Being qua Being - Aristotles Metaphysics

Aristotles description of First Philosophy as an inquiry

into being qua being needs some explanation.
Each of the special theoretical sciences, such as Physics,
Astronomy or Mathematics, he says, are based on what he
calls First Principles which define the kinds of things
studied in that science.
The first principles of First Philosophy will define Being,
but not being under any special description. They will
define Being simply as Being, or what it is to be.
Aristotle is asking the question What are the basic types of
entities that are in the world?" What really exists?" What
is that which is?
Aristotle challenges Plato, according to whom, we must
include Forms as either constituting or as, included among
such basic existents. Aristotles own preferred and central
thesis is that ousiae, in the sense of primary substances, or
entities undergoing various types of change, constitute the
basic entities of the world and are the primary existents.
Being is said in many ways, Aristotle remarks. He urges
us to take note of the variety of ways in which different
kinds of predicates carry some clues to the different ways
of being, of the senses of to be.

One way in which Aristotle arrived at his list of categories

as marking this variety is by considering the ways in which
we may group the answers to questions that constitute the
information or descriptions given by such answers about
some individual thing or person.
Take such sentences as
Socrates is a man
Socrates is five feet tall
Socrates is white
Socrates is the husband of Xantippe
Socrates is in the marketplace
Socrates is alive today
Socrates is sitting
Socrates is healthy
Socrates is running
Socrates is poisoned
These are ten examples of the basic types of sentences
Aristotle has in mind in constructing First Philosophy.
They all have to do with an individual subject and in each
case a different predicate is asserted of the subject, the
person Socrates. Sentences such as these give a sense of
the varieties of predication and give clues to what it means
to be.
Yet being does not have as many meanings as the vast
number of different possible predicates of a subject.

This plurality can be simplified into basic types or sets of

predicates. These he calls categories. He presents ten
such categories.
Substance
Quantity
Quality
Relation
Place
Time
Position
Condition
Action
Passion
If we asked Aristotle the most general question of all,
What is there? his reply would be Everything. Shoes,
trees, rainbows, colors, triangles, courage, obligations,
minutes, sneezes, jumps, inches, numbers, illusions, souls - and so on. All exist and each exists just as much as any of
the others exist. But they exist or have being in different
ways. There are ten such ways of being and the categories
present these ten ways of being.
All but the first (Substance) are dependent ways of being.
In the category of quantity, for example, there is the
number seven, but items in the category of quantity, like
numbers, are not independent things in their own right as
Plato supposed them to be.

There is no number seven all by itself; there are only the

seven muses, the seven samurai, the seven buttons on my
shirt, and so on. So we can say the number seven exists in
the sense that this number is a quantitative characteristic of
certain groups. It exists but only insofar as the groups exist.
Aristotle says that the distinction between dependent being
and independent being is marked by the difference between
two types of predication.
1) ..... is____ predication
2) ..... is a _____ predication
Aristotle marks the difference between predications of type
(1) and predications of type (2) by referring to the type (1)
predications as representing something being present in a
subject and by referring to type (2) predications as
representing something being predicable of a subject.
Of those things, which may be said to be present in a
subject, it is always the case that what is capable of being
present in a subject can have degrees.
Moreover, each thing that can be present in a subject has a
contrary and these contraries cannot be simultaneously be
present in a subject.
By contrast, that which is predicable of a subject, (e.g.
human) has no degrees and has no contraries.

In order for anything to be predicable of or present in a

subject, there must be something that is neither present in
nor predicable of a subject.
Aristotle calls them primary substances. They are things
like individual people, individual horses, trees, rocks, etc.
Things that are not primary substances can also be subjects
of predication, but ultimately they must all be present in or
predicable of primary substances. Color is predicable of
white but color must be present in some primary substance,
assuming that white is present in something.
Another mark of primary substance, according to Aristotle,
is that it is capable of having contraries present in it at
different times.
The very same thing can be hot at one time and cold at
another; drunk at one time, sober at another. Aristotle calls
this sort of change accidental change.
What cannot happen to Socrates, with him still surviving, is
the loss of his humanity. When we say of Socrates that he
is human, we are saying what he is rather than merely
saying what he happens to be like.
A primary subject of predication, a primary substance,
must be something that is of some kind.

Besides having such changeable predicates as those in the

categories of quantity, quality, etc., a primary substance
must have an essential nature.
That which has different characteristics at different times
must be of some definite kind. It is the essential nature that
is predicable of something as opposed to merely being
present in something.
Aristotle thinks is the most important characteristic of
primary substance: that it is capable of change. It is the
very same thing before, during and after changes in
accidental characteristics.
Were it to lose its essential nature however, it would not
continue to exist. Something, a portion of matter that once
had the essential nature in it would continue to exist.
Aristotle calls this sort of change substantial change.
Aristotle addresses the fundamental question of what
change is and how it is possible. The question was first
raised by Parmenides. Parmenides argued roughly as
follows:
1) For a thing X to become F at time T, it must have been
not-F before T
2) If X was not-F before T then, at T, an F-thing came into
existence from nothing.
3) From nothing, nothing can be derived

4) X cannot become F at T and, so, change is impossible.

