Aristotle – Page 4 – Maverick Philosopher

Accidental Sameness: Defending Hennessey Against My Objection

Yesterday I made an objection to Richard Hennessey's neo-Aristotelian theory of accidental predication. But this morning I realized that he has one or more plausible responses. By the way, this post has, besides its philosophical purpose, a metaphilosophical one. I will be adding support to my claim lately bruited that philosophy — the genuine article — is not a matter of debate, as I define both 'philosophy' and 'debate.' For have you ever been to a debate in which debater A, having made an objection to something debater B has said, says, "Wait a minute! I just realized that you have one or more plausible ways of turning aside my objection. The first is . . . ."?

1. 'Socrates is seated' is an example of an accidental predication. For surely it is no part of Socrates' essence or nature that he be seated. There is no broadly logical necessity that he be seated at any time at which he is seated, and there are plenty of times at which he is not seated. 'Socrates is seated' contrasts with the essential predication 'Socrates is human.' Socrates is human at every time at which he exists and at every world at which he exists.

2. Hennessey's theory is that ". . . only if the referent of the 'Socrates' and that of the 'sitting' of 'Socrates is sitting' are identical can it be true that Socrates is actually the one sitting." The idea seems to be that accidental predications can be understood as identity statements. Thus 'Socrates is seated' goes over into (what is claimed to be) the logically equivalent 'Socrates is (identical to) seated-Socrates.' Accordingly, our sample sentence is construed, not as predicating a property of Socrates, a property he instantiates, but as affiming the identity of Socrates with the referent of 'seated-Socrates.'

3. But what is the referent of 'seated-Socrates'? If the referent is identical to the referent of 'Socrates,' namely Socrates, then my objection kicks in: how can the predication be contingently true, as it obviously is, given that it affirms the identity of Socrates with himself? Socrates is essentially Socrates but only accidentally seated.

4. Perhaps Hennessey could respond to this objection by saying that 'Socrates' and 'Socrates-seated' do not refer to the same item: they refer to different items which are, nonetheless, contingently identical. This would involve distinguishing between necessary identity and contingent identity where both are equivalence relations (reflexive, symmetrical, transitive) but only the former satisfies in addition the Indiscernibility of Identicals (InId) and the Necessity of Identity (NI). It is obvious that if a and b are contingently identical, but distinct, then these items must be discernible in which case InId fails. It is also obvious that NI must fail for contingent identity.

5. Closer to Aristotle is a view described by Michael C. Rea in "Sameness Without Identity: An Aristotelian Solution to the Problem of Material Constitution" in Form and Matter, ed. Oderberg, Blackwell 1999, pp. 103-115. I will now paraphrase and interpret from Rea's text, pp. 105-107. And I won't worry about how the view I am about to sketch differs — if it does differ — from the view sketched in #4.

When Socrates sits down, seated-Socrates comes into existence. When he stands up or adopts some other nonseated posture, seated-Socrates passes out of existence. This 'kooky' or 'queer' object is presumably a particular, not a universal, though it is not a substance. It is an accidental unity whose existence is parasitic upon the existence of its parent substance, Socrates. It cannot exist without the parent substance, but the latter can exist without it. The relation is like that of a fist to a hand made into a fist. The fist cannot exist without the hand, but the hand can exist without being made into a fist.Though seated-Socrates is not a substance it is like a substance in that it is a hylomorphic compound: it has Socrates as its matter and seatedness as its form. As long as Socrates and seated-Socrates exist, the relation between them is accidental sameness, a relation weaker than strict identity.

Accidental sameness is not strict identity presumably because the former is not governed by the Indiscernibility of Identicals. Clearly, Socrates and seated-Socrates do not share all properties despite their sameness. They differ temporally and modally. Socrates exists at times at which seated-Socrates does not exist (though not conversely). And it is possible that Socrates exist without seated-Socrates existing (though not conversely).

Are Socrates and seated-Socrates numerically the same? They count as one and so they are one in number though not one in being. So says Aristotle according to Rea. After all, if Socrates and Alcibiades are seated at table we count two philosophers not four. We don't count: Socrates, seated-Socrates, Alcibiades, seated-Alcibiades.

But I will leave it to Hennessey to develop this further. It looks as if this is the direction in which he must move if his theory is to meet my objection.

