Tag: Aristotle

Substance

Aristotle thought we should be ethically committed to the idea that becoming or process is in principle intelligible. An often misunderstood part of his program for showing this was to emphasize that our very talk about change presupposes that we can pick out relative stability or persistence somewhere in the context.

This is a careful, minimalist assertion of moments of weak unity or stable points of attraction within the flux, intended only to deny Plato’s strong pessimistic denial of the knowability of any such points of attraction. It has nothing to do with some direct incarnation of metaphysically given essences. (See Aristotelian Identity; Identity, Isomorphism; Equivocal Determination.)

Plato recommends an ethic of quasi-skeptical honesty about the epistemic difficulties involved in any practical judgment or view of the world. Aristotle deeply respects the intellectual honesty promoted by Plato about what we do not know in life, while putting a higher value on things subject to becoming.

Ousia (traditionally “substance”, or more accurately “what it was to have been” a thing) is Aristotle’s preferred alternative to talking about Being (either as utterly general or as utterly unique). It redirects our attention away from these sterile extremes toward a fertile middle ground where conceptual articulation is possible. In the Metaphysics, it undergoes a major dialectical development through many senses, including a division into actuality and potentiality. (See also Abstract and Concrete; Being, Existence; Aristotelian Dialectic; Free Will and Determinism.)

Later authors developed increasingly rigidified reinterpretations of Aristotelian substance, such as the Latin medieval notion of substantial form. This laid the basis for early modern redefinitions of substance in terms of some kind of logical identity.

The Animal’s Leg Joint

In De Motu Animalium, Aristotle says there is an unmoved mover in the animal’s leg joint, and proceeds to a geometrical description of the axis of rotation of the joint. More famously, he says there are unmoved movers in the apparent motion of the fixed stars and planets, and there too associates them with geometrical axes of circular motions. What is going on here? This is a good illustration of several points.

First, Aristotle is perfectly happy to use mathematics in natural science. (He just correctly judged that early Greek arithmetic and geometry generally had little to contribute to the intelligibility of becoming, and wisely objected to the Pythagorean numerology that found a place in the Platonic Academy.)

Second, there is nothing mysterious about what he calls an unmoved mover. In the best-known cases, it refers to something that is in fact not only observable but mathematically describable. (This is not the only way a concept can have value, but that is not the point here.)

Third, he calls the unmoved mover a “mover” in the sense that it is the descriptive law or form of the physical motion in question, not a driving impulse or force. In a similar move, Leibniz famously said God is the law of the series.

Aristotelian Dialectic

It was no sophomoric error when Friedrich Engels described Aristotle — not Plato or some neoplatonist — as the greatest dialectician of the ancient world. Aristotelian “dialectic” is just cumulative, exploratory discursive reasoning about concrete meanings in the absence of initial certainty.

Broad usage of the term “dialectic” includes meanings of both dialogue and logic. For Plato, dialogue aimed directly at truth (though not necessarily reaching it). Aristotle considered a many-sided logical/semantic analysis to be the single most important tool of science, and to be more rigorous than the dialogue that was Plato’s favorite literary device.

For Aristotle, unlike Plato, dialectic is not a direct quest for truth. Plato had already emphasized that dialectic is a matter of an ethically motivated quest for truth rather than a claim to mastery or simple possession of it. Aristotle opened things up further by preferring an indirect, semantically oriented approach to the quest. Dialectic ends up being his main critical tool.

Aristotelian dialectic is a semantic and pragmatic inferential examination of opinion or what is merely said (or analogously, I would argue, of appearance). It uses the same logical forms as the rational knowledge Aristotle called episteme; but unlike the latter, yields results that Aristotle calls only “probable”, because they depend on premises that are merely “said” rather than rationally known. (This is a qualitative assessment having nothing to do with statistical probability.)

This has often been taken as a denigration of dialectic. I take it instead as Aristotle’s affirmation of the importance of semantics and pragmatics.

