Since you apparently don't like this question, it occurs to me to ask you just what exactly you think a cause is for Aristotle. While I suppose you must know, it's not clear in your usage. And I think maybe you get it mixed up with a modern understanding of the word. Give it a try; doesn't have to be a treatise; a paragraph or two should be adequate for present purpose.Question to you: is it possible to build a house? Yes? No? — tim wood
Thanks. That summary is in agreement my own understanding of the Real/Ideal and Phenomenal/Noumenal dichotomy. But my question was about your characterization of Kant's "equivocation" of that neat two-value division of the knowable world*1. Of course, in philosophical discourse, that "interplay" can get complicated, to the point of paradox.Within this context, 'noumenal' means, basically, 'grasped by reason' while sensible means 'grasped by thesense organs'. In hylomorphic dualism, this means that nous apprehends the form or essence of a particular - what is really is - and the senses perceive its material appearance. That's the interplay of 'reality and appearance'. Again from the article on Noumenon: — Wayfarer
** ‘Pure actuality’ can be traced back to Parmenides vision of ‘what is’ as being above or beyond the change and decay of concrete particulars. As modified first by Plato and then Aristotle, ideas are eternal and changeless, in which particulars ‘participate’. Unlike Plato, Aristotle did not posit a separate realm of Forms but argued that the form and matter coexist in the same substance. However, he maintained that the highest forms of being, such as the unmoved mover, are pure actuality, embodying eternal and changeless existence. — Wayfarer
The cause of movement’s seeming to be indefinite, though, is that it cannot be posited either as a potentiality of beings or as an activation of them. For neither what is potentially of a certain quantity nor what is actively of a certain quantity is of necessity moved, and while movement does seem to be a sort of activity, |1066a20| it is incomplete activity. But the cause of this is that the potentiality of which it is the activation is incomplete. And because of this it is difficult to grasp what movement is, since it must be posited either as a lack or as a potentiality or as an activity that is unconditionally such. But evidently none of these is possible. And so the remaining option is that it must be what we said, both an activity and not an activity |1066a25| in the way stated, which, though difficult to visualize, can exist. And that movement is in the movable is clear, since movement is the actualization of the movable by what can move something. And the activation of what can move something is no other. For there must be the actualization of both, since it can move something by having the potentiality to do so, and it is moving it by being active. But |1066a30| it is on the movable that the mover is capable of acting, so that the activation of both alike is one, just as the intervals from one to two and from two to one are the same, or as are the hill up and the hill down, although the being for them is not one. And similarly in the case of the mover and the moved. — Metaphysics, Kappa 9, translated by CDC Reeve
These people, then, |985a10| as we say, evidently latched on to two of the causes we distinguished in our works on nature, namely, the matter and the starting-point of movement.91 But they did so vaguely and in a not at all perspicuous way, like untrained people in fights.92 For these too, as they circle their opponents, often strike good blows, but |985a15| they do not do so in virtue of scientific knowledge, just as the others do not seem to know what they are saying, since they apparently make pretty much no use of these causes, except to a small extent. — ibid. Alpha 4
hat said, your comment about Kant's "confusing equivocation" raised the question in my simple mind : is there a third (non-quibbling) Ontological category of knowledge, other than Phenomenal (sensory) & Noumenal (inference) : perhaps Intuition (sixth sense) that bypasses both paths to knowledge? — Gnomon
Again, the point is that we are discussing efficient, not final, causality and digressing into final causality only leads to confusion. — Dfpolis
Since you apparently don't like this question, it occurs to me to ask you just what exactly you think a cause is for Aristotle. While I suppose you must know, it's not clear in your usage. And I think maybe you get it mixed up with a modern understanding of the word. Give it a try; doesn't have to be a treatise; a paragraph or two should be adequate for present purpose. — tim wood
it occurs to me to ask you just what exactly you think a cause is for Aristotle. — tim wood
So if (from above) the window was broken by Bob, Bob had been affected by the window and had a passion to break it? It is here completely clear you do not know what the word means in this context, which is also how it is used in a secondary sense in ordinary English grammar. Adjective, passive; noun passion. How can you not know that?!The builder is affected by that project and has the passion to build. — Metaphysician Undercover
It comes from Plato. In the Republic (509d–511e) he lays out the taxonomy of thought using the analogy of a divided line. The line is first divided into δόξα (opinion), reflecting the sensible world, and ἐπιστήμη (knowledge), reflecting the intelligible world. Each half is subdivided on the basis of clarity. Opinion is sub-divided into εἰκασία (conjecture/illusion), reflecting shadows and reflected images, and πίστις (belief/science), reflecting mutable bodies. Knowledge is partitioned into discursive thought (διάνοια) and understanding (νόησις). Discursive thought uses “images” (sensible reality, e.g. as in geometry) while understanding does not (510b).I found this summary of Ways of Knowing — Gnomon
