How do we come to know things?

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lmelahn said:
Yes, although even if the relation does not follow necessarily from the things nature, the relation is inherent. If I place one stone to the left of a different stone, the second stone is automatically to the right of the first one.

It is true that “left” and “right” are conventional, and relative to the observer (by changing my position, I change what I regard as left and right), but the mutual relationships between stone A and stone B are there in rerum natura (in reality, not in my mind). That is the important point here. There are relations (or whatever you want to call them) in reality, not just in my (or your) mind.
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🙂
Come on, Imelahn; have you noticed how you build something, then you destroy it, but immediately you pretend that it is still standing. Do you have another example, besides the “natural-conventional” right and left?
 
JuanFlorencio said:
…

Then, in that case, the intellect is not “malleable” because it is spiritual, but because it does not know. However, there are many things which do not know, and I tend to think that you would not say that they are “malleable” (your “sub-human creatures are non-malleable” induces me to think that). You are missing something, Imelahn…
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The human intellect is “malleable” (a poor choice of words, I think) because it has no native form, no “known form” no “known object” that would be the object of comparison to what is sensitively apprehended after being sensitively sensed. If it had a “known form”, then nothing other than external objects matching that known form would be knowable as individual real objects. But having the capacity for receiving forms from perceived objects divided and composed, the “known object” can be many things, from the big picture down to the smallest quark.

And the “knowing of the self” as the “known object” or form of the intellect is not a knowing of the self directly within the soul, but also by apprehension, division, composition, from the observance of the material presence of the act of the self thinking and walking in the external world. Knowing the soul is from looking at its tracks in the snow of how you act and think materially, so it is also learning from what you encounter outside the soul, outside the intellect.

The whole big picture of “not God” is understood or a known object in the mind of God, and known in all its parts as one object known, therefore simple. And our knowledge of a clay cube is similar, in that we not only know a clay cube but know it in a bigger knowing in our intellect as a clay cube formerly a blob and “futurely” a sphere, all in one knowing of a “big picture”. I say “futurely” because that is the “mechanism” whereby the intellect really understands the cube, former blob. It understands “clay” universally and “cube or sphere” individually. It is also the point of entry for the will. The will suddenly loves this new understanding and seeks to materially actualize in the intelligible real world the object known. It moves the sensitive you to move your hands and reshape the clay to a sphere so that you may sense what you know.

The soul is spiritual in that it knows, understands. And it is capable of knowing all things because it has no native form known (because it does not know by force of an impressed form).
 
utunumsint said:
When we define one thing as bigger or smaller than another thing, that is simply a fact about what we see in the external world. We discover things fact and assign it the meanings of bigger or smaller. Bigger and smaller are something true about the external world. In mathematics, however, we can move completely out of the real world into a world of numbers and arithmetic, where 2 plus 2 is 4, and yet we have never defined what the first group of 2 or the second group of 2 are. And yet, however divorced these equations get from the real world, they are still true. They are not simply constructs of the human mind. This may be a question of where universals ultimately reside. Are they in some third realm, divorced from matter, or do they inhere in matter.
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The reason why relations are said to belong to the “real order” is the conviction that only this way they would be “objective”, they would be what they should be for everybody; there would be a foundation for universal agreement; there would be a basis for your belief that you are right (something that certain persons desperately need). I tend to think that such an assumption is misleading. Besides this assumption, Imelahn has proposed that the “real order” impresses those relations on our minds. This would imply our infallibility (not only concerning those relations which according to Imelahn “are available to direct observation”, but concerning every relation). However, we are not infallible (taking the example of the right and the left hands: when I was a boy and every Monday we were in the school yard to honor the national flag, whenever we received the order “turn left” or “turn right”, one of my classmates used to make a movement with his right hand -as if he were writing on the air without a pencil-, to identify his right or his left. It was obvious that he needed to execute a number of mental operations to be able to follow the order; but he sometimes made a mistake (was reality reluctant to impress the right and left relations on the mind of this boy?). Here is another example: if you are offered a set of pictures of hands, some of them showing the palm and others the back, oriented in different ways, and you are asked to mentally separate the left hands from the right ones, it will not be enough for you to “let reality” impress your mind: you, like my classmate, will need to imagine certain movements with each one of those images to identify them as right or left hands. And if you are given a time limit, you will probably make mistakes).

I acknowledge that it is not evident (in the strict sense of the word) that relations do not belong to the “real order”. It is quite normal to think that relations are there, in front of us. And I explain this common view saying that it is a result of our sophistication. When I go to the physician, he does his inspections, he asks certain questions, he gets to his conclusions and he finally gives me his recommendations. Same thing when I take my car to the specialist: he will inspect the engine, will do some tests, new inspections, new tests, etcetera, until he finds the problem and solves it. Both the physician and the specialist “see” almost immediately relations which I don’t see; and it is just because they have developed experiences that I haven’t. They have become sophisticated, and they make their surroundings sophisticated too.

What about those relations which are “simple” or “directly available”. Same thing! We have learned an immense amount of things through language (a lot of conventions among them), and as a result we move around “projecting” relations over our surroundings. It happens so spontaneously that a very careful reflection is needed to realize it. Language is a powerful carrier of relations. But if due to an unfortunate illness we progressively loose memory and language, our world losses its sophistication. It tends to become a poor present; it losses meaning; relations fade and disappear.

