How do we come to know things?

[Richca]

The final cause, as intent in the agent, is not in being until the caused thing is in act, even though it might be an “idea” in the agent. Therefore the vision of “substance in act” as a final cause, causing relationship, is not “substance in act” until relationship is in act (if Juan is correct "that substances are final causes of relations ".) And then if the relationship were not in act, not real, any substance would be defective.

I’m not sure what you or Juan are really trying to say. What I can say is that in Aristotlelian/Thomistic philosophy, the accidents of a substance are caused by and flow from the substance. Since relation is an accident at least in creatures, it can’t come before the substance but is rather caused by and flows from the substance. There is no such thing as a relation without a substance to inhere in. The accidents are beings “in a being.”

 

[John_Martin]

I’m not sure what you or Juan are really trying to say. What I can say is that in Aristotlelian/Thomistic philosophy, the accidents of a substance are caused by and flow from the substance. Since relation is an accident at least in creatures, it can’t come before the substance but is rather caused by and flows from the substance. There is no such thing as a relation without a substance to inhere in. The accidents are beings “in a being.”

Right,
But I was answering Juan saying that substance is the final cause of relation, which would mean that substance is non-existent (or defective) without relation, meaning that relation would be prior to substance.

It is because I agree with you, Richca, that I wrote that.

 

[Richca]

Right,
But I was answering Juan saying that substance is the final cause of relation, which would mean that substance is non-existent (or defective) without relation, meaning that relation would be prior to substance.

It is because I agree with you, Richca, that I wrote that.

Oh, my bad if I misunderstood you.

God bless, Richca

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Not directly related, but there are new studies that suggest that Aristotle did not think that God exerts only final causality. Google the works of Enrico Berti. (I am not sure how many are translated in to English.)

Aristotle found four species of causes, not just four causes. Based on what you have told me, reality for you would be the extrinsic formal cause, or exemplary cause, of our (mental) relations (because we establish our relations in imitation of reality).

I agree that it is also a final cause, but then you would be falling into my trap : that means that our intellect tends to the reality it knows, a kind of reduction from potency to act.

I was trying to get close to you, and you say that I would fall into your trap? Don’t you realize how I have been saying from the beginning that our relations are imitations? That you had not establish so far any relation between what I say and an exemplary cause and a final cause is explainable only assuming that you have been thinking on efficient causality, which I totally reject without ambiguity.

As for the theory of act and potency, Aristotle has an obvious conflict when he deals with his model of the first mover, because he needs to conceive it in essential motion but not in potency. The only way he had to keep his theory and disregard the absurd was by dismissing the hot issue immediately. Such theory is equally poor to deal with human knowledge.

The intellect is certainly in potency with respect to the world. It is not so in exactly the same way that the prime matter is in potency with the substantial form, or the substance is in potency with its accidents, but there is an analogy with those realities.

If it were not so, the world would not transcend the intellect; it would be made up by us.

It is strange that the world actualizes you and still you are unable to say how without using unfortunate “analogies”.

What you say is only applicable to your own model: if relations belong to the real order (and not only that, but relations constitute the world), then if your mind is not informed by the world or by God, you make up the world. But I have said that relations do not belong to the real order, so much the less do they constitute the world; therefore, if I establish relations between the objects that I find before me, it does not imply that I constitute the world.

Do you understand what I say, when I mean that our knowledge of things is “adequate” but not “comprehensive”? I cannot possibly know every aspect about a substance, like my now infamous pine tree; that would be “comprehensive” knowledge of something, which only God enjoys.

However, I can have “adequate” knowledge. I have enough to be able to recognize that pine tree as the same one I have been seeing every day. Enough to be able to investigate further into the nature of that pine tree, if I wish to.

