Once again, see Bell’s quote above discussing why quantum theory should never have used the word ‘observer’ or ‘measurement’ for precisely the reason you are demonstrating: — noAxioms

I read that. It in no way indicates that there is not intent behind measurement in quantum physics. The article suggests replacing "measurement" with "experiment". The use of "experiment" simply enforces the fact that there is intent. And I really do not see how you can conceive of any sort of measurement (experiment) without intent. I explained already why I think measurement without intent is impossible, now it's your turn to explain how you think there could be such a thing.

To begin with, do you recognize that a system is an artificial thing, a human creation, whether it is a theoretical system, with boundaries imposed by theory, or a mechanical system, with created physical boundaries? And, artificial things are created with intent.

A rock measures the moon as much as I do, and so the moon exists to the rock. — noAxioms

All you are saying here, is that you've never measured the moon, because the rock sure hasn't, by any definition of "measure", measured the moon.

Realist is counterfactual definiteness, existence in absence of measurement. Existence due to measurement is not that. — noAxioms

How are you using "measurement" here? If to interact is to measure and be measured, as you seem to think (which is a ridiculous definition of "measure" not consistent with any actual usage), then by what principle do you assume that there is any sort of "existence in absence of measurement"? That would mean you are assuming something which interacts with nothing.

I expect such statements from Metaphysician Undercover, but you also seem to fail to use the quantum theory definition of 'measurement' in a topic discussing quantum theory. Hence the rise (and fall) of the Wigner interpretation which, due to that language ambiguity, gave rise to the proposal that consciousness causes wave function collapse, an interpretation abandoned by Wigner himself due to it being driven to solipsism. — noAxioms

You are not paying attention to the article which you requested that I read. The article suggests reasons why "measurement" should not be used, because "measurement" to most people implies some real existing aspect of the universe which is measured, like when we count something we assume that there is an existing quantity which can be counted and it has some real existence as that quantity, prior to being counted. This is what Bell says is misleading in quantum mechanics. What is being "measured" has no real existence prior to the measurement. And so he suggest that "measurement" be replaced with "experiment".

I leads the naive reader to suspect that humans are somehow necessary for physics to work, that the universe supervenes on you and not the other way around. — noAxioms

The issue is not the relation between human beings and the universe, it is the relation between human beings and the "measurement". In order to make a measurement there are constraints placed on the universe. These controls are necessary in order that the measurement measures what it is supposed to measure. The form of an "experiment" for example is to follow a specific procedure. It is necessary to follow the procedure in order to fulfil the intent of the experiment, which is to test an hypothesis.

Humans are necessary for the measurement. But when you represent the measurement (being the confines of the experiment) as the universe, you step way outside the boundaries of the measurement. The measurement is not measuring the universe, it is measuring whatever is being controlled for, which is dictated by the intent behind the experiment.

No, it doesn’t. I had specified the frame in which I was stationary. — noAxioms

You did not specify a frame, you said "here".

Just a velocity reference is enough, — noAxioms

"Here" does not provide a velocity reference. And you've got things backward anyway. A frame of reference, with multiple location points is required to make a velocity reference, not vise versa.

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but a ‘frame’ does not require additional references. — noAxioms

Yes it does, and you've misrepresent "frame" as a point. A point is not a frame.

As per the above, a specification of only the origin defines a frame... — noAxioms

No, a point does not constitute a frame. You seem to have no technical understanding of this matter, insisting that the coordinate system is derived from the frame, rather than that the frame is a derivative of the coordinate system. You need to straighten out your logical priority. "Frame" implies "coordinate system". There is no frame without a coordinate system as you seem to believe.

So I could for instance have a frame of a rocket with the origin at the nose, the very ‘front’. That point will always be at the origin no matter what the rocket does, but we need two more points to make a coordinate system of it. So say the rear-most point is on the x axis, and some feature on the side defines the y axis. The z is just orthogonal to the other two and requires no additional reference. Now it’s a coordinate system, and the ‘abort’ button is always (nearly) stationary in this coordinate system regardless of what the rocket does. The astronaut knows where the button is despite the motion of the rocket because he’s using that coordinate system when needing to hit that button. I say ‘nearly stationary’ because vibration and other stresses will move that button a mm or two now and then due to strain on the vehicle. — noAxioms

Your "frame" in this example is a coordinate system which maps the rocket, not one point such as "here". And if you say that the rocket is one point, "here", this is a misrepresentation, because the rocket is mapped as a frame of reference, consisting of a coordinate system with multiple locational points.

Very good, The latter half even constitutes the frame reference, which you almost always omit. — noAxioms

This clearly demonstrates your misunderstanding. a point cannot constitute the frame of reference.

If that is your argument, you need to rethink it. Possibilities do not imply actualities. — Dfpolis

You quoted only one premise of the argument, the other stated the actuality. If X then Y. (Possibility). X (Actuality). Therefore Y (conclusion).

No, you are not. Judging makes description possible, but it is not actual description. You are confusing potency and act. An actual description articulates a whole set of judgements in words or some other medium. Each individual property judgement is being aware (aka knowing) that the organism elicits the property concept. Judgement is not expression of a judgement. — Dfpolis

Ok, I'm fine to define "judging" in this way, as long as we stick to the definition. Each bit of knowledge is a judgement, and a description involves a bunch of judgements. But this doesn't really affect the issue. The description is still a matter of judgement, but instead of being one judgement it's a multitude of judgements, which is really what i meant anyway. I didn't mean to imply that an entire description consists of only one judgement.

To judge <A is B> we must be aware that the entity eliciting the concept <A>, say <this something>, is identically that eliciting the concept <B> grasping some property. Were this not the case, if a <A> were elicited by one thing, and <B> by another, the judgement would be unsound. Thus, the eliciting of concepts is a prerequisite for any sound judgement about an entity. So we have the following operations in sequence (1) sensing, (2) conceptualization, (3) judgement, and then, possibly, (4) expression in a description. — Dfpolis

I don't understand this argument at all. We never judge "A is B" in any unqualified way. We say "A is A", and "B is B", but not "A is B" because these two are different. We might say A is B in predication, but then one is the subject and the other the predicate. Or we might judge A and B as the same category, or place object A into category B, but that's different from saying "A is B" in any unqualified way. Such a judgement, "A is B" in an unqualified sense, is always unsound, so your argument demonstrates nothing.

The very expression "compare judgements" is deeply confused, because a judgement is an act of comparison. So, we could not compare judgements without first making the comparison that is the judgement we are comparing. — Dfpolis

As per your definition of judging, every bit of knowledge is a judgement, so it is you who is forcing this problem with a problematic definition of "judgement". Unless you allow that there is some form of knowledge prior to judgement you will always have this problem, it's a vicious circle. We need to allow that "judgement" requires knowledge, and can only be made after knowledge has accumulated, but this would undermine your argument of how judgement relates to description.

In essential causality, the operation of the cause and the creation of the effect are one and the same event -- and so identical. The builder building the house is identically the house being built by the builder. Please do not confuse this with accidental, or Humean-Kantian, causality, which is the succession of separate events by rule. — Dfpolis

Sorry, I cannot grasp this at all. I've never heard of "essential causality". It is not Aristotelian and seems to be a Dfpolis idiosyncrasy, so you'll have to provide a better description. it seems like a contrived statement to serve some purpose. What does "the operation of a cause" even mean? Your statement of identity would be much better stated as 'the cause is the same as the cause', or something like that. But what's the point to this?

It shows (1) the subject sensing is inseparable from the object being sensed, and (2) the subject knowing is inseparable from the object being known. This means that there is no possibility of an intervening factor such as Aquinas's intelligible species, Locke's ideas, Kant's phenomena or your descriptions. — Dfpolis

I don't see how it shows that at all. Now it is you who is claiming to get necessity from an argument consisting of possibilities. You have not at all shown how you produce this claimed necessity.

This selection should suffice. If not, read R. C. Koons, (2019) "Aristotle's formal identity of intellect and object: A solution to the problem of modal epistemology," Ancient Philosophy Today 1, pp. 84-107. — Dfpolis

There's only a couple mentions of identity in all those quotes, and they say that the mind is identical, or potentially identical with "its object". Obviously he is talking about intelligible objects here, not sensible objects, so you continue to equivocate between the two senses of "form". Nothing in those quotes indicates what you claim, that the form in the knower is identical to the form in the sensible object which is known. if Koons makes the same sort of error of equivocation, I'm not interested

The quotes support the distinction which I claim. This one for example: "and yet the distinction between their being remains." and this one: "identical in character with its object without being the object." "Identical in character" means identical in type, as is the case with intelligible objects, but this does not mean identical as in the same as the form of the particular object.

I am sorry that you cannot see that one and the same act makes the object's intelligibility known and the mind informed. I cannot make it any clearer than I have: the subject knowing is inseparable from the object being known. — Dfpolis

See, you are equivocating between 'intelligible' object and 'sensible' object. Of course the knowing subject is inseparable from the (intelligible) object known, because without that intelligible object, the subject would be not-knowing. But this says absolutely nothing about the knowing subject's relation with the sensible object. So to proceed toward any conclusions about the knower's relation to the form of the material object (sensible object) would be through equivocation only.

It is entirely relevant, as your Kantian commitments prevent you from understanding Aristotle, and through him, the nature of knowledge. — Dfpolis

Wow, that's the first time I've been called a Kantian. And, Fooloso4 says my Thomistic commitments prevent me from understanding Aristotle. it's a strange world we live in.

That is not a fair accounting. I have quoted Aristotle extensively where I think he does not support your thesis. — Paine

I agree that you've produced many, what I called "random" quotes. I called them random because I could not see how they were supposed to relate to any objection to what I said. And, when I asked you to explain what you were trying to say with these quotes, you never did. I find it a very odd form of discourse, to just produce a random order of out of context quotes, with no explanation.

I am no expert in the matter. It is obvious that we both have read a lot of primary text. I appreciate anyone who has made that effort. I am not making accusations but saying why your view does not make sense to me. — Paine

I also appreciate the fact that you have much experience with the text. In our last discussion on Aristotle, you gave me some indication as to what aspects of my perspective did not make sense to you. I think it seemed to be related to the active intellect and the immortality of the soul. Those are difficult subjects and ones not expressed clearly by Aristotle at all, so I think we can only approach these from different angles, which you and I demonstrate. In this thread, you haven't really indicated what it is I am saying which doesn't make sense to you. The quotes you produce seem mostly consistent with what I am saying (unlike fooloso4 who will scour the texts seeking anything which appears to contradict me), so I can't find your point of disagreement here. Still you claim to disagree.


The job of a good philosopher is to rip apart in analysis, the work of the other philosophers, seeking what you call the "true position". The "true position" would be what, from that philosopher's texts, resonates within one's own true being. Otherwise we just follow what someone else says about the philosophy of the other, and we become part of the mob following not the philosopher, but the person who says something about the philosopher.

I gave up at ‘there’s a unique form for every particular’. — Wayfarer

At least dfpolis agrees with me on that point, calling it the actuality of the material thing. Without a unique and particular form, a supposed unique and particular thing has no actual existence as a unique and particular thing, and we lose our grounding for realism and truth concerning the material world.

You didn't address the post.

I'll consider what you say anyway. Ok, I have, and it's completely untruthful accusations. Thanks for the opinion.

There are too many places where the eternal is interwoven with the temporal for your theory of matter to explain away. — Paine

The eternal (what cannot change) is interwoven with the temporal (what is changing) at every moment of passing time, and matter (as the aspect of the temporal which persists from one moment to the next) is the intermediary between these two. That matter is the intermediary between the eternal and the temporal is one of the oldest theological principles. Traditionally, it's what separates man from God.

You like to make objections against my interpretation without any real support, like pointing to what exactly is wrong with my interpretation. At least you're not as bad as Fooloso4 who just makes the same false accusations over and over again.

Your response does not support your original point, which was that we could not know intrinsic properties because of the possibility of error. Only errors resulting in the false apprehension of intrinsic properties need concern us, and to know that they are actual errors, we must have a true apprehension. — Dfpolis

You seem to have inverted the conditional. My argument is that if it is possible that we err in our knowledge, then our knowledge is not of the properties which are intrinsic to the thing known. It is possible that we err, therefore our knowledge is not of the properties which are intrinsic to the thing.

We cannot describe anything without first judging what categories its propertied belong to. For example, I cannot say "the organism is six-legged," without judging that it has appendages, that the relevant appendages are legs, and that the count of those legs is 6. So, the apprehension and classification of properties is necessarily prior to any description. — Dfpolis

I find that you represent "judging" in a very strange way, you've done this already. Describing something is a form of judgement, just like how you describe judging things here. So you make an artificial separation which is not representative of what is the case in the act of describing. These judgements you describe, "the apprehension and classification of properties" is the act of describing. When I judge that the organism has appendages, and that the appendages are legs, and that the count of the legs is 6, I am describing the organism. This, even if it's done in my head without writing it down, is the act of describing the organism. It is not a separate act which is prior to the description, it is the act of describing. And if I repeat these conclusions later, by writing them down, or telling someone else, I am just repeating the description I've already produced.

Thus, the form of the known object, is a cause of knowledge in the knower. — Dfpolis

Good, the form of the known is a cause of the form in the knower is much better than that they are identical.

Your, Locke's, and Kant's views miss the identity of sense and sensible, and of intellect and intelligibility, Aristotle discusses at length in De Anima: (1) the sense organ sensing the sensible is identically the sensible being sensed by the sense organ and (2) the intellect knowing the intelligible object is identically the intelligible object being known by the intellect. Your responses continue to ignore these essential points. — Dfpolis

I do not understand what you are saying here. "The sense organ sensing the sensible" is just another way of saying "the sensible being sensed by the sense organ". This makes no analysis of the relationship between the sensation and the sensible, which is what we are discussing. So how do you think it says anything significant?

The law of identity clearly puts identity of the thing within the thing itself, therefore not in the caused form in the knower. The actuality of the form within the knower is actualized by the mind (Metaphysics Bk 9), and so the form within the object only holds potential (as matter) in relation to the form in the mind. I think you ought to reread De Anima, and if you still think that he uses identity in this way, bring me the direct quotes of the precise places where you find this.

