Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

CRITICISM OF PLATO’S THEORY OF FORMS 299therefore, we must also resist drawing on our acquaintance with Plato’sdialogues? That would be unnatural. More natural is to speak of <strong>Aristotle</strong>’scriticisms of Plato’s views, not just his criticism of Plato’s views as heunderstands them, and to draw on Plato’s dialogues if this appearsappropriate, while at the same time bearing in mind the above importantcomplications. Of course, in doing so, we are letting our ownunderstanding of Plato’s views enter into our understanding and assessmentof <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s criticisms of Plato’s views. But this may not be a bad thing,and it is hardly avoidable. We are also supposing that, in spite of the abovecomplications, <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s criticisms of Plato’s views can, in one way oranother, significantly contribute to our understanding of those viewsthemselves.The central target of <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s criticism is Plato’s theory of essence —the theory of forms. Plato argues that there are essences, i.e. there are thingsthat are what they are, and indeed are beings, simply in virtue ofthemselves (auta kath’ hauta) and not in virtue of their relation to otherthings (pros ti). In general, a thing’s essence is what the thing is simply invirtue of itself (kath’ hauto and auto kath’ hauto); i.e. a thing’s essence iswhat the thing is in virtue of being the very thing that it is. And theessence of a thing is what we know when we know the real definition ofthe thing, i.e. when we know the answer to the question, ‘What is thisthing?’ and ‘What is it to be this very thing?’ The originator of thisquestion is Socrates, and especially Socrates as Plato portrays himthroughout his dialogues, whose trademark is to ask of things, ‘What isit?’, i.e. ‘What is it to be this very thing?’ But Plato also calls the essences,which in general he refers to as the things that are ‘themselves in virtue ofthemselves’ (auta kath’ hauta), ‘forms’ (eidē) and ‘ideas’ (ideai).Plato’s notion, form (eidos), must not be confused with <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s notionof the form (eidos, morphē) of a changing, material thing, i.e. the notionthat in <strong>Aristotle</strong> is correlative to matter. Rather, Plato’s notions, form(eidos) and idea (idea), may be associated with <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s notion of essence(to ti estin, to ti ēn einai). For both Plato and <strong>Aristotle</strong> are addressing thequestion of what it is for a thing to have an essence; essence. Of course,Plato’s notion, idea [idea], must also not be confused with the modern useof the term ‘idea’ to mean a mental representation or picture. Plato’s ideasare not mental, and they are not representations or pictures. They are,precisely, essences. But the important thing, certainly in <strong>Aristotle</strong>’scriticism of Plato’s theory of forms, is that Plato argues that essences areseparate and distinct from changing things, i.e. the things with which weare directly familiar from sense perception.