Pure

Form

in

Aristotle

EUGENE

E. RYAN

commentators often attribute to Aristotle a position ina grave inconsistency in his metaphysics. This position, vl volving which I will call "the paradoxical of pure form," doctrine irreconcilable theses: consists in holding two apparently A Since form is a correlate of matter (and a correlate of the sort that cannot exist apart from its partner,)' it is impossible to divorce form from matter; it would be as absurd to say "x is a form but has no matter" as it would " be to say "Jones is a husband but has no wife." B Some things are pure forms; there exist entities which are not only intelligible through and through and entirely free from matter, but which also meet Aristotelian criteria for being counted (non-metaphorically)2 forms. Cherniss for one has imputed this paradoxical doctrine of pure form to Aristotle.3 In on Z 11 Cherniss asserts commenting Metaphysics that Aristotle, in trying both to attack the theory of ideas and to perfect and argue in favor of his own theory of definition, differentiated the materiate universal from the essential form of true (i.e. natural) He continues: substances. from the epistemological "Yet, apart introduced this if the so-called pure form differentiation, difficulty by be identified with the soul and the soul is the essence of a certain kind of body... this form itself cannot be defined without reference to the

odern

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matter of which it is the actuality and with which it consequently Cherniss claims forms a unit..." that these difficulties forced (329) Aristotle to put off trying to solve his dilemma between granting and denying that primary substance can be defined in isolation from matter. But the issue of pure form having been raised, Cherniss pursues it, noting that Aristotle takes as an example of the object of definition "the universal circle" which is treated as "pure form. "4 He continues: Aristotle is exceedingly reticent about giving examples of his "pure forms."" In Metaphysics 1037 a 30 XOL6Tr exemplifies the "indwelling form" which is, like soul, the primary substance of a concretion ... Ross says that "in the long run God, the intelligences that move the spheres, and the human reason (or rather the 'active' element in it) are the only pure forms that Aristotle recognizes" ... Yet if there is any seriousness in Aristotle's statement that natural concretions are definable only in respect of their primary substance, he must for all of these assume essences which are independent of matter or else admit that what he holds to be most real in this world is indefinable and unintelligible. In these last few lines it is not clear whether "independent of matter" meant to of is suggest (1) capable being thought of or defined without or (2) capable of existing apart from matter. reference to matter, That these two conditions tend to become confused in the lines above is indicated entities by the change from discourse about definable like universal to discourse about the forms circles, pure suggested and the active element of human by Ross (God, the intelligences back again to the question of definable natural subreason,)5 then stances. This ambiguity clears up and Cherniss concensubsequently trates on form as independent of matter in the second sense, that is as being capable of existence apart from matter: "The equation of in De Generatione 318 b 32 is of special interest, for it form and involves the doctrine that determinateness varies directly with the so that that would be r6 degree to which matter is eliminated,

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which is pure form without matter..." (n. 261) Thus we get realm of form to pure form as the as an abstraction pure beyond one "eliminated" read into Cherniss' existing (unless gratuitously of when Cherniss Not surprisingly, a suggestion then, abstraction.) goes back to the theme of Aristotle's God, he finds him to be a primary "ouaia in the strictest sense" (n. 271), "an and separate substance, essence" (458), "the transcendent form of the world ... a immaterial kind of Platonic idea ... It is supposed to differ from the ideas in that but it is so only in a special sense of that homonit is a living being ... for its activity is the activity of immobility, not of ymous term ... of itself and its life is simply the perpetual actualization motion ... It is at most, therefore, a self-conscious as an object of thought ... it not even is final cause but and so, idea; qua thinking qua being, that 6 is qua form ..."I Like Cherniss, A. R. Lacey, in his article and Form in has found the pure form doctrine as well as its inconsisAristotle,"' '3e

