What does, " the nature of a thing " mean?

[inocente]

Yes, physics as Aristotle defines it, was more widely applied than the science of today conceives it. But don’t be misslead by that fact, I can assure you there is more there than one thinks. Science had to start somewhere, so it is good to understand how it actually began and Aristotle is the beginning. I’ve read it and it is a challenge but worth while.

His psychology is very reasonable. Thomas Aquinas adopted it with necessary corrections. You can read Thomas’ Commentary on A’s De Anima here: dhspriory.org/thomas. You can also read Thomas’ full blown psychology in the S.T., Part 1, ques 75-86 and S.C.G., Book 2, chapters 47- 90.

Aristotle would say the senses receive information from the external world which the intellect sorts out and organizes into ideas or concepts which are called Universals because they represent a universal and perfect concept of what actually exists imperfectly and with modifications in numerous individuals of an given species and genus. Because these universal ideas are instantiated in individuals, Aristotle calls them natures, essences or substances which are the source or principle of motion/change and rest in those things which are natural, as opposed to those things which are mere compounds or made by man.

I’ve read parts of his Physics, and it’s interesting to see how a good mind in a pre-scientific culture sees things, and where he trips up and what trips him up.

Perception and categorization could work as he has it, although he probably wouldn’t have known that it varies. It isn’t human nature, as it were, to regard humans as having a nature, these things can vary by culture. For example, it may strike us as strange that many cultures don’t distinguish green from blue (and Wikipedia has a new article - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_of_blue_and_green_in_various_languages).

*Aristotle accepts nature as a self-evident fact. As such it cannot be " falsifiable, " it is either accepted or it is not. As I said before, there has to be an organizing source to the activity, powers, etc of a substance. This Aristotle calls a nature. You either accept it or you don’t. And the " from being-in-potency to being-in-act " is derived from that. For Aristotle observed that some things change, that they moved from being in one state, or from being one substance to another. Indeed, today we would say this is absolutely true of every thing. Every thing is moving from potentiality to actuality. That is a self evident fact. It is hard to see how it can be reasonably rejected.
*

As per previous post, I would think the notion that the apple outside my stomach could be inside my stomach, and the notion that applying teeth to apple could render it on its way, are things we all learn early on. Indeed, perhaps all animals know this kind of fact as it’s so necessary for survival. But going from there to the idea that there is a “being-in-potency” and a “being-in-act” which somehow can’t be measured is to me a cruel and unusual punishment.

I see you’ve posted again but it seems by thinking of apples my stomach is telling my something.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I’ve read parts of his Physics, and it’s interesting to see how a good mind in a pre-scientific culture sees things, and where he trips up and what trips him up.

Perception and categorization could work as he has it, although he probably wouldn’t have known that it varies. It isn’t human nature, as it were, to regard humans as having a nature, these things can vary by culture. For example, it may strike us as strange that many cultures don’t distinguish green from blue (and Wikipedia has a new article - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_of_blue_and_green_in_various_languages).

As per previous post, I would think the notion that the apple outside my stomach could be inside my stomach, and the notion that applying teeth to apple could render it on its way, are things we all learn early on. Indeed, perhaps all animals know this kind of fact as it’s so necessary for survival. But going from there to the idea that there is a “being-in-potency” and a “being-in-act” which somehow can’t be measured is to me a cruel and unusual punishment.

I see you’ve posted again but it seems by thinking of apples my stomach is telling my something.

I just had a peanut butter and honey sandwich and a half glass of milk myself. Now for a little nap ( I’m still in kindergarten )

Linus2nd

 

[Skeptic92]

The First:I believe we naturally think the ball is here and could be over there. That’s trivial, we learn it as a matter of experience at a very young age.

The Second:But we don’t naturally divide them up and say the ball is part act and part potency. Even if we did, we’d expect to be able to quantify them, as in potential energy and kinetic energy. But the act/potency model doesn’t let us do that, even though it says potency can be zero, leaving only act. It’s contrived, ugly.

