How do we come to know things?

[Linusthe2nd]

…[snip]…

I like your idea of substance as an enérgeia. That is the endpoint of Aristotle’s reasoning process: substance as to ti en einai. Substance is the enérgeia that gives, not just order, but being (to einai) to the phenomena that we encounter.

I have to disagree with you two here.

I don’t see how ene’rgeia can be identified with substance in any way. And I don’t see how it can give being. It is form which gives being to substance.

And I agree that substance as enérgeia is a much better understanding of substance (understood as a co-principle with accident) than “subject.” Even though I don’t think we can entirely do away with it: I mean, substance as co-principle is hidden from view, right?

Again, I don’t see how substance can be identified as ene’rgeia. I certainly would not think of getting rid of the concept of substance.

I would be interested in your thoughts about the following example:

Have you even seen Michelangelo’s David in person? I am sure that you that it is a marble statue of David, portrayed just after having flung the stone at Goliath.

OK. Now the figure that is carved in the marble: what is its status? It is substance or accident? Just an accident: the quality that is called “figure.”

The marble is the substance. The figure is an accident. And where is the [ener’rgeia*, if there is such a thing?. .

What is the substance, then? The marble. The marble is the “subject” in which the figure can inhere. You see, it is not a crass “underlying,” the way Thales thought water underlay everything. It is simply the fact that an accident (characteristic or property) has to be an accident of something. There could be no figure of David without some “stuff” (marble or bronze or what have you) to work with.

But I think the substance goes even deeper than marble, The substance or nature of marble is the underlying matter - form structure which makes the marble both to be and to be marble. What you see are the accidents of marble.

Can you see human nature ( the substance of man )? No. You see the external reality, the manifestation, the accidents of that substance, that human nature. You see the individual person.

I think it is much better to stick to the terms as Aristotle/Thomas used them and explain any nuances in specific cases rather than wander off into new terminology or to manufacture a new philosophy. Aristotlelian/Thomistic philosophy may be difficult for moderns to understand, but few if any have been successful at manufacturing a new philosophy. It is better to stick with what is tried and true.

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Before we get too much further along, I can’t remember if I mentioned this already, but from the perspective of Aquinas (which I am fundamentally in agreement with), discursive reason—the act that composes judgments into new judgments—is different from the act of composing-or-dividing (the composition of concepts into judgments).

Hence, the “intellect” is the faculty that makes concepts and judgments; but our ability to reason is distinct, and it is properly called ratiocinium.

What complicates matters is that authors frequently use “reason” to mean intellection in general (whether judgment or reasoning). In this case, Lucretius almost certainly means “reason” in this more general sense.

This is not a work of Aristotle that I have read. However, I can tell you that a common critique that Aristotle levels at his predecessors is that they simply “conjecture” things without providing any basis for their claims. This paragraph seems to go along these same lines.

Did you ever wonder how we know that every phenomenon has an explanation? (Or, more generally: that every effect has a cause?) That is, of course, true, but based on what?

I agree that “seeing” (a metaphor for “knowing”) that which transcends direct observation requires knowledge of causes. (It also requires the use of reason—specifically in the form of analogy.)

I should point out that Aristotle, at least, does not deny that there can be “empty space” between things. He merely objects to reifying the “vacuum,” as if there is an imperceptible “ether” between things. But that is for another thread.

Well, on that account, we could just as easily accuse the early chemists of “seeing” phlogiston, or early physicists of “seeing” the luminiferous ether. Those are simply superseded theories. If Lucretius’ theory was incorrect, then his reasoning was incorrect, just like the proponents of phlogiston and ether.

(Democritus’ and the Atomists’ theory was quite a bit different from modern day atomic theory, needless to say. Modern atomic theory is quite compatible with hylomorphism: atoms have matter, form, and accidents, just like other substances, or—as is more common—just like the other constitutive parts of substances.)

I didn’t follow you here. How can you make something real with your imagination? Or with any cognitive faculty, for that matter?

Even without considering every aspect of the situation, true reasoning is possible, provided we don’t overstep its boundaries. What is certain is certain; what is only conjectural must remain conjectural. The Atomists’ mistake was, among other things, to tout a highly conjectural as if it were established truth.

Continued…

Effectively, not everybody has thought in aristotelian terms. That makes things complicated for aristotelians. Also, not everybody has thought in nietzschean terms. That makes things complicated for nietzscheans. And so on. What can we do?..

I had no intention to criticize or accuse someone in my post, but to describe a common interpretation of our intellectual activity and, by contrast, to expose what this activity is all about (not all really, but a small part which is relevant to me at this moment). Consider how our interpretations of reality (of texts too) are commonly based on the “data” (or documents) which are available at a given moment. Phenomena (or texts) have been explained that way. It is not strange though to find contemporary explanations which are quite different from each other in every epoch of our intellectual history. And when years later new phenomena (or documents) are discovered, those interpretations are modified or abandoned and replaced by others. The argument has been that the old interpretations don’t explain the expanded reality (or the new texts). “Reality transforms in front of us”.

Of course we don’t make “real” things with our imagination (though the imaginary has certain reality). I was speaking figuratively. Le Verrier performs his calculations and says that there must be a celestial body of such and such mass and which must be located at X position such or such day of the year. There is nothing. But Le Verrier needs it to explain the aberration in Mercury’s orbit. So, I say “he puts that planet there with his imagination”.

We can always presume that our reasoning remains within its boundaries; but we don’t know the boundaries with certainty. So, what we consider certain is not absolutely certain, but a conjecture, as you say. However, our certitude provides us (as a collectivity) with the impetus to discover the new information that could improve our theories, and with the necessary resistance to force others to be rigorous when they propose something different.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Effectively, not everybody has thought in aristotelian terms. That makes things complicated for aristotelians. Also, not everybody has thought in nietzschean terms. That makes things complicated for nietzscheans. And so on. What can we do?..