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tency in Aristotle. First, Lacey asserts that there must be pure form in Aristotle's because Aristotle takes the position that it philosophy is "one of the roles of oM to be that which is most actual, and since Aristotle equates potentiality with matter o6ci in this role becomes arises the problem of inconsistency: pure form" (66). But straightway is of course that the notion of form "The fallacy in this development with that of matter" only makes sense in conjunction (67); therefore, "If there is any object which is simple in the sense of not being a composite of form and matter it will not, if it is an object, be a form" could have agreed with these last statements, (68). Since Aristotle raises the question about why he got into this inLacey naturally with his doctrine of pure form, and tentatively finds the consistency in his demand for something motivation unchanging, fully existent and eternal. If these demands had motivated Aristotle to hold the pure form doctrine, they would not have been satisfied by this doctrine, for as Lacey (rightly) concludes his paper, "Whatever answer there demands it does not lie in the of pure direction to these may (be?) form" (69). at the core of What can be said of this charge of inconsistency There is no question but that for Aristotle Aristotle's metaphysics? form is a correlate of matter. Even those who have imputed the pure form doctrine to him have not cast that into doubt. Even if a doubt were to arise, the weight of evidence from the Physics and the Metafor it to be taken seriously.8 8 physics would be too overwhelming The questionable then, has to be the aspart of the inconsistency, the fact that such a sertion of pure form. One would have thought from this assertion does arise might deter comgrave inconsistency

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from attributing it to Aristotle or compel them to produce mentators evidence for it. substantial So far as the direct textual evidence for the claim that Aristotle asserted the existence of pure form goes, it is difficult to find any, or even to know what to look for. Those who have found the paradoxical doctrine of pure form in Aristotle often give the impression they have discovered him backsliding And it is true willy-nilly into Platonism. that Aristotle tries to contrast his own theory with that of Plato by of the Platonic forms, yet he never avers stressing the separability that Plato ever referred to "pure forms." Nor do the Platonic dialogues. and yovoe181q Plato does use such words as elxixpwlq, In the Symposium, when talking about the object of knowledge.9 for example, he describes an experience as 6<O To xaaov xocaov ... (211 e 1) and, a few lines below, 6<O TO these qualifiers to yovoi18q xm81iv (3, 4). But he is not attaching to speak of a as Timaeus el3oq would be pleonastic, of form (51 e-52 a): -To6-rcovSe makes clear in the description

7COL 16v, xTa. A form for Plato is nothing other than the pure object of knowledge. "Pure" is not a modifier of form, but when it qualifies for it makes the expression with "beauty," example, synonymous "form." Now Aristotle avoids this terminology. Where it might have seemed required or useful, he uses instead a word that may well have been of his own coinage, He uses this word to signify either (1) the characteristic or ability of existing apart from other things, inof them (e.g. To XCJPG6TOV xon TO Soxs? dependently UTCOCPxE6V

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A 5, ouo?, 1vletaph. Z 3, 1029 a 27, 28, and compare 1070 b 36-1071 a I) ; or (2) the ability not only to exist apart from other things, but to exist apart from matter altogether (e.g. ou<7Kx... Z 2 1028 b 30, 31 ) ; or (3) the capaEaT6 T6C, of or perceived apart from matter bility of being thought (e.g.... el8oq, A 8, 1017 b 24-26.)11 Only in the third of these senses does he and even this usage is rare. ever describe e'Laoq as being of actuality the distinction and In A 5, for example, in describing in relation to and he writes: matter, form, privation potentiality 'yap To dao, xmpic<6v (1071 a 8, 9); and this same ?'?PY??? is said to hold both (1) for privation and (2) condition of separability with matter of either the form or the privation for the compound (so long as the privation or compound are actualized,) while the matter as such does not enjoy this condition. This is obviously a very complex no evidence for the claim that Aristotle passage, but one presenting is attributing to form other than that in any sort of separability or the text becomes absurd upon the Rather, thought perception. he that is of a form's thinking supposition having separate existence. this in and is claimed for Again, separability thought perception form in other texts, as for example in de An. and Cael. In de An. is said to be To ae:X't'LXO\l (424 a 17-19) since the da6J\I xvsu there can be no question of the form being separable in any way other than by perception. The same can be said for Cael. b where with that is contrasted 32, 33) (277 which is 6xqq, precisely to make the point that since the former does not exist, while the latter does, it makes no sense to talk about a plurality of worlds; there is no matter left over from