The efficient cause is his skills as a builder, the skills themselves and the skills as he possesses them, so yes, informally, he is. — tim wood
So the efficient cause of the house is the property, or art or skill, of the builder as a builder. Material cause not the material itself, but the property or capacity - or passion - of the material to be worked in an appropriate way. Formal, not the plans, but the quality of the plans which makes it possible to build from them. Final, the property, or capacity, of the thing built to be used as intended. — tim wood
Let's try this: In as much as you say the house is the goal, the final cause, and you imply that before it is, it isn't, what then is the builder building? — tim wood
And there a regression here, because the implication - your implication - is that anything built as a final cause, not existing before it exists, cannot be built. — tim wood
So if (from above) the window was broken by Bob, Bob had been affected by the window and had a passion to break it? — tim wood
And the same in dictionary listings that are more-or-less complete. That "passion," has this meaning that has nothing to do with feeling, emotion, or affect is not debatable; it's simply a fact.https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/passion, #3.
"The state or capacity of being acted on by external agents or forces." — tim wood
The "being-affected," along with "passion" being translations of the Greek word. The Greek was perfectly capable of rendering a sentence in the passive voice. "The window was broken," would be perfectly intelligible to him (assuming he had windows); that is, that something happened to the window and the window was a passive receiver of that action. And equally, "the house was being built."And this point explicitly made in his Categories 1b25, this being one version.
"1b25. ... doing or being-affected. ...; of doing:...;of being-affected:" — tim wood
Unfortunately, we can't see "purpose" in the non-self world with our physical senses, but we can infer Intention from the behavior of people & animals that is similar to our own, as we search for food or other necessities, instead of waiting for it to fall into our mouths. Some of us even deduce Teleology in the behavior of our dynamic-but-inanimate world system, as described by scientific theories. If there is no direction to evolution, how did the hot, dense, pinpoint of potential postulated in Big Bang theory manage to mature into the orderly cosmos that our space-scopes reveal to the inquiring minds of the aggregated atoms we call astronomers. Ironically, some sentient-but-unperceptive observers look at that same vital universe, and see only aimless mindless matter moving by momentum.Regarding the significance of teleology and its place in Aristotle's metaphysics, I happened on a very succinct explanation in a video talk by cognitive scientist Lisa Feldman Barrett. She simply says that teleology is 'an explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose which they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise'. That says a lot in very few words, as it demonstrates the sense in which reason also encompasses purpose for Aristotle, in a way that it does not for modernity. — Wayfarer
"Everything has a function or purpose and its essential nature is to grow and achieve its purpose." — Gnomon
Thanks. Yet I think Aristotle did associate both ideas in his discussion of Natural Purpose.This is to conflate two different ideas in Aristotle. What's usually translated as 'function' is 'ergon', the special nature of what is named, e.g. a knife cuts, humans engage in soul-based rational consideration. This is different to 'telos' or 'end', the purpose of an activity. — mcdoodle
This is to conflate two different ideas in Aristotle. What's usually translated as 'function' is 'ergon', the special nature of what is named, e.g. a knife cuts, humans engage in soul-based rational consideration. This is different to 'telos' or 'end', the purpose of an activity. — mcdoodle
The word telos means something like purpose, or goal, or final end. According to Aristotle, everything has a purpose or final end. If we want to understand what something is, it must be understood in terms of that end, which we can discover through careful study. It is perhaps easiest to understand what a telos is by looking first at objects created by human beings. Consider a knife. If you wanted to describe a knife, you would talk about its size, and its shape, and what it is made out of, among other things. But Aristotle believes that you would also, as part of your description, have to say that it is made to cut things. And when you did, you would be describing its telos. The knife’s purpose, or reason for existing, is to cut things. And Aristotle would say that unless you included that telos in your description, you wouldn’t really have described – or understood – the knife. This is true not only of things made by humans, but of plants and animals as well. If you were to fully describe an acorn, you would include in your description that it will become an oak tree in the natural course of things – so acorns too have a telos. Suppose you were to describe an animal, like a thoroughbred foal. You would talk about its size, say it has four legs and hair, and a tail. Eventually you would say that it is meant to run fast. This is the horse’s telos, or purpose. If nothing thwarts that purpose, the young horse will indeed become a fast runner.
