412 ideas
| 548 | Knowledge chosen for its own sake, rather than for results, is wisdom [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge chosen for itself and for the sake of knowledge is wisdom, more than that which is chosen for results. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0982a12) | |
| A reaction: Well something has to be for its own sake! But what about trivial knowledge? That question led Plato to the Forms. |
| 11228 | Wisdom seeks explanations, causes, and reasons why things are as they are [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle characterises wisdom as a search for explanations (aitiai, which can also be translated as 'causes') and explanatory knowledge (epistemé, knowledge why something is as it is). | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Bk 01.2) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.1 | |
| A reaction: I think this idea might be a key one for modern philosophers, if they are searching for a metaphysics which can be integrated with modern science. |
| 545 | It is not much help if a doctor knows about universals but not the immediate particular [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If a doctor were to have a theoretical account without experience, knowing the universal but not the immediate particular, he will often err in treatment. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0981a25) | |
| A reaction: But acquaintance with particulars isn't the same as knowledge, which may require universals. |
| 549 | All philosophy begins from wonder, either at the physical world, or at ideas [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: All men begin to philosophise from wonder, for example at the changes of the sun, or the incommensurability of the diameter (pi) | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0983a14) | |
| A reaction: If it doesn't begin with wonder, what does it begin with? |
| 1576 | If each of us can give some logos about parts of nature, our combined efforts can be impressive [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Each of us is able to give a logos about some part of nature and even though as individuals little or nothing is added to the truth, from all of us contributing together something grand comes about. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0993b04) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle sees philosophy and science as group activities. |
| 609 | Philosophy is a kind of science that deals with principles [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is a kind of science that deals with principles. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1059a13) | |
| A reaction: So is philosophy just part of science - the bit that tries to explain the abstract instead of the physical? |
| 624 | Absolute thinking is the thinking of thinking [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Absolute thinking is the thinking of thinking. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1074b28) | |
| A reaction: Connects to the apparently unique human ability to reflect about our own thoughts. |
| 572 | Philosophy has different powers from dialectic, and a different life from sophistry [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy differs from dialectic in the manner of its powers, and from sophistry in the choice of life that it involves. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1004b17) | |
| A reaction: Note the separation of dialectic from the heart of philosophy, and the claim that philosophy is a way of life. |
| 22171 | If only natural substances exist, science is first philosophy - but not if there is an immovable substance [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If there is no substance other than those which are formed by nature, natural science will be the first science; but if there is an immovable substance, the science of this must be prior and must be first philosophy. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1026a28) | |
| A reaction: For Aristotle science is mainly finding the causes of everything. Does he think physical science is the way to study ethics and politics. Maybe, via essential natures and natural functions. |
| 11242 | Wisdom is knowledge of principles and causes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Wisdom is knowledge having to do with certain principles [archas] and causes [aitias]. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0982a02) |
| 12038 | Translate as 'humans all desire by nature to understand' (not as 'to know') [Aristotle, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle says that 'humans all desire by nature to understand'. The Greek word here is often translated as 'to know', but this can be misleading. It is not a piling up of known facts, ..but mastery of a field of knowledge, and explaining why. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0980a22) by Julia Annas - Ancient Philosophy: very short introduction Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: I take this gloss of Annas's to be highly significant if we are trying to understand Aristotle, since it appears to be the single most significant remark from him of what his life's work was about. |
| 559 | Even people who go astray in their opinions have contributed something useful [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We should not only be grateful to those in whose opinions we at all share but also to those who have gone astray, for even the latter have contributed something. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0993b12) | |
| A reaction: Yes, but what have they contributed? Have they revealed lines of reasoning, or are they just a terrible warning? |
| 16414 | Science needs metaphysics to weed out its presuppositions [Lowe, by Hofweber] |
| Full Idea: Lowe argues that the sciences need metaphysics to discharge the assumptions that they simply made at the outset. | |
| From: report of E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998]) by Thomas Hofweber - Ambitious, yet modest, Metaphysics 1.2 | |
| A reaction: Hofweber doesn't buy this, and neither do I. I don't think science 'needs' metaphysics (or barely needs it), but I do think metaphysics needs a fair degree of science. It is high-level abstraction based on the facts. |
| 9414 | Metaphysics is the mapping of possibilities [Lowe, by Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics can be judged as the mapping of possibilities. | |
| From: report of E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1) by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature 2.2 |
| 8282 | Only metaphysics can decide whether identity survives through change [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Only metaphysics can vindicate a judgement that a caterpillar survives to become a butterfly, but a pig does not survive to become pork, or that water survives as ice, but that paper does not survive as ash. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: The works of Lowe, and other modern heroes, have shown that these real questions can be pursued intensively into areas where no scientist, or even theologian, would dare to tread. |
| 16127 | Metaphysics tells us what there could be, rather than what there is [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I do not claim that metaphysics on its own can, in general, tell us what there is. Rather - to a first approximation - I hold that metaphysics by itself only tells us what there could be. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: If there is going to be a modern defence of metaphysics, in an age dominated by empirical science, this sounds pretty good to me. Presumably it also says what there couldn't be. The challenge is to offer authority for any claims made. |
| 623 | It is readily agreed that thinking is the most godlike of things in our experience [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is readily agreed that thinking is the most godlike of things in our experience. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1074b11) |
| 6561 | A thing cannot be both in and not-in the same thing (at a given time) [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for the same thing at the same time both to be-in and not to be-in the same thing in the same respect. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1005b19) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle is really discussing non-contradiction here, but this formulation is very close to Leibniz's Law (that two identical things must have identical properties). |
| 1601 | The most certain basic principle is that contradictories can't be true at the same time [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The most certain of all basic principles is that contradictory propositions are not true at the same time. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1011b13) | |
| A reaction: Principle of Noncontradiction |
| 11282 | Aristotle does not take the principle of non-contradiction for granted [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle goes to great lengths to defend the principle of non-contradiction, and does not at all think that it is obviously true. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], logic) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 5.1 |
| 11281 | We cannot say that one thing both is and is not a man [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not possible to say truly at the same time that the same thing both is and is not a man. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1006b33) |
| 1602 | For Aristotle predication is regulated by Non-Contradiction, because underlying stability is essential [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The Principle of Noncontradiction is for Aristotle the ultimate regulator of predication. In order for any predication to be significant it must refer to something definite and stable. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1011b13) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.152 |
| 608 | There is no middle ground in contradiction, but there is in contrariety [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: With contradiction there can be no intermediate state, whereas with contrariety there can be. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1055b02) |
| 627 | If everything is made of opposites, are the opposed things made of opposites? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If all things are composed of opposites, how can the things of which the opposites are made be composed of opposites? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1075a23) | |
| A reaction: A nice warning against being too simplistic in metaphysics. |
| 628 | Not everything is composed of opposites; what, for example, is the opposite of matter? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: All things are not composed of opposites, because matter is not the opposite of anything. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1075a28) | |
| A reaction: A nice counterexample |
| 10953 | The parts of a definition are isomorphic to the parts of the entity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The definition is an account, and every account has its parts, and there is an isomorphism between the relation of the account to the entity that it concerns and the relation of a part of the account to a part of the entity. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1034b20) | |
| A reaction: This makes a definition sound like a catalogue of parts, which is likely to miss something important, such as the overall form, or the function. Aristotle has much more to say on the subject of definition. Cf. Russell's congruence view of truth. |
| 10957 | The material element may be essential to a definition [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: One strays from the purpose of definitions if one confines oneself to a formal account and simply discards the material element. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1036b20) |
| 10960 | If we define 'man' as 'two-footed animal', why does that make man a unity? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What makes it the case that, if we call the account of something a 'definition', that thing is a unity? If 'two-footed animal' is the account of man, and a definition, why, then, is 'man' a single thing and not a plurality (viz. animal and two-footed)? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1037b10) | |
| A reaction: The obvious answer, I would have thought, is that we can think of man as a unity or as a plurality, depending on which aspect we are interested in. I see no problem with this. Nature offers us unities, but we ultimately select them. |
| 16094 | You can't define particulars, because accounts have to be generalised [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to define particulars. …The fact is that an account is general. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1040a33-) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle rejects attempts to define the Sun as possible counterexamples. Since this claims rests on the idea of an account [logos], I presume the point is actually that definitions are linguistic, and must use general words. |
| 596 | Only substance [ousias] admits of definition [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Only substance admits of definition. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1030b34) |
| 16107 | Sometimes parts must be mentioned in definitions of essence, and sometimes not [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In some instances the account of the what-it-was-to-be-that-thing contains the parts of the thing defined and in others not. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1037a22) | |
| A reaction: This is helpful in understanding what an essence is supposed to be. I take it to be sometimes a structure, with parts, and sometimes more like a guiding principle, more abstract in character. |
| 10944 | A definition must be of something primary [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We can assign a term to any 'account' whatever, so that the Iliad would be a definition! No, a definition must be of something primary. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1030a08) | |
| A reaction: At first hearing you may doubt this claim, but Aristotle's example clinches it beautifully. Are you really going to say that The Iliad is the definition of 'Iliad'? |
| 12360 | Definitions need the complex features of form, and don't need to mention the category [Aristotle, by Wedin] |
| Full Idea: Met. Z.10-11 is committed to the complexity of form and suggests that the complexity is expressed in definitions that articulate, in the case of 'man', the salient faculties and functions, and none of these need mention 'man'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1034b20-1037b) by Michael V. Wedin - Aristotle's Theory of Substance X.5 | |
| A reaction: This is a very strong statement of the view that identifying genus and species are not at all what Aristotle wants in his final account of essence. The features mentioned here would, though, clearly count as 'differentiae'. |
| 12355 | 'Plane' is the genus of plane figures, and 'solid' of solids, with differentiae picking out types of corner [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: 'Plane' is the genus of figures in the plane, and 'solid' is the genus of solids. For every figure is either a plane with abc features or a solid with xyz features, so it is the plane and solid which underlie these differentiae. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1024b01) | |
| A reaction: Thus you could hardly define a square by merely mentioning that it is a 'plane figure', and you would need pretty precise differentiae before you could be certain you were only dealing with a square, and not a parallelogram. |
| 12352 | Whiteness can only belong to man because an individual like Callias happens to be white [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If Callias is a white man, then whiteness belongs in a way to Callias, or to man, in as much as Callias, to whom it is accidental here to be a man, is white. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1030b20) | |
| A reaction: The point here is that 'white' can only belong to 'man' because some individual man happens to be white. |
| 11383 | A definition is of the universal and of the kind [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A definition is of the universal [tou katholou] and the form [tou eidous, kind, species]. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1036a28) | |
| A reaction: [Alternative translations by Vasilis Politis] Since the essence of a thing is a particular (Idea 11382), this seems to mean that the definition is NOT giving the essence, contrary to the account of Kit Fine. I take the essence to be explanatory. |
| 10961 | Definition by division is into genus and differentiae [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The contents of definition by division are the so-called primary genus (such as 'animal') and the differentiae. ...It should always be prosecuted until the level of non-differentiation is reached, ...and the last differentia will be the substance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1037b30) | |
| A reaction: [Second half at 1038a14] Note that this is only one type of Aristotelian definition, the 'definition by division'. The aim of this type of definition is to analyse down to substance. Presumably you can't ignore crucial features found on the way? |
| 12356 | If the genus is just its constitutive forms (or matter), then the definition is the account of the differentiae [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If the genus simpliciter does not exist over and above the specific forms constitutive of it, alternatively if it exists just as matter, it is evident what the definition is, the account derived just from the differentiae. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1038a05-) | |
| A reaction: This is how I understand an Aristotelian definition - as a lengthy and fine-grained account of the details which pick out some individual within the main genus which constitutes it. |
| 17040 | If I define you, I have to use terms which are all true of other things too [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Suppose I was trying to define you. I would say you are an animal that is lean or white or some such, all of which also apply to other things. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1040a13) | |
| A reaction: Commentators have taken this to mean that Aristotle is only interested in kinds and not individuals, but recent thinking says this is wrong. Universals prevent you from really getting at the thing you want to define. Definitions are limited. |
| 12353 | Species and genera are largely irrelevant in 'Metaphysics' [Aristotle, by Wedin] |
| Full Idea: Species and genera are largely irrelevant to the program of 'Metaphysics'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], kind) by Michael V. Wedin - Aristotle's Theory of Substance III.10 | |
| A reaction: The idea seems to be that Aristotle is seeking tools for getting at the primary being of a thing, and the notion of 'form' strikes him as a better account, because it explains the genera and species, rather than just naming them. |
| 12081 | Aristotle's definitions are not unique, but apply to a range of individuals [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: I take Aristotle to be arguing that no definition applies uniquely to an individual - it is always potentially applicable to a range of individuals. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], defs) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 4.2 n7 | |
| A reaction: So much the worse for Aristotle, I think. Surely unique entities can be defined? No one thinks their pet dog is just any dog, even after the age and breed have been identified. |
| 11153 | A definition is an account of a what-it-was-to-be-that-thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A definition is an account of a what-it-was-to-be-that-thing. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1031a12) | |
| A reaction: This is cited by Kit Fine, as expounding his view that essence is definition. He gives this text as "definition is the formula of the essence". Is the account the 'logos', I wonder? I like this view. |
| 12080 | Essence is not all the necessary properties, since these extend beyond the definition [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle never thought of an essence as comprising all the necessary properties of an object. In Met VII.4 he limits per se predication appropriate to essences to the definition, and in Topics he distinguishes definition from the 'proprium'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE]) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 4.1 | |
| A reaction: [Topics 102a20-25] There seems to be consensus among scholars about this, and only a few misguided modern metaphysicians identify essences with the necessary properties (or maybe the non-trivial necessary properties). |
| 8262 | How can a theory of meaning show the ontological commitments of two paraphrases of one idea? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Nothing purely within the theory of meaning is capable of telling us which of two sentences which are paraphrases of one another more accurately reflects the ontological commitments of those who utter them. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This is an attack on the semantic approach to ontology, associated with Quine. Cf. Idea 7923. I have always had an aversion to that approach, and received opinion is beginning to agree. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio..." |
| 15770 | Some things cannot be defined, and only an analogy can be given [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not right to seek a definition for everything - for some things an overview is to be had by analogy. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1048a33) | |
| A reaction: This is what David Lewis called the 'way of example' in defining what is meant by 'abstract objects'. |
| 574 | Not everything can be proven, because that would lead to an infinite regress [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It must be true, quite generally, that not everything can be proven, on pain of an infinite regress. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1006a09) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 1672, where the possibility of a circular set of mutual proofs is considered. Aristotle seems committed to the present idea. |
| 10913 | Truth is a matter of asserting correct combinations and separations [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: That which is as being true (and that which is not as being false) have to do with composition and division, ... (for truth involves assertion in the case of combination and denial in the case of a separation). | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1027b22) | |
| A reaction: This remark has the prospect of being spelled out precisely in terms of predication in modern logic |
| 10914 | Simple and essential truth seems to be given, with further truth arising in thinking [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not in states of affairs that truth and falsity arise but in thinking. And for things that are simple and for essences, truth and falsity do not even arise in thinking. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1027b27) | |
| A reaction: This might be viewed in the light of Tarski's theory, and the distinction between atomic sentences, which are just accepted, with a recursive account of more complex statements. Aristotle seems to have two theories of truth here (Cf. Idea 10916). |
| 10916 | Truth is either intuiting a way of being, or a putting together [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Truth is either a putting-together or, if the thing has being, it has it in a certain way. Truth for these things is intuiting them. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1051b30) | |
| A reaction: This seems to confirm what Aristotle says in Idea 10914, that there are two aspects to truth - the immediate grasp of atomic facts, and the assembling of complex facts. This resembles Tarski's construction of truth for complex sentences. |
| 575 | If one error is worse than another, it must be because it is further from the truth [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The man who mistakes a tetrad for a pentad is not as erroneous as he who takes it for a chiliad. But then, if they are not equally erroneous, this can only mean that one has less, and so one more, of the truth. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1008b32) |
| 15775 | Truth-thinking does not make it so; it being so is what makes it true [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not on account of our truly thinking that you are white that you are white; rather it is on account of your being white that we who assert as much are telling the truth. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1051b10) | |
| A reaction: Some philosophers say this makes truth a derivative property, and is central to truth-maker theories. Kit Fine claims the reverse - that things exist because of the truths - but I don't really understand that (or agree with it). |
| 10915 | The truth or falsity of a belief will be in terms of something that is always this way not that [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The truth or falsity of a belief will be in terms of something that is always this way not that. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1052a12) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle seems to take 'beliefs' to be the truth-bearers. |
| 586 | Falsity says that which is isn't, and that which isn't is; truth says that which is is, and that which isn't isn't [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Falsity is the assertion that that which is is not or that that which is not is, and truth is the assertion that that which is is and that that which is not is not. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1011b20) | |
| A reaction: It was very startling to discover Plato's Idea 13776, and realise that this famous and much-quoted idea of Aristotle's was not original to him. I find it very hard to disagree with any aspect of the idea. |
| 19165 | Aristotle's truth formulation concerns referring parts of sentences, not sentences as wholes [Aristotle, by Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's formulation postulates no entities like facts. The things of which we say that they are or that they are not are the entities adverted to by the referring parts of sentences, not by sentences as wholes. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1011b21) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 6 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle seems to refer to the existences or non-existences of things. Presumably this would mean referring not to an apple, but to a red apple or a green apple, seen as two different things, even though they were the 'same' apple? |
| 8315 | Maybe facts are just true propositions [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If facts are 'proposition-like' or 'thinkable' (we speak of 'knowing' or 'understanding' facts) might they not simply be true propositions? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11.2) | |
| A reaction: They certainly can't be if we are going to use facts as what makes propositions true. The proposal would be empty without out some other account of truth (probably a dubious one). Facts are truth-makers? |
| 8319 | One-to-one correspondence would need countable, individuable items [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Where there is one-to-one correspondence there must certainly be countable, and therefore individuable items of some kind. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11.6) | |