Because dialectic for Aristotle makes no assumptions about what is really true, it is perfectly suited for the examination of arguments for their purely inferential structure. Because it examines concrete arguments with concrete terms, the role of material as well as formal inference can be considered. (See also Inferential Semantics.)

Aristotle also says (Topics Book 1) that dialectic in just this sense is the best means we have for getting clarity about first principles. This is a good example of Aristotle’s inferentialism. Aristotle’s own approach to what later came to be called “metaphysics” is (“merely”) dialectical in this specific sense. In being so, it is essentially semantic and normative. I don’t think Aristotle regarded metaphysics as episteme (“science”) any more than he regarded ethics or phronesis (“practical judgment”) as episteme, and in neither case is it a denigration. (Aristotle is far more honest than most later writers about the relatively less certain nature of so-called first principles, compared with many other apparently more derivative results. He is the original antifoundationalist. See also Dialectic Bootstraps Itself; Demonstrative “Science”?; Abstract and Concrete.)

Hegel actually said the greatest example of ancient dialectic was the commentary on Plato’s Parmenides by neoplatonist Proclus (412 – 485 CE). (He did not know the work of the other great late Neoplatonist, Damascius (458 – 538), which included an even more sophisticated development along similar lines.) The Parmenides explicitly examines a series of antithetical propositions, which does resemble the common image of Hegelian dialectic. (See The One?) In any case, I think this is misleading.

While at least the common image of Hegelian dialectic as concerned with antitheses does not apply well to Aristotle, very fruitful clarifications of Hegel can be obtained by looking out for his use of Aristotelian-style dialectic, despite that fact he — general enthusiasm for Aristotle notwithstanding — did not much mention Aristotle when expounding his own version. Underlying the occasional emphasis on antitheses in Hegel is a broader concern for actually many-sided inferential/semantic examination of opinion or appearance, which is just what Aristotle’s dialectic does. (See also Aristotelian and Hegelian Dialectic; Three Logical Moments; Contradiction vs Polarity.)

My own candidate for the greatest example of ancient dialectic is the development of the concepts of ousia (“what it was to have been” a thing) and energeia (“at-work-ness”) in the central books of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. As in the biological works, merely binary distinction is not the main point there.

The stereotype of a binary schematism at work in Hegel is not without basis, but more careful commentary has limited its scope. Aristotelian dialectic actually pervades Hegel’s works.

In a dialectical development (Aristotelian or Hegelian), it is common to begin with one presumed meaning for a term, and end up with a different one. The classic discussion in the Metaphysics mentioned above begins with the idea of a simple substrate that remains constant through a change, and goes through multiple transformations to progressively richer concepts. (See also Form, Substance; Aristotelian Demonstration.)

Aristotelian Semantics

When Aristotle talks about ways in which a word “is said” — which is one of the main things he does — it is not inappropriate to reconstruct this as a semantic concern. I would say the same about both Plato and Aristotle’s concern with definition and classification of terms. This is taking “semantics” in the broad sense of having to do with meaning.

For Aristotle and Plato, meanings are developed principally in terms of other meanings. Aristotle also pays a lot of attention to use. For neither of them is there any thought of reducing meaning to extensional criteria, as in modern model-theoretic semantics. Plato famously contrasted definition of “what” something is with enumeration of examples. Aristotle was interested in both, but respected the contrast.

Aristotle agrees with Frege that the minimal unit of truth or falsity is a complete proposition. (Medieval logicians working in a broadly Aristotelian tradition extended this to an elaborate theory of what they called “supposition” (see de Rijk, Logica Modernorum), which concerned meanings in the context of concretely uttered sentences. Various kinds of “supposition” — or ways in which a referential meaning can be logically intended — were analyzed, in a now forgotten technical vocabulary largely shared by realist and nominalist logicians.)

Aristotelian practical judgment (phronesis) is a kind of interpretation or hermeneutics of the implications of situations. Ultimately, I think Kantian judgment moves into the same territory. Judgment in general involves far more than mere assertion or belief. “Judgment” should refer first and foremost to a process, an investigation, and only very secondarily to a conclusion. All such processes are in principle open. The final word is never said.

