Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

CRITICISM OF PLATO’S THEORY OF FORMS 319distinctness is necessarily symmetrical. This means that if a thing, x, isdistinct from another thing, y, then it follows that y is likewise distinctfrom x. But certainly it is not true that if a form, F, can exist without thereexisting a changing thing, x, that is F, then a changing thing, x, that is Fcan likewise exist without there existing a form, F. On the contrary, even ifPlato thinks that a form, F, can exist without there existing a changingthing, x, that is F, he also thinks that a changing thing, x, that is F is Fonly because there is a form, F, and x is appropriately related to this form—it participates in or communes with this form. So this relation, the relationbetween changing things and forms, is not necessarily symmetrical, indeedit is necessarily asymmetrical. This shows that we cannot infer from ‘FormF is distinct from changing things’ that ‘Form F can exist without beingtrue of changing things’.So, if we think that <strong>Aristotle</strong> characterizes Plato’s forms not only asdistinct from changing things, which is the central target of his criticism,but also as capable of existing without being true of changing things, we mustask how he moves from the former to the latter characterization. Perhaps hedefends this move in the following way: Plato’s forms are not only distinctfrom changing things, they are also, and above all, things that are beingssimply in virtue of themselves; but from these two characteristics of theforms, i.e. their being distinct and their being ontologically independent, itfollows that they can exist without being true of changing things, and, ingeneral, without changing things existing in relation to them. If this is<strong>Aristotle</strong>’s reasoning, then it may well be cogent. For it is perhaps plausibleto think that if a thing, x, is a being simply in virtue of itself and not invirtue of its relation to another thing, y; and if, further, x is distinct fromy, then it does indeed follow that x can exist without y existing in relationto x. But it would take us too far to consider this further.These, then, are three ways in which <strong>Aristotle</strong> characterizes Plato’sessences and forms as separate:(1) separate in the sense of being ontologically independent beings, i.e.things that are beings simply in virtue of themselves;(2) separate in the sense of being distinct from changing things; and(3) separate in the sense of being capable of existing without being true ofchanging things.We have also considered how these three types of separation are related toeach other.<strong>Aristotle</strong> argues against distinctness, and this is the main target of hiscriticism of Plato’s theory of essence—the theory of forms. He concludes