What does Aristotle mean by essence? About the true essence
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Everything that lies before the senses and thinking marks for Aristotle the problem of being [see 77, p. 63]. But philosophy - “first philosophy”, as Aristotle calls it - does not explore individual areas of existence, but the beginnings and causes of everything that exists, since it is taken as an existing [see. 7, VI, I, 1025 c]. The most complete knowledge of a thing is achieved, according to Aristotle, when it is known what the essence of this thing is. Essence is “first from all points of view: in concept, and in knowledge, and in time” [ibid., VIII, I]. Aristotle sees the question of essence as the most ancient and constant problem of philosophy. “And that which from ancient times, and now, and has always been the subject of searches and has always given rise to difficulties, is the question. what is an entity, this question comes down to the question - what is essence” [ibid., VII, I]. However, the comprehensive coverage of the problem of existence and essence raises the question: what should be the initial approach to this problem that introduces science? Aristotle tried to answer this question in his doctrine of categories. This, according to the correct expression of V. Tatarkevich, is “the first layer philosophical studies"("die erste Schicht der philosophischen Untersuchungen"). “Categories” are the main kinds or categories of being and, accordingly, the main kinds of concepts about being, its properties and relationships. This definition of categories is not, however, the definition of Aristotle himself. Furthermore. As the modern Czech researcher K. Berka correctly noted, in Aristotle it is generally impossible to find a clear definition of the concept of category: “er nirgends den Begriff “kategoria” explicite definiert” [see. 50].
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Apparently, Aristotle considered the preliminary task in developing the doctrine of being to be the identification of the main genera or categories of being. To what extent Aristotle relied on the works of his predecessors is difficult to say. His predecessors here could have been the Pythagoreans with their table of ten paired principles and Plato, in whose “Sophist” we already find the terms with which Aristotle later designated some of his categories: quantities, qualities, suffering, actions and relationships [see. Sophist, 245 D, 248 A, 248 C, 260 A; 50. p. 35].
The lack of development of the question of relationships and connections between categories, logical and linguistic, led to the fact that the categories found by Aristotle appear in him either as categories of being and knowledge, or as categories of language. Exploring linguistic categories, Aristotle distinguishes two groups of expressions: 1) isolated words and 2) connections of words in a sentence, representing in the forms of language a class of concepts and a class of statements.
The doctrine of categories is apparently based on the study of concepts that appear alternately in the linguistic and in the subject-ontological context [see. 50, p. 36]. However, neither on the question of the number of basic categories, nor on the question of their sequence or order in their system, throughout the long period of development of his philosophy, Aristotle came to firmly established conclusions. Aristotle's work, which discusses the system of categories, is striking in its isolation: there is no indication of the connection between the doctrine of categories and other views of Aristotle.
The doctrine of categories, as well as the entire philosophy of Aristotle, is characterized by a twofold aspect: in ontological terms, categories are the highest kinds of being, to which all its particular aspects and discoveries go back; in epistemological terms, categories are different points of view from which objects can be considered and which cannot be raised to a point of view that is common to all of them and rises above them. In the essay “On Categories,” ten such aspects are indicated. These are: 1) essence; 2) quantity; 3) quality; 4) attitude; 5) place; 6) time; 7) position; 8) possession; 9) action; 10) suffering.
It is not clear from the table which principle and which
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Aristotle was guided by this plan when developing his system of categories. It has been suggested that the origin and order of the categories in the table are empirical: Aristotle, examining a particular subject, asked what different definitions could be attributed to it, and then reduced the definitions thus obtained into known headings. As a result, there were ten such headings (categories).
However, there are ten of them only in “Categories”. In other works, Aristotle indicates only the first eight categories, or six, or even four, without highlighting the rest. Even on the question of the composition of the categories of the final result, Aristotle does not fix: in Metaphysics, after the category of place comes the category of motion, which is not found anywhere else as a category.
It is difficult to substantiate in detail the order in which Aristotle’s ten categories appear: and here, in different works, different lists give different sequences.
Nevertheless, with regard to the first categories, the order in which they follow, as set out in the essay “On Categories,” seems natural. The first category of essence opens up the entire table, and this is quite understandable: Aristotle’s essence is that under the condition of which everything that relates to all other categories is the only possible. If categories are the most general kinds or types of “providing” about each individual thing, then the condition for the possibility of all such manifestations must be the separate existence of this thing itself, its substantial existence. And in the Physics, Aristotle says: “None of the other categories exists separately, except essence: they all speak about the subject “essence.” But this is precisely why “substance” - the original, independent individual existence of a thing - is only determined through categories, but in itself, in essence, is not categories. Aristotle himself explains that among the many meanings of what is said about beings, “in first place is the essence of the thing, which indicates the essence.” Although existence is spoken of from different points of view, it is always in relation to one beginning; in some cases this name is used because we have entities before us, in others because these are states-entities,
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sometimes because it is the path to the essence (ousia) [see ibid., IV, I, 1003 in 6 et seq.].
