How do we come to know things?

[lmelahn]

But that’s wrong, it isn’t at all what happens. That’s what I mean by act and potency having no explanatory value, all it did was send you down the wrong road.

If the notion of act and potency means nothing more than “stuff can change”, then no child since the stone age needed Aristotle to tell her that, it’s kind of obvious from the fact that she’s now taller than this time last year.

Oh, OK. This may serve as an answer to my challenge. Fair enough.

Actually, that is what act-and-potency means, in its most basic form. Something is “in potency” for a state of being (like being hot, or having its atoms jiggle faster, or what have you) if it does not possess that state now, but has the capacity to take it on.

I totally agree that act-and-potency adds nothing to the physical theory of heat, but it does help us with other kinds of problems that go beyond physics.

Does the notion tell us what kinds of change can occur? Nope. Does it tell us how they occur? Nope. Does it tell us when they occur? Nope.

I agree up to here, so long as we are talking about modern physics, as such. Act and potency does not change the laws of thermodynamics, obviously.

Does it help us push forward the frontiers of knowledge in any way whatsoever? I wouldn’t have thought so, or surely it would be an essential part of the syllabus in every primary school?

Well, here is where I differ. I will make the observation that it is dangerous to argue that something is not useful, just because it does not appear on certain schools’ syllabi. Aristotle’s theories are probably best dealt with in college, for one thing, because they are challenging to understand.

As I mentioned earlier, Aristotle’s goal is different from modern physicists’, but not contrary. His theory of act and potency is a help for discovering the principles of reality. They can also deal with realities—e.g., the human soul, angels, etc.—that physics simply does not have the tools to deal with.

I know Aristotle was worshiped and adored for several centuries. That’s the only reason why some of his ideas lasted so long. All those books in all those libraries couldn’t possibly be wrong, could they? But yes, they were. Three cheers for Galileo et al. Rather than trying to rehabilitate wrong ideas, I think a better philosophy is hang on to what’s useful and chuck out what is not.

I don’t think any of us is against Galileo. I think his science was fabulous (although, as it turns out, still somewhat rudimentary as regards the movement of the planets). I just do not see anything fundamentally contrary between modern physics and Aristotle. Obviously, his theory of planetary movement is long superseded; his ontology of the physical world is not.

 

[Richca]

I don’t see how Aristotle helps in any of this. The thread is interesting on some of the differences in how Aristotle is interpreted, and his notions may well still be useful as an example of an influential theory of knowledge, but for the most part they seem only to complicate science rather than add any explanatory value. My 5c.

It seems to me that if we have learned anything from the science of the last hundred years or so is not how simple things are such as organisms, for example, the human body, but the marvelous complexity and order of them. Quantum mechanics is far from being simply simple, but shows a marvelous complexity and order and we are very far from knowing everything about it and probably never will. The natural sciences seem to come out daily with new theories and findings.

As far as the philosophical tradition of Aristotelianism/Thomism having any explanatory value, this is far from the truth. The metaphysics of St Thomas will lead one to the ultimate cause and explanation of all reality which is none other than God. This, St Thomas did, and even Aristotle in some degree, centuries before the rise of modern science. Can modern physics claim that the ultimate cause of reality is God? No, this is beyond their field of study, some physicists are even atheists and this is far from knowing the truth. According to these last mentioned physicists, modern physics is of no help to man. That God is the ultimate cause of reality according to the natural light of reason is the domain of true metaphysics which we find in St Thomas, not the domain of physics.

The catholic philosophical/metaphysical tradition of Aristotelianism/Thomism cannot be reduced to modern physics, chemistry, etc. These modern sciences are certainly a help to us in gaining knowledge of the inner workings of nature and the particular causes of things. Philosophy, as the word implies, is the love and pursuit of wisdom or truth by the natural light of reason. The highest field of study of philosophy, as Aristotle says, is metaphysics which is concerned not just with the particular causes of things which we find in the natural sciences but with the ultimate causes of things and of reality. The science of metaphysics is not just concerned with particular beings but being as being whether material or immaterial. It begins with the observable, the physical and material, and ends in the immaterial. Indeed, the end of metaphysics is immaterial being and the ultimate cause of all, namely, God. Now, the ultimate cause and explanation of all is, indeed, what mankind desires to know.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

There have been, just not very many in English. One of the best I have seen is Fr. Felippo Selvaggi, S.I. Unfortunately, his works are only available in Italian. He also wrote his works a few years ago, so they would need updating with the latest theories.

Good! It was written for aristotelians, I guess. I mean, probably not many scientists are nowadays looking for answers in Aristotle, especially if aristotelians are just trying hard to square modern science with Aristotle’s philosophy. If aristotelians showed the power of Aristotle’s doctrines to explain new phenomena and make new discoveries, it would definitely boost their influence. But the squaring exercise, appears to me as a desperate act of survival. I don’t say it is a bad thing, but the strategy should be more ambitious if you want to get notoriety. A lot of team work is necessary.

Aristotle had no concept of mass. For him, “quantity” is the three-dimensional size of the object—more or less our concept of “volume.” That is why I would argue that mass is also a modus substantiae (quality).

If by “action” you mean the category that is the antagonist of “passion”—namely, the poiein (literally a “making”)—then velocity would not qualify, in Aristotele’s view. An “action” always has a concrete effect, either in the agent itself (like immanent the actions of our intellect and will), or in something else (like when I swing at a golf ball, or when a billiard ball hits another, and so on).

