philosophy final

Logic

- organon -- categories about words -- interpretation about sentences -- prior analytics about syllogisms -- posterior analytics about first premises -- topics about constant arguments -- sophistical refutations about bad arguments - ARISTOTLE assumes that language (Greek) is right about the world, so if we understand how the language works, we are well on our way to understanding the world - if philosophy makes language nonsense, it's wrong (PLATO, HERACLITUS, PARMENIDES) - logos -- Socrates was right to focus on defintions -- how do definitions relate to the world -- PLATO's Forms can't be the right answer -- syllogisms: putting logoi together to make arguments - categories: Predication and Accusation (but not classification) - words -- homonymous: same word, different meaning -- synonymous: name and definition the same -- paronymous: derivative names ( i.e. adjectives derived from nouns) - individual words vs. sentences - said of but not in (class membership) - in but not said of (a particular bit of knowledge) - both said of and in (different things; horse is the sire OF another horse, brownness is IN a horse) - neither in nor said of (individual entities) - predicates of classes of entities are also predicated of individuals with the class - types of predication -- ousia, quantity, quality, relation, location, time, position, condition, action, passion -- ousia: whatever exists primarily: forms (PLATO), atoms (DEMOCRITUS), people (ARISTOTLE), classes of people -- quantity: ex. height; quantity is always predicated of some entity, number of things, discreet = 5, continuous = line/pi -- quality: ex. color, good; doesn't exist independently -- relation: to each other; ex. brotherhood -- location: entities have a location -- time -- position: sitting, etc. -- action (verbs) -- passion - non-substance predications do not predicate their definitions when predicated of substances (ex. colors) - entities are not usually in other entities - entities don't have degrees, and do not admit of being more or less; can't be more or less a human being - first entity is identity, second entity is class membership -- identity: president of binghamton -- class: an Athenian - on interpretation -- Aristotelian realism -- declarative sentences that may be true or false - spoken sounds are symbols of experiences in the soul - conventionality of name (vs. "natural" origin of words) - indefinite nouns - inflections - verbs - sentences and assertions/statements - universals vs. particulars (statements) - square of opposition - problem about sentences in future tense: are they true or false right now? - application of Law of Non-Contradiction to future tense - are future events "logically necessary"? - deliberation and action are causative - real alternatives, possibility vs. another possibility -sea fight (naumachia): Trireme - 3 value logic? -- true/false/contingent -- true/false/unknown -- possibility of n-value logic -- ARISTOTLE doesn't consider these - posterior analytics -- theory of syllogisms -- kinds of things that can be known = kinds of question: fact, reason why, existence, nature -- complexes and simples -- question of existence is really one of finding an intelligible - form, which takes us to the question about the nature - "middle" (middle term is the cause) in the syllogisms -- all humans are mortals, SOCRATES is human (middle term), so SOCRATES is mortal - induction vs. demonstration (deduction) - definition - regress arguments and stopping them - definition reveals essence - nature - all questions look for a middle - division is not a method of inference - hypothetical inference also does not work - knowing a definition and knowing what a thing is are not the same -- to define is to demonstrate either a thing's essence or the meaning of its name - 3 arguments here: -- a) non-existence can be named but not defined (goat-stag: can't define things that don't exist) -- b) every speech act would define -- c) demonstrations cannot prove that a given name refers to a particular thing - must know THAT a thing is before we learn WHAT it is - special attributes vs. real definitions - sense of unity -- by conjunction (the Iliad is a single poem) -- exhibiting a single predication as inheriting not accidentally in a single subject - 4 causes -- definite form -- antecedent -- primary cause -- final cause - necessity of 2 kinds: in accordance with or against nature - intelligence works for an end - chance sometimes works for an end - tense and clause -- this chapter clearly distinguishes ARISTOTLE's from e.g. Hume's -- contiguity (contact) is not sufficient for causation, conditional necessity is -- cyclical processes are explanatory: some such are universal -- "for the most part" amounts to a denial of determinism - logical vs. physical necessity -- logical necessity is about logical (mathematical) relationships, conclusions following from premises -- physical necessity is about causation in the natural world. ARISTOTLE distinguishes several kinds of natural causation. includes necessary conditions and inevitable events - how do we find attributes predicable in definitions? divide genus down to the lowest species - problemata of a science, i.e. what needs to be proven. problems in classification essentially - reciprocity of problemata - causal explanations: deciduousness and eclipses - can the same effect have different causes? yes, if you have the right causes - series of middle terms is quite possible - how do the basic premises become known? -- is the apprehension of the premises the same in kind as that of the conclusion? -- is there or not episteme (knowledge) of both -- is there episteme of the conclusion, and a different state toward the premises? innate? -- if the premises are innate, why are we not aware of them? if they're not innate, how do we come to know them? -- potentiality: we must have at least the innate capacity to learn - sketch of epistemology (knowledge): -- aisthesis: perception -- persistence: memory -- empeiria: systematizing memories, the universal established in the soul, gives rise to episteme and techne - universal present in the clearly known particular. epagoge (induction): constructing universal concepts through experiences - nous = intuition? or creative capacity of the mind

Physics

- ARISTOTLE's world -- elements: --- earth, water, air, fire --- hot, cold, fluid, solid (qualities = basic, combine to make elements) --- transformation of elements into each other -- complex structures -- organic structures -- living things -- cosmos: --- sphere of "fixed stars" --- planets --- sun --- moon --- earth in center -- relation to elements, plus aither -- primum mobile (the sphere), unmoved mover (in the middle) - ousia to physis - natural entities are paradigm cases of entities; the "nature" of a natural entity is its ousia in the sense of form - physis: "lectures on natural philosophy" -- fundamental principles for the understanding of nature --- metaphysics? --- philosophy of science? - II.1 - of entities (ousiai), some are "natural", those that are of an intrinsic source of change (being changed or being able to change), nature (physis) is the ground of understanding change and non-change in things that can be understood in this way - matter as nature -- matter is that which has the capacity of being changed; passive (being changed by something else) potentiality -- things which have in themselves a principle of motion or change (anything that can be changed > its material will be changed) -- ANTIPHON: if you plant a bed and it grows, it doesn't grow to be another bed but a tree - form as nature: the shape or form of things which have in themselves a source (capacity to initiate change, includes plants, maybe fire, animals) of motion - we can think of form as separable from the entity, like the form of a work of art a) in the artist and b) in the work of art (artificial change - caused by something external) - paradigm and analogy: natural entities with souls are the paradigmatic examples of "natures" - II.2: how physics differs from math - math separates, in thought, the mathematical characteristics of the natural world; physics does not separate the mathematical from the non-mathematical characteristics - criticism of PLATONISM: the theory of forms tries to separate also non-mathematical characteristics from natural entities - natures are enmattered essences: they cannot be understood except in conjunction with their material basis - natures cannot be defined except by reference to the matter of which they are the nature (snub = concavity of the nose) - materialist presocratics: most of the presocratics thought that matter is nature; EMPEDOCLES and DEMOCRITUS touched on form only slightly - physics has to deal with both form and matter - teleology: since nature is the "end or that for the sake of which", the physicist must also study ends - on this point, ARISTOTLE makes very significant use of the analogy between art and nature - matter = hyle - purpose = telos - II.3: CAUSES (aitia) - that which is responsible for something -- matter/material (bronze, silver, metal): such as when something is good at cutting because of high quality steel -- formal: form or archetype, the logos of the essence, and genus (explaining things because of group membership) -- efficient/moving/kinetic: source of change (advice giver) -- final/telos/good: end, or that for the sake of which, ex. walking to be healthy, house's is to provide shelter; the thing that it's