I had no intention to criticize or accuse someone in my post, but to describe a common interpretation of our intellectual activity and, by contrast, to expose what this activity is all about (not all really, but a small part which is relevant to me at this moment). Consider how our interpretations of reality (of texts too) are commonly based on the “data” (or documents) which are available at a given moment. Phenomena (or texts) have been explained that way. It is not strange though to find contemporary explanations which are quite different from each other in every epoch of our intellectual history. And when years later new phenomena (or documents) are discovered, those interpretations are modified or abandoned and replaced by others. The argument has been that the old interpretations don’t explain the expanded reality (or the new texts). “Reality transforms in front of us”.

Of course we don’t make “real” things with our imagination (though the imaginary has certain reality). I was speaking figuratively. Le Verrier performs his calculations and says that there must be a celestial body of such and such mass and which must be located at X position such or such day of the year. There is nothing. But Le Verrier needs it to explain the aberration in Mercury’s orbit. So, I say “he puts that planet there with his imagination”.

We can always presume that our reasoning remains within its boundaries; but we don’t know the boundaries with certainty. So, what we consider certain is not absolutely certain, but a conjecture, as you say. However, our certitude provides us (as a collectivity) with the impetus to discover the new information that could improve our theories, and with the necessary resistance to force others to be rigorous when they propose something different.

What you say here is perfectly true. However, A/T philosophy was never intended as anything other than a guide in the search for truth. And it is the core principles, well defined by A & T which serve as our guide, which give us our basic tools. And of course it recognizes that science has its own objects of study which are not those of philosophy and one should not hinder the other. One does not expect to explain science in philosophical terms and visa versa. There is certainly room for both in the search for truth. Nor should one claim the other is without value simply because the way they study being is different. I think much of the foregoing discussion has been at cross purposes because the object and formality of each science has been neglected. Each science should look for the truth it finds, both in itself and in the other and give it the respect it deserves…

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

I would be interested in your thoughts about the following example:

Have you even seen Michelangelo’s David in person? I am sure that you that it is a marble statue of David, portrayed just after having flung the stone at Goliath.

OK. Now the figure that is carved in the marble: what is its status? It is substance or accident? Just an accident: the quality that is called “figure.”

What is the substance, then? The marble. The marble is the “subject” in which the figure can inhere. You see, it is not a crass “underlying,” the way Thales thought water underlay everything. It is simply the fact that an accident (characteristic or property) has to be an accident of something. There could be no figure of David without some “stuff” (marble or bronze or what have you) to work with.

Why would the figure of David be an accident? Because the marble doesn’t necessarily have to have that specific form. It would be a crime, but you could use it to produce something else. But it is accidental too that the “David” was made in marble. Michelangelo could have used some other material instead of it to represent David. And if Michelangelo’s intention would have been to represent, for example, “Dominion”, and not precisely David, it would have been accidental the election of David, because Michelangelo could have chosen another personage. “Dominion” and not David’s figure, nor the marble, would have been the “substance” in that case, and metaphorically it would be underlying (or behind) the representation, only visible to our reason’s eyes . As you can see, I am using the term “accident” to mean something that doesn’t need to be the way it actually is. It is the same sense in which I would interpret the other aristotelian accidents.

 

[lmelahn]

I have to disagree with you two here.

I don’t see how ene’rgeia can be identified with substance in any way. And I don’t see how it can give being. It is form which gives being to substance.

I am not identifying enérgeia (a.k.a “act”) with substance. It is just that substance is a kind of act. Obviously, the substance does not give being to itself; but it does give being to its accidents (at least its proper accidents—we can also receive accidents from outside, like when we warm up by a fire, or when God gives us sanctifying grace).

Substance is not, however, the original act (and neither is the substantial form). The original enérgeia is the act of being.

Again, I don’t see how substance can be identified as ene’rgeia. I certainly would not think of getting rid of the concept of substance.

Neither do I, on either count.

The marble is the substance. The figure is an accident. And where is the [ener’rgeia*, if there is such a thing?. .

Substance is enérgeia (act) and accident is entelécheia (perfection). Both are kinds of acts, in different respects.

But I think the substance

goes even deeper than marble, The substance or nature of marble is the underlying matter - form structure which makes the marble both to be and to be marble. What you see are the accidents of marble.

I think it is better to say, we see the marble thanks to its accidents.

Can you see human nature ( the substance of man )? No.

Well, for one thing, I think that “human nature,” as the term is usually employed, is an abstract notion. (Like when we say that human nature does not change.) So I would not expect to see abstract human nature directly as a separately entity—that is the error that Plato made, by reifying abstract notions into Ideas.

But “substance,” as Aquinas and Aristotle generally use the term, refers primarily to concrete individuals: to the supposit or hypostasis. In that sense, you, JuanFlorencio, and I are all human substances (if we can use that expression).

You see the external reality, the manifestation, the accidents

of that substance, that human nature. You see the individual person.

But the person is a substance: naturæ rationalis individua substantia, an expression from Boethius that Aquinas very much accepts.

The substance can also be considered as the seat or origin of the accidents. In that sense, it is subiectum. In that sense, it can be considered a kind of “secondary matter” (to use Aristotle’s expression).

In that very precise sense, the marble is the substance (the secondary matter), and the figure carved in it is one of its accidental forms.

think it is much better to stick to the terms as Aristotle/Thomas used them and explain any nuances in specific cases rather than wander off into new terminology or to manufacture a new philosophy.

I wholeheartedly agree!

Aristotlelian/Thomistic philosophy may be difficult for moderns to understand, but few if any have been successful at manufacturing a new philosophy. It is better to stick with what is tried and true.