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this world that could be united with form to bring the composite into existence. In neither the text from de An. nor in that from Cael. does the word X<.pL(j'r\I appear. Yet in both of them Aristotle concerns of form. There is no indication he rejects himself with the separability such separability (except in my sense 3) because embodiable forms are at issue, but because f oyms are. We might have expected to find evidence that Aristotle held the of suprasensible being. And to pure form doctrine in his treatment read Jaeger's account of the dialogue On Philosophy would lead one to believe that such evidence abounded there, that in this early work Aristotle's "unmoved mover hovers above all other gods, immaterial from the world as pure Form,"12 and that when Arisand separated his for God's existence in fragment 16 of the totle presents arguments dialogue he argues that "there is a most perfect thing, which, naturally, The Form of all real Forms must necesmust also be a real Form.... Yet be itself real" nowhere in the fragments is there (158). sarily while 16 does not God is so much as assertion that frag. pure form, any mention form; the passage quoted by Simplicius displays language that is decidedly neutral: "In general, where there is a better there is a best. Since, then, among existing things one is better than another, that is best, which will be the divine" (Ross there is also something trans. ) In Aristotle's study of suprasensible reality in Metaph. A we find a The early chapters striking pattern of terminology. (1-5) frequently form is contrasted with the other principles, use form language; as in Ph. I. The discourse throughout is about matter and privation, of a the But the differs form sensibles (the house, hot, etc.) terminology in chapters 6-9, the explicit in the latter half of the book, particularly In four chapters, i180q is used these into reality. inquiry suprasensible but three times, twice to refer to the Platonic forms, and once in a of the (or uniqueness) passage (1074 a 31-38) about the unicity "seems to be a fragment ouPavo?, a passage that according to Ross to an earlier and more monistic period of Aristotle's belonging thought. "13 Still, even if the passage is in its original place, the fact

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is that Aristotle in these chapters avoids form language, and never uses it to refer in any way to suprasensible being, but at the most to if there were such, would have raise the issue of whether many OpOC\lOL, as men are. to be one be It might argued that even though it would have been inconsistent for Aristotle to have asserted the existence of pure form, and even evidence to support the claim though the texts furnish no immediate to this position because of his other that he did, still he is committed tenets. I will describe and attempt to show the weakness of four arguments that might be used to attempt to prove that Aristotle is bound runs to the thesis that pure form exists. The first of these arguments as follows: 1 If A is equated with B, then if C is a correlate of A, then C is a correlate of B (Principle of Correlation) 2 Ousia-as-most-actual is equated with actuality (A 6, 1071 b 19-20) 3 Actuality is a correlate of potentiality 4 Ousia-as-most-actual is a correlate of potentiality (from 1, 2 and 3) 5 Being matter is equated with being potentiality (Z 7, 1032 a 22, 15, 1039 b 29) 6 Ousia-as-most-actual is a correlate of matter (from 1, 5 and 4) 7 What is a correlate of matter is form (A 4, 1070 b 18, Ph. 190 b 17-20) 8 Ousia-as-most-actual is form (from 6 and 7) 9 Ousia-as-most-actual is free of matter (A 1, 1069 a 3-b 2) 10 A form free of matter is a pure form (definition) 11 Ousia-as-most-actual is a pure form (from 8, 9 and 10) the first, which I have called a above eleven propositions, can claim to be intuitively verifiable: of Correlation," "Principle if being a husband is equated with being a married man, then if being a wife is a correlate of being a husband, then being a wife is a correlate "is equated with" of being a married man. Though the expression is not sure if it is to be I from is take ambiguous (one Lacey) (which "is identical read as "is synonymous with," with," "is coextensive not the does make the principle useless, with," etc.), ambiguity at least for this argument. Of the others, four (2, 5, 7 and 9) are rather directly from Aristotle, one (10) is a definition, and four (4, 6, 8 and 11) are derived from the others in the ways suggested in the text of the The one remaining argument. (3) is problematical, yet it cannot be Of the

