Aristotle's rejection of the Two World Theory and on Primary Substance

In the meantime, Aristotle famously rejects Plato’s two world theory. He argues that ‘one cannot know the type of interaction which is occurring between the two Forms. If the “real or ideal forms” are eternal, pure and unchanging then how do they relate to the material objections or Forms on earth with all their physical imperfections? This participation or imitation link between the real and the imaginary… is erroneous thinking as no one can/has established such a link’ (http://www.philosophicalinvestigations.co.uk/index.php/philosophy/artistotle/1032-essay).

Having objected his former mentor, Aristotle determined to stick to his belief that ‘our natural world itself was real and physical’ (ibid) and to ‘place himself in direct continuity with’ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/#FouCau) the tradition done by his predecessors: a causal investigation of the natural world around us. In doing so, he had to face to the same fact as Plato and other predecessors that physical objects – or matters, in his words – are constantly changing, in other words, ‘Matter underlies and persists through substantial changes. A substance is generated (destroyed) by having matter take on (lose) form’ (http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/zeta17.htm). This may suggest that ontological substances – or primary substances – could be ‘compounds of form and matter’ (ibid). However, ‘in the Metaphysics, Aristotle suggests that a compound cannot be a substance (Z3, 1029a30)’ (ibid). Instead, he defines requirements to be a substance as being ‘separable and a this something’ (ibid) As for the latter, the web site above adds a description that this locution is ‘usually translated, perhaps misleadingly, as “an individual”’ (ibid).

Aristotle

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/plato-and-aristotle-in-their-ontological-and-teleological-views/