I think (and again my thought is not perfectly mature on this point) that velocity is best described as a relation of one body with respect to the other bodies in the universe.

Of course! Being aristotelian you must know better how to use your terminology, and all those things…

However, you will need to clarify something: How is it that Aristotle did not have a concept of “mass”, but you do (please, notice that the answer cannot be something like “I learned it on the school, and Plato was not as good as my teachers” )? What is “mass”, Imelahn?

I agree. But we can see its effects.

In any case, what is wrong with having different qualities inhering in the same substance? Hot iron is both hot and radiant (in addition to having mass, etc.)—those are various active potencies in the same substance.

So, if I have understood you correctly, you say that a material thing has, among many others, these accidents: mass, speed, and kinetic energy; and it is quite evident to you that no one of them can be reduced to the others. So, it is evident to you that a body could come to rest, but still conserve its kinetic energy. Is that correct?

Excuse me, I don’t find anything wrong on thinking that a material thing displays several modes of interaction. That was not my point.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Well, if kinetic energy is real, and it is not a substance, then it must be an accident. There is no other possibility (because a being either has to exist independently, or not). One possibility is that the more fundamental modi substantiae (qualities) are actually the mass and the momentum, and that the velocity and kinetic energy are simply relations based on these. (I am speculating here—I have not thought it through thoroughly.)

I don’t think kinetic energy can be reduced to a simple mathematical construct: there is too much empirical evidence that confirms its existence.

In my opinion, Imelahn, one very important improvement that could be done on aristotelian philosophy would be to become a little bit more precise, abandoning as much as possible those expressions that go like “X is said in many ways”. I guess “independently”, for example, is said in many ways, and one never knows which way is applicable in each case (then you will see aristotelians discussing among them if it is this way or the other). So, if I say “only God would be independent”, you will immediately say that you were not using that meaning, but another. Please, if it is possible for you, state in which of the multiple ways in which “independently” is said do you affirm that “a being either has to exist independently, or not”.

Now, when you say that there must be some modi substantiae which are the more fundamental, in which of the many ways in which “fundamental” must be said are you using the term here? Are you saying that some “accidents” are a kind of support for others? If you need to speculate to find a solution, instead of paying attention to “the nude reality” in front of you, it means that your “simple relations” are not “out there”; they are “inside your mind”.

A mathematical construct needs not to be simple. In particular, the powerful mathematical expression for kinetic energy might be very simple to you; but if it is so, how is it that such a simple and very useful thing went unnoticed for Aristotle?

But it is transmitted by photons, in that case, which I would consider substances, I think.

Do you say that radiant energy is an accident of a photon?, that there could be a photon without energy, or some photons with more energy than others? Do yo think a photon is an incorporeal entity?

There is a difference, however. The hot object “has” something to “give”—its heat—which the cold object lacks. In a collision, the both objects give and receive something.

As I have said before, having selected a reference frame, one of two bodies that collide can be at rest (it will have no speed, no momentum, and no kinetic energy from that reference frame). So, it will give nothing to the other. If you say that it “gives” rest to the moving body, anyone will feel entitled to say that the cold body gives “coldness” to the hot body, and once resorting on imprecise speech he will remind you that a refrigerator has the active potency to provide coldness to your food; but what purpose would such a game pursue?

You are probably a little bit confused about Newton’s third law. Some exercises to see how it applies could help you a lot.

Work is “useless” when it is counteracted by equal and opposite work, as in systems at equilibrium—in other words, when it is not ordered in a particular direction.

In physics, “work” has a precise definition, and what you are describing is not work. When forces are in equilibrium, there is no work, nor useful nor useless.

I think I meant to say “10 N over 5 meters.” If I could manage to apply the force during an entire second to an object with a mass of 1 kg, I would apply 10 N of force over 5 meters. I would end up flinging it at a velocity of 10 m/s. Or did I do the calculations wrong?

No, Imelahn, the mistake was mine. So, you said before:

It is true that entropy increases with every physical process, but, it seems to me, this law only diminishes the ability to get useful work out of a system. It does not affect the fundamental correlation between energy and work. If I have 50J of kinetic energy, with that I can apply a force of 10N over 5 meters. Obviously, I won’t actually convert all of the kinetic energy cleanly; hence the realization of that potential will be less. I certainly won’t be able to do any more work than that.

And my comment should have been:

If you “have” a kinetic energy of 50 J, then, if your mass is 100 Kg, it means that your speed is 1m/s. How would you manage under those conditions to apply a force of 10 N over 5 meters? If it is so obvious to you that you will not convert all the kinetic energy cleanly into work, how were you able to derive the fundamental correlation between energy and work?

What would be your answers, Imelahn?

 

[utunumsint]

Good! It was written for Aristotelians, I guess. I mean, probably not many scientists are nowadays looking for answers in Aristotle, especially if Aristotelians are just trying hard to square modern science with Aristotle’s philosophy. If Aristotelians showed the power of Aristotle’s doctrines to explain new phenomena and make new discoveries, it would definitely boost their influence. But the squaring exercise, appears to me as a desperate act of survival. I don’t say it is a bad thing, but the strategy should be more ambitious if you want to get notoriety. A lot of team work is necessary.