For both Plato and Aristotle, implications and presuppositions uncovered in dialogue or many-sided monologue are more important in getting at meaning and truth than any referential pointing. Even medieval scholastics arguing for or against a proposition did this largely in terms of analyzing its implications and presuppositions.

I don’t think it’s possible to cleanly separate considerations of truth from considerations of meaning. Truth can only be apprehended in terms of some meaning. Much more interesting than the abstract question whether some proposition is true is insight into what is really being said. (See also Dialectic, Semantics; “Said of”; Aristotelian Propositions; Univocity; Agency; Inferential Semantics; Edifying Semantics.)

Being, Existence

Aristotle should not be lumped together with the later trend that treats ultra-abstract (or singular) terms like “being” or “existence” as having deep philosophical significance.

He famously wrote that “being is said in many ways”.

Though he did twice mention a possible “science” of being qua being, in both of the books of the Metaphysics in which he starts to discuss it, anticlimactically the only content he gives it is the principle of noncontradiction, behind which lies a kind of ethical obligation to respect material incompatibility of meanings. Aristotle’s sole explicit criterion for “being qua being” is passing the test of this respect for material incompatibility. To successfully pick out a “being” or meant reality, a concept or concept use must respect material incompatibility. The importance of this respect is shown by Aristotle’s very uncharacteristic display of anger at the Sophist who tramples on such respect.

He prefers to direct our attention to “beings” rather than to singular “Being” or a generic “being of beings”. The aspect of picking out a “being” by its specific “essence” is essential to its being a being. “Essence” — understood as constituted through intelligible distinctions, rather than pre-given — is far more important for Aristotle than the bare fact of so-called “existence”. (Facts are important too, but much more for their meaningful content than for any sheer “facticity”. For Aristotle, something like facticity as such would be a subordinate aspect of materiality.)

Metaphysics was a title assigned by a later editor to a collection of manuscripts of different dates. Commentators debated about its true subject matter. The idea that metaphysics equals ontology — opposed in the middle ages by the highly influential Averroes — became dominant only relatively late. The equation with ontology was especially associated with projects significantly different from Aristotle’s, like those of Avicenna and Duns Scotus. Eventually it became canonical with Wolff.

Heidegger wanted to distinguish Being from beings, and spoke about a forgetting of Being after the pre-Socratics, who allegedly had it in view. I say good riddance, if there ever was such a thing.

It is true and good that there is no Being in Aristotle. He correctly said “being” is not a unitary concept. The core of the Metaphysics is instead about what he calls ousia, or what answers the question “what a thing was to have been” — i.e, form or essence, not being as existence in the common modern sense. He also mentions other sorts of being, such as being the case or being true.

Kant correctly pointed out that existence is not a property. Hegel in the Logic correctly said Being is empty and equivalent to Nothing.

In Greek, “existence” literally means standing out. To “exist” in this sense is to be determinately distinguishable or, in modern terms, to be a subject of some existential quantification, as when we formulate a mathematical proof that for any given A with specified properties, there “exists” (i.e., we can pick out) some B or a unique B with specified other properties. Existence in the sense of standing out is always relative to something else.

An abstract, nonrelative concept of “existence” is not needed in order to express real-world constraints and determinacy. Aristotle for instance uses more specific and supple concepts for this, like energeia (“at-work-ness” or actuality) and dynamis (potentiality).

The notion of existence as a nonrelative property of a thing, I suspect, owes something to the concern of medieval theologians to prove such a property for a nonobservable entity.

If something is normatively important, it is so regardless of whether it “exists” or is ideal or virtual. What is practically important is not abstract existence but practical difference, normative importance and conceptual articulation. (See also Form, Substance; Aristotelian Dialectic.)

