Form and function

Abstract

The goal is to show that the ontology of form and composite substance of Metaphysics Z - θ provides the ontological support Aristotle's account of knowledge and definition requires. Section I examines Aristotle's notion of form as emmattered logos. This notion, which has obvious epistemological implications, is of fundamental importance in the treatment of form in the Metaphysics. This way of conceiving form enables Aristotle to view the particular as the expression of the universal. In Section II, Aristotle's use of nested capacities in the analysis of both form and matter is discussed. This device allows him to build the degree of complexity into the particular that is required in order to conceive the particular as an expression of a definable essence. Section III takes up a challenge to the interpretation of Aristotelian form developed in the preceding two sections, viz. the possibility that an Aristotelian form is a particular not a universal. Happily this challenge does not succeed. The fourth section summarizes the conclusions reached in the preceding sections to establish that Aristotle has given us the right sort of ontology for Aristotelian science.