Substance, Form and Psyche: An Aristotelian Metaphysics
Montgomery Furth
Cambridge, 1988

"[M]y interpretive practice here is in places frankly reconstructive in character, synthetic rather than analytic; where it seems needed, or even merely helpful, I do not stick at approaching the text by convergence, rather than by trying to extract doctrine from it in the conventional way. This interpretive practice is in fact guided by an interpretive ideal: to recreate in imagination the world the philosopher saw, the problems it presented to him, and the conceptual instrumentalities with which he sought to reduce what was problematic to intelligiblity and order - and to do this so completely and vividly that in the light of this understanding arrived at in our own terms, it becomes possible to "*deduce* the text"..." (FURTH, p. 1)

In discussing criteria for so-called secondary substance, Furth quotes the Categories: "'It is reasonable that, after the primary substances, only their species and genera should be called ('secondary') substances; for they alone, of things that are predicated, *reveal*, *make clear* (deloi) the primary substance.' (2b29-31) This is because 'if someone is to render of [e.g.] the individual man what he is, he'll do so appropriately (oikeios) if he renders the species or the genus', whereas if he renders 'any of the other things, he'll have done so inappropriately (allotrios)'..." (2b31ff) (FURTH, p. 29) [PSA: cf EN 1175b20 and EE 1153a19 w.r.t. pleasures that are naturally associated with an activity.]

"Aristotelian individuals come *only in*, and *via*, kinds (thus the individual *tree*, the individual *man*) - and ... this is true to such an extent that for him, the two aspects of the notion of substance that we stated separately in §6, namely, individuativeness and essence, are merged together in a way that they are not for us." (FURTH, pp. 60-61)

In Part III, focused on "the zoological universe", Furth seeks to "see deeply into their internal structure", to "conceptualize with ... vividness what 'substantial being' comes to", and to generate "an intuitive understanding" of the thinghood of entities. He does this by "following up the consequences of the hypothesis, first, that the actual Aristotelian substances are pre-eminently the biological objects, living things - which means in practice the higher animals .... Thus, let us take seriously and in earnest ... that 'plants and animals are substances malista, most of all' (Metaphysics Zeta), and look to his biological studies for both the common 'principles' and the distinguishing 'differences' most characteristic of substances, as they are to be found in the real world: the manner of their construction, how they come into existence, their modes of self-sustenance, how they related to the remainder of the world surrounding them, what is specifically meant by a substance's decline and eventual ceasing-to-be, et cetera. Second, in studying the nature of these 'beings' and endeavouring to analyze the 'causes' that are at work in bringing them about and endowing them with their immensely absorbing and unique characteristics, we are embarking (in Aristotle's tracks) on a highly ambitious enterprise of biological *theory*, in which a number of deep and difficult problems must be faced and resolved: theoretical problems, we shall see, that are not at all primitive, or naive, or superannuated, but that are in large part still unresolved today, and go to the very nature of life itself." (FURTH, pp. 67-68)

In laying the groundwork for this study, Furth adduces seven fundamental facts, the first three of which are: "Fact 1. Biological objects are individuals or "thisses".... Fact 2. Each one of these biological individuals is permanently endowed with a highly definite specific nature ... which incorporates a very large number of features and aspects of its make-up, among these: (a) an overall physical structure of the living thing as a whole.... And founded on this structure, (b) also incorporated in its specific character is a characteristic life-style, a total pattern of functioning typical for its species - including, e.g., a manner of growth and development, manner of nutrition at different stages of development, mode of reproduction, mode of homemaking, mode of relationship to co-specific individuals, to potential enemies, to the general animal population, to the total circumambient environment.... Fact 3. These biological individuals are by a wide margin and without exception the most complex and highly organized objects to be found on the Earth; in particular, they display to a marked degree a hierarchical structure of *levels* of organization, in which what is a 'whole' at one level is a 'part' at the next, and in which the part-whole relationship itself assumes a variety of forms beyond that of ingredience in a mixture, or aggregation into a bulk or a 'heap'. In complexity of behavior, too: these objects are strikingly more elaborate in what they *do* than are non-living objects such as stones and lakes, even than are rivers and fires (which so impressed Heraclitus). In particular, they are constantly and at all levels in engaged in natural processes and routines that are *future-oriented*, i.e., ones that are aimed at natural tele, 'completions'." (FURTH, pp. 72-73)

On pages 76 through 83, Furth provides an analysis of various levels of materiality. The first level consists of solid, liquid, gas, and plasma (Aristotle calls them earth, water, air, and fire). The second level consists of compounds such as gold, iron, coal, wood, glass, and wine. The third level consists of uniform compounds that arise in living things, such as blood and milk (these include "fitness to a certain function or work, e.g., 641a3, 655b18-21" - p. 80). The fourth level consists of non-uniform parts of animals such a veins, bones, and nails. The fifth level consists of "organs" such as the head, ears, limbs, and fingers. Finally, the sixth level consists of animals themselves, in which "the nonuniform parts are found assembled, organized and integrated into the complete living organism" (FURTH, p. 83).

