Z6

Inquiry: Is a thing the same as its essence?

Conclusion: In some ways yes in others, no. “we have said, then, in what way the essence of each thing is the same as the thing, and in what way it is not the same” (1032a10)

 

Let’s Recap what Z6 said to reach this conclusion.

 

Z6 Preamble

• The inquiry into wether a thing is the same as its essence will provide insight into how the essence and the substance differ. 

• A thing “seems to be nothing other than its substance” (18)

  • A Substance has 4 components (1028b35)

    • The essence

    • The universal 

    • The genus 

    • The underlying subject

  • Whether a thing is the same as its essence or separable will give insight into the ways that a substance can and can’t be said to be separate, immaterial and detached from the material umbilical cord of an object.

 

The Essential vs the Coincidental

• If we observe a pale human being and ask what is it, or more aptly why is it, Aristotle distinguishes between what the being is in itself, essentially, and what it is coincidentally. 

• The question ‘what/why is it’ holds a different answer when we consider the pale human for what they are coincidentally, pale, and what their being is necessarily, “primarly and unconditionally”, as the essence is said to be. (1031a13)

• The Reasoning: 

  • “a pale human seems to be distinct from the being for a pale human” (1031a20)

  • As opposed to what is essential where the good “is necessarily one with being for a good”(1031b12)

  • What is accidental is distinguishable from what is essential in a being. 

  • The pale human and the human “are the same, as they say” (1031a22), they belong to the same genus, which for Aristotle composes part of the substance of a being. It’s not necessary for two pale beings sharing in a coincidental trait of being pale to share in what they are substantially. A pale human doesn’t entail a similar substance as a pale tree simply in sharing in their pallor. What is necessary however is that two human beings that differ in the opaquity of their skin recognize their commonalities in substance; the things that are said to be intrinsically (1031a29). (pretty cool although unintended anti-racist-sexist-ableist ontology) 

  • Even with extreme terms or attribute like being musical, which exhibit stronger indication of what we are than the characteristic of paleness, what is coincidentally differs from a being’s essence. 

 

• The Object in question is definitely separate from what is is coincidentally, but is it necessary for the object to be the same “as its being or essence”? (1031a28)

 

Being for the Form An Example

• Aristotle considers substances that are prior to other substances and natures, an example being the platonic forms, are as “some people say the Ideas” (1031a30)

  • Note Aristotle doesn’t subordinate nature to the ideal as Plato does.

• Is the good itself distinct from “being for a good” or “being for a being and being” (1031a31)?

 

[Question: is the distinction between being for a being and being similar to Sartre’s ontological distinction between being itself and being in-itself. Being itself both is and is not as opposed to being-in-itself which observes the principles of identity and non-contradiction. In this sense the good itself, as the contemplative form of the good, both is ideally and is not, as opposed to being for the good in actuality, whereby acting on the good is singularly observable at a place and time.[how does the nous differ from the essence? For Sartre to be for itself invites the notion that consciousness is more than just the function or form of the being thing, instead it is a dynamic state of motion outwards into the world.]

 

• Aristotle responds that there is no distinction between being for the good and being for the good, or being for the one and the one for that matter. 

  • The Ideas are a sort of substance for Aristotle that would have to be prior (1031b1-2)

  • If the form is separated from creation, from the actual material underpinning of the object, the purely ideal won’t be scientific. (1031b2) It wouldn’t be based on material reality and the natural laws of physical creation, lacking in empirical sustenance for these ideals. 

  • If the actual is separated from the ideal, “being for a good” would no longer be being because we would not longer have an intelligible substrate to give matter its form (or perceive matter in its form – I have a question about this distinction)

 

[Question: The essence and time??? Okay two parter because I’ve been confused about the temporality of the essence and its place in causality. For Aristotle it seems like the answer is no, but for Plato, is the essence of a being prior to the existence of the being itself? Does the essence of my being begin when I’m born and extinguish when I die? Does the essence remain consistent across a being’s timeline, do I have the same essence at 8 as I do at 88? Is the essence a-temporal? Is it circularly temporal as opposed to linearly temporal? Part 2: If the essence of an object is one and the same as the object itself, is the essence necessarily in-time or in-the-world in the Heideggerian sense? Is the essence of the good in a being the propensity of that being towards the good?]