In each case, a single act actualizes two potencies. In sensing, the sensible object is actually sensed in the same act in which the sense organ's ability to sense is actualized. In knowing, the intelligible object is actually known in the same act as the intellect's ability to be informed is actualized. Since there is one act or event in each case, the lack of causal necessity argued by Hume does not apply. Why? Because he is analyzing a different kind of causality: one involving two events following one another by rule. It is possible for some disruptive influence to intervene between two events, but one event has no "between" in which an intervention might occur. — Dfpolis

It is wrong to characterize this as a single act. Clearly there is two acts involved, the actuality of the thing itself, and the actuality of the soul. if these two appear together as a single event, we need to look at both as causal. The description as a single event is just a simplification which has resulted from the need to facilitate communication. The lofty theory of the time was described in Plato's Theaetetus, as a motion coming from the eye meeting with a motion coming from the object. Your inclination to characterize what is described as a single event (sensation) as having only one cause is a failure of analysis.

My assertion is that our knowledge is specified by the form of the object. The form of the object also specifies much that we do not, and may never, know. I am not claiming that our knowledge is exhaustive, only that it grasps aspects of (a projection of) the object's form. — Dfpolis

This is what I insist is not Aristotelian. The form of the object is within the object itself, and distinct from the mind and what is in the mind. The forms in the mind are actualized (caused) by the mind, and from this perspective, the object provides potential, matter. However, the object does have a causal relation, and this is why we need to assume a passive intellect, to receive form from the object through the senses.

We have a sort of unknown now, a gap in understanding between the active intellect which creates the form in the mind, and the passive intellect which receives the formal information from the object. This is why the active and passive intellect, and the relation between them is so difficult. The activity in the mind must be passive in relation to the sense object, in order to know the object, but it must also be active in relation to the intelligible objects which it actualizes.

But I think it is wrong to say that the object "specifies". That is what the mind does in actualizing the species. The activity received through the senses is particular in relation to the mind, according to it being received by the passive intellect which is a form of potential. The active intellect "specifies", as a form of judgement. This you do not want to call "judgement" on the one hand, and I'm fine with that if we maintain consistency, but when it comes to analysis you want to say that judgement is prior to description, so you are forcing "judgement" to that position anyway.

I have no problem with that. In sensing, the object is the efficient cause of the neural effect. The effect it causes (a modification of our neural system), is specified by the form of the object, which can act on us in some ways, but not others. So, the effect carries information (the reduction of possibility -- for of all the ways we could be affected, we are affected in this specific way). This information is intelligible, and its intelligibility derives from the form of the object. — Dfpolis

The issue though, is that in relation to final cause, intention, judgement, and choice, which is the type of activity proper to the soul, efficient cause is secondary, as the means to the end. Therefore efficient causes are selected for, as those which produce success, and they are chosen as the means to the end. So if the sense object provides efficient causation in the single event which is "knowing", the efficient causation from the object is selected for by the intentional activity of the soul (final cause). And we really have very little idea of how the soul selects for efficient causes when actualizing a form in the mind (intelligible object).

In the act of awareness, we are the agent. The object does not force its intelligibility on the intellect. Rather, we must choose to attend, and in attending, the agent intellect acts to make what was merely intelligible (the neurally encoded information) actually understood. Here the object, via its neural effect, is the material cause. It limits the possible result (for information is the reduction of possibility), but it does not actualize it. The result, of course, is our awareness of the intelligibility specified by the form of the object. — Dfpolis

This is a better description. But for some reason, you want to separate conscious awareness from all the other powers of the soul, so that you can characterize the causation within the lower powers in a way which is reverse to the causation in the higher power. But this is inconsistent, and although Aristotle may seem to lean this way sometimes in the discussion of the active intellect, it is better and more realistic that we maintain consistency then try to allow for every word spoken by him.

It means that the object's action on our sense is only one aspect of (part of) the object's actuality. That action is identical with our sense being acted upon by the object. Further, our sense being acted upon by the object is not the whole of our actuality. So, while the relevant action and passion are identical, they are not the whole of either the subject or the object. — Dfpolis

There is no such "identity" here because of the temporal gap between the active and passive intellect. Identity of the thing is placed in the thing itself, as primary substance, and what the active intellect creates, the species is the secondary substance.

You are confusing first and second actuality. The soul is the first actuality or "being operational" of a potentially living body. It is not the second actuality or operation of the body. So, in sensation, the capacity to sense is an aspect of the psyche, but actually sensing is due to the sensible object acting on the sense -- e.g. light being scattered into the eye, or a hot object heating the skin. — Dfpolis

See how you are reversing first and secondary actualities between the act of the soul, and the act of the soul through its powers? The act of the soul is the operating of the organism. The capacity to operate, is the potential which the soul has, through it's material body. Sensing is an instance of operating, therefore the actuality of sensation is properly attributed to the soul, in the primary sense, and the act of the sensible body, in this operation, is the actuality in the secondary sense.

You have ignored my critique of Kant's epistemology. — Dfpolis

i didn't see it as relevant to our discussion of Aristotle. If you reject Kant, then I cannot use him as a reference, that's all.

I appreciate your recognition that what you present is at odds with the text, as testimony. — Paine

What I think is a better description is that "the text" is at odds with itself. That there are points of inconsistency within the work of Aristotle is nothing new to me. But there is a fundamental consistency which runs through the majority of the material, especially with the basic categories, matter, form, potential, actual. When he gets to highly complicated topics like active and passive intellect there is some ambiguity. His consistency is not quite so high in his use of "cause" according to the senses of "cause" he lays out, sometimes there's ambiguity. What I think is the proper approach is to find the threads of consistency which extend through multiple texts, and adhere to this consistency. The small parts which are not consistent are best disregarded rather than trying to work them into the overall consistency because this would be an impossible task.

It is not. Have you forgotten what you have claimed? — Fooloso4

What I claimed is that for Aristotle, the heavenly bodies are not eternal, nor are their motions eternal. There is an underlying substance, but this underlying substance cannot be bodily, it must be properly immaterial. How is this inconsistent with your quoted passage that there is "something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, different and separate from them"?

On all these grounds, therefore, we may infer with confidence that there is something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, different and separate from them ; and that the superior glory of its nature is proportionate to its distance from this world of ours. (269b 14)

This is completely consistent with what I've been arguing. There is something, (immaterial substance), which is beyond the bodies that are about us on the earth. That is what I've been arguing is Aristotle's true position.

Aristotle does not want simply to inform us or give us our opinion, he wants us to grapple with problems, to think. — Fooloso4

Right, this is why he states the beliefs of others, then relevant logical principles, and allows you to come to your own conclusion.

I'll tell you what I think about this issue, you can take it or leave it, as you will, it's my opinion about the situation which Aristotle was in, when he taught.

Greek theology at the time held that the planets and stars were divine, and eternal. The heavenly bodies had been observed for thousands of years and the appearance of them seemed to be consistent, without change. The eternality of them was logically supported by the proposal of circular motion, motion in a perfect circle has no beginning or end. But, as Aristotle mentions, at his time, some people believed that the stars and planets were generated. The two beliefs are obviously not consistent, and we know from Plato\s writing that there could be punishment for publicly denouncing theological beliefs. Therefore anyone who taught ideas which were contrary to the conventional theology would have motivation not to reveal publicly the exact nature of what was being taught in the school.

The complicating factor is Pythagorean cosmology, And I think Pythagorean cosmology is key to understanding the situation in Aristotle's school. It is completely distinct from Greek theology. The Pythagoreans are known for being secretive about their cosmology, and there isn't a whole lot published about it. They are the ones who proposed the underlying substance, the aether. I believe that in their cosmology the stars and planets are manifestations of vibrations in the aether (underlying substance), and there is a hierarchy of vibrations arranged in an order representative of the ratios which are the divisions of the octave, comprising the musical scale.

The idea of an underlying substance could, in a way, be presented as consistent with the idea of eternal, divine planets and stars. However, a thorough analysis, and logical scrutiny from someone like Aristotle would reveal that these two are not consistent. The underlying substance, is necessarily prior to, and cause of the existence of the heavenly bodies, and this demonstrates that the heavenly bodies must by generated, therefore not eternal. This problem is displayed in the quote from Metaphysics Bk 12, provided by Paine. "For the nature of the stars is eternal, because it is a certain sort of substance, and the mover is eternal and prior to the moved, and what is prior to a substance must be a substance." Notice the problem. The mover is prior to the moved, as cause of the movement. But if the movement is caused, then there must be something prior to the movement in time, therefore the movement cannot be eternal.

So this is the problem which Aristotle was presented with. It became necessary to assume an underlying substance as the cause of the circular motions which appeared to be eternal. However, if there is an underlying substance, as cause, then the stars and planets must be caused, therefore they are generated and not eternal. And this is contrary to the official theology which held these to be eternal.

Your references help to demonstrate the problem Aristotle was faced with. Conventional Greek theology held that the divine bodies, the planets and stars were eternal, therefore not caused or generated. However, there was much evidence, in the form of logical arguments, to indicate that these divine bodies were caused, therefore not eternal. So Aristotle had to present the evidence, being the principles argued by others, and the logic behind all these submissions, seeking truth in this matter. All the while we need to respect what Plato demonstrated, that to teach principles contrary to the official theology was punishable. Therefore even if Aristotle made arguments for an underlying substance as the cause of the divine bodies (so the bodies are not eternal), that this idea of an underlying substance is contrary to the official theology, might be somewhat disguised.

My translation is Stocks, but it is within a compilation, "The Basic Works of Aristotle", edited by Richard McKeon, Random House, 1941. Most the titles are reproduced in completion, but that particular one has Bk 2 Ch 1-13 (which is 283b-293a) omitted. No reason is given for the omission. It is just stated in the preface that a portion of one of the four books of On The Heavens has been omitted. Though it also states in the preface that where omissions are made reasons are given, which I cannot find.

It also states in the preface that the Oxford translation into English was completed in 1931, and this followed from the Berlin Academy 1831-1870. It says "The eleven volumes of the Oxford translation can be reduced to a single volume, once the clearly inauthentic works have been excluded from consideration, without too serious loss of portions that bear on problems of philosophic interest."

It then says in the Introduction by C.D. C. Reeve, "The most credible view of these writings is that they are lecture notes written or dictated by Aristotle himself and not intended for publication. Their organization into treatises and the internal organizations into books and chapters may, however, not be his. No doubt this accounts for some, though not all, of their legendary and manifest difficulty."

You can see, that if we allow for a progression and evolution in Aristotle's thought over time, (as is very evident in Plato's material), the notes on the same subject, "the heavens", or "the heaven", may have gotten placed together, even though they come from completely different times, therefore expressing different ideas in the evolution of his thought. Because of this, considerable inconsistency may exist within the same treatise. And if you add to this the fact that some of the material within the same treatise may not even be derived from Aristotle himself, but from other lecturers in his school, the probability of inconsistency is increased even higher. This is what makes the understanding of what is presented to us as "Aristotle", so difficult to understand. Instead of latching on to specific assertions found here and there, we need to look for threads, patterns which run through the bulk of the material, and simply reject the parts which are inconsistent with the threads, as out of place.

That little section from which you take those quotes has been omitted from my translation. For whatever reason I do not know, because I haven't researched that. But I suggest that perhaps it was judged as not from Aristotle, due to the inconsistency you are showing. Notice, it's the part that you are quoting which has been removed from the translation, not the part that I quote.

Still, the fact that we can recognize errors, means that we can grasp the truth. — Dfpolis

I don't think that this follows. This is because error, and mistake may be relative to some pragmatic principle of success. So to recognize an error is to recognize that the process was unsuccessful and this does not require any recognition of truth, only that the desired end was not brought to fruition. The same principle holds for what you say about science. Most often science is guided by pragmaticism rather than truth.

No, intrinsic properties are not descriptions. They are what we seek to describe. — Dfpolis

You said that intrinsic properties are what is compared to the definition. This is incorrect, the description is what is compared. So there is a gap between the intrinsic properties, and what is compared with the definition. We cannot say that the intrinsic properties are compared.

hen, (2) by the identity of knower and known which is knowledge, they may exist in an observer as an integral set of concepts. — Dfpolis

This is where our problem of misunderstanding each other lies.

You recognize the difference between "form" as the concept, universal, abstraction, and "form" as the actuality of the individual. What exists in the mind of the knower is "form" in the sense of the abstraction, and what exists in the material individual is "form" in the sense of of the actuality of the individual. Yet you insist that the form in the knower is somehow the form of the known. They are two distinct senses of "form", how do you reconcile this?

We may do so if we trust the observer, but first-rate scientists much prefer to see the data, or even better, the object. When my brother Gary, a world-renowned biologist, wished to confirm the species of a scorpion (his specialty), he did not send a description, or even a picture, of the organism to the taxonomist, but the organism itself. — Dfpolis

This doesn't really change the matter. Let's say that we compare the object with the definition of the species. We might ask, how is that comparison made. And we might conclude that questions are asked. Does it have x? Does it have y? Answering question like this is just a form of description. Don't you agree? By answering the questions, it has x, it does not have y, etc., a description is being made. Then a judgement is made as to whether this description fulfils the criteria of the definition.

The knower being informed by the known is identically the known informing the knower. In more contemporary terms, the brain state encoding information about a sensed object is identically the modification of the brain by the action of the sensed object. This allows no separation of knower and known. (I made this point in the paper we are discussing.) — Dfpolis

This is not Aristotelian. The two distinct senses of "form" which you have acknowledged is Aristotelian. But, as I described above, your assertions that the form in the knower is the same as the form in the object is not consistent with this.

No, it is not. It is the action of the sensed object on the sensing subject. Action is inseparable from the agent acting. E.g. when the builders stop building, building stops. — Dfpolis

You have identified two actions here, the action of the object, and the action of the subject. The two actions are distinct and are not the same. This is evident when you consider how each affect, through causation, the combined thing which we call sensation. The object effects through efficient causation and the subject affects through final causation. You have two types of actions identified, two active agents identified, object and subject, now you need to acknowledge that there are two types of causation involved.

It fundamentally misunderstands the nature of knowing as a partial identity between knower and known. — Dfpolis

Oh, now you've revised it to a "partial identity". What could that even mean?

