J
JuanFlorencio
Guest
No, MPat, I have not -and would not-, ask you nor anyone else to accept something just because I said so. In the same way, in philosophy I do not accept arguments of authority (not even if the aithority is Aristotle). In this field either demonstrations or arguments of plausibility are what works to me. So, when I mentioned how Socrates’ companion asked him if he belonged to the class of men who needs to know “who said something” to determine if it was valuable or not, that do not exclude my name. In philosophy we need to discuss, using rational arguments. Even to those persons who know me, I demand to understand my arguments, so that, if they find them correct, they can use them afterwards, knowing why they are correct.
You are right if you question me because you think my reasoning is flawed. However, at the same time, your objections have to be rational. Otherwise the discussion cannot proceed properly. Also, you need to know the elements; if you don’t, you will not see any demonstrative character in my discourse, even if there is any.
Certainly, Aristotle used that example. The text I put in my post #69 refers to it as well, and there he also suggests that this fact is an accident, because the geometer does not consider whether “triangle” is different from “triangle whose angles are equal to two right angles”. In this other text he says that having its internal angles equal to two right angles does not belong to the substance of the triangle.Yes, that’s a brilliant example. Aristotle himself used it: “And in another sense accident means whatever belongs to each thing of itself but not in its substance; for example, it is an accident of a triangle to have its angles equal to two right angles.” (“Metaphysics”, book 5, chapter 30: dhspriory.org/thomas/Metaphysics5.htm#22). The wording is almost exactly the same, with a tiny exception: that he affirms that what you claim to be “obviously” wrong.
Now, such meaning of the word “accident” is really quite another sense of the term. In the first sense, accident is “what attaches to anything and which it is true to affirm is so, although not necessarily or for the most part”; and in the second sense, accident would be what attaches to anything and which it is necessarily and universally true to affirm is so. Therefore, accident, in general, would have to be simply what attaches to anything and which is true to affirm is so, whether it is necessarily and universally or not. Accident would be a genus which has two species, but…
Why does Aristotle say that having its internal angles equal to two right angles is not in the substance of the triangle. Isn’t it because the substance (understood as form) is reducible to the definition, and because the definition of the triangle makes no reference to its internal angles? This way, the statement about the internal angles would be something which is added to the definition, as a theorem. This is what is suggested in the Posterior Analytics. But are really our definitions the perfect expression or representation of forms or essences? This is quite debatable. Nevertheless, Aristotle distinguishes between that which is in the definition of something and that which is knowable by demonstration. However, why is it that something which is not in the definition of the thing can be demonstrated, but because we begin with the definition which contains it already, and we are just making it explicit (or is it because we are doing an a priori synthetic judgement?)? At least, Aristotle should distinguish between
*]The axioms and definitions
*]The statements which can be demonstrated
*]The statements which cannot be demonstrated.
But he doesn’t. As you have noticed, he puts two things which are dramatically different (accidents in the first sense -which are related to the statements of the second class-, and accidents in the second sense -which are related to the statements of the first class ) in the same basket. What do you think about it?
