Plato on causation is not clear at all, and I don't agree with your interpretation here. — Metaphysician Undercover

He is quite clear about the two kinds of cause. All of this can be cited in the text. I have discussed this in more detail shaken to the Chora

But chance and spontaneity are also reckoned among causes: many things are said both to be and to come to be as a result of chance and spontaneity. (Physics, 195b)
— Fooloso4

This opinion strikes right to the very heart of the issue. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is Aristotle's opinion. It is a quote from the text. He calls it a cause.

Aristotle dismissed chance as not properly a cause — Metaphysician Undercover

Where does he say that it is not properly a cause?

Notice in your quote, "many things are said...to come to be as a result of chance". This is what I mean about the need to be careful to distinguish between the ideas of others which Aristotle is rejecting, and the ideas which he is actually promoting. He rejects chance and luck as properly causal. — Metaphysician Undercover

He gives a sustained argument that chance is a cause. He concludes:

Spontaneity and chance are causes of effects which, though they might result from intelligence or nature, have in fact been caused by something accidentally. (198a)

I read through this section and could not find your reference. — Metaphysician Undercover

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/heavens.1.i.html
about 9 lines above part 3

I don't see how this is relevant. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is relevant because at least part of your confusion seems to be based on the translation of the term ousia.

You are obviously making wild, outlandish, and completely irrelevant assumptions because you think they might support your position. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not me but Aristotle who you are accusing:

... for the actually existent is always generated from the potentially existent by something which is actually existent—e.g., man by man (1049b)

How and why this similarity occurs is studied in the science of biology, through chromosomes and genetics. — Metaphysician Undercover

Once again, you demonstrate that not even Aristotle could convince you that you are wrong. Man by man according to Aristotle because of the form 'man'.

I would not say that any of these problems were solved by Aristotle.

Such as?

... the whole Platonic tradiition merely ends with questions that can never be answered — Wayfarer

It could be said that this is where it begins and does not end.

Well, to claim that they can never be answered is to presume a kind of answer. This is one difference between Socratic and modern skepticism. While the latter makes claims about what we cannot know the former sticks with what we do not know.

Are you excluding yourself? Or someone else?

In my opinion, the wisdom of Socratic philosophy has to do with the articulation of problems that defy solution.
— Fooloso4
I'm not sure I get this right. Can you expand it a little? — Alkis Piskas

Most briefly, human wisdom is knowledge of ignorance. Philosophy, as described in Plato's Symposium is the desire to be wise. Aristotle begins the Metaphysics:

All men naturally desire knowledge.

In both cases there is not only an awareness of something lacking but a desire to obtain it, but
we have found no way to move past the aporia raised in these texts.

Timaeus identifies two kinds of cause, intelligence and necessity, nous and ananke. Necessity covers such things as physical processes, contingency, chance, motion, power, and the chora. What is by necessity is without nous or intellect. It is called the “wandering cause” (48a). It can act contrary to nous. The sensible world, the world of becoming, is neither regulated by intellect nor fully intelligible.

From the standpoint that Socrates is a distinct and different individual from Calias, it is necessary to answer that the difference between the two is a difference of form. — Metaphysician Undercover

They are two different ousia with the same form, man. There difference is not with regard to form but with regard to accidents.

But formal cause cannot account for the accidents. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is correct.

Therefore the cause of the individual, natural thing's form, must be peculiar and unique to the individual itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is precisely why the individual is not a form.

The cause of accidents is chance:

But chance and spontaneity are also reckoned among causes: many things are said both to be and to come to be as a result of chance and spontaneity. (Physics, 195b)

This is in general agreement with the two kinds of cause in the Timaeus.

What is beyond the bodies is properly immaterial — Metaphysician Undercover

He does not say beyond the bodies but:

something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, — Fooloso4

They are a different kind of body. As I previously quoted:

These premises clearly give the conclusion that there is in nature some bodily substance other than the formations we know, prior to them all and more divine than they. (On the Heavens Book 1, part 2)

This is Aristotle's conclusion, not a summary of the opinion of others.