Although the table of categories opens with the category “essence,” when it first appears, this category is not yet filled with all its conceptual content, which it will acquire with the development of the entire system of categories. In its original sense, essence is an object capable of having independent existence, not requiring the existence of another for its existence, always private, individual, for example: this individual person. The peculiarity of the “essence” is that it can combine properties that are opposite to each other within itself, but outside itself it cannot have anything that would be opposite to it. Thus, an individual person can be both good and partly evil, but an individual person, outside himself, has nothing that would be opposite to him as an individual person.
Substance, or individual being, can appear in a judgment only as a thought about its object, only as the subject of this judgment. A predicate can express something about such a subject, but the subject itself, as a concept of an individual being, cannot express anything about anything. Aristotle calls substances in this first sense “first essences.” The first essence is “this something,” a thing that is still uncertain for knowledge in its characteristics, but is completely individual in itself.
But the development of knowledge about an object leads to the emergence of a concept about the object: for knowledge, the object is revealed as having certain definitions. Aristotle calls concepts about such objects that are not indicated only, but have already opened up for knowledge, “second essences.”
The primary essence, or substance, is nothing more than an indication by means of language of a separately existing object. “The entity about which it happens... speech mainly, first of all, and most often is one that does not refer to any subject, such as, for example, an individual person or an individual horse.”
Aristotle calls second, or secondary, essences not individual objects indicated by signs or names, but concepts that are relative
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in relation to these objects are either species-specific concepts about them, or generic ones: “...secondary essences are those in which, as species, are contained the entities called [so] in the first place...”, that is, primary essences [there same, 2a]. Such are both the species and the genera that embrace them. For example, an individual person “is contained, as in a species, in a person, and the genus for this species is a living being” [ibid., V, 2a]. As generic and species concepts, “secondary essences” differ from “substance” or “primary essences”: they can have the opposite of themselves. Thus, fire as a “substance” or “first essence” has nothing in nature that would be opposite to it as fire. But the concept of hot as a “second essence” has its opposite in the concept of cold.
This doctrine of the difference between “first essences” (“substances”) and “second essences” (concepts of genera and species, or generic and species properties) well reflected Aristotle’s conviction in the primacy of individual things of nature and the secondary nature of knowledge about them, expressed in general concepts. In one place in the Physics, Aristotle directly states: “The subject is the beginning and, apparently, the first predicate.” That is why he claims that the beginning “should not be the predicate of any subject” [ibid., 189a]. But general concepts can also be “entities”: concepts about objects are called “entities” for obvious reasons. Unlike the “first essence,” a concept can be a predicate of a judgment. But for knowledge, the concept of an object is absolutely necessary: it reveals an essential feature of the subject, and in this sense, generic and specific concepts are also “essences”.
“Essence” is followed by the categories of “quantity”, “quality” and “relationship”. In the system of Aristotelian categories, they form a “subsystem” with a clearly defined logical order. Thus, “quantity” precedes “quality”, since it represents a necessary condition for “Quality”: in an object, the quality of its form, the quality of color, and other qualitative certainties presuppose some quantitative characteristic related to extension. In turn, the categories of “quantity” and “quality” precede the category
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categories of “relations”: every relation presupposes, according to Aristotle, certain quantities (or qualities) of some objects, compared with the quantity (or quality) of others.
The fluctuating position in the system of categories belongs to the categories of “place” and “time” in relation to the so-called “verbal” categories: “position” (from the verb “to be”), “possession” (from “to have”), “action” (from “to act”) and “suffering” (from “to suffer”).
This hesitation was due to insufficiently defined point of view, which Aristotle was guided by when studying the system of categories. Where the linguistic, or more precisely, syntactic point of view came to the fore, the categories of “place” and “time” could be placed before the “verbal” categories, since in the structure of a sentence the adverbial circumstances of place and time can precede the predicate-verb.. Ibid. , where the main thing was not the syntactic, but the logical point of view, the “verbal” categories had to come before the categories of “place” and “time”, since in the logical structure of a sentence the logical predicate precedes spatial and temporal characteristics.
The doctrine of the category of “quantity” examines the quantities and characteristics of objects by size. Aristotle puts forward two principles for their classification: on the basis of continuity or discontinuity (discreteness) and on the basis of coexistence in space or sequence in time.
The first division - into continuous and discrete quantities - differs in that both of these classes of quantities do not represent types of the same thing. same kind. Aristotle considers discrete quantities to be primary and at the same time more general concepts. Every quantity, according to Aristotle, is discrete, since every quantity is composed of units: every quantity is subject to measurement; its measure is unit, and it is always possible to find out how many units are contained in this quantity. What is called a continuous quantity is only a special case of a discrete quantity; the only difference between them is that in the case of a continuous value the units follow one another continuously.
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Examples of the second distinction of quantities - by coexistence and sequence - are space and time.
The results of dividing quantities according to the criteria of continuity (and discreteness), coexistence (and sequence) do not overlap each other, do not coincide: different members of one division can be combined with the same member of another. For example, on the basis of coexistence and sequence, space is an extended quantity, and time is sequential. However, at the same time, both of them - space and time - are continuous quantities.
