1 Aristotle Aristotle: 384-322 BC –born in Stagira in northern Greece –maps: –//.

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1 Aristotle • Aristotle: 384-322 BC – born in Stagira in northern Greece maps: http://www.plato-dialogues.org/tools/gk_wrld.htm http://iam.classics.unc.edu/map/download/area_a7_outline.pdf • Plato’s student in the Academy – Leaves Athens after Plato’s death in 347 BC – Teaches Alexander for 3 years • Returns to Athens in 335BC & establishes the Lyceum • Alexander dies in 323 BC, when Aristotle flees Athens

Transcript of 1 Aristotle Aristotle: 384-322 BC –born in Stagira in northern Greece –maps: –//.

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Aristotle • Aristotle: 384-322 BC

– born in Stagira in northern Greece– maps:– http://www.plato-dialogues.org/tools/gk_wrld.htm – http://iam.classics.unc.edu/map/download/area_a7_outline.pdf

• Plato’s student in the Academy– Leaves Athens after Plato’s death in

347 BC– Teaches Alexander for 3 years

• Returns to Athens in 335BC & establishes the Lyceum

• Alexander dies in 323 BC, when Aristotle flees Athens

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• Range of Aristotle’s Work–Virtually all areas of philosophy

•metaphysics (note the term)•epistemology•ethics & aesthetics•logic•protoscience: physics, biology, astronomy

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Plato v Aristotle

• The General Structure of Universe–Plato’s two realms

•the world of forms•the world of sensible objects

–Aristotle’s unified universe•forms exist only in individual objects = substances

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Plato v Aristotle

• Knowledge– Plato’s nativism– Aristotle’s empiricism

• Self– Plato: individual souls are immortal– Aristotle: soul is immortal but not

individualized or personalized

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Matter, Form & Substance• The Problem of Change

–Plato, Parmenides & Zeno deny the reality of change

–They variously hold that the sensible world is “illusory”

–Aristotle accepts the reality of the changing, physical world & needs a fundamental principle to accommodate change

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Matter• Matter = Pure Potentiality

– that which, in itself, is nothing but which can become anything•compare malleable clay

– that which permits persistence through change•compare the enduring clay

– that which is unintelligible but fundamental???

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Form• Form = Pure Actuality

– that which disciplines, directs, constrains matter•shape of the malleable clay

– that which makes matter become what is real

–definable & intelligible–exists in what is real

•even in sensible objects

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Substance

• Particular objects = what really exists–e.g. Socrates, tree, electron

• Substance = that which is the subject of predication but not itself predicated– target of thought and language

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• Material v Immaterial Substance–Some substances can change while retaining their identity•they contain matter + form

–I.e. all sensible substances–Some substances cannot change

•they do not contain matter–I.e. Celestial Objects, God (the unmoved mover)

•they retain their identity be

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Identity and Essence

• How change works in material substance–matter remains (compare Soc. Security Number)

– form exchanged•distinguish essential (substantial) from accidental form

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• Essential Form– determines genus/species– makes a substance be the kind

of object it is•e.g. the rationality of Socrates

• Accidental Form– characterizes or qualifies a

substance without affecting its identity•e.g. the snubnosedness of Socrates

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What’s Really Essential?

• Contrast generic and personal essence–Socrates, the rational animal–Socrates, the inquisitive philosopher

• Two types of essential forms?

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What’s Really Essential?

• All and only rational animals are featherless bipeds– which form is essential?– How do we tell?

• Socrates is both a philosopher and a convicted criminal– which form is essential?– How do we tell?

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Is Essence Subjective?• The role of language

– Edward Sapir/Benjamin Whorf Hypothesis• Edward Sapir (1884-1936): American linguist and

anthropologist• Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941): American

linguist; student of Sapir • The language you speak determines or strongly

influences how you conceive of the world and may even influence how you perceive the world

– compare• “red,” “white,” and “blue”• “red-or-white” and “blue”

• Is essence what we find or what we fabricate?

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Forms as Universals

• Form as that which is commonly and simultaneously present in different but similar individuals as the basis of similarity

• How can one thing, i.e. a form, simultaneously be in different places?

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The Nature of Thought• A person = (body + soul)• (body + soul) = (matter + form)• Hence, a person = (matter + form)• Soul = form

–soul is that which gives life in virtue of giving rational animality

–soul = essential form

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Universal Soul

• Soul = essential form• Essential forms are Universals

– Plato’s essential form = Socrates’ essential form

– So, Plato’s soul = Socrates’ soul • This generalizes for all people• So, there is but one soul!• Immortality is not personal!

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Thought and Form

• Soul is seat of cognition/thought• Thought = recognition of form• Recognition of form =

reproduction of form in the soul• So, to think of a cat is to have the

form of the cat in the soul

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Objections

• Why doesn’t a thinker become what he/she thinks?– Matter is in the object

represented by thought but not in the soul

• Is it possible to distinguish similar things in thought since thought is the reproduction of universal forms?

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The Four Causes• Aristotle is convinced in the reality

of sensible objects & change• Thus, he must offer a theory of how

it is possible to understand the structure of sensible objects and change

• Aristotle proposes four basic types of causation or explanation aiming at showing why, of necessity, things are as they are by showing them to be instances of Universal Laws

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Causation Fourfold Universality

• Material Causation– based in the varieties of matter

• Efficient Causation– based in the (infinite) sequence of

antecedent motion

• Formal Causation– based in the varieties of form

• Final Causation– based in intelligent or natural purpose

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The Unmoved Mover

• The universe must be temporally eternal since the idea of the (causal) beginning/end of the universe is nonsense

• Still, why does the universe have the structure that it does in fact have? It could have been other than it actually is.

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• There must exist something that is not part of the changing, structured universe whose existence serves to explain the universe’s structure

• This = the Unmoved Mover who affects the world in the manner of a beloved/desired object

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Unmoved Mover

• Immaterial• Unique• Pure Form• Unchanging• Eternal• Thinks, but only of itself• The Final Cause of the physical

universe

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Agental Causation

• Aristotle allows that agents cause things to happen as a result of their deliberation

• Perhaps this “agental” causation is simply a type of final causation or perhaps it is “sui generis”

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Questions

• Questions:– is agental causation “free” or

itself the effect of other causes?– does agental causation lead to

inexplicable or chance events•the unintented result of intentional

action?

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• Jones decides to go to the market to purchase food

• At the market he happens to meet Smith & happily collects a debt from Smith

• The debt collection was–unplanned–not universal = not what normally happens

– is it a chance event?

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Chance

• The debt collection is a chance event

• Chance events do have causes!

• Causes of chance events are Accidental Causes

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Accidental Causation?

• A accidentally causes B iff– A (normally) causes C– C happens to be identical to B

• Eg: Planning to go to the market (normally) causes one to visit the store. Visiting the store happens to be identical to collecting the debt

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Objection to Aristotle’s Notion of Chance

• Contingent IdentityA happens to be identical to B

means thatA is contingently identical to B• Chance presupposes

contingent identity

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• Contingent identity is introduced into chance explanations as a matter of happenstance or coincidence

• This violates the condition that causation is universal

• So causation by chance fails to explain why things are as they are!

• Aristotle errs, then, in saying that chance is a kind of causation