Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

P3. Explanatory knowledge is possible.Therefore:CRITICISM OF PLATO’S THEORY OF FORMS 313C2. There are changeless things (namely, essences) that are not thethings that we perceive through the senses, but are separate from anddistinct from these; and these separate and distinct essences, the‘ideas’ or ‘forms’, are the objects of explanatory knowledge.So this is Plato’s argument, as <strong>Aristotle</strong> sees it, for the claim that essencesare separate and distinct from changing things.One of the most striking features about this argument is that it directlyimplies the view that:C3. The things that we perceive through the senses do not have anessence; i.e. there is nothing that such things are in virtue ofthemselves.This view follows directly from the claims that essences are changeless(which is part of P1) and that sense-perceptible things are changing inevery way (i.e. P2). <strong>Aristotle</strong> appears to be faithful to Plato here. For Platoappears to hold, exactly, that sense-perceptible things do not have anessence, by which he means that sense-perceptible things are indeterminatein virtue of themselves and depend for their determination on theirrelation to separate essences—the forms. It is also noteworthy that in avery similar passage in the Metaphysics (I. 6, I. 6, 987 a 29f.), in which<strong>Aristotle</strong> likewise sets out a diagnosis of the source of Plato’s theory offorms, he concludes as follows:[Plato claimed that] the sense-perceptible things [ta aisthēta] arebesides [para] these [i.e. they are distinct from the ideas or forms]and that they are all called after these. For [he argued that] thethings that are called after the ideas [ta homōnuma] are [i.e. they arebeings, things that are] in virtue of their participation in the ideas.(987 b 8–10)But does Plato’s argument for the separation and distinctness of essences, as<strong>Aristotle</strong> understands it, succeed? Whether the argument succeeds dependsabove all on how Plato and the Platonists intend the second premise to beunderstood. This premise may mean: