ANCIENT

PRE-SOCRATIC
IA. Myth, Philosophy and Natural Science

Myth: A community-forming narrative (story) concerning some or all of the

following "big questions" about being and goodness: the origins of the universe
(cosmogony); the nature of the universe (cosmology) and of the entities
contained therein; the origin and nature of human beings; the good for human
beings and the ways to attain it; the meaning (if any) of suffering and death.
Always involves a "liturgical calendar" of feasts and celebrations that mark
cycles in nature and in the history of the community, and hence it always or
often involves something like a "priesthood."

Philosophy: A systematic inquiry, proceeding (i) by way of dialectic and, as it

were, diagrammatic reasoning, from what is better known to what is less known
concerning the "big questions", and then (ii) by way of descent from general
principles to particular conclusions (wisdom). Does not by its nature involve
liturgical practice, though this can be grafted on to it. It might nonetheless
involve a "way of life" because of the systematic doctrinal and moral formation
given to the adherents of particular philosophical communities.

(Note: Systematicity implies, among other things, (i) an emphasis on

internal consistency and overall coherence, (ii) careful ordering of
premises and conclusions, proceeding from what is more evident to what
is less evident, (iii) multiple conceptual distinctions, (iv) completeness,
and (v) a careful account of the different types and degrees of epistemic
warrant.)

Natural Science: A systematic theoretical and experimental inquiry into the

principles and operations of nature. It does not of itself involve a full "way of
life," though it can, as a practice, be embedded in such a way of life. (Question:
Does (or can) natural science address all the questions that myth and
philosophy have sought to answer? If not, does this show the limitations of
inquiry in the sciences, or does it instead show that human beings should
refrain from asking certain questions, or what?)
How are myth, philosophy, and natural science related to one another? Historically,
there have been three views about this:

Progressive replacement theory (August Comte, the "father of positivism" and

his modernday successors, e.g., Richard Dawkins and (perhaps) Stephen
Hawking)

Noninteractive parallelism ("Two-truth" or "many truth" theories)

Integrationism (some forms of reductionism; Plato; Catholic intellectual

tradition)

IB. The nature of explanation

(Warning: Everything to be said here about the Presocratics is a reconstruction

based on flimsy evidence. Still, the reconstruction may be more interesting
philosophically than some of the Presocratics themselves were!)

In the Presocratics we find proto-explanations of natural phenomena according

to two sorts of principle, which we will call by the names Aristotle gives them:

o 1. The material principle: that which is really real (ousia) and is acted
upon to produce effects.

o 2. The efficient (or effective or moving or agent) principle: that which

acts to produce effects.

IC. Proto-science
Given these types of explanation, the first natural philosophers generally
employed the following explanatory schema, each adding his own peculiar
twists:

Material principles: Given the fundamental or "primary" qualities, which come

in two pairs of opposites, viz., hot/cold and moist/dry, there are four elements
out of which all minerals are composed, each having its own set proportion of
elements; and from the minerals all other corporeal entities in general are
formed:

The four elements are:

 fire = hot + dry

air = hot + moist

earth = cold + dry

water = cold + moist

Efficient principles: Changes in the world are produced by two active (or agent)
forces, viz., an attractive force (such as Love or Condensation) and
a repelling force (such as Strife or Rarefaction). (Later, Aristotle will attribute
active causal powers and agency to all substances, i.e., things with natures.)

ID. Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Xenophanes

According to the "popular" interpretation (due to Aristotle but not to scholars),

each of these philosophers tried to reduce the many to the one by positing one
of the "elements" as the really real material principle--the ousia--and claiming
that all the other elements are, appearances to the contrary, simply permutations
of that really real one. Interestingly, each chose a different one of the four -- or,
at least, that's how Aristotle sees it.

o Thales: Water is the really real. ("Everything is full of gods.")

o Anaximenes: Air is the really real. (Permutations result from

condensation and rarefaction) *(see note below)

o Heraclitus: Fire is the really real. ("Everything flows.")

o Xenophanes: Earth is the really real. (Protested against theological

anthropomorphism.)

IE. Anaximander's Embarrassing Question

Anaximander asks: How in the world can fire (hot + dry) be water (cold +
moist)? Or how can fire come from water if everything is water?!

o In a transformation we might have a sequence such as:

 Earth (cold/dry) at place p at time t1 ..... Water (cold/moist) at p at t2 ......
Air (hot/moist) at p at t3 ...... Fire (hot/dry) at p at t4

o But what is it that perdures, at one time having the qualities of water and
at a later time having the qualities of fire, so that we might call this a
genuine change? That whatever-it-is would be the really real, which
neither comes into nor passes out of existence, but receives and loses the
primary qualities. (Note: the primary qualities cannot themselves be the
basic entities, since they cannot be the subjects of one another, and, in
general, they themselves seem clearly to require some subject to inhere
in and characterize.)

Anaximander's solution: The really real, which perdures through every transformation
and underlies the primary qualities, must be wholly indeterminate and must of itself
lack all qualities. It is the Indeterminate, the Unlimited, the Apeiron.

*Note on Anaximenes: In fairness to Anaximenes, he was historically a student of

Anaximander and so this raises the issue of how he might have thought he escaped the
latter's argument. Here's one way: Abandon the idea that each of the four elements is
a permutation of the four qualities hot/cold and dry/moist. Instead, take air to be the
primitive really real stuff and just forget about the four qualities. Then, one could
attribute a natural state to air and three non-natural states, differing from natural air by
their denseness or rarity, that correspond roughly to fire (less dense than air in its
natural state) and to water and earth (both more dense than air in its natural state).
This, of course, raises lots of other questions -- Why choose air as basic? Does it
come in basic spatial units (or, say, mass units) capable of participating in
condensation and rarefaction? And so on.

IF. Pythagoras (some of this may derive primarily from Philolaus, a fifth century
BC Pythagorean)

Pythagoras posited two abstract and complementary material principles:

The Unlimited (the many) and the Limited (the one). All entities can be thought
to result from the Unlimited's being limited or determined to some definite
shape. This is best thought of mathematically. Unity limits plurality and gives it
determinate shape. (For instance, the soul is the harmony of the body.) Since
each number is associated with a determinate shape, we can think of things as
being numerical and of mathematics as the key to understanding the world.
 Note: With the Pythagoreans we have the first known philosophical school or
sect in the ancient world. Here we see philosophy not just as a theoretical
enterprise but as a way of life to which seekers after wisdom attach themselves,
at first as 'catechumens' and then as full-fledged members.

IG. Philosophical Issues

Naturalism and Supernaturalism (Think of the Iliad.)

Reductionism (Is everything merely the manifestation of some simple sort of

entity or set of entities? What about your mother?)

Process Metaphysics vs. Substance Metaphysics (Are the basic entities

perduring continuants or events?)

Reality and Mathematics (Why should mathematics be the key to

understanding the physical world?)

Anthropomorphism in Theology (How do we get knowledge of the divine?)

IIA. Parmenides

1. Appearance and Reality

o The Poem: The Way of Seeming vs. The Way of Truth

o The philosopher challenges empirical science. (Is common opinion a

constraint on philosophical speculation?)

o The unintelligibility of non-being or nothingness

2. The Impossibility of Change: An argument

(1) During interval I Socrates changed from being pale to being tanned.
(assumption for reductio ad absurdum)
 (2) If (1) is true, then before I, tanned Socrates was either (a) something
or (b) nothing. (obviously true exclusive disjunction)

(3) If (a), then there was no change during I. (Principle of

inference: What already is cannot come to be.)

(4) So it is not the case that before I tanned Socrates was something.
(from 1 and 3)

(5) If (b), then tanned Socrates was nothing before I and something
after I--which is absurd. (Principle of inference: Something cannot come
to be from nothing)

(6) So it is not the case that before I tanned Socrates was nothing.
(Whatever entails an absurdity is itself absurd)

(7) So it is not the case that before I tanned Socrates was something, and
it is not the case that before I tanned Socrates was nothing (from 3 and 6)

Therefore, Socrates did not change during I. (1, 2, 7, disjunctive modus

tollens)

But this is a perfectly general argument that can be applied to any putative
change. Therefore, there is no genuine change in the world. All apparent change
is an illusion, a mere appearance.

IIB. Parmenides and Melissus: The Attributes of Being

Given the impossibility of change, Parmenides and Melissus infer the following
attributes of Being (notice the differences):

o Parmenides: One, Uncreated, Imperishable, Timeless, Immutable,

Perfect, Spherical

o Melissus: One, Ungenerated, Incorruptible, Everlasting, Immutable,

Homogeneous, Unlimited in Extension

You might be wondering about the attribute "One" (as opposed to

Many). Stay tuned for Zeno.
IIC. Zeno

1. Argument against plurality

(1) There are many (i.e., more than one) real entities or beings (ousiai).
(assumption for reductio ad absurdum)

(2) If (1), then either (a) each of the many entities has positive magnitude
or (b) each of the many real entities lacks positive magnitude or (c) some
real entities have positive magnitude and some lack positive magnitude.
(exhaustive disjunction, necessary truth)

(3) If (a), then each real entity has two halves with equal positive
magnitude, and each of these halves has two halves with equal positive
magnitude, and each of these halves has two halves with equal positive
magnitude ..... ad infinitum, with the result that each real entity has
infinitely many parts with equal positive magnitude, none of which is
part of another, and so is infinitely large. It follows that each real entity
is infinitely large--which is absurd--and that, worse yet, there are many
infinitely large real entities--which is obviously false, since there cannot
be more than one infinitely large being (assuming that distinct bodies
cannot be in exactly the same place at the same time).

(4) So (a) is not the case. (from 3 via modus tollens)

(5) If (b), then no number of real entities will constitute a thing with
magnitude, and so no being whatever has any positive magnitude--which
is false, since obviously some being has positive magnitude.

(6) So (b) is not the case. (from 5 via modus tollens)

(7) If (c), then either (i) there are many infinitely large entities (from 3)--
which is obviously false--or (ii) if there is just one real entity with
positive magnitude, then exactly one entity is infinitely large (from 3)
and every other entity has no positive magnitude at all--which is likewise
obviously false (isn't it?).

(8) So (c) is not the case. (from 7 via modus tollens)

(9) Therefore, the consequent of (2) is false (from 4, 7, and 8)

(10) Therefore, the antecedent of (2) is false, and it is not the case that
there are many (i.e., more than one) real entities or beings. (2, 9, modus
tollens)

(11) But, of course, there is something. (obvious)

Therefore, there is just one real entity. (from 10 and 11)

Possible replies:

The response of just about everyone else: The problem is with

premise (3). But just what is the problem? (In what follows I'll
use a one-dimensional version of the argument according to which
there is just one infinitely long line and not a plurality of finite
line-segments.) Sometimes student critics of Zeno have claimed
that since the infinitely many equal and non-overlapping parts
have 'only' infinitesimal magnitude, the putatively finite line-
segment we began with is indeed finite. On the surface, this
seems like cheating. One wants to know whether each of these
infinitesimal parts has positive magnitude or not. If yes, then
Zeno is right; if no, see premise (5), and Zeno is right again.

However, I think I have a way of re-formulating this reply to Zeno

that allows one to use the language of infinitesimals as a sort of
shorthand and that counts as a sort of Aristotelian reply to the
anti-plurality argument:

Take a putatively finite line segment AB. Let a Zeno-

division D of AB be a division of AB that results in n equal non-
overlapping parts of finite magnitude m (expressed as a fraction of
1), where n is finite and m is positive and nm = 1. To say that AB
is infinitely Zeno-divisible is just to say that for any conceivable
Zeno-division Dx of AB there is another conceivable Zeno-
division Dy of AB which results in a greater finite number of parts
with a smaller positive magnitude.

Now notice that any conceivable Zeno-division yields

a finite number of non-overlapping parts with equal positive
magnitude. That's the only sort of division there could be. (This is
why I call this reply 'Aristotelian'.) There is no conceivable
division that yields infinitely many parts of the sort in question.
 We use language like 'infinitely many parts of infinitesimal
magnitude' as simply shorthand for the fact that AB is infinitely
divisible in the sense defined above. So it is a mistake for me to
ask you whether or not each of these infinitesimal parts has
positive magnitude, since you are not claiming that there are any
conceivable parts that are infinitesimal. Rather, all you are saying
is this: Divide AB into equal non-overlapping parts that are as
small as you please; the result of multiplying the number of parts
by the magnitude of each will still be 1 because, in effect, you will
still have finitely many such parts.

Zeno's reply, presumably, is that there just is an actual infinity of

parts of the sort in question already actually present in any
material whole. So there! After all, after any conceivable
division you make (either really or in your imagination), there's a
more fine-grained division to be made. But the parts are always
already there; the division only makes them manifest to us. In
addition, the Aristotelian gambit has potentially strong
consequences for the philosophy of mathematics, where it tends to
steer one toward the rejection of the actual infinite and hence to a
denial of the legitimacy of certain parts of mathematics dealing
with infinities.

Adolph Grnbaum's response: (3) is fine. That is, if you have

infinitely many parts with equal positive magnitude, then you
have an infinitely long line and Zeno wins. The problem with the
argument is premise (5). Even though a denumerable infinity of
parts without positive magnitude (in this case, points) cannot
yield anything with positive magnitude, it's a different story with
a non-denumerable infinity of parts without positive magnitude.

Who's right? Anyone? Hmm, that's a toughie. Each reply insists that
the other is wrong, indeed obviously wrong.

2. Two arguments against motion

Preliminary definitions:

o Space (time) is dense = Space (time) is infinitely divisible, so that

between any two points there are others.
 o Space (time) is discrete = Space (time) consists of basic units with some
(perhaps very small) minimal possible magnitude, and each basic unit is
immediately adjacent to other basic units, with no basic units in between
them. (So there are no half-units of space and time among the basic
units.)

a. The Stadium (aka The Dichotomy)

We can take the first argument to be directed against the claim that there is real
motion or change in the world and that space and time are dense.
Imagine a race course that stretches from point A to point B, thus:

A-------------------------------------------------B

(1) To reach point B from point A, a runner must successively reach (or
pass over) infinitely many points (or finite lengths) ordered in the
sequence 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 ...... . (In other words, the runner must
get halfway to B, and so must first get halfway to halfway to B, and so
must first get halfway to halfway to halfway to B, etc.)

(2) But it is impossible to complete the task of successively reaching (or

passing over) infinitely many points (or finite lengths), ordered one after
another.

(3) Therefore, the runner cannot reach B!!!

(4) But this is so, no matter how small the distance is between A and B,
for there are just as many points (or finite lengths) between A and B no
matter how far apart they are from one another.

Therefore, no runner can traverse any space at all. In fact, no corporeal

object can traverse any space at all. Therefore, there is no motion,
appearances -- and that's all they
are -- to the contrary!!

Possible replies:

How much time does the runner have to go from A to B? Isn't this
time similarly infinitely divisible? But suppose it is; then Zeno has
himself a neat little argument to show that nothing can persist in
existence through any length of time!
 Does the runner have to 'rest' at every point (or after traversing every
finite length) along the way? If not, are the points (or finite lengths)
actual or only potential?

b. The Moving Rows (aka The Stadium)

We can take the second argument to be directed against the claim that there is
real motion or change in the world and that space and time are discrete.

o Scene 1: Imagine that there are three rows of (teeny weeny) chariots
aligned as below at a given time t, that each of the chariots occupies one
basic space unit, and that the (putative) motion of the B's and C's is at the
rate of one basic space unit per basic time unit. Remember: There are no
half space-units or time units.

