Aquinas's First Way

[balto]

If we accept that the insights and principles of molecular and atomic Chemistry give us a more comprehensive toolbox for distinguishing accidental and substantial change as well as classifying different kinds of “stuff” … then we are agreed.

I apologize for taking so long to respond to your posts. It’s just that I have been a little busy and didn’t quite know how to respond to what you said and needed to think about it. Yes, I think we are agreed.

But the reverse of saying this is that Aristotle’s system leads to provably less consistent
answers…thereby bringing his founding principles in this area under some suspicion.

His physics, yes, but I think we need to be a little more cautious about overhauling tenants of his metaphysics, the consequences of which I would like to explore below.

I am trying to do fair justice to the apparant macro/micro “inconsistencies” of the sensible world…which after all is where philosophy starts and ultimately returns.

That’s a fair point. I think you are right to raise it since a lot of contemporary thinkers forget that we have more immediate knowledge of the macro-world and think that our knowledge of the micro-world is more real, and I admit I have this tendency from time to time.

Aristotle ruled out the sort of considerations we are considering here because of his simplifying (and for him, logical, given the rest of his system) principle that a pure sustance is always the same every time you cut it in half…on to infinity.

But he is wrong isn’t he? Chemists would agree that carbon is a pure substance, but they would not agree that, in the real world, it manifests the same at macro and micro levels. This is because of molecular bonding. One atom of graphite is exactly the same as one atom of diamond. But that is not true at the macro level. Indeed carbon is so different in characteristics at the macro level in graphite and diamond that the ancients considered them different substances. The fault is in principles, not simply in mistaken classification.

Well I don’t know what to make of his pure substances. I was wondering if you could post an article to either something he said about pure substances or somebody explaining what he meant so I could have a clearer idea of what he means by it, because I don’t think I am certain I know what he means.

As to your point about us not knowing whether different allotropes are the same substances, I’m not sure what the difficulty is because Aristotle allowed for different substances to have different substantial forms. It wasn’t just a matter of having the same proportions of basic elements.

What is the worst case scenario for Aristotle? Him saying that something like carbon is a pure substance, which would be wrong since carbon is divisible into more fundamental particles. But that’s a scientific error and not a metaphysical error since it would follow that carbon is not a pure substance. You could say the fact that diamond and charcoal are made of the same stuff but yet manifest vastly different macroscopic properties calls his metaphysics into question, but I don’t think it does since he made a distinction between material and formal cause. Sure, knowing that distinction alone doesn’t help us too much in ascertaining what the form is specifically for diamond and charcoal, but that seems to be a scientific dispute which doesn’t touch on the form/matter distinction.

Even if we say that water is just a single H2O molecule…this does lead to difficulties.
The word comes from daily life at the macro level. I would say it is intrinsic to the definition of “water” that it comes in bulk. So my opinion that water is not 100% H2O is prob the more correct statement.
On another tack H20 is in fact never found by itself as single atom in space but always dealt to and understood in quantity. We have no reason to believe a single atom of water is stable, it probably ionises and reforms as it gets heated or hit by photons in any case.
It seems impossible to do a theoretical study of the properties of a single H20 atom because atoms are never alone, even in a vacuum.
There are some philosophic theses available on the Net on this very topic…is water H20!

But if you define water at the macro-level you run into issues with mixtures: is a saline mixture one or two substances? It seems to be two, salt and water. It seems that if you want to say that molecules are “not stable” then you run into issues. If the microscopic level really is nothing but change, then you are describing pure metaphysical matter, which makes the form encompass the macroscopic view. That means that H2O is not a thing at all but a useful submodel of the macroscopic view. Is that correct or is it more appropriate to regard the H2O as at least a possible thing? Don’t know, these are just some hopefully useful observations for the debate. If H2O is indeed possibly a thing in its own right, then the underlying change at the microscopic level is somewhat stable since it is a change from H2O to H+ and OH- and vice versa. If it is all unstable change then there is no change to and from something.

I know David Oderberg gave these issues a pretty rigorous treatment in Real Essentialism. I have a lot of difficulty reading him and didn’t understand what he was saying too well the first time I read it, but I may give it another read at some point to get a more enlightened view on the matter.

 

[balto]

I am suggesting, as way below, that reality is better understood philosophically as multi-layered (sub atomic particles, atomic/ionic particles, molecular/crystaline particles etc). It seems to me that Aristotle would observe, if he knew these things, that each layer is related to the one below it as form to matter. We can then view “substance” from different perspectives…depending on which layer we call “matter”.

Hence my view that plurality of forms is more comprehensive a way of viewing sensible reality than single grand-unifying forms which has no shades of grey between prime-matter and the big-form. Yet we can see many shadowy intermediate and underlying forms in both accidental and substantial changes that Aristotle is at a loss to well represent.

Well I don’t think I would disagree with reality being “multi-layered” for reasons I have already indicated. Your objection is still centered around which of these layers counts as the “substantial” layer. Well whatever it is would have to be the last one before the accidents. What seems clear is that you cannot have two substantial forms present in the same thing for the reason that the substantial form is what makes a thing to be. So if you say water has the substantial form of both H2O and H, then that would seem to be erroneous because you are saying that one of those substantial forms caused it to be and then the other also caused it to be as well, which is silly. One of those forms would have to be modifying a pre-existing subject, which would make it an accidental form. If you take the opinion that both of them cooperatively cause the thing to be, so that together they are the substantial form, then you’re taking the view that we discussed earlier that you have one substantial form that virtually includes the other, which I believe is the Aristotelian view.