We cannot understand forms unless they inform us, and they inform us, not directly as Plato thought, but via sensation. — Dfpolis

You are assigning all causation to the object, as that which informs. But this is completely inconsistent with Aristotle who says that the mind abstracts, and this means that the mind is the active thing. However, Aristotle does see the need to place an active principle in the object which is sensed, therefore each object has a form, what you described as the actuality of the thing.

You need to lessen your restrictions on causation, which seem to be heavily influenced by physicalism, or scientism, because you want to assign the cause of the sensation to the object sensed. But there is another condition to be met, and that is that the organism must have the capacity to sense. And, under Aristotelian conceptual space, the soul, as the source of internal actuality, or activity, must actualize that capacity. So we must represent the internal act as causal as well as the external act. But the internal act may be like the imagination, creating fictitious things, or things for whatever pragmatic purpose developed through evolution, and this has a causal affect on the sensation, just like the object does. That's why we can hallucinate.

I won't repeat last year's argument concerning your interpretation of De Anima Book 1. I will just leave this discussion by observing that it does not fit with Aristotle's view of Astronomy: — Paine

It seems to me, that you base your claim that my interpretation does not fit with Aristotle's Astronomy on that one book of the Metaphysics. Clearly though, my claim is supported by both On the Heavens, and On the Soul, The argument in On The Heavens, against the idea that the heavenly bodies and their orbits are eternal, is lengthy, many faceted, and extensive, as I outlined. I do not understand why you dispute this. It's very clear.

And, as I said in the earlier discussion, there are indications that this book of Metaphysics which you quote was not even written by Aristotle. It does not display his usual style, it is not consistent with the other work which is known to be his, and also it is a well known fact that the entire Metaphysics is a collection of material put together by his school, many years after his death.

For the nature of the stars is eternal, because it is a certain sort of substance, and the mover is eternal and prior to the moved, and what is prior to a substance must be a substance. — Paine

This is a terrible translation, it provides a bunch of unsupported assertions (very un-Aristotelian), and it doesn't even make sense. It says that the stars are eternal, and there is something prior to the eternal stars which is "a certain sort of substance". Clearly, if there is something prior to the stars, then the stars cannot be eternal. Aristotle is not known for making illogical statements like that, and this is why it is doubtful that this part of the Metaphysics was actually produced by him.

A few quotes from On the Heavens that support your claim: — Fooloso4

I've been through your out of context quotes already. This is where he is discussing the ideas of others, which he is refuting.

The common name, too, which has been handed down from our distant ancestors even to our own day, seems to show that they conceived of it in this fashion which we have been expressing. The same ideas, one must believe, recur in men's minds not once or twice but again and again. And so, implying that the primary body is something else beyond earth, fire, air, and water, they gave the highest place a name of its own, aither, derived from the fact that it 'runs always' for an eternity of time. Anaxagoras however scandalously misuses this name, taking aither as equivalent to fire. — 270b, 16-20

Those are the ideas of the others which are commonly accepted. That he is actually refuting these ideas, rather than supporting them becomes quite obvious if you pay attention to his arguments, rather than simply reading the assertions that he says others have made, and take them as what he is professing.

And so, the conclusion of that chapter, Ch 5:

We have now shown that the body which moves in a circle is not endless or infinite, but has its limit. — 273a, 5

That the heaven as a whole neither came. into being nor admits of destruction, as some assert, but is one and eternal, with no end or beginning of its total duration, containing and embracing in itself the infinity of time, we may convince ourselves not only by the arguments already set forth but also by a consideration of the views of those who differ from us in providing for its generation. (283b)

And here, you conveniently left out the conditional stated after this. It says that if this view is a possible one, and the view that the world is generated is shown to be impossible, then this would serve to convince us of this view. Of course, he proceeds to show that the view of the heaven as generated, is not only possible, but also more credible.

Your thesis of a mortal Kosmos is so sharply different from Aristotle's' account of different kinds of ousia (substances) that the contradiction itself requires an explanation. — Paine

I don't see that you have a point Paine. And I'm having a hard time to understand what you are trying to say. Perhaps you could explain yourself better, but I'll try to explain myself.

"Separable" in your quote means separate from matter, as Aristotle explained in that context. Theoretical studies deal with things separable. "Immovable" we can interpret as eternal, unchangeable. Physics deals with things separable, but movable. Mathematics deals with separable things, but whether or not they are immovable has not yet been made clear, he says, despite some claims that the things of mathematics are immovable.

So he says there needs to be a "first science" that deals with things "which both exist separately and are immovable". This science can only be theoretical, and through it we might develop a proper understanding of whether or not the things of mathematics are immovable.

Clearly, he is not referring to the Kosmos here, as what would be studied by this "first science", as he has spent the entirety of Bk 1, "On The Heavens" explaining why the Kosmos is of the category of things which physics deals with, separable and movable.

Therefore, we need to look elsewhere, other than the Kosmos, to fulfill the needs of this first science. He calls the first science "theology", and states:

We answer that if there is no substance other than those which are formed by nature, natural science will be the first science; but if there is an immovable substance, the science of this must be prior and must be first philosophy, and universal in this way, because it is first. — 1026a, 27-28

That there necessarily is a first substance, separate from matter, and immovable is revealed later in Bk 9, when he explains why actuality is necessarily prior to potentiality. This implies that there is an actuality (substance) which is immaterial, as prior to the potentiality of matter. And, this first substance must be immovable because motion is a property of material things (explained in On The Heavens). As demonstrated in On The Heavens, the first substance cannot be bodily in any way, nor can it move like the things of the heavens. And, as stated in On the Soul, it cannot be represented as a spatial magnitude in any way. Nevertheless, the logic of Bk 9, "Metaphysics" demonstrates that there is a definite need to assume the reality of the first substance, which is not describable in the way that the Kosmos is.

You seem to be using the street definition of ‘measurement’ instead of the definition relevant to quantum theory — noAxioms

Ha, ha, "street definition", that's funny. Is that the definition of "measurement" which the cop with the radar gun uses to prosecute in court? "I calibrated my machine in the lab according to...so that it would be accurate to within... on the street". On the street we don't really use definitions noAxioms.

Face it no Axioms, there's alwaya intent behind "measurement" no matter how you use the word. There must be or else there'd be no measurement. It determines what will be measured, when, how, all those decisions,

That would be ridiculous since the frame reference was omitted from the assertion of not having moved, rendering it meaningless at best. — noAxioms

Yes, and that was your assertion, that's why I said you were being ridiculous. "If I’m here now and here later, that seems to be not-moving relative to ‘here’." "Here" does not constitute a frame of reference. We went over that already. You are not adhering to proper definitions, as we discussed, and slipping back into street talk. You blabber on about "coordinate systems", then you assume that "here" constitutes one. The point of course, is that no frame of reference can use just one point, location must be established relative to another point. "Here" means nothing on its own. That's why I called your example solipsistic.

Given a coordinate system in which some object is always at the origin, that object always at location zero and thus not moving relative to that coordinate system. This is tautologically true. That coordinate system would be an inertial coordinate system only if no external forces were acting on the object in question. Given the comment below, you seem to already know this. — noAxioms

Are you proposing that you could map motion with a spatial representation that employs a coordinate system with only one locational point, a point zero, without any other points? How would that work? Let's see, object is always at point zero therefore object is never moving. What defines point zero? The place where the object is. Hmm, object never moves because object is always at point zero, 'here', and point zero is defined as "the location of that which said ‘here’". My spidey sense is tingling.

Don't you see a problem with that? — magritte

Aristotle refers to different kinds of ousia. You said that there was a division between kinds that was a critical departure from the holistic view Aristotle seems to aspire to. — Paine

I don't understand this. I discussed primary and secondary substance earlier in the thread. What do you mean by "a division between kinds". That doesn't sound like something I said.

Don't you realize that this kind of hostile language, with the implication of bad faith, is what discourages dialog with you? You have insights to share, but the tone of many of your posts invites defensiveness and counterattack rather than an open exchange of views. We can disagree in good faith. — Dfpolis

My apologies. I truly attempt to avoid hostile language. Sometimes I instinctively reflect it back, but that is not the case here. I think that when the language of the other person shows what appears to be intentional evasion of important points, I believe it is my duty to point out the intentionality involved. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. However, you can attempt to point out to the horse that refusing to drink is not wise. The horse is not rational so this probably will not be successful. The human being is rational, so pointing out incidents of intentional evasion, refusal, and denial, can be successful, though it can be received as hostile or confrontational. That is the case when we point out another's bad habits, it is often received as hostility. So I'm sorry for the tone, and I'm glad you appreciate insight.

It is simple. For example, if we encounter an organism with four or eight legs instead of six, or without a segmented body, it would be wrong (an intellectual, not a moral, error) to "assign it" to the insect category because it does not meet the agreed upon definition. The judgement of error depends on comparing (1) the conventional (human generated) definition of "insect" with (2) the objective (intrinsic) properties of the organism, e.g. having eight legs. — Dfpolis

This does not suffice. There are exceptions, mutations, and other problems which lend themselves to error. Furthermore, the important point is that (2) is a description. It is not the intrinsic property itself, but a description, an observation. So this is what you appear to be avoiding, the human aspect of (2). We do not take the intrinsic properties, the properties which inhere within the thing itself, and compare them to the definition, we take a description and compare the description. And, error is possible in the description. Since error is possible in the description, it is very clear that it is not the case that we are actually comparing intrinsic properties, we are comparing a description which is not the same as intrinsic properties, it is what is said to be intrinsic properties.

Here is the source of confusion. Aristotle's eidos ("form") has two meanings. One is a being's actuality (as opposed to its hyle/potency), the other is the universal concept this actuality elicits. Thus, when he says that Callias and Socrates are “the same in form; for their form is indivisible” (Metaphysics VII, 8, 1034a5), he does not mean they have the same actuality, or the same Platonic Idea, but that they elicit the same concept, <human>. — Dfpolis

Yes, I completely agree with this, and it is exactly what I have been saying. Some of the others, Wayfarer, and Fooloso4 I believe, do not accept this sense of "form" which is the actuality of the individual. They want to limit "form" to the universal, or type, as a Platonic "form".

This creates a problem, because the Platonists here want to insist that this Platonic form, the type, or universal concept, has independent existence, in the Platonic way. But in the Aristotelian conceptual space it is only the "form" in the sense of the individual being's actuality, which has separate, independent existence, as the actuality of the the thing itself. The other sense of "form" has no actual independent existence, relying on the human mind for its actualization, as described in Bk. 9 Metaphysics.

Still, Aristotle seems not to recognize that the same organisms can elicit different species concepts. As I explained in my two Studia Gilsoniana articles on metaphysics and evolution, there are at least 26 different ways of defining biological species and at least five ways of defining philosophical species. Each has a basis in, but is not dictated by, reality. Rather, the taxonomist chooses what type of properties to base classification on.

Different objective taxonomic schemes are possible because organisms are intelligible, rather than instances of actual (Platonic) ideas. When humans actualize potentials, we further specify them. We decide what to chisel from the marble or mold from the clay. We also choose which notes of intelligibility in an organism, or in a collection of organisms, to attend to and so actualize. The notes of intelligibility are the organism's. The choice of which to actualize is ours. So, the resulting concept (e.g. a species concept) is both objective and subjective. — Dfpolis

We seem to be much in agreement here.

No. It is essential that the classification be based on intrinsic properties once the category is defined. If it were not, there would be no connection between the organism and the category. — Dfpolis

There is no direct connection between the organism and the category. That is the point of Kantian metaphysics. The "phenomenon", or how the organism appears to the sensing subjects as observers, is intermediary. That's why I'm insisting that you are misusing, or misunderstanding "intrinsic property". Since the judgement is based on the organism's relation to us, as external observers, then the properties which are being judged are a feature of an external relation of the organism, it's relation to the observer.

No. For a correct classification, the description must not merely exist, it must be accurate -- reflecting intrinsic properties as they are. — Dfpolis

Again, this is the Kantian point. We have no access to the intrinsic properties "as they are", all we have is "as they appear to us". Therefore the best we can get is to be consistent with how the properties appear to us.

But Plato and Aristotle opened a whole different can of worms, suggesting that with logic we can get beyond "as they appear to us", to make some logic based conclusions about the true actual forms of particular things. Kant does not go this far. The first thing to recognize is that there is a realm of intelligible forms, as the actuality of the thing itself, which we must come to understand directly through reasoning rather than through sensing. Kant seems to deny this possibility of a direct approach to the independent forms through logic.

What you are talking about is contrary, not contradictory, properties. Contradictories negate each other. Contraries are opposites, but do not rule each other out. — Dfpolis

Contradictory properties are opposing properties, like red and not red. They do not actually negate each other in Aristotelian conceptual space, because they cannot exist at the same time in the same subject, in order to actually do that. It is simply disallowed that we make contradictory predications of the same subject, by the law of non-contradiction. Perhaps in Hegelian conceptual space contradictories might negate each other, but I think this is more correctly understood as sublation, and not a true negation. But this would imply that they are not true opposites.

This separation of what is natural from what is divine runs counter to the way ousia is presented as different in kind but all connected to the same ultimate cause and the reason we can speak of 'being as being'. — Paine

I don't understand what you mean here. When Aristotle speaks of being as being, he refers to the question of why a particular being is the thing which it is (what it is) rather than something else. This points to the form of the individual, and the unique nature of the particular being, therefore specific cause rather than some "ultimate cause".

It does, however, put you in the position of explaining away discussions of ousia where the difference in kind is focused upon. For example, Metaphysics Book Epsilon:

The primary science, by contrast, is concerned with things that are both separable and immovable. Now all causes are necessarily eternal, and these most of all. For they are the causes of the divine beings that are perceptible.
— Metaphysics, 1026a10 — Paine

I have to say, that the difference in kind is not what is being focused on here, rather particular, individual differences are what is focused on. This is how he starts 1026a:

If then all natural things are analogous to the snub in their nature---e.g. nose, eye,face, flesh, bone, and, in general, animal; leaf root , bark, and, in general, plant; (for none of these can be defined without reference to movement---they always have matter), it is clear how we must seek and define the 'what'' in the case of natural objects, and also that it belongs to the student of nature to study even soul in a certain sense, i.e. so much of it as it is not independent of matter.

