No More Learning

10. The metaphysical preliminaries were now given for what Plato ultimately projected in the Timarus; viz. a sketch or rough drawjkt of the philosophy of Nature, for which, of course, true to his eputemological principle, he could not claim the worth of certainty, bit only that of probability. * Since, that he was not in a position
Under the influence of the Aristotelian terminology, this secondary cause feat been designated as "matter" (v\ti), and " only recently that modern "searches hare made clear that the Platonic matter" simply space. Cf.
'•pry space. 1 " Space was then for Plato the
out of which the world of phenomena is formed for the sake of the Idea of the Good, or of the deity. This process of formation, however, consists in taking on mathematical form; hence Plato taught in the Philebus that the
nothing
Snebeck, L'ntertuehungen t. Philot. Or. Aufl. , Freiburg B. 1889). probable that In this case Plato transposed Uie number* into the world Ideas itself, but looked upon their representation in geometrical structures as
U* ••limitation " added to space.
*Ta« Platonic Physics then hypothetical in like manner with that of
Paraenidea. Here, too, would seem that regard for the demands of his dJav
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130 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part I.
to carry through dialectically, and establish in conceptions this project of explaining occurrence from the world's end or purpose, Plato gave an exposition of his teleologkal view of Nature in mythical form only, — a view intended only as an opinion, and not as science.
This view, nevertheless, takes a position sharply opposed to the mechanical explanation of Nature, and, as this latter is set forth, we can scarcely suppose that Plato had any other doctrine in mind than that of Democritus. In opposition to the theory which makes all kinds of worlds arise here and there from the " accidental " (mean ing " purposeless " or "undesigned") meeting of "that which is in unordered, lawless motion," and perish again, he sets forth his own theory that there is only this one, most perfect and most beauti ful cosmos, unitary in nature and unique as regards its kind, and that its origin can be traced only to a reason acting according to ends.
If, then, it is desired to form a theory concerning this origin, the ground of the world of phenomena must be sought in the telic rela tion of this world to the Ideas. This relation Plato expressed by the idea of a "world-forming God" (Sniuovpyos, demiurge)" who formed or shaped out that which is not Being, i. e. space, with regard to the Ideas. " In this connection the Not-being is character ised as the indefinite plasticity which takes up all corporeal forms into itself (St&fwvij), and yet at the same time forms the ground for the fact that the Ideas find no pure representation in it. This counter-working of the accessory cause, or of the individual acces sory causes, Plato designates as meclianical necessity (avayKif). He takes up then the conception of Democritus as a particular moment into his physics, in order to explain by it what cannot be under stood teleologically. Divine activity according to ends and natural necessity are set over against each other as explaining principles, on the one hand for the perfect, and on the other hand for the imper fect in the world of phenomena. Ethical dualism passes over from metaphysics into physical theory.
ciples was united with a polemical purpose. Hence there is found mingled in the TiiiuKus, a dependence upon Democritus and a combating of his views, an attitude like that of Parmenides toward Heraclitus. Yet the distinction is not to be forgotten, that the Eleatic denied the reality of the world of phenomena, while Plato denied only that it could be known scientifically, i. e. through con ceptions. In presenting his view, however, Plato goes into questions of astron omy, mechanics, chemistry, organic life, physiological psychology, finally even into those of medicine. He gives, therefore, a kind of compendious exposi tion of his opinions in matters of natural science, opinions which in detail are extraordinarily fantastic, and as compared with the exact ideas even of his time, inadequate ; and yet taken in their whole connection, in their relation to their central principle, they have exercised an effect extending far beyond the design of their author.
Chap. 3, §U-] System of Idealism . Plato. 131
The characteristic fundamental thought of the Platonic as con trasted with the Atomistic physics is, that while Democritus con ceived of the movements of the whole as mechanical resultants of the original states of motion of the individual atoms, Plato, on the contrary, regarded the ordered motion of the universe as a whole, as the primitive unit, and derived every individual change or occur
rence from this purposively determined whole. From this thought sprang the strange construction of the conception of the world-soul, which Plato characterised as the single principle of all motions, and thus also of all determinations of form, and likewise of all activities of perception and ideation in the world. 1 In fantastic, obscure ex position he brought forward as the mathematical " division " of this world-soul, his astronomical theory, which was in the main closely connected with that of the younger Pythagoreans, but which was
Less advanced than theirs in its assumption that the earth stood ftill. The main criterion in this process of division was the dis tinction between that which remains like itself (tovtov) and that which changes (Oanpov), — a contrast in which we easily recognise the Pythagorean contrast between the perfect stellar world and the imperfect terrestrial world.
A similar continuation of Pythagorean doctrine is contained in the Platonic Timams, with reference also to the purely mathematical construction of the corporeal world. Here, too, the four elements are characterised according to the simple, regular, geometrical solids (ef. p. 46). But it is expressly taught that these consist of triangu lar surfaces, and those, too, of a right-angled sort, which are in part equilateral, in part so formed that the shorter side is half the length '■t the hypothenuse. The limiting surfaces of these solids, — tetrahe dron, cube, etc, — maybe thought of as composed of such right- ugled triangles, and Plato would have the essence of space-filling, ut density or solidity of bodies, regarded as consisting in this com position of these limiting surfaces. By thus conceiving of physical t**hes as purely mathematical structures, the metaphysical thought "f the Phiiebus found expression also in physics, — the thought, namely, that the phenomenal world is a limitation of space formed in imitation of the Ideas. These triangular surfaces, which were, moreover, conceived of as being indivisible, have a suspicious simi larity with the atomic forms ((r^imra) of Democritus.
i la this respect the Timaut, quite a* does Democritus, characterises psychical •kflVreoce* by differences of motion, tracing, for example, right ideation to the ♦»*r«», merely individual perception to the ednpor, etc. "Soul" is for the •>rrelu st the same time principle of motion and of perception, and just that
u**ru*» and air»irr>"«»< Arist. De An. I. 2, 40:» b 25), and even Plato makes the •ft'/nd characteristic dependent upon the first.