In the doctrine of “quality”, a classification of various types of “qualities” is developed. When developing the theory of “qualities”, Aristotle is guided by one of the main differences in his metaphysics - between possibility and reality. The condition of all activity and everything real is considered to be the possibility of this activity, or the ability for it. If an ability is used in a certain direction, it becomes a property. Thus, the exercise of the capacity for cognition generates knowledge. the exercise of the moral faculty is virtue. A special special case of a property is a state. Both property and state are types of quality, the emergence of which is preceded by a physical possibility given by nature, which does not yet constitute the quality.
The third type of quality is “passive properties”. In fact, these are also properties, and they are also acquired through exercise. But in “properties” the main thing is the ability to act; on the contrary, in “passive” properties the main thing is the ability of receptivity. The first are active, the second are passive.
The fourth type of quality is the “shape” (image, outline, figure) of an object. The characteristic of “form” in the sense indicated here is an important characteristic of qualitative certainty. Both ontology and Aristotle’s physics are qualitative ontology, quality physics. This is the trait that passed from the philosophy of Aristotle into the philosophy and science (physics) of scholasticism of the medieval era.
As a feature of qualitative certainty, Aristotle notes that in relation to it “there is also an opposite: thus, justice is the opposite of injustice, White color- black, and everything else in the same way." However
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the presence of the opposite does not occur in all cases of qualitative determinations: thus, fiery red is a qualitative determination, but it does not have an opposite [see ibid., VIII, 10 c].
Another important feature of qualitative definitions is that they are inherent in being at the same time relations. One white is called more and less white than another, and one just is called more and less just than another. And the quality itself is relative in its definiteness: being white, an object has the opportunity to become even whiter. However, Aristotle considers this feature to be applicable not to all, but only to a significant majority of qualitative definitions [see. same place, 10 v].
Aristotle rejects in advance the possible reproach that, having set the task of talking about quality, he also considers relations: he considers the possibility of combining qualities and relations quite natural: “... even if one and the same thing turned out to be both a relation and quality, then it would not be at all strange to rank him among both [these] genera" [ibid., VIII, 11 a].
The category “relationship” is also a generic concept. It embraces four types of relationships. These are, firstly, mathematical relations; secondly, the relationship of the producer (master) to what is being produced (or to the product); thirdly, the relationship of the measure to the measured; fourthly, the relationship of knowledge to the object of knowledge. Moreover, the difference between the relationship of cognition to the cognizable and the relationship of the producer to the produced is only in activity: in the relation of the producer to the produced, the second member of the relationship (the produced) is completely passive; on the contrary, in the relation of cognition to the object of cognition, both members of the relationship are active - not only the knower acts, but also the object of cognition: acting on the knower, it generates the activity of cognition in him.
Mathematical relations, as well as the relations of the producer to the produced, form the first class of relations. In both relations of this class, with the disappearance or destruction of one member of the relation, the other necessarily disappears or is destroyed as well. The relation of the measure to the measured, as well as knowledge to the object of knowledge, gives the second class of relations.
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About both relations of this class it can no longer be said that in them, with the destruction of one member of the relationship, the other necessarily disappears: with the disappearance of knowledge, the object of knowledge does not disappear at all.
Of the ten named categories, Aristotle more or less thoroughly considers in the works that have come down to us only the first four: essence, quantity, quality and relation. There is a report that Aristotle wrote a special treatise on the categories of “action” and “suffering” that has not reached us. In addition, the effect of objects on each other is considered, but only in the context of physics, and not logic and not the doctrine of categories - in “physics”. Here the position is substantiated that the condition for the possibility of the action of some objects on others is their generic community and the presence of species differences between them: neither objects that are completely similar, nor objects that are completely different can act on each other.
Criticism of the doctrine of ideas. Being as a real individual
The idealistic understanding of existence could not satisfy thinkers who tried to explain real world nature: after all, according to Platonic idealism, one cannot form strict knowledge about movement and change, but can only have an “opinion.” Plato's student Aristotle (384-322 BC) criticized Plato's concept of existence. The latter saw Plato's mistake in that he attributed independent existence to ideas, isolating and separating them from the sensory world, which is characterized by movement and change.
At the same time, Aristotle retains the understanding of being, characteristic of the Eleatics and Plato, as something stable, unchanging, motionless. However, unlike these predecessors, he sets the task of finding something steadily abiding, enduring in the sensory world in order to make possible reliable and demonstrative scientific knowledge of the mobile and changeable natural world. As a result, Aristotle gives the concept of essence a different interpretation than Plato’s. He rejects the doctrine of ideas as supersensible, intelligible objects, separated from the things “involved” in them. Plato recognized species and genera as really existing. Aristotle called essence (being) individuals (an individual is an indivisible), for example, this man, this horse, and species and genera, according to his teaching, are secondary essences, derivatives of these primary ones.