"[T]he construction of an individual (ontologically speaking) is by way of a hierarchical structure of stages, each of which is thought of as underlying as a 'matter' for an 'enmattered form' - thus the primary elements for the compound masses, these for the uniform parts, etc., all the way up; each stage is also described as existing 'for the sake of' that above it (e.g., PA II.1 646b10-12), and all 'for the sake of' the complete individual. [4] Such talk as this last, I would suggest, is not so much teleological as it is functional: beyond the inorganic compounds like wine and the like, which can be 'what they are' kath' hauta, the nature of the uniform and nonuniform parts of animals invariably includes fitness to a 'work', i.e. a specific contribution to the life of the total organism, separated from which the part no longer retains that nature or 'is what it is' except by ambiguity; the 'for the sake of' terminology is a variant on the same idea. [5] [fn4: At PA I.5 645b15ff the whole *body* exists 'for the sake of some complex (or complete) activity', praxeos tinos heneka polumerous (or plerous).] [fn5: The etymological derivation of organon, organikon, etc. from ergon and their accordance sense of 'instrumental', has been frequently remarked; cf also on energeia below. 'Nature seeks adaptedness' (to prosphoron)', HA IX.12 615a25-26.]" (FURTH, pp. 84-85)

"[A]t the higher, more complicated stages, where matter = successively more complex structures and form = function or 'work', an analogous relationship continues to prevail: the uniform tissues and nonuniform structures must be adapted to their funtions and not only will not just anything do, but the requirements become exceedingly exacting and detailed.... At the level of the finished product, that of hte completed individual animal body, it too underlies as 'matter' [10] a 'form': the total life-style lived by individuals of that species, their total range of function; and thus constraints exist on the body as 'matter' as a whole: 'Take an illustration: A hatchet, in order to split wood, must, of necessity, be hard; if so, then it must, of necessity, be made of bronze or of iron. Now the body, like the hatchet, is an instrument; as well the whole body as each of its parts has a purpose, for the sake of which it is; the body must therefore, of necessity, be such and such, and made of such and such materials, if that purpose is to be realized. [11] [fn10: DA II.1 412a16ff ... I speak typologically of the 'life-style', meaning that complex set of capacities *for* the various activities, so-called 'first actualization'.] [fn11: PA I.1 642a9-13 ... Also PA I.3 643a24-27.] (FURTH, p. 86)

"[A] broad and basic purpose of Aristotle's detailed discussion of combinations of differentiae found in the various animal species, largely missed by the taxonomists, is to ponder the *causal* significance of these combinations: the systematic interrelatedness of the differentiae constitute a valuable clue to the real nature of the species in the sense of its specifically typcal manner of interactive functioning ('doing business') with its environment." (FURTH, pp. 100-101)

"By laying such heavy emphasis on the structural character of differentiae I do not mean to suggest that all the differentiae Aristotle discusses are morphological; he devotes much attention as well to functional and ethological characteristics, 'differentiae with respect to manner of life and dispositions and activities' (kata tous bious kai to ethe kai tas praxeis) (HA I.1 487a10, etc.) - habitat, nutrition, socialization, breeding characteristics, etc., etc. - the whole range of complex behavior that so sharply distinguishes the zoological objects from everything else in the world (cf. Fact 3). But the structural ones are primary, the functional ones presuppose them, and he frequently points out the dependence of animals' behavioral works and deeds, erga and praxeis, upon their possession of the requisite highly diversified nonuniform 'parts' with which to perform them. [fn28: PA II.1 646b12-17, 22-25. Plants have fewer such 'organic' parts than animals do because they do fewer things, animals possess more varies such parts and a polumorphoteron idean, PA II.10 655b37-656a8.] (FURTH, pp. 103-104) [PSA: and humans are the most complex of all because they have not only bodily parts but a wider variety of parts of the soul.]