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left so, for view that this much displays a

the argument hangs on it. Is it, or must it be, Aristotle's is a correlate of potentiality? 3 has actuality Proposition in its favor surely, that everything that we experience of actuality combination and potentiality, and Aristotle the recognizes that fact: there is never any question of experiencing one without the other. Yet if 3 is true, then it would follow that there is no possibility of any ousia entirely free from potentiality, any ousia, that is, beyond sensibles. If this were the case, then the whole cosmos For Aristotle it is would become a surd, impossible to understand. to change, necessary that there be something free from the potentiality not merely because he dislikes change, but because otherwise nothing is immune from destruction, and given the endless lapse of time exist. So Aristotle would now ought to deny 3; in fact he does nothing at when he describes the unmoved mover as least implicitly so, Tou?to ouv. A 7, 1072 b 8. xew One might wonder whether Aristotle can indeed escape by denying 3, or whether its denial ensnares him in the ontological argument. 14 On the one hand to assert 3 is in effect to rule out the possibility of a suprasensible being, as we have seen. But to deny 3 amounts to asof a necessary being from which "hangs the serting the possibility heaven and nature" (1072 b 13, 14), and if this is not the first step in a Malcolm-like ontological argument, it certainly sets the stage for one.15 It is not clear that this difficulty ever occurred to Aristotle. He does seem to have convinced himself (on empirical grounds, like the exisof tence of motion, and on rational grounds, like the limitlessness was that that there had to be something time) complete actuality, When this demand led to the denial of 3, utterly free of potentiality. he apparently felt no misgivings, or if he did, he did not record them. The second argument that might be used to attempt to prove that

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Aristotle

holds

that

some things

are pure

forms

proceeds

in the fol-

lowing way: 12 Ousia par excellence is equated with form 13 Suprasensible ousia is ousia par excellence 14 Suprasensible ousia is equated with form (from 12 and 13) Then by using propositions conclude: 9 and 10 above, slightly modified, one can

15 Suprasensible ousia is pure form turns on 12, which is usually justified by an Clearly this argument Z for to 17. Ross, example, writes: "Having shown that the appeal nor their universal... substance of things is neither their substratum Aristotle next, in ch. 17, essays to show that it is form or essence,"16 while Lacey refers to the positive assertion that "this (the form or essence) is ouom in Z 17" (60). These writers seem to feel that Aristotle must have come up with a definitive response to the question ouaia (1028 b 4) before he left the inquiry at the end of Z. But of course he provides any number of responses to the question, naming any number of things each of which has some claim to the designation ousia. But to maintain that this last chapter of Z has his final word on the subject (i.e. that form and ousia are identical) obscures the aporetic character of the treatise.17 It also obscures at least one facet of this word, ousia, namely, its existential side, important (if noncommittal) for which Buchanan has argued;18 even if he is only (in Lacey's words)

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to the static "substance" "to some extent right" in objecting as a of he has shown that and form translation ousia, surely equating?ousia element, however minimal. Further, strips ousia of any existential Z 17 is not all that definitive, on any reading. The word ?'?805 appears but once in the whole comparatively not at all) long chapter and this in a phrase so awkward that at least one commentator (Christ) has rejected it as spurious, while Jaeger brackets it as a variant reading of the words at the end of the sentence. The sentence, More To would indicate: more ambiguous than Ross's translation "Therefore, what we seek is the cause, i.e. the form, by reason of which the matter is some definite thing; and this is the substance of the thing" (1041 b 7-9). Further, it is clear from the whole context that Aristotle is treatcan be ing of sensibles and there is no evidence that the argument In other places in Z form is said to be to suprasensibles. extended with matter ousia par excellence in comparison (1029 a 27-30) or of form and matter with the composite (1035 b 14-16). But to say this is simply to claim that forms are a subset of ousia, and this is "Form is ousia," hardly to equate form and ousia. The proposition, Aristotle accepts, while rejecting its converse due to its unacceptable results, results much the same as those discussed above in connection 3 ("If ousia is form, and form is the correlate of with proposition matter, then ousia is the correlate of matter," etc.) A third argument might be based on the premise that every and without counts as form. Then since suprasensible being is form would count not as but as pure form. matter, such being only from a passage in One might claim some evidence for this argument

