The Unity of Substance in Aristotle's Metaphysics ?

Abstract

This thesis investigates whether Aristotle is actually presenting substance as the subject of a single science in Metaphysics ?. It proposes that he is, and that the common principles of all substances, which are required for there to be a single science of substance, are those found in ?.2-5. Although these causes and principles describe change, the analogy of the general and the army, which describes the relationship between God and the cosmos, also describes the relationship between causing and caused sensible substances. The analogy of the general and the army is used to the show that the principles that describe the actuality and effects of separate substance are analogically similar, and that the cause of this similarity is God’s ordering of the cosmos to be like his own eternal actuality as far as possible.