The One and the Many: Devoted to the Universal and the Particulars

Since the Middle Ages, the widespread usage of general terms like ‘Aristotelian’ or ‘Aristotelianism’ without much qualification “reflects the popularity of Aristotle’s thought” for he “provided many of the raw materials with which educated Christians of the Middle Ages built up the edifice of medieval thought.”[1] Regardless of the usage of these general terms throughout history, the historical problem of developing criteria in order to classify individuals as strictly Aristotelian is in short difficult (if not impossible) and highly controversial. Can historians establish criteria in order to claim that certain individuals or ideas was or was not an ‘Aristotelian’?  C. J. Nederman described the arbitrary nature of classifying individuals as ‘Aristotelian,’ because individuals have incorporated certain aspects of Aristotle’s thought within their own systems.  Aristotelianism within the early Middle Ages possesses a “paradoxical quality,” meaning that the use of Aristotle was “everywhere and yet no where.”[2]Aristotle was born in 384 BCE and is commonly known as the star pupil of Plato.  He composed a variety of logical and scientific works, but is best known for “connecting the particular to the general” as he spent a considerable about of time writing on the particulars of nature and the animal world.[3] Despite Aristotle’s passion for these natural elements, his most famous works are both collections of essays titled the Organon and Metaphysics, where his theory of science and tools for gathering human knowledge can be summarized.  The Organon consists of five works: Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, and Topics.[4] In summary, the Categories and On Interpretation establish a philosophy of language and a description of language with “simple, uncombined terms treated under ten most universal heads or categories.”[5] Aristotle’s Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, and Topics establish formal logic and syllogisms that seek to use a “combination of three terms in an argument.”[6] Although Boethius’ access to Aristotle’s writings is not entirely clear, it is agreed that Boethius translated into Latin the Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, and Topics.[7]

Aristotle’s Metaphysics is divided into fourteen books and ranges in complexity and content, but primarily addresses the notion of first principles as the cause of all objects and first principles with relation to human knowledge.  In the Metaphysics, Aristotle divided knowledge into two parts: the speculative and the practical.[8] The main differences between the speculative and practical are in terms of purpose, application, and subdivision.  The purpose of speculative knowledge (or sometimes referred to as theoretical) is applied in the contemplation of truth in abstraction, which is independent of “our personal volition.”[9] On the other hand, the purpose of the practical is the application of knowledge within politics, government, education, and ethics.  This division between the speculative and practical knowledge was not intended to create separate and unrelated areas of human knowledge, but was intended to organize human knowledge and create proper distinctions for clarity. 

The theoretical side of knowledge is subdivided into first philosophy, mathematics, and physics.  The difference between first philosophy, mathematics, and physics is based upon its relation with matter and motion.  For Aristotle, first philosophy does not correspond with matter and is not subjected to motion.  Mathematics corresponds directly with matter and is without motion, while physics is concerned with both matter and its motion.  First philosophy, also known as metaphysics, is concerned with the “study of ultimate first principles, and, in the Aristotelian Philosophy, God is such an ultimate principle.”[10] For Aristotle, “First Philosophy alone investigates the character of those causative factors in the system, which are without body or shape and exempt from all mutability.”[11] Despite Aristotle’s interest for natural elements, he also believed that he could use inquiry, logic, philosophy, and language for metaphysical purposes.  For Aristotle, first philosophy was the highest form of the theoretical sciences, because its subject matter was of the highest substance and was without matter and motion.  Due to the fact that in “Aristotle’s system God is the supreme Cause of this kind, First Philosophy culminates in the knowledge of God, and is hence frequently called Theology.”[12] In other words, “Aristotle can identify theology with first philosophy, for he understands the study of the highest genus of Being to be at the same time the study of Being as Being [Being qua Being].”[13]  In book II of Metaphysics, Aristotle described human knowledge and first philosophy in the following:

Moreover, philosophy is rightly called a knowledge of Truth.  The object of theoretic knowledge is truth, while that of practical knowledge is action… Therefore in every case the first principles of things must necessarily be true above everything else-since they are not merely sometimes true, nor is anything the cause of their existence, but they are the cause of the existence of other things-and so as each thing is in respect of truth.[14]

Aristotle understood first philosophy as the investigation of being and existence; and thus, an investigation of God or the substance of causality.  Aristotle, therefore, conceived of a branch of science that studied ‘being qua being,’ not in an abstract or abstruse sense, but as a “science which studies beings, and studies them qua being; that is a science which studies things that exist…and studies them qua existing.”[15] Aristotle described metaphysics, first philosophy or truth as the foundation to both theoretic and practical knowledge.  The object of theoretic knowledge is truth, while the object of practical knowledge is action.  From this Aristotle concluded that first philosophy is the cause of things in respects to both existence and truth and in every instance knowledge is founded upon first philosophy, which is without matter or motion.

[2]     Nederman, “The Meaning of “Aristotelianism,” 564.

[3]     Sarah B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, Jenifer Tolbert Roberts, Ancient Greece: A Poltical, Social, and Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 360.

[4]     On Sophistical Refutations (De Sophisticis Elenchis) is sometimes included within the Organon.

[5]     Richard McKeon, The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Random House, 1941), xvii.

[6]     McKeon, The Basic Works of Aristotle, xvii.

[7]     See, Lorenzo Minio-Paluello, Opuscula: The Latin Aristotle (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1972), 1.  See, also, Henry Chadwick, Boethius: The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 133.

[8]     Speculative is also referred to as theoretical.

[9]     A. E. Taylor,  Aristotle On His Predecessors (La Salle: Open Court, 1969),19.

[10]     Taylor,  Aristotle On His Predecessors, 18.

[11]     A. E. Taylor, Aristotle (New York: Dover Publications, 1955), 18.

[12]     Taylor, Aristotle, 18.

[13]     Sutherland, “Boethius’ Conception of Theology,” 100.

[14]    Aristotle’s Metaphysics, II. I,  v-vii.

[15]    Jonathan Barnes, “Aristotle: The Structure of Science,” ed. Jonathan Barnes, Greek Philosophers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 225.