Aristotle Vs Aquinas Research Paper

“There is more to something than what meets the eye”, a famous idiom that Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle might agree with when it comes to describing the vast, material matter that surrounds us. In fact, within the works of the philosophers, the two construct multiple ways of analyzing what makes a material object to be what it truly is. Forming ideas such as its substantial form, accidental form, changes that it undergoes, and the development of artifacts. Specifically, the two that will be addressed and analyzed is the concept of the substance and also the artifact. Both philosophers have created distinct details defining the two and have also made it clear the multiple differences. Coming to know exactly what makes each unique is a thorough …show more content…
They are changes that take place within the configuration of something that already exists and is composed of prime matter. These types of changes that occur are broken into what is known as either a privation/negation, qualified accidental change and or unqualified substantial change. Again, it must be understood that these types of changes stated are strictly speaking accidental changes and do not change the essential predication of the substance. For instance, the color of Thomas Aquinas eyes is considered an accident that does allow for change, and can also be a universally shared accident. If the accident of the ‘color’ were to change, it would not have an effect on the substance of ‘Thomas Aquinas’ and wouldn’t alter what he is. For it is critical to understand how these two differ, mostly because they closely tie into how Aristotle breaks apart the concept of a substance. As it will be known, when regarding the substance of a particular object, it is often looked as the particular and the universal. Therefore, once knowing what exactly makes a material object to be considered ‘substantial’, it could then be broken down even further to what Aristotle describes as the primary and secondary