George Berkeley asked the readers of his Essay on human understanding to refrain from judging his work until they finished the whole book, because he was afraid that it would have been misunderstood. He was right (though at the same time, he was demanding too much). If the reader read only part of the book, his understanding of it would not have been “adequate”. A comprehensive reading was necessary -in the hope of the bishop-, for the understanding of it to be “adequate”. For George Berkeley ( and for me neither) the ability of the reader to say “oh, this is the book that I was reading yesterday” would not have been, in any possible manner, an “adequate” knowledge.

So, no, I don’t understand your “adequate but not comprehensive”.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

That is why your conclusion—that language would be unnecessary—is a non sequitur. Although reality is what reduces my intellect to act, my intellect only receives part of the picture, so to speak. (To put it in more technical language, my intellect is only reduced to act in part; it remains partly in potency with respect to the things it knows.)

Also, reality actuates my intellect through the direct contact that it has with my senses. Any type of knowledge that must go beyond that direct observation (which is the majority of our knowledge) requires reasoning.

Language is actually the external expression of reasoning, and that is why it is both necessary and possible, even though reality is what originally actuates our intellects.

In sum: reality actuates our intellect, but that actuation is not sufficient. We need to go further, and for that reason, we need both reason and language.

Let’s now add this precision: you are real as well. You are part of reality. What prevents reality from becoming entirely conscious of itself in you? Why is it that only part of it actuates your intellect and the rest doesn’t? Is it a lack of positive potency? It can’t be, because you are implicitly saying that others are actuated by the other parts of reality.

What about language: is it another result of the actuation of reality upon your intellect?

I think my theory—of partial, but faithful actuation—accounts for that difference as well.

It does! A reality which is in act and which has the ability to select the intellects that it will actualize, and to decide to what degree it will actualize them. It’s a novel theory!

In a different subject, certainly yes. (Apparently, and this is something I had not thought about, the proprioception allows us to do this in ourselves without explicitly considering the body.)

Yes, you had not established the relations (or shall we say that reality had not decided to impress them on your mind?) until Yppop came with magic words (because “left” and “right” became weak, but “chirality” is powerful due to the fact that it is a scientific term -which means something like superhuman or revealed). Try to think deeply into this.

I am open to learning something about cognitive psychology. However, what I am saying is a lot more simple than that. Forget the right and left hands for a moment. Just pull out a piece of paper. Look at the four corners. They are arranged in a certain way, right? Does the arrangement exist in reality, or not?

Do you think now that this new example is simpler than the one about the left and the right hands? Which relation do you want us to examine regarding your piece of paper?

 

[John_Martin]

I was trying to get close to you, and you say that I would fall into your trap? Don’t you realize how I have been saying from the beginning that our relations are imitations? That you had not establish so far any relation between what I say and an exemplary cause and a final cause is explainable only assuming that you have been thinking on efficient causality, which I totally reject without ambiguity.

As for the theory of act and potency, Aristotle has an obvious conflict when he deals with his model of the first mover, because he needs to conceive it in essential motion but not in potency. The only way he had to keep his theory and disregard the absurd was by dismissing the hot issue immediately. Such theory is equally poor to deal with human knowledge.
".

Explanation can be missing for multiple reasons - such as not having and answer, or, alternatively, because the answer should be already known in the hearer’s understanding.

If Aristotle did not take the time or effort to say how essential motion can be without potency, Aquinas found that people needed it answered and pointed out that there can be operation as a mode of being in act. (I am not sure if “mode of being” is a correct term here)

For instance, our goal or end as Catholics is beatitude - but while it is beatitude in act, rest in beatitude, no more movement toward beatitude, yet there is movement in that rest. The movement (operation) is the enjoyment of the presence of God and knowledge of God. Our end, our Act, will be a place of motion, but not motion to an end from potential to that end. We will be in the perfect motion of enjoying God, as he is in the perfect motion of being God knowing us (and always has been - no potency, but always motion of operation).

 

[lmelahn]

I was trying to get close to you, and you say that I would fall into your trap? Don’t you realize how I have been saying from the beginning that our relations are imitations? That you had not establish so far any relation between what I say and an exemplary cause and a final cause is explainable only assuming that you have been thinking on efficient causality, which I totally reject without ambiguity.

