Or at least we do not have a method that does not rely heavily upon self-identified methods of interpretation. — Paine
Do you accept that a claim of ancient wisdom is largely dependent upon a description of what those old people were saying? — Paine
Collingwood in a bunch of very readable pages gave exhaustive answer to this, first by defining and describing, and then detailing how. As I have not read it in multiple dog's lives, I'll limit myself to, to simply doing it the best you can, and referring you to the book or online summaries for details. And we might ask you what you mean by "independent," the depth of which issue I hope you will give thought to before you skate over it.How will the "pursual by interpretation of evidence" ever be independent of specific methods of interpreting ancient texts? — Paine
Very simply the distinction between a "logical" and a material subject. — tim wood
Now to stir the ashes and perhaps add new fuel, with respect to Aristotelian action and passion, I'll amend my claim. That is, that corresponding to the activity, the action, of the builder building, is the passivity, the passion, of the logical house's being built. Or, that is, the builder is doing something and it must be to something, the one active, the other passive, and that the exact meaning of Aristotle's action and passion, passion here having nothing to do with anything affective. — tim wood
But maybe in a sentence or two you can clarify.
How will the "pursual by interpretation of evidence" ever be independent of specific methods of interpreting ancient texts?
— Paine — tim wood
And ideas as existing, even fictions, just not in any usual material sense. — tim wood
For Aristotle the specific matter in question must be receptive to the form it holds, and an undue emphasis on form will tend to neglect this thesis. Is it something like that? — Leontiskos
I don't quite understand how the quote from Plotinus fits in. Presumably it highlights a Platonic critique of Aristotle, in which the formal principle(s) is clearly seen to overpower the material principle(s)? That for the pure Platonist Aristotle's matter will not be sufficiently determinate or explanatory? — Leontiskos
Mirrors and transparent objects, even more, offer a close parallel; they are quite unaffected by what is seen in or through them: material things are reflections, and the Matter on which they appear is further from being affected than is a mirror. Heat and cold are present in Matter, but the Matter itself suffers no change of temperature: growing hot and growing cold have to do only with quality; a quality enters and brings the impassible Substance under a new state- though, by the way, research into nature may show that cold is nothing positive but an absence, a mere negation. The qualities come together into Matter, but in most cases they can have no action upon each other; certainly there can be none between those of unlike scope: what effect, for example, could fragrance have on sweetness or the colour-quality on the quality of form, any quality on another of some unrelated order? The illustration of the mirror may well indicate to us that a given substratum may contain something quite distinct from itself- even something standing to it as a direct contrary- and yet remain entirely unaffected by what is thus present to it or merged into it. — Plotinus, III. 6. 9
Just as the Ideal Principles stand immutably in their essence- which consists precisely in their permanence- so, since the essence of Matter consists in its being Matter [the substratum to all material things] it must be permanent in this character; because it is Matter, it is immutable. In the Intellectual realm we have the immutable Idea; here we have Matter, itself similarly immutable. — ibid. III. 6. 10
We conclude that Matter's participation in Idea is not by way of modification within itself: the process is very different; it is a bare seeming. Perhaps we have here the solution of the difficulty as to how Matter, essentially evil, can be reaching towards The Good: there would be no such participation as would destroy its essential nature. Given this mode of pseudo-participation- in which Matter would, as we say, retain its nature, unchanged, always being what it has essentially been- there is no longer any reason to wonder as to how while essentially evil, it yet participates in Idea: for, by this mode, it does not abandon its own character: participation is the law, but it participates only just so far as its essence allows. Under a mode of participation which allows it to remain on its own footing, its essential nature stands none the less, whatsoever the Idea, within that limit, may communicate to it: it is by no means the less evil for remaining immutably in its own order. If it had authentic participation in The Good and were veritably changed, it would not be essentially evil. — ibid. III. 6. 11
Several conditions pop out immediately from these accounts.
The experience of a body is different from 'matter as itself' and so belongs within the 'intelligible realm'. That could be expressed, as you said, as "formal principle(s) clearly seen to overpower the material principle(s) but the more consequential difference is that the composition of a particular individual, joining υ̋λη and μορΦή, no longer represents a unity standing as the whole being from which to ascertain its parts.
