As I explained, your definition refers to nothing real — Metaphysician Undercover

So, we always attend to every aspect of sensation and never prescind from some aspects to focus on others?

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

We do not find them, we find them.

Consult a good dictionary. "Designating" is appointing, not judging. Appointing is an act of will, judging of the intellect. To rightly judge that a found organism is a member of a species, it must have properties that elicit the corresponding species concept. These properties are intrinsic to the organism, not willed by us in an act of designation.

First, the same thing can be in different places, just not at the same time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Pettifogging.

Without form all matter would be the same thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

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.

No, we very much do find prime matter discussed in Aristotle's Metaphysics. — Metaphysician Undercover

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.

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." — Metaphysician Undercover

This is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

Since matter is potentiality, this actuality must be immaterial. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

You're not even allowing for pure mathematics. Also for the role that mathematics has had in disclosing things about nature that we could never, ever deduce through observation alone. And I humbly suggest that it is your depiction of Platonism that is 'naive'. — Wayfarer

I spent some years studying pure mathematics, so I am unlikely to forget about it.

Being "pure" does not give mathematics any more existence than being applicable. For the most part, pure mathematics is abstracted from mathematical structures abstracted from nature. A small part is not, and is therefore hypothetical -- and we may not even know if it is consistent with the part that is abstracted.

Plato's view that there are actual numbers in nature, which is what I was talking about, is naive for the reasons I gave. It is also unnecessary, as abstraction provides an adequate account of most mathematics (see above). Further, it is psychologically naive. It provides no way in which we can (a) learn Platonic ideas, or (b) having learned them, no reason why what we "learned" should be applicable to scientific measurements. Aristotle's view, that numbers are based on counting and measuring operations ties them directly to scientific practice, and has survived the transition to modern physics -- being able to explain how we get different results depending on how and what we choose to measure. So, yes, mathematical Platonism is naive.

Sorry, I have to counter this with an out-of-context Hegel quote

Nothing, however, is only, in fact, the true result, when taken as the nothing of what it comes from; it is thus itself a determinate nothing, and has a content. — Heiko

Nothing is not determinate, for if it had determinations, it would be something determinate -- something with properties.

X in your example is indeterminate as a number, but determinate as a concept, for it represents an arbitrary number of the type being discussed. And, specifying X specifies X+1. Still, neither exists (as a number) until it is specified and thought. And that is the point: mathematical "existence" is not actual existence, but a convenient shorthand for a certain kind of potential.

So, what kind of existence is mathematical existence? — Dfpolis

Mathematical platonism says that intelligibles such as number are real even if not existent, being the same for all who think. Mathematical ratios and relationships are deeply embedded in the fabric of the cosmos, hence the 'unreasonable efficacy of mathematics in the natural sciences'. — Wayfarer

Yet, to find the numbers, we have to measure nature, not intuit them mystically, as Plato believed. So, Aristotle's theory is far superior. There are no actual numbers in nature. There is discrete and continuous quantity. Discrete quantity is countable, eliciting actual number concepts. Continuous quantity is measurable, eliciting numerical value concepts.

If there were actual numbers in nature, then when we measured, we would invariably obtain those numbers -- for while a system can have many possibilities, it can only have one actual state. Special relativity and quantum physics show that measure numbers depend jointly on the system measured and the measuring process. Since different ways of measuring yield different results, the result is only potential (measurable) before measuring actualizes one of the possible results.

So, numbers are deeply rooted in nature, but not in the naive way Platonism imagines.

When I say "For every natural number X there exists a number X+1", does such a number exist for every natural number of your choice? It is widely accepted that, it does of course, because it must exist per definition of the natural numbers itself. — Heiko

The problem is confusing this kind of "existence," which has no ability to do anything, with metaphysical existence, which invariably can do something -- even if it can only make itself known. What does nothing is indistinguishable from nothing, and so is nothing.

So, what kind of existence is mathematical existence? It is not an actual, but a potential, existence. When we say "there exists a number X+1", we do not mean that X+1 actually exists, because if it did, we would be actually thinking a specific number. Why? Because numbers are concepts, and concepts actually exist only when we are thinking them. When we are not thinking them, they are potential -- able to be thought, but not actually thought. So, "there exists a number X+1" means that, for any natural number X, X+1 can be thought, and when it is, it will be a natural number. This potential is well-founded, but it is not actual existence -- not even actual mental existence.