In the “Categories”, Aristotle writes about “the relatives”, and he says this:

“All relatives, then, if properly defined, have a correlative. I add this condition because, if that to which they are related is stated as haphazard and not accurately, the two are not found to be interdependent. Let me state what I mean more clearly. Even in the case of acknowledged correlatives, and where names exist for each, there will be no interdependence if one of the two is denoted, not by that name which expresses the correlative notion, but by one of irrelevant significance. The term ‘slave,’ if defined as related, not to a master, but to a man, or a biped, or anything of that sort, is not reciprocally connected with that in relation to which it is defined, for the statement is not exact. Further, if one thing is said to be correlative with another, and the terminology used is correct, then, though all irrelevant attributes should be removed, and only that one attribute left in virtue of which it was correctly stated to be correlative with that other, the stated correlation will still exist. If the correlative of ‘the slave’ is said to be ‘the master’, then, though all irrelevant attributes of the said ‘master’, such as ‘biped’, ‘receptive of knowledge’, ‘human’, should be removed, and the attribute ‘master’ alone left, the stated correlation existing between him and the slave will remain the same, for it is of a master that a slave is said to be the slave. On the other hand, if, of two correlatives, one is not correctly termed, then, when all other attributes are removed and that alone is left in virtue of which it was stated to be correlative, the stated correlation will be found to have disappeared.”

Continues…
 
If you think about the relation “slave-master” carefully, you might realize at least that it is not one of those “directly available” relations that Imelahn mentions (though it seems that it was directly available for Aristotle). As Aristotle implies, you need the definition of the words to “correctly see” the relation. As a greek aristocrat, Aristotle was able to immediately recognize among two humans who was a master and who was a slave (he was knowledgeable about the words and their common uses). Their natures impressed his mind without any obstacle. On my side, I am quite unable to perform such identification: Christian doctrine prevents reality from impressing such abominable “truth” on my mind. Language establishes the way we see the world. Language is a vision of the world. Once you are “informed” by your mother language, you cannot avoid so easily “seeing” relations as part of the “real order”.

But then, isn’t there any objective foundation (I prefer to say “reference”) for our relations? I have said many times in this thread that interactions and the “elements” of those interactions are real, and we mentally imitate them. As an approximation to what Imelahn says, some interactions are certainly less complex than others, and for them our imitative labor becomes easier, and a common agreement between us is easier too in those cases. But we are not infallible: both the physician and the engine specialist make mistakes, just as we all do. Interactions and the “elements of interactions” do not depend on our caprice. So, they are the common reference for each one of us. But complex interactions challenge us, and we don’t find easy and unique ways to imitate them, so agreement is not straightforward.

Besides, the elements of interaction have multiple possibilities. For example, an ambitious man can subjugate others and make them his slaves, and, in association with others, he can create a complex organization which, in time, will make slavery to become “natural” to people, both for “masters” as for “slaves”. Certain social mechanisms will be developed (interactions), and language will develop to create the relations which imitate those real interactions… But people like St. Francis can make another possibility to become real as well: son of a rich merchant, he can decide to become the poorest among the poor, and dedicate his life to the service of his brothers, and create a society of men willing to follow his example… However, ambition is an indeclinable mode of human interaction, and…
You can see two bodies (A and B, you know) at a distance. You compare certain interaction between you and body A with the same interaction between you and body B. Based on this and on the knowledge of words, you say: A is “bigger” than B. But then you observe better and realize that you would need to walk more to reach body B than to reach body A; and remembering that this has an influence on the way you perceive bodies (other interactions intervene here), you doubt: B might be as big as A, or even bigger. Then, you work to put both bodies close to each other and you see them again: You notice now that the interaction between you and A is very similar to the interaction between you an B, so you say: “they are practically the same size”. You can resort on other advanced techniques (interactions) to do the comparison (for example, you can use an instrument that could give you two digital signals as a result of the successive interaction between the instrument and A, and the interaction between B and the instrument. Then you only would have to compare the digital signals. Sometimes, a greater complexity makes things easier). If this relation of sizes of bodies A and B inheres in them and is impressed on your mind, why do you have to work so hard, and why is it that you can make mistakes?
 
Perhaps Aristotle should be put in a less sensitive language so that “correlative” is understood:
“All relatives, then, if properly defined, have a correlative. I add this condition because, if that to which they are related is stated as haphazard and not accurately, the two are not found to be interdependent. Let me state what I mean more clearly. Even in the case of acknowledged correlatives, and where names exist for each, there will be no interdependence if one of the two is denoted, not by that name which expresses the correlative notion, but by one of irrelevant significance. The term ‘son,’ if defined as related, not to a mother, but to a man, or a biped, or anything of that sort, is not reciprocally connected with that in relation to which it is defined, for the statement is not exact. Further, if one thing is said to be correlative with another, and the terminology used is correct, then, though all irrelevant attributes should be removed, and only that one attribute left in virtue of which it was correctly stated to be correlative with that other, the stated correlation will still exist. If the correlative of ‘the son’ is said to be ‘the mother’, then, though all irrelevant attributes of the said ‘mother’, such as ‘biped’, ‘receptive of knowledge’, ‘human’, should be removed, and the attribute ‘mother’ alone left, the stated correlation existing between her and the son will remain the same, for it is of a mother that a son is said to be the son. On the other hand, if, of two correlatives, one is not correctly termed, then, when all other attributes are removed and that alone is left in virtue of which it was stated to be correlative, the stated correlation will be found to have disappeared.”
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Everyone knows that a mother has a son and an son has a mother, and that relationship has it terms (terminology). Even today, we do know that slave relates to master, whether we see slaves and masters or never have seen them - we know the two terms correlate with one another, and we know that the term “slave” is not a correlative term with the term biped, though he may be, or probably is, a biped. The terms have nothing to do with Aristotle’s “ability” to recognize a slave on the street versus recognizing a master.
 