| A reaction: Lowe is criticising precise notions of 'a fact'. We can respond by relaxing the notion of 'one-to-one', if critics are going to be fussy about exactly what the items are. "There is a huge wave coming" doesn't need a precise notion of a wave to be true. |
| 562 | Axioms are the underlying principles of everything, and who but the philosopher can assess their truth? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Axioms are more general, and the principles of all things. If this does not belong to the philosopher, who else will have the job of considering truth and falsity in their case? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0997a09) |
| 573 | The axioms of mathematics are part of philosophy [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A single science, that of the philosopher, also covers the axioms of mathematics. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1005a15) |
| 8309 | A set is a 'number of things', not a 'collection', because nothing actually collects the members [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A set is 'a number of things', not a 'collection'. Nothing literally 'collects' the members of a set, such as the set of planets of the sun, unless it be a Fregean 'concept' under which they fall. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: I'm tempted to say that the sun has collected a set of planets (they're the ones that rotate around it). Why can't we have natural sets, which have been collected by nature? A question of the intension, as well as the extension.... |
| 8322 | I don't believe in the empty set, because (lacking members) it lacks identity-conditions [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It is not clear to me that the empty set has well-defined identity-conditions. A set has these only to the extent that its members do - but the empty set has none. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 12.3 n8) | |
| A reaction: The empty set is widely used by those who base their metaphysics of maths on sets. It defines zero, and hence is the starting poing for Peano's Postulates (Idea 5897). It might not have identity in itself, but you know where you have arrived after 2 - 2. |
| 14239 | The empty set is usually derived from Separation, but it also seems to need Infinity [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: The empty set is usually derived via Zermelo's axiom of separation. But the axiom of separation is conditional: it requires the existence of a set in order to generate others as subsets of it. The original set has to come from the axiom of infinity. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: They charge that this leads to circularity, as Infinity depends on the empty set. |
| 14240 | The empty set is something, not nothing! [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Some authors need to be told loud and clear: if there is an empty set, it is something, not nothing. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to think of a null set as a pair of brackets, so maybe that puts it into a metalanguage. |
| 14241 | We don't need the empty set to express non-existence, as there are other ways to do that [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: The empty set is said to be useful to express non-existence, but saying 'there are no Us', or ¬∃xUx are no less concise, and certainly less roundabout. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 1.2) |
| 14242 | Maybe we can treat the empty set symbol as just meaning an empty term [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Suppose we introduce Ω not as a term standing for a supposed empty set, but as a paradigm of an empty term, not standing for anything. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This proposal, which they go on to explore, seems to mean that Ω (i.e. the traditional empty set symbol) is no longer part of set theory but is part of semantics. |
| 14243 | The unit set may be needed to express intersections that leave a single member [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Thomason says with no unit sets we couldn't call {1,2}∩{2,3} a set - but so what? Why shouldn't the intersection be the number 2? However, we then have to distinguish three different cases of intersection (common subset or member, or disjoint). | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 2.2) |
| 22154 | For Aristotle bivalence is a feature of reality [Aristotle, by Boulter] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle the principle of bivalence is primarily a principle of metaphysics, not logic. It applies to entities in the real order first, and to propositions in the rational order second. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE]) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 5 | |
| A reaction: This is because nothing is vague. Boulter says this is also the case with non-contradiction. I like this idea very much. I reject the Fregean picture of the autonomy of the rational order. Logic is powerful because it reflects reality. |
| 8312 | It is better if the existential quantifier refers to 'something', rather than a 'thing' which needs individuation [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If we take the existential quantifier to mean 'there is at least one thing that' then its value must qualify as one thing, individuable in principle. ...So I propose to read it as 'there is something that', which implies nothing about individuability. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11) | |
| A reaction: All sorts of doubts about the existential quantifier seem to be creeping in nowadays (e.g. Ideas 6067, 6069, 8250). Personally I am drawn to the sound of 'free logic', Idea 8250, which drops existential claims. This would reduce metaphysical confusion. |
| 14234 | If you only refer to objects one at a time, you need sets in order to refer to a plurality [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: A 'singularist', who refers to objects one at a time, must resort to the language of sets in order to replace plural reference to members ('Henry VIII's wives') by singular reference to a set ('the set of Henry VIII's wives'). | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], Intro) | |
| A reaction: A simple and illuminating point about the motivation for plural reference. Null sets and singletons give me the creeps, so I would personally prefer to avoid set theory when dealing with ontology. |
| 14237 | We can use plural language to refer to the set theory domain, to avoid calling it a 'set' [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Plurals earn their keep in set theory, to answer Skolem's remark that 'in order to treat of 'sets', we must begin with 'domains' that are constituted in a certain way'. We can speak in the plural of 'the objects', not a 'domain' of objects. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], Intro) | |
| A reaction: [Skolem 1922:291 in van Heijenoort] Zermelo has said that the domain cannot be a set, because every set belongs to it. |
| 14245 | Logical truths are true no matter what exists - but predicate calculus insists that something exists [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Logical truths should be true no matter what exists, so true even if nothing exists. The classical predicate calculus, however, makes it logically true that something exists. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 5.1) |
| 11264 | Aporia 3: Does one science investigate all being, or does each kind of being have a science? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 3: Is it the task of a single science to investigate all beings, or is it the task of fundamentally different sciences to investigate different kinds of being? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0997a15-25) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: One might ask whether neuroscience is entirely distinct from psychology, or partical physics from biology. |
| 11258 | We must start with our puzzles, and progress by solving them, as they reveal the real difficulty [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We should first address those puzzles ('aporiai') that first arise. ..Subsequent progress depends on the resolution of the first puzzles, and one cannot solve these without knowing the difficulty, and our confusion shows this to be the case. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0995a27-) | |
| A reaction: This stands in nice opposition to the Wittgenstein view, that confusion is largely a self-inflicted wound arising from our language, having little to do with reality. For Aristotle it is reality which is the source of our mental confusion. He's right. |
| 11265 | Aporia 4: Does metaphysics just investigate pure being, or also the characteristics of being? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 4: Is the task of metaphysics only to investigate the (primary) beings or also to investigate the common characteristics of the (primary) beings? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0997a25-34) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: Politis points out that metaphysics would then be in danger of collapsing into all sorts of special sciences. |
| 11262 | Aporia 1: is there one science of explanation, or many? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 1: Is it the task of a single science to investigate all the different causes and explanations of things, or is this the task of fundamentally different sciences? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0996a18-b26) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: [This is the 10,000th idea to be entered into this database - 1st February 2010, at 7:21pm] I think there are two sorts of philosopher - those, like myself, who cling on to the idea of one science, and the pluralists, perfectly happy with many. |
| 11263 | Aporia 2: Does one science investigate both ultimate and basic principles of being? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 2: Is it the task of a single science to investigate both the ultimate principles of being and the basic principles of reasoning (e.g. non-contradiction)? Or is this the task of fundamentally different sciences? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0996b26-997a15) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: Although I favour the dream of one science dealing with everything, I hesitate over this aporia. I like the unity of modern science and metaphysics, but maybe logic precedes them both and has a different basis. Nice question! |
| 11266 | Aporia 5: Do other things exist besides what is perceptible by the senses? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 5: Do only sense-perceptible things exist or do non-sense-perceptible things exist, too, in addition to or besides (para) sense-perceptible ones? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0997a34-998a19) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: Nowadays we have discovered so much that is beyond our natural perceptions that it is obvious that there may be stuff we can never detect. ...And yet if 'to exist is to have causal powers' then everything would be detectable in principle. Hm. |
| 11270 | Aporia 9: Is there one principle, or one kind of principle? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 9: Are principles one in kind, or one in number? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0999b24-1000a04) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: A key aporia, which can be answered in both directions. In what respects are the essences of two different human beings identical? It is a key question for any essentialist. |
| 11267 | Aporia 6: Are the basic principles of a thing the kinds to which it belongs, or its components? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 6: Are the principles of a thing the kinds to which the thing belongs or are they rather the ultimate elements that are present in the thing and compose the thing? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0998a20-b13) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: This is the heart of the modern debate on essentialism, between sortal essentialists (Brody and Wiggins) and those basing essences on powers and basic stuff (Ellis, Fine). I say the sortal bunch are wrong, wrong, wrong. |
| 11268 | Aporia 7: Is a thing's kind the most general one, or the most specific one? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 7: If a thing's principle is its general kind, is that the most general kind to which it belongs, or the least general kind to which it belongs? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0998b13-999a23) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: This is a question for the sortal essentialists. I think it amounts to an argument against sortal essentialism, because there are nested kinds, and nothing to decide which one of them matters, |
| 11269 | Aporia 8: Are there general kinds, or merely particulars? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 8: Do general kinds exist at all, in addition to the sense-perceptible particulars? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0999a24-b24) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle is beginning to confront the whole issue of natural kinds. It seems OK to say that the elements are natural kinds, but things get more difficult when you talk about 'planets' or 'tigers'. Aristotle decides there are natural kinds. |
| 11271 | Aporia 10: Do perishables and imperishables have the same principle? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 10: Are the principles of perishable and imperishable things the same, or different? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1000a05-1001a03) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: Locke proposed that having a 'life' was an essential distinction between these two, but this has been rather undermined by modern biochemistry. Aristotle wants to know if nature is a unity. |
| 11272 | Aporia 11: Are primary being and unity distinct, or only in the things that are? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 11: Is primary being simply being itself and unity itself, or is primary being rather things that are and are one? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1001a04--b25) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: I can't make sense of 'being' in itself, though Heidegger seems to have devoted his life to the idea. It appears that Aristotle agrees with me. |
| 11273 | Aporia 12: Do mathematical entities exist independently, or only in objects? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 12: Are numbers, solids, surfaces and points themselves the primary beings or are they primary beings only because other things (e.g. this horse) have such geometrical and in general mathematical properties? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1001b26-1002b11) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: The thinking of Pythagoras and Plato hovers behind this question. Aristotle seems to be groping for a compromise view. |
| 11274 | Aporia 13: Are there kinds, as well as particulars and mathematical entities? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 13: Are there kinds ('eidé') in addition to or besides both sense-perceptible things and the entities postulated by mathematics? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1002b12-32) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: This seems close to Aporia 8 (Idea 11269). I can't make sense of a kind which has no particulars, except as a fond memory, like the dodo, and a fictional entity like the gryphon. ...Or perhaps something we aim to bio-engineer. |
| 11276 | Aporia 15: Are the causes of things universals or particulars? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 15: Are the principles of things universals or particulars? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1003a05-17) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle seems to be groping for a compromise answer. Explanations must be universal, but primary being seems to reside in the particulars. The modern idea of Aristotelianism is universals-only-in-particulars. |
| 11275 | Aporia 14: Are ultimate causes of things potentialities, or must they be actual? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aporia 14: Are the elements of things potentialities and capacities for causing and generating those things or are they what actually causes and generates those things? | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1002b32-1003a05) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.4 | |
| A reaction: We would now call this a question about 'dispositions', and the consensus seems to be that they are potential rather than actual, since a vase may be fragile without having to actually break. |
| 560 | Mathematical precision is only possible in immaterial things [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We should not see mathematical exactitude in all things, but only for things that do not have matter. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0995a14) |
| 9076 | Mathematics studies the domain of perceptible entities, but its subject-matter is not perceptible [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Mathematics does not take perceptible entities as its domain just because its subject-matter is accidentally perceptible; but neither does it take as its domain some other entities separable from the perceptible ones. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1078a03) | |
| A reaction: This implies a very naturalistic view of mathematics, with his very empiricist account of abstraction deriving the mathematical concepts within the process of perceiving the physical world. And quite right too. |
| 10958 | Perhaps numbers are substances? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We should consider whether there is some other sort of substance, such as, perhaps, numbers. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1037a11) | |
| A reaction: I don't think Aristotle considers numbers to be substances, but Pythagoreans seem to think that way, if they think the world is literally made of numbers. |
| 13273 | Pluralities divide into discontinous countables; magnitudes divide into continuous things [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A plurality is a denumerable quantity, and a magnitude is a measurable quantity. A plurality is what is potentially divisible into things that are not continuous, whereas what is said to be a magnitude is divisible into continuous things. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1020a09) | |
| A reaction: This illuminating distinction is basic to the Greek attitude to number, and echoes the distinction between natural and real numbers. |
| 12074 | The one in number just is the particular [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It makes no difference whether we speak of the particular or the one in number. For by the one in number we mean the particular. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0999b33) | |
| A reaction: This is the Greek view of 'one', quite different from the Frege or Dedekind view. I prefer the Greek view, because 'one' is the place where numbers plug into the world, and the one indispensable feature of numbers is that they can count particulars. |
| 17844 | The unit is stipulated to be indivisible [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The unit is stipulated to be indivisible in every respect. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1052b35) |
| 17845 | If only rectilinear figures existed, then unity would be the triangle [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Suppose that all things that are ...were rectilinear figures - they would be a number of figures, and unity the triangle. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1054a03) | |
| A reaction: This is how they program graphics for computer games, with profusions of triangles. The thought that geometry might be treated numerically is an obvious glimpse of Descartes' co-ordinate geometry. |
| 17859 | Units came about when the unequals were equalised [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The original holder of the theory claimed ...that units came about when the unequals were equalised. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1081a24) | |
| A reaction: Presumably you could count the things that were already equal. You can count days and count raindrops. The genius is to see that you can add the days to the raindrops, by treating them as equal, in respect of number. |
| 17861 | Two men do not make one thing, as well as themselves [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A pair of men do not make some one thing in addition to themselves. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1082a18) | |
| A reaction: This seems to contrast nicely with Frege's claim about whether two boots are two things or one pair. |
| 646 | When we count, are we adding, or naming numbers? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is a vexed question whether, when we count and say 'one, two, three…', we are doing so by addition or by separate modules. We are, of course, doing both. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1082b32) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is almost Benacerraf's famous problem about whether or not 3 is a member of 4. |
| 14246 | If mathematics purely concerned mathematical objects, there would be no applied mathematics [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: If mathematics was purely concerned with mathematical objects, there would be no room for applied mathematics. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: Love it! Of course, they are using 'objects' in the rather Fregean sense of genuine abstract entities. I don't see why fictionalism shouldn't allow maths to be wholly 'pure', although we have invented fictions which actually have application. |
| 17843 | The idea of 'one' is the foundation of number [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: One is the principle of number qua number. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1052b21) |
| 17850 | Each many is just ones, and is measured by the one [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The reason for saying of each number that it is many is just that it is ones and that each number is measured by the one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1056b16) |
| 17851 | Number is plurality measured by unity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Number is plurality as measured by unity. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1057a04) |
| 8297 | Numbers are universals, being sets whose instances are sets of appropriate cardinality [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: My view is that numbers are universals, beings kinds of sets (that is, kinds whose particular instances are individual sets of appropriate cardinality). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10) | |
| A reaction: [That is, 12 is the set of all sets which have 12 members] This would mean, I take it, that if the number of objects in existence was reduced to 11, 12 would cease to exist, which sounds wrong. Or are we allowed imagined instances? |
| 8266 | Simple counting is more basic than spotting that one-to-one correlation makes sets equinumerous [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: That one-to-one correlated sets of objects are equinumerous is a more sophisticated achievement than the simple ability to count sets of objects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 2.9) | |
| A reaction: This is an objection to Frege's way of defining numbers, in terms of equinumerous sets. I take pattern-recognition to be the foundation of number, and so spotting a pattern would have to precede spotting that two patterns were identical. |
| 8302 | Fs and Gs are identical in number if they one-to-one correlate with one another [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: What is now known as Hume's Principle says the number of Fs is identical with the number of Gs if and only if the Fs and the Gs are one-to-one correlated with one another. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems popular as a tool in attempts to get the concept of number off the ground. Although correlations don't seem to require numbers ('find yourself a partner'), at some point you have to count the correlations. Sets come first, to identify the Fs. |
| 14247 | Sets might either represent the numbers, or be the numbers, or replace the numbers [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Identifying numbers with sets may mean one of three quite different things: 1) the sets represent the numbers, or ii) they are the numbers, or iii) they replace the numbers. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: Option one sounds the most plausible to me. I will take numbers to be patterns embedded in nature, and sets are one way of presenting them in shorthand form, in order to bring out what is repeated. |
| 9793 | Mathematics studies abstracted relations, commensurability and proportion [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Mathematicians abstract perceptible features to study quantity and continuity ...and examine the mutual relations of some and the features of those relations, and commensurabilities of others, and of yet others the proportions. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1061a32) | |
| A reaction: This sounds very much like the intuition of structuralism to me - that the subject is entirely about relations between things, with very little interest in the things themselves. See Aristotle on abstraction (under 'Thought'). |
| 13738 | It is a simple truth that the objects of mathematics have being, of some sort [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Since there are not only separable things but also inseparable things (such as, for instance, things which are moving), it is also true to say simpliciter that the objects of mathematic have being and that they are of such a sort as is claimed. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1077b31) | |
| A reaction: This is almost Aristotle's only discussion of whether mathematical entities exist. They seem to have an 'inseparable' existence (the way properties do), but he evidently regards a denial of their existence (Field-style) as daft. |
| 8298 | Sets are instances of numbers (rather than 'collections'); numbers explain sets, not vice versa [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I favour an account of sets which sees them as being instances of numbers, thereby avoiding the unhelpful metaphor which speaks of a set as being a 'collection' of things. This reverses the normal view, which explains numbers in terms of sets. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 8297. Either a set is basic, or a number is. We might graft onto Lowe's view an account of numbers in terms of patterns, which would give an empirical basis to the picture, and give us numbers which could be used to explain sets. |
| 8311 | If 2 is a particular, then adding particulars to themselves does nothing, and 2+2=2 [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If 2 is a particular, 'adding' it to itself can, it would seem, only leave us with 2, not another number. (If 'Socrates + Socrates' denotes anything, it most plausibly just denotes Socrates). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.7) | |
| A reaction: This suggest Kant's claim that arithmetical sums are synthetic (Idea 5558). It is a nice question why, when you put two 2s together, they come up with something new. Addition is movement. Among patterns, or along abstract sequences. |
