Potentiality

Potentiality (dynamis) is yet another great Aristotelian expressive metaconcept. Plato had the intriguing idea of explaining things and states of affairs in terms of power (also dynamis), but left power as an unexplained explainer, and required it to be postulated as pre-existent. Aristotle thoroughly reconceptualized the term to eliminate these weaknesses. Every Aristotelian potentiality begins from actuality or at-work-ness.

Instead of referring to postulated powers behind things or abstract logical possibility, Aristotelian potentiality is a way of talking about the aspects of a conceptual content captured by what Brandom would call modally robust counterfactual inference. Such robustness of inference across counterfactual cases is implicitly central to the most elementary meaning of Aristotelian substance or “what it was to have been” a thing (ousia), as what grounds the weak unity that allows us to talk about the same “thing” persisting through time even though something about it changed.

The semantic importance of counterfactual inference in determining the sense of what things are is a thesis shared by Aristotle, Hegel, and Brandom. It is explicit in Brandom and Brandom’s Hegel, and implicit in Aristotle. We cannot even really form a view of any thing as a thing of a certain kind unless we at least implicitly consider its potentiality.

Aristotle was clear that potentiality is an irreducible ingredient in things, and potentiality clearly captures counterfactuals. Brandom has made the role of counterfactuals in the development of universality more explicit. Facts alone give us at best a very brittle structure of assertions with no real conceptual articulation or interpretation, so perspectives that try to ground things on facts alone are doomed to ultimate failure. (In this light, Nietzsche‘s elimination of potentiality also turns out to have been a very serious error.) Overly strong, question-begging notions of the Identity of things have helped obscure the vital role of counterfactual inference in stabilizing our experience of the world. (See also Modality and Variation.)

Tentatively mapping this to Brandom’s Fregean terminology, I think Aristotle would intend the relation of potentiality to actuality to be one of reciprocal sense dependence paired with asymmetrical reference dependence. That is to say, at a level of determination of meaning, potentiality and actuality are interdependent and equally important, but in the order of logical truth about representations, actuality or the concrete is the starting point in terms of which potentiality is evaluated. Potentialities are potentialities of some actuality. (See also The Importance of Potentiality; Potentiality, Actuality; Structure, Potentiality; Matter, Potentiality.)

Alienation, Second Nature

In chapter 14 of Spirit of Trust, Brandom points out a distinction developed by Hegel in the Spirit chapter of the Phenomenology between “actual” and “pure” consciousness. These turn out to correspond closely to practical and theoretical culture, respectively. Here it is important to note that “consciousness” is therefore a very different thing from the “consciousness” of the Consciousness chapter, where we began with a putatively immediate awareness and discovered that even then, every apparent immediacy eventually revealed itself as mediated.

Acculturation, and therefore the “consciousness” of the later chapter basically is a form of mediation. We are no longer making any pretense of beginning with the putatively immediate. Culture is very thick, and a long journey. More superficially, it includes all our attitudes.

In chapter 13, Brandom had quoted Hegel saying it is through culture that the individual acquires actuality. The “individual” here is not the atomistic psychological individual beloved of the Enlightenment, externally confronting objects and others, but a participant in Geist with some much more interesting topology. True individuality for Hegel is not given but emergent. Its borders are much wider, and not topologically closed. Atomic psychological individuals are a hallucination of the modern illness Hegel called Mastery. (Hegel explicitly says the pure “I”, by contrast — conceived after Kant as having no content of its own, but as a mere index of the unity of a transcendental unity of apperception — depends on language for its existence. Brandom reminds us that language is the medium of recognition, the sea in which normative fish swim; and that things said, in being public, acquire a significance that runs beyond what the speaker intended. The purely linguistic “I” becomes the focus of commitment and responsibility, which depend on linguistic articulation.)