Read Metaphysics Bk7 please. Substance is form. — Metaphysician Undercover

We have been over this. From the introduction to Joe Sachs translation of the Metaphysics:

By way of the usual translations, the central argument of the Metaphysics would be: being qua being is being per se in accordance with the categories, which in turn is primarily substance, but primary substance is form, while form is essence and essence is actuality. You might react to such verbiage in various ways. You might think, I am too ignorant and untrained to understand these things, and need an expert to explain them to me. Or you might think, Aristotle wrote gibberish. But if you have some acquaintance with the classical languages, you might begin to be suspicious that something has gone awry: Aristotle wrote Greek, didn't he? And while this argument doesn't sound much like English, it doesn't sound like Greek either, does it? In fact this argument appears to be written mostly in an odd sort of Latin, dressed up to look like English. Why do we need Latin to translate Greek into English at all? (https://www.greenlion.com/PDFs/Sachs_intro.pdf)

The word translated as substance is ousia. It always refers to something particular, whether an individual or a species.

Independent from human universals, each form is the form of an individual. — Metaphysician Undercover

We have been over this before. If each individual is a form and each individual form is different then how do you account for the fact that human beings only give birth to human beings? There is something by nature common to all human beings that at the same time distinguishes them from all else that is not a human being. What that is is the form man or human being.

As I keep saying, there's much more wisdom in ancient Greek philosophopy than what we can remember in our times, after all the changes in and the evolution of the human thought. — Alkis Piskas

In my opinion, the wisdom of Socratic philosophy has to do with the articulation of problems that defy solution.

In my opinion, this is not a convincing argument for the existence of God.

However, there's a difference between the ancient Greek word "phantasia" and its literal translation in English from modern Greek, "imagination. — Alkis Piskas

The problem is even more complex since the concept of 'imagination' through the Latin imaginatio has itself undergone changes.

In Aristotle's On the Soul the question is posed:

If phantasia is that according to which we say that a phantasma comes to be in us, is it a power or a condition by which we judge and are correct or incorrect? (428a)

For Aristotle too there is there is the treachery of images.

I don't think that's what 'form' means. Socrates truly is the form 'man' but the form 'man' is common to all men. Likewise for forms generally. I'd like to hear Fooloso4's view on that, though. — Wayfarer

See my response to MU above.

Sorry, you need to explain yourself better, I don't see your point. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think it is all quite clear. The formal cause is by nature. It is at work. Your claim is that it is a concept.

The early part of "On the Heavens" is spent discussing the opinions of others. — Metaphysician Undercover

The discussion in Book 1, part 2 is not a discussion of the opinions of others. It concludes:

On all these grounds, therefore, we may infer with confidence that there is something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, different and separate from them; and that the superior glory of its nature is proportionate to its distance from this world of ours.

This is not the opinion of anyone other than Aristotle. As I said, not even Aristotle could convince you that you are wrong about Aristotle.

"Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no merely accidental way.. — Metaphysician Undercover

First, this contradicts your earlier claim:

The true form of the thing consists of accidents, — Metaphysician Undercover

Second, the term 'essence' means 'what it is to be'. It is a Latin term that was invented to translate the Greek 'ousia'. So, yes, what each thing is and what it is to be that thing are one and the same.

This is why Aristotle has a primary substance (the form of the individual), and a secondary substance (the form of the species). — Metaphysician Undercover

The primary ousia (substance) is not a form. A primary substance is a particular thing, both form and matter. To be Socrates is not to be a form. The secondary substance is not a form either, it is a universal, what all men have in common that distinguishes them from all else.

Now of actual things some are universal, others particular (I call universal that which is by its nature predicated of a number of things, and particular that which is not ; man, for instance, is a universal, Callias a particular) .(On Interpretation, 17a38)

What is true of Callias is not true of all men, but what is true of all men is true of Callias. What all men have in common is not a universal. What all men have in common is a form. It is because of the form that there is the universal.

What matters is the fact that there is existence. Existence is not a property of things. Things are properties of existence. — EnPassant

Is existence something that has properties? It is clear that things that exist have properties, but existence is not something that exists.

