EPSILON (VI) METAPHYSICS, chaps. i - ii, 1026b24 Kinds of being We have come a long way from the first chapter of Book Gamma (IV), which Epsilon (VI) now seems to pick up again, where that chapter left off. Whether or not Book Delta (V) is an early or separate effort of Aristotle's, which some compiler of our text inserted here (Jaeger's theory), seems moot in any case. It does perform an important task, along with the rest of Gamma, in alerting us to the ambiguities and ambivalences that beset most of the terms we use in the pursuit of metaphysics. Armed with this understanding we are in a better position, as we join Aristotle getting down to the main phase of this pursuit. All that has gone before has been a preliminary reconnaisance. Now we are closing in on the important issues. Book E, chapter i, immediately picks up the thread of Gamma, i: being qua being, on hEi on, which it distinguishes from onta hEi onta, beings qua beings. Hai archai kai ta aitia zeteitai tOn ontOn, dElon de hoti hEi onta, etc. The special sciences are circumscribed and have to do with particular aspects of being, peri on ti kai genos ti perigrapsamenai peri toutou pragmateuontai, but not being qua being, all' ouchi peri ontos haplOs oude hEi on. This is the object of metaphysics and the Metaphysics. What is on hEi on? This chapter then digresses briefly upon the different kinds of being and upon the different sciences that address them. The point is fairly simple: what we want is the science of pure being, on haplOs, on hEi on, being qua being. Unlike the objects of physics and mathematics, this is akinEtos and chOristos, whatever that turns out to be. We will see. Meanwhile, although Aristotle has something to say about the sciences of other kinds of being here, physical and mathematical, it is the first science, the science of pure being, that is the target of the inquiry. Book Zeta, following Epsilon, is much more coherent than Delta. It will be more difficult, perhaps, but more rewarding, in part because we will be done with the preliminaries, and coming to grips with the main issues of metaphysics. It is not a collection of quite individual chapters, as was Delta, but an organized whole. The difficulty will lie in sorting this out, and it is just this that will make it rewarding. 1. E. i, transition from Gamma, i, and introductory a. kinds of being, 1025b3-b18 (1) onta hEi onta, each in genos ti, some class, versus on hEi on, on haplOs, being qua being, 1025b3-b10 (2) different method, tis allos tropos tEs dElOseOs, needed for the science of ousia and essence, b11-b16 (3) and for the existence as well, b16-b18 b. kinds of sciences, b18-1026a23 (1) physical science is a theoretical science (opposite to practical and productive) of a particular class of being, movable and not-separate [from matter] ousia, b18-1026a7 [b28-1026a7, the latter part of this section, shows how he accounts for what we call concrete and abstract: "these differ in that snub nose is connected with matter; concave is without sensible matter," 1025b32-b34. He can only put this difference concretely, which we put in more abstract language, revealing a limitation on his part, from our point of view.] (2) mathematics is theoretical, but there is a question whether some mathematicals are separate and immovable, although it studies them as such, a7-a10 (3) the "first science" is superior to both [the above]; it is about separate and immovable, chOrista kai akinEta; it is theological, a10-a23 [The confusion of the object of physics being ousian ou chOriston in 1025b28, and chOrista in 1026a16 is explained by Ross, I, 355. - Aristotle's calling this first science "theological", 1026a19, has been another distraction. We may see what he means later. - There has been no consideration yet of what is meant by chOrista (separate) and akinEta (immovable), of their possible ambivalence of meaning, their pollachOs legesthai.] [Discussion about these three classes of science quickly goes beyond Aristotle's main purpose here, which is to eliminate the special sciences, and to establish that the nature of being qua being is the concern of the first science, metaphysics, a10-a23. His choice is clear.] c. problem, a23-a32 (1) is the first philosophy (a) about a universal? a23-a24 (b) or about some one kind or nature? a24-a25 [a rhetorical question: obviously it is not about just some one kind or nature] (2) if there is (a) no other ousia beside the physical, then physics would be the first philosophy, a27-a29 (b) an ousia akinEtos, it is prior, and the first philosophy is of it, and is universal, and concerns on hEi on, being qua being, a29-a32 2. kinds of being, on haplOs, chap ii a. summary list, a33-1026b1 (1) accidental, a34 (2) as truth, a35 (3) the categories, a36-1026b1 (4) potential and actual, b1-b2 b. these four kinds considered one at a time, b2-1028a4 (1) accidental, kata sumbebEkos, b2-b24 (a) there is no theory of them, b2-b5 (b) examples, b6-b24 1) artisans do not consider them, b6-b10 2) geometers do not, b10-b14 3) sophists DO, b14-b24 (continued next week) If you refer back to the Short Outline of the Metaphysics, which I posted at the outset of our reading, you will notice that this book Epsilon (VI) is divided between two major headings of that outline. That was quite arbitrary. You could just as well