Category Archives: Platonism

Four Causes of Substance and Plato’s Forms

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By the time we are nearly to the end of Metaphysics Lambda 3, Aristotle, perhaps surprisingly, announces that the preceding has been in some way a rebuke of Platonic Forms.  Aristotle says,

Hence Plato was not far wrong in saying that there are as many Forms as there are kinds of natural objects; that is if there are Forms distinct from the things of our world (Metaphysics 1070a18-19, trans. Hugh Tredennick). (1) 

Along with other implications I take this to mean that, if there are even such (implausible) entities as Plato’s Forms, the most likely candidates for them would be Forms of natural objects, not Forms of Pez dispensers and shoeboxes.

One important observation to take away from this, which we will return to, is that Aristotle takes Plato to be asserting that Forms are causes of substances in some sense.  This is shown by his following remark that asserts a distinction between moving and formal causes, a sentence which translators often choose erroneously to set off as a new paragraph.

Moving causes are causes in the sense of preexistent things, but formal causes coexist with their effects. For it is when the man becomes healthy that health exists, and the shape of the bronze sphere comes into being simultaneously with the bronze sphere (1070a21-24 trans. Tredennick). (2)

Aristotle here is saying something about the causal nature of forms, whether his or Plato’s, namely that they are coterminous with their effects.  I take this to be a logical and not merely chronological relation.  More generally, however, Aristotle has already introduced the notion of how different substances come to be,

We must next observe that every substance is generated from something which has the same name (“substances” including not only natural but all other products).  Things are generated either by art or by nature or by chance or spontaneously. Art is a generative principle in something else; nature is a generative principle in the subject itself (for man begets man); the other causes [i.e. chance and spontaneity] are privations of these (1070a4-a9 trans. Tredennick). (3)

So Aristotle has made the point that forms come about at the same time (ἅμα) as their effects, and here he presumably sets out four causes of substances that are exhaustive, and mutually exclusive.

Of these four causes of art, nature, chance, spontaneity, I take it that Plato, wishing to maintain that Forms are a cause of substance would deny that they bring about substance by chance or spontaneity.  This leaves nature and art as the kinds of causes for Forms.  And as can be gleaned from all of chapter 3, Plato wants to uphold the idea that Forms are transcendent, or to put it less loftily, they are not immanent within their substance, as Aristotle would have it.  Yet this would preclude Forms from being a natural cause, for “nature is a generative principle in the subject itself (for man begets man).”  This, of course, would play into Aristotle’s preferred definition of form.  This leaves art alone as the candidate cause for Forms.  I do not see an argument here directly addressed to this possibilty, but Aristotle does say that, “In some cases the individuality does not exist apart from the composite substance (e.g., the form of a house does not exist separately, except as the art of building” (1070a13-15 trans. Tredennick) (4).  This would seem to grant the desire to Plato to have his Forms aloof from the present world, but at a cost of making them merely instrumental, and worse perhaps, dependent on something else to initiate the causality, a craftsman.  This possibility, however, was dissolved when Aristotle said that a formal cause operates simultaneously with its effect, therefore a form cannot be an art.  

REFERENCES:

(1) διὸ δὴ οὐ κακῶς Πλάτων ἔφη ὅτι εἴδη ἐστὶν ὁπόσα φύσει, εἴπερ ἔστιν εἴδη ἄλλα τούτων.

(2) Τὰ μὲν οὖν κινοῦντα αἴτια ὡς προγεγενημένα ὄντα, τὰ δ᾿ ὡς ὁ λόγος ἅμα. ὅτε γὰρ ὑγιαίνει ὁ ἄνθρωπος, τότε καὶ ἡ ὑγίεια ἔστιν, καὶ τὸ σχῆμα τῆς χαλκῆς σφαίρας ἅμα καὶ ἡ χαλκῆ σφαῖρα.

(3) Μετὰ ταῦτα ὅτι ἑκάστη ἐκ συνωνύμου γίγνεται οὐσία· τὰ γὰρ φύσει οὐσίαι καὶ τἆλλα· ἢ γὰρ τέχνῃ ἢ φύσει γίγνεται ἢ τύχῃ ἢ τῷ αὐτομάτῳ. ἡ μὲν οὖν τέχνη ἀρχὴ ἐν ἄλλῳ, ἡ δὲ φύσις ἀρχὴ ἐν αὐτῷ (ἄνθρωπος γὰρ ἄνθρωπον γεννᾷ), αἱ δὲ λοιπαὶ αἰτίαι στερήσεις τούτων.

(4) ἐπὶ μὲν οὖν τινῶν τὸ τόδε τι οὐκ ἔστι παρὰ τὴν συνθέτην οὐσίαν (οἷον οἰκίας τὸ εἶδος, εἰ μὴ ἡ τέχνη·

Form as Neither Art nor External

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I have already, with much frustration, attempted to make sense of the beginning of Lamda 3.  In light of the rest of the remaining parts of the chapter, it strikes me that there is a possibility that Aristotle had some Third Man-ish worries in mind.  But, be that as it may or may not be, there is undeniably an assault on the Theory of the Forms here. 

In conjunction with his opening statement that there must be 1) a subject 2) a form 3) an initial mover, Aristotle says we must next,

“observe that every substance is generated from something which has the same name (“substances” including not only natural but all other products). Things are generated either by art or by nature or by chance or spontaneously. Art is a generative principle in something else; nature is a generative principle in the subject itself (for man begets man); the other causes are privations of these” (1070a4-10 trans. Treddenick) (1).

Aristotle continues on with an explication of form, matter and the hylomorphic compound consisting of form and matter.  Then he notes,

“Moving causes are causes in the sense of preexistent things, but formal causes coexist with their effects. For it is when the man becomes healthy that health exists, and the shape of the bronze sphere comes into being simultaneously with the bronze sphere”  (1070a21-24 trans. Treddenick) (2).

