Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

THE SEARCH FOR PRIMARY BEING 251interpretation, there are only as many principles as there are kinds ofthings and in particular species of things.But there is an even deeper difference between the two interpretations.On our interpretation, a particular, e.g. Socrates, is the very thing it is—ithas an essence—simply in virtue of itself, i.e. in virtue of being theparticular that it is. In other words, a particular is a determinate and welldefinedthing simply in virtue of being the particular that it is. Only as aconsequence does the particular also belong to a general kind and to aspecies. On the alternative interpretation, by contrast, a particular is thevery thing it is—it has an essence—only in virtue of its belonging to ageneral kind and in particular to a species. This is a fundamentaldifference. It is the difference between thinking (as on the alternativeinterpretation) that there is a primitive relation between particulars andgeneral kinds, the relation belonging to, and thinking (as on ourinterpretation) that this relation is itself a consequence of a yet more basicrelation between a particular and itself.How is it possible to decide between the two interpretations? There isperhaps no evident way of deciding between them. Perhaps book VII, thecore of the Metaphysics, is, at the end of the day, open to twofundamentally different interpretations. Still, there are a number of thingsthat appear to us to point against the alternative interpretation.First, the alternative reading of VII. 13, 1038 b 8–12 and VII. 16,1041 a 3–5 (quoted above) may appear forced. Surely it is more natural totake <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s words here as saying what on the face of it they do say, i.e.that no universal is a primary being.Second, a central thrust in <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s overall argument in book VII isthe claim that a particular is the very thing that it is—it has an essence —simply in virtue of itself and not in virtue of its relation to any other thing.But it is natural to understand this as implying that a particular is the verything that it is not in virtue of its relation to any universal. It is true thatthe alternative interpretation wants to accommodate this thrust in<strong>Aristotle</strong>’s overall argument. It wants to do so by arguing that the relationbetween a particular and the species to which it belongs is not a relationbetween two things; for the particular is a thing only in virtue of thisrelation. This certainly goes some way towards accommodating the thrustof <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s argument. But does it go far enough? After all, even if therelation between a thing and the species to which it belongs is not arelation between two things, still it is not a relation between a thing anditself. For evidently the particular, e.g. Socrates, is not the same thing asthe species to which it belongs. So how can the particular, on thisinterpretation, be the very thing that it is simply in virtue of itself?