So, notice your quote refers to "things that are both separable and immovable". Kinds, as universals, concepts or abstractions, are not separable according to Aristotle, their actuality is dependent on the human mind (Bk 9 Metaphysics).

Physics, he says deals with things that are separable and movable. These are the individual material things. Things which are separable and immovable are individuals but immaterial, like the individual soul. In the context he is talking about individual things, with matter, and there is nothing here to make us think that he is talking about kinds. He is saying that this must be a theoretical science which approaches separate immovable things. But he implies that these things are individuals, in the same way that a soul is an individual, they are not kinds.

It is not, but believe whatever you need to. I will leave it there. — Fooloso4

You obviously have not been paying attention to what I said Fooloso4, so let me repeat it very succinctly.

In On The Heavens Bk 1, Aristotle attends to the Pythagorean idea (mostly as presented by Plato), that the heavenly bodies exist as eternal circular motions. The logic of eternal circular motions is valid, and cannot be refuted directly, and that is why he says that those premises lead to that conclusion.

The problem which Aristotle reveals is with the Pythagorean conception of eternal, divine, "bodies". So the Pythagorean conception has a division between a "natural body" and an "unnatural body", as explained in the chapter you referred, chapter 2. The Pythagorean argument shows that natural bodies must have an underlying unnatural body, and this is the eternal body of the eternal circular motion. What Aristotle objects to is that the underlying unnatural thing is properly called a "body". This is why he closes chapter 2 with "...there is something beyond the bodies..." as a replacement for the Pythagorean proposal of a "divine bodily substance".

So he spends most of the rest of Bk 1 providing many reasons why there cannot be a such an unnatural, divine, eternal body. Ch 5, circular motion in relation to infinity and the body. Conclusion: "We have now shown that the body which moves in a circle is not endless or infinite, but has its limit." 273a, 5. Ch 6: An infinite body is impossible. Ch 7: A continuation of the discussion concerning the relationship between "infinite" and "body". Conclusion: "From these arguments then it is clear that the body of the universe is not infinite" 276a, 17. Ch 8, he shows why local motion cannot be continued to infinity, and why there cannot be more than one universe. Ch 9, The whole universe as one must be a sensible body. "Now the whole included within the extreme circumference must be composed of all physical and sensible body, because there neither is nor can come into being, any body outside the heaven." 278b, 23. From here, Chs 10, 11, and 12 are spent demonstrated that the whole, which is the universe, has been generated, and will in time be corrupted. Therefore the universe is not eternal.

From this we can say that Aristotle has demonstrated that the entire universe is composed of natural bodies, and is itself a natural body. There are no unnatural, or divine bodies, nothing in the universe is moving in an eternal circular motion, because all has been generated and will be destroyed, consisting of natural bodies.

However, he doesn't rule out the possibility of an underlying eternal substance which is not bodily. In fact, he continues to promote the idea of eternal "things", only insisting that they are not bodily. We see this in On the Soul when he addresses the idea of a soul moving a body in a sort of eternal circular motion, as proposed by Plato and the Pythagoreans. He rejects this idea (On the Soul Bk1,Ch 3) "Now in the first place it is a mistake to say that the soul is a spatial magnitude" (407a 3). Further, he rejects the idea that if the thinking of the soul was like a motion, such a motion, if it was circular, would not be eternal. Furthermore, there is not even any reason to think that such a motion would be circular. Therefore the soul, as something eternal, must be represented in some way other than as a spatial magnitude or a spatial motion (circular).

We see this idea further developed in Metaphysics Bk 8-9. Here, he very much speaks of "eternal substance". And such a substance is necessarily prior to the material existence of bodies, as the cause of them. But this eternal substance can have no matter or potential, for the reasons discussed in "On the Heavens. This would mean it is susceptible to change, and is therefore generated and will be destroyed, like any body. Therefore we conclude that eternal things are purely actual, forms, having no matter or potential, and such a substance is prior to the substance of material bodies as the cause of existence of these.

It’s the use of the word ‘substance’ especially when said to ‘immaterial substance’ . That’s what I say is oxymoronic. But then, ‘substance’ is not the word that Aristotle would have used. (Actually wasn’t it in this context where the word ‘dunamis’ was used?) — Wayfarer

Read the reply above to Fooloso4, if you are interested in this. "Substance" is Aristotle's replacement for "body". He demonstrates how no body can be eternal, unnatural, or divine, by showing that all bodies consist of matter, therefore change, and ultimately are generated and destroyed. He effectively annuls the ancient separation Paine refers to, between earthly bodies and heavenly bodies. In On the Heavens, Aristotle shows why all the properties which were commonly attributed to the divine, eternal "bodies", could not actually be the properties of bodies. Therefore he moved to dissolve this division between heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. The heavenly bodies must be considered as an extension of earthly bodies, and if there is something divine or eternal, it must lie beyond all bodies.

However, he demonstrates in "Metaphysics" how substance is primarily formal, rather than material. And he also show why it is necessary to conclude that there is an actuality which is prior to material existence, as cause of material bodies. So he argues for the reality of this divine, eternal "substance", which must be substantial, actual, and real, but not a body or material. Since form is actuality and substance, this allows that there is an immaterial substance, or form, which is prior to the existence of material bodies.

Aristotle used ousia in numerous places regarding the 'immaterial',if you are suggesting they were always connected with matter. — Paine

Check what I wrote above to Fooloso4. "Substance" to me is Aristotle's replacement for "body" when speaking of the divine or eternal. What he saw was the problem discussed above, the commonly cited separation between natural bodies (earthly) and divinely bodies (heavenly). He moved to dissolve this separation by enforcing consistency in the definition of "body". Fundamentally this is the principle that all bodies are spatial, and consist of matter.

At the same time, he realized, as explained in "Metaphysics" that the substance (what validates or grounds something as real) of a body is better understood as its form rather than its matter. The form of the thing is what makes the thing what it is, rather than something else, and this is more properly understood as the first principle of existence of the thing, rather than the matter which provides the potential for the thing to become something else.

So he has effectively removed the designation of "divine" and "eternal" from the bodies which are heavenly bodies (that the heavenly bodies were gods is a principle from ancient theology), making all bodies natural bodies, but this did not remove the need for something divine and eternal. So he still needed a principle to ground the divine, the eternal, and this was substance now, rather than body.

No, things do not place themselves in species, nor was that my claim. I said that species are defined by objective commonalities. We decide which commonalities define a category, but, having decided that, whether a new object is an instance of the category is an objective question, with a right and wrong answer. — Dfpolis

Since you've just deferred the issue into a question of what it means to be "objective", an effective evasion, instead of addressing the question head on, I don't see any point to continuing. I mean how would you ground the supposed "right and wrong" of your claimed objectivity? Would you assume that right and wrong is what is agreed upon by human convention, or what corresponds to some independent form? If it's the former, then you are just saying the same thing as me, the "form" which is "the species", is a construct of human convention.

This is a confused, as it is on the basis of intrinsic properties that an organism fits or does not fit into one of the categories we have defined. If it has 6 legs and a segmented body, it is an insect. If it has scaled wings, it belongs to the order lepidoptera, etc. — Dfpolis

I don't think you are properly understanding "intrinsic property". Any property which inheres within a thing is intrinsic to that thing, even if it is accidental in relation to the category or species that the thing is judged as being in. We judge the category by what is deemed as essential to that category. So many properties which are intrinsic and essential to thing itself, are accidental in relation to the category, and therefore do not enter into the judgement of whether the thing belongs to the category or not.

Therefore, that the properties are intrinsic to the organism is accidental to the judgement. What is necessary or essential, is that the described properties correspond with the defined essential properties. The fact that this is the case is evidenced by the possibility of mistake. A mistaken description will allow the organism to be placed in the category regardless of whether the affirmed property actually is intrinsic to the organism. So the possibility of a wrong classification is actually evidence that whether or not the property actually is intrinsic to the organism, is irrelevant. All that is relevant is the description of the organism and the definition of the species. And when mistake is exposed, either the description is judged as wrong or the definition is judged as wrong, and what is actually inherent, or intrinsic within the organism still remains irrelevant.

Nothing can have contradicting properties. Either it has a property, or if does not. — Dfpolis

What I said was that "members" can have contradicting properties. So, for example I can have a property which is contradictory to a property which you have, and we can still be members of the same species. This indicates that the judgement is not based on "inherent properties". Rather, it is based on essential properties, which are provided by the definition. If you and I are both judged to have those essential properties, we are members of that species, regardless of all the various properties which are said to be intrinsic to you, and intrinsic to me.

If we have two things with the identical form, they are two (different) in virture of being made out of different instances of stuff. If we take a batch of plastic and make different kinds of things with it, they are not different because they are plastic, but because they have different forms. — Dfpolis

There is no such thing as two things with the same form. That is the point of the law of identity. A thing's form is the same as itself, and since all things are unique, no two things have the same form. "Form" refers to "what the thing is". And, in order that two things which appear to be similar or even the same, yet are clearly distinct, can actually be understood as distinct, they must each have a distinct "what the thing is". If they didn't each have a distinct "what the thing is", it would be impossible to distinguish them from one another, and by the fact that they cannot be distinguished one from the other, we'd have to conclude that they are not two distinct things but really one and the same thing.

Therefore a thing's "form" as "what the thing is", must be unique and particular to the thing itself. And there is no such thing as two things with the same form. We place two things into the same category, or type, and under Platonist principles we'd call the category or type itself a "form", but this is not the same use of "form" as the "form" which a material object has.

My ontology has nothing to do with perception.. — noAxioms

Consider the old saying, "you see what you want to see". There are principles of interpretation inherent within, built into, and therefore affecting the way that you perceive things. What you believe about reality (your ontology) has a very real affect on the way that you perceive things.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg, what we have access toward understanding, through sciences like psychology. Underneath, in the subconscious, there are all sorts of similar factors affecting the way you perceive things. If your ontology is the conscious manifestation of your attitude toward the reality of the things you are sensing, then underneath there is all sorts of intuitions and innate tendencies which feed your ontology, but also have an immense affect on the way things are perceived by you.

Usage of the word implies that quantum effects only occur when there is intent behind the measurements. There’s no evidence for that and heavy evidence against it. — noAxioms

There is always intent behind human actions, therefore intent behind measurements. If you removed it the acts would be random. I don't know on what basis you say there is no evidence of intent behind measurements.

Poor example I think since a magnifying glass doesn’t usually qualify as a measurement. They’re used in multiple places in typical laser experiments and they don’t collapse wave functions in them, else the experiments would fail. They’re not detectors, only refractors, and refraction wouldn’t work (wouldn’t bend light) at all if it constituted a measurement. — noAxioms

The magnifying glass was an analogous example, to demonstrate how the tool of observation (apparatus arranged for observational purposes) affects the observations, and why there is a need to have very good theory, and understand the theory, behind the use of the tool which is used.

In no way was I saying that a magnifying glass is used to make quantum measurements. I really cannot understand your mode of interpretation noAxioms. Have you no experience with reading examples or analogies?

But I wasn’t asking about descriptions. You say time requires observation. You didn’t say a description of time requires observation. I’d have agreed to that. So you’re evading the question instead by answering a different one. — noAxioms

No Axioms, "time" is a descriptive term, just like "space" is a descriptive term. The point is that you cannot use these descriptive terms to refer to anything other than something which is observational, because observation is inherent within, as "implied by", being an essential feature of, what the terms refer to.

So, what "time" refers to is something derivative from the observation of motions. What "space" refers to is something derivative from the observation of bodies. There is no such thing as time without observation, or space without observation, because these words refer to concepts which are derived from observation, having the observation data inherent within, as an essential aspect of the concept. If you remove the essential aspect of the concept (observation in this case), the concept referred to by the word is annihilated.

I am not evading the question, you are evading the reality. You say that's "idealistic", and your ontological attitude is to deny idealism, so you deny the reality because it doesn't jive with your ontology. Instead of recognizing that observation is inherent in, as an essential part of what "time" means, and realizing that you need to change your ontology because your ontology is inconsistent with this, your recourse is to deny the reality, that observation is necessary to the meaning of "time". That is an unreasonable response, to deny the evidence because it is inconsistent with your belief.

Don’t be silly. You know it does. It is the location of that which said ‘here’. — noAxioms

I have no idea where you are, and therefore no idea where "here" is when you say it. Imagine two people in a dark space, one says "here", the other hears "here". Ten seconds later this is repeated. Then the person who said "here" insists "I haven't moved because both times when I said "here" I was truthfully "here". That's how ridiculous your claim was, that because you were "here" now, and "here" later, you hadn't moved.

If I was being silly, it was because I was laughing at the ridiculousness of your claim.

But you said that being stationary was not possible, so you seem to exclude the possibility that you didn’t go anywhere during that interval. And as for my statement, had I indeed flown all around during that interval, at no time would I not be where I am, thus I’d always still be ‘here’. I’d simply not be inertial, so the coordinate system in which I am perpetually at the origin would not be an inertial coordinate system. — noAxioms

Please, stop with the ridiculousness No Axioms! However, I will oblige you with your solipsistic example if it will make you feel better.

Wherever you are is "here", and all the time you are always here, and "here" always refers to the same place, the place where you are, therefore you are never moving. Anything else in the world is totally irrelevant to you because in your solipsistic reality, nothing is ever changing places relative to you, which might make you think that you are actually moving.

Now, you said "If I’m here now and here later, that seems to be not-moving relative to ‘here’. OK, one might express that as motion at velocity (relative to here) of zero, which is arguably still motion." What in the world are you referring to when you say "not-moving relative to 'here'"?

To me, "here" signifies the place where you are, therefore it's obvious that you cannot be moving relative to here, because that would be contradictory. "Here", by the definition in the example, is always where you are. Do you agree, that this sort of tautology, or self-evident truth, that you are never moving relative to yourself, says absolutely nothing about whether or not you are "moving"? That is because 'you moving relative to yourself', or the more precise account, 'you moving relative to the place where you are', is a nonsensical thing to say, and to make it into something sensible would require a different definition of "moving".