Hegel on the Ancients

In early writings predating the Phenomenology, Hegel argued that the modern Christian world needed to learn spiritually from the ancient world to overcome its alienation. Starting with the Phenomenology, his mature public view made the Christian world a big step forward from the ancient world instead. But in the late History of Philosophy lectures, Plato and Aristotle are praised above “all others” — even above Kant, who apparently comes third.

Already in the early period, Hegel tried his hand at a retrospective reconstruction of the Christian gospel in terms of Kantian ethics. The later Philosophy of History lectures trace a line of development from primitive Christianity via Lutheranism to Kant and German idealism, retrospectively using key German idealist terms like freedom and subjectivity to explicate the whole development. The here assumed high value of German idealism is used to show the value of the earlier stages. In the Philosophy of Religion lectures, he argues at length for the superiority of what he calls revealed religion, but his notion of revelation is making things plain and open to all, not any kind of supernatural special knowledge. Religion is said to express in images what philosophy expresses in concepts.

The idea of making things open to all is consistent with Hegel’s rejection of aristocracy in favor of a modern civil state based on a constitution rather than the mere will of a monarch or ruling class. But Aristotle too regarded constitutional rule as vastly superior to any form of tyranny or despotism.

Plato and Aristotle thought we would be better off if society were governed by those best capable of normative reasoning. Hegel criticized Aristotle’s view that some people turn out to be incapable of adequately reasoning about normative matters for themselves, and that they ought to be ruled by people who can do this adequately. But Aristotle already noted that existing social distinctions did not just reflect this.

Hegel’s mature vision for the future was a synthesis of the best of the ancient and modern worlds. If we compare that synthesis to his view of the modern world, it differs by what it incorporates from the ancient world. Hegel would never have wanted to roll the clock back, but even in his mature view, I think he still believed the moderns had something to learn from the higher-order and normative approach of Plato and Aristotle. (See also The Ancients and the Moderns; Untimely.)

Higher Order

Before and after early modern mechanism and in contrast to it, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel all broadly agreed on the normative importance of higher-order things.

In modern terms, Plato’s forms are higher-order things, as distinct from first-order things. Plato trusts higher-order things more than first-order ones, because he considers only higher-order things to be knowable in the sense of episteme, because only higher-order things contain an element of universality, and episteme applies only to universals, not particulars.

Aristotle agrees that higher-order things are ultimately more knowable, but believes it is possible to say more about first-order things, by relating them to each other and to higher-order things; that our initial rough, practical grasp of first-order things can help us to begin to grasp higher-order things by example; and that going up and down the ladder of abstraction successively can help us progressively enrich our understanding of both.

(Incidentally, I have always read the Platonic dialogues as emphasizing the normative importance of acquiring a practical grasp of forms more than specific existence claims about “the forms”. Aristotle’s criticisms make it clear that at least some in the Platonic Academy did understand Plato as making such existence claims, but particularly in what are regarded as later dialogues like Parmenides, Sophist, and Theaetetus, what is said about form seems relatively close to an Aristotelian view. It is even possible that these dialogues were influenced by the master’s even greater student.)

Early modern mechanism completely discarded Plato and Aristotle’s higher-order orientation. Descartes famously recommends that we start by analyzing everything into its simplest components. This temporarily played a role in many great scientific and technological advances, but was bad for philosophy and for people. Hegel calls this bottom-up approach Understanding, as distinct from Reason.

Early and mid-20th century logical foundationalism still adhered to this resolutely bottom-up view, but since the later 20th century, there has been an explosion in the use of higher-order formal concepts in mathematics, logic, and computer science. It turns out that even from an engineering point of view, higher-order representations are often more efficient, due to their much greater compactness.

Leibniz already tried to reconcile mechanistic science with a higher-order normative view. He also contributed to the early development of higher-order concepts in mathematics.

Kant and Hegel decisively revived an approach that is simultaneously higher-order and normative.

The Autonomy of Reason

The Enlightenment has been widely described as an age of reason, but the moderate Enlightenment — at least until Kant — put many more limits on reason, especially in areas like religion and politics, than Plato and Aristotle did.