I will stop here before saying more. — Paine
In the sixth chapter, Johansen turns to an analysis of the receptacle of creation, arguing that its function is to be understood in the light of Plato’s conception of what coming into being actually is. The receptacle constitutes space (or place) because Plato needs to postulate a condition for something’s coming into or going out of existence. These are construed as “a certain kind of movement in and out of space (122).” Consideration of such movement abstracts from the mathematical conceptualization of nature. Thus coming into existence and going out of existence are really cases of the locomotion of the solid triangles out of which bodies are constructed. This is in contrast to the pre- kosmos where the coming into and going out of existence of the phenomenal bodies does not involve the movement of triangles. Both in the pre- kosmos and in the kosmos itself, movement is intrinsic to the phenomenal bodies or elements and is only derivatively attributable to the receptacle. Johansen goes on to argue that, in addition to the receptacle’s representing space or place, Aristotle was basically correct to identify it with matter. So, “place and matter coincide in that both are to be understood as the product of abstracting the formal characteristics of a body (133).” Space or place becomes mere extension. The receptacle thus becomes the continuant in change, which in the context of Timaeus is essentially locomotion. By contrast, Aristotle wants to distinguish fundamentally locomotion from other types of change — especially generation and destruction — and so he makes a sharper distinction between space or place and matter than does Plato. — Gerson, review of Plato's Natural Philosophy
Clearly we should now begin again, once we have called upon 48E the god, our saviour, at the very outset of our deliberations to see us safely out of an unusual and unaccustomed exposition, to the doctrine of things probable. In any case, our fresh start concerning the universe should be more elaborate than before, for we distinguished two entities then, but now we must present a third factor. Two were sufficient for our previous descriptions, one designated as a sort of a model discernible by Nous and ever the same, while the second was a copy of the model 49A involved in becoming and visible. We did not distinguish a third entity at the time as we thought it enough to have these two, but now the argument seems to compel us to try to manifest a difficult and obscure form in words. What should we understand its capacity and nature to be? This in particular: it is the receptacle of all coming into being, like its nurse. Now although the truth has been spoken, a clearer statement about it is still required but it is difficult to do so, particularly 49B because it is necessary for the sake of this to raise a preliminary problem about fire and its accompaniments. It is difficult in the case of each of these to state what sort should actually be called water rather than fire, and what sort should be referred to as anything in particular rather than as everything individually, in such a manner as to employ language which is trustworthy and certain. How then, may we speak about them in a likely manner and in what way, and what can we say about them when faced with this problem? — Plato, Timaeus, translated by Horan
For, according to Aristotle, this is what Plato declared the receptacle to be: “a substratum [ύποκείμενον] prior to the so-called elements, just as gold is the substratum of works made of gold.” Though in this context Aristotle refers to one other image of the χώρα, that of nurse (τιθήνη), he forgoes drawing on the content of that image and, instead, moves immediately to identify the receptacle with “primary matter” (329a). Yet the passage that is, at once, both most decisive and most puzzling occurs in Book 4 of the Physics: “This is why Plato says in the Timaeus that matter and the χώρα are the same; for the receptive and the χώρα are one and the same. Although the manner in which he speaks about the receptive in the Timaeus differs from that in the so-called unwritten teachings, nevertheless he declares that place [τόπος] and the χώρα are the same” (209b).
One cannot but be struck by the lack of correspondence between this passage and the text of the Timaeus. The passage declares three identifications: that of the receptive (μεταληπτικόν) with the χώρα, that of matter (ύλη) with the χώρα, and that of place (τόπος) with the χώρα. Only the first of these identifications has any basis in the text of the Timaeus, and then only if one disregards any difference that might distinguish μεταληπτικόν from the Platonic words δεχόμενον and ύποδοχή.
For the identification of ύλη with the χώρα, there is no basis in the Timaeus. Plato never uses the word ύλη in Aristotle’s sense, a sense that, one suspects, comes to be constituted and delimited only in and through the work of Aristotle. When Plato does, on a few occasions, use the word, it has the common, everyday sense of building material such as wood, earth, or stone. Following Aristotle’s own strategy in On Generation and Corruption, one could refer to the image of the constantly remodeled gold as providing support for the identification. But reference to this image could be decisive only if one privileged it over most of the others, disregarding, for instance, the image of the nurse, which represents the relation between the χώρα and the sensible in a way quite irreducible to that between matter and the things formed from it. What is perhaps even more decisive is that all these are images of the χώρα, images declared in an είκώς λόγος (likely account}, which is to be distinguished from the bastardly discourse in which one would venture to say the χώρα. — John Sallis, Chorology: On Beginning in Plato's Timaeus
John Sallis — Paine
The chora, to the extent it is understood, is grasped by:
… some bastard reasoning with the aid of insensibility, hardly to be trusted, the very thing we look to when we dream and affirm that it’s somehow necessary for everything that is to be in some region [topos] and occupy some space [chora] and that what is neither on earth nor somewhere in heaven is nothing (Timaeus 52b-c).
To be clear, it is not that the chora is posited as the result of bastard reasoning. It is the attempt to understand it that relies on bastard reasoning. We cannot understand the chora itself. We rely on images of space and place. In dreams we mistake images for their originals (Republic 476c), but the chora is not some thing with its own properties and identity. Reasoning about it cannot make use of the image/original distinction. It is indeterminate and something thought of only in terms of images.
The image of chora as mother and the father as that “from which” the offspring come raises the problem of paternity. Both the divine craftsman and the Forms have been identified as the father of what comes to be.
The difference between what is generated by nature and produced artificially ... — Paine
But is the "unmade and the un-generated being offered as an alternative in this context? I read it as: Stuff is getting made and nobody can explain why. — Paine
In addition to Forms and sensible things, Timaeus introduces a “third kind” (triton genos, 48e), the chora (χώρα).
The three kinds are:
… that which comes to be, that in which it comes to be, and that from which what comes to be sprouts as something copied. And what’s more, it’s fitting to liken the receiver to a mother , the ‘from which’ to a father, and the nature between these to an offspring (50d).
