Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

CRITICISM OF PLATO’S THEORY OF FORMS 323committed to this claim, A; for he argues that if they do not accept thisclaim, they immediately commit themselves to an infinite regress:For if the good itself [i.e. that which in the strict sense has theessence, being good] and what it is to be good [i.e. the essence itself,being good] were not identical, and likewise for the animal itself andwhat it is to be an animal, and being itself and what it is to be [etc],then there would be other primary beings, or natures, or ideas,besides [para] the supposed ones, and they would be more primaryprimary beings [proterai ousiai]—if, that is to say, [we suppose that]primary being is the essence.(VII. 6, 1031 a 31– b 3)We will look closer at this threat of an immediate infinite regress when welook at the ‘third-man argument’. The point to recognize here is that<strong>Aristotle</strong> is saying that the Platonists themselves, i.e. those who believe thatessences and ideas are separate and distinct from changing things, and thatit is these separate and distinct essences and ideas that are the primarybeings (ousia), are committed to the view that (A) those things that in thestrict sense have an essence, i.e. the primary beings, are identical with theiressence. For example, they are committed to the view that ‘the good itself’,i.e. that which in the strict sense has the essence being good, is identicalwith this essence, i.e. with ‘what it is to be good’. For if those things that inthe strict sense have an essence were not identical with their essence (i.e. ifclaim A were false), then an infinite regress would immediately emerge,such that every time one postulates an essence and claims that this isprimary being, a further essence needs to be postulated, which is moreprimary than the original one—so it is rather it that is primary being.So far, then, <strong>Aristotle</strong> and Plato agree, i.e. they agree that (A) thosethings that in the strict sense have an essence, i.e. the primary beings, areidentical with their essence. But <strong>Aristotle</strong> crucially adds that (B) theessence of a thing that in the strict sense has an essence, i.e. of a primarybeing, is an ultimate subject of predication. So he thinks that we mustensure, in our theory of essence, that the essence and the ultimate subjectof predication are not two things, but one and the same thing. But it is,exactly, this requirement that Plato’s theory of essences fails to satisfy. ForPlato’s separate and distinct essences, the ‘ideas’ or ‘forms’, are, exactly, notultimate subjects of predications, since evidently they can be predicated ofother things. An ultimate subject of predication, we recall, is somethingthat other things are predicated of, but which is not itself predicated of otherthings. But Plato’s forms are predicated of other things. Or, as Plato would