Problem Set: Aristotles Categories - Assignment Example

Philosophy 23rd Nov., Problem Set Answers to questions on Aristotle’s Categories (a) Being streamed: Being streamed falls under the category of Being Affected. (b) Large: Large falls under the category of Quality. (c) Digests: digests falls under the category of Acting on/action (d) Plato: Plato falls under the category of Substance (e) Sister: Sister falls under the category of Relative/Relation (f) In tune: in tune falls under the category of Having/Have (g) In the room: In the room falls under the category of Being in a place/Where (h) Soul: Soul falls under the category of being in a Position (i) 3 tons: 3 tons falls under the category of Quantity (j) 3 o’clock: 3 o’clock falls under the category of Time/When 2. Answers to questions about causes (a) An example illustrating Aristotle’s four causes, i.e. material, formal, efficient, and final causes. A good example of a process that illustrates the four Aristotelian causes is the process of refining oil/petroleum products. In refining oil, the crude oil is the material cause. This is because crude oil s the material from which oil comes from/ refined from. The idea or the concept of refined oil that motivates people into refining crude oil into various petroleum products is the formal cause of the process of refining oil. Before oil is refined, the people doing the refining have an idea or the form of the final product into which they want to refine the crude oil, this idea or the form is the formal cause of the process of refining oil. In this process of refining oil, the people who do the refining of the crude oil are the efficient cause of the process of refining oil. This is because the people doing the refining of the crude oil are the one who initiates the process of changing the material cause/the crude oil into the refined final product, i.e. the refined petroleum product. The final product of the process of refining crude oil, i.e. the refined petroleum products, is the final cause of this process of refining oil. This is because the refined oil is the actualized goal of the process of refining crude oil; the refined oil is the goal that this process of refining crude oil was aimed at. (b) Aristotle’s conception of aition. The English translation of Aristotle’s concept of aition into ‘reason why’ captures Aristotle’s conception of aition more than the translation of the concept into “causes’. This is because in the concept aition, Aristotle meant to give an explanation of how things come to be and the process that the coming to be follows. Aristotle’s concept of aition did not have any connotation of ‘cause and effect’ that the English term ‘cause’ has; in his explanation of aition, Aristotle did not seek to explain how things are generated from other things, Aristotle instead sought to explain the reason why things are as they are, and the process that the things have underwent to be what they are. For this reason, although, to some extent the term aition can be translated to mean causes, the term causes does not aptly capture Aristotle’s conception of aition. The interpretation of the concept aition into “reason why” is the translation of that captures Aristotle’s conception of aition in a very fundamental way. This is because the concept of “reason why” does not have the connotations of cause and effect; “reason why” concept seeks to explain why things are the way they are, just like Aristotle’s concept of aition seeks to explain the same reality. 3. Aristotle on the ‘one over many argument’ in proof of the existence of forms. The following is an analysis and an explanation of the ‘one over many argument’ in support of the existence of forms. The first premise of the argument is that, if for example, if all members of a certain group, for example group G, are F’s, then there is something that is common to all the entities in group G. To explain this premise further let us look at a real example. Let us say that there is a group of people in a room (let us call the group of people in a room G), let us then say that all the people in the room are male (let us call the state of being male F). In this example, we find that there is something common among all the people in group G, in other words, all the people in Group G are males (F). The second premise of this argument is that this thing that is common to group G, in our example F, is not a member of group G. What this means is that F, the state of being man/male, does not have the same essence as the other members of group G, although, it is a common feature of all the members of group G; in our example this means that F, the state of being man/male, is not man. The third premise of the argument is that, indeed, F(the state of being man), is a separate from members of group G, and is actually in a different realm of existence from the members of group G, i.e F is non-sensible while the members in group G are sensible. Lastly, the conclusion of the argument is that F(the state of being man/male) exists, and F is a form (the form of being man). Aristotle attacked this argument and reasoned that this argument this arguments leads to the ‘third man regress’. Aristotle argued that if forms actually exist as Plato had argued, and if the physical realities are just a participation of the forms, then using the same reasoning of G and F (the argument that we have analysed above), we must give an argument to show what is common between man and the actual form of man that man participates in. Aristotle rightly argued that this kind of arguments leads to infinite regress (third man regress) because we would always have to explain what is common between things and their forms. To block the infinite regress, the Platonists would argue that the physical realities are mere shadows of the forms that exist in the real world of forms. As shadows, physical realities do not participate” (in the strict sense of the term) in the real forms, the physical realities are vague shadows of the forms. As the vague shadows of the forms, there is nothing (strictly speaking), common to the physical realities and the forms. For this reason, there is no need to give an argument to show what is common between the forms and the physical realties, there is virtually nothing common between the two. This therefore is the classic argument that the Platonists would advance to block the infinite regress. 4. Socrates on embodied existence. Socrates was of the view that embodied existence is problematic for human beings. Socrates conceived human being as an embodied soul. For Socrates, therefore, the defining nature of man is his soul. Socrates saw human body as being an impediment to the soul; for Socrates, human body hinders the soul from reasoning and reflecting well to know the reality as it is; the human body hinders man from beholding the forms of things. For this reason, Socrates conceived human body as a prison for the soul. The body imprisons the soul through its passions, the passions of the body prevents the soul from being free and being able to behold the truth of realities. The passions therefore are the mechanisms by which human body imprisons the soul. 5. The final argument for the immortality of the soul given in the Phaedo. The first premise of the final argument given by Plato is that, unlike the imperfect qualities of physical things, the qualities of forms are perfect and do not admit of their opposites. For instance, although we say that some physical things are beautiful, we however, don’t understand this to mean that physical things are perfectly beautiful. On the contrary, the form of beauty that exists in the world of forms is perfect beauty. The second premise of this argument is that the human soul is the form of human person. As the form of human person, the soul animates the human body. Plato argued that, as the animator of the human body, the soul must be intimately united to the form of life. The conclusion of the argument is that since the human soul is intimately united to the form of life, and the form of life does not admit its opposite, i.e. death, human soul must also be immortal. The human soul, therefore, is immortal in virtue of its intimate union with the form of life itself. In my view, I do not think that this argument does not show that the human soul is, indeed, immortal. This is because, to begin with, Plato in this argument does not give sufficient explanation as to why he thinks that the human soul is intimately united to the form of life. The fact that the human soul animates human body does not prove that the human soul is intimately united to the form of life. For that reason, this argument does not show that human soul is immortal. Secondly, this argument presumes that human body can exist independent of human body. For Plato, human soul does not need human body to exist. However, Plato does not explain how human soul can, indeed, survive without the human body. This view of human nature is false because it does not explain how human soul can exist independent of human body. To give a credible argument on the immortality of the human soul, Plato had, first of all, to explain how human soul can exist without the human body. For that reason, I don’t think that Plato’s final argument on the immortality of the soul does demonstrate that human soul is immortal. Finally, Plato does not explain in this argument why intimate union between human soul and the form of life itself mean that human soul is immortal. It is possible that, even if human soul and the form of life were intimately united, the union would come to an end during the death of human person. Something can be intimately united to another thing for some time and get separated from the thing after sometime. So, the fact that human soul and human body may be intimately united does not prove that human soul is immortal; it is possible for the intimate union to be broken. I, therefore, think that this argument does not offer a proof for the immortality of human soul. Works Cited Aristotle Metaphysics. Web. Phaedo Summary.Web. http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/phaedo/section2.rhtml Read More