In the same passage Hegel also speaks of Spirit as alienation from our natural being. Reading those words I sort of cringe, but in fact Hegel is not talking about anything like Gnostic or Plotinian alienation. The word has that heritage, but Hegel uses it in the same breath with actualization. This alienation is supposed to be a good thing. It is de-immediatization, which is just the other side of the coin of mediation. Hegel is here using an originally negatively connotated Gnostic and Plotinian word for what is for him a positively connotated Aristotelian concept of actualization, which Brandom associates with expression and making explicit. Mediation is in this passage allegorized by Hegel as, in effect, becoming strange (alien) to our putative atomistic psychological selves.

Spirit as alienation should not be read as any repudiation of nature. As Terry Pinkard points out in Hegel’s Naturalism, Hegel is in fact a naturalist, but of the expansive, Aristotelian sort, explicitly antireductionist. The difference with 2oth century naturalisms is that it allows for the emergence of increasingly higher forms of Geist and Hegelian “freedom” over a natural basis. In Aristotelian terms, 20th century naturalism only addresses “first” nature, the more primitive one. Aristotelian and Hegelian naturalism also recognize second nature that includes culture. Even though in other contexts there will still be talk of overcoming alienation, at least one meaning of “alienation” is just the move to second nature.

Renaissance

Renaissance Aristotelianism has finally at least become a subject of specialized scholarship. Decades ago, John Herman Randall Jr. put forth the thesis that modern science actually originated from Italian Renaissance secular Aristotelianism, especially in the University of Padua. Consensus seems to be that Randall overstated his case, but he put it in very strong terms. A weaker version of that seems a lot more plausible to me than what are still more common attempts to associate modern science with Renaissance Platonism. Renaissance Platonism was interesting, but not remotely scientific or mathematical. People like Ficino and Pico and Bruno were actually more interested in magic.

Even theological Aristotelianisms always preserved a fair amount of naturalistic content. Unlike most medieval and Renaissance universities, the Italian ones were dominated by the faculties of medicine and law rather than the faculty of theology. Italian scholasticism therefore developed in a more secular context. Secular masters of arts played an important role across Europe, and theologians too addressed many philosophical concerns in a sophisticated way, so the distinction is relative. But especially strong currents of largely naturalistic scholasticism developed in Italy.

It is also a little known fact that more commentaries on Aristotle were produced in the 16th century than in all previous history. There is a good high-level overview in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (See also Languages, Books, Curricula.)

Mean

An Aristotelian mean is not the subject of a fixed formula that could just be “applied” to yield a result, like an arithmetical mean. An Aristotelian mean also has nothing to do with mere compromise. It is a kind of structural rather than quantitative criterion. A mean is not necessarily between one-sided options, but may instead be outside the space determined by their confrontation. It is a product of practical judgment or phronesis. It takes interpretive work to arrive at one. The mean just represents an ideal of avoiding one-sidedness. When Hegel complains about something being one-sided, he is saying the mean has been missed.

Difference

Difference is not a univocal concept. X and Y may be orthogonally different like “day” and “raining”, or they may be relationally different like “black” and “white”. Things of whatever sort that are relationally different from each other are materially incompatible; things that are orthogonally different from each other are not materially incompatible.

Aristotle and Hegel both emphasize the importance of what I just called relational difference as the principal source of meaning and intelligibilty. Information theory, arithmetical subtraction, and the Euclidean logos or ratio between two magnitudes are all purely concerned with relational as opposed to orthogonal difference.

I’d like to point out that Saussurean phonological difference — say, the distinction between a “b” sound and a “p” sound — is also a relational difference, not an orthogonal one. Interpreting the sound as “b” is materially incompatible with interpreting the sound as “p”. (Brandom’s reference to Saussure as pre-Kantian and pre-Fregean on the ground that the latter worked with subsentential units of analysis in what was actually phonology is an unfortunate mistake.)

The famous 20th century “structuralism”, for which Saussurean difference was widely considered to have been a launching point, did not seem to be explicitly much concerned with inference, but it was very much concerned with the relational kind of difference, and in this way should be considered a potential ally of inferentialism rather than an opponent. Popular accounts do not much mention the role of 20th century French epistemological rationalism in the structuralist ferment, but I think it was significant, and that this could support additional connections to the inferentialist project. Synchronic structure is an expressive metaconcept, in no way inherently conflicting with a simultaneous recognition of the importance of diachronic process.

