PHI 162: “Aristotle’s Solution to the Science of Being qua Being”

Jolene Patricia Brown

Dr. M. Wedin

PHI 162: Aristotle

25 May 2010

Aristotle’s Solution to the Science of Being qua Being

In contrast to his claim in the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle makes a case for a science of “being qua being,” stipulating that is a science to investigate the forms of all other sciences, and the forms of those forms (1003b.20-23). This claim is counter that made in the Posterior Analytics where he makes an argument against the idea that a science would be able to capture all genus as a form of study: to simultaneously study what “is” in all forms of matter would be impossible, and instead there are specific sciences that break down all the genus of things into categories; it is those categories taken together that make the whole of being. For example, there is “a man” and a man is made up of all different qualities and quantities that come together to make up the whole of the form of a man; a man has two arms, two legs, a head, a brain, a capacity to reason; he has certain qualities that differentiate him from other mammals and other qualities that differentiate him from other men. A man is a sum of all the qualities he has, and each of those qualities, Aristotle argues in the Posterior Analytics, is part of a separate genus, or science. A man himself is only a culmination of different forms and materials that come together as “a man.”

In the Metaphysics however, he seems to reverse his claim, and instead chooses to argue for a science that encompasses what he calls “being qua being” that encompasses all other sciences as well as forms and matter. The problem of a science of being, as Aristotle describes it, is that it is completely counter to what he describes in his Posterior Analytics; the idea that there is one universal that covers all other universals would only serve to inflate the problem of infinite regress of cause. He begins Posterior Analytics with the claim that “All teaching an all intellectual learning come from already existing knowledge” (71a.1). This claim, and others he makes about the existence of knowledge, led to a problem of infinite regress that is not altogether explained: if all knowledge is based on already existing knowledge, then one must continue going back to find the causes of all knowledge thereby becoming circular or impossible. By claiming that there is a science of being he asserts that by studying being qua being one can understand these causes without succumbing to the infinite regress that he postulates in the Posterior Analytics.

There are two solutions to the Aristotle’s problem of the science of being. First, he distinguishes between what it is to be a substance and what it is to be a non-substance. He postulates this at 1003b.16-20: “In every case the fundamental concern of a discipline is with its primary object…So if this thing is substance, the philosopher will need to have the principles and causes of substances.” It is the philosopher who studies substances, in relation to substances being the primary object of being, since it is substances that encompass the categories which make up being. What Aristotle puts forth as evidence of this is in regards to affirmations and negations of things: namely oppositions in the form of contrarieties.

Practically everyone agrees that the things-that-are, and substance, are composed out of contraries: at any rate, everyone describes the origins of things as contraries… It is therefore obvious from this too that it falls to one discipline to study that which is qua thing-that-is. For all things either are or are made up of contraries, and contraries originate in the one and plurality. (1004b.29-1005a.5)

To make a claim about an object is, simultaneously, to make a claim about what it is not. Take, for example, to say a man is sitting: by claiming that the man is sitting you are also claiming that he is not standing, since one cannot both stand and sit at the same time. The same can be said of qualities since to claim that all men are mortal is to simultaneously claim that there is not a man who is immortal: the claims are simultaneous of one another but contrary in that they supply information about a substance.

Furthermore, substances have the capacity to change, which is unique among the disciplines. A man who is sitting has the ability (at least under normal conditions as long as he does not suffer from bodily injury that prohibits him otherwise) to stand; a horse that is white might have offspring that are all black, and indeed there are horses who are of many colors and yet despite the color differences they are still considered “horses.” This ability to change is different from other disciplines, such as mathematics, in which stay constant and reliable regardless of the situation. An example of this would be an arithmetical example such as 2 + 2 = 4; this equality is true in any sense, and does not change. The numbers themselves are not substances and cannot, therefore, have qualities like substances such as “white,” or “sitting,” or “in such and such scenario.” Those qualities would be irrelevant for mathematics otherwise 2 + 2 would equal different things under different “qualities” but it is clear that numbers and arithmetic are not subject to claims of quality.

His second solution to the science of being he equates the science of being with the study of the origins of things:

…we shall find other things called what they are in ways similar to these: just so that which is may also be so called in several ways, but all with reference to on origin…For it falls to one discipline to study not only things called what they are by virtue of one thing, but also things called what they are with reference to one nature… Plainly, therefore, it also falls to one discipline to study the things that are qua things-that-are. (1003b.5-7 and 1003b.11-17)

To study being qua being is to study the origins of all that is such that substances are those things that encompass the categories that Aristotle is so interested in. Much like in Posterior Analytics when he says that “All teaching and all intellectual learning come from already existing knowledge” (71a.1) he begins the Metaphysics by explaining that experiences make up the “memories of the same thing [producing]…the capacity for a single experience” (980a.25). It is then, Aristotle argues, through experiences that man can know something, and the combination of experiences combine—much like the qualities that make up substances—to create memories and, ultimately, more knowledge. Substances work the same way, for the combination of qualities make up substances, such as man, horse, table and those things we know to be substances are known through experience. Those experiences are combined to form memories and humans in particular have the capacity to reason with those memories, which is yet another quality that distinguishes the substance “man” from other substances, like “animal.”