John_Martin said:
Perhaps Aristotle should be put in a less sensitive language so that “correlative” is understood:

Everyone knows that a mother has a son and an son has a mother, and that relationship has it terms (terminology). Even today, we do know that slave relates to master, whether we see slaves and masters or never have seen them - we know the two terms correlate with one another, and we know that the term “slave” is not a correlative term with the term biped, though he may be, or probably is, a biped. The terms have nothing to do with Aristotle’s “ability” to recognize a slave on the street versus recognizing a master.
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Yes, everybody who understands the terms, understands that a mother has a daughter or a son, and a son or daughter has or had a mother. Nobody denies that. Concerning the importance of defining the terms and understanding them properly, those are Aristotle’s thoughts. So, what is your conclusion?
 
JuanFlorencio said:
Yes, everybody who understands the terms, understands that a mother has a daughter or a son, and a son or daughter has or had a mother. Nobody denies that. Concerning the importance of defining the terms and understanding them properly, those are Aristotle’s thoughts. So, what is your conclusion?
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Mother and “child” are not directly available to perception (you cannot look at a woman and a child and by sight presume they are mother and child - it might be a baby-sitter and her charge). And the sight of two men to Aristotle would not give him pause to say “Slave and Master” - not even if one were leading the other by a chain. You were claiming that in his environment such a correlation was visible to the senses, but they were not. A man leading another man in chains may be a policeman with a prisoner, not a master and a slave. Understanding of master and slave has not changed since the time of Aristotle, nor since the time of Israel in Egypt, and is not visible in the nature of the biped Aristotle sees, so that it might impress his mind without obstacle. He would need to ask, “Are you a master and a slave” of the two to know these individual persons had that correlation, or else he would be presuming rather than knowing. Only after asking would he have in his understanding of these individuals the same correlation that they understand about one another.
 
John_Martin said:
Mother and “child” are not directly available to perception (you cannot look at a woman and a child and by sight presume they are mother and child - it might be a baby-sitter and her charge). And the sight of two men to Aristotle would not give him pause to say “Slave and Master” - not even if one were leading the other by a chain. You were claiming that in his environment such a correlation was visible to the senses, but they were not. A man leading another man in chains may be a policeman with a prisoner, not a master and a slave. Understanding of master and slave has not changed since the time of Aristotle, nor since the time of Israel in Egypt, and is not visible in the nature of the biped Aristotle sees, so that it might impress his mind without obstacle. He would need to ask, “Are you a master and a slave” of the two to know these individual persons had that correlation, or else he would be presuming rather than knowing. Only after asking would he have in his understanding of these individuals the same correlation that they understand about one another.
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It sounds reasonable to me. Aristotle might assume that one of those guys is a slave and the other the master, but it would be a projection of his relations over the scene. Then, if he asked them he could confirm or reject his spontaneous belief, depending on the answer.

Concerning the visibility of relations to our senses, I used the word “see” in quotes to express that we actually don’t see them (because they do not belong to the “real order”). If you read again, you will notice how I say that we put the relations in our surroundings, so that we then can “see” them.

From your comment it seems that you are not the kind of person who thinks that reality impresses relations on our mind. Am I right?
 
JuanFlorencio said:
It sounds reasonable to me. Aristotle might assume that one of those guys is a slave and the other the master, but it would be a projection of his relations over the scene. Then, if he asked them he could confirm or reject his spontaneous belief, depending on the answer.

Concerning the visibility of relations to our senses, I used the word “see” in quotes to express that we actually don’t see them (because they do not belong to the “real order”). If you read again, you will notice how I say that we put the relations in our surroundings, so that we then can “see” them.

From your comment it seems that you are not the kind of person who thinks that reality impresses relations on our mind. Am I right?
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I would say that the mind parses sensed reality to understand all as one, but before saying “I know”, the mind moves the sensitive self to interact in some way with the sensed reality that would tend to confirm understanding correctly or confirm not yet understanding.

There is always the question, “Is this true?” that moves the will to move the sensitive powers to move the body to think or touch, so that comparative sensation may occur. From this “feedback” the soul comes to understand individual truths, contingent truths, and universal truths and the self in relation to these, understandings some of which are infallible and some which are not (whether the appetites allow such honesty about truth or not - many claim infallibility of their truth when, in fact, they are actually working to satisfy some appetite).

We seek (our will) to find all as one, meaning relationship (our intellect), with the intention of ourselves somehow relating (the will) and knowing ourselves suitably related (the intellect) or one with all - and in that is blessedness, joy - the act of knowing ourselves suitably related to and in the presence of God. A big jump, but the chain is there.
 
