For this paper we will examine being-qua-being, and further our inquiry into what Aristotle meant specifically by the term ‘being,’ in relation to the ‘subject’ being described, or the substance of ‘being’ and its various meanings.
Also, what is the distinction between ‘being something’ and the ‘something’ that is being?
Is being substance, subject, or is the substance of a subject itself the being?
I will focus on Chapter 3 of Book I, Chapters 1–4 of Book IV, Chapter 1–4 of Book VII, Chapters 3 and 6 of Book VIII, and Chapters 1–4 of Book IX, of the Metaphysics, to further explore Aristotle’s concept of being and its various meanings.
Is the first cause also being? In Chapter 2 of Book IV, Aristotle brings this idea that one science applies to both non-being and all healthy things, so are things both ‘healthy’ and ‘being,’ or is it the case that only living things can be beings? Such as plants that are living things but are not rational, as well as non-human animals, but people are the rational species that separate them from the other genus. So why is a chair, a table, or a rock not also being? If a tree is being, then why is a table, bed, chair, or desk not also being? Does Aristotle answer these questions? “We have studied these causes sufficiently in our work on nature, but yet let us call to our aid those who have attacked the investigation of being and philosophized about reality before us.” (983b1)
Is being a chair the same as being a tree? Or being a carpenter that shapes the tree into wood and builds a chair, the thing that is being? “There is a science which investigates being as being and the attributes which belong to this in virtue of its own nature.” (1003a25) The thing predicated here is the opening statement of Book IV, but what does this mean, and is there anywhere else in the text that will further this inquiry into being? It would seem that being has many meanings and that being-qua-being is a general conception of what being means whereas, being substance is more concerned with people’s existence, because a person is a substance.
A person is being, who is both a substance and a subject, which is the essence of the substance that is always the subject. “Substance is thought to belong most obviously to bodies; and so we say that both animals and plants and their parts are substances, and so are natural bodies such as fire and water and earth and everything of the sort.” (1028b9–10), therefore, a person is always the subject and the substance which is the essence of a person, i.e., the rational being.
These are the qualities that make up the characteristics or their categories, which describe the attributes of a person and are their essence, which is sometimes being rational. But the subject, which is being, is not the essence or substance of the being but is the being of the substance that is the subject. “The same account holds good with regard to not being man, for ‘being man’ and ‘being not-man’ mean different things, since even ‘being white’ and ‘being man’ are different; for the former terms are much more opposed, so that they must mean different things.” (1007a1–5) Whereas it is clear that a rock, plant, and dog are also being, but not all are rational beings.
There are qualities of being that exist separate from the qualities of being that exist amongst the separate things, but being a person is the essence of its own qualities. “Now since we are seeking the first principles and the highest causes, clearly there must be some thing to which these belong in virtue of its own nature.” (1003a26–28) The substance is the person and the essence of the substance is also being, i.e. the soul, which we will discuss later. The substance of a person is the essence of their being, as soul. “While ‘being’ has all these senses, obviously that which is primarily is the ‘what’, which indicates the substance of the thing.” (1028a13–15) Then Aristotle separates the rational being from the other beings, with the relation to health and the medical arts; he does this in the first parts of chapter 2, but on line (1003b10–12), he states: “It is for this reason that we say even of non-being that it is non-being. As, then there is one science which deals with all healthy things, the same applies in the other cases also.”
Which is to say that non-being is the other things and rational things are being, i.e. non-being would be things like rocks, or other things that do not require food or water to live. Because rational beings study medicine and apply their knowledge to other beings and being healthy becomes a rational thing. But being healthy is not being a person, but being a healthy person. Because then he says that: “It is clear then that it is the work of one science also to study all things that are, qua being–” (1003b15–16) This relates to the earlier question of what is ‘being,’ or being-qua-being, and if rational things are not only being, but clearly being means many different things?
So, being-qua-being, means that ‘insofar as we are studying anything,’ ‘whatever is being studied,’ and ‘whatsoever being studied,’ ‘is anything under that aspect of being studied.’