....AAAA....
BBBB--->
<---CCCC

o Scene 2: Now imagine them aligned thus at a later time t*:

AAAA
BBBB
CCCC
Embarrassing question: How many basic time units have elapsed
between t and t*?

The first obvious answer is 2, since the first B and the first C have
each passed two A's.

The second, just as obvious answer, is 4, since the first B has

passed 4 C's and vice versa.
 Therefore, 2 = 4!!!! So the assumption that the B's and the C's are
in motion leads to an incoherence. (And please do not tell me that
a B passes a C in 1/2 of a basic time unit--there are no half basic
time units in discrete time!!!!)

Possible replies:

So what? All this argument shows is that motion in discrete space

is quirky ..... After the first moment, the first B is lined up with the
second C without ever having passed the first C, and after the
second moment, the first B is lined up with the fourth C without
ever having passed the third C! Hmmm .......

A pertinent question: Suppose that you personally cannot refute Zeno's

arguments, and that you know that commentators disagree about what, if
anything, is wrong with the arguments. Should you stop believing in
motion? Can you stop believing in motion? Should philosophers, as is
sometimes claimed, follow an argument wherever it leads them? A
pertinent question is: What starting points or first principles is it correct
(or at least reasonable) to begin with?

IIIA. The Problematic

Qualified vs. Unqualified Change: All the respondents we are looking at here
agree with Parmenides that there is no unqualified change. That is, no basic or
really real entities (ousiai) either come into existence or pass out of existence.
There is change, but all of it has to do with changing arrangements of or
relations among the basic entities. Familiar "macro-objects" are thus not really
real or basic entities.

Pluralism vs. Monism: All the respondents agree that that there is a plurality of
basic or really real entities. (Here they disagree with Parmenides and Zeno,
even though they do not and (presumably) cannot provide a really convincing
reply to Zeno's argument.) These entities are eternal (or everlasting),
ingenerable, incorruptible, etc.

The basic entities, as conceived by the respondents, are thus little Parmenidean
"one's"--it's just that there are a lot of them. And everything else -- every non-
 basic entity -- is a mere aggregation (a heap, if you will) of really real entities
having "accidental unity," with no intrinsic principles of unity or activity.

IIIB. The Reductionist Response

Reductionism is (roughly) a position according to which:

o animals (including human beings), plants, minerals and any other entities
distinct from the really real entities are mere aggregations of the latter
without their own proper principles of unity or activity, and so they
would not show up on a list of what "really exists" or "exists in its own
right" or, as the Latin Scholastics put it, "exists per se";

o all the genuine properties of the aggregates are either properties of the
basic entities or strictly reducible to the properties of the basic entities;
and

o any putative properties of the aggregates that are not reducible to the
properties of the basic entities are merely appearances and not real.
Another way to put this is: There are no "emergent" properties, and all
explanation is "bottom-up."

Empedocles:

o The four elements--i.e., instances of them--are the only really real

entities or ousiai.

o The eternal cycle of change is due to the forces

of love and strife randomly acting on the elements ("man-faced ox
progeny").

o Question: Are genuine mixtures possible on Empedocles's theory?

Seemingly not, since a genuine mixture is a new entity in which the
composing elements exist no longer in their own right but only through
the powers with which they endow the composite mixture.
 The Atomists (Leucippus and Democritus):

o There are infinitely many invisible particles (atoms), and these are the
really real entities.

o The atoms are indivisible, imperishable, eternal, homogeneous. (Sound

familiar?)

o The atoms have shape, motion, and weight, and differ from one another
in these properties.

o Motion takes place in the void.

o Sensible qualities (color, taste, sound, etc.) are mere appearances. (What
about mental properties?)

IIIC. Anaxagoras's "Advance"

The problem: Properties such as life, sentience, sensible qualities,

intelligence, and various causal powers had by non-basic entities
are not reducible to the properties of the elements or the atoms and are not mere
appearances.

Two possible solutions:

1. Acknowledge that animals, plants, etc. are really real and try to show
how unqualified change is after all possible. [Aristotle]
2. Retain reductionism, but conceive of the basic entities in such a way
that they have the above properties. [Anaxagoras]

Anaxagoras's solution:

o The really real entities are the seeds.

o There are as many kinds of seeds as there are natural kinds (including,
e.g., armadillo seeds, red oak seeds, etc.), and the seeds have in some
 way or other all the properties of the macro-entities of which they are
seeds.

o Any given chunk of the universe, no matter how small,

contains every kind of seed ("Everything contains everything")--and
"matter" is infinitely divisible.

o In every macro-entity one or more particular kind of seed dominates.

o Oh, by the way, natural processes are governed by Nous.

(See Phaedo 97B-98D)

(Shades of Augustine and Leibniz)

SOCRATES AND PLATO

IA. Introductory Remarks

On Philosophy: Synthetic Vision vs. Analytic Depth

On Socrates:

o As portrayed by Plato

o Focus on ethical questions and on the nature of philosophy and the

philosophical life

o Socrates and the Sophists -- what, exactly, is the difference?

On Plato:

o Three periods: early, middle, late ..... but some think that the 28
dialogues were carefully planned out to be read in sequence as a
pedagogical introduction to the philosophical life and can thus be
 divided into seven tetralogies (this particular arrangement is due to
Bernard Suzanne). My own general view of the matter is that (a) the
early dialogues are meant to show how Socrates operated, why smart
(and not so smart) young people were initially attracted to him for some
good and some bad reasons, and to exhibit defective philosophical
inquiry; that (b) the middle dialogues were meant to give a general
portrait of who the true philosopher is, what the philosophical life is like,
and what genuine philosophical inquiry is; and that (c) the later
dialogues are meant to teach the intellectual methods and (and to some
extent) content delivered by a well-lived philosophical life and genuine
philosophical inquiry.

o The dialogue form and the presuppositions of genuine dialogue (more on

this as we go along).

On the Republic

o Plato and democracy

o Our focus: moral rather than political, concentrating especially on the

life of the philosopher

IB. The Character of Cephalos

Cephalos seems to be morally upright, and yet he is (relatively) unreflective.

This raises three questions:

o Does Cephalos have moral knowledge?

o Can philosophical reflection yield moral knowledge? If so, is everyone

capable of such reflection? Is there such a thing as a reliable moral
guide?

o What sort of grasp of moral truths does philosophical reflection

presuppose?

IC. The Nature of Philosophical Analysis

 1. What is it that is analyzed when F-ness (e.g., moral uprightness, piety, virtue,
etc.) is analyzed? There are three possible answers to this question:

o The meaning of the word <F>

o The concept <F-ness>

o An abstract reality signified by the term <F> and the concept <F-ness>

2. To analyze F-ness is to give an account (logos), i.e., to produce a formula,

that

o applies to all things that are F

o applies only to things that are F

o pinpoints what makes a thing F.

o Concerning this last condition, compare the following two formulas from
the Meno:

shape = what always accompanies color

shape = the outermost boundary of a solid

ID. Polemarchus and Thrasymachus: Two Attempts to Analyze Moral

Uprightness

Note that this part of the Republic is reminiscent of the early dialogues: what we have
here is one interlocuter (Polemarchus) who is not intellectually up to par and one
interlocuter (Thrasymachus) who is not affectively up to par. The conversation is
inconclusive, and Thrasymachus loses his cool--mainly because he is arrogant and
interested only in winning the argument.

Polemarchus:

Moral Uprightness (dikaiosune) = The skill (techne) by which one gives each
his due

o Counterexample: Insane Man

 Moral Uprightness = The skill by which one gives benefits to friends and
injuries to enemies.

o Worries: Is moral uprightness a skill? What if our friends are bad?

Moral Uprightness = The skill by which one gives benefits to good people and
injuries to bad people.

o Worry: Does one who is morally righteous do harm to anyone?

Thrasymachus (compare with Callicles in the Gorgias):

Moral Uprightness = Doing that which is in the interest of the stronger rather than
that which is one's own interest. (Shades of Nietzsche.)

o Question 1: Is it the righteous or the unrighteous who have the best

chance of being happy and flourishing human beings?

o Question 2: Can Socrates (or anyone) really engage in philosophical

inquiry with Thrasymachus? If not, why not? Is he smart enough?
(One could see that Polemarchus, for instance, is not the sharpest pencil
in the pack.) Is he good enough? (Are there moral prerequisites for
engaging in philosophical inquiry?) Is it an accident that Plato has
Glaucon and Adeimantus state and argue for Thrasymachus's position in
a much more effective and intellectually cogent way than Thrasymachus
does? (Compare John Stuart Mill in On Liberty: Given equal
intellectual acumen in both parties, one who holds a position is better
positioned to argue for his or her position than one who does not hold it.)

o Socrates's conclusion: No matter what, a morally upright person is

better off (i.e., more happy) than a morally bad person.

IE. Glaucon and Adeimantus: Moral Uprightness is not Intrinsically Valuable

There are three sorts of goods:

o Goods that are valued only for their consequences

 o Goods that are valued only for themselves

o Goods that are valued both for their consequences and for themselves

Glaucon and Adeimantus: The common view is that moral uprightness is good
only because of its consequences and not because it is an intrinsic excellence
(arete) to be valued for itself.

Glaucon:

The origin and nature of moral uprightness is narrow self-interest. That is, our
fundamental morally relevant motive is the narrowly self-interested desire for
our own welfare. (Question: how does this relate to what Plato and Aristotle
take to be our fundamental morally relevant motive, viz., the desire for
happiness or flourishing?) For even though the best condition is clearly to be
able to inflict injury and yet avoid punishment in the pursuit of our narrow self-
interest and of the goods it requires, all of us have to settle for the
best viable condition, viz., to inflict no injury and to avoid punishment. In that
way we can get at least some of the goods we want without suffering evil
consequences. So we adopt conventions and laws that (a) generally reward
restraint in the pursuit of self-interest and call conduct in conformity to these
laws "morally upright," and that (b) generally punish conduct that violates these
laws and call it "immoral" --- even though we would each prefer to be able to
act "immorally" with impunity in the pursuit of our narrow and individual self-
interest (358e-359b). So if I could have all that I desire without being punished,
then I would have no reason to act in a "morally upright" way .......

We practice moral virtue only reluctantly. Witness the story of the ring of
Gyges (359d-360d) --- after all, what would you do if you had the ring?
Wouldn't you act in a way analogous to that in which Gyges acted? Wouldn't
you be foolish not to?

It is not the case (as Socrates suggests) that any morally upright and virtuous
person is better off, or has a better human life, than any morally corrupt
person. For we can easily imagine a morally corrupt man (A) who has a
reputation for being virtuous and thus reaps all the benefits of being virtuous,
and we can easily imagine a morally virtuous man (B) who has a reputation for
being corrupt and thus suffers all the consequences of being wicked (360e-
362c). Ask yourself: If you had to choose between being A and being B -- and
those were your only two choices -- which would you choose? Yet Socrates is
 committed to the claim that B, despite all his unjust suffering, is better off (i.e.,
happier or closer to fulfilling the good for human beings) than is A!!!.

Adeimantus:

Ordinary moral and religious education shows that we value moral virtuousness
not for itself but only for its consequences (reputation, honor, glory, wealth,
success, enjoyable afterlife, etc.) (362e-363e). ("Don't lie, Peter, because if you
do, people won't trust you and you won't be a success in life." "Michael, keep
on working hard and someday you will be wealthy." "Don't sulk, Stephen,
because if you act like that, you will never be popular.")

Ordinary people all agree that moral goodness is a matter of convention with no
deep roots in our nature, and that being morally upright is much more difficult,
unpleasant, and burdensome than being morally corrupt. In general, ordinary
people are perfectly ready to admire and even to honor wicked and morally
corrupt individuals as long as those individuals are rich or powerful or famous.
Because of this, ordinary people generally believe (even if they won't say so out
loud) that anyone who has the chance to be "immoral" with impunity is stupid
and irrational if he isn't in fact "immoral". What's more, even the gods can be
bought off by expensive rituals and sacrifices -- so we need not even fear
punishment in the afterlife for being immoral (363e-367a).

Ask yourself: What would moral education be like if we really did value moral
uprightness for itself and not just for its consequences?

IIA. The Analogy between the Polis (Political Community) and the Individual

The nature of analogical reasoning

Analogical reasoning as a tool of discovery

Positive and negative analogy in the case at hand

IIB. The Education of the Guardians

The connection between sentiment and moral knowledge, and the importance
of shaping and restraining (and in some cases provoking) the passions or
emotions through habituation and thus making them amenable to the sound
judgments of reason (401e ff.). (See below for contrast with Hobbes and Hume
 and Scotus and Kant -- see C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man.) What follows is
a bit simplified because it does not explicitly factor in differences of
temperament, but it is good enough as an introduction.

Plato believes that we all begin with a desire for the good (which is, or at least
includes, a desire for our happiness or flourishing as human beings).
Unfortunately, the goods we begin by desiring, and the way in which we desire
them, will not in the end provide us with flourishing or happiness. So while we
all desire to flourish and be happy, our way of proceeding is flawed. For we
begin with narrow (or perverted) self-love -- the desire for "private well-being"
-- and this needs to be transformed into rightly-ordered self-love, which
includes the desire to will the good for others and commit oneself to a higher
good that transcends one's own private good, narrowly conceived. So self-love
in general is at bottom the desire for human perfection (or happiness or human
flourishing), and when it is rightly ordered, it serves as the motive for action
that makes one the sort of person who is fit for genuine friendship (a political
as well as personal good) and self-transcending commitments that entail
making sacrifices for a transcendent common good. The transformation from
perverted self-love to rightly ordered self-love essentially involves habituating
the passions in the right way.

Here Plato, along with Aristotle (see Nicomachean Ethics, book 9, chap. 8.)
poses an alternative to Kant as well as to the Hobbes-ian position presupposed
in the argument posed by Glaucon and Adeimantus.

For Hobbes our basic inclination toward narrow self-interest (what Plato and
Aristotle think of as perverted self-love) is just an unalterable fact of life that
has to be accepted by any moral theory as the basic motive for all human
action, and this inclination is embedded in our psyche so deeply as to be
unalterable.

For Kant (and the roots of this view go back to Bl. John Duns Scotus and even
St. Anselm of Canterbury) this same basic inclination is indeed unalterable,
but luckily we have a second basicinclination that is independent of the
passions: as rational beings we altruistically desire to make our wills good by
conforming our actions to wholly non-self-interested duty, defined either in
terms of God's commands (Scotus) or in terms of what a wholly rational being
would will in a given situation (Kant). Hence, on this view self-love cannot be
the motive of morally upright action, and our passions are morally irrelevant in
the sense that actions do not derive any moral worth from them.
 This is a big divide in the history of moral theory. There are two relevant
questions: (a) Is our desire for happiness or flourishing unalterably self-
centered and "perverted"? (b) If so, is there another morally relevant basic
desire? Plato and Aristole answer a resounding NO to both questions. Scotus
and Kant answer YES to both questions. Hobbes answers YES to (a)
and NO to (b). The differences between the first two positions have a profound
effect on how one thinks about moral education and about the importance of
shaping sentiment. (This raises the question of whether the Scotus/Kant
view connects at all with the motivational structure of the normal human
psyche.)