John_Martin said:
The human intellect is “malleable” (a poor choice of words, I think) because it has no native form, no “known form” no “known object” that would be the object of comparison to what is sensitively apprehended after being sensitively sensed. If it had a “known form”, then nothing other than external objects matching that known form would be knowable as individual real objects. But having the capacity for receiving forms from perceived objects divided and composed, the “known object” can be many things, from the big picture down to the smallest quark.

And the “knowing of the self” as the “known object” or form of the intellect is not a knowing of the self directly within the soul, but also by apprehension, division, composition, from the observance of the material presence of the act of the self thinking and walking in the external world. Knowing the soul is from looking at its tracks in the snow of how you act and think materially, so it is also learning from what you encounter outside the soul, outside the intellect.

The whole big picture of “not God” is understood or a known object in the mind of God, and known in all its parts as one object known, therefore simple. And our knowledge of a clay cube is similar, in that we not only know a clay cube but know it in a bigger knowing in our intellect as a clay cube formerly a blob and “futurely” a sphere, all in one knowing of a “big picture”. I say “futurely” because that is the “mechanism” whereby the intellect really understands the cube, former blob. It understands “clay” universally and “cube or sphere” individually. It is also the point of entry for the will. The will suddenly loves this new understanding and seeks to materially actualize in the intelligible real world the object known. It moves the sensitive you to move your hands and reshape the clay to a sphere so that you may sense what you know.

The soul is spiritual in that it knows, understands. And it is capable of knowing all things because it has no native form known (because it does not know by force of an impressed form).
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It is clear that we human beings can adopt a great variety of behaviors, that we can adapt to multiple situations and that we modify our environment. It is clear too that to do all these we must know many things and many situations which, besides, change continuously. Also, looking at others -how they behave in different circumstances-, makes us think that we can do the same or better, and reflecting on our own past experiences we may think that we can improve or apply the same actions in other circumstances. Through action we certainly can know our own tendencies and the way we respond to different stimuli.
Thanks to the constant influence of our neighbors we learn how to group phenomena into categories, so that reality becomes simpler to our eyes. We then talk about “intellect”, “will”, “soul”, etcetera. And we go further, because we then imagine how those realities might be and how they act. We can conceive, for instance, “our intellect” as a kind of malleable clay that becomes similar to its objects; or like an immensely adaptable receptacle which can receive copies of various objects successively or simultaneously. It must be adaptable, or have a big size, because if it was not, only objects having the same shape or smaller size could be accommodated within. Some will conceive this singular receptacle as able to “see” thoroughly inside itself; but some others, being conscious that an important part of such “interiority” is hidden to ourselves, introduce new interpretations: “we know the interior of the receptacle through its actions”, which involves a new surreptitious assumption: the “exteriority” must resemble the “interiority”.

The idea of forms and the human soul as a form is but one of those modes of interpreting the various phenomena which we can get in touch with; but some pretend that those models have an ontological value. It is easy for them to add new peculiarities to those conceptions as they ere being required: so, the human soul would be a form which is subsistent, immaterial and simple. Also, it would be a form which do not have a definite form and which is able to adopt a variety of other forms (unfortunately without being conscious of it -which is surprising in view of its simplicity) still remaining unchanged.
I didn’t know the word “parsing”. I found that it is equivalent to “analyzing”. Perhaps you would prefer to use the word “synthesizing” to convey the idea that we try to understand our surroundings as a whole one. Actually, you can see through the history of western thought the importance that the idea of “the one” has had over the centuries.

I see that you tend to be careful with the language you use. Perhaps you would find it advisable to refrain from using expressions like “the will”, “the mind”, which sometimes escape from your pen, and limit yourself to say “we” or “I”. I noticed that you sometimes add “our intellect” or “our will” within parentheses when you say “we” (to specify the kind of action that we perform), which seems to me very appropriate.

I would like you to extend your thought about those infallible truths that you mentioned in your last post. Which truths are you referring to?
 
JuanFlorencio said:
It is clear that we human beings can adopt a great variety of behaviors, that we can adapt to multiple situations and that we modify our environment. It is clear too that to do all these we must know many things and many situations which, besides, change continuously. Also, looking at others -how they behave in different circumstances-, makes us think that we can do the same or better, and reflecting on our own past experiences we may think that we can improve or apply the same actions in other circumstances. Through action we certainly can know our own tendencies and the way we respond to different stimuli.
Thanks to the constant influence of our neighbors we learn how to group phenomena into categories, so that reality becomes simpler to our eyes. We then talk about “intellect”, “will”, “soul”, etcetera. And we go further, because we then imagine how those realities might be and how they act. We can conceive, for instance, “our intellect” as a kind of malleable clay that becomes similar to its objects; or like an immensely adaptable receptacle which can receive copies of various objects successively or simultaneously. It must be adaptable, or have a big size, because if it was not, only objects having the same shape or smaller size could be accommodated within. Some will conceive this singular receptacle as able to “see” thoroughly inside itself; but some others, being conscious that an important part of such “interiority” is hidden to ourselves, introduce new interpretations: “we know the interior of the receptacle through its actions”, which involves a new surreptitious assumption: the “exteriority” must resemble the “interiority”.