Another alternative is saying that there is no substantial form at all. Well then all these forms are modifications of a pre-existing subject but none of them actually are making the subject real. It just takes existence as a “brute fact” yet we know logically that the things in our experience need not exist.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Well then, just what was it that God created? If he did not create substances, things, what in the world did he create? If it be answered that he created atoms, are we to suppose then that atoms are nothing? If they are something then they must have a nature, they must be a substance, right? If God created some other more rarefied " thing " first, was it not something, and being something would it not have nature and be a particular substance with that nature? Are the creatures God created and Adam named just piles of different collections of atoms, interacting in different ways?

And is not every living thing a substance with an identifiable nature? After all God called them creatures. Are not creatures identifiable substances with definite natures. Why do we suddenly draw a line when we come to the elements on the periodic table. Doesn’t each one of them have an identifiable nature, defined not just by its mass and number, but also by how it behaves and by how it reacts with other substances?

And when the nucleus of the uranium atom is exploded, unleashing vast amounts of energy, is that an accidental change or a substantial change?

When a man dies and he soul leaves the body, is that an accidental change or a substantial change?

And is oxidation an accidental or a substantial change?

And so on…

Substance and form, nature, essence, accidents, substantial change, accidental change cannot be dismissed so easily, can they?

Yes, we can throw out the whole Aristotelian - Thomistic Corpus, but then where are we, what are we left with? We are then left with mere words, words which stand for nothing because we have just thrown out substances and natures. And if they don’t exist and point to real beings which differ essentially from one another, then we have nothing. The world then becomes an illusion.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

And what did Werner Heisenberg, one of the founders of modern physics say about atoms, protons, etc?

" There should be a rule that the first person to raise quantum theory (or rather, the Copenhagen Interpretation of the mechanics) loses the debate immediately. It’s not as if everything’s all settled for good. (See Popper for details.) Even in quantum mechanics, things don’t move themselves, parts move wholes, and so on. In this context, and especially for those who object to the whole potency-act thingie or the idea of formal causation, two quotes of Werner Heisenberg, whom we might call “Mr. Quantum Theory” himself, are apropos:

“[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.”
and

“[T]he smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.”
(Heisenberg belonged to the last generation of physicists to move comfortably in philosophy.¹ It was also the last generation to make breakthrough discoveries in physics. No doubt a coincidence.)

An objector once cited protons as an example of things that assembled themselves, that they did so back in the Long Ago times of physics legend. Of course, self-assembly is what nature does.² But it is the quarks (assuming they exist) that assemble into protons (assuming they exist). The proton is the final cause of the quark. (Yes, and so is the neutron.) And the gauge bosons would seem to be the efficient causes. But the proton hardly poofs itself into being all by itself.

Clarifications:

1. Heisenberg’s insights. See also the precis of the Heisenberg-Lukacs discussions (1968) in Ch.3 “History and Physics,” in Lukacs, Remembered Past: a Reader (ISI Books, 2005) Lukacs’ greatest surprise was that none of the other physicists with whom he discussed the matter seemed interested in the implications of the Uncertainty Principle. They acknowledged it was true, but were not inclined to follow Heisenberg’s lead. The flight from philosophy had already begun.
2. self-assembly is what nature does. Recall Aquinas:

“[N]ature seems to differ from art only because nature is an intrinsic principle and art is an extrinsic principle. For if the art of ship building were intrinsic to wood, a ship would have been made by nature in the same way as it is made by art. … Nature is nothing but the plan of some art, namely a divine one, put into things themselves, by which those things move towards a concrete end: as if the man who builds up a ship could give to the pieces of wood that they could move by themselves to produce the form of the ship.”

– Commentary on Physics II.8, lecture 14, no. 268

From a new look at the First Way - a humorous and instructive one, by Michael Flynn. And of course this is not intended for the timid or limited of mind.

tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/10/first-way-part-iii-big-kahuna.html

Linus2nd

 

[Blue_Horizon]

…

Balto while may may disagree on a number of points I highly respect your intuitions as to where the real rub of this sort of discussion actually is and your willingness to face the problematics head on.

Again you have done exactly so here.

For myself, like I say, I like to cultivate good “philosophical trees” and tag weak trees for rejuvenation or removal. If that means old “philosophical forests” die more quickly (or are rejuvenated) that will all come out in the consequent wash however it will.
Linus is clearly a forest man who may not be as good an aborist when it comes to observing individual trees and their consequence for the forest.

Your objection is still centered around which of these layers counts as the “substantial” layer.

Not really, this is a question I intentionally do not pursue as I am not even sure it is a valid question to ask. At this stage all I reasonably observe is that nature IS multi-layered and substantial change (at least by Aristotle’s “definition” and examples) appears to be due to changes in one layer for one example and another layer for another example. In this regard the atomic/molecular models put forward by the current philosophy of Chemistry is more consistent in understanding substantial change. However it is less “everday intuitive” than Aristotle. Also, this model still seems to have trouble applying “same substance” (as per Arist) wrt isotopes - there is significant debate on this still.