best at, its purpose -- incidental cause, potential and actual: accidents - more distinctions -- sources of change: seed, doctor, advisor, (art) maker: regarded as purposive (teleological) -- particular and generic causes (specific vs. general cases) -- proximal (immediate) and distal (first cause) causes -- proper and incidental causes -- potential and actual causes (accidental vs. purposeful) - II.4: chance and spontaneity -- tyche and to automaton -- tyche = "luck", especially good luck -- to automaton = "the self-moved" (it just happens on its own) -- ARISTOTLE here goes after EMPEDOCLES and others who say that ultimately everything happens by chance (good luck, random events), as well as determinists who say that nothing happens by chance -- but that can't be right, since "chance" has to be contrasted with something - II.5: analysis of tyche (luck): some things happen always in the same way, other for the most part - tyche (luck) applies, in principle, to rare occurrences: events contrary to expectations - add in the contrast between telic/non-telic: events that look intended but are not counted as "lucky" - "automaton" is the wider concept: it includes self-moved processes (unpredictable events) that do not look intentional like natural events, yet cannot be explained causally under their apparent model - ARISTOTLE means something like "spontaneous"; we tend to look for causal explanations of such things - "luck": an example of a lucky event is accidentally meeting someone who owes you money and he has the money on him - in general, lucky and "automatic" events have some cause but not the expected cause - II.6: automata: automata events are those which could happen for some end, but do not happen for what comes about - the key is that chance (tyche) and spontaneity are defined negatively; they are cases that do not fit the teleological model of explanation - these cases cannot be fully understood - compare: margin of error, standard deviation, irreproducible results - for ARISTOTLE, the universe as a whole and the major processes in it are to be understood teleologically; some exceptional events (chance and spontaneity) do no fit the teleological model (defined by the purpose they serve) - II.7: restart: 4 basic questions about nature: matter vs. the other 3 - II.8: nature is telic (contra DEMOCRITUS and EMPEDOCLES); natural processes occur always in the same way and this must be for some end - if there is a standard causal series that repeats, the final term must be the end, and the prior steps "for its sake" -- intelligence and nature: "art partly completes what nature cannot finish, and partly imitates her" -- animals and plants act and develop for the sake of their own continued existence, without intelligence (so mind is not required for telic action) -- mistakes do not hold against the theory, since intelligence also makes mistakes -- those things are natural which, by a continuous movement originating from an internal principle, arrive at some end - II.9: necessity - simple: in logic, astronomy -- logic/math -- cyclical processes are continuously actual - conditional -- strong and weak (for the better) - material ("mechanical"): what happens regularly - force: contrary to nature

Biology

- Parts of Animals - I.1: Knowledge of the subject/ educatedness applied to the study of nature. -- Should we investigate each kind individually, or by characteristics? -- If we investigate each kind, the discussion will be repetitive. -- But functions differ in kind: flying, swimming, walking, creeping. -- Should the natural philosopher first survey the phenomena, then give the causes, or what? -- In what order should the causes be investigated? --- That for the sake of which (purpose: teleological) --- That from which the beginning of the movement (causal) -- That for the sake of which includes the definition (of the species) and the good (the purpose) -- Necessity varies across the causes. --- Simple necessity: astronomical phenomena happen always in the same way --- Conditional necessity: in the real world; ex. in order to exist, you need a heart - Explanation: -- The mode of demonstration differs between theoretical science (mathematical, absolute, logically necessary) and natural science: natural science starts from what will be, theoretical science from what is. --- Genesis (process, things happening) vs. ousia (what is; ex. mathematics) - "EMPEDOCLES was wrong to say that many attributes belong to animals by chance, for instance that their backbone is such because it happened to get broken in the process of development by bending. He failed to recognize that the seed previously constituted must already possess this sort of capacity, and also that the producer was prior not only in definition but in time; for a human generates a human; so it is because this person is such that this person's coming to be happens thus." - Genesis again: -- Even things that come to be "spontaneously" (automatic) come from something that has the potential to be this entity; similarly artificial entities (carving wood) - Matter: -- "The first to philosophize about nature thought about the material nature and cause." -- But nature in respect of conformation is more important than the material cause. -- "If each animal existed in virtue of shape and color, DEMOCRITUS (doesn't take into account complex characteristics) would be right, that's what he seems to assume." - non-functional -- A dead person is not a person. -- A separated hand is not a hand (because it doesn't do anything) -- "They ought to say that an animal is such and to speak about what it is and what kind of thing, and the same with each of its parts (and function and function of parts), just as in speaking of beds." - Soul: -- If the what it is to be an animal is its soul, then the natural philosopher has to talk about souls. -- But perhaps not the whole soul - not all of the soul is an origin of movement, nor all of its parts. - I.2-4: -- An attack on bipartite divisions for biological taxonomy, and the right way to proceed in Taxonomy. -- Problems in the classification by types of foot. -- Oddities in bird classification. - I.3: use of privative terms -- There are no specific forms of negations (e.g. "featherless") -- Divisions are not automatically into two sub-groups - More on defining animals -- Functions alone do not define animals (since different animals can perform the same functions by different means: birds, bats, and insects all fly) -- Tame and wild do not define (obviously) -- Genus and Differentia define a Species - I.4: Highest and lowest species: -- "The individuals comprised within a species, such as SOCRATES and CORSICUS, are real existences; but inasmuch as these individuals possess one common specific form (humans), it will suffice to state the universal attributes of the species, that is the attributes common to all individuals..." -- Highest genera: Birds, Fishes, Cephalopods, Testacea... - I.5: -- Natural beings are divided into the ungenerated and imperishable (I.e. the astronomical entities) and those subject to generation and destruction (everything else). -- "Because animals are closer to us than the stars are, and belong more to our nature the study of animals has compensations in comparison with philosophy concerned with divine things. ... Even in the study of animals unattractive to the senses, the nature that fashioned them offers immeasurable pleasures to those who can learn the causes and are naturally lovers of wisdom." - Art and nature -- "It would be absurd to enjoy paintings of animals and not to enjoy studying the originals." -- In all natural things there is something wonderful. - HERACLITUS -- "As HERACLITUS said to visitors who wanted to meet him but stopped when they saw him warming himself at the oven (sitting on the toilet), he kept telling them to come in and not worry, 'for there are gods here too.'" - Beauty: -- "The non-random, the for the sake of something, is present in nature's work most of all, and the end for which they have been composed or have come to be occupies the place of the beautiful." - Method: -- State the activities, generically and specifically; then state the parts that carry out those activities. - II.16: the elephant's nose -- "The elephant's nose is unique owing to its enormous size and its extraordinary strength. For the elephant uses its nose as if it were a hand to bring food, both solid and liquid, to its mouth, it tears up trees by winding its nose around them, and uses it for everything as if it were a hand. This animal is at the same time naturally adapted to life in swamps and on dry land: since it has to get its food from the water, but has to breathe air because it is a land animal with blood, and it cannot quickly move from water to land, as various viviparous blooded breathing animals do, since overcome by its size, so necessarily the elephant must be as accustomed to the water as to the land. -- Snorkel nose: Just as some divers take along a tool for breathing, so that when they stay a long time in the sea they can inhale air through the tool from outside the water, so too nature has made the size of the nose in elephants. -- The trunk: When elephants move through water they breathe by lifting the nose up through the water; for as we said, the proboscis of the elephant is a nose. -- Backward grazing oxen: It would have been impossible for the nose to be this way if it had not been soft and able to bend, for it would have impeded getting food from without by