Wow - On that standard, pretty much every philosophy needs to desperately measure up to modern science just to survive! How many philosophies, I wonder, measure up to this demand?

God bless,
Ut

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Wow - On that standard, pretty much every philosophy needs to desperately measure up to modern science just to survive! How many philosophies, I wonder, measure up to this demand?

God bless,
Ut

I don’t know. Do you know another philosophy whose followers are doing the same exercise?

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Concerning the discussion about the importance of the notions of “act” and “potency”, we need to understand the situation at Aristotle’s times. Considering this, Aristotle definitely showed great intellectual courage and penetration in his discussions and doctrines. My past posts do not have the intention to discredit Aristotle, “the intelligence of the Academy”. The man has died and he cannot wake up. It is his followers who have to wake up, and behave like their great master, when he was alive. But they prefer to hide behind the excuse that their father has done all what needed to be done and the claim that they just have to enjoy their inheritance. An inheritance that they do not deserve.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

We become the turnip intentionally. (See below.)

My soul, which is spiritual—not dependent on matter—is “flexible.” It can take on the form of those beings that it comes in contact with. (That is exactly why Aristotle chooses “form,” morphé, as his metaphor for the principle of definition and unification.)

Remember how we argued back and forth as to whether the creatures we meet have an intrinsic order or logos? I argued, if you remember, that you cannot simply characterize a substance—a dog, say—as a lump of matter, a group of atoms, cells, or organs. Rather those constitutive components are ordered into a unique, undivided, ordered whole that the human intellect understands immediately as such. (Whether the person knows that Aristotle called such things ousia, or understands the theory of matter and form, is another matter altogether.)

(In tongue and cheek, only a scientist or a philoshopher would seriously consider a dog simply a bunch of cells. )

The principle—intrinsic to the substance—that makes it one, whole, and definite, is the substantial form. The principles that give the substance its characteristics or ”perfections” are the accidental forms (or simply “accidents”).

Going back to my soul: it is capable of taking on the forms—both substantial and accidental—of the things that it experiences (without losing its own form, naturally). Being matter-less, it cannot, of course, take on the matter of those things. The capacity, or faculty, that does this conformation we call the intellect.

And in that precise sense, the soul becomes the things that it knows.

That tendency of the the intellect to read into (intus legere)—that is, conform itself to—the things that it encounters, we call intention. Hence, we can say that we become what be know intentionally.

(This is an etymological use of the term intention from in and tendo, as I mentioned yesterday. There is also volutive intention—the intention of the will—which is the kind we are most familiar with in modern parlance, as when we say “I was intendeding to answer that email, but I forgot.”)

So, you say that we take the substantial form and the various accidental forms (colors, speed, density, odor, flavor, etcetera) of the turnip.

Let’s consider for the moment only the substantial form. You say that the substantial form of the turnip has to do with its organization. I wonder which organization do you mean when you say that we immediately understand it as such: a) the organization of its functional parts, b) the organization of its cells, c) the organization of its molecules, d) the organization of its fundamental particles, e) the organization of its accidents, f) the organization of its operations, g) all of them?

Please, clarify what you want to convey, Imelahn.

Then, let’s work on the term “intentionality” too: You say that we have the tendency to read into the turnip. If I have understood it correctly, “to become the turnip”, “to take the form of the turnip”, “to read into the turnip”, and “to understand the orders that constitute the turnip” are equivalent.

Please, be aware that there are two different perspectives concerning how knowledge happens (and remember that we have an unanswered question about the nature of knowledge): a) does reality impress knowledge on us?, and b) do we elaborate or construct knowledge by establishing relations amongst the elements that surround us?

 

[levinas12]

Well, it is the only term I can think of that sufficiently represents the closeness that the intellect has to the things it unites to. Aristotle puts it this way: “With respect to act, knowledge is the same as the thing known” (De anima, III, 7, 431a 1).

So, it is not that we construct a little image of the thing known; the form that is informing our intellect is the very same form that informs the thing.

Yes but it’s all very mysterious how this happens. How is it that intracranial electric events, which are necessary in some way to this process (at least in human persons), seem to have nothing in common with the ontological dimension of “form”, e.g., with the “appearance” of an apple over there on the table?

Additionally, although I agree that we have access to the same form that exists in the outside entity, it seems that, in some cases, we have access to more than just the form. I can know John Doe the person as well as the form of John Doe.

When I know the person, am I simply responding to the “existing” composite of matter and form.

Or, to put it another way, is the singularity of the human being based simply upon the matter? Or is there another principle at work here - person as a singularity which falls outside Aristotelian categories including “substance”?

All of this is theologically pertinent. God is a primary substance with one “form” … but is also 3 Divine Persons. The difference between these Persons is not due to any matter or multiple forms. Whence the difference?

And what about angels? These beings each have their own unique form without matter. Are the angels “individuated” by their unique forms? Or are they “individuated” by being “singular” persons?

 

[lmelahn]

Good! It was written for aristotelians, I guess. I mean, probably not many scientists are nowadays looking for answers in Aristotle, especially if aristotelians are just trying hard to square modern science with Aristotle’s philosophy. If aristotelians showed the power of Aristotle’s doctrines to explain new phenomena and make new discoveries, it would definitely boost their influence. But the squaring exercise, appears to me as a desperate act of survival. I don’t say it is a bad thing, but the strategy should be more ambitious if you want to get notoriety. A lot of team work is necessary.