Linus2nd

I do think it is important to see how Thomistic terminology can be related to Modern and Postmodern philosophy. Otherwise we create an island of Thomism that is inaccessible to anyone else. (I am not saying you are doing that —just an observation in general.)

 

[lmelahn]

If I understood you correctly, Louis, what you say above is very acute, and challenging. I will comment on this, but first let me clarify something:

The interaction that I was speaking about takes place between Uranus (or Saturn, or Jupiter) and Neptune. As Father Melahn pointed out, it was noticed as an aberration of Uranus’ orbit. I added that only a “theoretical mind” that had developed certain expectations (about the form of the orbit) could have observed it. We don’t participate on that specific interaction (the one that influences Uranus’ orbit). Our complex observation of the orbit does not produce its aberration.

Now, the object of my example was to respond to Father Melahn’s request

As I have said, what was observed first was this interaction (the “anomalous” movement); and only some weeks later Galle observed Neptune, the “cause” of the aberration, following Le Verrier’s instructions. So, this is the example that Father Melahn had requested.

I would like to add something else, because it could help to understand the significance of my example: Le Verrier knew also that Mercury’s orbit too was “anomalous”. He repeated his procedure to determine the location of another planet which interacting with Mercury produced the aberration. Once he communicated his results, the astronomers were looking for the unknown celestial body, but they didn’t find it. Decades later, Einstein provided an explanation of the phenomenon with his General Theory of Relativity, and in the explanation there was no need of another planet.

Examples like this give us the opportunity to revise our theories about how we know material things. But each one decides if he is willing to do it or not.

Now, about the detachment…

Your words are a challenge to me because they remind me how I arrived to the specific use I give to the words “relation” and “interaction”; and it is a long story of theoretical difficulties which has not ended. I cannot say it shortly. Everybody can be misunderstood, and I am aware that in general I will suffer the same destiny here, but anyway let me offer you some hints (if what you say is what I have understood, I think you will find them meaningful). As a kind of background, please have in mind our singular ability to project our past experiences and our future possibilities into our present.

• We perceive pluralities and heterogeneities.
• Our memory allows us to “perceive” change.
• We look for references.
• We compare.
• We bring past into the present.
• We establish relations between distant objects.
• We find patterns.
• We are affected by change.
• We change.
• We become sophisticated.
• Our perception of reality becomes sophisticated.
• We perceive meanings.
• Different levels of sophistication allow the perception of different meanings.
• Reality becomes multifaceted.
• We establish relations between patterns.
• We wish certain changes and are afraid of others.
• We predict certain changes and sometimes we are successful in our predictions.
• We bring our future possibilities into the present.
• We plan.
• Imagining or thinking change and performing it follow different procedures (relation and interaction).
• We bring certain things together and separate others following certain planned procedures.
• We promote certain changes and inhibit others.
• We are submerged into a universal ocean of change.
• Change is overwhelming…

I will stop here. In those cases in which you take part on an interaction you might be aware of the effect on you (put your hand close to the fire -but not so close, you know), or you might be aware of the change on the object with which you are interacting (try to sculpt a piece of wood), or you might be thinking on something else (like when I take my daily bath). When you are simply aware of the interaction you remain in that realm; but when you think of it, you introduce the realm of relations. In that very moment you are imitating the interaction. That is the moment of detachment; and I like the word you have used, because the transit from interaction to relation really resembles a detachment: trying to “capture” reality with our mind, we become suddenly separated from it.

By the way, I have been enjoying this conversation a lot.

Just a question: have you ever read, either entirely or in part, Aquinas’ De veritate? I mention this, because what you are saying here has quite a bit of affinity (in my opinion) with what he says in Question 1, especially the corpus of Article 1.

I think Aquinas would add a couple of things to your list, especially at the beginning (especially the idea that what the intellect first perceives is being, or ens), but you might still find it interesting.

 

[lmelahn]

Effectively, not everybody has thought in aristotelian terms. That makes things complicated for aristotelians. Also, not everybody has thought in nietzschean terms. That makes things complicated for nietzscheans. And so on. What can we do?..

I had no intention to criticize or accuse someone in my post, but to describe a common interpretation of our intellectual activity and, by contrast, to expose what this activity is all about (not all really, but a small part which is relevant to me at this moment). Consider how our interpretations of reality (of texts too) are commonly based on the “data” (or documents) which are available at a given moment. Phenomena (or texts) have been explained that way. It is not strange though to find contemporary explanations which are quite different from each other in every epoch of our intellectual history. And when years later new phenomena (or documents) are discovered, those interpretations are modified or abandoned and replaced by others. The argument has been that the old interpretations don’t explain the expanded reality (or the new texts). “Reality transforms in front of us”.

Of course we don’t make “real” things with our imagination (though the imaginary has certain reality). I was speaking figuratively. Le Verrier performs his calculations and says that there must be a celestial body of such and such mass and which must be located at X position such or such day of the year. There is nothing. But Le Verrier needs it to explain the aberration in Mercury’s orbit. So, I say “he puts that planet there with his imagination”.

OK, now I understood what you meant.

We can always presume that our reasoning remains within its boundaries; but we don’t know the boundaries with certainty. So, what we consider certain is not absolutely certain, but a conjecture, as you say. However, our certitude provides us (as a collectivity) with the impetus to discover the new information that could improve our theories, and with the necessary resistance to force others to be rigorous when they propose something different.

I think I am in substantial agreement with what you are saying.

I do think we need to keep in mind that different kinds of knowledge permit different degrees of certitude.

Disciplines like logic and mathematics have an extremely high degree of formal certitude. On the other hand, the natural sciences always have an element of conjecture—they are by nature provisional, to a greater or lesser degree.