So no, I do not yet pursue this question. All I observe presently is what seems undeniable, there seem to be “analogical” (or “relative” to be stronger) matter/form relationships between these different layers of nature.

Which is the “true” one or “absolute” one I do not know. Nature may not even be like that.

I also observe that these adjacent “matter/form” layers do “interact” a little as well.
I also observe that in living beings there is a functional unity at the highest lefvel (“the soul” if you wish) that constrains but does not annihilate the lower substances which it integrates into its unity. Such seems to be the case even with “pure substances” such as water.

Well whatever it is would have to be the last one before the accidents.

If “substance” is not comprehensively described by Aristotle’s model then the relationship between accidents/substance may need tweaking too and this statement may not be as absolute as we think it is?

What seems clear is that you cannot have two substantial forms present in the same thing for the reason that the substantial form is what makes a thing to be.

Yes, I think the observations I am making is prob calling the comprehensiveness of this statement into question.
Remember that Arist also said this becausehe believed that two substances cannot be in the same place at the same time because he had a non-atomic model of nature. He (and the Thomists) thought a body outlined solid designate matter witjh no “room” for two different substances to interpenetrate.

However the atomic model shows that, for example, a horse is in fact 99.99% “empty space.” Its more about forces resisting forces at boundary level. And the creation of compound substances from elemental substances is all about penetration of electron clouds.

Aristotole also thought nature was stable and relatively unchanging. Again if the atomic model is half right this assumption is highly questionable. In fact many of those things Aristotle would have regarded as “pure substrances” (eg compounds) are in fact, at the micro level, a dynamic equlibrium of the compound and its component ions constantly disassociating and reassociating again. Hence water is not just the compound H20 - it also at the same time has very significant amounts of the ion H+ available.
This “mixture” has never been identified before … and Aristotle has no equiv concept to explain this sort of mixture. (Just as he has no concept by which to understand covalent bonds where elements penetrate each other to form new substances.)

CONTINUED BELOW…

 

[Blue_Horizon]

CONTINUED FROM ABOVE

So if you say water has the substantial form of both H2O and H, then that would seem to be erroneous because you are saying that one of those substantial forms caused it to be and then the other also caused it to be as well, which is silly.

I am a bit surprised that you are using the sort of circular “rationalism” that Linus uses all the time in his “logic”.

That is, you use a philosophic principle that I am calling into question (viz singularity of substantial form) to make a syllogism that attempts to deny my less-philosophic observations of nature which may well militates against your principle ( (viz singularity of substantial forms).

You are essentially trying to escape the Black Swan vortex I mentioned previously … by saying hydrogen cannot be present in water despite the experiments of chemists because to do so would imply the principle of the singularity of substantial form would be contradicted! That is at least as silly as what you suggest of my observations isn’t it .

So if you say water has the substantial form of both H2O and H

.
Anyways I didn’t say this.
(a)I corrected you below if you recall. I said that water always contains substantial amounts of H2O and hydrogen at the same time…if you accept that H+ ions are validly the same substance as hydrogen. In fact I denied that “H” or “H2” is present in water. Your continued use of “H” (or “H2”) to mean “hydrogen” is somewhat clumsy and suggests you may not fully grasp my previous argument.
(b) I also said water is in a dynamic equilibrium between the above components. Whether that means “water has the substantial form of both H2O and hydrogen” is a statement that no longer makes full sense to me. All I can say for certain is that, in Arist terms, it is starting to look more like an Arist mixture than an Arist pure substance. What I am saying is that Aristotles concepts no longer seem to be working as an integrated system to explain these sorts of modern insights into how compounds seem/act at the micro level.

If you take the opinion that both of them cooperatively cause the thing to be, so that together they are the substantial form, then you’re taking the view that we discussed earlier that you have one substantial form that virtually includes the other, which I believe is the Aristotelian view.

I am talking H2O and H+, NOT 2H2+O2+spark.

Aristotle has no concepts for handling the atomic forms/interaction ocurring in self-ionising compounds nor for the interpenetrating relationship between substances which covalent bonds represent.

That is because his system is not easily reconcilable with atomism.
And atomism is clearly what the consistent experiments of chemistry and nuclear physics tell us.
Aristotle has serious problems in providing us concepts by which to understand these sorts of substances and their substantial/accidental changes.

I don’t pretend to know what the answer IS.
But I do have much certainty as to what the answer CANNOT BE.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Well then, just what was it that God created? If he did not create substances, things, what in the world did he create? If it be answered that he created atoms, are we to suppose then that atoms are nothing? If they are something then they must have a nature, they must be a substance, right? If God created some other more rarefied " thing " first, was it not something, and being something would it not have nature and be a particular substance with that nature? Are the creatures God created and Adam named just piles of different collections of atoms, interacting in different ways?

And is not every living thing a substance with an identifiable nature? After all God called them creatures. Are not creatures identifiable substances with definite natures. Why do we suddenly draw a line when we come to the elements on the periodic table. Doesn’t each one of them have an identifiable nature, defined not just by its mass and number, but also by how it behaves and by how it reacts with other substances?

