Abstract
Z.6 argues that kath’ hauto legomena, including basic constituents, are the same as their essences but kata sumbebēkos legomena are not. Sameness here is important. If it is identity, Aristotle is committed to substantial forms as basic constituents. If it is the weaker sameness in formula, individual composites are also candidates for basic constituents. Using a pale man as his example of a kata sumbebēkos legomena, Aristotle offers two arguments that a pale man is not the same as its essence, both of which he recognizes are fallacious. An investigation of the details of what he says supports taking sameness in the pale man argument to be sameness in formula, and so to leave individual composites as candidates for basic constituents.
The material in this chapter is based largely on Dahl (1997, 1999). However, there are differences between what is said here and what was said in those articles.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
There is a view that would make this investigation unnecessary. According to it, things are not identical to their essence. (See Charles (2011) for a more detailed statement of this view.) It takes the standard and proper way to speak about essences to be in terms of being a certain kind rather than simply a kind (e.g., ‘being you’ (to soi eina), as the essence of you (Z.4 1029b14–15), ‘being pale’ (to leuko einai) as the essence of pale (Z.4 1029b17–22), and ‘being ice’ (to krustallē einai) as the essence of ice (H.2 1042b27–28)). Indeed, taking man to be identical with being a man is similar to a category mistake. Also, a thing’s essence is the cause of its being, where the cause of a thing’s being is prior to that thing. If a thing were identical with its essence, it would be prior to itself, which is impossible.
However, doubts arise for this view. Although Aristotle speaks about essences in terms of being a certain kind, he also speaks of them simply as kinds. According to Z.4 1030a6–7, a definition is the formula of an essence and when Aristotle considers candidates for definitions, he often uses expression that refer simply to kinds (e.g. ‘pale’ as a candidate for the definition of cloak (Z.4 1029b3–4), ‘concave nose’ as a candidate for the definition of snub (Z.5 1030b28–1031a10), and ‘two-footed animal’ as a candidate for the definition of man (Z.15 1040a14–17)). Furthermore, essences are. So, they have essences. But if things are identical with their essences, then a thing’s essence won’t be identical with its essence, the latter essence won’t be identical with its essence, and so on ad infinitum). (Lewis 2013a, Appendix) also raises this regress for the view. To block it, one needs to grant that some things are identical with their essences—with the likeliest candidates being substantial species or forms since it follows from Z.4’s claim that, strictly speaking, only they have and are essences, that they are their own essences. Indeed, if they weren’t identical to their essences, something else would be primary when it comes to essences (their essences, or the essences of their essences, or…?), whereas Z.4 says that it is substantial species or forms that are primary with respect to essences. Besides, as we shall see, the sameness relation in Z.6 requires that essences have essences and that the essences of things that are the same as their essences are their own essences.
Finally, I want to provide the strongest possible argument for the conclusion I will be arguing for that I can. Taking substantial species or forms to be identical with their essences will help me do that.
- 4.
A kath’ hauto legomenon that is a substance is the same (tauto) as its essence (1031a28–29); a substance and its essence are one (hen) (1031b11 –12); and the substances that are the focus of the regress argument are one and the same (to auto kai hen) as their essences (1032a4–6). It is also important to keep in mind that Z.6’s overall conclusion is that kath’ hauta legoamoena are the same as their essences, including items in categories other than substance—for example, the quality pale (1031b22–28).
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
See Meta Δ.6 1015b31–33, 1016b8–9, Δ.9 1017b27–32, 1018a4–7. Physics I.2 185b8–9, Topics I.7 103a23–32.
- 8.
See Meta Δ.6 1015b16–17, 1016b8–9, Δ.9 1017b27–32, 1018a4–7, Physics 185b8–9, Topics 103a23–32.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
See, for example, Frede and Patzig (1988, text and translation, commentary, 90–91).
- 12.
Unless otherwise specified, the translations in this chapter are my own.
- 13.
The foregoing is essentially the way Ross (1924, 175–177) understands (B). Bostock (1994, 104–106) understands it differently, translating (B) as:
Or is there no necessity that things that are coincidentally [the same] should be the same? For it is not in this way [namely coincidentally] that the extreme terms become the same. (1994, 8, bracketed remarks Bostock’s)
He takes the extreme terms mentioned here to be those in the inference to (5) and takes argument I to fail because the things (2) says are the same are not the same in the sense needed for (5) to follow.
(5) would follow from (1) and (2) if (2) said that a man is the same in formula (and number) as a pale man; and (2) would then be false. But if (2) says that a man is accidentally the same as a pale man, the inference from (1) and (2) to (3) commits the fallacy of accident. Furthermore, (5) won’t follow from (1) and (2) without (3) and (4). But then the extreme terms in the inference to (5) are the same as their middle term in the same way, contrary to what (B) says. So, it is the inference from (1) and (2) to (3) that (B) calls into question.
