POL200Y5 Chapter Notes - Chapter aristotle: Common Children, Aristocracy, Habituation
Document Summary
Aristotle was interested in the material world which he saw about him. He was interested in the nature of things and their substance. He believed that the form of an object was contained within the object itself. To put it another way, its form was within the structure itself. This meant that the form of an object could be perceived using ones senses. Aristotle uses the word substance in many ways which often makes it difficult to grasp his concept. Let us look at the example of a table. The substance of a table is the wood and the nails a(cid:374)d the glue. Ho(cid:449)e(cid:448)e(cid:396), the fo(cid:396)(cid:373) of the ta(cid:271)le is that it has fou(cid:396) legs et(cid:272). To confuse things further, aristotle also used the word matter to mean the stuff of which so(cid:373)ethi(cid:374)g (cid:449)as (cid:373)ade. Its fo(cid:396)(cid:373) is the st(cid:396)u(cid:272)tu(cid:396)e of the chair itself i. e. that particular chair not some abstract universal.