I would be forced to conclude, then, that our intellect is the unique efficient cause of our knowledge, and reality merely the exemplary cause, and in a different way, its final cause (inasmuch as we desire full, faithful knowledge of reality as a kind of ideal to fulfill). Is that correct?

One difference between our systems, it seems to me, is that I do recognize an efficient causality—which is the same thing as a reduction of potency to act—on the part of reality on our intellect.

As for the theory of act and potency, Aristotle has an obvious conflict when he deals with his model of the first mover, because he needs to conceive it in essential motion but not in potency. The only way he had to keep his theory and disregard the absurd was by dismissing the hot issue immediately. Such theory is equally poor to deal with human knowledge.

The first mover is the one who causes the change in other things (today, there is a debate as to whether Aristotle considered it only as a final cause or also as efficient cause), but He Himself does not change. There is no reduction from potency to act in Him.

In any event, Aquinas considers God the Efficient Cause of all creatures, while retaining the idea of God is Unmoved Mover, and it is chiefly Aquinas I follow.

It is strange that the world actualizes you and still you are unable to say how without using unfortunate “analogies”.

Fire actualizes iron and makes it glow, but I don’t know how it works unless I study it. Why should our intellection be any different?

I thought we both agreed that we can only learn about what is not directly available to our senses can only know by analogy. Intellection (indeed cognition in general) is one of those non-sensory realities. We can’t directly “see” a person think.

What you say is only applicable to your own model: if relations belong to the real order (and not only that, but relations constitute the world), then if your mind is not informed by the world or by God, you make up the world. But I have said that relations do not belong to the real order, so much the less do they constitute the world; therefore, if I establish relations between the objects that I find before me, it does not imply that I constitute the world.

Why would relations constitute the world? Substances constitute the world; relations are just accidents.

I guess one difference between you and me is that I think models can be judged based on whether or not they correspond to experience. I think that we can arrive at a “correct” model. I am not saying that I necessarily have the correct model (and I certainly do not have it in all respects), but I think we can seek it out.

George Berkeley asked the readers of his Essay on human understanding to refrain from judging his work until they finished the whole book, because he was afraid that it would have been misunderstood. He was right (though at the same time, he was demanding too much). If the reader read only part of the book, his understanding of it would not have been “adequate”. A comprehensive reading was necessary -in the hope of the bishop-, for the understanding of it to be “adequate”. For George Berkeley ( and for me neither) the ability of the reader to say “oh, this is the book that I was reading yesterday” would not have been, in any possible manner, an “adequate” knowledge.

So, no, I don’t understand your “adequate but not comprehensive”.

I will illustrate: I have enough of a grasp of the pine tree outside my window to be able to recognize it. That is “adequate” knowledge. It is good enough so that, whenever I encounter another umbrella pine, I know that it is the same kind of tree. That is adequate knowledge. Enough to go by.

I do not, however, know every last detail of the pine tree: all of its growth history, every cell that constitutes it, all of the chemical compounds that make it up, how it interacts with its ecosystem, and so on. Clearly, my knowledge of the pine tree remains superficial, even though it is enough to be able to recognize it, recognize other trees of the same kind, and so on. If I had complete knowledge of every characteristic of the pine tree, it would be comprehensive knowledge. Only God enjoys that.

So, to return to our problem, I know a little bit about the pine tree, and undoubtedly my professor of botany (unfortunately fictional) knows a lot more than I do. It would still be useful for me to listen to what my botanist has to say about the pine tree: I would learn something new.

So, even though the pine tree imposed itself upon my intellect, as well as on the botanist, it did not reveal everything about itself to me: indeed, it only revealed a little bit. I can always learn more. The individual essence is unfathomable, after all. It revealed a lot more to the botanist, who already has the intellectual habits that help him learn more, and more quickly.

