Let me begin by saying, that while you may define your terms however you wish, definitions that alter, rather than clarify, common usage, lead to philosophic confusion -- especially when no warning is given of their peculiarity. Most people use "truth" to name something they've experienced in their own thought and language, and in that of others. Extremely few (mostly Platonists), would posit Ideal Truth and fewer still say truth resides in God alone.

So, I see no point in attacking your definition and usage. It simply is neither mine nor based on common use.

I think I have a better suggestion, and that is to remove the requirement of "truth" from knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't see how anything false can count as knowledge. I wonder if you'd be kind enough to give your definition of "knowledge." Mine is awareness of present intelligibility -- guaranteeing a connection (dynamical presence) with the intelligible object.

We represent knowledge as it really is, and this is something relative, and admitting to degrees of certainty. — Metaphysician Undercover

According to Aristotle, saying what is, is, is speaking the truth. I take it you disagree if you think that we can "represent knowledge as it really is," and yet not have truth..

I have no problem with degrees of certitude. I see them ranging from metaphysical (guarantied by the nature of being), through physical (guarantied by the normal operation of nature), to moral (rational expectations justifying ethical decisions).

How do you see metaphysically certain human propositions as compromising "truth"?

The addition of "approach" suggests less than equal, and less than equal is not equal. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Approach to" is not an addition. It translates the Latin prefix ad- in adaequatio, which you continue to ignore, pretending the text says aequatio. Rather than suggesting "less than" means "equals," It recognizes that human estimates of equality are often approximate.

Also, as I said earlier, the translation is not mine, but Richard McKeon's in the philosophical Latin vocabulary in his Selections From Medieval Philosophers. So, please desist in calling it "bogus" or explain why McKeon erred.

the point is that in order for there to be truth, the proper representation of the real thing must exist within the intellect. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course. I am not disputing that. Instead I am delving into what makes a representation "proper."

we can see that the representation need not be in any way similar to the real thing represented. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, we can.

The symbol 2 is not at all similar to what it represents. However, there must be an equation or equality between the symbol and the thing represented. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes it is not similar. No, equality is not involved. Rather "2" evokes in readers, by convention, the concept <two> -- the same concept concept evoked by counting actual and potential instances of sets of two units. Evocation is not equality.

So, the correct account is that <two> arises by abstraction form our counting experiences of sets of two elements, and we employ the convention of signifying the concept <two> by the symbol "2."

There is always a direct one to one relation, not an approach. There is no room for "adequacy", in truth otherwise someone might say that 2 represents something between 1.8 and 2.2. — Metaphysician Undercover

As Aristotle notes in Metaphysics Delta, there are two species of quantity: discrete and continuous. Discrete quantities are not numbers, but countable. In counting is is rational to expect exactitude as you suggest. Continuous quantities are not numbers either, but measurable. Measurements are always approximate. So it is irrational to expect an exact value, and no one thinks we're lying when we say that the bolt is 2 cm long if that is a reasonable approximation of its length.

So, what is a reasonable approximation? One adequate to the purpose of the measurement. For example, home building requires less accuracy than grinding telescope mirrors.

That we do not have correspondence in a complete and perfect way does not mean that we ought not strive for it. — Metaphysician Undercover

What we strive for is a practical decision. We have a finite amount of time, and a panoply of human needs -- as noted by Maslow and others. So, it's foolish to spend time on attaining unnecessary precision. This does not mean you shouldn't pursue your passions, only that you need to manage your time wisely.

If we remove the ideal, assuming that we have reached a "truth" which is sufficient for human beings, then there is nothing to inspire us to better ourselves. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think this follows. We have natural desires, including the desire to know (Aristotle), all supporting the desire for self-realization (Maslow). Because these desires are innate, there is no need to hold an abstract (and unattainable) goal before the mind. A loving person will always find good to do.

I think it's nonsense that "truth" would be something different for God than for human beings. — Metaphysician Undercover

Let's review. In God, there is an agreement between what is in His mind and creation because God willing creation to exist is identically creation being willed to exist by God. God in knowing his own act of creatio continuo, of sustaining creation in being, knows all creation. We do not have this relation to creation. Rather than knowing creation because we act on it to maintain it, we know it because it acts on us via our senses. So, it is metaphysically impossible that we could know as God knows or have truth as God has truth. Such omniscient truth can never be a human goal, as it's ontologically incompatible with our finite nature.

the equality of the relation, the one to one relation between God's Forms and reality must be the same equality which the human intellect strives for. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I just pointed out, your goal is ontologically inconsistent with human nature. God can't have created as He has and also intend us to strive for a goal contrary to that very nature.

What you have demonstrated is that human knowledge is deficient. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not "deficient," which would mean intrinsically inadequate to our needs, but limited. We know the world as it relates to us -- and we relate to it.

And such a premise would require that "truth" is defined in two distinct ways, which is contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, It does not require contradictory definitions, but analogous predication, which is the beauty of Aquinas' analysis. Two predications are analogous when the senses of the predicates are partly the same and partly different. Creation conforms God's mind because God willing creation to exist is identically creation being willed to exist by God. What we actually know conforms to reality because we are aware of it acting on us. Thus, the mode by which we know is radically different, but the note of conformity is the same.

Since we have no comprehensive way to exclude the possibility of falsity, then that possibility is a necessary (essential) part of human knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a non sequitur. Possible accidents (in the sense opposed to essence), are no more essential than actual accidents.

What you've described is teaching the concept. But this requires that the concept pre-exists, prior to the student learning it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not in the mind of the student.

Before drawing the triangle, the teacher must know the concept. And the teacher must have learned it from someone else who drew it, and so on, until you have an infinite regress. Such an infinite regress doesn't allow for any coming into being of the concept, so the concept along with human beings teaching it, must exist eternally. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your analysis is inconsistent with the history of ideas, which records the routine advent of new Ideas, e.g. that of dynamis by Aristotle, displacement by Archimedes, impetus and instantaneous velocity by 14th century Scholastics, universal laws by Newton, conservation of mass by Lavoisier, displacement currents by Maxwell, or quantization of action by Planck.

Experience exposes us to the potential for the concept and then the activity of the mind causes it to have actual existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

Have i said otherwise? Have I doubted that nature is intelligible? Have i said that concepts arise from nothing? I've said that they result form the actualization of latent intelligibility -- delivered to us by things acting on our senses.

Nothing you've said shows that concepts are not, or cannot be, abstracted from intelligibility delivered via sense data.