What about essential predication? Is there a distinction between Socrates and human-Socrates? These two cannot be accidentally the same. They must be strictly identical. If 'Socrates is human' is parsed as 'Socrates is identical to human-Socrates' then how does the latter differ from 'Socrates is Socrates'? The sense of 'Socrates is human' differs from the sense of 'Socrates is Socrates.' How account for that? 'Socrates is Socrates' is a formal-logical truth, trivial and uninformative. 'Socrates is human' is not a formal-logical truth; it is informative.

Comments on Richard Hennessey’s Neo-Aristotelian Theory of Predication

Richard Hennessey of Gnosis and Noesis sketches a neo-Aristotelian theory of predication in Another Aristotelian Basis for a Neo-Aristotelian Anti-Realism in the Theory of Universals. Drawing as he does upon my discussion in Scholastic Realism and Predication, he has asked me to comment on his post. I will do so with pleasure.

I first want to agree partially with something he says at the close of his post:

. . . we have in the so-called problem of universals not a genuine problem, but merely a pseudo-problem. That is, we have a problem of universals only if we posit their existence. If we do not posit them, there is no genuine problem.

I would put the point somewhat differently. The phrase 'problem of universals' is a misnomer. For what is in dispute in the so-called problem of universals is the nature of properties. Not their existence, but their nature. That there are properties is a given, a datum. What alone can be reasonably questioned is their nature. If you deny that sugar is sweet, then I show you the door. But if you deny that sweetness is a universal, then I listen to your arguments. For it is not at all obvious that the sweetness of a sugar cube is a universal. (Nor is it obvious that it isn't) That it is a universal is a theoretical claim that goes beyond the data. It is consistent with the data that the sweetness be a particular, an unrepeatable item, such as a trope (as in the theories of D. C. Williams and Keith Campbell, et al.) or some other sort of particular.

The correct phrase, then, is 'problem of properties,' not 'problem of universals.' But that is not to say that there is no legitimate use for 'problem of universals.' If one posits universals, then one will face various problems such as the problem of how they connect to particulars. Those problems are genuine, not pseudo, given that there are universals.

In any case, Richard sees no need to posit universals, whether Platonic or Aristotelian, to explain either essential or accidental predication. Here is the gist of Richard's theory:

Let us take the proposition “Socrates is sitting” or the strictly equivalent “Socrates is a sitting being.” The referent of the subject term here is the sitting Socrates and that of the predicate term is one and the same sitting Socrates. Similarly, the referent of the subject term of “Plato is sitting” is the sitting Plato and that of its predicate term is one and the same sitting Plato. Here, once again, only if the referent of the “Socrates” and that of the “sitting” of “Socrates is sitting” are identical can it be true that Socrates is actually the one sitting. And, only if the referent of the “Plato” and that of the “sitting” of “Plato is sitting” are identical can it be true that Plato is actually the one sitting.

What we have here could be called an identity theory of predication: if 'Socrates is a sitting being' is true, then the referent of the subject term 'Socrates' and the referent of the predicate term 'sitting being' are numerically identical. Accordingly, the 'is' is the 'is' of identity. ONLY on this analysis, says Richard, can the sentence be true. I rather doubt that, but first we need to consider whether Richard's theory is not open to serious objection.

If x and y are identical, then this is necessarily so. Call this the Necessity of Identity. More precisely: for any x, y, if x = y, then necessarily, x = y. Equivalent contrapositive: if possibly ~(x = y), then ~(x = y). It follows that if Socrates is identical to some sitting being, then necessarily he is identical to that sitting being. But in that case it would not be possible for Socrates not to be a sitting being. This, however, is possible. Sometimes he is on his feet walking around, other times he is flat on his back, and he has even been observed standing on his head. And please note that even if, contrary to fact, Socrates was always seated, it would still be possible for him not to be seated. The mere possibility of his not being seated shows that he cannot be identical to some sitting being.

This is an objection that Richard needs to address if his theory is to be tenable. Note that my objection can be met without invoking universals. One could say that 'Socrates' in our sample sentence refers to Socrates, that 'sitting' refers to a particularized property (a trope), and that the 'is' is the 'is' of predication, not identity. Accordingly, there is not an identity between Socrates and a sitting being; the particularized property being-seated inheres in Socrates, where inherence, unlike identity, is asymmetrical.