And when the nucleus of the uranium atom is exploded, unleashing vast amounts of energy, is that an accidental change or a substantial change?

When a man dies and he soul leaves the body, is that an accidental change or a substantial change?

And is oxidation an accidental or a substantial change?

And so on…

Substance and form, nature, essence, accidents, substantial change, accidental change cannot be dismissed so easily, can they?

Yes, we can throw out the whole Aristotelian - Thomistic Corpus, but then where are we, what are we left with? We are then left with mere words, words which stand for nothing because we have just thrown out substances and natures. And if they don’t exist and point to real beings which differ essentially from one another, then we have nothing. The world then becomes an illusion.

Linus2nd

Just because Man cannot understand the forest that doesn’t mean the trees, or even a few groves, cannot.
Excessive desire for understanding reminds me more of Prometheus than Christ.

 

[balto]

Balto while may may disagree on a number of points I highly respect your intuitions as to where the real rub of this sort of discussion actually is and your willingness to face the problematics head on.

Again you have done exactly so here.

Well thank you for that.

Not really, this is a question I intentionally do not pursue as I am not even sure it is a valid question to ask. At this stage all I reasonably observe is that nature IS multi-layered and substantial change (at least by Aristotle’s “definition” and examples) appears to be due to changes in one layer for one example and another layer for another example. In this regard the atomic/molecular models put forward by the current philosophy of Chemistry is more consistent in understanding substantial change. However it is less “everday intuitive” than Aristotle. Also, this model still seems to have trouble applying “same substance” (as per Arist) wrt isotopes - there is significant debate on this still.

Well I’ve agreed with you that reality is “multi-layered” and that there is still significant debate on what would count as a substance or not. I was attempting to provide clarification of what I think Aristotle means by “substance” because I think it is important to understand what he means by his terminology before we can decide whether he’s right or not. I suspect that you and I are still not interpreting that term the same way.

I also observe that these adjacent “matter/form” layers do “interact” a little as well.
I also observe that in living beings there is a functional unity at the highest lefvel (“the soul” if you wish) that constrains but does not annihilate the lower substances which it integrates into its unity. Such seems to be the case even with “pure substances” such as water.

I accept this, and I think this is probably the most important “take-home” message from Aristotle, that there is real higher functional unity as you call it and that higher levels of reality are not “nothing but” fundamental particles even if the lower levels of really are present in the higher levels. If you agree with that then I think we agree more than we disagree.

Remember that Arist also said this becausehe believed that two substances cannot be in the same place at the same time because he had a non-atomic model of nature. He (and the Thomists) thought a body outlined solid designate matter witjh no “room” for two different substances to interpenetrate.

Well yes, he did say that and I think that he’s right about it, more on that in the next post.

Aristotole also thought nature was stable and relatively unchanging. Again if the atomic model is half right this assumption is highly questionable. In fact many of those things Aristotle would have regarded as “pure substrances” (eg compounds) are in fact, at the micro level, a dynamic equlibrium of the compound and its component ions constantly disassociating and reassociating again. Hence water is not just the compound H20 - it also at the same time has very significant amounts of the ion H+ available.
This “mixture” has never been identified before … and Aristotle has no equiv concept to explain this sort of mixture. (Just as he has no concept by which to understand covalent bonds where elements penetrate each other to form new substances.)

Well if you want to define water not as “all the H2O molecules only” but as “the dynamic equilibrium between H2O, H+, and OH-” then you still are going to have difficulties because that “dynamic equilibrium” has the substantial form of water and the individual H+, OH-, and H2O natures are only present virtually as I said above.

 

[balto]

CONTINUED FROM ABOVE

I am a bit surprised that you are using the sort of circular “rationalism” that Linus uses all the time in his “logic”.

That is, you use a philosophic principle that I am calling into question (viz singularity of substantial form) to make a syllogism that attempts to deny my less-philosophic observations of nature which may well militates against your principle ( (viz singularity of substantial forms).

You are essentially trying to escape the Black Swan vortex I mentioned previously … by saying hydrogen cannot be present in water despite the experiments of chemists because to do so would imply the principle of the singularity of substantial form would be contradicted! That is at least as silly as what you suggest of my observations isn’t it .

Well I was a bit surprised to read this admittedly, but I think you are misunderstanding what I am attempting to say. First of all, I was using the word “you” in the generic sense and not referring to you specifically. I was thinking out loud about what denying the unicity of substantial form would entail. I was taking water to mean “only H2O” and saying that in that single H2O molecule there is only the substantial form of water and that the substantial form of hydrogen is not present. Why? Because substantial form is a principle that causes the thing “to be” in the first place, so how can there be two substantial forms? Everything would be caused to be twice: the hydrogen atom would get its natural existence from both waterness and hydrogen (and I am not making any claim about efficient causality before someone tries to tell me how water is formed chemically. I already understand that but am more interested in what makes water, water and not how it is brought into existence by other things). This consideration is still present even if you define water as the dynamic equilibrium as above: even the H+ and OH- molecules are “water” even if they have the forms of H+ and OH- virtually. If water is “only H2O” then it is a mixture of multiple substances, which I argued for earlier, but that doesn’t contradict what I just got through explaining here because there would not be more than one substantial form present in the same thing, since H2O and H+ would be different things.