its length, as they say about the horns of the backward-grazing oxen- people say that the horns of these oxen force them to walk backwards as they graze. -- Katachresis: additional function: Now since a nose of this kind exists, nature adds an additional function, as she often does: to serve instead of the front feet- for in polydactylous animals the front feet serve as hands, and not only to support the weight. -- Polydactylous: individual toes: Elephants are polydactylous- they don't have solid or cloven hooves. But because of the great size and weight of the body their feet can only serve as supports, and because of their slowness and inability they are useless for anything else. -- Conclusion of ARISTOTLE's Argument: So the nose is there for breathing, as in all the animals that have lungs, but because of spending time in the water and the slowness getting out of the water it is long and enabled to wind around; the use of the feet having been taken away, nature, as we say, makes additional use of this part also for the help that should have come from the feet." - Generation of Animals I - I.1: -- Survey of the modes of reproduction - I.17: Pangenesis: -- The theory that in generation something comes from all parts of the body to contribute to the generation of the new individual. -- EMPEDOCLES: love brings the parts of the body together - I.18: -- Refutation of Pangenesis (can't understand how parts come together) - I.21: -- Male - Form (movement) / Female - Matter -- Refutation of Pangenesis continues - I.22: -- Generation occurs in the female, because the female provides the matter. -- Carpenter analogy: carpenter (man) builds house but is not part of it, why pangenesis doesn't work - I.23: -- Plants tend to have both sexes. -- Continuing of nature: testaceans between plants and animals. - II.1 -- Some beings are eternal and divine, some admit of being and not being, but the right and divine is always cause in accord with its own nature of the better in those that admit of it, but the non-eternal admits of being and of sharing in the worse and better; soul is better than body, the ensouled better than the soul-less because of the soul, and being is better than not being, living better than not living, and that's the reason that there is a generation of animals. - Everlasting nature -- "For since the nature of this sort of class is unable to be eternal, it generates eternally in the way that it can. The entity of beings in the individual cannot be eternal numerically; if they could, they would be immortal; but they can be eternal as species." - II.3 -- "It remains then for mind alone (ANAXAGORAS) to enter from without and alone to be divine; for bodily activity does not share in its activity. The power of every soul seems to share in some other more divine body than the so-called elements; for as souls differ in value among each other, so also the relevant nature differs." -- Pneuma (soul): generates life -- "There is present in the semen of all that which makes them fertile, the so-called "hot". This is neither fire nor any such power, but the pneuma wrapped up in the body and in the foamy, and the nature in the pneuma, being analogous to the element of the stars." - aither - IV.10: "Periods" -- "Reasonably, the times of all gestations, generations, and lives, tend to be naturally measured by periods (cycles). I mean by "period" day and night, month, year, and the times measured by these, and besides the periods of the moon." -- "Now nature tends to number the generations and ends of things by these [periods], but cannot do so accurately because of the indefiniteness of the matter and because many principles are generated, which often impede natural generations and destructions and are causes of things that occur contrary to nature." -- matter has irregularity -- many different causal principles/processes

Metaphysics Zeta

General Comment on ZHΘ These books of the Metaphysics are taken to be the summation of Aristotle's final position on metaphysical issues. The strategy is to translate prior views on Ousia into Aristotle's own language, and to refute each alternative to his theory, leaving his own standing. In Aristotle's language, the dominant Presocratic view was that Matter was ousia; Plato and his followers asserted that genus and universal are ousia. Aristotle refutes each of these, leaving his position: that ousia is an essence (genus + universal) in a matter. Z.1: Senses of "being": To on. Delta.7 senses: Accidental (being a predicate in a subject), or two unrelated predicates simultaneously in the same subject. See also Book Epsilon. Essential being: Ousia and the categories as such Truth: (truth is more than a property of propositions for Aristotle) Potential/Actual Senses of Being in Z.1 - To ti esti kai tode ti: the individual, and what the individual is. Ousia - The other categories. Predicates exist only as predicated of entities - that is, whatever it is that is named by a predicate term exists only as an attribute of entities. (Blue exists only as a color of blue things, e.g.) Priority of Ousia Chronological: Something must exist to have anything predicated of it. (But if an entity exists, it must "already" have attributes.) Definitional: in order to define an attribute you must start from the class of entities that it can modify. (But any class of entities must have its distinguishing attribute.) Epistemological: we know THAT it is before we know WHAT it is. Tode ti vs. ti esti What is the relationship between the individual and its description? Ultimately individuals cannot be exhaustively described; a definition is (obviously) "definite", while the individual is, in a way, indefinite, in terms of what COULD be said about it. How many entities? One: Milesians: one element; Eleatics: one being Finite number: Pythagoreans, Empedocles Infinite number: Anaxagoras, Democritus Z.2: what sorts of things have been said to be entities? Bodies Animals, plants, their parts Elements, whatever composed of elements Universe and its parts (which and how many of these?) Limits of body: surface, line, point, unit (the Pythagorean geometrical reality) Non-physical entities Plato: Forms, numbers, entity of sensible things (!) Speusippus: The One, Numbers, Spatial Magnitudes, Soul, etc. Xenocrates: Forms & Numbers; Other forms (could be gathered from Plato's dialogues) Z.3: Aristotle's list Ousia Universal (katholou) Genos (classes of things) Substratum (hypokeimenon), matter; that of which everything is predicated Hypokeimenon "Underlying": qua "subject", qua "matter" Matters: "Prime" / "Proximate" If all attributes and predicates are taken away, what is left? Not even quantity or extension. "Hypokeimenon" defined negatively in this way. Digression: P. F. Strawson, an English metaphysician influenced by both Aristotle and Kant, distinguished "individuals" from "particulars." "Particulars" are more or less a and d in the list in the "TQ: individuals"; his "individuals" are human persons, which he thinks are neither "particulars" nor (of course) universals. Matter continued Matter appears to be the principle of individuation without itself being individual. Matter appears to be that which remains through radical change (generation / destruction). Compare Plato's Receptacle (Timaeus) If we pursue the hypothesis that "matter" is ousia, we arrive at totally undifferentiated "stuff". BUT: Ousia must be separable and individual, and matter per se is neither. SO: ousia must be either eidos or that which is composed of eidos and hyle. Form as principle of individuation? Form does individuate matter, without itself being individual; matter individuates form, without itself being individual. You have individuals only when you have both matter and form. Z.3-4: Essence and Definition Definition of definition: "The formula of the essence of each thing is that which defines the term but does not contain it." Importance of selecting "essential" predicates: "white" is accidental when predicated of "human being". Definitions 1030a7: It's not enough that the name and the logos signify the same thing: otherwise, the definition of "Iliad" would be the whole poem. Essence belongs to an eidos of a genos: an eidos can have an "essential" definition. An eidos is defined by stating the genos to which it belongs, and the diafora that distinguishes it from the rest of the genos. Compare: def. of "thunder" in A Po. Defining terms in categories other than ousia involves pros hen equivocation. Z.5, 1030b14 Aporia: definition of "coupled" terms. "Snub": Aristotle uses this as an illustrative paradigm for "essential" definition. It is "concave" when applied to noses; without a nose, there is no "snub". "Tigress": also a "coupled" term: there must be an animal for there to be a tigress. "Odd" is coupled with "number." Z.6, 1031a15 "Are the essence and the individual identical or not?" Since everything is identical with itself, they should be. But accidental predications are not identical with the entities of which they are predicated. (White/human) Kath' hauto (per se); qua In the case of a kath' hauto expression, the thing and the essence appear to be identical: this is the intent with Platonic Forms. ("Justice is per se just") Aristotle reminds us that part of the Parmenides argument is that radical separation of essence and individual makes both essence and individual unintelligible. Plato identifies thing and essence. If essence and individual are separated, we generate the 3rd man argument (1031b28) because