An infinite entity (if such a thing is even possible) is not natural. No natural things are infinite. Nor is it possible that something immanent could be infinite because it would be constrained by that which it inheres within. — Metaphysician Undercover

A finite being is one with a limited capacity to act. An infinite being is one that can do any logically possible act. The Immanence of God means that God is present throughout reality in virtue of His continually maintaining it in being. To be immanent, a being need not be limited to that which it is immanent in.

i think this is an incorrect interpretation of the historical Plato, who believed in innate ideas. — Dfpolis

I think you're correct, my presentation of it is revisionist - it refers to what Platonism became, rather that what the historical Plato said. My initial point of interest with philosophy, generally, is the nature of the reality of abstract objects, although that is tangential to this thread. I will start another on the topic.

The essential note of intellect is awareness. — Dfpolis

However, creatures generally are aware, but not rational. Although humans have to learn from experience, the capacity to learn language, logic, and so on, is innate (and unique to h. sapiens except for in very rudimentary forms in other animals.)

you might want o read my article, "A New Reading of Aristotle's Hyle," — Dfpolis

Thanks for that. An excellent paper. It shows that Aristotle's view evolved a lot. But also I would say that Plato's view evolved too, and is far from the usual caricature version, especially if you give credence to the unwritten doctrines and Pythagorean system of the one and the indefinite dyad - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_unwritten_doctrines

So it is tempting to do the usual simplifying thing of setting up the master and the pupil as saying the opposite things, and only one of them able to be right. The historical reality looks more like that they both got the essential duality of a formal principle and a material principle as the causal arche. And they both played around in various fashions to get this schema to fit the metaphysics.

But the modern mind - so accustomed to ontological atomism - is no longer alert to the subtlety of the metaphysical answer both look to be evolving towards. As described for instance in Kolb's - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236756740_Pythagoras_Bound_Limit_and_Unlimited_in_Plato%27s_Philebus

In brief, I take a constraints~freedom approach to the issue.

The material principle is that of an Apeiron or the Indefinite - chaotic action. Everything wants to happen in an unstable and directionless fashion. So "prime matter" would be action without shape or memory. It is an active principle, but not one that results in anything with the definiteness of individuation and actuality.

The formal principle is then the order that regulates this chaos of fluctuation. Tames it, channels it, gives it structure and intent. It limits and imposes a unity. It is also an active principle in a sense. But active in imposing a form, a limitation, that keeps all the action organised and heading in a shared direction that is intelligible and so persists.

So the material principle is a formless energy wanting to go off in every possible direction and amounting to nothing in particular. The formal principle is an intelligible order that limits all this wildness so that it is channeled into some generalised unified direction or purpose. And then out of that arises the actuality of substantial being, the multiplicity of the accidental individuals.

So in a developmental sense, it all begins with a raw energetic potential, that becomes constrained by some intelligible organisation, and then the result is a fracturing of that into an abundance of actualised substantial beings. The vague is regulated by the general to produce the particular.

It is this step from the simplistically dual to the complexly triadic which eludes most tellings of hylomorphism. But Aristotle and Plato both look to be groping towards that actually holistic or systematic view of metaphysics.

The doctrine of the One and the Indefinite Dyad in the Philebus does that in helping to focus on the developmental nature of the Forms. It allows for a hierarchy of form which begin vague and loose, then become more definite and specified. It also allows substantial being to incorporate accidents during the history of its development or individuation.

So the simple "stamp and sealing wax" Platonism is easy to criticise. It makes the material principle simply an already existent passive stuff. For a laugh, you could even call it fascist in its implication that the world always takes a faulty impression of the Ideal stamp.

But Platonism was never that simple. It evolved - even if we can only reconstruct that evolution in guesswork fashion. And a sympathetic reading would arrive at a constraints-based logic where form is a developmental outcome - the imposition of habits of regularity on a chaos of possibility, which thus always emerges as substantial actuality that is a blend of the necessary and the accidental.

Constraint only has to limit the accidents of individuation to the degree they actually matter. That itself is the other face of finality. So the variety to be found in the substantial particulars is not evidence of imperfection. It is literally that which doesn't matter in terms of some generalised purpose.

Rather than fascism, it is more like democracy. Some general rule of law or bill of rights is in play to constrain a citizenship to fundamental level of unity. And then within that scope, there is a matching absolute freedom of action. All the particular ways of being that are possible are not only allowed, they will almost certainly get expressed. Multiplicity is guaranteed by the fact that constraint ain't control.

Anyway, the point is that your paper argues for a more complex Aristotle. The same case can be made for Plato. And both of them seem to have a lot more in common than modern ontological atomism could imagine. They were grasping in the direction of this basically triadic metaphysical scheme I would suggest.

Picking up on these comments from your paper...

What of prime matter? We must remember that there is no indeterminate potency in Aristotle. Hyle is always the dynamics to become some particular thing. But Aristotle does recognize a hierarchy of hyle: the chest is wooden, the wood is earthen, and perhaps the earth is fiery. If no further analysis is possible (and that point must come because an infinite regress is impossible) then that unanalyzable hyle is a kind of primary matter.

From the logical point of view, the traditional doctrine of prima materia makes no sense. How can one have a concept of a principle which, by hypothesis, has no intelligibility? If all intelligibility is contained in form, matter must be unintelligible.

...I would say that you have a problem in that your reading of hyle leads you to suggest it contains form within it in some sense. You appear to be angling at a (theistic) vitalism where you say "Hyle, on the other hand, bears within itself the life-force ready burst into leaf."

Now definitely I agree that hyle is an active principle. But now I would triadically break it down so that we have the three things of a Vagueness, Apeiron or Firstness that is the ur-potential that gets the game started. And the Material and the Formal are the two complementary limits of being that emerge into definiteness in the co-evolutionary fashion described in the Philebus.

So - as you do seem to say - hyle evolves. It becomes a bunch of particular substrates, like gold or wood. And before that, it is four more generalised substrates - fire, air, water and earth. And even physics recognises that categorisation as the four states of material order - plasma, gas, liquid and solid. But we want to go back another step towards whatever is prime. And that is when it all turns tricky as it is so hard to leave behind some notion of the material principle as already some kind of definite stuff - like a space-filling, but formless and passive, chora.

What resolves the issue is that primal hyle is just action without unity. And so, more subtly, it is the possibility of intelligibility itself. It is the bare possibility of instantiating a dichotomy, a difference that makes a difference. So it is some kind of ability to remember, to encode, to record, to establish a history that speaks to a common direction.

A material fluctuation in itself has no meaning or identity. It lacks a context that makes it anything at all. So more primal is that it could be an action with a direction. It is the formal possibility of that dichotomy that marks the beginning of "stuff".

It is a hard point of view to articulate. But the Philebus looks to be saying something like that. The material and formal principle are always co-dependent from the point of their ultimate origination. They have to arise together for there to be the start of anything definitely and historically actual. And so all that "exists" at the start is the potential for that dichotomy.

