How do we come to know things?

[lmelahn]

We are not born ‘tabula raza’/a blank slate., we are born with innate curiosity and the ability to differentiate. It is interesting that even within our mother’s womb we develop a ‘linguistic’ and even an ‘accent’ bias in favour of those around - particularly our mother. The brain/mind interface is in constant action from the moment it has developed within the womb enough to do so. It is even claimed we generally come pre-packaged with some ‘genetic memory’.

When we say we are born sicut tabula rasa, we just mean that our intellects do not “function” unless they have something to work on—some reality, outside the knower, that can be the object of knowledge. (“Born” here is just part of the expression; it means “when we come into existence,” not when we leave our mother’s womb, so it is entirely possible that the interactions that allow our intellect to function begin even before we are born.)

We may or may not have genetic memory, but that just would just enter into the sensory material that allows our intellects to function. (Our intellects are immaterial realities—they go beyond what is purely sensory.)

 

[lmelahn]

Now there are several senses in which a thing is said to be first; yet substance is first in every sense-(1) in definition, (2) in order of knowledge, (3) in time. For (3) of the other categories none can exist independently, but only substance. And (1) in definition also this is first; for in the definition of each term the definition of its substance must be present. And (2) we think we know each thing most fully, when we know what it is, e.g. what man is or what fire is, rather than when we know its quality, its quantity, or its place; since we know each of these predicates also, only when we know what the quantity or the quality is.

This is his (very schematic) demonstration that ousia is prior to accident in its very notion (Ross likes to translate logos as “definition,” but that is misleading), in the order of what we know, and ontologically. It is schematic, because the Metaphysics is basically a collection of Aristotle’s lecture notes.

And indeed the question which was raised of old and is raised now and always, and is always the subject of doubt, viz. what being is, is just the question, what is substance? For it is this that some assert to be one, [Parmenides and the Eleatics] others more than one[practically everyone else], and that some assert to be limited in number [The Pythagoreans and Empedocles], others unlimited [Anaxagoras and Democritus]. And so we also must consider chiefly and primarily and almost exclusively what that is which is in this sense.

In this passage, he considers all of his predecessors, not just Parmenides, as can be seen.

Somehow, Aristotle forgets to mention the sense in which Parmenides used the term “being”.

I don’t think Aristotle misrepresented Parmenides. Parmenides considered all reality one. Hence (in Aristotle’s conception of substance), there would be just one substance. (Parmenides did not use the word ousia in his writings, at least not in the fragments we have.)

So, now he only has to make his choice between a reduced number of options. And even though he knew that substance was said in many ways, he selectively uses the term to indicate the concrete individual.

Yes, but he has demonstrated why that usage is the most important one; the other meanings are all in reference to that one. Moreover, that notion of substance is by far the one best supported by common sense. Everyone has experience of trees, dogs, and rocks. No one doubts (unless he has studied philosophy ) that they are both definite and separate.

Therefore, everything is already set. What “must” substance be? It must “obviously” be something separate and definite (by the way, you will see that according to him “forms” are definite, not indefinite, which makes sense anyway).

The forms are definite (or more precisely, they give definition to the substance), but they do not stand by themselves; they are not “separate”.

Nevertheless, he mentions in the last paragraph that the question “What is substance?” Is always the subject of doubt. Did Aristotle doubt? Do aristotelians have any doubt about it?

I don’t think that he is saying he doesn’t have an answer. Here is the far better translation by Hugh Tredennick. (I have been checking it back with the original Greek, and the translation is pretty good, although he does stick the word “nature” in places where physis is not in the original, which can be confusing.)

Indeed, the question which was raised long ago, is still and always will be, and which always baffles us—“What is Being?”—is in other words “What is substance?” Some say that it is one; others, more than one; some, finite; others, infinite. And so for us too our chief and primary and practically our only concern is to investigate the nature of “being” in the sense of substance (1028b3-6).

Rather, he is framing the question that is going to guide his investigation. He is saying that the best way to answer the question “What is being (to on)” is to ask the question “What is substance,” because substance is being par excellence.

I have put in bold letters the sentence in which Aristotle says that substance is something underlying the “to walk”, the “to be healthy” and the “to sit”. My Spanish translation says that those determinations seem to be real just because they have a determined subject. To my taste, it sounds better. Just try to think on a “to walk” and the individual “underlying” it (I guess the “underlying” individual could be sitting himself while the “to walk” on “its surface” is walking). When I see this I profoundly regret not knowing Greek? I tend to think that the admired Aristotle was betrayed.

