Substantiality and Causality

Miroslaw Szatkowski, Marek Rosiak, Miroslaw Szatkowski, Marek Rosiak

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781614518761
• eBook ISBN: 9781614519492
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophical Metaphysics

The content of the volume is divided as follows: after presenting two rival approaches to substantiality and causality: a traditional (ontological) view vs. a transcendental one (Rosiak) there follow two sections: the first presents studies of substance as showing some causal aspects (Buchheim, Keinänen, Kovac, Piwowarczyk), whereas the other contains investigations of causality showing in a way its reference to the category of substance (Kobiela, Meixner, Mitscherling, Wro?ski). The last, short section contains two studies of
extension (Leszczy?ski and Skowron) which can be regarded as a conceptual background of both substantiality and causality. The book gives a very colourful picture of the discussions connected with substantiality and causality which may be of potential interest for the readers.

Part I: Substantiality and Causality – Different Approaches

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Marek Rosiak

Substantiality and Causality. Classical and Transcendental Approach

Et quod olim et nunc et semper quaesitum est et semper dubitatum, quid ens, hoc est quae substantia. [Met. Z 1028b 3–4]

1

Philosophy is basically a search for first principles and a substance in the technical, Aristotelian sense, is a fundamental principle of reality. Principles put forward by some Aristotle’s forerunners, as I am going to argue, can be interpreted, in a somehow Hegelian sense, as partial, not quite satisfactory solutions, while the proposal of Aristotle himself seems to remain for ages the most satisfactory answer to the problem.

Parmenides stressed emphatically that the principle of what there is must be absolutely simple and unique: Plurality and diversity implies negation and negative being, understood by him not as just privation but as non-being in a strict sense, is just nothing. Why did not Parmenides accept negative facts like A’s not being B or just A and B being different? The reason must be his rejection of all relations, including logical ones, like difference. Logical impossibility of any differences in being explains its absolute simplicity and uniqueness. However, the absolutely simple principle cannot account for a complex phaenomenal output (a fundamental problem of a monistic explanation). Denying plurality, complexity and change, Parmenides neglected the testimony of senses for the sake of logic alone. Thus he was left with a principle but no principiatum: a principium which could at most be ratio sui. His hen could serve no explanatory purpose and later it became clear that it could not been even self-explanatory as Plato had demonstrated in his Parmenides 137C – 142A. The final lesson of Parmenides’ metaphysics is that an absolutely simple being cannot be even self-explanatory and consequently is unable to explain anything at all. This already shows in nuce a dialectical tension between looking for the simplest explanation and its explanatory power: we require that an explanation should be simpler than the explanandum, but on the other hand, the simpler it is the harder it fits the complex output.

A Parmenides contemporary – Heraclitus – took an opposite standpoint: He claimed that nothing permanent whatsoever exists and everything is in a process of flux. He did not base this conclusion on purely logical premises as Parmenides, but rather just generalized everyday observation that things change. Properly speaking, nothing changes – there is only a perpetual process of universal metamorphosis. There are no differences between things – only different qualities follow one another. Heraclitus’ standpoint seems to differ from that of Parmenides in every respect, but in fact they have a fundamental feature in common: they both are numerical monisms. Heraclitus was inclined to suppose that there is some permanence in the overwhelming flux – its constant and cyclic character. He was probably the first to realize that universal principle which he called logos can have an abstract character, being a rule of changes and not a material thing. He probably regarded this general principle of becoming as a mutual correlation of all aspects of reality: the universal flux is not chaotic. Its different aspects show a mutual correlation which, as the principle of changes, is not itself subject to change. As it belongs to the category of relations one can say that this relation is prior to its arguments. Apart from these formal features, Heraclitean logos remained, as far as we know, just a term without any closer characteristics. Hence this standpoint must be regarded as only a stimulus for further investigations.

Plato made a remarkable effort to show how a general principle – an idea –determines an individuum. His metaphysical dualism refers back to both Heraclitus and Parmenides as a sort of a synthesis of their doctrines. Plato modified the standpoint of Parmenides- by substituting to hen with the whole hierarchy of ideas having various degree of generality. Thus he accepted relations, including differences, rejected by Parmenides.¹ On the other hand he adopted the Heraclitean doctrine of panta rhei, claiming that individual things “always become and never really are”. He also agreed with Heraclitus that the sphere of becoming is subordinated to general principles: particulars refer to ideas. The chief problem of this standpoint was the explanation of the relation of exemplification or participation (methexis) holding between particulars and ideas. In a famous fragment of his Parmenides [130B - 134E] Plato checks two possible hypotheses: participation is a kind of the part-whole relation or a special similarity relation. Alas, neither hypothesis works.² Thus, a consequence has to be drawn, that no intelligible connection between quasi-Parmenidean world of ideas and Heraclitean world of becoming holds. This fundamental problem is known under the name of chorismos. But the collapse of the theory of ideas teaches us some lesson. Both the part-whole relation and similarity can hold only between objects of the same category: even when a lady’s behaviour bears some similarity to a cougar habits, both individuals belong to a common genus. And a real horse cannot contain ideal horseness or vice versa. Plato seems to have overlooked that relations taken from one domain cannot apply to arguments of a quite different nature.

