Page 12 - GALIET FORMS AND UNFORMS: Aristotle´s Refutation to Plato IV

Nichomachean Ethics7 and in Book I, Chapter 1-2 of the Physics8 that Aristotle begins to dissect the abstract: Plato’s Forms. With the subtlety of uncertainty, he concludes that Plato’s perplexing universals can lead to certain fictions of terror based on a complexity of proofs (see Christianity). Terribly for Plato, his ontological theory lacks evidence: The Forms cannot be seen or touched for they seem to belong to poetic ecstasies, undeciphered metaphysics spelled in an invisible book, perhaps. Thus, Platonic reality heavens in the mystic hyper-Uranus, an Aristophenian nebulapolis of perfect entities that are eternal, permanent, and unchanging universals (form as realm of being) in contrast to the semi-real, penumbral imperfections of the world of appearances, opinions and beliefs (matter as realm of becoming). As a result, for Plato, beauty or the beautiful participates in the greater form of Beauty or “Beautiness,” in the same manner that every particular in the material universe participates in its corresponding unchanging universal. Therefore, Galatea is beautiful as long as she participates in the Form or Idea of Beauty.
For Aristotle, however, since matter and form are separate entities that undergo change given the internal principle of growth and rest that underlie all of nature’s four elements and organisms, what exists is the many “for if both substance and
7 McKeon, Richard. The Basic Works of Aristotle. University of North Carolina. New York, USA: Random House. 2001. 938-941
8 Barnes, Jonathan, ed. The Complete Works of Aristotle. Princeton/Bolinger Seriesa LXXI. 2. New Jersey, USA: Princeton University Press. 1995. 329.
• 12 •