Anti-platonism

Aristotle (b)

Now this text of Aristotle that we are following was preserved and commented on by Alexander and there are two versions: we are following the first version but the second has this little addition which is enlightening:

So this (toioutos) argument from thinking too does not validly deduce that there are ideas, but (it does validly deduce) that there is something else besides the particulars. Now the universal which is in the particulars (to katholou to en tois kath' hekasta) also fits this (description—i.e. it is something besides particulars), and it does not necessarily introduce an idea.

So note, not an idea but the logic fits the conception of universals – that there is something that is not reducible to sensibles and particulars as such but is in all such in some way. The universal is what is in every sensible and particular of some one thing insofar as they are one thing – thus the Genus in every instance of the species. So, distinct and One if you like but only insofar as it is the one thing in everything – and not then separate and existing despite or without the thing, which is what Aristotle is saying Plato’s Idea is. It's the potential of the thing, which every caused instance is on the way to realising as its true self.

The piece has a little way to go and we’ll get through it but I just want to highlight that Aristotle’s very method of approach is creating something here. It is creating for us a vision of Plato’s forms. Of course we can read everything of Plato and try to see whether this reading of Aristotle accords with it and indeed any number of careers have been spent this way and nothing is conclusive, mainly because Plato refuses to submit in some final form to such readings, which will have to be done on a sort of categorical basis if they are to yield a definitive or final result, and so again the repetition with Aristotelian eyes and the aim of course is to yield some realisable and even practical result, as if this is the end of philosophical enquiry, which would then suggest that philosophy is subject to some end which exceeds it, which would then also be to say there is something that is a priori off limits to philosophy, to its form of thought, and makes it subject.

And of course even to see if Aristotle is right about what Plato says, you will apply a method to the reading. This is natural. But as I say, one of the things we see repeated is Plato’s resistance to any such definition, to any such method. We can legitimately ask, why? Sure, we could say it's a fault of Plato – that he didn’t know what he was on about – inconsistent, contradictory etc. – or we could wonder if it's a virtue of his, built in, insofar as what it does is force new readings, new enquiries; that philosophy continue in its aim and thus that every effort in this way is the manifest form of philosophy, that philosophy has no end but to continue and to thus continue to be not an end but the place of thought.

But we don't have to make this claim yet. It strikes me though that maybe Aristotle is correct when he says Plato is Heraclitean, insofar as Plato wants to continue and not finish? Clearly the end of philosophy is anathema to Plato and in more ways than one. The paradox is that the only way to continue is through the virtue of there being some Form for it, As we’ll see, what Aristotle wants to ultimately say is that Plato furnishes an argument for Universals but not Forms and my point will be that the universal that Aristotle derives here functions as his telos. So let’s keep going.

The Argument from Relatives. There are three types of relation between the Idea, conceived here of course as what is predicated of a plurality and ‘so as to reveal some one nature, it is true of them either

(a) because they are fully (kurios) what is signified by the thing predicated, as when we call Socrates and Plato man;

or (b) because they are likenesses of the true ones, as when we predicate man of pictured (men) (for in their case we reveal the likenesses of man, signifying some same nature in all of them);

or (c) because one of them is the paradigm, the others likenesses, as if we were to call Socrates and the likenesses of him men.’

So, these are straightforward enough: a thing is fully what is its predication; it is like it in some discernible way; a model of it stands for all. Now these are posited without homonym – which is to say, Socrates and Plato while being men – thus that of which they are predicated are not named man as such. Or of man, there is Socrates and Plato, and not of man there is Man or in other words, the Idea of man is not a man, in these arguments.

But what when there is homonymy?  What Aristotle is referring to in this section is the famous example from Plato’s Phaedo, of the Form of equality and of equal sticks and of how even if equal sticks they appear unequal – for example when you put them underwater the perception of them is altered and so looking at them you’d say they were unequal. So it’s possible that equal sticks are made to appear unequal but the unequal itself can never be equal – that's what it is after all. Equality is what it is which is equal.

