Category Archives: Aristotelianism

More Questions Surrounding Infinite Regress

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In the last post I was puzzled as to why in the very beginning of Lamda 3, Aristotle has chosen to say that, “if not only bronze comes to be round but also the round comes to be and the bronze comes to be,” then there will be an infinite regress as a consequence.  (Dhananjay has some helpful and clarifying things to say in the comments.)

After these things, [one must observe] that neither matter nor form comes to be, I mean the ultimate ones.  For everything undergoes change as something and by something and into something.  The by something is the initiating mover, the something is the matter, and the into which is the form.  Therefore they continue into an infinite regress, if not only bronze comes to be round but also the round comes to be and the bronze comes to be.  Indeed, these must stop. (My translation, Metaphysics 1069b35-1070a4) (1).

Note that I have changed the unwritten subject in the last line to, “Indeed, these must stop,” on the basis of Dhananjay’s translation.  This gives better sense, and “these” must refer to the round and the bronze.

On a related note, is the “Indeed, these must stop” simply a restatement of the first sentence, “After these things, [one must observe] that neither matter nor form comes to be, I mean the ultimate ones“?  That is, are the ultimate ones, usually translated as “proximate [form and matter]” simply the stopping point, from which (working backward as we are in the context of a supposed infinite regress) all change will occur?

More broadly, is the term τὰ ἔσχατα, “the proximate form and matter” simply a stipulation of definition?  On reflection I think the answer is no, for there is a argument for why this is so, by both explaining the necessary elements of the process of change, and of course, the infinite regress itself.

Are 1070a2-3, ὁ χαλκός and τὸ στρογγύλον, (bronze and the round) examples of 1069b35, ἡ ὕλη οὔτε τὸ εἶδος (matter and form)?  This seems to clearly be yes, but does little, for me, to clarify the intent of the first sentence in the passage.

Perhaps most intriguingly to me, why in the sentence, “For everything undergoes change as something and by something and into something” is the order subject, agent, form (SAF) while in the next, explanatory sentence, “The by something is the initiating mover, the something is the matter, and the into which is the form,” the order is agent, subject, form (ASF)?

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Notes:

(1) Μετὰ ταῦτα ὅτι οὐ γίγνεται οὔτε ἡ ὕλη οὔτε τὸ εἶδος,   (35)
λέγω δὲ τὰ ἔσχατα. πᾶν γὰρ μεταβάλλει τὶ καὶ ὑπό
(1070a) τινος καὶ εἴς τι· ὑφ’ οὗ μέν, τοῦ πρώτου κινοῦντος· ὃ δέ, ἡ
ὕλη· εἰς ὃ δέ, τὸ εἶδος. εἰς ἄπειρον οὖν εἶσιν, εἰ μὴ μόνον
ὁ χαλκὸς γίγνεται στρογγύλος ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ στρογγύλον
ἢ ὁ χαλκός· ἀνάγκη δὴ στῆναι.

Another Infinite Regress in Aristotle

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After these things, [one must observe] that neither matter nor form comes to be, I mean the ultimate ones.  For everything undergoes change as something and by something and into something.  The by something is the initiating mover, the something is the matter, and the into which is the form.  Therefore they continue into an infinite regress, if not only bronze comes to be round but also the round comes to be and the bronze comes to be.  Indeed, there must be a stopping point (My translation, Metaphysics 1069b35-1070a4) (1).

This is how Lamda 3 begins.  Focus for a moment on the infinite regress which Aristotle offers as a consequence of this first paragraph. What line of reasoning is Aristotle following here?  Certainly if bronze has to come to be before it even serves as the subject of a transition into a bronze statue, then the process is pushed back one step.  But why should this be an infinite regress.  In other contexts, Aristotle uses eis apeiron to mean infinite regress, so I think it is solid to interpret it as such here.  

