Plato Vs Aristotle : Forms
According to both Plato and Aristotle, matter is the material from which all things are made and that matter is indefinite and indeterminate.
The major contention between the two is the nature of forms.
Plato says that forms are independent of matter, that they are separate things existing in separate worlds.
For Aristotle, both matter and form are knitted together. There is no one without the other. Here, Aristotle replaces Plato’s abstract forms with concrete forms. Aristotle argues …
Form determines what a thing is ….
For example, A stone statue is the same stone from which it was made. The carving of the stone makes it a statue. But even if it wasn’t carved, the form of a stone always existed. Therefore, the form of the statue, makes it a statue, without which it would just be a stone.
Matter is what everything is made of and form is what it is made into.
What this means, is that matter by itself is indeterminate ; lawless and purposeless. It has the potential to become anything — which Aristotle describes as potentiality.
Form is what gives matter its determinable existence— which Aristotle describes as Actuality. Therefore ; matter is potentiality, and form is actuality.
Aristotle says, nothing in nature exists with form and matter together. They are an inseparable union.
Aristotle says, however, that actuality is prior to potentiality.
How so? Because, in order for anything to exist in the first place, it must be actualised. This is because, matter without form is indeterminate. You can only determine matter, by its form.
However, Aristotle also talks about GOD — Something that is a MATTERLESS FORM
Until now, Aristotle concluded that Form and Matter go hand-in-hand and that one cannot exist without the other. But after years of observation, Aristotle understood that everything in this world can be organised hierarchically, and that everything moves from the lowest hierarchical order to the highest.
In this hierarchical order, at the top lies GOD — The Prime Mover / Unmoved Mover. God is a form without matter, which is all perfect, and nothing to realise and nothing to which he hasn’t realised.
At the bottom lies formless matter, and indeterminate. It is under the influence of the Prime Mover — progressively getting actualised from lower to higher order.
As opposed to Plato’s Idea of Good, Aristotle proposes the doctrine of unfoldment. By this doctrine, all things that exists seeks to achieve higher states of form. Every time matter has a form, it has the potentiality to move higher and higher — getting actualised higher and higher. This is a default setting as per Aristotle.