Aristotle, as a prominent pupil of Plato, had to be well aware of the problems of ideas. In Metaphysics he often refers to the third man problem, connected with the similarity hypothesis, but there is no hint at the other, “part-wholistic” hypothesis disproved by his master. This cannot be a simple overlooking. Indeed, Aristotle could not accept Plato’s negative evaluation of this hypothesis, as he tried to locate ideas (called by him “forms”) in individual objects. However, his doctrine of hylemorphism did not assume that matter and form compose an individual in a way analogous to a composition of pasta of flour and eggs. Being a descendant of the line of the aforementioned thinkers he could not just state that there is some special, unexplained in details, relation of containment between a form and a concrete object, because this would make no real progress with regard to platonic participation.

A form of an object should be understood as an internal (“in re”) principle of its functioning – be it a spontaneous action or passive reaction to external stimuli. A form of a hammer, say, is just its suitability for hitting nails. Materials, shapes and connection of the parts of a hammer serve to this purpose. Being a hammer is not a quality and there is no an ideal hammer which is ideal for ideal hammering. An apropriate functioning in particular conditions is something quite different and can be executed only when a real hammer exists. Hence the existence of the function presupposes existence of a particular object but being a specific object presupposes having a definite function as well.

It should be stressed here that as a consequence of this attempt of unifying form with individual, the status of what is changeable in it had considerably improved. For Plato a phenomenal being was just an imperfect picture of what really is – it was deprived of its own ontic position so to say. And of course for Parmenides what was not to hen was just a sheer illusion. But for Aristotle a so called accidental being, although not being a possible object of scientific knowledge, was still something objective, not illusory. An accident, being a derivative, non-fundametal being, was nevertheless something real, belonging to an object itself and not to its phenomenon only.

2

To understand properly Aristotle’s solution of the Platonic problem of chorismos we should proceed step by step. Misinterpretations of his standpoint with this fundamental respect were numerous and quite common. E. g. popular characteristics of his position as to the status of universals, which is termed moderate (immanent) realism, consists of the thesis: universalia (sunt) in re – in contrast to platonic universalia ante rebus. This thesis cannot be understood literally because, as I have mentioned earlier, the interpretation of participation as a part-whole relation was disproved already by Plato and it is certain that Aristotle did not simply ignore this criticism. If the principal form of an individual were contained in it, this individual would contain (in the very same sense of the term) still other parts. In fact it contains certain qualities etc. but their being contained implies possibility of one-sided detachment: Without such a quality as e. g. being young I will remain the same object, although an older one. But I cannot retain identity without being a man – this determination constitutes me as an object. Being a man has not an independent existence, it is not a separate entity as Plato claimed. A general form of a man exists only as a form of particular people. Its existence is dependent on individuals, but individuals are in turn essentially determined by this form. What we have here is double dependence: a form is existentially dependent on individuals and individuals are essentially dependent on their form. A substantial form can show itself “in action” only in an individual localized in particular spatio-temporal conditions. But its specific character does not depend on particular circumstances.

An individual, a particular object, exists in different part-whole relations. If we have a construction made of LEGO bricks, the existence of its particular element is the necessary condition of the existence of the whole. According to Aristotle there must be objects existing in themselves, unconditionally. They are existentially independent. They still can have some components, but these must exist conditionally: only as components of such and such an individual and never as independent items. Not every individual object exists independently in the sense just described. To be a basic individual, an object has to exemplify a fundamental, substantial form (e. g. being a man).³ Having such a form enables an individual to have other forms – accidental ones. E. g., being a man, I can be handsome or ugly (quality), tall or short (quantity), clever or dull (disposition, echein), running or sitting (situation, keisthai), loving or hating somebody (relation, pros ti), talking and listening (action and passion) and so on. An individual act of conversation as well as a talking couple are individuals but they have no their own substantial forms. This is why they are not basic individuals.

Summarizing, one can say that basic individual (a primary substance) is a bearer of a substantial form (a secondary substance). All forms are modes of functioning of their object, but the substantial form is the principal, constitutive one, conditioning all others and not conditioned by other forms. That is why a whole composed of independent parts having their own substantial forms cannot be a (primary) substance: its form depends on forms of its components. Using modern terminology one can say that a primary individual has both its basic Dasein and its basic Sosein. If we take into consideration a living organism, its organs cannot exist independently – this apparently confirms the hypothesis that an organism is a primary substance. But dead body does not disappear without a trace – certain its components continue to exist. This shows the basic existential problem of Aristotelian metaphysics: Any bearer of a substantial form should be a primary individual, but as far as such a bearer is a material, extended being, it has only a conditioned existence – it exists in virtue of its components. Hence its form, as also conditioned, cannot be a secondary substance.

In addition to a hierarchical description of a primary substance according to a table of categories, Aristotle provided an elaborated system of causes to characterize a primary substance not only in a static, synchronic and mereological aspect, but also in a dynamic perspective of becoming and change. Apart from matter⁴ and form, termed immanent causes, he introduced so called transcendent causes: agent (effective cause) and aim (final cause). Matter and agent characterize a primary substance with respect of its becoming and two other causes with respect of its being something definite. Moreover, one can regard matter and aim as passive limits of substantial activity while agent and form are factors acting within these limits: agent actualizes matter potency of becoming a new substance and form determines a substance tendency towards its aim. This dynamic aspect of a primary substance involves its becoming and subsequent changes. As to the changes, they are always changes of accidents preserving identical subject determined by a substantial form. Individual identity has to accompany changes of a substance ...

Table of contents

• Philosophische Analyse / Philosophical Analysis
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Editorial Introduction
• Part I: Substantiality and Causality – Different Approaches
• Part II: Causal Aspects of Substance
• Part III: Substantialistic Background of Causation
• Part IV: Extension as a Constituent of Substance and Causality
• Authors of Contributed Papers
• Author Index
• Subject Index