Anyways I didn’t say this.
(a)I corrected you below if you recall. I said that water always contains substantial amounts of H2O and hydrogen at the same time…if you accept that H+ ions are validly the same substance as hydrogen. In fact I denied that “H” or “H2” is present in water. Your continued use of “H” (or “H2”) to mean “hydrogen” is somewhat clumsy and suggests you may not fully grasp my previous argument.

Well now I am a little confused because I’m failing to understand how using H to mean “hydrogen” is “clumsy” seeing as though H is the chemical symbol for hydrogen. Again, I was speaking of the H in an H2O molecule, not individual H+ ions. I happen to be in a biochemistry PhD program, so I think I understand the science well enough. But I thought we were having a discussion about how to fit that into an Aristotelian metaphysical framework (and I don’t claim to know how to do that exactly).

(b) I also said water is in a dynamic equilibrium between the above components. Whether that means “water has the substantial form of both H2O and hydrogen” is a statement that no longer makes full sense to me. All I can say for certain is that, in Arist terms, it is starting to look more like an Arist mixture than an Arist pure substance. What I am saying is that Aristotles concepts no longer seem to be working as an integrated system to explain these sorts of modern insights into how compounds seem/act at the micro level.

I’m also a little confused by this because earlier you said that water is not a mixture, which is strange because you kind of got me to start coming around to the dynamic equilibrium as being a better model for the substance.

Aristotle has no concepts for handling the atomic forms/interaction ocurring in self-ionising compounds nor for the interpenetrating relationship between substances which covalent bonds represent.

Well Aristotle has been dead for 2,600 years, and since necromancy is a mortal sin I guess we’ll never know what he thought about it! I doubt he was unaware of considerations like these though, even if he didn’t think they applied to inorganic substances. I’m sure he thought about the difficulty of when, after eating a bunch of lettuce, the lettuce ceases to have the substantial form of lettuce and becomes his substantial form.

That is because his system is not easily reconcilable with atomism.
And atomism is clearly what the consistent experiments of chemistry and nuclear physics tell us.

Well “atomism” is not simply a synonym for “atomic model”. It is the view that all of reality is really “nothing but” atoms, where “atom” is defined as the most fundamental particle/thing there is. Yes, Aristotle is decidedly against that view, probably intentionally due his familiarity with the ideas of Democritus and Leucippus, and probably still would be today. I don’t think that means he would have rejected the atomic model as underlying all physical substances, but I think he’d take issue with saying everything is “nothing but” atoms.

Anyway I’ve said all I really can about these issues and don’t really have anything more to add without more study on my part. You may have the last word if you wish. Thank you for your patience :tiphat:

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Well I was a bit surprised to read this admittedly, but I think you are misunderstanding what I am attempting to say. First of all, I was using the word “you” in the generic sense and not referring to you specifically. I was thinking out loud about what denying the unicity of substantial form would entail. I was taking water to mean “only H2O” and saying that in that single H2O molecule there is only the substantial form of water and that the substantial form of hydrogen is not present. Why? Because substantial form is a principle that causes the thing “to be” in the first place, so how can there be two substantial forms? Everything would be caused to be twice: the hydrogen atom would get its natural existence from both waterness and hydrogen (and I am not making any claim about efficient causality before someone tries to tell me how water is formed chemically. I already understand that but am more interested in what makes water, water and not how it is brought into existence by other things). This consideration is still present even if you define water as the dynamic equilibrium as above: even the H+ and OH- molecules are “water” even if they have the forms of H+ and OH- virtually. If water is “only H2O” then it is a mixture of multiple substances, which I argued for earlier, but that doesn’t contradict what I just got through explaining here because there would not be more than one substantial form present in the same thing, since H2O and H+ would be different things.

Well now I am a little confused because I’m failing to understand how using H to mean “hydrogen” is “clumsy” seeing as though H is the chemical symbol for hydrogen. Again, I was speaking of the H in an H2O molecule, not individual H+ ions. I happen to be in a biochemistry PhD program, so I think I understand the science well enough. But I thought we were having a discussion about how to fit that into an Aristotelian metaphysical framework (and I don’t claim to know how to do that exactly).

I’m also a little confused by this because earlier you said that water is not a mixture, which is strange because you kind of got me to start coming around to the dynamic equilibrium as being a better model for the substance.

Well Aristotle has been dead for 2,600 years, and since necromancy is a mortal sin I guess we’ll never know what he thought about it! I doubt he was unaware of considerations like these though, even if he didn’t think they applied to inorganic substances. I’m sure he thought about the difficulty of when, after eating a bunch of lettuce, the lettuce ceases to have the substantial form of lettuce and becomes his substantial form.

Well “atomism” is not simply a synonym for “atomic model”. It is the view that all of reality is really “nothing but” atoms, where “atom” is defined as the most fundamental particle/thing there is. Yes, Aristotle is decidedly against that view, probably intentionally due his familiarity with the ideas of Democritus and Leucippus, and probably still would be today. I don’t think that means he would have rejected the atomic model as underlying all physical substances, but I think he’d take issue with saying everything is “nothing but” atoms.