Hume is another interesting case. Like Hobbes, he believes that our passions
supply us with our basic motivation; unlike Hobbes, he is an optimist who
thinks of our passions as basically benevolent rather than selfish and self-
serving. Thus, like Rousseau, Hume thinks that it's a bad idea to re-shape
(rather than, say, channel) our passions -- this latter leads to moral and religious
fanaticism, according to him. Rather, we have to be careful to let our basic
benevolence shine forth. (Not surprisingly, Hume had little contact with
children, whereas Rousseau had little contact with his own children.)

The importance of the moral community for conveying and promoting an

appreciation of a good that transcends narrow self-interest and that provides the
moral context and direction for all those crafts that aim at an intrinsically
specified good but are not of themselves directed toward the good for human
beings. This theme is later developed into the view that the life of the
philosopher flourishes only within a just community and is at the service of
such a community. Outside of such a context the genuine philosopher is no
more than a happy accident. (This is exactly what Plato thinks about Socrates
-- it was a complete accident that a true philosopher should have come from as
corrupt a city as democratic Athens.)

The arts and the content of moral education -- gods, heroes, and good rhythms.
(Socrates would really like DVD players and such recording devices. Why?)

Pain, pleasure and strength of character -- we need to aim at courage, self-

sufficiency, seriousness, truthfulness, self-discipline, generosity, broadness of
 vision, etc. No brutality or softness. A would-be philosopher has to have
control over his or her desires and fears in order to become the sort of person
who is able to live in community with others and value their good over narrow
self-interest.

Constant Socratic theme: The parallel between health of the body and health of
the soul, i.e. between physical health and moral or spiritual health, with the
stipulation that because the soul is our higher part, the health of the soul is more
important than the health of the body. So we have an intrinsic motive for being
morally upright, because we have an intrinsic desire for moral and spiritual
health, just as we have an intrinsic desire for bodily health.

IIC. The Three Parts of the Soul (psuche)

Reason (To logistikon) ---seeks knowledge and understanding and the ability to
make sound judgments and to follow through on them ------> The guardians

The spirited (or ambitious) element (ho thumos) ---seeks honor, competition
and victory, glory and fame, etc.-----> The auxiliaries

Lower (or sensory) appetite (to epithumetikon) ---seeks sensual pleasure,

physical comfort, sensual excitement, etc. -----> The commercial class

IID. The Cardinal Virtues

Prudence (practical wisdom): An excellence with respect to reason (making

sound practical deliberations and judgments and following through on them)

Courage (fortitude): An excellence with respect to the spirited element (the

mean between audacity and fear)

Self-discipline (temperance): An excellence with respect to the lower appetite

(constraining the desires for pleasure and comfort)
 Moral Uprightness ("general justice"): A second-level excellence by which
one keeps the parts of the soul in a harmonious ordering, with reason in control,
and which makes one suited to being a good friend and fellow citizen.

IIE. Why the Morally Virtuous are Better Off than the Morally Corrupt

Moral uprightness: soul :: health: body

See the Hydra, the Lion, and the Man (588B-592B)

You wouldn't want cancer, would you? And if you had it, you would go to an
expert for advice and treatment, wouldn't you? Or do you think "everyone has
a right to his own opinion" when it comes to curing cancer? Well, then, what
about cancer of the soul?

Question: Is it possible to know what is right and still do what is wrong? (See
Jordan's discussion of Aristotle's reply to Socrates -- Jordan, 158-159)

IIIA. The Definition of the Philosopher

Philosopher = one whose heart is fixed on the true being (to on) of things
(480a). We're ready for this now because moral uprightness is a crucial
prerequisite for being a philosopher, and in the end the true philosopher is our
surest guide to moral uprightness and happiness.

o Knowledge (episteme) ------------------> Being

o Opinion (doxa) ---------------------------> Becoming

o Ignorance (agnoia) ----------------------> Non-Being

The Philosopher as a moral authority (the philosopher-king) who knows what

health of the soul is and in whom non-philosophers can place their trust in their
own attempt to achieve healthy souls.

IIIB. The Characteristics of the Philosopher (484a-487a)

Love of any branch of learning that reveals eternal realities

 Truthfulness and singleminded devotion to the truth ("the inability to
consciously tolerate falsehood")

Self-discipline (temperance) ("constitutionally incapable of taking seriously the

things which money can buy")

Magnanimity and breadth of vision ("a mind constantly striving for an

overview of the totality of things human and divine")

Courage

Moral Uprightness

Innate high intelligence

Excellent memory

Sense of proportion and elegance

(Compare Socrates in the Apology, and note the mix of affective and cognitive
elements in the above list.)

IIIC. The Philosopher and Death (Apology and Phaedo)

Philosophy as a vocation (see Apology 38a)

The body as a hindrance to finding eternal realities (Phaedo, 64c-67b)

Asceticism and immortality: the philosophical life as a preparation for death

(see Phaedo, 82c-d and 83d-e)

Looking ahead: The Philosopher and (vs. ?) the Saint

IIID. Why Philosophy is Unpopular in a Democracy

True philosophy conflicts with skepticism and/or relativism about the good for
human beings
 (The unruly crew: 488a-489a)

In democratic societies philosophy easily deteriorates into sophistry

(The wild animal trainer: 493a-c & 496c-e)

(The democratic personality: 560d, ff.)

IVA. Knowledge of the Form of the Good

The Simile of the Sun (506e-509c)

o What should we want? The criticism of our preferences; some are better
than others, and, contrary to some moral theories built on skepticism
about the good for human beings, not all should count equally.

Note, by the way, that in addition to the motif in which moral

uprightness constitutes a healing of the soul, Socrates also insists that
moral uprightness is the liberation of the soul. True freedom -- what we
might call "moral freedom" -- is being in possession of oneself, and this
is precisely what the morally corrupt person lacks, even when he is
"metaphysically" free in the sense of being able to choose what he wants
to do or not do. The problem is that he is a slave to his desires and fears,
and hence he does not want or desire what he ought to want or desire.
One way to put this is that on Plato's view, metaphysical freedom (or its
exercise) is not an end in itself but rather an instrument for
attaining moral freedom; the tragic truth about us is that we can use
our metaphysical freedom to make ourselves moral slaves.

Knowledge of the form of the good, which requires both moral and
intellectual excellence, is thus the pinnacle of the sort of self-possession
(i.e., freedom) necessary for true friendship.
 o Philosophy as ascent and purification. Knowledge is as much a moral
achievement as an intellectual achievement. (This theme is more highly
developed in the important neo-Platonist Plotinus, whom you will be
reading about in preparation for the midterm exam.)

o The Good as (i) setting the goal of intellectual inquiry, as (ii) providing
the context for intellectual inquiry, viz., friendship (Thrasymachus vs.
Glaucon and Adeimantus), and as (iii) giving unity to the results of
intellectual inquiry. It is precisely the centrality of the Good that
distinguishes the true philosopher from the sophist. First of all, the
sophists are more interested in making clever and persuasive arguments
than in teaching their students to be morally upright, but this, according
to Socrates, blinds them to central truths in metaphysics and moral
theory. Second, the sophists are not interested in integrating all
knowledge, since they approach problems piecemeal and are not worried
about developing an internally consistent system of beliefs. For
instance, the present-day fragmentation of inquiry almost ensures that
inquiry is carried on outside of any well-thought-out moral context.
(This is doubly worrisome given our ability to make technological
advances, especially in biology but also in the other hard sciences.
"Let's do it because it's there to be done" is a great sports motto; it's not
so clear that it's a great motto for, say, genetics research.)

The Divided Line and the Cave (509d-521b)

o Knowledge (episteme) -----------------------------------> Forms (Being)

Intellection (noesis)

Hypothetical Reasoning (dianoia)

o Opinion (doxa) ---------------------------------------------> Sensible

Things (Becoming)

Belief or Opinion (pistis)

Illusion (eikaisia)
 Philosophical methodology: The big picture (very sketchy in the Republic:
See the Sophist, the Statesman, the "inscrutable" second half of
the Parmenides)

o Ascent: from effects to causes; from initial taxonomy and what is given
to hypothesis and theory, and to ultimate first principles, which in the
end the wise can see to be evident. (This is similiar to what Aristotle
calls explanation quia.)

o Descent: from now evident first principles of knowledge to explanation

of the particular effects in terms of causes; from now evident first
principles of action (ends) to concrete choices (means) in light of the
Good. (This is similar to what Aristotle calls explanation propter quid.)

IVB. An Outline of Socrates's Middle-Dialogue Ruminations about the Forms

The Big Claim:

We can have a deep understanding of the visible world only if we

understand it by reference to the world of eternal realities, which is
"visible" only to the soul.

The Intrinsic Properties of the Forms:

o Eternal

o Ungenerable

o Imperishable

o Unchanging
 o Non-sensible

o Immaterial

o Do not admit of their own opposites (in one sense at least)

(Shades of Parmenides)

The Relation of the Forms to sensible particulars:

o The Forms are exemplars which are approximated by sensible particulars

F-ness is perfectly F

sensible particular x is F to degree n

o A sensible particular is F because of its relation to F-ness

x participates in F-ness

x exemplifies F-ness

x has F-ness

(Question: What sort of "causality" or "explanation" is this, anyway?

Also, we will see below that the general claim that F-ness is F leads to
problems.)

The Relation of the Forms to thought, and language

o The Forms are known through reason (noesis) by means of the giving of
an account (logos). We might say that a mind or intellect
participates cognitively in the forms (as opposed to participating in
reality in the forms) when they come to know them.
 o The Forms are what make sensible particulars intelligible to the extent
that they are. (Timaeus: The Forms impose order on an indeterminate
receptacle)

o The Forms are signified in different ways by concrete terms <F> and
abstract terms <F-ness>:

<F-ness> signifies F-ness and is true of it -- e.g., The abstact term

'wisdom' signifies the Form Wisdom and is predicated of the
Form Wisdom.

<F> signifies F-ness and is true of things that are F -- e.g., The
concrete term 'wise' signifies Wisdom and is predicated of wise
individuals, as in 'Socrates is wise'..

IVC. The Theory of Recollection

The Paradox of the Learner (Meno 80C-E )

Innate Ideas (See Phaedo on Equality: Shades of Descartes and Leibniz and
Kant)

General Ideas: Where do they come from?

Abstraction (sensory image as partial cause of general ideas, natural ability of

human mind to configure itself into thinking-generally) vs.
Illumination (sensory image as mere occasion for grasping (remembering?)
general ideas, which the mind somehow has direct access to.)

IVD. Critique of Plato's Middle-Dialogue Account of the Forms (See

the Parmenides 130b-135d)
 Problems with mud and hair and other "undignified" things, but even more
problems with unrestricted generality (Russell's Paradox: see below)

Problems with Participation

The "Third Man" Argument

The Viability of Conceptualism

The Apparent Unknowability of the Forms, despite our equally apparent need
for them in order to "fix our thoughts"

VA. Cosmogony and Cosmology

The universe is a perfect animal, spherical and rotating, fashioned by God (the Demi-
urge) in the Receptacle and patterned after the Forms, which are images of God.

Receptacle----> Space (?)

Rotation----> Time

World Soul---> Fashioned from the Same, the Different, and Being

Body---> Fashioned from the Elements

 Elements----> Isosceles and half equilateral triangles combining to form
regular solids (note that the elements are on this view at bottom quantitative
rather than qualitative (hot/cold/dry/wet), thus providing a basis for the use of
mathematics in natural philosophy):

o Cube = earth

o Tetrahedron = fire

o Octahedron = air

o Icosohedron = water

Individual Souls----> Created individually, making four kinds of living things

from the elements:

o Stars (fire)

o Birds (air)

o Fish (water)

o Mammals (earth)
VB. Explanation and Extrinsic Teleology

Four types of explanation (Phaedo, 97B-100E)

o Material (the stuff that is acted on)

o Efficient (moving cause, agent cause)

o Formal (the "safe explanation")

o Final (teleological, the goal or aim)

Some teleological notions

o Tendency

o Propensity

o Intention

o Purpose
 o End (Goal, Aim)

o Good and evil (proper and defective relative to the end)

Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Teleology

Russell's Paradox for Properties

Principle of generality: If 'is F' is a meaningful predicate, then there is a

Form F-ness.

(1) Some Forms (e.g., Moral Uprightness, Redness) are such that they do not
exemplify themselves. [That is, they are not among the intrinsic properties that
all Forms have.] (premise)

(2) So 'is a non-self-exemplifier' is a meaningful predicate (from (1))

(3) So there is a Form Being a non-self-exemplifier (call it N). (From (2) and
the principle of generality)

(4) N either does or does not exemplify itself. (obvious)

 (4a) If N does exemplify itself, then it is a non-self-exemplifier and so
does not exemplify itself

(4b) If N does not exemplify itself, then it is a non-self-exemplifier and

so does exemplify itself

(5) So N exemplifies itself if and only if it does not exemplify itself. (from 3
and 4)

Therefore, N both does and does not exemplify itself--a contradiction. (from 5
and disjunctive syllogism: [ [ (p or -p) and (p iff -p)] --> (p and -p)] )

ARISTOTLE
IA. Introductory Remarks

Aristotle as student of and critic of Plato (amicus Platonis, sed magis amicus
veritatis)

The division of logic and the philosophical sciences (see below)

Interpreting the Categories: Things or terms?

IB. The Division of Being into Substance and Accident (preliminary framework
for an account of how unqualified change is possible)

The TRANSCENDENTALS (so-called because they transcend the categories and

are coextensive with being):

Every being, regardless of which category it falls into, has the

following transcendental terms truly predicable of it:

being (ens)
one (individual or undivided) (unum)
something real (res)
entity (entitas)
true (verum)
good (bonum)
(see St. Thomas, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q. 1, a. 1)
The CATEGORIES: Beyond this, being, which is said in many ways, is divided into
the categories:

Substance (answers to the question, "What is it?"): that which is not

present in a subject but exists per se, i.e., in its own right, and not in alio,
i.e., not in something else.That which is ousia, being or the really real in the
paradigmatic sense. This is the "privileged" sense of 'being' and its focal
sense -- all beings in the other categories are defined by their relation to
substance. Each of the paradigmatic single members of the category of
substance is a primary substance that belongs to a natural kind, a "this-such".

o primary substance: singular substance, e.g. Plato, Socrates, Arnie

Aardvark, Ollie Oaktree, etc. (Corresponding linguistic terms: proper
names of primary substances.) That which neither is said of a subject
nor is present in a subject. (Note: These examples presuppose but do
not prove that the really real can come into and pass out of existence.
Aristotle's argument for this comes later, in the Physics.)

o secondary substance: the nature or natural kind or essence or "what it is

to be a " of a primary substance, e.g., human being, tree, tunnel
spider, gold, water, etc. (Corresponding linguistic terms: natural kind
terms, including both genera and species of those genera, right down to
the "lowest-level species.") That which is said of a subject but is
not present in a subject. (The reason for saying that secondary
substance is not "in a substance" will become clear below when we talk
about essential predication.) Secondary substance can also be
characterized as (a) that which makes the primary substance to be a
unified member of a given kind (the what it is to be of that sort of thing);
(b) that which is the object of scientific knowledge (episteme); (c) that
from which a thing's inseparable accidents or properties flow; and (d)
the object of the so-called real definition of a thing (a definition given in
terms of genus and difference -- see below).