But of course, even mathematics is only as certain, at the end of the day, as its postulates. (The classic example of this is advent of non-Euclidean geometries: is the “world” Euclidean, hyperbolic, or elliptical? There is no way—at least no purely mathematical way—to “prove” that any one of these systems is the “correct” one.)

If that is true even of mathematics, then it is all the more true of the natural sciences, and even more true of the human sciences (history, etc.). (If you are familiar with Biblical criticism, you will soon see that it often degenerates into a tide of unfounded hypotheses.)

It does not seem strange to me, therefore, that Le Verrier should have hypothesized the existence of a planet causing aberrations in Mercury’s orbit. Nor that the discovery of new documents sometimes makes us revise our views of history.

So is there anything that we can be absolutely sure of? There has to be something; otherwise knowledge would be impossible. It would even be impossible for us to recognize the formal certainty of logic and mathematics.

Descartes thought he found that something in the cogito. But (in my opinion) Descartes forgot that it is much easier for us to know outside things than for us to be aware of ourselves. We can say “I think” precisely because we are thinking of something (as Kant, of all people, understood very well!) or someone (as Buber and Lévinas understood well).

But what is easier to know must be the foundation (in the logical order) of what is more difficult to know, not the other way around.

If I understood you correctly (based on Post 293), you seem to be suggesting that plurality and heterogeneity are the first thing we know, or anyway that these are at the top of the list.

I would say that they are near the top of the list, but that plurality presupposes unity, and heterogeneity presupposes homogeneity. In my opinion, that is illustrated by Le Verrier’s calculations: he could not have discovered an aberration without first having known the universal pattern that Uranus was breaking. If “everything” is an aberration, then in reality, there is no aberration.

 

[lmelahn]

Why would the figure of David be an accident? Because the marble doesn’t necessarily have to have that specific form.

That is not what makes an accident an accident. The marble of the statue is light grey in color. That is an accident, too, but it is a proper accident—a “property” in the strict sense of that word.

Also, the marble needs to have some figure. It need not be David; it need not be anyone in particular. It could just be a rectangular prism, or a cylinder, or an amorphous blob. But some figure, it must have.

It would be a crime, but you could use it to produce something else. But it is accidental too that the “David” was made in marble. Michelangelo could have used some other material instead of it to represent David. And if Michelangelo’s intention would have been to represent, for example, “Dominion”, and not precisely David, it would have been accidental the election of David, because Michelangelo could have chosen another personage. “Dominion” and not David’s figure, nor the marble, would have been the “substance” in that case, and metaphorically it would be underlying (or behind) the representation, only visible to our reason’s eyes . As you can see, I am using the term “accident” to mean something that doesn’t need to be the way it actually is. It is the same sense in which I would interpret the other aristotelian accidents.

That is definitely not Aristotle’s use of the term symbebekós (accident) when he refers to beings—the “predicamental” accident, in technical terms. It can refer to any being (to on) that is dependent on a substance.

Don’t confuse the predicamental accident with the term per accidens (kata symbebekós), which is how Aristotle would describe the fact that the figure of the statue need not be David’s.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I am not identifying enérgeia (a.k.a “act”) with substance. It is just that substance is a kind of act. Obviously, the substance does not give being to itself; but it does give being to its accidents (at least its proper accidents—we can also receive accidents from outside, like when we warm up by a fire, or when God gives us sanctifying grace).

O.K.

Substance is not, however, the original act (and neither is the substantial form). The original enérgeia is the act of being.

O.K.

Again, I don’t see how substance can be identified as ene’rgeia. I certainly would not think of getting rid of the concept of substance.

Neither do I, on either count.

O.k.

Me; "The marble is the substance. The figure is an accident. And where is the [ener’rgeia*, if there is such a thing. "

Substance is enérgeia

(act) and accident is entelécheia (perfection). Both are kinds of acts, in different respects.

You seem to be using {i}ene’rgeia

in several senses. Above you used it in the sense of that which brings existence to substance, now you equate it with substance. These terms, ene’rgeia, entele’cheia, ousia, arche’ and phrases like * to ti en einai* are hard to pin down. See this discussion: arlieferguson.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/on-aristotles-to-ti-en-einai-and-its-translation/ .

I think it is better to say, we see the marble thanks to its accidents.

But what we " see " and sense are accidents. We " know " the substance ( second substance ). This is confirmed in Thomas’ treatise on the Eucharistic Presence. We see the accidents of bread and wine, the substance has been changed into Jesus. And Jesus is substantially present, with all his accidents, but invisibly…

Well, for one thing, I think that “human nature,” as the term is usually employed, is an abstract notion. (Like when we say that human nature does not change.) So I would not expect to see abstract human nature directly as a separately entity—that is the error that Plato made, by reifying abstract notions into Ideas.

But human nature is not just an abstract idea, it is instantiated, in a specific way, in each man. It is just that we do not see it, what we see are all the characteristics ( proper accidents ) which flow from that nature in individual men.

But “substance,” as Aquinas and Aristotle generally use the term, refers primarily to concrete individuals: to the supposit or hypostasis. In that sense, you, JuanFlorencio, and I are all human substances (if we can use that expression).

I don’t know about " generally, " Thomas uses it both ways in the treatise on the Eucharistic Presence.

But the person is a substance: naturæ rationalis individua substantia, an expression from Boethius that Aquinas very much accepts.

I agree.

The substance can also be considered as the seat or origin of the accidents. In that sense, it is subiectum. In that sense, it can be considered a kind of “secondary matter” (to use Aristotle’s expression).

And, in my opinion, that is its most proper meaning. It is that which inheres in no other.

In that very precise sense, the marble is the substance (the secondary matter), and the figure carved in it is one of its accidental forms.

