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Aristotle’s work “Metaphysics” relates his earlier reflections on ousia (primary unchanging substance) to investigations in the realm of special ontology (the realm of the world of change) and relates both of these aspects to the investigation of “First Philosophy” into “to on he(i)”(general ontology). This latter investigation begins with the strategic aporetic advice, “Ask of everything what it is in its nature”.
The importance of essence-specifying definitions in Aristotles reflections are self-evident and these can be seen to serve as a bridge between special and general ontology. It is important however, to recall that we are only defining “substance” in terms of hylomorphic criteria (forms organising material) and not attempting a definition of material per se.
This becomes more apparent if the “substance” at issue is psuche (living beIngs, life) rather than the matter of the body (its tissues, bones, limbs and organs). There is no doubt that on hylomorphic theory the matter of the body underlies the organising form of the soul and this matter can be a partial cause of , for example, sensations of pain and other feelings. Moving to higher mental processes such as thinking and thought, however, requires a more complex approach and requires, reverting to Kantian language, for example, reference to an “I” that is a self causing agent (self sufficient in the sense of being able to cause itself to think or do things). In terms of the Aristotelian idea of psuche we are also dealing with living beings that are self causing beings. For Aristotle, asking of the soul what it is in its nature, requires the use of the hylomorphic matrix of 3 media of change(space, time, matter)4 kinds of change, three principles, four causes, as well as the mastering of three different realms of science.. The soul, Aristotle argues, is the essence of the body and its primary activity is thought: this thought activity aims at knowledge as a positive state which is able to pose questions relating to the nature of things and beings. In relation to this point, Aristotle in De Anima has the following to say:
“If thinking is akin to perceiving, it would consist in being somehow affected by the object of thought or in something else of this sort. It is necessary, therefore, that it be unaffected, yet capable of receiving a form: that it be this sort of object in potentiality but not that: and that it be such that just as the perceptual faculty is to the objects of perception, so reason will be to the objects of thought.”( De Anima 429a13-18)
Hylomorphism was partly developed as a theory to deal with the aporetic problem of characterising and explaining the life of living beings in terms of their essence. The essence-specifying definition of the human form of psuche, namely, the rational animal capable of discourse, is the result of reasoning in a hylomorphic categorical framework (special ontology) embedded in the general ontological framework of “to on he(i)”. There are 4 categories of change in the realm of thought and this realm is connected to three types of “form-communication” in the world, the most important of which is, education of a student by a teacher (the other two types of form-communication being sexual reproduction and the transmission of skills to materials or apprentices). This accords well with the Aristotelian claim earlier in De Anima that whilst change in what O Shaughnessy called the “psychological” realm of sensation, perception and feeling(which has to do with one state of mind being removed and being replaced with another(privation)), change in the “mental” realm, where thought occurs, takes place in accordance with a context of explanation/understanding which moves toward understanding the essence of things. In Plato’s Republic we are given one of the first accounts of the pleasure-pain principle in the “psychological” realm. Plato claims that pleasure in its more primitive form results from the relief that occurs with the fading away of pain or suffering but, he maintains, the pleasure of learning is not so constituted, and is essentially related to the understanding of thought and the forms. In such a journey up the psychological hierarchy of emotions, we encounter the form of truth on the way to the terminus of the knowledge of The Good. In the case of the more primitive form of pleasure we appear to be involved with a dialectic of opposites succeeding one another, and in the latter more complex form, we encounter a categorical end to a categorical process. This primitive form of pleasure-pain is obviously connected to the dialectic of wish fulfillments and anxieties Freud’s patients were experiencing. It was in this context that Freud introduced Thanatos, the death instinct, as an explanation of why the Reality Principle was not functioning in the lives of these patients. He encountered among other things an interruption of understanding by a repetition emanating from a past trauma: a repetition that appeared to be immune from the normal processes of forgetfulness.
The Metaphysics of Aristotle begins with pointing out that all rational animals capable of discourse desire to know(Met 980a1). This desire operates at both the psychological and the mental levels (using O Shaughnessy’s special ontology). At the higher level of the mental it is involved in the contemplation of knowledge. Contemplation is not purely theoretical for Aristotle, being unequivocally related to the practical idea of eudaimonia which we suggest is best translated in such contexts , not as happiness, but rather as the good spirited flourishing life. For Aristotle contemplation is concerned with the essence of being(onta).