I commented on your other post.

 

[lmelahn]

…,And so one might even raise the question whether the words ‘to walk’, ‘to be healthy’, ‘to sit’ imply that each of these things is existent, and similarly in any other case of this sort; for none of them is either self subsistent or capable of being separated from substance, but rather, if anything, it is that which walks or sits or is healthy that is an existent thing. Now these are seen to be more real because there is something definite which underlies them (i.e. the substance or individual)

Again, Tredennick’s translation is much more faithful to Aristotle:

Hence one might raise the question whether the terms “to walk” and “to be well” and “to sit” signify each of these things as “being,” or not; and similarly in the case of any other such terms; for not one of them by nature has an independent existence or can be separated from its substance.

I think I made this point earlier, so Aristotle agrees with me .

Rather, if anything it is the thing which walks or sits or is well that is existent.

In other words, walking, sitting, and healthiness depend for their very being on the thing that is walking, sitting, or healthy. I find that claim rather unobjectionable.

The reason why these things are more truly existent is because their subject is something definite; i.e. the substance and the individual, which is clearly implied in a designation of this kind, since apart from it we cannot speak of “the good” or “sitting.” Clearly then it is by reason of the substance that each of the things referred to exists. Hence that which is primarily, not in a qualified sense but absolutely, will be substance.

I think that sums up his argument very well.

 

[lmelahn]

In Spanish, I found García Yerba’s translation online. I don’t see any major difference:

Por eso podría dudarse si «andar» y «estar sano» y «estar sentado» significan cada uno un ente, y lo mismo en cualquier otro caso semejante; pues ninguno de ellos tiene naturalmente existencia propia ni puede separarse de la substancia, sino que más bien, en todo caso, serán entes lo que anda y lo que está sentado y lo que está sano. Y éstos parecen más entes porque hay algo que les sirve de sujeto determinado (y esto es la substancia y el individuo), lo cual se manifiesta en tal categoría. Pues «bueno» o «sentado» no se dice sin esto. Es, pues, evidente que a causa de ésta es también cada una de aquellas cosas, de suerte que el Ente primero, y no un Ente con alguna determinación, sino el Ente absoluto, será la Substancia.

When we say that the substance “underlies” the accident, we mean it in the same way that the bronze “underlies” the shape of the statue. (To use Aristotle’s own analogy. The bronze is a substance; its shape is an accident.) So no, the “underlying” substance could not possibly be sitting while the accident is standing. The accident is the “sitting” itself that the man (the substance) is doing. The sitting itself does not sit; it is the man who sits.

 

[lmelahn]

I hesitate once again to intrude for fear that my comment is tangential to the main discussion, but I’m interested by the notion of whether the barking of the dog has ‘being’ in the same sense as the dog itself.

One can encounter barking without encountering the dog that generated the sound. One can encounter a dog without encountering the two dogs that generated this dog. Both things exist for a finite period of time and both can exist without the continuing existence of the thing(s) that generated it.

Although the above statements are true, I think they might not be considering the origin of the barking. To illustrate my point, consider that barking does not bark; only a dog barks. (Possibly other creatures can bark, too, but there is always something or someone doing the barking.) You cannot encounter barking without a subject. You might not see the subject, but the barking is just a much a true operation (action) of the dog as the visual effects that allow us to see it. When we hear “barking,” in reality, we are hearing a dog; just as when we see a bundle of colors (in the form of fur, feet, and floppy ears)—through the medium of electromagnetic radiation—in reality we are seeing a dog.

The difference is only that one is composed of physical matter and the other is a disturbance of physical matter of which it is not itself composed. I’m not sure that this matches Imelahn’s distinction between the two:

This is not really a discussion that I want to open up on this thread, but I was thinking of the barking in terms of the action produced by the dog. That action has effects on the surrounding air (in turn, these effects are actually accidents of the air). And it is through these effects (the rapid changes in air pressure that constitute sound waves) that we hear the barking.

But that action, the barking, depends strictly on the dog.

I don’t see how the barking is ‘in’ the dog. Once the sound has been generated it is an independent thing on its own.