The idea of forms and the human soul as a form is but one of those modes of interpreting the various phenomena which we can get in touch with; but some pretend that those models have an ontological value. It is easy for them to add new peculiarities to those conceptions as they ere being required: so, the human soul would be a form which is subsistent, immaterial and simple. Also, it would be a form which do not have a definite form and which is able to adopt a variety of other forms (unfortunately without being conscious of it -which is surprising in view of its simplicity) still remaining unchanged.
I didn’t know the word “parsing”. I found that it is equivalent to “analyzing”. Perhaps you would prefer to use the word “synthesizing” to convey the idea that we try to understand our surroundings as a whole one. Actually, you can see through the history of western thought the importance that the idea of “the one” has had over the centuries.

I see that you tend to be careful with the language you use. Perhaps you would find it advisable to refrain from using expressions like “the will”, “the mind”, which sometimes escape from your pen, and limit yourself to say “we” or “I”. I noticed that you sometimes add “our intellect” or “our will” within parentheses when you say “we” (to specify the kind of action that we perform), which seems to me very appropriate.

I would like you to extend your thought about those infallible truths that you mentioned in your last post. Which truths are you referring to?
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( Underlining mine. ) Looks like someone has strayed from the reservation. The view that the human soul has no ontological reality is contrary to Catholic teaching. I guess you can deny it is the ’ form ’ of the body, but is definitely real. It is, in the words of Aquinas, an incomplete substance, since when it separates from the body at death, it has been separated from its proper mode of existence as the form of the body.

And if you admit it is real but deny it is the form of the body, what do you regard its function in the body? And how then do you define man, what is his nature?

Linus2nd
 
Linusthe2nd said:
( Underlining mine. ) Looks like someone has strayed from the reservation. The view that the human soul has no ontological reality is contrary to Catholic teaching. I guess you can deny it is the ’ form ’ of the body, but is definitely real. It is, in the words of Aquinas, an incomplete substance, since when it separates from the body at death, it has been separated from its proper mode of existence as the form of the body.

And if you admit it is real but deny it is the form of the body, what do you regard its function in the body? And how then do you define man, what is his nature?

Linus2nd
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I did not deny the ontological reality of the human soul, but I shed doubts about the ontological reality of the modeling of it as a form which does not have a definite form. Once this strange patch to the original concept of form has been deemed necessary to explain knowledge, it appears that the concept of form does not have the capacity to express the richness of our human reality. The idea that the soul becomes like the things it knows (either because reality acts upon it, or because the soul does it spontaneously) does not have support. The whole thing needs a thorough revision.

As I have said in this thread, one of the ways we have to know something is to compare it with something else that displays similar interactions. And though we apparently share many modes of interaction with other beings, there are other interactions which are definitely peculiar to us; and when we pay close attention to these, it appears that many of those which we apparently share with other beings are in reality different and peculiar too. So, in view of its uniqueness, I cannot know nor define humans comparing them with any other being. Another way to know something is through the analysis of its constituent elements followed by a synthesis; but I don’t think we have right now enough information about those elements (I certainly don’t have enough, and I doubt I will have it in this life); so, I cannot define human beings this way either. The third way to know something is by observing its interactions and describing them. This is what we are doing in this thread concerning “knowledge”, and I think it is clear how difficult the task is. However, precisely this activity (knowledge) is one of those that show our uniqueness. I have tried to express it saying that we belong to the realm of interactions and to the realm of relations; and that we actually bring the realm of relations into the world (or we probably should say that we are the means through which the realm of relations permeates the realm of interactions); and this has to do with the emergence of symbolism, morality, beauty, truth…, into the world.

The function of the soul in the body? I think the question is misleading. It reminds me of the Platonic or the Cartesian discourses.
 
JuanFlorencio said:
I did not deny the ontological reality of the human soul, but I shed doubts about the ontological reality of the modeling of it as a form which does not have a definite form. Once this strange patch to the original concept of form has been deemed necessary to explain knowledge, it appears that the concept of form does not have the capacity to express the richness of our human reality. The idea that the soul becomes like the things it knows (either because reality acts upon it, or because the soul does it spontaneously) does not have support. The whole thing needs a thorough revision.

As I have said in this thread, one of the ways we have to know something is to compare it with something else that displays similar interactions. And though we apparently share many modes of interaction with other beings, there are other interactions which are definitely peculiar to us; and when we pay close attention to these, it appears that many of those which we apparently share with other beings are in reality different and peculiar too. So, in view of its uniqueness, I cannot know nor define humans comparing them with any other being. Another way to know something is through the analysis of its constituent elements followed by a synthesis; but I don’t think we have right now enough information about those elements (I certainly don’t have enough, and I doubt I will have it in this life); so, I cannot define human beings this way either. The third way to know something is by observing its interactions and describing them. This is what we are doing in this thread concerning “knowledge”, and I think it is clear how difficult the task is. However, precisely this activity (knowledge) is one of those that show our uniqueness. I have tried to express it saying that we belong to the realm of interactions and to the realm of relations; and that we actually bring the realm of relations into the world (or we probably should say that we are the means through which the realm of relations permeates the realm of interactions); and this has to do with the emergence of symbolism, morality, beauty, truth…, into the world.