you have to assert some essence-prime shared by individual and essence, but not identical to either, so you need essence double-prime. But definition of the individual and of the essence is identical, and must apply to the same thing. Review of argument Aristotle is arguing dialectically from Platonism, which holds that the empirical entity and that which makes it that sort of entity exist separately and independently of each other. Plato has a dilemma: if ousia and essence are identical, then he can say nothing about the empirical world. If forms apply to the empirical world, they are identical with empirical individuals, and do not exist separately. Transition to Z.7-9 Z.7-9 seem quasi-independent, inserted here. This is a discussion of the being of "genos", starting from the notion of "genos" as "generated class", I.e. a group sharing a family resemblance and relationship. (Δ.28) Genos Aristotle treads a fine line between: Platonism: which holds that individuals resemble ancestors because of their relationship to separate forms. Creationism: which holds that new forms can be generated just as well as new individuals that belong to an already established class. (Sui generis individuals) Aristotle on genos Aristotle argues that genera (genē) are permanent features of reality, in that new individuals belonging to genera are constantly generated. That's the message of Z.7-9. Z.7, 1032a12 Generated entities come to be by nature, art, or spontaneously. In all cases, there is a source of movement, a matter, and the entity comes to be something (form, definition) in some category. The question here is the pre-existence of that form, before the entity is generated. Physis: Natural generation: normally by individuals of the same species; you needn't look farther than the parents for the pre-existing form. Aristotle does not regard a-typical products as "natural"; they would be "spontaneous": Hybrids, terata. Evolutionary development? How do we get from one species to another? Techne: The eidos is in the mind of the maker. In kata logon production, the same source of movement can produce opposite effects (physician can cure or kill) The ousia of the positive state is also the ousia of the negative (compare Plato) Noesis and poiesis Automaton: Spontaneous genesis The automaton has a cause, but not kata logon. There is appropriate material, and a source of movement. "It is impossible for something to be generated if nothing pre-exists." Matter obviously pre-exists, and mover; what about form??? In a sense, the form of the spontaneous is already in the matter, potentially - this matter has the potentiality to become that which is generated. Compare Aristotle's theory of "spontaneously generated" animals. Fly maggots "generated" in meat. Further examination of matter In some cases, the matter is the "negation" of that which becomes - e.g., the sick person is the matter for the person who becomes well. In techne we make neither the matter nor the form: we shape this matter into this entity, we make this bronze spherical. Making matters could result in an infinite regress. Z.8: More matter and form Matter is in principle reducible to less and less formed materials. Similarly, we do not make the form; if we made a form, it would be out of some material, and then it would be an entity. We put form into matter; in art, the form is in the art, which is in us. Originality in Art One might conclude that Aristotle does not believe in originality in art or techne generally, but that would be a mistake. E.g., in Poetics Aristotle talks about how tragedy evolved from earlier forms of poetry, and how poetry evolves from imitation of life and from our consideration of the nature of human life. No matter how "original" an artist may be, she must use materials that exist and available to her and forms that exist, at least in her own mind. Bronze Spheres Is there a "sphere" apart from individual spheres? It wouldn't exist, because to exist is to be a "this such", and a separate sphere would only be a "such", not a "this". "Sphere itself" is not an individual. Separate forms are useless for explaining production. This is especially obvious in natural production, where we would most have expected to find them. Z.9, 1034a8: Some things can be generated both automaton and by techne: e.g. health. An entity is always the starting point for explaining any production. All productions have entities as their product, or modifications of entities. The potentiality to create this entity or this modification of an entity must be present in the mover... Z.10-11: Parts & Wholes Aristotle's major point is the priority of wholes over parts, but the discussion goes into distinctions between various sorts of parts. Kinds of parts Setting aside mathematical (geometrical) parts, Aristotle turns first to definitions: the parts of definition are matter and form, but not just any sort of matter. Flesh is matter for snub, not for concave. Bronze is matter for this statue, but not for statue in general. The logos of a syllable includes the letters, but not particular material letters. (1035b3) Definitional parts are prior to the whole, parts that are not definitional are not prior: e.g., the acute angle is not prior to the right angle in the definition of the right triangle, but soul is prior to the animal in the definition of the animal. Material parts are not really prior, since if severed are only homonymous. ("Finger") Heart and Brain (!) are neither prior nor posterior. The individual is composed of the ultimate proximate matter. "Matter is unknowable in itself." Intelligible vs. sensible matter: objects of math may be composed of intelligible matter. Z.11, 1036b26 Parts belonging to the form, parts belonging to the concrete individual. Platonist mathematizing of definition creates problems: reducing everything to Form and eliminating Matter is "useless labor". Material parts are such when they can fulfill their function (back to snub noses). Z.12, 1037b9 Restart: what is the unity of the definition? (Notice "voice" as both the matter and genos of speech.) Why is 2-footed animal not "2-footed" plus "animal"? How about definitions derived from diairesis? Footed, then 2-footed. Diairesis: Cf. PA I.2-4, with Pellegrin, Aristotle's Classification of Animals. The last difference is the ousia and definition of the thing. Z.13, 1038b1 The claim of katholou to be ousia. The entity of a particular thing is peculiar to it, but the universal is common, belongs to more than one thing. If the universal is entity, it is either the entity of all of them, or of none. If of all, then the group is an individual entity. (If there is a form of Justice, then all just states are one and the same state.) Entity is not predicable (except as class membership) but katholou is always predicable. Can katholou be present in an essence? Yes, but not as ousia. If katholou is ousia, it is definable in terms of other universals, leading to an infinite regress. If not all elements in the definition are definable (thus escaping the regress), at least the universal supposed to be entity will be the entity of something, and this leads to a "narrower" regress. If an entity is composed of universals, then it is a composite, and not itself an entity. An individual will contain an entity within an entity, e.g. Socrates contains animal. If individuals or lowest species are entities, then none of the elements in their definition can be the entity of anything nor can it exist apart from its instances. No common predicate indicates a "this", but always a "such". An entity cannot be composed of actual entities, because it would not be an individual, but more than one thing. To the extent that individuals are divisible into separately existing entities, those subsequent entities were in the original individual potentially, not actually. Z.14, 1039a24 Vs. those who make Forms separate entities and also define them by genus and difference. Is 'animal' numerically one in 'human' and 'horse'? This is a problem if 'animal', 'human,' and 'horse' are all Forms. "Animal itself" would be divided. How many species? How many genera? Z.15, 1039b20 Entity: synolon and logos. The synolon can be destroyed, the logos cannot. Thus there is no definition of (destructible) individuals, because the matter cannot be exhaustively included in the definition. Eternal individuals can be defined, in a sense. Platonic forms cannot be defined (for reasons already given). In a sense, eternal entities cannot be defined, not qua individuals, because the formula (logos) must be general. Another one could theoretically come into being and fit the definition. Can "God" be defined as an individual? Problem: no episteme of individuals. Is the critique of Plato's forms TOO strong? We might want to say that we have a definite description of Socrates, or The Moon. Z.16, 1040b5 Eliminating candidates from the list: Parts of animals are not ousia, for when separated they are no longer parts. Elements are not ousia, because until something is made of them they are just "heaps". Eliminating candidates for ousia Unity and Being are not the entity of things because: They are common to all. They exist in many places at the same time. Z.17, 1041a6 Asking, why does this X have such and such an attribute, rather than asking "what is human?" leads to a different attitude toward entity. "What is human?" is an inarticulate question. Syllables are more than vowel and consonant, and that something is not an element. Heaps and wholes.