So Aristotle runs through this in his own fashion, elaborating the argument and delimiting the ways of speaking and categorising the examples used as paradigmatic or as likeness. This is his distinction – paradigm or likeness. Thus the sticks together are the likeness of equality – such that they are equal to each other but being sensibles as such they will also differ vis a vis other sticks – so being equal one time, unequal another by relation. Sticks are relative and can be like or unlike equality. But if there are equal sticks they manifest the likeness of equality.

So what is equal to equality is what he calls a paradigm – like Socrates is paradigmatically a man – thus what a man to be a man qua form would be. He stands in the place of man for all men but is clearly not the Form itself because as Aristotle wants to argue, the Form is separate from that for which it is a Form (or predicate as he says).

So likenesses of equality and paradigm of equality are themselves not equal – not to each other and not the Form either but both are like equality insofar as they are that which stands apparent as it. Which is of course to say ‘that then there is something which is the equal itself and which is fully (equal), in relation to (pros) which, by being likenesses, the things here both come to be and are called equal. And this is an idea, being a paradigm and likenesst of the things that come to be in relation to it.’

Now Aristotle thinks this argument from relatives – the equal sticks argument basically, which Plato repeats with horses as well, as we have sort of seen – does say something about there being Ideas. Or better it aims at a proof. He says the others have only shown us there is something common to whatever is spoken of – that there is for a determined set of things what is in common to them and thus which acts as what holds them together in knowledge and suggest then that what appears does so by reason of its form.

Of course, for Aristotle, this suggestion is the problem because it is never a proof – the common Name is all that can be demonstrated he contends, and not the Idea itself; which is to say, then, that the arguments so far go from the things to the Form and this is the problem. Thus on the basis of derived qualities their commonality is assumed under a name. This shows the dependence of the common on the apparent. This cannot be an Idea. He says: ‘For this (houtos) argument does not, like the ones before it, seem to prove simply (haplos) that there is some common thing besides the particulars, but rather (it seems to prove) that there is some paradigm of the things here which is fully. For this seems to be especially characteristic of the ideas.’

 So note, he says a paradigm of the things: thus not their commonality but what stands as them, which he calls characteristic of the idea. So the Idea, he is saying, has this quality to be an idea – that it stands as the things that are and is none of them as such. But there still seems to be a gap between paradigm and what is fully an Idea – which would be something that didn't rely on something else being fully itself so to speak.

And it’s this last that Aristotle thinks Plato has failed at. Not least because in almost proving the ideas of relatives he has sort of contradicted his sense of Ideas which are not relative. He says: ‘For in their view the ideas subsist in themselves, being, in their view, kinds of substances, whereas relatives have their being in their relation to one another.’ And further, Aristotle says this about these relatives or the relative consequences of the argument by relatives: ‘if the equal is equal to an equal, there will be more than one (pleious) idea of equal. For the equal itself is equal to an equal itself. For if it were not equal to something, it would not be equal at all.’

You can see he is angling for a tautology and a contradiction from it: so the Form equal is equal to what appears as equal. Thus what appears as equal – two sticks, which are equal – is then supposed to be what equality equals. Hence the form is equal to the appearance of equal. So we have different equals and not one, and if different equals then the equal as such is not one. Aristotle claims that Plato makes this his standard: that the idea is itself without genus, thus without connection to what is an instance of it, and thus without any relative which would be, Aristotle says he says, ‘like an appendage.’

Lastly then: the famous third man argument. It goes like this, basically: that if a man is a man because he partakes in the form of man, then a third form would be required to explain how man and the form of man are both man; and of course after this you’d need another and so on and so on ad infinitum. Plato first brings it up in the Parmenides, 132a (it being about what is large) – again it's the young Socrates critiquing the old Parmenides but the aim here is not to have done with the theory of Forms but to deepen it – unlike here, with Aristotle, whose aim is to have done with the theory of forms in favour of what he thinks is provable in this same direction; his theory of universals.

