Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

THE SEARCH FOR PRIMARY BEING 241simply in virtue of itself [auto kath’ hauto]…and [it has been said] thatthe material parts [of a thing] are not included in the account ofprimary being.(1037 a 21–25)So primary being with regard to each changing, material thing, and indeedwith regard to all things, is the essence of that thing. But, with regard tochanging, material things in particular, the essence of a thing does notinclude the material parts or the matter of that thing. Rather, primary beingwith regard to each changing, material thing is simply the form of thatthing. As he says:For primary being [ousia] is the form that is present [in each materialthing]; and that which results out of this [i.e. out of the form] andthe matter is called the primary being that is the resulting whole [hesunholos ousia, often translated as ‘the concrete substance’],(1037 a 29–30)In other words, it is the form of each thing that is primary being withregard to that thing. But the thing that results out of form and matter, anddoes so as a single unitary whole (hē sunholos ousia, often translated as ‘theconcrete substance’), is a being, something that is, only or primarilybecause of its form.But why does <strong>Aristotle</strong> think that the matter of a thing is not part of itsessence, i.e. part of what it is for that thing to be the very thing it is? Thisis because in general he argues that the matter of a material thing is not thematter that it is simply in virtue of itself (kath’ hauto and auto kath’ hauto;see 1037 a 21–22); it is the matter it is only in virtue of its relation to theform of the material thing whose matter it is. Indeed, he argues that thematter of a material thing is not a being at all, something that is, simply invirtue of itself; it is a being only in virtue of its relation to the form of thematerial thing whose matter it is. By contrast, the form is the form it is,indeed it is a being, something that is, simply in virtue of itself and not invirtue of its relation to the matter of the material thing whose form it is.(For <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s conception of matter as potentiality, see Chapter 2§4ii.)Apparently, to say that the matter of a material thing is not part of itsessence is equivalent to saying that the same particular material thing (e.g.this human being, Socrates) could have been generated out of a matterdifferent from the matter out of which it is actually generated. And it isequivalent to saying that the same kind of material thing (e.g. a humanbeing) can be generated out of different matter. For the essence of a thing,