In that case, Alkis Piskas is not a person. And, as he says, Magritte's pipe is not a pipe. Nor is it La Trahison des images, The Treachery of images. — Fooloso4

Exactly. I have ben inspired from "Magritte's pipe" a lot of years ago ... :smile:
These are nice realizations one has in life.

So what is La Trahison des images? Nothing more than the name of a painting? — Fooloso4

I don't think that the word "treason", even figuratively used, is the right one for this case. I would rather use the word "illusion", in the sense of "perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature" (Merriam-Webster)
And, of course "The Treachery of images" is a name of a painting. It would be quite difficult to bring the painting (tableau) itself in here, wouldn't it? :grin:

Do you agree that a particular object, an individual, is a composition of matter and form, according to Aristotle? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. But forms, as a matter of principle, are not themselves particulars. There is not a separate form for each individual. That's the 'principle of individuation' which is subject of a long-standing discussion about Aristotle's metaphysics (SEP.)

How is it that Aristotle is mortal but his active intellect is not? Well, we still read Aristotle. His intellect is at work on us. — Fooloso4

See Mark Johnston, Surviving Death (another book I must get around to reading.)

It would be quite difficult to bring the painting (tableau) itself in here, wouldn't it? — Alkis Piskas

But a discussion of Aristotle on phantasia would not be too difficult to bring in here.

Below are my efforts to understand some important parts of your article:

Premises

…consciousness emerges in a specific kind of interaction: that between a rational subject and present intelligibility. — Dfpolis

The agent intellect is the mediator between a rational subject and present intelligibility. — ucarr-paraphrase

A neural network instantiates order and thus intelligibility; the agent intellect is necessary to effect comprehension of present intelligibility by the act of reading and comprehending it. This is the action of consciousness. — ucarr-paraphrase

Since consciousness does not actualize a physical possibility, it is ontologically emergent. — Dfpolis

Questions

A neural network is first-order organization whereas consciousness is second-order organization?

Since consciousness is an interweave of the physical and the inter-relational, consciousness is, ontologically speaking, a hybrid of the two under rubric of Aristotelianism?

Is the agent intellect a synonym of the self; does the agent intellect possess matter and form?

"Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no merely accidental way.. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sorry, you need to explain yourself better, I don't see your point. The early part of "On the Heavens" is spent discussing the opinions of others. It is only in the latter part that he produces any arguments himself. You really need to put your quotes in context.

Yes. But forms, as a matter of principle, are not themselves particulars. There is not a separate form for each individual. That's the 'principle of individuation' which is subject of a long-standing discussion about Aristotle's metaphysics — Wayfarer

I suggest to you Wayfarer, that modern interpretations of Aristotle are heavily swayed by the materialist perspective. Consider, that the modern trend is to think of matter as substance, and this is decisively dismissed by Aristotle in the writing I referred to. So the reference you gave me, the SEP is seriously biased toward giving "matter" a position which Aristotle does not give to it. You'll find this also in discussions of "prime matter". Aristotle clearly dismisses "prime matter" as an idea which cannot represent anything real. The cosmological argument provides this rejection. However you'll find many moderners who insist that Aristotle supports this idea. The fact is, that our society is inclined to assign far more to "matter" than what the concept provides for.

In Aristotle there is more than one sense of "form". I showed you the argument, which indicates that individuation is formal. it's well expressed by him in that section of Bk 7. I even gave you the conclusion stated "Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no merely accidental way." This is the law of identity, and identity, or "individuation", however you want to call it, is formal.

Clearly, then, each primary and self-subsistent thing is one and the same as its essence. The sophistical objections to this position. and the question whether Socrates and to be Socrates are the same thing, are obviously answered by the same solution; for there is no difference either in the standpoint from which the question would be asked, or in that from which one could answer it successfully. We have explained, then, in what sense each thing is the same as its essence and in what sense it is not." — Metaphysics Bk 7 Ch 6 1032a

Clearly, then, each primary and self-subsistent thing is one and the same as its essence. — Metaphysics Bk 7 Ch 6 1032a

Socrates is an instance of the form ‘man’ but not all men are Socrates. There are not a multitude of forms as there are multitudes of individuals.