An entity is an individual that has independence, in contrast to its states and relationships, which are changeable and depend on time, place, connections with other entities, etc. It is the essence that can be expressed in a concept and is the subject of strict knowledge - science. Aristotle sought to understand the essence of things through their generic concepts, and therefore his focus is on the relationship of the general to the particular. He created the first system of logic in history - syllogistics, the main task of which he saw in establishing rules that make it possible to obtain reliable conclusions from certain premises. The center of Aristotelian logic is the doctrine of inferences and evidence based on the relations of the general and the particular. Logic, created by Aristotle, has served as the main means of scientific proof for many centuries.
The question of what being is, Aristotle proposed to consider by analyzing statements about being - here the connection between the theory of syllogism and the Aristotelian understanding of being is quite obvious. "Statement" in Greek is "category". According to Aristotle, all utterances of language are in one way or another related to being, but the closest thing to being is Aristotelian category essence (therefore, it is usually identified with being). All other categories - quality, quantity, relationship, place, time, action, suffering, state, possession - are correlated with being through the category of essence. The essence answers the question: “What is a thing?” By revealing the essence (substance) of a thing, we, according to Aristotle, give it a definition and obtain the concept of a thing. The remaining nine categories answer the question: “What are the properties of a thing?” - and determine the signs, properties of a thing, its attributes. Thus, all categories are expressed about essence, but it itself does not speak about anything: it is something independent, existing in itself, without reference to anything else. Aristotle's logic is characterized by the belief that essence is more primary than various relations.
An important feature of the Aristotelian doctrine of essence is that although Aristotle understands a separate object (individual) as being, and therefore as an essence close to it, essence itself is not at all something perceived by the senses: with the senses we perceive only the properties of one or another essence, she herself is a single, indivisible and invisible bearer of all these properties - what makes an object “this”, not allowing it to merge with others. As we see, the characteristic of being as unity, indivisibility, stability (immutability) remains the most important for Aristotle; at the same time, both the primary entities “this person” and the secondary entities: “man”, “living being” are indivisible.
This understanding also faces certain difficulties. After all, according to the initial reasoning, essence is the beginning of stability and immutability, and therefore it can be the subject true knowledge- Sciences. At the same time, “this” individual in his “thisness” cannot be the subject of the universal and necessary knowledge. On the other hand, the general concept of “man” is an object of knowledge, but at the same time, “man in general” does not have an independent existence, it is only an abstract concept.
Here a problem arises: the individual really exists, but in its individuality it is not the subject of science; the general is the subject of scientific knowledge, but it is unclear what its status as being is - after all, Aristotle rejected Plato’s teaching, according to which the general (idea) has real existence. This problem was discussed not only in ancient, but also in medieval and modern European philosophy. For many centuries, philosophers have argued about what really exists - the individual or the general? We will return to these disputes when considering medieval philosophy.
The idea of greater and lesser beings is realized in Aristotle in what can be called the levels of existence, of being. In its immediacy, existence is a collection of “individual objects,” “these things,” “separate things,” “entities perceived by the senses,” or “sensory entities.”
The sensory world is quite real for Aristotle. This is not Plato's shadow theater. But Aristotle does not agree with the conviction of ordinary naive realism, which argued that existence is exhausted by its sensory picture. In his proof of the supersensible being, the existent, Aristotle starts from the fact of the existence of a science about the world, a science, of course, still purely speculative (the era of Aristotle did not know any other science). The philosopher says: “If nothing exists apart from individual things, then, one might say, there is nothing that can be comprehended by the mind, but everything is subject to perception through the senses, and there is no science of anything, unless one calls sense perception science” (III, 4, p. 51).
Another proof of the presence of a supersensible level in being comes from the assumption of the presence in the world of eternal and immovable entities as the basis of order (XI, 2, p. 183), which, of course, is not at all necessary, since only metaphysical order needs the eternal and immovable. One way or another, every single thing has its own essence, which is comprehended by the mind, and not by feelings, and is the subject of science. Such an essence is eternal and in itself unchanging, motionless; the totality of these essences forms the highest, supersensible level of being, at which there is more being than at the level of sensory, individual things, at the level of nature. These two levels are not external; on the contrary, the second level exists within the first. Therefore, the level of essences is not at all the otherworldly ideal world of Plato. In other words, this is not the level of Plato’s otherworldly ideas, but the level of the essences of phenomena and things of nature itself.
Essence. Essence is the key to existence. Aristotle emphasizes that “the question of what an entity is - this question comes down to the question of what essence is” (VI, 1, p. 144). The core of "Metaphysics" - Book VII and partly VIII - is devoted to the problem of essence. In understanding essence, Aristotle is already very far from the first “physiologists”, who reduced essence to one or another form of matter, like Thales to water. He also disagrees with the Pythagoreans, who found the essence in numbers. He had already parted ways with the academicians and did not believe that essence is an idea or their totality.