I think it would help scientists, but not exactly to discover new phenomena, at least not directly in their fields. That isn’t the goal of using Aristotle (as expanded and perfected by Aquinas). For example, Aristotle asks the question of how unity and plurarily can coexist simultaneously, and his answer to that is act and potency.

Physics does not ask anything quite so basic; it simply asks questions like “How can we predict and manipulate the movement of bodies?” (mechanics), and “How did the universe as we know it come about?” (cosmology). Notice how much more specific and detailed are the questions and answers of physicists.

Aristotle, on the other hand, asks, “what (if any) are the ultimate principles on which reality depends?” And that is how we come up with substance and accident, matter and form, and (with Aquinas) essence and being—as we discussed earler.

Of course! Being aristotelian you must know better how to use your terminology, and all those things…

However, you will need to clarify something: How is it that Aristotle did not have a concept of “mass”, but you do (please, notice that the answer cannot be something like “I learned it on the school, and Plato was not as good as my teachers” )? What is “mass”, Imelahn?

If I understand you question correctly, you are asking how it is possible that we moderns know about mass, but Aristotle did not.

I am not familiar with all of the history of Newtonian mechanics, but I think it is fair to say that the notion of mass was discovered with the experiments and theories elaborated in the 16th and 17th centuries. (Galileo’s pendulum was important in this regard, as was his discovery that heavier objects fall just as fast as light ones, barring wind resistence. Then there were all the astronomical discoveries, and finally Newton’s monumental synthesis.)

It was, if I remember rightly, Newton who realized that there was a property of bodies that made them resistent to acceleration—and it is he who first coined the term inertia, I believe. So he was the first to “thematize”*(make explicit) a notion that was implicit at least as far back as Galileo.

We can’t observe mass directly, because it is not (in Aristotelian terminology) a “proper sensible” (proper sensibles are color, sound, smells, tastes, and what we sense by touch—the properties that our senses have direct access to). Nor is it a “common sensible” (one of those properites, like the geometric shape of an object, that our brain formulates immediately based on the sensory data it receives). Hence we can only observe it—and we can certainly only measure it—through its effects (I think these effects would correspond to your “interactions”).

So, it does not suprise me that it took a long time for man to discover what mass was.

That also means that, until we discover what causes mass more precisely, we will have to be content for the moment with understanding what its effects are: namely, resitance of a body to acceleration (inertia) and attraction of other bodies (according to Newtonian mechanics) or curvature of space (according to relativistic mechanics).

So, if I have understood you correctly, you say that a material thing has, among many others, these accidents: mass, speed, and kinetic energy; and it is quite evident to you that no one of them can be reduced to the others. So, it is evident to you that a body could come to rest, but still conserve its kinetic energy. Is that correct?

Well, I recognize that the value of the kinetic energy would be “zero” if (in that particular frame of reference) the body were at rest.

But it would still have the capacity to arrest or slow the motion of another body (in that frame of reference) or (in a different frame of reference) do work on that body.

The important thing for me is recognizing that the body has an active potency to change the motion of other bodies, and that such a potency can be quanitfied as kinetic energy.

Excuse me, I don’t find anything wrong on thinking that a material thing displays several modes of interaction. That was not my point.

PK.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Concerning the discussion about the importance of the notions of “act” and “potency”, we need to understand the situation at Aristotle’s times. Considering this, Aristotle definitely showed great intellectual courage and penetration in his discussions and doctrines. My past posts do not have the intention to discredit Aristotle, “the intelligence of the Academy”. The man has died and he cannot wake up. It is his followers who have to wake up, and behave like their great master, when he was alive. But they prefer to hide behind the excuse that their father has done all what needed to be done and the claim that they just have to enjoy their inheritance. An inheritance that they do not deserve.

Ouch! It isn’t the object of philosophy to do science, it does, however have the right to object when certain scientists overstep their bounds ( i.e.the universe has no cause, man has no immaterial soul, etc.).

Linus2nd

 

[utunumsint]

I don’t know. Do you know another philosophy whose followers are doing the same exercise?

Good point. Aristotle and Aquinas had a metaphysical system built on the faulty knowledge of the physics of their day. Different groups of Thomists approach this issue in different ways.

Some want to deny that the core doctrine of Aquinas requires any kind of dialog or interaction with modern science. That it can be extracted, more or less intact from its faulty physics and they go about their business perfectly happy with the situation.

I think this is a mistake. The principles that Aristotle and Aquinas used in their philosophy need to be grounded in the material world, otherwise, we may as well switch to some form of idealism instead. That means, at the very least, Thomists need to show that the findings and methods of modern science do not contradict any of their principles.

In many ways, this is a work of apologetics. There is only so much that can be done, especially since Thomism isn’t aimed at providing practical results of the sort that modern science is interested in. This also puts Thomistic philosophy at a disadvantage because you don’t get that constant influx of new and glamorous scientific discoveries, theories, and proposals that we are so accustomed to today. At the same time, many of these scientists make thoughtless philosophical claims unwarranted by the actual work they are doing on a daily basis (or at least it seems that way on account of the media). To be fair, this is not just a problem for Thomism, but a problem for philosophy in general, I think.

