubstance, except potentially. It constitutes potential., knowledge of individualsubstances.38

The difficulty with Heinaman's view is that it is hard to see how, on hisaccount, the individual no t the universal has epistemological priority.To be sure, Heinaman can say that the relevant universals cannot them-selves be objects of actual2 knowledge since there are no other propo-sitions knowledge of which could constitute potential knowledge ofthem.39 Nevertheless this seems, if anything, to establish their priority,not their lack of it.

35 Leszl (1972), 312 . 36 See Heinaman (1981b), 67, 70.37 Heinaman (1981b), 70. 38 Heinaman (1981b), 75.39 Heinaman (1981b), 70, 67.




Thus if one is to preserve the priority of the individual, it seemsnecessary to suppose that what Aristotle is saying is that, even thoughthe numerical distinctness of specimens of the same kind prevents claim-ing that in actually 2 knowing any individual of a given kind one actually 2

knows the others, one does potentially 2 know those others and that todo so ju s t is what it is to kno w pote ntia lly 2 the universal and indefinite.This view, it seems to me, is consonant with Aristotle's earlier discussedcriticism of the Meno on the grounds that knowledge of the instancescomes along with epagbge. In any case, of the argument in XIII 10 itself,Joseph Owens says the following:

The form as seen in the thing is not universal. It is this definite form. That sameform, however, is seen in other singular things, indefinitely numerous. Yet theknowledge of the form as seen in the one definite instance in a singular, is ableto be applied indefinitely to all things in which that form happens to be found. 40

A given a may be written with ink or chiseled in stone; it may be scrawledor flourished. Yet if it is to be known in such a way that to know it ispotentially to know all other a's, it must be known as and only as an a,that is to say, as a member of its kind. 41

Letters of the alphabet are , of cours e, hardly substances. N onethelessthe analogy between knowing a's and knowing individual human beings

is clear. If one knows the universal by knowing an a as an a, so withSocrates and Callias; Socrates may be a snub-nosed, penniless, exas-perating yet inspiring Athenian philosopher, but to know what it is tobe a human being, that is to say, potentially to know Callias and othersby knowing Socrates, one must know Socrates (and indeed on the whole,for Aristotle this is the only way in which one can know an individualhu ma n being) ju st as a hu ma n b eing.

Thus, even though in Metaphysics XIII 10 Aristotle says that actualknowledge is of the individual, that Socrates is not in all his peculiarity

a knowable object is, I think, as true in this chapter as in the PosteriorAnalytics. The point of Aristotle's account of substance, however, is that,having admitted as much, one need not agree with Leszl, for example,whe n he says: As to the ' thi s' which is su pp os ed t o be known , it issomething individual and is not the actual content of knowledge (whichis the universal, or rather the universal connection, which it instantiates),but rather what knowledge is about. 4 2 For even given that for Aristotle

40 Owens (1963), 429.41 At De Anima 4l 7a 24 -2 9 also, Aristotle uses the example of letters: the person who

has a knowledge of grammar has a potentiality in the sense that he can reflect whenhe wants to, while the person who is already reflecting is a knower in actuality of thisA. In other words, the former has knowledge of the letter type, where this is potentialknowledge of a token of that type. However what Aristotle says in De Anima is onlyhalf the story; what De Anima II 6 and Posterior Analytics II 19 address is the otherhalf, namely, how knowledge of the letter type comes to be.

42 Leszl (1972), 307.




universals do not exist apart from individuals, to hold as Leszl does thatthe content of knowledge is the universal is to preserve what Chernisshas called "th e discrepancy between the real and the intelligible,"43 and,as I said in Chapter I, it is this very discrepancy that Aristotle worriesabout in the aporia in Metaphysics III. His solution, I have claimed, isthat Socrates' form, a specimen of the kind human being, is, by virtueof being numerically the same as Socrates, a particular and yet knowablejust because it is indistinguishable from other specimens of the samekind. But if knowledge is of the universal only in the sense that it isindeterminable which specimen of a given kind it is that one knows,then Metaphysics XI I I 10 and the passages in Posterior Analytics and DeAnima which have been discussed are consistent.

In this chapter I have argued that Aristotle attempts to show that aplausible account of coming to know can be had once Platonic sepa-ration is abandoned. Even if he is vaguer than we would like in hisdescription of the psychological process by which knowledge is attained,clearly Aristotle does believe that we move from our perception ofSocrates to knowledge of what it is to be a human being. Specifically,for Aristotle we can come to have knowledge of Socrates-qua-humanbeing (and thus potentially also Callias-qua-human being and so on)because the individual human beings that our phantasms represent arenumerically the same as specimens of the same kind.

Yet to argue, as I have done, that Aristotle's substances are likePlatonic Forms without separation - that is to say, that the rejectionof separation is the keystone of Aristotle's metaphysics and epistemology- presents two problem s. The first is that even if, as I maintain, Aristotletakes separation to be the chief fault of Plato's Theory of Forms, as Iacknowledged in Chapter I, Aristotle himself says that substances mustbe separate. The second concerns ontological priority. Aristotle maywant to say that, as learning p roceeds from what is less knowable bynature to that which is more knowable, it also proceeds from that whichhas little or nothing of reality to that which has reality (1029b4-12; cf.Posterior Analytics 7lb33-72a5); he may want to hold that the use of'qua' in describing what comes to be known is strictly speaking notabstraction from the real but the extraction of it.44 Nevertheless it isby no means clear that specimens of natural kinds can plausibly be saidto be ontologically prior to the sensible objects with which they arenumerically the same. These objections will be addressed in the twochapters remaining.

43 Cherniss (1944), 340.44 See Guthrie (1981), 190.



V

The Separation of Substance

In the interpreta tion of Aristotle's account of substance I have proposedthus far, I have claimed that Aristotle believes that by denying separationhe can uphold the epistemological, and, as I will argue in Chapter VI,ontological priority of substances, where those requirements are under-stood in very Platonic terms. I have claimed further that my interpre-tation of the motivations for Aristotle's view of substance makes un-derstandable his account of how we come to have knowledge.Nevertheless, as I said in Chapter I, even as Aristotle criticizes Plato

for separating the Forms, he says of substances that they must be sep-arate. In Metaphysics VII 1, for example, Aristotle says:

Now there are several senses in which a thing is said to be primary [proton]; butsubstance is primary in every sense - in formula, in order of knowledge, in time.For of the other categories none can exist independently [choriston], but onlysubstance. And in formula also this is primary; for in the formula of each termthe formula of its substance must be present. And we think we know each thingmost fully, when we know what it is, e.g. what man is or what fire is, rather thanwhen we know its quality, its quantity, or where it is; since we know each of these

things also, only when we know what the quantity or the quality is. (1028a31-b2)

For Fine that Aristotle should claim separation for his substanceswhile criticizing Plato for separating the Forms in no way presents aproblem. Platonic Forms, as Fine understands Plato, are universals, and,according to her, are thought by Aristotle to be so.1 Aristotle's objectionto Plato, as she sees it, is that universals should not be said to have acapacity for independent existence. Substance, on the other hand, whichis understood by Fine to be for Aristotle the composite, can be said tohave just this characteristic, existing independently of other substancesas well as of accidents.2

1 Fine was discussed in Chapter I. For Forms as universal, see (1984), esp. 45 .2 Fine (1984) argues that independent existence can apply to the composite in the sense

that composites are separate from their attributes. By this she means that although

83





SEPARATION OF SUBSTANCE 85

that VII 1 makes use of the categories and in the Categories an appealto independent existence is found: "Thus all the other things are eithersaid of the primary substances as subjects or in them as subjects. So ifthe primary substances did not exist it would be impossible for any ofthe other things to exist" (2b4-6).

Thus VII 1 alludes to some doctrines from the Categories. On theother hand, there are problems with im porting views about separationfrom the Categories into the Metaphysics. In the first place, while theview expressed in the Categories clearly states the priority of substance,it does not state that substance could exist without the other categories,only that they cannot exist without it, and if the former claim is intended,it is hard to see how it can be sustained. In the second place, whateverthe view in the Categories and whatever its justification, it cannot beassumed that Metaphysics VII 1 is simply a restatement of it; in theCategories, after all, views about substances were uncomplicated by mat-ter. For both these reasons, therefore, it seems that we cannot rely onthe Categories to explicate VII 1. It is likewise with Physics i85a31-32,where Aristotle says, "For none of the others can exist independentlyexcept substance; for everything is predicated of substance as subject";since in Metaphysics VII 3 matter, form, and the composite are all saidto be a sort of substratum (1029a2-3), appeal to that notion does notclarify the meaning of 'separation'.

It seems then that there is no recourse but to determine from theMetaphysics itself what the separation of substances can be,5 yet in theMetaphysics exegesis of the sense in which substances must be separateis complicated by Aristotle's own terminology. Although Aristotle some-times distinguishes separation in space from separation in definition,6

and the latter from simple or unqualified separation (VIII 1 10 42a28-31), at other times he jus t says 'separation' (1028a33-34). In VII 3matter is rejected as a candidate for substance on the ground that it isneither tode ti nor choriston (1029a27-28). Nevertheless here too whatthat which is separate7 is to be separate from and in what way it is tobe so are not clarified.

5 Metaphysics XIII 10 1086b 14-20 might seem promising. Aristotle says: Let us nowmention a point which presents a certain difficulty both to those who believe in theIdeas and to those who do not. . . . I f we do not suppose substances to be separate,and in the way in which particular things are said to be separate, we shall destroy thatsort of substance which we wish to maintain; but if we conceive substances to beseparable, how are we to conceive their elements and their principles?" But unfortu-

nately, how particular things are to be separate is, as we have seen, itself disputed.6 De Anima 4i3bl4-15, 429al 1-12, 432*20; Metaphysics ioi6b2-3, 1048bl5, 1052bl7;On Generation and Corruption 32ob24, 320b 12-14; Nicomachean Ethics no2a28-31; Phys-ics i93b4-5.

7 Some interpreters prefer to translate choriston as 'separable' rather than separate. I donot find it necessary or useful to make a distinction here, but some of the varieties ofseparation that I consider would be described by others as varieties of separability.



8 6 S U B STA N C E A ND S E PA R AT I O N IN A R I S T O T L E

To be sure, if one thinks that Aristotle's successful candidate forsubstance is the composite, it is not hard to suppose that all the sensesof 'separation' commonly put forward independent existence, nu-merical distinctness, or spatial discontinuity apply. If, on the otherhand, as I think, substance is form, it is difficult to think that any ofthese could capture whatever Aristotle intends. In Chapter III, it willbe recalled, I argued that, when Aristotle says that substance is form,what this means is that substances are specimens of natural kinds thatare numerically the same as but not identical with sensible objects, andthe question at issue is how substances, so understood, could possiblybe separate. On the other hand, consider, for example, Aristotle's re-marks about the whole line and the half. Aristotle says that in actualitythe whole line is prior to the half line and substance to matter (Meta-physics V 11 1019a8-10). But since, as we saw in VII 1, one of theconditions offered for priority is separation, it follows that the wholeline is also separate from the half, as is substance from its matter. Hereseparation can hardly mean independent existence or numerical dis-tinctness or spatial separation.

In short, I want to claim that the separation of the whole line fromthe half cannot be understood in terms of any of the senses of 'sepa-ration' already discussed. To be sure, one might think it reasonable tosuppose that the way in which the whole line is separated from the halfis only that it is separate in definition, another variety of separationwhich, as we have seen, Aristotle mentions. But were this the only wayin which it is so, the analogy to substance and matter would have noontological force; more specifically, neither substance nor the wholeline could be used to illustrate priority in respect of nature" (1019a2).Yet if we suppose the separation of the whole line to be the ontologicalequivalent to separation in definition, this problem would be resolved.That is to say, to be separate in definition, so Aristotle tells us, is to besuch that in a definition of A no reference is made to B that is, insaying what A in itself is we do not need to say that it is (a) B. Likewisewhat it means for A to be separate from B, if separation is the ontologicalcorrelate to separation in definition, is that A would be such that B isnot at any time (part of) what A in itself is. What I now want to arguetherefore is that, when he says that substances must be separate, by'separation' Aristotle in fact has in mind the ontological correlate ofdefinitional separation.