The essential note of intellect is awareness. — Dfpolis

However, creatures generally are aware — Wayfarer

Animals have medical consciousness, i.e. an observable state of responsiveness. We have no evidence they thy have subjective awareness. The only evidence that people have such awareness is reports of subjective experience.

And I dispute that being a hard difference. My position is that they are all united as forms of semiotic discourse about nature. They are united by the same method of reasoned inquiry - which includes measurement, or however else we term the empirical aspect of the deal. — apokrisis

I'm not saying there is no poetry in science, no metaphysics in science, no science in metaphysics, no poetry in metaphysics, or no science or metaphysics in poetry, or that they are not all different semiosic activities.

I'm not saying that metaphysics or poetry could proceed in a "vacuum", where there had been no empirical experience to inform them, either.

What I am saying is that each discipline has its own different means and ends.Speaking broadly, science observes phenomena, and tries to imagine, within the context of its present knowledge, explanations for the ways in which things work (abduction) and then tests the predictions derived (deduction) from those explanations by experiment to justify (induction) general laws of action. In the most general domains of science (physics and cosmology) a unified theory of everything is aspired to. My question to you is how this attempt to derive a scientific TOE differs from your conception of metaphysics.

My conception of metaphysics is that it consists in producing a picture of what entities there are, what the most fundamental or necessary entities are, and how those entities are related to one another. I think it's fair to say that different metaphysical systems are distinguishable from one another most significantly in terms of what they posit as being the fundamental entities or entity. So, you have broadly, theistic and atheistic metaphysics. In theistic metaphysical systems God is posited as being necessary to ground the possibility of the intelligibility of nature (as well as freedom, rationality and so on, but I think intelligibility is really the most salient point in such positions).

This is a very complex topic, and I obviously can't do justice to it here (even if I could do it justice at all), but for me the most important point is that surveying metaphysics involves, as I believe Collingwood put it, studying the range of the most absolute human presuppositions. Metaphysical systems are not rightly called theories, in my view, because they cannot be definitively tested. Could even a scientific TOE really be definitively tested? I would say that at least a TOE could be falsified or at minimum shown to be incomplete, and thus not really a TOE at all, if some observed phenomenon was inexplicable in terms of, or contradictory to, the principles of the TOE.

But the point I'm making is that humans possess an essential requirement for rationality, which is the ability to form concepts and understand abstractions; it's also fundamental to language.

And that's why I am dubious about the accounts of any kind of empiricism - Mills, or Aristotle's - to account for those capabilities in terms of experience alone. (Of course, such an ability might be programmed into AI systems, but they are after all human devices.)

Now, of course, it is assumed that these capabilities have evolved, and I have no doubt that this is true, but I do doubt that this amounts to much of an explanation of their significance; my view is that rationality transcends a purely biological account of human faculties (as discussed in this review.)

I know that Plato suggests that we are literally born with innate and definite ideas, which is the point of the Meno. But my interpretation of the significance of that, is that Plato was intuiting the innate nature of rationality - something which has generally fallen foul of the empiricist dogma of 'no innate ideas' (a subject explored in Steve Pinker's book The Blank Slate.)

My conception of metaphysics is that it consists in producing a picture of what entities there are, what the fundamental entities are, and how those entities are related to one another. — Janus

The way it strikes me, is that 'naturalism' comprises 'those things that science can or might explain'. So it's what we can explain. But metaphysics as classically conceived, is about 'what explains us'. So it is in some important way above us rather than beneath us. Which is why the classical tradition is top-down with the One, or God, or Nous (depending) at the 'top' and us humans 'here below' - betwixt ape and angel. 'Tillich said that if you know being has depth you can’t be an atheist.'

And that's why I am dubious about the accounts of any kind of empiricism - Mills, or Aristotle's - to account for those capabilities in terms of experience alone. — Wayfarer

The way it strikes me, is that 'naturalism' comprises 'those things that science can or might explain'. So it's what we can explain. But metaphysics as classically conceived, is about 'what explains us'. So it is in some important way above us rather than beneath us. Which is why the classical tradition is top-down with the One, or God, or Nous (depending) at the 'top' and us humans 'here below' - betwixt ape and angel. — Wayfarer

I think it's perfectly possible to produce coherent metaphysical explanations in terms of naturalism; are you saying it's not? Or are you just saying that you don't find such explanations convincing?

So, in the first sentence above quoted from you, you seems to be saying the latter. But I don't think naturalistic explanations are accounting "for those capabilities in terms of experience alone" .Even in science things are explained in terms of causation, which arguably cannot be experienced as an objective phenomenon, so even in that naturalistic context of science things cannot be explained "in terms of experience alone".

and I have no doubt that this is true, but I do doubt that this amounts to much of an explanation of their significance; my view is that rationality transcends a purely biological account of human faculties — Wayfarer

I think it's true that no account of rationality can be given in bare empiricist terms, but I don't see how it follows that an adequate account of rationality must be given in supernaturalistic terms. I mean, all our own accounts of our own behavior, decision-making and so on are given in terms which are not empirically verifiable (being so-called 'first person' accounts), but those accounts are just everyday accounts in accordance with the nature of our language and ways of thinking about ourselves. No supernatural or transcendent entities need to be assumed, and hence those accounts are naturalistic, at least where no such transcendental assumptions are made.

I think it's perfectly possible to produce coherent metaphysical explanations in terms of naturalism; are you saying it's not? — Janus

No, I don't think it is. But it's another topic. Maybe another thread.

I think it is very relevant to the topic at hand. @Dfpolis is arguing that naturalism is incoherent; that seems to be the central claim of his arguments (although, interestingly he also seems to be arguing for an immanentist view of deity). @Apokrisis claims that only naturalistic metaphysical systems are coherent. You are claiming that only supernaturalistic metaphysical systems are coherent. And I am in the middle, saying that I think both kinds of metaphysics are coherent, but that, and precisely because, the truth of any metaphysical system is undecidable.

"Approach to" is not an addition. It translates the Latin prefix ad- in adaequatio, which you continue to ignore, pretending the text says aequatio. Rather than suggesting "less than" means "equals," It recognizes that human estimates of equality are often approximate.

Also, as I said earlier, the translation is not mine, but Richard McKeon's in the philosophical Latin vocabulary in his Selections From Medieval Philosophers. So, please desist in calling it "bogus" or explain why McKeon erred. — Dfpolis

So tet's assume that "ad" here is a prefix as you claim. What "adaequatio" would refer to is an activity, a process, a movement toward equation or equality. Therefore "truth" under this definition would be a movement toward the equation between the intellect and reality. We can justify "approaching" in this way. However, "adequate" is not justified because it implies "sufficient", and this signifies an end to the process. So even if we interpret "truth" as a form of becoming, which is a movement towards an equation between the intellect and the thing, rather than a form of being, referring to "what is", we still cannot utilize the word "adequate" because this would signify that this process of becoming had come to an end by means of sufficiency. "Adequate" remains unacceptable.