Christopher Shields in his work on Aristotle refers to Anaxagoras who is mentioned several times in the Metaphysics. Anaxagoras and his claim that “All is mind” was responsible for the “Socratic turn” away from investigations of the physical world. Shields formulates the Aristotelian argument for the position that the mind is essentially a potentiality and actualises itself in thought. Shields extracts 4 premises from the argument presented in De Anima:
1. Mind thinks all things(DA429a18)
2.Hence, mind is unmixed(DA429a18)
3. Hence, the nature of mind is nothing other than to be something potential(DA429a 21-22)
4. Hence, mind is none of the things existing in actuality before it thinks(429a22-24)
(Shields, C., Routledge, London, 2007, P.307)
Metaphysics concerns itself with the many meanings of Being : with potentiality being an important aspect to consider in contexts of explanation/understanding. Politis, in his work “Aristotle and the Metaphysics”, claims that 15 aporetic questions delineate this realm of Being qua Being, and many “First principles” emerge in this exercise of “First Philosophy”. With the consideration of these first principles in this contemplative activity we have reached ground zero in the context of explanation/understanding. In most of the sciences the adventure begins with knowledge of a few categories of being and continues via sense perception (in a context of exploration/discovery). The next phase of the process generates basic general terms and moves to the next level of generalisation which may or may not be principles. In the science of metaphysics on the other hand we begin with puzzles generated by the contemplation of principles and use the first principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason to untie the knots in our thinking about Being. Aporetic questions are posed and answered in the wake of mental activity occurring in the spirit of puzzlement and concern, and best expressed in the question “WHY?”. When we are contemplating at the level of first principles it is, of course, the case that there may be more than one possible answer to our question and the subsequent discussion may appear dialectical (thesis-antithesis). The answers given to our question at this level of reflection ought not to be the doxa (opinions) of the many, unless these opinions have been subjected to the contemplation of the issues involved via the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. This becomes obvious when we peruse the 15 aporia from Metaphysics Book 3.
In previous volumes of this work we have characterised the Aristotelian architectonic in terms of the three “categories” of the sciences: Theoretical science(Theology, Maths, Physics, Biology), Practical Science(Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric, Economics, and Grammar), Productive science( Mimetic arts, crafts, medicine, psychoanalysis). Logic, in the form of the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason, are presupposed in all of these sciences and from the above list it is also apparent that sciences from different “categories” can be linked together: Psychoanalysis, for example can occur in the name of Medicine and Psychology. A number of the aporia in Book 3 aim at answering the question whether it is the task of Metaphysics (First Philosophy) to investigate all of the different kinds of explanations of things. The answer we have given to this question in the course of this work is that the task of First Philosophy is to investigate the changeless realm of forms in the three media of change(space, time, matter), the 4 kinds of change, three principles of change, and 4 causes of change. These investigations occur in the architectonic of sciences referred to above. First principles and logic will serve as the arché of the architectonic. The question we posed in the beginning of this chapter, namely, “Ask of everything what it is in its nature?” appears therefore to be the overarching question originating from the investigation into First Principles and will permeate the activity of all the sciences. The Theoretical sciences are concerned with substance in its various forms, e.g. in physics and biology and perhaps theoretically oriented psychology (situated in a context of events and causes). Practical sciences differentiate themselves from the Theoretical sciences via the concern with human actions in both categorical and instrumental circumstances: actions conducted in the spirit of areté and epistemé. Productive sciences are concerned with things produced in the spirit of techné for individual, family, and communal purposes. All these sciences are human activities and are covered by the opening words of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics which claim that all activities aim at the good. This aligns Aristotle with Platonistic Metaphysics which also subsumed the form of the True under the form of the Good.