I am sure that you realize that we cannot define anything into actual existence. All we can do is define them into mental existence (entia rationis).

One can make the argument that there is something like a space of all possible concepts. Like the rules of mathematical syntax. It is already defined which concepts can be formed and which cannot. — Heiko

The problem with this is that potential being is not actual or operational being, and so it cannot do anything -- like limit how we think.

If you want this space to be actual, then, since it is populated with concepts, there must be a super mind thinking it. (Concepts are beings of reason, existing only when actually thought.) You then need to explain how the super mind actually imposes its limitations on human minds. Further, if the concepts come from the super mind (or anything other than the reality instantiating them) they are not based in their instances, and there is no way to recognize a new instance when we encounter one.

On the other hand, if concepts are elicited by their instances, one mechanism explains both their genesis and their application to new instances. That conforms to experience and is also more parsimonious.

(Still, it's an incorrect/bad translation.) — Alkis Piskas

Yes, now it is. When it was made, the sexist connotation escaped notice.

"Abstraction" is an extremely broad, and vague term, covering a wide variety of mental processes. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is why I defined it for you.

I see no point to restricting "abstraction" to a subtractive process and denying that it involves any additive processes. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then you are talking about something else, not responding to what I said.

"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?[/q]
A species definition is not an inductive proposition because it is not a proposition. If a species definition is not grounded in the actual nature of some organisms, the result is not a false claim, but an empty taxon.
— Metaphysician Undercover

Lets say there is a named species, and it has some designated members. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is confused. We do not "designate" species members. We find them, or don't.

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? — Metaphysician Undercover

Your hypothesis is contrary to fact. As I said, we do not "designate" species members, we find them. If we find an organism that does not elicit one of the species concepts already in our taxonomy, we form a new species concept. This is not "designation," but ideogenesis, because the instance comes before the concept. If and when we find other organisms that elicit the same species concept, we are justified in assigning them to the same species. Since the concept is based on the intelligibility of its instances, it is well-grounded, not "arbitrary." Could we develop a different taxonomy with different species definitions? Absolutely. In two recent Studia Gilsonianna articles, I noted that there are at least 26 ways of defining biological species and at least 5 of defining philosophical species. Each is based on intelligible properties of organisms or instances, and so has an objective, rather than an arbitrary, basis.

What I see is an issue with the nature of "matter", as fundamentally unintelligible through the violation of the excluded middle law. — Metaphysician Undercover

There would only be a violation of Excluded Middle if matter/potentiality existed in the same way as form/actuality. It does not.

the easy answer as to how they differ is "the matter". But this is really just a way to avoid answering. — Metaphysician Undercover

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. So, we have a causal explanation for their non-identity. Of course, that different bits of stuff cannot be in the same place is a contingent fact, known a posteriori. But, then, we know everything a posteriori.

Also, you are confusing two meanings of "matter." Aristotle does not say that Socrates differs from Callias because they have different hyle (potency), but because they have different flesh and bones -- different "stuff," not different potencies.

So the atomists propose a fundamental indivisible, which Aristotle describes in his Metaphysics as a "prime matter". — Metaphysician Undercover

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.

Also, 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.)

He implies that at the base, or foundation, of material bodies, is something truly immaterial. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

The above translation --which I have located in the Web --with the only difference "by nature" instead of "naturally" which mean the same thing-- sounds as if Aristotle was sexist. The original Greek text is "πάντες ἄνθρωποι τοῦ εἰδέναι ὀρέγονται φύσει", which means --if correctly translated-- "All people by their nature desire knowledge". The main idea is the same, but the difference between "men" and "people" is enough to insinuate sexism. — Alkis Piskas

I translate, "All humans naturally desire to know." Still, Aristotle was a racist and a sexist. He opposed Alexander's liberal policy of granting citizenship to conquered races and explicitly thought females were defective males, ranking women between men and slaves.

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

The species or genus members are

. — Metaphysician Undercover

The individual instances of the species or genus.

That is inductive reasoning, making a general statement which is derived from observation of a multitude of individuals. — Metaphysician Undercover

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.