It would be quite difficult to bring the painting (tableau) itself in here, wouldn't it? — Alkis Piskas

But a discussion of Aristotle on phantasia would not be too difficult to bring in here.

Actually, "Lassie" is not a dog. It's a name of a dog. :smile: — Alkis Piskas

In that case, Alkis Piskas is not a person. And, as he says, Magritte's pipe is not a pipe. Nor is it La Trahison des images, The Treachery of images. So what is La Trahison des images? Nothing more than the name of a painting?

@Metaphysician Undercover

There are two important points that you have ignored:

1.

The formal cause, what it is to be a man, is what each and every man is. This is by nature not by concept. — Fooloso4

2.

On the Heavens, Book 1, part 2:

"These premises clearly give the conclusion that there is in nature some bodily substance other than the formations we know, prior to them all and more divine than they."

Your argument, based on perishable matter, fails to account for this divine substance. — Fooloso4

Book 2, part 1:

"That the heaven as a whole neither came into being nor admits of destruction, as some assert, but is one and eternal, with no end or beginning of its total duration, containing and embracing in itself the infinity of time, we may convince ourselves not only by the arguments already set forth but also by a consideration of the views of those who differ from us in providing for its generation." — Fooloso4

Added: These are quotes from the text of On the Heavens.

Even with my very limited knowledge of Aristotle, I’m sure this isn’t so. — Wayfarer

And you are, of course, right. As our friend Joe Sachs puts it:

Lassie is an ousia, and the ousia of Lassie is dog.

(https://www.greenlion.com/PDFs/Sachs_intro.pdf)

He seems to have a fondness for dogs.

He goes on to explain:

... being-what it-is does not have the same meaning as what-it-is-for-it-to-be. Lassie's being a dog is not the same thing as dog, and the latter is what she is.

Another thought on the active intellect:

How is it that Aristotle is mortal but his active intellect is not? Well, we still read Aristotle. His intellect is at work on us.

It is the question of continuity that led me to the distinction. But a continuity from life to death is puzzling.

Perhaps a distinction can be made between the active intellect at work and the active intellect when there is nothing for it to act on, that is, at death with the cessation of the passive intellect.

However, he says that anything which is moving in a circle must be composed of matter, and material things are generated, are corruptible, and will corrupt. — Metaphysician Undercover

On the Heavens, Book 1, part 2:

These premises clearly give the conclusion that there is in nature some bodily substance other than the formations we know, prior to them all and more divine than they.

Your argument, based on perishable matter, fails to account for this divine substance.

Metaphysics 1026a:

The primary science, by contrast, is concerned with things that are both separable and immovable. Now all causes are necessarily eternal, and these most of all. For they are the causes of the divine beings that are perceptible.

The primary science, what he calls theology, is about things that are separable from matter and not moved both in the sense that there is nothing moving them and in that they do not change. These divine beings that are perceptible are the heavenly bodies. Divine beings are not corruptible.

Book 2, part 1:

That the heaven as a whole neither came into being nor admits of destruction, as some assert, but is one and eternal, with no end or beginning of its total duration, containing and embracing in itself the infinity of time, we may convince ourselves not only by the arguments already set forth but also by a consideration of the views of those who differ from us in providing for its generation.

He showed that in each case it is a type of form. But, as he explained, the form of the individual is completely different from the form of the universal. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right, the universal and the particular are not the same, but the universal is not a concept. The form man, and not simply a particular man who is tall or is Socrates, is at work on every particular man. It is the formal cause and not a concept that does the work. The formal cause, what it is to be a man, is what each and every man is. This is by nature not by concept.

they are concepts used to describe the world. — Metaphysician Undercover

The concept 'dog' does not bark and wag its tail. His concern with ousia is not a concern about a concept but the living being that barks and wags its tail.

