How do we come to know things?

[lmelahn]

Dear Imelahn:

Some years ago, I had a car which did not deceive me, but which was not reliable. Can it be? Yes, it can be!

Of course, you car is not a sense organ… .

Our “senses” might not deceive us, if you want, but they are not always reliable. And the discussion was precisely about reliability, wasn’t it? And there are extreme cases, like in schizophrenia, in which people definitely have an anomalous perception of the world. I really don’t think Aristotle -without any blame on him, Imelahn! (I don’t know why I have to say this; I think it should be obvious)- had the chance to see enough about perception during his life. His ideas need to be improved.

To be sure, we need to improve on Aristotle!

However, I don’t think that even schizophrenia or hallucinations (or even dreams) fundamentally damage the basic idea.

The senses can be unreliable in the same sense that your car can break down. They can stop working. But they can’t just make stuff up.

Notice that hallucinations are not the product of the external senses at all. (The eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and touch receptors are simply not involved at all.) Rather, they are problems of (what Aquinas would call) the imagination.

But even when our imagination goes haywire (or when it is not going haywire, but is being used in something like our dreams), it is not really inventing things. It is, so to speak, re-playing and re-mixing things that it has stored.

But there is nothing necessarily wrong with a schizophrenic’s or hallucinator’s sense of sight, hearing, taste, smell, or touch. (And when there is something wrong, it simply malfunctions—either by failing to function at all, or functioning at a reduced level, or by emitting “white noise,” as in tinnitus.)

Do our senses report to us that which really is? We know that there exist some interactions which our “senses” do not report to us (like magnetism and certain wavelengths).

Naturally: because our external senses are only sensitive to certain stimuli, and not others. Aquinas does not say that they grasp all of reality.

Also, the other day BlueHorizon proposed in another thread the example of a beam of neutrons that can pass through a wall as if it was traveling through empty space, and he argued that what we see as solids are in reality basically empty space. I think that his conclusion was not correct, but at least I concede that our “senses” do not report to us the neutron beam passing through the wall. So, our senses do not report to us that which really is.

They do not report every aspect of that which really is, but neither are they making things up.

But maybe you wanted to say, for example, that if we see your pinus pinea we will see it green, and that it is really green. But that is so because, among other factors, it is illuminated with white light. If it were illuminated with other light it wouldn’t really be green. What is the “real reality”?

The pine tree is only capable of reflecting certain wavelengths and not others. If we were to illuminate it with light that contains none of those wavelengths—perhaps a red light, but we would have to experiment—we would actually perceive the tree as black.

But regardless: it is a real property of the pine tree that, when illuminated by the sun, it reflects green light. Our eyes pick up the light that the pine tree really emits. Our eyes may function well, or they may function poorly. In no case, however, will they produce a coherent image of something that does not exist.

Sometimes our internal senses (the imagination and the cogitative power) can mix and match things in a way that we don’t expect (that is the origin of the so-called optical illusions), but they are not making things up either.

I have mentioned several times something that I believe is very simple: We are in the world, and we interact with material objects.

Granted. I just think that those things have an internal order, or logos, that we (being intellectual creatures) can grasp immediately. That is why I hold, with Aquinas, that the proper object of the human intellect is the “quiddity” (a fancy name for what something is) of material things.

We use to promote interactions looking for a determined result. It is possible that we get what we are looking for, or something similar, or something very different from what we wish. We are not infallible.

Best regards
JuanFlorencio

No, we are not infallible. There is certainly a fascinating realm of philosophical speculation that can be done on how our “pre-comprehension” affects our interpretation of new knowledge. But neither do we need to be in fear that the world around is all made up. (Not that you have this fear, but not a few philosophers did have this fear: most famously Descartes with his hypothesis of the evil genius. And that all started because he distrusted his senses—needlessly, it seems to me.)

 

[lmelahn]

…]

A single case is enough to refute any universal proposition, Imelahn. So, please let me know which systematic knowledge is not constructed, in your opinion.

Kind regards
JuanFlorencio

Sorry, I didn’t see this.