8e \/e:pye:: (1072 b 19-23) Ross takes (1. 18), the topic being discussed in these lines, as v67)atq from human in itself as distinguished which thinking "thinking But when he and comes to on sense imagination." depends he understands ousia here as "substance in the sense of O(jLOC, a refers to de An. 429 15 where is said to be 81x<ixlv and vou5 essence," xon ovaia5

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Now if this were an exact parallel, it o6ciq but rou and d80q were equated since it would seem follow that that was not an impossible to find in Aristotle an instance of a in such instance. the an But fact two passages d80q if this were not are not parallel. The de An. passage does not deal with xJ' at least as that was glossed above, but obviously deals with with \/013 as the context makes human thinking, particularly 8cx<ixov ro5 the line continues: xod 8uv&yci clear. Following latter cannot be fitted and this -roLo5,rov &MOC description of vovS or either in A 7 or 9. So again into Aristotle's treatment falters. Not only does A 7 not establish it seems to me this argument and but (as I have pointed out) it the equation between Nor is it a valid objection to say this avoids form language. notably is and hence leaves a that For if my unintelligible. amorphous as being would be ill described suprasensible analysis is correct, it to and since has no would be form, relationship amorphous, equally since its very o6ci would be a ill described as unintelligible, for humans he thinks (though Aristotle never says what sort of it would be.) A fourth argument might start from the fact that Aristotle asserts in natural things of the final and formal cause. Then, the identity since the prime mover is the final cause of the universe, he must also be the formal cause, and hence form and indeed pure form. This Cherniss is thinking of when he concludes seems to be the argument on the basis of the final causality of the prime mover that "he is the form of the world" (n. 406, citing 1074 a 31-38, a passage, transcendent of the universe but with referred to above, about the uniqueness no hint of the prime mover's being the form of the unique o6pvlq, and citing 1075 a 11-15, the beginning of A 10, with the problem of Now "how the nature of the whole has the good and the best"). Aristotle does assert the identity of the three active causes in comparihe son with the inactive material cause (Ph. 198 a 24); specifically, identifies the final and the formal cause (H 1044 a 35-b 1, with GC 335 b 6, and the note by Joachim on 333 b 16.)19 But he does so when not would

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the end is intrinsic to the being undergoing the change. The distinction in A 7 of the two senses of o6 vex (1072 b 1-3) points to another sense in which something can be an end, as extrinsic and itself unchanging. In the latter sense, the prime mover is the end of the universe, and as extrinsic rather than as form, not even as the "transconsequently form. This argument cendent" to fails, then, just as the argument God is an efficient cause fails Cherniss himself recthat (and prove ognized that failure, n. 409) ; at times the active causes are identified, and it is risky at best to stake but at other times they are contrasted, on their identity. anything supposed fail to prove what they set out to prove; These four arguments whether use as the starting premise (1) the corresponfail they they and potentiality, dence between actuality (2) the equation of ousia and form, or (4) the identity of and form, (3) the identity of vo-1,70'v the final and formal cause. Their failure, together with the absence of any direct textual evidence, indicates what shaky ground those the pure form doctrine to Aristotle. stand on who attribute this doctrine to ArisYet the question arises whether attributing totle will make any difference so far as interpretation goes. If we could believe what Ross writes in his Aristotle the difference would be slight, nothing more than verbal: "Form and matter being correlative terms, in Aristotle's view that form sometimes exists there is a difficulty pure. This is in fact only a way of saying that there sometimes exists alone something which, like the formal element in concrete things, is intelligible through and through. "2 By the time he had come to Ross had either forgotten write his commentary on the Metaphysics had dismissed the earlier or else had changed his how he problem mind about the status of pure form. It seems he had done the latter, to his commentary he writes that "form and since in the introduction matter exist only in union and are separable only in thought. Of this we might say that Aristotle was well aware, were it not for his doctrine of the existence of certain pure forms, God and the beings that move the spheres; we should perhaps add the human reason, but it would be rash to embark here on that disputed question of interpretation" the meaning of "pure form" (cxix). That the problem of interpreting continued to vex Ross is indicated by the frequent allusions he makes

