Aristotle

11. ONTOLOGY AND LANGUAGE

11 ONTOLOGY AND LANGUAGE By setting himself the task of investigating being qua being (on hê on: Metaph. IV 1 and VI 1, 1026a23–33 and passim), Aristotle created a new philosophical discipline : a general science of being. It was not given the name ontology until early modern school metaphysics, when R. Göckel (Goclenius) called it by that name in his Lexicon philosophicum (1613/1964, art. “Abstractio”). By the on, that which is, Aristotle means any kind of object, things as well as persons, these “things” as well as their properties, the particular as well as the universal, and, not least, accidents. His ontology probes the general and basic form of reality—with the exception of the practical and social world. Given that the word for being in its primary sense is ousia, ontology amounts essentially to a theory of ousia, even though, according to Metaph. IV 3, it includes the theory of axioms. Ousia is a noun derived from the verb einai (to be) and thus means literally “existence”: ousia is the quintessence of that which is really there, that is, of permanent, factually given reality. Like nearly all of Aristotle’s terminology , the word ousia belongs to everyday language, while the analogous nouns in Latin (essentia, substantia) are artificial creations—as is its German translation Seiendheit. In order to distinguish it from the essence of a thing (ti estin), one could fall back on the Latin translation, substantia, and use the term substance. Ontological considerations had existed long before Aristotle, so here, too, he is able to refer to generally accepted views and the opinions of earlier philosophers. He never questions the common view (V 8, VII 2, and VIII 1) that the elements (air, water, earth, and fire), plants (and their parts), animals and humans (and their parts), and finally the parts of the heavens, are all substances. He merely specifies at Metaph. VIII 3 that only natural objects are substances in the true sense, while artifacts are not. However, he rejects the opinion that ideas and mathematical objects are also substances (as they are according to Plato and the Platonists), developing his own theory of substance. (For connections with the older Academy, expressed in the concept ephexês—successively or continuously—see Metaph. VI 4, 1027b24; XI 12, 1068b31 ff.; XII 1 1069a20.) The theory of substance remained one of the most-discussed topics in philosophy until well into modern times. Although doubt was cast on its presupposition —i.e., an objectivity independent of any a priori activity of consciousness—by 111 transcendental philosophy, it still had some importance in Hegel. Later it fell a victim to the twentieth century’s general verdict on metaphysics, but recently it has attracted the attention of analytical philosophy (of language). The theory of substance is developed in the short work Categories—a title not mentioned in Aristotle—and in the central ontological discussion in the Metaphysics , which goes from VI 2 to IX inclusive; its bulk, books VII–IX (Zêta, Êta, and Thêta), are referred to also as the “books on substance.” Metaph. IV 1–3 and V 7 also deal with this topic. What these texts have in common is the concept of category and its subdivision into substance and accident. The more detailed books on substance treat not only substance in its various meanings (in particular Metaph. VII 1–17; cf. Wedin in: Rapp 1996), but also topics that are familiar from natural philosophy, such as the two principles of perceptible substances, that is, matter and form (Metaph. VIII and also VII 10–11), questions of coming-to-be and passing-away (Metaph. VII 7–9 and VIII 5), and another pair of concepts, potentiality and actuality (Metaph. IX; cf. Liske in: Rapp 1996). The thematic overlap could lead one to believe that natural philosophy and ontology cannot be clearly divided, but the same topics are not discussed from the same point of view: natural philosophy observes what is in motion insofar as it is in motion, but ontology investigates its constitution. Finally, the books on substance deal also with “veritative being,” that is, with True and False (Metaph. IX 10 and also V 7, 1017a31–35 and VI 4). The relation between the ontology of the Categories and that of the Metaphysics is controversial; in the nineteenth century the former was considered spurious by the majority of scholars, but it has increasingly come to be considered as a genuine Aristotelian work since Zeller...