The Odyssey of Eidos: Reflections on Aristotle’s Response to Plato

By Pickwick Publications

Aristotle sets the horizons of our inquiry: What is it when we say we know something? And is the object of knowledge a universal or particular [tode ti] object? Aristotle's critique of Plato's theory of form/Forms in light of his notion of actuality has generated a variety of topics that frame our inquiry: "Understanding Eidos as Form in the Works of Aristotle as Plato's Critical Student"; "Aristotle on Plato's Forms as Causes"; "Notes on the Relationship between Plato's Parmenides and Aristotle's Metaphysics Alpha"; "'Separate' and 'Inactive'? Aristotle's Most Challenging Critique of Plato's 'Forms'"; "Too Much Unity in a City Is Destructive of the City: Aristotle against Plato's Unification Project of the Polis"; "Aristotle on the Soul as Actuality"; "Delphic Piety in the De Anima of Alexander of Aphrodisias"; "Aristotle and Plotinus: Act and Potency and the Two Acts"; and "Al-Fārābīon Habit and Imagination." Here, the Peripatetic readings of form and actuality are parsed from the precipice of historical, analytic, and continental approaches to the mind/language/object problem, with advocacy of the importance of Aristotle's contribution to this inquiry for the present age.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Feb 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666748352

Book preview

Introduction

The Odyssey of Eidos is a compilation of articles exploring the origin and influence of Aristotle’s thought roughly tracing the itinerary of the Aristotelian concept of eidos. This volume includes reflections not only on Aristotle’s response to Plato, but also on Aristotle’s philosophy of eidos. In this volume, we have isolated Aristotle’s Plato and have used this critique of Plato and Platonism as an entry into the philosophical dynamics of Aristotelian thought.

The discussion of the status of eidos as a referent to the tode ti object is captured by Byron Stoyles in his essay, "Understanding Eidos as Form in the Works of Aristotle as Plato’s Critical Student." The use of the term eidos generally refers to the thisness of a thing. The reference to the tode ti is usually what we understand as form in Aristotle’s philosophy. Despite this, we often assume Aristotle uses the term that translates form in this context to mean species in other contexts. Where we assume Aristotle uses eidos to speak about species, he is employing the method of division. Stoyles argues that, though Aristotle both rejects Plato’s particular method of division and departs from Plato’s view of the Form as a universal above a particular object, Aristotle nevertheless follows his teacher in using division to grasp what makes things what they are. In this context, reference to eidos is only by way of discussing what things are by way of division. Stoyles reminds the reader of Aristotle’s tode ti emphasis on eidos to clarify any misunderstanding that eidos is identified with the universal species. Aristotle consistently uses the term eidos to refer to that in virtue of which a thing is called a this—a man or a horse, for example—and that this is best captured by thinking of eidos as form.

Aristotle’s concern with Plato’s Forms is not simply a matter of its separate status, but also a question of its causal roles, as Christopher Byrne argues in his essay, Aristotle on Plato’s Forms as Causes. While the separate ontological status of Forms in Plato’s philosophy is often seen as the backdrop to Aristotle’s hylomorphic doctrine, Byrne further reminds us that Aristotle also disputes the explanatory and causal roles of Plato’s Forms. The latter is distinct from the former; the issue of the explanatory and causal roles of Plato’s Forms remains a separate matter. The ultimate problem is that Plato’s Forms do not succeed in satisfying the general criteria of what constitutes the material, efficient, formal, and final causes of perceptible objects. Thus, even if the Forms were immanent in perceptible objects, they would still explain nothing about them, as Byrne argues.

In her essay, "Notes on the Relationship Between Plato’s Parmenides and Aristotle’s Metaphysics Alpha," Louise Rodrigue revisits the Third Man Argument in light of Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s Forms in Plato’s Parmenides. As Rodrigue stresses, Aristotle’s criticism of the separability of Forms is not Aristotle’s central concern with Plato’s philosophy. The heart of Aristotle’s criticism is, rather, that Plato’s Forms are bereft of actuality. Plato, of course, claims that the Forms are universals. However, the universal causes, Aristotle observes, do not exist—they only exist potentially (cf., Metaphysics 12.5, 1071a20). This is presumably the reason why Aristotle, when criticizing the notion of participation, blames Plato for using empty words and poetical metaphors. By speaking of what does not really exist (of what exists only potentially), Plato makes philosophy an imaginary exercise. The problem with the universality of the Forms has less to do with their separation from matter than their lack of efficiency. Aristotle, unlike his predecessor, aims at justifying the effectiveness of this principle without recourse to metaphorical language (given that the notion of contact is not a metaphor). Finally, the absence of providence that seems to disturb Plato is fully accepted by Aristotle’s First Mover, understood as his first principle, being pure act. That leads us to observe that Aristotle has solved the aporiai raised in the Parmenides with the distinction between actuality and potentiality.