Primary substances can be divided taxonomically into kinds (secondary

substances = genera and species) by adding differences to genera at a higher
level. Here is a very general taxonomy that divides substances by differences
and goes from the most general genus (substance) to the "lowest-level
species" human being. In each case the second member is further divided in the
 next level down, and all of the terms in parentheses are included in the category
of substance as secondary substances:

immaterial substance (= angel or intelligence)

vs. material substance (= corporeal substance or body)

inanimate material substance (= element/mineral)

vs. animate material substance (= living substance)

non-sentient animate material substance (= plant)

vs. sentient animate material substance (= animal)

non-rational sentient animate material

substance (= non-rational animal)
vs. rational sentient animate material
substance (= human being)

Hence, the category of substance gives us a taxonomy from which theoretical

inquiry can take its start. And the purpose of such inquiry is to discover -- by
reasoning from effects back to causes -- the essences and properties of primary
substances.

Accident (answers to the various forms of the question "How is it?"): that
which is present in a subject and thus exists in alio, but is not said of any
subject. This is the non-primary sense of 'being'. Each category of accidents
provides the answers to various (further) questions that we can ask about a
substance. Aristotle says that accidents are not "said of" a subject because he
apparently has in mind that which is designated by an abstract term, e.g.,
Socrates's wisdom -- which is a singular instance of wisdom and that by
which Socrates is wise. The concrete term 'wise', on the other hand, is said of a
subject and designates or signifies singular instances (tropes) of wisdom. Here
are the categories of accidents:

o quality: sensible characteristics of the substance (e.g., colors and

sounds), shape, active and passive powers, dispositions, habits

o quantity: dimensions of the substance (continuous quantity, e.g., lines,

surfaces: the subject-matter of geometry); number (discrete quantity:
the subject-matter of arithmetic)
 o relation: how the substance stands with respect to other substances (e.g.,
mother of, teacher of, to the left of, bigger than, etc.)

o where: place

o when: temporal characteristics

o action (acting): what the substance is doing

o passion (being acted upon): what is being done to the substance

o having on: what the substance has on (e.g., clothes, makeup)

o position (or posture): how the substance's parts are ordered with respect
to one another

IC. Two Kinds of Predication

Accidental Predication: Analyzable as a (trans-categorial) relation between

two singular entities, one of which (accident) has being only insofar as it is
present in or inheres in or is (present) in the other (paradigmatically,
a substance). So an accidental predication presupposes that the substance in
question is already constituted as a member of some natural kind.

o 'Socrates is wise' is equivalent to 'A (singular instance of) wisdom

inheres in Socrates' (--- and not 'participates in' or 'exemplifies' the Form
Wisdom).

Essential Predication: Predication in which a species, genus, or difference

(i.e., some 'secondary substance linguistic term') is predicated of a substance.

o 'Socrates is a human being' is not equivalent to 'Human nature inheres in

Socrates' ........

After all, how could his human nature, which constitutes Socrates as a human
being, presuppose Socrates's existence in the way an accident presupposes and
 depends upon the substance it inheres in? (Alternative positions, mistaken in
Aristotle's view: (a) bare-particular theory and (b) bundle-theory).

Unanalyzability thesis: When a substance term (i.e., a species- or genus-

term) is predicated of a primary substance, the resulting predication
cannot be analyzed as a relation between two singular entities.

ID. Theses about Primary and Secondary Substance (from Categories, chap. 5)

Primary Substance (PS):

o Every PS is a this-such, a kinded individual, an undivided unity. (There

are no "bare particulars" or "bare substances"---sorry, Anaximander)

o Every PS is an ultimate subject of predication and of accidents, but is not

itself present in any subject, i.e., it does not itself inhere in any subject.

o If no PS existed, then no accident would exist. (Note the contrast with

Plato's "qualitative" Forms.)

o No PS of a given species K is more or less a substance of K than any

other PS of K.

o Every PS is such that it admits of contrary accidents while remaining

numerically the same PS (vs. at least one standard form of bundle-
theory).

Secondary Substance (SS):

o An SS is said of a PS but is not present in a PS. (It's not present in it

because an SS constitutes a PS as a substance.)

o An SS exists only if it is truly predicable of some PS. (Note the contrast

with Plato's "substantival" Forms, which exist whether or not they are
exemplified.)
 o Among the SS's, the species is more truly substance than the genus. (It's
'closer' to the primary substance of which it is said.)

o An SS provides a privileged answer to the question "What is it?"

IE. Lingering Questions

How is unqualified change possible, as it must be if plants and animals, which

come into and pass out of existence, are primary substances and hence really
real? (Physics 1)

How can plants and animals be primary substances and hence undivided
unities, given that they consist of elements and minerals? (Physics 2)

IIA. Preliminary Remarks on Physics I

Method of natural philosophy:

o From what is better known to us to what is better known in itself

o From what is complex to principles and causes

o From effects to causes

Basic Assumption:

o "Natural things are all or some of them subject to change" (Sorry, Zeno.)
 The principles of change:

o How many are there?

o What are they?

IIB. The Principles of Change: Matter, Form, Privation

Three descriptions of a single ordinary qualified change, where a qualified change
is a change with respect to accidents (Physics 1.7):
(1) The man becomes knowing-music.

(2) From the ignorant-of-music comes the knowing-music.

(3) The ignorant-of-music man becomes the knowing-music man.

The third description is the most informative, since it makes clear the main
elements, viz., (i) the contraries which serve as the formal terminus a
quo or starting point (ignorant-of-music) and the formal terminus ad
quem or endpoint (knowing-music) of the change, and (ii) the substance which
serves as the substratum of the change. This, by the way, is Aristotle's reply
to Parmenides' argument against the possibility of change. What is comes to
be in one sense from what is (the substratum with its potentiality for the new
accident) and in one sense from what is not (the formal terminus ad quem).
Let's look at it more carefully:

o The ignorant-of-music man becomes the knowing-music man.

o At the first level of generality we have three principles:

ignorant-of-music = the privation from which the change

proceeds.

knowing-music = the accident toward which the change proceeds

and which terminates the change.
 man = the substance which perdures through the change and is
the subject first of the privation (with a potentiality for the
accident) and then of the accident.

o At a higher level of generality we can see that any change (even an

unqualified change, if such is possible) would have to involve three
principles if it were a genuine change and not a mere succession of
wholly distinct entities:

ignorant-of-music = the privation: the absence of the perfection

which will terminate the change.

knowing-music = the form: the perfection (including, but not

necessarily limited, to accidents) that terminates the change.

man = the matter: that which serves (i) (before the change) as the
subject of the privation and is in potentiality with respect to the
form, and (ii) (after the change) as the subject of the form. In
other words, the matter is that which changes or is transformed.

o Notice that all three of these principles are essential. If the matter already
has the form, then it cannot attain it through a change. If the matter
acquires no form, then there is no change. If there is no matter or
common subject of both the form and the privation, then at best we have
a succession in which one matter has the privation and another--
numerically distinct--matter has the perfection. But this would not be a
change, strictly speaking, since there would be no common subject, even
if the two distinct matters existed continuously, one after the other, in the
same place. (A more interesting case would put pressure on the notion of
continuity: Suppose God were to annihilate the substance-cum-privation
at t and re-create the very same substance, now with the form, at t+e,
where e is a small as you please.)
 o In general, then, the matter is the principle
of potentiality or determinability, that which persists through the change
and is the subject first of the privation and then of the form; the form is
the principle of actuality or determination, that which constitutes the
actualization of the matter's potentiality for a given perfection.

o In qualified change, the matter of the change is a primary

substance and the form is an accident. (Refer back to the list
of accidents.) There are three basic types of qualified change, which all
other types of qualified change can be reduced to or traced back to
(see On Generation and Corruption 1.4):

alteration: change with respect to quality

augmentation/diminution: change with respect to quantity

local motion: change with respect to where (place)

IIC. Unqualified Change (Generation and Corruption)

Here we see the crux of Aristotle's anti-reductionistic reply to Parmenides,

Empedocles, Anaxagoras and the atomists--the explanation of how real really things
(ousiai) can come into existence and pass out of existence. What he has been working
toward is a set of abstract concepts (a technical vocabulary, if you will) that helps us
make sense of all kinds of change, both qualified and unqualified. His method in
setting up this technical vocabulary is to extend his account of qualified change by
analogy to the case of unqualified change.
(Note: terminus a quo = starting point and terminus ad quem = ending point.) There
are two relevant features:

In qualified change something complex or composite is the total terminus a

quo (substance + formal terminus a quo, i.e. the privation), and
something complex or composite is the total terminus ad quem (substance
+ formal terminus ad quem, i.e., the accidental form). More graphically,
QUALIFIED CHANGE
Total terminus a quo = matter (the substance) + formal terminus a quo (the privation)
Total terminus ad quem= matter (the substance) + formal terminus ad quem (the accidental form)

In qualified change what is comes to be both from what is (the substance,

which has the accidental form potentially) and from what is not (the privation
of a form had only potentially by the substance).

Now let's look at a putative unqualified change--e.g., the coming-to-be of a pig from
a pig-sperm and pig-ovum:

The sperm and ovum become a pig (note: Aristotle didn't have the biology exactly
right, but that is irrelevant for the big claim he is making):

The pig-sperm and pig-ovum (terminus a quo) must be thought of as

a complex or composite, viz., as a subject or substratum (matter) that lacks the
form by which something is a pig and has a contrary form instead -- yet with
the potentiality of taking on the form by which something is a pig).

The pig (terminus ad quem) must likewise be thought of as

a complex or composite, viz., as a subject or substratum that has the form by
which something is a pig.

The matter of the change is thus something capable of "taking on" both the
form by which something is a mere pig-sperm or pig-ovum and the form by
which something is a pig. But notice that these forms are not accidental forms,
since they are constitutive of primary substances and, unlike accidental forms,
do not presuppose the existence of the relevant substance. Rather, each is a
form by which something is a substance of a given type -- in other words, each
is a substantial form that makes a substance to be a substance of a
particular natural kind and is the source of the unity and activities that
characterize substances of that natural kind as such (in this case, a living
substance, a pig) -- and not just as collections of elements or of minerals, etc.
Likewise, the matter of such a change is not itself a substance but is instead
something capable of becoming a substance -- even a living substance -- with
its own distinctive character and principles of organization -- in other words, it
is primary (or first) matter that is in potentiality to a substantial form. (We
 must here make a distinction between proximate matter and remote matter. This
will become clearer below.)

In sum, unqualified change is intelligible because terrestrial material substances are

composite beings which have a principle (primary matter) capable of taking on and
losing the principle (substantial form) which constitutes a thing as a primary
substance of a given kind. More graphically,

UNQUALIFIED
CHANGE
Total terminus a matter (primary
formal terminus a quo (the privation)
quo = matter) +
Total terminus ad matter (primary
formal terminus ad quem (the substantial form)
quem= matter) +

In general, form is the principle of determination, actuality and perfection,

whereas, in contrast, matter is the principle of determinability, potentiality,
and perfectibility. Indeed, we can see the form/matter distinction itself as an instance
of the more general distinction between act (actuality) and potency (potentiality), so
that:

actuality : potentiality ::
substantial form : primary matter ::
accidental form : substance

A couple of notes:

First of all, the changes in nature are ordered, so that not just any substance can
be immediately generated from any other substance. Rather, a substantial
change is characteristically preceded by a series of accidental changes which
prepare the way for the substantial change by rendering the substance which is
the terminus a quo properly disposed for a substantial change.

Second, Aristotle designates "first" or "primary" matter as the matter of a

substantial change in order to emphasize the fact that the substantial form of a
material or corporeal substance subordinates all the elements and/or minerals to
the new substance in such a way that the new substance is a genuine unity (or
genuine mixture of lower-level substances), with its own irreducible powers
and characteristic activities, rather than a mere aggregation of independent
elemental substances. In other words, the elements entering into the
 constitution of a higher-level substance no longer exist as substances but
have been "taken up" into the new substance and into the structures and
processes which are peculiar to that new substance. In general, at
whatever level of description we specify the material constituents of the
new substance, those constituents, while contributing active and passive
powers to the new substances, are not themselves substances. The
substantial form dominates from the top all the way down, and from the
bottom all the way up. This is most evident in the case of living things, but it
is nearly as evident in the case of minerals composed of elements. The
elements and minerals taken up into a living substance remain not in their
substance but in their active and passive powers. (More on this in a moment.)
Hence, even though primary matter never exists as such without any form, the
unity of generated substances demands that the immediate subject of a
substantial form be a matter capable of being totally "dominated by" the
principle that makes a generated substance to be of a certain natural kind. This
is primary matter.

IID. A Problem or Two

The unity of substance (see Metaphysics, books 7-9)

o Categories: Every primary substance is a this-such, an undivided unity.

o Physics: Every (terrestrial) material primary substance is "composed of"

primary matter and substantial form.

Reductionism vs. emergentism (see Physics, book 2)

Are there good reasons for thinking that plants and animals are primary
substances rather than just aggregates of primary substances (e.g., the
elements or atoms or "seeds"), as Empedocles and the Atomists and
Anaxagoras held?
IIIA. The Concept of Nature (Physics 2)

What is a nature?

o "An intrinsic source of change and staying unchanged, whether in

respect of place, or growth and decay, or alteration."

o "A source and cause of change and remaining unchanged in that to

which it belongs primarily and per se."

What is nature as a whole?

A dynamic system of interacting substances endowed by their natures

with active and passive causal powers and tendencies (vs. Plato's world-
soul, which animates things from without).

What has a nature?

o Answer A: Whatever exists by nature rather than by art.

o Answer B: Anything that is a K, where <K> satisfies the following

formula: Every K, as a K, has a nature

o Answer C: Every naturally occurring primary substance

 THE BIG CLAIM (ANTI-REDUCTIONISM):

Minerals, plants, and animals, as such, have natures .... That is, they
have intrinsic principles of change that are peculiar to them as such
and that go beyond the natures of their constituents taken by
themselves or as mere aggregates. And this is just what it is to be a
primary substance that belongs to a natural kind. This entails that
"bottom-up" scientific analysis and study of non-elemental
substances will invariably be incomplete (though not without value);
instead, such study needs to be supplemented by "top-down"
synthetic considerations.

Aristotle's view is evoked in the following quote from Nobel Prize winner Robert
Laughlin's A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (2006):

"Over the intervening years, as I have lived inside theoretical physics and become
familiar with its ways and historical currents, I have come to understand the von
Klitzing discovery as a watershed event, a defining moment in which physical science
stepped firmly out of the age of reductionism into the age of emergence. This shift is
usually described in the popular press as the transition from the age of physics into the
age of biology, but that is not quite right. What we are seeing is a transformation of
world view in which the objective of understanding nature by breaking it down into
ever smaller parts is supplanted by the objective of understanding how nature
organizes itself."

IIIB. Nature as Matter and as Form

Nature as matter: A substance's lower-level constituents (elements, minerals,

etc.--at any level of description lower than the proper species of the relevant
substance -- plug in whatever contemporary science identifies as constituents).

Nature as form:

o The specifying powers and tendencies of the proper species as such

o Directedness toward an ideal paradigm of the species

 o As noted above, one reason why substantial form is said to inform
primary matter directly is that all the primary constituents are
subordinated to the substantial form and cease to exist as substances in
their own right. They exist, as it were, only in their powers, which are
subordinated to the new higher-level substance as a unified whole.

