Aristotle is not Plato!

Empiricism

Learning is possible; some learning comes from observation of the physical world.

Nativism

Since knowledge is innate, learning is impossible; We can't learn from observation of the physical world.

Understanding Matter, Substance, and Form

What are they?

• Matter is just stuff. look around you: there're a bunch of things and and they're all made out of some kind of gunk—Aristotle proposes we call it "matter."
• Some things are different then other things: they have different properties (I have red hair, Seiji has black hair). Aristotle proposes that we call these ways that things can be different "forms"—forms are basically just like properties or qualities.
• Substances are "that which is the subject of predication, but not itself predicated." There are lots of things (objects): Aristotle proposes that we call them "substances." Substances are the things we think and talk about.

How are they related?

• There's no matter that exists without having some form (properties). This is all that exists—and it's why Maloney says that pure matter is "unintelligible".
• If you take some bit of matter and add form, then you have a substance (an object; a thing). Any substance with matter and form can change.
• There are some substances that a form, but no matter: the Unmoved Mover, for example. Any substance that is unchanging doesn't have matter (we'll see why in a minute).

• Matter?	+ Form?	= Substance?
  Yes	Yes	= Yes, material substance; can change.
  Yes	No	= Not a substance.
  No	Yes	= Yes, immaterial substance; cannot change.
  No	No	= Not a substance.

How do they explain change?

• Remember, change only occurs in material substances.
• Consider some substance with form and matter. The way it changes is by keeping the same matter, but switching forms.
• For example, one of my forms is the number of hairs on my head. If I pull one out, I'm still the same hunk of matter, but I get a new form (some new number of hairs on my head).
• Immaterial substances, since they have no matter, cannot change: they just are forms, so an immaterial substance couldn't switch forms—what would be preserved through the change? Certainly not the matter since there isn't any.

Essential vs. Accidental Forms

• Some forms are essential and some are accidental.
• A substance can't lose one of its essential forms without being destroyed. If you took my matter and gave it the form of a rock (through witchcraft?), you wouldn't turn me into a rock—you would destroy me. Being a human is one of my essential forms.
• A substance can lose one of its accidental forms without being destroyed. As we said, you can change the number of hairs on my head without killing me.
• A way to test whether a form is essential or accidental to a substance: Could the substance lose the form and still be the very same substance? If so, then the form is accidental. If not, then the form is essential.
• The essential form a substance is like the species of that substance. Actually, the idea of a biological taxonomy comes from Aristotle (though we obviously categorize things differently now).

A Quick Aside

Forms are universals. That means that they can exist in more than one place at once—a form exists wherever some substance has that form. Think of redness: where does it exist? Well, wherever there's a red thing! It's in lots of places.

Thinking

• To think of an object is to get the form of that object in your soul. So we need to know what Aristotle thinks your soul is:
• Aristotle says that the soul of a human is just the essential form of a human.
• The essential form a human is rational animality—humans are thinking animals.
• This is why we said that for Aristotle all humans have the same soul and that it is "immortal:" All humans have the soul (the same essential form; that's why they're all humans—they're all the same species), and if you die, other humans will still be alive, so the form will still exist.
• Of course, when you're thinking of something, and you get it's form in your soul, the matter of thing doesn't come along. This means that you don't become what you're thinking about.

Four Causes

• Material Causation: what kind of matter is it made out of?
• Efficient Causation: what caused it (in the normal sense of "cause")?
• Formal Causation: what are its forms (esp. its essential form)?
• Final Causation: what is its purpose?

• Material Causation: Flesh.
• Efficient Causation: Cellular growth.
• Formal Causation: Being an animal organ (sometimes this one is hard).
• Final Causation: Pumping blood through the circulatory system.

The Universe and Causes

• Aristotle says that the notion of a beginning (or end) of the entire universe doesn't make sense (we can always ask what happened before something else, and everything that happens happens in the universe). So the universe has no beginning (or end), and so has no efficient cause
• Aristotle does think that there is a final cause (purpose) to the universe even though no one designed it: the final cause of the universe is to be like the Unmoved Mover (a divine immaterial substance)
• The Unmoved Mover explains why the universe is the way it is. Since it is immaterial, it never changes.
• The Unmoved Mover did not design the universe and is not the efficient cause of the universe.
• The whole universe adores the Unmoved Mover, but the Unmoved Mover adores and thinks only of itself—it is completely unaware of the universe.

Another Quick Aside

If we say that "x causes y" we mean that the occurence of x necessitates the occurence of y—whenever x occurs, so must y (unless something else intervenes). The contrary is not true: y could occur without x.

For example, if striking a match causes it to light, then whenever a match is struck it must light (unless something else intervenes). But it doesn't follow that if a match is lit, it must have been struck—perhaps we lit it with a blowtorch, or by throwing it into a fire.