I’ll reply again in case you do not see the contradiction, the bold added is mine for ease of reference.

To the First; you have here conceded the reality of act and potency. For to notice that the ball is here in act whilst over there in potency is to reject the Heraclitean and Parmenidean errors that what is in potency is simply nothing. That change is either a continuous creation/annihilation dialectic, or a static form of permanence where actual ontological change is impossible.

To the Second; Here, you reject the reality of act and potency. Given your previous statement it is hard to see how this can avoid contradiction. For if as in the first point you conceded the reality, and then dismiss it in the exact same sense at the same time; this violates the Law of Non-contradiction. As you both affirm and deny in the same respect at the same time; which isn’t coherent.

 

[balto]

You’re still conflating what you know with what is real. Prior to Einstein, when space and time were considered separate, you would have argued that space has a nature and time has a nature. Two separate natures. Now, because you know of spacetime, you argue that it has a nature. The number of things and their natures varies according to what you know. As such they only tell us about what you know.

I don’t think that the nature of something can be known just by thinking about it. I agree with you that any knowledge of natures or essences has to be grounded in experience and I don’t think I’ve written anything to indicate otherwise. But the point of my argument is that essences are real and are needed to ground the characteristic causal regularities of things, whatever the essences turn out to be.

I don’t feel that you have risen to the challenge bro. It was to put all of that into an algorithm such that a device could sense and distinguish Kirk from non-Kirk to a level where it transports Kirk, the whole Kirk and nothing but the Kirk. Metaphysically, I don’t believe the notion of Kirk can be defined to that level of precision (leaving aside that some would say transporting only his molecules would turn Kirk into a philosophical zombie).

Well I’m not sure how to answer your concerns with this scenario and further without getting into highly speculative sci-fi theorizing . Although I’m not sure why my position would be undermined necessarily by this situation since there’s no separately existing essence that a transporter would have to recognize. All that would have to happen is that the molecules would have to be reconstructed exactly the way they existed prior to transportation, but I don’t think either of us really knows what would happen under this scenario so we’ll have to wait for more empirical data before we could be more certain .

I’m saying that essences and natures are not of the world, they should be understood as theoretical constructs for highly complex unconscious operations going on inside our heads by which we make sense of the world.

But then you’re espousing nominalism, so there’s no objective basis for the way anything behaves. It just happens to be the case that our subjective understanding of the natures of things happens to be very predictive. Without objective natures we have no reason to believe that anything will continue to behave the way it has in the past, and theoretically it could do an infinite number of different things at each moment, so each time our purely subjective understanding of its nature is right would have to be a complete miracle. Or we could avoid all of this by accepting that things have natures and our models are predictive when they model the true nature more accurately.

 

[balto]

I believe we naturally think the ball is here and could be over there. That’s trivial, we learn it as a matter of experience at a very young age.

But that’s essentially arguing for act and potency without using the specific terms “act” and “potency.” The ball is actually here but is potentially over there and if it moves over there then its potency for being over there was actualized. That was my little trap but Linus and Skeptic stole my prey :tsktsk:

But we don’t naturally divide them up and say the ball is part act and part potency. Even if we did, we’d expect to be able to quantify them, as in potential energy and kinetic energy. But the act/potency model doesn’t let us do that, even though it says potency can be zero, leaving only act. It’s contrived, ugly.

Well act and potency are metaphysical realities so they cannot be “divided up” or “quantified” because we’ve already abstracted all the specific matter away, even its extension in space so we’ve gone farther than mathematics even. I don’t know how kinetic and potential energy are related, if at all, although I have wondered about it. But the point remains that you need to have a metaphysical notion that makes change and permanence plausible before you can do meaningful science even if said notion is not consciously analyzed.

I was joshing.

Okay, sorry . I also realized I had an extra “not” in the quoted statement that completed changed the meaning of the sentence. I meant to say that I don’t think science and empiricism are the same.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The nature of a thing is its essence without accidents imposed upon it. It is the nature of a dog to have fur covering its hide. It is not the nature of a dog to wear a collar. That is imposed as an accident upon the dog.

