How do we come to know things?

[JuanFlorencio]

I need to make an important clarification, here.

Whenever we make a judgment (if we had to formalize it, it would be an internal statement in the form “Subject is Predicate”), the capacity or faculty that is producing that judgment is the intellect. This is the “perfect” act of the intellect. (Apprehension is its “imperfect” act, the necessary precursor to making a judgment.)

I can get my judgment from direct experience, or else I can get that judgment by stringing together other judgments.

When we formalize that process, we get the so-called “syllogism”; e.g., to use a rather banal example:

All dogs are animals.
Fido is a dog.
Therefore, Fido is an animal.

The conclusion is also a judgment: it is an act of the intellect, like any other. However, it is different from those that come from direct experience, because it is the result of compounding two judgments together (the two premises).

This act of compounding judgments, so as to obtain more derived judgments, is called “reason,” in the strict sense of that word. (Hence, in Aquinas, “reason” is not exactly the same thing as “intellect.”)

Of course, the judgments produced in this way are only as good as the logical nexus, or link, between the judgments, which is why they are less reliable as such.

Exactly, Imelahn! Now you only would have to explain why the “logical nexus” can be “good” or “not so good”. What makes those “links” good or not so good?

Now, aristotelian metaphysics is the result of a lot of acts of compounding judgements; and Aristotle was quite aware of this when he situated prime philosophy as the highest and last degree of knowledge. In your words, it is as good as the links between its contituent judgements.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

It seems that JuanFlorencio is substantially in agreement with lmelahn about the correspondence of our knowledge of the external world with the realities they represent. Or at the very least, there is a correlation. But Juan seems to be holding on to an idealist distrust of the naive data of the senses. Still, he seems to agrees with lmelahn that the naive sense impression is the start of all our knowledge.

What name can be given to a discourse which to Aloysium resembles a materialistic view, and to you resembles an idealism? Isn’t that funny? Still, it is not abnormal that such things happen. Even St. Thomas was going to be condemned, but St. Albert did a good job for him. If that happens to those who are righteous, what can we sinners expect?

My posts are there. You and Aloysium can come back to them as many times as you like. But every time you do it, you will -almost inevitably-, bring with you your references. This fact could help you understand what I say: how is your mind working to understand what I have said? Do the texts have the ability to impress their meaning on your mind? Do you, instead, superimpose your references over my discourse trying to see if there is a match?

I have never distrusted my senses. It is through our senses that we belong to the realm of interactions. As I have said several times in this thread: *we are in the world *(and I say it not because I consider it a great discovery, but because I have seen that some persons here need it to be stressed). There is nothing naive in our senses.

Am I missing something here? JuanFlorencio - is there something in particular you disagree with Imelahn about, apart from his general tendency to look favorably on the modern applicability of Aristotelian and Thomistic thought.

I think that this discussion has been a clarification process, which normally takes its time. It has not ended and so it is not clear yet if there is really any difference, and if there is any, which one is it.

For the moment I tend to think that to Imelahn Aristotle’s prime philosophy is infallible or at least that it contains infallible elements (though he has not taken the opportunity to show which elements are those -which by the way would be his best defense). Besides he seems to think of knowledge in terms of “identity”, but sometimes he also seems to think that “reasoning” is not entirely reliable (though he has never said why). To me, no philosopher is infallible. Infallibility cannot be attributed to human intelligence. Also, as I have said in one of my posts before, to know is to establish relations, and so, knowledge is not an “identity”, but an essential, powerful, more or less effective and more or less efficient, “difference”.

By the way, thank you both for engaging in this dialog. I’ve learned a great deal from Imelahn, but I am also trying to get a better handle on JuanFlorencio’s perspective. JuanFlorencio - if you would be willing, I would appreciate understanding more about your positive philosophical convictions about how the mind comes to know. Does our knowledge start with the external world?

Of course.

Or do we never get beyond our minds?

We are in the world for a short time, Ut, aren’t we?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Can you see the relations that are being established here between a number of observations from different sources?

Embryos’ eyes are cold and glistening
Water flows from eyes
Water is cold and glistening
Eyes are constituted of water
Water freezes when it is too cold
There must be an intermediate condensed state of water which is not ice.
Eyes must be constituted of condensed non-frozen water
Oil does not freeze when water freezes
Oil in the eyes must protect them against freezing
We don’t feel cold in the eyes.
Our eyes are well protected against freezing.
Mirroring happens on smooth things
Eyes have smooth surfaces
Other smooth things different from the eyes do not see
Seeing is not mirroring.
Eyes are translucent.
Water and air are translucent
Air does not see
Eyes see because they are translucent (???)

A great deal of Aristotle’s experiences brought together into a unique moment to get to a conclusion: Eyes see because they are composed of translucent condensed non-frozen water. Obviously, this conclusion was not the result of an impression made by an eye upon Aristotle’s mind.

Do you think otherwise?

These last three posts have nothing to do with how we come to know things. That has been pretty well settled by Aristotle’s mature thought and his five elements have nothing to do with it. Nor does the difference between the conflicting way you and the plumber viewed the torch.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

What name can be given to a discourse which to Aloysium resembles a materialistic view, and to you resembles an idealism? Isn’t that funny? Still, it is not abnormal that such things happen. Even St. Thomas was going to be condemned, but St. Albert did a good job for him. If that happens to those who are righteous, what can we sinners expect?