132 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part I.
§ 12. The Aristotelian Logic.
The breadth of plan which appeared in the systems of the two great antipodal thinkers, Democritus and Plato, and in accordance with which their doctrines were methodically developed, made it indispensable that there should be not only a division of labour, but a separation of problems. The titles of the writings of Democritus make it probable that he proceeded clearly and definitely in this respect also. Plato, to be sure, conceived his literary activity essen tially from the artist's point of view, but it is evident that in his activity as a teacher he did not fail to make that arrangement of problems for separate treatment which we miss in his dialogues. In his school the division of philosophy into dialectic, physics, and ethics became dominant.
If by dialectic in this connection we are to understand essentially the doctrine of Ideas in its metaphysical development, Aristotle made the great step in advance of prefacing the investigation of the subject-matter in all three departments with a preliminary study of the essential nature of science, a doctrine of the forms and laws of scientific thought. Even with the Sophists and Socrates reflection had begun upon the question, in what scientific activity properly consists, and the sharpened attention given to the inner processes had made it possible for the abstracting thinker to separate the general forms of the thought-process itself from the particular con tents to which this process relates at different times. All these beginnings and attempts — for even with Plato it did not go beyond this — were comprehended by Aristotle in his Logic, and developed into a complete system in which we have before us the ripe self- knowledge of Greek science.
1. The immediate aim of the Aristotelian logic is, according to the express declarations of the philosopher, entirely methodological. The way is to be shown by which the goal of scientific cognition can be reached in all departments of knowledge. As in rhetoric the art of persuasion is taught, so in logic we are to learn the art of scien tific investigation, cognition, and proof. For this reason Aristotle did not reckon logic, which was his greatest creation, among the philosophical disciplines themselves, but treated it in his lectures as a propaedeutic, and for this reason his school regarded this study as the general instrument (Spyavov) for all scientific work.
But this preparatory study itself was made a science by Aristotle. Instead of bringing forward rules of practical value in individual cases, as may well have been the case with the Sophists, instead of the general fixing of a principle which had been the service of
llur. 3, f 12. ] The Aristotelian Logic. 133
Socrates, he offers an examination of the thinking activity on all sides, a comprehensive examination of its regular forms. He fulfils the methodological task by formal logic.
But in so doing it becomes evident that the knowledge of the forms of right thinking can be gained only from understanding the Usk of thought, and that in turn this task can be disclosed only from a definite idea of the general relation of knowledge to its object. Thus the Aristotelian logic is connected in the most intimate manner with the metaphysical presupposition which lie it the basis of his treatment of the other disciplines also. In :ts principle, it is thoroughly epidemiological.
2. As such, however, it has its roots in the Socratic-Platonic doctrine of Ideas. That which truly is, is the general or universal, and knowledge of this is the conception. In this respect Aristotle always remained a Platonist What he combated in the system of his great predecessor ' was only the Eleatic assumption of absence of relation, — absence of relation between general and particular, between Ideas and phenomena, between conceptions and percep tions; an absence of relation which, in spite of all his efforts, Plato had not overcome, even in the later phase of his teaching. Even as the final cause of occurrence the Ideas remained a world
by themselves beside (*api) the phenomena. This tearing apart i p^t£civ) of essence and phenomenon, of Being and Becoming, is. in addition to special dialectical objections,' the object of the chief reproach which Aristotle brings against the doctrine of ideas. Whde Plato had made two different worlds out of the general which is known by the conception, and the particular which is per
ceived, the entire effort of Aristotle is directed toward removing again this division in the conception of reality, and discovering that relation between Idea and phenomenon which shall make concep- tiooal knowledge able to explain what is perceived.
Oat of this grows as the primary task for logic, that of recognis ing the true relation between the general and the particular, and hence this fundamental form of abstract or conceptional thought, which had been already recognised as fundamental by Socrates, stands in the centre of the Aristotelian logic.
> Principally in Met. I. 9, and XIII. 4.
' <Jf these, two are principally worthy of mention in passing. The one ■rfnea, (rum the logical subordination which obtains among the Ideas, that everything that we perceive must be subsumed under a number of Ideas ; the ■she* calls attention to the difficulty that the resemblance, which, according to tha system exists between the Idea and 'he phenomenon, makes necessary stili skigber general above both, etc. , in infinitum (arfpwroi — aisrdvfpwrot — rpfroi
134 The Greeks: Systematic Period. [Part 1.
The importance of this same relation grows out of still another course of thought. If Aristotle found any previous works that were preparatory for his theory of science, they consisted in the considerations of the Sophists with regard to the art (principally
of proof and refutation. If now Aristotle asked how one can prove anything scientifically, i. e. in a manner universally valid and relating to true knowledge, he found that this could con sist only in the deduction of the particular from the general. To prove scientifically means to state the grounds for the validity of what is asserted, and these are to be found only in the more general under which the particular is subsumed.
