Philosophy 101B

It’s the nature of the thing!


The most direct way for me to know something is to experience it with my senses – to taste it, feel it, see it, hear it, or smell it. Indeed all human knowledge begins with the senses. I know, have direct sensory experience, that there are many things that exist in the world, trees, cars, bicycles, children, adults, dogs, etc. I am also certain that each of these things in the world are different from me, i.e., I am not the tree and the tree is not me. This seems to be a very basic experience, and one would assume that this is probably a good candidate for the simplest, most direct knowledge. But if we take a moment to really think about this we will see that the understanding that I am not the tree is not the most basic knowledge we have. Indeed, knowing the tree is not the most basic, nor is knowing that that thing is a tree. No, the most fundamental knowledge we have is existence itself. The first thing that I can say with certainty about the tree is not that it is a thing called a “tree” – but that it is a thing – it “is”. It is only after I know that that thing exists that I can judge it to be a tree.

From this primary experience of existence, the intellect begins to form concepts leading to the differentiation among all the things found in the natural world. In experiencing the natural world, it becomes clear that the things in the world come into being and run their course without benefit of my assistance or influence. In other words, I am not the tree and the tree is not me. Furthermore, each thing in the world has its own “nature”, the source of the activities the thing originates. This “nature” is unique to each thing. Examples of things with natures are rocks, plants, animals, chemical elements and their compounds, planets, stars, galaxies. All of these things come into existence and pass away. All these things change and are changeable.

To say that something is a rose or a cow is to describe its nature. The intellect grasps the nature of a thing from its appearance and from the way it acts/reacts in various situations. When the nature of a thing is defined, I am able to differentiate it from other things. Thus, natures are universals, concepts, objects of the intellect.

The nature of a thing makes the thing be what it is, serves to differentiate it from all other things, and accounts for its unique activities and responses. I initially grasp natures in a general way as I learn language and attach meanings to words. My understanding is further refined as I gain more information and experience about the objects I know. My understanding of an object’s nature grows with more experience with the object. Thus, a gardener would know more about roses than a child. But both would share a general understanding of the nature of a rose.

Change, Motion, and Cause

As alluded to earlier, things move, that is things change. Things exist. Things change. But for a thing to change, there must be a cause. Oftentimes, these causes remain hidden from my direct sensory observation, but I can learn something about the cause from its effect, the change I do observe.

Four factors can be identified as the causes of change. They do not all operate in the same way but each functions in a unique, distinctive manner. The four factors are usually identified as matter, form, agent, and end. Matter becomes the material cause, form the formal cause, agent the efficient cause, and end the final cause.

An example might help in understanding this. In analyzing a table, the matter and form become very evident. Matter is the “stuff” out of which the table is made and which remains in it. Let’s say that our table is made of maple wood. The form is the shape or design imposed on the matter – in this case the shape of the table formed during its making. Both matter and form are internal to the table that is they are within it not external to it. Matter and form explain why the table is what it is. Matter and form, then, are internal causes.

Agent and end are external causes. Agent and end are external to the table and explain “how” the table came to be. The agent is the carpenter who made the table from the raw materials. The end is the objective or goal that the carpenter had in mind when making the table – say to make an elegant dining table. Both agent and end are not found within the table but are external to it. If the table embodies the goal the carpenter had in mind completely, it is called a good table.

To summarize: The agent acts on matter to enduce the form from it as the end of the process.

From the example I provided above the interactions of the four causes are fairly easy to understand. However, it can be more difficult to see these four causes at work in the things of nature, apart from the influence of human actions. The table is an artifact, a product of human action. Natural entities are substances that have natures that explain their unique activities. For each natural thing, I want to explore the matter from which it is formed, how its form is different from an artifact, the agency that produces it, and the end intended and achieved through nature’s processes.

What’s the matter?

Matter is the “stuff” out of which a thing is made and remains in it. So what is matter? The maple that from which the table is made is rather obvious. But what about the maple tree? Or what about gold, or water, or a cow? The question becomes: is there a basic “stuff” out of which all natural substances are made and that remains in them?

This has been the $64,000 question for almost 3000 years now. There have been several proposed answers – earth, air, water, fire and ether were the standard answer until the 18th century.

In the 19th century, science discovered the chemical elements which seemed to give the answer to the question about the basic stuff. But what is the stuff from which the elements are made? Atoms. What composes atoms? Protons, neutrons, and electrons. What composes these particles? Etc. etc. Modern science still is probing what this most fundamental matter could be. The most successful factor based on the work of Einstein is the concept of mass-energy.

Aristotle termed this most fundamental stuff as prime matter or protomatter. This prime matter is the basic potential principle underlying all changes in the universe. Matter is not passive and inert but is a potency, a potentiality, at the foundation of all change that occurs throughout the universe. Prime matter is conserved in any and all changes (e.g., matter-energy is neither created nor destroyed).

Form

Form is the shape or figure the matter assumes in a thing. As such, form becomes part of its being. In our table example, the form is the shape the maple wood assumes when the table is made. The form then is part of the table’s being. Although the maple wood was not always formed as a table, as long as it was identifiable as maple is was under some form.

Matter and form then are inseparable. But although matter is somewhat unintelligible, form allows us to understand the natures of things in the world.

Form allows me to identify things, animals, plants, and minerals with which I come in contact. Form allows me to classify things according to differences among them. Even though individual objects within a class have differences among them, I can still understand them as a class and ascribe a common nature to them. For example, I understand the concept of animals even though a dog is very different than an eagle. It is this form or formality that I name and define as I learn about the natural kinds of things in the world.

Size, shape, quantity, quality, color etc. are accidents that exist in the substance of a thing. These are changeable. I can change the size or shape of the table without changing the substance of which it is composed. The form that underlies these accidental attributes, that makes it an enduring substance, is called the substantial form or natural form. Changing attributes and properties are accidental forms. These are forms that modify the substance in various ways. Accidental forms may vary in degree, or in presence and absence, without affecting the basic character of the substance.

It is the natural or substantial form that I apprehend when I understand the nature of something and attempt to define it. The substantial form is a universal concept that is given in the sense world but results from intellectual abstraction – the first order of abstraction. Once grasped, I can apply the universal concept of the nature of things to individual examples of those things. Thus, I can have universal knowledge of the natural world