The variety of separation just defined I am going to call "independentbeing" (I mean this to be something different from "independent ex-istence ); what I need now to try to say is what has this sort of separationfrom what. Independence in being that is to say, separation, as I

believe it should be understood will obtain among many entities,including, of course, entities that are at the same ontological level. In



S E PA R A T I O N O F S U B S TA N C E 8 7

saying of this chair what it is, one need not say of the coat lying on thechair what it is; having a coat thrown on it is not part of what a chairin itself is. But for both Plato and Aristotle, the more interesting issueis, as it were, the "vertical" separation of what is ontologically andepistemologically fundamental from what is in flux, and it is on thisrelation that I will focus in explicating and defending my interpretation.

That Plato's Forms have "independent being" in relation to phe-nomena is clear enough. To say what The Shuttle Itself is one need not- and indeed cannot - refer to its phenomenal images. The problemwith Plato's Theory, I take Aristotle to be arguing, is that Plato erro-neously supposes that that which has independent being in relation to

phenomena must also be numerically distinct from them. This point ismade most clearly, I believe, in Metaphysics VII 6. Beginning with thePlatonic Forms, Aristotle proceeds in VII 6 to undercut the case forthe Forms by arguing that each self-subsistent thing and its essence arethe same. The argument is as follows. If the essence of good is to bedifferent from the Idea of Good, there will be substances besides thosepostulated - that is to say, the essence of the Idea of the Good will bea substance numerically distinct from the Idea of the Good and priorto it (1031a31-b3).

Using the example of the essence of horse, Aristotle also expandsthe argument in VII 6 in such a way as to create a regress. If the essenceof the essence of horse is different from the essence of horse (and ifthe essence of horse is different from horse, on what grounds wouldthe essence of the former not be different from it?), the same result -namely, the existence of substances prior to presum ed substances - willagain obtain (1031b28-30). But regress, Aristotle tells us, is not theonly difficulty. For if the Idea of the Good, for example, is numericallydistinct from its essence, it will be unknowable (1031b4). That is to say,

whatever we know, we will not know the Form (the presum ed knowabilityof which was one of the chief motives for its postulation), but somethingelse, its essence.

In the case of the Forms, since there is nothing that is a propertyof the Form and not a property of its essence or conversely, to denythe numerical distinctness of a Form and its essence is to assert theiridentity. Presumably to do so is the course Plato would want to take.But, Aristotle claims, his argum ent need not apply to Forms alone. Thatis to say, whether there are Platonic Forms or not, all primary and self-subsistent things are, Aristotle claims, the same as their essences(1032a4-6), a position that, if defensible, would seem to eliminate theneed for Forms. Nevertheless it is clear that if Aristotle intends, as Ithink he does, to imply that Socrates and to be Socrates are the same(1032a8), they cannot be identical; unlike a Platonic Form and its es-



8 8 S U B S TA N C E A N D S E PA R A T I O N IN A R I S TO T L E

sence, Socrates and to be Socrates must differ in properties if to beSocrates is to be any more knowable than Socrates.

Thus what the argument in VII 6 shows, as I see it, is that Aristotlehimself needs both to assert and to deny separation. That is to say, evenas he in VII 6 denies the numerical distinctness (and independent ex-istence) of what is most real and most knowable from what is changing,he must assert along with Plato that there is, in some sense, separationof what is ontologically and epistemologically fundamental from whatis in flux. To put the point in the terms that I have been urging, aspecimen of a kind, although numerically the same as a given sensibleobject, is separate from that sensible object; to define what a horse is,one need not refer to any given horse. Of course, even though speci-mens of kinds are separate from sensible objects in the sense of havingindependent being, the converse does not hold, and this is just whatshould be the case if Aristotle's claim of the ontological priority ofsubstance is to be sustained. To take an example, any given horse is notseparate from a specimen of the kind horse; to say what Secretariat is,one must say that he is a horse, where what it is to be a horse - theessence of any individual horse - is, I have argued, not a property buta specimen of the natural kind horse.

I have argued that specimens of kinds have independent being withrespect to sensible objects while sensible objects do not have indepen-dent being with respect to those specimens. On the other hand, bothSecretariat and a specimen of the kind horse are separate in this sensefrom Secretariat's accidental properties. Secretariat may be brown, butin saying what Secretariat is, brownness is not part of what he is, nor,of course, is it part of what it is to be a horse. Conversely, nonsubstancessuch as colors have independen t being only in a derivative way. That isto say, brownness has an essence, but the definition of any propertywill make it clear that properties are properties of substances (or otherobjects) (1030b4-13). Finally a specimen of a kind is not separate, evenin the sense of independence in being, from its essence nor is its essenceseparate from it; indeed just because in this case there is no differenceat all in properties, the relation is one of identity. But having readAristotle's critical remarks in VII 6 about Platonic Forms, that, ofcourse, is just what we would expect.

II

I have described the relation of separation which I take to hold betweensensible objects and the essence or substance of those objects as "in-dependent being." But that it is possible to understand 'separation' inthis way can perhaps also be seen from Aristotle's discussion of matter.To be sure, any attempt to understand the sort of separation matter is




said to lack is complicated by disagreement among interpreters of Ar-istotle on how the notion of proximate matter is to be understood. Onemight suppose that the bronze of the statue - I do not mean the bronzefrom which a statue can be made, that is, the preexisting matter, butthe bronze from which an existing statue has been made - is an exampleof matter and that as such it has various familiar properties, includingsize, weight, hardness, color, location, and, of course, shape. Never-theless this view may in fact not be Aristotle's. For many recent inter-preters, including Balme, Dancy, and Michael Frede, believe that matteras such has no properties. As Dancy explains it:

In Z 3, we could turn directly to the bronze , which is something (the elements

mixed in the ratio X:Y) in its own right, but thinking of it that way is not thinkingof it as the material cause of both the statue and the lump into which the statueis beaten. Thinking of it in this latter way is not thinking of it in its own rightat all, but as what used to be pale and charioteer-shaped and is no longer either.When we consider the transmutation of fire into air, the case is clearest. Forhere, there is no answer to the question "what is it that used to be hot and dryand is now hot and wet?" at all: there can be no question of turning directlyto the stuff and discussing its essential structure. But this is relatively unim-portant. It was at the top of Aristotle's hierarchy that the distinctness of formwas clearest; still, it was distinct from the ma tter all the way down. So also here ,at the bottom of the hierarchy, the inseparability of the matter is clearest; yetit is inseparable all the way up. 8

If one wonders why Aristotle might have wanted to say that it is notthe bronze as such which is matter but rather the bronze understoodin relation to the statue, the motivation would seem to come from caseswhere it is not so easy to identify the matter of the composite with thepreexisting material. Ackrill explains the problem that arises if one triesto apply a distinction readily made in the case of many artefacts to living

things:

The timber, hinges, and screws can still be seen when the cupboard is built,but the eggs and sugar are lost in the cake. If, as a result of cooking, a and bcombine to form a homogeneous stuff c, a and b are no longer there to bepicked out. We can refer to the a and b we started with, and perhaps we canrecover the a and b again by some process. But a and b are present now, if atall, only potentially. Actual bricks constitute an actual wall, though those verysame bricks might not have done so. But here is quite a different story: potentiala and b are 'in' actual c, though they might have been actual a and b. Chemical

change, in short, which yields a new sort of stuff, cannot easily accommodatean account tailor-made for other operations. . . . This is the difficulty for Ar-istotle with the basic living materials such as flesh and bon e. They are prod uced,as he explains in detail in the biological works, by processes like cooking. . . . 9

8 Dancy (1978), 408. 9 Ackrill (1973), 132.






a view fits well with the account of separation I want to give. For, aswe have seen, in VII 3 Aristotle rejects matter as a candidate for sub-stance on the grounds that it is neither tode ti nor chbriston. One mightsuppose that by 'no t separate' he m eans that it is not numerically distinctfrom the composite, and On Generation and Corruption I 5 ( It is there-fore better to suppose that in all instances of com ing-to-be the matteris inseparable, being numerically identical and one, though not one indefinition" (320bl2-14; cf. 320b22-25)) seems to suggest as much. ButDancy says of Aristotle: "when he talks about separability he need notbe, and generally is not, thinking about questions of individuation, di-vided reference, or countability, about whether or not stuff can occurin the absence of 'things'."13 Rather, according to Dancy, what is in-separable about matter is that, as matter, there is nothing that it is inits own right."14 As the potential for change in something, matter doesnot "stand on its own";15 in other words, there is nothing that it is. Butif not having an essence is the ground for the inseparability of matteras matter, then the sort of separation that matter is said to lack, thesort of separation that is had by substance, would seem again to be theontological correlate of separation in definition.

I l l

In the first section of this chapter I argued that the separation of sub-stances, which I have taken to be specimens of natural kinds, could beunderstood as independence in being, a sort of separation not had byattributes, matter, and (except in relation to accidents) the composite.If this account of separation is right, the dispute between Plato andAristotle is not over whether what is ontologically fundamental is, insome sense, separate, but over the implications of requiring separationin the sense of independent being of that which is ontologically fun-damental. In the case of the Forms, Aristotle tells us that Socrates sought

definitions but that it was Plato who was responsible for separation. Ofcourse, from the Socratic dialogues we learn that Socrates regularlyrejected definition by example, and in the Euthyphro he is even madeto talk of what he is seeking not just as what is common to all cases butas that by which pious things are pious and that to which we can look asa standard (6d-e). Nevertheless, even if we assume that Socrates madeclaims such as these, it seems not implausible to believe that he left itunclear what he meant by them;16 that it was Plato, not the historical

13 Dancy (1978), 401. 14 Dancy (1978), 407.15 Dancy (1978), 400.16 Thus I disagree with Allen (1970), 133-36, 147, 149. That Socrates did not separate

the forms might, he says, mean that Socrates did not distinguish forms from theirsensible instances or that, although he distinguished them, he did not regard themas individuals or even that though he took them to be individuals he did not regardthem as independent of and prior to their instances. What Allen argues is that formswere for Socrates separate in all these ways and that Socrates differed from Plato onlyin that separation did not for Socrates make sensibles deficient.



9 2 S U B STA N C E A ND S E PA R AT I O N IN A R I S T O T L E

Socrates, who attempted to clarify the characteristics had by a standardjust in virtue of its being the standard seems entirely credible. Specif-ically, by holding that Forms must be eternal, unchanging, intelligibleparadigms, it seems that Plato does contend that the existence of some-thing in addition to something numerically distinct from what is influx is necessary in order to meet the Socratic requirements.

Thus I accept Aristotle's account according to which it is Plato whoseparated the Forms, and I have argued that what is meant by this claimis that he postulated eternal paradigms, numerically distinct from sen-sibles. However, to separate the Forms in this way is, Aristotle argues,a fundamental error . That is to say, Plato's erro r, according to Aristotle,is to think that, in order for there to be something knowable and un-changeable in the midst of flux, there must be something additional,something numerically distinct from sensibles, something that existsbesides (para) particulars (1086b8) and that given its nature could existeven if they did not do so. Indeed as I understand Aristotle, one mightsay that Aristotle returns to a more Socratic view of separation. Yet tosay this does not do justice to Aristotle's thought, as he does not andcould not return to Socrates' unconcern about the ontological question.Rather Aristotle must argue that, while being ontologically and episte-mologically fundamental does require independent being, entities suchas what is horse can have independent being without numerical dis-tinctness or independent existence from sensible objects, and I believethat the central books of the Metaphysics contain such an argument.

To summarize, Aristotle believes there is a legitimate and an illegit-imate sense in which substances might be held to be separate. What hethinks separation needs to be, so I have argued, is independent being- the ontological correlate of separation in definition. But Plato believesthat this weak sense of separation implies a stronger sense, namely,numerical distinctness (a distinctness that, in the case of Plato's Forms,is coupled with a capacity for independent existence) while Aristotledenies the implication.

Thus on my interpretation Aristotle assigns to Plato not the blatanterror of arguing from flux to independent existence but rather whathe takes to be the more subtle error of supposing that, in order forsomething to be different from what is in flux, it must be numericallydistinct from what is in flux. Another virtue of my view is that it allowsAristotle's own understanding of the separation of substances to standin direct competition with Plato's. That is to say, where Plato assertsnumerical distinctness, Aristotle denies it. Yet, for both Plato and Ar-istotle, how there is to be something real and knowable in a world inwhich what we experience is in flux must be explained. That is to say,for Aristotle too there must be separation between the real and theknowable, on the one hand, and what is in flux, on the other. Thedifference between Plato and Aristotle on this point, therefore, comes




to this: that Aristotle believes that the separation of what is real andknowable from flux can be achieved without its numerical distinctnessfrom what is in flux.