... experience is knowledge of particulars, but art of universals; and actions and the effects produced are all concerned with the particular ... we consider that knowledge and proficiency belong to art rather than to experience, and we assume that artists are wiser than men of mere experience (which implies that in all cases wisdom depends rather upon knowledge); and this is because the former know the cause, whereas the latter do not. For the experienced know the fact, but not the wherefore; but the artists know the wherefore and the cause. (Metaphysics 981a)

The former, that is those who know the universal, know the cause. The cause is not a concept. Concepts do not have energeia and dunamis. Universals do not exist independently. They are not concepts, that is, they do not exist as things of the mind. They are what all things of a kind have in common. But things are not of a kind because they have something in common. All things that are blue are not a natural kind. 'Blue things' is not a universal, although we can have a concept 'blue things'. We can make a distinction between particulars and universals, but that does not mean that universals exist apart from those particulars they are the universal of.

The true form of the thing consists of accidents, — Metaphysician Undercover

Once again, the form of a man, what it is to be a man, is not to be tall. If to be a man is to be tall then short men are not men. If the "true form" of a man is a man's accidents, then there is nothing that is a man, only a bunch of accidents that can apply to a building or a man or anything else that is tall. The fact is, as Aristotle said:

man by man

not a bunch of accidents that might be an elephant or a hummingbird by man. There is something to be a man that is not a man's accidents.

Augustine — Metaphysician Undercover

Thomas Aquinas — Metaphysician Undercover

You may be persuaded by them, but to read Plato and Aristotle through the lens of Augustine and Aquinas, is to read Augustine and Aquinas, not Plato and Aristotle.

I do think it is fair to say that Aristotle has no patience for the 'likely stories' and the devices of myth and poetry employed by Plato. — Paine

Perhaps. But perhaps he is using a different rhetorical strategy. His audience was most likely to have been familiar with Plato's likely stories.

In my opinion, both are Socratic philosophers, that is, zetetic skeptic.

you haven't shown me anything to make think that I'm wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

Herein lies the problem. Being convinced that you are right there is nothing you can be shown to make you think you are wrong. Aristotle himself would give up.

But it is not clear whether you think you are explaining Aristotle or abandoning him.

If energeia (actuality) and dunamis (potentiality) are just concepts then there is nothing doing any work and nothing being worked on. And yet you say:

...everything indicates that there is potentiality and actuality. — Metaphysician Undercover

Does this mean simply that there is these concepts?

You say:

... his "Metaphysics" the need for an actuality which is prior to material objects, as the cause of the first material form. All material objects are preceded in time by the potential for their existence. But a potential requires something actual to actualize it and become an actual material form — Metaphysician Undercover

Which is it? Are energeia and dunamis just concepts? Are you claiming that there is a need for a concept which is prior to another concept? In what way does a concept cause the first material form?

In the Phaedo Socrates calls the hypothesis of the Forms "safe and ignorant". In addition to the forms he adds natural causes such as fire. (105b-c)

Answer me then, he said, what is it that, present in a body, makes it living?

Cebes: A soul. (105c)

The answer is no longer life but soul.

In the Timaeus the fixed intelligible world of forms is regarded as inadequate. They do not account for motion or change.

Plato was aware of the problem and Aristotle was aware that Plato recognized the problem. The point being, we should not, as is commonly assumed, read Aristotle as a rejection of Plato. An adequate account of the causes of living things must include physical or material and active causes. Certainly more than a concept or representation or map.

What is used in his demonstration that the world is not eternal, is the concepts of potentiality and actuality. — Metaphysician Undercover

What you deny is that potentiality and actuality do not exist apart from those things that they are the potentiality and actuality of. If we cannot agree on that then we cannot agree on what follows from it.

The true form of the thing consists of accidents — Metaphysician Undercover

The "true form"? The form of a living thing, is what it is to be what it is, a man or a dog or a bee. A man being tall or short, is not what it is to be a man.

Therefore potentiality and actuality, as concepts, — Metaphysician Undercover

A concept does not actualize potential.

This is commonly known as the separation between the world and the representation, map and terrain. — Metaphysician Undercover

As long as you think that by potentiality and actuality Aristotle means a representation you will remain hopelessly confused.

