Category Archives: Metaphysics

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Arguments against Forms: “Former and Latter”

Posted on by

In the process of setting forth the project that will consume the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle sketches a description for what is the ultimate good, that which all our actions aim to achieve.  He describes the possibility of finding such an action (or whatever it will turn out to be), in these terms:

Indeed, if there is some end of practical affairs which we wish in itself, but all the rest because of this one thing, and we do not wish for everything because of some other thing (for then everything proceeds to infinity, and so desire would be empty and vain), it is obvious that this would be the good and the best.  As archers possessing a target, should we attain what is needed, since the knowledge of this has great importance in life?  If this is so, one must attempt to grasp it in outline at least, what it is and of what kind of knowledge and capacity it belongs (NE 1094a18-26). 1

As Aristotle vividly sets forth, we need some “target,” that ultimate good, at which we can aim our arrows, our lives.  One possibility is the “good” so envisaged by Plato.  Aristotle will then embark on an investigation of this candidate for the “good.”  Before the first of many criticism of Forms, however, Aristotle offers a peace offering of good will to Platonists.

It is fitting to perhaps to investigate and deal with the difficulties of how the universal [good] (to katholou) is said, even though such an investigation courts controversy because the men who introduced Forms (ta eide) are friends.  It would seem that it is fitting, in fact necessary for the preservation of truth even to destroy one’s own work, both generally and because we are philosophers.  For, although both [Platonists and truth] are dear, it is sacred to preferentially honor the truth (NE 1096a11-17). 2

After this shrewdly irenical, even poetical, preface, Aristotle gets into the meat of his first objection by informing us that Platonists do not have forms of those things which have a “former” and “latter.”

Indeed those who introduced this opinion did not place the Forms among those things in which they said there was a former (to proteron) and latter (hysteron); therefore they did not make a Form of numbers.  And the good is said in the categories of “what is” (ti esti) and in quantity (to poion) and in relation (pros ti), but that which is by itself (to kath’ hauto), that is, being or substance (ousia), is prior (proteron) by nature to relation. (For relation seems like an offshoot and incident of being (tou ontos).  So that there would not be some Form in addition to these (NE 1096a17-23). 3

After the mention of numbers, Aristotle brings in talk of his own Categories, noting that the “good” can be predicated in many different ways.  This presents a problem for believers in the Forms.  If “good” is in one of the three categories of “what is,” or quantity, or relation, then in virtue of being in both the category of “what is” and relation it is involved in the “former and latter.”  However remember that the “former and latter” is prohibited as things there are Forms of, as Aristotle just mentioned at NE 1096a17.  The reason that the good is involved in the former and the latter is because “what is” precedes, i.e. is  ontologically prior to, the category of relation, although both “what is” and relation are said of the good.  Therefore logically either there are Forms for things that are involved in “former and latter,” or, as Aristotle prefers, there are no forms since even the paradigmatic Form of them all, the Form of the good, necessarily must (illlogically) involve the “former and latter.”

Questions:

  1. Why does Aristotle bring up two categories in this objection to forms?  That is, he doesn’t seem to need the category of “what is.”  Isn’t the category of relation, in itself, sufficient to show that the good, if it is involved in that category (and it is) concerns the “former and latter.”  Because it seems that at least some forms of relation concern the former and latter.
  2. What is the motivation in Platonists avoiding Forms in the case of the former and latter?  Is it because this is a form of relation, in which one is before the other, and thus would undermine the atemporality and transcendence of Forms?
  3. In light of NE 1094a18-26 (quoted above), is it fair of Aristotle to ask Platonists for an explanation of good in the different ways Aristotle enumerates?  After all, if per Aristotle’s argument in NE 1094a18-26, there is one single “good” at which everything aims, then insofar as there is more than one “good,” they are only derivatively so, and it is plausible that there must be some one single good over and above all these.

 

1 Εἰ δή τι τέλος ἐστὶ τῶν
πρακτῶν ὃ δι’ αὑτὸ βουλόμεθα, τἆλλα δὲ διὰ τοῦτο, καὶ μὴ
πάντα δι’ ἕτερον αἱρούμεθα (πρόεισι γὰρ οὕτω γ’ εἰς ἄπειρον,    (20)
ὥστ’ εἶναι κενὴν καὶ ματαίαν τὴν ὄρεξιν), δῆλον ὡς τοῦτ’ ἂν
εἴη τἀγαθὸν καὶ τὸ ἄριστον. ἆρ’ οὖν καὶ πρὸς τὸν βίον ἡ
γνῶσις αὐτοῦ μεγάλην ἔχει ῥοπήν, καὶ καθάπερ τοξόται
σκοπὸν ἔχοντες μᾶλλον ἂν τυγχάνοιμεν τοῦ δέοντος; εἰ δ’
οὕτω, πειρατέον τύπῳ γε περιλαβεῖν αὐτὸ τί ποτ’ ἐστὶ καὶ   (25)
τίνος τῶν ἐπιστημῶν ἢ δυνάμεων