Let me begin by saying, that while you may define your terms however you wish, definitions that alter, rather than clarify, common usage, lead to philosophic confusion -- especially when no warning is given of their peculiarity. — Dfpolis

Let me say, that I think the most common use of "truth" is in philosophy, and the second most is in law. Then we might have politics after that, and day to day usage would be last. The word is used very liitle in day to day communication. I do believe that the most common use of "truth" is within philosophy, epistemology. So if you are going to make an appeal to "common usage", we must seek to be honest with our representation of what is common usage.

Most people use "truth" to name something they've experienced in their own thought and language, and in that of others. — Dfpolis

Should we look at how "truth" is really used outside of philosophy? I do not believe it's used to name something we have experienced in our own thought and language, it is used to make a statement about our own thought and language, or a request toward others' thought and language; statements like "I am telling the truth", "Please tell the truth" . This is a point which Aquinas makes as well, truth is a judgement which is separate from the thought, a judgement brought against the thought. So he compares "the truth" to "the good", the good being the object of the appetite and the truth being the object of the intellect.

So in our non-philosophical usage, truth is representative of honesty, what we desire from others in their expressions of language, and what we assert of ourselves in an attempt to assure others. We can't really say that we experience ourselves to have true beliefs, because we simply believe, and to believe that a belief is true would be redundant. So that talk is more of an epistemologically based talk. In all honesty, I truly believe that non-philosophical use of "truth" mostly refers to honesty.

I don't see how anything false can count as knowledge. I wonder if you'd be kind enough to give your definition of "knowledge." Mine is awareness of present intelligibility -- guaranteeing a connection (dynamical presence) with the intelligible object. — Dfpolis

It is quite common that we have knowledge which later turns out to be false. In ancient Greece astrologers knew all the orbits of sun, moon, and planets, around the earth. This was their knowledge, and it enabled Thales to predict a solar eclipse. But the knowledge contained falsity. At any given time, say now, one cannot say how much falsity is within the present knowledge because if it were known as falsity it would not be accepted as knowledge. However, as time passes much knowledge turns out to be false.

According to Aristotle, saying what is, is, is speaking the truth. I take it you disagree if you think that we can "represent knowledge as it really is," and yet not have truth..

I have no problem with degrees of certitude. I see them ranging from metaphysical (guarantied by the nature of being), through physical (guarantied by the normal operation of nature), to moral (rational expectations justifying ethical decisions).

How do you see metaphysically certain human propositions as compromising "truth"? — Dfpolis

If you agree with "degrees of certitude" then why not "degrees of truth" as well? Let's take Aristotle's definition for example, saying of what is, that it is. What "is", indicates now. If we were to say in completion, of what is, that it is, we'd have to state everything which "is" right now. But that's ridiculous. So we take a part of what is right now, and describe that, claiming it to be "a truth". But no matter how you look at it, even that part, that simple truth, is missing a lot from being complete. Any statement about "what is", is always incomplete. You might say it is adequate and therefore truth, I say it's incomplete and therefore only "truth" to a degree.

Now consider what I said about non-philosophical use of "truth". When we use "truth" honestly we use it to demonstrate our certitude. When I insist that what I am saying is true, I am demonstrating my certitude, and when I ask you if what you say is the truth, I am asking if you are certain. This comes after honesty, when honesty is taken for granted. The principal use of "truth" is in relation to honesty, but when honesty is established, and therefore can be taken for granted, we move on to use "truth" to express a high degree of certitude.

No, equality is not involved. Rather "2" evokes in readers, by convention, the concept <two> -- the same concept concept evoked by counting actual and potential instances of sets of two units. Evocation is not equality. — Dfpolis

Yes this is quite clearly "equality". The symbol "2" must, of necessity, equal the concept "two" or else there is no "concept". You even indicate this by saying "the same concept". What you mean by "same" here is equivalence, like two horses are "the same", equivalent by means of the universal, not "the same" in the sense of one and the same object. So the convention which you refer to is established in order to ensure an equality in the relation between "2" and the concept "two' in all human minds. If the symbol "2" means something slightly different for you than it does for me, then the equation between the symbol and the concept is lost, because there is not one single concept which equals "2", but a number of possible different concepts. I don't think that "evocation" is an adept word for this situation.

As Aristotle notes in Metaphysics Delta, there are two species of quantity: discrete and continuous. Discrete quantities are not numbers, but countable. In counting is is rational to expect exactitude as you suggest. Continuous quantities are not numbers either, but measurable. Measurements are always approximate. So it is irrational to expect an exact value, and no one thinks we're lying when we say that the bolt is 2 cm long if that is a reasonable approximation of its length.

So, what is a reasonable approximation? One adequate to the purpose of the measurement. For example, home building requires less accuracy than grinding telescope mirrors. — Dfpolis

I disagree. I ask you for a 2 cm bolt and you hand me a 2.5, and say that's close enough? With respect to truth though, the issue is whether the thing is the proper thing for the name. So if the bolt is 2.5 cm, and it's called a 2 cm bolt then you have given me the correct thing regardless of its real length. This is why truth consists of the proper relation between the symbol and the thing (the thing may be a concept or a physical object). It is true that you have handed me a 2 cm bolt, because that's what it's called, despite the fact that the bolt is really 2.5 cm long.

Let's review. In God, there is an agreement between what is in His mind and creation because God willing creation to exist is identically creation being willed to exist by God. God in knowing his own act of creatio continuo, of sustaining creation in being, knows all creation. We do not have this relation to creation. Rather than knowing creation because we act on it to maintain it, we know it because it acts on us via our senses. So, it is metaphysically impossible that we could know as God knows or have truth as God has truth. Such omniscient truth can never be a human goal, as it's ontologically incompatible with our finite nature. — Dfpolis

According to Aquinas, human beings know artificial things in the same way that God knows His creation. Therefore we do know in the same way that God knows, and this is not contrary to human nature.

What we actually know conforms to reality because we are aware of it acting on us. — Dfpolis

This is false, what we know is the result of us acting in the world, not it acting on us. An experiment for example is a controlled activity and the results (what is created by the experiment) are observed. We poke and prod the reality and see how it reacts. We are acting on it, and making observations which are acts in themselves. It's all us acting. It is quite clear that "what we know" is the result of us actively creating in the world, not the world acting on us. That is a misrepresentation. Are you familiar with the concepts of active and passive intellect? The active intellect acts, and passes what is created to the passive intellect which receives. So the passive part of the intellect, that part which is acted on, is only acted on by the active intellect, not the world. And the active intellect abstracts from the senses. It's all us actively creating, rather than being acted on.