In his study of the problem of essence, Aristotle counts six possible embodiments of it. He says that “the essence is recognized as the substratum, the essence of being and what consists of them, as well as the universal” (VII, 13, p. 133), or: “... the essence is spoken of, if not in a greater number of meanings, then in the four main ones in any case: the essence of being, and the general, and the genus are taken as the essence of every thing, and next to them, fourthly, [the underlying thing] is the substratum" (VII, 7, p. 115). Generalizing these two statements, we get six possible essences: 1) substratum, 2) the essence of being, 3) that which consists of the essence of being and the substratum, 4) universal, 5) general and 6) genus. They must pass the test of essence.
Two criteria of essence. Aristotle has two criteria of essence: 1) conceivability, or knowability in a concept, and 2) “the ability for separate existence” (VII, 3, p. 115). However, strictly speaking, these two criteria are incompatible, because only the individual “has independent existence unconditionally” (VIII, 1, pp. 140 - 141), however, the individual does not satisfy the first criterion, it is not comprehended by the mind, is not expressed by the concept, it cannot give definitions. Aristotle has to seek a compromise between two criteria. Here his main fluctuations between materialism and idealism are revealed. Aristotle is looking for a golden mean. It is necessary to find an entity that would be capable of independent existence and would be cognizable in concept. With this requirement he approaches the six possible entities.
Substrate. The substrate (“subject”) is defined by Aristotle ontologically and logically (in accordance with the parallelism of ontology and logic in Aristotle). Logically, the substratum is “that which everything else is said about, while it itself is no longer said about something else” (VII, 3, p. 115). Ontologically, he is something that “lies at the basis in two ways, either as this separate thing... or as matter for fulfillment” (VII, 13, p. 133). In the first case, the substratum coincides with the third possibility of essence, for that which consists of the essence of being and the substratum is the individual thing. In the second case, the substrate is matter (more about it below). Let us note now that Aristotle denies matter the right to be an essence - it is not capable of separate existence and it is unknowable in concept. So matter did not qualify for the role of essence according to both criteria. As for the individual thing, it, as has already been said, although it is a substratum, is not an essence, for it is not only inexpressible in concept (the individual cannot be defined), but is also a composite whole. A single thing, after all, consists of the essence of being and a substrate (this time matter), and a composite thing is later than its parts.
Gender, general and universal. Genus, general and universal fit the role of essence according to the first criterion, but do not fit according to the second. Here Aristotle decisively disagrees with Plato and the Academicians, for whom the ideas that united the genus, the general and the universal were precisely endowed with a separate existence. Aristotle speaks about it this way: “If we take modern philosophers, they rather recognize as essences the general moments in things (genera are general moments), and [precisely] genera, according to them, have the character of principles and essences to a greater extent” (XII , 1, p. 203). Aristotle completely disagrees with these “modern philosophers.” As for genera, he clearly defines that “genera do not exist apart from species” (III, 3, p. 50). Consequently, genera do not exist independently, and they cannot be entities. Therefore, it is unthinkable for Aristotle to speak, as the academicians did, about an independent idea, for example, furniture. Furniture as such does not exist, it exists only as tables, chairs, beds, etc. Therefore, we cannot say that there is an independent idea of furniture that exists independently of human consciousness. This is completely clear to Aristotle.
Gender is common. The general also cannot be an essence, because the general does not exist apart from the individual.
The universal cannot be an essence either. After all, it is even more incapable of independent existence. Aristotle says: “What is called universal is that which by its nature is inherent in many things” (VII, 13, p. 133). But if the universal is inherent in the many, what will it be the essence of? Either all things that are encompassed by one or another universal, or none. But the universal cannot be the essence of everyone. And if the universal is the essence of one, then everything else to which this universal relates will be this thing.
Aristotle's final conclusion is this: “Neither the universal nor the genus is an essence” (VI1I, 1, p. 140).
Categories. The pinnacle of the universal is categories, the most general kinds of statements (XII, 4, p. 20b), which are further irreducible to each other and not generalizable. "Categories" provides a complete list and analysis of the ten categories. In Metaphysics there is no such complete list, much less an analysis of the categories, but the categories are mentioned there, although in an incomplete and different composition. For example, “thought connects or divides either the essence [of a thing], or quality, or quantity, or something else like that” (VI, 2, p. 12), or: “Categories are divided into groups - [meaning] the essence , quality, action and suffering, relation and quantity" (XI, 12, p. 200). So, six categories are named: essence [of things], or essence, quality, quantity, relation, action and suffering. Aristotle explains that when we talk about the essence, or the essence of a thing, we answer the question “what it is,” and not the question what this thing is (quality), how great it is (quantity), etc.
