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Aristotle • There Is No Science Of The Individual As Such
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“Scientific Knowledge Is Of The Universal”
“No Scientific Knowledge Of The Individual”
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William Turner (1903), ''History of Philosophy''
http://www2.nd.edu/Departments//Maritain/etext/hop11.htm
“hê d' epistêmê tôn katholou”
knowledge is of the universal
(Met., XIII, 10, 1086 b, 33)
“ek tôn kath hekasta gar tou katholou”
our knowledge of the individual precedes
our knowledge of the universal
(Eth. Nic., VI, ii, 1143 b, 5)
Theory of Knowledge
3. The universal, Aristotle teaches, is not apart from individual things.{18}
In Anal. Post., I, 11 init., Aristotle substitutes the phrase “hen kata
pollôn”
for the Platonic “hen para ta polla”.
4. Finally, according to Plato, the universal, as it exists apart from
phenomena,
is full-blown universal, endowed with the formal character of universality;
according to Aristotle, the formal aspect of universality is conferred by
the mind, and, therefore, the universal, as such, does not exist in
individual
things, but in the mind alone. This is the only intelligible interpretation
of such passages as Metaphysics, III, 4, 999 and De Anima, II, 5, 417, in
which
Aristotle maintains that the individual alone exists and that the universal
is
somehow (pôs) in the mind.{19}
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William Turner (1903), ''History of Philosophy''
http://www2.nd.edu/Departments//Maritain/etext/hop11.htm
Aristotle's Philosophy
General Character and Division
Aristotle's concept of philosophy agrees, in the main, with that of Plato. Philosophy is the science of the universal
essence of that which is actual.{11} Aristotle is, however, more inclined than Plato was to attach a theoretical value
to philosophy. The difference between the two philosophers is still greater in their respective notions of philosophic
method. Aristotle does not begin with the universal and reason down to the particular; on the contrary, he starts with
particular data of experience and reasons up to the universal essence. His method is inductive as well as deductive.
Consequently, he is more consistent than Plato in including the natural sciences in philosophy and considering them part
of the body of philosophic doctrine. In fact, Aristotle makes philosophy to be coextensive with scientific knowledge.
"All science (dianoia) is either practical, poietical, or theoretical."{12} By practical science he means politics and
ethics; under the head poietic (poiêtike) he includes not only the philosophy of poetry but the knowledge of the other
imitative arts, while by theoretical philosophy he understands Physics, Mathematics, and Metaphysics. Metaphysics is
philosophy in the stricter sense of the word: it is the knowledge of immaterial Being or of Being in the highest degree
of abstraction (peri chôrista kai akinêta); it is the pinnacle of all knowledge, the theological science. In this
classification logic has no place, being apparently regarded as a science preparatory to philosophy.
Theory of Knowledge
Nowhere does the contrast between the philosophy of Plato and that of Aristotle appear so clearly as in their theories
of knowledge.