This makes no sense. An infinite entity (if such a thing is even possible) is not natural. No natural things are infinite. Nor is it possible that something immanent could be infinite because it would be constrained by that which it inheres within. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you have an argument to support this bald assertion?

It is inherent within the concept of semiosis that there is an agent which creates the signs and an agent which interprets.Of course the agent is not necessarily human, that's the point, but an agent is necessarily implied nonetheless. That agent must be accounted for. In the human beings we account for agency with conscious intention. How would we account for agency in other forms of semiosis? — Metaphysician Undercover

So, are you, or are you not, claiming that there is no semiosis apart from the human? It's not clear what you mean to say here. Fire creates smoke which is a sign of fire; a sign that could be "interpreted" by humans or other animals. The "agent" of the sign is the fire; what's the problem?

Also, quote directly from Whitehead if you want to claim that he thinks such and such.

Why should I? And who are you quoting? Just a bit earlier you were telling us how all Platonists, even modern Platonists-about-this-or-that, were all thoroughly compromised at their metaphysical foundation by Plato's "shitstain" — SophistiCat

As was pointed out I was quoting none other than you, and, if whatever Platonism you have in mind shares with Plato his mimetic or participatory understanding of the Ideas, then they necessarily carry into them the moral valences in which those things that best resemble or more properly participate in the Idea are judged to be, in whatever way appropriate to their context, better or more virtuous. This being a basic structural property of Platonism. And a shitty one at that.

My question to you is how this attempt to derive a scientific TOE differs from your conception of metaphysics. — Janus

As epistemology, it doesn't much. But then I am a naturalist in my ontic expectations. So science is simply carrying forward that general project.

And I am happy to be explicit that I have ruled out the supernatural or the dualistic in taking that view. They are no longer avenues of inquiry worth exploring if metaphysics is understood as an inquiry into Being.

Now you may take a different view. Fine. I simply ask, on what grounds? Convince me with an argument.

My conception of metaphysics is that it consists in producing a picture of what entities there are, what the most fundamental or necessary entities are, and how those entities are related to one another. — Janus

Again, all well and good. But my specific argument here is that a mathematical language producing a mathematical picture is the gold standard. Ordinary language lacks precision.

(And rather than entities, I would be thinking more in process terms. So it would be about reality's fundamental or necessary structures.)

So, you have broadly, theistic and atheistic metaphysics. In theistic metaphysical systems God is posited as being necessary to ground the possibility of the intelligibility of nature (as well as freedom, rationality and so on, but I think intelligibility is really the most salient point in such positions). — Janus

Yep. And so I would have no problem in ruling out theistic systems on the grounds they are "not even wrong". If they purport to be theories of nature, yet don't cash out in empirical consequences for nature, then they aren't actually theories of nature. We can't find evidence for them in the actual world.

But I would also note that I find a lot of theistic scholarship very useful because it does tend towards the holistic systems view. It rejects the mechanicalism of reductionist science - the Scientism that leads to plenty of quite terrible metaphysics.

And theistic metaphysicians often arrive at rather immanent and pantheistic notions of the divine. Like Peirce, they have to say to the degree they are believers, their God is very different from the conventional concept.

So I think that this is just a case that regardless of your starting point - religious or scientific - all paths have to converge on the kind of holistic metaphysical naturalism expressed by Aristotle, for instance.

You mentioned Deleuze. Even he is converging on the same essential metaphysical story from his PoMo beginnings. You can discern the same triadic structure of being, despite plenty of missteps along the way.

As I remarked to @Dfpolis, now that I look again at Plato through the lens of neo-Platonism, he too looks to be converging more than diverging on the same essential understanding of the structure of being.

So - for me - the degree of convergence from all directions is a sign that all parties wind up feeling the same elephant. A lot of peripheral nonsense falls to the side as the central structure of existence begins to emerge.

And then fundamental physics is arriving at the same party now, with its strong and testable mathematical models. So I don't know why anyone would waste too much energy on fighting for the right to free poetical metaphysical speculation. No one is stopping you. But I'd rather be where the action is myself.

Now you may take a different view. Fine. I simply ask, on what grounds? Convince me with an argument. — apokrisis

I'm not taking any view, though, at least in the context of this discussion; I'm saying that all consistent metaphysical sysyems have their different problematics and uses, and that the truth of one over another is undecidable.

This doesn't rule out the possibility that there might be general consensus as to the relative plausibilities of different systems if you wanted to consider them as rival candidates for accurately reflecting reality, rather than seeing them as simply logically constrained exercises of the creative conceptual imagination. Majority rule is not necessarily right though, and metaphysical ideas don't have to be approached in terms of whether or not they are "true". So, in terms of what your intellectual interests are, I can see the sense in your approach, but not everyone shares your intellectual interests.

Do you have an argument to support this bald assertion? — Janus

You mean those two bald assertions?
1. Infinite exits only as a concept. Concepts are not natural. Therefore no infinite thing is natural.
2. Infinite is defined as unbounded. Immanent is defined as inhering within. Anything which inheres within something else is bounded by that thing which it inheres within. Therefore no immanent thing is infinite.

So, are you, or are you not, claiming that there is no semiosis apart from the human? It's not clear what you mean to say here. Fire creates smoke which is a sign of fire; a sign that could be "interpreted" by humans or other animals. The "agent" of the sign is the fire; what's the problem? — Janus

I completely believe in semiosis apart from human beings, but semiosis without an agent is impossible. The agent, is the thing which interprets the sign. So the animal, having the capacity to interpret, interprets the smoke as a sign of fire. It is also necessary that the animal has (for lack of a better word), what we could call the "idea" that smoke is a sign of fire. This idea is what makes the sign a sign. Without it smoke is not a sign of fire. An agent is required to create an idea, therefore an agent is required to create a sign qua sign.

So we can infer these two things. Wherever semiosis is said to occur, it is implied by the use of the term, that there is an agent which created the sign, and it is also implied that there is an agent which interprets what is signified by the sign. I believe that all living things have an immaterial soul as agent in any semiotic activities.

i think this is an incorrect interpretation of the historical Plato, who believed in innate ideas. In the Meno, for example, he argues that with a little simulation, ideas are "remembered." — Dfpolis

It has been argued, specifically with reference to the Parmenides, that Plato himself refuted this form of Pythagorean idealism prior to Aristotle. In his life works, Plato provided the most feasible explanation, and defense of Pythagorean idealism, which he could muster, and this comes to us in the form of the concept of participation. However, it seems to have become evident to Plato that the concept of participation which is required to support Pythagorean idealism involves a reversal of the role of the active and passive aspects of reality, from what is observed in reality. That which is participated in, "The Idea", must be passive according to the concept of participation, and the thing participating is active. But Plato apprehends that this is incorrect, and what he describes in the Timaeus is that "The Idea" is active, acting on passive matter.

my view is that rationality transcends a purely biological account of human faculties — Wayfarer

What is rationality?

