James McLean Watson Aristotle's Criticisms of Plato

Annotation

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The tentative tone of both of these passages would be quite unintelligible had Aristotle believed in the identity of 'the unlimited' in sensibles with 'the unlimited in Ideas. Consequently when in Phys. Iii. We read that Plato's dweipov 'existed both in the world of sense and in the Ideas', there is no reason to conclude that this c'tvmpov is for both numerically the same. In Met. A. 6. 988 a 10, Aristotle states that the Ideas result from two causes: formal 2v, material - the Great and the Small. Pheno mena also arise from two causes: formal - the Ideas, material - the Great and the Small. Now, were the material cause identical for both Idea and phenomenon, this passage would mean that the Ideas, which determine the great-and-small, are yet themselves partly the result of that great-and-small, a contradiction which there is as little reason for attributing to Aristotle as to Plato.