“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
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;