There must be a form for each and every individual. That is the point of the law of identity, which states that a thing is the same as itself. This is what Aristotle has stated here as "each thing and its essence are one and the same". So Socrates, as an individual, and what it means to be Socrates, that particular individual, are the very same. The form, essence, or identity of the thing, is within the thing itself (similar to Kant).

This is why Aristotle has a primary substance (the form of the individual), and a secondary substance (the form of the species). Each of these two senses of "form" is very different from the other. But both are actualities, or active in the world. The form of the species is actual, and active in the human mind, in judgement, and the form of the individual is actual and active in the sense world of material things.

In many modern interpretations of Aristotle there is a trend not to portray him as a substance dualist. So the substance of the individual is said to be matter, and the principle of individuation material. But matter does not have the capacity to individuate. It is only through formal principles that one instance of matter can be distinguished from another instance of matter. Therefore the identity of the individual is formal.

There must be a form for each and every individual. — Metaphysician Undercover

that's where we differ. I don't think that's what 'form' means. Socrates truly is the form 'man' but the form 'man' is common to all men. Likewise for forms generally. I'd like to hear @Fooloso4's view on that, though.

//ref// https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/1ovrmany.htm

In his work On Interpretation, Aristotle maintained that the concept of "universal" is apt to be predicated of many and that singular is not. For instance, man is a universal while Callias is a singular. The philosopher distinguished highest genera like animal and species like man but he maintained that both are predicated of individual men. This was considered part of an approach to the principle of things, which adheres to the criterion that what is most universal is also most real. Consider for example a particular oak tree. This is a member of a species and it has much in common with other oak trees, past, present and future. Its universal, its oakness, is a part of it. A biologist can study oak trees and learn about oakness and more generally the intelligible order within the sensible world. Accordingly, Aristotle was more confident than Plato about coming to know the sensible world; he was a prototypical empiricist and a founder of induction. Aristotle was a new, moderate sort of realist about universals. — Wiki

But a discussion of Aristotle on phantasia would not be too difficult to bring in here. — Fooloso4

:smile:
It is quite interesting that you have brought up Aristotle and his phantasia in this subject: There is no thought without phantasia, he maintained. The importance of "phantasia" for Aristotle seems greater than for Einstein, when he said that "Imagination is more important than knowledge". However, there's a difference between the ancient Greek word "phantasia" and its literal translation in English from modern Greek, "imagination. For anyone who is interested, I explain this below.

The correspondence of the word "phantasia" with the word "imagination" is valid only in modern Greek. In Aristotles's time however, the word "phantasia" meant "the external appearance of something" and it originated from the verb "phaínō" (pronounced "faeno"), which mainly means "I show, I make appear", and which in passive voice becomes "phainomai" (pronounced "faenomae"), which mainly means "I appear (as something), I am visible*. This word had --and still has in modern Greek-- an enormous amount of applications and derivatives, and it represented of course a key concept in ancient Greek Philosophy. From it, we also have the word "phantasma", which in modern Greek mainly means an object of the imagination, and it is literally translated into English as "ghost" (!). But in ancient Greek, esp. Philosophy, it meant "an icon (image), appearing in the mind from some object".
(Note: The definitions of the ancient Greek words I described above are from my Great Lexicon of the Ancient Greek Language.)

The important meanings of these words have been "flattened out" in modern Greek and, as a consequence, when translated in English they mean other things. (A well known example is the word "word" in "In the beginning was the Word", about which I have talked in some discussion ot the past.)

So, kudos to you Foolosof4 for using the original Greek words --like "ousia" and "phantasia"-- instead of their literally translated version in English, and for keeping the ancient Greek language and thought alive! :smile:

the word "phantasia" meant "the external appearance of something" and it originated from the verb "phaínō" (pronounced "faeno"), which mainly means "I show, I make appear", and which in passive voice becomes "phainomai" (pronounced "faenomae"), which mainly means "I appear (as something), I am visible*. — Alkis Piskas

Same root as 'phenomena' - very interesting. I had the idea that 'phantasia' came to mean 'mental image' in later philosophy.