Is this what Aristotle means by being or is being the soul rational, or is a rational being something that has actuality of a soul? But not the potentiality of being rational? “Therefore it is of being as being that we also must grasp the first causes.” (1003a31) We will expand on the concept of soul in Book IX and how this might relate to being and the first cause. “Therefore, to investigate all the species of being qua being, is the work of a science which is generically one, and to investigate the several species is the work of the specific parts of the science.” (1003b21–23)
Aristotle separates the different uses of being and being-qua-being in a way that can be confusing but our inquiry will further our understand of what Aristotle actually means when he uses the term being. In order to reach a better understanding as to what Aristotle means by being we will continue our inquiry, by furthering our own understanding of being. “If, now, being and unity are the same and are one thing in the sense that they are implied in one another as principle and cause are” (1003b23–24), then being and unity might explain what Aristotle means by being as the principle and cause and how unity relates to being?
Is the unity of being how the category of things exists? For this, it would seem that Aristotle is making a distinction between being and unity, “and unity is nothing apart from being; and if, further, the essence of each thing is one in no merely accidental way, and similarly is from its very nature something that is:—all this being so, there must be exactly as many species of being as of unity” (1003b31–34). The cause of things to change i.e. the principle cause of wood to become a table, is for man, which is being, to use skill, or craft, in order to change the wood into a table. “It is also obvious that, if all substances are in a sense numbers, they are so in this sense and not, as some say as numbers of units” (1043b33–34). Because here he is saying also that being and unity are the same thing, that “there must be exactly as many species of being as of unity” (1003b34). Because to use a conjunction like ‘and’ would mean that it has to be both ‘being and unity,’ not either, or, but both. Things would have to be both being an unity, which is to number the species into genera and then separate the species amongst themselves, i.e. rational vs. non-rational. “But of the things which have no matter, either for reason or for sense, each is by its nature essentially a kind of unity, as it is essentially a kind of being—a ‘this’, a quality, or a quantity” (1045b1–3). This separates ‘being’ from ‘unity’ but also shows how they are one and the same thing within the different genera. “For being falls immediately into genera; and therefore the sciences will correspond to these genera” (1004a4–5). This describes the species in relation to genera of being into rational things such as a rational person. Because being a person, and being a plant are not the same thing, but being a rational person can separate plants into different categories of being. The unit of each thing is the separation of each individual being and the categories of the things that exist, but not all people are rational.
Aristotle then states: “Since, then, these are essential modifications of unity qua unity and being qua being, not qua numbers or lines or fire, it is clear that it belongs to this science to investigate both the essence of these concepts and their properties.” (1004b5–8) So to understand being, we must study the essence of the things being described as being itself and not just the essence of the being. “But he who knows best about each genus must be able to state the most certain principles of his subject, so that he whose subject is being qua being must be able to state the most certain principles of all things.” (1005b10) This separates being a tree, from being a piece of wood, and wood from being a chair and the rational being that turned the tree into wood and built a chair i.e. a person—which is to study all aspects of being from each other. Now we will inquire into how Aristotle separates substance, and asks: “what is substance?” (1028b5) Because substance can also mean many things similar to being: “The word ‘substance’ is applied, if not in more senses, still at least to four main objects; for both the essence and the universal and the genus are thought to be the substance of each thing, and fourthly the substratum.” (1028b33–35) A person is a rational being and a cow or a dog are of the same genus but not the same species and are still being. So rational being is what separates the genus animal into a different substance of being, rational being i.e. people from the other species of animal.
Being-qua-being would then be the subject of studying all things being, including the being of each species. Aristotle would say: “Again, if all contradictories are true of the same subject at the same time, evidently all things will be one.” (1007b20) So all species would be one genus of species, i.e. a dog would be an animal, but is not a rational being, and a human would be an animal, but is a rational being. They would both be of the genus of animal but it would be a contradiction to say that each species is the same, and are the same type of being, because one is rational and the other is not, specifically the species of being a person. “Again, either the theory is true in all cases, and a thing is both white and not-white, and being and not-being, and all other contradictories are similarly compatible, or the theory is true of some statements and not of others.” (1008a8–10) Here Aristotle shows the law of non-contradiction—for a thing cannot be both white and not-white, just like a thing cannot be both being and not-being. However, an animal can be a rational being and not a rational being, the apparent contradiction happens within the differentia of species within a common genus, not within the unity of the genus itself.