As Catholics, I think we have a lot invested in this task. Many of the church’s moral teachings are based on natural law theory rooted in this Thomistic thinking. The five ways cannot be used to defend the existence of God if this work of re-embedding Thomistic philosophy on top of modern science is not done.

But on the other hand, I think that this work may also be beneficial to science itself. Especially in helping scientists understand the limits of their methods - a fact that is far too often forgotten in this day and age. In many respects, the default, unconscious philosophical background for many scientists is atheistic materialistic, and reductive. There is a real need to push back on this front. And the fact is, many philosophers of science and of the mind are doing just that, even though many of them have no religious background.

God bless,
Ut

 

[lmelahn]

In my opinion, Imelahn, one very important improvement that could be done on aristotelian philosophy would be to become a little bit more precise, abandoning as much as possible those expressions that go like “X is said in many ways”. I guess “independently”, for example, is said in many ways, and one never knows which way is applicable in each case (then you will see aristotelians discussing among them if it is this way or the other). So, if I say “only God would be independent”, you will immediately say that you were not using that meaning, but another. Please, if it is possible for you, state in which of the multiple ways in which “independently” is said do you affirm that “a being either has to exist independently, or not”.

“Analogous” does not necessarily mean “imprecise.” It simply recognizes that the property in question applies to different degrees to different realities.

God is certainly more independant than a created substance (indeed, He is the only Being that is completely independent in every way).

Likewise, an angel is more independant (he does not depend on matter at all) than a man (who depends on matter for operation); and a man, in turn, is more independant than a sub-human animal (which cannot exist at all without matter).

When dealing with things that go beyond our direct experience, we need to get used to analogical notions—I don’t think it can be done away with. You could try to give a different name to each analogon, but I don’t think it is necessary—we are capable of understanding from the context.

Now, when you say that there must be some modi substantiae which are the more fundamental, in which of the many ways in which “fundamental” must be said are you using the term here? Are you saying that some “accidents” are a kind of support for others?

Yes. For example, an extensive quality, such as color (or whatever it is that causes color), depends on extension. However, all accidents derive their being directly from the substance (i.e., they all inherent in the substance).

If you need to speculate to find a solution, instead of paying attention to “the nude reality” in front of you, it means that your “simple relations” are not “out there”; they are “inside your mind”.

But we are already discussing something that is quite derived and particular. I do not wish to insist here on how energy should be correclty categorized; my only point, as far as this thread is concerned, is that it is an accident—certainly not one that is directly accessible to the senses—and hence not immediately apprehended by our intellect.

As regards relations, I am saying something different: that spatial relations, and relations of energetics as well, are real relations, not just in my mind.

A mathematical construct needs not to be simple. In particular, the powerful mathematical expression for kinetic energy might be very simple to you; but if it is so, how is it that such a simple and very useful thing went unnoticed for Aristotle?

First of all, I don’t think energy is a mathematical construct. When I say a “mathematical construct,” I mean something that is, as such, unreal, like a five-dimensional hypercube. But energy is clearly something real, because it has real effects.

As far as the formula for kinetic energy, it seems easy enough for us moderns, but I don’t think anyone would have figured it out without integral calculus. So I am not surprised that Aristotle did not come up with it. (He also did not have the benefit of experimental science, as I mentioned above.)

Do you say that radiant energy is an accident of a photon?

Yes.

, that there could be a photon without energy,

No. Energy is a property of a photon, in the strict sense of that word. There are no photons without electromagnetic energy, just as there are no photons without wavelengths.

or some photons with more energy than others? Do yo think a photon is an incorporeal entity?

Modern quantum theory clearly states that photons with a shorter wavelength have more energy. I think that photons are material in the Aristotelian sense—i.e., that they are composed of prime matter and substantial form. (Keep in mind that the only substances without matter at all are angels.) I don’t think they qualify as “bodies” in the Newtonian or Cartesian sense.

As I have said before, having selected a reference frame, one of two bodies that collide can be at rest (it will have no speed, no momentum, and no kinetic energy from that reference frame). So, it will give nothing to the other.

Although I agree with you about the frames of reference, a ball at “rest” can arrest the motion (from the point of view of that reference frame) of the ball that collides with it. What explains that deceleration? Clearly, the ball that was (originally) at rest is its cause.

If you say that it “gives” rest to the moving body,

I wouldn’t say that. I would say that the body (originally) at rest exerts a force upon the body (originally) in motion, equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the force exerted on it by the ball in motion. This is pretty standard Newtonian mechanics, I would say.

anyone will feel entitled to say that the cold body gives “coldness” to the hot body, and once resorting on imprecise speech he will remind you that a refrigerator has the active potency to provide coldness to your food; but what purpose would such a game pursue?

In a hot object, no matter what frame of reference you choose, the sum of the kinetic energy of the particles in that object will always be greater than that in the cold object.

Continued…

 

[lmelahn]

You are probably a little bit confused about Newton’s third law. Some exercises to see how it applies could help you a lot.

Do I need to draw a free-body diagram to show you what I mean?

In physics, “work” has a precise definition, and what you are describing is not work. When forces are in equilibrium, there is no work, nor useful nor useless.

OK, you are thinking of forces at equillibrium, as in statics.

But I was thinking of dynamic equiliibria (you can tell that I am a biologist, not a physicist, by training ), such as system like a gas that originally had a temperature gradient, but which now is at equilibrium. Clearly, the gas has thermal energy—in a closed system, the same amount of thermal energy it had before—and yet no useful work can be produced by it (unless we take advantage of an external temperature gradient).

