display all the ideas for this combination of texts
8 ideas
| 11239 | The notion of a priori truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: The notion of a priori truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 11240. |
| 12379 | You cannot understand anything through perception [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: You cannot understand anything through perception. Demonstrations are universal, and universals cannot be perceived. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 87b28) |
| 16725 | Some knowledge is lost if you lose a sense, and there is no way the knowledge can be replaced [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The loss of any one of the senses entails the loss of a corresponding portion of knowledge, and since we learn either by induction or by demonstration, this knowledge cannot be acquired. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 81a37) | |
| A reaction: This suggests Jackson's 'knowledge argument', that raw experience contains some genuine knowledge, for which there is no mechanistic substitute. Not that I accept…. |
| 23312 | Aristotle is a rationalist, but reason is slowly acquired through perception and experience [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle is a rationalist …but reason for him is a disposition which we only acquire over time. Its acquisition is made possible primarily by perception and experience. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.173 | |
| A reaction: I would describe this process as the gradual acquisition of the skill of objectivity, which needs the right knowledge and concepts to evaluate new experiences. |
| 23309 | Aristotle's concepts of understanding and explanation mean he is not a pure empiricist [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: It is a certain notion of understanding and, correspondingly, explanation which makes Aristotle think that knowledge, properly speaking, could not be a matter of mere experience. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.160 | |
| A reaction: Frede says this means that Aristotle is a rationalist, though few empiricists think understanding is 'merely' a matter of experience. My own epistemology is Explanatory Empiricism, which I see as more empiricist than rationalist. |
| 1693 | Animals may have some knowledge if they retain perception, but understanding requires reasons to be given [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In some animals the perception is retained, and in some not. Without retention knowledge is impossible. Some animals go further and form an account based on the perception. This leads to memory and experience, and so to either skill or understanding. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 99b35-) |
| 16111 | Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: Since Aristotle generally prefers a metaphysical theory that accords with common intuitions, he frequently relies on facts about language to guide his metaphysical claims. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: I approve of his procedure. I take intuition to be largely rational justifications too complex for us to enunciate fully, and language embodies folk intuitions in its concepts (especially if the concepts occur in many languages). |
| 9067 | Many memories of the same item form a single experience [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When it occurs often in connection with the same item, ..memories which are many in number form a single experience. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 100a05) | |
| A reaction: This is Aristotle at his most empirical. He is not describing an operation of the understanding, but a process of association. The process he alludes to is at the heart of the abstractionist view of concept-formation. |