IVMy interpretation of separation in Aristotle differs from Fine's withregard to the sort of separation that Aristotle attributes to Plato andalso the sort that is had by substances. My view also stands in sharpcontrast to the interpretation of the separation of Aristotelian sub-stances offered by Donald Morrison. Morrison argues that in Aristotleseparation should be understood in terms of being outside the on-

tological boundaries" of something else - or, equivalently, accordingto Morrison, as numerical distinctness from ano ther thing.17 But if athing is separate from that which is outside its ontological boundaries,it is separate from that in relation to which it does not have ontologicalinfluence. If this is so, then, as Morrison says, what substances areseparate from is other substances; they are no t, that is to say, separatefrom the accidents that inhere in them.18

On Morrison's view, therefore, separation as it applies within Aris-totle's ontology is what I have called a horizontal relation; it is the

separation, as it were, of cats and dogs, and indeed of one dog fromano ther. Moreover, because a substance is naturally prio r to its accidentsbut is not separate from them while it is on the other hand separatefrom every other substance but not prior or posterior to them, theconnection for Morrison between separation and natural priority ismore accurately a connection between natural priority and nonsepar-ation. On my view, by contrast, since substances are said to be separatein the sense of having independence in being from matter and accidentsand the com posite, it is easy to see why, for Aristotle as for Plato, being

separate and being prior should be linked. Indeed, as I said at the closeof Section III, my interpretation makes Aristotle's view satisfyingly par-allel to Plato's. For Aristotle recognizes that substances do need to beseparate from sensible flux, and he disagrees with Plato not about theneed for separation but about its nature.

Thus my account, unlike Morrison's, preserves the link between sep-aration and priority as well as making evident the connection betweenthe Platonism Aristotle deplores and the Platonic requirements henevertheless endorses. There is also another difference. For it follows

from his account of the nature of separation that, as Morrison says,17 Morrison (1985), 128, 138-39.18 See Morrison (1985), 139-44. It should be noticed that by 'substance' Morrison at

this point in his exposition has in mind the composite, even though he says that theother criteria for substance point in the direction of form. His claim, for reasons thatwill become apparent below, is that the use of separation as a criterion for substance"leads to significant strains within the theory" (126).



94 SUBSTANCE AND SEPARATION IN ARISTO TLE

"[Aristotle 's] claim that primary substance, form, is separate because itis separate in definition, is a philosophical dodge that borders on beinga cheat ."1 9 He explains:The situation Aristotle has gotten himself into is this: he has argued himselfinto the view that the form is primary substance. The form is not separate, yeta part of his goal is to show that whatever is substance satisfies all of his initialcriteria of substance. Ready to hand is the criter ion 'unity of definition', ano thername for which is 'separation in definition'. This latter criterion, form satisfies.Thus by appealing to the notion 'separation in definition', Aristotle is able tosay that the form is separate, after all. However, if I have been right about theway separation was supposed to function as a criterion of substance, Aristotle'svictory is only verbal. 'Separation' has become ambiguous, and form has been

shown to be 's epara te' in a sense quite different from the original sense in whichsubstance was held to be separate.20

As Morrison understands Aristot le , form, being prior in defini t ion,has in this regard a better claim than the composite to be primarysubstance, yet because it is in matter, form lacks the ontological bound-aries in terms of which separation is to be understood. The result isthat Aristotle is forced, so Morrison thinks, to attribute to form a dif-ferent sort of separation, separation in definition, which, not being thereal (ontological) separation characteristic of the composite, is a kind

of cheat. Though not everyone is so blunt as to call it a cheat, certainlyMorrison is not alone in his conclusion about the sort of separationhad by form. Guthrie says:Yet here in the Metaphysics too, where essence becomes primary substance, therequirement [of separate existence] is maintained, and in [Z] ch. 6 he arguesthat a thing and its essence are the same, the essence being the substance ofthe thing. We cannot get out of it that way. Lack of separability, after all, wasthe main reason for rejecting the claim of matter to be substance. In what waydoes essence possess it? It does so by being 'conceptually separate', separate inthought or by definition. The difference is brought out at Metaphysics H1042a26-31: "The substratum is substance, i.e. in one sense matter, potentiallybut not actually a 'this', in another the logos or form, which as a 'this' can beseparated conceptually, and thirdly the product of the two, which alone under-goes generation and perishing, and is separate without qualification." The dif-ference [from matter] is real. As essence is substance understood as the objectof scientific knowledge, so it counts as separate because, being intelligible anddefinable, it can be abstracted mentally and thought of by itself. 21

19 Morrison (1985), 154. 20 Morrison (1985), 155.21 Guthrie (1981), 219-20. Code (1991), 6, sees the same problem but holds that for

Aristotle only god is a separately existing form. He says: "However, the substantialforms of perceptible things, despite the fact that they can be denned without referenceto the matter in which they are instantiated (and hence are dejinitionally separate),nonetheless cannot exist without their matter. Thus, contrary to the Platonist position,the forms of perceptible things are not capable of separable existence." On my in-terpretation there is an important sense in which substances in the biological worldare separate and therefore truly substances after all.




Loux takes a similar view. He says:

But the cluster of themes surroun ding the idea that the composite is separate

and subject to the "this something" schema is simply inapplicable in the caseof form. Substantial forms are not particulars and so cannot be individual sub-jects for the metaphysical predication of other things; unlike substance-kinds,they are not predicated essentially of anything but themselves. A form is howits matter is, not what it is; consequently, it does not exhibit the sortal logic ofsubstance-kinds. It does, however, have a determinate conceptual content, andthat content can be identified without reference to anything else. Accordingly,we can say that form is separable in formula.22

A few l ines later Lo ux explains why he believes that Aristotle could

find this sufficient:The idea that form is separable in formula is the familiar one that, if it is to bethe primary reality, form must be a fundamental essence, one that can be definedwithout reference to other essences. And the idea that form is "this something"is tied up with its status as the primary ousia of things to which instances of the"this something" schema in its primary sense are applicable. But, then, Aris-totle's insistence that both form and composite be separable and subject to the"this something" schema brings out the two dimensions of priority underlyingthe use of the term 'ousia' in the two cases. Form has the priority in essenceits role in ousia explanations requires; composite particulars have the kind offactual or existential priority that makes them the central point of focus in oureveryday commerce with the world.23

Thus Loux claims that the separation had by form is not, as Morrisonthinks, a cheat, but an essential component in the theory of ousiaexplanations and in the account of essences as constituting a structuredframework with a secure foundation. 24 On my view, on the other hand,the separation of form is not conceptual abstraction, but an ontologicalnotion, and it is one that allows Aristotle to deny the divergence between

priority in essence and existential priority that on all these accountsdivides the intelligible from the real. If what separation is for Aristotleis the ontological correlate of separation in definition, it is clear thatform rather than the composite is what has it most of all. Therefore,if separation is the ontological correlate of separation in definition,Aristotle can distinguish what he believes to be his successful theory ofsubstance from what he takes to be Plato's unsuccessful theory.

I have argued that, when Aristotle criticizes Plato for separating theForms, he is arguing that Plato makes them numerically distinct from

22 Loux (1991), 263. 23 Loux (1991), 263-64.24 Loux (1991), 262, n. 28.




sensibles, a move that, Aristotle claims, ontological and epistemologicalpriority do not require. There can be separation from flux withoutnumerical distinctness from what is in flux; for independence in being- the ontological correlate of definitional separation - it is enough todeny that there is identity between substance or form and sensible ob-jects. Nevertheless there is an objection to my view which must beaddressed. It concerns passages in Physics II (193b4-5) and MetaphysicsVIII 1 where Aristotle says of the form that it is separate in definition(or only in definition). This problem is most acute in VIII 1 whereAristotle says not just that form is separate in definition but that thecomposite is separate without qualification (choriston haplos) (1042a28-31). In addition there are passages, mostly in De Anima, where Aristotleasks, as if the dichotomy were exhaustive, whether the parts of the soulare separate in definition or spatially separate {De Anima 42galO-b22,413bl3-32, 432al9-b7); though in the last of these cases even thequestion of separation in definition is quickly abandoned, in the othersAristotle argues that only separation in definition applies, except, in alllikelihood, to that part which is capable of knowledge of the eternal.

Whatever Aristotle wants to say about the parts of the soul, never-theless it seems clear that in general the dichotomy between separationin definition, on the one hand, and, on the other hand , spatial separationis not meant to be exhaustive; moreover, even in De Anima, there maybe another way to interpret separation in definition - that is to say, asthe ontological correlate to it. Indeed two passages from De Anima andthe Nicomachean Ethics are suggestive. In the first Aristotle says:

that which is the instrument in the production of movement is to be foundwhere a beginning and an end coincide as e.g. in a ball and socket joint; forthere the convex and the concave sides are respectively an end and a beginning(that is why while the one remains at rest, the other is moved): they are separa tein definition but not separable spatially. (433b21-25)

Again at Nicomachean Ethics I 1102a26-32 he argues:

Some things are said about it, adequately enough, even in the discussions outsideour school, and we must use these; e.g. that one element in the soul is irrationaland one has a rational principle. Whether these are separated as the parts ofthe body or of anything divisible are, or are distinct by definition but by natureinseparable, like convex and concave in the circumference of a circle, does notaffect the present question.

The convex and the concave, which in the Ethics are compared to therelation between the parts of the soul, are like the road up and theroad down of Physics III. That is to say, because the convex and theconcave surfaces of the joint can be said to be an end and a beginning,at rest and moving, there are contexts in which 'the convex' and 'theconcave' will not be substitutable for each other, a state of affairs that



S E PA R A T I O N O F S U B S TA N C E 9 7

is characteristically said by Aristotle to be indicative of a difference inbeing.

I have argued that "separation in definition" does not exclude itsontological correlate; indeed, insofar as Aristotle is serious about anontology of specimens of kinds that includes even accidental unities, itmay actually be implied. There remains, however, the contrast in Me-taphysics VIII 1 between separation in definition and separation haplos,said to be true of the com posite. What can be said first of all with regardto VIII 1 is that it is in any case an anomalous passage as nowhere elsedoes Aristotle say 'chbriston haplos\ Moreover, it is to be noticed thatalthough Aristotle seems clearly in VIII 1 to be contrasting kinds ofseparation, it is still the form, not the composite, which is said to betode ti, a characteristic of substance given along with separation in Me-taphysics VI I 1.

To be sure, there are elsewhere in Aristotle plenty of cases where'haplbs* does mean what is most truly or properly X. There is, for ex-ample, simple incontinence as opposed to incontinence by analogy(1149al-3); essence and definition belong simply to substance and tothe other categories in virtue of their relation to substance (1030b4-7). It is also true that there are cases where 'haplos' is contrasted withthe relative or the conditional - as in the good simply versus the goodfor a particular person (1152b26-27). Nevertheless it is clear that 'hap-los* is sometimes used in ways that are not so obviously evaluative. Aword such as 'earth ' having no parts that signify (1457a31 -32), is simple,not compound; in similes (1412b35-1413a4), the simple is opposed tothe complex. Thus if separation haplos likewise is not, with respect tothe question "What is substance?" a preferred sort of separation, theneven in VIII 1, Aristotle's remarks about separation are compatible withmy view that the separation characteristic of the sublunar substancesof the central books of the Metaphysics is independence in being.

VI

Thus if Aristotle argues against Plato that there can be separation inbeing without numerical distinctness, it can be true that substance isform, despite the fact that Aristotelian forms - specimens of naturalkinds - are entities that are not numerically distinct from sensible ob-jects. Moreover the plausibility of understanding the separation of sub-stance as independent being, that is to say, as the ontological correlateof separation in definition, in turn offers support for my interpretationof substance as specimens of natural kinds; the views fit together.

But if the existence of specimens of kinds depends on the existenceof sensible objects, as I understand Aristotle's alternative to Plato toassert, Aristotle's further claim that it is specimens of natural kinds and



9 8 S U B STA N C E A ND S E PA R A T I O N IN A R I S T O T L E

not sensible objects that are ontologically fundamental may seem, atbest, arbitrary or contrived. After all, in the second chapter I arguedthat there are not two distinct things in the universe, Socrates andSocrates-qua-human being, and if Socrates-qua-human being has to bea fictitious or psychological entity as the common rendering of 'qua' as"considered as" suggests, the claim that Socrates-qua-human being isa substance would not be at all credible.