Indeed, in the Parmenides the problem they have is with the distinction between paradigm and likeness and the reason given there for the problem of the third man is this reasoning by likeness, which is what they seek to overcome. I’m not saying they do, not there anyway. So here it is again, a little more extensive:

For if the (man) being predicated is other than the things of which it is predicated [thus man as form of the plurality men ] and subsists on its own (kaf idian huphestos) [thus form as separate ] and (if) the man is predicated both of the particulars and of the idea [so the man of form is both the form man and the predicate of the particulars] and [thus] will be [this] third man besides the particular and the idea. In the same way, there will also be a fourth (man) predicated of this (third man), of the idea, and of the particulars, and similarly also a fifth, and so on to infinity.

It's a bit tricky but there is thus man who is the predicate of all the particulars and the man who is the idea and what is necessary to their non-relation we might even say, is that both be man. But what makes them both man must be another man; a man who is both precisely, a man who is predicate of the plurality and form of man as such. You see this ‘third man’ is what both man as Idea and man as predicate of all particulars share in. Thus the argument is a reduction and it is so no matter the form.

So there are of course ways to avoid the third man argument of Aristotle, which is really the summation argument of all the other critical points. These latter we have passed through are supposed to be the various premises of Plato’s over all argument for the existence of Forms: if you like, all taken together are the proof of forms. But if forms exist under those same premises we hit this contradiction in the shape of the infinite regress because it seems that being two things at once – predicate of a plurality and separate unto itself – require that for the Form to be the same as both requires a third which is this Same. And so on.

Now, we are not interested in the arguments one way or another from here; to disabuse Aristotle or to celebrate what he provokes. The whole point is to show or to see how a Plato can be constructed that can be or must be deconstructed and out of that how another thinking, which by definition cannot be Platonic, can get started and continue on not being what has been constructed as the Plato that must not be what thought is.

Of course, as I have been saying, what Aristotle is after is a theory of forms alright but one that answers to his own determination of what thought must and must not be. So, as we have seen, his own critique of the forms has been dependent on a logical trajectory that must find certain forms of argument to be ruled out relative to that same logical form.

That's to say, if what Plato presents of the forms doesn't stand the test of Aristotle’s logic then those arguments being illogical cannot be arguments for the proof of forms and so if there are forms they must be logically prescribed, which is what Aristotle does.

For example, as one commentator describes it, ‘Aristotle’s work, Prior Analytics, marks the invention of logic as a formal discipline in that the work contains the first virtually complete system of logical inference, sometimes called syllogistic. In requiring that the premises be prior to and more knowable than the conclusion, Aristotle embraces the view that explanation is asymmetrical: knowledge of the conclusion depends on knowledge of each premise, but each premise can be known independently of the conclusion. The premises must also give the causes of the conclusion…’

Thus, what we have here is the beginning of teleology and as I have said this is where the theory of forms become Universals ends up in Aristotle such that what is the same for every being of potential is that in what it does it reflects and predicates its proper end. Thus for all beings there is what is proper to it, and to live well, so to speak, is to do so in conformity to what the ends of such a creature demand. Thus to be an instance at every instant of what is the proper ends of a specific entity is to actualise what is the true form of it. To be the substance of such an end, relative to a particular is the same for every substance: to each entity there is its substantial form. All creatures work toward their end and for each specified existing creature of a genus the end is the same.

Think about this in terms of Causes – thus for example: ‘The material cause of a house, for instance, is the matter (hyle) from which it is built; the moving or efficient cause is the builder, more exactly, the form in the builder’s soul; the formal cause is its plan or form (eidos); and the final cause is its purpose or end (telos): provision of shelter.’

And note here with regard to what Aristotle concentrates his ontological attention upon that although the objects of physics are compounds of both form and matter, physics gives priority to the study of natural form. This accords with the Posterior Analytics’ insistence that ‘explanation proceed through causes that give the essence’ and reflects Aristotle’s commitment to teleology.  

