In the Categories and the Metaphysics, the philosopher Aristotle attempts to define “being” in a variety of ways, disproving many options, but eventually accepting a plausible possibility. The conclusion that he puts forward for the readers is one of combining actuality and potentiality as a definition for a “substance.” However, the complicated road it takes for him to get there, and the inconsistencies that can be found in the eventual conclusion, raise some debate about his definition of being and what it takes to even form a definition for it. Aristotle goes about defining “being” in the wrong way as words are insufficient in describing it.
One may question this statement as it seems absurd that the words we communicate with are not good enough to adequately describe being; people talk about being all the time and in fact, give many different definitions for it. What I want to prove, however, is although words can describe being in a superficial sense of communication, they cannot sufficiently encapsulate all that there is to actually be. As humans, we know what it is to be as we are living beings being, but to describe that phenomenon is far beyond what words can convey, so I feel that Aristotle was wasting his time going about being in this way.
First, it is important to disprove Aristotle’s argument for what it means to be something as this will provide evidence for why words are insufficient in describing being. Here is what I gauge his argument to be:
P1: There are ten categories to describe something (as stated in the Categories) to which “substance,” as one of those categories, is the most important because it describes being.
P2: The substance of a thing needs some kind of “oneness.”
P3: The matter of a thing gives it potentiality.
P4: The form of a thing gives it actuality.
P5: Oneness of a thing has the combination of potentiality and actuality.
C: A substance of a thing has the combination of potentiality and actuality to describe being.
Firstly, to see if this is a valid argument, I must see if the premises connect well toward the conclusion. P1 starts off with the importance of substance and its definition. P2 then narrows down the definition of substance. P3 defines matter. P4 defines form. P5 defines oneness. The conclusion of the argument brings all those definitions together by saying that substance must have a oneness about it where it must include potentiality (matter) and actuality (form) in order for it to be. Therefore, with all the premises connecting well to the conclusion, Aristotle has a valid argument here, meaning it is impossible for the scenario of the premises being true and the conclusion being false to occur. However, for it to be a sound argument, I must go through the premises again to see if they are all true.
Starting with P1, it can be seen in the Categories that Aristotle certainly believes the significance of substance from the other categories: “A substance, spoken of in the most fundamental, primary, and highest sense of the word, is that which is neither said of a subject nor present in a subject,” says Aristotle (Categories 5, 2a12-15). A little later, he continues: “if the primary substances did not exist it would be impossible for any of the other [categories] to exist” (Categories 5, 2b5-6). I can agree with Aristotle on this as it does make logical sense that something has to exist in order for one to apply other attributes such as quantity, place, position, etc., so I do believe this part of the premise to be true. However, I will need to come back to this premise as though I believe it is true that substance is the most important category, I do not think it can describe being.
Regarding P2, having oneness, Aristotle argues, means that there is a singularness to being, that is, there is one way to describe it: “There are four ways of bringing together under headings the things that are said to be primarily and intrinsically, not coincidentally, one… continuous… simple… whole… [and] the primary thing that is one would be the cause of substances’ being one [(self-identity)]” (Metaphysics Iota, 1052a15-33). This can be discerned as a science for being qua being or “ontology” in today’s terms. I understand the need for unity as if one is going to say something isthen it needs to be one thing and not have the possibility of it being entangled in what it means to be other things. This oneness is explained as the thing having continuity, simplicity, wholeness, and self-identity which will be discussed in more detail when I consider P5.
I can clearly understand Aristotle’s thinking of matter being potentiality in P3 and form being actuality in P4. Matter is what is able to engage in activity as it is definite, tangible, and most importantly, has the capacity within itself to do so. Form is actuality as it is something that is actively being what it is; it is the actual what-ness of the thing. These two premises are therefore true.
Aristotle now attempts to bring everything together by explaining how “the ultimate matter and the shape [(form)] are one and the same, the one potentially, the other actively, so that it is the same to look for what is the cause of oneness or what is the cause of being one. For each thing is a one, and what potentially is and what actively is are in a way one. And so there is no other cause here” (Metaphysics Eta 6, 1045b18-21). This combination of potentiality (matter) and actuality (form) is a good way of describing oneness based on the four attributes described earlier. Form has the attributes of continuity (because it always is the same description) and self-identity (because the form is the absolute self of a thing), and matter has the attributes of simplicity (because the particular is just itself) and wholeness (because the particular is defined by itself as a whole). I do believe that oneness can be described by form and matter together, and thereby actuality and potentiality, making P5 and P2 true.