In the next chapter I will argue that in fact there are in Aristotle thematerials for a defense against such charges. At this jun ctu re, however,my point is rather to emphasize the need for a defense. For Aristotlemust deny that his account of substance is inherently psychologistic orlinguistic; it is not open to him to adopt the sort of view taken in thephilosophy of science by Frederick Suppe, for example:

Scientific theories have as their subject matter a class of phenomena known asthe intended scope of the theory. The task of a theory is to present a generalizeddescription of the phenomena within that intended scope which will enable oneto answer a variety of questions about the phenom ena and their underlyingmechanisms; these questions typically include requests for predictions, expla-nations, and descriptions of the phenomena. The theory does not attempt todescribe all aspects of the phenomena in its intended scope; rather it abstractscertain parameters from the phenomena and attempts to describe the phenom-ena in terms of jus t these abstracted param eters. . . . As such the theory assumesthat the phenomena are isolated systems un der the influence of just the selectedparameters.25

Although Suppe, like Aristotle, takes science to provide descriptions,explanations, and predictions, that is to say, to provide knowledge, theymust differ over the relative ontological status of the objects of knowl-edge and the objects of experience. For Suppe, since actual phenomenaare rarely in fact isolated systems, theories do not give an accurate

characterization of actual phenomena. As he says, "what the theoryactually characterizes is not the phenomena in its intended scope, butrather idealized replicas of those phenomena."26

Clearly Suppe does not intend that his replicas be Platonic Forms.But whatever they are mental objects or fictional entities the im-portant point is that Aristotle's substances cannot be such. To supposethat Aristotle thinks that accidental unities such as the musical one (Soc-rates-qua-musician) are fictitious entities might seem only charitable,though even in this case, as we have seen, Aristotle's remarks about

coming to be and passing away would suggest that the supposition maybe wrong. But whatever exactly one takes Aristotle to hold about theontological status of accidental unities, I have argued that specimensof natural kinds are substances, and that mental or fictional entities

25 Suppe (1974), 223 . 26 Suppe (1974), 224.




would no t be substances is clear. Indeed that A ristotle's view is far fromSuppe's is very evident if a claim of Owen's is correct. For what Owensays is that in Aristotle it is a man or a plant that is a prime exampleof substance, where a man and a plant "carry no namely-rider such asViz. Socrates or Callias or . . ,',"27 and this proposal is, I think, muchthe same as the position which I have defended; Socrates-qua-humanbeing and Callias-qua-human being, being indistinguishable, might verywell be described as x-qua-human being - entities that are, that is tosay, without a "namely-rider."

To be sure, Owen's rendering appears no less paradoxical than m ine;that 'a man' means 'some man' and that 'some m an', if taken to referat all, must refer to Callias or to Socrates or to whomever seems ascertain as that 'Socrates-qua-human being' refers to Socrates. And, ofcourse, in a way it does. Nevertheless Aristotle, unlike Suppe, has reasonto resist the impulse toward ontological reduction. What I intend'Socrates-qua-human being' to exhibit is not that specimens of kindsare psychological entities, in other words, ways of thinking about thingsand thus idealizations or abstractions from them, but rather that spec-imens of kinds are not Platonic entities, existing in addition to sensibleobjects.

Of course it is one thing to say that in Aristotle's ontology it is entitiessuch as 'a human being ' which are substances, that these are numericallythe same as but not identical with sensible objects, and indeed that theyare ontologically more fundamental than the latter; it is another thingto show that such a view is defensible or even intelligible. How canthere be numerical sameness without identity? Then too, even if onegrants that there are natural kinds, how can Aristotle take specimensof these kinds to have ontological priority over the sensible objects withwhich they are numerically the same? In the next chapter I will beginby presenting a contemporary example of numerical sameness withoutidentity which is also suggestive for addressing the second of thesequestions.

27 Owen (1978), 20. Owen's suggestion is endorsed by Lennox (1985), 83, in a paperwritten from the perspective of the biological works.



VI

Substance and Teleology

In this book I have argued that the assumption that Aristotle distin-guishes numerical sameness from identity provides a wide-ranging ex-planation of referential opacity in his works and makes possible aninterpretation of substance that sees Aristotle's theory as a response towhat he takes to be the flaws in Platonism. I have not attempted todefend distinguishing between numerical sameness and identity on phil-osophical grounds or even to consider the philosophical implicationsof such a view; as I said in Chapter II, the logic of a metaphysics thatconfounds counting has to be, to say the least, problematic. It may be,of course, that Aristotle adopted a position that cannot be made co-herent or attractive, although such a conclusion would be disappointing.Although I will not in this final chapter try to offer a philosophicalanalysis or defense of the distinction, I will nevertheless describe aninteresting occurrence of it in the recent philosophical literature. Butthe primary goal of this chapter is to argue that substances, understoodas specimens of natural kinds, can defensibly be said to be ontologicallyprior to the sensible objects with which they are numerically the same,and for that argument too the example now to be offered will proveuseful.

I

In an extraordinarily interesting book in the philosophy of art, TheTransfiguration of the Com monplace, Arthur Danto puzzles about the re-

lation between works of art and physical objects, putting the probleminto its sharpest focus by considering works of art that are perceptuallyindistinguishable from ordinary things. To take Danto's example, Du-champ's Fountain is perceptually indistinguishable from a urinal. Fol-lowing Danto, let us call the sensible object, in this case a given urinal,

100



SUBSTANCE AND TELEO LOG Y 101

the "material counterpart" to the work of art.1 The question then isthis: What is the relation of a work of art to its material counterpart?

In the case of Duchamp's Fountain, Danto says:But the question is whether the artwork Fountain is indeed identical with thaturinal, and hence whether those gleaming surfaces and deep reflections [prop-erties of porcelain] are indeed qualities of the artwork. . . . But certainly thework itself has properties that urinals themselves lack: it is daring, impudent,irreverent, witty, and clever.2

What "detaches objects from the real world" and makes them part ofthe art world, according to Danto, is that art works belong to a worldof interpreted things or representations, and the properties of a work

of art are jus t those that con tribute to its interpretation.3

For example,whether gleams, a property of the porcelain, is a property of Fountainwould depend upon its relevance to Fountain's representational content;even whether Fountain has a color is, according to Danto, to be decidedon the same grounds.4

In the present context it is not necessary to consider what propertiesare lost and gained in the "transfiguration" of mere things into art oreven whether Danto's theory of art is correct. What is interesting tome is that Danto distinguishes the p roperties of Fountain from the prop-

erties of its material counterpart. Fountain is witty, daring, and irrev-erent, but the urinal is not; the urinal is white, but Fountain may ormay not be so. It must be emphasized that such differences will ariseregardless of whether the material counterparts are everyday objectssuch as a urinal or (another of his examples) a snow shovel5 - that is,objects that have a use outside art - or simply painted canvases andchunks of marble. Examples of the former sort contribute a certainvividness to Danto's presentation of his theory, but that is all.

If a work of art and its material counterpart differ in properties, the

relation between them - a relation that Danto dubs the 'is' of artisticidentification6 - is not identity, given that Leibniz's Law is taken todefine that relation. Whether one describes it as a nonstandard identityrelation of some sort or whether one says that there are relations ofnumerical sameness other than identity is perhaps not a matter of ex-treme im portance. However, in specifying the extent to which for Dantoa work of art and its material counterpart differ, it is important to noticethat he has taken a stance that is more radical than the nonstandard

1 Danto (1981), 104. See also 99. 2 Danto (1981), 93 -94.

3 Danto (1981), 135; see also 125. Danto argues that art works are distinguished fromother representations (for example, maps) by "[their use of] the means of representa tionin a way that is not exhaustively specified when one has exhaustively specified what isbeing represen ted" but which, in addition, "expresses something about [their] conten t"(148).

4 Danto (1986), 38. 5 Danto (1986), 26.6 Danto (1981), 126.




identity advocated by Allan Gibbard, for example, who uses the samesort of case to argue that contingent identity can obtain between thereferents of proper names. What Gibbard maintains is that Goliath (astatue) and Lumpl (a piece of clay), which come into existence simul-taneously (by sticking two halves of the statue together) and cease toexist simultaneously (by being smashed), are identical. Nevertheless,Gibbard says, the identity is contingent. This is so because, althoughthe objects in question in fact begin and come to an end simultaneously,had, for example, the wet clay once stuck together been squeezed intoa ball, the times at which the statue and the piece of clay ceased to existwould have been different. That is to say, because Goliath could havebeen destroyed while Lumpl survived, Goliath and Lumpl differ inmodal properties.7

Certainly Danto and Gibbard do not disagree merely about how therelationship between Goliath and Lumpl, in the circumstances Gibbardhas described, is to be labeled. Rather what is evident is that Dantowould take issue with Gibbard's description of the case. Although Gib-bard has said that Goliath and Lumpl have all the same actual properties,for Danto, as we have seen, only Goliath would have representationalproperties, and, furthermore, Goliath would have only representationalproperties. On the other hand, in describing the relation between thework of art and its material coun terpart, Danto is no Platonist.8 Thussince he does not take the work of art and its material coun terpart tobe two distinct things and yet he denies their identity with each other,Danto has offered a contemporary example of numerical sameness with-out identity.

The comparison between Danto and Aristotle will bear pressing. Butfirst it is useful to notice that, despite the term 'material cou nterpart',if matter in Aristotle is understood as in its own right" lacking prop-erties, Danto's material counterpart is not, in Aristotle's sense, matter;the material counterpart, so Danto tells us, has properties that are notproperties of the form and are unrelated to its potentiality for form.On the other hand , there seems to be no reason why the materialcounterpart should not be said to be a sensible object. In the case ofthe urinal and the snow shovel, that it is so is obvious. To be sure, thematerial counterpart of a painting is not assignable to any ordinarilyrecognized kind since were it said to be a painting, it would have therepresentational properties Danto denies to it. But even if the fact thatpainting is a kind dependent on certain practices that endow its memberswith (indeed on Danto 's view with only) a very unusual so rt of properties,namely, representational ones, means that what the painted canvas mustbe said to be is just a painted canvas and even if, as a result, the material

7 Gibbard (1975), 190-91. 8 See Danto (1981), 33-34, 153.



S U B S TA N C E A N D T E L E O L O G Y 1 0 3

counterpart does not quite correspond to what in Aristotle's ontologyis called the composite, that it is a sensible object is still true and suf-ficient for my purposes.

II

Danto's 'is' of artistic identification is a contemporary example of theusefulness of numerical sameness without identity. What makes com-parison with Danto especially attractive, however, is that the relationthat Danto believes to hold between works of art and their materialcounterparts is suggestive also of arguments to which Aristotle can ap-peal to establish the ontological priority of specimens of natural kinds.Suppose, for example, that it is true of a painted canvas that it is 2272X 29 inches. In such a case, the canvas is a specimen of the kind thingthat is 22lA X 29 inches, just as, given that it has certain o ther properties,it is a specimen of the kind (indeed the only specimen of the kind) Lachambre de Wan Gogh a Aries. I do not, of course, claim that thing thatis 22lA X 29 inches is a natural kind. The po int is rather quite theopposite, namely, that at least a partial explanation of why kinds arenot all of the same status can now be given. For what can be seen assignificant is that the properties of a specimen of the kind thing that is22V2 X 29 inches do not determine as many of the properties of thesensible object with which it is numerically the same as does being aspecimen of the kind La chambre de Van Gogh a Aries. Indeed it wouldseem to be because it is a specimen of the kind La chambre de Van Gogha Aries that the sensible object is 22^2 X 29 inches and thus a specimenof the kind thing that is 22V2 X 29 inches, and not conversely.

Of course the reason a specimen of the kind La chambre de Van Gogha Aries is prior to the sensible object as well as to the specimens ofwhatever other kinds that same sensible object is a specimen of is thatVan Gogh worked on the canvas as he did in order to bring La chambrede Van Gogh a Aries into being. Indeed it is sometimes said that in thebest works of art the artist could not have changed anything - not asingle word or note or brushstroke - without diminishing the work. Nodoubt this is an exaggeration. Nevertheless to say that it is as a by-product of the artistic process that the material counterpart is, say, aspecimen of the kind thing that is 22lA X 29 inches is not unreasonable.Indeed even many properties that are not entirely determined by theartist's actions, for example, that a given canvas is now in the Museed'Orsay, can be seen to be consequent upon them. Since its being aspecimen of the kind thing in the Musee d'Orsay is not what was aimedat by Van Gogh in the course of creation but is merely made possibleby what he did then, the specimen of the kind thing in the Musee d'Orsay




which is numerically the same as a given painted canvas also is notontologically prior to it.