- 14.
The inference from (7) to (8) is likely the same kind of inference Aristotle drew in Z.4 1029b21–22, where he said that if being a pale surface and being a smooth surface are the same, then being pale and being smooth are the same.
- 15.
Frede and Patzig (1988, commentary, 91) and Furth (1984, 12) understand (C) along the lines of (C1). They offer a slightly different reconstruction of the argument suggested by (C1). However, it is no improvement over the argument in (A). Indeed, it commits the fallacy of accident twice rather than once.
- 16.
It can be reconstructed as follows:
IIB
-
(1)
A pale thing is the same in formula (and number) as the essence of a pale thing. [Supposition]
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(2)
A pale thing is accidentally the same as a musical thing. [As it happens]
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(3)
Therefore, a musical thing is accidentally the same as the essence of a pale thing. [From (1) and (2)]
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(4)
A musical thing is the same in formula (and number) as the essence of a musical thing. [Granted by anyone who would grant (1)]
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(5)
Therefore, the essence of a pale thing is accidentally the same as the essence of a musical thing. [From (3) and (4)]
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(6)
Therefore, the essence of pale is accidentally the same as the essence of musical. [From (5)]
-
(1)
- 17.
There are two other ways of understanding ‘But it seems not’ in (D). the first takes it to refer to the extreme terms Aristotle has been talking about—either those in the argument alluded to in (C), the essence of pale and the essence of musical, or those in (A), the essence of pale and the essence of man. Aristotle is then saying that these extreme terms are not accidentally the same (Bostock 1994, 106). The second takes (D) to be talking about the argument suggested by (C2), saying that, in spite of appearances, that argument isn’t valid.
With respect to the first of these ways, ‘But it seems not’ seems too tentative a remark to make the rather obvious point that the essence of pale and the essence of musical are not accidentally the same or that the essence of pale and the essence of man are not accidentally the same With respect to the second, one has as much reason to think that the argument (C2) suggests is valid as one has to think that the version of the argument in (A) suggested by (C2) is valid. So, if ‘But it seems not’ is meant to say that the argument suggested by (C2) isn’t valid, it should also be taken to say that IB isn’t valid—just what I have taken it to say.
- 18.
Someone who accepts the text and translation of 1031b22–28 adopted by Furth (1984) might reject the way I have characterized the relation between (A)–(D) and 1031b22–28. Given that text and translation, one might think that, in 1031b22–28, Aristotle not only reaffirms the conclusion of the pale man argument, he also endorses (A)’s argument for it. Furth translates 1031b22–28 as follows:
…but what is said per accidens, like musical or pale, owing to its have a double signification it is not true to say that it and the essence are the same, indeed, both that on which pale supervenes [accidit] and the supervener [accident] [are called pale], so that in one way it [pale] and the essence are the same and in another not the same, for the essence of man and the essence of pale men [sic] are not the same, but it [pale] is the same as the essence of the affliction [pale]. (1984, 12–13, except for [sic]; bracketed remarks and italics are in the original)
Someone might take the reference to the essence of man and the essence of a pale near the end of this passage to refer to and endorse the argument in (A).
However, such a person is faced with the\task of explaining what Aristotle says in (B) about the argument in (A). It is not clear what this explanation would be. Second, as Cohen (1988, 312–313) points out, in all but one manuscript, the text at 1031b27–28 reads, ‘tōi men gar anthrōpōi kai tōi leukōi anthrōpōi ou auto, tōi pathei de tauto’. One manuscript has to (nominative) in place of the second tōi (dative), and Alexander reads to for the first tōi. Furth appears to follow Alexander, taking to anthrōpōi and to leukōi anthrōpōi to be shorthand versions of Aristotle’s standard way of referring to essences (e.g., to anthrōpōi einai). But as Cohen says,
If we follow the manuscript tradition, we must take the implied subject to be the to ti ēn einai of the previous clause and the dative to be governed by tauto, the kai, I would suggest, is epexegetic. The line then reads, “For it [sc.the essence of pale] is not the same as the man, i.e., the pale man, but it is the same as the attribute [pallor].” (1988, 313, bracketed remarks in the original)
Understood in this way, there is no reference to and no endorsement of the argument in (A).
Thus, in 1031b22–28, Aristotle endorses the conclusion of the pale man argument and in the interim he has provided no additional support for it.
- 19.
Frank Lewis is one such person. Speaking of the arguments Aristotle recognizes are fallacious, he says,
The milk is well and truly spilt; and as I see it, Aristotle acknowledges that the arguments are bad, and then simply moves on. (2013b, 143)
Still, one would want to know why Aristotle thinks he is entitled to conclude that a pale man is not the same as its essence. I come back to this in sections ‘VII. Sameness in the Pale Man Argument’ and ‘VIII. Objections’.