I agree that barking—an action—is not “in” the dog exactly; that isn’t quite what I meant. (There are other kinds of accidents that are more obviously “in” the creature in question.) But it depends on the dog radically for its existence. It does not have an independent existence. You cannot pet the barking or take the barking for a walk.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . One can encounter barking without encountering the dog that generated the sound. . .

I believe it’s referred to as the fallacy of barking up the wrong tree, which goes like this:
All dogs bark.
All trees have bark.
All dogs are trees.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

All of the examples above are simply species that are members of a genus. And every one of them is a substance—every one of them exists separately, not inherent to a substance. Hence it is not surprising that gold and edenite are “minerals” in the same way. This is a classic case of what the Medievals called univocity.

However:

There is a big difference between subsisting (being independently, what the dog does) and inhering (being in something else, what the barking does). The dog clearly has more consistency than his barking. I can meet a dog in the street; I cannot meet barking (not without a dog to go with it).

I find no opposition between this part of your comment and what I said. I guess you just wanted to bring some information that you considered nice to be added. Though I don’t see its relevance, thank you anyway.

If—like Duns Scotus, Cajetan, and Kant—you consider “being” to be simply “existence,” the mere fact of being, then I could see why you think that. (Duns Scotus quite explicitly considered ens a univocal notion.)

But if you consider being (in this case, esse or to einai) a kind of act that admits of various degrees or intensities (as do Aristotle and Aquinas), then the analogy of being makes sense. Aristotle and Aquinas considered being (to on, ens) an analogical notion; for them being (to on, ens) is not a “genus” in the strict sense.

Aristotle analyzed the way “being,” “one,” and “good” (in his Nicomachean Ethics) were used in language. I think that was a reasonable starting point, since language is the external expression of how our intellects work. Language gets formed spontaneously, we don’t have to think about it, so it serves as a good “laboratory” for studying how our intellects work. From there, he could analyze how our intellects grasp reality.

Aristotle (even though he could be a little polemical) carefully considered the opinions of his predecessors. That also seems reasonable to me. When I read him, I do not find that he arbitrarily selects what his predecessors say, but in general offers very reasonable arguments for being in agreement or disagreement.

I described what everybody can read, Imelahn, and Aristotle did not consider the sense in which Parmenides used the term “being”. I tend to think that he forgot it.

Language…? Parmenides used to speak and write too, and so did Heraclitus! I am using language now, Nixbits too, and Aloysium, and Mount Carmel; Hume did, and Kant, Duns Scotus, Heidegger… Shall you analyze what we all say to grasp reality? We don’t grasp reality with our intellect, but with our hands.

“To know” is to establish relations. So, when you learn language it is not that you become able to “grasp” reality, but that you learn to establish certain relations. That is all you can get when you analyze the use of language.

If you distinguish between “the mere fact of being” and the “act of being”, it is by design, which proves that you, like anyone else, imitate reality. And an imitation can be more or less good, but it will always be an imitation; and not one that reality would impress on our minds (if it does, it does on Duns Scotus’ mind as well as on St. Thomas’), but one that we laboriously produce. So, you create in your mind “being”, “the act of being” and “the mere fact of being”, but what is all that?

 

[JuanFlorencio]

The imaginary concepts are the archai and the universals (ideas). There can be no arché (as the Ionians imagined it) because they did not consider the substantial form. There can be no Ideas (as Plato imagined them) because he thought of them as form without matter.

Real (material) things, on the other hand, are always composed of matter and form.

That does not prevent there being other kinds of composition, as in chemistry. But chemical composition is very different from the matter/form composition: each component in a chemical could stand by itself. Matter and form, no.

If matter and form are imaginary, the composite of them is no less imaginary.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Be careful of your translations. The phrase W.D. Ross translated “we must first sketch the nature of substance” is as follows:

which means

Note that the term “nature” (physis) does not appear there.

Note that Aristotle does indeed identify physis with ousia. Have a look at Book V, which is basically his philosophical dictionary (around 1015a14).

Those who said “traduttore, traditore”, said well.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

In Spanish, I found García Yerba’s translation online. I don’t see any major difference:

When we say that the substance “underlies” the accident, we mean it in the same way that the bronze “underlies” the shape of the statue. (To use Aristotle’s own analogy. The bronze is a substance; its shape is an accident.) So no, the “underlying” substance could not possibly be sitting while the accident is standing. The accident is the “sitting” itself that the man (the substance) is doing. The sitting itself does not sit; it is the man who sits.