The beginning of Metaphysics Book 3 states that whilst it is important to refer to the history of the discussion of an aporetic question, the problem one is addressing is not necessarily in the thinking ( conceived as being logically disconnected from its object) but rather, as Aristotle, puts it, the problem is that of untying the “knots in the object”. Seen from the perspective of our modern conception of thought where there is no necessary connection of thought to its object, this appears to be a puzzling claim. We are here reminded of the discussion by Heidegger of the aporetic question “Why are there essents rather than nothing?” Heidegger is attempting in his reflections to untie the knots in the discussions of those that might affirm that we cannot know that there are essents. His aim is to demonstrate that modern man suffers from the malady of “forgetfulness of Being”. Heidegger claims that his question is the widest and deepest of all questions attempting as it does to embrace even our relation to nothingness. We are inquiring into something extraordinary: into a foundation made of first principles. Heidegger also addresses the concerns of the theoretical science of physics. He claims that physics is about the physical changes in the realm of things: including things that emerge in the course of change and linger on. Heidegger uses the term “power”(P 15) in the context of this actualisation process of emergence, and Aristotle is singled out. Unfortunately one of the results of this discussion is that Metaphysics and Philosophy are not sciences at all and it is also claimed that logic is somehow a secondary discipline of thinking. Thought for Heidegger has the primary characteristic of aletheia –revealing (undisclosing) essences which are present. It is not at all clear how the sciences can be held together by mere aletheia and Heidegger adds the complaint that all that unites the scientific disciplines is the technical organisation(techné) of the universities which have assisted in transforming mans “spirited existence” into “intelligence”. Even Language according to Heidegger has lost its moorings to what is essential in Life—language is no longer a safe harbour for the understanding of Being. It can no longer show the fullness of the permanence of being and its fundamental relation to, and difference from, processes of Becoming. Works of Language such as Oedipus Rex were works of unconcealment (aletheia)revealing the form of Dasein (Being there) we find manifested in many works of tragic drama. The journey of Oedipus terminates in the downfall of a great king. Both Greek Philosophy and Greek Poetry, Heidegger argues, are therefore ontologically significant and reveal Being qua Being in their different ways. Our forgetfullness of the aporetic questions connected with asking of Being what it is in its nature, is partly due , Heidegger argues, to the Latinisation of the Greek language and the Romanisation of Greek Culture in which thought, for example, is construed in terms of “intelligere”, allowing a form of intellectualism to emerge that is more in the spirit of techné than epistemé. In the same spirit Logos becomes logic and in that translation process lost its relation to the world. The task of untying the knots in the objects of thought became an impossible endeavour. The foundations were being laid for the theoretical distinction between subject and object, with Being situated on the side of the object, and thought situated on the side of the Subject. Heidegger argues against this state of affairs and refers to a fragment of Parmenides in which it is claimed:
“Thinking and Being are the same”(fragment 5, P.136 Intro to Metaphysics).
This, for Heidegger carries the true meaning of Logos. Unfortunately, in the context of this discussion, Heidegger claims(without textual evidence) that the process of concealing the true meaning of Logos began with Aristotle and his linkage of logos to the notion of truth as correctness. This interpretation of Aristotle, we have argued previously in this work, probably emerged when Aristotles works were translated into Latin by translators with a clerical interest in the use of his works. Aletheia was suddenly related to the struggle against the false or “pseudos”. Determining something as something in this process became the intellectual adventure of avoiding claiming something that might conceivably be false or misleading: aletheia became a technical issue. In this process values such as arché, diké, areté, and epistemé became factual matters to be determined by a subject grasping a dualistic correspondence of a thought to reality. Much was lost in this parsing of Greek Culture and this loss was exacerbated by the fact that the activity of Philosophy never found an institutional home until Kant appeared on the University and Philosophical stage during the Enlightenment era (Philosophy schools were closed in 5 AD). The guild system that dominated social institutions in the 18th century unfortunately contributed to what Heidegger characterised as the loose technical organisation of the universities. Latin had become the “academic language” and the guild principle of specialisation dominated these institutions. The principle of specialisation operating in Universities assisted in the marginalisation of the Aristotelian-Kantian tradition.
Aristotle’s Ontological architectonic of disciplines, on the other hand, provided us with criteria by which to distinguish groups of disciplines but it ought also to be pointed out that the proliferation of disciplines in universities is still today more in accordance with the principle of specialisation than philosophical principles. Aristotle , for example clearly distinguishes the science of nature(Physics) from the practical and productive sciences, at Metaphysics 1064:
“There is a science of nature, and evidently it must be different both from the practical and from productive science. For in the case of productive science the principle of production is in the producer and not in the product, and is either an art or some other capacity. And similarly in practical science the movement is not in the thing done, but rather in the doers. But the science of the natural philosopher deals with the things that have in themselves a principle of movement. It is clear from these facts, then, that natural science must be neither practical nor productive, but theoretical…And since each of the sciences must somehow know the “what” and use this as a principe, we must not fail to observe how the natural philosopher should define things and how he must state the formula of the substance–“
The theoretical formula of the substance we designate as human psuche, then, for Aristotle is “rational animal capable of discourse”. This is the formula that Aristotle believes will help untie the knots in objects related to psuche (forms of life) which modern science has, in the case of the human form of life, demoted to the realm of “the subjective”. Many commentators have failed to appreciate the scope and depth of this formula or essence- specifying definition, claiming, for example, that it lacks reference to the law of causality. The definition, however, is clearly teleological, instantiating or actualising the potentiality or form of the substance we designate as human psuche. The definition also designates the archeological origins of man by pointing to his animal nature, claiming that the powers of the human being are developments and modifications of animal instincts. Principles become paramount in the explanation and understanding of the substance of human psuche and its powers of language and rationality. Here rationality is manifested in all three domains of the theoretical, practical and productive. Both discourse and rationality are civilisation building capacities and powers. Every science, Aristotle argues, seek principles and causes in the realm of the 4 kinds of change.