All systematic knowledge (i.e., “science” in the classical sense) certainly requires use of the ratiocinium (discursive reason), in which you go from truths that you already know, to ones that you don’t yet know. (In some sciences, the passage is more tentative than in others.)

So, if that is “construction,” then I guess I can accept the universal proposition.

If by “construction” you mean that we have to make use of models, like in physics, then no. In that case, it is sufficient to look at disciplines that do not use the hypothetical-deductive method, such as plane geometry, which uses a strictly deductive method; or Aquinas’ metaphysics, which uses a resolutive method.

 

[lmelahn]

Hm… If you say you can recognize a woman’s body without making a judgment, then we must mean two different things by “judgment.”

In Aquinas, the “judgment” (he never uses that term, as I said, but “composition and division;” however, his commentators did use the term) is the act by which we grasp that the things we have apprehended really exist in the world (or really do not exist). So simple recognition (or denial), for Aquinas, is already a composition (or division).

“Oh, it is a woman” is a composition. (Technically it is an “enunciation,” which is the verbal expression of a composition or division.)

Hence, I am seeing judgments (Aquinas’ compositions/divisions) every step of the way, here.

What do you mean by “judgment”?

Just to clarify, for Aquinas, a judgment is internal. It need not be expressed in words. It is the very act of recognition.

 

[Nixbits]

Imelahn, thank you for your response. I find discussing this sort of thing very frustrating because the terminology is, to my mind, imprecise.

I can see how it can be argued that our senses are reliable, inasmuch as errors are not part of the perception or apprehension of our senses but only in the judgement of our intellect. But this argument only works by a certain interpretation of those terms. For example, in the case of the mirage, the observer’s senses (perception and apprehension) are only reliable if the assumption that light travels in straight lines (so that the shimmering seen is believed to be on the ground ahead) takes place in the judgement. The error in seeing a mirage is in the belief that what we see ‘in that direction’ really is ‘in that direction’.

For this analysis of the reliability of our senses to be true, the visual sense must only ever pass on the knowledge that ‘the light hitting this part of my retina looks like this, but you need to judge how to interpret it’. This seems to narrow the scope of the visual sense more than I expected. This is where I need more precise definitions of the which brain functions are considered to be part of the senses and which are part of the intellect. Of course, I don’t expect to find this in the writings of Thomas Aquinas.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Sorry, I didn’t see this.

All systematic knowledge (i.e., “science” in the classical sense) certainly requires use of the ratiocinium (discursive reason), in which you go from truths that you already know, to ones that you don’t yet know. (In some sciences, the passage is more tentative than in others.)

So, if that is “construction,” then I guess I can accept the universal proposition.

If by “construction” you mean that we have to make use of models, like in physics, then no. In that case, it is sufficient to look at disciplines that do not use the hypothetical-deductive method, such as plane geometry, which uses a strictly deductive method; or Aquinas’ metaphysics, which uses a resolutive method.

Dear Imelahn:

Even in mathematics, Imelahn, it is possible to find problems in which you will have to propose a “model”. For many differential equations you need to propose a function that can solve your equation. But for many other problems you are right.

However, we have been talking about knowing material things. In this case you always need to construct a model with which you will be imitating the object’s interactions.

JuanFlorencio

 

[lmelahn]

Dear Imelahn:

Even in mathematics, Imelahn, it is possible to find problems in which you will have to propose a “model”. For many differential equations you need to propose a function that can solve your equation. But for many other problems you are right.

However, we have been talking about knowing material things. In this case you always need to construct a model with which you will be imitating the object’s interactions.

JuanFlorencio

Mathematics (at least arithmetic and Euclidean geometry) does deal with the material world, just in a different way than physics does. They both deal with different aspects of quantity, which is strictly speaking an attribute of material substances.

(Some of the more abstract branches of mathematics really are constructions, as you point out.)

To do a systematic study of the physical world (modern physics), I grant you that some kind of model is needed.

However, the model presupposes pre-scientific knowledge (perhaps you prefer the term “recognition”), which is done without the use of models, but simply and directly.