| 8310 | Does the existence of numbers matter, in the way space, time and persons do? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Does it really matter whether the numbers actually exist - in anything like the way in which it matters that space and time or persons actually exist? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: Nice question! It might matter a lot. I take the question of numbers to be a key test case, popular with philosophers because they are the simplest and commonest candidates for abstract existence. The ontological status of values is the real issue. |
| 12339 | Aristotle removes ontology from mathematics, and replaces the true with the beautiful [Aristotle, by Badiou] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, the de-ontologization of mathematics draws the beautiful into the place of the true. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE]) by Alain Badiou - Briefings on Existence 14 |
| 8321 | All possible worlds contain abstracta (e.g. numbers), which means they contain concrete objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: One could argue that some abstract objects exist in all possible worlds (e.g. natural numbers) and that abstract objects always depend for their existence upon concrete objects, and conclude that some concrete objects exist in all possible worlds. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 12.1) | |
| A reaction: We're all in the dark on this one, but I quite like this argument. I can't conceive of a reality that lacks natural numbers, and the truths that accompany them, and I personally think that numbers arise from the patterns of physical reality. |
| 568 | Some things exist as substances, others as properties of substances [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Some things are called things that are because they are substances, other things are called things that are because they are affections of a substance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1003b07) |
| 12348 | There are four kinds of being: incidental, per se, potential and actual, and being as truth [Aristotle, by Wedin] |
| Full Idea: In 'Metaphysics' Δ.7 Aristotle lists four kinds of being ('to on'): incidental being, per se being, potential and actual being, and being as truth. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1017a07-) by Michael V. Wedin - Aristotle's Theory of Substance III.1 | |
| A reaction: These don't seem to be mutually exclusive, though the first two are, and potential and actual are. They look like three ways of getting at being. |
| 11194 | Being is either what falls in the categories, or what makes propositions true [Aristotle, by Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle says there are two proper uses of the term 'being': firstly, for whatever falls into one of Aristotle's ten basic categories of thing, and secondly for whatever makes a proposition true. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1017a21-35) by Thomas Aquinas - De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) p.91 | |
| A reaction: The first sounds circular, because the categories must be selected for whatever has being (see Idea 11196). The first sounds Fregean, and very congenial to modern philosophy (though you need a clear notion of 'true'). Or it is being as truth-makers. |
| 11288 | Things are predicated of the basic thing, which isn't predicated of anything else [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The subject [to hupokeimenon, the underlying thing] is that of which other entities are said, it itself never being said-of anything else. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1029b36) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the core or basis of being in 'Categories', which is rejected in favour of the more substantial (and determinate and explanatory) 'essence' in 'Metaphysics'. |
| 15776 | There is only being in a certain way, and without that way there is no being [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If the thing has being, it has it in a certain way and, if it does not have being in a certain way, it does not have being at all. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1051b34) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a key remark in ontology, and one that may not have been sufficiently heeded by Hegel and Heidegger. The only way to investigate being qua being is to investigate ways of being, which involves identity, categories etc. |
| 611 | Being, taken simply as being, is the domain of philosophy [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Being qua being, taken universally and not in regard to some part of it, is the domain of the science of philosophy. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1060b23) |
| 11232 | Primary being ('proté ousia') exists in virtue of itself, not in relation to other things [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: For something to be a primary being ('proté ousia') is for it to be a being, something that is, simply in virtue of itself ('kath' hauto') and not in virtue of its relation to other things. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ousia) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.3 |
| 11234 | The three main candidates for primary being are particular, universal and essence; essence is the answer [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle thinks there are three main candidates for primary being: the particular, the universal and the essence, and Aristotle will defend the third of these. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1028a33-6) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 | |
| A reaction: If you really want to understand this idea, you must study this bit of the text carefully, and examine the translation of key terms like 'ousia'. Lawson-Tancred's translation gives a very different picture from Politis's commentary! |
| 11279 | Primary being is either universals, or the basis of predication, or essence [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle distinguishes three different answers to the question 'What is primary being?'; it is universals (which he thinks is Plato's answer); or it is the ultimate subject of predication (his answer in 'Categories'); or the essence (in 'Metaphysics'). | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1028b25-) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 4.4 | |
| A reaction: I note that Michael Wedin argues that 'Metaphysics' is a development of 'Categories' rather than a change of view. The middle view has been unpacked nicely in modern discussions. The claim of essences needs more clarification. |
| 11293 | Non-primary beings lack essence, or only have a derived essence [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle argues that non-primary beings either do not have an essence at all, or they have an essence only in a derived way. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ousia) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 7.5 | |
| A reaction: While I presume that Aristotle takes 'being' to be a univocal concept, he nevertheless divides it into 'primary' (or independent) and 'non-primary' (or dependent) being. His main subject of study is the primary version. |
| 11297 | Primary being is both the essence, and the subject of predication [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: On any interpretation, Aristotle argues that primary being with regard to each thing is both the essence of that thing and the ultimate subject of predication with regard to that thing. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ousia) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 7.5 | |
| A reaction: This is Politis's prelude to an account of conflicting interpretations over whether 'ousia' has one or two meanings for Aristotle. |
| 566 | If nothing exists except individuals, how can there be a science of infinity? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If there is nothing else besides individuals, how is it possible to have a science of infinity? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0999a25) |
| 16090 | Being must be understood with reference to one primary sense - the being of substance [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: In 'Metaphysics' Aristotle argues that the various senses of being must be understood with reference to being in one primary sense, the being of substance. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1 Intro) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance | |
| A reaction: This I take (with limited knowledge of such things) to be the key message that needs to be grasped by the followers of Hegel and Heidegger, who seem to think you can grasp Being either directly, or through human experience of it. |
| 570 | Nothing is added to a man's existence by saying he is 'one', or that 'he exists' [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is plausible that one man and a man in existence and a man simpliciter are the same thing. Nothing is added by extending the expression to 'He is one man' and 'He is one man that is'. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1003b28) | |
| A reaction: A suggestion of a redundancy theory of truth. |
| 12061 | The primary subject seems to be substance, to the fullest extent [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A strong case can be made for the claim that it is the primary subject (to hupokeimenon) that is substance (ousia) to the fullest extent. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1029a01) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me that 'ousia' is best translated as 'being'. Aristotle eventually rejects the view in this idea, which is roughly the idea of that being is mainly the bare substratum. |
| 10946 | Existence requires thisness, as quantity or quality [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: That which is means a thing with thisness, a quantity or a quality. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1030b12) | |
| A reaction: I'm happy with a 'quantity' to exist, either in countable or in non-countable form, but not totally convinced that we should treat 'qualities' as fully existing, given their dependence. |
| 16152 | Other types of being all depend on the being of substance [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The accounts of the other bearers of being depend on the account of substance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1045b26) | |
| A reaction: This is the distinctively Aristotelian approach to the problem of Being. |
| 11295 | There is no being unless it is determinate and well-defined [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Apparently Aristotle thinks that if something is not a determinate and well-defined thing ..then it is not a being at all. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], id) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics | |
| A reaction: See Aristotle's account of 'matter', which seems to fit Politis's view. It is hard to go all the way with Aristotle on this, as indeterminate gunk (e.g. mud, which Plato so disliked!) seems to thoroughly exist. But for us it rests on determinate atoms. |
| 13735 | Aristotle discusses fundamental units of being, rather than existence questions [Aristotle, by Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: In Aristotle's 'Metaphysics' virtually no existence questions are posed, and the whole discussion is about substances (fundamental units of being). | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], id) by Jonathan Schaffer - On What Grounds What 1 | |
| A reaction: This means that the basic metaphysical question is actually about identity, though Schaffer claims that it is about grounding. Why would we care about grounding? Aristotle cares most about what makes a thing the thing it is. |
| 8300 | Perhaps possession of causal power is the hallmark of existence (and a reason to deny the void) [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: For some metaphysicians, possession of causal power is the very hallmark of real existence (and is one reason, for instance, why some have denied the existence of the void or absolute space). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: You could try saying that space has the power of making movement possible. The 'hallmark' of something doesn't define what it is. Existence without causal power seems logically possible and imaginable, but unlikely. Epiphenomena have this problem. |
| 16118 | Nature is an active principle of change, like potentiality, but it is intrinsic to things [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Nature [phusis] is in the same genus as dunamis [power/potential], for it is an active principle of change, but not in another thing but in the thing itself qua itself. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1049a09) | |
| A reaction: [Gill's translation; Lawson-Tancred refers to 'A nature' rather than 'nature', which implies an essence]. It seems like phusis is intrinsic, and dunamis is relational. Two sorts of power? |
| 8281 | Heraclitus says change is new creation, and Spinoza that it is just phases of the one substance [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The extreme views on change are the Heraclitan view - that every change brings into existence an entirely new entity, and destroys what existed before, and the Spinozan view - that all changes are phase changes within a single substance. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: The views in between are that bundles of properties shift their contents, or that many substances undergo changes in their properties. The unification of physics might be aiming to vindicate Spinoza. Temporal parts (Lewis) are close to Heraclitus. |
| 15768 | An actuality is usually thought to be a process [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: An actuality is thought most normally to be a process. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1047a30) | |
| A reaction: He comments of this that he wishes to include entelechies (unified items) in the general account, and not just processes. To present everything as fundamentally a process is a hard story to tell with full coherence, I think. |
| 8270 | Events are changes or non-changes in properties and relations of persisting objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: My own broadly Aristotelian view is that events are changes (and unchanges) in the properties and relations of persisting objects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: This needs an account of what it is that persists, and the philosophers' (but not physicists') concept of 'substance' fills this role. It is rather hard to give identity-conditions for an event if it is an 'unchange'. How would you count such events? |
| 8308 | Events are ontologically indispensable for singular causal explanations [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: We must include events in our ontology because they figure indispensably in singular causal explanations. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.5) | |
| A reaction: Hm. Spirits figure indispensably in supernatural explanations. It would be quite a task to prove that events really are indispensable to causal explanations. Why would nomological or counterfactual causal explanations not have the same need? |
| 11154 | Prior things can exist without posterior things, but not vice versa [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Prior things can have being without posterior things, without the posterior being able to have being without the prior, to adopt Plato's distinction. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1019a04) | |
| A reaction: Fine quotes this, in expounding Aristotle's account of essence. |
| 12095 | Knowledge of potential is universal and indefinite; of the actual it is definite and of individuals [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge is a double thing, being both potential and actual. It is universal and indefinite and it is the potentiality of something that is universal and indefinite. But actuality is definite and of something definite, being the this-such of a this-such. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1087a12) | |
| A reaction: Charlotte Witt identifies this as a key idea in 'Metaphysics', since the metaphysics is built on the epistemology, and this idea justifies the claim that Aristotle gives priority to particulars. I thoroughly approve. Not all knowledge is of the universal. |
| 11256 | Materialists cannot explain change [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's main objection against the materialists (such as Thales and Anaximenes) is that they cannot explain why things change as they do. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0988b23-) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.4 |
| 8314 | Are facts wholly abstract, or can they contain some concrete constituents? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers who invoke facts are divided over whether facts are wholly abstract entities or are complexes capable of containing concrete objects as constituents. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11.2) | |
| A reaction: If externalism about concepts was true (see Thought|Content|Broad Content), this would support the second (more concrete) view of facts. The correspondence theory of truth would love to plug belief into the concrete world. Me too. |
| 8316 | Facts cannot be wholly abstract if they enter into causal relations [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: There is a difficulty for any view of facts which sees them as being wholly abstract entities, and yet also being causal relata; for it seems that only concrete entities, existing in time and space, can enter into causal relations. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11.3) | |
| A reaction: There seems a lot of ambiguity in the air here, between epistemology and ontology (surprise!). I take causation to be a physical activity in the concrete world. Our understanding of it is expressed with abstractions. 'Fact' seems to have two meanings. |
| 8318 | The problem with the structured complex view of facts is what binds the constituents [Lowe] |
|
Full Idea:
The most notorious problem besetting the view that facts are structured complexes of constituents is the question of what it is that binds the supposed constituents into the fact. The ordered triple |
|
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11.5) | |
| A reaction: Lowe denies that facts are complex entities on this basis. You only have the problem if Mars and its redness are two 'things'. If redness is intrinsically a dependent item, we may escape. I wish they wouldn't use colours as examples. See Idea 5456. |
| 8323 | It is whimsical to try to count facts - how many facts did I learn before breakfast? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Although 'fact' is grammatically a count noun, it strikes us as being at best whimsical to talk about enumerating facts - to talk, for instance, about how many facts I learned today before breakfast. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 12.4) | |
| A reaction: I always liked the question 'how many facts are there in this room?' One might make a serious attempt to decide how many facts I learned before breakfast, and reach a reasonable approximation, especially if one didn't open the newspaper. |
| 8313 | Facts are needed for truth-making and causation, but they seem to lack identity criteria [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Facts seem to be indispensable as truth-makers and perhaps as causal relata, ..but if we must only include in our ontology things for which we can state a criterion of identity (Quine), ..we seem to be faced with a dilemma. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11) | |
| A reaction: Lowe proposes to relax the identification requirement (see Idea 8312). This seems a good strategy. An awful lot of strange philosophy arises from insisting on strict conditions for our understanding, and then finding everywhere failure to achieve it. |
| 8258 | Two of the main rivals for the foundations of ontology are substances, and facts or states-of-affairs [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: One of the chief rivals to my own substance-based ontology is the view that holds facts or states of affairs to be the building-blocks of the world. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], Pref) | |
| A reaction: I think I side with Lowe, even though I am uneasy about the gap between the philosopher's 'substance' and the basic entities of physics. Facts are hard to individuate, and seem to be composed of more basic elements. |
| 8301 | Some abstractions exist despite lacking causal powers, because explanation needs them [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Some abstract objects, notably certain universals, need to be invoked for explanatory purposes, even if it cannot be said that they themselves possess causal powers or enter into causal relations. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: I am unconvinced that an entity with no causal powers could be any kind of explanation, given that, by definition, it can't do anything. You would have to think that the world of pure reason functioned without the aid of causal powers. |
| 8283 | Ontological categories are not natural kinds: the latter can only be distinguished using the former [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Ontological categories should not be confused with natural kinds: for natural kinds can only be differentiated in a principled way relative to an accepted framework of ontological categories. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: I presume that the natural kinds are likely to be contingent facts about the actual world (though they may entail necessary laws), whereas I like to think, unfashionably, that categories aim at deconstructing the mind of God (roughly). |
| 8284 | The top division of categories is either abstract/concrete, or universal/particular, or necessary/contingent [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Some metaphysicians take the highest division to be between abstract and concrete entities, others take it to be between universals and particulars (my own preference, though it is not crucial), and others between necessary and contingent entities. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: The first division may be blurred, and I am doubtful about universals, so I favour the third. Intuition tells me that there is nothing more basic than the distinction between what is true in all worlds and what is only true in some. The former is bedrock. |
| 13122 | Lowe divides things into universals and particulars, then kinds and properties, and abstract/concrete [Lowe, by Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: Lowe's Ontological Categories: ENTITIES - {Universals - [Kinds - (Non-natural)(Natural)] [Properties, Relations]} {Particulars - [Abstracta - (Sets)(others)] [Concreta - (Objects)(Non-Objects)]} etc | |
| From: report of E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], p.181) by Jan Westerhoff - Ontological Categories §01 | |
| A reaction: [my linear representation of a tree diagram; bracket-styles show levels] Lowe's levels below these divide according to whether things are 'substances' or not. I've heard Kit Fine tease Lowe for being too simplistic about ontology. |
| 12347 | The immediate divisions of that which is are genera, each with its science [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The immediate divisions of that which is are genera, and there will be one science for each genus. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1004a04) | |
| A reaction: This is robustly realist, and right at the heart of Aristotle's philosophy. It explains why essences and forms must be given through genera and differentiae, even though essences are individual. Genera are the only way to identify things. |
| 7935 | There cannot be uninstantiated properties [Aristotle, by Macdonald,C] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle held that there could be no uninstantiated properties. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Bk 04) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things | |
| A reaction: This is obviously a right hook aimed at Plato. Clearly we can think about uninstantiated properties, but the literal truth of Aristotle's view I would take to be tautological. To exist is to be instantiated. |
| 16161 | Properties are just the ways in which forms are realised at various times [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: On Aristotle's new theory it is forms that exist in their own right, whereas properties merely constitute the way forms of a certain kind are realized at some point of time in their existence. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], props) by Michael Frede - Substance in Aristotle's 'Metaphysics' p.80 | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure that 'merely' gives us enough of a story here. I never understand the word 'realised' (or 'instantiated', come to that). What does x have to do to realise y? Is that a relation between a real and a non-real thing? |
| 15109 | The 'propriae' or 'necessary accidents' of a thing are separate, and derived from the essence [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle conceives of the necessary features of objects, traditionally known as the 'propria' or 'necessary accidents', as being distinct and derivate from, the essential features of objects. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], props) by Kathrin Koslicki - Essence, Necessity and Explanation 13.1 | |
| A reaction: This is a vague area, because Aristotle says very little about it. See Ideas 12266 and 12262. A particular shape of mole might be yours alone, but not part of your essence. That may be an 'idion' rather than a 'propria' (or are they the same?). |
| 17849 | For two things to differ in some respect, they must both possess that respect [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: That which is different is different from something under some aspect, so that there must be something the same in respect of which they differ. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1054b26) |
| 7686 | For Aristotle, there are only as many properties as actually exist [Aristotle, by Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: In Aristotle's metaphysics of substance, there are only as many properties as actually inhere in existent spatiotemporal particulars. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], props) by Dale Jacquette - Ontology Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This would mean, oddly, that squareness ceased to be a property if the last square thing vanished. But then how do we establish the existence of unrealised properties? Is 'bigger than the biggest existent object' a property? |
| 10947 | Whiteness can be explained without man, but femaleness cannot be explained without animal [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Whiteness can be explained without man, but femaleness cannot be explained without animal. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1030b28) | |
| A reaction: This has to be a key basic distinction in any discussion of properties. But does the difference in explanation entail a difference in fundamental nature? Femaleness is structural. |
| 10956 | If we only saw bronze circles, would bronze be part of the concept of a circle? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Suppose we only ever saw bronze circles - would that make the bronze a formal part of the circle? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1036b01) | |
| A reaction: This is Aristotle spotting the problem of coextensionality (the renate/cordate problem) 2300 years ago. Don't underestimate those Greeks. |
