Laclau Notes Session 3

Review of the History of Rhetoric in Relation to Philosophy

1. The Ancients-Form and Matter     

     For the Greeks, what is sayable of an object is universal, but we must ask, what is the “it” which receives the predications?  For the Greeks all predicables are universals; they make up the form or the rational and knowable part of the entity of the object.  The “it,” the irrational and unknowable individuation that remains when you take away all predicables, is called matter. The Greek thought of the universe as a scale.  At the bottom was the unnameable primary matter hyle.  The first principle of organization was the mineral world where form was imprinted on this primary matter.  The mineral world was as matter to the vegetable world, the vegetable to the animal, the animal world to man, and on top the Gods were pure form and stood as matter in relation to nothing.  

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