Society, Growth, Material Principle

Insofar as a Whole is a Whole of its Parts, it is co-extensive with them.  Accordingly, it is unclear how it is, as Aristotle asserts, "prior" to them.  But, one case in which that priority is clear is when a Whole generates a new Part, e. g. the birth of a new member of a family, of a village, of a society, etc.  In other words, that priority entails the possibility of the growth of a Whole.  Now, as has been previously discussed, the process that produces particulars is the Material Principle.  Thus, the Material Principle is ingredient in the growth of a society.

Material Cause and Material Principle

To avoid confusion with Aristotle's very different long-established concept of the same name, what has been called here "Material Cause" will instead be termed 'Material Principle'.  Correspondingly, the inverse process will be termed the 'Formal Principle', though it has more in common with Aristotle's Formal Cause that the Material Principle has with his Material Cause.  This use of 'Matter' might be historically eccentric, but it accurately reflects the Unity-Multiplicity connotation of the traditional Form-Matter contrast.  It also avails Aristotle a systematic grounding of his attribution of the production of particulars to Active Mind.

Active Mind and Material Causality

According to Aristotle, in On the Soul, III, 5, Active Mind is "a cause which is productive in the sense that it makes" all the particulars in a class.  However, there is no obvious way that this productive process exemplifies one of his four Causes.  Nevertheless, since 1. the production of particulars is the inverse of their unification; 2. unification is effected by Formal Causality; and 3. the multiplicity corresponding to a Form is its Matter, this productive cause should be characterized as Material Causality.  In other words, Material Causality, properly considered, is defined as the production of multiplicity, rather the mere presence of inert stuff, which is how it is conceived in the Physics.  Thus, Matter is the product of Material Causality, not merely a given inert existent.  The implications of this gap-filling revision at the heart of the origin of Intellectual History are far-reaching.

Logic, Holism, Atomism

Aristotle's Logic is Holistic.  It is presented in a work called Organon, the first section of which is called the Categories, the fundamental topic of which is the formal relations between Genus and Species, which, according to his Holism, are related as Whole to Part.  Accordingly, that relation is reflected in his subsequent study of Deduction, in the third section, called Prior Analytics, in the formulation Universal to Particular, i. e. 'particular' connotes a Part.  In contrast, Modern Logic is Atomistic, the fundamental contrast of which is Universal and Individual, with the latter independent of the former, as is expressed in the formulation 'there is an x such that . . .', which, in the case of the predicate 'is a human', signifies a relation other than one in which a Whole is prior to a Part.  So, even if Modern Logic is commonly taught as an ideologically neutral tool, its fundamental components are inherently prejudicial.

Holism and Soul

In On the Soul, Aristotle presents his concept of the human Soul.  In the Nichomachean Ethics, he begins his study of its Happiness, and completes it in the Politics, according to which that Happiness consists in being a Part of a Whole.  However, he also posits that a Whole is prior to its Parts.  If so, then the Soul of the Whole must be present in that of the Part.  Now, the likely candidate in the individual Soul is Mind.  However, by attributing that dimension a capacity for self-contained Contemplation, he isolates it from the greater Whole.  Consequently, his concept of the Polis may be Holistic, but that of the Soul of a Citizen is Atomistic.

Friendship and Reflection

In Aristotle's concept of Friendship, one treats a Friend as "another Self".  However, he does not consider the possibility of the converse relation--treating oneself as a Friend, probably because his concept of the Psyche as individualized excludes any alterior components.  In contrast, in some more recent concepts of the Psyche, e. g. Freud's and Mead's, internalization of alterity is inherently part of structure.  So, more significantly than that those ground the possibility of treating oneself as a Friend, they ground the possibility of any internal self-relation, i. e. of Reflection.  Accordingly undermined are Aristotle's two cardinal concepts of Reflection--human Contemplation, which, as presupposing the existence of others, is not self-sufficient, and Thought-Thinking-Itself, which is impossible in a monotheistic deity, i. e. one without any other.

Polis, Voluntary, Friendship

Many hold, and it is unclear if Aristotle is among them, that membership in the best Polis is voluntary.  But, at least one member of a family, a child, is involved involuntarily, and any association motivated by Economic necessity is also at least partly involuntary.  Instead, within Aristotle's system, the prototype of that concept of the best Polis is his one example of a voluntary community--Friendship, the political significance  he vaguely alludes to in the Nichomachean Ethics, but does not seem to explicitly formulate.