Metaphysics Lambda

Z.13, 1038b1: The claim of katholou to be ousia. The entity of a particular thing is peculiar to it, but the universal is common, belongs to more than one thing. If the universal is entity, it is either the entity of all of them, or of none. If of all, then the group is an individual entity. (If there is a form of Justice, then all just states are one and the same state.) Entity is not predicable (except as class membership) but katholou is always predicable. Can katholou be present in an essence? Yes, but not as ousia. If katholou is ousia, it is definable in terms of other universals, leading to an infinite regress. If not all elements in the definition are definable (thus escaping the regress), at least the universal supposed to be entity will be the entity of something, and this leads to a "narrower" regress. If an entity is composed of universals, then it is a composite, and not itself an entity. An individual will contain an entity within an entity, e.g. Socrates contains animal. If individuals or lowest species are entities, then none of the elements in their definition can be the entity of anything nor can it exist apart from its instances. No common predicate indicates a "this", but always a "such". An entity cannot be composed of actual entities, because it would not be an individual, but more than one thing. To the extent that individuals are divisible into separately existing entities, those subsequent entities were in the original individual potentially, not actually. Z.14, 1039a24: Vs. those who make Forms separate entities and also define them by genus and difference. Is 'animal' numerically one in 'human' and 'horse'? This is a problem if 'animal', 'human,' and 'horse' are all Forms. "Animal itself" would be divided. Z.15, 1039b20: Entity: synolon and logos. The synolon can be destroyed, the logos cannot. Thus there is no definition of (destructible) individuals, because the matter cannot be exhaustively included in the definition. Eternal individuals can be defined, in a sense. Platonic forms cannot be defined (for reasons already given). In a sense, eternal entities cannot be defined, not qua individuals, because the formula (logos) must be general. Another one could theoretically come into being and fit the definition. Can "God" be defined as an individual? Problem: no episteme of individuals. Is the critique of Plato's forms TOO strong? We might want to say that we have a definite description of Socrates, or The Moon. Z.16, 1040b5: Eliminating candidates from the list: Parts of animals are not ousia, for when separated they are no longer parts. Elements are not ousia, because until something is made of them they are just "heaps". Unity and Being are not the entity of things because: They are common to all. They exist in many places at the same time. Z.17, 1041a6: Asking, why does this X have such and such an attribute, rather than asking "what is human?" leads to a different attitude toward entity. "What is human?" is an inarticulate question. Syllables are more than vowel and consonant, and that something is not an element. Heaps and wholes. Metaphysics Lambda (XII) Overview: Chapters 1-5 summarize Aristotle's metaphysical position in terms of the types of entities there are, placing astronomical entities into the system. Ch. 5 introduces the causal analysis that ends in positing the Unmoved Mover. Chapters 6-9 present the argument for the existence of the Unmoved Mover, placing that entity into the context of an astronomical system. Ch. 9 explores the nature of divine thought; ch. 10 gives further explanation of that concept. Lambda bib (very short) Symposium Aristotelicum. 2000. ed. M. Frede & D. Charles. Aristotle Metaphysics Lambda. OUP T. de Koninck. 1994. Rev. Met. 47:471-515. J. DeFilippo. 1995. JHP 33:543-62. L. Elders.1972. Commentary 1. Three kinds of entities Perceptible Destructible Everlasting Unchanging (eternal) 2. Perceptible entities Understood in terms of form and matter Contraries as present in the matter Generation from non-being: three senses of non-being Negation of a predicate Falsity Unrealized potentiality: generation from non-being in this sense. 3. Neither Matter nor Form is generated Aristotle is here talking about proximate matter and proximate form in particular, cf. Metaph. Zeta 7‑9. Generation is by nature, art, or spontaneously. Three senses of ousia Matter Physis (form) Concrete individual. "In some cases the individual does not exist apart from the composite entity" (e.g. house does not exist separately, except as the art of building) "Matter" and "nature" "This" and "Such". The existence of form depends on instantiation in individuals. (Souls? Reason?) Platonic forms do not explain generation In nature, there is sexual generation. The form comes from the parents. In the arts, the art is the formal cause. The form comes from the artist. 4. Are the elements the same for all? In a sense yes, and in a sense no: no, in that the same elements cannot hold in all the categories; but physical things can be reduced to the same matter. (In the category of quantity, the elements would be measurable characteristics; in the category of quality, for example colors; and so on) Three elements and four causes "Health, disease, body: the moving cause is the medical art. Form, disorder, bricks: the moving cause is the `art of building'‑ and besides these there is that which as first of all things moves all things." So that matter is understood primarily as an absence‑‑(of form) no wonder Aristotle can't deal with the radical materialists! 5. Explaining Change Soul / body, or reason and orexis / body. Also "potentiality and actuality." The cause of a person is a) the elements, b) the parent, c) "the sun and its oblique course." All individuals are generated by individuals. There is no "form of man" which generates. If everything is generated, there must be some individual that is "first." Comment: This section explicitly begins to develop the argument for the existence of God → that which is first in respect of entelecheia must be the cause of everything. (1071a35) 6. Motion and time are everlasting. Thus there must be circular movement, but for that there must be a separate cause of that movement. (But what if potentiality were prior to actuality, as in the theologians who generate the world from night?) Permanence of motion: Both Democritus and Plato see the problem and posit a permanently actual movement. There must be something continually in motion. 7. The primum mobile The sphere of the fixed stars is always in rotational movement. There must be some cause of movement, and that in turn must be immobile. Immobile movers Things which are intended and thought are unmoving movers The ultimate object of thought and intention is the real good, qua object of love (as in Plato). So the rotational motion of the heavens. Senses of necessity Simple necessity implies goodness (being is better than non‑being). "Such, then, is the first principle upon which depend the sensible universe and the world of nature. And its life is like the best which we temporarily enjoy. It must be in that state always (which for us is impossible), since its actuality is also pleasure." First cause: life of mind is enjoyed "Now thinking in itself is concerned with that which is in itself best, and thinking in the highest sense with that which is in the highest sense best." ho nous autos auto noei "Mind thinks itself because it thinks the ultimately thinkable, which is itself: God. So it is actuality rather than potentiality; active contemplation of god is the most pleasant and best. We hold then that God is a living being, eternal, most good; and therefore life and continuous eternal existence belong to God, for that is what God is." 8. Second causes: the movers of the other stars Divinity of the stars; unity of the heavens. "A tradition has been handed down by the ancient thinkers of very early times and bequeathed to posterity in the form of a myth, to the effect that these heavenly bodies are gods, and that the Divine pervades the whole of nature. The rest of their tradition has been added later in a mythological form to influence the vulgar and as a political and utilitarian expedient; they say that these gods are human in shape or are like other animals. If we separate out that part, we must reflect that whereas every art and philosophy has probably been repeatedly developed to the utmost and has perished again, these beliefs of theirs have been preserved as a relic of former knowledge." 9. The nature of divine thought It can't think about nothing! But it can't think of something inferior either! Further argument that it is thought thinking about thinking. 10. How the good is contained in the universe Separate/ order of parts. Both: "like an army." Ordering of the universe compared with ordering a household. Household analogy "The free persons are least at liberty to act at random, and have all or most of their actions preordained for them, whereas the slaves and animals have little common responsibility and act for the most part at random." Critique of materialism Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Forms: all introduce a multiplicity of originating causes It is better to have one ultimate cause. "The rule of many is not good; one ruler let there be." The Gods