There is a major difference indeed, Imelahn: in Spanish, to be “subject” is not to underlie something; and we never say that “the bronze underlies the shape of the statue” (El bronce está debajo de la forma de la estatua). We say something like “the bronze has the shape of…” ( el bronce tiene la forma de…). There are good and bad metaphors, and “the substance underlies the accidents” is a bad one.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

This is his (very schematic) demonstration that ousia is prior to accident in its very notion (Ross likes to translate logos as “definition,” but that is misleading), in the order of what we know, and ontologically. It is schematic, because the Metaphysics is basically a collection of Aristotle’s lecture notes.

In this passage, he considers all of his predecessors, not just Parmenides, as can be seen.

I don’t think Aristotle misrepresented Parmenides. Parmenides considered all reality one. Hence (in Aristotle’s conception of substance), there would be just one substance. (Parmenides did not use the word ousia in his writings, at least not in the fragments we have.)

Yes, but he has demonstrated why that usage is the most important one; the other meanings are all in reference to that one. Moreover, that notion of substance is by far the one best supported by common sense. Everyone has experience of trees, dogs, and rocks. No one doubts (unless he has studied philosophy ) that they are both definite and separate.

The forms are definite (or more precisely, they give definition to the substance), but they do not stand by themselves; they are not “separate”.

I don’t think that he is saying he doesn’t have an answer. Here is the far better translation by Hugh Tredennick. (I have been checking it back with the original Greek, and the translation is pretty good, although he does stick the word “nature” in places where physis is not in the original, which can be confusing.)

Rather, he is framing the question that is going to guide his investigation. He is saying that the best way to answer the question “What is being (to on)” is to ask the question “What is substance,” because substance is being par excellence.

I commented on your other post.

Just one little observation here, Imelahn: “to say” something is not equivalent to “to demonstrate” it; especially for Aristotle, ok?

 

[lmelahn]

I find no opposition between this part of your comment and what I said. I guess you just wanted to bring some information that you considered nice to be added. Though I don’t see its relevance, thank you anyway.

I described what everybody can read, Imelahn, and Aristotle did not consider the sense in which Parmenides used the term “being”. I tend to think that he forgot it.

He didn’t forget about it; he simply felt (like his teacher, Plato) that Parmenides’ concept of being (to einai) was insufficient. As we discussed, it so obviously failed to explain the diversity that there is in reality. (That is why the Sophists had a field day with it.)

Language…? Parmenides used to speak and write too, and so did Heraclitus! I am using language now, Nixbits too, and Aloysium, and Mount Carmel; Hume did, and Kant, Duns Scotus, Heidegger… Shall you analyze what we all say to grasp reality? We don’t grasp reality with our intellect, but with our hands.

Parmenides did not (so far as we know) do a systematic analysis of language. Kant and Heidegger did do so. (Well, I am not sure that anything Heidegger wrote can really be characterized as “systematic,” but that is another story. But he analyzed language philosophically.) That is different from simply using language in speech and writing (just as studying intellection philosophically is different from our everyday use of the intellect).

Using language as a methodological starting point seems to be standard practice in philosophy. The use that philosophers make of language must then be examined. I think that Kant and Heidegger suffer from a couple of presuppositions that end up torpedoing their whole system (topic for another thread!); I find that Aristotle’s is mostly reasonable, or at least salvageable.

“To know” is to establish relations. So, when you learn language it is not that you become able to “grasp” reality, but that you learn to establish certain relations. That is all you can get when you analyze the use of language.

I have stated my reasons why I think that knowledge cannot be merely the establishing of relations. The relations exist in reality, prior to us. Our knowledge is first brought to bear on the things we encounter in the world (the substances or essences, if you wish to use Aristotle’s terminology), and from them we discover the relationships between them.

In some fields, relations are truly constructed (e.g., in advanced mathematics and to some degree in physics, where we use models that greatly simplify reality).

If you distinguish between “the mere fact of being” and the “act of being”, it is by design, which proves that you, like anyone else, imitate reality. And an imitation can be more or less good, but it will always be an imitation; and not one that reality would impress on our minds (if it does, it does on Duns Scotus’ mind as well as on St. Thomas’), but one that we laboriously produce. So, you create in your mind “being”, “the act of being” and “the mere fact of being”, but what is all that?