Aristotle's Response to Parmenides
1) What is required for change to occur is that there be
something before, during and after the change -- that which
undergoes change.
2) If X is the thing which undergoes change at T then X
does not come into existence at T, X simply changes from
being not-F to being F.
3) It is not just from being not-F that X changes to being F,
(because being not-F is a nonentity). X is able to change
to being F at T only if X had a specific capacity or
potentiality to become F before T.
Specific capacities for definite types of change are not mere
nonentities. They are what distinguish various things into
different species. A thing of a given species is not capable
of just any sort of change but only of a limited number of
definite kinds of changes. Dogs, for example, do not have a
capacity to grow roots and leaves.
Change is thus to be defined , according to Aristotle, as
actualization of potentiality
What exists before, during and after change is the matter
of a substance

What comes to exist in a substance, because the substance

changes, is a form.
Aristotle thus takes a position that borrows both from Plato
and from Democritus. Plato was right to insist that there
must be forms; otherwise, knowledge would be impossible.
But Plato was wrong to suppose that Forms are things that
exist in separation from the sensible world.
Democritus was right to insist that change is possible only
if matter exists. It is Matter that constitutes the individuality
of the things that exist in the sensible world. Sensible
things cannot be just instances of Forms.
Primary substances are capable of change but they also
things that are the objects of sense perception. But each of
them is a thing of definite type (animal, plant, stone, etc.).
As a result, they make it possible for knowledge to
originate in the soul. In De Anima, Aristotle explains how
Knowledge comes to be in the soul from sense perception
of individual things.
In Nature, according to Aristotle, various potentialities are
constantly being actualized and transmitted to new
individuals. This is the cycle of generation of new life.
Aristotle thought this was the best way to explain the fact
that there is a constant repetition of developmental
processes of the same types.

It is not just any forms but very specific forms that tend to
get actualized because, in Nature, there is a constantly
repeated pattern of things developing to a particular stage
and then no farther. Living things develop to maturity and
then do no more than reproduce themselves in potentiality.
At maturity, living things reproduce by generating seeds
from which new individuals of the same species grow.
In seed-stage, the potentiality of one thing is absolutely
different from the potentiality of another. No thing can be
generated by that which is only potentially (not actually) of
that same type. An acorn has the potentiality to become an
oaktree but its potentiality for this development could not
have been produced by something which only had the
potentiality of becoming an oaktree. (Acorns can't directly
produce other acorns) Only an actual oaktree could produce
an acorn. This is why Aristotle thought that biological
species are fixed, unchanging and eternal.
This analysis of change leads Aristotle to a theory of
The ultimate cause of motion (the Prime Mover).
Here is a highly condensed version of his main argument:
1) Motion is the actualization of potentiality.
2) A thing's potentiality cannot actualize itself. Only that
which is actually F can cause a thing which is potentially F
to become actually F.

3) So, whatever is actually F must have had an efficient

cause of its passing from potentiality to actuality and this
must have been another actually F thing.
4) Individual members of sensible species are generated,
mature, reproduce and die.
5) Motion takes time.
6) Time is not a substance. It is the measure of motion in
respect of before and after.
7) Time is divisible into minimal parts, no two of which
exist together.
8) There could not have been a part of time which was
before all the others or one which will be after all the others
9) So, Time is eternal; without a beginning or an ending.
10) So, Motion is eternal
11) So, sensible species exist eternally even though each
individual member of a species perishes.
12) Eternal motion requires an efficient cause and this
cause must itself exist eternally.
13) There cannot be an infinite series of efficient causes or
the series could never be completed.

14) There is a primary efficient cause of motion

15) The prime mover cannot be moved by anything else
16) The prime mover cannot contain any potentiality.
17) Whatever contains matter has potentiality for change
18) The prime mover contains no matter and is fully actual.
It is pure form, pure thought which thinks only of itself
19) Since the PM cannot move, it can only cause motion in
sensible substances through a kind of attraction, the
attraction of imperfect, partially actualized things for
perfect finished actuality.
20) The first sensible substance to move because of
attraction for the prime mover (the outermost sphere of
stars) must undergo motion eternally without interruption
or variation
21) Only motion along a perfectly circular path can take
place eternally and without interruption or variation.
22) The outermost sphere of stars moves eternally, without
interruption or variation, in perfectly circular axial rotation.