But the individual particals are often doing work, like when they collide. But the work accomplished by some particles is exactly counteracted, on average, by contrary work.

No, Imelahn, the mistake was mine. So, you said before:

And my comment should have been:

If you “have” a kinetic energy of 50 J, then, if your mass is 100 Kg, it means that your speed is 1m/s. How would you manage under those conditions to apply a force of 10 N over 5 meters? If it is so obvious to you that you will not convert all the kinetic energy cleanly into work, how were you able to derive the fundamental correlation between energy and work?

What would be your answers, Imelahn?

It is my understanding that the very concept of kinetic energy depends that of work produced. I don’t have my old physics textbooks in front of me, but I seem to recall deriving the formula for kinetic energy from the definition of work exerted by a constant force.

As regards the problem at hand, I calculated that there is no way for me, at 1 m/s, to apply 50J of work to a 1-kg object at rest. Assuming an elastic collision, and based on the law of conservation of momentum, to effect a 50-J transfer of energy, I would have to be going originally at least 5.05 m/s (a fast run). Presumably, the more likely scenario is an inelastic collision, so I would have to be going even faster, and “lose” some of the kinetic energy as heat.

So, I stand corrected for my poor illustration .

(It does illustrate, in my opinion, that the relations of energy and momentum between bodies are real relations. They actually affect the behavior of those bodies.)

 

[lmelahn]

So, you say that we take the substantial form and the various accidental forms (colors, speed, density, odor, flavor, etcetera) of the turnip.

Let’s consider for the moment only the substantial form. You say that the substantial form of the turnip has to do with its organization. I wonder which organization do you mean when you say that we immediately understand it as such: a) the organization of its functional parts, b) the organization of its cells, c) the organization of its molecules, d) the organization of its fundamental particles, e) the organization of its accidents, f) the organization of its operations, g) all of them?

Please, clarify what you want to convey, Imelahn.

The substantial form is the principle of all that order. It gives the turnip, and its order, their being.

Remember what I am claiming: it is easy for us to apprehend whole, unified, material substances. I am not claiming that we readily understand the principle (i.e., the substantial form) that unifies such a substance. In fact, I think it is difficult for us to do so.

The order of our understanding is as follows: first, we discover that the thing exists, then that it is one, and only then that it is “plural” in various ways.

Upon reflection, we note that the plurality is unified by various kinds of order (like the ones you mention).

The question that philosophy asks is, “where does that order—that unity-in-plurality—come from”? And my answer is, “from a principle, unique and intrinsic to each material substance, that I call ‘substantial form.’ ”

Then, let’s work on the term “intentionality” too: You say that we have the tendency to read into the turnip. If I have understood it correctly, “to become the turnip”, “to take the form of the turnip”, “to read into the turnip”, and “to understand the orders that constitute the turnip” are equivalent.

Bear in mind that we take on most readily the turnip’s substantial form—that is what happens when I know and realize that “such-and-such a thing is a turnip.” In that case, your first three expressions are exactly equivalent.

Understanding the ordering of the turnip is something we do posteriorly, as we take on its accidental forms—i.e., get to know its properties, how large it is, what it smells like, etc.

Please, be aware that there are two different perspectives concerning how knowledge happens (and remember that we have an unanswered question about the nature of knowledge): a) does reality impress knowledge on us?, and b) do we elaborate or construct knowledge by establishing relations amongst the elements that surround us?

Yes, I am aware of that.

(a) When we are talking about direct experience, I would have to say that reality impresses itself on our intellects, practically involuntarily (we have some small ability to try to keep reality out—by closing our eyes, for example—but it is very small).

The rest of our knowledge, we obtain through what I have called “reason” (the composition of judgments into new judments).

The judgments that are very close to direct experience are very reliable. However, the more derived and remote are our judgments, the more they are prone to error. Nevertheless, the goal of our knowledge is to seek the truth, which (for us creatures) means submitting our intellects to what reality has to say, not the other way around.

(b) That is why I think it is better to speak about the discovery rather than the construction of relations, unless the the activity in question is truly constructive (e.g., when someone makes a mathematical model, or even when an archetect designs a building, or an engineer designs an industrial process). Saying that, say, the law of conservation of momentum is just a relation established by scientists, it seems to me, undermines the reality of that relation. I can take mass carts, measure the momenta, and actually show experimentally that bodies really behave in this way.

 

[inocente]

But in no way have you refuted anything that Aristotle or Aquinas say here. You simply state that it has been refuted and propose a that only considerations of practical utility are important. That is pretty much what happened in the enlightenment as well. Must we really be so narrow in our thinking?

God bless,
Ut

I mentioned Galileo et al as amongst those who refuted various aspects of Aristotle’s physics. While some of his methodical approach worked, some didn’t, in particular his lack of testing of ideas against empirical evidence. Yes, we should narrow our thinking to throw out wrong ideas, what’s the point of hoarding ideas which have been proven wrong?