Metaphysics Alpha

- What is "Metaphysics"? -- Ta meta ta physica (books after the physics books) -- "First Philosophy" -- "The Science of Being qua Being" - Giovanni Reale's "list" -- Ousiology: The Study of Primary Being (ousia) -- Aitiology: The Study of Explanation (close relationship to axiology) -- Axiology: The Study of Rationality -- Theology: The Study of Ultimate Being - I.1: Analysis of the text: -- The goal is episteme (knowledge) and sophia (wisdom): understanding. -- Book I is a critique of predecessors. -- "All human beings by nature desire to know; evidence of that is the delight in the senses, particularly the sense of sight." - Orexis (desire) of learning: -- "Desire" translates "oregontai," (reach out for knowledge) which really means "try to" -- Importance of sight -- Bees intelligent but cannot hear, thus cannot be taught. -- Animals that remember and can hear can be taught; ex. dogs and horses - Animal cognition: -- "So the other animals live by images and memories, but have a small share of experience-" -- Phantasia (imagination), Mneme (experience), Empeiria (experience) - Human knowledge: -- "But the human race lives also by art and reasoning." -- Techne, Logismos -- "And for human beings, experience arises from memory, since many memories of the same thing bring to completion a capacity for one experience." - Universals: -- Experience is of individuals, art and knowledge of universals. - Art and Experience: -- "For the purpose of action, experience doesn't seem to differ from art at all, and we even see people with experience being more successful than those who have a rational account without experience." - Teaching as a sign of knowledge: -- "In general, a sign of the one who knows and the one who does not is being able to teach, and for this reason we regard art, more than experience, to be knowledge, since the ones can, but the others cannot, teach." - Egypt: -- Useful arts desired for other things; but some are desired for their own sake. - Math discovered in Egypt because priests were at leisure. - Sophia: -- archai (first principles) and aitiai (explanations): -- "It is apparent then that wisdom is a knowledge concerned with certain sources and causes." - I.2: What kinds of archai and aitiai? -- Knowing things that are difficult -- Having precise knowledge -- Architectonic (general theories of things) - Common opinions about wisdom -- Knowing the causes (why something happens) makes teaching possible. -- The autonomy of philosophy: "It is owing to wonder that people philosophize." -- The most divine science is the most valuable. - SIMONIDES: -- "God alone can have this privilege". -- ARISTOTLE: God is not jealous; poets tell many lies. We should seek to have some of the wisdom that belongs to God. -- "There is nothing that would surprise a geometer so much as if the diagonal were to turn out to be commensurable." - I.3: Cause is said in 4 ways -- One cause is entity and the what it is for something to be (FORMAL) -- Another is the material or that which underlies (MATERIAL) -- Third is whence the source of change (EFFICIENT) -- Fourth is that for the sake of which, or the good (TELOS/END) - Matter as cause -- The earliest Greek philosophers tended to think that ousia (that which primarily exists) is matter. -- Examples: THALES, ANAXIMENES, HERACLITUS, ANAXAGORAS, EMPEDOCLES. -- But the substratum (foundation) does not change itself. There must be a cause of change. - Mover and End -- Search for a mover, and why beauty and the good are found in nature. -- Not spontaneity and luck - ANAXAGORAS: -- "When one man said that reason was present as the cause of the world and of all its order, he seemed like a sober man in contrast with the random talk of his predecessors." - I.4: Form and End: -- Attempts to discover Form and End: -- HESIOD- Love; -- PARMENIDES- "Love first of all the gods she planned." -- EMPEDOCLES: Love & Strife. -- ANAXAGORAS' nous. -- ATOMISTS: "full and empty", "rhythm, contact, turning" (form) -- But what causes movement? - For A differs from N in shape, AN from NA in order, and Z from N in position. - I.5: PYTHAGORAS and PYTHAGOREANS: -- account of form via numbers and "opposites" -- ALCMAEON of Croton: opposites -- Pluralists vs. Monists (essentially the Eleatics: PARMENIDES AND ZENO). - Pythagorean Astronomy: 10 Causes, in Pairs -- Limit Unlimited -- Odd VS. Even -- One VS. Many -- Right VS. Left -- Male VS. Female -- Still VS. Moving -- Straight VS. Crooked -- Light VS. Dark -- Good VS. Bad -- Square VS. Oblong - PARMENIDES: -- In addition to the "one", PARMENIDES has "hot" and "cold" as principles (in the world of appearance) - I.6: PLATO: -- "After these systems came the philosophy of PLATO, which in most respects followed these thinkers, but had peculiarities that distinguished it from the philosophy of the Italians. For, having in his youth first become familiar with CRATYLUS and the HERACLITEAN doctrines (that all sensible things are ever in a state of flux and there is no knowledge about them), these views he held even in later years. SOCRATES, however, was busying himself about ethical matters (THEAETETUS) and neglecting the world of nature as a whole but seeking the universal in these ethical matters, and fixed thought for the first time on definitions. PLATO accepted his teaching, but held that the problem applied not to any sensible thing but to entities of another kind - for this reason, that the common definition could not be a definition of any sensible thing, as they were always changing. Things of this other sort, then, he called Ideas, and sensible things, he said, were apart from these, and were called after these." - Methexis vs. Mimesis -- "For the multitude of things which have the same name as the Form exist by participation in it. Only the name 'participation' was new; for the PYTHAGOREANS say that things exist by imitation of numbers, and Plato says that they exist by participation, changing the name." - Mathematical forms -- PLATO believed that the Forms are essentially mathematical in character. -- One critique here: "They make many things out of the matter, and the form generates only once, but what happens is the opposite: one person makes many tables ... one male fertilizes many eggs." - I.7: All previous philosophies miss essence and entity. - I.8: Critique of monists: -- HERACLITUS seems best off since fire seems more elementary than the other so-called elements. -- But how do the elements transform? -- Critique of pluralists: ARISTOTLE cannot accept the permanence of EMPEDOCLEAN elements. No qualitative change. - Critique of ANAXAGORAS: -- He really ought to say that the elements are The One and The Other. His theory is "entirely unclear." - PYTHAGOREANS again: -- How can they get physical objects out of mathematical principles? -- How can you get weight out of mathematical elements? -- Are the abstract numbers the same or different from the physical numbers? - PLATO -- PLATO thinks that both bodies and their causes are numbers, but that the intelligible numbers are causes, while the others are sensible." -- according to ARISTOTLE, PLATO thought that the sensible things are (made of) sensible numbers, and that the intelligible numbers are the causes of things - i.e., the Forms are (ultimately) "intelligible numbers." - I.9: Detailed Critique of PLATO: -- Multiplying entities beyond necessity (Occam's razor) -- The arguments give forms where there should be none - e.g., forms of perishable things (cf. PARMENIDES list of kinds of forms) - Arguments for the Forms -- That there has to be an object of episteme (knowledge): that results in forms of things that there should not be forms of. -- "One over many" results in forms of negations (form of an absence, like nothing) -- Forms of perishable things (such as forms of qualities ((good)) and quantities ((large))) - "The more exact arguments... -- ... result in forms of relations and the 3rd Man (largeness, infinite regress)" -- Forms in other categories than ousia -- Ambiguity of names - What do the forms contribute to sensible things? -- Paradeigma and methexis are just metaphors -- Chorismos (separation) is impossible -- (Mathematical forms annihilate physics) - Review of Book I: I.10 -- ARISTOTLE as historian of philosophy. -- The dialectical technique of Metaph I -- Some argue that his arguments hold against his own position. - Avicenna (980-1037) -- "Anyone who denies the Law of Non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as to not be burned."