Same root as 'phenomena' — Wayfarer

Right. However, I just looked for the word "phenomenon" (singular) in the lexicon and it is not included. Τhen, Ι found out the following explanation from https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/phenomenon:
"From Late Latin phaenomenon ('appearance'), from Ancient Greek φαινόμενον (phainómenon, 'thing appearing to view'), neuter present middle participle of φαίνω (phaínō, 'I show')."
Now, except for the word "phaínō", which I mentioned in my previous message on the subject, they also mention the word "phainómenon", which must probably be a mistake, according to my dictionary didn't exist ain the ancient literature. My dictionary, as I mentioned, contains an enormous amout of words related to or based on the word "phaínō". It is difficult to believe that the scholars Henry George Liddell and Robert Scot who have compliled the original Greek-English version in 1889, and from of which the Greek-Greek version was created, have missed such a common word as "phenomenon".
So, most probably, the above description contains an "arbitrary element" which may come from a confusion between the ancient Greek and the purist Greek language that has followed it.

I have observed this ... phenomenon :smile: also with other words. (I have already mentioned a case in a past discussion.) It's sad indeed to come across such mistakes so easily from supposedly "standard" sources. But, together with citations attributed to wrong persons, etc. it ofers us a good reason for never trusting information 100%.
So, based on this, you shouldn't trust 100% the information I have presented here either! :grin:

Point taken :up:

that's where we differ. I don't think that's what 'form' means. Socrates truly is the form 'man' but the form 'man' is common to all men. Likewise for forms generally. — Wayfarer

But what is the form 'man' other than the essential properties require for being a man? This is the species, man. How could Socrates, as one individual man, be the species? Even by the theory of participation, derived from the Pythagoreans and described by Plato, the individual participates in the Idea. It's explained very well in The Symposium how the individual beautiful thing participates in the idea Beauty. We cannot say that the individual is the idea, because the individual is one of many, but we can say that the individual participates in the idea.

But the deficiencies of the theory of participation are exposed by Plato in his middle and later work, culminating in The Timaeus. The Idea, as that which is participated in, is characterized as completely passive, and this denies it any causal capacity. Thus we have the commonly cited "interaction problem". Plato sowed the seeds for Aristotle's solution to this problem by revealing "the good", as the motivation for human actions, which allows ideas to be causal, actual. The good, (final cause for Aristotle) is what makes intelligible objects "real", through the apprehension of the efficacy of the ideas. Therefore "forms" in Aristotle's conceptual space are actual.

In his work On Interpretation, Aristotle maintained that the concept of "universal" is apt to be predicated of many and that singular is not. For instance, man is a universal while Callias is a singular. The philosopher distinguished highest genera like animal and species like man but he maintained that both are predicated of individual men. This was considered part of an approach to the principle of things, which adheres to the criterion that what is most universal is also most real. Consider for example a particular oak tree. This is a member of a species and it has much in common with other oak trees, past, present and future. Its universal, its oakness, is a part of it. A biologist can study oak trees and learn about oakness and more generally the intelligible order within the sensible world. Accordingly, Aristotle was more confident than Plato about coming to know the sensible world; he was a prototypical empiricist and a founder of induction. Aristotle was a new, moderate sort of realist about universals. — Wiki

There are two directions you can go in determining what is "most real". The materialist (physicalist) trend which is common today in the so-called vulgar realist approach, is to turn toward the individual, material object, and designate it as "most real". The idealist trend, which envelopes the scientific world with mathematical Platonism, is to turn toward the idea, the universal, and designate it as "most real". Each can be said to be a "realism", though they have opposing grounds for "real".

The philosopher acknowledges that both the individual and the universal must be real. But the difficulty for the philosopher is to provide principles, premises, which allow both to be classed together under one category as "real". The two show themselves to be fundamentally incompatible.

Plato demonstrated the priority of the ideal. The ideal is shown to be logically prior to the material. But "logically prior", in the realm of intelligible objects does not adequately translate to "actually prior" in the realm of material objects. Actually prior is a temporal priority of causation. So Plato's demonstration does not yet resolve the problem. Aristotle's resolution involves creating a bridge between "logically prior" and "temporally prior" through the concepts of potential and actual. The cosmological argument shows that what is logically prior is necessarily temporally prior.

But to get to this point, we need to go through an entire lesson on understanding the relationship between the temporal development and evolution of human concepts, and the existence of material individuals.