The other claim that Richard makes is that ONLY on his theory can the truth of 'Socrates is sitting' be accommodated. That strikes me as false. I just gave an analysis on which the truth of the predication is preserved. And of course there are others.

How Are Form and Matter Related in Compound Material Substances?

Favoring as I do constituent ontology, I am sympathetic to that type of constituent ontology which is hylomorphic ontological analysis, as practiced by Aristotelians, Thomists, et al. The obscurity of such fundamental concepts as form, matter, act, potency, substance, and others is, however, troubling. Let's see if we can make sense of the relation between form and matter in an artifact such as a bronze sphere. Now those of you who are ideologically committed to Thomism may bristle at an exposure of difficulties, but you should remember that philosophy is not ideology. The philosopher follows the argument to its conclusion whether it overturns his pet beliefs or supports them, or neither. He knows how to keep his ideological needs in check while pursuing pure inquiry. If the inquiry terminates in an aporetic impasse, then so be it.

1. Although it perhaps requires arguing, I will here take it for granted that form and matter as these terms are used by Aristotle and his followers are items 'in the real order.' 'Item' is a maximally noncommittal term in my lexicon: it commits me to very little. Anything in whatever category to which one can refer in any way whatsoever is an item. 'Real' is that which exists whether or not it is an intentional object of an act of mind. So when I say that form and matter are items in the real order I simply mean that they are not projected by the mind: it is not as if bronze spheres and such have form and matter only insofar as we interpret them as having form and matter. The bronze sphere is subject to hylomorphic (matter-form) analysis because the thing in reality is made up of form and matter. 'Projectivism' is off the table at least for the space of this post. I am thus assuming a version of realism and am viewing form and matter as distinct ontological constituents or 'principles' of compound substances.

2. The foregoing implies that the proximate matter of the bronze sphere, namely, the hunk of bronze itself, is a part of the bronze sphere. After all, 'ontological constituent' is just a fancy way of saying 'ontological part.' But an argument I now adapt from E. J. Lowe ("Form Without Matter" in Form and Matter: Themes in Contemporary Metaphysics, ed. Oderberg, Blackwell 1999, p. 7) seems to show that the notion that the proximate matter of a compound material substance is a part of it is problematic. The argument runs as follows.

A. If the hunk of bronze composing the sphere is a part of the sphere, then either it is a proper part or it is an improper part, where an improper part of a whole W is a part of W that overlaps every part of W.

B. The hunk of bronze is not an improper part since it is not identical to the bronze sphere. (One reason for this is that the persistence conditions are not the same: the piece of bronze will still exist if the sphere is flattened into a disk, but the sphere cannot survive such a deformation. Second, the two are modally discernible: the hunk of bronze is a hunk of bronze in every possible world in which it exists, but the hunk of bronze is not a sphere in every possible world in which it exists.)

C. The hunk of bronze is not a proper part of the bronze sphere since there is no part of the bronze sphere that it fails to overlap.

Therefore

D. The hunk of bronze is not a part of the bronze sphere.

Therefore

E. The composition of form and matter is not mereological. (Lowe, p. 7)

This raises the question of how exactly we are to understand form-matter composition. If the proximate matter of a substance cannot be a part of it in any sense familiar to mereology, the form-matter composition is 'unmereological,' which is not necessarily an objection except that it raises the question of how exactly we are to understand this unmereological type of composition. This problem obviously extends to essence-existence composition.

3. Now let's look at the problem from the side of form. Could the spherical form of the bronze sphere be a part of it? A form is a principle of organization or arrangement, and it is not quite clear how an arrangement can be a part of the thing whose other parts it arranges. Lowe puts the point like this: ". . . the arrangement of certain parts cannot itself be one of those parts, as this would involve the very conception of an arrangement of parts in a fatal kind of impredicativity." (p. 7)

4. In sum, the difficulty is as follows. Form and matter are real 'principles' in compound substances. They are not projected or supplied by us. We can say that form and matter are ontological constituents of compound substances. This suggests that they are parts of compound substances. But we have just seen that they are not parts in any ordinary mereological sense. So this leaves us in the dark as to just what these 'principles' are and how they combine to constitute compound material substances.