The upshot would be that Aristotle builds a system that in its diverse ways and across its seemingly diverse application – psychology, ethics, analytics, biology, politics, metaphysics etc. etc. – repeats in each of these senses the same logical form and it is this same logical form that is the construction of the Plato he seeks to improve on and move beyond, and thus to move any possible philosophy beyond as well.

Again it’s not about refuting or critiquing Aristotle per se but just showing as best we can how the relation to Plato functions in what we come to know as Platonism or philosophy. Now into the future this Plato of Aristotle and this Aristotle as not that Plato will have the greatest influence.

At base, then, the assumption we get from Aristotle is that Plato imposes his forms which are unproved – not evidence based to use the current ideo-logic – over the top of every possible manifestation. Thus all that exists, exists in conformity. Whereas he, Aristotle, works from the bottom – or nature or phusis, out. Nature manifests what is internally ‘true’ of it; its substance, which is Idea, so to speak, as that which is given, issues in every being insofar as it proceeds toward its end.

Aristotle is liked more than Plato because he offers potential to the subject as freedom from imposition of the Idea: thus he offers an account of man’s place in the world as subject to what it cannot account for and thus free from the horror of having to think oneself into the world as such and thus as in some sense distinct from it. In Aristotle, we are natural through and through in our reason as in everything else. We invent a logic to tell us this in fact, that performing reason is our end; while in Plato we have no such natural place at all and at anytime our place is up for reinvention or re-inscription. Which for him, Plato, would be what is to effect our true form.

Now to finish I want to touch on another aspect of Aristotle’s undermining or overcoming of Plato that has only been touched on but becomes the manifest form of this procedure, down to this day, and that is by validating what he sees as a Socratic version of the forms – so an original version that Plato learns and tries to radicalise, so to speak or concretise beyond their specific context, appearance and content that is beyond their ethical efficacy such that the Forms are what remain over despite the change in the situations of their occurrence and thus their particularity.

For Aristotle who is nothing if not an empiricist – of a sort – the Socratic version is tried and tested in the field, we might say – it’s in actual discourse and supports real arguments for things currently at stake and effective in lived experience and thus doesn't purport to some form of eternity or infinitude.

This is what Aristotle says in the Metaphysics:

But Socrates was concerned with moral questions, and not at all with the whole of nature; he was seeking the universal (katholou)  in moral things and was the first to turn his thought to definitions. Plato agreed with him; but because of [his Heracleitean view that all sensibles (aistheta) are always flowing (rhein) and that there is no knowledge of them he supposed that this (defining) applied to different things (heterori) and not to sensibles—for, he thought, it is impossible for the common definition to be of any of the sensibles, since they are always changing (metaballontori). These sorts of beings, then, he called 'ideas'. (987329-08.)

So it’s very interesting, isn’t it? We already know about the critique of the Ideas but this distinction between Plato and Socrates – which as I said will become a commonplace – is also a critical conceptual weapon as well and not just a historical/biological fact. Thus that it is a biological fact seems to carry conceptual weight, we might say – for an empiricist/biologist it might be too tempting. But note also that Aristotle is implying pretty directly that Plato misunderstood Socrates – which I have to say is a more charitable accusation than some that come later and that indeed still resonate in the 20th century and concern not only philosophical questions – e.g. Vlastos’ claim that Plato via the introduction for the geometric paradigm as he calls it kills off Socratic elenchus or moral philosophy. But it also has political play too: Plato, the model of political tyranny over the Socratic model of Liberal debate.

It’s funny how starting from a false premise leads to all sort of acceptable fallacies isn’t it? That's me ironising – using Aristotle’s logic against him and his lineage. But the point is that this stems from the question of the Forms.

So to continue: the Forms are critical to Plato because he is a Heraclitean – the sensibles are all change etc., and so cannot be known. Thus there must be that outside the sensibles which is not changing for there to be knowledge of them: thus of what the sensibles truly are.