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to the problem (including the one given above in the quotation from n. even in contexts where the issue need Cherniss, 236,) seemingly not have been referred to.21 The paradoxical doctrine of pure form obviously does make a fundaof Cherniss. He sees Aristotle's mental difference for the interpretation to form as utterly unsuccessful, without so get along attempt pure unsuccessful that he ends his metaphysical with a investigations prime mover which is simply a worked-over Platonic pure form, and ends with other forms that must, too, his epistemological investigations in the end be Platonic pure forms if the ruin of knowledge is to be avoided. Lacey's account of the thrust of Aristotle's does thought not differ appreciably from that of Cherniss, as my earlier discussion of his article makes clear. Nor does that of Haring, who concludes her study, which actually centered around the notion of pure form in with the statement that "Pure form, of all the entities Aristotle, considered, is closest to the kind of eternal being which Plato posited for Ideas and which Aristotle will posit for God."22 Yet another commentator, Joseph Owens, is basically in accord with this approach of the form relative (though he demurs from stressing the separateness to the individual object as do Haring and Cherniss.)23 His well-known book aims to make it possible for one to see the vast difference between on form, and Aristotle's with its utter dependence metaphysics, of the medieval thinkers who had the added insight of the metaphysics characteristic was belief in a supreme being whose most intimate existence. Thus we read in Owens: Having established immobile Entity as form that is free from any kind of matter, the Stagirite proceeds to draw conclusions about its nature (443). Perfection is equated with finitude, act coincides with form (468). What is not form or reducible to form has no interest for the Primary Philosophy An act like that of existence, ... The highest instance of being is form.... which is irreducible to form, has no place in the Primary Philosophy or in any other science (467). It is no surprise, conclusion that then, that at the end of his book Owens comes to the "The 'ontological' of the science ... is conception

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nowhere to be found in the Metaphysics" (471). This conclusion and the what leads up to it derive in great part from Owens' attributing pure form doctrine to Aristotle, as the lines above indicate. If as I have argued in this paper we cannot foist the paradoxical doctrine of pure form on Aristotle, then these well-known interpretations are misleading in important ways, mainly because they locate in the wrong places and the problems in Aristotelian interpretation overlook the original insights he contributed to epistemology and ontology. This is a complex topic, one I will merely indicate by way In his epistemology, Aristotle need not be concerned of conclusion. with stuffing pure forms into material envelopes, the material objects to get them to be intelligible, but must instead of our experience, can be abstracted explain how form, the source of understanding, from existent material individuals (which are, after all, the only sorts He has little or no problem of things that exist in our experience.) with the pure form of circle - it simply does not exist. But he has a as a science is possible when our problem about how mathematics knowledge is dependent upon existing circles.? It was this problem with the related theory . that led Aristotle to his theory of abstraction, alien to Plato's of the two aspects of mind, both theories utterly from hemmed in by the conIn his far being philosophy. ontology, fines of form (as Cherniss, Lacey and others claim,) he breaks out of those confines, particularly with his theory of the prime mover which turns out to be all the good things Aristotle can list: not only ousia and but separate, free from matter, free from potentiality suprasensible, and change, actuality, alive, well, happy, eternal, mind, a principle and cause, but never form. But as eluding Plato's problems in epistemology brought Aristotle others of his own, so did eluding them in has to face the choice of a first mover ontology. Now he apparently who is either a mere form without matter, or a formless and indefinite being. He tried to get around this by his theory of an ousia that is

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complete actuality with no need for a reason to be what it is, no reason, that is, like form. He did not complete his theory, but he led the way for later theorists to develop similar theories that were more complete. the aim of Aristotle's Yet even with its incompleteness, investigaof pure form. tions is clear, and it surely is not the objectivization of and inconsistencies account There are difficulties in Aristotle's doctrine of pure form as formulatform and ousia, .but the paradoxical is not, I think, one of them. ed by his commentators East Carolina University

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