Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

228 THE SEARCH FOR PRIMARY BEINGof predication, cannot be identical with its essence; for the essence of athing is rather something that the thing has, something that is predicatedof it and true of it. So the essence, since it is something predicated of andtrue of something, cannot be identical with that of which it is predicated,i.e. the ultimate subject of predication. This is a natural objection, but<strong>Aristotle</strong>’s response is familiar (see also Chaper 4§4). He argues that theessence is not at all true of and predicated of the thing whose essence it is,for it is in virtue of its essence that a thing is a determinate and welldefinedthing in the first place. It is true that the essence and the form of amaterial thing, e.g. a particular human being, is what explains why thematter of that thing constitutes the very thing that it constitutes, e.g. ahuman being. But this is not a case of predication, i.e. of one thing beingtrue of another thing. For the matter of a material thing is not, in virtue ofitself, a thing at all. Rather, the matter of a particular material thing, e.g. aparticular human being, is the matter it is only because it can constitutesuch a material thing, e.g. a human being. (See above, Chapter 2§4ii for<strong>Aristotle</strong>’s conception of matter as potentiality.)But we may still find puzzling the view that a thing, in the sense of anultimate subject of predication, is identical with its essence. For we mayfind it natural to think that an ultimate subject of predication, such asSocrates, evidently includes more than its essence, hence it cannot beidentical with its essence. We may even think that <strong>Aristotle</strong> invites thisobjection by suggesting that a material thing, such as Socrates, is acompound (sunholon) of its essence and form, on the one hand, and itsmatter, on the other hand. For how can a compound of two things beidentical with one of its parts? How can a thing that includes two things beidentical with just one of them? Surely this is impossible. But <strong>Aristotle</strong>’sresponse will by now be familiar. First of all, when he says that a particularmaterial thing is a whole that results from form and matter, i.e. a sunholonin this sense, he does not mean that a material thing is a compound of twoparts, its form and its matter. Indeed, neither the form nor the matter of athing are parts of or constituents in that thing. The form is evidently not apart of or constituent in the thing whose form it is; it is rather that whichexplains why the thing is the very thing that it is and why the matterconstitutes the very thing that it does. But the matter can be said to be partof the thing whose matter it is only in the sense that it is ‘that out of which’(to ex hou) the thing is generated. For the matter does not endure in thisprocess of generation; it is not like bronze, which endures in the process ofthe generation of, for example, a bronze sphere (see Chapter 2§4ii).It is true that a thing, in a wide and loose sense of ‘thing’, can be said toinclude its accidental properties. For example, Socrates, as we encounter