Like other relationships, the analogy of being is discovered, not invented.

 

[lmelahn]

If matter and form are imaginary, the composite of them is no less imaginary.

It is not matter that is imaginary, it is the formless arché that is imaginary. Likewise, it is not form that is imaginary, but Plato’s matterless forms (ideas).

There are real material substances—oranges, bacteria, giraffes, stars, elemental nitrogen (e.g., in the air)—and all of them have real matter and real form.

 

[lmelahn]

There is a major difference indeed, Imelahn: in Spanish, to be “subject” is not to underlie something; and we never say that “the bronze underlies the shape of the statue” (El bronce está debajo de la forma de la estatua). We say something like “the bronze has the shape of…” ( el bronce tiene la forma de…). There are good and bad metaphors, and “the substance underlies the accidents” is a bad one.

Etymologically “subject” (Latin: subiectum, Aristotle’s Greek: to hypokeimenon) means “that which lies under.” Doesn’t Spanish have the verb subyacer? That would be the etymological equivalent.

(I realize that in normal language you would not say “debajo de la forma subyace el bronce,” but this is philosophical language with a technical meaning.)

That is certainly what Aristotle meant by “subject” (in this case, that is the word translated “sujeto” by García Yerba).

To “underly” should not be taken too crassly, however. The idea is the following: take our dog, for example. It is clearly one thing, and yet it has associated with it a number of characteristics or properties: it has a size, a weight, a shape, a variety of colors, sensory faculties, digestive faculties, and so on; moreover, it performs all sorts of actions.

Nevertheless, despite that plurality, the dog is undeniably one and whole. Unless we are going to be atomistic (i.e., we hold that each “accident” is an independent reality), those properties must, so to speak, make their home (in technical language, they “inhere”) in some unique principle: Aristotle called it the hypokeimenon, literally, that which lies under (from hypo, “under”; and keimai, “to lie”).

The hypokeimenon is just substance, or essence, in the second sense.

 

[lmelahn]

Just one little observation here, Imelahn: “to say” something is not equivalent to “to demonstrate” it; especially for Aristotle, ok?

I agree, but Aristotle does do a demonstration. Whether you agree with him is another story. He shows that (1) the very notion of substance implies that it is prior to accident; (2) in fact, we know (whole) substance before we know the accidents; and (3) substance is in fact ontologically prior to accident (“chronologically” prior in his lingo). He does not just state these matter-of-factly. He gives solid arguments there in Book VII, a little later on.

One of the difficulties is that, since we are speaking about the most fundamental realities, oftentimes a proof, such as we have in mathematics, is impossible.

I cannot prove to you (in the same way that I can prove the Pythagorean Theorem) that material substances are the easiest things to know; the best I can do is recognize it. Logical arguments have to begin with some self-evident truths; otherwise, they were be empty and strictly formal. But there is nothing wrong with a proof by recognition, provided whatever is proven that way is evident enough.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

I agree, but Aristotle does do a demonstration. Whether you agree with him is another story. He shows that (1) the very notion of substance implies that it is prior to accident; (2) in fact, we know (whole) substance before we know the accidents; and (3) substance is in fact ontologically prior to accident (“chronologically” prior in his lingo). He does not just state these matter-of-factly. He gives solid arguments there in Book VII, a little later on.

One of the difficulties is that, since we are speaking about the most fundamental realities, oftentimes a proof, such as we have in mathematics, is impossible.

I cannot prove to you (in the same way that I can prove the Pythagorean Theorem) that material substances are the easiest things to know; the best I can do is recognize it. Logical arguments have to begin with some self-evident truths; otherwise, they were be empty and strictly formal. But there is nothing wrong with a proof by recognition, provided whatever is proven that way is evident enough.

If Aristotle offered a demonstration in the mentioned fragment, the best way you have to show it is by establishing the structure of his argument. Please do it, Imelahn.

Honestly, what I read in your comment above (first paragraph) is this:

“Aristotle defines “substance” and “accidents” in such a way that substance becomes ontologically prior to accidents. I strongly desire that everybody firmly believes that substances are known before accidents.”