| 8273 | Is 'the Thames is broad in London' relational, or adverbial, or segmental? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: "The Thames is broad in London" might be taken as 'The Thames is broad-in-London', or as 'The Thames is-in-London broad', or as 'The Thames-in-London is broad'. I would urge the superiority of the second one, as an analysis of the normal meaning. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 5.8) | |
| A reaction: He uses the example to attack the perdurance view of objects (i.e. the third analysis). I think I agree with Lowe, but I'm not sure, and I just love the example. Read the second as 'The Thames is (in London) broad'? 'Is' of existence, or predication? |
| 8285 | I prefer 'modes' to 'tropes', because it emphasises their dependence [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers call particularised properties of objects 'tropes', but I prefer the older term 'mode' (or 'individual accident'), because this term rightly has the implication that such entities are existentially dependent ones, depending on objects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: A nice illustration of the fact that philosophical terminology is not as metaphysically innocent as it sometimes pretends to be. I agree with Lowe. |
| 8295 | Why cannot a trope float off and join another bundle? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Why cannot a certain trope 'float free' of the trope-bundle to which it belongs and migrate to another bundle? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.8) | |
| A reaction: Tropes are said to be dependent on their possessors, but at the same time to exist as particulars. Lowe's suggestion is that you can't have it both ways. A particular sphericity with no sphere does not even make sense. |
| 8286 | Tropes cannot have clear identity-conditions, so they are not objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I do not believe that tropes or modes can have well-defined or fully determinate identity-conditions, and hence do not believe that they should be thought of as 'objects'. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: Lowe's account would still allow them to be 'entities'. Any proposal that they have an existence of their own, apart from the objects on which they depend, sounds very misguided. We won't make progress if we don't identify the real properties. |
| 8294 | How can tropes depend on objects for their identity, if objects are just bundles of tropes? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It seems that tropes are identity-dependent upon their possessors, but it is difficult to square this claim with the thesis that the possessors of tropes are themselves just bundles of tropes. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.8) | |
| A reaction: This circularity in all attempts to individuate tropes is Lowe's main reason for rejecting them. It does seem that the sphericity of a ball must be either identified against other (universal) sphericities, or by the sphere that has the property. |
| 8296 | Does a ball snug in plaster have one trope, or two which coincide? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If a round ball fits snugly into a round piece of plaster, do they contain the same roundness trope, or do they contain numerically distinct but exactly similar and coinciding roundness tropes? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.8) | |
| A reaction: A microscope would distinguish them, and they are made of different types of matter. Is a hole in a piece of paper a circular cut and a circular area of space? Neither example looks good for tropes. |
| 16113 | Potentiality is a principle of change, in another thing, or as another thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Potentiality [dunamis] is a principle of change either (a) for something else or (b) for the thing that it is in qua something else. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1046a10) | |
| A reaction: Gill emphasises that it is partly an active principle of change. It seems like an ability to affect, or to be affected. |
| 16114 | Active 'dunamis' is best translated as 'power' or 'ability' (rather than 'potentiality') [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: When Aristotle uses the word 'dunamis' in the active sense, we might prefer the translation 'power', 'ability', or 'capacity' to 'potentiality'. He uses the same word to indicate both active power and passive responsiveness. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Theta) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: This gives licence to a direct link between Aristotle's account of potential and modern ascriptions of powers in scientific essentialism. |
| 11387 | The main characteristic of the source of change is activity [energeia] [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle undoubtedly considered the central characteristic of the ultimate cause of change to be activity [energeia]. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Bk 12) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 8.8 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle identifies this, of course, with his 'God', but it strikes me that the word 'power' (as in Molnar) seems to capture Aristotle's concept. We just need some fundamental active force to get the whole shebang going. |
| 15773 | Actualities are arranged by priority, going back to what initiates process [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: One actuality always has temporal priority over another, going back to that which always, and in a primary way, initiates process. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1050b05) | |
| A reaction: I am not clear from the context whether he is referring to things which have fundamental powers, or whether he is referring to the one great First Cause. |
| 16753 | Giving the function of a house defines its actuality [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Those who propose that a house is 'a receptacle to shelter chattels and living beings', or something of the sort, speak of the actuality. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1043a16) | |
| A reaction: This, with Idea 16752, endorses the idea that the function is the essence of something. The eye is natural, the house is an artifact. This seems different from the concept of form implied elsewhere. He says materials of a house are just potential. |
| 15780 | Potentiality in geometry is metaphorical [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Potentiality in geometry is spoken of metaphorically. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1019b31) | |
| A reaction: The point here is that if one wanted to give an account of properties in an active way (perhaps in accord with causation, as Shoemaker suggests), then the properties of mathematics could also be included in this Aristotelian way. |
| 11938 | The Megarans say something is only capable of something when it is actually doing it [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There is a popular view in Megara, that x is capable of being/doing the F only when it actually is/does the F. So the non-builder is no bearer of a potentiality for building - but only when the builder is engaged in his building. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1046b28) | |
| A reaction: This Megaran view is the extreme denial of dispositions are real features of the world. They seem to reduce to mere descriptions, when the reality is the actual activity itself. Megarans would now be called 'actualists'. |
| 15766 | Megaran actualism is just scepticism about the qualities of things [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In the Megaran view, there will be nothing cold or hot or pleasant or perceptible at all unless someone is currently observing it. So this Megaran wisdom turns out to boil down to rehashed Protagoras. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1047a10) | |
| A reaction: I don't think you can defeat the rejection of modal features of reality that easily. The Megarans might, I suppose, be called verificationists. What is the semantic value of a statement about potential? |
| 15767 | Megaran actualists prevent anything from happening, by denying a capacity for it to happen! [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: I take it that anything deprived of its potential lacks capacity. But then anything not currently happening will lack the capacity to happen. ...Our brilliant Megaran friends will now have done away with all process and generation! | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1047a15) | |
| A reaction: The reply, implied in Idea 15490, is that you answer this by examining more closely exactly what is meant by a 'capacity', and showing that it can only boil to down to what is actual. |
| 11379 | Substance is not a universal, as the former is particular but a universal is shared [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The substance of each thing is something that is peculiar to each thing, not pertaining to anything else, whereas the universal is something common. Indeed, a thing is said to be a universal just if its nature pertains to a plurality. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1038b10) | |
| A reaction: This should be a warning to those who talk of the 'Aristotelian' view of properties as universals instantiated in the particulars. Once one has pinpointed the substance, the subject of predication, and the essence, no room is left for universals. |
| 12096 | Universals are indeterminate and only known in potential, because they are general [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: The notion of generality provides an explanation for Aristotle's position that the universal - every universal - is indeterminate and, hence, the object of potential knowledge. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], univs) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 5.3 | |
| A reaction: [See Idea 12095 for knowledge of potential and actual] Now you're talking! The idea that universals are central to true knowledge seems wildly misguided. All knowledge is rooted in particulars, where the highest certainties are to be found. |
| 8288 | Sortal terms for universals involve a substance, whereas adjectival terms do not [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I want to distinguish 'substantial' universals from 'non-substantial' universals. The former are denoted by sortal terms, such as 'statue' and 'tiger', whereas the latter are denoted by adjectival terms, such as 'red' and 'spherical'. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.3) | |
| A reaction: It is an interesting question whether or not (assuming you are committed to universals) a universal necessarily implies an associated substance. If a property is a power, it must be a power of something. Nominalists will deny his distinction. |
| 8293 | Real universals are needed to explain laws of nature [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I base my case for realism about universals on the need to explain the status of natural laws. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.6) | |
| A reaction: I need black magic to explain why my watch has disappeared. The key question, then, would be what we understand by the 'laws of nature'. I am inclined to think that scientific essentialism (qv) can build laws out of natural kinds. Idea 6614. |
| 649 | The acquisition of scientific knowledge is impossible without universals [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The acquisition of scientific knowledge is impossible without universals. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1086b03) |
| 12094 | No universals exist separately from particulars [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: No universal exists over and above, and separately from, the particulars. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1040b27) | |
| A reaction: [At last I have found one of Aristotle's most famous ideas!] His hallmark of a universal is that it is found in many particulars, but then we ask whether they are identical (universals) or merely resembling (tropes). |
| 8307 | Particulars are instantiations, and universals are instantiables [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A particular is something (not necessarily an object) which instantiates but is not itself instantiated. Universals, on the other hand, necessarily have instances (or, at least, are instantiable). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: This is Lowe's proposal for distinction. It at least establishes the direction of dependency, but I find the notion of 'instantiation' to be as obscure and problematic as the Platonic notion of 'partaking' (see in Ontology|Universals|Platonic Forms). |
| 10948 | Forms are said to be substances to which nothing is prior [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Suppose that there are certain substances to which neither other substances nor other natures are prior. It is such substances that certain philosophers assert the Forms to be. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1031a30) | |
| A reaction: Then there is the difficulty of explaining 'prior', which presumably must be an objective relation, not a mere priority in human understanding or explanation or definition. |
| 643 | How can the Forms both be the substance of things and exist separately from them? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: How can the Forms, while being the substances of things, have being separately from them? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1080a01) |
| 633 | If you accept Forms, you must accept the more powerful principle of 'participating' in them [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If you accept the theory of Forms, you must allow that there is also another more powerful principle. Only thus can you answer the question why something has come to participate, or is participating. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1075b18) |
| 16110 | If partaking explains unity, what causes participating, and what is participating? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: On account of the difficulty [about unity] some philosophers have espoused participation, though this plunges them into difficulties about what the cause of the participation is, or indeed what participating is anyway. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1045b07) | |
| A reaction: The target here is Plato, and I agree with the criticism. Exactly the same problems face those who talk of an object 'instantiating' a property. I have no idea what such a relationship could be. |
| 647 | There is a confusion because Forms are said to be universal, but also some Forms are separable and particular [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The root problem of the theory of Forms is that they posit Forms that are universal and at the same time Forms that are separable and therefore particular. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1086a28) |
| 9483 | Forms have to be their own paradigms, which seems to fuse the paradigm and the copy [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The Forms would have to function as paradigms not just for other entities, but also for themselves. ..But this produces an absurd fusion of the paradigm and the copy. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1079b28) | |
| A reaction: A nice succinct statement of the problem of self-predication (which leads to the Third Man regress, if we posit another Form as a paradigm of the Form we are interested in). |
| 640 | All attempts to prove the Forms are either invalid, or prove Forms where there aren't supposed to be any [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: All methods employed to demonstrate the Forms either cannot be formulated validly, or produce Forms even for those things for which there are not supposed to be any Forms. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1079a04) |
| 641 | Are there forms for everything, or for negations, or for destroyed things? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The Argument from Sciences produces Forms for every possible object of science! One-over-many arguments produce Forms for negations! The Argument from the Thought of a Perished Object gives Forms for destroyed things! | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1079a07) |
| 16108 | If men exist by participating in two forms (Animal and Biped), they are plural, not unities [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Why is man not Animal and Biped together? Then it will not be by participating in Man (or any other unity) that men exist but by doing so in two things, Animal and Biped. Then man would not be a unity but a plurality. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1045a17) | |
| A reaction: This is perhaps Aristotle's deepest metaphysical objection to the whole Plato programme, that it blocks a decent account of the unity of particulars, on which our whole understanding of the world rests. |
| 4470 | Aristotle is not asserting facts about the location of properties, but about their ontological status [Aristotle, by Moreland] |
| Full Idea: The debate between Platonists and Aristotelians about universals is not a debate about the 'location' of the properties, but about the ontological independence of the properties from their instances. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1082) by J.P. Moreland - Universals Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: Of course, assertions about their location might have strong implications about whether they were ontologically independent. |
| 605 | The Forms have to be potentialities, not actual knowledge or movement [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If there are Forms (as the purely logical thinkers claim), there must be something which is much more knowable than the Form of Knowledge, and something more fully moved than the Form of Movement. The Forms will be mere potentialities. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1050b32) |
| 645 | If two is part of three then numbers aren't Forms, because they would all be intermingled [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: On our theory two is part of three….so it will not be possible for a number to be a Form, on pain of one Form's being present in another and all Forms turning out to be parts of some one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1082b29) |
| 16145 | Predications only pick out kinds of things, not things in themselves [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: None of the things predicated in common picks out a this-thing-here, but rather such-and-such a kind. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1039a01) | |
| A reaction: He is in the process of denying that predicates pick out real substances [real being, 'ousia'], but this is clearly aimed at Plato. |
| 618 | There is no point at all in the theory of Forms unless it contains a principle that produces movement [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There is no advantage at all in the admission of eternal substances, as in the Theory of Forms, unless there is among them a principle capable of moving something else. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1071b11) |
| 642 | What possible contribution can the Forms make to perceptible entities? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What possible contribution can the Forms make to perceptible entities? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1079b08) |
| 16158 | Form and matter may not make up a concrete particular, because there are also accidents like weight [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: The concrete, particular object actually is a composite not just of matter and form, but also a large number of accidents, like size, weight, colour. So we should not assume that the composite of matter and form is identified with the concrete particular. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], partic) by Michael Frede - Substance in Aristotle's 'Metaphysics' p.74 | |
| A reaction: That gives a nice well-rounded picture of how we should understand a physical object, to fit it into the rest of our conceptual scheme, and the way we think about it. |
| 8267 | Perhaps concrete objects are entities which are in space-time and subject to causality [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: An obvious suggestion is that concrete objects are denizens of space-time, and hence subject to causality, though Hale objects that languages are plausibly abstract and yet undergo change and so presumably exist in time. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 2.10) | |
| A reaction: The identity-conditions for a language are pretty loose. Choosing a counterexample from the mental life of human beings begs a billion questions. I can't think of a problem case beyond the world of human culture. |
| 16130 | To be an object at all requires identity-conditions [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The only metaphysically defensible notion of an object is precisely that of an entity which possesses determinate identity-conditions. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: I think he includes abstract objects in this. I suspect this view of muddling epistemology and ontology. Or overemphasising our conventions, rather than reality. |
| 8265 | Our commitment to the existence of objects should depend on their explanatory value [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Whether objects of a given kind should be thought actually to exist should, in general, be taken to turn on considerations of whether an inclusion of such objects in one's ontology has explanatory value. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: Blatantly fictional objects, such as fairies, might have wonderful explanatory value (they place dewdrops on flowers). Our ontological commitments cannot be decided one at a time, because consistency of the whole picture is the key value. |
| 8275 | Objects are entities with full identity-conditions, but there are entities other than objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I distinguish objects as those entities - whether abstract or concrete, universal or particular - which possess fully determinate identity-conditions, but there are, or may be, entities other than objects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 7) | |
| A reaction: A wave on the sea is a candidate for being an entity but not an object. The distinction is probably not quite common usage, but it strikes as one which philosophers should universally adopt. Lots of entities, and some of them are objects. |
| 16086 | Objects lacking matter are intrinsic unities [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: With things that do not have matter, they are all unities of a kind simpliciter. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1045b24) | |
| A reaction: Are all abstract objects unities? Are all sets Aristotelian unities? Only the brackets unify a disparate bunch of things. Are the primes one object or many? If many, each one needs an intrinsic unity to pick it out. The group of primes lacks matter. |
| 8263 | An object is an entity which has identity-conditions [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: To be an object is simply to be an entity possessing determinate identity-conditions. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice clear-cut claim, which sounds good, except that there may be a blurring of ontology and epistemology. Presumably the conditions are for the concept, not for an actual act of identification. Maybe we are too stupid to conceive them. |
| 10945 | Some philosophers say that in some qualified way non-existent things 'are' [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers treat that is which not by making the logical point that that which is not is - not without qualification, but just that it is a thing which is not. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1030a22) | |
| A reaction: He is mainly refer to the mature works of Plato, especially 'Parmenides', in which he seems to have been mesmerised by that problem of referring to what doesn't exist. Key question: is there more than one way to 'exist'? |
| 11247 | To know a thing is to know its primary cause or explanation [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Each man has knowledge when we think that he knows the primary cause or explanation ('proté aitia'). | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0983a25) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be the best starting point for individuation. Finding the 'origin' is not quite the same as finding the cause, and finding the 'role' or 'function' is parasitic on the underlying explanation or cause. |
| 12062 | Aristotle's form improves on being non-predicable as a way to identify a 'this' [Aristotle, by Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Later in 'Metaphysics' Aristotle sees form as offering better prospects of separability and being a this, and treats separability and being a 'this' as better indicators of substancehood than not being a predicable. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], hylom) by David Wiggins - Substance 4.11.5 | |
| A reaction: 'Form' will be the word 'eidos', which is also Plato's word for his 'Forms'. I'm thinking that form will bestow individual identity, as in the snubness of a particular nose, where merely being 'a nose' only gives general identity. |
| 8268 | Some things (such as electrons) can be countable, while lacking proper identity [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: There can be determinate countability even where there is not determinate identity; it is not in dispute that there are two electrons in the shell of a neutral helium atom, even though the identity of electrons is not determinate. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: If the electrons could merge like water drops, we would be unable to say when they became one object. You can roughly count waves on the sea, but when you seek an exact total, the identity problem intrudes and prevents precise counting. |
| 8303 | Criteria of identity cannot individuate objects, because they are shared among different types [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Criteria of identity never unambiguously determine the kind of objects to which they apply, since many different types of objects can be governed by the same criteria. Cats and dogs share the criterion of identity for animals in general. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: So how do you individuate the type of an object? You could identify 'the thing I dug up yesterday' without being able to individuate it. You can individuate 'the cleverest person in Britain' without being able to identify them. |
| 8292 | Diversity of two tigers is their difference in space-time; difference of matter is a consequence [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: What really makes for the diversity of two tigers is their difference in space-time location, from which their difference in component matter at any time merely follows as a consequence. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.5) | |
| A reaction: I daresay this is how we manage to identify the diversity of a pair of tigers (epistemology), but is that what their diversity consists in (ontology)? That they employ different matter seems relevant. If you feed one, the other stays hungry (causation). |
| 16160 | For Aristotle, things are not made individual by some essential distinguishing mark [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: It just is not the case that individuals are the individuals they are by virtue of some intrinsic essential distinguishing mark. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], id) by Michael Frede - Substance in Aristotle's 'Metaphysics' p.78 | |
| A reaction: That invites the question what does distinguish qualitatively identical things from one another. I'm not sure if Aristotle even bothers about that question. |
