Abstract
In an argument that generates an infinite regress of essences, Aristotle argues that substantial forms are identical with their essences. This might be thought to support basic constituents being identical with their essences. But it can quite naturally be understood to support basic constituents being the same in formula as their essences. Substantial forms are the essences of basic constituents whether basic constituents are individual composites or substantial forms, and a basic constituent is the same in formula as its essence if and only if its essence is its own essences. This way of understanding sameness in Z.6 receives additional support from a sophistical argument about Socrates mentioned near the end of Z.6. Again, individual composites are candidates for basic constituents.
Much of the material in this chapter is based on Dahl (2007).
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Notes
- 1.
Again, the translation is my own.
- 2.
Bonitz excises hippōi (‘of horse’) here. Ross (1924, 179) agrees, presumably because the essence in question is the essence of the essence of horse, not another essence of horse. However, I argue below that if this second essence is the essence of the essence of horse, it is also the essence of horse. So, there is no need to excise hippōi here.
- 3.
Literally, all that is said here is ‘for it is not an accident that one and the essence of one are one’. Code (1985, 130) argues that ‘one’ here as well as subsequent occurrences of ‘one’ should be taken to function as variables ranging over the kinds of things Aristotle is talking about here. My translation follows him in this regard. There are two other ways of understanding these occurrences of ‘one’. The first takes them to refer to the form one or the form unity (Ross 1924, 179) and Bostock (1994, 9). The second takes them to refer to the Platonic Form one-itself, the regress argument picking up its subjects from the Forms argument. However, the regress argument is about substantial species or forms and their essences, things that are the substances of basic constituents. One and unity are not such substances. Also, the argument’s conclusion in (D) shows that the argument is meant to support a general conclusion about things that are primary. So, either the argument is not about Forms or one needs an explanation of how an argument about Forms can support this general conclusion.
- 4.
Also, as Bostock (1994, 113) points out, the occurrence of eti (‘furthermore’) at the beginning of (C) makes better sense if (C) introduces a different point from that made in (A).
- 5.
The alternative would be to take these things to be substantial species understood as matter and form taken universally. But as I argue in Chap. 13, when understood in this way, substantial species are not identical with their essences. Also, I argued in Chap. 9 that one has reason to take a substantial form to be its own essence.
- 6.
As passages that carry this commitment with them, Code cites Z.4 1030a2–12, where Aristotle says that essence belongs to things that are primary and not one thing said of something else, and Z.11 1037a33–b3, where Aristotle says that things that are primary and not one thing said of another are identical with their essences. To these, one might add Z.1 1028a10–15, where Aristotle says that primary being is ‘what it is’ and a ‘this’ (ti esti kai tode ti) and signifies substance, Z.1 1028b32–33, where he says that substance is prior in formula, knowledge, and time; Z.3 1029a20–33, where he says that the composite can be set aside because it is posterior and clear; and Z.13 1038b9–10, where he says that the substance of each thing is idion (peculiar, unique) to it—all of which have been taken to commit Aristotle to take substantial forms to be basic constituents.
- 7.
See Chap. 10, section ‘III. The Argument in (A1)’.
- 8.
In previous chapters, I argued that none of the passages prior to Z.6 cited in Note 6 commit Aristotle to taking substantial species or forms to be basic constituents. In Chap. 13, I argue that Z.11 1037a33–b3 doesn’t carry this commitment with it, and in Chaps. 14, 15, and 16, I argue that neither does Z.13 1038b9–10.
- 9.
A thing’s essence is predicated of it kath’ hauto, and what is predicated kath’ hauto of something in the category of substance is also in the category of substance.
- 10.
Again, this is the first kind of kath’ hauto predication.
- 11.
This explains why I said in Note 2 that hippōi at 1031b20 in the regress argument need not be excised. We now see that this essence of the essence of horse is the essence of horse.
- 12.
This presupposes that Z.11’s recognition of species as matter and form taken universally and the corresponding distinction between species and form provides a reason to revise Z.4’s conclusion to say that it is substantial forms that, strictly speaking and primarily, have essences.
- 13.
See Note 6.
- 14.
- 15.
Scaltsas says,
Again,
Z.6’s target is the identification of a thing with its own nature, … As we shall see, this is required for a substance to be a kath’ hauto entity, namely an entity that is what it is in virtue of itself, rather than in virtue of something different from it and related to it. (1994, 112, italics in the original)
He also says of Aristotle’s maintaining in Z.4 that a thing’s essence is said of it kath’ hauto,
This shows the intimacy between x’s essence and x being an f in virtue of itself. The essence of x is just what x is in virtue of itself. Therefore, distinguishing x from its essence is distinguishing it from itself. (1994, 139, italics in the original)
According to Scaltsas, the only way to mark off a thing’s nature from features that merely characterize the thing is to identify a thing with its nature and essence, and so to take the kind of kath’ hauto predication in which a thing’s nature and essence is predicated of it kath’ hauto to be one in which a thing is predicated of itself.
- 16.
A thing’s essence is predicated of it kath’ hauto in the first kind of kath’ hauto predication. When Aristotle introduces this kind of predication in Post Analytics I.4 73a4–6, one of his examples is a line’s being predicated of triangle kath’ hauto, line thus being predicated kath’ hauto of something other than itself. One might grant this but maintain that Aristotle changed his mind by the time he reaches the regress argument in Z.6. It’s true that I argued in Chap. 8 that the essences of things Z.4 takes to have essences strictly speaking and primarily, are predicated of these things kath’ hauto simply in virtue of themselves, something that makes these things identical with their essences. Scaltsas might then be taken to have focused on this sub-species of kath’ hauto predication. But the essences of things that have essences secondarily and derivatively are also predicated of them kath’ hauto, and they are not identical with their essences. So, at least through Z.4, Aristotle hasn’t changed his mind about kath’ hauto predication. Furthermore, given the interpretation of the regress argument I have offered, one can understand how Aristotle can argue there that substantial forms are identical with their essences without having to take him to have adopted Scaltsas’ more restricted form of kath’ hauto predication.
- 17.
See Note 8.
- 18.
This differs from the way in which I said in Dahl (2007) that the regress argument supports the conclusion that basic constituents are the same in formula as their essences. There, I said that the argument from Forms’ argument from detachment supports the first part of what it is for basic constituents to be the same in formula as their essences (that the essences of their kind of basic constituents are their actual essences) and that the regress argument supports the second part of what is needed for basic constituents to be the same in formula as their essences (that the essences of their kind are their own actual essences). It follows from these two considerations that basic constituents are the same in formula as their essences. Here, I set out a more direct way in which the regress argument supports this conclusion. Since substantial forms are the essences of basic constituents whether basic constituents turn out to be individual composites or substantial forms and since substantial forms are their own essences, basic constituents are the same in formula as their essences if and only if their essences, substantial forms, are their own essences Since the regress argument argues that substantial forms are their own essences, it follows from it that basic constituents are the same in formula as their essences.
- 19.
Ross (1924, 179–180) suggests that this is what lies behind the sophistical arguments Aristotle has in mind here.
- 20.
Ross (1924, 179) considers this as one way of understanding why Socrates might be thought to be the same and not the same as his essence.
- 21.
Recall that according to Z.4–5, essences are universals.
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Dahl, N.O. (2019). Z.6 and the Regress Argument. In: Substance in Aristotle's Metaphysics Zeta. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22161-4_11
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