To make sense of "I am moving relative to the place where I am' would require a completely different definition of "moving". This would be a definition which is completely inconsistent and incoherent in relation to any conventional definition of "moving", allowing that a thing is moving relative to the place where it is. So your claim of "not-moving relative to 'here'" is completely nonsensical without changing the definition of "moving" to something inconsistent and incoherent in relation with conventional definitions.

Therefore your example using "here" says absolutely nothing about motion as we understand motion. All you are saying is that "motion" in this nonsensical way, of myself moving in relation to the place where I am, is inconsistent with how "motion" is used in any conventional way. And your example says absolutely nothing about "motion" as used in any conventional way.

Consult a good dictionary. "Designating" is appointing, not judging. — Dfpolis

I don't really care how you want to say it. We could use "designate", "stipulate", "appoint", or whatever similar word, they're all very similar and also all forms of judgement. Judgement is to use reason in making a decision. The fact of the matter is, that we appoint things to the category which is their species, they do not just naturally place themselves into these categories, they are appointed to the appropriate categories

These properties are intrinsic to the organism, not willed by us in an act of designation. — Dfpolis

No, I think that this is false. The essential properties of the species are intrinsic to the concept, but all internal properties, are intrinsic to the organism. Every internal property of an organism is intrinsic to that organism, and essential to it being the organism which it is, as part of what makes it the very thing which it is. That's what the law of identity is all about. And that is also why members of the same species often have contradicting intrinsic properties. What is intrinsic to the organism is not necessarily essential to the concept. Those are the accidents.

I see you finally understood the texts I posted from the article I am working on. Matter (stuff) is the principle of individuation of form, and form is the principle of individuation of matter. — Dfpolis

I'm afraid I do not understand you, because this makes no sense to me. Form is the principle of individuation, it is the means by which we distinguish one thing, object, or entity, from another. It makes some sense to say "form is the principle of individuation of matter", because form is how we distinguish the material existence of one object as separate and distinct from the material existence of another object, but I can't make any sense of "Matter (stuff) is the principle of individuation of form". I believe it is the human mind which distinguishes one form from another (individuates), so I would need some further explanation to understand what you are proposing.

Do you have any text(s) to support this claim? You might mean that he is rejecting Plato's chora, but that is not "prime matter" in the sense used by the Scholastics. — Dfpolis

I think the best place for you to look for Aristotle's discussion of prime matter is Metaphysics Bk 8-9. In BK 8 he discusses how matter relates to form, as the potential for change. Change is the existence of contraries in the same thing at different times. At Ch4 he discusses the possibility that all things come from "the same original matter". And, he discusses how some differences are attributable to different matter, and some are attributable to different form. He also mentions things which have no matter, unchanging, eternal things.

Moving into BK 9, he questions "potency", and starts with a question concerning the possibility of one primary kind of potency which is the originative source of change. By Ch-8-9 he explains why actuality is necessarily prior to potentiality, thus excluding the possibility that prime matter is something real.

This is equivocating on "matter." Proximate matter, "this flesh and bones," which is actualized by psyche, is not pure potency. — Dfpolis

I do not see the equivocation., the possibility of "pure potency" is ruled out by the fact that actuality is prior to potency so there is no equivocation. The actuality which is prior to matter must be immaterial. Read Bk 8-9 of Metaphysics, mentioned above, to get a handle on how Aristotle conceives of the eternal, as actuality (form) without matter.

These are direct quotes from the text, not my interpretation.

These premises clearly give the conclusion that there is in nature some bodily substance other than the formations we know, prior to them all and more divine than they. (269a 30)

And the concluding sentence of Book 1, part 2:

On all these grounds, therefore, we may infer with confidence that there is something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, different and separate from them; and that the superior glory of its nature is proportionate to its distance from this world of ours. (268b 14) — Fooloso4

OK, now I see what you're talking about. Thanks for the exact reference, I must have been looking in the wrong section.

This is very consistent with what I've been telling you. Notice in the first quote he says "these premises give the conclusion...". He is discussing the argument of the Pythagoreans, and as I said, that argument proves the reality of eternal circular motion. Aristotle cannot refute that argument on its own terms. To refute that argument Aristotle needs to propose his own premise, that whatever is a body, is composed of matter, and by other means he demonstrates that anything composed of matter cannot be eternal. In the argument from the Pythagoreans, there is a distinction between natural body and unnatural body. This distinction is what Aristotle ends up rejecting, with the proposition that all bodies consist of matter.

Notice the latter quote, from the end of the section, he has replaced "some bodily substance" with "something beyond the bodies". This is very consistent with what he writes in Metaphysics Bk 8-9, which I refer to above and what I've been arguing. He speaks of an actuality which is prior to potentiality. It is not a body because being prior to potentiality it cannot consist of matter. So it is properly immaterial, eternal, and being an actuality it is a form. So he effectively replaces the Pythagorean idea of unnatural, divine bodies which are moved in an eternal circular motion, with an immaterial actuality or form, which is prior to all bodily existence.

Basically you're asking, How is it that all humans are homo sapiens yet with such a diversity of appearance? — Wayfarer

No, I'm asking how you conceive of diversity of appearance between individual human beings, under Aristotelian conceptual space, as anything other than each person having a different form?

Suppose each person is composed of different matter. It is the way that the matter is arranged which is the cause of the difference in appearance isn't it? And this is the form. Different instances of matter might look the very same, if it's not arranged in different ways. The arrangement, or order, is the form which the matter has, and that is what looks different.

That a man is skinny is not due to the formal cause. What it is to be a man is not to be skinny. If the skinny man becomes fat this is not due to the formal cause. He is the same man whether skinny or fat. — Fooloso4

That the man is skinny is accidental to the form of "man", but it is essential to the form of "skinny man". So, yes skinny or fat is a formal cause under that qualification. However, it is only accidental in relations to "man" and therefore not a formal cause at all without that qualification.

You are not paying attention to how Aristotle defines "incidental", or "accidental" causes. They are only formal causes in relation to the necessary qualification. In relation to "man", skinny and fat are accidentals therefore not formal causes in relation to this form. In relation to that specific qualification they are formal causes. That's why Aristotle explicitly stated in the passage I quoted, that without qualification chance is not the cause of anything.

I see you went silent regarding the eternity and material of the heavens. It would have been better to have admitted you were wrong, but better to be silent then attempt to argue your way out. If only you had used such good judgment with the rest of your tendentious arguments. I think it is time for me to once again join the ranks of those here who, for good reason, ignore you. — Fooloso4

No, I saw that you were hopelessly lost, and you failed to provide the proper reference for your quote. I read the whole section and did not find it. So I concluded that you were being dishonest in your quote. If you provide the proper reference for me, where he concludes that there is a different type of body which is the substratum to all other bodies, I'll take a look at the context and explain it for you. Until then, you are just wasting my time, because I know Aristotle well enough to know that this is not Aristotelian.

Bell suggests ‘experiment’, but that loads the whole situation with intent that is meaningless. — noAxioms

It's not meaningless to point out the intent which is inherent within observation, measurement, etc.. And the intent is much more evident with the word "experiment". It's a fundamental fact that experiments are designed, and this points to the theory-laden nature of measurements and observations.

In general, the fact that experiments are designed is a very good feature of the scientific method. It allows us to control for specifics. However, design under defective theories, defective premises, etc., can also allow us to be drawn down long paths of misunderstanding.

The fact that the apparatus, rather than the human senses, does the observing, is something which the implications of, needs to be considered. The apparatus has the position of being a medium between the thing observed, and the human observer. Because of this, it is essential to know exactly what the apparatus is doing in this position, as necessary to an accurate interpretation of the observations. In the case of quantum experiments, the issue of exactly what the apparatus is doing, is where the experiments are very theory-laden.

To understand what I am saying, consider making observations through a magnifying glass. The magnifying glass is the medium between the observer and the thing observed, it's the apparatus. When interpreting your observations it is essential to know what the magnifying glass is doing in this position, because it could produce some sort of interference which would not be there naturally, (like the way it can focus light on the object to burn it) and you might interpret this interference as a natural part of the thing you are observing. The magnifying glass is a very simple thing, but it can have a strong causal effect on the observed thing, as the burning example shows. As we move toward more and more complicated observational apparatus, the microscope, the electron microscope, the need to understand the theory involved, and the soundness of the theory, in making interpretations becomes more and more important.

Well I googled ‘motion definition in physics’ and get a britannica one saying “change with time of the position or orientation of a body.“ which makes no mention of a requirement for observation (human or otherwise) to be involved. — noAxioms

I told you, time requires observation, it is the outcome of observation. So "change with time of the position..." does require observation. Time is part of the map. And, once you realize this, you'll see that "position" also is part of the map. It is a human designation of where a thing is in relation to other things. "Position" also requires observation. This is Kant's point when he says that space and time are fundamental "intuitions". They exist as part of the human being's observational apparatus, as intuitional theory, not as part of the thing being observed.

That’s a pretty idealistic assertion. Are you one of those people that suggest that nothing happened before humans came along? — noAxioms

I think there was no descriptions derived from human observations (of which "motion" is one), before humans came along.

Absolute time has no dependency on its being measured. If it flows, the rate (and direction) at which it does so is entirely independent of anything’s perception or measurement of it. You seem to keep attempting to make everything about your knowledge of something, about the map and not about the territory. — noAxioms

"Absolute time" is a misnomer. I told you this already. What is referred to as the perspective of "absolute time", is the assumption that one's position on the earth is the grounding point, as the position of rest, from which all passage of time is assumed to be relative to. Any measurement of time passing, the "flow" you refer to is done from this rest frame. It is said to be "absolute" because it serves as the grounding for the measurement of time for all frames of reference, unlike special relativity which allows the measurement of time to be frame specific.

Nevertheless, what is referred to as "absolute time" is a theoretical proposal, a condition of the observational perspective. It does not refer to something independent of the perspective, but it is a definitional feature of the perspective. So in the map analogy it is part of the "key", or "legend", which i necessary for interpreting and using the map. Therefore it is part of the map rather than the territory.

If I’m here now and here later, that seems to be not-moving relative to ‘here’. — noAxioms

Come on Axioms, your pretense of naivety is overwhelming me. This statement is so filled with problems that it is actually bordering on ridiculous. First, what the hell does "here" refer to? The term gives no positional reference. It's just a matter of you stipulating I am "here", and the place I call "here" at one time is the same place I call "here" at another time. Even if we could assume that "here" refers to the exact same position in "here now", as it refers to in "here later", thus creating the appearance that you have not moved, there's nothing to exclude the possibility that you flew around the whole universe in the meantime. So your sense of "seems to be not-moving" is not at all a logical conclusion, and is just as much an illusion as it is a case of you simply stipulating "I am here therefore I am not moving".

But the salient point of the dispute is, is each individual an instance of a unique form? I say not, that the form 'man' is common to all men, that is why it is a universal. — Wayfarer

So let me ask you, are properties part of a thing's form? If so, then how is it that different men have different properties yet they have the same "form", man?

Where does he say that it is not properly a cause? — Fooloso4

Physics Bk 2, where he discusses causes. After describing the four senses of "cause" he says: "Such then is the number and nature of the kinds of cause." Ch. 3 195a. Then he distinguishes between those four which are "proper" causes, and incidental causes. 195a. Then at Ch. 4 he questions "in what manner chance and spontaneity are present among the causes enumerated". 195b. So he starts to describe the opinions of others. In Ch. 5 he discusses exactly what chance is, and makes the following conclusion.

Things do, in a way, occur by chance, for they occur incidentally and chance is an incidental cause. But strictly it is not the cause - without qualification - of anything; for instance, a house builder is the cause of a house; incidentally a flute player may be." — Physcis Bk 2, Ch 5, 197a 13 -14

Please notice Fooloso4, that he distinguishes between the four "proper causes" and what he calls "incidental causes". The word in your quoted translation is "accidentally". Chance is an incidental cause, therefore it is not a proper cause. I suggest you read the section, and figure out what he means by "incidental" because you seem to be totally ignoring this qualification.

It is relevant because at least part of your confusion seems to be based on the translation of the term ousia. — Fooloso4

Very clearly it is you who is confused.

It is not me but Aristotle who you are accusing: — Fooloso4

No, it is your pathetic interpretation which I am accusing

That is why I defined it for you. — Dfpolis

As I explained, your definition refers to nothing real because the additive are mixed with the subtractive What's the point in proceeding that way? You can define "abstraction" however you want, and produce a logical argument from this, but if there's nothing real which corresponds with your definition then it's just a false premise and your argument is unsound.

We do not "designate" species members. We find them, or don't. — Dfpolis

Of course we designate species members rather than finding them. We find things, and judge them to be of a specific species, thereby designating them as members of that species. The named species are categories for classification, we judge things and designate them as members of those categories. We do not come across things, and they say to us "I am of this specific species, you must place me in that category" Even if things did speak to us in this way, we would have to judge whether they were telling the truth or not. There's no way around the fact that we make a judgement which designates that the thing is of a certain species, and it is not the case that we simply "find" a thing to be of that certain species.

Not at all. We know they are different because they are not in the same place, and they cannot be in the same place because they are made of different stuff. — Dfpolis

This is backward. First, the same thing can be in different places, just not at the same time. The same thing being in different places is what validates the concept "motion". And, position is part of the formula, it is formal. If we state, as a formal principle, that the same thing cannot exist in two different places at the same time, then we have what we need to say that they are different. We do not reference "made of different stuff" at all. When we judge two things as different, we first reference obvious physical differences. If there is not obvious physical differences we might think that they are both made of the same stuff, aluminum steel, wood, etc.. Then we refer to spatial temporal positioning, and this tells us that the two things can't really be made of the very same stuff. But what makes the stuff different is something formal, spatial temporal position, not something material. Without form all matter would be the same thing.

The atomists proposed an indivisible stopping point, atoma. Aristotle roundly rejects the hypothesis of atoma, and answers instead that potential division is not actual division, so there is no actual infinite regress. — Dfpolis

That's right I agree here.

lso, will not find "prime matter" in Aristotle. It is an invention of the Scholatics, found in Aquinas, and confuses Aristotle's hyle with Plato's chora. (See my Hyle article.) — Dfpolis

No, we very much do find prime matter discussed in Aristotle's Metaphysics. He ends up rejecting it with his cosmological argument.