I have argued for the priority of a work of art over its materialcounterpart on the grounds that properties of the work of art governmany of the p roperties of the material counterpart (and therefore manyof the other kinds to which the material counterpart belongs) in virtueof the artist's intention. Of course one might object that the paintingexists only because the canvas was painted; indeed, some reductionist-minded philosopher might want to say that a painting just is a piece ofpainted canvas. Still, it seems to me that there is a case to be made forhaving it the other way around. The painted canvas, one can maintain,exists just because the painting does so; after all, it was because a pain terwanted a certain artistic result that he put these colors on a canvas ofthis size and that he put them on it in this way.

As the grounds for the priority of specimens of one kind over ano therwill become important for my interpretation of Aristotle, I want torestate what has been claimed. If Socrates is a builder, Socrates is aspecimen of the kind builder as well as a specimen of the kind humanbeing. About the consequences of this fact, some philosophers mightbe happily egalitarian. H.-N. Castaneda, for example, holds that sensibleobjects are bundles of guises,9 a guise being, like a specimen of a kind,a particular having nothing but the properties specified in the definition(for example, 'the roun d blue thing on the table' refers to the guise"the thing which alone has nothing but the following properties : beinground, being blue, being on the table").10 For Aristotle, however, nei-ther builder nor round blue sitting on a table thing would be a naturalkind. Thus if for Aristotle sensible objects can be said to be composedfrom specimens of kinds, they must be said to be composed not fromspecimens of just any kinds, but from specimens of natural kinds - thatis to say, from specimens that are ontologically prior to the sensibleobjects in question just because they are specimens of kinds that arenatural. Specimens of these kinds are, I have claimed, substances.

Thus human being is for Aristotle a natural kind and builder is not.Of course there is nothing about the relation of numerical samenesswithout identity as such that justifies this claim; indeed the 'is' thatoccurs in saying that Socrates is a specimen of this or that kind doesnot necessitate any distinction between natural kinds and others, muchless tell us by what criteria the naturalness of any given kind is to beassessed. Nor can the relation even show that a given sensible objectcannot constitute a specimen of more than one natural kind. To turnonce more to the analogy with art, by substituting the viewer's under-standing for the artist's intention as what is determinative of the prop-

9 Castaneda (1977), 322. 10 Castaneda (1977), 315.



SUBSTANCE AND TELEOLOGY 105

erties of a work of art, one could say that many different works of artare artistically identified with the same material counterpart, as manyas there are interpretations. Nevertheless, even though the 'is' of artisticidentification does not mandate any distinction concerning priority anddoes not make the selection, as we have seen, it does provide somegrounds for doing so. In particular, because the properties of the workof art and the properties of its material counterpart are related so asto make plausible the claim that certain properties of the one are ex-planatory of and indeed determinative of certain properties of the o therin light of the artist's intention, where art is concerned it is reasonableto say that specimens of the kinds whose defining properties are of thefirst sort are ontologically prior.

In this section the relation between a work of art and its materialcounterpart has been used to explore the relation of being numericallythe same as but not identical with, a relation that I believe Aristotletakes to hold between specimens of kinds and sensible objects, and toconsider the possibility that, given such a relation, one might be justifiedin holding that ontological priority lies with specimens of certain kinds.What I have said about the maker's intention determining the propertiesof a work of art could be said of any more ordinary artefact, of course;the reason for using art as my example has been only that Danto in hisdiscussion of that subject actually proposes a relation of numerical same-ness without identity.

To be sure, there are limits to the analogy - even if a work of artor a specimen of some artefact-kind can be prior to the sensible objectthat is numerically the same as it, works of art and specimens of artefact-kinds are hardly ontologically prior simpliciter. Nevertheless, the impli-cations are clear. If Aristotle could claim that some properties, moreprecisely, the essential properties, of sensible objects are determinedby the properties of specimens of certain kinds, he could reasonablymaintain that specimens of those kinds are ontologically prior to thesensible objects with which they are numerically the same and also tospecimens of other kinds, in other words, to accidental unities. In par-ticular, if such an argument were successful, Aristotle m ight be able toconclude, for example, that specimens of the kind human being are andthat specimens of the kind builder are not ontologically prior to indi-viduals such as Callias and Socrates.11 But, of course, on Aristotle'saccount, nature is rath er like a work of art - or at least like an artefact

11 Though his account of substance is different from mine, Irwin (1988) too makes acase for the ontological priority of some subjects over others. He says: If we see theconnexion between potentialities and persisting subjects of change, we can also seewhy some subjects (e.g. men) are more genuine subjects than others (e.g. musicalmen). A persistent subject needs a persistent potentiality explaining the changes thathappen to it. If we find that rather little is explained by reference to permanentpotentialities of musical men as such, and more is explained by reference to permanent



106 SUBSTANCE AND SEPARAT ION IN ARISTO TLE

- in being itself teleological, even if it is teleology without agency. Inthe remainder of this chapter therefore, I want to explore Aristot le 'saccount of teleological explanation, arguing that Aristotle sees teleologyas justifying the ontological priority of specimens of natu ral kinds a ndthat, on a certain view of goodness, teleology can in fact do so, evenin the absence of agency.

I l l

For Aristotle there are final causes for the parts or organs of livingthings, the behavior of organisms, and also the development of the

organism from a seed or embryo to a mature functioning member ofits kind. But even tho ug h Aristotle 's reliance o n teleological explan ationin nature is explicit and defended, his use of it presents the interpreterwith several fundamental problems. One is to determine what is meantby a final cause since teleology in Aristotle, like teleological explanationin modern biology, has been analyzed in many ways. A second problemis to determine the relation for Aristotle between final and materialcauses, and a third concerns the soundness of whatever arguments Ar-istotle offers in defense of his use of final causes. These issues and their

relevance for the ontological primacy of specimens of natural kinds willbe discussed in this and the sections which follow.In his summary of teleological explanation at Parts of Animals I 1

640a33-b4, Aristot le says:

The fittest mode, then, of treatment is to say, a man has such and such parts,because the essence of man is such and such, and because they are necessary con-ditions of his existence, or, if we cannot quite say this then the next thing toit, namely, that it is either quite impossible for a man to exist without them,or, a t any rate, that it is good that they should be there . And this follows: because

man is such and such the process of his development is necessarily such as it is; andtherefore this part is formed first, that next; and after a like fashion should weexplain the generation of all other works of nature, (emphasis added)

As this passage and many others make clear, the presence of teleo-logical claims in Aristotle's writings is undeniable. However, the analysis

potentialities of men as such, we have some reason for thinking that men are moregenuine subjects than musical men are. Aristotle claims in Metaphysics vii 4-6 thatsome, but not all, apparent subjects are thises and primary subjects, identical to theiressences. If the persistence of explanatory potentialities determines the basic subjects

and essences, an account of potentialities should help us to see which essences andwhich subjects satisfy his conditions. For these reasons we expect the essence of apersistent subject to be at least partly constituted by its persistent potentialities forchange. If, then, the primary subjects that are substances are identical to their essences,they should be at least partly identical to their persistent potentialities. Moreover, ifform is to be identified with essence and subject, it should be some sort of potentiality"(224).



S U B S TA N C E A N D T E L E O L O G Y 1 0 7

an d jus tific atio n of teleolo gica l claims in biology is a sub ject still indispute. The difficulty is that teleological claims appear to ascribe in-tentional states wh ere no ne seem to be pre sen t. If Jo h n goes to thestore in o rder to get bread, presumably Jo hn desires bre ad and believesthat the store is a place from which to obtain it. If the spider is said tospin a web in order to catc h flies, do es th e sp ide r desire flies and believethat web spinning will promote its coming to have them? If a hammeris for pounding nails, presumably someone designed it with that in mind,but if the heart is for pumping the blood, can the same be said?

There have been some scholars , of course, who have thought thatAristotle's views about teleology are to be explained by an appeal to avaluing mind, in which case teleology in nature is not very unlike thepurposiveness of human actions and the functions of artefacts. On thisview processes in nature are supposed to be guided, if not by intentions,at least by unconscious desires. For example, the developing embryomight be thought to be an unconscious agent that guides the devel-opment of its matter toward maturity. R. G. Collingwood exemplifiesthis tradition when he says:

The seed only grows at all because it is working at becoming a plant; hence theform of a plant is the cause no t only of its growing in that way but of its growing

at all, and is therefo re the efficient as well as the final cause of its growth. Theseed grows only because it wants to become a plant. It desires to embody initself, in material shape, the form of a plant which otherwise has a merely idealor immaterial existence. We can use these words 'want' or 'desire' becausealthough the plant has no intellect or mind and cannot conceive the form inquestion it has a soul or psyche and therefore has wants or desires, although itdoes not know what it wants.12

Yet literally internalist interpretations of Aristotle - that is to say,analyses of teleology which rely on the ascription of intention - such

as that given by Collingwood, have fallen into disfavor in recent years.Perhaps in part this change has been motivated by the thought thatCollingwood's view would make Aristotle 's teleology less interesting tous, but it is also tru e tha t on the whole Aristotle, like most co nte m po rarybiologists, seems to want to avoid speaking of nature's striving or de-siring. When Aristotle says that nature is like shipbuilding but like ship-building without a shipbuilder (199b28-30), he seems to be doing some-thing more radical than ju st c onsidering the shipbuilder as part of theship.

Thus it seems likely that Aristotle 's teleological explanations do notdepend on an appeal to agency. Of course even some philosophers whoreject a literally internalist notion of teleology in nature have held thatteleological claims occur as a result of metaphorical associations with

12 Collingwood (1945), 84-85.




human activities and artefacts. But the view that teleological claims aremet aph oric al is often also the starti ng point for unpac kin g and justifyingtheir explanatory worth in terms of features other than the presenceof a mind. Working from the assumption that for Aristotle intentionor mind is to be excluded from the account, in the remainder of thissection I will consider one such externalist account, 13 that of LarryWright, in order to see how it might be adapted to Aristotle's needs.

Wright, who takes himself to be giving the content of what he saysis a dead metaphor, analyzes goal statements as follows:

S does B for the sake of G iff1) B tends to bring about G2) B occurs because (i.e., is brought about by the fact that) it tends to

bring about G. 14

Thus, for example, spiders spin webs for the sake of catching flies ifand only if spinning webs tends to bring about the catching of flies andspinning webs occurs because it tends to bring about the catching offlies. Function statements are analyzed in similar fashion:

The function of X is Z iff:1) Z is a consequence (result) of X's being there2) X is there because it does (results in) Z. 15

But Aristotle, as we have seen, also thinks of organic development te-leologically; still for such cases it seems that Wright's schema could be

extended in the following way:

E exists for the sake of O iff:1) E tends to develop into O2) E exists because it tends to develop into O.

Wri ght's analysis, acc ord ing to which X is th ere bec ause it results in

Z ," sounds not unlike Aristotle's claim that the fittest mode of expla-

nation is to say that such and such parts are necessary for an organism'sexistence. Additionally, Andrew Woodfield argues persuasively that,since externalists such as Wright in their talk of goal-directed systemsidentify only some outcome s as G or Z (for examp le, those that con tribu teto the survival of the organism), the outcomes in question have beenassumed to be good. 16 In fact Wrig ht doe s talk of res ult an t advan-tage, 1 7 and, as we will see, that Aristotle would hold that goodnesscann ot be a coincidental feature of the outc ome is beyond do ubt. T hus,for an analysis at least of Aristotle, something about goodness needs to

be added to the schemata, along the following lines:

13 The distinction between internalist and externalist analyses comes from Woodfield(1976), 104-6.

14 Wright (1976), 39. 15 Wright (1976), 81 .16 See Woodfield (1976), 100-11, 113-23, 130-40, 203-6.17 See Wright (1976), 85.




S does B for the sake of G iff:1) B tends to bring about G2) B occurs because it tends to bring about G

3) B tends to bring about G because G is beneficial to S. 18

Again,

The function of X is Z iff:1) Z is a consequence of X's being there2) X is there because it does (results in) Z3) X results in Z because Z is beneficial to S.

