Goodness me, do I need saving? From what? My original sin perhaps? Oh dear. Or am I to be punished by a posse of Aristotelians, for having the unmitigated temerity to decline to adopt their worldview?This doesn't save you in any way. — Agustino
What is required is that any defined terms used in the proof have exact, objective definitions. However it is not mandatory to use any defined terms. One can write a proof without any defined terms, in which case no definitions are needed. — andrewk
I would not use the word 'ostensive' to describe learning a meaning by reading long texts. Ostension is pointing to a dog and saying 'dog', jumping and saying 'jump' or making a sad face and saying 'sad'. — andrewk
But even my sort of ostension is prone to error. It's possible that I've got the wrong idea of what other people mean by 'dog' and our success in communicating about dogs thus far has been a happy coincidence of the fact that the animals we were talking about lay in the intersection between my understanding of dog and yours. — andrewk
My understanding of language use is mostly WIttgensteinian, so I see my use of 'dog' or 'potential' as elements of a language game that often, but not always, works in everyday life. But it all falls apart as soon as we move away from everyday life into metaphysics. — andrewk
It sounds like becoming an Aristotelian involves a process of initiation into a new language game, that involves a lot of reading. I am not inclined to do that because, while that language game may be fun (Feser certainly seems to enjoy it), it doesn't seem to lead anywhere.
As a wise member of the previous forum once said:
"Fancy piles of words cannot oblige the universe to be thus and so'
(or something like that). — andrewk
I do not, and would not dismiss it in that way without qualification.You do not believe that the alleged authority is really an authority, you have no faith in that proposition, so you dismiss the endeavor as a waste of time. — Metaphysician Undercover
I am confident that reading Aristotle would be a waste of my time. It sounds like you have found it an enriching experience, so it was not a waste of your time, nor of that of any other enthusiastic Aristotelian. — andrewk
If his writings on metaphysics bring joy to some people, and they do not induce them to harm others, then that is a good thing (IMHO). — andrewk
It depends on what one means by 'understood'. There are proofs that I have followed step by step, and validated each step, yet I am still unable to visualise the big picture, as to why the proof works. There is a formal understanding but not an intuitive one and it is the latter that is ultimately most important to me. So I would say that there are proofs that I have verified to be valid even though I do not really understand them. But in such cases I have suffiicient understanding to recognise that my failure to fully understand the proof is a deficiency in my cognitive capabilities rather than a deficiency in the proof.do you agree that the judgement of whether or not an argument constitutes a proof is dependent on that argument being understood? — Metaphysician Undercover
In my view, part of the essential nature of a lion is that it lives in the world that we inhabit, whereas a unicorn is a merely a fictional creature represented in books and pictures. So for someone to mistakenly talk about lions as if they were fictional entities would be for them to entirely misconceive the essential nature of lions. — Andrew M
I suppose that's a 'No' then. One can judge that something is a proof without understanding it. — andrewk
Perhaps a helpful parallel is a chess game. One can look at the moves in a Fischer vs Spassky game and verify that Fischer did indeed do a sequence of legal moves that resulted in Spassky being in an unwinnable position. But that is not the same as understanding the strategy by which Fischer achieved that. — andrewk
I would partially agree, but I expect it would not be the sort of agreement you would wish.Of the latter type of understanding, the intuitive one that relates rules to things, do you not agree that there is a better and a worse intuition? — Metaphysician Undercover
But we also need a definition of 'better'. The one I would instinctively reach for is 'more useful'. One intuition is 'better' than another under my interpretation if it enables more accurate predictions. — andrewk
Based on past posts, I have the feeling that you would reject using 'usefulness' as a benchmark for quality of an intuition. But that then begs the question of what definition of 'better' you would like to use in its place. Again I might guess that you would prefer a definition that had something to do with 'truth'. Personally, I would reject such a definition, as I do not believe in Absolute Truth.
Now my understanding is that Aristoteleans form a proper subset of those who believe in Absolute Truth. So there should be no difficulty finding a non-Aristotelean that believes in Absolute Truth, who thus could continue down that line of discussion, by accepting 'truth' as a measure of the quality of an understanding. But I am not such a person. — andrewk
If the essence of being a lion included its existence, then lions could never cease to exist. What you are arguing implies that lions have always existed and will always exist just in virtue of what they essentially are. — Aaron R
Aristotle seems to have seen nothing more to existence than essence; there is not a space between an articulation of what a thing is and that thing's existing. Saint Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, famously distinguished a thing's essence from its existence.
My view is that only existents have essential natures. — Andrew M
Why would that imply an eternal existence? — Andrew M
I notice that this specific issue seems to mark a point of departure for Aquinas from Aristotle. — Andrew M
Right, but I don't believe that this is what is being called into question. — Aaron R
Aquinas is saying that a phoenix has an essence (or, put differently, that there is a phoenix essence - "what a thing is") even though phoenixes don't exist. That becomes the basis for his distinction between existence and essence. — Andrew M
This would have been foreign to Aristotle, who held that valid (formal) distinctions can only be made on the basis of existents (particulars). — Andrew M
It is not the form that exists (or not), it is the particular. — Andrew M
3. His claim that the existence of anything is the result of the actualizing of the potential to exist by something already actualized as existent.
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#3 seems to treat existence as a property that something may have as either potentially or actually, similar to the potential for hotness. And that just as something that is actually hot "activates" the potential for hotness in another object, so to something that exists activates the potential for existence in another. — Mitchell
Indeed, that is one of the arguments that is often given. I was trying to steer us away from that particular line of thought because it takes us pretty deep into epistemology. In scholastic terms, phoenixes do not have "subjective" existence - that is, they are not mind-independent subjects of existence. However, they do exist "objectively" - that is, mind-dependently. Qua objects of thought, phoenixes have a form all their own. Indeed, it is via such forms that we classify imaginary creatures into "this" or "that" type. When I imagine a particular phoenix, I am objectively instantiating the form "phoenix".
[...]
Yes, all formal distinctions trace their ultimate genesis in subjective reality as appropriated by the senses. A more metaphorical way to put it is to say that all distinctions are woven from the raw materials provided by the senses. That doesn't imply that every formal distinction is a real distinction, and I believe that Aristotle recognized that distinction to some extent. — Aaron R
If a particular's form (essential nature) does not exist in its own right, then a particular's existence cannot be identical with its form (essential nature) and there must be a real distinction between a particular's essential nature and its existence. This is exactly what Aquinas is arguing for. — Aaron R
1.) Change occurs (and this cannot be coherently denied - the denial of change is itself a form of change, for example)
It seems like what premise 2 and 3 are saying is that change exists only if "actuality" and "potentiality" exist, but this does not seem obvious at all; consider this alternative: change is the inherent nature of the universe and that for every event there is a temporally precedent event that is its cause.2.) Material objects that change can only do so because they have potentials that have been actualized
3.) A potential cannot be actualized except by something already actual.
#3 seems to treat existence as a property that something may have as either potentially or actually, similar to the potential for hotness. And that just as something that is actually hot "activates" the potential for hotness in another object, so to something that exists activates the potential for existence in another. — Mitchell
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