Francisco Gonzalez picks up on this distinction. He argues in his essay, ‘Separate’ and ‘Inactive’? Aristotle’s Most Challenging Critique of Plato’s ‘Forms,’ that Aristotle’s fundamental criticism of Plato’s Form is that they reflect a dunamis as opposed to an energeia. Gonzalez challenges the frequent association of being with form (eidos) and its larger implication that Plato separated the Forms from sensible objects and located them in a distinct realm of Being, while Aristotle brought them back to the realm of Becoming and interlocked the two in sensible substances, now composed of form and matter. Gonzalez writes, This is doubtless a nice story and one easy to recount to beginning students of Ancient Philosophy. However, the simplicity of this narrative often leads to trivial misrepresentations. On the contrary, Gonzalez urges us to think of Aristotle’s overall philosophy as a philosophy of act (energeia) and Plato’s philosophy as a philosophy of potency (dunamis). Gonzalez explores this theme via Plato’s Sophist and Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s forms at the end of Metaphysics Θ 8, "not for being ‘separated,’ but for being only ‘potencies’ that therefore cannot have the priority in substance that Aristotle assigns to energeia." Gonzalez concludes that if we avoid the common trap of thinking that Aristotle criticizes Plato mainly or simply for ‘separating’ the Forms, one question remains: has the Aristotelian concept of energeia truly demonstrated the status of Plato’s Being and Forms to be limited to the concept of dunamis and was this a critical limitation?

The political implications of Aristotle’s philosophy are captured in J.-M. Narbonne’s essay, Too Much Unity in a City is Destructive of the City: Aristotle Against Plato’s Unification Project of the Polis. The question concerning what kind of unity is right for the city is at the heart of Aristotle’s argument against Plato. While Plato may admit of a form of diversity in the state, Narbonne strongly argues in favour of the permutability of functions with the social body. Alternating functions of governing and being governed echoe the greatness of a democratic regime and also reflect the activities of the free and equal citizen of the city, as Aristotle argues. We perceive clearly that Aristotle’s political reflections are fundamentally different from those of Plato, who relegates the omnipotent academic to his or her Ivory Tower, ubiquitously influencing all facets of the social body. (Rep. 434 C)

In his article, Aristotle on the Soul as Actuality, Thomas De Koninck argues why Aristotle’s views of the mind-body problem is much more satisfying and more precise than, for example, G. Ryle’s or Nussbaum and Putnam’s modern views. Aristotle’s view of the close intimacy of the body and soul in the De Anima best captures the natural experience of the soul understood as actuality, as entelecheia. De Koninck’s article sets out to defend this view and to draw on human experience to attest to it.

Alexander of Aphrodisias was one of the most creative and influential Aristotelians of later antiquity, creating the Neo-Aristotelian tradition. Frederic Schroeder’s essay, "Delphic Piety in the De Anima of Alexander of Aphrodisias," explores and attempts to reconcile two disparate understandings of the Delphic precept in Alexander’s De Anima. On the one hand, the exordium of, and the prooemium to, the De Anima appeals to the Delphic wisdom, that is, the Delphic command to Know Thyself. It is a call to humility and temperance. On the other hand, Alexander indicates to us, says Schroeder, that "Delphic self-knowledge will enable us to live in accordance with nature he appears to present us with a eudaemonistic humanism. . . . It is surprising that the exordium of Alexander’s work would make an ostensibly non-Aristotelian appeal to an Olympian god (the God of Aristotle, Metaphysics Λ is by contrast remote and austere)." These are the two aspects in Alexander’s work that seem incompatible. However, Schroeder argues that they are ultimately consistent with one another.

The correlative concepts of actuality and potentiality also find their place prominently in the writings of Plotinus, as Gary Gurtler highlights in his essay, Plotinus’ Reconfiguration of Aristotle’s Act and Potency into the Principle of Two Acts.  While Plotinus finds act and potency inadequate for his Platonic project, he, nevertheless, does not hesitate to retrieve it for his purposes. Gurtler begins with a small point of contact, Plotinus’ account of light and vision, a sense phenomenon that one might expect to be uncontroversial. While Aristotle’s account traces out the changes in the transparent and the eye, carefully delineating the roles of act and potency throughout the process, Plotinus counters at every turn, the medium, light, colour, and the eye, with light going directly through the medium to the object without affecting either. His objective is to make light a second act, dependent on the source of light as first act. This first act designates the essence of any being, with the second act the external activity or image of that being. He restricts act and potency, on the one hand, to accidental change only, qualities possessed by a body, but, on the other hand, applies it to the relation of Intellect and its parts as mutually transparent to one another, stripped of any hint of potentiality or change.  Plotinus uses light, heat, and the soul as examples of second acts, showing how this principle of two acts replaces act and potency completely. He then extends it to Intellect and the One, identifying the first act with Aristotle’s infinite power, but as a productive rather than final cause and as applying to all real beings. 