Since we have already described the relation to being-qua-being with respect to substance and subject, as well as the different types of being, we now turn to the being of soul, and how that connects to what it means to be the rational part of the soul, i.e. a rational being. “For soul is the substance or actuality of some body; but animal might be applied to both, not that both are definable by one formula but because they refer to the same thing.” (1043b34–36) If, soul is the substance, or actuality of being within different people, then the soul has the potentiality of being a rational thing, within the being of the human body, but do animals also have rational souls? Or are humans the only animal species that have the rational part of the soul?
Because the actuality of people is they have a soul and the potentiality of the person’s being to be rational, is not something that is actually guaranteed. “If then this is the cause of the things being, and if the cause of its being is its substance, they cannot be stating the substance itself.” (1043b13–14) The soul is the cause of the person being rational, so is being itself what is rational? “And since ‘being’ is in one way divided into what, quality, and quantity and is in another way distinguished in respect of potentiality and fulfillment, and of function let us discuss potentiality and fulfillment.” (1045b32–35) Aristotle then goes on to explain what potentiality and fulfillment mean, when he says, “we shall in our discussion of actuality explain the other kinds of potentiality.” (1046a2–3) Which shows that being itself has the potential to fulfill the part of the person’s soul as being the reason that the person themselves is rational. “Obviously, then, in a sense potentiality of acting and of being acted on is one,” (1046a19–20) so the rational being is acted upon through reason by the individual being, and has the potential of acting rational, which is one unity within a person and their connection to being and what is rational, which could be that their soul which has the potential to be rational, is what makes them a rational being.
Is the soul the rational element being acted upon, or does the soul possess the potentiality to be the rational thing acted upon within a being? Since not all people are rational beings but all people have souls? “Since some such principles are present in soulless things, and others in things possessed of soul, and in soul in the rational part of the soul, clearly some potentialities will be non-rational and some will be accompanied by reason.” (1046b1-3) Here, Aristotle shows that a person is both rational and non-rational, e.g. some humans have good reasoning skills, and others do not. Therefore, a soul itself might not be the thing that makes the being of a person the rational thing, because all people have souls but not all people are rational beings.
Next we will explore how Aristotle would describe the object of being a person, in relation to being rational: “For there is a rational formula which applies to both, though not in the same way, and it is in the soul which possesses a principle of movement; so that the soul will start both processes from the same principle, applying them to the same object.” (1046b19–22) Thus, having a soul and being rational might not mean the same thing, for all people have soul, but not all people are rational beings. This demonstrates that the law of non-contradiction holds true, “that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject in the same respect;” (1005b19–20) for being rational and having a soul are not the same thing because not all beings have the rational part of the soul that gives them good reasoning skills. All people have both a soul and are beings themselves, even if they are not rational beings but this separates the genus animal because while Aristotle doesn’t seem to state directly that animals do not have a rational soul in the Metaphysics, he does show that some humans are not rational.
We have explored the rational part of being and shown how being rational and having soul are not always the same thing, for a person can have a soul but not be rational. “If what we have described is the possible or the consequence of the possible, evidently it cannot be true to say ‘this is capable of being but will not be’,—a view which leads to the conclusion that there is nothing incapable of being.” (1047b3–5) It would seem that the consequence of the being, having the rational part of the soul, is the potentiality of a person to be both rational and non-rational, while still having a soul. Aristotle believes that animals do not possess the rational part of the soul, which is why they cannot reason e.g. they cannot use tools or create art. “And since the soul of animals (for this is the substance of living beings) is their substance according to the formula, i.e. the form and the essence of a body of a certain kind,” (1035b14–16) describes the nature of animals not being rational, because they are subject to the nature of their essence, which is not the same as the rational part of the human soul. Furthering our understanding into Aristotle and what he meant with being-qua-being, we have shown the difference between being rational and being non-rational, and how the term ‘being’ is used differently throughout the Metaphysics. We have also shown the difference between being the rational part of the soul and how some humans lack being rational, including how non-human animals lack the rational part of the soul. We have also made a connection between the being of substance and the subject of being, in relation to what Aristotle means by being in general, which concludes our inquiry into being and being-qua-being.
Aristotle: Metaphysics, Book I, Ch. 3, Book IV, Ch. 1–4, Book VII, Ch. 1–4, Book VIII, Ch. 3 & 6, and Book IX Ch. 1–4.
