Aristotle's Paradigm Shift in Ontology

Aristotle's intellectual contribution to ontology has been interpreted in history as the culmination of the preceding evolution of philosophy. To a large extent he himself contributed to such a Hegelian notion of his place in the history of metaphysics, or more precisely ontology. In this paper, we will argue that Aristotle brought about a 180-degree change in ontological thinking, a conceptual revolution that can be described in terms of Kuhn's "paradigm shift." This means that what was previously described by philosophers as a false or illusory reality is, according to Aristotle, a true reality. Paradigmatic examples of such true reality are not elements or roots (of all the different things), atoms, or ideas, but ordinary medium-sized material objects, especially plants, animals, humans and their essences.