As for the case of organic development, since the very notion of de-velopment seems to assume the worth, at least from some point of view,of the resulting organism, although one could add as a third claim Edevelops into O because its development into O is good," one couldargue also that it is not necessary.

It is one thing, of course, to produce an analysis of how an authoruses teleological claims, another to agree that he is entitled to use themas he has. In Wright's analysis, this question turns on whether 'because'is justified. Woodfield attributes our willingness to say that X occursbecause it results in Z to our imagining practical reasoning to have oc-curred.19 Wright himself, on the other hand, justifies its use on theground that explanation is con textual.20 But neither of these justifica-tions is available to Aristotle, who argues, after all, that teleologicalexplanation is for nature the fittest mode of exp lanation. Nor is thecurrently popular evolutionary justification of teleology available tohim,21 given his belief in the permanence and unchangingness of species(Generation of Animals II 1 731b24 -732al).22 To be sure, it could bethat Aristotle's attempt to make nature purposive in the absence ofpurpose in fact fails. However, in the following sections I will arguethat Aristotle is aware of the need to justify teleological explanation innature and addresses himself to the question in a way that, given certainassumptions about goodness, is successful. In Section IV I will considerhow benefit and agency are connected in the craft analogy.

18 Cooper (1982), 197, says: "[Aristotle] understands by a goal (hou heneka) whethernatural or not, something good (from some point of view that something else causesor makes possible, where this other thing exists or happens (at least in part) becauseof that good."

19 Woodfield (1976), 135. 20 See Wright (1976), 61 .21 See Millikan (1984), 17-49. The same is true also of Bigelow and Pargetter (1987)insofar as their propensity theory ( . . . what confers the status of a function is notthe sheer fact of survival-due-to-a-character, but rather , survival due to the propen-sities the character bestows upon the creature" (192)) is superimposed on the as-sumption of biological change across generations.

22 See Cooper (1982), esp. 202-5.



110 S U B S TA N C E A N D S E P A R AT I O N I N A R I S T O T L E

IV

Although Aristotle knows that teleological explanations in natu re at leastappear to imply agency, he seems to reject the implication. In PhysicsII he says:

Now action is for the sake of an end; therefore the nature of things also is so.Thus if a house, e.g., had been a thing made by na ture, it would have beenmade in the same way as it is now by art; and if things made by nature weremade not only by nature but also by art, they would come to be in the sameway as by nature. The one, then, is for the sake of the other; and generally artin some cases completes what nature cannot bring to a finish, and in othersimitates nature. If, therefore, artificial products are for the sake of an end, soclearly also are natural products. The relation of the later to the earlier itemsis the same in both. This is most obvious in the animals other than man: theymake things neither by art nor after inquiry or deliberation. (199al 1-21)

Again, he declares:

It is absurd to suppose that purpose is not present because we do not observethe agent deliberating. Art does not deliberate. If the ship-building art were inthe wood, it would produce the same results by nature. If, therefore, purposeis present in art, it is present also in nature. The best illustration is a doctor

doctoring himself: nature is like that. (199b26-32)Since crafts are practiced by agents with conscious desires and plans

and since this is precisely the sticking point in the application of te-leology to nature, the comparison of nature to craft is usually dismissedas unhelpful. But recently Sarah Broadie has argued that the analogycould be made interesting if it were agreed that craft is not animatedby desire. Just as a tree that desired to be a tree would be more thana tree, so, the analogy goes, a builder qua builder already pursues thebuilder's ends.23 On this view of it, the purpose of the analogy is notto attribute desire to nature but rather, having denied its presence incraft, to show that nature like craft exhibits regularity and also that itmakes correct moves that craft qua craft does not err.24

Thus Broadie defends the craft analogy from the usual charge againstit. She also contends, however, that even so, the comparison fails. Thereason why it fails, she argues, is that Aristotle in his use of craft toilluminate nature has so distorted the notion of craft that it is almostunintelligible; whereas the real craftsman aims at a good that answerssome human need or interest recognized as a result of practical wisdomor reflection and refines his product accordingly,25 to serve the purposeof the analogy, craft knowledge must be thought of as developed witha view to its purpose only and not as a capacity that could be put to

23 Broadie (1987), 43 -4 4. 24 Broadie (1987), 42-43.25 Broadie (1987), 48.




other use or exceed what is needed.26 Indeed if one thinks of craft asstatic or achieved in the way Aristotle for the sake of the analogy must,craft becomes, so Broadie argues, nothing but an automaton.27

In short, Broadie wants to deny that the main issue in Aristotle'steleology is whether it introduces mind into nature. One might objectthat to describe depsychologized craft and thus also nature as end-directed automata would seem, if that description is taken seriously, toreintroduce intentionality since the autom ata familiar to us (setting asidenature on the grounds that what is at issue is whether nature shouldbe so called) are manufactured by beings who do have such ends inmind. But be that as it may, Broadie's concern that if there is no contextof human needs and interests there will be no grounds for judg ing theeffectiveness and value of the activity is a charge to which it is necessaryto see whether Aristotle can reply.

It must be admitted that there are certain kinds of background towhich Aristotle does not appeal. For example, if each kind of organismwere said to contribute to a larger ecosystem, how the existence of theorganism would be a good is evident; nevertheless, on the whole, Ar-istotle does not move in this direction, and anyway such a move mightbe said merely to invite the question anew. Nor does Aristotle offerexternal validation in the manner of Plato, when the latter argues thatthe Forms that exist are those that participate in the Form of the Good;indeed Aristotle claims in Nicomachean Ethics I 6 that a uniform notionof goodness across the categories is not even possible (1096al7-29).

Yet despite these self-imposed limitations, it is undeniable that Ar-istotle wants to discuss the good for kinds. To take an example, thegood for human beings is to lead a fully human life and in the EthicsAristotle tries to say what that would be; that he would also think thatit is good for dogs to lead dogs' lives there is little reason to doubt.That it seem to cats or to human beings or even to dogs good that dogslead dogs' lives is not of course necessary; likewise whether the goodfor dogs is good for cats or human beings or anything else (except dogs)seems not to be the point.

To summarize, what Aristotle holds, I think, is a view of the goodthat is objective, noninstrumental, and nonrelational. Admittedly sucha view is, to say the least, problematic. For example, a scalpel is goodfor doctoring (it contributes to good doctoring). But that something isgood for doctoring - or even that one is a good doctor - is independentof the question whether doctoring is a good. Picklocks can be good forthieving - and one can be good at thievery - without thievery being agood. More generally, we can distinguish between what is good for Xingand even being a good x, on the one hand, and, on the other, whether

26 Broadie (1987), 43. 27 Broadie (1987), 49.




Xing is a good. Indeed when Broadie criticizes the craft analogy on theground that without a context of human needs and interests there isno background against which to jud ge the value of the craft activity,perhaps her point can be put by saying that, insofar as the craft analogyis intended to be its support, Aristotle's appeal to final causes in naturefails; without a context, nature too becomes no more like good doc-toring than like bad doctoring and no more like doctoring of any sortthan like thievery.

But even if the craft analogy is not very helpful for the justificationof his use of teleological explanation in nature, the ways in which thenotion of craft must be stretched in order for there to be an analogyare themselves illuminative, and it is not self-evident that Aristotle'sview of nature is false. The health of an oak tree is, after all, somethingthat is objectively determinable, and insofar as health (over a certainspan of years) is the norm and disease often overcome, surely nature,in this case the nature of oaks, can be said to be more like good doc toringthan like inept or corrupt doctoring. Of course, it might be objectedthat, since healthy ivy flourishes at the expense of trees, in the case ofivy nature is rather like thievery, but even here it is not clear thatAristotle would have no recourse. For thieves are persons who workagainst the flourishing of their fellow human beings and indeed, on anAristotelian view, against the flourishing of their own true selves, whileivy is just doing what ivy flourishes by doing; though thieves have anunactualized good, ivy is not separated from the good for ivy. To putthe point another way, only if thieves were, like human beings, dogs,and ivy, a natural kind would the objection be well taken.

I did not promise a defense of Aristotle's view that there are naturalkinds, and beyond what was suggested in the second section of thischapter I could not deliver on such a promise; neither do I have anynovel criteria for judging of any given kind whether it is natural. Butthat Aristotle thinks there are natural kinds, that he gives some thoughtto which they might be (even if he does not give us entirely successfulcriteria), and that we in reading him can see, at least for many cases,what kinds he thought natural is true nonetheless. Metaphysics VII 4 isa case in poin t. There Aristotle, need ing to say what sorts of things havean essence, distinguishes compounds such as white man from thingsthat are something in their own right (kath' hauto) and tries to explainwhat is characteristic of the former. He says:

One kind of predicate is not said of a thing in its own right because the termthat is being defined is added to something else, e.g. if in denning the essenceof white one were to state the formula of white man; another because somethingelse is added to it, e.g. if 'cloak' meant white man, and one were to define cloakas white; white man is white indeed, but its essence is not to be white. (1029b31-1030a2)




To say that one classifies wrongly if to a subject in its own rightsomething is added (this being what Aristotle would no doubt say of' thief) or omitted may not seem helpful. After all it is an explanationthat depends on one's having already a grasp of which sorts of thingsare subjects. But Aristotle does at least tell us how the determinationought not to be made. For what one cannot do, he says, is simply tofollow language; even if there were a single word 'cloak' (defined, letit be imagined, as "white m an") cloak would not be a natural kind.

What Aristotle goes on to argue in VII 4 is that it is species of agenus which have an essence (1030al 1-13). In the Metaphysics perhapsit is a bit unclear whether he wants to limit natural kinds to biologicalspecies; that is to say, it is hard to be certain whether he intends thebronze sphere (VII 8) and othe r such p roducts of art to be merelysimplified models for illustrating the relation between matter and formor whether he really counts specimens of such kinds among the sub-stances. But that the paradigm cases of natural kinds in the sublunaryworld will be biological there is no doubt. Indeed, as we have seen, theclearest indication of the naturalness of these is the capacity of theirmembers to reproduce - to produce, that is to say, other members likethemselves.

In this and the last section I have argued that Aristotle's use of finalcauses involves neither agency nor m etaphor nor evolution but ratheris tied to his claim that there are natural k inds. However, even as I haveemphasized that the good for Aristotle is both objective and internalto a kind, it cannot be denied that he sometimes explicitly takes abroader view. At On Generation and Corruption II10 336b27-29 Aristotlesays, for example, that nature always desires what is better and thatbeing is better than not being. Once Aristotle has said that the reali-zation of the life for which mem bers of a kind are suited is, objectively,their good, it is not surprising if their realizing their good is sometimestaken to be a good.

In short, whether goodness is occasionally applied more broadly orwhether it remains entirely internal to kinds, that an organism under-goes change (in part) because of what is good for it seems to be forAristotle incontrovertible.28 Kahn, for example, puts the point in thisway:

It is tru e that A ristotle also speaks of actuality (energeia, entelecheia) as the goalin teleological contexts, and we can give a partial explication of his not ion of

telos in te rms of degrees of actuality, as the m o r e o r most complete realizationof a thing's potentialities. But this strategy can give an adequate account of

28 Gotthelf (1988) dissents, believing that the account of what it is to be an end can begiven in terms of Aristotle's conception of an actuality alone, that is to say, withoutreference to the good. See 115.



114 SUBSTANCE AND SEPARAT ION IN ARISTO TLE

Aristotle's conception only if we build into the analysis of actualization therequired normative component.29

I will argue next for an interpretation of Aristotle's argument fromchance to teleology which supports Kahn's view, a conclusion I willthereafter claim has implications for the relation between final andmaterial causes and , ultimately, for what I have claimed is the ontologicalpriority of specimens of natural kinds.

In Physics II, as we have seen, Aristotle says that the accidental includes

the conjunction of a substance and an accidental property (the musicalman) or of a pair of properties (musicality and housebuilding), as wellas the causal connection between an agent described by means of someconjoined property and an outcome (the fluteplayer builds a house).As he says of this last case, 'Tor just as a thing is something either invirtue of itself or accidentally, so may it be a cause. For instance, thehousebuilding faculty is in virtue of itself a cause of a house, whereasthe pale or the musical [human being] is an accidental cause" (196b24-27).