My posts are there. You and Aloysium can come back to them as many times as you like. But every time you do it, you will -almost inevitably-, bring with you your references. This fact could help you understand what I say: how is your mind working to understand what I have said? Do the texts have the ability to impress their meaning on your mind? Do you, instead, superimpose your references over my discourse trying to see if there is a match?

I have never distrusted my senses. It is through our senses that we belong to the realm of interactions. As I have said several times in this thread: *we are in the world *(and I say it not because I consider it a great discovery, but because I have seen that some persons here need it to be stressed). There is nothing naive in our senses.

I think that this discussion has been a clarification process, which normally takes its time. It has not ended and so it is not clear yet if there is really any difference, and if there is any, which one is it.

For the moment I tend to think that to Imelahn Aristotle’s prime philosophy is infallible or at least that it contains infallible elements (though he has not taken the opportunity to show which elements are those -which by the way would be his best defense). Besides he seems to think of knowledge in terms of “identity”, but sometimes he also seems to think that “reasoning” is not entirely reliable (though he has never said why). To me, no philosopher is infallible. Infallibility cannot be attributed to human intelligence. Also, as I have said in one of my posts before, to know is to establish relations, and so, knowledge is not an “identity”, but an essential, powerful, more or less effective and more or less efficient, “difference”.

Of course.

We are in the world for a short time, Ut, aren’t we?

And I disagree entirely. Your discussion of " relationships " and " interactions " really add nothing to Aristotle’s theory of knowledge, nor does it disprove Aristotle’s theory. Aristotle obviously assumes that the intellect is processing all those " interactions " and " ovservations " of which you have spoken, it involves what he calls thinking about what has become known ( i.e. objective realities and their interactions ). And obviously, one man’s knowledge of the world will have more truth value than anothers. Where is the mystery in that?.And does the scientist have a better grasp of reality? No. He has a better grasp of the scientific meaning of reality and that is a wonderful thing.

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

These last three posts have nothing to do with how we come to know things. That has been pretty well settled by Aristotle’s mature thought and his five elements have nothing to do with it. Nor does the difference between the conflicting way you and the plumber viewed the torch.

Linus2nd

**Metaphysics, Book I, Part 1 **

"ALL men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer seeing (one might say) to everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things.

"By nature animals are born with the faculty of sensation, and from sensation memory is produced in some of them, though not in others. And therefore the former are more intelligent and apt at learning than those which cannot remember; those which are incapable of hearing sounds are intelligent though they cannot be taught, e.g. the bee, and any other race of animals that may be like it; and those which besides memory have this sense of hearing can be taught.

"The animals other than man live by appearances and memories, and have but little of connected experience; but the human race lives also by art and reasonings. Now from memory experience is produced in men; for the several memories of the same thing produce finally the capacity for a single experience. And experience seems pretty much like science and art, but really science and art come to men through experience; for ‘experience made art’, as Polus says, ‘but inexperience luck.’ Now art arises when from many notions gained by experience one universal judgement about a class of objects is produced. For to have a judgement that when Callias was ill of this disease this did him good, and similarly in the case of Socrates and in many individual cases, is a matter of experience; but to judge that it has done good to all persons of a certain constitution, marked off in one class, when they were ill of this disease, e.g. to phlegmatic or bilious people when burning with fevers-this is a matter of art.

"With a view to action experience seems in no respect inferior to art, and men of experience succeed even better than those who have theory without experience. (The reason is that experience is knowledge of individuals, art of universals, and actions and productions are all concerned with the individual; for the physician does not cure man, except in an incidental way, but Callias or Socrates or some other called by some such individual name, who happens to be a man. If, then, a man has the theory without the experience, and recognizes the universal but does not know the individual included in this, he will often fail to cure; for it is the individual that is to be cured.) But yet we think that knowledge and understanding belong to art rather than to experience, and we suppose artists to be wiser than men of experience (which implies that Wisdom depends in all cases rather on knowledge); and this because the former know the cause, but the latter do not. For men of experience know that the thing is so, but do not know why, while the others know the ‘why’ and the cause. Hence we think also that the masterworkers in each craft are more honourable and know in a truer sense and are wiser than the manual workers, because they know the causes of the things that are done (we think the manual workers are like certain lifeless things which act indeed, but act without knowing what they do, as fire burns,-but while the lifeless things perform each of their functions by a natural tendency, the laborers perform them through habit); thus we view them as being wiser not in virtue of being able to act, but of having the theory for themselves and knowing the causes. And in general it is a sign of the man who knows and of the man who does not know, that the former can teach, and therefore we think art more truly knowledge than experience is; for artists can teach, and men of mere experience cannot.

"Again, we do not regard any of the senses as Wisdom; yet surely these give the most authoritative knowledge of particulars. But they do not tell us the ‘why’ of anything-e.g. why fire is hot; they only say that it is hot.

"At first he who invented any art whatever that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility. Hence when all such inventions were already established, the sciences which do not aim at giving pleasure or at the necessities of life were discovered, and first in the places where men first began to have leisure. This is why the mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly caste was allowed to be at leisure.