| 16156 | Individuals within a species differ in their matter, form and motivating cause [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Even things in the same species have different causes, differing not, evidently, by species but in as much as particular things have different causes. For instance, your matter, form and motive cause are all different from mine. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1071a27) | |
| A reaction: Yes! This is the answer to my problem of the docile tiger, which has its own character, as well as the generic form of a tiger. Aristotle is firmly committed to the priority of individual over species. |
| 8291 | Individuation principles identify what kind it is; identity criteria distinguish items of the same kind [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A principle of individuation tells us what is to count as one instance of a given kind, such as one ship. A criterion of identity is what makes for the identity or diversity of items of a given kind, to distinguish this ship from that ship. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.5) | |
| A reaction: So individuation picks out type/qualitative identity, and identifying picks out token/numerical identity. This agrees with Idea 7926, but is a shift from the usage Lowe mentions in Idea 8290. Common usage makes the technical terms unclear. |
| 16163 | Aristotle says that the form is what makes an entity what it is [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: In 'Metaphysics' Z it seems that it is the form that provides the object with its identity. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Z) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Conception of Metaphysics | |
| A reaction: See Aristotle on 'Hylomorphism' for what this means. By form he means a combination of structure, dispositions and controlling principles. |
| 590 | Things are one numerically in matter, formally in their account, generically in predicates, and by analogy in relations [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Things are numerically one in matter, formally one in their account, generically one in their pattern of predication [genos], and one by analogy if related to a further one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1016b30) | |
| A reaction: Very subtle distinctions. What I like is that the notion of numerical unity is comprehensively tied to the notion of individual identity. 'To be is to be countable' may be wrong, but it is better than Quine's 'to be is to be the value of a variable' |
| 603 | How is man a unity of animal and biped, especially if the Forms of animal and of biped exist? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What makes man a unity, and not a plurality of, say, animal and biped? Especially if, as some claim, Animal Itself and Biped Itself exist. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1045a13) |
| 10949 | Primary things just are what-it-is-to-be-that-thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Our conclusion is as follows: with things that are primary and spoken of per se, the what-it-was-to-be-that-thing and the thing itself are one and the same. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1032a05) | |
| A reaction: It is tantalizing to know whether or not Aristotle has really said anything here. It might be clearer if we said 'a thing is its essence', but that may not be quite what he is saying. [P.S. V.Politis translates as 'essence'!] |
| 17838 | Things may be naturally unified because they involve an indivisible process [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Among things naturally simple those [may] have unity and priority fully whose processes are relatively indivisible and simple. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1052a20) | |
| A reaction: This is the first of four theories of unity which he offers for discussion. If the process bestows unity, you then have to judge the process as unified. If the indivisibility bestows unity, then things other than processes can be indivisible. |
| 17841 | The formal cause may be what unifies a substance [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A thing may be formally indivisible, something cognitively and scientifically indivisible. Hence what cause substances to be single things should be thought of as the primary unity. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1052a31) | |
| A reaction: This is his fourth and final proposal for unity, and it is obviously his preferred theory, because it is the hylomorphic view, that the form or nature of the thing bestows the unity. It is sort of right, but a rather thin theory as it stands. |
| 17840 | A unity may just be a particular, a numerically indivisible thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: [A thing may be unified because it is] the numerically indivisible, the particular. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1052a30) | |
| A reaction: One of four possible theories of unity. This one seems to beg the question, or only to offer unity as a primitive, unanalysable concept. Only abstract objects strike us as utterly indivisible. |
| 17860 | Things are unified by contact, mixture and position [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Some things are one by contact, some by mixture, and some by position. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1082a16) | |
| A reaction: So if several things are stuck together, or mixed together, or in the same location, that can unify them? They sound rather weak modes of unification. |
| 13272 | Things are one to the extent that they are indivisible [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In general those things that do not admit of division [diairesis] are one insofar as they do not admit of it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1016b03) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle gives a man, an animal and a magnitude as examples. The interesting thing here is that being 'one' seems to come in degrees, where most metaphysicians long for oneness to be an absolute. |
| 17842 | Indivisibility is the cause of unity, either in movement, or in the account or thought [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The reason why all things are unities is indivisibility. In some, it is indivisibility with regard to movement, in others with regard to thought and the account. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1052a35) | |
| A reaction: This is puzzling, since Aristotle wasn't an atomist, and therefore thought that everything was endlessly divisible. He might better have said that unified things 'strongly resist division'. |
| 17839 | Some things are unified by their account, which rests on a unified thought about the thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Other things get to be unities by dint of the fact that the account [logos] of them is single, ...a thought about which is a single thought, ...which is an indivisible thought, ..which is a thought about a formally or numerically indivisible object. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1052a28) | |
| A reaction: This highlights the distinction between things that seem intrinsically unified, and things on which we bestow unity. But note that towards the end of the quotation Aristotle elides the two together. |
| 12076 | Substance is prior in being separate, in definition, and in knowledge [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Aristotelian substance is prior in three ways: it is prior to nonsubstance in being separate, it is prior in definition, and it is prior in knowledge. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ousia) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 2.4 | |
| A reaction: 'Being separate' means it doesn't dependent on anything else, so it is prior because it is fundamental, in relations of ontological dependence. |
| 11284 | It is wrong to translate 'ousia' as 'substance' [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: It is wrong to translate 'ousia' as 'substance', or 'proté ousia' as 'primary substance'. 'Substance' is a particular answer to the question 'What is proté ousia?' The Latin 'substantia' means 'that which lies under', translating 'to hupokeimenon'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], subst) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 7.1 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be rather important in the exegesis of Aristotle's metaphysics, but Politis seems to hold a minority view, even though what he says here is very persuasive. |
| 11231 | 'Ousia' is 'primary being' not 'primary substance' [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: We choose to translate 'proté ousia' (often simply 'ousia') as 'primary being' and not as 'primary substance'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ousia) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.3 | |
| A reaction: His point, explained later, is that the idea that 'ousia' is substance is a theory being proposed by Aristotle, not the meaning of the word. |
| 592 | The baffling question of what exists is asking about the nature of substance [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers have endlessly discussed and been baffled by the question 'What is that which is?' Now this question just is the question 'What is substance (ousia)?' | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1028b04) | |
| A reaction: Vasilis Politis says 'ousia' is 'primary being'. 'Substance' is a theory about the nature of primary being. |
| 569 | If substance is the basis of reality, then philosophy aims to understand substance [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If, in the case of things that are, the primary object is substance, then we can state the fundamental duty of the philosopher: it is to gain possession of the principles and causes of substances. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1003b19) |
| 615 | The Pre-Socratics were studying the principles, elements and causes of substance [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The enquiries of the pre-Socratic philosophers were really into the principles, elements and causes of substance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1069a20) |
| 599 | We may have to postulate unobservable and unknowable substances [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It may well be necessary that certain unobserved substances exist as it is, even if we cannot know which they are. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1041a02) |
| 16778 | Mature Aristotle sees organisms as the paradigm substances [Aristotle, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's mature ontology takes biological organisms as its paradigm substances. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 26.1 | |
| A reaction: 'Mature' is here to eliminate 'Categories' where, I take it, any coherent object counts as a substance, with the categories giving the essence. Organism are more clearly categorised, but that's all. Van Inwagen makes this idea a key one. |
| 16084 | Is a primary substance a foundation of existence, or the last stage of understanding? [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: In Categories a primary substance has ontological priority, where other things depend on its existence, ..but in Metaphysics he emphasizes conceptual priority, where the primary is what is understood through itself (a definable unity). | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], book) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Intro | |
| A reaction: Interesting for my view of essence as rooted in explanation. It is the Metaphysics version that appeals to me. A metaphysics is constructed from our modes of understanding. 'Concavity' is his example of a primary unity. |
| 600 | Elements and physical objects are substances, but ideas and mathematics are not so clear [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Fire, earth, water and air, and other simple bodies are agreed to be substances, as are plants, plant parts, animals, animal parts, and the heavens and their parts. Forms and mathematicals are more controversial. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1042a07) |
| 595 | It is matter that turns out to be substance [ousia] [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: On this account as it stands, it is matter that turns out to be substance [ousia] | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1029a10) |
| 11299 | Substance [ousia] is the subject of predication and cause [aitia?] of something's existence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Things are said to be substance [ousia] because, far from being predicated of some subject, other things are predicated of them; in another way, for an intrinsic thing, it is the cause of being for it, as the soul is for the animal | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1017a13-23) | |
| A reaction: This passage is used by M. Woods and others to argue that Aristotle has two different meanings for 'ousia' [substance, being]. Vasilis Politis argues against this view (pp.228). Aristotle is probably making two observations about a single thing. |
| 12060 | Essence (fixed by definition) is also 'ousia', so 'ousia' is both ultimate subject, and a this-thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The essence (to ti en einai), whose account (logos) is a definition, is also said to be the substance (ousia) of the particular. So there are two accounts of 'ousia' - as ultimate subject (hupokeimenon), never predicated of others, or as a this (tode ti). | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1017a22-) | |
| A reaction: This slightly muddling assertion seems to be a report of how people use 'ousia', rather than Aristotle's theory. Attempts to translate this idea into English make fascinating reading! Hang on to the Greek, or you'll never get the hang of it! |
| 10941 | A substance is what-it-is-to-be, or the universal, or the genus, or the subject of saying [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The substance of a particular thing is variously held to be that which it was to be that thing, or the universal, or the genus, or the subject, which is that of which other entities are said, but is never itself being said-of anything else. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1028b30) | |
| A reaction: This formulation sounds worryingly verbal to me, but I don't suppose Aristotle meant it entirely that way. |
| 11290 | Matter is not substance, because substance needs separability and thisness [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It may seem that matter is substance, but this cannot be so, because what we think to be the central features of substance are separability and thisness. Then it seems more plausible to say that the form and the composite are substance than matter is. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1029a27) | |
| A reaction: This is an important basic point, because modern materialism takes matter (of some sort) to be basic, but Aristotle seems to take identity (and form and essence) to be basic, and matter to be merely at their service. |
| 10959 | The substance is the form dwelling in the object [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The substance is the form dwelling in the object, and from it the substance that is a composite of the form and of matter is said to be a substance. So concavity is a substance, the composite of which and of nose are snub nose and snubness. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1037a29) | |
| A reaction: So there is simple substance [ousia?] and composite substance. Notice the startling example that concavity is a substance. Think hard about that. Substance, but not as we know it, Jim. |
| 12093 | Substance is unified and universals are diverse, so universals are not substance [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's argument is that if we understand the substance of a thing to be that which unifies it, and if we understand that a universal is predicated of many things, then we will see that a universal cannot be the substance of a thing. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1038b1-15) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle | |
| A reaction: Presumably if universals are predicated of something, or something 'partakes' of the universal, then we want to know about the 'something', not about the universal. But do we end up with substances being 'bare particulars'? |
| 12362 | A thing's substance is its primary cause of being [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The substance of each thing ...is the primary cause of being for it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1041b27) | |
| A reaction: Wedin says that here Aristotle announces this 'with finality'. This is 'for each thing', and hence is essence at the level of the individual, not of the kind. Identifying the 'cause of being' of a thing is taken to be its best possible explanation. |
| 607 | None of the universals can be a substance [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: None of the universals can be a substance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1053b13) |
| 11233 | In Aristotle, 'proté ousia' is 'primary being', and 'to hupokeimenon' is 'that which lies under' (or 'substance') [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: The claim that 'proté ousia' is substance is a particular answer to 'What is proté ousia?', so 'substance' is not what it means. The Latin 'substantia' translates Aristotle's 'to hupokeimenon' ('that which lies under'). | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ousia) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.3 | |
| A reaction: It seems that in 'Categories' Aristotle identified 'primary being' with 'that which lies under', but the notion of 'essence' comes into the picture in 'Metaphysics'. Big problems of textual exegesis. |
| 12079 | Substance is distinct being because of its unity [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle holds that substances are distinct from other beings by virtue of their high degree of unity. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ousia) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 4 | |
| A reaction: It seems to me that the notion of 'substance' (translating 'ousia' thus) can't mean anything more than 'being with identity'. Then 'essence' is offered as that which bestows the identity on the being. |
| 16128 | A 'substance' is an object which doesn't depend for existence on other objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A 'substance' might be defined to be an object which does not depend for its existence upon any other object (where dependency is defined in terms of necessity. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to leave out 'substance', which has too much historical baggage, and talk of minimal things having 'identity', and proper things having 'essence'. |
| 10951 | The statue is not called 'stone' but 'stoney' [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The statue is not called 'stone' but 'stoney'. ...The building is said to be 'bricked', not 'bricks'. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1033a08) | |
| A reaction: We have the same distinction in English (best expressed as 'made of stone'). The point is that in thought we identify a statue as primarily something other than the stone of which it is made, though that may not prove anything about reality. |
| 16096 | Statues depend on their bronze, but bronze doesn't depend on statues [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: The form of a statue depends upon bronze (or some similar stuff) for its existence, while the bronze has no comparable need for the form of the statue. The bronze can exist before acquiring the form, and continue after the form has been removed. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Z.3) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Some would cite this as precisely the modal difference between them that seems to suggest they are two objects. I would say that their different status shows that they shouldn't be thought of as two 'objects'. An object with two natures? |
| 16085 | Primary matter and form make a unity, one in potentiality, the other in actuality [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The last [primary] matter and the shape-form [morphe] are the same and a unity, the one in potentiality and the other in actuality. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1045b19) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be exactly the statue/clay problem, that they have different modal properties, although coinciding in actuality. |
| 11285 | The form of a thing is its essence and its primary being [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: By form [eidos] I mean the essence [to ti en einai] of each thing and its primary being [prote ousia]. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1032b01) | |
| A reaction: [Tr. Vasilis Politis. Lawson-Tancred has 'what-it-was-to-be-that-thing' instead of 'essence', and 'substance' instead of 'being']. This may be the single most important sentence in 'Metaphysics' for understanding his theory of being. Cf. 'formal cause'. |
| 11251 | Plato says changing things have no essence; Aristotle disagrees [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Plato argues that changing things, even if they are somehow real, do not have an essence; but Aristotle argues that changing things have a changeless essence. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.4 |
| 12345 | In 'Metaphysics' Z substantial primacy (as form) is explanatory rather than ontological [Aristotle, by Wedin] |
| Full Idea: In 'Metaphysics' Z substantial primacy, in the guise of form, has an explanatory rather than an ontological role. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE]) by Michael V. Wedin - Aristotle's Theory of Substance Intro | |
| A reaction: I take this to be the correct way to understand Aristotle, and the correct way to understand the concept of essence. We don't observe essences, but the concept of essence is forced upon us when we seek the best explanation of things. |
| 16147 | In 'Metaphysics' substantial forms take over from objects as primary [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Though he retains objects from the 'Categories', in 'Metaphysics' these yield their status as primary substances to their substantial forms. Concrete particulars are now secondary, and that which underlies everything is the substantial form. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], book) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
| A reaction: Frede says he moved from realism about substances to nominalism. Presumably substances within objects are real concreta, but forms are abstract, leaving the the object as a purely material thing. |
| 12084 | Essential form is neither accidental nor necessary to matter, so it appears not to be a property [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Form is not an accidental property of matter, and it is not a necessary property of matter. These considerations make it unlikely that Aristotle holds form or essence to be a property of matter in the composite substance. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 4.5 | |
| A reaction: I suppose form bestows the identity, and the identity gives rise to the properties. But you don't create identity on Monday, and add the properties on Tuesday, so forming an entity and giving it properties seem to coincide. |
| 16119 | Aristotle's cosmos is ordered by form, and disordered by matter [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: The Aristotelian universe is a world of tension and commotion - ordered and preserved by form, disordered by matter. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], hylom) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.7 | |
| A reaction: This connects Aristotle quite strongly with presocratic predecessors like Heraclitus and Empedocles. But then it fits perfectly with modern discussions of entropy, and the forces that hold entropy back. |
| 16148 | Aristotle moved from realism to nominalism about substances [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's earlier 'Categories' theory of substance, and his later 'Metaphysics' theory, are radically different. The first is realistic, and the second nominalistic. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ousia) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
| A reaction: Frede claims that 'Categories' is clearly earlier. It is certainly profoundly different from 'Metaphysics'. |
| 16112 | A substance is a proper subject because the matter is a property of the form, not vice versa [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: In Aristotle's theory a substantial form can count as a proper subject, since the generic matter of which the form is predicated is in fact a property of the form rather than the form's being a property of it. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ousia) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure if I understand the idea of matter being the 'property' of a form, but 'matter' [hule] seems to be a particular way of thinking about stuff when it participates in an object, rather than just the amorphous stuff. Just 'predicated of'? |
| 12002 | Aristotle doesn't think essential properties are those which must belong to a thing [Aristotle, by Kung] |
| Full Idea: Aristotelian essentialism is not correctly portrayed as the view that an essential property is such that it must belong to everything to which it belongs at all. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], props) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation VII | |
| A reaction: The view I am arriving at is that essences are rather fluid things, which change their balance and constitution continually. Old people differ essentially from their younger selves. Chemical natural kinds have stable essences, but that is contingent. |
| 16164 | Forms of sensible substances include unrealised possibilities, so are not fully actual [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: The forms of sensible substances are not pure actualities; they in part are constituted by unrealized possibilities and in that sense are not fully real. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Z) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Conception of Metaphysics p.90 | |
| A reaction: Frede suggests that the form of the Unmoved Mover is the ideal case, because it is fully actual. I like the present idea, because it includes modal truths (i.e. dispositions and powers) in the form which gives a thing its nature. |
| 12071 | Essences are not properties (since those can't cause individual substances) [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: An essence is not a property (or a cluster of properties) of the substance whose essence it is, ...because no property (no Aristotelian property) can be the cause of being of an actual individual substance. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle Intro | |
| A reaction: This is the third of Witt's three unorthodox theses, mainly in defence of individual essences in Aristotle. The first two seem to me to be correct, and the third one is interesting. I'm inclined to think that essences are powers, found below properties. |
| 16095 | Some forms, such as the Prime Mover, are held by Aristotle to exist without matter [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's theory also includes a special group of forms that can exist without matter, of which the Prime Mover is an instance, and these forms are separate not only in account but also in existence. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch 1 | |
| A reaction: I am curious about her other examples. This must be the closest that Aristotle gets to his teacher's view of the Forms. |