 

[inocente]

Hey, Juan is probably on your side. But I’m sure he will respond. Just a short comment or two. Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy are falsely accused as impediments to the development of science. Just because Gallileo was reading the wrong or errant editions of Aristotle you can’t blame Aristotle, nor can you condemn Aristotle just because Gallileo didn’t like him. That is poor logic. Ditto for those mechinists and naturalists of the Renaissance/Enlightenment who were at war any idea or thought which might lead to God, like an immaterial soul. ( oddly, very oddly, there are some Christians who are like minded ).

There is no valid objection which can be raised against Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy from a scientific point of view. Each studies the world from a different point of view. Neither has a corner on truth. Science studies the quantifiable, philosophy studies the unquantifiable, and both deal with the same reality. Why do some become so vexed at the idea that A/T philosophy should exist or that it should be taken seriously or that it should even be taught at least at the University level.

Linus2nd

I think any supposed war between philosophy and science is as spurious as the supposed war between religion and science. Truth cannot contradict truth. Every field of human endeavor is littered with ideas which have been proven wrong, and any discipline which lovingly hangs on to them rather than discard them is dead, and serve it right, it is no longer searching for truth, it is merely nostalgically gazing at its navel. Ideas are not people, wrong ideas feel no pain when we let them die.

I’d say a good philosophy is to rigorously keep what has not been disproved from your favorite philosophers and rigorously throw out what has been discredited. Keep a tidy ship, be unsentimental, then surely there is no reason to be on the defensive.

 

[lmelahn]

Yes but it’s all very mysterious how this happens. How is it that intracranial electric events, which are necessary in some way to this process (at least in human persons), seem to have nothing in common with the ontological dimension of “form”, e.g., with the “appearance” of an apple over there on the table?

Keep in mind that for Aristotle, and especially for Aquinas, the apprehension of a substance is a spiritual activity that is incommensurable with the sensory activity of the brain and external senses. That is why Aquinas and Aristotle posit an “agent intellect,” which is the very same intellect, but considered in its active role as “translating” the sensory representation that our brain produces into an intellectual concept.

Additionally, although I agree that we have access to the same form that exists in the outside entity, it seems that, in some cases, we have access to more than just the form. I can know John Doe the person as well as the form of John Doe.

When I know the person, am I simply responding to the “existing” composite of matter and form.

According to Aristotle and Aquinas (and I am in agreement with them), what we apprehend directly is the substance (in this case, John Doe) as a whole. The form is only the means by which we know the substance, and we only recognize the form as such (in this case, John Doe’s immortal soul) after difficult reflection (or, in our case, because our Faith tells us that John Doe has an immortal soul).

(I am not sure if it is clear to readers that, for Aquinas and Aristotle, the substantial form of an animal or an man is precisely its, or his, “soul.” Obviously, man has a much more noble and excellent soul than an animal does, but it remains his substantial form.)

Or, to put it another way, is the singularity of the human being based simply upon the matter? Or is there another principle at work here - person as a singularity which falls outside Aristotelian categories including “substance”?

Matter is (according to Aquinas) the “principle of individuation.” However, that idea can be somewhat misleading: it is not the prime matter that makes a man an individual. The prime matter is only (to borrow from Kant’s terminology) the condition of possibility for there to be individuals. It is, if you will, the passive principle of individuation. What actually unifies and brings the substance together is the substantial form and, ultimately, its act of being.

All of this is theologically pertinent. God is a primary substance with one “form” … but is also 3 Divine Persons. The difference between these Persons is not due to any matter or multiple forms. Whence the difference?

I would be reluctant to ascribe “form” to God at all, because “form” by its very nature implies composition. Material creatures (including us) are form composed with matter; angels are pure form, but, like all substances, their essence is in composition with their act of being. (This is from Aquinas, not Aristotle.) However, God has no composition whatsoever; He is utterly one.

As far as the Divine Persons are concerned, they are really distinct from one another, but they are not distinct from the Divine Essence or Substance. You are absolutely right when you say that they are not different due to any sort of composition whatsoever: neither between matter and form (as for material creatures) nor between essence and being (as for all creatures, including pure spirits like angels).

When I say that a Divine Person is not distinct from the Essence, I just mean that the Person is really, truly, and fully God. And all the Persons are the very same God. They are not “individuals” in a “species” (as we are). There is no division of the Godhead of any kind.

The only distinction between Persons is mutual relation. What distinguishes the Father from the Son is Fatherhood and Sonship; what distinguishes Father and Son from the Holy Spirit is Spiration and Procession (according to the traditional terminology).

And what about angels? These beings each have their own unique form without matter. Are the angels “individuated” by their unique forms? Or are they “individuated” by being “singular” persons?

A very astute question. Angels are individuals, but not in exactly the same way that individual men are members of the “species” called man. Angels do not have matter; they are pure form.

What that means is that there can only be one “member” of each “species” of angel. One angel is a different from another angel as (say) one species of animal is different from another species of animal. Each individual angel is, if you will, an entirely different “kind” of angel. But angels have a “passive” principle of individuation, too: their essence, which is composed with their act of being. The individuality of angels is one very important reason why Aquinas argued from the real composition of essence and being.

 

[inocente]

Well, let me put the following challenge to you: take a piece of cold iron, say, that you are about to place in the fire.

An Aristotelian would say that the cold iron is hot “in potency”—which is simply to say, although it is not hot now, it has the capacity to be hot in the future.

Throw the iron into the fire, and a few seconds, it will be hot “in act.”