So the nature of a thing refers to its universal nature without accidental additions. If a goat is born with two heads, that is not in the nature of a goat. This is why we call it a freak of nature.
That is to say, this freak is not what a goat is supposed to be by nature.

It is in the nature of men and women to have different sex organs that nature has ideally designed to fit each other for the purpose of reproduction. Using these organs for some other primary purpose, such as anal or oral sex, constitutes a violation of human nature.

Those who maintain that sodomy is the exclusive purpose of sex have gone against the design of nature. Mother Nature in such cases is not a forgiving parent, as we see with the high rate of fatal venereal diseases that accompany sodomy.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I’ve read parts of his Physics, and it’s interesting to see how a good mind in a pre-scientific culture sees things, and where he trips up and what trips him up.

Perception and categorization could work as he has it, although he probably wouldn’t have known that it varies. It isn’t human nature, as it were, to regard humans as having a nature, these things can vary by culture. For example, it may strike us as strange that many cultures don’t distinguish green from blue (and Wikipedia has a new article - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_of_blue_and_green_in_various_languages).

As per previous post, I would think the notion that the apple outside my stomach could be inside my stomach, and the notion that applying teeth to apple could render it on its way, are things we all learn early on. Indeed, perhaps all animals know this kind of fact as it’s so necessary for survival. But going from there to the idea that there is a “being-in-potency” and a “being-in-act” which somehow can’t be measured is to me a cruel and unusual punishment.

I see you’ve posted again but it seems by thinking of apples my stomach is telling my something.

I don’t think there is anything here that needs comment. But if you are really interested I would suggest you read Aquinas and Scholastic Metaphysics by Feser because he really does have a firm grasp of Aristotilean/Thomistic principles. You will just have to grit your teeth and forget he often engages in polemics. Or you could read all of Thomas’s works, difficult but not impossible.

Linus2nd

Linus2nd

 

[Charlemagne_III]

For example, it may strike us as strange that many cultures don’t distinguish green from blue (and Wikipedia has a new article - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_of_blue_and_green_in_various_languages).

Human nature is still universal human nature, whether or not you distinguish green from blue.

Is there any culture in the world that does not distinguish good from evil, or the beautiful from the ugly?

 

[Aloysium]

Human nature is still universal human nature, whether or not you distinguish green from blue. . . .

Blue?
Do you mean: azure, cerulean, cobalt blue, cyan, indigo, midnight blue, periwinkle, royal blue sapphire, sky blue, steel blue, teal, turquoise, ultramarine, or viridian, to name a few?
I’m pretty sure anyone who takes up painting, from any background will come to know these.

 

[inocente]

You realise you have just contradicted yourself right?

No, we don’t intuitively invent the concepts of potentiality and actuality for ourselves, they are too contrived and specific.

 

[inocente]

It is clear that since all things in the universe are in a constant process of change, yet remain the same substances, except in the case of creation and substantial change, that all substances have a potency principle and an actuality principle. That each substance is composed of act and potency. But the potency principle is not " zero. " The matter in a substance is the principle of potency and it is clear that matter is not " zero. "

Doesn’t the potentiality/actuality scheme say God is zero potentiality and pure act?

The substance/form and potency/actuality dualities only seem to confuse things. For instance, they would have hindered rather than aided the discovery that most of an atom is space and most of the mass of matter comes not from the mass of the constituent elementary particles, but the speed at which they jiggle around:

“In quantum chromodynamics, the modern theory of the nuclear force, most of the mass of the proton and the neutron is explained by special relativity. The mass of the proton is about 80–100 times greater than the sum of the rest masses of the quarks that make it up, while the gluons have zero rest mass. The extra energy of the quarks and gluons in a region within a proton, as compared to the rest energy of the quarks alone in the QCD vacuum, accounts for almost 99% of the mass.” - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton#Quarks_and_the_mass_of_the_proton

*To say that matter is the potency principle simply means that it is that from which new forms are educed.

