A Person has Personlike Qualities?
First Philosophy
 Aristotle tells us that this branch of philosophy is first,
in the sense that it is fundamental to all nature and is
difficult to explain through experience
 These things are better known in themselves and often
remote from the real world of experience (because
they are general and abstract)
 Despite it’s title, he says that you should study nature
first
Being qua being
 The study of being, in metaphysics, is called ontology
 Metaphysics is the study of three combined elements:
 1. a study
 2. a subject matter (being)
 3. a manner in which the subject matter is studied (qua
being)
 Huh?
Being qua being
 Metaphysics, then, studies beings in general and
studies them in so far as they are beings
 It is concerned with anything that exists for the mere
fact that it exists, not the contents of the thing itself
Example of Health
 (I wouldn’t copy this down!)
 Many different things are said to be healthy: a person,
a complexion, a diet, etc. By they aren’t all healthy in
the same sense. A person is healthy because he has
health. A diet can lead to health, and a complexion is
sometimes indicative of health.
 So, what is the central case of health? Or, what is the
primary sense? What is the secondary sense?
Example continued…
 A person’s health is the primary sense because only a
person can have health. A diet can lead to health and
a complexion can help indicate health, so these are the
secondary senses of the terms.
Back to Beings…
 Aristotle said, “For some things are called beings
because they are substances, others because they are
attributes of substances, others because they are a road
to substance, or because they are perishings or
privations or qualities of substance, or productive or
generative of substance…”
Back to Being qua Being
 Primary substances are the things themselves
 Qualities of a thing are also beings but considered
secondary because qualities do not have substance
 Being qua being, then, is the study of the central
(primary) cases of being
 For Aristotle, the question of ‘What is being?’ is a
question of ‘What is substance of that being?’
Metaphysics Z
 Yes, there is a book by Aristotle actually labelled
Metaphysics Z (Book VII of Metaphysics)
 At first, Aristotle ponders if matter is primary, which
seems to make sense
 Aristotle had used examples of substance like a man, a
horse, a tree but not longer found these acceptable
basic items because of hylomorphic analysis, which
suggests that matter underlies and persists through
substantial changes
The Problem with Matter
 Examples: a house (the form) is created when many
other basic things (matter) are put together
 An animal is generated by matter (contributed by the
mother and form (contributed by the father)
So what’s the problem?
 Aristotle suggests that a compound (form and matter
together) cannot be a substance
 (What? Why? This is not making sense!)
 The reason is most likely that a compound cannot be a
basic ontological ingredient (form or quality is not a
primary sense of substance)

Examples of the Problem
 A brown horse
 A scholar
 Each is a compound of substance + attribute
 A brown horse = a horse + brownness
 A scholar = a human + education
 And since everything has attributes, the primal nature
of being is brought into question
He Then Asks…
 Because Aristotle is long winded, he considers if
substance is a combination of matter and form.
 He starts to ask if matter and form can be separable
and individual at the same time.
 Separability: amounts to independent existence; not
qualities of a thing
 Individuality: This something is only the thing it is as
long as it is that thing
 The problem is that when combined, matter and form
are posterior
But Finally!
 Matter cannot be substance! It must be form, which
Aristotle begins to call essence
 He focuses on what it is about an individual that
makes it self-subsistence and independent
 “substance is some sort of principle and cause”
 Form, or essence then, is the principle cause of a thing
because it is unchanging and the cause
 Ahhhhh!