Accidental happenings or phenomena have no cause or principle attached to them. Whilst there is no doubt that such phenomena exist there is no attempt on the part of any science to explain them. This applies also to superstitious correlations of happenings such as the act of the witch doctor piercing the head of a doll and the headache of the man in the next village. Accidental correlations can never occur necessarily.
Empirical Movement(behaviour) is the focus of behaviourist theory and this, together with other naturalistic theories of human activity is categorical and can be studied by the sciences, but Aristotle points out that substances as such cannot move: movement is confined to the categories of quality, quantity, and place. Subjects such as agents and patients are hylomorphic entities and phenomena connected to them are to be subsumed under the categories of activity and passivity. What “changes” in agents and patients is not their nature (rational animals capable of discourse) but rather their qualities, the place they are in, or their size, (e.g. they become musical by learning to play an instrument or sing, they move from Stagira to Athens, they become taller as they reach adolescence) The logical consequence of this argument is that if human nature could be changed by this form of activity we would no longer be dealing with human psuche. For Aristotle something must endure in a change occurring in accordance with his three principles: that from which a thing changes, that toward which a thing changes, and that which endures throughout the change. The death of a human being is an interesting topic to discuss in this context because of the Socratic witticism in his death cell. He is asked what should be done with him after his death and he replies to his friends, saying that they can do what they wish with his body, because they will not find him after the event of his death. What is meant by this is elaborated upon by Aristotle in the Metaphysics:
“But we must examine whether any form also survives afterwards. For in some cases this may be so: e.g. the soul may be of this sort–not all soul but the reason: for doubtless it is impossible that all soul should survive.”( Meta–1070a 24-28)
Aristotle goes on to claim that the ideas of the soul would disappear with the parts of the soul that do not survive, but rationality as a power, principle, or form, would not. We know that Socrates clearly believed that the essence of his soul was connected to his rationality–this was his substance and this in turn was the reason for his commitment to leading the examined life. This form of life, according to Aristotle is the prime mover of humanity. Desire will obviously die with the event of death and this may be why Eros, in Greek mythology, is portrayed not as a God but as a bare footed figure padding around the city, searching for what alludes him.
Psuche, then, is embedded in the larger Aristotelian matrix of matter, form, privation moving causes, and the eternal unmovable substance. In this matrix neither movement nor time can come into being–both are also eternal and unchanging–when regarded as principles–but they also can be conceived as the matter of experience waiting to be formed. They are not however to be identified with physical substances but rather with the processes of change in which these substances are embedded. They are categorical in the sense that they are what endure throughout change–not particular movements measured mathematically nor particular times measured by our clocks and calendars but rather movement as such and time as such (the absolute time of Newton?)
The soul we know moves itself, as do the heavens. For the soul the “starting point” is thought and this is partly why it is important to untie the knots in the object by leading the examined/contemplative life that is connected to the kind of pleasure that is not the consequence of privation (relief from pain). The principles are “that for the sake of which”. (Aristotle argues at Metaphysics 1072b1 2021) that thought thinks itself because it is the same as the object, and when it is active it possesses this object. Aristotle sometimes identifies this kind of thought with the divine and God–a being that is eternal, most good.
We humans tend to thunk of movement not as substance but in terms of change of place and quantitatively, which are minor categories of Being (which we ought to recall has many meanings). God is identified with primary being and primary movement. He is the unmoved mover and this is the closest Aristotle comes to a formula for the divine. The divine embraces the self movement of the soul as well as that of the heavens. God is such that his/her perfection demands that he/she is both thinking of the movement of the heavens or rational human psuche activity in divine time (one day= a billion human years?) and simultaneously thinking of him/her self. This contemplative activity ensures that eternal primary change is never a change for the worse but always a change for the better participating in the One, complete Good.