I believe that Aristotle is here already assuming a substratum or hypokeimenon. The idea of a substratum, or underlying thing, would seem to serve at least two purposes.  The first would be to explain the persistence of a thing through change and over time.  Secondly to avoid having to explain the antecedent coming to be of something in order to serve as the subject of a change.  It is perhaps this second idea that is motivating Aristotle’s infinite regress.  I will try to develop this idea in a second post.

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Notes:

(1) Μετὰ ταῦτα ὅτι οὐ γίγνεται οὔτε ἡ ὕλη οὔτε τὸ εἶδος,   (35)
λέγω δὲ τὰ ἔσχατα. πᾶν γὰρ μεταβάλλει τὶ καὶ ὑπό
(1070a) τινος καὶ εἴς τι· ὑφ’ οὗ μέν, τοῦ πρώτου κινοῦντος· ὃ δέ, ἡ
ὕλη· εἰς ὃ δέ, τὸ εἶδος. εἰς ἄπειρον οὖν εἶσιν, εἰ μὴ μόνον
ὁ χαλκὸς γίγνεται στρογγύλος ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ στρογγύλον
ἢ ὁ χαλκός· ἀνάγκη δὴ στῆναι.

Does Perceiving Require a Perception of a Perception?

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Since we perceive that we are seeing and hearing, it is necessary that one perceives that one sees either by sight or by some other sense…Further, if the sense which perceived sight were to be other than sight, then either this will carry on into infinity or there will be some sense which will be of itself, with the result that one should grant this in the case of the first sense (De Anima, 425b22 ff., trans. Shields).

In the De Anima passage above Aristotle tells us that there are no perceptions of perceptions, that is, a perception as such does not need to appeal to yet another perception to explain our awareness of it.  Rather the capacity of perception itself, when active, carries with it the awareness of its own perception.  Aristotle’s main problem with multiplying perceptions here is that this will lead to perceptions of perceptions of perceptions, a never-ending cascade of perceptual regress, if you will. 

There would seem to be at least two other difficulties Aristotle would wish to avoid with “perceptions of perception.”(1)  The first is that the second perception would not be “of” the object of perception, the purported intention of the thought.  Rather it would be of the first perception (even if this included the original object as well), relegating the first perception to a role not unlike the one played by the Forms in Plato’s epistemology.  That is, the first perception would be the noetic stuff given to the awareness, just as the Forms are ultimately that by which and of which a thought is about.  On this understanding the first perception would be of the object, while the second perception would be of the perception of the object.  Consciousness is thus directly removed from the true object of its intention, and there is an awareness not of something out there in the world, but at a remove of one step from that world.  If this is so, it is easy to see why Aristotle would avoid this difficulty by positing that a perception, or a thought, carries with it its own awareness. 

The second difficulty for “perceptions of perception” is that the two perceptions are presumably identical.  And either they are precisely identical, in which case one of them is superfluous, or they differ only in that the second is the perception of the first, while the first is of some other object.  In this second case then, the second perception perceives the first perception with the result that there is an awareness of either the first perception or the object of the first perception, it is unclear to say which.  Whichever the object of the second perception though, it would seem better served, since we have already granted that a perception qua mere perception (in the second perception) has the capacity to serve as an awareness, that we grant this same power to the first perception, eliminating what appears to be an unneeded appeal to the unsure grounds of infinite regress.

REFERENCES:

(1)
This impulse to put “safeguards” in place for capacities seems to be a mainstay in philosophy: for every capacity there must be some further capacity over and above this one in order to ensure proper functioning of the capacity.  John McDowell criticizes this maneuver lucidly when he says, “Some people have a capacity to throw a basketball through the hoop from the free-throw line. Any instantiation of such a capacity is imperfect; even the best players do not make all their free throws” (McDowell 245).  Thus, to make a basket with (a given) regularity belongs to the capacity itself, not by a capacity over and above the ability to hit a free throw.

Aristotle, and Christopher Shields. De Anima. Trans. Christopher Shields.  Oxford: Clarendon, 2016.

McDowell, John (2010), ‘Tyler Burge on disjunctivism’, Philosophical Explorations, 13: 3, 243-255