… the reason for our present discussion is that it is generally assumed that what is called Wisdom is concerned with the primary causes and principles … (981b)

What is generally assumed is not necessarily what is true. Aristotle’s method is to begin with opinions. At this point he neither affirms or denies this opinion. The question of whether this is what wisdom is remains open. Although he will focus on the primary causes and principles, we should be open to the possibility that the underlying reason for his discussion is not simply to disclose causes and principles but to address the assumption of what wisdom is.

If Aristotle is wise, then, according to what is generally assumed, not only does he know the primary causes and principles, he can teach them. Given his discussion of causes and principles he certainly does give the impression of being wise. But does his discussion teach us to be wise?

Starting where Aristotle does, with man, do we know what it is to be a man? What is the final cause, the telos of man? The question asks us not simply to give an opinion or account of it, but to know it by having achieved it, by the completion of our telos. Aristotle begins by saying that all men by nature desire to know. Is the satisfaction of that desire our telos?

The question of the telos of man is the question of self-knowledge. Socrates said his human wisdom is knowledge of ignorance. This is not expressed as an opinion but as something he knows. Is Aristotle’s wisdom, like that of Socrates, human or is it divine?

If it is through experience that men acquire science and art, then can there be knowledge of what does not come from experience? Our knowledge and experience is limited. We are somewhere between the beginning and the end. Without knowledge of the beginning Aristotle cannot know that the world is or is not eternal. If it comes to be then like all that comes to be it too will perish. He does not know what always was or always will be. Not knowing this he does not know how it was or will be.

So why does Aristotle make so many theological claims? I think the answer has something to do with the difference between opinion and knowledge, what can be taught and learned, and the competition between theology and philosophy. Aristotle was able to give his listeners and readers opinions that they could hold as true, but he could not give them knowledge of such things. As if to be told is to know.

Based on what is generally assumed about wisdom, Aristotle appears to be wise.

We consider first, then, that the wise man knows all things, so far as it is possible, without having knowledge of every one of them individually … (982a)

What does “so far as it is possible” mean? How far is it possible to know all things? Without the possibility of knowledge of beginnings and ends the wise man’s knowledge falls short of knowledge of all things. But the theologian claims to have and teach knowledge of all things.

The paragraph ends:

… for the wise man should give orders, not receive them; nor should he obey others, but the less wise should obey him. (982a)

There is then an important political dimension to the Metaphysics. The battle between the philosopher and the theologian is a continuation of the ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy. Aristotle’s strategy in this quarrel is the same as Plato’s. Just as Plato presents a philosophical poetry, Aristotle presents a philosophical theology. It is better for these opinions to be generally assumed rather than some others. It is better to hold these opinions then succumb to misologic and nihilism. Better to give the appearance of knowledge than reveal our absence of knowledge.

The wisdom that Aristotle teaches through arguments that confound us is human rather than divine wisdom, knowledge of our ignorance. But it is not always wise to reveal our ignorance.

None of this is meant to suggest that attempting to understand the Metaphysics is a waste of time. Aristotle does teach those who attempt to work through his arguments how to think, but if there is a failure to learn it is our failure not his. In addition, the limits of our knowledge does not preclude knowledge of how to inquire into those things that lie between the beginning and end.

anything composed of matter is corruptible — Metaphysician Undercover

That is the point of the quote above:

... for the actually existent is always generated from the potentially existent by something which is actually existent—e.g., man by man ...

The former precludes the latter under the conditions of your conditional proposition: "If the world is eternal then there can be no prior potentiality or actuality or prime mover." — Metaphysician Undercover

You take part of the argument and argue against it as it it were the whole:

Potentiality and actuality does not exist apart from those things they are the potentiality and actuality of. If the world is eternal there has always been something with potentiality and actuality. No potentiality and actuality prior to the world.

There is nothing to indicate that the world might be eternal. — Metaphysician Undercover

In the Physics he argues that it is.

there is potentiality and actuality. — Metaphysician Undercover

The potentiality and actuality of what? There can be no potentiality and actuality of something that is not. Potentiality and actuality does not exist apart from those things they are the potentiality and actuality of.

