Knowing Substances through their Causes: An Inquiry into the Role of Essence in Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Posterior Analytics
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2017
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Haverford College. Department of Philosophy
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Thesis
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eng
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Abstract
The interpretation of essence and its role in determining substance in Aristotle’s Metaphysics has long been a topic of controversy. In the following article, I will attempt to analyze essence as the sole and definitive cause of substance as Aristotle states in Met. Z 4-6. I argue that essence can be seen as a discursive account or λογος of a substance only when one explains how a rational agent goes through the process of acquiring knowledge of substances. By understanding the conditions for which one begins to grasp entities through their essence, Aristotle reveals the epistemological limits of how we define substances. I will further argue that the limits to our knowledge of substances is only determined by inquiring into their causes. By construing essence as an endeavor to find sufficient causes, I turn to the Posterior Analytics to provide principles for determining the grounds of an appropriate demonstration of substance. In doing so, I shall also show how the principles of sufficient causality all rely on a metaphysical analysis of the possible things we have knowledge of, i.e. substances. In order to develop a cohesive view of how essence explains substance, I will show how both interpretations of essence in the Metaphysics and Posterior Analytics are required to explain how we can only have knowledge of substance through its essence by searching for and being aware of its cause.