Anyway I’ve said all I really can about these issues and don’t really have anything more to add without more study on my part. You may have the last word if you wish. Thank you for your patience :tiphat:

Glad to see a PhD scientist studying Aristotle and Aquinas, we need more of that. I would like to recommend The Modeling of Nature by Fr. William A. Wallace O.P. ( look up his bio, it is impressive ) and The Quantum Enigma: Finding the Hidden Key by Wolfgang Smith, PhD, mathematics. They discuss many of the same issues we ( or at least you and Blue have been discussing ).

Here is a link to an interesting article by Fr. Wallace on Smith’s book. You will see that neither of them are light weights. You might say their intellects soar far above the Mensa line.

anthonyflood.com/wallacewolfgangsmith.htm

Linus2nd

 

[balto]

Glad to see a PhD scientist studying Aristotle and Aquinas, we need more of that. I would like to recommend The Modeling of Nature by Fr. William A. Wallace O.P. ( look up his bio, it is impressive ) and The Quantum Enigma: Finding the Hidden Key by Wolfgang Smith, PhD, mathematics. They discuss many of the same issues we ( or at least you and Blue have been discussing ).

Thank you for the book recommendations, I appreciate it! Somebody needs to put together a library of books on Thomistic philosophy of science/nature. I actually do have Fr. Wallace’s The Modeling of Nature and read through part of it but then switched to more spiritual reading for the Lenten season, but I intend to get back to it eventually. It was something I saw in the comments on one of Prof. Feser’s recent articles, along with this one which also looks interesting: The Way Towards Wisdom. I didn’t know about Wolfgang Smith’s book, but it sounds very interesting so I’m putting it on my reading list. Admittedly I don’t know too much about quantum mechanics and was interested in learning more, so this might be just what I was looking for. Incidentally one of my friends is trying to get into a PhD program in physics and he seems to be getting interested in Thomistic philosophy after some of our discussions, so maybe he can help me understand it. I also met another PhD student at a neighboring university last week that is also interested in Thomism, so there are a couple of us, but we exist

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Thank you for the book recommendations, I appreciate it! Somebody needs to put together a library of books on Thomistic philosophy of science/nature. I actually do have Fr. Wallace’s The Modeling of Nature and read through part of it but then switched to more spiritual reading for the Lenten season, but I intend to get back to it eventually. It was something I saw in the comments on one of Prof. Feser’s recent articles, along with this one which also looks interesting: The Way Towards Wisdom. I didn’t know about Wolfgang Smith’s book, but it sounds very interesting so I’m putting it on my reading list. Admittedly I don’t know too much about quantum mechanics and was interested in learning more, so this might be just what I was looking for. Incidentally one of my friends is trying to get into a PhD program in physics and he seems to be getting interested in Thomistic philosophy after some of our discussions, so maybe he can help me understand it. I also met another PhD student at a neighboring university last week that is also interested in Thomism, so there are a couple of us, but we exist

Maybe things are looking up Many dioceases are also experiencing a vocation boom. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is " moving the waters " once again.

Linus2bd.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Well thank you for that.

Well I’ve agreed with you that reality is “multi-layered” and that there is still significant debate on what would count as a substance or not. I was attempting to provide clarification of what I think Aristotle means by “substance” because I think it is important to understand what he means by his terminology before we can decide whether he’s right or not. I suspect that you and I are still not interpreting that term the same way.

I accept this, and I think this is probably the most important “take-home” message from Aristotle, that there is real higher functional unity as you call it and that higher levels of reality are not “nothing but” fundamental particles even if the lower levels of really are present in the higher levels. If you agree with that then I think we agree more than we disagree.

Well yes, he did say that and I think that he’s right about it, more on that in the next post.

Well if you want to define water not as “all the H2O molecules only” but as “the dynamic equilibrium between H2O, H+, and OH-” then you still are going to have difficulties because that “dynamic equilibrium” has the substantial form of water and the individual H+, OH-, and H2O natures are only present virtually as I said above.

Balto I am planning to respond but don’t have time at the moment.
There are some mutual confusions here…still room for more discussion once that is cleared up I think.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

…

I don’t know if you are still interested…

Originally Posted by Blue Horizon View Post
Not really, this is a question I intentionally do not pursue as I am not even sure it is a valid question to ask. At this stage all I reasonably observe is that nature IS multi-layered and substantial change (at least by Aristotle’s “definition” and examples) appears to be due to changes in one layer for one example and another layer for another example. In this regard the atomic/molecular models put forward by the current philosophy of Chemistry is more consistent in understanding substantial change. However it is less “everday intuitive” than Aristotle. Also, this model still seems to have trouble applying “same substance” (as per Arist) wrt isotopes - there is significant debate on this still.

Well I’ve agreed with you that reality is “multi-layered” and that there is still significant debate on what would count as a substance or not. I was attempting to provide clarification of what I think Aristotle means by “substance” because I think it is important to understand what he means by his terminology before we can decide whether he’s right or not. I suspect that you and I are still not interpreting that term the same way.

I have come to the conclusion that Aristotle in fact defines “substance” in at least 3 or 4 different ways depending on topic. I believe modern Physics has shown better than before that they are not in fact consistant with each other…and that even the definition he seems to use wrt just pure substances is weak because his principle that matter is infinitely divisible is mistaken.