That which is per se cause of the effect is determinate, but the incidental cause is indeterminable, for the possible attributes of an individual are innumerable.
But although the motion has succession in its parts, it is nevertheless simultaneous with its movent cause. For the moveable object is moved at the same time that the mover acts, inasmuch as motion is nothing else than the act existing in the moveable object from the mover, such that in virtue of that act the mover is said to move and the object is said to be moved. Indeed, the requirement that the cause be simultaneous with what is caused must be fulfilled even more in things that are outside of motion whether we take something outside of motion to mean the terminus of the motion-as the illumination of air is simultaneous with the rising of the sun--or in the sense of something absolutely immovable, or in the sense of essential causes which are the cause of a thing’s being.
Bob had been affected by the window and had a passion to break it? — tim wood
94b 22-25Incidentally, here the order of coming to be is the reverse of what it is in proof through efficient cause: in the efficient order the middle term must come to be first, whereas in the teleological order, the minor, C, must first take place, and the end in view comes last in time.
The latter is the case in your example, when Bob's mind is affected by his passion he desires to break the window, and this is an ill-tempered act. — Metaphysician Undercover
You have made much of the difference between ancient and modern ideas of the physical. — Paine
Thank you for your comments.Per se causes bring out the effect through themselves. Per accidens causes are merely conjoined with the per se cause. So the the wisdom of Aristotle does not directly cause him to be hungry. It can only be an accidental cause of his hunger insofar as it for example makes him use his brain more. — Johnnie
Please ignore claims that I am identifying causes and effects. I am not. What is identical is the action of A actualizing the potential of B and the passion of B's potential being actualized by A. Clearly, a builder building is not a house being built. Still, they are inseparable because there is no builder building without something being built, and vice versa .First of all, it's a title of a chapter in Physics VII: "It is necessary that whatever is moved, be moved by another." Another is not identical. Unless you say that Aristotle says that beside the immediate mover there is yer another cause of an effect which is identical with the effect. — Johnnie
No, but as the ultimate source of actualization here and now, the Prime Mover is inseparable from (not identical with) potential being actualized here and now.Are you to suggest that the prime mover is identical to every movement? — Johnnie
Some of Aquinas's proofs for the existence of God (in the Summa Contra Gentiles and in the Summa Theologiae) assume and require essential causality to work.The definition you quoted concerns Scotus, not all scholastics definitely. Aquinas and Suarez wouldn't agree. And they're taken to be the orthodox Aristotellians, Scotus' doctrines are controversially Aristotellian. — Johnnie
I am not sure what you are trying to illustrate.(consider a transformation of an element, an efficient cause ceases to be once the effect is in actuality). — Johnnie
The window is broken by Bob absent any intention on his part - not that that makes any difference - an accident, Bob need not even be aware the window is broken. — tim wood
But then the pendulum swung too far the other way. From everything being 'informed by purpose', modern science declared that nothing is. In the physicalist view, all biological processes, including those that seem goal-directed, are ultimately reducible to physical interactions and can be fully explained by the laws of physics and chemistry. — Wayfarer
Please ignore claims that I am identifying causes and effects. I am not. What is identical is the action of A actualizing the potential of B and the passion of B's potential being actualized by A. Clearly, a builder building is not a house being built. Still, they are inseparable because there is no builder building without something being built, and vice versa . — Dfpolis
Then how or why is it coherently meaningful to me? In school we learned that something/someone can act and that someone/something can be acted on. The first active/action, the second passive/passion - these being two of Aristotle's accidents. But for you, the second has "no coherent meaning." That can only mean that for you, it is meaningless to say that anything is (ever) acted upon.There is no coherent meaning for "the passion of being built". — Metaphysician Undercover
For one kind is a potentiality for being acted on, i.e. the principle in the very thing acted on, which makes it capable of being changed and acted on by another thing or by itself
regarded as other. — translated by Barnes