Being Dead and Being Nonexistent, or: How to Cease to Exist without Dying

In general, being dead and being nonexistent are not the same 'property' for an obvious reason: only that which was once alive can properly be said to be dead, and not everything was once alive. Nevertheless, it might be thought that, for living things, to be is to be alive, and not to be is to be dead. But I think this Aristotelian view can be shown to be mistaken.

1. A human person cannot become dead except by dying.

2. But a human person can become nonexistent without dying in at least four ways.

2a. The first way is by entering into irreversible coma. Given that consciousness is an essential attribute of persons, a person who enters into irreversible coma ceases to exist. But the person's body remains alive. Therefore, a human person can cease to exist without dying.

2b. The second way is by fission. Suppose one human person A enters a Person Splitter and exits two physically and behaviorally and psychologically indiscernible persons, B and C. B is not C. So A is not B and A is not C. What happened to A? A ceased to exist. But A didn't die. Far from the life in A ceasing, the life in A doubled! So human person A became nonexistent without dying.

2c. The third way is by fusion. Two dudes enter the Person Splicer from the east and exit to the west one dude. The entrants have ceased to exist without dying.

2d. The fourth way is theological. Everything other than God depends on God for its very existence at every moment of its existence. If God were to 'pull the plug' ontologically speaking on the entire universe of contingent beings, then at that instant all human persons would cease to exist without dying. They would not suffer the process or the event of dying but would enter nonexistence nonetheless. Because they had not died, they could not be properly said to be dead.

Therefore, pace the Peripatetic,

3. Being dead and being nonexistent are not the same — not even for living things.

(Time consumed in composing this post: 40 minutes. )

Ontological Analysis in Aristotle and Bergmann: Prime Matter Versus Bare Particulars

Hardly anyone reads Gustav Bergmann any more, but since I read everything, I read Bergmann. It is interesting to compare his style of ontological analysis with that of the great hylomorphic ontologists, Aristotle and Aquinas. The distinguished Aristotelian Henry B. Veatch does some of my work for me in a fine paper, "To Gustav Bergmann: A Humble Petition and Advice" in M.S.Gram and E.D.Klemke, eds. The Ontological Turn: Studies in the Philosophy of Gustav Bergmann (University of Iowa Press, 1974, pp. 65-85)

I want to focus on Veatch's comparison of Aristotle and Bergmann on the issue of prime matter/bare particulars. As Veatch correctly observes, "all of the specific functions which bare particulars perform in Bergmannian ontology are the very same functions as are performed by matter in Aristotle . . . ." (81) What are these functions?

Continue reading “Ontological Analysis in Aristotle and Bergmann: Prime Matter Versus Bare Particulars”

A Battle of Titans: Plato Versus Aristotle

It is sometimes said that there are only two kinds of philosophers, Platonists and Aristotelians. What follows is a quotation from Heinrich Heine which expresses one version of this useful simplification. Carl Gustav Jung places it at the very beginning of his Psychological Types (Princeton UP, 1971, p. 2.)

Plato and Aristotle! These are not merely two systems: they are also types of two distinct human natures, which from time immemorial, under every sort of disguise, stand more or less inimically opposed. The whole medieval period in particular was riven by this conflict, which persists down to the present day, and which forms the most essential content of the history of the Christian Church. Although under other names, it is always of Plato and Aristotle that we speak. Visionary, mystical, Platonic natures disclose Christian ideas and their corresponding symbols from the fathomless depths of their souls. Practical, orderly, Aristotelian natures build out of these ideas and symbols a fixed system, a dogma and a cult. Finally, the Church eventually embraces both natures—one of them entrenched in the clergy, and the other in monasticism; but both keeping up a constant feud. ~ H. Heine, Deutschland

Plato, on the left carrying The Timaeus, points upwards while Aristotle, on the right carrying his Ethics, points either forward (thereby valorizing the 'horizontal' dimension of time and change as against Plato's 'vertical' gesture) or downwards (emphasizing the foundational status of sense particulars and sense knowledge.) At least five contrasts are suggested: vita contemplativa versus vita activa, mundus intelligibilis versus mundus sensibilis, transcendence versus immanence, eternity versus time, mystical unity versus rational-cum-empirical plurality.

Heine is right about the battle within Christianity between the Platonic and Aristotelian tendencies. Trinity, Incarnation, Transubstantiation, Divine Simplicity — these are at bottom mystical notions impervious to penetration by the discursive intellect as we have been lately observing. Nevertheless,"Practical, orderly, Aristotelian natures build out of these ideas and symbols a fixed system, a dogma and a cult." But the dogmatic constructions, no matter how clever and detailed, never succeed in rendering intelligible the transintelligible, mystical contents.