2  Τὸ δὲ καθόλου βέλτιον ἴσως ἐπισκέψασθαι καὶ διαπο-
ρῆσαι πῶς λέγεται, καίπερ προσάντους τῆς τοιαύτης ζητή-
σεως γινομένης διὰ τὸ φίλους ἄνδρας εἰσαγαγεῖν τὰ εἴδη.
δόξειε δ’ ἂν ἴσως βέλτιον εἶναι καὶ δεῖν ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ γε τῆς
ἀληθείας καὶ τὰ οἰκεῖα ἀναιρεῖν, ἄλλως τε καὶ φιλοσόφους   (15)
ὄντας· ἀμφοῖν γὰρ ὄντοιν φίλοιν ὅσιον προτιμᾶν τὴν ἀλή-
θειαν.

3 οἱ δὴ κομίσαντες τὴν δόξαν ταύτην οὐκ ἐποίουν ἰδέας
ἐν οἷς τὸ πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον ἔλεγον, διόπερ οὐδὲ τῶν
ἀριθμῶν ἰδέαν κατεσκεύαζον· τὸ δ’ ἀγαθὸν λέγεται καὶ ἐν
τῷ τί ἐστι καὶ ἐν τῷ ποιῷ καὶ ἐν τῷ πρός τι, τὸ δὲ καθ’   (20)
αὑτὸ καὶ ἡ οὐσία πρότερον τῇ φύσει τοῦ πρός τι (παρα-
φυάδι γὰρ τοῦτ’ ἔοικε καὶ συμβεβηκότι τοῦ ὄντος)· ὥστ’ οὐκ
ἂν εἴη κοινή τις ἐπὶ τούτοις ἰδέα.

Aristotle’s Essence: τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι

Posted on by

τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι is an odd phrase, common to Aristotelian diction, used when the philosopher wishes to speak about the essence of a particular thing. Most students translate the phrase as “essence” by rote, because they have not the faintest conception on how to penetrate the meaning of this four-word hieroglyphic.

Let us begin by discussing what this construction consists of at its most basic level. Fundamentally the phrase is an articular infinitive. Dr. Smyth tells us that, “The articular infinitive, while having the character of a substantive, retains the functions of a verb” (See Smyth, 2025 and following). The “character” of a substantive means that we are able to decline the infinitive as a neuter singular noun, if we place the appropriately declined definite article (τό, τοῦ, τῷ, τό) in front of it. Thus, τὸ ποιεῖν can be translated not merely as “to make,” but also as “making.” With this in mind, τὸ εἶναι, is “to be” or “being,” often simplified by most translators to “essence.”

This leaves us with the two inner terms, τί ἦν. First let us look at the imperfect ἦν. In Smyth 1901-1902 we are told that the imperfect can be used for the present tense. Liddell and Scott (εἰμί F. bottom of entry) inform us that ἦν is sometimes used as the present, corroborating the account given by Smyth. Liddell and Scott also make mention of Aristotle’s exact phrase, remarking that, “τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι expresses the essential nature of a thing.” Thus the ἦν is actually an ἐστί, at least for translation purposes.

The LSJ entry is further helpful in determining the meaning of τί ἦν as a two-word phrase. It points out that τί ἦν, in the phrase τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι, takes the place of a very similar articular infinitive, but with a dative phrase, such as τὸ ἀγαθῷ εἶναι, which can be seen in Prior Analytics 67b12 and De Anima 429b10. τί ἦν is therefore really (τῷ) τί ἦν. τί, of course, is the interrogative pronoun, “what.” The phrase τί ἦν means, “what is it?” or as an indirect interrogative, which it could also be, “what it is.”

Putting it all together in a different order we have, τὸ εἶναι “being,” (τῷ) τί ἦν “for what is it?” or as an indirect interrogative, “for what it is.” Very often when there is a dative with a verb like εἰμί, it is construed as a dative of possession, which can be translated as a genitive. We could translate τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι as, “The essence/being of what it is.” The mystery of the phrase is solved. We are nevertheless saddled with an uncharacteristically unwieldy phrase to describe a common Greek philosophical term.