(I think I am right in saying that you would characterize that situation as follows: the botanist has previously established relations about pine trees, which helps him to establish more and better relations, and more quickly. I can concur with that: that is why I think the best paragon between our systems is to identify your relation with Aquinas’ composition-and-division, and systems of relations with intellectual habits—that is, with “science” in the classical sense.)

 

[lmelahn]

Let’s now add this precision: you are real as well. You are part of reality. What prevents reality from becoming entirely conscious of itself in you? Why is it that only part of it actuates your intellect and the rest doesn’t? Is it a lack of positive potency? It can’t be, because you are implicitly saying that others are actuated by the other parts of reality.

What about language: is it another result of the actuation of reality upon your intellect?

But it is not “reality” as a whole that actuates my intellect. It is those substances that are accessible by my senses. And only to the degree that they are accessible by my senses (because it is through my senses that my intellect is put into act).

So sure, when I hear someone speak, or I read something, the words and ideas act on my intellect.

It does! A reality which is in act and which has the ability to select the intellects that it will actualize, and to decide to what degree it will actualize them. It’s a novel theory!

Note that “to be in act”*is just a synonym for “existing.” Reality that is “in act”*is reality that exists. Obviously, my intellect conforms itself to that which exists outside itself, not the other way around.

The substances that interact with me do not “decide” how they will interact with me. But they are substances, therefore, they are capable of acting in some ways, and not others. My ability to know those substances (directly) depends on their ability to be accessible to my senses.

I will, therefore, have a much easier time knowing a dog, a pine tree, or even another man, than an amoeba (or an angel, for that matter).

So sure the ability of a thing to actuate my intellect depends on two factors:
(1) That substance’s ability to act, and
(2) My ability to receive that action.

That accounts for the fact that my intellect is only partially actuated by the things I encounter, because:
(1) Substances have only a limited capacity to act, and
(2) I have only a limited capacity to receive that action.

Yes, you had not established the relations (or shall we say that reality had not decided to impress them on your mind?) until Yppop came with magic words (because “left” and “right” became weak, but “chirality” is powerful due to the fact that it is a scientific term -which means something like superhuman or revealed). Try to think deeply into this.

Again, reality does not “decide” to act on my intellect. But both reality and intellect are limited in their capacity.

The inner workings of our cognitive capacity are not directly available to our senses. Therefore, I would expect to have to establish relations, in your parlance, to understand them.

Do you think now that this new example is simpler than the one about the left and the right hands? Which relation do you want us to examine regarding your piece of paper?

Just look at any two corners, and tell me if their arrangement in space is real, or only mental.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Explanation can be missing for multiple reasons - such as not having and answer, or, alternatively, because the answer should be already known in the hearer’s understanding.

If Aristotle did not take the time or effort to say how essential motion can be without potency, Aquinas found that people needed it answered and pointed out that there can be operation as a mode of being in act. (I am not sure if “mode of being” is a correct term here)

For instance, our goal or end as Catholics is beatitude - but while it is beatitude in act, rest in beatitude, no more movement toward beatitude, yet there is movement in that rest. The movement (operation) is the enjoyment of the presence of God and knowledge of God. Our end, our Act, will be a place of motion, but not motion to an end from potential to that end. We will be in the perfect motion of enjoying God, as he is in the perfect motion of being God knowing us (and always has been - no potency, but always motion of operation).

I really don’t think our beatitude is a good example, because God -the Cause of all causes- will be there. But if it were a valid example, I would say “an additional inconsistency does not resolve an absurd”.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Just a note - if substances were the final cause of relations, then the substance would not happen or be until the relation were in act, thus ending in a satisfied substance.

Some would say I just disproved God if he is the final cause of all, and of us - that he could not exist until we are in act.
But he is not the final cause of us and of all in “stand-alone being” - he is the final cause of us and of all in union with him knowing in act what is conditional.

