Aristotle's metaphysics
Aristotle was born in Thrace around 384 BC. Nearly two millennia after his death, his authority became almost as indisputable as that of the Christian church and became a serious obstacle to scientific and philosophical progress.
As a philosopher, Aristotle was in many ways very different from his predecessors. He was the first philosopher to write like a professor. He was not passionate, nor did he have any deep religious leanings.
An introduction to Aristotle's metaphysics begins with his critique of the theory of ideas and his set of doctrines on the substitution of the problem of universality. He made it clear that if many individuals share a narrative, it cannot be because they have a relation to something of the same kind as themselves, but because they are related to something more ideal. (Universal is the original ideal concept)
Roughly speaking, Aristotle's metaphysical theory is to explain Plato's theory with common sense, and the reason why it is difficult to understand is precisely because Plato and common sense are not easily mixed together.
Aristotle said, "In the case of universals, I am referring to words which in essence can be used to express many objects; in particular, I am referring to words which are inherently unable to make such expressions." "Universals are not entities, so Aristotle objected to plato's so-called bed in heaven. "No universal term seems likely to be the name of an entity," he said. For the substance of each thing is peculiar to it and does not belong to anything else; but the universal is common, for the universal refers to something that belongs to more than one thing. This leads to the conclusion that the things described by an adjective can exist only if they depend on the thing referred to by a proper noun, but this is not the case. For example, a person's face may turn red or white, and "red" or "white" must be present on the "face" to show it, while the "face" is still the "face", it is not necessarily "white" or "red".
The term "essence" is very important to the Aristotle school, and it is by no means synonymous with "universality." Individual things have an essence, and likewise, each kind of thing has a corresponding essence. The definition of a species should be based on describing its essence.
The distinction between "form" and "content" is a point in Aristotle's metaphysics. Aristotle took the bronze ball as an example, bronze is the content, and the spherical shape is the form. It is precisely because of form that the content becomes something certain, and this is the essence of the thing.
Aristotle tells us that the soul is the form of the body. (How to understand it?) The composition of the body is the same, but the soul gives the body a different individual essence. The soul in the Aristotle system is what makes the body a thing, with its unity of purpose and characteristics that remind us of the word "organism."
Further, Aristotle said that the form of things is its essence and primary substance. Form is real, but universal is not. This view that form can exist independently of the entity that is its instance exposes Aristotle to the argument he himself used to oppose Plato's ideas. For forms are supposed to be something very different from universality, but they have many of the same characteristics. If form is more real than content, this reminds us of the unique reality of ideas that Plato spoke of. But he might answer that no two things can have the same form. Two bronze balls cannot have two "balls", but they must have different forms. According to this metaphysical essence, things should gradually become knowable as there are more forms and fewer and fewer contents. But this is clearly incompatible with his view of form as essence.
Aristotle's doctrine of content and form is linked to the distinction between potential and reality. Content is considered a latent form, and things have more forms after change than before. Things with more forms are more "real." God is pure form and pure reality, so He does not change anything.
Aristotle's theology is closely linked to his metaphysics. He said that there are three kinds of entities: one is those that can be perceived and perish, that is, animals and plants; the other is perceptible but will not perish, including various celestial bodies; and the third is neither perceptual nor perishable, which is the rational soul and God that man possesses.
The argument for God is the original cause: something must have caused the initial motion, and the thing itself must be immovable, it must be eternal, it must be entity and reality. In this way, the objects of desire and thought give rise to motion, and they themselves are not in motion. In this way, God moves out of being loved, and any other motive works by being in motion himself. God is pure thought, because thought is the best thing. God here is different from the Christian God, because any thought of anything other than perfection (i.e., God Himself) undermines God's perfection.
Aristotle divided "causes" into four types, called content causes, formal causes, dynamic causes, and ultimate causes. Take a statue as an example, the marble is its content cause; the formal cause is the appearance of the statue to be carved; the driving force is the contact between the chisel and the marble; the ultimate cause is the end of the sculptor as the end.
Aristotle's view of religion can be seen from the idea that God exists as pure thought, happiness, and complete self-actualization, without any unfulfilled purpose. All life is more or less aware of God and acts driven by reverence and love for God, so that God is the ultimate cause of all action. The change is in giving form to content, but when it comes to something that can be felt, there is always a kind of content as the underlying foundation. Only God is made up of forms without content.
Aristotle saw the soul and body as tightly bound together. The relationship between the body and the soul is related to content and form: the form of the physical body contains the potential of life, so the soul must be an entity. The entity is real, so the soul is the physical reality described above. The soul is an entity. The soul is a physical "essential thing" with the characteristics specified above, i.e., the soul is the first-level reality of a natural body containing life. The soul is the cause of the purpose of the body.
Aristotle distinguished between "soul" and "mind" and made the mind higher than the soul and less connected to the body. The mind seems to be an independent entity that is implanted in the soul and cannot be destroyed. Aristotle called what gives substance to an animal or plant a "soul." But the "mind" is a different thing, not so closely related to the body, maybe it is part of the soul, but only a very small number of living beings have a mind.
From Aristotle's point of view, it seems that the personality that distinguishes one person from others is connected with the body and the irrational soul, while the rational soul and mind are sacred and impersonal. Irrational souls separate us, and rational souls unite us. Thus the immortality of the mind or reason is not the immortality of a single person, but a sharing of the immortality of God. Man can completely increase the divine element in his own nature, and in doing so is the highest virtue.