Take something a simple as Newton’s falling apple. Before he could model its movement, he first had to observe its movement. (And even to do something a simple as measure the time of its fall, he had to read the dials on a chronometer.) Do you see what I mean? Before you get to the model stage, there is quite a bit of what could be termed qualitative observation.

My point is, there is use of the intellect (apprehension, composition/division) even before we get to the model stage.

 

[lmelahn]

Imelahn, thank you for your response. I find discussing this sort of thing very frustrating because the terminology is, to my mind, imprecise.

I can see how it can be argued that our senses are reliable, inasmuch as errors are not part of the perception or apprehension of our senses but only in the judgement of our intellect. But this argument only works by a certain interpretation of those terms. For example, in the case of the mirage, the observer’s senses (perception and apprehension) are only reliable if the assumption that light travels in straight lines (so that the shimmering seen is believed to be on the ground ahead) takes place in the judgement. The error in seeing a mirage is in the belief that what we see ‘in that direction’ really is ‘in that direction’.

Just because the light waves bend instead of going straight doesn’t mean that my eyes are making a mistake. The ability to refract light is a real property of hot air. It would be most strange if we could not see a mirage under those circumstances.

My eyes are detecting the light as it really enters them. It happens that the rays have bent on their way from their source.

For this analysis of the reliability of our senses to be true, the visual sense must only ever pass on the knowledge that ‘the light hitting this part of my retina looks like this, but you need to judge how to interpret it’. This seems to narrow the scope of the visual sense more than I expected. This is where I need more precise definitions of the which brain functions are considered to be part of the senses and which are part of the intellect. Of course, I don’t expect to find this in the writings of Thomas Aquinas.

For Aquinas, the external senses simply gather sensory data. Obviously, he had no knowledge of how the retina and the optic nerve worked, but I think he got the general idea correct. The unification of those data is done by what he calls the “internal senses,” which we now know are situated in the brain.

It is true that the internal senses (and perhaps Aquinas was not aware of this) have certain “assumptions” about how the world “should” be: that accounts for the optical illusions that we have.

For example, as you point out, our internal senses assume that what we see straight in front of us is really in front of us. That is why we can make holograms and things like that; and that also explains why we perceive things that (on close examination) are not really there—like the phenomena you mention.

(Another interesting illusion is the disappearing dot: the terminus of the optic nerve is basically a “dead” spot in the retina, so if you can position a dot on a wall into that blind spit, it seems to disappear. The internal senses spontaneously “fill in” the whiteness where the spot should be.)

However, we can’t really say that we are deceived by these assumptions, because it we have so many ways of checking to see if they are true or not. (If you think about it, if they were impossible to overcome, we would not consider the phenomena you mentions as illusions at all.)

 

[lmelahn]

Dear Imelahn:

Even in mathematics, Imelahn, it is possible to find problems in which you will have to propose a “model”. For many differential equations you need to propose a function that can solve your equation. But for many other problems you are right.

However, we have been talking about knowing material things. In this case you always need to construct a model with which you will be imitating the object’s interactions.

JuanFlorencio

Ah yes, I have fond memories of differential equations class. (That was in college.) I rather enjoyed it, actually.

It seems to me that, even in the case of differential equations, even though there are often many possible solutions, they are still “exact” solutions. I mean, you have to check to make sure they really solve the original equations. The method, I think, is still fundamentally deductive.

But a physical model, I think, is rather different: you have to collect data, inductively, and then in that case, yes, you have to construct a mathematical model.

 

[Nixbits]

Imelahn, I don’t think you quite addressed my point. I did not suggest that our eyes can make a mistake. I suggested that our visual sense can make a mistake. But this interpretation depends on where you draw the line between the visual sense and the brain functions that use that visual data. My complaint was that this discussion of Aquinas’ view does not draw this line clearly enough. Unless the terms are properly defined it’s not possible to either refute or defend a statement such as ‘our senses are fundamentally reliable’.

 

[lmelahn]

Imelahn, I don’t think you quite addressed my point. I did not suggest that our eyes can make a mistake. I suggested that our visual sense can make a mistake. But this interpretation depends on where you draw the line between the visual sense and the brain functions that use that visual data. My complaint was that this discussion of Aquinas’ view does not draw this line clearly enough. Unless the terms are properly defined it’s not possible to either refute or defend a statement such as ‘our senses are fundamentally reliable’.