When dealing with fundamental realities, the history of philosophy shows us that divergent discourses have arisen. You seem to insist that we discover in reality the systems of relations that are expressed in those divergent discourses. On the contrary, I affirm that we establish them as imitations of the interactions in which we participate, directly and indirectly. I can explain why those systems of relations are simultaneously powerful and weak. You can’t (based on your idea that we discover those relations).

Certainly, concerning fundamental realities no demonstration is possible, because any demonstration requires premises, and no premise is possible for fundamental realities. As for proofs of recognition, they “proof” nothing to those that spontaneously develop adverse discourses.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Etymologically “subject” (Latin: subiectum, Aristotle’s Greek: to hypokeimenon) means “that which lies under.” Doesn’t Spanish have the verb subyacer? That would be the etymological equivalent.

(I realize that in normal language you would not say “debajo de la forma subyace el bronce,” but this is philosophical language with a technical meaning.)

That is certainly what Aristotle meant by “subject” (in this case, that is the word translated “sujeto” by García Yerba).

To “underly” should not be taken too crassly, however. The idea is the following: take our dog, for example. It is clearly one thing, and yet it has associated with it a number of characteristics or properties: it has a size, a weight, a shape, a variety of colors, sensory faculties, digestive faculties, and so on; moreover, it performs all sorts of actions.

Nevertheless, despite that plurality, the dog is undeniably one and whole. Unless we are going to be atomistic (i.e., we hold that each “accident” is an independent reality), those properties must, so to speak, make their home (in technical language, they “inhere”) in some unique principle: Aristotle called it the hypokeimenon, literally, that which lies under (from hypo, “under”; and keimai, “to lie”).

The hypokeimenon is just substance, or essence, in the second sense.

For the study of “relations” it is of great interest to investigate how a common term becomes technical. One feels the necessity of designing those terms to gain in precision. As far as possible, this would imply the avoidance of terms that have multiple meanings (we should limit them); or the selection of common terms to express notions that are quite different from the common ones (in those cases I deem it better to look for another word or to use a circumlocution).

I have no objection to what you say about the unity of the dog (that you propose as an example): we deal with it as a unit in our daily life. Imitating aristotelians I would say that interactions are principles of unity.

In Spanish we do have the words “subyacer” and “sujeto”, but I guess the spontaneous development of our language has dissipated any relation that they could have had in the beginning. We were fortunate!

 

[JuanFlorencio]

It is not matter that is imaginary, it is the formless arché that is imaginary. Likewise, it is not form that is imaginary, but Plato’s matterless forms (ideas).

There are real material substances—oranges, bacteria, giraffes, stars, elemental nitrogen (e.g., in the air)—and all of them have real matter and real form.

There are oranges, bacteria, giraffes, stars, molecular nitrogen in the air, and Aristotle decided to call them “substances”.

 

[StrawberryJam]

We come to know things by exploring our natural world. This is how we can know things that are helpful to us in understanding our place in it, and how we can make a difference in it.

We understand things as we investigate. We have to question things in order to do that.
We have the scientific method as a way to do this.

I am not sure how it has failed us to this point.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Parmenides did not (so far as we know) do a systematic analysis of language. Kant and Heidegger did do so. (Well, I am not sure that anything Heidegger wrote can really be characterized as “systematic,” but that is another story. But he analyzed language philosophically.) That is different from simply using language in speech and writing (just as studying intellection philosophically is different from our everyday use of the intellect).

Using language as a methodological starting point seems to be standard practice in philosophy. The use that philosophers make of language must then be examined. I think that Kant and Heidegger suffer from a couple of presuppositions that end up torpedoing their whole system (topic for another thread!); I find that Aristotle’s is mostly reasonable, or at least salvageable.

Imelahn, you said that from the analysis of language it is possible to analyze how our intellects grasp reality. Perhaps all this time I have been misinterpreting you, but I have understood that you say that any human being “grasps” reality, not only philosophers (what is special about philosophers anyway?). At any rate, even in that case, it should not be necessary that Parmenides had done a “philosophical analysis” of language for you to see how his intellect “grasped” reality (Parmenides, or Marx, or Sartre, Heidegger, Comte, or any other philosopher…). Or do you say now that only those philosophers that do a philosophical analysis of language (the language used by other philosophers who performed a philosophical analysis of the language of other philosophers that…) grasp reality?