So that possibility, that the world is eternal and there no potentiality or actuality is easily excluded as unreal. — Metaphysician Undercover

The former does not preclude the latter. It not the denial of potentiality or actuality, but rather the affirmation that they are the potentiality and actuality of some thing rather than nothing.

I thought that was what you had in mind. No problem interrupting the chain of interruptions.

Here's a mathematical question: how many posts does it take for a topic to move off topic?

You got it incorrectly. It's not "the opinion of the wise man". — L'éléphant

Thanks for pointing that out. I corrected it. Not the wise man's opinions but opinions about the wise man.

That's why you got lost there for a second. — L'éléphant

Not lost. Jut a typo. The question about whether Aristotle is wise is related to the question of our opinions about the wise man. I will have a bit more to say about this.

Potentiality and actuality (including prime movers) do not exist apart from the beings they are the potentiality and actuality of.

Having grasped hold of a life raft you are unaware of how problematic all of this is. You overlook the problems because you believe Aristotle has given you the answer.

If the world is eternal then there can be no prior potentiality or actuality or prime mover.

But prior in time to these potential entities are other actual entities from which the former are generated; for the actually existent is always generated from the potentially existent by something which is actually existent—e.g., man by man, cultured by cultured—there is always some prime mover; and that which initiates motion exists already in actuality. (1049b)

There is no God who actualizes the potential of man. Man comes from man. Prior to this man is another man, but there is no prior to man.

It is also prior in a deeper sense; because that which is eternal is prior in substantiality to that which is perishable, and nothing eternal is potential. (1050b)

The world is eternal. There is no prior potential that is actualized. No God that get things rolling.

Again I could care less about any of your propaganda. — NOS4A2

The Senate Intelligence Committee findings, led by eight Republicans and seven Democrats. are not my "propaganda". The fact that the Trump Organization was found guilty of fraud is not my "propaganda". The grand jury's indictment recommendations in the Georgia investigation into election interference are not my "propaganda".

The term ontologyitself is modern, 1720.

Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy — Wayfarer

I agree with those who keep Aristotle and Thomas separate. One reason for this is that Aquinas' Latin distorts Aristotle's Greek. As it has been put: Aristotle was not an Aristotelian.

So to exist is to be separate, to be this as distinct from that. — Wayfarer

A being, ousia, substance is not just something distinct but something particular, some "what".

There are many senses in which a thing may be said to 'be', but all that 'is' is related to one central point, one definite kind of thing, and is not said to 'be' by a mere ambiguity. (Metaphysics Book 4, Chapter 1)

There used to be an explicit statement that 'ontology' was derived from the first-person participle of 'to be' (i.e. 'I am') on one of the online dictionaries, but it's gone now. — Wayfarer

Perhaps you meant this:
Ousia

The term οὐσία is an Ancient Greek noun, formed on the feminine present participle of the verb εἰμί, eimí, meaning "to be, I am"

If you are referring to this:

In my analysis, it basically stems from Descartes' designation of mind or consciousness as 'res cogitans' which means 'thinking thing' ('res' being Latin for 'thing or object')*. This leads to the disastrously oxymoronic conception of 'a thinking substance' which is the single biggest contributor to modern physicalist philosophy. — Wayfarer

I do not agree with him. I don't think Descartes plays a significant role in the work being done in cognitive science, but he does play a role in historical accounts. I don't think that Aristotle is of much help either. I do think it important to examine things in terms of wholes, but I also think that there are two senses of reductionism that are also important. The first is in terms of subsystems and the second the rejection of the supernatural.

Spoken like a true Trumpster. Dear Leader would be pleased by your loyalty.

Despite Trump's claim that there was no collusion and Barr's attempt to sweep it under the rug, the Mueller investigation did not exonerate him. Whether you call it collusion or something else, the Senate Intelligence Committee found clear evidence of cooperation between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Here is a summary of the findings. But you can safely ignore it because by your logic Trump and his campaign did no wrong.

As to tax evasion, the Trump Organization was found guilty of fraud and fined 1.6 million dollars.

There are several ongoing cases. I won't go into any of it because by your logic, despite whatever the facts reveal, you are right to conclude he did nothing wrong and you are likely to be right.