Although he has been referred to as The Father of Islamic Neoplatonism, al-Fārābī certainly counts amongst the great Aristotelians. In fact, al-Fārābī explicitly argued for the harmony of Plato and Aristotle. In his paper Al-Fārābī on Habit and Imagination, which concludes our volume, Daniel Regnier shows how, by drawing on both Aristotle’s psychological and ethical works, al-Fārābī creates a nuanced account of habit. Al-Fārābī focuses his attention on the role of the imagination in ethical reality. Regnier provides a close reading of a key passage in The Views of the People of the Virtuous City (Kitāb ārā’ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila) where the notion of health provides a key to understanding human moral psychology.

1

Understanding Eidos as Form in the Works of Aristotle as Plato’s Critical Student

¹

Byron J. Stoyles

It is commonly held that Aristotle uses eidos to refer to two distinct entities captured in English as form and species.² In this paper, I argue against this view by unpacking the implications of the fact that the passages in which scholars are tempted to think of eidos as species are passages in which Aristotle is concerned with division. Though Aristotle rejected the particular method of division endorsed in Plato’s Phaedrus, Sophist, and Statesman, Aristotle nevertheless follows his teacher in using division to grasp what makes things what they are. With this in mind, I argue that Aristotle did not use eidos to refer to what we call species by arguing that Aristotle consistently uses the term eidos to refer to that precisely in virtue of which a thing is called a this as he does in Physics II.1 (412a8) and this is best captured by thinking of eidos as form.

The Common View: Eidos as Form or Species

The common view that Aristotle uses eidos to refer to two, distinct things³ is defended by John Ackrill who writes,

Aristotle often speaks of man (horse, etc.) as an eidos, and that is the very word translated ‘form’. What is involved here is not an implied identification of man with psuche (his form), but a variation in the use of the term ‘eidos’. To speak of ambiguity may well be misleading, since the connexion between the two uses is exceedingly close. Nevertheless one can say that in some contexts ‘eidos’ means ‘form’ and in others ‘species’. The context usually makes perfectly clear which it means, but where necessary Aristotle adds a phrase to put it beyond doubt.⁴

In this tradition, John Driscoll argues that eidos is a term of focal meaning—i.e., a term that can mean different things where each meaning is related to a single basic sense of the term⁵—that refers to one entity in Categories and another entity in Metaphysics. According to Driscoll, Aristotle uses eidos in Categories as a largely taxonomic concept whereas Aristotle uses eidos in Metaphysics and elsewhere to refer to formal causes.⁶

According to this view, the meanings of eidos correspond to two distinct uses of the term. In one, eidos is paired with genos. We see this in Categories, Topics, Posterior Analytics and in passages in the Metaphysics and the zoological works concerned with division and definition by division.⁷ In pairing eidos with genos, Aristotle tempts us to think of eidos as we now think of the taxonomic term species. In the other, Aristotle presents eidos as one sense in which we speak of substance (ousia) and contrasts this with both matter (hulē) and the so-called hylomorphic compounds.⁸ In contrasting eidos with hulē, Aristotle tempts us to think of eidos as form or even shape and form (morphē kai eidos) where the matter and the form together are said to constitute the hylomorphic compounds. Indeed, in a broad context, the texts invite us to think, as S. Marc Cohen reports,

the word ‘eidos’, which mean[s] ‘species’ in the logical works, [acquires] a new meaning in a hylomorphic context, where it means ‘form’ (contrasted with ‘matter’) rather than ‘species’ (contrasted with ‘genus’). In the conceptual framework of Metaphysics Ζ, a universal such as man or horse—which was called a species and a secondary substance in the Categories—is construed as ‘not a substance, but a compound of a certain formula and a certain matter, taken universally’ (Z.

10

,

1035

b

29–30

). The eidos that is primary substance in Book Ζ is not the species that an individual substance belongs to but the form that is predicated of the matter of which it is composed.⁹

In this paper, I do not contest the view that eidos means form in those contexts it is paired with hulē. My focus is on use of eidos when it is paired with genos—i.e., the context in which it is assumed to mean species.