Look how at some point of his life, Aristotle wrote “Therefore the first heaven must be eternal. There is therefore also something which moves it. And since that which moves and is moved is intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved, being eternal, substance, and actuality. And the object of desire and the object of thought move in this way; they move without being moved.” The object of desire is a final cause, and for the Aristotle who wrote this the object of thought is a final cause in the same manner. I take the liberty to use this aristotelian words to express the idea that things are completely indifferent to any relations that you might establish between them (they are not moved). They are the occasion of your relations, but they do not produce them nor are affected by them.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

You gave the example earlier on of the plumber who had a false understanding of the tool he was using. The tool did not impress itself on his mind. He developed a working theory that proved to be wrong about the tool. It is only after further investigation that you got to be more sophisticated in your understanding.

Let me know if this is correct.

But is there no cause and effect relationship between the thing sensed and the the operations of the intellect? Can you define what an interaction is? Is there no thing that is doing the interacting? There are certainly some metaphysical presuppositions here that need justification, no?

For example,

• Is my knowledge of an object I am touching a product of myself or of the thing I am touching?
• Is my knowledge of the tree I see purely a product of my own mind? Or is there a cause and effect relationship between the object I see and the knowledge it creates in my mind?
• And so on for the other senses.

At the very least, the knowledge that an object exists is caused in us by the object actually existing, no?

God bless,
Ut

The answer to another of your questions: the object you are touching is there independently of you; the interactions between it and you, depend on it and on you; but the knowledge you have of it, as a system of relations, is a product of your mind (as a member of a community).

 

[JuanFlorencio]

I’m not sure what you or Juan are really trying to say. What I can say is that in Aristotlelian/Thomistic philosophy, the accidents of a substance are caused by and flow from the substance. Since relation is an accident at least in creatures, it can’t come before the substance but is rather caused by and flows from the substance. There is no such thing as a relation without a substance to inhere in. The accidents are beings “in a being.”

I guess you are consciously using a metaphor when you say that relations flow from the substance. Somehow Aristotle and St. Thomas must have been able to “see” such flow and how they received it in their mind, which was continuously being filled with all sorts of relations. Imelahn has said that relations might be the less intelligible of all accidents (which is catastrophic to me, because I say that relationability and relations constitute intellibility). It means that he doesn’t “see” the flow, and his mind is not continuously filled with it; he just guesses that such flow must exist. In that respect, I am like Imelahn, because I don’t see any flow of relations coming out from substances. The difference is that I don’t dare to say that it must exist.

 

[Richca]

As for the theory of act and potency, Aristotle has an obvious conflict when he deals with his model of the first mover, because he needs to conceive it in essential motion but not in potency. The only way he had to keep his theory and disregard the absurd was by dismissing the hot issue immediately. Such theory is equally poor to deal with human knowledge.
.

Imelahn and John have offered some explanation concerning what you say above. I will just add a few comments. You may be confusing in Aristotle the first moved mover which may be according to Aristotle if I’m not mistaken either an intellect, soul, or the first sphere of the heavens (for the present purposes it doesn’t really matter) with the first unmoved mover. The unmoved mover is the source of all motion and it moves without being moved, it is pure act without any composition of potentiality. For motion is nothing else but the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality by something in actuality.
Aristotle does not conceive the first unmoved mover who is pure act as essential motion. If the unmoved mover is moving or changing than its not the first unmoved mover or pure act. As far as the idea of essential motion, I don’t think Aristotle said there is such a thing. Motion is always the motion of some thing and for some end for every agent acts for an end (the final cause of things). Movement or change is not an end in itself but a process towards actuality and an end. Aristotle defined motion as the act of a being in potency in so far as it is still in potency. Motion is an act but an incomplete or imperfect act; it is a movement towards the realization of the potentialities of a thing. It is not a perfect act otherwise the thing wouldn’t be moving.

 

[utunumsint]

The answer to another of your questions: the object you are touching is there independently of you; the interactions between it and you, depend on it and on you; but the knowledge you have of it, as a system of relations, is a product of your mind (as a member of a community).

Hi Juan,

Thanks for responding.