From this resulted the peculiar complication which constitutes the Aristotelian conception of science. The general, the Idea, is, as the true Being, the cause of occurrence and change. It is that, therefore, out of which and through which the perceived particular is to be comprehended, conceived, or explained. Science has to set forth how the perceived particular follows from the general which is known in conceptions. On the other hand, the general is in thought the ground by means of which and from which the particular is proved. Accordingly, conceiving or comprehending and proving are the same thing, viz. deduction of the particular from the general.
The scientific theory of Aristotle is accordingly concentrated in the conception of derivation or deduction (&rd&i£tg). Scientific explanation of phenomena from true Being is the same logical process as scientific proof: namely, the deduction or derivation of what is given in perception from its general ground. " Explaining and proving are therefore denoted by the same word, deduction," and the right proof is that which takes as its ground the actual or real general cause of that which is to be proved. 1 It is, therefore, the task of science to exhibit the logical necessity with which the particular insight (of perception) follows from the general insight (of conception), and the particular phenomenon from the general cause.
This characterisation of the task of science, thus developed from metaphysical presuppositions, experienced an essential change in the progress of its author's investigations.
3. The most immediate task of logic, according to this, is to establish more exactly what deduction — i. e. on the one hand, proof,
1 This definition of the conception of scientific proof is obviously directed against the rhetorical proof of the Sophists. In the art of persuasion, ail proofs are welcome, however external they may remain to the true nature of the case, provided only they are formally sufficient to bring the hearer to assent. Scientific proof, however, should proceed from the inner, logical necessity of the case, and should therefore give at the same time insight into the true cause of what is to be proved.
rhetorical)
(. map. Z, $ 12. ] Tlie Aristotelian Logic. 135
on the other hand, explanation — properly or to set forth those forms in which thought cognises the dependence of the particular vpon the general. This theory was given by Aristotle in the Analyt ics, the logical groundwork, which treats synthetically, in the first part, of the syllogism, in the second of deduction, proof, and concep tion. For in the process of analysing those activities of thought in which all deduction consists, there results as simple fundamental form the deduction of one proposition, one statement from another it the inference or syllogism (enAAoyt<j>to«).
The doctrine of the syllogism became thus the central point of the Aristotelian logic. To this points all that he taught (apparently only in the most general outlines) concerning the forms of thought which lie at the basis of the syllogism out of come all the points of view in his methodology.
The outlines of this doctrine, which form the basis of traditional logic even to this day, are the following. The syllogism the deduction of judgment from two other judgments. Since in judgment one concept (the predicate) affirmed of another concept (the subject), this affirmation can be grounded only by establishing the desired connection between the two by means of third concept, the middle term {/itaov). This third concept must then stand in some relations with the other two, and these relations must be expressed in two judgments, which are called the premises (n-pora- <rut) of the syllogism. Inference, or drawing the conclusion, con sists in the process of thought which, from the relations that one ind the same concept (the middle term) sustains to two other <f>oeepts, discovers the relation of these two concepts to each other.
Agreeably to its general presuppositions, the Aristotelian doctrine of the syllogism fixed its attention upon but one of the possible relations existing between concepts, — the relation of the subordina tion of the particular under the general. The only question for this theory always whether the one concept (the subject) should be rabordinated to the other (the predicate) or not. The doctrine of the syllogism has to do only with the knowledge of those forms of thought according to which to be decided, with the help of an intermediate concept, whether a subordination of one concept under amotkfr occurs or not. This question Aristotle answered in an abso
lutely exhaustive manner in this consists both the abiding worth of his doctrine of the syllogism and also the limits of its signifi cance.
In correspondence with the fact just noted, Aristotle treats in his tleory ofthe judgment essentially only the two elements which come into consideration for this end first, Quantity, which determines
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136 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part I.
the kind of subordination of the subject to the predicate as regards extent, and yields the distinctions of general, particular, and singu lar judgments; and second, Quality, according to which this sub ordination is either affirmed or denied, and, therefore, the relation either of connection or of separation is asserted as existing between the respective extents of the two concepts.
The kinds or figures (crxq/uara) of the syllogism are, therefore, essentially fixed by the manner in which the relations of subordina tion between the concepts, which are given in the premises, deter mine the subordination sought in the conclusion, — a relation which finds its external expression in the position of the middle term in the two premises, since this is either the subject of one premise and predicate of the other, or predicate of both, or subject of both. As the most valuable and primitive of these three figures, however,
Aristotle consistently designated the first, because in it the principle of subordination is purely and clearly expressed, since the subject of the conclusion is subordinated to the middle term, and together with this, as falling within its compass, is subordinated to the predi cate of the major. 1
4. But by defining inference, and so deduction, proof, and expla nation in this way, it followed that only propositions of a lesser degree of generality could be deduced from those of higher generality by means of this activity so essential to science. That is, by means of inference, we can never prove anything equally general with the premises, to say nothing of proving anything more general. The peculiar restriction of the ancient idea of the nature of thought, according to which thought can only apprehend and take apart what is given but can never produce anything new, makes its appearance in this feature of the Aristotelian logic. From this, however, it follows immediately that the deducing, proving, and ex plaining science may, indeed, in the individual case, be able to take that which has served as premise in the syllogism, and deduce it again as the conclusion of a still more general syllogism, but must, nevertheless, ultimately proceed from premises which are themselves capable of no further deduction, proof, and comprehension, of no reduction to middle terms. The truth of these ultimate premises is, therefore, immediate (<x/i«ra), not to be deduced, proved or compre hended. All deduction needs something primitive; all proof, a ground that cannot be proved ; all explaining, something given which cannot be explained.