With substance needing oneness, which is now explained as the combination of potentiality and actuality (which corresponds to the particular and the form, respectively), I can say that a substance needs these attributes to describe its being. However, these connections between the definitions, while intriguing, do not give a sufficient way of actually describing being, as though form and matter can create oneness that then gives us a substance, we cannot adequately or consistently describe that substance as being, invalidating P1 and therefore the potential soundness of the argument.
Aristotle begins Metaphysics Zeta with a recount of the importance of substance as the most important category: “Something is said to be in many ways, which we distinguished earlier in our discussion of the many ways. For on the one hand ‘being’ signifies the what-it-is and a this something, and on the other quality, quantity, or one of the other things predicated as these are” (Metaphysics Zeta, 1028a10-12). The key parts here are the two terms that describe being: the “what-it-is” and the “this something.” The “what-it-is” describes the form/kind of something while using hyphens to also emphasizes the singularity and oneness of the form. The “this something” is the individual/particular/matter of something. The problem of describing being can be seen with these two terms due to the absurdity of them. If one asks, “what is it?” in order to describe an object, the reply would be to identify the what-it-is (its form). However, that form cannot be adequately described. If the desired object to be described is a table, one could say how it is made of wood, situates objects on a flat surface above and parallel to the ground, is smooth, etc., but because one means to identify the form when asking, there are infinite descriptions that need to be applied to the table in order to get to the complete what-it-is. If one does start identifying the attributes of a table one by one, I would probably be able to know they are describing the form of a table when a few attributes are said, but this is because my mind fills in the blanks based on previous experiences of knowing what a table is, meaning something else is needed besides words to get to the being of a table. This leads to our words alone being insufficient in describing the table’s being. For the “this something” in describing a particular substance, the implications of the words are beyond them. When saying a “this something” to a particular table, it is implied by “this” to mean to identify the table, such as, “look at this table over in the corner of the room that I am pointing at.” Those words can mean something if I were talking to someone in the room near me while pointing at the table, but I would never be able to get someone to identify my same understanding of what particular I am trying to describe in a book (can only see my words) or even on a phone call (can only hear my words); they would not be able to fully understand the table’s being as I understand it unless information other than words is added (them being there with me addressing the table). Nevertheless, it only takes one of these to not work for the description of the substance to fall apart as one needs both the particular and the form for being.
Furthering the discussion of being qua being, I see another way for how ineffable being is. “There is a science that gets a theoretical grasp on being qua being and of the [coincidents] belonging intrinsically to it. But this is not the same as any of the so-called special sciences, since none of these investigates being qua being in a universal way” (Metaphysics Gamma, 1003a20-28). This intrinsic nature that Aristotle describes is exactly what separates “being” from every other form of description of scientific/logical measure. We cannot derive it from an equation like in mathematics. We cannot apply the scientific method to it in an attempt to prove or disprove a hypothesis like in biology. We cannot describe it in language as shown earlier. Being just intrinsically is. I can show someone my series of mathematical steps to solve for “x” and the person (assuming the same math knowledge) would be able to understand in the exact same way as me. I can show someone my hypothesis of “if evaporation and transpiration are closely related in their processes, then the factors that increase evaporation will increase transpiration” and the person would be able to follow my scientific method steps in an attempt to prove my hypothesis. There is no logical way to go about explaining being in the sense of me understanding what being is and then directly conveying that to another person.
Digesting these thoughts and criticisms of Aristotle’s attempts at ontology may leave many exasperated and discontented. Although reading Aristotle’s work is a complicated task, millions of individuals have been able to understand what he was trying to convey. Is that not proof that being can be described and understood through words? The fact that I am writing this essay shows that even I, the critic, understand what Aristotle is saying on some level. However, what I understand as “being” from reading Aristotle is not the same “being” that someone else understands when reading it, and both our understandings are not the same as Aristotle’s. This means that what Aristotle believes as “being,” though described and then absorbed into our brains for some meaning, is not actually understood in the same way. Subjectivity is the reason for “being” being ineffable in terms of common relation and my counterargument will prove this thought further.