Ah, OK.

Well Aquinas himself distinguishes very clearly between the collection of sensory data (external sensation) and their twofold unification (perception).

(Twofold, because, in Thomas’ theory, the sensory data are assembled first into three-dimensional space—what he calls the common sensibles—and then the sensory relationships are grasped, like permanence and succession in time.)

I suppose we could distinguish between the sense of sight (what the eyes do) and vision (a part of perception, done by the brain).

Note that perception always brings together data from all the other senses, if available.

St. Thomas did not, of course, have a highly developed experimental psychology, but I think he was basically on the right track.

Then another thing altogether is apprehension and composition/division, which are not really done by the brain at all, but directly by the intellect.

You are making me wonder whether St. Thomas would have admitted a kind of error in what he calls the cogitative power (the faculty that grasps sensory relationships, the very last step before apprehension), because he ascribes to that faculty what he calls a “particular judgment,” whereby we grasp (among other things) the beneficialness or noxiousness of something. It is also the power that helps us to see things as a unified whole. So that, for instance, a hologram might be considered a sort of error, in the sense, that the cogitative power seems to perceives it as an object; an animal, for example, would be unable to distinguish it from something real. I will check on that.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Ah yes, I have fond memories of differential equations class. (That was in college.) I rather enjoyed it, actually.

It seems to me that, even in the case of differential equations, even though there are often many possible solutions, they are still “exact” solutions. I mean, you have to check to make sure they really solve the original equations. The method, I think, is still fundamentally deductive.

But a physical model, I think, is rather different: you have to collect data, inductively, and then in that case, yes, you have to construct a mathematical model.

Fundamentally deductive? Just because you have to check if your proposed solution really solves the equation? In physics you have to check if your model really models the phenomena. It’s method does not become deductive because of that, does it?

Concerning the collection of data and induction in physics…

Pay attention to this example: Certainly Tycho Brahe collected a great amount of astronomical data, based on which Johannes Kepler proposed his laws for the movement of planets. One astronomical datum would have been useless. The repetition of the same observation a hundred times would not have improved the situation. The reason is that a position does not tell us anything about the movement of an object. You need at least two sets of data (Position1, time1; position2, time2) to get an idea, if it was a relatively simple movement. If you have to consider a periodic movement like that of planets, you need a good amount of data to conceive how it is (you will never imagine the elliptical movement of a planet by looking at the sky, but by looking at Tycho’s tables); but one complete set of data is enough. Only one! What induction do you think Kepler had to do to conceive his laws? Or did he deduce them? Please, think about it for a while.

Anyway, either inductively or deductively or resolutively, no matter how you reach the point where a relation can be established, every relation is a mental construction. A fundamental difference between interaction and relation is that interactions happen, but relations have to be established. I call “construction” to the act of establishing a relation. The phenomena (or, in general, the elements) do not produce the relation in your mind; you are not passive, but active. The relation that you establish might be “exact” (like in geometry -a science of relations), or an approximation (like in physics -a science of interactions), but either way it is a construction.

Now, to me, Imelahn, the relevant point here is that we don’t extract any “intelligible don’t know what” from material things, nor are we impressed by the logos in them, but we imitate them through relations.

Mathematics (at least arithmetic and Euclidean geometry) does deal with the material world, just in a different way than physics does. They both deal with different aspects of quantity, which is strictly speaking an attribute of material substances.

(Some of the more abstract branches of mathematics really are constructions, as you point out.)

To do a systematic study of the physical world (modern physics), I grant you that some kind of model is needed.

However, the model presupposes pre-scientific knowledge (perhaps you prefer the term “recognition”), which is done without the use of models, but simply and directly.

Take something a simple as Newton’s falling apple. Before he could model its movement, he first had to observe its movement. (And even to do something a simple as measure the time of its fall, he had to read the dials on a chronometer.) Do you see what I mean? Before you get to the model stage, there is quite a bit of what could be termed qualitative observation.

My point is, there is use of the intellect (apprehension, composition/division) even before we get to the model stage.