"Aristotle thinks of animals' complex *activities*, works and deeds (erga kai praxeis) as presupposing the diversified nonuniform structures requisite for carrying them out; in this way the nonuniform organ-ization of animals is related to transtemporal or diachronic individuation, both prospectively and retrospectively: prospectively, it relates to the 'future-oriented routines' mentioned in §9 (as part of Fact 3) and the teleological dimension of the analysis; retrospectively, it contributes also to a *principle of agency*, the fact of ascribably self-initiated behavior. This line again leads to Fact 3, and beyond to the ethics." (FURTH, p. 126)

"As with any machinery, function is often especially well revealed through dysfunction: one finds out how something works by seeing the kind of thing that can go wrong with it." (FURTH, p. 127) [PSA: also in ethics.]

"[F]or living things, form is psyche. On our standard understanding, it follows that *the same psyche is repeated in the distinct individuals of the same species*." (FURTH, p. 147)

The foregoing leads naturally into a discussion of DA II.1, 412a3ff: "'Let us start again as if from the beginning, trying to determine what is psyche and what would be the most-fully-shared logos of it. Now, we say that one particular kind of the things that are is substance, and of that, there is (1) the aspect of matter, which if itself is not an individual something-or-other (tode ti), (2) the aspect of shape and form, in virtue of which it ( = the substance) is then said to be tode ti ...' (Note again ... the suggestion that form confers individuality as well as essence) ... 'and (3) what is 'out of' these. And matter is potentiality, form is completedness (entelecheia) - and that last in two ways, (1) as knowledge is, (2) as theorizing is ( = the exercise of knowledge). It is bodies that are most of all thought to be substances, and of these, most of all the natural bodies, ta phusika somata; for these are sources (archai) of the rest.'" (FURTH, pp. 147-148) [PSA: cf. EE on akrasia: knowledge of practical truth is a dunamis whereas theoria = awareness is an energeia which exercises that knowledge.]

Commenting on 412b6ff, Furth writes: "This marks a further refinement ... when the empsucha are characterized as 'metabolic self-sustainers', this by definition includes having a capacity for certain sorts of *self-initiated activities*. (It is most unlikely that the kinesis and stasis of 412b7 is confined to 'local' movement and rest ... In fact, kinesis and statis are related as second and first actualization or completedness.) Thus here we again intersect with a topos, namely: the uniqueness to biological objects of self-initiated, future-oriented behavior... The idea is roughly that of a type of entity that, though perishable, *tries to continue to exist*." (FURTH, pp. 151-152)

"[T]he fundamental function, ergon, of a biological substance ... is to *live*, when and only when it ceases to live, then and only then it ceases to exist." (FURTH, p. 157) [PSA: cf DA II.4 415b13-14]

"[A]ll the powers of the psyche - aisthetic, kinetic, et cetera - are mobilized in achieving the many particular instrumental tele that are 'for the sake of' the main telos of self-maintenance and self-preservation." (FURTH, p. 159)

"[T]he type of form that Aristotle thinks must be supposed operative in nature if the phenomena that concern him are to be explained and understood, cannot be just a scatter of 'properties' or 'characters' or 'afflictions', but a powerful *integrative agency* that is a *cause* of the unity, both synchronic and transtemporal, of the natural, i.e. biological, individuals." (FURTH, p. 243)

"A potentiality for a *movement* is actualized by that movement's getting under way; the movement has a 'limit', that is, aims at a completion (telos) outside itself (the movement itself is ateles, 'incomplete').... A potentiality for an energeia proper is actualized very differently; the actualization is not a process directed at and terminating with the achievement of a telos external to it; when this sort of actualization gets under way, its telos is internal to it and is realized at the same time (hama) and by the same fact as the commencement of the actualization itself. Furthermore, this potentiality and its actualization are not incompatible, as are movement-potentiality and movement-completion: to the contrary, the paradigm of the relationship is the first-to-second actualization relationship in the case of the psyche, where the ability to see is not 'used up' or destroyed by the seeing, but made most manifest by it, completed or perfected.... Thus in this case there is (1) a dunamis, and then (2) the sort of actualization of that dunamis which the DA calls 'either not an alteration at all (being rather an advancement [epidosis] and indeed into completedness), or a different kind of alteration' (DA II 5 417b6-7)." (FURTH, pp. 266-267) [PSA: there is a connection here to enjoyment that is allotrios (foreign) to an activity vs. enjoyment that is oikeios (native or proper) to an activity.]

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