How would you define the interactions possible between a thing and myself? For example, is it what is available to the five senses for example? And this sense data does not constitute knowledge yet, but acts as the raw material, sort of, for knowledge to build on?

God bless,
Ut

 

[Richca]

I guess you are consciously using a metaphor when you say that relations flow from the substance. Somehow Aristotle and St. Thomas must have been able to “see” such flow and how they received it in their mind, which was continuously being filled with all sorts of relations. Imelahn has said that relations might be the less intelligible of all accidents (which is catastrophic to me, because I say that relationability and relations constitute intellibility). It means that he doesn’t “see” the flow, and his mind is not continuously filled with it; he just guesses that such flow must exist. In that respect, I am like Imelahn, because I don’t see any flow of relations coming out from substances. The difference is that I don’t dare to say that it must exist.

Yes, I used flow as a metaphor and what I mean is that the substance is the cause of the accidents. Substance is to accident what cause is to effect: the accidents come into being because of the substance. The substance to stand under] is the subject of the accidents, subject meaning here the holder or bearer, what underlies. Accident comes from the latin verb accidere which means “to fall on top of.”

Before a man can become a father he must first exist as a man and that for some time. Since not all human beings or men are fathers, fatherhood is an accident of being a human being. A human being who is not a father is just as much a human being who is a father.

As far as relations actually existing or having being in some manner, we need to consider whether relations such as, for example, fatherhood or sonship actually exist in reality. We know that there is such a thing as fathers and sons for we all know our own father’s and that we are his son’s. Fatherhood and sonship are real realities in the real world. We apply the word father to men who have sons or daughters but we don’t apply this word father to men who don’t have sons or daughters. So, it appears that being a father is a real reality, it is not a figment of our imagination. What is real exists and what exists is a being of some kind. In this case, it is accidental being. A man who is a father is still a human being but becoming a father modifies his being or substance accidentally, not substantially.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Hi Juan,

Thanks for responding.

How would you define the interactions possible between a thing and myself? For example, is it what is available to the five senses for example? And this sense data does not constitute knowledge yet, but acts as the raw material, sort of, for knowledge to build on?

God bless,
Ut

Sensations are interactions which become conscious. There are other interactions between you and things which are not conscious; for example, those that take place in your digestive system. There are many others which take place between things different from you, and you might or might not witness them. When you witness them you introduce with your presence new interactions which constitute the witnessing. Certainly knowledge is based on all these interactions. The explanation about composition/division which St. Thomas provides (and which Imelahn has mentioned several times) is a good point to start.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Yes, I used flow as a metaphor and what I mean is that the substance is the cause of the accidents. Substance is to accident what cause is to effect: the accidents come into being because of the substance. The substance to stand under] is the subject of the accidents, subject meaning here the holder or bearer, what underlies. Accident comes from the latin verb accidere which means “to fall on top of.”

Before a man can become a father he must first exist as a man and that for some time. Since not all human beings or men are fathers, fatherhood is an accident of being a human being. A human being who is not a father is just as much a human being who is a father.

As far as relations actually existing or having being in some manner, we need to consider whether relations such as, for example, fatherhood or sonship actually exist in reality. We know that there is such a thing as fathers and sons for we all know our own father’s and that we are his son’s. Fatherhood and sonship are real realities in the real world. We apply the word father to men who have sons or daughters but we don’t apply this word father to men who don’t have sons or daughters. So, it appears that being a father is a real reality, it is not a figment of our imagination. What is real exists and what exists is a being of some kind. In this case, it is accidental being. A man who is a father is still a human being but becoming a father modifies his being or substance accidentally, not substantially.