Notice the structure of concepts employed by Aristotle. The concept "man" is said to be within the concept of "Socrates" as a defining feature. Likewise, the concept of "animal" is said to be within the concept of "man", and the concept "living" is within the concept of animal. This is counterintuitive to the current way of thinking, because we think of Socrates as being within the set, or category of man, and man as being within the set of animal. This is an exact inversion of the Aristotelian conceptual structure. So modern principles have provided us with a conceptual space which is inverted from Aristotle's conceptual space, and since this is a fundamental, basic habit in the way that we think, it is very difficult for us to release this way of thinking, and truly see things the Aristotelian way.

The modern way is heavily influenced by the Platonism (Pythagoreanism) of modern mathematics, set theory for example, which treats numbers as particular, individual things. You can see that in this mode of thinking the more specific participates in the more general, just like the theory of participation. This approach becomes very problematic when we get to the participation of the particular individual, in the conceptual idea. (Take quantum uncertainty as an example, how does the particle (individual) participate in the wave function (universal). Plato revealed this problem, so Aristotle turned things around, and placed the particular, the individual, as first in the hierarchy, primary substance. So in "Categories", primary substance is said to be the individual, and as such it "is neither present in a subject nor predicated of a subject".

This places the individual as necessarily first in the hierarchy of human conception, dictated by the law of identity. And the conceptual structure is grounded, or substantiated in the individual. This is what provides the principles for truth in the sense of correspondence. The conceptual structure must correspond with, by being grounded in, the individual, as substance. The conceptual structure is grounded in, and in that sense derived from, observations of material individuals. The other direction of hierarchy, Platonic/Pythagorean, provides no means to ensure truth. The more specific concept is grounded in the more general concept, but the more general becomes increasingly vague and unknown. Then at the other end, the individuals must be fitted within the conceptual structure which is derived from some universal vagueness, instead of adapting the conceptual structure to match the individuals, thereby moving to eradicate the vagueness.

Sorry, you need to explain yourself better, I don't see your point. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think it is all quite clear. The formal cause is by nature. It is at work. Your claim is that it is a concept.

The early part of "On the Heavens" is spent discussing the opinions of others. — Metaphysician Undercover

The discussion in Book 1, part 2 is not a discussion of the opinions of others. It concludes:

On all these grounds, therefore, we may infer with confidence that there is something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, different and separate from them; and that the superior glory of its nature is proportionate to its distance from this world of ours.

This is not the opinion of anyone other than Aristotle. As I said, not even Aristotle could convince you that you are wrong about Aristotle.

"Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no merely accidental way.. — Metaphysician Undercover

First, this contradicts your earlier claim:

The true form of the thing consists of accidents, — Metaphysician Undercover

Second, the term 'essence' means 'what it is to be'. It is a Latin term that was invented to translate the Greek 'ousia'. So, yes, what each thing is and what it is to be that thing are one and the same.

This is why Aristotle has a primary substance (the form of the individual), and a secondary substance (the form of the species). — Metaphysician Undercover

The primary ousia (substance) is not a form. A primary substance is a particular thing, both form and matter. To be Socrates is not to be a form. The secondary substance is not a form either, it is a universal, what all men have in common that distinguishes them from all else.

Now of actual things some are universal, others particular (I call universal that which is by its nature predicated of a number of things, and particular that which is not ; man, for instance, is a universal, Callias a particular) .(On Interpretation, 17a38)

What is true of Callias is not true of all men, but what is true of all men is true of Callias. What all men have in common is not a universal. What all men have in common is a form. It is because of the form that there is the universal.

I don't think that's what 'form' means. Socrates truly is the form 'man' but the form 'man' is common to all men. Likewise for forms generally. I'd like to hear Fooloso4's view on that, though. — Wayfarer

See my response to MU above.

Of course, this is grounded in my interpretation of the mystical basis of Parmenides vision of 'to be' - Parmenides and the other early Greek sages are much nearer in spirit to the Buddhist and Hindu sages than modern philosophers generally (cf. Peter Kingsley, Thomas McEvilly). — Wayfarer

I also think that the mystical strain in Greek philosophy is under-explored.