 

• Aristotle cautions against detaching the ideal from being for the ideal. “By detached from each other, I mean if the being for a good neither belongs to the good-itself nor being good to the being for a good” (1031b5)

• Knowledge of the essence yields scientific knowledge of its object (1031b20)

  • So knowledge of the essence must be a synthesis of both its matter and form, its being and becoming, the being for a good and the ideal good itself. In this sense, the essence is the object is the same as the object itself. [Snub?]

• “The good, then is necessarily one with being for a good” (1031b12)

  • Similarly being for a being is a being 

  • Being for the one is one

• If the essence for a being is not being, neither is being for the good the good. (1031b10) These are considered ideals [would substances better capture the category? There has to be a more precise umbrella term for the good, one, being] that are essential rather than coincidental. 

 

• What doesn't belong to the essence of the good is a not good (11)

 

• If forms are separate from material creation as Plato posits, Aristotle says “the underlying subject will not be substance” (15)

  • Forms are necessarily substances, not because they’re predicated of an underlying subject, forms are substances when an underlying subject participates in them, and engages with them. (18-19)

 

Conclusion : “Each thing itself and its essence are one and the same, and not in a coincidental way, and because to scientifically know each thing is just to scientifically know its essence, so that even by ekthesis the two must be one and the same (1031b18-21)

 

• A being and its essence, what is primary and intrinsic to the being, can be said to be the same but the accidental characteristics are not the same as the being. Whether I wear a hat ot learn a new skill, what I am peripherally, performatively, externally is not what I essentially am. 

  • [I used the word externally but it seems insufficient and morally problematic, where does is the line between coincidentally and essentially drawn, Aristotle states that what lies intrinsically is considered for its essence, but what about actions. I guess they reflect an internal state and begin in potentiality…]

• Wearing a hat is not the same as the human wearing the hat, but the essence of the hat can nevertheless correspond to a substantial form of “hat” despite being coincidental relative to the essence of the being wearing the hat. 

 

Note: Later in Z7 Aristotle says that “by substance without matter I mean the essence.” (1032b13). If the essence is immaterial, how do we identify the essence with the thing itself in Z6 since we know an object to be both form and matter for Aristotle, immaterial and material? It could be read then that “each thing itself” (1032b18) in Z6 doesn’t mean in-itself as well. This would mean that the essence wouldn’t include the material underpinning of the object, the material aspects of the substance that are actual and observant to the principles of identity and non-contradiction. Rather the essence would, much like the ideas, both be and not be. In Z6 Aristotle does necessitate both the ideal and the being for ideal actuality, in the actionable and material world. If we’re to hold the essence to the immaterial condition of Z7, there has to be a propensity for the essence to behold, act and idealize the good in material world, or an authoritative and natural claim of the material world to shape and guide the essence. The essence, in being one and the same with the object “itself” is its guiding form that composes the essence rather than the unified substance of the object which captures both the material and essential components of the object. While we might say the substance gives a more complete account of the being, we might also say that the essence gives a more primary, necessary, and essential account of the being. Earlier in Z6, Aristotle reaffirms that the primary and intrinsic aspects of a being are “one and the same as the thing” (1032a5), it seems as tho the essence is nevertheless tethered [?] to the material and actual object to which it attests to, even if it is seperable from matter, but I’m not sure. (side note: my use of in-itself is Sartrean, I’m not sure if Aristotle made the same distinction (itself vs in-itself) in a way pursuant to his description of the being for a being and being)

[Did Aristotle believe in an after life?]

 

Further questions and tangled knots:

“Yet what is to prevent…some things from being their substances straight away” (1031b31)

• Is the essence of a human being a becoming towards the ideal for Aristotle?

 

The one and being for the one are the same is no coincidence

• The distinction between the essence for the one and the one itself “goes on without limit” (1032a2)

• I’m not sure I quite get this to be honest. I may be mistakenly interpreting the One in the Plotinian triple hypostatic fashion, where the One is immovable mover, or as a guiding potential principle of being which gains actuality only when pointed at the one in a way that isn’t detached in the Aristotelean Z6 sense. 

 

[Disclaimer: I’m learning and some of the analysis may be off beat or off brand, so re-evaluate the claims if you wish to use them later on :) ]