IIIC. The Four Causes

Intrinsic causes and principles of explanation as applied to natural

substances:

o Material cause (or matter) -- (a) the stuff of which a substance is made,
at whatever level of description (materia in qua) or (b) that which
is acted upon to effect a change (materia ex qua) [Note: these two
notions pull apart in the case of a thing created directly ex nihilo -- it has
a materia in qua but no materia ex qua]

o Formal cause (or (substantial) form) -- the principle by which matter

(materia in qua) is constituted as a primary substance belonging to a
certain lowest-level natural kind. (Can also apply to accidents, but right
now we're concerned with substantial form.)

Extrinsic causes and principles of explanation:

o Efficient cause (or agent) -- that which produces something by means

of its acting

o Final cause (teleological cause) -- that for the sake of which an effect is
produced by an agent
 Some examples that help us get clear about the difference between efficient and
final causality:

o thermostat (mechanism vs. goal of the operation of the mechanism)

o homeostasis (alternate mechanisms for getting to the same goal)

o normal vs. abnormal development of a living organism (both involve

efficient causes, but only the former achieves the built-in aim dictated by
thing's nature or substantial form)

o human action (roughly, how I did what I did vs. why I did what I did)

Aristotle: "Sometimes the formal, efficient and final causes are one." How can
this be? Think of the normal growth and development of living organisms.
That growth and development are (a) effected intrinsically by parts of the
substance itself [efficient cause], (b) ordered toward an end
(roughly, flourishing or the good for this sort of thing) [final cause], where (c)
this end is determined by the natural kind to which the substance belongs
[formal cause, as in substantial form]. We will now explore the ordered nature
of such change in a bit more detail.

IIID. Teleology vs. Blind Spontaneity

Preliminary distinctions:

Deterministic efficient cause vs. indeterministic efficient cause. This

is not what we're talking about here.

End-oriented efficient cause vs. blind efficient cause [or, perhaps better, blind
sequence of states of a system, since Aristotle denies that any efficient cause
operates wholly blindly -- even though some particular effects might be
unaimed at or unintended by their agent causes]. This is what we're talking
about here.

Two scenarios:
Scenario 1--the normal development of a red oak tree over time along a number
of relevant parameters of the red oak "system":

AFFFF .................................F......................>
BBGGG................................G.......................>
CCCHH................................H......................> (a long and wonderful life for a red
oak)
DDDDI.................................I.......................>
EEEEE..................................J.......................>
Scenario 2--the premature death of a red oak (* = consequences of the dreaded
red oak blight on one or another relevant parameter of the red oak "system"):

AFFF*F* ...............................F*
BBGGG*.................................G*
CCCHH*................................H* (where the combination of F*, G*, H*, I*, J* =
DEATH)
DDDDI*.................................I*
EEEEE.....................................J*

The view of Aristotle's opponents:

Nature, both as a whole and in the red-oak, is wholly indifferent as regards

these two scenarios. Efficient causes (if we can even talk of them on this view)
or "mechanisms" work without any "directedness" in both cases, at least
without any directedness at the level of living things. So the red oak in
Scenario 1 is not inherently a better or more perfect red oak than the one in
Scenario 2. There are just atoms or elements (or whatever) churning away and
"producing" effects in utter stupidity and blindness in both cases. (Or if, like
Hume, you're really pessimistic about the ability of reason to penetrate the
secrets of the natural world, you won't talk about 'production' but simply about
the sequences of events (at whatever level) and profess ignorance
about why events occur in the sequence they do occur in.)

Complete explanations of the two scenarios can in principle be given in terms

of efficient causes (or, better, blind mechanisms) alone, without recourse to
teleological notions like tendency, impediment, prevention, compensation, etc.
Perhaps these complete explanations are too complicated (for now or even in
principle) for human knowers to give, and so we sometimes have recourse to
teleological notions to simplify things for ourselves. But these teleological
notions have no ontological significance. That is, they don't correspond to
anything distinctive in the real world. The elemental powers do not act for the
sake of the whole organism, and a complete explanation of their action can thus
 be had without referring to the role they play when directed by the organism as
a whole.

The "deviant" or "abnormal" is explicable wholly by recourse to mechanisms

and without recourse to the "normal" defined by some mysterious goals
supposedly built into living bodies. To think otherwise is just dark-age
superstition. Indeed, evaluative terms such as "deviant" or "abnormal" merely
express our own preferences or interests rather than any fact about nature.

Aristotle's rejoinder:

Nature, both as a whole, and in the red oak, is not indifferent as regards the two
scenarios. The red oak tree in Scenario 1 is a more perfect instance of red-oak-
ness than the one in Scenario 2. The natures of living things have built into
them a tendency toward a norm-of-flourishing for their species.

In order to understand the two scenarios completely (i.e., scientifically) we

must attribute various goal-directed tendencies and propensities to natures and
to invoke notions like impediment, prevention, compensation, etc. The actions
of elemental powers cannot be fully understood except by reference to the ends
they serve within the whole unified organism. Once we understand a given
nature scientifically, it is only deviant cases that require special explanation.

What happens "always or for the most part" is indicative (though not infallibly
so) of natural tendencies and propensities. What happens in nature happens
because of the natural tendencies of the relevant agents. To think otherwise is
to be the victim of new-age scientistic superstition.

Tendencies and Tomato Plants

"Laws of Nature"

What exactly are we saying when we say "It is a law of nature that salt
dissolves in water"? Not that every instance of salt is dissolved in water, or
even that every instance of salt would dissolve if placed in water. What, then?
How about: Salt by its nature has a (defeasible or impedible) tendency to
dissolve in salt. The aim of science is thus to discover the natures of substances
 and hence their tendencies and characteristic ways of acting and being acted
upon.

Intrinsic Standards of Good and Evil

o 'This is a good tomato plant and that is a bad one'

o 'This is a good human being and that is a bad one'

Here we have the dreaded specter of Emotivism and the (alleged) Fact/Value
Dichotomy vs. Aristotle's view of nature, wherein teleological standards of
perfection or flourishing are built right into substances (especially living
substances) by their very natures. These standards are in turn the measure of the
individual's progress toward or regress from the norm for the species and for
what is either in accord with a thing's nature or contrary to a thing's nature.

IIIE. Teleology in Plato and Aristotle

Plato: The ultimate source of directedness in the physical world is extrinsic

to to the physical world. (Shades of Divine Providence)

Aristotle: The ultimate source of directedness in the physical world is intrinsic

to the physical world.

Question: Are these two positions, appearances to the contrary, compatible

with one another? Stay tuned.

IVA. The Soul: Form of a Living Substance

Distinction between two senses of actuality:

 o First actuality (or First Act) = The possession of a power or set of
powers

o Second actuality (or Second Act) = The exercise of a power or set of

powers

Three (more or less) equivalent accounts of the soul:

o Soul = The substance qua form (i.e., the substantial form) of a natural
body that has life potentially. ('Body' here is apparently being used here
for something non-organic, i.e., some collection of elements as described
in physics or inorganic chemistry. Or else the soul is being included in
the bodily organism.)

o Soul = The first actuality of a natural body that has life potentially.
(Same remark about 'body'.)

o Soul = The first actuality of a natural body that is organized into organs
-- i.e., is an organism. (Here 'body' is being used for an organism.)

Salient points (neither dualism nor materialism):

o The soul is the (substantial) form of a living thing. A living body is not
a bodily organism without its form (= soul).

o Each soul has its own proper proximate matter.

 o Of all the souls of living things, only the rational soul is arguably
subsistent (i.e., substance-like) and hence immaterial and/or separable.

o Differences with Plato (and Descartes):

The soul is an intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, mover of the body.

The soul is ontologically constitutive of, rather than posterior to,

the bodily organism. That is, the soul is not something that is
"added to" what is already a bodily substance. Rather, the soul is
the form or configuration of the matter in virtue of which this
bodily substance is a tree, pig, aardvark, etc.

Further difference with Descartes: Plants and animals are

ensouled and are not reducible to machines, i.e., not reducible to
entities all of whose properties can be fully described in terms of
the fundamental forces of physics or of any science below macro-
biology.

IVB. Kinds of Souls

Nutritive (Vegetative):

o Functions: Nutrition, Reproduction

o Functions had by: Plants, Brute Animals, Human Beings

Sentient:
 o Functions: Sentient Cognition (sensation, memory, imagination),
Sentient Appetite (desire, pleasure, pain, fear, audacity, etc.),
Locomotion

o Functions had by: Brute Animals, Human Beings

Rational:

o Functions: Intellective Cognition (intellect: concepts, propositions,

chains of reasoning), Intellective Appetite (will: intention, consent,
choice, joy, etc.). (Aristotle has the notion of "rational desire," though
not a well-developed psychology of will.)

o Functions had by: Human Beings

IVC. Sensation and Intellection:

What follows is a philosophical framework into which more specialized scientific

information can fit, the main principle of which is that cognition must involve the
union of the knower and the known, i.e., of the cognitive power and the object of
cognition. In general, the human organism has a general inclination toward
intellective cognition of its environs, and this begins with sentient cognition of a
sort characteristic of higher animals in general.

Sensation (sentient cognition):

o Sensation involves the alteration of the sense organs by the objects

sensed.

o The objects sensed are external to the senses and act upon them to
configure them in characteristic ways..
 o The sensing faculty becomes like the object sensed (sensible species or
likeness), and this underlies the alteration (or configuration) of the sense
organ counting also as intentional and as having an interior side, i.e., as
being a type of cognition, an act of sensing, as well as a physical state of
the organ. Think of the sensible species or likeness of the object O as a
certain configuration of the sense organ by virtue of which the animal
senses-in-the-O-way through that organ.

o Sensing just is an operation of a physical or material organ, and this is

why each sense is limited to a fixed range and intensity of object. In
addition, sensings are the foundation for imaginings, rememberings, etc.

o A corresponding account can be given of feelings (or emotions).

Feelings are the interior aspect of certain physiological changes wrought
by sensings (or imaginings or rememberings, etc.), and they have the
objects of those sensings (or imaginings or rememberings, etc.) as their
own objects.

Intellection (intellective cognition):

o Intellection is similar to sensation in that the intellect becomes like the

object which is understood. Aristotle conceives of sensation and
intellection by analogy with the composition of material substances from
form and matter:

Reality: Object constituted by matter configured by form.

Sensation: Matter* (sense organ) is configured by form* (sensible

likeness corresponding to object)
 Intellection: Matter** (intellect as passive or receptive) is
configured by form** (intelligible likeness corresponding to
object)

o Intellection, unlike sensation, is not limited to present singular (as

opposed to general) objects. In fact, the unlimited nature of intellectual
cognition is a sign that even though the higher cognitive operations of
the rational soul presuppose the operation of the material powers of
sensation, memory, and imagination, these higher cognitive operations
are not in themselves the operations of material or bodily powers. As
Aristotle envisions it, the process of concept formation involves the
intellect as an agent configuring itself as a patient by illuminating the
deliverances of the sensory organs. Hence, the state of the various
sensory operations, and of the bodily organs that carry them out,
profoundly affects intellective cognition and affection. See General
Note below.

o Acts of the intellect: abstraction of forms (product: concepts);

composition and division (product: propositions); discursive reasoning
(product: knowledge)

o The intelligible likeness (or species) is that by which the object is

understood in a direct act, not that which is understood (as in
representationalism, according to which the direct or immediate objects
of sensation and intellection are mental objects or "ideas," to use the
term used by Locke and Descartes).

o General note: Despite what you might have heard in science classes or
other philosophy classes, Aristotelians are neither stupid nor Cartesians.
They understand that brain injuries or diseases result in impaired
cognitive functioning in human beings. In fact, they explicitly assert that
(in this life, at least) all cognitive functioning depends on various bodily
processes, especially those involving sentience (external senses,
imagination, sense-memory, comparative judgments with respect to
individuals, etc.). So you do not refute Aristotelianism by discovering (if
you ever do) that certain areas of the brain support speech, higher
 cognition, religious belief, etc. To think otherwise is an ignoratio
elenchi, i.e., failure to understand your opponent's position. It's
despicable, but widespread among certain cognitive scientists and their
sympathizers. (Fanatical philosophy majors who are really "into it"
might want to check out "Good News, Your Soul Hasn't Died Quite
Yet".)

IVD. Philosophical Anthropology: Immateriality, Immortality, and Unicity of

Rational Soul

Immateriality: Intellective cognition, unlike sentient cognition, is not the

operation of any bodily organ, even though it presupposes the operations of
bodily organs in sensation, memory, and imagination.

Immortality: Not clear what Aristotle thought.

Unicity: Averroes takes On the Soul 3.5 to imply that there is just one intellect
in both its active and passive functions. Some (Augustine at one time?) hold
that there is just one active intellect, viz., an active intelligence (neo-Platonists)
or God (Christians of a Platonist bent).

OVERVIEW OF ARISTOTLE'S WORKS: THE DIVISION OF THE

SCIENCES

I. LOGIC (a necessary tool for the philosophical sciences):

Categories: theory of terms [abstracting].

On Interpretation: theory of propositions [composing and dividing].

Prior Analytics: theory of syllogistic [discursive reasoning].

Posterior Analytics: theory of demonstrative argument [science].

Topics: theory of dialectical (non-demonstrative) argument [opinion].

Sophistical Refutations: treatment of logical fallacy.

II. PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES

 Theoretical (or Speculative) Philosophy: has truth as its end, things that have
principles of movement and change within themselves as its object, and
analysis into causes or principles as its method.

o Natural Philosophy: has as its object things that (i) exist in matter, (ii)
have matter in their definition, and (iii) are subject to one or more types
of change, i.e., local motion (change in place), alteration (change in
quality), augmentation (change in quantity), or generation and corruption
(substantial or unqualified change).

Physics: general principles of change and motion, causality, space

and time, proof of the first mover.

On the Heavens: principles of local motion.

Meteorology: transmutation of the elements (chemistry).

On Generation and Corruption: principles of alteration as ordered

to substantial change

On the Soul: general principles pertaining to things subject to

augmentation (i.e., living things) (biology).

On Sense and the Sensible Object

On Memory and Reminiscence

On Sleep

On Dreams

On the Parts of Animals

On the Motion of Animals

On the Generation of Animals

 o Mathematics: has as its object things that (i) exist in matter but (ii) do
not have matter in their definition and (iii) are not changeable.

o First Philosophy: has as its object things that (i) do not exist in matter
and (ii) do not have matter in their definition and (iii) are not changeable.

Metaphysics

Practical Philosophy: has rightly ordered action as its end, reason and appetite
and their products as its object, and proceeding from causes to effects as its
method.

o Nichomachean Ethics: virtue in the individual.

o Eudemian Ethics: virtue in the individual.

o Politics: virtue in the community.

o Rhetoric: theory of persuasive arguments.

o Poetics: theory of art.

MEDIEVAL
Faith and Reason
IA. Preliminary Remarks

Ways of teaching and studying medieval philosophy:

o The cast of characters

 o Externalist vs. internalist approaches: the centrality of faith and reason if
we are to understand the projects of medieval philosophers as they
themselves understood them.

