Essay about ontologic-logic theory of Aristotle Seminar: Einfrung in die Teorische Philosophie Roberto Jimnez Mndez.

SoSe 2013

Ontologic-logic theory of Aristotle

The language is designed as a realities communication instrument, but at the same time, it sets realities. This statement raises the question about the relationship of these areas, reality and language. We find how Aristotle raises the question at the root of his philosophy, in his theory the essence, and how that quiddity that makes it what it is to the particular substance, will be expressed in language. This allows us to understand how the foundation of language is beyond of the symbolic play interconnections. According to Aristotle, First Philosophy is the study of "being as being" the "ousia" and "the first principles and causes of things". From these indications have been developed various interpretations about whether the main reason for their work designate to the concrete entity, or form or substance, or God as first cause or prime mover. In fact, its possible to propose this diversity of approaches because Aristotle conducts his philosophical reflections from three levels of analysis simultaneously: the ontological, the logical-discursive and theological. From the ontological perspective, the philosopher from Stagira gives priority in their study to the natural beings, because reality expresses their absolute relevance. At the same time, to approach the issues from a logical standpoint discursive, the language is, privileged, the area from where it opens and reveals the real, inasmuch as human understanding of reality in depth is only reachable from the language. The third perspective is the theological, revealed how the way to solve the aporia of the first motor. According to our aim, we will focus on the first two aspects of Aristotelian philosophy. The richness of the philosophy of Aristotle shows a desire to understand the reality that takes different approaches in the most faithful pursuit of truth and reality, developing an organic theory, while is at the same time unit and multifactorial, reflecting the same structure of the reality .

Aristotle's ontological perspective departs of the platonic heritage of the problem of the existence of the eidos separate of the concrete entities. Plato's thesis propose the existence of ideas as references (real, existing , immutable and eternal) to which all particular beings relate in a greater or lesser grade, depending on their degree of perfection. From this idealism, to account of the real world is not enough evidence that triggers us the mutable, as the singular, as such, you cant do science. Is impossible to know the concrete as such, because we cant get any specific or general charesteristic, and then any kind of knowledge, but rather a testament to that. The world is composed of a multitude of different ones, but where all the same we find similarities, symmetries, regularities and repetitions of the same in different cases, and it is under this element of permanence that we can reach an knowledge. For Plato, those permanent are the ideas, and to them belongs privileged ontological status. However, the real problem of the platonic thesis is the fact that postulate the existence of something beyond the things themselves raises more problems that it seeks to solve. Faced with such circumstances, and considering how the fundamental premise at common sense, Aristotle defends the ontological priority of the individual entities. The analysis of specific entities as ontological substance directs the Aristotles attention to the composite nature of matter and form. The substance is in its philosophy the foundation from which to build an ontology that accounts for the reality of things. To the matters corresponds those tangible, consistence, of the being, while the form is those aspect itself intangible under which is specified the difference of anything particular. Now, by that latter, the form, we can search and find that permanence that allows openness to knowledge, science and philosophy. The cause may exist entities that a share characteristic is generating. Indeed, Aristotle recognizes the role of generation as a mechanism that allows singular beings share the essential characteristics common to its specificity, this being precisely what allows us to understand that while the essence of the species is not beyond themselves, nor is depleted in each of each. We found:

"Of the things that are generated, some are generated by nature, some by art and other spontaneously. And all that is generated become something by the work and from something to another something". (Metaphysics, VII : 8, 1033b , 20-30 ). In the field of natural things that we find those permanent and common that forms, is an essence that gives structural unit. The species, or class of entities that share specific characteristics, its a coherent whole unified by the essence. Thus, the essence is constituted as the eidos or form that allows the concrete to be what it is. The essence as act (energeia), allow to the things be what they are. Brings us to the central point from the perspective poses physical and ontological essence Aristotle, namely, about what makes things be what they are: form, considered as permanence (in many beings) and as an act (in individual being). What in the strict sense there is the compouse of matter and form. As for the substance, as Aristotle himself points out:

"The substance is spoken at least four major ways , the essence, the universal , gender and the subject". (Metaphysics, VII: 3, 1028b, 30-35).

Identification of substance and subject suggests that the subject must be "something" separated (choristn), ie endowed own subsistence and that also has to be something specific (tode ti). This is precisely the case of individuals belonging to different natural species. In the concrete being recognize expendable features, and other features without which it would not be what it is. This leads us to recognize that it "be" is said in different ways: first, to the accidents, but truth be told most of the substance. Therefore, substance is more than a composite of matter and form a "hypokeimenon" ie, that which acts as a carrier of accidents. Faced with the accidental, whatever remains, the substance, refers to the substrate: "It may be doubted if `walk and `be healthy and `sitting means each a entities... because of course none of them have naturally own existence or be separated from the

substance, but rather, in any case, what entities will what goes and what sits and what is healthy . And these seem more entities because there is something that serves as a specific subject (and this is the substance). Is substance those first to what these things [affections] are inherent " (Metaphysics , VII : 2, 1028a , 20-30 ) . Now we are able to understand the relationship of logic and ontology, because for Aristotle, the hypokeimenon or substrate, which acquired unit accidents, can build the definition, since the definition is based, precisely, on the essentials of the subject, in what makes it what it is: "The essence, which statement is a definition, also is called substance of each thing. It is therefore that the substance is said in two ways: the ultimate subject, which is not predicated of another thing, and what being something determinate, is also separable. And such is the way and the species of each thing ". (Metaphysics V : 9, 1017b , 20-25 ). Thus we can understand how once sensory experience can only come to the knowledge of the thinking subject to the extent that it becomes a conceptual form that allows the definition, this conceptual form manifests, then, the own characteristics and required of the concrete entity to be what the human intellect apprehend by definition. So that although being unique, possessing an essence and belong to a species, it is possible from it, build a true knowledge. This is the fact for which it will be necessary to consider the essence from a logical-discursive level. So, knowledge that's the way we perceive the general in the singular, through intellectual perception of the essence, through the definition, ie the logical-linguistic interpretation of the concrete entity. Thus, as the individual Socrates is, as substance, the foundation of all phenomena related to it, the subject Socrates is, in turn, reference to which is preached all statements that are constructed from it. The division of declarative propositions, ie those that inform about the world and constitute the language with which we intend to express facts, subject-predicate corresponds to the division of substance-accident metaphysics. The subject, as the substance, is the ultimate reality, which per se is capable of receiving qualitative determinations: the subject receives the attributes, substance accidents.

This is the metaphysical-logic relationship we find in Aristotle, the foundation of all their philosophy. In conclusion, and in light of the theory presented in this paper, we can say that Aristotle's ontological theory derives ultimately from the ancient Greek grammar, as their categorical table corresponds to the syntactic-semantic features of the language that he used, and he establishes the concept of judgment (declarative statement) based on this perspective. Aristotle's conception of judgment has had a historical impact of great importance, being the bases on which to base subsequent metaphysics until Kant and Hegel. However, in the booklet "Function and Concept" (Funktion und Begriff) of Gottlob Frege, its questioning the Aristotelian model of judgment based on grammatical considerations, and proposes a concept of judgment (or concept) as a function (by the way in which math works), arguing that we thus obtain a clearer notion of judgment, inasmuch the aristotelian is inadequate because this confuses form and content, or designee sign and thing signified or denoted. However, despite the Fregean revolution, the aristotelian thesis has currently a value as an argument that defends the roots of the language in reality, beyond the autonomous nature of language as essentially communicative instrument. It is true that as human, we build the language and in this make it, also we build worlds, and with them ourselves, but in turn, with these actions we live, valorize and build the reality.