Barbara BOTTER

Cause and explanatory principle of being in Aristotle (Metaphysics VII, 17)

Causa e princípio explicativo do ser em Aristóteles (Metafísica VII, 17)

Published in Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Peninsula Cultural History

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The main topic of this paper is to study the role the form has in constituting composite substances. I will examine the chapter 17 of Metaphysics VII, especially the lines 1041b12-25, who Aristotle uses the example of syllable to show that form is the primary cause of being of sensible substances in that it causes them to be one. The main issue of this investigation is to show that, especially in the last chapter of Metaphysics Zeta, essence is closely identified by Aristotle to the form, which is in charge to transform the material elements into an essential unity and to explain the structure of hylomorphic substances.