1. Plato makes experience to be merely the occasion of scientific knowledge. Aristotle regards experience as the true
source and true cause of all our knowledge intellectual as well as sensible.{15}
2. Plato begins with the universal (Idea) and attempts to descend to the particular (Phenomenon); Aristotle, while he
recognizes that there is no science of the individual as such (hê d' epistêmê tôn katholou),{16} maintains,
nevertheless, that our knowledge of the individual precedes our knowledge of the universal: ek tôn kath hekasta gar tou
katholou.{17}
3. Plato hypostatized the universal, attributing to it a separate existence. This, according to Aristotle, is to
reduce the universal to a useless form; for, if the universal exists apart from the individual, there can be no
transition from a knowledge of the one to a knowledge of the other. The universal, Aristotle teaches, is not apart from
individual things.{18}
4. Finally, according to Plato, the universal, as it exists apart from phenomena, is a full-blown universal, endowed
with the formal character of universality; according to Aristotle, the formal aspect of universality is conferred by
the mind, and, therefore, the universal, as such, does not exist in individual things, but in the mind alone. This is
the only intelligible interpretation of such passages as Metaphysics, III, 4, 999 and De Anima, II, 5, 417, in which
Aristotle maintains that the individual alone exists and that the universal is somehow (pôs) in the mind.{19}
Aristotle's theory of knowledge, as is evident from the four principles just explained, recognizes two fundamental
attributes of intellectual knowledge: its essential dependence on sense-knowledge and its equally essential superiority
to sense-knowledge. Aristotle is as careful to avoid sensism on the one hand as he is to escape idealism on the other;
for, though he admits that all knowledge begins with experience, he contends that intellectual thought (noêsis) is
concerned with the universal, or intelligible (noêton), while sense-knowledge has for its object the individual, the
sense-perceived (aisthêton). The distinction of objects is made the basis and ground of a distinction of faculties and
of kinds of knowledge.{20}
If, then, there is a distinction between sense-knowledge and thought, and if all knowledge begins with sense-knowledge,
how do we rise from the region of sense to that of intellect? Aristotle answers by distinguishing first and second
substance. The first substance (ousia prôtê) is the individual, which can neither exist in another nor be predicated of
another. Second substance is the universal, which, as such, does not exist in another, but may be predicated of
another. In the individual substance we distinguish, on closer examination, two elements, the hupokeimenon or
undetermined, determinable substratum, the matter (hulê), and the determining principle, or form (eidos), by which the
substance is made to be what it is.{21} The essential nature, therefore, the unalterable essence corresponding to the
concept -- the object, consequently, of intellectual knowledge -- is the form. Matter, it is true, is part of the
essential nature,{22} but it is, as it were, the constant factor, always the same, and of itself undifferentiated; it
enters into a definition as materia communis, and when we designate the form of an object, implying the presence of
matter in its general concept, we have answered the question, What is that object? The form, then, considered apart
from the matter, is the essence of the object as far as intellectual knowledge is concerned; for intellectual knowledge
has for its object the universal, and since matter is the principle of individuation, and form the principle of
specification, the conclusion of the inquiry as to the object of intellectual knowledge is that matter and the
individual qualities arising from matter belong to sense-knowledge, while the form alone, which is the universal,
belongs to intellectual knowledge.{23} Returning now to the question, How do we rise from the region of sense to the
region of intellect? the object of sense-knowledge, we repeat, is the whole, the concrete individual substance.
Thought, penetrating through the sense qualities, reaches the form, or quiddity, lying at the core of the substance, and
this form, considered apart from the material conditions in which it is immersed, is the proper object of intellectual
knowledge. Thus, the acquisition of scientific knowledge is a true development of sense-knowledge into intellectual
knowledge, if by development is understood the process by which, under the agency of the intellect, the potentially
intelligible elements of sense-knowledge are brought out into actual intelligibility. Aristotle himself describes the
process as one of induction (epagôgê) or abstraction (aphairesis).{24}
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{11} Met., VI, 1, 1028.
{12} Met., VI, 1, 1025 b, 25.
{13} Cf. Met., VI, 2, 1026 a, 36; V, 8, 1017 a, 24; Phys., V, I, 223 b, 5.
{14} Cf. Stöckl, op. cit., I, 115; English trans., p. 105.
{15} Cf. Anal. Post., II, 19, 99 b.
{16} Met., XIII, 10, 1086 b, 33.
{17} Eth. Nic., VI, ii, 1143 b, 5.
{18} In Anal. Post., I, 11 init., Aristotle substitutes the phrase hen kata
pollôn for the Platonic hen para ta polla.
{19} Cf. Met., I, 9, 991 a, 12, 991 b, 1; XIII, 9, 1085 a, 23, etc.; Prantl,
Gesch. des. Logik, I, 210 ff.
{20} Cf. De An., II, 4, 415 b.
{21} Cf. Met.. VIII, 6, 1045 a, 12; X, 1, 1052 a, 22.
{22} Cf. infra, p. 138.
{23} Phys., 1, 5, 189 a, 7.
{24} Cf. Anal. Post., I, 13, 81.
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