Non accidental movement and time as conceived by rational animals capable of discourse are ordered in terms of principles. The Kantian image which best illustrates this, is that of the ship steaming downstream. The Good order we witness here is that in which the before and after organise both the nows and the movement. Everything related to the primary first principle of God will be so ordered including life forms, since God is , according to Aristotle, alive. All things connected by principles manifest themselves as rational and divine and have some relation to divine time. The wisdom of this divine matrix is manifested in the forms which are primary and there is nothing, Aristotle argues(1076b120-21) which is contrary to the forms that constitute Primary Being. Primary Being orders the forms into One. There is only one ruler of the universe.
In Book 13 Aristotle raises the question f the nature of Mathematics. Plato in his Republic had already demoted Mathematics to an intermediate level of Being between the forms and sensible things. Aristotle continues in this vein and asks how it could be possible that anything such as the heavens, which are moved, could exist apart from our sensible experience of them and he also wonders how a line or a plane could be animate. Such mathematical objects appear to be wholly constituted by a formula, e.g. a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, but they nevertheless, Aristotle argues, do not exist separately from the sensible realm as “substances”. This is part of the argument that “existence” has many senses:
“It is true to say without qualification that the objects of mathematics exist and with the character ascribed to them by the mathematician…if its subjects happen to be sensible, though it does not treat them qua sensible, the mathematical sciences will not for that reason be sciences of sensibles, nor, on the other hand, of other things separate from the sensibles.”(1078a2 2-4)
Given the obvious fact that mathematics manifests order to a high degree we can therefore without difficulty attribute both the good and the beautiful to mathematical thinking. The order of the sensible world, on the other hand, according to Heraclitus, is in a state of flux, and the things in that world are many. In such circumstances non sensible ideas claim a degree of universality which gets expressed in definitions of these sensible things–such definitions aim at the unity of One Substance, and the definition provides us with knowledge of this substance. This knowledge also manifests its relation to the good because it is self sufficient and a good-in-itself. Both of these qualities are important characteristics of the examined contemplative life. All forms which share in this unity are therefore, on Plato’s theory, subsumed under the idea or form of the Good. Mathematics is clearly an activity of calculation and can be applied to the real concrete world of sensible particulars on the condition we make certain quantitative and relational assumptions and are prepared to deal with quantitative and relational abstractions of things (images). The formulae for these images function like principles. Mathematics therefore manifest both categorical and hypothetical aspects(e.g. Let x= 10)
Principles(non sensible things)”exist”, according to Aristotle, in a certain sense of “exist”. When principles are referred to in essence-specifying definitions, they “really” occur in contexts of explanation/understanding which in turn refer to particular things we have discovered in our inductive explorations in contexts of discovery. Both of these contexts are important for science in general but insofar as the scientific account of particulars like Socrates are concerned, the starting point is the definition, rational animal capable of discourse, but inductive investigations will reveal that he was born in Athens, annoyed some people in the agora, and died in Athens. This is the study of Socrates as “aestheta” and many other knowledge claims embodying principles emanating from different sciences, and even different kinds of science(theoretical, practical, productive)can also be made. In this context, a starting point for Aristotle, is not something that belongs in the context of discovery/explanation but rather something that belongs in a context of explanation/understanding. It is used to organise activity in the context of exploration/discovery. His starting point is more motivated by a quaestio juris than a quaestio facti. Inductive investigations hope that generalisations will emerge that go beyond the data. A merely inductive generalisation resulting from the observation of the death of Socrates: one which did not go beyond the data, however, might conclude with the generalisation “The state ought to put Philosophers to death”. Such a generalisation would be the result of an empirical assumption about the world that it is merely a totality of facts. Principles relating to the quaestio juris–how we ought to conceive of cases– are excluded. in such contexts of explanation. In these contexts it is the principle that is the starting point and the outcomes are the judgements– guilty-not guilty –and this is the telos of such justice-related activities. From the point of view of the quaestio juris one does not need an investigation into whether people murder other people–one already knows that fact. The law is normative, and there is no interest in the verification of such facts. One of the primary functions of the fact is to describe and not to prescribe. The different sciences use both quaestio facti and questio juris (prescriptive principles, in Wittgenstein’s language:”norms of representation”)to provide us with the answer to questions relating to what things are, where they have come from, and how these things are knowable. Prescribing takes the form of “Ask of everything what it is in its nature” in the context of explanation/understanding and it is certainly a more difficult endeavour in the case of Mathematics which appears to be primarily concerned with shapes and numbers. Different sciences: e.g. Biology( which concerns itself with living beings), e.g. Philosophical Psychology (which concerns itself with rational animals capable of discourse), and e.g. Metaphysics (which concerns itself with the whole realm of Being) will use the above prescription in various ways. Metaphysics will also ask the ontological questions relating to what something is and why it is so, as well as the epistemological question of how a rational animal capable of discourse is capable of knowledge. We should recall here that the Metaphysics opens with the epistemological claim that all human beings desire to know.