De Anima

- book I: review of earlier theories, working toward ARISTOTLE'S own - I.1: "soul is the principle of animal life" -- soul as ESSENCE, some questions: --- to what category does soul belong (OUSIA ((substance/entity/what primarily exists)), quality, quantity) --- is it potential or actual --- does the soul have parts - importance of studying not only human but also animal souls - are there different definitions of soul for each species -- "none of the pathe exist apart from the body, although possibly thinking is an exception" -- the straight touches the bronze sphere at a point (tangent to the circle) - anger: the naturalist and the dialectician (word-oriented person) define anger differently: -- "the boiling of the blood and hot material around the heart" -- "the desire for retaliation" -- ARISTOTLE: "a particular movement of the body of such a kind, as a result of X and for the sake of Y" - I.2-5: 2 types of theory: -- soul as a cause of motion; something is alive if it moves: ATOMISTS, PYTHAGORAS, THALES, ARISTOTLE? -- soul as a cause of consciousness/mind (NOUS); something is alive if it has awareness: ANAXAGORAS, PLATO - the movement theory depends on a contrast between living and non-living things - the aisthesis (perception) theory depends on introspection and the study of knowledge - DEMOCRITUS (movement theory) talks about spherical soul atoms -- the trouble with this theory is that if atoms are meant to explain everything, then they must have all characteristics demonstrated on the macro level: atoms must be conscious, have perception -- if spherical atoms cause soul phenomena, then they must be souls -- ARISTOTLE does accept the idea that there is a close relationship between heat and soul, that respiration is important, and that the organism and the environment must interact - PYTHAGOREANS: ARISTOTLE takes the PYTHAGOREANS to be materialists about the soul, like the ATOMISTS -- soul as the particles seen moving in the air? (like air molecules that move dust particles in the light) - self-mover theories: -- PLATO in Phaedrus and Laws -- ANAXAGORAS: ARISTOTLE thinks ANAXAGORAS believed that plants have minds (nous); consciousness theory - aisthesis -- "like is known by like" -- EMPEDOCLES: love and hate -- syncretist (brings together prior theories) view ascribed to XENOCRATES (successor to PLATO) - I.3: movement and soul -- if the soul has a natural movement (PLATO in Timaeus), it must be either rotational or straight-line, problems with both -- how would the soul transmit movement to the body -- can a soul leave a body - problems with movement theory -- soul does not simply move itself; nor does it have an intrinsic movement, like the mercury in the Daedalus statue (makes it move around) -- how could it stop -- PLATO's identification of psychic and astronomical movements - transmigration (soul goes into another body): no -- is the relationship between body and soul essential or accidental? transmigration would make it accidental and ARISTOTLE does not believe this -- "soul is like an art: each has its tools" (capacities of parts of the body) -- the parts of animals differ because their souls differ -- ANAXAGORAS and hands: believes humans are intelligent because they have hands; ARISTOTLE believes humans have hands because they are intelligent - I.4: harmony theory (Timaeus and Phaedrus) -- soul initiates action -- the soul cannot be only a harmony (Phaedo) -- the person gets angry, weaves and builds because he is alive -- the soul is the instrument of doing these things -- recollection: ARISTOTLE does not believe in this; we are born with the ability to learn - comment on mind (nous) -- mind seems an entity, does not perish; divinity - I.5: summary, review of earlier theories -- cause of movement -- composition of the finest particles (DEMOCRITUS) -- harmony of elements -- omits aisthesis theory here -- cause of being: does soul have elements in all the categories? no - pneuma, panpsychism -- criticism of pneuma (hot air with special characteristics for use in the human body) theory on the ground that not all living things breathe -- panpsychism (every material is living) is out because neither air nor fire (or any other element) is a living animal - functions of soul -- thinking (not just perception) -- desire -- movement -- growth - problem: the soul seems to hold the body together (unity), to occupy the whole body; is it divisible or indivisible? - vocab -- psyche: soul -- pneuma: ghost - II.1: ousia (entity): individual living things are paradigmatic entities, composed of matter and form - the body is the matter of the living being, the soul the form -- Definition 1 of soul: soul is entity in the sense of form of the natural body having the power of life in it. this sense of entity is activity (energeia); the soul is the activity of the body. 2 levels: presence (capacity) of the power and exercise of the power -- Definition 2: soul is the first activity of the natural body with the power of life. organic definition. for powers to be present there must be tools (organs) for their exercise -- Definition 3: soul is the first level of actuality of the natural body with organs. are soul and body one? wax (body/matter) and shape (soul/form). unity = activity and that of which it is the activity (eyes and seeing) -- Definition 4: soul as logos. soul is entity in the sense of logos, the what-it-is-to-be (purpose) for a particular sort of body. if the axe had a soul, it would be "cutting". if the eye were an animal, sight would be its soul. separable mind? --- mind might be separable from the body; doesn't think there is a physical organ for the mind --- sailor (mind) and ship (body) - II.2: aiton -- plants have the power of self-nutrition (feeding themselves, growing, reproducing) and are thus alive -- touch is the primary sense and belongs to all animals -- most animals have the power of local movement -- human beings have thought - divisibility of soul -- into organs? -- "is each of these a soul or a part of the soul?" -- note that some living things when divided continue to live; the various aspects of soul must be in both parts - comment on mind (nous) -- we have no evidence yet about "thought and the power of reflection; it seems to be a different kind of soul, different as what is eternal from what is perishable; it alone is capable of being separated" - final definition -- soul is not without body. a particular sort of body is needed -- definition 5: soul is actualization and logos (definition) of that which has the power to be such - II.3: limitations of capacities: plants, animals -- definition of the senses -- movement, mind -- soul is defined by a series of definitions (for each living thing) - II.4: nutrition and reproduction -- being is better than not being (which is why reproduction exists) -- purpose of generation: "since no living thing is able to partake in what is eternal and divine by uninterrupted continuance, it tries to achieve that end (everlastingness) in the only way possible to it, and success is possible in varying degrees...not numerically but specifically one": species reproduce to partake in everlastingness and the divine - nutrition -- telic explanations of nutrition (animals eat to continue to exist) and generation -- EMPEDOCLES misunderstood up and down (down is the up of plants): get food from roots, upside down -- nutrition and reproduction are due to the same psychic power: continuing the form - food: the process of nutrition involves 3 factors -- 1. what is fed (the body) -- 2. that with which it is fed (food) -- 3. what does the feeding (person) --- what feeds is the first soul (3), what is fed is the body (1) that has soul in it, and that with which it is fed is food (2) - II.5: aisthesis -- like to like: perception -- why do we not perceive the sense themselves? the sensitive is so potentially, not actually; potential vs. actual, sleeping vs. awake. kinesis to energeia. degrees of potentiality (potential to learn) -- knowing: developing, learning - knowledge (episteme) and perception (aisthesis): aisthesis apprehends individuals, episteme apprehends universals (can develop, potential to learn), which are in a sense already in the soul - II.6: objects of sense -- proper (qualities perceived by one sense only, ex. vision-color) vs. incidental (seeing what an object is, ex. a remote; inferring another sense, ex. the cake looks delicious) -- common sensibles: qualities perceived by more than one sense - II.7: vision -- "it is the nature of color to produce movement in that which is actually transparent" -- medium: aither. light as the activity of aither. contra EMPEDOCLES who thought light does not "travel"; ARISTOTLE: instantaneously -- optical diagram showing light being refracted by a spherical glass container full of water - II.8: ways of producing sounds -- "voice is a kind of sound characteristic of that which has soul in it...voice is the sound made by an animal with a special organ...voice is the impact of the inbreathed air against the windpipe, and the agent that produces the impact is the soul resident in these parts of the body" -- voice is capacity of the soul - sound and hearing -- actual (one that's heard) and potential (if a tree falls in a forest and no one's around) sound -- air and water as media -- "what has the power of producing sounds is what has the power of setting in movement a single mass of air which is continuous up to the organ of hearing" - II.9: smell -- "our power of smell is less discriminating and in general inferior to that of many species of animal" -- "smells are of what is dry as flavors are of what is moist" - II.10: taste -- what can be tasted is always something that can be touched -- in the case of taste there is no medium (except tongue) - II.11: touch -- note the "means" and "mediums" -- The body must be the medium for the sense of touch. - II.12: Aisthesis: perception -- "that which has the power of receiving the sensible