Analyzing these categories, Aristotle finds a fundamental difference between them: he sharply separates the category of the essence of a thing, or the category of essence, from other categories. Only the category of essence means in general form that which is capable of separate, independent existence. All the other five and even nine categories generalize something that does not exist independently, but exists only as something that is inherent in what is generalized in the category of essence, or the essence of a thing. Speaking about quality, quantity, relation, etc., Aristotle emphasizes that “not one of these properties exists by nature in itself and is not capable of being separated from the essence” (VII, 1, p. 113), that “all other definitions are expressed about essence" (VII, 3, p. 115), that, apart from essence, nothing can exist separately (HI, 1, p. 203), so that all categories, except essence, "cannot even, perhaps, considered as realities without reservations" (XII, 1, p. 12). This position of Aristotle is constant with him. And in “Physics” he insists that “none of the other categories exists separately, except essence: they all speak about the subject “essence” (I, 2, p. 7) 1 / See: Aristotle. Physics M., 1936, book I, chapter 2, p. 7. /, or: “Only the essence is not expressed in relation to any subject, and all other categories are in relation to it” (I, 1, p. 17) The sought-for essence turns out to be what was designated as the “essence of being.” But this requires further analysis.
It should be noted that Aristotle connects the first meaning of the assumption of non-existence with categories. Non-existence does not exist in itself, it exists in a relative sense in some categories (for example, non-white, nowhere, never, etc.), but not in the category of essence - nothing is opposite to essence.
Aristotle, before reflecting on existence as such, gives a semantic analysis of the concept, reducing the variety of its meanings to a few basic ones:
1. Existing in the sense of truth and non-existent in the sense of falsehood;
2. Existing in potential and existing in reality;
What is existence as such according to Aristotle?? He distinguishes three theoretical sciences: physics, mathematics and metaphysics. Physics deals with moving beings that have the beginning of motion and rest in themselves; mathematics with a motionless entity, but one that does not exist separately from the matter that embodies it; metaphysics or first philosophy has as its subject an immovable independent being. It is she who deals with beings insofar as they are beings. Other knowledge stops at the level of cash, accepting it as a sensory given, and therefore rather show, how prove. Only the science of existence substantiates every something in its existence.
The distinction between being and non-being means the transformation of being from a copula (Bucephalus is a horse) into being without specifying a predicate (Bucephalus is). The absence of a particular predicate means that the subject is attributed to inclusion in the widest (extremely wide) community. That is, Bucephalus is now considered not as belonging to the genus of horses, but as belonging to the genus of being (being in general). This highest genus is at the same time the most abstract genus, because all definitions of an object are “extinguished” in it, except for the most general definition - belonging to being.
The verb to be takes on a different meaning: it is no longer possible to say that the subject “is this or that,” he simply “is.” "There is" no longer bunch, connecting the subject with the predicate, is already the predicate itself.
In the process of thinking, we are essentially engaged in identifying objects according to certain characteristics and grouping them into certain classes. The basis for enrollment in a class is the commonality of the assigned predicates. But when the verb to be is used as a predicate, the activity of thinking seems to turn on itself. The thought (about Bucephalus) seems to split into two and, being referred to itself, receives an extremely general identifying predicate of being, extinguishing all the individual characteristics of the subject. After all, nothing definite is said here about the subject, except for the most general statement that he exists and belongs to being. And it is no coincidence that Kant, at one time, expressed his deepest doubt: can being even act as a predicate?
But, perhaps, everything really must be exactly as Kant believed? Usually it is never enough for us to say that this or that thing There is; we always want to know What exactly she is.
ESSENCE
The existence of beings appears to us as some absolutely undifferentiated (solid) mass or as an equally continuous continuous process. In both cases, it is completely impossible to separate (distinguish) things (or events) from each other precisely because of the solidity, continuity, and continuity of existence. It is unknown what, where and how it begins; but it is also unknown where, when and how it ends. In this continuous viscous fluidity, we must find certain beginnings, middles and ends in order for the perceived world to really be something meaningful and definite for us.
First we have a certain indefinite background without beginning and without end, a certain continuum, something “infinite”. Further, against this absolutely monotonous background, we begin to distinguish one from the other, draw boundaries between now different areas and, finally, closing this or that figure on this background, “cutting out a certain section of it,” we get something complete and figuratively constructed, in which there is both the “infinite” and its limitation by the “limit”. Those. from the monolith of existence, various individual entities differing from each other stand out and appear before us.
Plato in the Republic shows that being (einai) and essence (oysia) are not the same thing: einai here is apparently the pure ability to be, and oysia is the idea possessing being. Just like Aristotle later, Plato distinguishes between the problem of being and the problem of essence. And just like Aristotle, he does not exclude that the problem of essence may turn out to be decisive. For through essence we perceive the world not simply as an abstract being in general, but as a concretized, definite being.
In the history of philosophy and in modern literature, an extremely wide spectrum of understanding of essence and its corresponding interpretations has developed. The essence is usually understood as a single, internal, defining connection, and a system of all necessary aspects and connections of a thing, taken in their natural interdependence, and a system of properties and relations that predetermine other properties and relations, and a set of stable (invariant) properties, and a certain law of development of a thing and... Just a comparison of different approaches and definitions, details and subtle differences in their content could form the topic of an entire course.
At the same time, without going into details, these subtle differences are worth noting the main thing. First of all, the essence is characterized by a set of stable characteristics of a thing. With the help of these signs and properties, the essence is fixed and expressed, appears as a single integrity. Secondly, the properties that form the essence are independent, determining all other properties of the thing. These two characteristics - invariance (stability) and independence are usually considered as conditions (criteria) for considering properties as essential, belonging to the essence of a thing.