Augustine (354-430) and Aquinas (1225-1274): very different intellectual

milieus

IB. Faith and Reason: Three Aspects

Faith and reason as powers, acts, and habits which are distinct sources of
cognition, where reason includes every "natural" source of cognition.

o "The (supernatural) light of faith"

o "The (natural) light of reason"

Faith and reason as contents yielded by these powers, acts, and habits -- it
remains an open question at this point whether these contents overlap.

o "The deliverances of faith" -- revealed truths about God and God's

relationship to us.

o "The deliverances of natural reason"

Faith and reason as norms or standards for evaluating cognitive claims

o "Consonant with the faith" vs. "contrary to the faith"

o "Consonant with reason" vs. "contrary to reason"

IC. The Deliverances of Faith

The Christian drama as revealed in Sacred Scripture and the Teachings of the
Church (think of these in connection with Kant's three questions: "What can we
know? What should we do? What can we hope for?"):
 o The existence and trinitarian nature of God

o God's creation of the world ex nihilo

o Original sin and its consequences

o The promise of redemption enacted by God's covenant with the Jewish

people

o The incarnation of the Son of God and the atonement wrought by his
passion, death, and resurrection

o The continuation of Christ's redemptive work through the Church and

the sacraments

o The last things: resurrection, judgment, heaven/hell

o Divine moral law

o The ultimate end for human beings: intimate friendship with the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit

A distinction among the deliverances of the faith

o Preambles of the faith: those revealed truths (if any) that natural reason
can in principle come to knowledge (scientia) of without the aid of
divine revelation.

o Mysteries of the faith: those revealed truths that natural reason cannot
even in principle come to knowledge of without the aid of divine
revelation and hence must be accepted, if at all, by faith.

This distinction prompts the four "natural" questions to be noted below.

Note that the Fathers of the Church, along with other intellectually
sophisticated Christian writers of the first few centures A.D., generally sided
with the philosophical enlightenment in opposition to Greek and Roman
paganism. (Remember Plato's opposition to the poets in the Republic.) So
even though Christianity brought along its own story, the early Christians were
insistent that this story was true in a sense that opened it up to philosophical
scrutiny. Thus it was natural for the Christians to define the doctrines of the
 Trinity and the Incarnation by making use of metaphysical notions borrowed
from the Greeks.

ID. What it is to have faith in something?

Three operations of the intellect

o Abstraction: The formation of "quidditative" concepts, i.e., concepts of

secondary substances and accidents that allow us to grasp things well
enough to begin inquiry. [Aristotle's Categories]

o Composition and Division: The formation of affirmative and negative

propositions capable of being true or false. [Aristotle's On Intrepretation]

o Discursive reasoning (sometimes called cogitation): The formation of

chains of inference. [Aristotle's Prior Analytics and Posterior Analytics]

Note: Christian faith is an act or habit of the intellect having God as its
primary object and what is revealed by God as its propositional objects.

The possible (or passive or potential) intellect

Aristotle: In intellective cognition the intellect becomes like the thing

cognized by being configured by an intelligible likeness of the thing
known.

St. Thomas restatement: Sensible matter : sensible form :: passive

intellect : intelligible likeness (intelligible species).

That is, just as the union of this form (aardvarkiness) with primary
matter results in Andy the aardvark, so the union of this intelligible
likeness (aardvarkiness*) with the intellect-as-passive
(or potential intellect) results in this act of understanding (or act of
intellective cognition) of aardvarks.

Note: In composition and division the passive intellect is of itself neutral

with respect to accepting or rejecting a proposition. So if the intellect
does accept a proposition it must be moved either (i) involuntarily by the
very content of the proposition as seen by "the natural light of reason" or
(ii) voluntarily by the will.

The distinction between acceptance and assent

 o To accept p = to think p true

o To assent to p = to accept p and to adhere strongly to p

Note: Contemporary philosophers often use the term 'belief' for what St.
Thomas calls acceptance, whereas many translators of St. Thomas use
'belief' for what St. Thomas calls faith (in the generic sense). This can
lead to confusion, and so in what follows I will avoid the term 'belief'.

Taxonomy of cognitive acts or "propositional attitudes" (based partly on De

Veritate, ques. 14, art. 1 and partly on Summa Theologiae 2-2, ques. 1, art. 4)

o Different modes in which the intellect is moved (if at all) solely by

the the evidential status of the content of the proposition p that serves as
its object:

Dubitatio (doubt in the sense of hesitation): The intellect hesitates

or wavers between p and not-p without accepting either of them.
(This can happen either (i) because there is no evidence one way
or the other or (ii) because the evidence for one side balances the
evidence for the other.)

Suspicio (suspecting, as in "I suspect that Joanna is a better

person than we give her credit for"): The intellect accepts (or
leans toward) p, but very tentatively. (Here p is slightly more
evident than not-p, but neither one is compellingly evident.)

Intellectus (grasp of the self-evident or the per se compellingly

evident): The intellect assents to p immediately upon
understanding p. (There is an obvious extension of this act of
intellect to what is "evident to the senses".)

Scientia (scientific knowledge): The intellect assents

to p immediately upon seeing, via discursive reasoning or
cogitation, p's necessary connection to propositions that are self-
evident--even though p itself is not self-evident.

o Different modes in which the intellect is moved freely by the will rather
than by the content of p:
 Opinio (opinion): p does not compel immediate assent, but the
intellect is moved by the will to accept p, though not firmly and
with a "wariness" of not-p; so the intellect does not assent to p.
(What's the difference betwen opinio and suspicio? The evidence
might be the same or nearly the same, but the involvement of will
and affection suggests that opinio concerns something we care
about a lot or else need to decide about.)

Fides (faith--or 'belief' in most translations): p does not compel

immediate assent, but the intellect is moved by the will to assent
to p because (i) the intellect perceives p as being proposed as true
by a trustworthy authority and (ii) the person who assents desires
some good promised by assent to p. (In the case of Christian faith,
God must move us by His grace in order for us to assent to the
mysteries.)

Note 1: In dubitatio, opinio, suspicio, and faith the proposition in

question is not intellectually evident to any significant degree.

Note 2: It is possible for faith in this generic sense to be misguided, as

when a person is gullible or deceiving himself or engaging in wishful
thinking. On the other hand, it is also possible for a person to reject what
is proposed for faith when he ought not to, and this through intellectual
arrogance or through a pathological distrust of others, both of which lead
to a lack of docility. (See Augustine on reason and authority below.)

The distinctiveness of faith

o vs. dubitatio: faith involves accepting p

o vs. opinio and suspicio: faith involves assenting to p

o vs. intellectus: faith involves cogitation, i.e., discursive reasoning

o vs. scientia: in faith cogitation does not cause assent by

rendering p intellectually evident. Rather, cogitation leads one to see
faith as a trustworthy means to attaining a desired end, viz., human
flourishing, which is seen to consist in union with the Holy Trinity. Thus,
faith does not completely satisfy the intellect, but instead leaves it
'restless'.
 The certitude of Christian faith (De Veritate 14.1.ad 7)

St. Thomas distinguishes two types of certitude:

o Firmness of adherence because of the trustworthiness of the source of

cognition (or certitude from the cause of cognition): Christian faith
is more certain in this sense than either scientia or intellectus, because
the supernatural sunlight of faith, which is caused by the first truth (= the
divine intellect), is a more trustworthy source of truth than is the sixty-
watt natural light of reason. (Think of the faith of the martyrs and of the
fanatical love of God demonstrated by saints like St. Francis of
Assisi, aka Saint Nutcase, or Bl. Mother "Let me clean up the puke"
Theresa)

o Evidentness to reason of the object of assent (or certitude from

the evidentness of the object of cognition): Christian faith is less
certain in this sense than either scientia or intellectus. It does not put the
mind to rest, as it were.

Augustine on reason and authority (Confessions 6.4-5)

o The overriding fear of being gullible (See Fides et Ratio, #6)

o The spectre of rationalism, where rationalism entails that in order not to

be foolish one must proportion one's assent strictly to the evidentness of
what one assents to or the evidentness of the relevant claim to revelation
(cf. John Locke). (So much for the 'foolish and fanatical' martyrs, it
would seem, as well as St. Francis the Crazyman, etc. )

o The pervasiveness of faith in everyday human life

o For Augustine the question ultimately becomes not whether to trust in

some authoritative teacher with respect to the big questions, but
rather which authoritative teacher to trust in. For one thing
that is evident is that our natural cognitive powers are unable to provide
us with the sort of comprehensive and fixed vision of the world that we
need (i) to fulfill our deep affective desire for meaning in our lives and
(ii) to order our lives well in the midst of the vagaries of human
 existence in this world. This is evident in part from the disagreements
among the schools of philosophy and in part from the various sorts of
intellectual pride--manifested both in dogmatism and skepticism--that
seems endemic to postlapsarian philosophical inquiry.

o What's more, even our natural cognitive abilities can reach their potential
only with trust in and friendship (broadly speaking) with others.
(See Fides et Ratio, #33)

IE. Four Natural Questions (corresponding to Summa Contra Gentiles 1.3-6) (For
further reflection, see The Necessity for Revelation: A Primer on Summa Contra
Gentiles 1, Chaps. 1-9)

Is it reasonable to think that there are truths about God that exceed our natural
cognitive abilities? (Chapter 3)

Wasn't it pointless of God to reveal the preambles of the faith? (Chapter 4)

Isn't it wrong of God to demand that we assent to propositions that cannot be

rendered intellectually evident to us? (Chapter 5)

Isn't it foolish (levitatis) and intellectually irresponsible for us to assent to the

mysteries of the faith? (Chapter 6)

IIA. The Nature of Wisdom

Cicero and Augustine (Confessions 3.4 and Fides et Ratio, ##26-27))

o The search for wisdom and the search for Christ.

o The distinction between eloquence and truth.

o The "uses of philosophy": intellectual technique vs. intellectual virtue

embedded in a morally and spiritually rectified inquiry whose goal is
ultimate truth and goodness.
 Aristotle (Plato, too) and Aquinas (Metaphysics 1.1-2 and Summa Contra
Gentiles 1.1-2)

o Experience, art, and knowledge: the progressively enhanced grasp of

first principles building upon -- rather than rejecting ala Descartes -- our
initial pre-reflective grasp of those principles from within various
cognitive, moral, and spiritual practices. On this view, intellectual
inquiry is responsible to the first principles of the community within
which it takes place, and any radical critique of those principles will
itself be from a perspective that could serve as the basis for a better (or,
alas, worse) form of community. (Recall the Republic and see
again Fides et Ratio # 33.)

o Unqualified wisdom = knowledge (scientia) of first causes, beginning

from speculative and practical first principles and systematically
articulating what flows from those principles. Its objects include (as St.
Thomas puts it):

God as He is in Himself (metaphysics of God)

Creatures insofar as they come from God (metaphysics of origins

and nature of creatures)

Creatures insofar as they are ordered toward God (destiny of

created universe and morality for rational creatures)

o The pursuit of wisdom as the most perfect, noble, useful, and joyful of
human undertakings. (Note here a tension. In other places, St. Thomas
distinguishes between being wise by cognition (per cognitionem) from
being wise by inclination (per inclinationem). The latter comes from that
gift of the Holy Spirit called 'wisdom' and is nurtured by charity
(supernatural love of God) rather than by intellectual inquiry.)

IIB. Two Senses of Philosophy or wisdom

Philosophy in the broad sense: Philosophy as the love of wisdom free to draw
upon every source of truth available to us, including divine revelation. For a
Christian, this is metaphysical and moral theology, which is the fulfillment--
 because of both its completeness and its certitude--of the classical search for
systematic wisdom. (See Fides et Ratio, ## 75-79.)

Philosophy in the narrow sense: Philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom

appealing only to the deliverances of reason and without direct appeal to divine
revelation. This is "philosophical" metaphysics and moral theory, which
presuppose the ancillary philosophical disciplines such as logic, philosophy of
nature, philosophy of mind, etc.

Question: Why does St. Thomas make this distinction? Answer: Because of his
respect for the intellectual achievements of certain key predecessors among the
philosophers. Notice the distinct projects of the Summa
Theologiae (articulating the metaphysical and moral dimensions of Christian
wisdom, including its central Christological element) and the Summa Contra
Gentiles (showing that Christian wisdom is a plausible candidate for
philosophical wisdom by the very same criteria -- certitude and completeness --
employed by the classical philosophers). The Summa Contra Gentiles is a
work addressed as a whole to a Christian audience, but what the audience gets
to see is the conversation of St. Thomas (and his Christian friends) with the
intellectually and morally well-disposed non-Christian philosophers, both
classical and medieval. Think of St. Thomas as visiting the first circle of
Dante's inferno (limbo), where Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Seneca,
Thales, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Heraclitus, Averroes, Avicenna
and others are milling around. (Zeno's there, too!!) In fact, one way to think of
the main problem of faith and reason for the early intellectually sophisticated
Christians and their medieval university counterparts is this: In what sense are
we the successors of the classical philosophers and the philosophical traditions
they established? St. Thomas's view is that the best classical philosophers can
be led to see, by their own standards of successful intellectual inquiry, that
Christian doctrine is a plausible candidate for the wisdom they are seeking.

IIC. Conflicting Conceptions of the Roles of Reason and Affection within

Philosophical Inquiry

Modernist (Enlightenment): Philosophical inquiry is, ideally, an act of "pure"

or "cool" reason alone, and the inquirer, qua inquirer, should strive to make
inquiry as free from tradition, authority, and any affective commitments as
possible. Historically, this conception of philosophical inquiry is initially
accompanied by an excessive optimism about the reliability of reason and its
ability to lead us to true wisdom on its own [Manicheans, Averroes, Descartes
 in the Discourse on Method, Locke in his Essay, Mill in On Liberty, the
character of Cleanthes in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion]; but
it can easily be turned to a despairing skepticism--or even a pragmatic
indifference--with regard to the search for wisdom when this optimism proves
unwarranted [the character of Philo in Hume's Dialogues, at least in his more
cheerful and superficial moments].

Post-modernist (or Post-Enlightenment) : It is a delusion to think of the

search for wisdom as anything but a movement of will or instinct, with reason
serving only to rationalize what one already accepts without "reasonable"
grounds. Every appeal to intellectual authority is thus simply an attempt to
exercise power over others. Here the presumed "authority of reason" is put on
a par with any other claim to epistemic authority. This view can very easily lead
to nihilism. Characterized by both (i) a seriousness with regard to ultimate
metaphysical and moral questions (vs. pragmatism) and (ii) a suspicion
regarding any claim to "absolute" truth or to intellectual authority, including the
[sneer stage left] authority of reason [Nietzsche, Philo in his darker and more
profound moments].

Classical: At its best, philosophical inquiry is (i) an act of reason, (ii)

presupposing moral rectitude fostered within a community which inquiry
serves and to which it is responsible, (iii) by which we are able to discover--
within severe limitations--metaphysical and moral truth. [Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle, Stoics]

Christian-Classical: At its best, philosophical inquiry is an act of reason

enlightened by a voluntary act of faith in divine revelation as a source of truth
and informed by supernatural moral rectitude (charity) fostered within a
community (the Church); beyond this there are disagreements among (i) the
pessimists, sometimes called fideists or antisecularists, who hold that reason in
its fallen state is at best very unreliable with respect to metaphysical and moral
truth and who lean in the direction of post-modernism as defined above [Demea
in Hume's Dialogues]; (ii) the guarded optimists, who hold that reason, even in
the state of fallen nature, still retains its own relative autonomy and its ability to
discover some metaphysical and moral truth [Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and
Pope John Paul II in Fides et Ratio (see # 16)]; and (iii)
the accommodationists, who tend to play down the distinctiveness of faith as a
context for intellectual authority and who lean in the direction of modernism as
defined above (liberal Christians).
IID. Anti-Secularism and Accommodationism: Two Temptations for Christian
Thinkers

Antisecularism (aka Fideism): "What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?"

o Emphasis on the fallenness of human reason, with a deep-seated

pessimism with regard to absolute truth claims outside of those found in
the sources of divine revelation.

o Secular philosophy as no more and no less than a competitor of Christian

wisdom. (Cf. Confessions 5.4)

o Disdain for -- or at least suspicion with respect to -- one or both of (i)

natural theology and (ii) the use of secular philosophy in the articulation
of Christian theology.

o Possibility of a genuine, all-things-considered conflict between faith

and reason. That is, even if we use reason as well and carefully as we
can, we can still end up with falsehoods that we cannot in
principle expose as falsehoods by the light of natural reason (ala William
of Ockham).

o Some representatives of this general attitude (though in each case

various qualifications must be made): Tertullian, Ockham, Luther, Karl
Barth.