1 The details cannot be developed here. Cf. in general, F. Kanipe, Die Krkenntnisstheorie des Aristoteles (Leips. 1870); U. Euckcn, Die Method* ilrr arUtotelitchen Forichung (Berlin, 1872).
Chat. 3, § 12. ] The Aristotelian Logic. 137
The apodictic, proving, and explaining activity of science has, therefore, a limit ; the ultimate grounds of proof are not to be proved ; the ultimate causes used in explaining are not to be explained. Hence if science is to fulfil its task, which consists in explaining the particular by means of the general, it must first press forward from the particular on to the general, in the case of which proving and explaining are forbidden by the nature of the case, because as imme diately certain it asserts itself as not to be deduced and not to be
proved. Hence the processes of deducing, proving, and explaining, in which the ultimate task of science consists, must be preceded by the searching out of the starting-points for deduction, of the ultimate grounds of proof, and of the highest principles of explanation. The activity of thought involved in this last process Aristotle calls dia lectic, and has laid down its principles in the Topics.
This procedure of searchitig out the grounds is not, in the nature of the case, attended by the same " apodictic certainty," as is that of deducing consequences from the grounds, when the latter are once established. Investigation proceeds from the particular given in perception, and from the ideas current in customary opinion (iv&o£ov), to find the general, from which the particular can then be proved and explained. Investigation, therefore, follows a direction the
reverse of that taken by deduction ; the latter is deductive, the former inductive, epagogic. The latter proceeds, proving and explaining, from general to particular ; the former, searching and testing, from particular to general. 1 Only the completed science is "apodictic"; science, in its process of coming into being, is epa-
In all these investigations and the contrasts that appear in them, the chief question for Aristotle is that with regard to judgments; bat in connection with this he treats also concepts. As a judgment i* proved or deduced, by being concluded from more general judg ments, by means of the middle term, so a concept is deduced or derived by being formed from a more general concept (the next higher class or genus, yrroc) by adding a particular characteristic nark or difference (&a^opa). This deduction of the concept is defini- tio* (opurpoc). As, however, the deduction of propositions ulti
mately presupposes most general premises, which cannot be further
1ThU relation of contrariety between deduction and inquiry Aristotle ex-
ivtatd in the statements that that which, as regards the nature of the thing, is
^ original (rpirtpor r% $fau), and therefore the general, is for human knowl-
*4tr the later, that which must be acquired (yartpor rpit rivuii) ; and that, on
u» contrary, that which is for us the must immediate (rpircpor rpit 4m>>)> the
J*ticuUx, is, according to the true essence, the derivative, the later (trrtpor r\
"
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138 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part L
proved, so, too, definition of lower concepts goes back ultimately to most general concepts which withdraw from all attempts at deduc tion and explanation. These concepts, also, as well as the highest premises of proof, must be sought inductively;1 and it seems as though Aristotle looked upon the propositions of highest generality as the elucidations of these most general concepts.
5. Amon;; the t-xt-books which Aristotle left, the two main logical treatises, the Analytics and the Topics, are those which are most nearly complete by far. 5 This may explain the fact that the logical demands which the Philosopher makes of science are devel oped so clearly and surely, while, on the other hand, his system as carried out in the form known to us, fulfils in but a lesser measure the expectations thus raised.
For evidently we should expect that a sure statement could be made as to what the Philosopher declared to be those immediately certain, highest propositions or concepts which were to be the result of investigation, and the starting-point of proof and explanation. If, however, we ask for these, we find ourselves in great embarrass ment as regards the teaching of Aristotle. Of general propositions there is but a single principle, the principle of contradiction,' which he set forth as an unprovable major premise, or highest principle for all proofs, partly in the purely logical setting that affirmation and denial of the same combination of concepts reciprocally exclude each other, partly in the metaphysical form that a thing cannot be the same and also not be the same. But aside from this he prefers to call attention to the fact that every department of knowledge has its own ultimate presuppositions, and does not state these more exactly.
If, however, we seek for the highest concepts, —aside from the reference made here also to the particular nature of individual dis ciplines, — we have the choice between the four " principles " (&px<u), or "causes," of the Metaphysics, and the "categories," which are designated as the fundamental forms of predication concerning what
— a choice not decided by Aristotle. In both cases we find our selves already in the midst of the material as opposed to the formal elements of his teaching.
Over against determination (rpiff$t<rit), as the deduction of one concept from the higher by adding new mark, stands therefore abstraction (d^al^tru) an process of formation of class-concepts, — process which, by continually taking away individual characteristics, gains concept poorer in contents, but wi ler in its extent. Formation of concepts is, accordingly, with Aristotle, again co npletely analytic, while with Plato had been intuitive. Aristotle was the first to free himself from the optical analogy, in accordance with which the know ing process of thought had been conceived even by Democritus and Plato.
In the case of the Topict, this completeness seems even to have been at tained. Met. IV. ff.
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Chaj». 3, § 13. ] System of Development : Aristotle. 139
§ 13. The System of Development
The impression of something completely new, which the logic of Aristotle makes, as contrasted with all that had previously appeared in Greek science, rests principally upon the capacity for abstract thought, presupposed in so high a degree by this separation of the general Forms of thought from every possible content — a separa tion that evinced his genius. This genius for the formation of con ceptions by abstraction was evinced by Aristotle in all departments of his scientific work, and if the " Father of logic " became the
philosophic teacher for two thousand years, he owes this success, first of all, to the sureness, clearness, and consistency with which he formed and defined his conceptions. He fulfilled the task set by Socrates, and in so doing created the language of science.
The funda mental part of the scientific conceptions and expressions everywhere in use, even to the present time, goes back to his formulations.
