In which I strive to be helpful, but probably fail

The beginning section of Aristotle's Metaphysics talks about the Philosopher as the one who has the most pure knowledge, since he is learning of the thing for the sake of learning itself, not for some material benefit. This question of, "Why Philosophy?" is picked up throughout history, folks like William James talk about Philosophers as (kind of) guides in decision making, Bertrand Russell echoes Aristotle, saying Philosophy should be studied for the "sake of the questions themselves," and Dewey points to the philosopher as the instrument in which we learn to think critically of all things. Perhaps my favorite statement, however, is Nietzsche's "What I understand by 'philosopher': A terrible explosive in the presence of which everything is in danger."

The danger comes from the constant desire to understand, search, and critique; all of which work together to make the philosopher, as Aristotle points out, the best teacher. While I'm certainly no supreme philosopher, I do think the ability to teach is a good indication of ones comprehension of the material. So, with that starting point, allow me to try to help.

I read through all the recent blog posts this weekend (yeah, I do that because I actually like this stuff), and there seems to be a large amount of confusion on the principles of substance, both primary and secondary. Whether this results from the somewhat confusing terminology provided by Aristotle and discussed in class, or if it's the constant questions of that one kid that sits in the middle of the class that are tangential and probably not beneficial to the class, either way, confusions exists.

So for that, let me try to help (and again, my understanding has been proven wrong before, so don't take me as the end all, by any means).

Primary substance is the starting point, in Aristotle's conception. But what is it, exactly? It, according to the theme we've picked up on in class, is that which contains the essential characteristics that generally make up a thing. Confusing terminology, to be sure, but lets use an example to help sort it out. Primary substance will always be a particular thing, you, me, that girl over there, etc. Let's work with Socrates, since Aristotle does. The essential characteristics of Socrates are (as pointed out by Erin Echols, here) 1. The Ability to Reason and 2. The nutritive element (what we call the body).

It should be noted, here, that these essential characteristics are not solely physical. Second, it should be noted that they may not exist in every case, as we discussed in class 10-20. A mentally handicapped person may not be able to reason, but they are still human.

The way in which one defines what the essential characteristics are is secondary substance. This is, I think, where the vast amount of confusion hits our class. Secondary substance is derived by looking at primary substances and grouping them together, we refer to such groupings as Species. In the case of our example, Socrates is grouped into the Species "(Hu)Man." When we have grouped these primary substances together, we can look at them and determine what their commonalities and differences are. We then use these to define them, saying (something like) "See, all (or perhaps almost all) of these (hu)mans possess the ability to reason and physical bodies, this should be our definition."

The problem, here, is that the system is circular. To define primaries one needs secondaries, but to build secondaries one needs to group primaries.

One final word about characteristics.

The non-essential characteristics, those such as "tall, short, hot, cold, brown" etc, are not defined on the secondary level, instead they exist on the primary level. It is because they exist that essentials must be defined on the secondary level, since we cannot ever fully ascertain all of the non-essential characteristics of any particular, and it would be wrong to say that the just because a characteristic is displayed in one particular, it should be displayed in every particular of that species.

Maybe this helped, maybe not.

I may or may not have been around in the blogging world for a while, if you're interested in my (BS) philosophy (as well reading about an epic fall from theism into some screwed up agnostic that gets semi-defensive of Christianity) then you can read my old blog, here.

I do this for comparisons sake, if one sees how silly I was before, perhaps one shall view me as less silly now.

Aristotle and determinism

In Physics book II, Aristotle talks about Chance (and luck/fortune). Here, he gives us a glimpse down the rabbit hole of an argument that still clings soundly in the world today.

What role does chance play in the world?

According to Aristotle, it is merely the name that we give to an event where two effects of two causes came together. IE I’m walking under some trees and a pinecone hits me. One cause is that I’m walking under trees for my health, another is that the tree, at just the right moment (merely coincidental) severs its connection with the pinecone to procreate. Thus nothing happens by chance, ever, instead we see chance in coincidental, where two things happened for the sake other other things and came together.

