Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

THE SEARCH FOR PRIMARY BEING 223thing that it is, the essence also explains what it is for that thing to be abeing, something that is, in the first place.How, in general, are we to respond to <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s basic claim thatprimary being with regard to each thing is the essence of that thing? Wemay find the claim attractive, but the reasoning behind it may also strikeus as, at best, inconclusive. In particular, is the claim not open to anobvious objection, namely that it assumes that things have essences in thefirst place? And even if we grant <strong>Aristotle</strong> the view that things haveessences, we may still object that it is surely not credible to argue thatthings could not exist unless they had essences. But this is precisely whathe argues when he argues that primary being with regard to each thing isthe essence of that thing.This objection may have considerable force. But it is crucial to recognizethat <strong>Aristotle</strong> does himself address it. He does so not here, in book VII,but earlier, in book IV (especially IV. 4–6), when he examined anddefended the principle of non-contradiction. For there he argued, ingeneral, that for a thing to have an essence is for it to be a determinate andwell-defined thing. But he argued that unless we think of things asdeterminate and well-defined, we cannot at all think or speak of things.Indeed, he argued that unless the things themselves are determinate andwell-defined, it is impossible to think or speak of the things themselves,i.e. this is impossible in principle and not just for us. (See Chapters 5 and6.) So he has argued that the view that things have essences really isinescapable, i.e. the view which says that, with regard to each real thing,there is something, E, that the thing is simply in virtue of itself and not invirtue of its relation to other things.vPrimary being with regard to each thing is both (1) theessence of that thing and (2) the ultimate subject ofpredication with regard to that thing (VII. 6)At the opening of VII. 6 <strong>Aristotle</strong> argues that:With regard to those things that in the strict sense have an essence,namely primary beings, the essence of a thing is identical with thething itself, i.e. with the ultimate subject of predication.It emerges that by ‘the thing itself’ here, he means, precisely, the ultimatesubject of predication. This is also clear from what follows. For in whatfollows (1031 b 15–18) he takes this argument to have shown that primary