Accommodationism (aka Toadyism): "What has Athens to do with

Jerusalem?"

o There is no properly Christian philosophy. (On this point, see, once

again, Fides et Ratio, ## 75-79.)

o The agendas of Christian philosophers should be set by prevailing

agendas among non-Christian philosophers, and Christian philosophers
should always work within problematics set by the best non-Christian
philosophers. (The same holds for all the arts and sciences.)
 o Standards of evaluation used by Christian philosophers should conform
wholly to those set by non-Christian philosophers, independently of
which conception of philosophical inquiry the latter are presupposing.

o The main modern representative of this approach is to be found in the

various currents of 19th and 20th century Protestant "liberal theology,"
along with its Catholic counterpart in the late 20th century. This is also
the attitude of those Catholics who have managed, with a high degree of
success, to secularize the study and practice of philosophy in the larger
and older Catholic colleges and universities. (Note: Here liberal
theology, which is on the wane these days, is to be distinguished from
more radical approaches which are inspired by post-modernism and
which come in both orthodox and unorthodox brands, e.g., various
strains of feminist philosophy and theology and the "Radical Orthodoxy"
movement centered at Cambridge University.)

IIE. Some Theses of Aquinas and Augustine

Augustine:

o Both antisecularism and accommodationism are to be avoided

o Christian intellectuals should be versed in the best of secular thought

o Christian intellectuals should distinguish as clearly as possible what is

essential to the faith from what is not. (Confessions 5.5)

Aquinas (whose main teacher was St. Albert the Great -- you might want
to remember that name):

o There can be no genuine conflicts between the deliverances of faith and

the deliverances of reason.

o Apparent conflicts are in principle resolvable by us, either by showing

that the philosophical or scientific arguments against the faith are not
sound or that the faith does not entail the thesis under attack by those
 arguments. Reason and faith thus serve equally as checks on one
another.

o Philosophical (in the narrow sense) or 'scientific' arguments against a

deliverance of faith can be answered on their own terms, i.e., without
recourse to revelation, and, depending on the dialectical context, should
be so answered.

o Reason in its fallen state is still capable of reaching objective truth, but it
needs the guidance of faith in order to do its best and, in many cases, in
order not to go astray. On a more positive note, the faith can suggest
theses and lines of thought which, though they can in principle be
attained by reason without revelation, in all likelihood would not be
attained if it were not for revelation. (On this last point, see Fides et
Ratio, #76.)

IIF. Christian Apologetics

The role of philosophy in the narrow sense: Even though it is not the case that
the faith of any given individual depends on proofs of the preambles of the
Faith, it is nonetheless true that one indication of the reliability of the Christian
claim to revelation is the ability of Christian intellectuals to carry out the
project of the Summa Contra Gentiles, i.e., to show that some revealed truths
can be established by natural reason and that none of them is contrary to the
deliverances of reason.

Respect for philosophical adversaries vs. muddleheaded condescension (= "All

philosophies [or religions] say the same thing or are equally true and therefore
do not, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and despite the
protestations of their practioners, contradict one another.")

The limitations of reason: How far can reason take us? Is it reasonable to look
for some self-revelation on God's part?

IIIA. Brief Intellectual Biography (from the Confessions -- for more details
see notes on St. Augustine)

Early academic career (books 1 and 2)

 Cicero's Hortensius (book 3)

Manichean rationalism (books 3 and 4)

Flirtation with skepticism (book 5)

The role of authority in the search for wisdom (book 6)

Platonism (book 7)

The witness of others (book 8)

"Tolle et lege"

IIIB. Augustine and Platonism

Look at Confessions 7.9-21

IIIC. Some Platonic Doctrines

One can understand the ordinary "life-world" aright only by seeing it in the
light of higher realities

The possibility of immaterial being (God, angels, the human soul)

Evil as a privation of good (vs. cosmological dualism)

The divine attributes (immateriality, incorruptibility, omnipresence, eternality,

perfect goodness, immutability)

The forms ----------------> divine ideas

Recollection --------------> divine illumination

Philosophy as purification (asceticism) and ascent

The parts of the soul and internal conflict

GOD AND NATURE
IA. The Big Picture

In Summa Contra Gentiles 1 St. Thomas divides his natural theology into three
distinct stages:

Stage One: Proof of a First Efficient Cause

o Critique of a priori arguments for God's existence (chaps. 10-11)

o The possibility of natural theology (chap. 12)

o Proof a First Efficient Cause -- and of other god-like beings as well

(chap. 13)

Stage Two: Via Remotionis

o Explanation of the via remotionis (chap. 14)

o Derivation of the negative divine attributes (chaps. 15-27)

o Conclusion: The First Efficient Cause is a perfect being (chap. 28)

 Stage Three: Via Affirmationis

o Explanation of the via affirmationis (chaps. 29-36)

o Derivation of the positive divine attributes (chaps. 37-102)

IB. Stage One: Proof of a First Efficient Cause

Genus of Proof:

o a posteriori (from the effects to the cause of those effects) and

o not a priori (from the concept of God to His existence, ala St.
Anselm, or from the claim that all our intellective cognition begins with
a "preconceptual" grasp of infinite being, ala Karl Rahner and other so-
called Transcendental Thomists. It is this latter position which, as far as
I can make sense of the term, is branded as ontotheology by certain
modern and contemporary opponents of natural theology).

Definition of a First Efficient Cause (FEC)

FEC = A being that acts (or causes or effects movement) and is not acted upon
(or caused or moved) = God in the Gallup Poll sense. That is, 'God' is here
functioning as a general or common term, and not as a proper name, and its
 content is undetermined beyond the description under which the being in
question is proved.)

(Note: First of all, the argument is temporally vertical rather than horizontal;
that is, it is not an argument for the beginning of the world, but an argument for
the necessity of an FEC for any change to take place in the present. Second, we
can do just as well, I believe, with the notion of a Necessary Being or Uncaused
Cause. So it is not the case that the whole edifice depends on just one
argument for the existence of a god-like being.)

Question: Your proof of an FEC presupposes that the world is eternal.

But what if the world is not eternal?

Answer: Then it is absolutely obvious that there is an FEC!

IC. Stage Two: Via Remotionis

Explanation of the Via Remotionis:

o We have, pace St. Anselm, no positive quidditative concept of God--the

sort of 'natural kind' concept that allows us to begin scientific inquiry
with a taxonomy of substances that we have a direct grasp of.

o So we cannot know a priori that there is a perfect being.

o However, given that there is an FEC, we can argue "negatively" that

an FEC must lack various sorts of imperfection or finitude characteristic
of things we do have positive quidditative concepts of. This series of
arguments constitutes the via remotionis.
 o In this way -- and in this way alone -- we can come to know, a
posteriori, that there is a perfect being (that than which no greater being
can be conceived).

Negative attributes derived by the via remotionis, given the definition of an

FEC:

o An FEC has no passive potentiality (or passive power), i.e., cannot be

caused or acted upon in any way (Chap. 16 & 19)

o An FEC has no beginning and no end, i.e., is eternal (Chap. 15)

o An FEC is not intrinsically measured by time (Chap. 15)

o An FEC is imperfectible and incorruptible (Chap. 16)

o An FEC is not the matter of which the physical universe is

composed (Chap. 17)

o An FEC is simple and lacks composition, i.e., has no composition of

any of the types of composition--each instantiating the basic act/potency
duality--that are characteristic of finite beings in Aristotelian
metaphysics, to wit: (Chap. 18)

composition of integral (material or bodily) parts (Chap. 20)

 composition of essential parts (form and matter,) (Chap. 20) -- a
first cause lacks even the sort of matter had by the celestial
bodies, which is on an Aristotelian view subject only to change of
place

composition of substance and accident (since accidents perfect

substances) (Chap. 23)

composition of genus and difference (since the difference perfects

the genus) (Chap. 24 & 25)

composition of esse and nature (essence) (since an FEC cannot

receive esse (being) from another) (Chap. 21 & 22)

o An FEC is not the form or structure of the universe, either as a

whole or with respect to any particular bodily thing (Chap. 26 & 27)

Conclusion: An FEC is wholly lacking in imperfection and so is an utterly

transcendent perfect being (= God in Anselm's sense) (Chap. 28)

ID. Stage Three: Via Affirmationis

The similarity of creatures to God

o Univocal vs. Equivocal Causality: God is an equivocal cause of

creatures, since creatures do not have their attributes in the way that God
'has' (better: is) his attributes. For God's attributes are His imperfectible
substance or nature--and not accidents that perfect a perfectible
substance. (In general, a univocal cause is one that communicates its
own nature to the effect, as in generation, whereas an equivocal cause is
one whose effect is different in nature from the cause.)
 o Still, creatures are 'traces' or 'representations'--albeit imperfect traces or
representations--of the divine being, analogous to the way in which
artifacts instantiate the ideas or blueprints of the artisans who make
them. For the divine ideas are themselves indicative of modes in which
God's being can be represented or imaged by finite creatures.
(Intellectual substances, such as angels and human beings, are said to be
'images' of God rather than mere 'traces'. But we can't go into that
distinction here.)

o So we can come to a limited knowledge of those positive attributes of

God that are reflected in His creation, but we must always be mindful of
His transcendence as established by the via remotionis.

Types of predication of positive attributions to God:

o Literal predications:

Names that signify pure perfections (e.g., 'wise', 'intelligent',

'good', 'living', etc.)

Names that signify in the mode of supereminence (e.g., 'First

Efficient Cause', 'Perfect Being', etc.)

o (Merely) metaphorical predications:

Names that signify perfections but express a mode that can belong
only to creatures (e.g., 'lion', 'rock', 'fortress', 'paper towel', as
 in "God is a paper towel that wipes away our sins"). It is
precisely the via remotionis that gives us the division of biblical
predicates about God into literal and metaphorical.

Types of literal predication:

o Univocal predication: Predication of a form or concept that is the same

in species in both subjects (e.g., 'Simba is a lion' and 'Ponto is a lion')

o Equivocal (by chance) predication: Predication of two wholly

disparate forms or concepts that just happen to be associated with the
same linguistic term (e.g., 'This is a bat' said of the animal and 'This is a
bat', said of the instrument for hitting a pitched ball).

o Analogical predication: Predication of two forms which, though

different, are ordered to one another in some non-accidental way (e.g.,
'This is intelligent' said of you as a student and of your term paper; 'This
is healthy' as said of an animal and of food). So we have two different
concepts here, but concepts that are ordered in a certain way.

St. Thomas's thesis: Terms that are predicated literally of both God
and creatures (viz., the pure perfections) are predicated of them
analogically, always under the shadow of God's transcendence as
established by the via remotionis. This is why St. Thomas and others
say strange things like 'God is Wisdom'.

Dynamics of positive predication: God is wise ..... but not wise like
Socrates (via remotionis) ..... God is super-wise or Wisdom Itself --
the abstract term 'wisdom' reminds us of God's simplicity but doesn't
capture his subsistence (unlike ordinary instances of wisdom, he's not an
accident that exists in another), whereas the concrete term 'wise' reminds
us of God's subsistence but doesn't capture his simplicity (unlike the wise
beings of our experience, he is not composed of his substance and the
 accident of wisdom which perfects that substance).

Some positive attributions arrived at by means of the via affirmationis--

based on principle that a perfect being has what it is more perfect to have than
to lack:

o goodness

o uniqueness

o intelligence

o power

o freedom

o love

o mercy

o justice

o providence

o blessedness ........This is precisely what God offers us a participation in =

human beatitude

IIA. The Nature of Efficient Causality (a case in which the light of faith leads to a
conclusion that could have been discovered by natural reason, but probably would not
have been discovered without revelation)

Aristotle:

Agent A is an efficient cause of effect E = The form that constitutes E is

given by A via A's acting on the subject of E

Note: The implication is that every instance of efficient causality involves both
 o an action on a patient that constitutes a change, and

o the communication of a form or perfection

St. Thomas:

Agent A is an efficient cause of effect E = A, by acting,

gives esse to E (where esse includes, but is not limited to, form)

Note: The implication is merely that every instance of efficient causality

involves

o the communication of esse, but not necessarily action on a patient

o an action, but not necessarily a change in the strict sense

So St. Thomas re-defines efficient causality in order to open up conceptual space for
the possibility of creation ex nihilo -- which, if it is possible, is surely a kind of
efficient causality.

IIB. The Nature of Creation ex nihilo (See Summa Contra Gentiles 2, chap. 17-
19)

Similarities to ordinary efficient causality:

o Creation involves action, i.e., the communication of an effect by an agent

o Creation involves the communication of esse

 Differences from ordinary efficient causality:

o Creation involves no patient and so is not a change--either a qualified

(accidental) change or an unqualified (substantial) change

o Creation is both (i) instantaneous and (ii) such that no causal processes
lead up to it.

o Creation involves the giving of esse-as-such (i.e., esse "from the bottom
up" or, better, "from the top down") and not just such-esse (form).

The heart of the doctrine of creation:

Necessarily, for any entity x distinct from God, God gives x esse-as-such at every
moment x exists; that is, God gives esse to x and to all its accidents and parts and
components (including primary matter if applicable) at every moment at
which x exists.

Creation and Conservation:

o Creation de novo = giving esse-as-such to an entity none of whose

constituents has previously existed

o Divine conservation = giving esse-as-such to an entity that already exists

(i.e., the prolongation of the creative act)
 Questions: What about the generation of one created substance by other
created substances? What about accidental change? Stay tuned.

IIC. God as Pure Actuality and Unparticipated Esse

Initial question: Is there any being capable of creating ex nihilo?

o St. Thomas's answer: Only if there is an agent whose proper effect is

"esse-as-such." That is, a creative agent

must be able to give esse from the bottom up (or better: from the
top down) to at least some entity and hence must be Pure
Actuality (intensive aspect), and

must be able to give esse to any possible finite being and hence
must be Unparticipated Esse (extensive aspect)

o Pure Actuality (an Aristotelian limiting notion): Beings that have

passive potency are able to communicate only perfections which, like
their own perfections, modify a presupposed subject. So beings of this
sort can communicate only "such-esse," i.e., forms of various kinds.
Only a being whose own esse is not the actualization of some passive
potentiality -- and whose substance is thus not a subject perfected by
attributes -- is capable of giving esse from the bottom up, i.e., without
presupposing a subject or patient to act on. Such a being is Pure
Actuality with no admixture of passive potentiality. (See Summa Contra
Gentiles 2, chap. 16, #3)

o Unparticipated Esse (a Platonistic limiting notion): Beings that have

limited perfection have only a part of (or participation in) the totality of
all perfections, and thus they are 'participated' beings and have
'participated' (or 'partitioned') esse (e.g., aardvark-esse or oak-tree-esse).
 Since a being cannot give perfections that it in no way contains, a
participated being cannot give esse to every possible finite being. Only a
being which is unlimited or unpartitioned or unparticipated esse -- and in
which there is thus no distinction between esse and delimiting nature
(i.e. essence) -- can give every possible sort of esse. (See Summa Contra
Gentiles 2, chap. 15, #5 and #7)

Thesis:

o God = Pure Actuality = Unparticipated Esse = has no distinction

between esse and essentia (or nature). All of these necessarily go
together.

o Creature = A limited actuality involving potentiality = esse limited to

a particular nature = has composition of esse and essentia. This holds
for spiritual as well as material creatures.