The function of the soul in the body? I think the question is misleading. It reminds me of the Platonic or the Cartesian discourses.
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Your problem is that you want absolute perfection. And there is no such thing in this life. There is always someone else who understands reality better. But the thing is, we all come to our knowledge the same way. Imelahn has described the way we come to know quite well. In essence it is as he says, in some way, somewhat different for different people no doubt, we do know reality as it is. And that is because our intellect is constructed so as to recognize its conceptual object as an accurate reflection of reality.
Your nuanced discussion of relationships and interactions does not add any clarity to the explanation of knowledge. Aristotle and Aquinas have always had the best explanation, not perfect ( because nothing is ) but good enough.
Linus2nd.
 
Linusthe2nd said:
Your problem is that you want absolute perfection. And there is no such thing in this life. There is always someone else who understands reality better. But the thing is, we all come to our knowledge the same way. Imelahn has described the way we come to know quite well. In essence it is as he says, in some way, somewhat different for different people no doubt, we do know reality as it is. And that is because our intellect is constructed so as to recognize its conceptual object as an accurate reflection of reality.
Your nuanced discussion of relationships and interactions does not add any clarity to the explanation of knowledge. Aristotle and Aquinas have always had the best explanation, not perfect ( because nothing is ) but good enough.
Linus2nd.
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🙂

But who is within that “our”, Linus? Is it only the aristotelians or any other human being as well (let’s say, Heraclitus, for instance)? Am I included or not?

Do you remember when Inocente asked you if Catholics applied those aristotelian doctrines that you were exposing, for the education of our children, and you responded correctly “No” (because, according to you, it was destined only to philosophers)? Well, I do constantly apply successfully my nuanced discussion of relations and interactions in the formation of my children, in problem resolution, in the analysis of texts, etcetera. So, it would probably be beneficial to aristotelians if someone among them introduced a slight nuance in their unhelpful doctrines to make something valuable out of them. Who knows?
 
JuanFlorencio said:
🙂

But who is within that “our”, Linus? Is it only the aristotelians or any other human being as well (let’s say, Heraclitus, for instance)? Am I included or not?

Do you remember when Inocente asked you if Catholics applied those aristotelian doctrines that you were exposing, for the education of our children, and you responded correctly “No” (because, according to you, it was destined only to philosophers)? Well, I do constantly apply successfully my nuanced discussion of relations and interactions in the formation of my children, in problem resolution, in the analysis of texts, etcetera. So, it would probably be beneficial to aristotelians if someone among them introduced a slight nuance in their unhelpful doctrines to make something valuable out of them. Who knows?
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“Our intellect” would mean the universal specific definition of human intellect, including you, and not just those who have come to recognize the definition.

As for education of persons, this Aristotelian / Thomist understanding is throughout Catholic teaching, though not with the purpose of teaching philosophy, but with the purpose of teachers knowing the workings of their students’ being as they work on the cure of souls.

For example, a strange way of saying things happens in the Catholic Church that does not happen elsewhere in the world. We call the speaking of the Creeds an “Act of Faith”, or the recitation of repentance of sin we call “an Act of Contrition”, etc. The use of the work “ACT” is due to the understanding of the materially conscious thought and of speech of the body to be the ACT of the soul, the actualization in the full self of what is known in the soul and known as good for the self in the soul, and therefore willed to be actual in the soul knowing itself (which occurs through the apprehension of the self in the body of the self). And the body is moved by the will to think and speak these words as ACT.

We do teach our children that Faith is infused in the soul by the Grace present in the soul with the presence of the Holy Spirit, then call them to regard this speaking of the creed as an Act of Faith. They do not need to understand Aristotle, but only have to know “I was given faith, and it is good for me to do acts of faith”, for we the teachers know that where there is an act of faith there is the actor having faith. Most will only ever know that they have a soul because they trust the authority of the Church telling them they have a soul, but never knowing that all knowing and willing happens there and is only manifest in Act as the soul moves and animates the body with thoughts and movements. Thomas himself taught the “children”, the average person, using his understanding but with their words. There is a little book called “The Aquinas Catechism”, which is a collection of sermons he preached in a series on the articles of faith. I acquired this after reading the Summa, and found the Summa in it. His way of preaching actually worked to exercise people who listened (or read) in the use of their sensitive and intellective powers without their needing to be aware of Aristotle’s or of Thomas’ technical philosophical or theological writings. As a doctor of souls, he understood the medicine and how to apply it, whether the patients were aware of the mechanisms of the medicine or not.

I am a latecomer to Aristotle and Thomas, since they were pretty well renounced in my educational background (as a Lutheran). But I have never, until now in the last 4 years after 60 years without knowing them, encountered such a practical philosophy (and theology) that is suited to everyday life of living and working in the world. And I am finding ways to speak to people that guide them to right reason and virtue even though they will not ever know Aquinas as more than a Saint or Aristotle as more than an ancient philosopher.
 
