Korsgaard: Aristotle's Function Argument

1. Basic self maintenance (nutrition and reproduction) 2. Possibility of perception and action (perception, sensation, locomotion, appetite, and imagination) 3. Life of reason (rational choice)

According to Aristotle what are the three forms of life or "parts" of the soul? What powers are specific to each?

Form as shape or contour (problem: statue may have the same shape/contour as a human/animal/plant) Form as ratio (problem: things may have the same composition make up (this problem may not be right idk¯\_(ツ)_/¯)) Form as structural arrangement (problem: things of same form/species have different structural arrangements; can know structural arrangement without knowing what it is) Form as functional construction (only one that isn't inadequate!!!)

According to Korsgaard, what are three notions of form that turn out to be inadequate? What are the problems with each of these?

Sense 1: Identify a thing's function with its purpose, with what it is for or simply what it does. Sense 2: How a thing does what it does (rather than just what it does) She says that the second sense is superior.

After introducing the possibility that "the form is the function of a thing" Korsgaard says that "I think it is helpful here to distinguish two possible senses of 'function.'" What are those two sense, and which does she argue is superior as an understanding of form in Aristotle?

no

Are the animal's powers merely added "so to speak, on top of the animal's nutritive and reproductive life"

To know a thing is to know its essence/form (form = in terms of which we can explain the properties and activities of the thing)

For Aristotle, what is the relationship between knowledge of something and the form of that thing?

The power of choice changes the way we carry out the activities we share with the other animals, such as housebuilding, childrearing, hunting or collecting food, playing, and sexual activity. Humans approach these activities creatively and develop various ways of going about them among which we then choose.

How does the power of choice transform "the way we carry out the activities we share with the other animals"? (What are these? How do we do them differently?)

They also change the way the animal carries out the tasks of nutrition and reproduction.

If so, how does this work? If not, how do they transform nutrition and reproduction for the animal?

Aristotle asks the question "how do things come to be and pass away?" -Matter- what makes up an object ( iron, bronze, wood, and flesh) and when form is added to matter, things are created (page 135) -Form= essence -> what a thing is, or what makes a thing what it is To know a thing is to know its essence of form

In the Metaphysics, what question is Aristotle seeking to answer when he explores the distinction between form and matter? How does this distinction answer this question?

The argument is that someone who knows what something is for, and its structural arrangements, and how those arrangements enable it to do what it does can truly be said to understand it. It supports the notion of form as functional construction.

Korsgaard writes that, "The main argument for taking function in this second sense to be the correct notion of form comes from the role of form as the object of knowledge and the locus of craft." What is this argument? (And which notion of form does it support, by the way?)

1) Question the move from b) to c) - why think it is good for a human being to be a good human being? (good knife is a sharp knife, but being sharp isn't good for the knife) 2) How Aristotle arrives at premise A. (his understanding of the human function) - why only nutrition, perception and reason as candidate functions? - why think our function is unique to us? 3) Why think our capacity is morally good? 4) We live in a scientific world, why think anything has a character function at all?

What are the four main objections to the function argument that Korsgaard discusses?

a) What a human being is (activity of the soul with reason) b) What a good or serious human being is (carries our activity well with virtue) c) What is good for a human being (what is eudaimonia, or happiness)

What are the three main steps in the function argument? (What are the general steps, and how does Aristotle flesh them out?)

An animal has the complex powers that make perception and action possible. An animal is conscious. It does things.

What does it mean to say that an animal lives or has a life in a sense that plant does not?

A non-human animal's life is mapped out for it by its instincts. A human being is capable of choosing a way of life.

What does it mean to say that the "human being in turn lives or has a life, in a sense in which a non-human animal does not"?

To keep its own form, its own manner of functioning, in existence. Functional construction=how it does what it does. Keeps its own form through nutrition and reproduction.

What is the purpose of a living thing, according to Aristotle? What is its function in the sense of functional construction?

We can do things the other animals don't do at all like tell jokes, paint pictures, and engage in science and philosophy.

What is the whole "new sense of life" possible for human beings and what are examples?