Continues…

 

[JuanFlorencio]

"We have said in the Ethics what the difference is between art and science and the other kindred faculties; but the point of our present discussion is this, that all men suppose what is called Wisdom to deal with the first causes and the principles of things; so that, as has been said before, the man of experience is thought to be wiser than the possessors of any sense-perception whatever, the **artist wiser **than the men of experience, the masterworker than the mechanic, and the theoretical kinds of knowledge to be more of the nature of Wisdom than the productive. Clearly then Wisdom is knowledge about certain principles and causes.

This is the reference for our discussion.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

"We have said in the Ethics what the difference is between art and science and the other kindred faculties; but the point of our present discussion is this, that all men suppose what is called Wisdom to deal with the first causes and the principles of things; so that, as has been said before, the man of experience is thought to be wiser than the possessors of any sense-perception whatever, the **artist wiser **than the men of experience, the masterworker than the mechanic, and the theoretical kinds of knowledge to be more of the nature of Wisdom than the productive. Clearly then Wisdom is knowledge about certain principles and causes.

This is the reference for our discussion.

And the Wisdom above all is that of Metaphysics. But the reference for our discussion was Aristotle’s theroy of knowledge. And this I suggest assumes all that you have said in your last, now, five posts. Whether one is a mere laborer, as the one who selects and saws the boards to be used in a boat, or the architect who designed the boat, or the teacher who teaches the architect matehematics and the theory of building and designing sailing craft, all use Aristotle’s theory of knowledge, each applying his own " experiences " to his store house of knowledge and each " thinking " how best to apply that store house.

Linus2nd

Linus2nd

 

[utunumsint]

I hope Imelahn will not regard this as the end of our discussion, because he left some important questions unanswered.

Let me take some time to give an answer to your questions. First…

I apologize if I have derailed your discussion with Imelahn. Thanks for taking the time to answer some of my questions.

God bless,
Ut

 

[lmelahn]

I see. So the level of apprehension is that which is immediately derived from the senses through the abstracting intellect. Reason is based on this apprehension.

Apprehension generates concepts or notions. It is how we know “what something is;” for example “cat.”

Judgment (which Aristotle and Aquinas prefer to call “composition and division”) is the act by which we compare what we have apprehended to reality. The judgment produces “enunciations,” such as, “Fifi is a cat.”

By analogy with language (and this is a legitimate analogy, because language is a verbal expression of the workings of our intellect), what we apprehend is represented in language by a word (most often a noun).

Our judgments are represented by declarative sentences.

Reasoning takes multiple judgments and links them; so in language, it is represented by a syllogism or argument.

This faculty of apprehension that abstracts from the material sense impressions - I believe it is called phantasms - is immaterial, is it not?

The faculty that abstracts and apprehends is the same faculty that judges: the intellect. And yes, it is immaterial.

The “phantasm” is actually the sensory image, generated by the so-called cogitative power. What the intellect does is take that phantasm and “translate” it into a concept or notion (Aquinas describes it as an “illumination.”) That action is what Aquinas and Aristotle refer to as the “agent intellect”—it is not a different intellect; the term is just describing its active role.

Notice that there are three distinct acts here: (1) abstraction—i.e., translating from the sensory representation to the intellectual one; (2) apprehension—i.e., understanding what it is that is represented; (3) composition/division, a.k.a. judgment—i.e., seeing whether our apprehension corresponds to reality (composition) or not (division).

Then, with our discursive reason, we can link together judgments to make more judgments.

One could not open up a human brain and point to the abstracting intellect location, right? Or a location responsible for reasoning, as per Aquinas and Aristotle?

That is right. There is no “location” for the intellect, which is entirely spiritual. However, see below.

Modern neuroscience would appear to disagree though. FOr example, this web page ascribes the facility of abstract reasoning to the temporal lobe.

Neuroscience, being an empirical science, does not deal with spiritual realities, and that is fine, because it is not its competence.

I think that many people (and not a few scientists), however, confuse our sensory apparatus (what generates that “phantasm”) with our power of intellection, which is qualitatively very different.

Regarding “ascribing the facility of abstract reasoning to the temporal lobe,” I think there is a classic logical error here. The reasoning would go something like this:

When an operation depends on a certain facility, that facility is more active while the operation is ongoing. When we think abstractly, the temporal lobe is more active than when we are not thinking abstractly. (Let us suppose that this premise is true; I am not, in fact, familiar with the current findings of neuroscience.) Therefore, the temporal lobe is the facility for abstract reason.

However, this is a non sequitur. The observations simply prove that the two phenomena coincide; which one causes the other (if any) would need to be proven. According to Aquinas’ theory of knowledge, the body is necessary for the expression our intellectual acts, and so it is perfectly reasonable that a particular region of our temporal lobe, for example, should be especially active when we are doing abstract reasoning.

In reality, what neuroscience is observing is the action of the so-called vis cogitativa (cogitative power) whose function is to prepare the sensory data for the intellect, and also (so to speak) to “sensorify” what our intellect has produced, so that we can imagine it—this is what Aquinas calls the “conversion to the phantasms” (conversio ad phantasmata). Obviously, Aquinas had no idea that the cogitative power operated in the cerebrum of the brain, but I still think he had the right idea.

Do you know of any literature that tries to explain this in terms of modern neuroscience? I suspect that neuroscience today is mostly trying to figure out how the brain works in terms of material and efficient causality to the exclusion of formal and final causality - the very things that you are claiming human apprehension and reasoning deal with.