| 15853 | A true substance is constituted by some nature, which is a principle [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Only those objects are substances which are being constituted under, and by, some nature, ..so that this nature, which is a principle rather than an element, is their substance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1041b31) | |
| A reaction: My view is that Aristotle never got to the point of articulating his hylomorphism, so this is just him fishing around, and pointing to where others should investigate. What sort of 'principle'? |
| 16109 | Things are a unity because there is no clash between potential matter and actual shape/form [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The problem of unity disappears if our account is adopted. We allow a matter component and a shape/form component, one existing potentially the other in actuality. …The account is of a unity because one component is material, the other shape/form. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1045a24) | |
| A reaction: It sounds as though the solution is that matter is material and form is abstract, so there is no rivalry. Elsewhere form seems more like a mechanism or a set of powers. |
| 16088 | Aristotle's solution to the problem of unity is that form is an active cause or potentiality or nature [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: The solution to the problem of unity will finally depend upon Aristotle's doctrine of form as an active cause, or, as he refers to form within his broader theory of potentiality and actuality, an active potentiality [dunamis] or nature [phusis]. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], hylom) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Intro | |
| A reaction: Her intermediate proposal to the solution of the problem in Idea 16083 is that matter only survives through change potentially and not actually. |
| 12301 | Every distinct thing has matter, as long as it isn't an essence or a Form [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Everything has a sort of matter [hule], provided only that it is not a what-it-was-to-be-that-thing [ti en einai] and a per se Form Itself [eidos auto kath' auto] but a possessor of thisness [tode ti]. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1037a01) | |
| A reaction: Kit Fine quotes this to support the claim that Aristotelian 'matter' is not confined to physical objects. Aristotle's essence is the form which imposes identity on the matter. |
| 16092 | In Aristotle, bronze only becomes 'matter' when it is potentially a statue [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle implies that matter is parasitic on the being of what it potentially is. …Hence if something is treated as bronze it is regarded as a composite and not as matter; only if it is treated as potentially a statue is it regarded as matter. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], matter) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Note the distinction we should make of bronze as indeterminate 'stuff', and a lump of specific bronze, which might be a precondition for casting a statue. On Gill's reading, Greek 'matter' is much more specific than the modern word. |
| 12300 | Aristotle's conception of matter applies to non-physical objects as well as physical objects [Aristotle, by Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's conception of matter is comprehensive in its scope. It applies, not merely to physical, but also to non-physical objects; for they may have non-physical objects as their matter. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], matter) by Kit Fine - Aristotle on Matter §1 | |
| A reaction: My plea about bizarre ontological claims is always 'If you claim it exists, tell me what it is made of!' This Aristotle chap now offers them an instant answer to which I have no reply. They are made of 'matter', but not as we know it, Jim. |
| 12077 | Aristotle's matter is something that could be the inner origin of a natural being's behaviour [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's notion of matter, unlike ours, is of something that could be the inner origin of a natural being's behaviour. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], matter) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 3.1 | |
| A reaction: This conforms with my idea of matter, as something active, containing powers, not some inert stuff waiting for the hand of God to bring it into life. |
| 12103 | Matter is secondary, because it is potential, determined by the actuality of form [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's characterization of matter as potentiality and of form as actuality means that the form or essence determines what the matter is. So matter does not have any independent contribution to make to the definition and essence of the substance. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], matter) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 6.2 | |
| A reaction: We might say that of the wood which constitutes a lectern, but in the case of a magnet it seems that we are directly encountering the powers of the matter. ...though you might say that iron is the matter and magnetisation the form? |
| 597 | Is there a house over and above its bricks? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Is there a house over and above its bricks? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1033b19) |
| 8279 | The identity of composite objects isn't fixed by original composition, because how do you identify the origin? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It is not at all clear that the identity of a composite object can be fixed by the identity of its original composition, since there are good grounds for claiming that the reverse is in fact the case. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 7.5) | |
| A reaction: That is, how could you identify the origin if you didn't know what it was that had originated? Nice point. See also Idea 8274. Vicars must make sure they baptise the right baby. |
| 10962 | It is unclear whether Aristotle believes in a propertyless subject, his 'ultimate matter' [Aristotle, by Lawson-Tancred] |
| Full Idea: A subject which has no properties of its own at all is called by Aristotle 'ultimate matter', and it is hotly disputed whether Aristotle acknowledges that such matter exists. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1029a) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Introductions to 'Metaphysics' p.174 |
| 16142 | A substrate is either a 'this' supporting qualities, or 'matter' supporting actuality [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There are two ways of being a substrate [to hupokeimenon], either as possessor of thisness (as the animal is a substrate for its properties) or as matter is a substrate for the actuality. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1038b05) | |
| A reaction: A bit confusing, since the possessor of thisness will obviously have what we call 'identity', whereas matter cannot have identity on its own (because it also needs form). |
| 16103 | A subject can't be nothing, so it must qualify as separate, and as having a distinct identity [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: To avoid the outcome (possible in 'Categories') that the subject might be nothing at all, Aristotle insists that a legitimate subject must be separate and a 'this' [tode ti]. Forms and composites satisfy the revised criterion in different ways. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Z.3) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: I take it that we would say that a 'this' is an entity which possesses 'identity', and is perhaps countable. For Aristotle being a 'this' seems to require a possibility of definition. This is a powerful Aristotelian thought, needed in modern metaphysics. |
| 16575 | Something must pre-exist any new production [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible that anything should be produced if there were nothing existing before. Obviously then some part of the result will pre-exist of necessity. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1032b30) | |
| A reaction: This is arguing for a substrate on the basis of the ex nihilo principle. Creation needs raw materials as a basis. This may be the obscure 'prime matter'. |
| 10942 | If you extract all features of the object, what is left over? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If you extract all other features of the object, what is revealed as being left over? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1029a10) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the key question in matters of identity, which leads us to talk of substrata, or essences, or substance, none of which seem graspable. |
| 13274 | The contents of an explanatory formula are parts of the whole [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The contents of the formula which explains a thing are parts of the whole. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1023a24) | |
| A reaction: This is part of a catalogue of ways in which things can be parts [1023b08-25]. I like this, because it fits my general thesis, that the desire for explanation is the driving force behind our metaphysics. |
| 15852 | A 'whole' (rather than a mere 'sum') requires an internal order which distinguishes it [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In the case of a quantity that has a beginning, a middle and an end, there are those instances in which the order does not create a differentia, which are said to be 'sums', and those is which it does, which are said to be 'wholes'. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1024a01-5) | |
| A reaction: This is the reason why Aristotle is so much better than the run-of-the-mill naďve modern metaphysician. |
| 15840 | If a syllable is more than its elements, is the extra bit also an element? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The syllable is something - not only its elements (the vowel and the consonant) but also something else; ...that something must itself be either an element or composed of elements. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1041b16-19) | |
| A reaction: This pinpoints the key initial question, not just about the claims of 'holism', but about the whole puzzle of what give objects their identity? |
| 16136 | A syllable is something different from its component vowels and consonants [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The syllable is something in its own right, not just a heap of vowel and consonant but something different. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1041b16) | |
| A reaction: This is the classic Greek example of a whole, and a slogan for claims that wholes are not merely collections of parts. |
| 12878 | Wholes are continuous, rigid, uniform, similar, same kind, similar matter [Aristotle, by Simons] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle gives certain samples of 'hanging together', notably continuity, rigidity, uniformity, qualitative similarity, being of a like kind, being of like matter. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1015b05-) by Peter Simons - Parts 8.1 | |
| A reaction: Families are scattered, lakes aren't rigid, cakes aren't uniform, complex gadgets have dissimilar parts, two kinds can be united, and only boring things are made of one sort of matter. Nice try, though. Simons rightly adds causation. |
| 11199 | Aristotelian essence underlies behaviour, or underlies definition, or is the source of existence [Aristotle, by Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle calls a substance a nature. This expresses essence as what underlies a thing's characteristic behaviour, whereas whatness expresses it as underlying the definition, and essence refers to it as that through which and in which it has existence. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE]) by Thomas Aquinas - De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) p.92 | |
| A reaction: I don't really understand the third one, unless it is what gives something its identity, which probably then reduces to the second one. The big choice is between essence explaining behaviour and essence explaining definition. Interesting. |
| 12304 | Aristotelian essence is retained with identity through change, and bases our scientific knowledge [Aristotle, by Copi] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, the essential properties of an object are those which are retained by it during any change through which the object remains identifiable; and they are the properties which are most important in our scientific knowledge of it. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE]) by Irving M. Copi - Essence and Accident p.712 | |
| A reaction: This pioneering thought of Copi's (at least, he was a pioneer in that he read Aristotle properly) strikes me as the key to understanding the concept of essence. |
| 11294 | Aristotle says changing, material things (and not just universals) have an essence [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle wanted to argue (against Plato) that changing, material things, and not only universals that are true of them, have an essence. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 7.5 | |
| A reaction: This is the huge idea which Aristotle contributes to our understanding of the world, and which I take to be one of the most important ideas in philosophy (though I accept that defending essences is a little precarious). |
| 11298 | Are essences actually universals? [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Some critics say that Aristotle conceives of essences as universals. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 7.5 | |
| A reaction: [He cites M.Woods for this view] Politis opposes this view of Aristotle, and I think I do (with limited scholarship!). It seems to be an unorthodox view when discussing Aristotelian essences, but a very common view when discussing properties. |
| 12099 | Aristotelian essences are causal, not classificatory [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: The primary role of essences in Aristotle's theory of substance is causal, rather than classificatory. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 5.4 | |
| A reaction: This is the nicest summary of the view which I wish to champion. Classification results from patterns of causation, just as laws of nature result from regularities in the behaviour of causal powers. |
| 17846 | The essence of a single thing is the essence of a particular [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The what-it-was-to-be-that-thing [to ti en einai] for a single thing is what-it-was-to-be-that-thing for a particular. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1054a16) | |
| A reaction: This seems to give clear support for the view I favour, that Aristotle believes in individual essences, and not just generic kinds. |
| 12311 | Particulars are not definable, because they fluctuate [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Particular perceptible substances are excluded from definition. ...An object that admits of being in a variety of states is an object of opinion, and thus incontrovertibly not of definition. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1039b30) | |
| A reaction: This more or less demolishes my original reading of Aristotle, so back to the drawing board. We need to revise Aristotle. He says differentiae home in the individual but never get there. I (now) say cross-referencing of universals gets you there. |
| 12069 | Essence is the cause of individual substance, and creates its unity [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle describes form or essence as the cause of there being an actual individual substance, and as the cause of its being a unity rather than a heap. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle Intro | |
| A reaction: Wiggins defends the species-essence view (Idea 12068) by preferring the 'secondary substance' account in 'Categories' to Aristotle's ideas about 'form' which emerge later in 'Metaphysics'. I prefer Witt to Wiggins. |
| 12070 | Individual essences are not universals, since those can't be substances, or cause them [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle the essences of individual substances are individual rather than universal, ...since nothing universal can be a substance, nor can it be a principle or cause of a substance. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle Intro | |
| A reaction: This is the second of Witt's three theses which she offers in opposition to the orthodox interpretation of Aristotle, and again I think she is right. |
| 12088 | Aristotelian essence is not universal properties, but individual essence [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: We should replace the traditional interpretation of Aristotelian essences - as clusters of universal properties - with an interpretation according to which an essence is an individual substance, though not a composite or sensible substance. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 5 | |
| A reaction: I get the impression that this is a growing view amongst Aristotle scholars, which really ruins a widespread view which I associate with Wiggins, that essences are to do with categories, sortals and kinds. I associate essences with explanations. |
| 11998 | Aristotle does not accept individual essences; essential properties are always general [Aristotle, by Kung] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle does not label 'essential' what are now called 'individual essences'. The properties which belong essentially to an individual are always general properties, capable of belonging to more than one thing. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation IV | |
| A reaction: [She offers four references from 'Metaphysics' in support] I think I want to disagree with Aristotle on this one (gulp). Thus his essential properties are one-over-many - his version of universals. I say individuals explain universals, and are prior. |
| 12083 | Aristotle's essence explains the existence of an individual substance, not its properties [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's notion of form or essence is meant to explain why there is an individual substance there at all, not what features constitute the identity of a given individual substance within a domain of individual substances. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], hylom) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 4.4 | |
| A reaction: I begin to think that the notion of 'essence' is extremely useful in aiding our grasp of reality, but the notion of 'substance' is not. We can just talk of 'identity', without implying some stuff that constitutes that identity. Essence is powers. |
| 11382 | Aristotle takes essence and form as a particular, not (as some claim) as a universal, the species [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: It seems that Aristotle thinks that the essence and the form is a particular, ...though a very different interpretation argues that, for Aristotle, the essence and form of a changing, material thing is a universal, namely the species of the thing. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], partic) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 7.5 | |
| A reaction: I am fairly thoroughly persuaded that Politis's view (the first half of this idea) is the correct interpretation, and it is certainly the one I find more congenial. The second one I associate with the erroneous idea of sortal essentialism, as in Wiggins. |
| 16097 | To be a subject a thing must be specifiable, with some essential properties [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle shows that, for something to be a subject at all, it must be specifiable as something in itself, with essential properties that are mentioned in its defining account, since no subject can be the bearer of accidental properties alone. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Z.3) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This is Aristotle supporting the very modern necessary-properties view of essentialism. Notice that it emerges from being 'specifiable' - that is, from Aristotle's requirement that a logos and definition be available. He rejects bare particulars. |
| 12091 | If definition is of universals, many individuals have no definition, and hence no essence [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: If definition is of the universal rather than of the particular, ...it begins to appear that individual material substances do not have definitions and, hence, do not have essences at all. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], partic) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 5.1 | |
| A reaction: This is a very challenging claim against my own defence (and Witt's) of individual essences. In switching to individual essences, one has to make them unstable and variable, and lacking necessity, and hence maybe not essential. |
| 11292 | Things have an essence if their explanation is a definition [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A what-it-was to-be-that-thing only belongs to those things for whom an account just is a definition. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1030a06) | |
| A reaction: That seems to be that 'to ti en einai' (aka essence) only has a 'logos' if it has a 'horismos'. It seems that having a definition as its account is a necessary condition for an essence, but not sufficient. It looks to me as if essence must be explanatory. |
| 10963 | A thing's essence is what is mentioned in its definition [Aristotle, by Lawson-Tancred] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle believes that the essence of a thing is those per se features of it that are mentioned in a definition. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1030a02) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Introductions to 'Metaphysics' p.177 | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 11291. |
| 11287 | Essence is what is stated in the definition [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, the essence of a thing is what is stated in the definition of that thing. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], defs) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 7.5 |
| 11188 | The Aristotelian view is that the essential properties are those that sort an object [Aristotle, by Marcus (Barcan)] |
| Full Idea: The Aristotelian view is that essential properties sort entities in some fashion. ...Being an entity, or being self-identical, or being a unity, fail to sort Socrates from anything else, but being identical with Socrates sorted him from everything. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], props) by Ruth Barcan Marcus - Essential Attribution p.196 | |
| A reaction: [She cites Daniel Bennett 1969 for this] This doesn't feel right. I take it that sorting things is posterior to discovering that they have different causal powers, as with H2O and XYZ, or jadeite and nephrite. |
| 11291 | A thing's essence is its intrinsic nature [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The what-it-was-to-be-that-thing [to ti en einai, essence] is, for each thing, what it is taken to be [kath' hauto, in virtue of itself] per se. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1029b13) | |
| A reaction: [Translations is brackets from Vasilis Politis] Aristotle's other definition of essence is in terms of definition - Idea 10963 and Idea 11292. |
| 12098 | An essence causes both its own unity and its kind [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The what-it-was-to-be-that-thing [to ti en einai] is a unity of a kind straight off, just as it is a being of a kind. And that is why none of these things has some other cause of their being a unity, any more than they do of their being a being of a kind. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1045b04) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the key importance of the notion of essence - it is what both bestows unity on things in the world (which is basic to ontology and epistemology), and what enables us to categorise things (basic to epistemology). |
| 10964 | Having an essence is the criterion of being a substance [Aristotle, by Lawson-Tancred] |
| Full Idea: For Aristotle, having an essence is the criterion of being a substance. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1030a) by Hugh Lawson-Tancred - Introductions to 'Metaphysics' p.178 |
| 15107 | Aristotle doesn't see essential truths or essential properties as necessary [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle did not subscribe to the modal conception of essence. The essential truths are not even included among the necessary truths; and the essential features of an object are similarly not included among its necessary features. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - Essence, Necessity and Explanation 13.1 | |
| A reaction: I take this point to be hugely important. There is no real role for essences in metaphysics if they are not of the Aristotelian type. The necessities just lead you to trivialities, or to conventions. Aristotelian essences lead you to facts. |
| 11244 | Metaphysics is the science of ultimate explanation, or of pure existence, or of primary existence [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: In 'Metaphysics' Aristotle characterises metaphysics in three ways: as the science of the first or ultimate explanation of things; as the science of being qua being; and the science of primary being ('ousia'). | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], book) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.1 | |
| A reaction: I am a bit baffled about how anything worthwhile can be said about 'being qua being', but the other two seem worth pursuing, and may boil down to the same thing. |
| 16143 | It is absurd that a this and a substance should be composed of a quality [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Is it not impossible, even outrageous, that a this and a substance (even if it can be composed of constituents) should be composed not of substances and the this-thing-here but of a quality? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1038b25) | |
| A reaction: This is to show Aristotle's deep hostility to anyone who thinks an essence is just a set of special properties (and the 'anyone' means just about anyone these days). |
| 16106 | Generalities like man and horse are not substances, but universal composites of account and matter [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Man and horse and items similarly imposed on the particulars but themselves general are not substances but a kind of composite of the relevant account in the relevant matter, considered universally. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1035b27) | |
| A reaction: Notice that these concepts are 'imposed' on particulars. This seems close to Locke's 'nominal' essence. It take this quotation to reinforce the priority of the particular in Aristotle's account. |
| 16144 | Genera are not substances, and do not exist apart from the ingredient species [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If 'man' and any other item similarly specified is a substance, then none of the contents of the account of man is a substance of anything. 'Animal', for instance, does not exist over and above particular animals. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1038b31) | |
| A reaction: [I think 'particular animals' refers to species, not individuals, here] I take it as self-evident that this implies that species do not exist, apart from the individuals that constitute them. |
| 12359 | 'Categories' answers 'what?' with species, genus, differerentia; 'Met.' Z.17 seeks causal essence [Aristotle, by Wedin] |
