Martha Nussbaum on Aristotle: Section 3

In this program, the far-reaching philosophical ideas of Plato's star pupil are examined by noted Brown University professor Martha Nussbaum. Aristotle overcomes Plato's dualism of the intelligible and sensible worlds with his principle of inseparable nature of eternal matter and form. The principles of potentiality and actuality are examined, along with Aristotle's theory of the four causes—material, formal, efficient, and final—which account for changes in all things. These theories of constancy and change are credited with the progress of scientific inquiry over the ages.

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Education

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• Bryan
• Magee
• Martha
• Nussbaum
• Philosophy
• Aristotle
• Plato
• Potentiality

[ScaryLairy]

it's a nervous jodie foster

[MutleeIsTheAntiGod]

@Blodhosta Thank you! I wish there was something like this on T.V today.

[Blodhosta]

@MutleeIsTheAntiGod It's a TV series called The Great Philosophers. It aired in 1987. :)

[MutleeIsTheAntiGod]

What is the program this is from?

[inaneRexx]

other-wordly-spirit-dog.

OR, IS IT?

[FaaarLeft]

Thank you. This video reminded me of the many boring hours I spent reading Aristotle. He was by far the most boring philosopher. "A chair is a chair, therefor all chairs share a common property blah-blah-blah"

[DobroHounddog]

....[But] to avoid contradictions the Ideas must be considered universal inherent in the particulars....the universal does not exist apart from particulars.” See Hahm, David E., The Origins of Stoic Cosmology, (Ohio State University Press: Ohio; 1977), 6-7, 42.

[DobroHounddog]

David Hahm supports my case: Plato’s “conclusion was the theory of Forms, according to which universals, including ethical predicates, exist apart from the particular manifestations of them, and these transcendent ideas are the only true beings...Aristotle brought many arguments against the theory of Ideas, showing that Plato’s theory leads to contradictions, namely, that Ideas exist separate or apart from the individual particulars...

[DobroHounddog]

“Suppose that you do not buy the Theory of Forms (you see all the difficulties in it about what the Forms are and so on)...Adherents of the Theory of Forms who hold that the Forms are numbers assume that each is a single thing by dint of its being one over many...The idea is that each of the numbers is a Form and that the Form is the cause of being for the other entities...But, of course, far from being necessary, these assumptions are not even possible.” 1090a-1090b.

[DobroHounddog]

...and "particulars." Incorrect, they are "universals" inherent and innate to the "particulars" in materialism from Aristotle to Marx. In the Metaphysics, Aristotle criticizes the "Theory of Forms" if we understand these as existing apart from their manifestations.