God bless,
Ut

I could ask one of my colleagues here at my college who is specializing in this area. I am not sure how much has been written in English. (He is Italian.)

 

[utunumsint]

Apprehension generates concepts or notions. It is how we know “what something is;” for example “cat.”

Judgment (which Aristotle and Aquinas prefer to call “composition and division”) is the act by which we compare what we have apprehended to reality. The judgment produces “enunciations,” such as, “Fifi is a cat.”

By analogy with language (and this is a legitimate analogy, because language is a verbal expression of the workings of our intellect), what we apprehend is represented in language by a word (most often a noun).

Our judgments are represented by declarative sentences.

Reasoning takes multiple judgments and links them; so in language, it is represented by a syllogism or argument.

The faculty that abstracts and apprehends is the same faculty that judges: the intellect. And yes, it is immaterial.

The “phantasm” is actually the sensory image, generated by the so-called cogitative power. What the intellect does is take that phantasm and “translate” it into a concept or notion (Aquinas describes it as an “illumination.”) That action is what Aquinas and Aristotle refer to as the “agent intellect”—it is not a different intellect; the term is just describing its active role.

Notice that there are three distinct acts here: (1) abstraction—i.e., translating from the sensory representation to the intellectual one; (2) apprehension—i.e., understanding what it is that is represented; (3) composition/division, a.k.a. judgment—i.e., seeing whether our apprehension corresponds to reality (composition) or not (division).

Then, with our discursive reason, we can link together judgments to make more judgments.

Acts 1 and 2 would appear to be primarily unconscious acts of the intellect. Acts 3 would appear to be where we are most conscious of our mental activity. Very interesting. Thank you for taking the time to explain this.

That is right. There is no “location” for the intellect, which is entirely spiritual. However, see below.

Neuroscience, being an empirical science, does not deal with spiritual realities, and that is fine, because it is not its competence.

I think that many people (and not a few scientists), however, confuse our sensory apparatus (what generates that “phantasm”) with our power of intellection, which is qualitatively very different.

Regarding “ascribing the facility of abstract reasoning to the temporal lobe,” I think there is a classic logical error here. The reasoning would go something like this:

When an operation depends on a certain facility, that facility is more active while the operation is ongoing. When we think abstractly, the temporal lobe is more active than when we are not thinking abstractly. (Let us suppose that this premise is true; I am not, in fact, familiar with the current findings of neuroscience.) Therefore, the temporal lobe is the facility for abstract reason.

However, this is a non sequitur. The observations simply prove that the two phenomena coincide; which one causes the other (if any) would need to be proven. According to Aquinas’ theory of knowledge, the body is necessary for the expression our intellectual acts, and so it is perfectly reasonable that a particular region of our temporal lobe, for example, should be especially active when we are doing abstract reasoning.

In reality, what neuroscience is observing is the action of the so-called vis cogitativa (cogitative power) whose function is to prepare the sensory data for the intellect, and also (so to speak) to “sensorify” what our intellect has produced, so that we can imagine it—this is what Aquinas calls the “conversion to the phantasms” (conversio ad phantasmata). Obviously, Aquinas had no idea that the cogitative power operated in the cerebrum of the brain, but I still think he had the right idea.

I believe that neuroscience deduces a great deal of its definitions of brain area functions by studying brain injuries, such that if the frontal lobe is injured, this often correlates to patients losing certain abilities, such as abstract reasoning. But, as you say, this is also a non sequitur since correlation is not causation.

I suppose something like this conversion to the phantasm must happen to explain art. The very idea that art can somehow encapsulate such abstract conceptual data is interesting in itself. There is no syntax to art. There is no alphabet of art. And yet the “phantasm” on canvas conveys semantic meaning.

I could ask one of my colleagues here at my college who is specializing in this area. I am not sure how much has been written in English. (He is Italian.)

Thank you very much for the offer, but no need to trouble yourself. I have read a great deal from Ed Feser on philosophy of mind where he argues that intellect must be immaterial based on Aristotelian arguments. He also brings in modern philosophical considerations such as the fact that semantics can’t be reduced to syntax, and that there can be no syntax at all without an observer to ascribe the syntax with semantic meaning. I find his arguments are fairly convincing, as are the traditional Aristotelian arguments for the immateriality of intellect.

God bless,
Ut

 

[lmelahn]

I hope Imelahn will not regard this as the end of our discussion, because he left some important questions unanswered.

No! However, I would appreciate it if you reminded me what your questions are, whenever you are ready.

As for me, we still have Post 397 pending.

 

[lmelahn]

It is clear to me that my understanding of the device was not produced by the action of its “substance” over my intellect. Did it produce the plumber’s understanding of it at least? Assuming it did, we should be careful with those actions of reality upon our intelligence. We should develop a method to become impressed by reality in a dependable fashion, because the partial reality to which we are exposed at any given moment could not impress us more that it is able to; but we know that at any given moment the partial reality to which we are exposed does not display its full richness, because it depends on the state of its surroundings.

I think your answers to Post 397 will shed light on this, so I will hold off for now.

However, I will observe the following, just to avoid a possible confusion: it is not the blowtorch’s “substance” that acts in your intellect; it is the blowtorch—or better said, the things that constitute the blowtorch—that act on your intellect. Also:

Aristotelians, who reserve the name of substances to certain objects, could say that my example does not apply in general, because the kerosene torch is not a substance but a conglomerate of I don’t know what. However, I have no doubt that it has general application.

