Plato, Aristotle, and the Problem of Universals
Before we look at epistemology in contemporary philosophy we will take a quick look at a related question in metaphysics.
1 Background (Some Quick Ancient Metaphysics)
1.1 Plato and Platonic Realism
- Theory of the Forms (Eternal Ideas)
- How can there be many of one kind of thing?
- What do red things have in common? Their form: Redness.
- What do trees have in common? Their form: Treeness.
- What do human beings have in common? Their form: Humanness.
- What do all good things have in common? Their form: Goodness.
- Plato’s answer: Particular things (this red thing, this tree, etc.) “participate in” the Forms (redness, treeness, etc.)
- Particular things change
- Forms do not. They are
- Eternal
- Unchanging
- Neoplatonic Interpretation: The Forms are the most real things; particular things are less real than the Forms
- Alternative Interpretation: Forms and particulars are equally real. The Forms are good objects of knowledge (because they do not change). Particulars are bad objects of knowledge (because they can change).
- How can there be many of one kind of thing?
- Innate Ideas: Knowing as Remembering
- Plato held that learning is really a recollecting of what we learned in a previous existence.
- Later Platonists suggest that we were created with these ideas.
- Implications
- Knowledge is only about things that do not change
- Truth does not change
- But, mere belief/opinion is
- about changing things
- about appearances
1.2 Aristotle and Aristotelian Realism
- Rejected Plato’s Theory of the Forms
- Forms are merely the way that particular things exist
- Hylomorphism
- Particular things are made up of matter and form
- matter gives a thing “potentiality”
- form gives a thing “actuality”
- Example:
- the same wood can be a tree and later a chair
- the matter (wood) is the same but the form (tree then chair) changes
- Abstraction: A process of the mind that separates form from matter