Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

THE SEARCH FOR PRIMARY BEING 225But we must examine whether the essence and each thing are thesame [tauton] or different [heteron]. For this will indeed further thetask of examining primary being [ousia]. For it appears that eachthing is not different [ouk allo] from its own primary being [ousia]’,and indeed that the essence [to ti ēn einai] is said to be the primarybeing of each thing.(1031 a 17–18)But in the case of things that are said [to be] in virtue of themselves[ta kath’ hauta legomena], they [i.e. the essence and the thing whoseessence it is] are necessarily the same [tauto].(1031 a 28–29)Here we also see that he immediately (1031 a 28f.) argues that the claimthat a thing is identical with its essence is true only of things that in thestrict sense have an essence, namely, primary beings. In other words, it istrue only of things that are the very things they are, and indeed are beings,simply in virtue of themselves and not in virtue of their relation to otherthings. He calls these things ‘the things that are said [i.e. said to be] invirtue of themselves’ (ta kath’ hauta legomena, 1031 a 28). This is a crucialqualification, especially if we recall the problem that <strong>Aristotle</strong> raised, andanswered, earlier (in VII. 4). The problem was whether each particularthing (e.g. Socrates) has only one essence or it has indefinitely manyessences, i.e. as many essences as it has properties (see §5iii of this chapter).Apparently, each particular thing, e.g. Socrates, has indefinitely manyproperties, e.g. it will be pale, human, etc. So, apparently, each particularthing, e.g. Socrates, will be at once indefinitely many things, i.e. Socratesthe pale thing, Socrates the human thing, etc. But <strong>Aristotle</strong> argues here(1031 a 20–24) that Socrates the pale thing cannot be the same as hisessence, i.e. as what it is to be a pale thing. For Socrates the pale thing is,after all, the very same thing as Socrates the human thing; for there is just asingle thing that is both pale and human. But evidently what it is to be apale thing and what it is to be a human thing are not the same.This argument may not immediately convince. For perhaps Socrates thepale thing is only in a loose sense the same thing as Socrates the humanthing; i.e. perhaps there really are two things here, Socrates the pale thingand Socrates the human thing, that merely happen to form an aggregateand compound thing. In that case, even if Socrates the pale thing isidentical with what it is to be a pale thing, and Socrates the human thing isidentical with what it is to be a human thing, it does not follow that,