But chance too, Aristotle thinks, is part of the accidental (198a5-7)since it involves both causation and conjunction. More specifically, Ar-istotle classifies chance as that part of the accidental where there is anoutcom e that is unintended bu t beneficial. As he says, "Hence it is clearthat events which belong to the general class of things that may cometo pass for the sake of something, when they come to pass not for thesake of what actually results, and have an external cause, may be de-scribed by the phrase 'from chance"' (197 bl8 -20) . Unlike the narrowercategory of luck (he tuche), for something to occur by chance (to auto-

maton) it is not necessary that it be done by or happen to a being capableof choice; if a man goes to the marketplace and happens to meet hisdebtor, that is luck (196b33-197a3), but if a tripod falls and landsupright (197bl6-18) or a stone falls and strikes someone (197b30-32),it is chance.30

With this analysis of chance, Aristotle is ready to argue against thosewho claim that the structure of plants and animals is due to the random

29 Kahn (1985), 197.30 Though like Ackrill (1981), 36-41, I prefer 'luck' and 'chance', it should be noted

that the Greek terms are variously translated. Barnes (1984), uses 'chance' where thereis a being capable of choice and 'spontaneity' for the broader category where thereneed not be. Charlton (1970) contrasts 'luck' with 'the automatic'. I find 'luck' verynatural for the case involving an agent; however, I am less happy with either 'theautomatic' or 'the spontaneous' for the broader category because neither capturesthe central point: that something has happened which because it has a good resulthas the appearance of having been done for the sake of that result.




ar rangement of mat ter. For Emp edocles, the existence of viable organ iccombinations is the result of the rando m interact ions of e lements ; bynature there were man-faced ox progeny as well as hum an beings andoxen, but only the lat ter survive ( 198b 29-3 2).3 1 Aristotle replies byconsidering the distr ibution of a given feature in a popula t ion: Forteeth and all oth er nat ura l things either invariably or for the most partcome about in a given way; bu t of not on e of th e results of luck orchance is this t ru e" (198b 34-36 ) . Thus the com binat ion of hu m an faceson human bodies or ox faces on the bodies of oxen, if they were in-frequent , could be said to be by cha nce, but being frequent they ca nnotbe so . M ore ge nerally, since invaria ble or normal outcomes cannot inany case be a t t r ibuted to chanc e, then, when those outcom es are alsogood, teleology is needed .

It has seemed to many readers that the a rg u m e n t of Physics II isobviously inadequate; why does Aristotle not consider the possibilitythat mechanical, in other words, material, necessity might be enoughto explain the results he a t t r ibutes to teleology? It is ha rd to believe,however, that such an evide nt omission cou ld simply be an oversight;after all, Aristotle knows that iron is hard , tha t water is clear and fluid,and so on. What is more likely, I think, is that Aristotle believes thatmechanical necessity is no t the righ t sort of explanation to be considered- in other words, that , as Aristotle sees it, me chanical necessity co uld(at most) explain the occur rence of an invariable outco me , but not tha twhat has occurred is som ething that is goo d. As he says in his d iscussionof his predecessors in M etaphysics I 7:

For surely it is not likely either that fire or earth or any such elem ent shouldbe the reason why things manifest goodness and beauty both in their being andin their coming to be, or that those thinkers should have supposed it was; noragain could it be right to ascribe so great a matter to chance and luck.32 Whenone man said, then, that reason was present - as in animals, so throughoutnature - as the cause of the world and of all its order, he seemed like a soberman in contrast with the random talk of his predecessors. (984bll-18)

In its conc ern that goodness be explained, this passage is, of course ,reminiscent of Socrates' view in the Phaedo. T h e r e it is said that up onhear ing of Anax agoras 's conten tion tha t it is mind that produces orde rand is the cause of everything, Socrates had expec ted that by assigninga cause to each phenom eno n separa tely and to the universe as a wholeAnaxagoras would make clear what is best for each and what is the

31 In his explanation, Empedocles seems to have failed to account for regularity acrossgenerations - why are the offspring of dogs generally dogs and not cats or trees ormonsters? The survival of viable individuals does not explain why their offspring shouldbe in nearly all respects like the parents.

32 Barnes (1984) has 'spontaneity' and 'luck'. For the reasons for 'chance' and 'luck',see note 30.




universal good, a hope in which he was disappointed (97c-98b). But ifsuch passages are relevant to the discussion of teleology in Physics II,the point has to be that the re is something about the s tructu re, behavior,and development of organisms which earth and fire - mechanical ne-cessity - cannot explain. Just as Socrates says that it is absurd to try tounderstand his sitting in prison in terms of the rigidity of bones andthe contraction and relaxation of sinews while neglecting to mentionthat Athens thought it better to condemn him and that he thought itbetter to submit to whatever penalty the city ordered (98c-e), so alsoin nature, both Plato and Aristotle believe, it is true that explanationwhich appeals only to the material cause can be obtuse.

Thus while Aristotle does not suppose that teleological explanationis to be understood in terms of the workings of a Anaxagorean Mind,and indeed neither does Plato, nonetheless there is for Aristotle innature a good for kinds, and it is, I would claim, his counterpart toPlato's Form of the Good. For Plato the Forms and phenomena thatare exist and are as they are (in part) because of their relation to theForm of the Good. The Form of the Good is the explanation of theirexistence and nature in the sense of being their metaphysical ground;likewise without appeal to the Form of the Good there cannot be anadequate explanation of phenomena and Forms in the sense that therecannot be adequate understanding.

Of course, in Aristotle forms are not separated in the way that theForms are for Plato. Nevertheless it remains true that what is good is(in part) metaphysically explanatory of the behavior, structure, and de-velopment of living things and that to fail to appeal to it is to fail tohave an adequate understanding of them. To be sure, unlike mechanicalnecessity (Socrates' *'bones and sinews"), in calling something luck orchance there is also an acknowledgment of goodness. But the difficultywith citing chance is that it is not really an explanation - as Aristotlesays, chance is not the cause without qualification of anything (19 7al4).To put the point another way, in the case of chance what happens isbeneficial, but it does not happen because it is beneficial and its beingso is not (and cannot be) explained.

I have argued that the intended conclusion of the argument fromchance is that, where there is regularly a good outcome, teleologicalexplanation is required. This is so because material causes cannot ex-plain the goodness of it, and where the outcome occurs regularly,chance is not an adequate substitute for explanation. However if chanceis but a pseudo-explanation of the goodness of some outcome whoseoccurrence (not its goodness) may in fact be explicable in other terms,then it is also true that a charitable analysis of the argum ent from chance- one that does not accuse Aristotle of simply denying or neglectingmechanical necessity - is possible, and for understanding the role of



S U B S TA N C E A N D T E L E O L O G Y 11 7

teleology in Aristotle this fact is important. For it has long been noticedthat Aristotle frequently offers two explanations, one involving the char-acteristics of matter, the o ther those of form. For example, he says thatthe deer sheds its horns both for relief and because of their weight{Parts of Animals III 2 663b l2-14 ), that human heads are hairy bothfor pro tecting the brain from excessive heating and chilling and becauseof the fluidity of the brain and the sutures in the skull, which are suchthat heat and fluid produce the outgrowth of hair (II 14 658b2-10),and that eyelashes exist for the protection of the eyes and because theyare located at the end of small blood vessels where moisture comes off(II 15 658bl4-26). Likewise he holds that the ability of serpents toturn their heads backward enables them to guard against attacks fromthe rear and is a necessary consequence of their cartilaginous and flex-ible vertebrae (IV 11 691b31-692a5) and that the webbed feet of wa-terbirds are useful in enabling them to swim and are a necessary con-sequence of their residual earthy substance (IV 12 694a23-bl2).

These examples and others are too numerous to be ignored. Never-theless from such passages alone it is unclear exactly what Aristotletakes the relation between the two explanations to be. For example, ifthe fluidity of the brain is a sufficient explanation for eyelashes, couldit not be objected that even if eyelashes did not serve the animal's good,they would exist anyway? But if it were true that eyelashes would existregardless of their usefulness, then, even given that eyelashes are in factuseful, the appeal to benefit would seem to have no force. To thisobjection - namely, that where there is a sufficient material condition,the value of the result is causally irrelevant - there are several possiblelines of reply. That Aristotle intends teleological explanation to be, likechance, compatible with mechanical necessity and yet, unlike chance,more fundamental than explanation in terms of matter will be arguedin the next section. There I will argue also that it is final causality thatgrounds the ontological priority of specimens of natural kinds.

VI

In response to the worry that given a necessitating material cause theteleological explanation is not really explanatory, Martha Nussbaum atone time proposed that double explanations are pragmatic. Against hismechanist predecessors she imagined that Aristotle would have arguedalong the following lines: "If you were a shepherd in charge of theflocks, which account [Democritus's or Homer's] would give you moreinformation that was relevant to your plans and precautions? From eightlines of Homer I learn more that is general and valuable about the




behavior of lions than I would from two volumes of detailed atom-charts."33

Other interpreters have solved the problem by supposing that ma-terial causes, since they are said by Aristotle to be hypothetical (200 al3 ),are in fact not necessitating. Balme, for example, at one time suggestedthat matter (the stuff which is the matter) itself sometimes behaveserratically,34 in which case, given that there is regularity in nature , some-thing else is needed to explain that regularity, and teleology comes tohand.

If Aristotle does believe that matter is erratic, his reason for thinkingfinal causes ineliminable would be evident. However I am inclined todoubt that Aristotle does hold that view. Besides, the assumption thatteleology can be effective - that is to say, that it can have more than apragmatic role - only if material causes are not necessitating has itselfbeen challenged; according to David Charles, even given the existenceof independent physical conditions sufficient to necessitate the occur-rence of psychological or biological phenomena, Aristotle would still -rightly - think that teleological explanation is explanatory.35 Only ex-planation in terms of goals, Charles claims, picks out those features ofthe goal or end-state which are essentially or directly connected to thesurvival of the organism; in addition, explanation in terms of goals -and only it - can select certain stages in a developmental causal storyas significant and explain the appropriateness of the route from thedesire or potentiality to the goal.36 Moreover, he argues:

Since desires [potentialities] are essentially goal-directed states . . ., they cannotbe type-identical with a type of physical state which is not essentially goal-directed. Further, in Aristotle's account it follows from the failure of type-identity that there is no token-identity between (e.g.) this desire and this physicalstate.37

But Aristotle does not believe merely that final and material causesare compatible (assuming that he does believe them to be so); he believesteleological explanations to be more fundamental than material expla-nations. That is to say, beyond holding that the features explained bya physical account and the features explained by a teleological accountare distinct, Aristotle claims further that material necessity is hypothet-ical; it is because the organism is what it is that it must be made of matterhaving certain characteristics. Of Aristotle's view Charles says:

33 Nussbaum (1978), 71 .34 Balme (1939), 137 -38 . See also Cooper (1982), 21 1.35 Charles (1988), 38. Charles falls roughly into the functionalist camp (even if physical

states are sufficient for the outcome the behavior could in principle have been dif-ferently realized). Concerns of the sort Ackrill (1973) presents need not underminethis view. See Chapter V, n. 10, of the present book.

36 Charles (1988), 38-39. 37 Charles (1988), 40.




It is in virtue of possessing these goals that man has the nature he has; and itis because he has this na ture that he has the potentiality to <f> and must <p in C.For if he failed to do so, he would fail to be the creature he is. So far from

teleological causation resting on efficient causation, it is rather the reverse. Thepresence of goals makes the organism what it is, and its being that organismexplains why it must <> in C. If this is correct, teleological causation is notexplained in terms of efficient causal necessitation. The one is irreducible tothe other. Teleological goals are taken as primitives. These la tter concerns showwhy Aristotle preferred the dow nwards-perspective. The nature of the kind is basic,and this is fixed by primitive teleological factors.38

Charles has argued that the behavior of an organism is explained interms of its nature and that its nature is in turn determ ined by its goals.

Moreover, where the goal in question is organic development, it is, ofcourse, a goal that is generally realized, and its realization is, I haveargued, the good for beings of that kind. Thus I agree with Charlesthat Aristotle has reason to prefer what Charles calls the downwardperspective. For if the upward perspective were taken, the goodnessfor the organism of the developmental outcome could only be explainedas chance, and chance, Aristotle contends, cannot account for the reg-ular occurrence of a good outcome.