Aristotle says:

Now Socrates was concerned with the moral virtues, and he was the first to seek universal definitions in connection with them . . . It was reasonable for Socrates to try to find what a thing is, because he was seeking to argue deductively, and the starting-point of deductions is what a thing is . . . For there are just two things one might fairly ascribe to Socrates—inductive arguments and universal definitions, both of which are concerned with the starting-point of knowledge. But Socrates did not make universals or definitions (horismous) separate (chorista), but they (the Platonists) separated them, and they called these sorts of beings 'ideas'.

So again, the same move. And again we need to note Aristotle’s starting point – universal definitions. This is his assertion, which he will argue for vis a vis Socrates’ method and make his claims against Plato on the basis of. You can see that Ariatotle also says the starting point for a deduction is with things. This implies that Plato does not start with things and that things are not ideas and indeed the crux of the matter is that things and ideas are radically separate for Plato but that for Socrates, because we start with things actually, then deductively, whatever the thingness of the thing is will necessarily be inseparable from it actually.

Taking this as read, you can see why any empiricist or materialist worth their salt won’t be Platonist but will in some fashion be Aristotelian, especially when it comes to the necessity of thinking universals – the universality of the thing is the very immanence of its particularity and moreover this universality is expressed in every particular such that it defines its end. Something like this.

Again and lastly here, Aristotle says that Plato makes the universality of the particular a separate thing – combines universality and separation or that division is integral to the Forms. He says:

Those who said that the substances were universals combined these things (universality and particularity) in the same thing because they did not make them (the substances) the same as sensibles. They thought that the particulars in sensibles were flowing and that none of them endured, but that the universal is besides (para) these things and is something different (heteron ti) from them. 

So basically, a repetition of what he has said but with the addition that substance as the name or matter of that which endures has been misplaced by Plato to the side of the forms and thus subtracted from the sensibles, which would be its only instance or reality.

A continues:

Socrates motivated this (view), as we were saying before, through definitions; but he did not separate {universals) from particulars. And he was right not to separate them. This is clear from the results. For it is not possible to acquire knowledge without the universal; but separating is the cause of the difficulties arising about the ideas. But they, on the assumption that any substances besides (para) the sensible and flowing ones had to be separate (choristas), had no others, and so they set apart the substances spoken of universally, so that it followed that universal and particular (natures) were virtually the same natures. This in itself, then, would be one difficulty for the view discussed. (io86a32-bi3.)

In essence here, Aristotle is saying Plato has to conflate the universal and the particular because in separating the substance of that which is not the sensible from the sensibles he makes substance a particularity with regard to the sensible and thus he has a particular which is also a universal.

Now again, this is not the place for arguing this out one way or another – I have said a couple of things that suggest that I don't think Aristotle has taken account of everything thinkable here and that the reason he hasn't is that his own premises and method don't allow for it and my suggestion is that this impossibility which is thereby built into philosophy in this way continues on and has wide and deep effect.

Ultimately, assuming that there is something impossible to think and thus having that be the starting point of all possible thought is the Aristotelian legacy and this is all the more visible because this impossible to think is also the end of philosophy, insofar as it is Aristotelian.

Aristotle’s logic is the logic of the knowledge of the impossible to know. But this impossible to know is not a separate realm for Aristotle, precisely because this impossibility is the infinite as such, the realm of pure potential of which the finite and actual are the sensible particulars so to speak. All that exists, in being what it is, is one of the infinite possibilities that being guarantees by not being itself thinkable as such. Where for Plato the Forms alone are thinkable as what there is, for Aristotle, the forms are impossible to think not because they are infinite per se but because the infinite is not thinkable.

Now Plato has no means to think the infinite either in any definitive conceptual way but he never shuts down the possibility that it can come to be thought and indeed he already supposes that for the Forms to be what he supposes this is what will have to happen – that the infinite be thought, which is to say, be itself actual. Aristotle, however, opening up the entire history of philosophy, opts for the evident impossibility of this and invents its supreme logic.