VI - Substance and Teleology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2009
Summary
In this book I have argued that the assumption that Aristotle distinguishes numerical sameness from identity provides a wide-ranging explanation of referential opacity in his works and makes possible an interpretation of substance that sees Aristotle's theory as a response to what he takes to be the flaws in Platonism. I have not attempted to defend distinguishing between numerical sameness and identity on philosophical grounds or even to consider the philosophical implications of such a view; as I said in Chapter II, the logic of a metaphysics that confounds counting has to be, to say the least, problematic. It may be, of course, that Aristotle adopted a position that cannot be made coherent or attractive, although such a conclusion would be disappointing. Although I will not in this final chapter try to offer a philosophical analysis or defense of the distinction, I will nevertheless describe an interesting occurrence of it in the recent philosophical literature. But the primary goal of this chapter is to argue that substances, understood as specimens of natural kinds, can defensibly be said to be ontologically prior to the sensible objects with which they are numerically the same, and for that argument too the example now to be offered will prove useful.
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- Information
- Substance and Separation in Aristotle , pp. 100 - 122Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995