How would your respond to the suggestion that to return to Aristotle from the vantage of the 21st century is to filter his ideas through the entire lineage of Western philosophy that came after him and transformed his concepts? — Joshs

I think the way to avoid this is to stand beside Aristotle, look at what he is looking at, and try to see what he sees. This can never get us into Aristotle's mind, but it can result in seeing reality in a fresh and important way.

Wayfarer — Wayfarer

I believe dfpolis was arguing that the accidents inhere within the matter itself so that when an individual thing comes into existence (generation), the form of that thing, complete with accidents, emerges from the matter. Dfpolis referred to the example of the acorn and the oak tree. But Aristotle describes in Bk 7 why the form of the individual, complete with accidents, must be separate, and put into the thing from an external source. So what dfpolis did not properly consider is the requirement for proper environmental conditions required for the acorn to grow into an oak, as well as the external factors put into the production of the acorn. — Metaphysician Undercover

I hold none of these positions. I think accidents inhere in substances, as aspects of their actuality or form. I think that potentials, such as that of an acorn to be an oak, are not self-triggering, but are triggered by something already in act.

However, there's a difference between the ancient Greek word "phantasia" and its literal translation in English from modern Greek, "imagination. — Alkis Piskas

The problem is even more complex since the concept of 'imagination' through the Latin imaginatio has itself undergone changes.

In Aristotle's On the Soul the question is posed:

If phantasia is that according to which we say that a phantasma comes to be in us, is it a power or a condition by which we judge and are correct or incorrect? (428a)

For Aristotle too there is there is the treachery of images.

The problem is even more complex since the concept of 'imagination' through the Latin imaginatio has itself undergone changes. — Fooloso4

Indeed so.

If phantasia is that according to which we say that a phantasma comes to be in us, is it a power or a condition by which we judge and are correct or incorrect? — Fooloso4

This sounds nice to my ears, but not much deeper than that. Mainly because I don't know --actually, remember-- what Aristotle meant by "in us". Most probably, I guess, he refers to the "nous" (mind), about which he --together with Anaxagoras-- talked a lot. (But then I will have to do a good house cleaning and get a fresh insight about their thoughts and ideas by examining them in a new unit of time and in the current state of my reality. And you are offering me a good incentive to do that! :smile:)

For Aristotle too there is there is the treachery of images — Fooloso4

I guess so.

As I keep saying, there's much more wisdom in ancient Greek philosophopy than what we can remember in our times, after all the changes in and the evolution of the human thought. Which evolution, in some aspects --esp. of mental nature-- is not so much going forward and expanding, as the word suggests, but rather backwards and shrinking. That is, in fact it's an "involution".
I believe that Science --with all its wonderful things that has offered and is offering us-- together with our evolution as human beings and the modern life we are leading, with all the comforts and the techonological advances that it offers us, are somehow responsible for making us lazy thinkers and losing a big part of that ancient wisdom.
(I'll keep this in my notes, as a subject to expand, for the day I will start writing a book. :grin:)

…consciousness emerges in a specific kind of interaction: that between a rational subject and present intelligibility. — Dfpolis
The agent intellect is the mediator between a rational subject and present intelligibility. — ucarr-paraphrase — ucarr

I would not say "mediator," as if it stood between the subject and object. Rather, it unites the subject and object, for the object informing the subject is the subject being informed by the object. In the sentence you quote, I was discussing emergence -- trying to complete an analogy between properties like charge, which cannot be observed in isolation, and the agent intellect, which is only experienced when we become aware of something intelligible.

A neural network instantiates order and thus intelligibility; the agent intellect is necessary to effect comprehension of present intelligibility by the act of reading and comprehending it. This is the action of consciousness. — ucarr-paraphrase

This is a reasonable paraphrase. I would add that this order instantiates the intelligibility of a sensed object because it is the sensed object acting on our neural net. So, it is not "other" than the object, but a form of shared existence -- the object's action and our representation.

A neural network is first-order organization whereas consciousness is second-order organization? — ucarr

I would not say it is a matter of degrees of organization. The same organization of the neural net is the vehicle of intelligibility we are not aware of it, and the vehicle of understood content when we are aware of it. "The vehicle of" is awkward, but I want to distinguish between the net's intrinsic intelligibility as a neural structure, and the intelligible information it encodes, which is what we understand.