The form, on the other hand, is the actuality principle in each substance. It makes each substance to be the kind of substance it is at this moment. But it can be modified or replaced all together. And when this happens we have either a change or a modification of the nature of the substance.

Your objection concerning " potential energy " and " kinetic energy " is inchoherent. Do you mean that a Ball has potential energy which can become kinetic energy? The proper way to view this is to say that the ball has such a nature that it can be modified so that it can accept and store an impetus* which allows the ball to move and continue moving. Exactly how this capability would be translated into scientific explication is something science whould have to do. Are you saying you are qualified to make that explication?

I am saying that the whole scheme seems contrived and isn’t any use to modern science.

Potential energy is a general concept. It says that wherever work is done to compress a spring (one of many examples), the spring contains the potential energy to decompress.

*The principle of act and potency is not trivial. Certainly we can go through life without giving it a thought. But it has great significance in improtant theological discussions ( as your comments about psychology indicate ). It also happens to be one of those things science accepts without acknowledgement. If substances lacked these principles, they could not change. *

Perhaps some Catholic theologians still use it but otherwise the entire framework has been replaced, it’s far too fuzzy and arcane to be of any use. You’ll find echos, but they are fragmentary. It can’t be falsified, and as such we can use Hume’s Fork to say it is purely a relationship of ideas.

 

[inocente]

I’ll reply again in case you do not see the contradiction, the bold added is mine for ease of reference.

To the First; you have here conceded the reality of act and potency. For to notice that the ball is here in act whilst over there in potency is to reject the Heraclitean and Parmenidean errors that what is in potency is simply nothing. That change is either a continuous creation/annihilation dialectic, or a static form of permanence where actual ontological change is impossible.

To the Second; Here, you reject the reality of act and potency. Given your previous statement it is hard to see how this can avoid contradiction. For if as in the first point you conceded the reality, and then dismiss it in the exact same sense at the same time; this violates the Law of Non-contradiction. As you both affirm and deny in the same respect at the same time; which isn’t coherent.

See previous post. I will not do violence to Aristotle by ignoring the entire framework, none of us intuit all of the highlighted concepts required, it’s far too artificial:

"The potencies which persist in a particular material are one way of describing “the nature itself” of that material, an innate source of motion and rest within that material. In terms of Aristotle’s theory of four causes, a material’s non-accidental potential, is the material cause of the things that can come to be from that material, and one part of how we can understand the substance (ousia, sometimes translated as “thinghood”) of any separate thing. (As emphasized by Aristotle, this requires his distinction between accidental causes and natural causes.)[8] According to Aristotle, when we refer to the nature of a thing, we are referring to the form, shape or look of a thing, which was already present as a potential, an innate tendency to change, in that material before it achieved that form, but things show what they are more fully, as a real thing, when they are “fully at work”. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiality_and_actuality

 

[inocente]

I don’t think that the nature of something can be known just by thinking about it. I agree with you that any knowledge of natures or essences has to be grounded in experience and I don’t think I’ve written anything to indicate otherwise. But the point of my argument is that essences are real and are needed to ground the characteristic causal regularities of things, whatever the essences turn out to be.

The problem with this, for me, is the last phrase. How would you ever know what the real essences are? If you can’t know then is this kind of reductionism useful? Sort of What Is it Like to Be a Bat?

Well I’m not sure how to answer your concerns with this scenario and further without getting into highly speculative sci-fi theorizing . Although I’m not sure why my position would be undermined necessarily by this situation since there’s no separately existing essence that a transporter would have to recognize. All that would have to happen is that the molecules would have to be reconstructed exactly the way they existed prior to transportation, but I don’t think either of us really knows what would happen under this scenario so we’ll have to wait for more empirical data before we could be more certain .

The issue though, is not the physics (trying to tug the molecules apart would probably only result in a big boom anyway), but rather how could we program the machine to recognize which molecules to transport. If the concept of essence isn’t helpful in precisely defining what is and isn’t an object, but only in painting a rough sketch, then it doesn’t seem of much use.