I do think it is important to see how Thomistic terminology can be related to Modern and Postmodern philosophy. Otherwise we create an island of Thomism that is inaccessible to anyone else. (I am not saying you are doing that —just an observation in general.)

Agreed. But that isn’t so easy.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

It’s ok, Linus, no harm. Mine was just a clarification that I considered pertinent. Continuing the discussion in that direction would have been an unnecessary digression in the middle of another digression. Completely unnecessary.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but a simple link, without comment, is hardly a digression to the discussion taking place in posts 281, 284, 286, 287, and 292 . Besides, viewers may like to see what Feser has to say. After all he is highly qualified.

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

That is not what makes an accident an accident. The marble of the statue is light grey in color. That is an accident, too, but it is a proper accident—a “property” in the strict sense of that word.

Also, the marble needs to have some figure. It need not be David; it need not be anyone in particular. It could just be a rectangular prism, or a cylinder, or an amorphous blob. But some figure, it must have.

That is definitely not Aristotle’s use of the term symbebekós (accident) when he refers to beings—the “predicamental” accident, in technical terms. It can refer to any being (to on) that is dependent on a substance.

Don’t confuse the predicamental accident with the term per accidens (kata symbebekós), which is how Aristotle would describe the fact that the figure of the statue need not be David’s.

Well, Imelahn, you wanted to know my thoughts. Aristotle, you already know; and I was not pretending to be exposing his ideas.

Effectively, solids have a shape and many of them have also a color. Gases and liquids take the form of their recipient. And if a gas is released from its recipient, it doesn’t have any form. Some of them do not have any color. Probably “atoms” don’t have shape nor color either (if a picture of an atom could be taken, the image would have a “shape”, but the picture would not be the “atom”).

Colors depend on the radiation’s wavelength incident on the body, on the structure of the organ of vision, and on the constitution of the body.

Aristotle had his reasons to propose his doctrines about accidents. I tend to think that those reasons do not exist anymore (I mean outside the circle of aristotelians). They do not respond to a contemporary question.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but a simple link, without comment, is hardly a digression to the discussion taking place in posts 281, 284, 286, 287, and 292 . Besides, viewers may like to see what Feser has to say. After all he is highly qualified.

Linus2nd

Of course!, feel at home.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

h

By the way, I have been enjoying this conversation a lot.

Just a question: have you ever read, either entirely or in part, Aquinas’ De veritate? I mention this, because what you are saying here has quite a bit of affinity (in my opinion) with what he says in Question 1, especially the corpus of Article 1.

I think Aquinas would add a couple of things to your list, especially at the beginning (especially the idea that what the intellect first perceives is being, or ens), but you might still find it interesting.

Oh, Imelahn, what I have said does not deserve to be compared to what St. Thomas wrote. I really appreciate your words. St. Thomas was not only a philosopher, but a wise man; I am just a philosophy student.

St. Thomas “Contra Gentiles” was the first work of him that I read, when I was an adolescent. I studied it for years… If to him Aristotle was “the philosopher”, to me he is “the architect”. But I haven’t read all De veritate (I read what you recommended me the other day. He is always great).

Being is implicit at every moment of our… peculiar…mode. I don’t find words to say it.

Thank yo, Imelahn.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

I do think we need to keep in mind that different kinds of knowledge permit different degrees of certitude.

Disciplines like logic and mathematics have an extremely high degree of formal certitude. On the other hand, the natural sciences always have an element of conjecture—they are by nature provisional, to a greater or lesser degree.

But of course, even mathematics is only as certain, at the end of the day, as its postulates. (The classic example of this is advent of non-Euclidean geometries: is the “world” Euclidean, hyperbolic, or elliptical? There is no way—at least no purely mathematical way—to “prove” that any one of these systems is the “correct” one.)

If that is true even of mathematics, then it is all the more true of the natural sciences, and even more true of the human sciences (history, etc.). (If you are familiar with Biblical criticism, you will soon see that it often degenerates into a tide of unfounded hypotheses.)

It does not seem strange to me, therefore, that Le Verrier should have hypothesized the existence of a planet causing aberrations in Mercury’s orbit. Nor that the discovery of new documents sometimes makes us revise our views of history.

So is there anything that we can be absolutely sure of? There has to be something; otherwise knowledge would be impossible. It would even be impossible for us to recognize the formal certainty of logic and mathematics.

Descartes thought he found that something in the cogito. But (in my opinion) Descartes forgot that it is much easier for us to know outside things than for us to be aware of ourselves. We can say “I think” precisely because we are thinking of something (as Kant, of all people, understood very well!) or someone (as Buber and Lévinas understood well).

But what is easier to know must be the foundation (in the logical order) of what is more difficult to know, not the other way around.

If I understood you correctly (based on Post 293), you seem to be suggesting that plurality and heterogeneity are the first thing we know, or anyway that these are at the top of the list.

I would say that they are near the top of the list, but that plurality presupposes unity, and heterogeneity presupposes homogeneity. In my opinion, that is illustrated by Le Verrier’s calculations: he could not have discovered an aberration without first having known the universal pattern that Uranus was breaking. If “everything” is an aberration, then in reality, there is no aberration.

To be absolutely sure of something? I guess I know what you mean…, but I think that if we are partially sure, that is enough. After all, physics, chemistry, history, ethics, etcetera, are knowledge. But the question is “what is knowledge?”. As you said (and Aristotle said it too), different kinds of knowledge permit different degrees of certitude.

If we are studying interactions and develop a theory, it will be a system of relations that imitates those interactions (such is the case of natural sciences). If we are studying relations, we will develop systems of relations of high order (such is the case of Mathematics and Logic). Those are not imitations of anything.

