Tag: Genetics

In Praise of Non-Univocity

Chapter 1 of Aristotle’s Categories (traditionally placed first in the corpus) introduces the distinction between univocity and non-univocity. He gives the prosaic example that when we say that a man and an ox are animals, the meaning of “animal” is the same in both cases. “Animal” is being said univocally or synonymously. But when we say that a picture of a man or an ox is an animal, the sense in which we call the picture of an animal an “animal” is not the same as the other two. Here “animal” is being said non-univocally (or equivocally, or homonymously) in relation to the other two, and overall is being said in many ways.

Aristotle is both univocity’s inventor and its insightful critic. Univocity has tremendous value for technical pursuits. Exact reasoning requires that the same term have the same meaning everywhere. But at the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, he cautions that we should not seek more precision than is appropriate to the subject. In part, this means that we should not be overly prescriptive toward others. But it also recalls Aristotle’s view that there are many goods, or that “good” is said in many ways. And many goods together are better than just one.

In the Metaphysics, he discusses at length how “being” is said in many ways — much to the embarrassment of later writers who have wanted to find a “science of being” there.

In the Physics, he not only discusses four different meanings of “cause”, but goes on to use every one of them in different ways. “Cause” is said in very many ways.

I also think that beauty depends on a kind of richness and polyvalence that univocity eliminates. Stable, resilient ecosystems depend on biodiversity. Good breeding is the opposite of inbreeding.

Biological Diversity

Modern biology provides an abundance of empirical evidence that things like populations and ecosystems need diversity to flourish. Inbreeding leads to all sorts of genetic defects; monoculture crops and other simplified environments are more vulnerable to pests, and generally far less able to recover on their own when disturbed.

In a more reflective, interpretive vein closer to ordinary experience, Aristotle already documented the tremendous variety exhibited in nature. Species are not somehow pre-given, but rather to be discerned and understood in terms of specific ways of meeting very general needs.

The fact that there is a superabundance of such ways in nature is one of the most basic observations we can make. Nature as we concretely experience it is much more characterized by this superabundance and diversity than by univocal necessity of the kind we find in mathematics. For Aristotle, an emphasis on this superabundance and diversity goes hand-in-hand with a perspective that looks to purely natural ends and means as more primary in the order of explanation than mechanical metaphors.

This suggests a broader paradigm of intelligibility, reason, and objectivity than the one grounded in mathematics, univocity, and simple necessity. Emotional reasonableness is a real thing that is not at all reducible to formal logic. Similarly, intelligibility, reason, and objectivity in general have a practical reality that should not be understood as requiring a univocal foundation. (See also Bounty of Nature; Equivocal Determination; Multiple Explanations.)