実体性と自体性
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According to Aristotle, 'a this' is a substance because it is a subject, and form is the primary substance because it is identical with essence. What notion underlies these two criteria of substantiality? I think the concept of substance has its root in the notion of ipseity or selfhood, by which I mean the character of those things which what-questions are intended to hit and to reveal. The a;to-question is intended to reveal the very self of the thing in question. There are at least three points where the notion of ipseity plays a decisive part in Aristotle's ousiology : 1. The distinction between the category of substance, which Aristotle sometimes calls 'the what is', and the other categories corresponds to the distinction between the what-question and the other types of question. If one asks"What is it?" about something, the thing mentioned in answer to the question, i.e. a this, is not the quality nor the quantity of that something but its very self, which is at the same time the subject of the other characteristics hit by the other questions. Here the subject has the character of ipseity. 2. Form, matter and the composite of both are possible answers to the what-question when it is asked about a this itself. Each of them is not that which a this is, but that which is a this(Met. H2). We may ask in what sense matter, which is not per se a this according to Aristotle, can be the very self of a this. Matter is that which per se changes, aims at something, and so is per se 'not yet...but sooner or later...'. Thus if something is understood to be in such a way as 'for the present...but...', the very self of that something is unambiguously its matter, which the what-qnestion is intended to reveal in this case. Matter is a substance to that extent. 3. Essence, a kind of 'the what is', is identical with form in that both of them hit the very self of something insofar as that something has already reached its own end and has no more 'further' beyond itself, the character of which Aristotle calls energeia. To sum up, the concept of substance embodies the notion of ipseity, which seems to have determined the character of Greek philosophy in general. Unlike any other school of philosophy, it sought for the very self of beings, whether in the direction of matter or of form. In this tradition, Aristotle was the first to notice that the very self of beings is not itself a kind of being, but rather beingness. This enabled him to interpret form and matter in terms of modality. It is with respect to this that he criticized both the Presocratic philosophers who identified matter with a specific being like water, air etc., and the Platonists who thought form to have the same modus of being as beings.
- 日本西洋古典学会の論文
- 1980-03-26
日本西洋古典学会 | 論文
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- クセルクセスの遠征軍の規模
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