JuanFlorencio said:
The reason why relations are said to belong to the “real order” is the conviction that only this way they would be “objective”, they would be what they should be for everybody; there would be a foundation for universal agreement; there would be a basis for your belief that you are right (something that certain persons desperately need). I tend to think that such an assumption is misleading.
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Perhaps you are oversimplifying things?
Besides this assumption, Imelahn has proposed that the “real order” impresses those relations on our minds. This would imply our infallibility (not only concerning those relations which according to Imelahn “are available to direct observation”, but concerning every relation). However, we are not infallible (taking the example of the right and the left hands: when I was a boy and every Monday we were in the school yard to honor the national flag, whenever we received the order “turn left” or “turn right”, one of my classmates used to make a movement with his right hand -as if he were writing on the air without a pencil-, to identify his right or his left. It was obvious that he needed to execute a number of mental operations to be able to follow the order; but he sometimes made a mistake (was reality reluctant to impress the right and left relations on the mind of this boy?). Here is another example: if you are offered a set of pictures of hands, some of them showing the palm and others the back, oriented in different ways, and you are asked to mentally separate the left hands from the right ones, it will not be enough for you to “let reality” impress your mind: you, like my classmate, will need to imagine certain movements with each one of those images to identify them as right or left hands. And if you are given a time limit, you will probably make mistakes).
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To let Imelahn speak for himself, he said this about infallible knowledge.
As far as being infallible in relations: when the relations are easy to understand and obvious (i.e., available to direct observation), I rather thing we do understand them infallibly. Like when we look at our two hands. Or even just the left for and the right fork in a road.
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Obviously, the more complicated it gets to understand the relationship—the further removed it is from direct experience—the less likely we are to get it right. But I am still failing to see how such a relation can avoid having a foundation in reality.
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He has made distinctions between what is immediate impressed on the senses and how mistakes in judgement can be made the further removed those judgements are from direct sense experience.
I acknowledge that it is not evident (in the strict sense of the word) that relations do not belong to the “real order”. It is quite normal to think that relations are there, in front of us. And I explain this common view saying that it is a result of our sophistication. When I go to the physician, he does his inspections, he asks certain questions, he gets to his conclusions and he finally gives me his recommendations. Same thing when I take my car to the specialist: he will inspect the engine, will do some tests, new inspections, new tests, etcetera, until he finds the problem and solves it. Both the physician and the specialist “see” almost immediately relations which I don’t see; and it is just because they have developed experiences that I haven’t. They have become sophisticated, and they make their surroundings sophisticated too.
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Right. Both the physician and the specialist have much more depth of experience so their body of reasonings and judgements about their areas of expertise is much more fully developed.
What about those relations which are “simple” or “directly available”. Same thing! We have learned an immense amount of things through language (a lot of conventions among them), and as a result we move around “projecting” relations over our surroundings. It happens so spontaneously that a very careful reflection is needed to realize it. Language is a powerful carrier of relations. But if due to an unfortunate illness we progressively loose memory and language, our world losses its sophistication. It tends to become a poor present; it losses meaning; relations fade and disappear.
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OK. But does that mean that those relations no longer exist to be discovered?

I did a quick search on this in the Summa Contral Gentiles in chapter 12, book 2, and I found this interesting quote from Aquinas:
[3] It was shown in Book I, moreover, that God is the first measure of all things. Hence, He stands in relation to other beings as the knowable to our knowledge, which is measured by the knowable; for “opinion or speech is true or false according as a thing is or is not, as Aristotle says in the Categories [V]. But, although a thing is said to be knowable in relation to knowledge, the relation is not really in the knowable, but only in the knowledge. Thus, as Aristotle observes in Metaphysics v, the knowable is so called relatively, “not because it is itself related, but because something else is related to it.” Therefore the relations in question have no real being in God.
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This is confusing then… is this statement is a true reflection of what Aristotle and Aquinas thought, or were they were both “Building up” and “tearing down” then pretending that what they had built still stands, as you accused Imelahn?

God bless,
Ut
 
JuanFlorencio said:
If you think about the relation “slave-master” carefully, you might realize at least that it is not one of those “directly available” relations that Imelahn mentions (though it seems that it was directly available for Aristotle). As Aristotle implies, you need the definition of the words to “correctly see” the relation. As a greek aristocrat, Aristotle was able to immediately recognize among two humans who was a master and who was a slave (he was knowledgeable about the words and their common uses). Their natures impressed his mind without any obstacle. On my side, I am quite unable to perform such identification: Christian doctrine prevents reality from impressing such abominable “truth” on my mind. Language establishes the way we see the world. Language is a vision of the world. Once you are “informed” by your mother language, you cannot avoid so easily “seeing” relations as part of the “real order”.

But then, isn’t there any objective foundation (I prefer to say “reference”) for our relations? I have said many times in this thread that interactions and the “elements” of those interactions are real, and we mentally imitate them. As an approximation to what Imelahn says, some interactions are certainly less complex than others, and for them our imitative labor becomes easier, and a common agreement between us is easier too in those cases. But we are not infallible: both the physician and the engine specialist make mistakes, just as we all do. Interactions and the “elements of interactions” do not depend on our caprice. So, they are the common reference for each one of us. But complex interactions challenge us, and we don’t find easy and unique ways to imitate them, so agreement is not straightforward.