He concludes by referencing his aphoristic “man begets man” from earlier in the chapter and says,

“Clearly then there is no need on these grounds for the Ideas to exist; for man begets man, the individual begetting the particular person. And the same is true of the arts, for the art of medicine is the formula of health”  (1070a26-30 trans. Treddenick) (3).

Aristotle it appears, is using nature, form, and account interchangeably in this chapter, for at least one important reason: to emphasize that form is a “generative principle in the subject itself,” and does not arise from outside itself.  This claim is already at odds with Plato’s concept of Form, and “man begets man” is evidently a common sense vindication of how things come to be, from which there is no deviation.  Indeed figs don’t come from thistles.

Plato dismisses Aristotle’s dictum that, “formal causes coexist with their effects,” i.e., they come to be at the same time (ἅμα).  Plato instead maintains that forms precede their effects, and that, returning us to the beginning of the chapter, conflates the form and the initial mover.  Thus, instead of  1) a subject 2) a form 3) an initial mover, there is 1) a subject and 2) a form/initial mover.  If a form is an external force, as it would have to be on Plato’s view, then by Aristotle’s understanding above (“Art is a generative principle in something else”) this would make a form an art.  But Plato’s concept of form is clearly not an art, so either form has some other definition or there are no forms.

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Notes:

(1)
Μετὰ ταῦτα ὅτι ἑκάστη ἐκ συνωνύμου γίγνεται οὐσία· τὰ γὰρ φύσει οὐσίαι καὶ τἆλλα· ἢ γὰρ τέχνῃ ἢ φύσει γίγνεται ἢ τύχῃ ἢ τῷ αὐτομάτῳ. ἡ μὲν οὖν τέχνη ἀρχὴ ἐν ἄλλῳ, ἡ δὲ φύσις ἀρχὴ ἐν αὐτῷ (ἄνθρωπος γὰρ ἄνθρωπον γεννᾷ), αἱ δὲ λοιπαὶ αἰτίαι στερήσεις τούτων.

(2)
Τὰ μὲν οὖν κινοῦντα αἴτια ὡς προγεγενημένα ὄντα, τὰ δ᾿ ὡς ὁ λόγος ἅμα. ὅτε γὰρ ὑγιαίνει ὁ ἄνθρωπος, τότε καὶ ἡ ὑγίεια ἔστιν, καὶ τὸ σχῆμα τῆς χαλκῆς σφαίρας ἅμα καὶ ἡ χαλκῆ σφαῖρα.

(3)
φανερὸν δὴ ὅτι οὐδὲν δεῖ διά γε ταῦτ᾿ εἶναι τὰς ἰδέας· ἄνθρωπος γὰρ ἄνθρωπον γεννᾷ, ὁ καθ᾿ ἕκαστον τὸν τινά. ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν τεχνῶν· ἡ γὰρ ἰατρικὴ τέχνη ὁ λόγος τῆς ὑγιείας ἐστί.

What is the “Nature” of the Philosopher in the Republic?

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In Book VI of the Republic a grocery list of the desirable traits to be found in a philosopher are described by Socrates.  The list of virtues is long and encompassing: a love of learning of things that are (485b), no taste for falsehood (485c), a concern with the pleasures of the soul, not the body (485d), being moderate and not a lover of money (485e), not given to petty speech (smikrologia) (486a), believing that death is no great evil (486b), being “just and tame not hard to get along with and savage” (486b), learning easily (486c), has a good memory (486c), has measure and charm (486d).

Equally prominent in this discussion of what the virtues are is the continual emphasis that  Socrates places on nature.  We are left to puzzle about what the definition of “nature” is here, a term frequently and problematically employed in philosophical contexts.  The traits listed above are somehow desirable in the philosopher only if they are present by nature.  However, there is little discussion of what nature is, and what we are left with is a view of nature that consists in little more than whatever inborn proclivities one happens to have, as is exemplified in this statement about a man erotic by nature, “It’s not only likely, my friend, but also entirely necessary that a man who is by nature erotically disposed toward someone care for everything related and akin to his boy” (485c). 

This explanation of nature is further corroborated by the foreshadowing of the philosopher first seen in Book II.  There, Socrates and Glaucon agreed that they were looking for a chimerical kind of guardian, one who is, “at the same time gentle and great-spirited.  Surely a gentle nature is opposed to a spirited one”  (375c).  When they deliberate further upon this discovery, Socrates and Glaucon despair, since the combination of two opposed traits would appear to be a contradiction.  However, soon Socrates realizes that, “You know, of course, that by nature the disposition of noble dogs is to be as gentle as can be with their familiars and people they know and the opposite with those they don’t know”  (373d).  The explication of this “noble dog,” analogous to the philosopher, is telling, because it will inform us not only about Plato’s conception of nature here, but by extension the nature of the philosopher.  Socrates explanation of the dog’s behavior is not in terms of training, but something rather more inborn: “When it sees someone it doesn’t know, it’s angry, although it never had any bad experience with him.  And when it sees someone it knows, it greets him warmly, even if it never had a good experience with him”  (376a).  Thus it is not by training that the dog has learned to embody a composite of two opposed traits, for this would be impossible.  Furthermore, as Socrates analysis makes clear, the dog’s nature makes it immune to any training by experience which it could have undergone.  It is friendly to its owner by nature, and hateful to strangers by nature despite any exposure intentional or unintentional which could train the dog to behave in exactly the opposite way.  Thus when we are told that the philosopher is to hold certain traits by nature, this is to say that he should be possessed of these traits from birth, which manifest themselves in a disposition that easily expresses them.

Note: All translations from Allan Bloom, The Republic of Plato.