By "implies" I take it you mean that there is no text in which Aristotle actually says this. If there is, please cite it. — Dfpolis

Where he explicitly states this in "On the Soul", Bk1, when he addresses various different ideas about the relation between the soul and the body. He dismisses Plato's account of the circular motions of the heavens in Timaeus, starting with "Now, in the first place it is a mistake to say that the soul is a spatial magnitude." Then it is implied in Metaphysics Bk9 when he shows that there is necessarily an actuality prior in time to potentiality (cosmological argument). Since matter is potentiality, this actuality must be immaterial.

This is not Aristotle's position, and your reasoning is flawed for the reasons I gave. — Dfpolis

It appears like you have not read that part of "On the Heavens".

Cannot see that - truly free will is not concerned with worldly affairs or affect. The formulation of a "need to decide" already makes clear that the world is forcing itself upon you. Truly free will creates it's only choice by it's decision and does not pick from given alternatives like a hunted animal that can either flee left or right. — Heiko

This makes no sense to me "Truly free will creates it's only choice by it's decision". Choice is the cause, decision the effect. Are you saying that the decision determines the choice, as if the effect determines the cause.

Also, why would free will not be concerned with worldly affairs? You appear to put these things backward. The "need to decide" can only be a property of the capacity to decide. And as I said, I'd far prefer to have the capacity to decide, and the consequent "need to decide" because the world is forcing itself on me, then to be as a rock, where I would have no capacity to resist or manipulate what the world is forcing on me.

Again take a box with a partition in it, with gas A on one side, gas B on the other side, and both gases are at the same temperature and pressure. If gas A and B are different gases, there is an entropy that arises once the gases are mixed. If the gases are the same, no additional entropy is calculated. The additional entropy from mixing does not depend on the character of the gases; it only depends on the fact that the gases are different. The two gases may be arbitrarily similar, but the entropy from mixing does not disappear unless they are the same gas - a paradoxical discontinuity...

I suggest that this is an illusion created by the terms of the example. If each individual molecule of compartment A is marked as A, and each individual molecule of B is marked as B, then even if the two compartments each contain the same type of gas, the combining will appear the same as if they are different gases, because they are marked as different.

There is no paradox, just an illusion. In the case of two distinct gases, an act of mixing is required, and this requires time and energy. In the case of the gases being the same, it appears like the gases have already mixed as soon as the separation is removed. That's just an illusion, mixing has not occurred, as marking the molecules would reveal.

Abstraction is not inductive reasoning. Abstraction is a subtractive process, in which we focus on certain notes of intelligibility to form a concept, while prescinding from others. Induction is an additive process in which we add the hypothesis that the cases we have not examined are like the cases we have. No hypothesis is added in abstraction. Rather, we see that certain things do not depend on others, e.g. by seeing that counting does not depend on what is counted we come to the concept of natural numbers and the arithmetic axioms. In the case of species, if a new individual has all the notes of intelligibility required to elicit a species concept, it is a member of that species. If not, not. — Dfpolis

"Abstraction" is an extremely broad, and vague term, covering a wide variety of mental processes. I see no point to restricting "abstraction" to a subtractive process and denying that it involves any additive processes. To me, this would be like restricting "understanding" to analysis, and denying that it involves any synthesis. It's just not a reasonable approach to "abstraction", to deny all additive processes when abstraction clearly involves both.

No hypothesis is added in abstraction. Rather, we see that certain things do not depend on others, e.g. by seeing that counting does not depend on what is counted we come to the concept of natural numbers and the arithmetic axioms. — Dfpolis

Notice, you say that no hypothesis is added in abstraction, but you start from a hypothesis "counting does not depend on what is counted". This, in itself is derived from inductive reasoning, when it is seen that "all counting involves counting something" is a failed inductive principle. So you take the failed results of an inductive conclusion as to produce your hypothesis as your premise, then build your supposed "abstraction" on top of this. Then you claim that abstraction is something independent from, and not dependent on induction. Your claim is not justified, inductive reasoning inheres within abstraction, no matter how you present it, and it is fundamental to any empirical principles.

You could go the Kantian route, and separate out the a priori from the a posteriori. But a priori principles without rules for application provide no means for making empirical judgements. Furtther defining features are required.

I did not say that we did. — Dfpolis

Sorry, I misrepresented you again. But that is what Fooloso4 was arguing, and you seemed to be arguing the same point. My question then, is what do you mean by the following?
"Still, we can abstract aspects that are common to a species or genus, and these aspects are grounded in the form of the species or genus members." It appears strangely circular to me, so how do you propose a grounding here?

Lets say there is a named species, and it has some designated members. The definition of the species dictates which aspects are common to the members. Yet it is only through abstraction from the particular members that the definition of the species is produced. Where is the grounding you propose, and how is the designation of which beings are properly called members of the species anything more than arbitrary?

Try reading it by first skipping the footnotes. I am saying that sometimes Aristotle uses matter to individuate form, and sometimes he uses form to individuate matter. So, he has no single principle of individuation. Aquinas is forced to do the same. — Dfpolis

I would be very much inclined to agree with you on this, and that's why a thorough reading of much material is required, to establish consistency in the conceptual structure. What I see is an issue with the nature of "matter", as fundamentally unintelligible through the violation of the excluded middle law. So whenever we look at two distinct individuals, and ask what makes one different from the other, when the answer is not obvious, the simple solution is to say "the matter". They have different matter. That is a replacement for "I don't know". So for example, if we take two products manufactured from a production line, which appear to be exactly the same, the easy answer as to how they differ is "the matter". But this is really just a way to avoid answering.

Because of this way that "matter" is used, as the simple answer, and an escape, the meaning of "matter" is very much context dependent. Aristotle goes into this at one point in the Metaphysics. If we look at wooden furniture, we say that the matter is wood. The suffix "en" signifies the matter in the most simple way. But if we analyze deeper, we see that wood itself is a specific form, and there must be a further "matter" which underlies the wood allowing it the potential to exist as different forms. This is the issue of the divisibility of the material world. Each time we divide, we get a different form, and if we assume that there is always matter which underlies the form, then there is always also the need for a further underlying matter which supports the newly divided for form.

I discussed this briefly in my reply to Fooloso4 above, concerning where it is covered by Aristotle in On the Heavens. It is unrealistic to assume that bodies can be divided forever, infinitely. And, it is unrealistic to assume that there will eventually be a point in the division process where there is no more body. So the atomists propose a fundamental indivisible, which Aristotle describes in his Metaphysics as a "prime matter". But the problem is that unless the prime matter has true infinite capacity for producing different forms, there would need to be a multitude of distinct "atoms", to produces all the different forms. If the atoms are themselves distinct, then they each has a different form, and further divisibility is implied. If all the atoms are exactly the same as each other, and truly indivisible being without form, then they would have infinite potential to produce all the different forms. But such infinite potential is ruled out by the cosmological argument.

Because these two different ways of looking at prime matter, or atoms, both lead to problems, Aristotle leads us in a different direction. He implies that at the base, or foundation, of material bodies, is something truly immaterial. This is the only way to escape the infinite regress caused by the assumption of an underlying matter as the substance of the universe.

So in our common discussions we tend toward the easy solution to individuation, we simply attribute the differences to the underlying matter. But in metaphysical analysis, and ontological studies we come to understand that this produces an infinite regress of always needing a further underlying matter, and this renders the basis of material existence as fundamentally unintelligible. So we need to escape the infinite regress which is caused by assuming that the easy solution is the true solution, and Aristotle proposes that the true grounding of the material world is in something immaterial.

Must be quite an A**hole to create humans that way just to make them suffer. — Heiko

Actually I disagree. Suffering is caused by the same condition which allows for free will, the condition which produces the need to decide. I'd much rather have free will along with the associated suffering, than to live without feeling, like a stone.

I'm going to stop arguing this point, you've been telling me this over and over for years, and I just don't think it stacks up. Over and out. — Wayfarer

Basically it's the reason why Aristotelianism is not Platonism. I believe Aristotle gave us an improvement, some do not think so.

A simile comes to mind: imagine that 'the idea of the cat' is a silhouette in front of a light-source through which light is projected so as to create an image of the cat on a surface. But the surface on which the light is projected is irregular, so the image is always slightly different each time it is projected. In this simile, 'the silhoettte' is 'the form', but the actual impression is 'the particular' - due to the irregularities on the surface on which it is projected each image is slightly different, thereby making each one 'an individual'. The key point being, there is only one silhouette, but the resultant images are all different due to the irregularities - 'accidents' - of the surface on which it is being projected. — Wayfarer

The problem with this is that the irregularities are due to the form of the surface, and the silhouette is not independent from the surface, it is part of the surface. So in analyzing the silhouette's form, we couldn't separate the silhouette's form from the form of the surface. But if we did get that far in the analysis, we come to apprehend the projection, as independent from the surface, according to the reality of what you describe.

It is quite likely though that this is what Plato had in mind, judging by the cave analogy. And, in the Timaeus, it seems like the passive matter which the divine mind puts the form into already has some form or properties which could be the cause of accidents in the created things. But Plato apprehends, and turns toward the act of projection itself, as "the good", seeing that the silhouette is just a silhuoette.

This is consistent with the way that human beings create thing's. We are restricted in our creations by the form which the matter already has, when we project our intentions. In art, this is the medium. But as our knowledge increases, and we get down to the fundamental particles, we are less and less restricted. The mediums of today's artists is far different from the mediums employed in Plato's time. The principle is the same though, the artists are restricted by the form already within the medium employed, and if we could get down to a formless "prime matter" to work with, we would have absolutely no restrictions from the medium.

But that is not Aristotle's projection. He places a restriction on the matter itself, there is no prime matter. He clearly places an immaterial form as prior to material bodies altogether, as the cause of existence of material bodies. This means that all matter by its very nature of being matter is already restricted by the prior immaterial form which causes it to come into being.

From this perspective, even the most fundamental particles of matter are produced in the divine act of creation, and the forms which act causally in this creation are properly immaterial. This is the position adopted by Christian theology. Notice that the acts of God's Will are supposed to be perfect. There are no accidents in God's creation. The accidents are only in the way that things appear to us. These accidents are where the deficient human intellect fails to grasp God's creative act. The failure is due to our dependence on the body, sense observation, which cannot perceive the immaterial act which is prior to material existence. That's what I just pointed out to fooloso4, chance is not the cause of accidents. That accidents are caused by chance is how our own ignorance appears to us. The perfect Being, God, does not do anything by chance, and the appearance that He does is only our own ignorance influencing how we apprehend things. And the materialist perspective, which denies the reality of the prior immaterial cause, insisting that anything real must perceptible to the senses, only reinforces this ignorance.

Yes. Still, we can abstract aspects that are common to a species or genus, and these aspects are grounded in the form of the species or genus members. — Dfpolis

I think I would disagree with this. When we abstract what is common to a species, this is grounded in the individual instances. That is inductive reasoning, making a general statement which is derived from observation of a multitude of individuals. We do not derive the universal from an independent Form which is the form of the species, we derive it from the individuals. Then we can produce a statement of definition, and the definition of the species can serve as a grounding, as Aristotle's secondary substance. But never is the human abstraction said to be grounded in an independent Form of the species in Aristotelian conceptual space.

Here is a fragment about the principle of individuation from an article I am working on: — Dfpolis

I must say that I can't really interpret what you are saying in these passages, by simply reading them with no context.

Timaeus identifies two kinds of cause, intelligence and necessity, nous and ananke. Necessity covers such things as physical processes, contingency, chance, motion, power, and the chora. What is by necessity is without nous or intellect. It is called the “wandering cause” (48a). It can act contrary to nous. The sensible world, the world of becoming, is neither regulated by intellect nor fully intelligible. — Fooloso4

Plato on causation is not clear at all, and I don't agree with your interpretation here. You cannot make a clear cut and dry division like you do because prior to Aristotle defining the distinct senses of "cause", there was ambiguity and mixing of the senses, equivocation. So when Plato said "necessity" is a type of cause, this was not meant to indicate a physical process, as we might say today. It was meant to represent something distinct from a rational choice. The sense of "necessity" here is more like need. So when a very thirsty person is caused to drink water, knowing that the water may be contaminated, for example, this is caused by necessity rather than rational choice. This sense of "need" was imposed onto the physical world by the ancients, such that what we call physical necessity was understood as what was needed by the gods.l

They are two different ousia with the same form, man. There difference is not with regard to form but with regard to accidents. — Fooloso4

It is made very clear by Aristotle, that accidents are part of a thing's form. Even dfPolis and I agree this far. As I explained to Wayfarer above, if we can apprehend accidental differences as differences, then they must be formal, because form is the only aspect of the thing which is intelligible to us. If the difference were not formal we could not perceive them as differences.

This is precisely why the individual is not a form.

The cause of accidents is chance:

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

This opinion strikes right to the very heart of the issue. The cause of accidents, in human actions is ignorance, not chance. And any cause in the wider world, which is unknown to us, will appear to us as chance. So chance is not a cause at all, it's just the way we portray and represent our own ignorance. Aristotle dismissed chance as not properly a cause, and that's why there are four senses of "cause" rather than six (chance and luck being excluded).

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

He does not say beyond the bodies but:

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

Looks like he's saying "beyond the bodies" to me, as the quote says "beyond the bodies". I suggest that's what he means. If he meant 'beyond these bodies there's another body, he would have said that. But. he didn't, he said "beyond the bodies".

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

These premises clearly give the conclusion that there is in nature some bodily substance other than the formations we know, prior to them all and more divine than they. (On the Heavens Book 1, part 2) — Fooloso4

Sorry Fool, but I read through this section and could not find your reference. In this chapter he is discussing the problems of other philosophers, atomists in particular. He discusses the possibility of infinite divisibility, and the problems involved with this idea. He characterizes this sort of division as resulting in dividing a body until there is nothing left, no body left to divide any more. This he says is impossible. But he also says that it is impossible to keep dividing forever, because there will be physical limitations to how far a body can be divided. I see no mention of a different kind of body, prior to this type of body which poses us with those problem. If I missed it though, he's probably talking about the proposed atoms which are supposed to be an indivisible type of body. But it appears like I need to remind you again, he is showing the problems with these other ideas, not necessarily supporting them.