Thinking of Thought in the Thought of Aristotle’s God Part 3/3

Posted on by

“Indeed in some situations knowledge is the important thing, while in the productive arts without matter the substance and the essence are the important thing, while in the theoretical arts logic and the thought are the important thing.  Therefore, because the thing being thought and the intellect are not different, in so far as they possess no matter, the same thing will be the case, and thought is one thing in the thing being thought.

 Yet surely difficulties remain, if the thing being thought is composite.  For there would be change in the parts of the whole intellect.  In fact, that which does not possess matter is entirely indivisible.  In the same way the human intellect is indivisible, or at least a composite creature in a certain time is indivisible (for being well does not consist in this time or that time, but the best is in the whole of life, because it is something else), in this way the mind itself is from itself for the extent of eternity.”  (Metaphysics 1075a1-10) 1

Part 1       Part 2

Aristotle has to this point (Metaphysics 1074b15-1075) arrived at the following conclusions about nous, beginning from the premise that it is the most divine and honorable thing (from which idea nous is necessarily also an actuality, not a potentiality):  1)  It thinks 2) It thinks about the same thing 3) It thinks about the same thing all the time 4) It thinks about the most divine and honorable thing 5) It thinks about itself, since it is the most divine and honorable thing.

As my last post ended, I perhaps unskillfully made the decision to cut Aristotle’s text at a point which would allow for three somewhat equal sections, and thus three posts.  In order to rectify that division I have to “restitch” the last part of that section and the first part of this section.  As section 1074 closed, Aristotle had proved that a mental state itself and the object of that state can be, but are not necessarily, the same thing.  As 1075 begins Aristotle says that in some sciences the thing being thought is the knowledge.  Thus in Aristotle’s sense, it can be equally said that knowledge is the thing being thought.  He appeals to the productive and theoretical sciences for his examples.  A productive science builds or produces an end product.  This product could be a physical good, but it could also be a “product” like rhetoric.  Thus, in Aristotle’s words, in the case of a “productive science without matter” such as rhetoric, to think of the thing is to actually produce the thing itself.  The act of conceiving a good speech is to actually possess a good speech, even though one may still need to deliver it.  Likewise, as both nous and the object of nous’ thinking are also “without matter,” they are one and the same thing.  Yet Aristotle brings up another potential difficulty if we understand the object of thought to be composite (suntheton).  For nous itself would change insofar as at different times it would think about different parts of this composite, and thus it would change (a change of state) from thinking about X to thinking about Y.  However, nous has already been described as that which always thinks about the best thing, and never changes from such a state. Thus, we seem to have a contradiction in the nature of nous if we say that nous (1) always thinks about the same thing and (2) thinks about a composite thing.

Aristotle answers this difficulty by pointing out that the totality of the things composing a thought, if indeed it is composite, nevertheless is a thing separate from each of its constituents.  Indeed the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  By analogy with an argument Aristotle makes in the Nicomachean Ethics wherein he states that happiness is achieved by the totality of a life lived in accordance with the virtues, he similarly presses the point here that the thought of nous is a unified, coherent and separate entity different from the mere elements that individually constitute it.  Just as we may accurately speak of a “single” life, we can speak of a “single” thought, because both of these are of a qualitatively different nature than just a collection of virtues or thoughts, respectively.

 

1 ἢ ἐπ ̓ ἐνίων ἡ ἐπιστήμη τὸ πρᾶγμα, ἐπὶ μὲν τῶν ποιητικῶν ἄνευ ὕλης ἡ οὐσία καὶ τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι, ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν θεωρητικῶν ὁ λόγος τὸ πρᾶγμα καὶ ἡ νόησις; οὐχ ἑτέρου οὖν ὄντος τοῦ νοουμένου καὶ τοῦ νοῦ, ὅσα μὴ ὕλην ἔχει, τὸ αὐτὸ ἔσται, καὶ ἡ [5] νόησις τῷ νοουμένῳ μία. ἔτι δὴ λείπεται ἀπορία, εἰ σύνθετον τὸ νοούμενον: μεταβάλλοι γὰρ ἂν ἐν τοῖς μέρεσι τοῦ ὅλου. ἢ ἀδιαίρετον πᾶν τὸ μὴ ἔχον ὕλην—ὥσπερ ὁ ἀνθρώπινος νοῦς ἢ ὅ γε τῶν συνθέτων ἔχει ἔν τινι χρόνῳ (οὐ γὰρ ἔχει τὸ εὖ ἐν τῳδὶ ἢ ἐν τῳδί, ἀλλ ̓ ἐν ὅλῳ τινὶ τὸ ἄριστον, ὂν ἄλλο τι)— [10] οὕτως δ ̓ ἔχει αὐτὴ αὑτῆς ἡ νόησις τὸν ἅπαντα αἰῶνα;