Aristotle’s views on the nature of reality and existence

The enormous achievements of Aristotle come to light when you compare his ideas with those of other thinkers. Especially during the decade that he devoted to lecturing in Athens (335-325 BC), he came up with very accurate insights on the nature of reality and existence. As he explains in his book “Metaphysics,” each entity in the world possesses a unique essence or nature. In broad terms, the essence of an entity is determined by its “material cause” (the matter that constitutes it) and its “formal cause” (its shape). In addition, when entities move, we can also speak of their “efficient cause” (the force that moves them) and “final cause” (the purpose that they want to achieve). Aristotle considered that, by analysing the material, formal, efficient and final cause, we can identify the essence of entities in particular and of existence in general. To make his analysis even more accurate, Aristotle used the additional concepts of “potentiality” and “actuality.” Those are meant to identify changes in substances or living creatures. For instance, a piece of wood has the potential of becoming a toy, but won’t turn into a toy until a human being takes action and gives the wood a specific shape, for instance by carving it. When the wooden toy is finished, we can say that the potential has been actualised. The Aristotelian concepts of potentiality and actuality prove very useful in character development or “personal growth.” We can point to a youth and say that he has a great potential, but it remains to be seen where he will put in the work necessary to bring his potential to fruition and “actualise it.” If you look at Aristotle’s ideas from the standpoint of today’s knowledge, you’ll be tempted to rate some of them as obvious, but if you place them in their historical context, it is clear that Aristotle was ahead of his time. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/aristotles-views-on-the-nature-of-reality-and-existence/