Writers like Deleuze and Badiou, on the other hand, and perhaps even someone like Rorty, while making valid points against our culture’s obsession with identity, have unfortunately chosen to valorize nonexclusive difference. This is not the answer. Ironically, an exclusive focus on nonexclusive, orthogonal difference leads back to undifferentiated sameness, via incommensurability. Deleuze and Badiou actually celebrate this, with slogans like “pluralism = monism” or “generic multiplicities”. This is precisely the night in which all cows are black. Even Kant’s point about the infinity of each person tends in this direction.

As Hegel saw clearly and pointed out in the Encyclopedia Logic, the polemic of Reason against Understanding should not lead us to try to throw out determinateness. Understanding wants to lock everything down under Identity, which is ultimately disastrous. The indiscriminate valorization of orthogonal Difference, on the other hand, ultimately destroys meaning and intelligibility. We should be looking for an Aristotelian mean (outside of, rather than between) these one-sided, shallow, and unattractive extremes.

I want to say that difference, when unbounded, ceases to be what I wanted to mean by difference. A thoughtful dwelling on relational difference, with due attention to real-world contingency and ambiguity, would be my candidate for the mean. (See also Determinate Negation; Conceptual, Representational.)

Untimely

We aiming-to-be rational animals are all deeply conditioned by our development in particular social and cultural circumstances. A truly great philosopher like Aristotle perhaps comes closest to becoming “untimely” in something like a Nietzchean sense.

Though I know of no explicit textual evidence for it, I wonder if Hegel resolved the material incompatibility between his mature patronizing attribution of naive realism about norms to the ancient world as a whole on the one hand, and all the insights he attributes to Plato and Aristotle on the other, by implicitly exempting them from the generalization about the ancient world. That generalization is sound at a broad sociological level, but we should not assume without specific evidence that sociological generalizations about a philosopher’s time and place apply to the philosopher.

“Said of”

Aristotle seems to have enjoyed using expressions in a polymorphic way. For example, he very commonly writes that B “is said of” A. This never just refers to an empirical report of linguistic practice. It always should be understood to refer to a judgment that B is properly said of A. This in turn means all of the following:

It is apparently a fact that A is B.
It is properly judged that A is B.
It is good usage to say that A is B.

He is using one abstract expression to make multiple isomorphic assertions (in respective registers of objective reality, normative judgment, and linguistic usage) all at the same time. Too often, people assume these are all mutually exclusive topics, when they are not. By actually doing it in a simple way, Aristotle offers hope that we can talk about reality, and be Critical, and follow the linguistic turn all at once.

Brandom refers to Frege to begin to explain Hegel’s notion of conceptual content. Frege said “A fact is a thought that is true.” As Brandom points out, this is a nonpsychological approach. Hegel, Frege, and Brandom have recovered ways of speaking that include at least the first two of the three senses above, and I imagine Brandom at least would be sympathetic to the third as well.

We might consider the “it is apparently a fact” form to be materially implied by the “it is properly judged” form. I think Plato and Aristotle considered the “it is properly judged” form to be materially implied by the “it is good usage to say” form, as well as accepting the first implication. Good language use should be consistent with good judgment, which should be consistent with reality. So, by transitivity, “said of” (understood as shorthand for “properly said of”) would also materially imply both the others.

All three forms are inherently normative. This is most obvious with the second form, which is expressly concerned with judgment. But the form concerned with language use is about good usage, not any and all randomly occurring usage; and the form concerned with fact is really about normatively valid judgments of apparent fact. (See also Aristotelian Semantics.)

Translations influenced by the Latin commentary tradition render “said of” in terms of predication, which misleadingly suggests the purely syntactic way in which a grammatical predicate is “said of” its grammatical subject, and obscures Aristotle’s focus on normative logical assertion.