Like intelligible things, the chora always is. But unlike intelligible things, it is changeable. (52a) Unlike sensible things it does not perish. Befitting its indeterminacy, the chora does not yield to simple definition.
It is said to be the seat of all that has birth. (52b)
He calls it:
… a receptacle for all becoming, a sort of wet nurse.
The chora does not take the shape of anything it receives but is:
… both moved and thoroughly configured by whatever things come into it; and because of these, it appears different at different times ... (50c)
And because she is filled with powers neither similar nor equally balanced, but rather as she sways irregularly in every direction, she herself is shaken by those kinds and, being moved, are always swept along this way and that and are dispersed - just like the particles shaken and winnowed out by sieves and other instruments used for purifying grain … ( 52e)
The chora is not itself active, but due to what is active within it, it moves and thus contributes to the movement of what is in it. Like a sieve, it is not active but by being acted on it acts on what is in it.
I am reluctant to accept the second paragraph. — Paine
This just keeps getting more difficult. — Paine
[Edit: To them] The idea that the world is not intelligible seems not just wrong but disconcertingly so. — Fooloso4
Couldn’t classical philosophy ascribe the unintelligibility of the world to the treachery of the senses? — Wayfarer
(243d-e)Come on, all you who say that hot and cold or any pairs like that are all things, what precisely are you attributing to both, when you say that both are and each is? What should we understand by this ‘is’ of yours? Is it a third factor in addition to the other two, and should we propose, on your behalf, that the all is no longer two but three?
(250c)So, what is, is not the two together, motion and rest, but something different from them.
(254e-255a)Well now, what precisely are the “same” and the “different” which we have just mentioned? Are they two additional kinds, apart from the first three, two kinds which must necessarily combine with the three, and should we investigate them as though there were five and not three?
Str: Indeed, we have actually agreed now that some of the kinds will combine with one another, while others will not, and some will combine with few, others with many, and also that some are all-pervasive and are allowed to 254C combine with everything. So we should proceed to the next issue by considering the following question, not about all the forms, lest we get confused by the multiplicity, but selecting some of those which are said to be the most important; we should first ask what sort each is, and then what their power to commune with one another is. In this way, we shall at least understand something about being and non-being, as far as our current method of enquiry allows, even if we cannot apprehend them with total clarity, and we may 254D somehow be allowed to say that “what is not”, is actually non-being, and avoid reproach. — ibid. 254b
Couldn’t classical philosophy ascribe the unintelligibility of the world to the treachery of the senses? It wouldn’t have regarded ‘the world’ as possessing intrinsic intelligibility in the first place, would it? — Wayfarer
Str: Well, I am saying that anything actually is, once it has acquired some sort of power, 247E either to affect anything else at all, or to be affected, even slightly, by something totally trivial, even if only once. Indeed, I propose to give a definition, defining things that are, as nothing else except power. — ibid. 247d
Couldn’t classical philosophy ascribe the unintelligibility of the world to the treachery of the senses? It wouldn’t have regarded ‘the world’ as possessing intrinsic intelligibility in the first place, would it? — Wayfarer
I think the counting here is for the sake of discussing how participation (μετέχειν) in forms is supposed to work now that the Stranger has brought the sharp separation between being and becoming into question. This leads to the discussion of "blending" forms which wraps up as: — Paine
“Do you think that the whole form, being one, is in each of the many? Or what do you think?”
“What’s to prevent this, Parmenides?” said Socrates.
131B “So being one and the same it will be present simultaneously as a whole in things that are many and separate and would thus be separate from itself.”
“No, Parmenides,” said he, “not if it is like a day, which being one and the same, is in many places simultaneously and is, nevertheless, not separate from itself. If this were the case, each of the forms could simultaneously be one and the same in all things.”
“Socrates,” he said, “how nicely you make the one and the same be in many places simultaneously, as if you were to throw a sail over many people and maintain that one, as a whole, is over many. Don’t you think something like this is what you are saying? “
131C “Perhaps,” said he.
“Would the sail as a whole be on each person or just a part of this, and another part on another person?”
“A part.”
“So forms themselves are divisible Socrates,” said he, “and things that partake of them would partake of a part, and would no longer be in each as a whole, but a part of each form would be in each.”
“Apparently so.”
“Well then, Socrates,” said he, “do you wish to maintain that our one form is in truth divided and will still be one?”
“Not at all,” he replied. — Ibid. 131b
“So nothing can be like the form, nor can the form be like anything else. Otherwise alongside the form another form will always make an appearance. And 133A if that form is like something, yet another form will appear, and the continual generation of a new form will never cease if the form turns out to be like whatever partakes of it.”
“Very true.”
“Since it is not by likeness that the others get a share of the forms, we must rather look for something else by which they get a share.”
“So it seems.”
“Do you see then, Socrates,” said he, “the extent of the difficulty once someone distinguishes forms as being just by themselves?” — ibid. 132e
it is interesting that Parmenides does not introduce the sail metaphor as a rebuttal of Socrates' statement but as a description of it. — Paine
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