I think that:
1) Rationality is the possession of reason (a mental faculty).
2) A human being is a body/mind unity.
3) Human biology comprehends human anatomy and physiology.
4) Human psychology comprehends human mental conditions and functions
5) Corporeal and mental conditions and functions are mutually dependent, but incommensurable.

So, I agree that "rationality transcends a purely biological account of human faculties", but it doesn't transcend a biological and psychological account of human faculties, unless it is also (or strictly) defined in spiritual terms.

Only humans are made in the image of God and have immortal souls endowed with the spiritual powers of rationality and freedom. — Stephen M. Barr

What is the theological argument for defining rationality as a spiritual (rather than mental) power? And why is such an argument necessary in view of the empirical evidence presented by Berwick and Chomsky?

On my view, if reason is the faculty which forms conclusions from premises, it is dependent on language (which entails mental modelling).

Since 65% of communication is nonverbal (Birdwhistell, 1974), language is most effectively used as a modelling system, rather than as a means of communication. This is consistent with Berwick and Chomsky: "Merge and syntactically hierarchical language were not, to begin with, an instrument of communication at all, but of thought."

Thanks for the kind word and the references.
— apokrisis

The historical reality looks more like that they both got the essential duality of a formal principle and a material principle as the causal arche. — apokrisis

Yes, they both concentrate on two principles, but Aristotle says he and his opponents have contrasting triads: "For admitting with them that there is something divine, good, and desirable, we hold that there are two other principles, the one contrary to it, the other such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for it." Physics, i, 9.

Form is the "divine, good, and desirable" principle. The contrary principle is the privation of the new form, while the one actively desiring and yearning for it is hyle. ("The truth is that what desires the form is matter.") So, hyle has a determinate intentionality.

ontological atomism — apokrisis

Yes, Russell's views in “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,” seem not to be reflections on our experience of being, but to originate in a desire to avoid the complexities such reflections reveal.

The material principle is that of an Apeiron or the Indefinite - chaotic action. — apokrisis

It is for Plato, but not for Aristotle. Aristotle's hyle is not unintelligible as is Plato's chora. It has a "desire" or intentional relation to a determinate form which can be known by analogy with similar cases. This intentionality makes change orderly and intelligible, echoing Jeremiah's "ordinances of heaven and earth" (33:25) and Thales' reliance on astronomical regularity, and foreshadowing Newton's universal laws of nature.

The formal principle is then the order that regulates this chaos of fluctuation. Tames it, channels it, gives it structure and intent — apokrisis

Again, in Plato.

form is a developmental outcome - the imposition of habits of regularity on a chaos of possibility, which thus always emerges as substantial actuality that is a blend of the necessary and the accidental. — apokrisis

That is the point of Physics i, 9.

I would say that you have a problem in that your reading of hyle leads you to suggest it contains form within it in some sense. — apokrisis

Yes, but that's not a problem. It's the solution of a problem. The new form in a substantial change is "in" hyle in a potential or intentional way -- as the "desired" outcome of its striving. Hyle is "such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for [the new form]."

With regard to vitalism, "life force" was me waxing poetic -- trying to emphasize the active nature of hyle vs. the pure passivity of prima materia. I did not mean to suggest, and do not think, that life is due to a unique vital principle.

On the other hand, I see physics as completely deterministic in its realm of application -- so that biogenesis and the evolution of species are both fully entailed by the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe. The only randomness in evolution is due to human ignorance.

So, I see no ontological role for a principle of "indefiniteness" (an Apeiron), with the possible exception of free will. But, even in free will, I see choices as sufficiently caused -- just not predetermined.

it is so hard to leave behind some notion of the material principle as already some kind of definite stuff - like a space-filling, but formless and passive, chora. — apokrisis

Indeed it is. As a physicist, l'm drawn to this idea. General relativity sees space as having observable properties (the metric tensor.) Quantum theory leads us to conclude that matter has a wave nature, leading to the supposition that waves must be cyclical modifications of some ether or chora. Still if the ether or chora is to be modified, it cannot be completely indeterminate. It must respond in a determinate way, with well-defined properties, or all would be chaos.

Thank you for an interesting discussion.

the point I'm making is that humans possess an essential requirement for rationality, which is the ability to form concepts and understand abstractions; it's also fundamental to language. — Wayfarer

I agree. Still, I have no difficulty in accepting Aristotle's empiricist account in De Anima iii. The senses provide us with intelligible data about the beings we encounter. The agent intellect (nous poiêtikos = subjective awareness) makes this intelligibility actually known, giving us ideas (awareness of intelligible data). Abstraction is awareness fixing on some notes of intelligibility to the exclusion of others. I wonder what in this account you find inadequate to your experience?

it is assumed that these capabilities have evolved — Wayfarer

I see no reason to believe they, as opposed to the brain, have. You have to be some type of physicalist to think consciousness evolved. Unfortunately, evolution fails you. Since all causation is physical, physicalists must hold that consciousness is epiphenomenal -- along for the ride, but without causal power. If so, no random, initial spark of consciousness could have a physical effect. Without a physical effect, it could not benefit survival. So, evolution couldn't select it. In sum, while you may continue to think that awareness has a physical explanation, it cannot have originated by Darwinian selection.

my view is that rationality transcends a purely biological account of human faculties — Wayfarer

I agree again. Biology can explain neural data processing. It has nothing to say about the specifically intentional operations of ideogenesis and volition, because the required data has been left behind by the fundamental abstraction of natural science -- in which we choose to focus on the known object to the exclusion of the knowing subject.

I still don't understand why you think that we need more than our interaction with reality to know what we know. After all, what better way can there be to learn about reality than for reality to inform us?

Still, I have no difficulty in accepting Aristotle's empiricist account in De Anima iii. The senses provide us with intelligible data about the beings we encounter. The agent intellect (nous poiêtikos = subjective awareness) makes this intelligibility actually known, giving us ideas (awareness of intelligible data). Abstraction is awareness fixing on some notes of intelligibility to the exclusion of others. I wonder what in this account you find inadequate to your experience? — Dfpolis

Nothing much - other than that the nous poetikos was subsequently abandoned (after its transformation by Descartes into res cogitans.) It was the seminal Greek idea of nous which went on to form the conception of our rational soul, which in my view is one of the hallmarks of the Western philosophical tradition, and which is regrettably being lost to that tradition. But, I think it's something more than simply 'subjective awareness' in the sense that we would nowadays instinctively parse that expression. We have a model of the world in which 'the subjective' is derivative or secondary or the merely personal - we feel as though it is easily explained by evolutionary science.