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

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

The word translated as substance is ousia. It always refers to something particular, whether an individual or a species. — Fooloso4

I don't see how this is relevant.

We have been over this before. If each individual is a form and each individual form is different then how do you account for the fact that human beings only give birth to human beings? There is something by nature common to all human beings that at the same time distinguishes them from all else that is not a human being. What that is is the form man or human being. — Fooloso4

This is not relevant either. I could turn around and say to you, that evolution is clear proof that your supposed "fact" is a falsity. That a being can only give birth to the same type of being is proven false by the reality of evolution. You are obviously making wild, outlandish, and completely irrelevant assumptions because you think they might support your position.

Look, the fact that the mother bares a being similar to herself, has no bearing on the fact that each being is distinct and different from every other being, therefore having a distinct "form". How and why this similarity occurs is studied in the science of biology, through chromosomes and genetics. And there is no mention of an independent Form of the species which causes the mother to bare a baby similar to herself. In biology the species are as defined. They are human conceptions.

There is a reason the forms are also known as universals. If they were specific to each and every particular, the whole idea would crumble. — Wayfarer

The idea does not crumble, it is just clarified by Aristotle to better represent reality (be more truthful). There are two principal senses of "form" for Aristotle, hence primary and secondary substance. The one sense refers to human abstractions, conceptions, the formulae which we employ. That is secondary substance. The other sense refers to the forms of individuals. These are separate Forms, existing in the world independently from us, as the cause of the fact that natural things are the exact things which they are, and nothing else. This is primary substance. The whole idea doesn't crumble, it's just restructured into a more realistic form of dualism.

DfPolis' rejection of Cartesian dualism is right on the mark. The simplistic mind/body dualism has severe limitations and problems as Plato demonstrated. But the resolution is not to dismiss dualism altogether, it is to move toward a more complex dualism, which can properly represent reality. Under Aristotle's conceptual space we can understand all the aspects of reality, including both mind and body, as consisting of both parts of the dualism. This is why, following Aristotle, the mind consists of both passive, and active aspects. Even the mind itself is divisible into the two aspects of the dualism now. And the same is true of material things, they each have a formal (active) aspect, and a material (passive aspect.

Interesting. Why do you say that entropy is subjective? Is it because a system's boundary is arbitrary?

This is the issue which Plato approached in The Timaeus. It appears that when individual things come to be through a natural process, the universal form. or type, is predetermined, so that this universal form must in some way act as a determining cause. This produces the conclusion that the form is somehow put into the matter. However, we also observe that each individual, despite being of the same type, or universal form, is distinct and different from every other. So if the universal form is put into the matter in the case of generation, coming-to-be, there is a problem as to how it is that each individual is different.

The simple solution, which Plato proposes to some extent, is that the difference between individuals is attributable to a difference in each one's matter. However, Aristotle is moved to delve much more deeply into the concept of "matter", and his analysis reveals that this is illogical. Since form is the principle of intelligibility, each and every difference which is apprehended by a human being, as a difference, must be a difference of form. If it was not a difference of form, we would not perceive it as a difference.

This is what is meant by "and the question whether Socrates and to be Socrates are the same thing, are obviously answered by the same solution; for there is no difference either in the standpoint from which the question would be asked, or in that from which one could answer it successfully". From the standpoint that Socrates is a distinct and different individual from Calias, it is necessary to answer that the difference between the two is a difference of form. Since all differences which are apprehended by us are differences of form, it is necessary to conclude that the difference between two individuals, which we apprehend as different, is a difference of form. So the same perspective which says that the two are different, must acknowledge that the difference is a difference of form.

There is a sophistic trick which modern materialist employs, to speak of a "difference which doesn't make a difference". It's a trick, because the fact that the difference is apprehended as a difference implies that it has already made a difference, that difference being that they have been noticed as different. So that little trick is really an incoherent contradiction. You may have noticed that Apokrisis used this trick, as did Streetlight who seemed to stop saying it. Perhaps, but not likely, I convinced him that it is an incoherency.

I think it is all quite clear. The formal cause is by nature. It is at work. Your claim is that it is a concept. — Fooloso4

This is the problem Plato approached in The Timaeus, described above. Notice I said, it appears like the universal (formal cause) is active in nature, as the cause of a thing being the type that it is. But formal cause cannot account for the accidents. There is a difference between the type and the individual. Therefore the cause of the individual, natural thing's form, must be peculiar and unique to the individual itself. So the formal cause is not at work in the coming-to-be of natural things, there is a different type of cause, more similar to final cause, and that is why all natural things are different from each other, and unique. Formal cause is at work in the production of artificial things, when we follow a formula, and create numerous things which appear to be the same (production line). Notice though, that the formula is a human concept.

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

On all these grounds, therefore, we may infer with confidence that there is something beyond the bodies that are about us on this earth, different and separate from them; and that the superior glory of its nature is proportionate to its distance from this world of ours. — Fooloso4

I agree with that, it is consistent with what I've been saying. Notice, "beyond the bodies". What is beyond the bodies is properly immaterial, as I described. Aristotle describes the eternal as necessarily immaterial. Since a circular motion involves matter, the circular motion is not eternal.

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

First, this contradicts your earlier claim:

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

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

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

The primary ousia (substance) is not a form. A primary substance is a particular thing, both form and matter. To be Socrates is not to be a form. The secondary substance is not a form either, it is a universal, what all men have in common that distinguishes them from all else. — Fooloso4

Read Metaphysics Bk7 please. Substance is form. However, both "form" and "essence" have more than one sense. The universal, or type, is a form or essence, yet the individual has an "essence" or "form" unique to itself. Hence the law of identity. A thing and its essence are one and the same.

What is true of Callias is not true of all men, but what is true of all men is true of Callias. What all men have in common is not a universal. What all men have in common is a form. It is because of the form that there is the universal. — Fooloso4

This makes no sense. If it is what all men have in common, it is a universal, plain and simple. If you are trying to make a distinction between the universal (human concept), and the form which is causal in a natural thing's coming-to-be, you ought to respect Aristotle's principles, and allow that the form which is causal in this case is the form of the individual (law of identity), as the cause of the thing being the very thing that it is. Independent from human universals, each form is the form of an individual. Humanly created forms are universals.

I hold none of these positions. I think accidents inhere in substances, as aspects of their actuality or form. I think that potentials, such as that of an acorn to be an oak, are not self-triggering, but are triggered by something already in act. — Dfpolis

My apologies for the misrepresentation. It appears like you and I are in agreement on this point, but at odds with some of the others. Accidents are properly attributable to an individual's form, rather than the individual's matter. This necessitates that there is a form unique to each an every individual.

The gist of my claim herein is that the above quote describes our fluidly transforming world as an ongoing continuity of boundary crossings, boundary mergers, Venn Diagram overlapping and transcendence of boundaries. — ucarr

All this does is show the deficiency of systems theory as a means for modeling the world. The reality of these "boundary crossings" implies that there is many things which cannot be classified as being proper to one system or another. Initially, this may not appear as a problem, but when it comes to mapping causation, we need to distinguish between what is within the system, and what is acting on the system, as a causal force. As in my reply to Banno, above, inertial continuity is modeled as internal, therefore non-causal, and external influence is modeled as a causal force of change.

So for example, someone in another thread suggested to me that we could model an atom as a system. However, the natural state of atoms is to exist within complex molecules, where parts (electrons for example) are shared. If two atoms share an electron, and the atoms themselves are being modeled as distinct systems, then in each model, the shared atom is both an internal part of the inertial continuity of the system, and also a part of the other system, thereby acting as a causal force of change on that same system. In other words, from this 'systems' perspective, the electron must be understood as both a part of the inertial continuity of the system, and a causal force of change to the system (being a part of an external system), at the same time.

that's where we differ. I don't think that's what 'form' means. Socrates truly is the form 'man' but the form 'man' is common to all men. Likewise for forms generally. — Wayfarer

But what is the form 'man' other than the essential properties require for being a man? This is the species, man. How could Socrates, as one individual man, be the species? Even by the theory of participation, derived from the Pythagoreans and described by Plato, the individual participates in the Idea. It's explained very well in The Symposium how the individual beautiful thing participates in the idea Beauty. We cannot say that the individual is the idea, because the individual is one of many, but we can say that the individual participates in the idea.

But the deficiencies of the theory of participation are exposed by Plato in his middle and later work, culminating in The Timaeus. The Idea, as that which is participated in, is characterized as completely passive, and this denies it any causal capacity. Thus we have the commonly cited "interaction problem". Plato sowed the seeds for Aristotle's solution to this problem by revealing "the good", as the motivation for human actions, which allows ideas to be causal, actual. The good, (final cause for Aristotle) is what makes intelligible objects "real", through the apprehension of the efficacy of the ideas. Therefore "forms" in Aristotle's conceptual space are actual.

In his work On Interpretation, Aristotle maintained that the concept of "universal" is apt to be predicated of many and that singular is not. For instance, man is a universal while Callias is a singular. The philosopher distinguished highest genera like animal and species like man but he maintained that both are predicated of individual men. This was considered part of an approach to the principle of things, which adheres to the criterion that what is most universal is also most real. Consider for example a particular oak tree. This is a member of a species and it has much in common with other oak trees, past, present and future. Its universal, its oakness, is a part of it. A biologist can study oak trees and learn about oakness and more generally the intelligible order within the sensible world. Accordingly, Aristotle was more confident than Plato about coming to know the sensible world; he was a prototypical empiricist and a founder of induction. Aristotle was a new, moderate sort of realist about universals. — Wiki

There are two directions you can go in determining what is "most real". The materialist (physicalist) trend which is common today in the so-called vulgar realist approach, is to turn toward the individual, material object, and designate it as "most real". The idealist trend, which envelopes the scientific world with mathematical Platonism, is to turn toward the idea, the universal, and designate it as "most real". Each can be said to be a "realism", though they have opposing grounds for "real".

The philosopher acknowledges that both the individual and the universal must be real. But the difficulty for the philosopher is to provide principles, premises, which allow both to be classed together under one category as "real". The two show themselves to be fundamentally incompatible.

Plato demonstrated the priority of the ideal. The ideal is shown to be logically prior to the material. But "logically prior", in the realm of intelligible objects does not adequately translate to "actually prior" in the realm of material objects. Actually prior is a temporal priority of causation. So Plato's demonstration does not yet resolve the problem. Aristotle's resolution involves creating a bridge between "logically prior" and "temporally prior" through the concepts of potential and actual. The cosmological argument shows that what is logically prior is necessarily temporally prior.

But to get to this point, we need to go through an entire lesson on understanding the relationship between the temporal development and evolution of human concepts, and the existence of material individuals.

Notice the structure of concepts employed by Aristotle. The concept "man" is said to be within the concept of "Socrates" as a defining feature. Likewise, the concept of "animal" is said to be within the concept of "man", and the concept "living" is within the concept of animal. This is counterintuitive to the current way of thinking, because we think of Socrates as being within the set, or category of man, and man as being within the set of animal. This is an exact inversion of the Aristotelian conceptual structure. So modern principles have provided us with a conceptual space which is inverted from Aristotle's conceptual space, and since this is a fundamental, basic habit in the way that we think, it is very difficult for us to release this way of thinking, and truly see things the Aristotelian way.

The modern way is heavily influenced by the Platonism (Pythagoreanism) of modern mathematics, set theory for example, which treats numbers as particular, individual things. You can see that in this mode of thinking the more specific participates in the more general, just like the theory of participation. This approach becomes very problematic when we get to the participation of the particular individual, in the conceptual idea. (Take quantum uncertainty as an example, how does the particle (individual) participate in the wave function (universal). Plato revealed this problem, so Aristotle turned things around, and placed the particular, the individual, as first in the hierarchy, primary substance. So in "Categories", primary substance is said to be the individual, and as such it "is neither present in a subject nor predicated of a subject".

This places the individual as necessarily first in the hierarchy of human conception, dictated by the law of identity. And the conceptual structure is grounded, or substantiated in the individual. This is what provides the principles for truth in the sense of correspondence. The conceptual structure must correspond with, by being grounded in, the individual, as substance. The conceptual structure is grounded in, and in that sense derived from, observations of material individuals. The other direction of hierarchy, Platonic/Pythagorean, provides no means to ensure truth. The more specific concept is grounded in the more general concept, but the more general becomes increasingly vague and unknown. Then at the other end, the individuals must be fitted within the conceptual structure which is derived from some universal vagueness, instead of adapting the conceptual structure to match the individuals, thereby moving to eradicate the vagueness.

There must be a form for each and every individual. That is the point of the law of identity, which states that a thing is the same as itself. This is what Aristotle has stated here as "each thing and its essence are one and the same". So Socrates, as an individual, and what it means to be Socrates, that particular individual, are the very same. The form, essence, or identity of the thing, is within the thing itself (similar to Kant).

This is why Aristotle has a primary substance (the form of the individual), and a secondary substance (the form of the species). Each of these two senses of "form" is very different from the other. But both are actualities, or active in the world. The form of the species is actual, and active in the human mind, in judgement, and the form of the individual is actual and active in the sense world of material things.

In many modern interpretations of Aristotle there is a trend not to portray him as a substance dualist. So the substance of the individual is said to be matter, and the principle of individuation material. But matter does not have the capacity to individuate. It is only through formal principles that one instance of matter can be distinguished from another instance of matter. Therefore the identity of the individual is formal.

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

Sorry, you need to explain yourself better, I don't see your point. The early part of "On the Heavens" is spent discussing the opinions of others. It is only in the latter part that he produces any arguments himself. You really need to put your quotes in context.

Yes. But forms, as a matter of principle, are not themselves particulars. There is not a separate form for each individual. That's the 'principle of individuation' which is subject of a long-standing discussion about Aristotle's metaphysics — Wayfarer

I suggest to you Wayfarer, that modern interpretations of Aristotle are heavily swayed by the materialist perspective. Consider, that the modern trend is to think of matter as substance, and this is decisively dismissed by Aristotle in the writing I referred to. So the reference you gave me, the SEP is seriously biased toward giving "matter" a position which Aristotle does not give to it. You'll find this also in discussions of "prime matter". Aristotle clearly dismisses "prime matter" as an idea which cannot represent anything real. The cosmological argument provides this rejection. However you'll find many moderners who insist that Aristotle supports this idea. The fact is, that our society is inclined to assign far more to "matter" than what the concept provides for.