With this inclination to abstraction is connected the further fact that Aristotle solved the fundamental problem of Greek philosophy — viz. how behind the changing multiplicity of phenomena a uni tary and abiding Being is to be thought — by means of a concept of relation, that of development. His two great predecessors had still been seeking to assign a particular content to the conception of true Being. Democritus had regarded the atoms and their motion, Plato the Ideas and their final causation, as the causes of phenomena, —; causes different from the phenomena themselves. Aristotle, how- ercr, determined the true reality — that which is — as the essence which unfolds in the phenomena themselves. He renounced the at tempt to think out as the cause of phenomena something different from them (a second world), and taught that the Being of things which is known in conception possesses no other reality than the sum total of the phenomena in which it realises itself. So regarded, Being (oixria) takes on the character of the essence (to ri rjv ctvui), which constitutes the one, only ground of its individual formations, but is real or actual only in these themselves, and ail phenomenal appearance or coming into being becomes the realisation of the easmce. This is the concept of relation by means of which Aristotle overcame the opjwsition of the Heraclitic and Eleatic metaphysics.
1. In particular, the process of development presents itself to Aristotle as the relation of Form and Matter (cISot, nop<prj — «Aij). Plato ' had declared the world of phenomena to be a mixture of the
1 Th* main outline* of the Aristotelian metaphysics develop in the simplest w»t from that phase of the Platonic metaphysics which is presented in the n'tUbiu (ct. above, § 11, 9). Cf. J. C. Glaser, Die Metaphyiik dm Arisfttlet
Berlin. 1841).
140 The Greeks: Systematic Period. [Part I
" unlimited " and of " limitation " ; Aristotle holds to the observa tion that, in everything of the phenomenal world, formed matter lies before us. But for him this matter is, indeed, in itself indefi nite, and yet not purely indifferent, empty space, but a corporeal substratum {vttoku^vov) ; for him, this form is not merely the mathematical limit, but the form determined as to its contents by the essence. The matter or material substratum is the possibility of that which, in the complete thing, has become actual or real by means of the form. In matter, therefore, the essential nature
(oio-ia) is given only potentially (Swdfia). First, and only by means
of the form, does it exist in reality or actuality (ivtpytin, Occurrence, however, or the natural process, is that process in which the essence passes over from mere possibility, through form, into actualisation. The essence has not any second, higher reality beside and apart from the phenomena ; it exists only in the succession of its phenomenal manifestations, by means of which it realises its
own possibility. The universal is real or actual only in the partic ular; the particular is only because in it the universal realises itself.
With this transformation of the doctrine of Ideas, Aristotle solves the fundamental problem of the theoretical philosophy of the Greeks, viz. that of so thinking Being or what " is " that Becoming, or the process of Nature (das Oeschehen), may be explained from it. From the Hylozoism of the Milesians on to the opposing theories of his two great predecessors, all standpoints of Greek metaphysics are contained as elements in this doctrine of Aristotle. The Being cognised in conception is the general essence, which realises itself in its particular phenomenal manifestations from potentiality on through form, and the process of this realisation is motion. Being is that which comes to existence in the processes of Nature. This self-realisation of the essence in the phenomena,
1 Aristotle calls entelechy (jircAcx«a).
2. The central point of the Aristotelian philosophy lies, therefore,
in this new conception of the cosmic processes as the realisation of the essence in the phenomenon, and the respect in which it is op posed to the earlier explanation of Nature consists therefore in carrying through in conceptions the teleology which Plato had only set up as postulate, and developed in mythical, figurative form. While the earlier metaphysics had looked upon the mechanical process of pressure and impact as the typical fundamental relation of the cosmic processes, Aristotle regarded as this typical rela tion the development of organisms and man's building or forming activity. From these two departments he took his examples when
acta).
Chat, 3, $ 13. ] System of Development : Aristotle. 141
he wished to elucidate the metaphysical character of the cosmic
processes. 1
Nevertheless, the relation of form and matter is not completely
the same in these two kinds of purposive processes, and the differ ence between the two asserts itself everywhere in the carrying out of the Aristotelian fundamental thought. In the case of organic processes, matter and form are the two sides, separable only through abstraction, of one and the same reality identical from beginning to end ; even in the germ which in the process of development
brings the essence to its unfolding, the matter is already shaped internally by the form. In the case of artistic construction, on the contrary, the material which contains possibility exists at first by itself, and the work of the artist with its end in view is added later to produce the shape by means of motion.
In the latter case, therefore, the development is to be regarded under four principles. These are the Matter, the Form, the End, and the Cause of what comes to pass or comes to be.
In the former case, on the contrary, the three other principles, as set over against the Matter, are but different expressions for the came thing, since the Form constitutes the Cause and the Result of the process.
We find, accordingly, that when applied to the task of science, this fundamental relation of form and matter is carried out in a twofold way: on the one hand, individual things are regarded as self-realising forms; on the other hand, things in relation to one another are regarded, the one as matter, the other as form. These two applications of the fundamental principle go through the entire
Aristotelian system side by side, and in the general principles of the system they sometimes so collide, that it is only by their separa tion that apparent contradiction can be cleared away.
3. The former point of view yields the result, that for the Aristo telian conception of the world, in contrast with both that of Democ- ritus and that of Plato, the truly real is the individual thing, determined in itself by its form. To therefore, belongs primarily the name of essence or substance (ova-m). But the essence develops and realises itself in individual determinations, which are partly its
itates (nift)), partly its relations to other
Hf»nce knowledge has these which belong to the thing (to <rv/i/S«/i? ;- <ora) to predicate of while the individual thing itself cannot be predicated of anything else, i. e. in the proposition can be only
A*ide from iu discussion In the Metaphysics, this question chiefly treated thr Pkssics.