For Aristotle, substance is not reserved to certain objects and not others. It is just that some of the things that we obviously regard as unities nevertheless lack the unity and coherence proper to a substance.

The blowtorch, for example, consists of various parts (I have never actually used one, so I am not sure exactly of what: probably different kinds of metal). It is a aggregate or conglomerate, certainly, but an aggregate of substances.

On the other hand, an animal, say, although it clearly has constitutive parts (organs, cells, etc.), also has a much stronger unity than a blowtorch could ever have. All of its operations proceed as from a single principle; it is directed to a unique end. It is impossible to replace or remove its “parts” without putting the animal’s life in danger.

The blowtorch also has a kind of unity, obviously, but it is an “accidental” unity. I could rearrange it (e.g., melt down the metal) and form a different aggregate, while retaining the same substances.

 

[lmelahn]

Exactly, Imelahn! Now you only would have to explain why the “logical nexus” can be “good” or “not so good”. What makes those “links” good or not so good?

This is the problem that logic looks at. Basically, the logical nexus consists of a middle term that must be established (i.e., the nexus is a relation in your terminology) between two premises. I will illustrate with the most basic kind of reasoning, which is the syllogism in “Barbara” (keep in mind, however, that there are plenty of other, often more subtle, kinds of reasoning—this is just the simplest illustration):

Every state in the United States has a capital city.
Massachusetts is a U.S. state.
Massachusetts has a capital city.

Notice the highlighted term “state,” which is the middle term here. In both premises (each of which represents a possible enunciation, or judgment), the middle term means exactly the same thing—its meaning is perfectly univocal, in the context.

One of the most subtle logical fallacies entails changing the middle term. Here is a banal example:

You can open a savings account at the bank.
A bank is the shore of a river.
Therefore, you can open a saving account at the shore of a river.

What happened here? In this case it is obvious: the word “bank” is perfectly equivocal—a homonym—and I have switched its meaning between premises.

I won’t go over all the rules of logic here, that but that is the idea. When I say that the products of reasoning are less reliable than direct evidence, I don’t mean that they are necessary unreliable. It is just that you are relying on the strength of the logical nexus, and it is often easy for us to make mistakes in that area.

Now, aristotelian metaphysics is the result of a lot of acts of compounding judgements; and Aristotle was quite aware of this when he situated prime philosophy as the highest and last degree of knowledge. In your words, it is as good as the links between its contituent judgements.

I agree with you. I happen to think that it is possible to reach a very high level of reliability, at least as regards its most fundamental findings. However, see below.

For the moment I tend to think that to Imelahn Aristotle’s prime philosophy is infallible or at least that it contains infallible elements (though he has not taken the opportunity to show which elements are those -which by the way would be his best defense).

Not exactly. It is not the First Philosophy that is infallible. Besides the Magisterium, the only thing that is infallible is our direct observation. Everything else is—as you point out—contingent on the strength of our reasoning.

However, many sciences achieve a very high level of reliability: mathematics, for example, and logic. I think that the First Philosophy can achieve a reliability on this level (although its method would be very different from that of mathematics or logic, because it studies something very different: namely, being). Moreover, it is certainly much, much more difficult to obtain this level of reliability; but it is possible. (And here the Magisterium backs me up: it is a dogma that we can come to knowledge of the Creator through reason alone.)

Besides he seems to think of knowledge in terms of “identity”, but sometimes he also seems to think that “reasoning” is not entirely reliable (though he has never said why). To me, no philosopher is infallible. Infallibility cannot be attributed to human intelligence. Also, as I have said in one of my posts before, to know is to establish relations, and so, knowledge is not an “identity”, but an essential, powerful, more or less effective and more or less efficient, “difference”.

Hence, I hope it is clear that I consider no philosopher (or philosophy) infallible. I just think we can arrive at a level of rigor on par with the most reliable sciences, albeit with greater difficulty.

If you want examples of things that I consider “established” with a degree of rigor similar to that of mathematics, here are a few (not an exhaustive list):

• The real composition of substance into “secondary matter” and accident.
• The real composition of material substance into matter and form.
• The real composition of all substance into essence and being.
• That qualities emanate from each substance, and operation emanates from those qualities.
• That the root of all actuality in a substance is its act of being.
• That being has certain properties that are coextensive with it, including unity, truth, goodness, “otherness,” and beauty.
• The radical dependence of all substances on a single Creator.
• That creation is ex nihilo sui et subiecti (i.e., when God creates, He does so simply; He does not use pre-existing material, nor are creatures a “part” of Him.)
• That this Creator is also the Model (or Exemplar) and the Goal (or End) of all His creatures.
• That, just as all creatures proceed from their Creator, they also tend to return to Him—i.e., He is the Supreme Good of all creatures.

I hold that these can be established—to use Kant’s terminology—apodeictically through reason alone. (I will not attempt a demonstration now—it would require at least an entire textbook, if not an entire life’s work .)

 

[lmelahn]

Acts 1 and 2 would appear to be primarily unconscious acts of the intellect. Acts 3 would appear to be where we are most conscious of our mental activity. Very interesting.