Aristotle’s idea of form differs from that of Plato, partly because of his rejection of the substantive dualism involved but also because Aristotles logical principles apply, according to Politis, to both things, and our statements or thought about things. In the context of this discussion, Politis in his work “Aristotle and the Metaphysics”, points to an important pseudo-distinction insisted upon by the “new men” of our modern age (e.g. Russell) between statements/thoughts about things and the things themselves. More accurately it is claimed in the name of Logic ( the discipline of which was the creation of Aristotle) and its principles that the principle of noncontradiction(PNC) is a principle about the thought or statements about things rather than about those things themselves. Russells philosophical program went in many different directions during his writing career but his idea of the separation of logic and metaphysics remained relatively constant over a long period of time. It can be argued that apart from sharing the widespread phobia for idealism common to the academics of the period, Russell also focussed upon a narrow sense of ” exist”, that we encounter in both his theory of descriptions and in his wider program of logical atomism. Metaphysics was anathema to Russell who appreciated neither Hylomorphic nor Kantian Critical Metaphysics. Politis formulates Aristotle’s metaphysical commitment to PNC in the following way:
“Evidently Aristotle thinks that PNC is true both with regard to statements and with regard to things. But he appears to be especially interested in the question of whether PNC is true with regard to things.”( P.123)
This is a wider and deeper conception of “existence” than anything we can find in Russell or the work of the early Wittgenstein. It could also be argued that one of the major differences in the different conceptions is that both Russell and Wittgenstein situate “existence” in a context of exploration/discovery, whereas Aristotle situates “existence” in a context of explanation/understanding in which PNC and the Principle of Sufficient Reason(PSR) are determining explanatory factors. Rationality is, of course present in both types of context but in different forms. The role of logic, for example, in the context of exploration/discovery is limited and confined with the logic of the relation of concepts rather than the logic of the relation of statements. All deductive argument is regulated by PNC and PSR. PNC, Aristotle argues, although necessary for scientific demonstration cannot itself be demonstrated by outside principles. His argument is basically a humanistic one appealing to the education of those that know what can and what cannot be demonstrated.
Politis’s discussion is important because it draws attention to a possible important difference between the views of Aristotle and Kant on this issue . He argues that Kant believes PNC to be a transcendental Principle but he does not provide textual argument or any other argument for the claim outlined below:
“Why cannot PNC be both a transcendental and a metaphysical principle?In a sense it can.That is to say, in so far as PNC, in its metaphysical formulation, is true simply about things, it is a metaphysical principle: and insofar as PNC is a necessary condition for the possibility of thought and language about things, it can in a loose sense be called a transcendental principle. The question, however, is whether PNC is true of things because it is a necessary condition for the possibility of thought and language about things.”(P.136)
One of the issues involved is the question of the type of idealism we may attribute to Kant. In the Prolegomenon it is clear that we are not dealing with the empirical idealism of Descartes or the mystical idealism of Berkeley:
“My idealism concerns not the existence of things since it never came into my head to doubt this: but it concerns the sensuous representations of things, to which space and time especially belong. Regarding space and time and consequently, regarding all appearances in general, I have only shown that they are neither things(but are mere modes of representation) nor are they determinations belonging to things in themselves.. But the word “transcendental”, which for me never means a reference of our cognition to things, but only to our faculty of cognition, was meant to obviate this misconception…Yet..I now retract it and desire this idealism to be called “critical”. (Prolegomenon 293)
The “loose” sense of “transcendental” referred to by Politis is not that employed by Kant in his work “Philosophy of Material Nature”(trans Ellington J. Indianapolis, Hacker Publishing)1985. Ellington in his introduction to the above work claims :
“Metaphysical and transcendental principles require a priori philosophical justifications showing how it is that principles which in their origin owe nothing to experience are nevertheless applicable to experience. For example, according to the transcendental principle of efficient causation, all things change in conformity with the law of the connection of cause and effect.”(PXV)
Another use of the term “transcendental” occurs later on in Ellingtons Introduction:
“The transcendental concept of substance is one of an unchanging subject to which changing predicates belong: this is the most general vision that we can have of a phenomenal object(PXV)
The Metaphysics of material nature requires the principle of the application of transcendental concepts to matter. We can see that neither of these uses of the notion of “transcendental” by Kant as reported by Ellington resembles Politis’s “loose” sense of “transcendental”. There is, in other words, nothing to prevent us from situating both Aristotle and Kant in the same philosophical territory insofar as their views of the relations between the metaphysical and the transcendental are concerned.