Essence(oysia) in the form of a collective name means “everything that is”, all the properties of a thing, including here also the property “to be” (“being”).
General and individual entities. Aristotle emphasized the fundamental distinction between two characteristics of things:
1) the undifferentiated individual uniqueness of a thing and
2) properties common to a number of objects.
In this regard, he spoke of “first” (“primary”) and “second” (“secondary”) entities.
Mainly, primary In a sense, Aristotle calls essence that which in a sentence is always the subject and never the predicate. Main feature such primary essence, according to Aristotle, is the ability to be the bearer of opposites and contain them in oneself, while remaining the same essence. This ability seems truly amazing to Aristotle. Good and evil are not the same thing, but a person must be, while remaining himself, good and evil, bad and good.
Secondary entities are the genera and species to which primary entities belong: for example, a given particular person is a primary entity in relation to the secondary ones - “man” or “living being”.
The main feature of secondary entities is the identification of characteristics common to a certain set of objects. For this reason, the name “general essences” has also been assigned to secondary entities in the history of philosophy. Question about common essence there is a question about whether the concept of a thing belongs to a certain genus. This is its difference from the primary essence, which is so closely connected with its object that no other object can possess it.
Of the secondary essences, species is more of an essence than genus. The closer to the first essence, the more certainty and independence grows in it. Aristotle says: "... a species is more of an essence than a genus: it is closer to the primary essence. In fact, if someone begins to define the primary essence, indicating what it is, it is more understandable (more precisely ) and will define it more closely by indicating the species than by indicating the genus: thus defining an individual person, he will define him more clearly (more accurately) by indicating a person than by indicating a living being: the first definition is more characteristic of an individual person, the second is more general.”
According to Aristotle, we can talk about the measure of essence. This measure is defined relative to the level of generality. An essence is an essence to a greater extent, the closer it is to a primary (individual) essence, and vice versa, the higher the level of generality, the less such a general essence is an actual essence.
The universal is farthest from essence, and the individual in some sense coincides with it. At the same time, within one or another class of entities of the same level, a difference in degrees is impossible. Within a class, all entities have equal rights.
However, the fate of the question of the relationship between individual and general essences is indicative. For Aristotle, on the one hand, the general is further from the essence than the individual, but, on the other hand, the definition of essence is given through an indication of the genus and specific difference. For this reason, the general Aristotelian attitude opens up a different perspective for understanding essence.
An essence is defined by a set of classifying properties, and these are nothing more than genera and species. This gives rise to a logical opportunity to reconsider the priorities established by Aristotle and bring to the fore what he himself calls secondary entities (genera and species). It was along this path that the development of the philosophical tradition took place.
Thus, the genus-species interpretation of essence is developed by Porfiry, who attributed genus, species and species-forming (universal differences) and essential properties, and considered individual (unique) characteristics to be random and insignificant properties.
The tendency towards a generic-specific understanding of essence intensifies even more in the Middle Ages. Thus, Thomas Aquinas defines essence as that which is expressed in a definition: “The definition,” he says, “embraces generic, but not individual grounds.”
From the identification of essence precisely with general properties gives rise to the dominant idea of all medieval philosophy - the idea of an absolutely universal common essence, as a unique “genus of all genera”. Such an absolutely universal essence, the manifestation of which is everything that exists, is, according to Aquinas, God.
Aristotle (384 BC - 322), ancient Greek scientist, philosopher, teacher of Alexander the Great, student of Plato.
There are three types of speculative knowledge: physics, mathematics and first philosophy. Physics studies things that are capable of movement. The subject of mathematics is a being that is not capable of movement. Definitions of mathematics presuppose a certain substratum. Only first philosophy studies the immobile and independently existing. It is also the science of essence, i.e. about the essence of a thing's existence. The main definition of philosophy is this: “a science that studies existence as such, as well as what is inherent in it in itself.”
Single being is the synthesis of matter and form. Matter is the possibility of being, and form is the realization of this possibility, an act. The form is expressed by the concept. The concept is valid even without matter. It turns out that form is the essence of both a separate individual object and the concept of this object.
Existence as such has the first causes, which the philosopher must comprehend, revealing the essence of the existence of things. The first causes, according to Aristotle, include: form, matter, origin of motion and purpose. Form represents the essence of sensible things as real. Matter is the essence of sensible things in potentiality. Matter consists of elements - the ultimate parts into which bodies are divided by type. There are four elements: fire, air, water and earth. The luminaries are in constant motion because there is no possibility of a circular motion contradicting them, which means they are devoid of matter. If an essence capable of origination contains the beginning of movement, then such an essence is called nature.
Nature is that from which and in accordance with which something arises. Emergence comes from a state of deprivation. Therefore, for emerging entities, three causes or principles are considered fundamental: matter, form and privation. The last two principles form an “opposition”. The origins for color are, respectively, the surface, white and black, for day and night - air, light and darkness.