Kant made the autonomy of reason — its non-subordination to anything else — an explicit theme. Rhetorically, of course, he also famously talks about limits on reason, but really what he wants to limit are extra-rational accretions woven into Cartesian and Wolffian rationalisms — various received truths, and so on. Descartes had quickly moved from hyperbolic doubt to question-begging acceptance of many received truths as intuitively reasonable. Wolff and his followers, to whom Kant was primarily reacting, did not even pretend to doubt.

If reason is to be truly autonomous, it cannot start from received truths. Kant himself was sympathetic to some of these received truths, but too honest to pretend they were self-evident or derivable from reason alone. Kant is often misunderstood as mainly a critic of reason, and certainly not its unconditional defender, but he is actually clear that the autonomy of reason is unconditional. Too often, readers of Kant focus too much on autonomy of a subject rather than autonomy of reason, but the practical autonomy attributable to a so-called subject in Kant is actually derivative, based on the putative subject’s participation in the autonomy of reason. In Making It Explicit, Brandom says where Descartes had focused on our grip on concepts, Kant focused instead on their grip on us (p. 9). (See also Kant’s Groundwork.)

Hegel has been widely misunderstood as an example of the autonomy of reason gone mad. Brandom, Pippin, and Pinkard have performed an invaluable service in clarifying what Hegel was really trying to do, which was in part to sincerely take up Kant’s honesty about received truths and to push it even further.

Aristotle said that of all things, reason most deserves to be called divine. He does not use a word like autonomy, but the effect is the same. Nothing is higher. (See also Interpretation; Brandom on Truth.)

I think of the Kantian autonomy of reason as necessarily involving something like the free play of the Critique of Judgment. The Reason that is truly autonomous in the Kantian sense will be a hermeneutical Reason (see Brandom and Hermeneutics).

Blame and Blamelessness

Ethics for Aristotle is primarily concerned with ethos (dispositions to act in particular ways, associated with character and culture), and only secondarily with particular actions. Particular actions are mainly addressed in a higher-order way, through discussions of practical judgment and responsibility. We should try raise people to have good character, and we should generally trust people with good character to do the right thing.

For Aristotle, perfection is always perfection according to a kind, and perfection according to a kind is understood in such a way as to be actually achievable. The Greeks in general had a concept of blamelessness that was considered to be achievable. The world could do with a lot less blame; we should learn from this.

I would say you are blameless if you have done all that is within your power (and you are a hero if you in a meaningful way actually take responsibility for things that are beyond your power). If you really act from a disposition to recognize others as independent of yourself and your wishes — as one would a friend — and are reasonably attentive to circumstances, then you cannot reasonably be faulted for your actions, and your conduct will be blameless. If one has been well socialized, being blameless is not really all that hard.

A blameless person can be wrong, and can even do things for which apology is appropriate (because of an actual bad effect, not any blameworthiness). But if you consistently recognize others as independent of your wishes and take reasonable care that your words and deeds are appropriate to the situation, then you are blameless.

I think the practical import of this stands even on the basis of Brandom’s innovations (see Rethinking Responsibility; Expansive Agency; Brandomian Forgiveness). Adding back in a responsibility for unintended consequences that is shared with many others and whose failures are forgiven should not negate what I am calling blamelessness.

I also think that blaming in general serves no constructive practical purpose. To blame someone is basically to say they deserve punishment. Punishments resemble vengeance; they may be deemed justified in some circumstances, but we should not fool ourselves that they are constructive. Punishment per se does not improve anyone’s ethos. Either someone really gets the message that they did something wrong — in which case there is no need for punishment — or they don’t, in which case it is unlikely that punishment will change that. I don’t pretend to have a general solution for crime in society or for misbehavior of children, but I distrust the impulse to punish. Fear of punishment sometimes prevents bad behavior, and sometimes behavior is what counts, but fear has nothing to do with moral improvement.