The Technical or Logical Use of Eidos

In his investigation into Aristotle’s use of the terms genos and eidos, David Balme remarks that "[i]t is not certain when or by whom genos and eidos were first technically distinguished as genus and species. The distinction does not appear in Plato’s extant writings, whereas Aristotle seems to take it for granted in the Topics, which is usually regarded as among his earliest treatises."¹⁰ After considering the evidence related to Plato and others, Balme concludes, [t]here seems . . . to be no satisfactory evidence that anybody other than Aristotle originated this verbal distinction [of genus and species].¹¹ "It appears unmistakably in many passages of the Organon (esp. Top. 4 and 6) and Metaphysics, and occasionally in other works."¹²

In the Organon—specifically Categories 5, Topics IV and VI and Posterior Analytics II.13—we find what we might, following Balme, call the technical sense of genos and eidos. In this technical sense, eidē fall under genē in what appears to be a system of classification. Thus, it is tempting to interpret what look to us like taxonomic terms¹³ as meaning something like what those of us in the English-speaking world mean by genus and species in the context of taxonomy or classification¹⁴ and to distinguish these from individuals. Upon close study, however, this temptation ought not to be indulged. I start with the claims found in Categories.

Whatever other work it does, the division between that which is said of (legetai) and that which is not said of a subject in Categories 2 allows Aristotle to distinguish particular individuals from what we properly predicate of those individuals. When something is said of a subject, all things said of that which is predicated can also be said of the subject (Categories 3, 1b10–11). In Categories 5, Aristotle specifies that, when something is said of a subject, both its name and its definition (logos) are predicated of the subject (2a19–26). When we say of Socrates that he is a man, for example, we can both call Socrates (a) man and whatever it means to be (a) man applies to Socrates. For these reasons, identifying an individual’s eidos or genos reveals of that individual what it is (2b31–35; cf. Topics IV.1, 120b21–29). As Balme puts it, eidos is used in this context to pick out individuals that are formally indistinguishable.¹⁵

Though Aristotle is clear in Categories that genē and eidē indicate what sort of thing a subject is, Aristotle does not explicitly consider definitions in that work. This is a focus of his Topics¹⁶ and in that work Aristotle connects definition to the method of division.¹⁷ In Topics, Aristotle explains definition employing genos, eidos, and differentia (diaphora). A genos is predicated of a number of things exhibiting specific or formal differences (Topics I.5, 102a31).¹⁸ There are multiple eidē of every genos (Topics IV.3, 123a30; IV.6, 127a22–24; 128a13–17).¹⁹ The genos animal, for example, is predicated of all animals—i.e., the various animals which differ from one another in eidē—and indicates what (kind of thing) they all are. From the account outlined in Topics, it is clear that things in a single genos are of the same general kind despite their specific or formal differences.²⁰

According to Aristotle, each thing has but a single essence and a definition is a phrase that signifies the essence (to ti ēn einai) of whatever is being defined (Topics I.5, 101b38 & VI.4, 141a23 ff. cf. Metaphysics Z.4, 1030a12–15). This sort of definition consists of a genos and differentia(e) (Topics I.8, 103b15). The genos is the first of the terms submitted in the definition (Topics I.5, 142a29; VI.1, 139a27–29). It is followed by the differentiae which, in a proper definition, must be of the genos identified.²¹

Categories 3 sets out what it means for differentiae to be of a genos. Aristotle notes that differentiae of one genos are different in kind (here, he uses eidei) from the differentiae of any other genos when neither genos is subordinate to the other (1b16–17; cf. Topics I.15, 107b19–32). Thus, none of the differentiae of one genos can be differentiae of any genos that is not ordered under the first genos.²² To make this clear, Aristotle asserts that land-going/footed (pezon), able-to-fly/winged (ptēnon), aquatic (enudron) and two-footed (dipoun) are differentiae of the genos animal and, as such, cannot be differentiae of any genos that is not, itself, ordered under the genos animal.²³ They are not, to take Aristotle’s example, differentiae of knowledge as one kind of knowledge does not differ from another by being any of these things (i.e. footed, winged, aquatic, or two-footed) (1b18–21). In contrast, genē subordinate to one another can have the same differentiae (1b23–4).²⁴ So too can multiple genē subordinate to a single higher genos—e.g. two-footed is a differentia of both terrestrial animal and winged animal (Topics VI.6, 144b22–29).²⁵