But then you’re espousing nominalism, so there’s no objective basis for the way anything behaves. It just happens to be the case that our subjective understanding of the natures of things happens to be very predictive. Without objective natures we have no reason to believe that anything will continue to behave the way it has in the past, and theoretically it could do an infinite number of different things at each moment, so each time our purely subjective understanding of its nature is right would have to be a complete miracle. Or we could avoid all of this by accepting that things have natures and our models are predictive when they model the true nature more accurately.

Sort of agreed. We could put all our money on a spin of roulette with varying levels of risk depending on the bet. People used to worry that the Sun wouldn’t reappear tomorrow morning, now we’re not so bothered because we discovered the Earth spins on its axis so it’s very unlikely to stop spinning. But by the same token we don’t have to prove that Earth objectively exists, all we need to say is that from past history it seems very likely and is a useful concept. Science always likes to leave the door open to doubt, you can’t change your mind once you’re absolutely certain.

 

[inocente]

But that’s essentially arguing for act and potency without using the specific terms “act” and “potency.” The ball is actually here but is potentially over there and if it moves over there then its potency for being over there was actualized. That was my little trap but Linus and Skeptic stole my prey :tsktsk:

Please see post #91.

Well act and potency are metaphysical realities so they cannot be “divided up” or “quantified” because we’ve already abstracted all the specific matter away, even its extension in space so we’ve gone farther than mathematics even. I don’t know how kinetic and potential energy are related, if at all, although I have wondered about it. But the point remains that you need to have a metaphysical notion that makes change and permanence plausible before you can do meaningful science even if said notion is not consciously analyzed.

See toward the end of post #90 on potential energy.

You guys keep trying to find something for metaphyscians to do, but if you can cook a tasty paella without metaphysics, you can do science without metaphysics. Tasting the paella to see if more salt is needed is science. You are arguing that cavemen had to do metaphysics before they could eat, which is the point of Feynman’s joke.

Okay, sorry . I also realized I had an extra “not” in the quoted statement that completed changed the meaning of the sentence. I meant to say that I don’t think science and empiricism are the same.

I never noticed. Must clean my eyes.

 

[inocente]

Human nature is still universal human nature, whether or not you distinguish green from blue.

Is there any culture in the world that does not distinguish good from evil, or the beautiful from the ugly?

Hiya. So would you say it is human nature to cherry pick then?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Hiya. So would you say it is human nature to cherry pick then?

 

[Skeptic92]

I am saying that the whole scheme seems contrived and isn’t any use to modern science.

Heisenberg believed that the only way to make sense of Quantum Physics was to interpret Quantum States as Aristotelian potencies. Through the employment of the Aristotelian (rather than Naturalist) Metaphysics; the example of virtual particles become less mysterious as we can identify an efficient-formal cause, rather than having to violate noncontradiction.

You seem to assume because naturalism rejected the Aristotelian Metaphysics, that it actually refuted the Aristotelian Metaphysics. That is simply not true and is historical revisionism. Questions as to the nature of causation, substance, intelligibility, etc quickly become questions of Metaphysics because every other discipline must assume these principles to get itself off the ground and therefore can not provide an argument/explanation of them.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Doesn’t the potentiality/actuality scheme say God is zero potentiality and pure act?

The substance/form and potency/actuality dualities only seem to confuse things. For instance, they would have hindered rather than aided the discovery that most of an atom is space and most of the mass of matter comes not from the mass of the constituent elementary particles, but the speed at which they jiggle around:

“In quantum chromodynamics, the modern theory of the nuclear force, most of the mass of the proton and the neutron is explained by special relativity. The mass of the proton is about 80–100 times greater than the sum of the rest masses of the quarks that make it up, while the gluons have zero rest mass. The extra energy of the quarks and gluons in a region within a proton, as compared to the rest energy of the quarks alone in the QCD vacuum, accounts for almost 99% of the mass.” - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton#Quarks_and_the_mass_of_the_proton

I am saying that the whole scheme seems contrived and isn’t any use to modern science.