| Full Idea: Although what-is-it [ti esti] questions serve the classificatory project in 'Categories', they are no help in the causal enquiries of 'Metaphysics' Z.17. The essence of interest can't be the species or the differentia-cum-genus complex. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1041a05-b36) by Michael V. Wedin - Aristotle's Theory of Substance X.4 | |
| A reaction: Wedin's view is that these are compatible. The implication is that the nature of essence depends entirely on what it is you want to explain. Explain the category, or explain the behaviour? |
| 12068 | Standardly, Aristotelian essences are taken to be universals of the species [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: The standard interpretation holds that Aristotelian essences are species-essences, which are universal essences shared by all members of the same species. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle Intro | |
| A reaction: Her aim is to refute this standard view, in defence of the view that Aristotle really wanted to pinpoint individual essences. I think Witt is correct. |
| 16141 | In 'Met.' he says genera can't be substances or qualities, so aren't in the ontology [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: In the central books of 'Metaphysics' there are no longer any genera or species. In Z.13 he argues that genera and universals can't be substances. Since genera are not qualities either, they disappear completely from the ontology. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Z.13) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
| A reaction: Music to my ears. It is so obvious to me that creatures are classified into genera, so genera can't exist separately, that I am bewildered anyone would believe or imply it. |
| 16508 | Things are more unified if the unity comes from their own nature, not from external force [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: More unified is whatever is a whole with a certain shape and form, especially if it is by nature and not by force (e.g. by gluing or nailing or tying up), when, that is, it contains in itself the cause of its being continuous. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1052a24) | |
| A reaction: [see also Phys 192b] This is about the only principle available for saying why the essence of an artefact is lesser than a natural essence. The healing of wounds shows that animals have a greater unity than tables? |
| 16117 | The hallmark of an artefact is that its active source of maintenance is external [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: There is a critical line to be drawn between those entities whose active source of maintenance is internal and those whose source is external. This is the chief line that Aristotle draws between organisms and artefacts. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.7 | |
| A reaction: Plants need water and sunlight, so I'm not sure that this marks the line quite clearly enough. |
| 12092 | Aristotle claims that the individual is epistemologically prior to the universal [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle could have claimed that the universal is prior to the individual in the epistemic realm, but the individual is prior in the realm of being. ...Instead, he claims that the individual is epistemologically prior to the universal. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], partic) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 5.1 | |
| A reaction: This point strikes me as fairly self-evident. We only learn about the universal by induction from the individuals. |
| 12090 | Actual knowledge is of the individual, and potential knowledge of the universal [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle resolves his aporia about substances and universals by distinguishing between actual knowledge, which is of the individual, and potential knowledge, which is of the universal. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], potent) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle | |
| A reaction: [See Witt 145-9 for the aporia] A vital piece in the jigsaw I am assembling. I connect this way of thinking with modern modal thinking, and actual and possible worlds. It obviously results in individual essences taking priority. |
| 16159 | For animate things, only the form, not the matter or properties, must persist through change [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: If we analyze an ordinary physical object into matter, form and properties, the only item in the case of animate objects that has to stay the same as long as we can talk about the same thing is, on his account, the form. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], change) by Michael Frede - Substance in Aristotle's 'Metaphysics' p.76 | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that might work for inanimate natural things, and for artefacts, to a considerable extent. The Ship of Theseus retains its form. |
| 8271 | An object 'endures' if it is always wholly present, and 'perdures' if different parts exist at different times [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The 'endurance' view is that an object persists by being 'wholly present' at more than one time, and the 'perdurance' view is that an object has different temporal parts which exist at different times. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 5) | |
| A reaction: It is tempting to say that only a philosopher would come up with a view as bizarre as the second one. Trying to imagine God's view of time has led to a lot of confusion. Endurance seems to need substance, so bundle views of objects encourage perdurance. |
| 8272 | How can you identify temporal parts of tomatoes without referring to tomatoes? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The temporal parts approach to identity appears to be viciously circular, for how are the 'temporal parts' of tomatoes to be individuated and identified save by reference to the very tomatoes of which they are parts? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: (This attacks the 'perdurance' view - Idea 8271) Something wrong here. Isn't Lowe begging the question, by assuming that a tomato at an instant IS the tomato? To know what a tomato is, you must spend time with it. |
| 11378 | How a thing is generated does not explain its essence [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle thinks that the explanation of how a thing is generated does not contribute to the explanation of why the thing is the very thing it is. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 7.5 | |
| A reaction: Good for him. The origin of a thing strikes me as an entirely different matter from the intrinsic nature of the thing, and I don't see how the origin of something can be necessary, if it is in any way possible that it originated differently. |
| 12101 | Aristotle wants definition, not identity, so origin is not essential to him [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Properties of origin are not essential for Aristotle, because he determines what is essential not by reflecting on the identity of an individual, but by considering how to define the individual. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], id) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 6.2 | |
| A reaction: [see also Idea 12102] This spells out my intuition, or rather my understanding of the normal usage of the word 'essence'. You can fully know the essence of something (e.g. a person), while having no knowledge of the origin. |
| 11380 | Two things with the same primary being and essence are one thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If any two items have a single substance [ousia, primary being] and a single what-it-is-to-be-that-thing [to ti en einai, essence], then they are themselves a single thing. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1038b14) | |
| A reaction: [alternative translations by Vasilis Politis] This isn't quite the identity of indiscernibles, because it allows superficial identity along with deep difference (H2O and XYZ, for example, or jadeite and nephrite). |
| 8305 | A clear idea of the kind of an object must precede a criterion of identity for it [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: As Locke clearly understood, one must first have a clear conception of what kind of object one is dealing with in order to extract a criterion of identity for objects of that kind from that conception. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: Archaeologist face objects which they can number, remember and take pride in, without having a clue what kind of thing they are dealing with. The two processes may not be entirely distinct. |
| 17848 | Things such as two different quadrangles are alike but not wholly the same [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Things are alike if they are not just the same simpliciter, exhibiting differences in their substrate substance but being formally the same. Examples are larger and smaller quadrangles and unequal straight lines, which are alike but not the same. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1054b06) |
| 8290 | One view is that two objects of the same type are only distinguished by differing in matter [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: One venerable tradition, exemplified in Aquinas, has it that matter is the 'principle of individuation', that is, that all that can be guaranteed to distinguish two concrete thing of the same kind is the different matter of which they are composed. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be 'identity-conditions' rather than 'individuation', according to Idea 7926. The problem would be how to identify that particular matter, apart from its composing that particular object. Replacing planks on a ship seems unimportant. |
| 16134 | We can't understand self-identity without a prior grasp of the object [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: To ask why a thing is identical with itself is not to ask a real question in the absence of a clear grasp of the fact ….or of the object. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1041a12) | |
| A reaction: This seems a very nice response to Lewis's attempt to sweep difficulties of identity aside, when he rests identity on primitive self-identity. |
| 17847 | You are one with yourself in form and matter [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: You are one with yourself both in form and in matter. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1054a35) |
| 12611 | Necessity makes alternatives impossible [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Necessity is what makes it impossible for something to be other than it is. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1015b03) | |
| A reaction: Note that necessity here seems like an active force, rather than a mere description of a logical or metaphysical state of affairs. The underlying idea seems to be that essences enforce necessities, but it doesn't say that here. |
| 15079 | 'Conceptual' necessity is narrow logical necessity, true because of concepts and logical laws [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I can accept 'conceptual' necessity, as long as it is only identified with 'narrow' logical necessity. For I take it that the 'conceptually' necessary is that which is true solely in virtue of concepts together with the laws of logic. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: In the narrow version of logical necessity (Idea 8260) some definitions are required in addition to the mere laws of logic. This implies that the concepts are dependent of definitions, which is a bit restrictive. Aren't we allowed undefined concepts? |
| 16063 | Metaphysical necessity is logical necessity 'broadly construed' [Lowe, by Lynch/Glasgow] |
| Full Idea: Lowe (1998) defines metaphysical necessity in terms of logical necessity 'broadly contrued'. | |
| From: report of E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998]) by Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM - The Impossibility of Superdupervenience n 3 | |
| A reaction: [I seem to have missed this simple thought in Lowe 1998 - must revisit]. Both metaphysical and logical necessity can be taken as 'true in all possible worlds', but that doesn't make them the same truths. |
| 17852 | A thing has a feature necessarily if its denial brings a contradiction [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If anything has the property of being perishable it has it of necessity, on pain of one and the same thing being perishable and imperishable. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1059a05) | |
| A reaction: Of course the perishable could become imperishable over time, without contradiction. This illustrates the foundational idea that a proposition is necessary if its negation is a contradiction. [...actually this argument is invalid as it stands!] |
| 8260 | Logical necessity can be 'strict' (laws), or 'narrow' (laws and definitions), or 'broad' (all logical worlds) [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: 'Strict' logical necessity is true by the laws of logic alone; 'narrow' logical necessity is true by the laws of logic plus definitions of non-logical terms; 'broad' logical necessity is true in every possible world where the laws of logic hold. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: Lowe then says the third is close to 'metaphysical' necessity. I am unable to distinguish the third from the first. You can't claim that a logical implication holds in this world, but not in another possible world which has the same rules of implication. |
| 15769 | Anything which is possible either exists or will come into existence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If what we have stated either is the possible or something connected to it, there can of course be no question of its being true to say that x is capable of being but will not be. ...What is not but is capable of being either is or comes into being. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1047b05) | |
| A reaction: I'm a bit startled to find the great Aristotle spouting this nonsense. It's possible that every bird in England could simultaneously land in my home town, but it ain't never going to happen. Modern women could bear 50 children, but won't. |
| 16131 | The metaphysically possible is what acceptable principles and categories will permit [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: What is 'metaphysically' possible hinges …on the question of whether acceptable metaphysical principles and categories permit the existence of some state of affairs. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: Lowe breezes along with confident assertions like this. I once heard Kit Fine tease him for over-confidence. All you do is work out 'acceptable' principles and categories, and you've cracked it! |
| 15779 | Possibility is when the necessity of the contrary is false [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The potential occurs when it is not necessary that its contrary be false. For example, it is potential that a man should be seated, since it is not false of necessity that he is not seated. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1019b26) | |
| A reaction: This is the standard point in modal logic that possibly is equivalent to not-necessarily-not (◊p → ¬□¬p). |
| 15777 | A 'potentiality' is a principle of change or process in a thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What is a principle of change or process is said to be a 'potentiality' [dunamis], whether in something else or in the thing itself qua something else. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1019a18) |
| 14544 | Potentialities are always for action, but are conditional on circumstances [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The possession of a potentiality just is the possession of a potentiality to act, and such a potentiality is not unconditional but depends on the obtaining of propitious circumstances, which includes the satisfaction of a ceteris paribus condition. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1048a18) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be pretty exactly what we mean by a 'power', as something which requires no other driving force, but which only expresses itself with the endless complexity of the rest of nature. |
| 15774 | We recognise potentiality from actuality [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is from the actuality that the potentiality is recognised. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1051a29) | |
| A reaction: I presume it is from this simple fact that Sider and others draw the mistaken inference that there are no potentialities in the actual world. |
| 15778 | Things are destroyed not by their powers, but by their lack of them [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Things are broken, compressed, bent and, in a word, destroyed not by dint of having a potentiality but by dint of not having one and by missing out on something. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1019a27) | |
| A reaction: Presumably an ontology entirely based on powers would not also need to catalogue absence of powers. The positive ones do the job. No power, no destruction. |
| 12612 | Some things have external causes of their necessity; others (the simple) generate necessities [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: For some things, the cause of their necessity is something other than themselves, whereas for others there is no such external cause, but rather they are themselves the necessary cause of other things being the case. The simple is fundamentally necessary. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1015b14) | |
| A reaction: What is 'simple' is what terminates an explanation, and that is what-it-is-to-be each thing (its essence). The Greek view of necessity always seems to be a power to which we submit, rather than a passive state like true-in-all-worlds. |
| 15108 | Aristotle's says necessary truths are distinct and derive from essential truths [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle conceives of the necessary truths as being distinct and derivative from the essential truths. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Kathrin Koslicki - Essence, Necessity and Explanation 13.1 | |
| A reaction: This is precisely the view promoted by Kit Fine in 1994. It seems to fragment necessity, because there are many different necessities based on many different foundations. |
| 8320 | Does every abstract possible world exist in every possible world? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Possible worlds, conceived of as abstracta, surely exist 'in every possible world'. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 12) | |
| A reaction: A possible very infinite regress, if a particular possible world is distinguished from another only by being perceived from Actual Word 1 or Actual World 2.. How many possible worlds are there? The standard answer is 'lots', rather than infinity. |
| 547 | The ability to teach is a mark of true knowledge [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The ability to teach is a distinguishing mark between the knowledgeable and the ignorant man. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0981b04) |
| 10950 | Things are produced from skill if the form of them is in the mind [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Things are produced from skill if the form of them is in the mind. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1032a33) | |
| A reaction: This resembles the legal notion of 'mens rea', the conscious intention to commit the deed. |
| 544 | Experience knows particulars, but only skill knows universals [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Experience is the knowledge of particulars and skill that of universals. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0981a14) |
| 546 | It takes skill to know causes, not experience [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The skilled know the cause, whereas the experienced do not. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0981a29) |
| 8280 | While space may just be appearance, time and change can't be, because the appearances change [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Although the appearance of distance and so of space may conceivably be no more than an appearance (as Berkeley held), the appearance of change and so of time cannot be no more than appearance - for the appearance of change involves change (in minds). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 7.9) | |
| A reaction: This would seem to place some sort of limit on idealism. Since it doesn't offer a barrier to solipsism, though, it is not much consolation. We mustn't forget that Parmenides and Zeno of Elea proved that change is just an illusion. |
| 8276 | Properties or qualities are essentially adjectival, not objectual [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I consider properties or qualities to be essentially adjectival rather than objectual in nature (and the same applies to relations, though they are adjectival to more than one object). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 7.1) | |
| A reaction: Personally I am inclined to say that properties are either real causal powers (functions of objects?), such as being sharp, or else they are subjective ways of distinguishing things (e.g. colours). Or fictions. 'Adjectival' is too vague. |
| 543 | All men long to understand, as shown by their delight in the senses [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: By nature, all men long to understand [eidenai]; an indication is their delight in the senses. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0980a21) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 8331 and Idea 12038 to understand what this means. I take it to support the thesis that the aim of philosophy is explanations (at a higher level of generality than the sciences). |
| 583 | The starting point of a proof is not a proof [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Who defines the healthy man, or who is awake or asleep? This is a pursuit of foundations, but this is seeking an account where there isn't one. The starting point of a proof is not a proof. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1011a10) | |
| A reaction: a comment on Descartes |
| 581 | Dreams aren't a serious problem. No one starts walking round Athens next morning, having dreamt that they were there! [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Is it really an issue whether things are true that appear to those asleep or to those awake? No one in Libya who dreamt he was in Athens, would set out for the Odeon next morning! | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1010b09) |
| 584 | If truth is relative it is relational, and concerns appearances relative to a situation [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The claim that all appearances are true makes all things relational. Hence the claim is shifted to all appearances being true relative to a subject, time, sense and context. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1011a20) | |
| A reaction: applies to Epicurus |
| 585 | If relativism is individual, how can something look sweet and not taste it, or look different to our two eyes? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If things are true relative to an individual, how can something seem honey to the sight but not to the taste, or, given that we have two eyes, things may not seem the same to the sight of both of them. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1011a24) |
| 576 | If the majority had diseased taste, and only a few were healthy, relativists would have to prefer the former [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When two men taste the same thing one will often find it sweet and the other bitter. Suppose all men were sick, except one or two who were healthy. It would then be the latter two who would be considered sick, and the others not! | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1009b05) |
| 12309 | There cannot be a science of accidentals, but only of general truths [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not even possible for there to be a science of the accidental, ...for any field of science is either 'always' or 'for the most part'. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1065b30-) | |
| A reaction: His example of an accident (and thus outside of any science) is a cold spell in high summer. This leaves us trying to explain the unusually tame tiger. Copi comments (p.717), rightly I think, that modern science disagrees with Aristotle on this. |
| 11386 | Demonstrations about particulars must be about everything of that type [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There cannot be demonstrations that this particular triangle is equal to the sum of two right angles, except that every triangle is equal to the sum of two right angles, nor that this particular man is an animal, except that every man is an animal. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1086b36) | |
| A reaction: Not quite the covering-law model, but well on the way. Why can't we demonstrate that this particular is different from the others? This tiger is docile; this butterfly stings. We just like generalisations because you know more with less effort. |
| 11385 | Universal principles are not primary beings, but particular principles are not universally knowable [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If the principles are universal, they will not be primary beings [ousiai], ...but if the principles are not universal but of the nature of particulars, they will not be scientifically knowable. For scientific knowledge of any thing is universal. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1003a08) | |
| A reaction: Part of the fifteenth aporia (puzzle) of this book. Plato goes for the universal (and hence knowable), but Aristotle makes the particular primary, and so is left with an epistemological problem, which the rest of 'Metaphysics' is meant to solve. |
| 11289 | Understanding moves from the less to the more intelligible [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Understanding moves from things less intelligible by nature to things more so. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1029b02) | |
| A reaction: The interesting phrase is 'by nature'. Whether things are intelligible or not is a feature of the natural world, and not just a feature of the mind's capacities. |
| 11246 | Aristotelian explanations mainly divide things into natural kinds [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: The search for explanation as Aristotle conceives it is the search for the correct way to distinguish things into natural kinds, which may involve revising our initial conceptions. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], kind) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.2 | |
| A reaction: Nowadays we would make the huge addition of objects and processes which are invisible to the naked eye, which Aristotle probably never envisaged. He is interested in categories, but we are also interested in mechanisms. |
| 11384 | We know something when we fully know what it is, not just its quality, quantity or location [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is when we know what a man is or what fire is that we reckon that we know a particular item in the fullest sense, rather than when we merely know its quality, quantity or location. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1028a36) | |
| A reaction: The word 'what' should usually be taken to indicate that Aristotle is talking about essence (as V. Politis confirms of this passage). This idea is a key one for the claim that Aristotelian essences are essentially (sic) explanatory. |
| 16135 | Real enquiries seek causes, and causes are essences [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Real enquiries stand revealed as causal enquiries (and the cause is the what-it-was-to-be-that-thing [to ti en einai]). | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1041a28) | |
