Priority in Aristotle’s Metaphysics by Michail Peramatzis (review)

Few concepts are more important to Aristotle’s Metaphysics than that of priority. References to what is prior, and to what is first (that is, prior in an absolute way) are to be found on nearly every page of the Metaphysics. A book-length study of priority in the Metaphysics is, then, long overdue, and Michail Peramatzis’s detailed and intriguing new book is particularly welcome.

Peramatzis divides the book into two parts. Part 1 is dedicated to “definitional priority,” which can be understood as follows: A is prior in definition to B if A enters into the definition of B, but the converse does not hold. Peramatzis examines and resolves an apparent conflict between two claims concerning the definitional priority of natural form. On the one hand, natural forms are prior in definition to matter; but natural forms are also essentially enmattered and so must be defined with reference to matter. Peramatzis defends the second claim—the more controversial of the two—from a large number of possible objections. He then presents his solution to the main puzzle: natural form is prior in definition to universal and particular compounds, and to their matters, though not to its own material parts.

The arguments of Part 1 are interesting and convincing, and constitute, by themselves, an important contribution to the literature on Metaphysics Z. But this section is also exceptionally difficult, and requires a strong antecedent familiarity with that literature, or at least considerable antecedent facility in dealing with the issues raised in Z. It will be of interest primarily to specialists in and enthusiasts of this sort of technical, Alan-Code-style work on the central books of the Metaphysics.

Part 2 is, by contrast, much more accessible, and constitutes an excellent introduction to and discussion of “ontological priority.” Ontological priority in Aristotle is often understood in a way that Peramatzis, following Kit Fine, calls the “modal-existential” construal: A is ontologically prior to B iff A can exist without B but the converse does not hold. Peramatzis instead defends a construal on which A is ontologically prior to B iff A can be what it essentially is independently of B being what it is, but the converse does not hold. This latter construal, he argues, succeeds in making better philosophical sense of Aristotle’s arguments and examples concerning priority, where the modal-existential construal fails.

The chapters in Part 2 are shorter and rather less technical, and cover considerably more ground in fewer pages. In the opinion of this reviewer, nothing would be lost if the reader were to begin with Part 2, using it as an introduction both to the basic issues surrounding priority in the Metaphysics and to Peramatzis’s overall thesis, with Part 1 reserved as a separate and further study for interested specialists.

Throughout, Peramatzis presents his arguments in a remarkably careful and thorough way: one never gets the feeling that possible objections are being ignored or addressed in anything less than their strongest and most complete form. Equally admirable is his handling of both primary- and secondary-source literature. This is excellent scholarship.

What Peramatzis does, then, he does very well. It is what he does not do that constitutes the primary grounds for concern about this book. When we ask, “Which things are prior, and to which other things?” the Metaphysics gives four main answers:

1. 1. Substantial forms are prior to particular substances.

2. 2. Non-sensible substance is prior to sensible substance.

3. 3. Sensible substances are prior to mathematical entities.

4. 4. Primary substance is prior to its non-substantial attributes.

Priority in Aristotle’s Metaphysics constitutes a complete study of 1, and is easily, now, the definitive treatment of priority in Metaphysics Z. Peramatzis also provides an excellent treatment of 4 in chapter 11; and he gives appropriate attention (as many commentators do not) to claim 3—though, remarkably, in treating of the way in which sensible substances are prior to mathematicals, he makes no...