If mathematics does or does not deal with the material world (I don’t affirm nor deny) is an interesting problem, but I see no relation with our subject (unless you say how). I prefer to leave it aside.

I think I see what you mean, Imelahn, and I partially agree with you (I am still verifying the meaning of composition/ division in St. Thomas). Before we model something, we have to have a good level of knowledge about it. That is precisely what I mean when I say that our systems of relations are imitations. You always need something to imitate. We don’t create interactions (we promote some, but we don’t create them); however, we do create the systems of relations with which we imitate them (I have to clarify that we don’t invent the basic relations, but the systems we make with them).

 

[lmelahn]

Fundamentally deductive? Just because you have to check if your proposed solution really solves the equation? In physics you have to check if your model really models the phenomena. It’s method does not become deductive because of that, does it?

Concerning the collection of data and induction in physics…

Pay attention to this example: Certainly Tycho Brahe collected a great amount of astronomical data, based on which Johannes Kepler proposed his laws for the movement of planets. One astronomical datum would have been useless. The repetition of the same observation a hundred times would not have improved the situation. The reason is that a position does not tell us anything about the movement of an object. You need at least two sets of data (Position1, time1; position2, time2) to get an idea, if it was a relatively simple movement. If you have to consider a periodic movement like that of planets, you need a good amount of data to conceive how it is (you will never imagine the elliptical movement of a planet by looking at the sky, but by looking at Tycho’s tables); but one complete set of data is enough. Only one! What induction do you think Kepler had to do to conceive his laws? Or did he deduce them? Please, think about it for a while.

Anyway, either inductively or deductively or resolutively, no matter how you reach the point where a relation can be established, every relation is a mental construction. A fundamental difference between interaction and relation is that interactions happen, but relations have to be established. I call “construction” to the act of establishing a relation. The phenomena (or, in general, the elements) do not produce the relation in your mind; you are not passive, but active. The relation that you establish might be “exact” (like in geometry -a science of relations), or an approximation (like in physics -a science of interactions), but either way it is a construction.

Now, to me, Imelahn, the relevant point here is that we don’t extract any “intelligible don’t know what” from material things, nor are we impressed by the logos in them, but we imitate them through relations.

If mathematics does or does not deal with the material world (I don’t affirm nor deny) is an interesting problem, but I see no relation with our subject (unless you say how). I prefer to leave it aside.

I think I see what you mean, Imelahn, and I partially agree with you (I am still verifying the meaning of composition/ division in St. Thomas). Before we model something, we have to have a good level of knowledge about it. That is precisely what I mean when I say that our systems of relations are imitations. You always need something to imitate. We don’t create interactions (we promote some, but we don’t create them); however, we do create the systems of relations with which we imitate them (I have to clarify that we don’t invent the basic relations, but the systems we make with them).

 

[lmelahn]

Fundamentally deductive? …]

Well, how do you “check” your answer? By taking the solution and plugging it into the original equations. That, it seems to me, is a form of deductive reasoning. You start with the proposed solution and demonstrate that it fulfills the original problem. That method is the bread and butter of mathematical reasoning.

I am not saying that there is not deductive reasoning in modern physics, obviously. It is just that in physics, collecting data from real phenomena is fundamental. Pure mathematics is by nature a formal discipline: it abstracts away the aspect of collecting data. That is all I meant.

Concerning the collection of data and induction in physics…

Pay attention to this example: Certainly Tycho Brahe collected a great amount of astronomical data, based on which Johannes Kepler proposed his laws for the movement of planets. …]

If you have ever done mathematical modeling (and I have), although a single data set is sufficient to make a model, it is only statistically valid if it is relatively large. In the real world (including astronomy), measurements never come out exactly how we would like them: there is always natural variation, caused either by the imprecision of the instruments, or errors in measurement, or other factors we are unaware of. Tycho Brahe generated a table which, to an untrained eye, would appear a scatter of points without much order. (I haven’t actually done this with Brahe’s data, but that how data always come out.)