| A reaction: As good a quotation as any for showing that Aristotelian essences exist entirely by their role in explanation. |
| 16105 | We know a thing when we grasp its essence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We have knowledge of each thing when we grasp the what-it-was-to-be [to ti en einai] that thing. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1031b08) | |
| A reaction: This is a key remark in my understanding of the whole business of essentialism. It really concerns the way in which we are able to grasp reality, rather than how it is in itself. It is not mere convention, because the grasping responds to the reality. |
| 11296 | The explanation is what gives matter its state, which is the form, which is the substance [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The explanation [aition - cause] that is the object of enquiry is that by virtue of which the matter is in the state that it is in. And this cause [explanation] is the form, and the form the substance [ousia]. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1041b08) | |
| A reaction: A key sentence, I think, for understanding Aristotle's whole enterprise. The explanation is the essence; the essence is what explains. |
| 11999 | Essential properties explain in conjunction with properties shared by the same kind [Aristotle, by Kung] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle makes it clear that properties which belong essentially to anything have explanatory power vis-ŕ-vis the other properties of things of that kind. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], props) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation IV | |
| A reaction: This means that explanation will always occur at the level of generalisation, leading to what we call 'laws', but some events are only explicable at the level of the individual. |
| 9088 | Skill comes from a general assumption obtained from thinking about similar things [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A skill arises when from the many cases of thinking in experience a single general assumption is formed in connection with similar things. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0981a04) | |
| A reaction: [He gives the administration of appropriate medicine as the example of a 'skill'] Note that it is 'thinking in' experience, rather than just the raw having of experiences. This is the intellectualist version of empirical abstractionism. I like it. |
| 16153 | Aristotle distinguishes two different sorts of generality - kinds, and properties [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle counts as general not only properties but also the kinds, into which objects fall, i.e. the genera, species, and differentiae of substances; and these are to be differentiated strictly from properties. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], kind) by Michael Frede - Individuals in Aristotle Intro | |
| A reaction: I take properties to be prior, since the kind of a thing is presumably decided by its properties. I'm increasingly thinking that 'general', 'generality' and 'generalisation' are far more useful words in philosophy than other words in that area. |
| 9791 | Science is more accurate when it is prior and simpler, especially without magnitude or movement [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A scientific subject will possess more accuracy (i.e. simplicity) the more that it is about conceptually prior and simpler things, and so it will be more accurate without than with magnitude being involved, and above all being without movement. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1078a10) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle is especially concerned to show how we can achieve accuracy, even while abstracting away from the details of the objects we are studying. Frege should have studied Aristotle more closely. |
| 571 | Is Socrates the same person when standing and when seated? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Who, except the philosopher, is going to ask whether Socrates and Socrates seated is the same thing? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1004b01) |
| 8289 | The idea that Cartesian souls are made of some ghostly 'immaterial' stuff is quite unwarranted [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The vulgar notion, propagated by some modern physicalist philosophers, that Cartesian souls are supposed to be made of some sort of ghostly, 'immaterial' stuff - a near contradiction in terms - is quite unwarranted. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.5) | |
| A reaction: A nice illustration of the service which can be offered by this database. See Idea 3423 for an illustration of the sort of thing which Lowe is attacking. See Idea 5011 for a quotation from Descartes on the subject. I leave the decision with my visitor... |
| 23311 | Aristotle sees reason as much more specific than our more everyday concept of it [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: It seems that Aristotle does not associate reason primarily with ordinary, everyday thought and reasoning, as we do, but with a much more specific function of reason. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 980b) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.163 | |
| A reaction: Although Aristotle is naturalistic, he is also a bit of a dualist, and so is less keen than I am to connect human reason with sensible behaviour in animals. |
| 23310 | Animals live by sensations, and some have good memories, but they don't connect experiences [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: By nature animals are born with the faculty of sensation, and from sensation memory is produced in some of them, though not in others; therefore the former are more intelligent. …Animals live by appearances and memories, with little connected experience. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 980a28-) | |
| A reaction: I assume that larger animals make judgements, which have to rely on previous experiences, so I think he underestimates the cleverest animals. We now know about Caledonian Crows, which amaze us, and would have amazed Aristotle. |
| 11245 | Many memories make up a single experience [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Many recollections of the same thing perform the function of a single experience. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0980b28) | |
| A reaction: This beautifully simple remark seems to me to be extremely important if we are going to understand the nature of thought. Personally I think it endorses the 'database' view of how the mind works (as a set of labelled 'files'). See Fodor's 'LOT2'. |
| 10954 | It is unclear whether acute angles are prior to right angles, or fingers to men [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Suppose parts are prior to the whole - then, since the acute angle is a part of the right angle, and a finger is part of an animal, this would mean the acute angle and the finger were prior, but received opinion says otherwise. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1034b24) |
| 8299 | Abstractions are non-spatial, or dependent, or derived from concepts [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: There are three conceptions of abstractness: 1) non-spatial entities, the opposite of 'concrete' (e.g. numbers and universals); 2) an entity logically incapable of a separate existence (e.g. an apple's colour); 3) Fregean abstractions from concepts. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: [Lowe p.218 explains the third one] Lowe rejects the third one, and it is a moot point whether the second one could actually be classed as an entity (do they have identity-conditions?), so the big issue is the first one. |
| 9792 | Mathematicians study quantity and continuity, and remove the perceptible features of things [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The mathematician conducts a study into things in abstraction (after the removal of all perceptible features, such as weight and hardness, leaving only quantity and continuity). | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1061a26) | |
| A reaction: Frege complained that there is nothing left if you remove the perceptible features, but clearly Aristotle is not an empiricist in this passage, and it is doubtful if even Mill can be totally empirical in his account. We have relations of ideas. |
| 9077 | Mathematicians suppose inseparable aspects to be separable, and study them in isolation [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Study things as mathematicians do. Suppose what is not separable to be separable. A man qua man is an indivisible unity, so the arithmetician supposes a man to be an indivisible unity, and investigates the accidental features of man qua indivisible. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1078a19) | |
| A reaction: This is the abstractionist view of mathematics. Qua indivisible, a man will have the same properties as a toothbrush. Aristotle clearly intends the method for scientists as well. It strikes me as common sense, but there is a lot of modern caution. |
| 8306 | You can think of a direction without a line, but a direction existing with no lines is inconceivable [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Although one can separate 'in thought' a direction from any line of which it is the direction, one cannot conceive of a direction existing in the absence of any line possessing that direction. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. If I ask you to imagine a line going in a certain direction, don't you need the direction before you can think of the line? 'That line is going in the wrong direction'. Maybe abstract ideas only exist 'in thought'. Lowe is a realist here. |
| 9075 | If health happened to be white, the science of health would not study whiteness [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If we have a science of the healthy, and the healthy happens to be white, the science of the healthy does not deal with the white. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1077b30) | |
| A reaction: Given this point, we certainly cannot think of Aristotle as believing in simple abstractionism. The problem of the coextension of renates and cordates looms here (Idea 7317). 'Relevant' similarities require extensive cross-referencing. |
| 636 | Beauty involves the Forms of order, symmetry and limit, which can be handled mathematically [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The major Forms of the beautiful are order, symmetry and delimitation, and these are very much objects of the proofs of the mathematical sciences. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1078a31) |
| 635 | The good is found in actions, but beauty can exist without movement [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The good is always in some action, whereas the beautiful can also be in things without movement. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1078a26) |
| 15772 | A thing's active function is its end [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A thing's active function is its end. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1050a16) | |
| A reaction: This sort of remark is the basis of modern teleological functionalism about the mind. I think that is misguided. Don't define things by their function. They have functions because of intrinsic character. |
| 629 | Is the good a purpose, a source of movement, or a pure form? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The good is a principle for all things, and is so in the very highest degree, but in what way? As a purpose, as a source of movement, or as a form? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1075a32) | |
| A reaction: I tend to think of it as an 'ideal', whatever that is, and hence an inspiration, but a rather vague one. Beauty, goodness and truth. Surely not a source of movement? |
| 591 | Excellence is a sort of completion [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Excellence is a sort of completion. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1021b19) |
| 625 | Is excellence separate from things, or part of them, or both? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Does the universe possess goodness and excellence as something separated and by itself, or because of its arrangement? But why should it not be both ways? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1075a14) |
| 621 | Contemplation is a supreme pleasure and excellence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Contemplation is a supreme pleasure and excellence. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1072b22) |
| 11241 | Wise men aren't instructed; they instruct [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The wise man should not be instructed, but should instruct. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0982a20) | |
| A reaction: I take this to refer to the duties of a wise man, as well as to his (or her) superior rights. |
| 632 | Why are some things destructible and others not? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A basic principle of things has to explain why some things are destructible and others are not. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1075b15) |
| 626 | Everything is arranged around a single purpose [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: All things are arranged around a single purpose. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1075a18) |
| 17858 | Pythagoreans say the whole universe is made of numbers [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: For Pythagoreans the entire universe is constructed from numbers. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1080b16) | |
| A reaction: The original view seems to have been more extreme than the mere idea that mathematics is the guide to nature, or the language of God. Stones are made of numbers. Aristotle was unimpressed. |
| 12299 | Aristotle had a hierarchical conception of matter [Aristotle, by Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle had a hierarchical conception of matter; what is matter may itself have matter. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], matter) by Kit Fine - Aristotle on Matter §1 | |
| A reaction: This shows that Aristotle's 'hule' is not like our word 'matter' so a real effort must be made to grasp how he is conceptualising it. |
| 601 | Substance must exist, because something must endure during change between opposites [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There can be no doubt that matter is a substance. Consider all changes between opposites. In all of them there is something that underlies the change. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1042a30) |
| 10955 | Matter is perceptible (like bronze) or intelligible (like mathematical objects) [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Matter divides into that which is perceptible and that which is intelligible: the former comprises bronze, wood and all process-apt matter, the latter matter is present in the perceptibles but not qua perceptible, e.g. the mathematicals. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1036a09) |
| 16590 | Matter is neither a particular thing nor a member of a determinate category [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: By matter I mean that which in itself is neither a particular thing nor a certain quantity nor assigned to any other of the categories by which being is determined. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1029a20) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the classic definition of matter in Aristotle. He doesn't say here that matter has an inferior mode of existence, but elsewhere he says that it is potential rather than actual, which seems to confiscate its passport. |
| 12001 | Aristotle says matter is a lesser substance, rather than wholly denying that it is a substance [Aristotle, by Kung] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics Z.3, often read as denying that matter is a substance, can more plausibly be interpreted as claiming that matter cannot be the only and not a first-rank substance. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], matter) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation VI | |
| A reaction: This certainly sounds a more plausible view, and in modern understanding some kind of elemental matter is our best candidate for what could be meant by 'substance'. Perhaps the 'fields' of modern physics play that role. |
| 12868 | Ultimate matter is discredited, as Aristotle merged substratum of change with bearer of properties [Simons on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The idea of ultimate matter is discredited philosophically because of the version of the doctrine found in Aristotle, who ran together the two notions of being a substratum of change on the one hand, and being the bearer of properties on the other. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Bk 06.6) by Peter Simons - Parts 6.6 | |
| A reaction: This is an illuminating comment on Aristotle. The substratum of change seems to be a fairly substantial essence, while the bearer of properties seems to shrivel to minimal size because it can't have properties of its own. |
| 15954 | Aristotle may only have believed in prime matter because his elements were immutable [Aristotle, by Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: It has been held that Aristotle needed the conception of prime matter only because he held that the transmutation of one element into another is impossible. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], matter) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 01.2 |
| 16099 | The traditional view of Aristotle is God (actual form) at top and prime matter (potential matter) at bottom [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: Since antiquity prime matter has enjoyed a hallowed place in the Aristotelian system, which displays an awesome completeness, with God (pure form and actuality) at the top, and prime matter (pure matter and potentiality) at the bottom. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], God) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: Gill suggests that actually the four elements should be at the bottom, with matter only coming into it when distinct objects are in the offing. The Great Chain of Being emerged as the story between the two extremes. |
| 15771 | Primary matter is what characterises other stuffs, and it has no distinct identity [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If earth is air-esque and earth is (not fire but) fire-esque, then it is fire that is primary matter. Such matter is not a this-something. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1049a25) | |
| A reaction: For being a 'this-something' read 'having determinate identity'. Aristotle's account of 'primary matter' is controversial and much discussed. |
| 616 | It doesn't explain the world to say it was originally all one. How did it acquire diversity? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Nor is it a sufficient explanation of the world to say just that all things were originally together. For things differ in matter. Indeed, why otherwise did an infinity of things come-to-be, and not just one? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1069b25) |
| 16098 | I claim that Aristotle's foundation is the four elements, and not wholly potential prime matter [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: Tradition holds that prime matter, a subject exhausted by its potentialities, lies at the foundation. I argue that Aristotle's system is instead grounded in the four simple bodies, earth, water, air and fire, as ultimate objects. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], matter) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a controversial view of Gill's, though I found her case persuasive. Those seeking an Aristotelianism that fits with modern science should like her reading. However, physical fields may be seen as pure potentiality. |
| 10952 | Unusual kinds like mule are just a combination of two kinds [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The kind that is common to both horse and ass and which most nearly comprises them happens not to have a name, but can safely be presumed to be both, i.e. the horse-ass or 'mule'. ...A mule does not come from a mule. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1033b32) | |
| A reaction: [second part at 1034b04] Does ancient Greek have a word for 'mule' - it sounds as if it doesn't. Nice chicken-and-egg problem. Must a natural kind be derived from a natural kind? No. Gold does not derive from gold. |
| 561 | Is there cause outside matter, and can it be separated, and is it one or many? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We must especially inquire and investigate whether there is any cause beyond matter in itself or not, and whether this is separable or not, and whether it is one or many in number. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0995b28) |
| 8317 | To cite facts as the elements in causation is to confuse states of affairs with states of objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers who have advocated facts as being causal relata have confused them with states, such as a stone's being heavy; they are guilty of confusing states of affairs with states of objects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11.3) | |
| A reaction: A state of an object can be individuated rather more precisely than a fact or state of affairs. There are, of course, vast numbers of states of objects, but only a few states of affairs, involved in (say) the fall of the Berlin Wall. |
| 588 | We exercise to be fit, but need fitness to exercise [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Exercise is the cause of fitness, but fitness is also the cause of exercise. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1013b10) |
| 634 | Pure Forms and numbers can't cause anything, and especially not movement [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If we allow Forms or numbers, they will not be the cause of anything, or, if that is too strong, they will at any rate not be the cause of any movement. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1075b23) | |
| A reaction: This is Benacerraf's famous observation (1973) that we can't accept a platonic account of numbers because, lacking causal powers, they are unknowable. |
| 14543 | When a power and its object meet in the right conditions, an action necessarily follows [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Whenever the potential active and the potentially affected items are associated in conditions propitious to the potentiality, the former must of necessity act and the latter must of necessity be affected. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1048a08) | |
| A reaction: Of course the world could end between the two happenings, so this can't be full-scale metaphysical necessity. That point is not enough, though, to get rid of Aristotle's intuition here. |
| 8269 | Points are limits of parts of space, so parts of space cannot be aggregates of them [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Points are limits of parts of space, in which case parts of space cannot be aggregates of them. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 3.9) | |
| A reaction: To try to build space out of points (how many per cc?) is fairly obviously asking for trouble, but Lowe articulates nicely why it is a non-starter. |
| 617 | It is hard to see how either time or movement could come into existence or be destroyed [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible that movement should either come-to-be or be destroyed. The same can be said for time itself, since it is not even possible for there to be an earlier and a later if time does not exist. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1071b06) |
| 620 | The first mover is necessary, and because it is necessary it is good [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The existence of the first mover is necessary, and in that it is necessary it is good. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1072b10) | |
| A reaction: This is the direct antithesis of David Hume's is/ought distinction (that the universe is value-free). |
| 619 | Something which both moves and is moved is intermediate, so it follows that there must be an unmoved mover [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Since that which is moved and which also moves is an intermediate, it follows that there must be something that moves without being moved. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1072a19) |
| 613 | Even if the world is caused by fate, mind and nature are still prior causes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Even if luck or the automatic are the cause of the world, mind and nature are prior causes still. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1065b03) |
| 622 | There must a source of movement which is eternal, indivisible and without magnitude [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There exists an eternal unmoved substance separate from sensible things. It can have no magnitude, and is without parts and indivisible. As the source of movement for infinite time, it must itself be infinite. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1073a05) |
| 7603 | God is not a creator (involving time and change) and is not concerned with the inferior universe [Aristotle, by Armstrong,K] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's god had not created the world, since this would involve an inappropriate change and temporal activity; everything yearns towards god, but god remains indifferent, since he cannot contemplate anything inferior to himself. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], God) by Karen Armstrong - A History of God Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Trust Aristotle to come up with the only rational and consistent account of a deity anyone has ever offered. Endless paradoxes and inconsistencies arise if god steps into time, makes things, changes, and responds to prayers. |
| 16165 | For Aristotle God is defined in an axiom, for which there is no proof [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle is committed to the view that strictly speaking there is no proof of the essence and existence of God. There will be a real definition of him as an axiom of special theology, and then a deduction of theological theorems. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], God) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Conception of Metaphysics p.94 | |
| A reaction: The cynical response would be 'why not start with a Great White Rabbit, then?', but I presume one must read what Aristotle says (late in 'Metaphysics') to understand why this particular axiom is chosen. Economy, power etc.? |
| 610 | The world can't be arranged at all if there is nothing eternal and separate [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: How is there to be an arrangement of the world at all, in the absence of something eternal, separable and permanent? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1060a21) |
| 12097 | There are as many eternal unmovable substances as there are movements of the stars [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is clearly necessary that the number of substances eternal in their nature and intrinsically unmovable (and without magnitude) should equal that of the movements of the stars. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1073a34) | |
| A reaction: There are many unmoved movers! This is an important corrective to those who think Aristotle was endorsing one great Unmoved Mover, and thus founding monotheism. He was agreeing with Plato's account in 'The Laws'. |