Postscript

Some time after writing this post, I came to the realization — reflected in Aristotelian Propositions — that “said of” may also be taken to directly express a material-inferential relation. Based on an analysis of implicit propositions like the one developed there — and recalling that A and B are canonically universals or higher-order terms — I now think the root meaning of “B is said of A”, is that if we have x: A, then it is a good material inference that we also have x: B. Goodness of material inference is what stands behind and justifies the initial formulation that B is properly said of A, and the other polymorphic meanings.

Rational/Talking Animal

Sometimes I think zoon logon echon should be translated more literally as “talking animal” rather than the classic “rational animal”. (Perhaps “animal” should be “living being”, but here I am not worried about discrimination against plants.) Logos was a highly overdetermined word that could also mean word, ratio, measure, or principle, as well as language or reason, but the linguistic meanings seem to be more primary. Within the Aristotelian corpus there are several longer alternate phrasings, of which some stress the linguistic aspect and others the rational aspect. (The human being is said to be a “political” animal as well.)

I don’t think Aristotle imagined human reason to be separable from some articulation in language. Thus I disagree with those who want to interpret nous (classically , “intellect”) as some kind of originary intuition. This seems to me very alien to Aristotle’s whole way of approaching things. (Plotinus did explicitly treat nous as something like intellectual intuition, and had major influence on later readers of Aristotle. I do think there is such a thing as intuition, but it is not a kind of knowledge and it is not originary.)

Echon is literally “having”, which applies better to the linguistic interpretations of logos, whereas philosophically speaking we don’t strictly have reason as a full possession, but rather a potential for it.

That said, “rational animal” accurately conveys our two-sided nature. We are animals, and because we have language, we can potentially participate in reason.

But regardless of how well we do or do not take care of things, this has the effect of making us ethical beings. Who we are will turn out to be more than anything a matter of the commitments we make. This is transforming.

Incidentally, nothing about this says anything that singles out our particular kind of ape. It just happens that we only know of one biological species that meets this very abstract definition, but this is a merely contingent truth. So, all the talking species in science fiction would be human to Aristotle if they were real, and if we could prove that dolphins had a comparable linguistic ability, they would be human, too. (See also What Is “I”?; Psyche, Subjectivity; Individuation; Happiness; Second Nature.)

Happiness

The translation of Aristotle’s ethical goal of eudaimonia as “happiness” is misleading. Eudaimonia refers not to an immediate feeling or attitude, but to a state of affairs that is judged to have been the case by an observer. Properly speaking, it can only be the subject of a retrospective judgment that what it was to have lived that whole life was good. The goal of living beings is to live a life that is good for the kind of beings they are. (See also Commitment; Ends.)

Unconscious Intellect?

If intellect in a broadly Aristotelian sense is at least partly nonpsychological and has a significant linguistic/cultural/social/historical aspect, how does the nonpsychological aspect relate to the psychological aspect?

Many 20th century authors, from Frege and Husserl to Lacan, sharply rejected the idea that thought should be approached primarily in psychological terms. Also, we should not consider the individual psyche to be like an island with unambiguous boundaries. Aristotle uses the single word ethos (the main subject matter of “ethics” in his view) both for individual acquired character and for culture. Character is a sort of micro-culture. Plato already famously compared the soul to a city.

Beatrice Longuenesse, who previously wrote a marvelous book on the Kantian transcendental deduction, recently suggested an unexpected connection between Kantian transcendental considerations and Freudian metapsychology. Meanwhile, at the end of the day, Kant ends up relatively closer to Aristotelian ethics than it would first appear. (Many scholars have debated the fine points of this, and Nancy Sherman wrote a whole book on it.) So what about an Aristotelian metapsychology?

Actually, it seems to me that Aristotle is more interested in metapsychology than in what we call psychology, and that his views on thought are better considered in this light. Frege and Husserl might part company with us here, but logically oriented criticisms of psychologism do not rule out all uses of metapsychology (or even psychology, for that matter).