It is hard for me to say what is the first thing we know (but being is implicit). I do remember some of the experiences I had in my childhood, and I can tell you that in those experiences nor order nor simplicity was the first thing. The new always appeared to me as a kind of “disconnected” and savage thing. Only after it became familiar to me it acquired simplicity, form (do not understand this word in a platonic or aristotelian way) and predictability. Also, when my colleagues and I need to develop a system, I always remind them that our first conception is never the simplest, but a complex thing. We always need to refine our designs in order to get to the simplest solutions. But whatever I said about the first knowledge would be just an extrapolation, and I don’t want to do that.

About Le Verrier, yes!, what you say is precisely what I indicated when I said that only a “theoretical mind” could have “perceived” the aberration. However, it was not order what was observed by the first observers of the sky. They needed to become familiar with it to propose their models. So, what did they observe? Disorder? No, they could not. Order? They would need to become familiar with the phenomena before they could propose something. So, nor order nor disorder. Isn’t that possible?

 

[lmelahn]

Well, Imelahn, you wanted to know my thoughts. Aristotle, you already know; and I was not pretending to be exposing his ideas.

I mention this because a lot of people read Metaphysics V—in which he divides being into “per accidens” and three kinds of ”per se” and misconstrue “per accidens” as meaning “accident.” (I agree what Aristotle could have been a little clearer, but these are his lecture notes, not a finished treatise.) I had to edit a couple of Wikipedia articles about this…

I don’t mind if people critique Aristotle, but I do mind if they don’t understand him first . (Not that you didn’t—but that one is a popular misconception.)

Effectively, solids have a shape and many of them have also a color. Gases and liquids take the form of their recipient. And if a gas is released from its recipient, it doesn’t have any form.

Just to clarify: (according to hylorphism) the escaped gas does not have a recognizible “shape,” but it does have form—a substantial form that makes it the kind of gas it is (oxygen or whatever it is), and accidental forms, such as its chemical properties. Form (hylé) is much broader than “shape.”

Some of them do not have any color. Probably “atoms” don’t have shape nor color either (if a picture of an atom could be taken, the image would have a “shape”, but the picture would not be the “atom”).

I agree. Atoms are too small to have a “color” as we normally understand it. It is impossible to take a “picture” of an atom. The best we can do, so far as I know, scanning tunneling microscopy. Apparently, atoms do have something that resembles a shape—at least, the electron orbitals seem to occupy space—but the physical shape of atoms larger than, say, neon, is extremely complex.

Colors depend on the radiation’s wavelength incident on the body, on the structure of the organ of vision, and on the constitution of the body.

Sure.

Aristotle had his reasons to propose his doctrines about accidents. I tend to think that those reasons do not exist anymore (I mean outside the circle of aristotelians). They do not respond to a contemporary question.

Just out of curiosity, what status do you assign things like mass, kinetic energy, charge, and other physical properties of that kind? You would not consider them accidents (qualities)?

 

[lmelahn]

To be absolutely sure of something? I guess I know what you mean…, but I think that if we are partially sure, that is enough. After all, physics, chemistry, history, ethics, etcetera, are knowledge. But the question is “what is knowledge?”. As you said (and Aristotle said it too), different kinds of knowledge permit different degrees of certitude.

If we are studying interactions and develop a theory, it will be a system of relations that imitates those interactions (such is the case of natural sciences). If we are studying relations, we will develop systems of relations of high order (such is the case of Mathematics and Logic). Those are not imitations of anything.

It is hard for me to say what is the first thing we know (but being is implicit). I do remember some of the experiences I had in my childhood, and I can tell you that in those experiences nor order nor simplicity was the first thing. The new always appeared to me as a kind of “disconnected” and savage thing. Only after it became familiar to me it acquired simplicity, form (do not understand this word in a platonic or aristotelian way) and predictability. Also, when my colleagues and I need to develop a system, I always remind them that our first conception is never the simplest, but a complex thing. We always need to refine our designs in order to get to the simplest solutions. But whatever I said about the first knowledge would be just an extrapolation, and I don’t want to do that.

About Le Verrier, yes!, what you say is precisely what I indicated when I said that only a “theoretical mind” could have “perceived” the aberration. However, it was not order what was observed by the first observers of the sky. They needed to become familiar with it to propose their models. So, what did they observe? Disorder? No, they could not. Order? They would need to become familiar with the phenomena before they could propose something. So, nor order nor disorder. Isn’t that possible?

I would venture to say that, even in your case, order and unity preceded novelty, plurality, and aberration.

I will begin by pointing out that I didn’t say that we undersand order before we understand disorder. I suppose we probably do, but I was thinking instead about unity and pluralitiy: we understand unity before we understand plurality. (Homogeneity is one kind of unity; heterogenity is a kind of plurality.)

Some examples illustrate: in order to count something, I must first be able identify one of the things I intend to could. If I intend to measure a continuous quantity, I must first establish what my unit is.

There is another point here that I am not sure I made adequately. Unity is presupposed, but it is frequently implicit. In fact—and here I see a point of rapprochement—to make an explicit or (to use a technical term) “thematic” notion of unity, we need to learn about plurality.

A similar thing can be said about novelty and “aberration.” For example, every day, I used to look out into my back yard at home (back in the U.S.). One of those days, I remember seeking a small herd of deer there. That unusual occurance (for a suburban back yard) is obviously the one that sticks in my memory, but I could never have distinguished it, if it were not for the “monotony” of the other times I looked into the yard.

I probably would not be able to recall that I looked into my back yard at all, if I had not had one or two interesting events like that to break the monotony. The aberration made me “thematize” my knoweldge of the back yard, and how it usually is, but I had that knowledge there in the back of my head.

Here is another example, this time in the domain of theology. How do we know that Jesus Christ is one Person (Hypostasis) in two natures? Because someone—a certain Eutyches—asserted that he was a single nature formed as a sort of fusion of the Divine and human natures. Of course, the Church has always believed that Jesus is one Person in two natures, but it took Eutyches’ heresy to render that article of faith “thematic” or explicit.