treat it as all part of the Introductory part, or as all part of the ontologies proper. It is a small matter, perhaps of taste. I rather think now that I would rather treat it as all part of the Introductory, thinking that with the commencement of Book Zeta (VII) we will be on target. However, the important point is the transition from on to ousia, as the object of the first science, metaphysics. In Gamma, i and E, i, on hEi on is identified as this object. Aristotle being who he is, it seems he cannot stop with that. He must refine this notion by placing it in the context of the four kinds of being, three of which he dismisses, one (being as potency and act) from immediate consideration, to address later (in Theta, or IX); the other two (accidental being and being as truth), altogether. His concern is with the being of the categories, and of these, as we will see immediately in Z, i, primarily the being of ousia. All this latter bit is of course recognizable as derived from his treatise, the Categories. This is how we will get from on hEi on to ousia. But we must not lose sight of the fact that, while the name has changed and the context enlarged, the object has not changed. Indeed, both on and ousia are participles of the verb, einai, in the neuter and feminine genders of the nominative case respectively. Little difference there! The inquiry, what is ousia? is an ontology: what is on? what is being? EFL, 7/6/96 EPSILON (VI) METAPHYSICS, chaps. ii, cont. - iv Kinds of being Aristotle has inicated that there are four kinds of being. Here in Epsilon (VI) he discusses and dismisses two of them, accidental being and being as truth. In the following books he will take up the other two kinds, the being of the categories and being as potentiality and actuality. 2. kinds of being, on haplOs, chap. ii ) a. summary list, 1026a33-b1 ) last b. these 4 kinds considered separately, b2- ) (1) accidental being, b2-b24 ) week (a) there is no theory of it, b2-b5 ) (b) examples, b5-b24 ) (c) the nature and cause of the accidental, and why there is no science of it, b24-1027a28 1) it is what happens not always nor for the most part, b27-b33 2) examples, b33-1027a5 3) its cause is accidental, a5-a8 4) it is the complement of necessity, a8-a13 5) matter is the cause of the accidental, a13-a17 (d) there is no science of the accidental, a17-a28 (e) accidental v. necessary causes [chance & necessity] a28-b16, chapter iii 1) if it were not for the accidental, everything would be necessary, a28-a32 2) whether this happens or not, or something else happens is necessary [something must happen], a32-b1 3) one must die, whether from thirst or something else, and if from thirst, from eating something pungent, or not [one dies by necessity, but how, is not necessary] b1-b6 4) in past or future, b6-b10 5) but whether by illness or violence, not at all, but as it happens. There is a first beginning, be what it may [but accident plays a part], b10-b14 6) what sort of a beginning & cause, material, purposive or moving, needs further investigation, b14-b16 It is interesting to see what Aristotle has to say about chance (accident) v. necessity. The above parse is not quite what Ross and Tredennick make of it, and I invite emendations. For those who wish to examine the Greek text, the dialectic that seems to show through it appears to be: todi > todi (necessary), allo > mE [todi] (accidental); thanatos (necessary) v. H Biai H nosOi, E dipsEsEi E allo (accidental), etc. Clearly we must all die, but how we die may be a matter of accident, or perhaps even choice. The problem has little to do with the main thrust of the inquiry here, but is an interesting detail. (2) being as truth, hOs alEthes, chapter iv (a) there is being as truth, and not-being as falsity, in connection and division [of the predications of speech], b17-b25 [an early suggestion of the copulative mode of the verb, to be?] (b) these are in thought, not in things, b25-b28 (c) such being is other than the main kinds, to d'houtOs on heteron on tOn kuriOs, so let us dismiss accidental being and being as truth. Let us investigate the causes and principles of being itself qua being, skepteon de tou ontos autou ta aitia kai tas archas hEi on, b28-1028a4 Thus ends Epsilon (Book VI) and, we may say, the introductory and propaedeutic part of the Metaphysics. What has Aristotle done? He has established multiplicity of meaning, the pollachOs legetai-s, of many terms, especially of BEING. Then he has brought us down to just two of the latter, the being of the categories and being as potentiality and actuality. These are the main objects of his Metaphysics, and he now launches upon them. Book Zeta (VII, next) and Eta (VIII) pursue the being of the categories, after first narrowing the search down to just one category, OUSIA; and Theta (IX), being as potentiality and actuality. These are the heart of Aristotle's ontology and metaphysics. It is a direct heir of the speculations of Plato and Parmenides before him. Aristotle himself substitutes ousia for on. His on hE on, on haplOs is a direct filiation of Plato's ontOs on, auto to on; and this in turn, of Parmenides' estin, nun estin homou pan, hen, suneches (DK VIII, 5- 6). But these are all rarified abstractions, and it is little wonder that they puzzled them, and still puzzle us. EFL, 7/13/96