The main principle for eternal entities is activity. This essence is the mind or God, i.e. such a mover that does not need to be set in motion. "God is the eternal, best living being."
He shifted the emphasis from idea to form. Form is the main reason for being. There are four reasons in total:
· formal - the essence of a thing;
· material - the substrate of a thing;
· acting - that which sets in motion and causes changes;
· purpose - in the name of what the action is performed .
Formal reason. Form is the essence of being in the basic sense. Aristotle's matter is passive. The form is active, it is also the essence. True, they were not created by God. Aristotle says that “no one creates or produces form.” But still they exist on their own and, being brought into matter, they seem to create things. Moreover, God ultimately brings them into matter. Therefore, each sensory essence or individual is something composite: it is composed of an active form and passive matter - the successor of the form. Here Aristotle approaches his teacher Plato.
Material reason. And “form”, “matter” are Latin words not known to Aristotle. He used here the Greek word “hyule”, which meant: timber; raw material. Aristotelian matter is twofold. Firstly, matter is formless and indefinite substance. This is the “first matter”. Secondly, matter is more in a broad sense- this is “that from which a thing consists”, and that “from which a thing arises”. Such matter also includes the “first matter” from which things are composed and arise. Things directly consist and arise from already formed “ultimate matter.” Such matter is matter only for that which directly arises from it. Thus, stones are matter only for a stone house, but stones themselves are not just matter, but repeatedly formed matter, they are primary matter that received the form of earth, which then, in turn, received the form of stoneness. Such matter has its own essence of being - this matter is both definable and knowable. The first matter is “in itself unknowable.”
Aristotelian matter is passive, lifeless, incapable of generating anything out of itself. It is also very important that Aristotle’s matter is eternal, without yielding to form. Matter and form are two coeternal principles. “Emergence cannot be attributed,” says the Metaphysics, “to either matter or form.” The role of matter in Aristotle's worldview is very great. Everything that exists in nature consists of matter and form. Without matter there cannot be nature and things.
But although matter is eternal, it is precisely it that is the source of the transience of things; it is thanks to matter, standing on the line of being and non-existence, and perhaps going beyond this line, that a thing is capable of being and not being. In addition, matter is the source of individualization of things. True, this question is insoluble for Aristotle.
If all people have one essence (and according to Aristotle, this is the case), for the essence of the existence of people is that they are people, then all people would have to turn into one person, the essential difference between them disappears. “And these are different things,” he says, “thanks to matter! In both cases [different], and at the same time - the same in appearance (for the appearance is indivisible).” Therefore, “that which by number forms a set is all has matter"! and all "objects are distinguished by matter." That is why matter is the source of randomness in the world.
Target reason.“Realization” is expressed in Aristotle by the term “entelechy.” For example, according to Aristotle, an egg is a chick in potential, but not entelechially. The Aristotelian worldview is teleological. In his view, all processes that have meaning have internal purposefulness and potential completeness. And it's total. “Conditioning through purpose,” Aristotle emphasizes, “occurs not only “among actions determined by thought,” but also “among things that arise naturally” (XI, 8, p. 193). From the example of the chicken and the egg it is clear that Aristotle called entelechy the implementation of a purposeful process. Of course, at the same time, he could not know how the chick is actually formed in the egg, and was forced to reason speculatively. As a result, it turned out that the “formal” chick precedes the real chick, because "with from the point of view of essence, reality goes ahead of possibility" (IX, 8, p. 159). To a certain extent, this is true, because the development of a chick in an egg is the implementation and deployment of the genetic code embedded in the chick embryo. But this is apparently incorrect regarding inorganic nature. What program can a galaxy have? Moreover, Aristotle did not mean so much a certain program as a good. For him, the goal is the desire for one’s own good. Every opportunity strives to realize itself, to become full-fledged. Therefore, each potential, striving for realization, thereby strives not only for its own good, but also for good in general. Therefore, in Aristotle, the concept of goal, which at the level of science of that time could not be revealed specifically, is reduced to the concept of striving for good. But this good is not otherworldly, as in Plato, not good in general, but a specific good as the completion and implementation of a specific potency, its entelechy. In the concept of “that for the sake of which,” in the concept of purpose as self-realization, identified with good, Aristotle finds the third highest cause, or the third principle of all things, a principle that acts everywhere and always.
Driving reason.Aristotle finds the fourth and final principle in the moving cause. Aristotle proceeds from a certain dogma, according to which “what moves [in general] must be set in motion by something,” which means denying the spontaneity of movement. However, this activity also has an external source in some higher essence, higher form, in some prime mover. In "Metaphysics" it is said: "What causes change? The first mover. What is subject to it? Matter. What does change lead to? To form."
A thing usually has all four causes. For example, the reasons for a statue are both sculpting art and copper: the first - as a source of movement, the second - as matter. But both the formal reason and the target reason are at work. The sculptor, creating a statue, gives it the form that he had in his head as a goal that determined all his actions - not spontaneous, but purposeful, and if successful in realizing the goal in the material, entelechial.
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