'Met. XIV. 1089 23.
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142 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part I.
subject and never predicate. 1 Of these modes in which substance manifests itself, or of the predicates that are possible with regard to Aristotle enumerates as categories, quantity (totw), quality (Votov), relation (nyxk n), determination in space and time (vov, ttoti), action (iroulv), and passion or passivity (irao^ov) and in addition, also, position (kiutOoi) and condition (ixu-v). This collection (making ten categories inclusive of substance), in which, perhaps, grammatical observations co-operated, designed to present the highest classes or genera under which the contents of all possible ideas are to be subsumed. Yet Aristotle made no methodical use of this collection, and his doctrine of the categories acquired, there fore, no importance in his metaphysics, aside from the above-noted relation of substance to its determinations.
When we consider how sharply Aristotle shaped out the scientific conception of substance in its logical and metaphysical character, may appear strange at the first glance that he has announced
neither methodical principle nor real principle applying to the nature of the thing, according to which would be possible to de cide what these truly existing individual things, in his sense of the word, are. It clear only that, on the one hand, he did not regard as essence everything whatever that occasionally appears in ex perience as thing separate from others, and, on the other hand, that he ascribed this character to organic individuals, to individual men. It would be in the"spirit of"his teaching to suppose that he could have spoken of an essence only where an inner determina tion of form constitutes the ground of the coherence of individual characteristics, where, therefore, the knowledge of this essence solves the problem of science — viz. to determine existent reality by the general conception — in so far as the abiding individual thing forms the class-concept for all its particular modes of appear ing which show themselves in perception.
But the Socratic-Platonic view of the problem of science brought with the consequence that Aristotle defined yet again the essence of the individual thing as that through which the individual thing belongs to its class or species. If substance, as contrasted with its perceptible phenomena and attributes, presents the universal, on the other hand the species (yo-os, or again Platonically, cZSot) the universal that realises itself in the individual substances. Here, too, the same relation repeated the species exists only in so far as realises itself in individual things as their truly existing essence, and the individual thing exists only as the species comes to its phe-
Analyt. Post. 22, 83 a 24.
1
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Chap. 3, § 13. ] System of Development: Aristotle. 143
Domenal manifestation in it. Just for this reason the species also have the claim to the metaphysical significance of being essences
By this means the conception of substance with Aristotle <-ontains a peculiarly changeable double meaning. The substances proper are individual things as determined in conception, but as a second kind of substances (Scvrcpai ouo-uu) ' we have the species which constitute the essence of individual things, just as these latter constitute the essence of perceptible phenomena.
Scientific knowledge is directed partly toward the conception of the individual thing, partly toward the conception of the species. Each of these realises itself in phenomena, and here there is found much which, as belonging directly to the conception (av^fiifiijKOTa in the narrower sense), can be deduced from it, but also much which, as foreign to the conception, appears in the particular only incident ally, as a consequence of the matter in which the conception realises itself; and of this which is conceptionally indifferent or "accidental "
<(n-nfitpjjKora in the usual sense of the word) there is, according to the presuppositions of the Aristotelian doctrine, no " theory,*' no scientific knowledge. Hence Aristotle also — and in this lies a characteristic limit of the ancient study of Nature — disclaimed on principle any scientific insight into the necessity of law, with which even the most individual and most particular follow from the gen eral. This individual instance he declared rather to be something really accidental, not to be explained by conception, and limited scientific consideration to that which is valid universally («rf oXov), or at least for the most part (eVi to iroAv).
4. In this we see decidedly a holding fast to the tradition of the doctrine of Ideas : the same attitude discloses itself also in another direction. If, that the relation of matter and form affirmed between the different things or classes of things, each of which
in iUelf already actual as formed matter, this relation becomes relative in so far as the same thing which in contrast with a lower to be regarded as form, appears as matter when contrasted with
the higher. In this aspect the conception of development becomes the principle of an ordering of things according to their metaphysical values, considering these things as rising in uninterrupted succession from the lowest formations of matter to the highest forms. In this scale every class of things assigned its metaphysical dignity
means of the test that regarded as form of the lower and as the material of the higher.
So. at leaat, they are called in the treatise on categories, the genuineness of which is. to be sure, not entirely uncontested yet the designation quite in '«« line of Aristotle's teaching taken as whole.
(owreu).
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144 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part I.
This system of individual things, and of their classes, has both a lower and an upper limit, the former in mere matter, the latter in pure form. Wholly unformed matter (irpwTjj v\r\) is, of course, in itself, as mere possibility, not actual ; it never exists without being somehow actualised as form. Yet it is not merely that which is not Being (the Platonic fit] 5v, or empty space), but the accessory cause, which evinces itself as such through real effects (to ov ovk dvtv, sine qua non). Its reality is shown in the fact that the forms do not completely realise themselves in individual things, and that from it side-workings (7rapa<£w£s) proceed which are without connection with the purposefully active form, or even in contradiction with it. It is, therefore, from matter that the fact is explained that the forms realise themselves only potentially {Kara t6 Sward? ) : from matter arises that which is conceptionally indeterminate (o-v/i/Je- Pr)Ko%), or the accidental (ovto/mitov), — the lawless and purposeless in Nature. Hence the Aristotelian doctrine distinguishes, in its explanation of Nature, as did Plato in the Philebus, between final causes (to oJ tvtiea) and mechanical causes (to e£ dWyKj^) : the former are the forms which realise themselves in matter ; the latter reside in matter, out of which proceed side-workings and counter-workings. Thus the cosmic processes are regarded by Aristotle ultimately under the analogy of the plastic artist, who finds in the hard material
a limit to the realisation of his formative thought. This material indeed, so far related to the Idea, that the Idea can present itself in at least in general, and yet in so far foreign, and thus
an independent, element, that in part opposes itself as retarding principle to the realising of the forms. Ancient philosophy did not overstep this dualism between the purposive activity of the form
and the resistance of matter with the demand of the teleological view of the world united the naive honesty of experience, recog nising the necessity, purposeless and contrary to design, which asserts itself in the phenomena of the actual world.