Which you then acknowledge - in fact, what you go on to say is similar to what I've been saying since I first started posting on forums almost ten years ago. Accordingly, I have no wish to take issue with anything you say here, as I basically agree with it (although I'm still investigating the subject, and am not entirely convinced by Aristotle's arguments contra Platonic realism.)

Since all causation is physical, physicalists must hold that consciousness is epiphenomenal -- along for the ride, but without causal power. — Dfpolis

So all forms of physicalism are bottom-up?

You mean those two bald assertions?
1. Infinite exits only as a concept. Concepts are not natural. Therefore no infinite thing is natural.
2. Infinite is defined as unbounded. Immanent is defined as inhering within. Anything which inheres within something else is bounded by that thing which it inheres within. Therefore no immanent thing is infinite. — Metaphysician Undercover

Both these assertions depend upon the assumption that there is no infinite being. Do you have an argument to support that assumption?

I believe that all living things have an immaterial soul as agent in any semiotic activities. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you have an argument to justify that belief or to explain why organisms cannot be "agents" in themselves and require "immaterial souls" in order to achieve agency? For that matter, what exactly would an "immaterial soul" be and how would it enable agency?

The formal principle is then the order that regulates this chaos of fluctuation. Tames it, channels it, gives it structure and intent. It limits and imposes a unity. It is also an active principle in a sense. But active in imposing a form, a limitation, that keeps all the action organised and heading in a shared direction that is intelligible and so persists. — apokrisis

you've said before your metaphysics supports the four cause model.
if you have to be more analytic about it how would you frame the four causes?

Without a physical effect, it could not benefit survival. So, evolution couldn't select it. In sum, while you may continue to think that awareness has a physical explanation, it cannot have originated by Darwinian selection. — Dfpolis

This would only hold true on an arguably superseded account of biological evolution that does not allow for any influence from the environmental to the genetic during the life of organisms.

What is rationality?

I think that:
1) Rationality is the possession of reason (a mental faculty).
2) A human being is a body/mind unity.
3) Human biology comprehends human anatomy and physiology.
4) Human psychology comprehends human mental conditions and functions
5) Corporeal and mental conditions and functions are mutually dependent, but incommensurable. — Galuchat

Modern psychology, as a discipline, has major issues, though. Whether it is really a science, and what the basic scope of its subject-matter is, are still open questions, in my view. For instance, Freud famously said that the entire aim of his work was 'the conversion of neurotic misery into ordinary human unhappiness'. Maslow's 'hierarchy of needs' is a step in the right direction but I don't know how seriously it's taken in the mainstream. So regardless of its merits or usefulness in modern society, I'm dubious about whether it really does, or can, 'plumb the depths of psyche'. There are spiritually-inclined psychologists, like Jung and his student James Hillman, who would speak in those terms, but you would never encounter a Jung in a Psychology Department (and I speak from experience).

What is the theological argument for defining rationality as a spiritual (rather than mental) power? And why is such an argument necessary in view of the empirical evidence presented by Berwick and Chomsky? — Galuchat

Many complex and deep issues in such a question. Where I'm coming from, is resisting the tendency towards biological reductionism, the view that we're basically 'a species' and that rationality is simply a faculty of said species and can be understood in those terms. Viewing reason as an adaption is a large step towards what has been described as the 'instrumentalisation of reason' ¹.

if you have to be more analytic about it how would you frame the four causes? — JupiterJess

I'm not sure what particular clarification you seek here. But I suppose one concern is to reduce the four to the two in some proper fashion. So my systems view of causality would see things in terms of the dichotomy of downward acting constraints in interaction with bottom-up acting construction. You have two contrasting species of action - holistic constraint and atomistic construction. The downward constraints then embody Aristotle's formal and final causes. And the upward construction embodies his material and efficient causes.

So top-down, an intelligible structure is being imposed on nature in emergent fashion. There is a necessity for global regularity to appear during development simply because for everything to be part of the same world, it has to cohere in some fashion. It has to harmonise and rub away all the rough edges.

Then bottom-up, there has to be the something "material" which is getting structured - shaped to fit or regularised. So that material principle also has an emergent/developmental story. It begins as merely undirected or chaotic action. Not actually constructive or stable at all. But constraint limits it, gives it the regularity of a shape that fits, one that has had all the rough edges rubbed away. And by the end, it becomes something atomistically regular.

This is like the grains of sand making a beach. A lot of rough rock gets ground to a smooth paste - spherical particles of a standard size. And then that emergent atomistic regularity can act as a source of constructive action. A beach becomes something that is simply a collection of parts. We arrive at the "atoms in a void" view of reality where everything seems just some accidental arrangement of indistinguishable particles.

So I see Aristotle's four causes as dividing causality up. The principle division is the one between causality as constraint or limit, and causality as construction or atomistic building. My systems view put them together in a developmental scheme. The whole shapes its parts and the parts (re)construct the whole that makes them. You get a neat self-sustaining story of a world rebuilding itself in a way that works for it.

Reductionist physicalism then tends to drop the constraints aspect of the deal. It just starts with the shaped parts and tries to model everything in terms of bottom-up construction.

But anyway, the basic division is into two types of causality - formal constraint and material construction. And Aristotle's four causes then breaks this down with another set of dichotomies. It splits constraint into formal and final cause, construction into material and efficient cause.

Is this helpful or needed? Well they do seem to map to a useful temporal distinction - the synchronic vs the diachronic.

Efficient cause speaks to a triggering material push in the past. Finality speaks to an ultimate constraining goal to be arrived at in the future. Formal and material cause are then creatures of the present - the structure and the matter that are actualising some state of substantial being right now.

an intelligible structure is being imposed on nature in emergent fashion. — apokrisis

:yikes:

So, hyle has a determinate intentionality.

...

Aristotle's hyle is not unintelligible as is Plato's chora. It has a "desire" or intentional relation to a determinate form which can be known by analogy with similar cases. This intentionality makes change orderly and intelligible, echoing Jeremiah's "ordinances of heaven and earth" (33:25) and Thales' reliance on astronomical regularity, and foreshadowing Newton's universal laws of nature. — Dfpolis

I don't think Aristotle ever described matter as having intentionality.

Yes, but that's not a problem. It's the solution of a problem. The new form in a substantial change is "in" hyle in a potential or intentional way -- as the "desired" outcome of its striving. Hyle is "such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for [the new form]." — Dfpolis

You're just making this up, it's not Aristotelian at all, it's fiction.