This leaves a great deal to be explained, specifically about how we grasp the information encoded rather than the encoding structure. Still, we do. So I hope to clarify the issues rather than solve them. Aristotle writes of the phantasm as an "image," but it is not in any literal sense.

Since consciousness is an interweave of the physical and the inter-relational, consciousness is, ontologically speaking, a hybrid of the two under rubric of Aristotelianism? — ucarr

Aristotle does not divide things as we do. His "matter" (hyle) is not our "stuff," and his concept of the physical is that it is changeable being, i.e. being that has the potential to be something else. Once we come to understand intelligibility, that understanding cannot change. We can add to it. We can deny it. Still, it, itself, is just what it is and can never be something else. So, it is immutable and non-physical.

On the other hand, it is two kinds of completion (entelecheia) -- the completion of the object's capacity to be understood, and of the subject's capacity to be informed. So, you could say it is a hybrid, but Aristotle does not. He thinks of it in terms of union.

Is the agent intellect a synonym of the self; does the agent intellect possess matter and form? — ucarr

Aristotle is not very concerned with the issue of personal identity. It became an issue for Christians, especially given the doctrine of resurrection of the body (not the soul!). (That, the hypostatic union, and the Trinity lead Christian theologians to elaborate a theory of person as a rational subject of attribution).

Aquinas was very concerned with the agent intellect, as he saw it as the immortal aspect of humans, and so argued against Avicenna's interpretation that identified it with the Prime Mover. In Aquinas view, humans are intrinsically physical and so the surviving "soul" is not the self, but the incomplete residue of a human being. So, he sees resurrection as needed for a complete afterlife. Alternatively, one could see death is a metamorphosis to a "higher" form.

This is the issue which Plato approached in The Timaeus. It appears that when individual things come to be through a natural process, the universal form. or type, is predetermined, so that this universal form must in some way act as a determining cause. This produces the conclusion that the form is somehow put into the matter. However, we also observe that each individual, despite being of the same type, or universal form, is distinct and different from every other. So if the universal form is put into the matter in the case of generation, coming-to-be, there is a problem as to how it is that each individual is different.

The simple solution, which Plato proposes to some extent, is that the difference between individuals is attributable to a difference in each one's matter. However, Aristotle is moved to delve much more deeply into the concept of "matter", and his analysis reveals that this is illogical. Since form is the principle of intelligibility, each and every difference which is apprehended by a human being, as a difference, must be a difference of form. If it was not a difference of form, we would not perceive it as a difference.

This is what is meant by "and the question whether Socrates and to be Socrates are the same thing, are obviously answered by the same solution; for there is no difference either in the standpoint from which the question would be asked, or in that from which one could answer it successfully". From the standpoint that Socrates is a distinct and different individual from Calias, it is necessary to answer that the difference between the two is a difference of form. Since all differences which are apprehended by us are differences of form, it is necessary to conclude that the difference between two individuals, which we apprehend as different, is a difference of form. So the same perspective which says that the two are different, must acknowledge that the difference is a difference of form.

There is a sophistic trick which modern materialist employs, to speak of a "difference which doesn't make a difference". It's a trick, because the fact that the difference is apprehended as a difference implies that it has already made a difference, that difference being that they have been noticed as different. So that little trick is really an incoherent contradiction. You may have noticed that Apokrisis used this trick, as did Streetlight who seemed to stop saying it. Perhaps, but not likely, I convinced him that it is an incoherency.

I think it is all quite clear. The formal cause is by nature. It is at work. Your claim is that it is a concept. — Fooloso4

This is the problem Plato approached in The Timaeus, described above. Notice I said, it appears like the universal (formal cause) is active in nature, as the cause of a thing being the type that it is. But formal cause cannot account for the accidents. There is a difference between the type and the individual. Therefore the cause of the individual, natural thing's form, must be peculiar and unique to the individual itself. So the formal cause is not at work in the coming-to-be of natural things, there is a different type of cause, more similar to final cause, and that is why all natural things are different from each other, and unique. Formal cause is at work in the production of artificial things, when we follow a formula, and create numerous things which appear to be the same (production line). Notice though, that the formula is a human concept.