They are “unconscious”*in the sense that we don’t necessarily need to put them into action with an act of our will. They tend to happen whether we like it or not. Reasoning (Act 3) can sometimes be “unconscious” in that sense as well. As I mentioned to JuanFlorencio, if I see that the dog is not in its doghouse, I can surmise that it is outside somewhere. It did not have to sit down and think about it, but it is an example of using reason (since I am not seeing the dog directly). Those uses of reason that follow immediately from direct experience are easy to make and highly reliable.

On the other hand, all of these acts (1, 2, and 3) are “conscious” in the sense that, if we take a moment to pay attention to what our mind is doing, we can be aware of those acts. Just try glancing around the room and “watch” (with your mind’s eye, of course) your intellect abstract and apprehend the different objects that you see: that is the desk, that is the computer, that is the bookshelf, there is the floor, and so on. You can also “watch” it make judgments: “Oh, this is the book that I left out last night in order to read it today.” (In reality, in direct experience, we never abstract anything without immediately making a judgment: you see the computer, and your intellect immediately says silently, in effect, “This is a computer.”)

By the way, we can also apprehend without abstracting. Take the concept of “angel,” for example. No one has ever seen an angel directly (and if he has, it was through a manifestation that used corporeal elements, as in the Old Testament). But we know what they are: they are pure spirits that do not need a body. We get that concept by making several judgments: i.e., an angel is a spirit, like we are, but unlike us, it does not need a body.

(And actually, the concept of spirit—a substance that is immaterial, not spiritual—is brought about by a similar process.)

Thank you for taking the time to explain this.

Well, that is the topic of the thread—“How do we come to know things?”—right?

I believe that neuroscience deduces a great deal of its definitions of brain area functions by studying brain injuries, such that if the frontal lobe is injured, this often correlates to patients losing certain abilities, such as abstract reasoning. But, as you say, this is also a non sequitur since correlation is not causation.

I suppose something like this conversion to the phantasm must happen to explain art. The very idea that art can somehow encapsulate such abstract conceptual data is interesting in itself. There is no syntax to art. There is no alphabet of art. And yet the “phantasm” on canvas conveys semantic meaning.

Art makes heavy use of the imagination, which is how we visualize the phantasm internally. I am not much of an artist myself, but I am told that most artists actually imagine their “model” (if it is not a real-life model) before they begin to paint it (or however they intend to represent it).

Michelangelo Buonarroti (of Sistine Chapel fame) said (perhaps apocryphally) that for him, sculpting was simply chipping away the excess marble.

Thank you very much for the offer, but no need to trouble yourself. I have read a great deal from Ed Feser on philosophy of mind where he argues that intellect must be immaterial based on Aristotelian arguments. He also brings in modern philosophical considerations such as the fact that semantics can’t be reduced to syntax, and that there can be no syntax at all without an observer to ascribe the syntax with semantic meaning. I find his arguments are fairly convincing, as are the traditional Aristotelian arguments for the immateriality of intellect.

God bless,
Ut

That’s OK. I saw him this morning, and he is not aware of anything systematic on the topic in English. (He knows about a doctoral thesis on the topic, but my feeling is that it would be too technical as a first look—and anyway, it is not in English.)

 

[inocente]

Before I go on, I will mention that I studied biochemistry as a major in college, so I have some limited expertise in chemistry. (This is not meant to put off discussion; it is just so you know that I am not pulling these arguments out of thin air—no pun intended.)

The idea that an atom of hydrogen is “mostly empty space” is actually rather problematic. That is frankly a holdover from the Bohr model of the atom. It is a mistake to apply the macroscopic notion of volume on the subatomic level, at least without keeping certain things in mind.

For example, where is the hydrogen’s lone electron “located” in space? The question itself is actually flawed: it assumes that an electron is like a little grain of sand, with a definite volume and location. In reality, it is spread out in a spherical orbital that surrounds the whole space around the nucleus. Its density is greatest near the nucleus, and it gradually “thins” out into space, with the density tending to zero.

I think it’s actually easier to understand by treating the electron as a standing wave. Prof. Brian Cox has fun explaining it to some celebrities in a BBC video here - bbc.com/news/science-environment-16200089

I think here, what holds is the logical principle I mentioned a bit earlier: contra factum non est argumentum—there is no argument to be made against plain fact. Outside my window, there is one pine tree abut 25 feet from my window, and another one about 40 feet from my window. That is what I mean by “separate.” If it turns out that the atoms of those trees are mostly “empty space” (a idea that I find misleading, for the reasons I mentioned above), then, well that is interesting, even fascinating, but the end result is the trees that I see. (Electrons do an excellent job of repelling each other, after all, which is what produces “solidity”…)

The issue is what is plain fact.

We might think it plain fact that the matter in a tree comes from the ground, but really it comes mainly from the air. The carbon comes directly from converting CO[sub]2[/sub], while the water comes via the ground from rain in the air.

We might think it plain fact that the solidity of a tree comes from its substance, but for the reason given by Brian Cox, atoms are mainly empty space, and the solidity comes instead, as you say, from trillions and trillions of tiny electromagnetic fields.

The more we learn, the further away objective reality gets from Aristotle’s naive intuitions.

I will grant that all physical things are in relation to all other physical things. (And all human beings are in relation to all other human beings, too—that is “solidarity,” which I think is what the song was referring to.)