form without the matter." -- The organ is that which has that power. -- Signet ring and wax: shape is pressed into the wax, wax now has the form but not the matter of the signet ring -- Ratio. -- Why plants don't perceive: don't have the right ratio - III.1: Just 5 Senses: -- ARISTOTLE assumes that the states of matter are directly related to perceptibility -- air (gas) and water (liquid) are the two critical elements for perceptibility -- there are just 4 elements or states of matter. - ARISTOTLE's theory: The argument here is inconsistent with positions presented in Sens and other places: -- role of fire, aither in vision. -- Two theories of perception involved: --- Logos theory of II.12, probably continued here. --- PYTHAGOREAN-type theory relating elements to specific sense - "PYTHAGOREAN" theory -- Aither: vision (light transmitted by aither) -- Air: hearing (also water) -- Fire: smell -- Water: taste -- Earth: touch --- But the eye is watery, fire (heat) is involved more widely, and smell, taste, and touch are closely connected --- passive potentiality: receiving sensory information, like hearing someone's voice - Common sensibles -- Movement, rest, figure, size, number, unity: no special sense for perceiving these, because they are implicit (shape: feel and see) in more than one sense. -- The generic unity of the senses. - Ross on functions of the common sense -- Perception of common sensibles -- Perception of incidental sensibles -- Perception that we perceive (consciousness): hearing alarm while we sleep -- Discriminating objects of two senses: stuff you hear or see -- Inactivity is sleep - III.2: moving the argument along: -- Awareness of sensing does not require another organ and sense; otherwise there would be a potentially infinite regress, or a particular sense would have to be reflexive. -- The activity of the perceived object and the sense are the same, although the essence is different. -- "Actual sound" = psophesis and "actual hearing" = akousis -- in other senses: a potentiality and an actuality on each side. -- Actualization requires both potentialities. - Harmony argument: "If symphonia (musical sound) is a kind of voice, and voice and hearing are as it were one, but symphonia is a logos, then hearing is a logos." -- Excess sound destroys hearing, excess flavor destroys taste, too bright destroys vision, strong scent destroys smell. -- excess destroys - Harmony and Pleasure: The pleasant is the more harmonious ratio. - III.3: Thought and Phantasia: -- Phronesis and aisthesis are not identical, although they may be thought so. (EMPEDOCLES, HOMER) -- Animals share in aisthesis but not phronesis. -- Noein (thinking) and aisthanesthai (perceiving) are not the same: perception of proper objects of sense is always true, but one may "dianoesthai pseudos": reason falsely. -- Animals do not have dianoia (reason, thinking with language) because they do not have logos. - Phantasia (imagination) & aisthesis(perception): -- not identical: sense has an object, is always present, and is always true. -- Phantasia is active when sense not functioning. - Phantasia and doxa (opinion): -- Doxa depends on phantasia, but is true or false. -- Doxa has emotional consequences. -- Phantasia is neither True nor False and is without emotion - Noein: "Thinking": -- Distinct from aisthanesthai (perceiving), and includes both phantasia and doxa. -- Thinking is distinct from perceiving, and includes both imagination and opinion - Phantasia: -- "That according to which a phantasma comes into being for us, and is one power or hexis according to which we judge and are right or wrong." -- Imagination is a basis of judgment8 - Phantasia/aisthesis: -- Phantasia not aisthesis -- aisthesis is either potential or actual -- phantasia can occur in the absence of either. -- Aisthesis is always present, phantasia not always. -- If they were the same, all animals would have phantasia. -- All sensations are true, most phantasia is false. - Animals and Phantasia: -- How does ARISTOTLE know whether animals have phantasia? -- says that animals DO have phantasia (dreams) - Phantasia neither episteme (knowledge) nor nous (mind) -- Phantasia may be false. -- Is it doxa (opinion)? -- No, because doxa involves pistis (belief), and no animal has pistis, but many have phantasia. -- "Pistis accompanies every doxa, but you have to be persuaded to have pistis, and persuasion requires logos." - Characterizing Phantasia -- To have a phantasia is to form an opinion exactly corresponding to a direct perception. - The accuracy of aisthesis -- Aisthesis of proper objects of a particular sense is "true", or least susceptible to error. -- Aisthesis that those objects are predicated of entities is next most accurate. Perception of common sensibles next most accurate. - The "movement" account of Phantasia -- Phantasia is a movement produced by an active sense. -- It is the reverse movement of aisthesis (dreaming: eyes; stimulated from inside instead of outside) -- Animals guided by phantasia because they lack mind. -- People guided by phantasia when clouded by emotion, disease, or sleep. - III.4: Nous (mind) -- What is the distinguishing (defining) characteristic of mind? How is thinking generated? separable: yes definitionally, no spatially - Analogy with aisthesis: -- Mind is apathes, not affected by moving causes, but must be similar to aisthesis in that it receives the form of an object (perception) without the matter, so it must be potentially similar to the form. -- Perception : perceptible :: mind to thinkable (noeta). -- "Unmixed" -- Since mind thinks all things, it must be unmixed, because anything foreign would hinder or obstruct. -- (Why does ARISTOTLE think that thinking is not hindered or obstructed?) -- Mind is, from one perspective, simply the capacity to receive form (passive mind) -- mind is transcendant - Mind has no material basis (no organ): -- If the mind were mixed with body, it would become a quality, as the skin becomes hot or cold. -- But some of the things that the mind thinks are not physical attributes, so it couldn't be active in terms of a physical organ. - Topos eidôn: place of forms" -- The mind is the "place of forms". -- Mind is not destroyed by the highly intelligible as the senses are destroyed by the highly sensible. - Active Intellect: -- "When knowledge has become its several objects there is another sense in which the mind is power - the active sense; the mind can now use this knowledge. In this state the mind can think itself, for having knowledge it is actualized, and thus can be an object of knowledge." - ARISTOTLE and DESCARTES: For DESCARTES, the mind thinking itself is prior to its thinking any object; but DESCARTES also notices that the mind has to doubt something specific. ARISTOTLE believes that you discover self-consciousness consequent upon thinking about something; thinking about something leads to self-awareness/consciousness - Attention: -- The active and passive powers of mind can be understood by analogy with attention: -- first your sense (e.g. seeing) is actualized by actually seeing, then you can look at something, that is, focus on a specific activity or object of that sense. Active mind is like that. - "x" vs. "what it is to be x" -- Thing and essence -- Bent line vs. straight line -- Snub -- Requires two powers of mind: one to receive the formal characteristics (passive), the other to derive essence (active) - Problem of separation of mind from objects: -- the ANAXAGOREAN problem -- How does the mind think? -- Mind as object of thought. -- Note the tabula rasa (blank slate) from Tht. - III.5 -- The matter for each genos is that which is potentially any of them; there is also a cause that makes all the members of the genus: as is case for an art and its matter. -- Mind becomes knowable by apprehending forms, and can make all things (active capacity of the mind) - Illumination -- The capacity of the mind to make all things is a hexis (disposition), a disposition, "like light", for light makes potential colors into actual colors. -- So mind makes its objects: it makes the formal aspects of perception into universals. -- mind makes potential ideas into actual ideas - Creativity -- Mind making universals is evidenced, for example, in language, artistic creation, social organization, and so on. - Priority -- Active mind is separable, impassive, unmixed, and ontologically prior. -- It is continuously actual, but when separate it is just itself and nothing else, and is alone immortal and everlasting. -- But it is not individual since there is no memory. - III.6: Simple objects of thought: -- truth and falsity involve synthesis (a sentence; can't just say "red - true or false?") -- Two senses of indivisible: potential and actual (indivisible and in fact not divided). -- The mind can think that which is in fact undivided as a unit. - III.7: "Actual episteme is the same as the thing." -- No thought without an image. -- Exploration of the common sense. -- "The noetic thinks the forms in phantasmata." -- Thinking the objects of math, e.g., one thinks of them as separate although not actually separate (snub: only applies to concave noses). - III.8: Summary: -- formal identity of soul with the world. - III.9: Local movement -- It appears that ARISTOTLE sketches a way to reach a concept of active intellect via "motion" (initiated by thought) to balance the account from "aisthesis". - III.10: Note that heart and pneuma do not appear in this account. -- Transition to IA and MA (no pneuma yet). - III.11: imperfect animals. -- Phantasia is present in all animals, but deliberation is limited, because the ability to combine images is limited. -- Orexis (capacity to initiate movement) does not imply deliberation. -- The cognitive is not moved, but remains at rest. - III.12: Plants -- Touch is necessary for animals. -- Why an animal could not be composed of only one element: because touch is necessary, and that involves all four elements.