(Naturally, anomaly is not the only way to gain explicit knowledge—just as heresy is not the only way to obtain a dogmatic definition—but is a very common way. But as Aristotle wisely said, the knowledge of opposites is the same: the better I know something, the better I can distinguish it from what it is not, and vice versa. In the case of something so basic as unity, some knowledge of plurality is necessary before the notion of unity can be drawn out explicitly, even though implicit knowledge of unity must come first.)

 

[JuanFlorencio]

I mention this because a lot of people read Metaphysics V—in which he divides being into “per accidens” and three kinds of ”per se” and misconstrue “per accidens” as meaning “accident.” (I agree what Aristotle could have been a little clearer, but these are his lecture notes, not a finished treatise.) I had to edit a couple of Wikipedia articles about this…

I don’t mind if people critique Aristotle, but I do mind if they don’t understand him first . (Not that you didn’t—but that one is a popular misconception.)

I think that is fair. At least a couple of times I have defended myself philosophers whose doctrines I reject, just because in my opinion they were criticized without being understood correctly.

Just to clarify: (according to hylorphism) the escaped gas does not have a recognizible “shape,” but it does have form—a substantial form that makes it the kind of gas it is (oxygen or whatever it is), and accidental forms, such as its chemical properties. Form (hylé) is much broader than “shape.”

Yes, of course, “form” has a peculiar technical meaning for Aristotle. I wanted to mean nothing more than “shape”

Just out of curiosity, what status do you assign things like mass, kinetic energy, charge, and other physical properties of that kind? You would not consider them accidents (qualities)?

Those magnitudes are known just as “physical properties”, and that is it. As to what they are, let me bring here a fragment of the book “Lectures on physics”, by Richard Feynman, where the author describes, for example, what he understands by the term “energy”:

*“There is a fact, or if you wish, a law, governing all natural phenomena that are known to date. There is no known exception to this law -it is exact so far as we know. The law is called the conservation of energy. It states that there is a certain quantity, which we call energy, that does not change in the manifold changes which nature undergoes. That is a most abstract idea, because it is a mathematical principle; it says that there is a numerical quantity which does not change when something happens. It is not a description of a mechanism, or anything concrete; it is just a strange fact that we can calculate some number and when we finish watching nature go through her tricks and calculate the number again, it is the same …]”

“It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is…”*

Most probably, there are other physicists who think differently (it is not only in disciplines like philosophy where things like this happen), but this famous physicist regarded energy as a “non-concrete” numerical quantity. He says in the same chapter that “energy” has a large number of different forms, and by that he means that there are many mathematical formulas which when computed will total up the same quantity for a “closed system” independently of any change. One of those forms is kinetic energy, which you mention above. One might think that it is obviously a property of a body, but it is actually not so obvious. Kinetic energy is a function of the mass of the body and its speed. However, the speed of a body depends on the reference that you take to measure it. Depending on the point of reference, it could be zero (the associated kinetic energy will be zero as well), or it could be very high (and the associated kinetic energy would be very high too) without any change on the body.

What about the “mass” of a body? This magnitude has to do with the force needed to change its state of movement, producing certain acceleration on it. And according to the theory of relativity, it increases with increasing velocity, without any other change in the body.

And so on… Such is the world where we live. What do you think?

 

[JuanFlorencio]

I would venture to say that, even in your case, order and unity preceded novelty, plurality, and aberration.

I will begin by pointing out that I didn’t say that we undersand order before we understand disorder. I suppose we probably do, but I was thinking instead about unity and pluralitiy: we understand unity before we understand plurality. (Homogeneity is one kind of unity; heterogenity is a kind of plurality.)

Some examples illustrate: in order to count something, I must first be able identify one of the things I intend to could. If I intend to measure a continuous quantity, I must first establish what my unit is.

There is another point here that I am not sure I made adequately. Unity is presupposed, but it is frequently implicit. In fact—and here I see a point of rapprochement—to make an explicit or (to use a technical term) “thematic” notion of unity, we need to learn about plurality.

A similar thing can be said about novelty and “aberration.” For example, every day, I used to look out into my back yard at home (back in the U.S.). One of those days, I remember seeking a small herd of deer there. That unusual occurance (for a suburban back yard) is obviously the one that sticks in my memory, but I could never have distinguished it, if it were not for the “monotony” of the other times I looked into the yard.

I probably would not be able to recall that I looked into my back yard at all, if I had not had one or two interesting events like that to break the monotony. The aberration made me “thematize” my knoweldge of the back yard, and how it usually is, but I had that knowledge there in the back of my head.

Here is another example, this time in the domain of theology. How do we know that Jesus Christ is one Person (Hypostasis) in two natures? Because someone—a certain Eutyches—asserted that he was a single nature formed as a sort of fusion of the Divine and human natures. Of course, the Church has always believed that Jesus is one Person in two natures, but it took Eutyches’ heresy to render that article of faith “thematic” or explicit.

(Naturally, anomaly is not the only way to gain explicit knowledge—just as heresy is not the only way to obtain a dogmatic definition—but is a very common way. But as Aristotle wisely said, the knowledge of opposites is the same: the better I know something, the better I can distinguish it from what it is not, and vice versa. In the case of something so basic as unity, some knowledge of plurality is necessary before the notion of unity can be drawn out explicitly, even though implicit knowledge of unity must come first.)

Well, I am not sure what do you mean by the expressions “to know” and “knowledge”. Could you please clarify, before I answer?

Concerning “unity” and “plurality”, I have to confess that the subject troubles me.

 

[lmelahn]

I think that is fair. At least a couple of times I have defended myself philosophers whose doctrines I reject, just because in my opinion they were criticized without being understood correctly.