The discussion in Book 1, part 2 is not a discussion of the opinions of others. It concludes:

On all these grounds, therefore, we may infer with confidence that there is something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, different and separate from them; and that the superior glory of its nature is proportionate to its distance from this world of ours. — Fooloso4

I agree with that, it is consistent with what I've been saying. Notice, "beyond the bodies". What is beyond the bodies is properly immaterial, as I described. Aristotle describes the eternal as necessarily immaterial. Since a circular motion involves matter, the circular motion is not eternal.

"Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no merely accidental way..
— Metaphysician Undercover

First, this contradicts your earlier claim:

The true form of the thing consists of accidents,
— Metaphysician Undercover

Second, the term 'essence' means 'what it is to be'. It is a Latin term that was invented to translate the Greek 'ousia'. So, yes, what each thing is and what it is to be that thing are one and the same.

This is why Aristotle has a primary substance (the form of the individual), and a secondary substance (the form of the species).
— Metaphysician Undercover

The primary ousia (substance) is not a form. A primary substance is a particular thing, both form and matter. To be Socrates is not to be a form. The secondary substance is not a form either, it is a universal, what all men have in common that distinguishes them from all else. — Fooloso4

Read Metaphysics Bk7 please. Substance is form. However, both "form" and "essence" have more than one sense. The universal, or type, is a form or essence, yet the individual has an "essence" or "form" unique to itself. Hence the law of identity. A thing and its essence are one and the same.

What is true of Callias is not true of all men, but what is true of all men is true of Callias. What all men have in common is not a universal. What all men have in common is a form. It is because of the form that there is the universal. — Fooloso4

This makes no sense. If it is what all men have in common, it is a universal, plain and simple. If you are trying to make a distinction between the universal (human concept), and the form which is causal in a natural thing's coming-to-be, you ought to respect Aristotle's principles, and allow that the form which is causal in this case is the form of the individual (law of identity), as the cause of the thing being the very thing that it is. Independent from human universals, each form is the form of an individual. Humanly created forms are universals.

I hold none of these positions. I think accidents inhere in substances, as aspects of their actuality or form. I think that potentials, such as that of an acorn to be an oak, are not self-triggering, but are triggered by something already in act. — Dfpolis

My apologies for the misrepresentation. It appears like you and I are in agreement on this point, but at odds with some of the others. Accidents are properly attributable to an individual's form, rather than the individual's matter. This necessitates that there is a form unique to each an every individual.

As I keep saying, there's much more wisdom in ancient Greek philosophopy than what we can remember in our times, after all the changes in and the evolution of the human thought. — Alkis Piskas

In my opinion, the wisdom of Socratic philosophy has to do with the articulation of problems that defy solution.

In my opinion, the wisdom of Socratic philosophy has to do with the articulation of problems that defy solution. — Fooloso4

I'm not sure I get this right. Can you expand it a little?

This necessitates that there is a form unique to each an every individual. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. Still, we can abstract aspects that are common to a species or genus, and these aspects are grounded in the form of the species or genus members.

Here is a fragment about the principle of individuation from an article I am working on:

"... in some texts Aristotle follows Plato by making matter the principle of individuation, but in a different way: “And when we have the whole, such and such a form in this flesh and in these bones, this is Callias or Socrates; and they are different in virtue of their matter (for that is different), but the same in form; for their form is indivisible.” (Metaphysics VII, 8, 1034a5). [Note: Since eidos can mean either “form” or “idea,” we could translate the last as “the same in idea; for their idea is indivisible” – giving the text an epistemological rather than an ontological meaning. This reading is more plausible when we remember that, for Aristotle, the idea in the mind is identical with the known object.] While this substitutes proximate, intelligible matter (this flesh and these bones) for Plato’s unintelligible chora, it retains the Platonic notion of a single, indivisible form shared by diverse individuals. [Note: The indivisibility of forms does not make them substances: “it is plain that no universal attribute is a substance, and this is plain also from the fact that no common predicate indicates a ‘this’, but rather a ‘such’.” Metaphysics VII, 13, 1038b35.]