It is certainly true to claim, as Politis does, that if PNC is not valid, then one necessary consequence of this is that we would not be able to talk or think about things, but we should also add that the reason for this is that , for Aristotle, there is a logical relation between thought and object in contexts of explanation/understanding.
Rationality in the context of movement and action by animals capable of discourse is the subject of study by the practical sciences. Here too the logical relation of thought and object appears present according to Politis’s interpretation:
“Such animals, we are asked to recall, are directly moved by their own rational thought and desire, when they deliberate and come to recognise that something is good and worth pursuing. As Aristotle points out here:”reason(nous) is moved by the object that is rationally thought of(to noéson)”(1072a30). But while the thought and desire of an animal changes when the animal moves as a result of its thought and desire, the object of the thought and desire, i.e., what is recognised as good and worth pursuing need not change. For example, if I can reason that a certain kind of exercise is necessary in order to secure health, which I recognise to be a good thing and worth pursuing, then (supposing that I am sufficiently rational) my desires will change and they will cause me to change. But the object that I recognise to be good and worth pursuing, health, does not change, and it does not need to change in order to cause me to pursue it.”(P.277)
The “objects” of health, courage, justice, and wisdom are goods, both in themselves and in their consequences, and the above is Aristotle’s answer to Glaucon’s challenge to Socrates in the Republic. Socrates was urged to prove that Justice was both good in itself and good in its consequences. Both in Plato’s view and on Aristotle’s view the objects of knowledge are also Good. Perusing the pages of De Anima one might also want to insist that psuche is a good object in itself. Being alive is, of course connected to being healthy and the telos of eudaimonia (a good spirited flourishing life). Psuche, then, is both cause and principle of the forms of life we know about. Christopher Shield argues cogently for the souls being the telos or final cause of the body(P.276) and also for the essential unity and self sufficiency of the soul in the following argument(P.281):
- A body is a unified entity, composed of several parts.
- If it is unified, then it has a principle of unity.
- If that principle of unity cannot be the body itself, then it must be the soul.
- Hence the principle of unity for the body is the soul.
- The soul itself either has parts or is simple.
- If the soul has parts, then since it s a unity, it too has a principle of unity.
- The soul either contains its own principle of unity(by being essentially a unity) or is unified in virtue of some external principle of unity.
- There is no plausible external principle of unity for the soul.
- Hence the soul contains its own principle of unity(by being essentially a unity)
- If the soul is essentially a unity, the soul is a metaphysical simple.
- Hence the soul is a metaphysical principle.
The soul is a metaphysical simple presumably because it is self sufficient (e.g self moving) and thereby essentially connected to “The Good”. Aristotle’s argument is directed both at the substantial dualism of Plato and the materialistic theories of his times which even then were seeking to eliminate metaphysical principles of the soul. The form and matter (soul and body)of a rational animal capable of discourse are one and the same in the same way in which a piece of wax and its shape cannot be separated. It is now easier to understand the hylomorphic characterisation of thought as something which is moving toward fulfilment in knowledge and action. Thinking and thought are both potentialities and become actualised when activated. Their form of existence when not activated is potentiality: actuality is their telos in the mode of contemplation that is situated fairly and squarely in a context of explanation/understanding. Shields does well to remind us, however, of the Delphic oracles complex challenge passed down to humanity, namely to know ourselves. This may be the aporetic problem par excellence and require a lifetime of contemplation of all the theoretical sciences including their metaphysical and logical aspects, all the practical sciences and perhaps some of the productive sciences.