Aristotle's Form as Substance

In the Metaphysics, Aristotle 'suggests that a compound (of form and matter) cannot be a substance (Z3, 1029a30)’ (http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/zeta17.htm). Instead, he defines requirements to be a substance as being ‘separable and a this something’ (ibid) .

Subsequently, Aristotle ‘considers the claim of matter to be substance, and rejects it’ (ibid) because ‘Substance must be separable and a this something (individual)’ (ibid). To cut a long story short, it could be summarised that ‘perhaps Aristotle’s point is not that matter is neither separable nor individual; all he is committed to saying is that matter fails to be both separable and individual’ (ibid), therefore, ‘The only remaining candidate for primary substance seems to be form’ (ibid). Whilst the form Plato argued was separable from their shadows in the visible world, it is said that the form Aristotle argues is not ‘separable from all matter (except, perhaps, in thought). And it cannot exist if it is not the form of something’ (ibid). In his logic, individual substances are ‘compounds of matter and form’ (ibid), and ‘they’re not just unstructured collections of elements, but have a structure that is essential to their being what they are’ (ibid). In this relation, the form provides matter ‘a structure that is essential to their being what they are’ (ibid), therefore, ‘the form of a compound substance is essential to it (whilst) its matter is accidental’ (ibid). Due to its own nature, the form in Aristotle ‘is not a “thing,” (but)… the way something is’ (ibid) and this is where his form differs from Plato’s and where the following criticism arises from; what Aristotle counts as the form or ‘primary substance is one that is not in any way universal’ (ibid).

Aristotle

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