Although constructing a model from such data involves some deduction, as well as some creativity on the scientist’s part, it still seems to me that all of the data come from the scientist’s observations. In that sense, physics is inductive: it is guided by what the data tell him. Hence, I think it is impossible for there to be scientific knowledge without some kind of pre-scientific knowledge that precedes it. Before Brahe ever did any observation, he already needed to make use of his intellect to read the dials, distinguish the planets in the telescope, etc.

…]

I call “construction” to the act of establishing a relation. The phenomena (or, in general, the elements) do not produce the relation in your mind; you are not passive, but active. The relation that you establish might be “exact” (like in geometry -a science of relations), or an approximation (like in physics -a science of interactions), but either way it is a construction.

Am I right in thinking that your position is somewhat similar to Kant’s schematism? (Not his categories here, but the bridge between the empirical intuitions and the categories—it’s in the part of the Critique about the “analytic of principles.”) For example, according to Kant, we grasp “substance” through the schema of permanence; and we grasp “cause” through the schema of temporal succession.

I think this may be the place where we need to disagree, because, with Thomas and Aristotle, I would have to say that we grasp relations among phenomena with our cogitative power (an internal sense). Hence, our sensorial representation (species sensibilis) already contains the relations among phenomena (like permanence and temporal succession). It would follow that our knowledge of relations is imposed from without, not constructed by us.

Note that the cogitative power acts before we abstract anything. Grasping relations is (in my opinion) not only fundamentally receptive, but pre-intellectual.

On other other hand, I concur that the species sensibilis is a kind of imitation of the thing that we know. I don’t think, however, that the imitation is limited to the relations. We are able to imitate the very form of the things we know per via causalitatis (by causality): whatever produces operation must in some way be similar to the operation it produces (as fire produces heat and is itself hot).

Now, to me, Imelahn, the relevant point here is that we don’t extract any “intelligible don’t know what” from material things, nor are we impressed by the logos in them, but we imitate them through relations.

I am not necessarily in disagreement when you say we imitate through relations. However, we seem to disagree as to what we imitate. I say, that we imitate (to the point of becoming) the thing we know, and the whole thing.

If mathematics does or does not deal with the material world (I don’t affirm nor deny) is an interesting problem, but I see no relation with our subject (unless you say how). I prefer to leave it aside.

Yes, let’s leave it for another thread. If you are curious about what St. Thomas has to say about the matter, see his commentary on Boethius’ De Trinitate, especially qq. 5 and 6.

…] That is precisely what I mean when I say that our systems of relations are imitations. You always need something to imitate. We don’t create interactions (we promote some, but we don’t create them); however, we do create the systems of relations with which we imitate them (I have to clarify that we don’t invent the basic relations, but the systems we make with them).

If we said that interactions are the properties inherent to substances and the operations that they produce; and that the relations are our “imitations” of them in our sensory representations, then I I could basically accept that, although (for the reasons I mentioned above) I hesitate to call it a “construction.”

On the other hand, making a mathematical model, I would call a “construction,” but that is done by discursive reason. (I am open to calling all uses of discursive reason a “construction,” whether that be deductive, inductive, or resolutive.)

 

[lmelahn]

If we said that interactions are the properties inherent to substances and the operations that they produce; and that the relations are our “imitations” of them in our sensory representations, then I I could basically accept that, although (for the reasons I mentioned above) I hesitate to call it a “construction.”

On the other hand, making a mathematical model, I would call a “construction,” but that is done by discursive reason. (I am open to calling all uses of discursive reason a “construction,” whether that be deductive, inductive, or resolutive, because in that case the intellect is obviously active.)

Hence, there might be two kinds of relations here (which are in analogy to one another): sensorial relations that are grasped by our cogitative power, and the more complex relations (not strictly sensorial) established by discursive reason.

Both are a kind of imitation, but the former is unconscious and even pre-intellectual; the other is established by the ratiocinium.

But I don’t think you can have the latter without the former. Indeed, the grasping of sensorial relations by the cogitative power is necessary for abstraction. That is how, with our intellects, we arrive at the substance.

(One difference between you and me, it appears, is that I think we can really get there. )

 

[GEddie]

Concerning the pine tree and colors of light.