My challenge is the following: although I concede that temperature is largely explainable by the jiggling of the constituent atoms (although not completely—there are quantum phenomena involved, which is why hot iron radiates light), why is it a problem to say that the cold iron’s atoms are jiggling fast “in potency” (i.e. not now, but they have the capacity to jiggle fast in the future), and that they jiggle fast “in act” once the iron has been heated?

I am curious to know how you would answer this.

Part of the problem, I think, in saying "atoms are jiggling fast in potency” is that it appears to be contrived. We wouldn’t naturally say that a seated man is running in potency. Or, if he is unable to run due to injury, we wouldn’t say he has no potency to be running in potency.

A second issue is it doesn’t appear to tell us anything. Perhaps the atoms can’t jiggle any faster and will instead break apart, perhaps the seated man cannot run. When potency is paired with act then presumably the duet can do some philosophical work, and then perhaps act can be reified and morph sweetly into an unchanging philosopher god. But potency, by itself, doesn’t appear to bring anything to the party, it seems to have been invented merely as a warm-up act.

There’s evidence that people have made controlled fires for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years. Everyone of them knew that if they put something in the fire, it gets hot. None of them needed Aristotle to tell them this. I think perhaps Aristotle wasn’t trying to be profound here, but was appealing to what he saw as common sense, but his intuitions are not necessarily our intuitions, and no ones’ intuitions are necessarily correct anyway.

I am substantially in agreement with you about this.

You made me spill my coffee, I’m not used to anyone agreeing with me.

*Keep in mind that Aristotle is trying to solve a different problem than modern physicists do. Physicists, legitimately, seek the material causes of things, or at least the laws that govern them. Aristotle is seeking the ultimate causes and principles, which is a very different thing. For example, modern physics is not sufficient to explain how human beings know (which is the topic of this thread), because it cannot take into account spiritual realities, like our souls.

On the other hand, we need to understand something about the fundamental structure (ontological, not physical) of material beings, because they are the things that our intellect knows most easily.*

There is a temporary ban on discussion of evolution, but I would say that Aristotle’s neatly packaged analysis assumes we were designed by a philosopher god, rather than the long process by which we developed, and it is that long messy process which made us so much more wonderfully made than mere logic units. So you see that here, I don’t just have issues with the logic but with the entire theology, the entire foundation.

I don’t think any of us is against Galileo. I think his science was fabulous (although, as it turns out, still somewhat rudimentary as regards the movement of the planets). I just do not see anything fundamentally contrary between modern physics and Aristotle. Obviously, his theory of planetary movement is long superseded; his ontology of the physical world is not.

I mentioned Galileo for two reasons: one is that some people here do have problems with him (they know who they are ). The other is that right or wrong, Galileo had the courage to question the received wisdom of the ages (which is perhaps why some people here have problems with him ).

 

[lmelahn]

Part of the problem, I think, in saying "atoms are jiggling fast in potency” is that it appears to be contrived. We wouldn’t naturally say that a seated man is running in potency. Or, if he is unable to run due to injury, we wouldn’t say he has no potency to be running in potency.

I have to stretch English usage a little in order to represent Aristotle’s ideas accurately. I do that to avoid confusing Aristotle’s concept of “real potency” with the Modern (Kantian and Leibnizian) concept of “possibility,” which is not exactly the same thing. “Possibility” is a logical notion; “potency” means “real capacity.”

I can use the adverbs “potentially” and “actually,” instead of “in act” and “in potency” as long as we keep that difference clear.

To illustrate, an injured runner is no longer “potentially” a participant in the race; he has lost that capacity (at least for now).

A second issue is it doesn’t appear to tell us anything. Perhaps the atoms can’t jiggle any faster and will instead break apart, perhaps the seated man cannot run.

In those cases, they are not “in potency,” as I mentioned.

When potency is paired with act then presumably the duet can do some philosophical work, and then perhaps act can be reified and morph sweetly into an unchanging philosopher god. But potency, by itself, doesn’t appear to bring anything to the party, it seems to have been invented merely as a warm-up act.

There’s evidence that people have made controlled fires for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years. Everyone of them knew that if they put something in the fire, it gets hot. None of them needed Aristotle to tell them this.

I agree with the second paragraph quoted here, but that was not Aristotle’s purpose. See below.

I think perhaps Aristotle wasn’t trying to be profound here, but was appealing to what he saw as common sense, but his intuitions are not necessarily our intuitions, and no ones’ intuitions are necessarily correct anyway.

Act and potency on that level is not terribly profound. But that is what Aristotle wants: he wants to start with something so evident that everyone can agree with it. The notions were certainly useful for the particular problems that Aristotle was most interested in: the relationship of unity and plurality, and relationship of change (sometimes misleadingly called “movement,” because Aristotle is not interested only in local movement) and rest.

(I do not think, for example, that we can solve Zeno’s paradoxes satisfactorily without using act and potency.)

You made me spill my coffee, I’m not used to anyone agreeing with me.

Sorry about that. I will try not to agree in the future so as to avoid spillages.

There is a temporary ban on discussion of evolution, but I would say that Aristotle’s neatly packaged analysis assumes we were designed by a philosopher god, rather than the long process by which we developed, and it is that long messy process which made us so much more wonderfully made than mere logic units. So you see that here, I don’t just have issues with the logic but with the entire theology, the entire foundation.

In any case, I suggest saving the question of natural theology for a different thread.