Besides, the elements of interaction have multiple possibilities. For example, an ambitious man can subjugate others and make them his slaves, and, in association with others, he can create a complex organization which, in time, will make slavery to become “natural” to people, both for “masters” as for “slaves”. Certain social mechanisms will be developed (interactions), and language will develop to create the relations which imitate those real interactions… But people like St. Francis can make another possibility to become real as well: son of a rich merchant, he can decide to become the poorest among the poor, and dedicate his life to the service of his brothers, and create a society of men willing to follow his example… However, ambition is an indeclinable mode of human interaction, and…
You can see two bodies (A and B, you know) at a distance. You compare certain interaction between you and body A with the same interaction between you and body B. Based on this and on the knowledge of words, you say: A is “bigger” than B. But then you observe better and realize that you would need to walk more to reach body B than to reach body A; and remembering that this has an influence on the way you perceive bodies (other interactions intervene here), you doubt: B might be as big as A, or even bigger. Then, you work to put both bodies close to each other and you see them again: You notice now that the interaction between you and A is very similar to the interaction between you an B, so you say: “they are practically the same size”. You can resort on other advanced techniques (interactions) to do the comparison (for example, you can use an instrument that could give you two digital signals as a result of the successive interaction between the instrument and A, and the interaction between B and the instrument. Then you only would have to compare the digital signals. Sometimes, a greater complexity makes things easier). If this relation of sizes of bodies A and B inheres in them and is impressed on your mind, why do you have to work so hard, and why is it that you can make mistakes?
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So all of this pretty much agrees with Aquinas’ statement that relations are not in the knowable, but only in knowledge. I will have to take a closer look at what Imelahn has said in previous quotes to see how I can square what Aquinas said with what he is saying. Perhaps there is no real contradiction.

Still, the fact that we can make mistakes, how far do we want to take that? Do we make it a principle and claim that the relalations we make are all unreal or have no bearing on reality? That they are all mind dependent? Or is it just a byproduct of the way human beings reason?

I remember somewhere reading that there is a difference between the way human beings come to know and the way angels and God know things. Angels and God know things by their essence directly. Human beings have to build up knowledge through reasoning and establishing judgements and detecting relations. As that body of reasoned knowledge grows, it becomes more and more attuned to reality. Our experience of the thing known become more and more… a direct apprehension of truth - or essences. We no longer have to consciously make this judgements and reasonings, even though we can, if we consciously think about it.

But there is always the acknowledgement that only God knows all things. We are never omniscient. And…at least as far as the faith goes, the only infallible person on earth is the pope, and that only because his infallibility is guaranteed by Christ.

God bless,
Ut
 
John_Martin said:
As for education of persons, this Aristotelian / Thomist understanding is throughout Catholic teaching, though not with the purpose of teaching philosophy, but with the purpose of teachers knowing the workings of their students’ being as they work on the cure of souls.

For example, a strange way of saying things happens in the Catholic Church that does not happen elsewhere in the world. We call the speaking of the Creeds an “Act of Faith”, or the recitation of repentance of sin we call “an Act of Contrition”, etc. The use of the work “ACT” is due to the understanding of the materially conscious thought and of speech of the body to be the ACT of the soul, the actualization in the full self of what is known in the soul and known as good for the self in the soul, and therefore willed to be actual in the soul knowing itself (which occurs through the apprehension of the self in the body of the self). And the body is moved by the will to think and speak these words as ACT.

We do teach our children that Faith is infused in the soul by the Grace present in the soul with the presence of the Holy Spirit, then call them to regard this speaking of the creed as an Act of Faith. They do not need to understand Aristotle, but only have to know “I was given faith, and it is good for me to do acts of faith”, for we the teachers know that where there is an act of faith there is the actor having faith. Most will only ever know that they have a soul because they trust the authority of the Church telling them they have a soul, but never knowing that all knowing and willing happens there and is only manifest in Act as the soul moves and animates the body with thoughts and movements. Thomas himself taught the “children”, the average person, using his understanding but with their words. There is a little book called “The Aquinas Catechism”, which is a collection of sermons he preached in a series on the articles of faith. I acquired this after reading the Summa, and found the Summa in it. His way of preaching actually worked to exercise people who listened (or read) in the use of their sensitive and intellective powers without their needing to be aware of Aristotle’s or of Thomas’ technical philosophical or theological writings. As a doctor of souls, he understood the medicine and how to apply it, whether the patients were aware of the mechanisms of the medicine or not.

I am a latecomer to Aristotle and Thomas, since they were pretty well renounced in my educational background (as a Lutheran). But I have never, until now in the last 4 years after 60 years without knowing them, encountered such a practical philosophy (and theology) that is suited to everyday life of living and working in the world. And I am finding ways to speak to people that guide them to right reason and virtue even though they will not ever know Aquinas as more than a Saint or Aristotle as more than an ancient philosopher.
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John, my comment refers to a very specific topic. If you read posts 17 and 19 in this thread you will see which one is it. Concerning what you say here, I agree with you.
 
Another interesting quote from chapter 13 of book 2 of the SCG:
[3] Moreover, there are two ways in which a thing is predicated denominatively:
  • first, from something external to it; as from place a person is said to be somewhere; from time, some-when;
  • second, from something present in it; as white from whiteness.
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Yet in no case is a thing denominated from a relation as existing outside it, but only as inhering in it. For example: a man is not denominated father except from the fatherhood which is in him. Therefore, the relations by which God is referred to creatures cannot possibly be realities outside Him.
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…Just thought I would post this one.

God bless,
Ut
 
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