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
I should inject a word of caution here. It is doubtful that Aristotle’s requirement that two things be the same in formula and number is exactly the same as the claim that two co-referential terms are synonymous, and so have the same meaning and definition. That is why I said this first diagnosis of the fallacy of accident anticipates something like referential opacity. Still, taking some instances of this fallacy to involve referential opacity makes it easier to understand this way of diagnosing the fallacy. So, I shall continue to speak in this way.
- 23.
- 24.
Sandra Peterson pointed out to me that it might be thought that the argument I have just given commits the fallacy of accident, and so is unacceptable on its own grounds. That argument points out that a man is not the same in formula as the essence of a pale man, notes that a pale man is a man who happens to be pale, and concludes that a pale man is not the same as its essence. But if ‘is the same as the essence of a legomenon’ introduces a referentially opaque context, why doesn’t this argument result from substituting one co-referential term, ‘a man’, for another, ‘a pale man’ in a referentially opaque context?
One can see that it does not from the following reconstruction of the argument, where expressions that occur in referentially opaque contexts are italicized.
-
(1)
A man is not the same in formula as the essence of a pale man.
-
(2)
A man is accidentally the same as a pale man.
-
(3)
Therefore, a pale man is not the same in formula as the essence of a pale man.
(3) results from replacing ‘man’ in a referentially transparent context in (1) by the co-referential term ‘a pale man’ in a referentially transparent context in (2).
-
(1)
- 25.
I offer additional reasons in section ‘VII. Sameness in the Pale Man Argument’.
- 26.
Strictly speaking, we have only seen this is true if (C1) is the way to understand (C). But we shall see that it also holds if one accepts (C2) as the way to understand (C). According to (C2), I is the first of two arguments that Aristotle sets out in (A)–(D) and says are fallacious. Accepting the intensional diagnosis of the fallacy of accident in this argument provides the first part of an explanation of why recognizing that the arguments offered in (A)–(D) are fallacious allows one to see that their conclusion is true. I provide the second part in section ‘VII. Sameness in the Pale Man Argument’. It also takes a pale man to be a man who happens to be pale, and so seems committed to the intensional diagnosis of the fallacy of accident in the arguments appealed to in (A)–(D).
- 27.
This is not to say that someone who accepts the extensional diagnosis of the fallacy of accident in the pale man argument and takes sameness in that argument to be identity couldn’t provide a reason why, in spites of the fallacies there, a pale man is not the same as its essence. For example, a pale man is particular and its essence is universal. So, it is not identical with its essence. But this just raises the puzzle surrounding the pale man argument in a new way. Why would Aristotle set out two arguments in support of the conclusion that a pale man is not the same as his essence and point out that they are fallacious when he had this more direct argument at hand?
- 28.
Even Lewis, an advocate of the extensional diagnosis of the fallacy of accident, appears to grant that 1031a22–28 can be understood in this way—saying that it either shows that Aristotle doesn’t always take an expression like ‘a pale (one)’ to be an accidental compound or shows that Aristotle is speaking loosely here (Lewis 1982, 30, n11, 1991, 101, n27).
- 29.
As I pointed out in Chap. 8, particular forms are not on the scene at this point in Z, so essences here are universal essences. Furthermore, as I shall indicate in Chap. 13, even when particular forms are on the scene, it could be that a particular form’s essence is the essence of the universal form it falls under. So, even if a particular pale man had a particular form, its essence could still be universal. Finally, even if a particular pale man had a particular form as its essence, and so had a particular essence, he still wouldn’t be identical with his essence because he would have matter that his particular essence lacks.
- 30.
See, for example, Jaeger (1957, 135).
- 31.
Also, as I pointed out in Note 29, even if particular legomena had particular forms as their essences, they still wouldn’t be identical with their essences because they would have matter that their particular essences lack.
- 32.
Indeed, I argued in Chap. 3 that the Categories endorses such a form of essentialism.
- 33.
Or a pale man has matter that its essence lacks.
- 34.
For a further discussion of this sophistical argument and its relevance for understanding Z.6’s sameness relation, see Chap. 11, section ‘VII. Additional Support’.
- 35.
For example, it seems to occur in De Anima 412a7–9, where Aristotle says that the form of an individual substance makes that substance a ‘this’ and so an individual.
- 36.
See Chap. 5, section ‘II. The Science of Being qua Being’.
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Dahl, N.O. (2019). Z.6 and the Pale Man Argument. In: Substance in Aristotle's Metaphysics Zeta. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22161-4_9
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