Aristotle called “philosophy first” or “wisdom” to themes “metaphysical” the name “metaphysics” is creation of Andronicus of Rods- which means that there were then “second philosophies”. This makes an important difference with Plato for whom there was a single philosophy.
In some fragments of “metaphysics”, the “first philosophy” appears to be assimilated to a theology. Probably, this conception corresponds to the oldest fragments under the significant influence of Platonism.
Although for Aristotle “wisdom” is the “first,” it is just one more science among others... and because it is purely speculative, it does not coincide with virtuous life. Ethics will therefore be the “second philosophy”, whose object of study will be virtue.
Aristotle affirms the unity of being, but it is not a unity in the sense of oneness as Parmenides intended. Being is not unique: there are different forms of “being” but all of them refer to a primordial form, to the “being” proper: substance. But the substance is not unique either, because there are many substances (that is, there are many “beings”).
The different forms of “being” are but modifications or accidents of the substance, these are:
Amount
Quality
Acquaintance
Location
Awhile
Location
Nation
Action
Passion
So substance and accident are the supreme genera (categories) unified by their common reference to substance.
“ The substance, in the most fundamental sense, first and foremost of the term is that neither is affirmed by a subject, nor is it in a subject: for example, the individual man or the individual horse. But we can call second substances species that are contained in substances taken in the first sense” Aristotle
Aristotle distinguishes two types of substances:
First substances: the specific individual (e.g. Socrates)
Second substances: speciesand genus (e.g. man, animal)
At first glance, it could be said that it falls back into Platonism, however it is not exactly the case since it maintains parallel that every substance has independent existence, but also states that both species and genus, have real existence and are not simple concepts in the sense that only about them (and not about the individuals) is what science will deal with.
The first substance is the concrete individual (e.g. Socrates), in it is realized the essence or species (e.g. man or second substance) which is preached about him: Socrates is man. Aristotle thus affirms that the world is real and so are plurality and becoming . Thus he intends to oppose Parmenides and also Plato by introducing the concept of becoming or development (genesis) within the same substance.
The first substance is what becomes, what develops, what is subjected to a process of improvement or growth, is a precarious being, subject to being born and perishing. To sustain this, Aristotle states that the substance (i.e., the indiduo concrete, is a synolon- compound of matter -hyle- and form -morphé-)
The form is the essence of the thing, the second substance, the species and is eternal. Although this cannot exist outside of matter. Everything that becomes must also possess matter, which receives that form, as the ultimate subject of it.
Aristotle distinguishes between:
Next matter (escháte hyle) which is, for example, bronze or flesh and bones.
First matter (prote hyle) which is something indeterminate lacking form, qualities or extension and unable to exist independently.
What becomes or engenders is the concrete individual, the compound of matter and form. Matter and form are eternal but cannot exist independently but only as the compound of both.
Aristotle gives priority to form, since for him it is at the same time:
Essence of Every Thing
Nature (or the “Principle” inmanenete of activity)
On the other hand, only the form is definable and cognosciable. And it is common to the whole species so it possesses a supraindividual character (which pre-exists to the individual). On the other hand, the raw material is unknowable (because there is nothing intelligible in it) but it is what individualizes the form/species.
The theory of potency and act, generalization of hilemorphic theory, is the ultimate explanation of the evolution of the substance. Parmenides, operating only with the concepts “being” and “not being” had deduced the oneness and immobility of being (static monism). Plato, I would have tried to overcome this by admitting the reality of a sort of “not to be”: otherness. Aristotle solves the paradox by adding another real way of not being: power. And by this concept, he explains the devnir of the substance.
In every being there is “what is already” and it is the act and its “power to become” which is the power . It also points out that it is not possible to give a strict definition of these terms, but rather to be satisfied with examples and analogies. Thus the act and potency are in the same relationship as silver and germ or seeing and having eyes closed (when one possesses the ability to see).
Aristotle distinguishes between:
Active Power: or the power or ability to produce an action or effect.
Passive power: or possibility of moving from one state to another or receiving the action of an active power. The active power is found in the agent and the passive in which it squeezes the action. In this way, he exemplifies, fire has the power to burn and fat the possibility of being greased.
The word enérgeia derives from ergon that signifies action, work. And the term enteléchia de télos (end) and échein (possess) has been translated as perfection.
Energetic is, therefore, the action of the one who possesses the active power.
Enteléchia is perfecting, the way in which you finish or complete what was already in passive power. For example, “being” a tree of a seed.
“ Power is something real in being, and also something different from the act”
= = == =
Power and act, matter and form are parallel structures. Matter in effect is or is in passive power within form. And form is what updates matter, perfects it and confers it being its active power to act:
“ Matter is in power because it tends towards form, and when it is in act it is because it possesses its form (...) form is act” (Aristotle, Metaphysics)
Aristotle thus reaffirms the priority that other form over matter, since it identifies form with act. This line of thought leads Aristotle to affirm that the ultimate explanation of the universe consists in the existence of pure forms, absolutely free of matter, always in action. This does not mean that this means a return to the world of Plato's Ideas, these pure forms are individual substances that move the univesus. At this point, metaphysics is transformed into theology and leads to physics.