It is, on the contrary, self-evident in the case of pure form, since its conception immediately connected with that of true act uality, that possesses in itself the highest actuality without need ing any matter whatever. The assumption of such pure Form necessary according to the system of Aristotle, for the reason that matter, as the merely possible or potential, has in itself alone no principle of motion or of generation. We cannot, indeed, speak of
beginning of motion in time in this system of development, which centres about the conception of self-realising essence, since motian must be as eternal as Being itself, to the essential characteristics of which belongs but yet we must point out that property in Being
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('■Ar. 3, § 13. J System oj Development : Aristotle. 145
which is the cause of motion. This however, everywhere the action of the form upon the matter, in which, with reference to indi vidual things, Aristotle distinguishes two elements, viz. an impulse to be formed inherent in matter, and the purposive motion proceed
ing from the form itself. But in so far as the form itself moved, most be regarded in turn as matter for higher form and, since the same thing true of the latter, and so on, motion would not be understood the chain of its causes did not have first link in the pore Form which itself not moved. The first mover (irpwrov kivovv)
itself unmoved. Hence, in the case of its action upon matter, only the first of the two elements above mentioned comes into con sideration. It operates, not by means of its own activity, but only
means of the fact that its absolute actuality excites in matter the impulse to form itself according to (the prime mover), not as mechanical, but as pure, final cause (kivc? «W ipwpuvov, ol kivov-
M»or).
The prime mover, or the pure Form, means, then, in the Aristo
telian metaphysics, quite the same thing as the Idea of the Good in the Platonic, and for alone Aristotle employs all the predicates of the Platonic Idea. It eternal, unchangeable, immovable, wholly independent, separated (xuipunov) from all else, incorporeal, ud yet at the same time the cause of all generation and change.
the perfect Being (Ivipytia) in which all possibility at the suae time actuality of all that exists the highest (to rt drai
rp«ror) and best — the deity. 1
The highest Being or Essence, thus determined according to its
relations, is also characterised by Aristotle as regards its content. Soch an activity, related to no possibility, resting purely within
itself (actus purus), thought, and thought alone; not, of course, that mental process which applies itself to individual things and their changing phenomena, but the pure thought, which employed *ith itself and its eternal nature that thought which presupposes nothing else as an object, but has itself for its constant, unchang
ing content, the thought of thought (vorjo-it vorjaiwi) — self<onscious-
In these conceptions, so determined, dwells significance of "ughty import for the world's history. On the one hand, mono
The exposition of this course of thought from which the later, so-called co»- •oloyiral proof for the exintence of God essentially arose, found principally the twelfth book of the Metaphyrics. In his popular dialogues Aristotle
•*»l(r»inated with determinations of worth, by giving the following form *• diMinction between the imperfect and the more perfect which things of **J*rience show presupposes the reality of most perfect. Cf. Schol. in ArisL WTtS.
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146 The Greeks: Systematic Period. [Part I.
theism was herewith conceptionally formulated and scientifically grounded; on the other hand, it passed over from the pantheistic form, which it had with Xenophanes, and even still with Plato, into the theistic form, since God is conceived of as a self-conscious beinjj different from the world. But besides this transcendence, the doc trine that God is the absolute mind or spirit (Geist) involves at the same time the metaphysical advance that the immaterial, the incor poreal pure Being, is made equivalent to the spiritual. Spiritual monotheism is the ripe fruit of Grecian science.
This divine spirituality is conceived of in a purely intellectualistic manner ; its essential nature is solely thought directed upon itself. All doing, all willing, is directed toward an object, distinct from the doer or the wilier. The divine mind, as pure form, needs no object ; he is sufficient for himself, and his knowledge of himself (Oiutpta), which has no other goal than itself, is his eternal blessedness. He acts upon the world, not through his motion or activity, but through the longing for him which the world has. The world, and what takes place in arises from the longing of matter after God.
Matter (the merely potential) that which
itself moving anything; God (the solely actual)
without itself being moved; between the two
things, which suffer motion as well as call forth and these, taken as a whole, are designated by Aristotle as Nature (<f>wns; equivalent to "world" according to present usage). Nature is, accordingly, the connected system of living beings viewed as a unity, in which matter developing ever higher, from form to form, through all the multitude of its particular shapes, approaches the resting Being of the deity, and imitating this, potentially takes up into itself.
But in this connection, the graded scale of things, in the exposition of which the Aristotelian philosophy of Nature consists, shows two fold standard for estimating relative worth. The scale therefore developed in two different series, which find their union only at the end in manner which is, indeed, consistent with the fundamental conceptions of the system, but which nevertheless, in itself sur prising.