"Elsewhere, he takes a different approach. In DA II, 1, 412a6-10, Aristotle says that eidos makes hyle a tode ti. Aquinas concurs: “through the form, which is the actuality of matter, matter becomes something actual and something individual,” (materia efficitur ens actu et hoc aliquid, De Ente et Essentia 2, 18). Hoc aliquid (this something) is the Latin equivalent of tode ti. St. Thomas uses this principle, not matter, to argue that the resurrected body is one with the former body. [Note: “… if [a statue] is considered according as it is given in genus or in species by form, then I say that the same thing is not remade, but another, because the form of this is one thing, the form of that is another. But with the body it is not so, because in the body there will be the same form (in corpore erit eadem forma).” Quodlibet XI, 6, ad 3, trans. by Edward Buckner, 2010. http://www.logicmuseum.com/authors/ aquinas/aquinasquodlibet-xi-6.htm.]'

Timaeus identifies two kinds of cause, intelligence and necessity, nous and ananke. Necessity covers such things as physical processes, contingency, chance, motion, power, and the chora. What is by necessity is without nous or intellect. It is called the “wandering cause” (48a). It can act contrary to nous. The sensible world, the world of becoming, is neither regulated by intellect nor fully intelligible.

From the standpoint that Socrates is a distinct and different individual from Calias, it is necessary to answer that the difference between the two is a difference of form. — Metaphysician Undercover

They are two different ousia with the same form, man. There difference is not with regard to form but with regard to accidents.

But formal cause cannot account for the accidents. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is correct.

Therefore the cause of the individual, natural thing's form, must be peculiar and unique to the individual itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is precisely why the individual is not a form.

The cause of accidents is chance:

But chance and spontaneity are also reckoned among causes: many things are said both to be and to come to be as a result of chance and spontaneity. (Physics, 195b)

This is in general agreement with the two kinds of cause in the Timaeus.

What is beyond the bodies is properly immaterial — Metaphysician Undercover

He does not say beyond the bodies but:

something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, — Fooloso4

They are a different kind of body. As I previously quoted:

These premises clearly give the conclusion that there is in nature some bodily substance other than the formations we know, prior to them all and more divine than they. (On the Heavens Book 1, part 2)

This is Aristotle's conclusion, not a summary of the opinion of others.

Read Metaphysics Bk7 please. Substance is form. — Metaphysician Undercover

We have been over this. From the introduction to Joe Sachs translation of the Metaphysics:

By way of the usual translations, the central argument of the Metaphysics would be: being qua being is being per se in accordance with the categories, which in turn is primarily substance, but primary substance is form, while form is essence and essence is actuality. You might react to such verbiage in various ways. You might think, I am too ignorant and untrained to understand these things, and need an expert to explain them to me. Or you might think, Aristotle wrote gibberish. But if you have some acquaintance with the classical languages, you might begin to be suspicious that something has gone awry: Aristotle wrote Greek, didn't he? And while this argument doesn't sound much like English, it doesn't sound like Greek either, does it? In fact this argument appears to be written mostly in an odd sort of Latin, dressed up to look like English. Why do we need Latin to translate Greek into English at all? (https://www.greenlion.com/PDFs/Sachs_intro.pdf)

The word translated as substance is ousia. It always refers to something particular, whether an individual or a species.

Independent from human universals, each form is the form of an individual. — Metaphysician Undercover

We have been over this before. If each individual is a form and each individual form is different then how do you account for the fact that human beings only give birth to human beings? There is something by nature common to all human beings that at the same time distinguishes them from all else that is not a human being. What that is is the form man or human being.

Since form is the principle of intelligibility, each and every difference which is apprehended by a human being, as a difference, must be a difference of form. If it was not a difference of form, we would not perceive it as a difference. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is a reason the forms are also known as universals. If they were specific to each and every particular, the whole idea would crumble.

In my opinion, the wisdom of Socratic philosophy has to do with the articulation of problems that defy solution.
— Fooloso4
I'm not sure I get this right. Can you expand it a little? — Alkis Piskas

Most briefly, human wisdom is knowledge of ignorance. Philosophy, as described in Plato's Symposium is the desire to be wise. Aristotle begins the Metaphysics:

All men naturally desire knowledge.

In both cases there is not only an awareness of something lacking but a desire to obtain it, but
we have found no way to move past the aporia raised in these texts.

'We', eh? ;-) There is in the later Platonic and neo-Platonic corpus a philosophy of illumination, much of it later incorporated into Christian mysticism. I don't think it is prudent to simply write that off, as if it has no value or never occured.

Are you excluding yourself? Or someone else?