But my point is that “thinginess” is itself arguable. When Kirk tells Scotty to beam him up, how does the matter transporter know what is Kirk the thing? It’s actually very difficult to see how a machine could be programed to realize that the boots and the polish on the boots are Kirk while the mud on the boots is not Kirk, and so on. Is the Sun just the disc, or does it include the solar wind? How far out? The Sun’s gravity never ends.

Aristotle makes blanket assumptions about what he supposes to be plain fact.

It won’t produce new knowledge in physics or chemistry. But it certainly helps in other areas: for example, ethics. (For example, why can’t I just chop off someone’s arm—or my own arm, for that matter—for the fun of it? Well, in part it is because a person forms a substantial unity.)

I’m not sure about the ethics, given for instance, the objection ‘the Philosopher says (De Gener. ii, 3), that "the female is a misbegotten male’ or the reply, which begins ‘As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten’.

More generally, the issue with natures is who gets to decide. More generally still, a lot of interpretation and excusing of known errors always seems to be necessary.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Apprehension generates concepts or notions. It is how we know “what something is;” for example “cat.”

Judgment (which Aristotle and Aquinas prefer to call “composition and division”) is the act by which we compare what we have apprehended to reality. The judgment produces “enunciations,” such as, “Fifi is a cat.”

By analogy with language (and this is a legitimate analogy, because language is a verbal expression of the workings of our intellect), what we apprehend is represented in language by a word (most often a noun).

Our judgments are represented by declarative sentences.

Reasoning takes multiple judgments and links them; so in language, it is represented by a syllogism or argument.

The faculty that abstracts and apprehends is the same faculty that judges: the intellect. And yes, it is immaterial.

The “phantasm” is actually the sensory image, generated by the so-called cogitative power. What the intellect does is take that phantasm and “translate” it into a concept or notion (Aquinas describes it as an “illumination.”) That action is what Aquinas and Aristotle refer to as the “agent intellect”—it is not a different intellect; the term is just describing its active role.

Notice that there are three distinct acts here: (1) abstraction—i.e., translating from the sensory representation to the intellectual one; (2) apprehension—i.e., understanding what it is that is represented; (3) composition/division, a.k.a. judgment—i.e., seeing whether our apprehension corresponds to reality (composition) or not (division).

Then, with our discursive reason, we can link together judgments to make more judgments.

That is right. There is no “location” for the intellect, which is entirely spiritual. However, see below.

Neuroscience, being an empirical science, does not deal with spiritual realities, and that is fine, because it is not its competence.

I think that many people (and not a few scientists), however, confuse our sensory apparatus (what generates that “phantasm”) with our power of intellection, which is qualitatively very different.

Regarding “ascribing the facility of abstract reasoning to the temporal lobe,” I think there is a classic logical error here. The reasoning would go something like this:

When an operation depends on a certain facility, that facility is more active while the operation is ongoing. When we think abstractly, the temporal lobe is more active than when we are not thinking abstractly. (Let us suppose that this premise is true; I am not, in fact, familiar with the current findings of neuroscience.) Therefore, the temporal lobe is the facility for abstract reason.

However, this is a non sequitur. The observations simply prove that the two phenomena coincide; which one causes the other (if any) would need to be proven. According to Aquinas’ theory of knowledge, the body is necessary for the expression our intellectual acts, and so it is perfectly reasonable that a particular region of our temporal lobe, for example, should be especially active when we are doing abstract reasoning.

In reality, what neuroscience is observing is the action of the so-called vis cogitativa (cogitative power) whose function is to prepare the sensory data for the intellect, and also (so to speak) to “sensorify” what our intellect has produced, so that we can imagine it—this is what Aquinas calls the “conversion to the phantasms” (conversio ad phantasmata). Obviously, Aquinas had no idea that the cogitative power operated in the cerebrum of the brain, but I still think he had the right idea.

I could ask one of my colleagues here at my college who is specializing in this area. I am not sure how much has been written in English. (He is Italian.)

Very good.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

OK… (I will resist the temptation to respond to Sir Eddington until later.)

So, if you will, our internal representation of an interaction is a relation (but there are other relations besides these).

Or, more simply, by taking the lead in one hand and the soapstone in the other, I suppose.

So, we establish a relation of—let’s call it “relative weight”—which, if we continue doing more sophisticated experiments (with more accurate equipment, etc.), we can link with a relation called “mass”—which presumably does not have its precise formulation until we get the precise definitions of force and acceleration.

If I understood correctly (based on what you write further on below), there is something inherent in the elements that is responsible for this relation called “mass,” but that “something” is not to be identified with “mass,” which strictly speaking is only the mental relation.

I am still having a hard time getting my head around this: don’t the elements produce those interactions? Is there any conceivable way it could be otherwise?

What, in your opinion, is the nature (in the loose sense) of this real foundation for the relation called “mass”? Or is it unknowable? (Presumably, it is not entirely unknowable; otherwise, we would be unable to assert that it is the foundation of that relation.)

In other words, it is through its operari (its actions) that we learn what something is, that is all I meant.