Aquinas on Why Being Cannot Be a Genus

At 998b22 of his Metaphysics, Aristotle argues that being cannot be a genus. Thomas Aquinas gives his version of the argument in Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I, ch. 25, para. 6. I find the presentation of the doctor angelicus clearer than that of the philosophus. After quoting Thomas' argument, I will offer a rigorous reconstruction and explanation of it. The argument issues in an important conclusion, one highly relevant to my running battle with the partisans of the 'thin' conception of being.

The Anton C. Pegis translation reads as follows:

Continue reading “Aquinas on Why Being Cannot Be a Genus”

I Get a Rise Out of Aristotle

Michael Gilleland, the Laudator Temporis Acti, in his part-time capacity as 'channel' of Aristotle, submits this delightful missive:

Wonder: Theaetetus 155 d with Aristotelian and Heideggerian Glosses

Plato puts the following words in the mouth of Socrates at Theaeteus 155 d (tr. Benjamin Jowett): "I see, my dear Theaetetus, that Theodorus had a true insight into your nature when he said that you were a philosopher, for wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder."

Aristotle echoes the Theaetetus passage at 982b12 of his Metaphysics: "It was their wonder, astonishment, that first led men to philosophize and still leads them." Martin Heidegger, commenting on both passages, writes in Was ist das — die Philosophie?:

Das Erstaunen ist als pathos die arche der Philosophie. Das griechische Wort arche muessen wir im vollen Sinne verstehen. Es nennt dasjenige, von woher etwas ausgeht. Aber dieses "von woher" wird im Ausgehen nicht zurueckgelassen, vielmehr wird die arche zu dem, was das Verbum archein sagt, zu solchem, was herrscht. Das pathos des Erstaunens steht nicht einfach so am Beginn der Philosophie wie z. B. der Operation des Chirurgen das Waschen der Haende voraufgeht. Das Erstaunen traegt und durchherrscht die Philosophie.

Continue reading “Wonder: Theaetetus 155 d with Aristotelian and Heideggerian Glosses”

Retortion and Non-Contradiction in Aristotle, Metaphysics, Gamma 3, 4

Retortion is the philosophical procedure whereby one seeks to establish a thesis by uncovering a performative inconsistency in anyone who attempts to deny it. It is something like that benign form of ad hominem in which person A points out to person B that some proposition p that B maintains is inconsistent with some other proposition q that B maintains. "How can you maintain that p when your acceptance of p is logically ruled out by your acceptance of q? You are contradicting yourself!" This objection is to the man, or rather, to the man's doxastic system; it has no tendency to show that p is false. It shows merely that not all of B's beliefs can be true. But if the homo in question is Everyman, or every mind, then the objection gains in interest. Suppose there is a proposition that it is impossible for anyone (any rational agent) to deny; the question arises whether the undeniability or ineluctability of this proposition is a reason to consider it to be true. Does undeniability establish objective truth? Consider

Continue reading “Retortion and Non-Contradiction in Aristotle, Metaphysics, Gamma 3, 4“

A Protreptic Puzzler

A curious passage from Aristotle's Protrepticus:

. . . the fact that all men feel at ease in philosophy, wishing to dedicate their whole lives to the pursuit of it by leaving behind all other concerns, is in itself weighty evidence that it is a painless pleasure to dedicate oneself wholeheartedly to philosophy. For no one is willing to engage in exhausting work for a long time. (#53, p. 24)

To set the Stagirite straight, I should like to shunt his shade into some Philosophy 101 classroom for a spell.

Is Bradley’s Regress Already in Aristotle?

At Metaphysics Zeta (Book VII, Chapter 17, Bekker 1041b10-30), there is a clear anticipation of Bradley’s Regress and an interesting formulation of what may well count as the fundamental problem of metaphysics, the problem of unity. What follows is the W. D. Ross translation of the passage. It is a mess presumably because the underlying Greek text is a mess. The Montgomery Furth and Richard Hope translations are not much better. But the meaning is to me quite clear, and I will explain it after I cite the passage:

Continue reading “Is Bradley’s Regress Already in Aristotle?”