In modern societies fatherhood is a complex juridical reality (it comprises certain discourses, expectations, obligations, rights and social mechanisms). You certainly must perform some specific actions and produce some specific results for “fatherhood” to apply to you. There are other realities similar to this; for example, if you perform an action which violates an important social rule and after some juridical procedures you “are found” guilty, you become a criminal. There are a multitude of situations which are quite similar, in the sense that your actions introduce modifications in your environment, but you don’t become something else besides what you currently are. Strictly speaking you are the author of those modifications, but we do not regard them relevant, so that no body cares. For example, you move a chair to sit on it; you inhale a mixture of gases containing oxygen and exhale another mixture rich in carbon dioxide; you eat and digest your food, etcetera. As an aristotelian substance you are the efficient agent of all those changes, as much as you are the efficient agent in the actions which lead to you fatherhood, but no body cares about those changes and we don’t even have names for whichever associated potential relations might be established, so they remain potential.

One day, you say something that profoundly impresses the mind of a hearer. It opens up new perspectives to him. His life changes. You didn’t know that this happened, and for other hearers your words were irrelevant; but that person will always remember you, and your saying will be an important reference in his life. I say, obviously there was an important interaction, but it doesn’t mean that from that moment on there will be a new accident inhering in your substance. Nobody will apprehend it on you; and your substance will not act upon the mind of people around you impressing that relation on their mind.

 

[utunumsint]

Sensations are interactions which become conscious.

So there is a cause and effect relationship between the sensations and the consciousness of the sensations?

There are other interactions between you and things which are not conscious; for example, those that take place in your digestive system. There are many others which take place between things different from you, and you might or might not witness them. When you witness them you introduce with your presence new interactions which constitute the witnessing.

So I introduce into **my **presence, new interactions. It sounds like I have a choice in the matter. I suppose if I know there is something I don’t want to witness, I may attempt to avert my eyes, so I don’t see what it is that is happening in front of me, but once I see it, what I see seems to enter into my consciousness whether I want it there or not. Same thing with smells. My son may produce a smell that I don’t want to smell, but, the potency of the smell reaches me despite my best efforts to ward it off.

Certainly knowledge is based on all these interactions. The explanation about composition/division which St. Thomas provides (and which Imelahn has mentioned several times) is a good point to start.

Wouldn’t these sense impressions be something that precedes knowledge?

God bless,
Ut

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Good grief guys, relations have nothing to do with the way we come to know things and no one here has been able to prove otherwise. It is not a part of the A/T theory of knowledge.No one denies the existence of real realtions in reality between substances. But that has nothing to do with the A/T theory of knowledge.

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

So there is a cause and effect relationship between the sensations and the consciousness of the sensations?

Ut, is there a cause and effect relationship between God and us?

Your question is not naive; but it is the result of an old habit of thought. First thing I have to say is this: it is impossible to talk, write or even think of something without introducing relations.

Second: I think that the cause and effect relationship is well founded on reality. Hume, the most important critic of the principle of efficient causality, had to resort on it to explain how we establish it. He says that the idea we have of this principle is the result of innumerable associations we make between regular phenomena. But if our idea is the result of those associations, then it finds a good support on reality, such that we don’t need more. So, wanting to weaken the principle, he reinforces it.

I do not deny the foundation of this principle; but it is not a relation inherent in substances; and if it is, then there is an accident in God.

So I introduce into **my **presence, new interactions. It sounds like I have a choice in the matter. I suppose if I know there is something I don’t want to witness, I may attempt to avert my eyes, so I don’t see what it is that is happening in front of me, but once I see it, what I see seems to enter into my consciousness whether I want it there or not. Same thing with smells. My son may produce a smell that I don’t want to smell, but, the potency of the smell reaches me despite my best efforts to ward it off.

I don’t know how you are interpreting this, Ut; but isn’t it obvious that you can even promote interactions, if you want?: for example, you can burn a sheet of paper if you wish.

Now, there are a lot of interesting things in the phenomenology of sensations and on the emergence of conscience in interactions, but try to think on this: many times a change in your state of consciousness makes you realize that there was a complex background of sensory interactions which you weren’t aware of… And effectively, a characteristic of interactions (even of those that you promote) that differentiate them from relations is that they happen independently of your will.

Wouldn’t these sense impressions be something that precedes knowledge?

God bless,
Ut

Of course.