While impractical to do with the pine tree because of its size, it is easy to show that when an object of uniform color is illuminated by light of another frequency, it will appear to be black.

For that matter, we have two visual mechanisms in our human eyes: the cones, which see color but require good light, and the rods, which see in relative darkness but perceive only black and gray surfaces. Like everything else we sense, there is a continuum to our sight; the darker it gets around our heads, the less color will be seen.

Even the shade of gray we see depends upon the intensity of the light shined upon it.

And trees also emit infrared light. If we were given IR eyes (or supernatural eyes?), then in darkness, the pine tree would in fact look red.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Am I right in thinking that your position is somewhat similar to Kant’s schematism? (Not his categories here, but the bridge between the empirical intuitions and the categories—it’s in the part of the Critique about the “analytic of principles.”) For example, according to Kant, we grasp “substance” through the schema of permanence; and we grasp “cause” through the schema of temporal succession.

I think this may be the place where we need to disagree, because, with Thomas and Aristotle, I would have to say that we grasp relations among phenomena with our cogitative power (an internal sense). Hence, our sensorial representation (species sensibilis) already contains the relations among phenomena (like permanence and temporal succession). It would follow that our knowledge of relations is imposed from without, not constructed by us.

Note that the cogitative power acts before we abstract anything. Grasping relations is (in my opinion) not only fundamentally receptive, but pre-intellectual.

I think I cannot be less kantian, Imelahn! I don’t think we have any a priori scheme nor any a priori intuition. I would be kantian if Kant had written his books when he was a baby, before he had “experience” . It is obvious to me that his doctrine is just another construction, among the many we have in the history of philosophy, and was built as a posteriori as any other.

Now, being us corporeal beings among material things we have certain modes of interaction even before we are born. But in the beginning we do not establish any relation at all (and relations do not exist in the realm of interactions). But other humans talk to us, and exhibit certain behaviors in front of us. They train us, they shape our behavior and tell us how the world is; they teach us “the names of things, qualities and actions”, so that we learn how to join and to distinguish between things, between qualities, between actions. And of course they are joinable and distinguishable. All those beings allow us to behave in many different ways with them, and consequently to make different kinds of identifications and distinctions between them. As Aristotle said, we develop experience thanks to our memory, and we can learn a lot because we hear. So, thanks to memory and language we begin comparing here and there, now and then, so that we become more and more sophisticated in our interaction modes (as I have said before) and, as a consequence, we become able to establish sets of relations (imitations) which are gradually more and more complex.

You say that our imitations are determined by reality. If it were true, everybody would develop the same systems of relations; but history proves the contrary: Heraclitus developed a doctrine quite different from that of Parmenides; and there were the presocratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, St. Agustin, John Duns Scotus, St. Bonaventure, Descartes, Hume, Locke, Berkeley, Leibniz, Wolf, Kant, Hegel…, each one with his own doctrines and with many followers. Reality allows it. And it is not because those that do not agreed with Aristotle were great sinners, or wanted to destroy humanity, or the Catholic Church, or that they managed to deform the impressions that reality made on their intellects. It is simply that there are no such impressions. If, on the other hand, those various doctrines are the result of impressions made by reality on different intellects, we should be content with that.

On other other hand, I concur that the species sensibilis is a kind of imitation of the thing that we know. I don’t think, however, that the imitation is limited to the relations. We are able to imitate the very form of the things we know per via causalitatis (by causality): whatever produces operation must in some way be similar to the operation it produces (as fire produces heat and is itself hot).

Fire produces expansion on gases, but it is not expansion; it liquifies metals, but it is not liquid; it makes wood turn black, but it is not black… The idea that “whatever produces operation must be similar to the operation it produces” seems to me a strange desire.

“Form”, as a concept, is the imitation of a certain set of sets of phenomena. In other words, there is in reality something that allowed, first Plato, then Aristotle, to conceive the complex notion of “form” (and it still allows it).

 

[JuanFlorencio]

So, what was the origin of the concept “prime matter”? How did Aristotle develop it? Did he follow an intellectual procedure that is essentially different to the procedures of modern scientists?