From Aristotle’s comments in Topics and Categories, it is clear that differentiae are of a genos when they can be used to distinguish the various kinds—i.e., eidē or lower genē²⁶—of that genos. As differentiae, footed, winged, aquatic, and two-footed are features used to distinguish some animals from other animals—i.e., to divide them into various lower genē and eidē. When the differentiae of a genos are specific or "eidos-making" (eidopoios), an eidos is made (poiei) from the combination of genos and the differentiae (Topics VI.6, 143b7–8). Proper definitions apply to everything with a common eidos (Topics VI.3, 140b16–26).²⁷

The discussion in Categories reflects that Aristotle is there considering both eidē and genē as terms which signify a substance of a certain quality or kind. Consider, for instance,

Every substance seems to signify a certain this [tode ti sēmainein]. As regards the primary substances,²⁸ it is indisputably true that each of them signifies a certain ‘this’; for the thing revealed is individual [atomon] and numerically one. But as regards the secondary substances, though it appears from the form of the name—when one speaks of man or animal—that a secondary substance likewise signifies a certain ‘this’, this is not really true; rather, it signifies a certain qualification [or, a certain quality: poion ti] for the subject is not, as the primary substance is, one, but man and animal are said of many things. However, it does not signify simply a certain qualification, as white does. White signifies nothing but a qualification, whereas the eidos and the genos mark off the qualification of substance [or ‘around a substance of a quality/kind’ or ‘around a certain sort of substance’: peri ousian to poion aphorixei]—they signify substance of a certain qualification. (

3

b

10

–

23

, following Ackrill, with square brackets added.)

In this passage, Aristotle clarifies that, though every substance seems to signify a this, it is only really true that primary substances signify a this. In contrast to primary substances, eidē signify a certain quality (poion tis) though not in the way white does. For, secondary substances pick out substances of a certain quality or kind rather than merely a quality that we find in a subject. This is suggested by ousian to poion at 3b20, but it does not explain the lines before. By contrasting the way in which secondary substances signify with the way in which white signifies, Aristotle is focusing on those qualifications or qualities which make the thing the sort of thing it is. Aristotle has in mind that secondary substances signify things with shared qualities—i.e. those qualities that allow us to speak of many things using the same signifier or name—rather than signifying the qualities only. In this, we are picking out, for example, the certain quality or qualities that allows us to speak of many individuals as man or the certain quality or qualities that allow us to speak of many individual humans as animal.

The way in which Aristotle makes the point is significant. In describing primary and secondary substances in Categories, he is concerned with what each signifies. This is clear in his use of sēmainein at 3b10 and other forms of this word throughout the passage. Aristotle must here be thinking about the use of the terms that signify substances of certain kinds. Only terms signify. Neither Categories nor Topics presents anything like what we might call a robust ontology of kinds, classes, or sets.²⁹

Division and Definition

If eidos was meant by Aristotle to be a taxonomical term used to classify substances, we might expect Aristotle to use this term in its technical sense in his biological treatises as these are concerned with natural substances—i.e. what Aristotle considers to be substances most of all (Metaphysics H.3, 1043b21–22). What we find is that Aristotle was not interested in classification or taxonomy as such.³⁰

None of the surviving texts includes or indicates that Aristotle had worked up a single, complete (or even an incomplete) classification of animals. None of the surviving works classify animals for the sake of classifying animals. Aristotle’s zoological treatises are, without exception, aimed towards explaining the various facts about animals—that is, towards identifying the causes of the way each (kind of) animal is. Aristotle was engaged in division in the logical sense of the Organon rather than what we now think of as classification in the tradition of Linnean taxonomy.

David Balme and Pierre Pellegrin have completed extensive studies of Aristotle’s use of genos and eidos in the biological works. Balme’s work suggests that Aristotle does not use eidos in the logical sense very often—Balme counts only 7 passages in which we find the technical sense of eidos. Without exception, each of these passages is included in either introductory remarks or remarks on Aristotle’s methodology and these are just the places where we might expect to find technical distinctions being presented. Pellegrin adds that Aristotle does not use genos and eidos in a unique biological sense in the zoological works. Indeed, Pellegrin urges that we "must not lose sight of the rules which regulate their logical functioning."³¹ This is for the reason that Aristotle consistently uses eidos to designate animals or parts of animals that can be differentiated from other animals or parts of animals in the same genos in the manner outlined in the logical works even when he does not explicitly identify the genos of the every eidos.³² As we see in the Topics, the logical use of genos and eidos is tied to Aristotle’s method of division.³³

Aristotle’s method of division is a response to the method employed in Plato’s Sophist and Statesman³⁴—the method of dichotomous division Aristotle frequently criticizes (such as in Parts of Animals I, starting at 642b5–7). In both Sophist and Statesman, the visitor driving the discussion stresses