The underlying argument is that everything happens for some purposed reason (the final cause, remember, is telos) and that, therefore, each thing follows some pre-determined path toward that end. This argument is one of the logical pillars for the concepts of Determinism, the idea that everything happens according to predetermined causes. Such an idea strikes against the concept of Free Will, and the proponents of such a concept will offer the immediate counter-attack “But I can change my system!”

Thus enters the murky waters.

Let’s say that I want to prove my free will by committing action X (the action itself doesn’t matter at all). Why are you so insistent on proving action X? It is because you are pre-determinately apprehensive about the loss of free will? Is that apprehension the cause of some further thing, which was caused by some other thing, and so on ad nauseum?

Still others will say, “I can will to do something or not do something!” But is this truly will? I leave with the question, “Does will require action?” and the statement that Aristotle seems to think action is quite important for something to be existent, so he’d probably say no.

Aristotle's Forms

I'm a bad student and I've only read Categories, and I know that Aristotle expands and alters his "forms" in latter texts, but I still see the basic outlines of the Aristotelian forms in "Categories." (subtle change to quotes because Blogger doesn't play nice with macs and clicking the italicize button is a lot of work). I previously mentioned that Aristotle gives more "value" to the particulars over the universals, or in fancy terms, Aristotle gives ontological priority* to the particulars while Plato gives ontological priority to the universals.

While, yes, from my understanding the "Formal Cause," as seen in Metaphysics, denotes that there is a "form" that exists outside of a particular, its existence is still dependent upon particulars. While some might not see the importance of this difference, this alteration in view (from Plato's top down to Aristotle's bottom up) completely changes the progression of thought. This focus on substance as the primary "stuff" causes universals to be viewed as the result of particulars. In the same way you couldn't have the species "human" without individual humans (that man, that woman, etc), things like beauty cannot exist without particulars onto which they can map themselves.

I may have a friend in this class that feels this change in perspective is not as important as I believe it to be**. Were such a friend to exist, s/he might say that "Aristotle's forms are interestingly enough very similar to Plato's forms," since both forms exist outside of any one particular. In one sense, s/he is right, they both exist outside of the particular, but in (almost) every other sense, s/he may be missing the mark. The importance concept here is that Plato's forms are that which cause everything, they have that (fancy phrase incoming!) ontological priority, they color everything that is said about anything. Aristotle's forms, however, are definitions*** (whats more, they are definitions constructed from grouping particulars to map out essential characteristics), they are, then, just explanations of what is already and not that which causes it to be.

*Wiki is your friend, but SEP is better. Ontological priority (in a quick and dirty explanation) is that which all other things come from. The thing with ontological priority can exist without all other things that do not have ontological priority.

**I think we aren't suppose to address each others views via blog posts. But he'll be ok.

***I know he says "causes" but his causes are more like answers to ontological questions (you did read those links I posted, right?)

Aristotelian Constructivism?

First off, a note on Aristotelian style: I took a logic class a year ago, it was lots of fun, I learned fun Latin words, how to create truth tables to assess validity, and (what I'm most thankful for now) how to make sense of Aristotle by equating his words into logical propositions. It's a semi-refreshing step away from the flowy* dialectic of Plato, since all the propositions are there in a nearly atomic format, and build upon each other nicely. (also, I like Aristotle because he disagree with Plato, and that's a beautiful thing)

Now, to the attempt at the "meat" of the blog...

Aristotle, in "Categories," promotes the idea that universals** are derived, and exist, only within particulars.*** If this is the case then universals are defined only by example through the items "named" after (or perhaps "of" is a better term) them. Thus my understanding of a TV is going to be colored by every TV I encounter, and each time I encounter and object that could fit within my understand of TV, I will name that object "TV" and it will further alter my conception of TV. This new, and each successive understanding of TV, is "true," and constantly changing.

So, unless, in some later text that I haven't read yet, Aristotle offers a different approach in understanding, I am going to posit that he has set the stage for a healthy constructivist theory of epistemology.

I like that.

*(ok it was only flowy at times)

**(you remember, those things that can be shared outside of themselves, like dogs and cats both being pets)

***(you're actually reading this one? ok, particulars would be "that dog" the one thing)