In the conception of the deity, according to Aristotle, there meet, as chief characteristics, that of Being, resting within itself, and remaining like itself (itSutv), and that of spirituality or rationality
Hence the individual " forms " of Nature take a higher rank in proportion as they contain the one or the other of these elements which constitute the highest worth. In the one line, the series of phenomena ascends from the unordered change of the terrestrial world to the ever-uniform revolution of the stars; in the
(vovs).
moved without that which moves the entire series of
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Cha*. 3, § 13. ] System of Development : Aristotle. 147
other line, we are led from the merely mechanical change of place to the activities of the soul and its most valuable develop ment, rational knowledge; and both series have the same terminus, inasmuch as the stars that are in most uniform motion are con ceived of as the highest intelligences, the most rational spirits.
7. In relation to the first of these two aspects Aristotle, taking np the astronomical views of Plato, adopted the old Pythagorean antithesis between the earthly and the heavenly world, and it is to be ascribed to the victorious influence of his philosophy that the matorer ideas of the later Pythagoreans did not prevail in antiquity, in spite of their recognition by those learned in astronomy in the following period. As the whole universe has the most perfect form, everywhere the same, — that of the sphere, — so among all motions the most perfect is the circular motion, which returns into itself. This belongs to the aether, the celestial element, out of which the •tars are formed, and the transparent hollow spheres, in which the stars move with ever-unchanged uniformity. Farthest out, and in an absolute changelessness that comes nearest the divine Being, is
tiie heaven of the fixed stars, beneath that the planets, the sun, and ih<? moon, whose apparent deviation from the circular movement was explained by a complicated theory of hollow spheres placed one within another, the theory which Eudoxus, an astronomer sustaining a close relation to the Academy, and his disciple Callippus had propounded. 1 The stars themselves were, however, for Aristotle wings of superhuman intelligence, incorporate deities. They ap
peared to him as the purer forms, those more like the deity, and from them a purposive, rational influence upon the lower life of earth seemed to proceed, — a thought which became the root of mediaeval astrology.
The lower " forms " of terrestrial life, on the other hand, are the four element* (of Empedocles), which are characterised by the ten dency to rectilinear motion. But rectilinear motion involves at once
the opposition of two tendencies, — the centrifugal, which belongs to Fire; and the centripetal, which belongs to Earth. The first of the two tendencies is also attributed in a lesser degree to Air, and the lister in a lesser degree to Water, and so the central mass, our earth,
* Scbiaparelli, Lt Sftrr Omocentrichr <li Kudomo, Callippo, ed AriHotele (Mi lan. 1870). Cf. alto (). Gruppe, Die kotmiirhen Systeme der Grirchtn (Berlin,
A* a principle of method, the following prescription for the proposal of tv*e qorations has been preserved from the Old Academy, typical of the matli- 'salico-metaphysical presup|>o8ltion of the speculative explanation of Nature : •a to ducover the uniformly ordered motions of the stars by means of which i£#ir apparent motions may be explained (3io»<if«i»). Siuipl. in Arist. tit L'eclo
! %il).
i Karat. ;. 119.
148 The Greek* : Systematic Period. [Part £
in a state of rest as a whole, is composed in such a way that about the earthy material is disposed at first Water and then Air, while Fire strives toward the celestial outer world. The changing combi nations, however, into which the four elements enter, constitute the imperfect, that which cannot be conceived, that which is accidental in the terrestrial world. Here the side-working and counter-work ing of matter are stronger than in the celestial region where the
mathematical determinateness of undisturbed circular motion real ises itself.
8. In the changes of the terrestrial world, mecluxnical, chemical, and organic processes are built up upon each other in such a way that the higher always presupposes the lower as its condition. Without change of place (<f>opd or kivjjo-is in the narrowest sense), change of qualities (dXA. otW«) is not . possible, and the organic transformation which consists in growth and decay (au^o-is — <f>6i<ri<;) is not possible without both the preceding. The higher form is, however, never merely a product of the lower, but is something self- subsistent, by means of which those lower forms can be employed only in a purposive manner.
From this develops an important principle in which Aristotle is opposed to Democritus, — a principle which the former esteemed very highly in regard to detailed research in natural science, and used a great deal, even with express mention. Aristotle' protests against the attempt to reduce all qualitative to quantitative deter minations, — an attempt ultimately accepted even by Plato. He combats the contrasting from an epistemological and metaphysical point of view, of secondary and primary qualities ; to the former he accords not a less but rather a higher reality than to the latter, and in the succession of " forms " the inner conceptional character or determination is evidently of more worth for him than the outer determination which is capable of mathematical expression. ' Thf attempt of Democritus to raise to the rank of a principle fcr explaining the world the reduction of all qualitative to quantitative differences, found its victorious opponent in Aristotle and his doctrine of the " entelechies," the inner Forms of things. The keen logician saw that it is never possible to develop qualities analytically from quantitative relations, and that, on the contrary, the quality (by which ever sense it may be perceived) is something new, which presup poses the entire body of quantitative relations as its occasion only.
1 Cf. especially the third book of the treatise De Caeto.
* For this reason Aristotle also characterises the elements not only by the different tendencies of their motions, but also by primitive qualities ; and he develops them out of a meeting of the contrasted pairs, warm and cold, dry and moist. Meteor. IV. 1, 378 b 11.
Cmaw. 3, § 13. ] System of Development : Aristotle. 149
9. With logical consistency the same view is applied by Aristotle to the relation of the psychical and bodily activities ; the latter are but the matter for which the former furnish the forms. There is, with Aristotle, no such dependence of psychical upon corporeal func tions as Democritus, in accordance with the procedure of the older metaphysics, and even Plato, is part (in the Timceus), had taught.
For Aristotle the soul is rather the entelechy of the body, i. e.