IID. Creation vs. neo-Platonist Emanation

Neo-Platonism:

o God creates by a necessity of nature and not freely

o God creates just one creature, viz., the first intelligence, which creates
the second intelligence, which creates the third intelligence ......which
creates the Giver of Forms to the sublunar world.

Conclusion: A creator need not be capable of giving esse-as-such to all

possible creatures.

St. Thomas:

o In giving esse-as-such, God acts freely and not by a necessity of nature

 o God's effects are 'limited' only by what is metaphysically possible
(defined by the divine ideas), and every possible creature is such that
God is able to bring it into existence directly (without any
intermediaries) and ex nihilo. (In fact, creation ex nihilo does not itself
admit of intermediary efficient causes.)

o God is an intelligent and perfectly provident creator

Question: Doesn't an all-good being necessarily diffuse goodness? (St.

Thomas: This necessary diffusion occurs within the divine nature in the
procession of the Son from the Father and the procession of the Holy
Spirit from the Father and the Son.)

IIIA. The Problem of Secondary (or Creaturely) Causality (aka: the roots of the
(catastrophic, of course) 17th century rejection of Aristotelian natures).

The following two theses appear to be in tension with one another when we are
talking about actions that, unlike creation and divine conservation, are actions on a
subject or patient:

(T1) God gives esse-as-such to every creature at every moment it exists

(T2) Creatures themselves act as genuine (secondary) causes of other

creatures (substances and accidents) and thus give them esse.

IIIB. Three Positions

OCCASIONALISM :

o (T1) is true and (T2) is false

o So God is the only active cause in nature.

 o Comments:

'Cause' followed by 'effect' vs. effect emanating from cause;

occasional causality (counterfactual dependence) vs. genuine
efficient causality (where do you think Hume got it from?)

Laws of nature = the norms God has chosen to impose on things

from without

The aim of natural science is not to discover the inner natures of

things -- or, equivalently, the real causes of things -- but rather to
discover the norms that God has chosen to impose on his action in
the world.

Problems with the causal origin of evil

For St. Thomas's response to occasionalism, see Summa Contra

Gentiles 3, chap. 69

o Protagonists: al-Ghazali, Gabriel Biel (sort of), Malebranche, Berkeley

(Interested students may click here to read a really interesting (well, at

least mildly interesting) paper on occasionalism.)

MERE CONSERVATIONISM:
 o (T2) is true and (T1) is false

o In the ordinary course of nature, God gives esse-as-such to certain

creatures only after they have been produced by other creatures.

o Comments:

Stronger than deism, since it holds that God continuously

conserves all created things and their active and passive powers.
But it still denies that every effect in the world is directly God's
effect.

Laws of nature = norms that are intrinsic to the natures of things

The aim of natural science is to discover the inner natures of

things or, equivalently, the real causes of things

o Protagonists: Durandus de Saint-Pourain, some moderns

CONCURRENTISM:

o (T1) and (T2) are both true.

 o In the ordinary course of nature God's manner of giving esse-as-
such to natural effects is to act with or through created agents as a
concurring immediate (i.e., direct) cause of their own proper effects.
Thus a natural action is an action of both God and secondary agents.

o Comments:

Laws of nature = norms that are intrinsic to the natures of things

The aim of natural science is to discover the inner natures of

things or, equivalently, the real causes of things

The miracle of the fiery furnace (Daniel 3) or (Ghazal's example)

Abraham in the fire

Thomists [Dominicans] vs. Molinists and Suarezians [Jesuits]

(famous 16th century dispute De Auxiliis)

o Protagonists: St. Thomas (see Summa Contra Gentiles 3,

chaps. 67 and 70) and virtually all the Scholastics

IIIC. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Teleology in Nature

Intrinsic Teleology: A function of the causal tendencies built into natural

things insofar as they have natures (Aristotle)
 Extrinsic Teleology: A function of God's role as Law-giver and provident
Ruler of the physical universe (Plato)

St. Thomas's View: By His eternal law God endows creatures with the
causal tendencies and powers that define their natures, and by that same
law He "guides the actions and movements of all nature". Thus there is no
conflict between intrinsic and extrinsic teleology. Talk of law emphasizes
God's role as Law-giver, whereas talk about intrinsic tendencies and
propensities emphasizes the relative autonomy of creatures endowed by
God with their own natures.

GOD AND HUMAN NATURE

IA. Augustine: Platonic Themes Transformed

The Goal

o Repose in God (or friendship with God as Triune) as the satistfaction of

all that human beings seek in their free actions (Confessions 1.1 and 2.6)

o This repose results from an ascent to (or return to) God

o Anything short of this leaves us "restless" and in despair and slaves to

our own disordered self-love

The Obstacles

o Original Sin: Effects of original sin: ignorance, disordered affections,

weakness and malice of will (Confessions 1.7: digging deeper for a cause
of what Plato already saw clearly)

o Cultural Distortions: Inculcation of disordered values and the

glamorization of finite goods (Confessions 1.18)

o Personal Sin: Disordered pursuit of temporal goods and perverse

attempts to imitate God (Confessions 1.12 and 2.1-2)

Result: The darkness of the cave and the seeming "hiddenness of God"
(Confessions 2.3)
 The Remedy

o Purification and justification through the grace merited for us by Jesus

Christ, who opens up for us (i) a new and ineffable vision of beatitude as
genuine and perfect filial friendship with our transcendent Creator, now
revealed to us as our loving and gracious Dad (Abba) and (ii) the hope of
attaining this beatitude, with the help of God's grace, by "losing our
lives" in supernatural love of God and neighbor. By contrast, all the
"world" has to offer is one or another form of despair.

o Contrast with the Platonists:

Faith vs. understanding

Obedience and humility vs.self-sufficiency and pride

(Confessions 6.11 and 7.9 and 7.21)

Dangers of intellectual prowess vs. flourishing available only to

the gifted (Gnosticism)

IB. Aquinas: Aristotelian Themes Transformed

The structure of St. Thomas's General Moral Theory (Summa Theologiae 1-2):

I. The ultimate end of human action (ST 1-2.1-5)

II. The means to the ultimate end--human acts and their principles: (ST 1-
2.6-114)

o A. Human acts in themselves

1. Properly human acts (ST 1-2.6-21)

2. Passions (ST 1-2.22-48)

o B. The principles of human action

 1. Intrinsic principles of action:

a. Habits (ST 1-2.49-54)

b. Virtues (ST 1-2.55-70))

c. Vice and Sin (ST 1-2.71-89)

2. Extrinsic principles of action:

a. Law (ST 1-2.90-108)

b. Grace (ST 1-2.109-114)

The ultimate end: human happiness, felicity, flourishing, beatitude:

Question: Which good (or collection of goods) satisfies Aristotle's definition of

the good for human beings, viz., the good such that possession of it in the
appropriate way fulfills all well-ordered human desires?

Possible Answers (either by themselves or in combination with each other):

o External goods: wealth, honor (good reputation), glory (fame), power,

friendship

o Internal goods:

Goods of the body: longevity, health, good looks, physical

strength, athletic prowess, food and drink, clothing, housing, high
level of physical comfort, various sorts of sensual pleasure
(including sexual pleasure), etc.

Goods of the soul: intellectual and artistic ability and

accomplishment, moral and intellectual virtue, recreation,
religious faith, etc.

St. Thomas's Conclusions

 o No created (finite) good or collection of such goods can give us
complete (perfect) happiness in Aristotle's sense. (Note the distinction
between perfect (complete) and imperfect (incomplete) happiness.)

o Only the 'face-to-face' knowledge, love, and enjoyment of God can give
us complete happiness.

o We can attain complete happiness, but ...

not in this life

not by our own natural powers

not without rectitude of the will acting in accord with 'right

reason'

not without supernatural grace, which gives us an accurate

intellectual understanding of our ultimate good and the hope of
attaining it by God's help through sacrificial love of the persons of
the Godhead and of everyone and everything else in our love of
God.

IIA. What is Law?

Law =

o Dictates of practical reason

o made for the common good

o by one who has care of the community

o and promulgated

The effects of law:

o command
 o prohibition

o permission

o punishment (sanctions)

o Note: Commands and prohibitions impose obligations

IIB. Eternal Law

Eternal Law = The divine wisdom insofar as it directs and governs all the
actions and movements of creatures, "moving all things to their due end".

So Eternal Law = the order of divine providence

o All things participate in eternal law by the natural tendencies by which

they are moved to their ends

o Rational beings also participate in eternal law by their 'connatural'

knowledge of those positive and negative moral precepts, conformity to
which leads us toward the end built into us by nature. These precepts
constitute what is called natural law. Hence, this law is promulgated
through our connatural knowledge, and it is called 'natural' because
obedience to it leads us toward the good that we desire by nature.

IIC. Natural Law and Divine (Revealed) Law

Similarities:

o Natural law and divine law are both proper parts of eternal law

o Natural law and divine law are both concerned with the direction of
human beings toward true human happiness (fulfillment, perfection,
flourishing)

o Natural law and divine law are both 'participated in' through knowledge
and understanding
 Differences:

o In promulgation:

Natural law is promulgated by means of our connatural

knowledge of the goods to which we are naturally inclined and of
their contrary evils

Divine law is promulgated through revelation, i.e., through Sacred

Scripture and the teachings of the Church

o In content:

Natural law consists of ordinances that obligate us to act in accord

with right reason, i.e., in accord with those dictates of practical
reason that lead us to genuine human flourishing or happiness. St.
Thomas divides natural law into levels of precepts according to (i)
their evidentness to reason (whether in general or to the wise) and
(ii) the ease with which they can be "blotted out of our hearts" by
culpable ignorance. The first level consists of the two great
commandments to love God above all things and our neighbor as
ourselves. The second level consists of the specification of the two
great commandments in precepts like those which are revealed in
the Ten Commandments even though they can be known without
revelation. The third level consists of the further specifications
which are evident to those who have practical wisdom. (Note on
conscience.)

Divine law consists of ordinances, (i) some of which pertain to the

order of nature and are thus in principle accessible to natural
(practical) reason, and (ii) some of which pertain to the
supernatural order of grace and are thus in principle inaccessible
to natural (practical) reason. St. Thomas divides divine law into (i)
the Old Law, whose primary motive is the fear of punishment and
(ii) the New Law, whose primary motive is sacrificial love of God
and neighbor.

IID. Human Law

 Usefulness: Human law is useful mainly as a way to compel outward
conformity to virtue on the part of those who have not been made virtuous by
good upbringing.

Legitimacy: Human laws are legitimate to the extent that they are "derived
from," either as implications of or specifications of, natural law

IIIA. The Problem of the Origin of Moral Obligation

The following two theses appear to be in tension with one another:

o (T1) What human beings ought morally to do and not to do is

determined by the standards of flourishing that are intrinsic to
human nature and dictated by right reason.

o (T2) What human beings ought morally to do and not to do is

determined by the obligations and prohibitions imposed by natural
and divine law.

Question: Suppose that God either (i) did not exist or (ii) issued
no commands and prohibitions or (iii) commanded me to torture
you for fun: Would it still be wrong for me to torture you for
fun?

IIIB. Three Positions

STRONG DIVINE COMMAND THEORY:

o (T2) is true and (T1) is false

o So God's decrees alone determine what human beings ought morally

to do and not to do, and it is only contingently true that God's law is
in part a natural law, i.e., a law that directs us to happiness as
defined by our nature.

o Comments:
 Answer to the above question: NO!! What we see here is the
severance of moral theory from the classical model, where the
basic moral motive is happiness.

Two senses of 'ought': intrinsic and extrinsic

Conformity to God's will is the only moral motivation for action.

Whether it leads to happiness of any sort in this world is
immaterial.

Heavenly reward is extrinsically and not instrinsically related to

moral rectitude (doing what God commands) in this life. It's more
like getting ice cream for cleaning your room. Cleaning your
room doesn't turn you into the sort of person who wants ice
cream.

o Protagonists: William of Ockham, Gabriel Biel, various 16th and 17th

century theologians, mainly Protestant

SIMPLE NATURALISM:

o (T1) is true and (T2) is false

o The intrinsic standards of human flourishing determine, by

themselves, what human beings ought morally to and not to do.
Natural 'law' is merely descriptive and not prescriptive; we need it for
epistemic reasons alone.

o Comments:

Answer to the above question: YES!!

Problem cases: murder, theft, adultery (see Scripture references

below)

Obligation and the lawgiver (See Miss Anscombe's "Modern

Moral Philosophy")

o Protagonists: Gregory of Rimini

 NATURALISTIC DIVINE COMMAND THEORY:

o (T1) and (T2) are both true.

The dictates of right reason reveal what we ought to do and

not to do in order to attain human happiness, and so they
reveal what is good and bad in itself for us to do. Natural and
divine law impose a further obligation on us to act in accord
with right reason, since if God creates us,
He necessarily promulgates a law that, if obeyed, leads us to
happiness. So natural law is prescriptive and not
merely descriptive.

Comments:

Answer to the above question: We wouldn't have any

obligations imposed upon us by God through law,
but .... God couldn't create us without issuing the
relevant prohibition and, further, there would still be an
intrinsic badness in the act of torturing you for fun.

This position may still allow for rather striking differences

in moral epistemology, depending on whether one is
relatively optimistic (Thomists) or pessimistic (Scotists)
about the ability of natural reason to see moral truth.

Moral rectitude is necessary because it transforms you

intrinsically into the sort of person who wants the beatific
vision.

Protagonists: St. Thomas and virtually all the Scholastics

(including Suarez)

IIIC. Three Test Cases

 The cases: Each involves a divine command that appears to conflict with the
dictates of right reason as articulated by Aristotle (Ethics 2.6 (1107a10)) and
Christ himself (Mark 7:21):

o Murder: Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22)

o Adultery: Osee and a 'wife of fornications' (Osee 1)

o Theft: The despoiling of the Egyptians (Exodus 12)

The replies:

o Strong Divine Command Theory: There is no deep difference between

these cases and normal cases.

o Simple Naturalism: Divine commands do not have prescriptive force.

o Naturalistic Divine Command Theory: The divine command constitutes

a morally relevant circumstance that renders virtuous an action that
under normal circumstances would be vicious. And God has the standing
to issue such commands as the (i) author and Lord of human life and the
dispenser of divine justice, (ii) the author of the marriage contract, and
(iii) the owner of all property.

IIID. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Teleology

The Big Claim:

o Natural and divine law prescribe nothing that conflicts with genuine
human happiness--perfect or imperfect. That is, the extrinsic 'ought'
of moral obligation is perfectly consonant with the intrinsic 'ought'
of the dictates of right reason. Hence, obedience to natural and
divine law liberates us from slavery to sin and vice and hence from
ultimate despair of attaining happiness.

The importance of models: The saints