So, I see no ontological role for a principle of "indefiniteness" (an Apeiron), with the possible exception of free will. But, even in free will, I see choices as sufficiently caused -- just not predetermined. — Dfpolis

As indefinite is how Aristotle actually describes matter, as potential, what may or may not be. Don't you notice inconsistency in what you are saying? You claim that there is intentionality inherent within matter. And intentionality is commonly associated with freewill. Then you say there is no room for indefiniteness except in freewill. But haven't you placed freewill (intentionality) as inherent within matter, already? So shouldn't you allow indefiniteness to be inherent within matter as well, if you allow that intentionality and therefore freewill is in inherent within matter? This would be more consistent with Aristotle's description.

Since all causation is physical... — Dfpolis

But not all causation is physical, that's the point with free will, intention, it's non-physical causation. And, the need for a cause of physical existence is what drives the assumption of God. The cause of physical existence cannot be something physical, therefore it is necessary to assume a non-physical cause. It is different to say that all effects are physical than to say that all causes are physical. And this is one of the important aspects of Aristotle's philosophy, that he provides real grounding for non-physical causes.

Both these assertions depend upon the assumption that there is no infinite being. — Janus

That's not true, what I said is that infinite being is intelligible, as conceptual, and therefore it is not natural. There is no denial of infinite being unless "being" is defined in an odd way.

Do you have an argument to justify that belief or to explain why organisms cannot be "agents" in themselves and require "immaterial souls" in order to achieve agency? For that matter, what exactly would an "immaterial soul" be and how would it enable agency? — Janus

Sure, organisms are "agents", but we need an agent which acts as the cause of the organism. If the material body is an organism, and semiosis is responsible for the existence of this living material body, then the agent which practises the semiosis which brings this material body into existence must be immaterial.

I'm not sure what particular clarification you seek here. — apokrisis

Thanks, really what I was asking after was what is the core difference (if any) between "material" and "efficient" cause. The classical difference would be the material is bronze and the efficient is how the artisan uses his tools to fashions it into a statue. But it seems the "material" cause isn't necessary to the metaphysics because all its (constrained) forms from atoms, to visible elements, to planets, and organisms, are already covered by formal and final cause.

Also, and this fits more with the discussion with this thread and is not really addressed to you, but if the top-down constraints , formal causes do not exist when they are not in use how is it they can be repeated at future points? I've read some Aristotleian realism and it doesn't seem to come up with an adequate solution. For example if "redness" can be manifested multiple times, then when there are no red things can it occur again at a future time?

But not all causation is physical, that's the point with free will, intention, it's non-physical causation. And, the need for a cause of physical existence is what drives the assumption of God. The cause of physical existence cannot be something physical, therefore it is necessary to assume a non-physical cause. It is different to say that all effects are physical than to say that all causes are physical. And this is one of the important aspects of Aristotle's philosophy, that he provides real grounding for non-physical causes. — Metaphysician Undercover

But your Aristotelian holism falters as you are deliberately arguing towards some version consistent with a transcendent theism.

It is true that material/efficient cause can't be itself the cause of what it is. But it doesn't help for you to assert that the cause of material/efficient cause is now something unphysical ... like a divine first cause ... which is really just another version of material/efficient cause, just removed to some place off stage and given a mind that just wants things, and whatever it wants, it gets.

So your transcendent theism claims the existence of a non-physical material/efficient cause, and heads off into complete incoherence as a result.

A properly physicalist understanding of Aristotle's four causes naturalism would see formal/final cause itself as the cause of material/efficient cause. So the cause of the material principle would be immanent - a self-determination that suppresses any uncertainty or indeterminacy when it comes to material action happening with definite constructive direction.

Formal/final cause explains the nature of material/efficient cause in direct fashion. If you give action a definite shape, then it acts with definite direction.

And then, in reciprocal or complementary fashion, formal/final cause gets explained by the fact that there is material/efficient cause constructing "its" kind of world.

So each aspect of causality is broadly responsible for the origination of its "other". And that is how actuality can arise from potentiality in a self-determining fashion. A strongly causal world is what emerges as a process of development, a process of establishing regular habits.

Thanks, really what I was asking after was what is the core difference (if any) between "material" and "efficient" cause. The classical difference would be the material is bronze and the efficient is how the artisan uses his tools to fashions it into a statue. — JupiterJess

The difference in my view boils down to the distinction between the general and the particular. So talk of material is talk of a general stuff with some suitable generic property. And then efficient cause focuses on a particular local triggering action. The properties of that stuff are being employed at a particular place and moment in time to achieve some substantial change.

So for construction to happen, you need some stable stuff with stable properties. And then you need whatever it is that starts the atomistic building up in a particulate, localised, step-by-step fashion.

You can see the presumption is the parts have inherent stability in terms of possessing some set of properties. And so that is what makes construction even a coherent possibility. You can add bricks and eventually you have a wall.

Downward constraint, by contrast, presumes a chaos or foment that needs to be contained to create any localised stability. There are no parts to build a wall unless there is a context to ensure the parts retain their shape. It would be like trying to construct with rectangles of sloppy mud. The construction would flow and loose its shape unless something is constantly holding the mud solid.

Also, and this fits more with the discussion with this thread and is not really addressed to you, but if the top-down constraints , formal causes do not exist when they are not in use how is it they can be repeated at future points? I've read some Aristotleian realism and it doesn't seem to come up with an adequate solution. For example if "redness" can be manifested multiple times, then when there are no red things can it occur again at a future point? — JupiterJess

Yeah, this is a real problem. But it is solved by understanding constraint to take hierarchical form. And this is what we see with biology - where there is the information contained in the genes to specify the symmetry-breakings which channel growth down regulated pathways, so that the form of a particular species is repeatedly produced.

So this is the genus~species approach - a subsumptive hierarchy. You start with the most general constraints, then add further constraints as needed to increase the specificity of the final outcome. You keep narrowing the definition of what is acceptable. And eventually you are producing the near identical.

Redness makes for a bad example as redness is just an interpretation the primate brain makes of the world to help it distinguish the boundaries of objects. It is a processing shortcut for brains which need to do rapid object identification. A red apple is going to pop-out against a backdrop of green foliage.

But consider convergent evolution - the way wolf-life, cat-like, tree-like, etc, animals appear to fill the niches in ecosystem. The same kind of body shapes appear despite disconnected evolutionary stories. This is an example of how environmental constraints are imposing a structural demand on material plasticity. The world just grows to fill the slots that are defined for it.

So reality as a whole has this weight of hierarchically organised constraints. And then material possibility flows so as to fill the structure created.

Even at a quantum physics level, if you set up a particular kind of experimental apparatus, then events will fill that context you have created. You have made it possible for them to happen due to the imposition of an intelligible structure . But quantum physics exposes the fact that the material principle also has to do its part of flowing to fill that framework. If an experimenter does not completely determine the path of an event, then the event will fill that larger, more relaxed, space of what is possible. It will live in that looser, less specified, world.

QM is really very hylomorphic. One of the themes of the book mentioned in the OP.