Potential energy is a general concept. It says that wherever work is done to compress a spring (one of many examples), the spring contains the potential energy to decompress.

Perhaps some Catholic theologians still use it but otherwise the entire framework has been replaced, it’s far too fuzzy and arcane to be of any use. You’ll find echos, but they are fragmentary. It can’t be falsified, and as such we can use Hume’s Fork to say it is purely a relationship of ideas.

Got lots to do today. Aristotle said Wisdom was what the wise seek. No one denies the utility and usefulness of science but that is not wisdom.

Linus2nd

 

[balto]

The problem with this, for me, is the last phrase. How would you ever know what the real essences are? If you can’t know then is this kind of reductionism useful? Sort of What Is it Like to Be a Bat?

Yes, it is useful. It seems to me that science is in the business of telling us what the real essences of things are. Chemistry has told us that water is composed of two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom, it boils at 100C, freezes at 0C, expands its volume when frozen, conducts electricity, etc. Sure, this doesn’t exhaust water’s nature but it does tell us a lot about water’s nature. Yes, you cannot start by saying “well water has an essence” and then discover anything meaningful from that statement alone, but if there were no essence of water then water would not behave in any regular way. We’d have no principle in which we could ground the aforementioned characteristics of water.

Nagel’s “What is it like to be a bat” situation follows this line of thinking as well. Are we ever going to know what it is like to be a bat? Probably not. But is there an objective state about “what it means to be a bat?” Unless you agree with Descartes that animals are merely sophisticated automata, then yes. We have qualia given our nature as sensitive animals so I don’t see a reason to deny that bats have some sort of qualia as well qua sensitive animals.

Sort of agreed. We could put all our money on a spin of roulette with varying levels of risk depending on the bet. People used to worry that the Sun wouldn’t reappear tomorrow morning, now we’re not so bothered because we discovered the Earth spins on its axis so it’s very unlikely to stop spinning. But by the same token we don’t have to prove that Earth objectively exists, all we need to say is that from past history it seems very likely and is a useful concept. Science always likes to leave the door open to doubt, you can’t change your mind once you’re absolutely certain.

I think that we are probably mostly in agreement but I am doing a bad job of outlining what I mean. The Aristotelian is trying to use essences as aspects of being or “thingness” to ground these experiences in something real. I understand your concerns though because I was having the same difficulties earlier this year.

 

[balto]

Please see post #91.

Well yes, the average person doesn’t think all of that out, but Aristotle’s discourse is really just a philosophical formulation of common sense. The language is a little stuffy and difficult to understand, but that flows from the fact that he is discussing metaphysics which is by its nature very abstract. But I think most people agree that change is real and that things change without the thing itself being destroyed, that some properties of things are not essential, etc. That concedes a lot of what Aristotle is arguing even if it isn’t outlined or defended logically.

You guys keep trying to find something for metaphyscians to do, but if you can cook a tasty paella without metaphysics, you can do science without metaphysics. Tasting the paella to see if more salt is needed is science. You are arguing that cavemen had to do metaphysics before they could eat, which is the point of Feynman’s joke.

I believe there is a Scholastic maxim that goes something like “whatever is in the intellect was first in the senses” so it would appear that Feynman’s joke is directed at a strawman at least as far as the Aristotelian is concerned. We are getting metaphysical information whenever we receive sense data on an object. The Scholastic would argue that metaphysical abstraction is the highest level of generality possible starting with the sensed object:

Sensed Object → Physical Abstraction/Modern Science (being as changeable being) → Mathematical Abstraction (being as quantifiable being) → Metaphysical Abstraction (being as being)

I would think that most scientists believe that the things they observe behave in regular patterns either due to natures or laws, or they’d have some other metaphysical explanation that makes sense of their findings. And that position would have been informed by sensual experience. They may not be doing metaphysics “first” in a temporal sense but they are doing metaphysics “first” in an ontological sense.