Yes, there is nothing mysterious in this. It is Aristotle’s philosophy of nature. " Nature is the principle of motion and rest in those things ( true substances ) which have a nature. " so we learn the nature of a thing ( what it is and that it is ) by the actiions we observe in the substance. And our observations are made following the Aristotelian theory of knowledge we have been discussing.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

They are “unconscious”*in the sense that we don’t necessarily need to put them into action with an act of our will. They tend to happen whether we like it or not. Reasoning (Act 3) can sometimes be “unconscious” in that sense as well. As I mentioned to JuanFlorencio, if I see that the dog is not in its doghouse, I can surmise that it is outside somewhere. It did not have to sit down and think about it, but it is an example of using reason (since I am not seeing the dog directly). Those uses of reason that follow immediately from direct experience are easy to make and highly reliable.

On the other hand, all of these acts (1, 2, and 3) are “conscious” in the sense that, if we take a moment to pay attention to what our mind is doing, we can be aware of those acts. Just try glancing around the room and “watch” (with your mind’s eye, of course) your intellect abstract and apprehend the different objects that you see: that is the desk, that is the computer, that is the bookshelf, there is the floor, and so on. You can also “watch” it make judgments: “Oh, this is the book that I left out last night in order to read it today.” (In reality, in direct experience, we never abstract anything without immediately making a judgment: you see the computer, and your intellect immediately says silently, in effect, “This is a computer.”)

By the way, we can also apprehend without abstracting. Take the concept of “angel,” for example. No one has ever seen an angel directly (and if he has, it was through a manifestation that used corporeal elements, as in the Old Testament). But we know what they are: they are pure spirits that do not need a body. We get that concept by making several judgments: i.e., an angel is a spirit, like we are, but unlike us, it does not need a body.

(And actually, the concept of spirit—a substance that is immaterial, not spiritual—is brought about by a similar process.)

Well, that is the topic of the thread—“How do we come to know things?”—right?

Art makes heavy use of the imagination, which is how we visualize the phantasm internally. I am not much of an artist myself, but I am told that most artists actually imagine their “model” (if it is not a real-life model) before they begin to paint it (or however they intend to represent it).

Michelangelo Buonarroti (of Sistine Chapel fame) said (perhaps apocryphally) that for him, sculpting was simply chipping away the excess marble.

That’s OK. I saw him this morning, and he is not aware of anything systematic on the topic in English. (He knows about a doctoral thesis on the topic, but my feeling is that it would be too technical as a first look—and anyway, it is not in English.)

But our concept of an angel as a spiritual being depends on prior strings of abstractions. As Aristotle says, " All knowledge begins with the senses. "

Yes, artists almost always have an " image " or " idea " in mind which they want to convey. Very few artists want to reproduce a photo graphic image. I favor realism but it is realism with a message. See my Avatar. The scene is totally contrived, Joseph was a product of my imagination only, so was the background. Both were painted without any " models, " Mary and child are copied from a Master.

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Is knowledge apprehending a thing as it is in thought, or is thought an instrument by which we apprehend a thing as it is in reality?

We are in the world participating in a lot of interactions; still, that is not knowledge yet. Knowledge consists in establishing relations.

What is the significance of the question “what is knowledge?”

There is the word “knowledge” and other associated words in our vocabulary. There is a variety of discourses concerning “knowledge”. There are a lot of things around us, a lot of interactions taking place among those things, a lot of actions performed by us. Then we ask the question “amongst all these, what does the word ‘knowledge’ designate?”. The answer would be a relation: someone will select part of that complex reality and will tell you: “that is knowledge”. Then you will think “now I know what ‘knowledge’ is” or you will disagree. And if you disagree it will be either because you prefer to do a different selection or because you are in doubt about a variety of possible selections.

But if knowledge is an impression of reality onto our mind, and knowledge is a reality, why do we need to ask what it is?

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Hence, I hope it is clear that I consider no philosopher (or philosophy) infallible. I just think we can arrive at a level of rigor on par with the most reliable sciences, albeit with greater difficulty.

If you want examples of things that I consider “established” with a degree of rigor similar to that of mathematics, here are a few (not an exhaustive list):

• The real composition of substance into “secondary matter” and accident.
• The real composition of material substance into matter and form.
• The real composition of all substance into essence and being.
• That qualities emanate from each substance, and operation emanates from those qualities.
• That the root of all actuality in a substance is its act of being.
• That being has certain properties that are coextensive with it, including unity, truth, goodness, “otherness,” and beauty.
• The radical dependence of all substances on a single Creator.
• That creation is ex nihilo sui et subiecti (i.e., when God creates, He does so simply; He does not use pre-existing material, nor are creatures a “part” of Him.)
• That this Creator is also the Model (or Exemplar) and the Goal (or End) of all His creatures.
• That, just as all creatures proceed from their Creator, they also tend to return to Him—i.e., He is the Supreme Good of all creatures.

I hold that these can be established—to use Kant’s terminology—apodeictically through reason alone. (I will not attempt a demonstration now—it would require at least an entire textbook, if not an entire life’s work .)

Why not? It might be. I am sure that if you already consider all these examples established with a level of rigor similar to that of mathematics, you are able to reproduce the procedures. Why don’t you take only the first example? Only one of the examples should not take too long (for if it takes one’s life, how have you concluded already that it can be established?). Please, explain what makes mathematical proofs “rigorous”, and then show us here how the reasoning to conclude that “substances are composed of secondary…” features the same rigor. I think that is necessary, because examples about states and banks don’t help much really.