Originally Posted by Blue Horizon View Post
Remember that Arist also said this becausehe believed that two substances cannot be in the same place at the same time because he had a non-atomic model of nature. He (and the Thomists) thought a body outlined solid designate matter witjh no “room” for two different substances to interpenetrate.

Well yes, he did say that and I think that he’s right about it, more on that in the next post.

As a professional in Chemistry I would be interested in your observations which lead you to say this…?

Originally Posted by Blue Horizon View Post
Aristotole also thought nature was stable and relatively unchanging. Again if the atomic model is half right this assumption is highly questionable. In fact many of those things Aristotle would have regarded as “pure substrances” (eg compounds) are in fact, at the micro level, a dynamic equlibrium of the compound and its component ions constantly disassociating and reassociating again. Hence water is not just the compound H20 - it also at the same time has very significant amounts of the ion H+ available.
This “mixture” has never been identified before … and Aristotle has no equiv concept to explain this sort of mixture. (Just as he has no concept by which to understand covalent bonds where elements penetrate each other to form new substances.)

Well if you want to define water not as “all the H2O molecules only” but as “the dynamic equilibrium between H2O, H+, and OH-” then you still are going to have difficulties because that “dynamic equilibrium” has the substantial form of water and the individual H+, OH-, and H2O natures are only present virtually as I said above.

I am saying that “water”, as understood in modern times, is probably not a pure substance at all by Aristotle’s understanding. It is more like an aggregate mixture of H20 molecules and various ions.

Yet even that is not quite the reality because there is a causal relationship between the parts of this “mixture” which makes it more than an aggregate yet not a single “substance”.

I do not quite understand why you say the ions are only present virtually. If there is a dynamic equilibrium then there is constant change. Change is the movement from potency to act. So ions (and water molecules) are both actually and potentially present in what we call “water”. Of course not the same particle at the same time - its a law of averages. And its the very nature of “water” to do so.

The same with metals… there is a huge sea of electrons with corresponding metal ions as well.
When two adjacent levels of material reality both change like this together it is very hard to make sense of Aristotles more simple macro analysis of everyday reality into allegedly readily identifiable “substantial change”, “accidental change”, substances, form/matter etc

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Continued…

Originally Posted by Blue Horizon View Post
Anyways I didn’t say this.
(a)I corrected you below if you recall. I said that water always contains substantial amounts of H2O and hydrogen at the same time…if you accept that H+ ions are validly the same substance as hydrogen. In fact I denied that “H” or “H2” is present in water. Your continued use of “H” (or “H2”) to mean “hydrogen” is somewhat clumsy and suggests you may not fully grasp my previous argument.

Well now I am a little confused because I’m failing to understand how using H to mean “hydrogen” is “clumsy” seeing as though H is the chemical symbol for hydrogen. Again, I was speaking of the H in an H2O molecule, not individual H+ ions. I happen to be in a biochemistry PhD program, so I think I understand the science well enough. But I thought we were having a discussion about how to fit that into an Aristotelian metaphysical framework (and I don’t claim to know how to do that exactly).

Its a pedantic point I admit - because I do know what you meant but it may suggest conceptual differences in our understanding of what we talk about.

To me, conceptually, “H”, “H+”, “H2” and “hydrogen” are all slightly different in meaning.

“Hydrogen” (the English word) is the parent concept, the universal, the base “form” or substance as it were. It is defined as an atom with a nucleus containing only one proton.

But as we are dealing in real world specifics and examples we do not deal with a universal…we deal with the way hydrogen appears in individuated form. It may be nascent hydrogen (H), it may be a more stable molecule of hydrogen (H2) or it may be as a hydrogen ion (H+).

All these instantiate the universal concept of the substance “hydrogen”.

So I say that “hydrogen” (the pure substance) is found in what we call “water” by reason of discovery of H+ (hydrogen ions).

However I do not believe nascent hydrogen (H) is to be found in water.

That is why I objected to your saying “H may be found in water”.
While I now understand you are thinking of the Periodic Table (ie the symbol) when you wrote it, it first looked like you meant “nascent hydrogen.”

If you only meant “H” as a symbol for the “substance hydrogen” then of course we are agreed. Unfortunately “H” can also mean “nascent hydrogen” so its an ambiguous usage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Horizon View Post
(b) I also said water is in a dynamic equilibrium between the above components. Whether that means “water has the substantial form of both H2O and hydrogen” is a statement that no longer makes full sense to me. All I can say for certain is that, in Arist terms, it is starting to look more like an Arist mixture than an Arist pure substance. What I am saying is that Aristotles concepts no longer seem to be working as an integrated system to explain these sorts of modern insights into how compounds seem/act at the micro level.

I’m also a little confused by this because earlier you said that water is not a mixture, which is strange because you kind of got me to start coming around to the dynamic equilibrium as being a better model for the substance.

Can you quote where I said that - I don’t think I should have said it if I did.
The trouble is Aristotle seems to use “mixture” in a variety of ways that are of extreme significance for a Chemist. Sometimes he means a loose aggregated mixture of two or more substances. Sometimes he seems to mean a compound composed of two initial constituents which after “mixing” (ie reaction) are infinitely divisible and are therefore become a pure substance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Horizon View Post
Aristotle has no concepts for handling the atomic forms/interaction ocurring in self-ionising compounds nor for the interpenetrating relationship between substances which covalent bonds represent.