Yes, of course, “form” has a peculiar technical meaning for Aristotle. I wanted to mean nothing more than “shape”

Those magnitudes are known just as “physical properties”, and that is it. As to what they are, let me bring here a fragment of the book “Lectures on physics”, by Richard Feynman, where the author describes, for example, what he understands by the term “energy”:

*“There is a fact, or if you wish, a law, governing all natural phenomena that are known to date. There is no known exception to this law -it is exact so far as we know. The law is called the conservation of energy. It states that there is a certain quantity, which we call energy, that does not change in the manifold changes which nature undergoes. That is a most abstract idea, because it is a mathematical principle; it says that there is a numerical quantity which does not change when something happens. It is not a description of a mechanism, or anything concrete; it is just a strange fact that we can calculate some number and when we finish watching nature go through her tricks and calculate the number again, it is the same …]”

“It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is…”*

Most probably, there are other physicists who think differently (it is not only in disciplines like philosophy where things like this happen), but this famous physicist regarded energy as a “non-concrete” numerical quantity. He says in the same chapter that “energy” has a large number of different forms, and by that he means that there are many mathematical formulas which when computed will total up the same quantity for a “closed system” independently of any change. One of those forms is kinetic energy, which you mention above. One might think that it is obviously a property of a body, but it is actually not so obvious. Kinetic energy is a function of the mass of the body and its speed. However, the speed of a body depends on the reference that you take to measure it. Depending on the point of reference, it could be zero (the associated kinetic energy will be zero as well), or it could be very high (and the associated kinetic energy would be very high too) without any change on the body.

It seems to me, that kinetic energy is only “measurable” relative to a frame of reference. However, a ball that collides into another ball and sets the latter in motion has, it seems to me, acquired a capacity to set that other ball in motion. Likewise the ball that was at rest (relative to me) has a capacity to arrest the motion of the first ball. As you know, by choosing a different frame of reference, we could represent the motion of the balls as experiencing a head-on collision and then moving straight back from where they came.

That capacity or “active potency” is kinetic energy. How exactly we measure it depends on the choice of frame of reference.

(Partly in response to Feynman, at least in my physics textbooks, energy was always defined as “the ability to do work”—i.e., to apply a force over so-much distance. I think that definiton is fine. It is hardly comprehensive, but I would say it is incorrect to say that “we have no knowledge of what energy is.”)

That is how I would see it: it is a quality (in the technical sense) of a body.

What about the “mass” of a body? This magnitude has to do with the force needed to change its state of movement, producing certain acceleration on it. And according to the theory of relativity, it increases with increasing velocity, without any other change in the body.

And in fact with Special Relativity, the mass depends, like the energy, on the observer’s frame of reference. I think that so-called “inertial mass” is also a quality, in this case a “passive” potency: a body’s resistence to acceleration. Like kinetic energy, how you measure it depends on your point of view (at least when the differences in velocity between you and the object measured are large enough to be able to detect the difference).

And so on… Such is the world where we live. What do you think?

That bodies are related in such a way that energy is conserved. (Or mass-and-energy, if we are considering Relativity.) I think that makes the philosophical problem a lot easier, without sacrificing at all the validity of the latest theories.

 

[lmelahn]

Well, I am not sure what do you mean by the expressions “to know” and “knowledge”. Could you please clarify, before I answer?

Concerning “unity” and “plurality”, I have to confess that the subject troubles me.

First, in my opinion, to know something is the act by which the subject (here I only mean the person or thing that is doing the knowing, not the “subiectum” we were talking about earlier) enters into union with that thing, not for the sake of obtaining a benefit (that would be love or volition), but simply by becoming similar to, or imitating, that thing.

If the subject is a sub-human animal, it will “know” through a merely sensory image or reperesentation—which is necessarily particular and concrete, not universal at all. What does the “imitation” of reality is its sensory apparatus (external and internal—sense organs and brain).

If the subject is a human being, he will “know,” certainly through the action of his sensory apparatus, but also directly in his soul. In that way, his soul actually becomes—in a much stricter and tighter way than the animal ever could—the thing that he knows. Note that it is his soul—hence his whole person—that becomes the object known, albeit in an intentional way.

(Clearly, when man knows a turnip, he does not turn into a turnip: in other words, he does not become a turnip in every way. However, he becomes a turnip in some way, and that way we call “intention,” from in and tendo, “to tend or move towards”.)

The capacity, or faculty, that is “plastic” like that and permits man to become what he knows, we call the “intellect” (from intus and lego, literally “to read into”).

Man, therefore, can know in two ways: both sensorially (like the animals) and intellectually, although in man the two are never separate.

We can use our intellects in two fundamental ways: there is apprehension, by which we know what something is; and composition-or-division (a.k.a. judgment), by which we know that, in fact, it does exist (or does not exist).

In a judgment, a relation is established between what the knower has apprehended and what exists in reality. If the relation actually corresonds, then there is truth: adaequatio intellectus ad rem. For the fundamental judgments—like when we experience things first hand—that relation is imposed on us.

We can also string together jugments in order to generate new judgments—that is what I have called reason. If the judgments are derived, removed from direct experience, then it is possible that we are imposing a relation on reality, which might be true or false.

That is, in a nutshell, what I think it means to know.

Knowledge is a little bit like “health”: it is an analogous term.

It can refer to concrete acts in which a subject knows something (whether that be sensorial knoweldge, apprehension, or composition/division).

It can also refer to the habit that human beings acquire when they perform concrete acts of knowing. This is scientia or epistéme in the proper sense. For example, after years of study, a biologist acquires the habit (science) of “biology.”

Finally, “knowledge” can refer to the contents of a scientia, as when we speak about “modern scientific knowledge.”