Cuál es el problema con la unidad de la forma y su definición en Metafísica Z12?

FABIAN MIE

Santa Fe

Jornada; Jornadas de Comunicación en Investigación en Filosofía; 2022

Universidad Nacional del Litoral

In Metaphysics Z12, Aristotle raises a difficulty about the unity and composition of forms and their definitions (1037b11-14, b24-27). There are at least two main issues about these chapter, which deserve to be clarified. (1) What is the announced relevance of this difficulty (1037b9-10), which is also said to be anchored in the discussion of the Analytics (APo. 2.6 92a27-33; and Int. 5, 17a13-15), for the theory of substance of book Z? (2) Aristotle seems to assume that a form is a unified compound made of purely formal parts as genus and differentia; but at the same time he rejects several ways of explaining that unity. He argues that the unity of form can be explained neither (i) by being one thing predicated of another ―as an attribute that belongs to a subject is predicated of it― (1037b14-18) nor (ii) by participation ―as if the genus would take part in the opposite and the many differentiae (1037b18-24). What is Aristotle’s own alternative in Z12? (3) His answer is in 1037b29 ff. I will claim that instead of approaching it with the logic of determinables, we should resort particularly to two formal features of division. As it can be made clear with Topics 6, the unity of forms is explained by entailment ―the differentiae entail the genus― (ἐπιφέρειν, Top. 6.6 144b16; συνεπιφέρειν, 144b17-18, b29-30). Further, the unity is explained by proper differentiation ―the many differentiae are reduced to the last one― (διαιρῇ τῇ οἰκείᾳ διαιρέσει, 1038a24). This results into a parsimonious model of unity for complex forms, which can bound the highest (genus) and the lower (differentiae) formal parts together in just one determination: the last differentia, which is said to be the form or the substance of the form (1038a26). Moreover, this can shed light on my first question. Since explaining the unity of forms turns out to be relevant for guaranteeing a main constraint on substance generally set in Z4.1030a3-7, i.e. that substances are definable essences with no different parts that would be externally linked by participation or by any other similar outer bond (1030a13-14). Thus, only Z12 can ground the claim that there is no essence but of the forms of genera (1030a11-13), which, in turn, suggests that forms are primary substance.