In a sense the potentiality of acting and of being acted on is one (for a thing may be capable either because it can be acted on or because something else can be acted on by it), but in a sense the potentialities are different. For the one is in the thing acted on; it is because it contains a certain motive principle, and because even the matter is a motive principle, that the thing acted on is acted on ... for that which is oily is inflammable, and that which yields in a particular way can be crushed; and similarly in all other cases. But the other potency is in the agent, e.g. heat and the art of building
are present, one in that which can produce heat and the other in the man who can build. — ibid. 1046a19
Since that which is capable is capable of something and at some time in some way –with all the other qualifications which must be present in the definition–, ... as regards potentialities of … [those things that are non-rational; e.g. the fire] ... when the agent and the patient meet in the way appropriate to the potentiality in question, the one must act and the other be acted on ... For the non-rational potentialities are all productive of one effect each. — ibid. 1047b35
That is an interesting question contrasting the ancient against the modern. I don't know how to think about Gerson's thesis in that context. My retort was to say that the "transjective"t sounded like a case of "having one's cake and eating it too" that Gerson objected to. A compromise between "materialists" and "idealist"; A position upon the history of philosophy as practiced now combined with an interpretation of ancient text. — Paine
The difference between Plotinus and Aristotle that I have argued for is not put forward with that design. The ideas seem different to me. — Paine
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/#FourCaus
"This result is mildly surprising and requires a few words of elaboration. There is no doubt that the art of bronze-casting resides in an individual artisan who is responsible for the production of the statue. According to Aristotle, however, all the artisan does in the production of the statue is the manifestation of specific knowledge. This knowledge, not the artisan who has mastered it, is the salient explanatory factor that one should pick as the most accurate specification of the efficient cause (Phys. II 3, 195 b 21–25).
"By picking the art, not the artisan, Aristotle is not just trying to provide an explanation for the production of the statue which is not dependent upon the desires, beliefs, and intentions of the individual artisan; rather, he is trying to offer an entirely different type of explanation–namely, an explanation that does not make a reference (implicit or explicit) to desires, beliefs, and intentions. More directly, the art of bronze-casting the statue enters in the explanation as the efficient cause because it helps us to understand what it takes to produce a statue; that is to say, what steps are required to produce a statue starting from a piece of bronze." — tim wood
You appear to think the builder is the efficient cause of the house, and informally I agree. But the person of the builder is not the efficient cause; rather he is an accidental cause. The efficient cause is his skills as a builder, the skills themselves and the skills as he possesses them, so yes, informally, he is. But Aristotelian causes are those expressions that answer the question why or how, and would seem to refer to properties rather than accidents. So the efficient cause of the house is the property, or art or skill, of the builder as a builder. Material cause not the material itself, but the property or capacity - or passion - of the material to be worked in an appropriate way. Formal, not the plans, but the quality of the plans which makes it possible to build from them. Final, the property, or capacity, of the thing built to be used as intended. — tim wood
But the cause of this is that the potentiality of which it is the activation is incomplete.1234 And because of this it is difficult to grasp what movement is, since it must be posited either as a lack or as a potentiality or as an activity that is unconditionally such. But evidently none of these is possible. And so the remaining option is that it must be what we said, both an activity and not an activity |1066a25| in the way stated, which, though difficult to visualize, can exist. — ibid. 1066a20
There are some people—for example, the Megarians—who say that a thing is capable of something only when actively doing it, and that when not actively doing it, it is not capable. For example, someone |1046b30| who is not building is not capable of building, but someone who is building is capable if and when he is building, and similarly in the other cases. But it is not difficult to see that the consequences of this are absurd. — ibid. 1046b28
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