In his essay, “What is it like to be a Bat,” Thomas Nagel tries to contemplate the ability of consciousness between organisms of different species as well as between our own species. Nagel explains to the reader in his famous example of contemplating what it may be like to be a bat. We can assume that a bat has consciousness just like ourselves and it is not too dissimilar to humans through its phylogenetic proximity, but it has unique attributes that separate it from us: it is nocturnal, has echolocation, and can fly. There is no reason to conclude that the subjectivity of bat experience is in any way comparable or even comprehendible to our own consciousness. Because of our advanced intellect, we can imagine what it is like to be a bat, but we cannot imagine what it is like for a bat to be a bat. We must somehow then derive a mindset where we know what it is like for a bat to be a bat, but this is impossible based on the limitedness of even our complex human mind. Nagel comments that even if he “could by gradual degrees be transformed into a bat, nothing in [his] present constitution enables [him] to imagine what the experiences of [himself] thus metamorphosed would be like” (Nagel, 439). This concludes that even if advanced technology were somehow able to assist us in becoming a bat, we would perceive it from a human perspective at some level or another. P.M.S. Hacker describes Nagel’s conclusions as: “There is nothing to ‘the qualitative character of experience’ beyond the individual character of a specific experience and how the subject felt in undergoing it” (Hacker, 159). This sentence perfectly describes how an experience is permanently unique to the individual consciousness.
This can then be related to how one human cannot completely understand the consciousness of another human. Such that a bat has an extra sense of echolocation, an able-bodied person cannot understand what it is like to experience blindness or deafness. We can imagine what it may be like to be blind, but for those who are able-bodied, without experiencing it we can never really know what it is like for a blind person to be blind. Condensing further, we may approach the situation of two people in an art museum. The first person may look at a particular painting and start crying and the second may laugh at it. The perspective, and thereby scope of consciousness of one’s being, is determined by the progression of sought-after and unexpected experiences which appear at random points of time whether one is searching for them or not. This progression and the way in which the order of the experiences fall is what makes each of us unique in our mindsets of life and therefore our consciousness of being as well.
Now that it is understood that one cannot completely understand what it is like to be someone else, then that means that it is not possible for one to adequately describe being to someone else as, although they could understand the topic and what it is trying to achieve, one cannot actually know what that being is because the two individuals are being in two different ways. The words are insufficient in bringing about a certainty of complete understanding. When two people see that two plus two equals four, they both understand that definition because it is objective and universal, but to talk about each of their own beings would result in the stammering of the ineffable as some level of incompleteness between their two perspectives would result. My being is different from anyone one else’s because I am me and not anyone else. I can try to describe it through words or create some level of a logic system to prove what it means to be, but the reader would not sufficiently be able to grasp the totality of my meaning of being because we are not the same individuals. Therefore, if one tries to explain “being” to someone else, it cannot be understood in the exact same way, and if there cannot be a complete and mutual understanding, then the word does not convey the same meaning and cannot be the same between them.
Though Aristotle is revered for his unwavering completeness in descriptions and logic, regarding being, he tries to define it by encircling the word with definitions and descriptions that merely leave a hollow area around where it resides instead of spearing right through it. Looking at his argument allowed me to address this problem and what the issue ultimately was: words being insufficient in describing “being.” However, this is not his fault as no one can accomplish this feat. Being is a subjective term, and though we all experience it, we all experience it differently. To quote Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “to be or not to be, that is the question.” For Aristotle, that is not a question of suicide, but of the possibility of a substance, and my answer to Aristotle is: “it may be, but it won’t be the same to someone else.”
Works Cited:
Aristotle, Categories, trans. Hippocrates G. Apostle and Lloyd P. Gerson. (Grinnell: The Peripatetic Press, 1986), pages 29-35.
Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. C. D. C. Reeve. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2016).
Hacker, P. M. S. “Is There Anything It Is Like to Be a Bat?” Philosophy, vol. 77, no. 2, 2002, pp. 157–174., doi:10.1017/S0031819102000220.
Nagel, Thomas. “What Is It like to Be a Bat?” Philosophical Review, 2 Apr. 2014, https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/ugmodules/humananimalstudies/lectures/32/nagel_bat.pdf
It is too deep for me to understand it. It has been discussed in a profound fashion. It has been discussed in a great fashion. Love it.