Well Aristotle has been dead for 2,600 years, and since necromancy is a mortal sin I guess we’ll never know what he thought about it!

Not quite sure why you might think we don’t know. Its pretty clear to me when we look at Aristotle’s texts on the different types of “mixtures” that he never considered what we now know as the covalent bond model…where two different substances in fact have interpenetrating electron clouds and can share parts…and become a stable compound with qualities different from both constituents.

And we can see why he never went down this path…because he believes pure substances are infinitely divisible. Clearly covalent bond models of reality show us how a pure substance (eg a compound) is in fact not infinitely divisible. If we “cut” between the two nuclei of a compound then the compound breaks down into its constituent elemental substances. This cutting is effectively exactly what electrolysis or ionisation does.

So I am pretty confident Aristotle not only did not think of this type of “mixture” - he would have regarded it as impossible because it is an atomist model.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

CONTINUED…

Originally Posted by Blue Horizon View Post
That is because his system is not easily reconcilable with atomism.
And atomism is clearly what the consistent experiments of chemistry and nuclear physics tell us.

Well “atomism” is not simply a synonym for “atomic model”. It is the view that all of reality is really “nothing but” atoms, where “atom” is defined as the most fundamental particle/thing there is. Yes, Aristotle is decidedly against that view, probably intentionally due his familiarity with the ideas of Democritus and Leucippus, and probably still would be today. I don’t think that means he would have rejected the atomic model as underlying all physical substances, but I think he’d take issue with saying everything is “nothing but” atoms.

I am not saying atomism is at the “bottom” of the multi-layered view of reality that Science puts before us. But it certainly operates at the “chemical” layer (ie the atomic model) which best explains substantial change at the macro level as opposed to accidental change.

Personally it seems reality of course is still much deeper than atoms… it is somehow based on “nothingness of matter”. Do quarks actually have matter or extension when they stand still - or only when they move in the matter-less Higgs field?

I agree, the atomic model is real, but only a stepping stone to something stranger still.

 

[balto]

I don’t know if you are still interested…

Yes, we can continue this discussion, but I am a little busy today and tomorrow so I probably won’t be able to respond until later in the week if that’s okay.

 

[Aloysium]

:twocents:

I do science for a living.
What I deal with 100% of the time are people - individual and as socio-political organizations involved in funding and a hierarchy of honour which distinguishes its members.
In real life, outside this realm of ideas and speculations, science is simply an operating manual for matter.

This chair is a chair; pretty much every two-year-old can tell you that.
It is comprised of wood from trees, shaped and put together by persons with specific intents.
Understanding the nature of this chair can lead to reflections on pretty much everything in nature and beyond.
As a wooden chair, it can be considered for its functionality, beauty and composition.
If we restrict our thoughts to merely its material make-up, we can think of it as a collection of organic compounds, primarily carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. The biochemist can correct me on this.
These molecular and atomic substances can be intellectually “decomposed” into constituents to the point where, at a quantum level, things become absurd. Our normal categories of time, space, particle and wave, being and nonbeing no longer apply clearly and must be adapted to the particular interaction that is involved.
One does not get closer to some more basic truth cutting things up. In fact most of what is important is lost.
At a subatomic level, for example, there would be absolutely no difference between my sitting here before and after a life-ending myocardial infarction.

I’m not sure how this fits with the OP. Sorry if I am derailing the thread - just some comments related to some latest posts.

 

[Richca]

The problem is I don’t think the first mover in an essentially ordered series has to be pure act. For it seems to me that what is required is simply a first mover that is itself in act, that is moving all other movers (instrumental movers) in the series. So we do need a first mover that is moving every other mover in the series, and that first mover must be actual, but it doesn’t have to be pure act, i.e. it doesn’t have to not have any potency whatsoever. In fact, the way I see it, the first mover in such a series could very well be the product of an infinite series of accidentally ordered movers. It could be that every fundamental law of nature that allows anything in the physical universe to exist (in act) right now are themselves kept in act by an angel. That angel is NOT pure act, but has no passive potency other than that of ceasing to exist, for example. Such an angel was brought to existence by another angel, and that angel was brought to existence by another angel, and so on. The angels don’t depend on each other for their continued existence (much like a son doesn’t continually depend on his father, who begot him, to continue to exist, as Aquinas would grant). And since Aquinas accepted the possibility of an accidentally ordered series of movers/causes being infinite, I see no problems with that.

(By the way, English is not my first language, so excuse me if I made any bizarre grammatical errors in this text.)

Just a thought about the angels. You say “the angel is not pure act, but has no passive potency other than that of ceasing to exist.” Angels have other potencies besides that of ceasing to exist. Aquinas says that the angels receive fresh revelations from God (probably all the time) concerning their administrations of the material universe. This involves a change in their intellects which are moved by God. Angels also change places (our guardian angels follow us where ever we go). Changing places is a movement which requires the First Mover, God.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Angels also change places (our guardian angels follow us where ever we go). Changing places is a movement which requires the First Mover, God.

Tell us you are joking here !