I think it would be convenient if we proceed step by step.

First of all we have to realize that there were already certain discussions about change before Aristotle came on the scene. In the Physics, Book I, Chapter 8, he says

“The first of those who studied science were misled in their search for truth and the nature of things by their inexperience, which as it were thrust them into another path. So they say that none of the things that are either comes to be or passes out of existence, because what comes to be must do so either from what is or from what is not, both of which are impossible. For what is cannot come to be (because it is already), and from what is not nothing could have come to be (because something must be present as a substratum). So too they exaggerated the consequence of this, and went so far as to deny even the existence of a plurality of things, maintaining that only Being itself is. Such then was their opinion, and such the reason for its adoption.”

What was the problem? The first of those who studied science could not figure out how to conceive change and plurality in view of the concept they had of Being. They conceived it as simple and, therefore, identical to itself. So, the problem was not that they were unable to perceive change and plurality, but that they lacked the elements to think them (this is the “inexperience” that Aristotle points out: not a lack of perception, but of “experience”).

Do you agree up to this point, Imelahn?

 

[Nixbits]

Imelahn, I seem to always be asking questions that are peripheral to the main discussion. Apologies for that. I don’t mean to de-rail this interesting thread, so please feel free not to respond.
Imelahn:

. . . apprehension and composition/division, which are not really done by the brain at all, but directly by the intellect.

This intrigued me. You seem to draw a distinction between the brain and the intellect. To me, the intellect is a term for a collection of processes that are performed by the brain. Is this not what Aquinas believed?

 

[GEddie]

Imelahn, I seem to always be asking questions that are peripheral to the main discussion. Apologies for that. I don’t mean to de-rail this interesting thread, so please feel free not to respond.

This intrigued me. You seem to draw a distinction between the brain and the intellect. To me, the intellect is a term for a collection of processes that are performed by the brain. Is this not what Aquinas believed?

No, in Thomism, the Intellect is a process of the “rational human soul.”

We really cannot read our modern understanding of the human head into a philosophy that predates it by six hundred years. IMNAAHO.

ICXC NIKA

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Hence, there might be two kinds of relations here (which are in analogy to one another): sensorial relations that are grasped by our cogitative power, and the more complex relations (not strictly sensorial) established by discursive reason.

Both are a kind of imitation, but the former is unconscious and even pre-intellectual; the other is established by the ratiocinium.

But I don’t think you can have the latter without the former. Indeed, the grasping of sensorial relations by the cogitative power is necessary for abstraction. That is how, with our intellects, we arrive at the substance.

(One difference between you and me, it appears, is that I think we can really get there. )

Dear Imelahn:

Actually, I distinguish between several kinds of relations. Among them there are those whose elements are elements of interactions, like when we say that an elephant is bigger than a rat (elephants and rats being elements of interactions); other kind are those whose elements are relations, like when we say that acceleration is the rate of change of velocity (velocity and time being relations themselves). The first relations are those whose elements are elements of interactions, and every system of relations is finally based on them. I understand this is what you are saying. I agree with that.

Abstraction! There have been several uses of this term through the history of philosophy… I prefer not to use it. When someone says for example that Calculus is very “abstract”, I say “it is a system of relations of high order”; which means that it contains relations of relations of relations of relations…

Concerning substance… there is a parallel between “element of interaction” and “substance”. At least, when I read Aristotle saying “substance” I translate it as “element of interaction”. I have said several times already that we deal with them every moment of our lives. No thinking is needed at all for that. But both “substance” and “element of interaction” as concepts can only be reached through a sophisticated reasoning (in other words, they are relations of high order). Both concepts are imitations of that which we directly deal with every moment of our lives.

So, I don’t deny that we can reach to the concept of substance. Obviously, Aristotle did it, and many people after him, me included (it is a fact, so it is possible); and I don’t deny either (but affirm) that we directly interact with the objective correlate of such intellectual imitation.

I would like that we continue with the elaboration of the concept “prime matter”, if you don’t have any objection. It was supposed that there is something peculiar to metaphysical reasoning that is not found anywhere else. I would like it to be clarified.

Best regards!
JuanFlorencio