In Aristotle there is more than one sense of "form". I showed you the argument, which indicates that individuation is formal. it's well expressed by him in that section of Bk 7. I even gave you the conclusion stated "Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no merely accidental way." This is the law of identity, and identity, or "individuation", however you want to call it, is formal.

Clearly, then, each primary and self-subsistent thing is one and the same as its essence. The sophistical objections to this position. and the question whether Socrates and to be Socrates are the same thing, are obviously answered by the same solution; for there is no difference either in the standpoint from which the question would be asked, or in that from which one could answer it successfully. We have explained, then, in what sense each thing is the same as its essence and in what sense it is not." — Metaphysics Bk 7 Ch 6 1032a

Newton's first law explicitly says that the motion of a body will remain constant unless acted on by a force. I think "acted on by a force" implies causation doesn't it? In Newtonian physics gravity is a force, and acceleration is caused.

Even with my very limited knowledge of Aristotle, I’m sure this isn’t so. I think that a form by it’s nature is a universal, which is then individuated by ‘accidents’. If I’m mistaken, I’ll stand corrected. — Wayfarer

I believe this is similar to the issue which dfpolis and I disagreed on in an earlier thread. It is I think, best covered in Metaphysics BK 7, although like most subjects there is other material in other texts which serve to elucidate further. But Bk 7 is where the law of identity (a thing is the same as itself) is best exposed. This law affirms that the form of the thing (what the thing is), is not different than the thing itself, explaining why "substance" is properly associated with form rather than matter. Matter actually ends up providing nothing to the substance of a thing.

Do you agree that a particular object, an individual, is a composition of matter and form, according to Aristotle? And do you also agree that within the individual, there are accidents which are not conceived in the human abstraction? If so, then the question is where are these accidents, and how do they exist?

The short answer, is that the accidents must be part of the form of the individual, because Aristotle's conceptual space dictates that any distinguishing features must be aspects of form. As much as we speak of things like "brass", and "wood", as "the matter", if we analyze further, these are really formal properties still. So anything referred to as "the matter" of a certain item, can always be analyzed further as to the form of that matter. So if "matter were supposed to be the substratum, we'd have an infinite regress of analysis. Therefore, if it could truly exist deprived of all form (prime matter) it could have no distinguishing features. Therefore we must say that accidents, which are the features which distinguish one individual from another of the same type, are formal, not material.

I believe dfpolis was arguing that the accidents inhere within the matter itself so that when an individual thing comes into existence (generation), the form of that thing, complete with accidents, emerges from the matter. Dfpolis referred to the example of the acorn and the oak tree. But Aristotle describes in Bk 7 why the form of the individual, complete with accidents, must be separate, and put into the thing from an external source. So what dfpolis did not properly consider is the requirement for proper environmental conditions required for the acorn to grow into an oak, as well as the external factors put into the production of the acorn.

So, here's the longer answer now, in a brief display of the first part of Bk 7:

BK 7 Ch 1. Knowing a thing is to know "what" it is. Ch 2. Discussion of what various different philosophers refer to as "substance". Ch 3. A discussion on the nature of matter, and why matter is not substance. Ch4. A discussion of the essence of a thing, what a thing is by virtue of itself. Further, the problem with associating "essence" with categories, and species or genus, resulting in the situation that an individual thing could have no essence. Then there would be no such thing as what the thing is by virtue of itself. Ch 5. There is always a problem in making the essence a definition, because there is always required a further "determinate" which is outside the definition, and this produces infinite regress. Ch 6. A conclusion is produced representing the law of identity: "Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no merely accidental way..." (193b, 18).

From this point onward, in Bk 7 he begins a discussion as to how the form or essence of an individual thing (complete with accidents) comes to be within the thing itself. He discusses natural and artificial things. The conclusion is that the form must come from a source external to the matter, like the form of an artificial thing comes from the mind of the artist, and is put into the matter. This is the case in natural things as well as artificial things.

Do you buy the notion gravity-and-acceleration are a unified concept within a restricted domain: — ucarr

Not really, because acceleration can be caused by things other than gravity. So for example, a rocket blasts off and it accelerates in breaking away from gravity, as a sort of reverse relation to gravity. There is still a relation with gravity involved here, but since it is a reversal, we see that it is not a direct relation because there must be something else involved. Since there is something else involve we can't restrict the domain.

Likewise, with your example of the parachutist. You refer to the effects after jumping, as "acceleration".
But what is required prior to this, and is a necessary condition, is that the person takes off in a plane (gravity reversal), and then jumps from the plane. That particular prior condition is the one required for your specific description, but it could be replaced with all sorts of others. So even the prior condition is not in the strict sense "necessary", but there is a whole class of possible prior conditions. But since one of these many possible conditions is necessary, for the acceleration described, we cannot restrict the domain in the way you propose.

I’m talking about the physics definition of motion, which does not require a human to be around deciding if it’s motion or not, even if it does require a human to have a human saying it’s motion. — noAxioms

You never provided any such definition, but if you think you can provide me with a definition of motion which does not require observation, be my guest, let's see it. Do you realize that motion is always a comparison? There are two factors, position and time. How do you suppose that motion could occur without a human to judge that time has passed?

The absolute perspective has no dependency on the motion of any observer. — noAxioms

Yes it does. The measurement of time is dependent on the observer's observations of motion. When motion is relative, the observer is necessarily moving if time is passing.

Somehow I’m not surprised. Presentism requires a preferred frame. You don’t know this? Any other frame labels past and future events as simultaneous (ontologically different according to your assertions), which would be a contradiction. So presentism contradicts Einstein’s postulates and his theories along with them. — noAxioms

You don't seem to understand how time is measured. As a result your response to my post doesn't make very much sense. You don't seem to actually address anything I said.

You seem to be putting the active principle outside of the combining of matter and form. — Paine

That\s right, because there is more than one sense of "form" for Aristotle, therefore more than one type of actuality. So a material object is a combination of form and matter, and that form is proper and unique to the particular object, complete with accidents. This produces the law of identity. However, as explained in Metaphysics BK 7, it is necessary that something puts this form into the matter, in the way that the artist does in artificial things, even in natural things. I think that's the central issue of Bk 7, where does the form of the particular come from. So here we have an active principle, like intention, final cause, which is outside the combing of matter and form, as the cause of it.

This is the same principle as that of the cosmological argument. Material objects are a combination of matter and form. But there is necessarily an (eternal) actuality prior to the existence of material forms. It is "eternal" because it is outside of time. Notice that if we understand "eternal" as everlasting time, there is just an infinite regress of changing material forms, but this is what the cosmological argument puts an end to.

This proposed separation runs afoul of how actuality and potentiality is used by Aristotle. — Paine

This is not the case, because it is demonstrated in Metaphysics Bk 9 that actuality is prior to potentiality. Therefore there is necessarily a separate actuality, or Form. It's separate because it is temporally prior to potentiality. Without this we have an infinite regress of infinite time with changing material forms.

What we wish to say is clear from the particular cases by induction, and we must not look for a definition of everything, but be able to comprehend the analogy, namely, that as what is building is in relation to what is capable of building, and what is awake is in relation to what is asleep, and what is seeing is in relation to what has its eyes closed but has sight, and what has been shaped out of the matter is in relation to the matter, and what has been finished off is to the unfinished. Of the difference exemplified in this analogy let the activity be marked off by the first part, the potentiality by the second.
— ibid. Θ 6 1048a35–b6

If we could say exactly what this element is in each case, we would.

There are only potential powers when there are actual ones nearby.

All the instances where the analogy does a job involve situations where the potential is sometimes not activated. This condition does not apply to as quoted above: "Things that have no matter, though, are all unconditionally just what is a one."

This permits Aristotle to speak of an active principle that is immortal to directly activate what is not one:

In separation it is just what it is, and this alone is immortal and eternal. (But we do not remember because this is unaffected, whereas the passive intellect is perishable, and without this nothing thinks.
— Aristotle, De Anima, 430a18, translated by DW Hamlyn — Paine

Sorry, I don't understand what you're trying to show here.

We know man in a weightless chamber doesn’t cause acceleration, not even when he jumps. — ucarr

Here's another thing to add to what jgill said. I think that jumping, or more correctly pushing off, in a gravity-free space, actually would cause acceleration.

Gravity and acceleration-due-to-gravity are, in a certain sense, as one. They are conjoined as a unified concept: gravity-and-acceleration. Thus cause and effect are, in the same sense, as one, save one stipulation: temporal sequencing. — ucarr

I don't think that this is correct either. Acceleration only occurs from the effects of gravitation when whatever is preventing acceleration is removed, or if an object is suddenly exposed to gravitation. So the man is exposed to gravitation, in the plane, before jumping, but is only caused to accelerate after removing himself from the plane. The plane being the thing which is preventing gravitational acceleration of the man. All things on earth are exposed to gravitation, and this has a great effect on the way that they rest, but they are not necessarily accelerating from gravitation.

So I don't really like the way you characterize causation, making cause and effect one. In principle (theory), cause and effect might be united as one, so that X necessitates Y, and Y could not have occurred without X, but this is simplistic and not properly representative of real events. In reality there is always a number of complicating factors such as prior conditions and other influencing activities. So the thing we isolate as the cause is really only a contributing factor. And in your example gravity is a contributing factor.

Per QM, the system could either be weakly measured (giving some information without destroying the superposition) or strongly measured resulting in rapid decoherence. Alternatively, the system could be transformed such that the probabilities change (including to certainty). — Andrew M

Can you elaborate these three, Andrew? What would be the act of a weak measurement? And, how could the probabilities involved with a specific system be changed to certainty without some form of measurement? To me, such a change would require a cause, and the cause would be a matter of "fixing" the system, like cheating if you're a gambler. But if "fixing" was possible then there would be no real mystery unless only the cheaters had figured it out.

It's the Wigner's friend thought experiment where the system in question (in this case Walmart rather than a laboratory) is isolated from the rest of the environment. — Andrew M

I've explained in other threads, that there is a potential problem with the application of systems theory towards real activity. Conventionally, there is a boundary defined which separates inside the system from outside the system. Any cause of change to the system (analogous to a force which changes the momentum of a body in Newtonian laws), must come from outside the boundary. However, this representation provides no place for what mystics and metaphysicians apprehend as a cause of change which comes from the inside.

So for example, gravity can be modeled as a cause of change (force) to a body's momentum, in the Newtonian way. It's modeled as an external force, acting on the body from the outside. But if gravity really acted on the body through the inside, this would require a completely different model for an accurate representation. And, that it may be the case that gravity acts through the inside is evidenced by the fact that the massive part of the atom is in the centre of the atom, and the massive parts interact directly through gravitation.

Allowing that causes of change which come from the inside are very real, and distinct from causes of change which come from the outside, forces the conclusion that systems theory does not provide an adequate representation. By classing all causes of change to the system which are not consistent with the system's inertial progression as "outside" the system, without distinguishing an inside boundary from the outside boundary, conflates these two distinct types of causation, potentially making some types of changes to the system impossible to understand.

The concept 'dog' does not bark and wag its tail. His concern with ousia is not a concern about a concept but the living being that barks and wags its tail. — Fooloso4

You've obviously not read Aristotle's Metaphysics. He discusses extensively what kind of existence ideas have.

There is something to be a man that is not a man's accidents. — Fooloso4

Yes, that is the concept of "man". So, why do you think Aristotle was not discussing concepts? He discussed both in the Metaphysics, what it means to be this particular man, and what it means to be a man. He showed that in each case it is a type of form. But, as he explained, the form of the individual is completely different from the form of the universal.


Are you trying to make a point here? It just looks like random quotes. And there is nothing in those quotes to indicate that Aristotle thought that the world is eternal. As I said already, he clearly thought that the world is composed of matter and therefore not eternal.

To understand Aristotle you will have to ignore Aristotle. — Paine

Like I explained at the time, it's not a matter of ignoring Aristotle, but a matter of distinguishing between the ideas which he discusses, and what his discussions, and demonstrations prove. Most often the ideas discussed are ideas of others, which end up being disproven by Aristotle's discussion of them. This is the same technique which Plato employed. In both these authors it is very difficult to distinguish which ideas we ought to support, from the one's we ought to reject. This requires extensive study. Many such discussions go on over numerous books, and it requires much attention to detail to determine what is being demonstrated by the discussion. Random quotes are generally not very useful.

The discussion of eternal circular motion is a very good example. In On The Heavens, it is indicated that eternal circular motion is a theoretical possibility. The logic which supports it is consistent. However, he says that anything which is moving in a circle must be composed of matter, and material things are generated, are corruptible, and will corrupt. Therefore we are left to conclude that Aristotle has demonstrated that eternal circular motion is not real. The thing moving in a circle must be material and is therefore not eternal. So in as much as he cannot dismiss the idea of eternal circular motion by attacking the logic which supports it, he introduces another principle, a premise which does reject this idea, that anything moving in a circle must be composed of matter. This is the principle which renders eternal circular motion as impossible.

Once you recognize that he is actually arguing against this idea of eternal circular motion, rather than supporting it, then what he says in On The Soul, about the possibility of the soul moving like an eternal circular motion, makes a lot more sense. He dismisses this idea, because it represents the soul as material, and he says that to understand the soul as eternal requires that the soul be properly understood as immaterial. And this is the point that he brings out in his Metaphysics, that anything eternal is necessarily actual, therefore prior to the potentiality of matter, and immaterial.

The point of that discussion I had with you, was that the representation of "the eternal" as a circular motion, was demonstrated by Aristotle to be a faulty idea. It's a faulty idea because according to Aristotle's cosmological argument anything eternal must be actual, and not potential. And since matter is potential, anything eternal must be truly immaterial.

This comment was said to cancel the description of the agent intellect: — Paine

I never canceled the agent intellect. I recognize the agent intellect as an extremely important concept. I just understand it in a way different from you. And that's not at all surprising because the proper way to understand the agent intellect has always been a matter of debate.