In short, even if matter is not, as Balme thought, erratic, even if

material causes are sufficient for a sort of outcome that is regularlygood for organisms of a given kind, because for Aristotle the outcomemust not only be good but be as it is because it is good, the downwardperspective has to be preferred . Indeed from the downward perspective,objections of the sort raised in the previous section to the effect tha t,given a complete physical account, a teleological account would seemto do no work can be addressed. If it is claimed that should eyelashes,for example, not be good for the organism, they would exist anyway,the reply is that if they were not good for the organism, they would not

regularly exist.I have offered an account of Aristotle's justification of teleologicalexplanation in nature and indeed of his claim that teleological expla-nation is basic and material explanation hypothetical. Of course, it isnot the case that teleological explanation can account for all the prop-erties of organisms. It cannot do so any more than the artist's intentionsaccount for all the properties of the material counterpart to a work ofart; certainly there will be features of living things which are, on thedownward perspective, entirely adventitious and which can only be ex-

plained, if explained at all, by appeal to the nature of matter. Howeversince my goal is to provide a justification for the claim that specimensof natural kinds are ontologically m ore fundam ental than the sensibleobjects with which they are, though not identical, numerically the same,

38 Charles (1988), 43.



1 2 0 S U B S TA N C E A N D S E PA R A T I O N IN A R I S TO T L E

this examination of teleology would serve no purpose in my expositionof Aristotle's account of substance unless it is also true that the appli-cation of final causality, the most fundamental variety of causation,occurs primarily at the level of specimens of kinds. But this is actuallyan easy case to make, and once again it is art that can make the con-nection clear.

Let us assume, as Danto claims, that a work of art has only thedeterminate perceptual qualities relevant to its representational contentand that to understand that these are qualities of the work of art andnot just of its material counterpart requires the downward perspective.Even so, on Dan to's account of art, it will also be tru e that in art formswhere there can be multiple tokens, such as woodcuts or photographsand in all the performing arts, what makes the tokens multiple anddistinguishable will be features of the material counterpart. One mightsay that on Danto's view a work of art, as such, has the same implicitgenerality, the same absence of a namely-rider, as was attributed tospecimens of kinds in earlier chapters; like 'a human being', Ansel Ad-ams's Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 1982 neednot refer to either this or that member of the kind, but to any memberof the kind, taken as representative of the others. The end - the workof art - does not include that which differentiates one print from an-other.

In short my proposal is that, just as in the case of art there arepreferred explanations of the features of the work of art which explainsome but only some of the features of its material counterpart, so forAristotle an adequate explanation of the goodness of certain activities,structures, and patterns of development is an explanation only of whatis characteristic of specimens of natural kinds, and not of the morefinely differentiated activities and structures of individual organisms.But just because this is so, teleological explanation can reasonably besaid properly to apply to specimens of natural kinds rather than to theindividual organisms with which they are numerically the same. To besure, living a lion 's life is done by some particular lion in some particularway; this lion is at this moment stalking this zebra. Nevertheless suchdetail is not part of the specification of the end, and just because it isnot, the final cause remains at a level of generality commensurate withthe generality of specimens of a kind, thereby in the case of specimensof natura l k inds, justifying their ontological priority.

VII

In these chapters I have defended a version of the view that substanceis form. On my view of Aristotle, what there most fundamentally is inthe universe is form; ontological priority belongs to specimens of natural



SUBSTA NCE AND TELEOLOG Y 121

kinds, and it is only because the characteristics of the preexisting matterproduce objects distinguishable from one another within their kindsthat there are sensible objects as well. To put the point another way,sensible objects for Aristotle truly are composites; they are derived frommatter and form not ju st conceptually or analytically, bu t ontologically.

But if on my view it is not too misleading to describe Aristoteliansubstances as Platonic forms multiplied by matter, it cannot be deniedthat in Aristotle the role of matter compromises Plato's requirementsfor reality and knowability. The problem is not that every sensible objecthas accidental properties; sensible objects, I have argued, are not sub-stances. The problem is rather that, because they are numerically thesame as sensible objects, even specimens of kinds are not eternal. How-ever, even though the same cannot be said of kinds of artefacts, bio-logical species are, or so Aristotle thinks, eternal, and to say that theyare eternal is just to say that they always have mem bers; indeed, it isby reproduction that they partake in what is divine (De Anima 415a25-b7). The result is that, since specimens of the same kind are indistin-guishable, Aristotle can claim that even without separated Forms thereare objects that can be said to be first in knowledge, definition, and -since teleological explanation is necessary and explanatory of specimens- time.

That the importance Plato and Aristotle assign to permanence in as-sessing what is real and knowable can in retrospect seem puzzling mustbe adm itted. What I myself am inclined to suspect is that Plato finds fluxunsatisfactory on what might be called aesthetic as well as epistemologicalgrounds. In a telling metaphor at the end of the Cratylus, Socrates saysto Cratylus that he cannot believe that all things leak like a pot or thatthe world is like a man who has a running at the nose (440c-d). A leakypot or a runny nose is not merely something that allows change butsomething that is deficient just on that account. That is to say, whatunderlies Plato's demand for unchangeability may in the end be not onlyan epistemological requirement but a view about the natu re of perfection.Yet whatever their motivation, it is clear that the metaphysical and ep-istemological assumptions Plato has are ones Aristotle largely shares.What I have tried to show is that it is these assum ptions, combined withhis rejection of separation, which shape Aristotle's metaphysics andepistemology.





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Index

accidental sameness. See accidentalunities; numerical sameness;referential opacity

accidental unitiesaccounts of, 25-31

as specimens of kinds, 30Ackrill,J. L., 26, 89-90Alexander of Aphrodisias, 15Allen, R. E., 59

Balme, David, 46-7, 89, 118Barnes, Jonathan, 69, 7 2- 5, 84beliefs, activated and unactivated, 66Bluck, R. S., 60Broadie, Sarah, 110-12

Carnap, Rudolf, 36Castaneda, H.-N., 104

chance, 114-17Charles, David, 118-19Cherniss, Harold, 6 0 -1 , 82Code, Alan, 52Collingwood, R. G., 107

Dancy, Russell, 27, 35, 89, 91Danto, Arthur, 100-3, 105, 120Driscoll, John, 52

Engberg-Pederson, T., 78essence

as specimen of kind, 57, 88

and form, 45-6relation to thing {Meta. VII 6), 21 ,38-9

Fine, Gail, 7, 9-10, 13, 83 -4 , 93final causality. See teleological ex-

planation

fluxknowledge, and, 19, 78related to separated Forms, 8-11, 92substances, and, 96

form

and essence, 45—6indistinguishability within kinds, 5 5, 61predication (Lewis, Loux), 53-5senses of, 45-6, 55specimens of natural kinds, 47, 51

Form of the Good (Plato)teleology of Aristotle's counterpart to,

116Forms (Plato)

Aristotle's criticism of separation of,5-20, 92

capacity for independent existence,

7-14importance for Aristotle of theirunchanging nature, 3, 121

obstacles to knowledge, 16-19, 63-8,87

as particulars and universals (Aristotle'sinterpretation), 14-19

regress arguments against, 15-16, 38,87

Third Man Argument, 15-16as types, 6 1, 77universal or particular, 57-61

Frede, Michael, 89Frege, Gottlob, 24-5, 35Furth, Montgomery, 44Geach, P. T., 59geometrical entities, 29Gibbard, Allan, 102

129



130 I N D E X

Gill, Mary Louise, 90Graham, Daniel, 44guises, 104Gulley, Norman, 65Guthrie, W. K. C, 70-1, 94Hamlyn, D. W., 67, 69Heinaman, Robert, 80

identitydistinct from numerical sameness, 2,

22-5, 27-8, 35, 40, 49, 100-3indiscernibility of identicals, 22-4, 37nonstandard concepts of, 35-7, 102See also numerical sameness; referential

opacityindependent being

defined, 86of Plato's Forms, 87separation as, 86, 88-95of specimens of kinds, 87-88, 91-2

independent existencecapacity of Forms for, 7-14See also separation

Irwin, T. H., 7, 27, 35-6, 46-7

Kahn, Charles, 72-6, 113-14kinds

features of, 41-3

the good for, 111, 116as like and unlike properties, 42-3natural, 112-14See also specimens of kinds; specimens

of natural kindsKirwan, Christopher, 26knowability

of Plato's Forms, 3, 14, 16-20, 63-7of specimens of kinds, 2, 50 -1 , 56, 63,

79knowledge

in Plato's Theory of Recollection, 63-6

potential and actual, 79-82transition from perception to, 3, 68-79,82

See also knowability; recollection;unknowability

Lear, Jonathan, 29Leibniz's Law, 23-5, 37, 101Leszl, Walter, 79-82Lewis, Frank, 4, 25, 32, 34-5, 44, 52-5Loux, Michael, 4, 44, 52-5, 95

Masker Paradox, 33, 34

matteraccounts of, 55, 88-91inseparability, 91

Matthews, Gareth, 24-5, 35McKirahan, Richard, 69, 71Meno's Paradox, 64Miller, Fred, 26

Modrak, Deborah, 69-71, 74-7Moravcsik, Julius, 26Morrison, Donald, 93-4

Nonidentity Assumption, 56-7numerical distinctness,as meaning of Platonic separation,

12-14of Plato's Forms, 12-14, 56, 92

numerical samenessaccidental sameness as variety of,

24-34, 37essential sameness as variety of, 24,

37-40relation to identity, 2, 23- 4, 3 0 -1 , 49,

100-6

of substances with sensible objects, 61,86See also identity; 'qua'; referential

opacityOwen, G. E. L., 56-7, 99Owens, Joseph, 81Patterson, Richard, 13, 58perception

gap between knowledge and, 72-7induction from, 68-71

Peterson, Sandra, 36priority

link to separation, 6-8, 10, 86, 93of specimens of natural kinds, 103-6,

120-1properties

distinct from kinds, 42-3forms as universal, and, 51-5of sensible objects and particular

forms, 46-7, 50of works of art, 101-5

'qua'occurrences in Aristotle, 47-9

restrictive function of, 50, 79use of, 29-30, 35Quine, W. V. O., 22recollection

criticism of Plato's Theory, 19, 67-8doctrine of Plato, 63-7

referential opacitymeaning of, 22-3options for understanding, 35-7

Ross, W. D., 69separation

in definition, 95-7independent being, and, 86-91, 93-5independent existence of Forms, and,

7-10, 12-14numerical distinctness of Forms, and,

10-16, 56-7, 91-3See also independent being; priority



I N D E X 131

Sorabji, Richard, 26specimens of kinds

accidental unities as, 30- 2, 34definition, 48-9knowability, 2, 50, 55-6, 61, 63knowledge of, 77-82sensible objects, and, 30-1, 37, 88specimens of natural kinds, and, 30,

104-5specimens of natural kinds

as epistemologically fundamental, 50as ontologically fundamental, 3, 31,

97_9, 103-6, 119-21substances as, 40, 50, 55 -6 , 6 1- 3, 86,

104, 120-1See also specimens of kinds

Strang Colin, 58substances

alleged inconsistency of view, 45, 51-5candidates for, 44-6, 83-6in the Categories, 40-3 , 56criteria for, 44-5, 83-5, 91as specimens of natural kinds, 40, 50,

55-6, 61-3, 86, 97-9, 120-1See also specimens of natural kinds

substitutivityaccidental sameness, and, 25-8, 31-5,

37essential sameness, and, 36-9failures of, 22-8, 34-7as principle governing identity, 22

Suppe, Frederick, 98-9

teleological explanationart, and, 105chance, and, 114-17craft analogy, 110-12downward perspective, 119-20externalist accounts, 108-9the good, and, 111, 113-16internalist accounts, 106-7material causes, and, 117-19natural kinds, and, 112-13

Third Man Argumentas in Alexander of Aphrodisias, 15-16nature of Forms, and, 57-60separation, and, 56-7

typesForms as, 60-1substances as, 61-2, 74-88

universalsknowability of, 14, 19, 51 , 61knowledge of, 74-82separated Forms as, 7, 9-10, 14-16,

57-60, 83-4unknowability

of accidental characteristics, 14, 16-18,46-7

recollection, and, 18-19, 63-8Vlastos, Gregory, 13

White, Nicholas, 24, 65Witt, Charlotte, 84Woodfield, Andrew, 108-9Woods, M. J., 57Wright, Larry, 108-9

Lynne Spellman-Substance and Separation in Aristotle(2002)

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