We do not derive the universal from an independent Form which is the form of the species, we derive it from the individuals. — Metaphysician Undercover

I did not say that we did.

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

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.

I would not say that any of these problems were solved by Aristotle. — Fooloso4

Again, we must agree to disagree.

Such as? — Fooloso4

The problem of change, the source of universal knowledge, the nature of time, the reality of mathematical objects, etc., etc.

In both cases there is not only an awareness of something lacking but a desire to obtain it, but we have found no way to move past the aporia raised in these texts. — Fooloso4

Who is "we"? Aristotle solved a number of the problems, and others have been resolved since.

This necessitates that there is a form unique to each an every individual. — Metaphysician Undercover

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.

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

"... in some texts Aristotle follows Plato by making matter the principle of individuation, but in a different way: “And when we have the whole, such and such a form in this flesh and in these bones, this is Callias or Socrates; and they are different in virtue of their matter (for that is different), but the same in form; for their form is indivisible.” (Metaphysics VII, 8, 1034a5). [Note: Since eidos can mean either “form” or “idea,” we could translate the last as “the same in idea; for their idea is indivisible” – giving the text an epistemological rather than an ontological meaning. This reading is more plausible when we remember that, for Aristotle, the idea in the mind is identical with the known object.] While this substitutes proximate, intelligible matter (this flesh and these bones) for Plato’s unintelligible chora, it retains the Platonic notion of a single, indivisible form shared by diverse individuals. [Note: The indivisibility of forms does not make them substances: “it is plain that no universal attribute is a substance, and this is plain also from the fact that no common predicate indicates a ‘this’, but rather a ‘such’.” Metaphysics VII, 13, 1038b35.]

"Elsewhere, he takes a different approach. In DA II, 1, 412a6-10, Aristotle says that eidos makes hyle a tode ti. Aquinas concurs: “through the form, which is the actuality of matter, matter becomes something actual and something individual,” (materia efficitur ens actu et hoc aliquid, De Ente et Essentia 2, 18). Hoc aliquid (this something) is the Latin equivalent of tode ti. St. Thomas uses this principle, not matter, to argue that the resurrected body is one with the former body. [Note: “… if [a statue] is considered according as it is given in genus or in species by form, then I say that the same thing is not remade, but another, because the form of this is one thing, the form of that is another. But with the body it is not so, because in the body there will be the same form (in corpore erit eadem forma).” Quodlibet XI, 6, ad 3, trans. by Edward Buckner, 2010. http://www.logicmuseum.com/authors/ aquinas/aquinasquodlibet-xi-6.htm.]'

…consciousness emerges in a specific kind of interaction: that between a rational subject and present intelligibility. — Dfpolis
The agent intellect is the mediator between a rational subject and present intelligibility. — ucarr-paraphrase — ucarr

I would not say "mediator," as if it stood between the subject and object. Rather, it unites the subject and object, for the object informing the subject is the subject being informed by the object. In the sentence you quote, I was discussing emergence -- trying to complete an analogy between properties like charge, which cannot be observed in isolation, and the agent intellect, which is only experienced when we become aware of something intelligible.

A neural network instantiates order and thus intelligibility; the agent intellect is necessary to effect comprehension of present intelligibility by the act of reading and comprehending it. This is the action of consciousness. — ucarr-paraphrase

This is a reasonable paraphrase. I would add that this order instantiates the intelligibility of a sensed object because it is the sensed object acting on our neural net. So, it is not "other" than the object, but a form of shared existence -- the object's action and our representation.

A neural network is first-order organization whereas consciousness is second-order organization? — ucarr

I would not say it is a matter of degrees of organization. The same organization of the neural net is the vehicle of intelligibility we are not aware of it, and the vehicle of understood content when we are aware of it. "The vehicle of" is awkward, but I want to distinguish between the net's intrinsic intelligibility as a neural structure, and the intelligible information it encodes, which is what we understand.

This leaves a great deal to be explained, specifically about how we grasp the information encoded rather than the encoding structure. Still, we do. So I hope to clarify the issues rather than solve them. Aristotle writes of the phantasm as an "image," but it is not in any literal sense.

Since consciousness is an interweave of the physical and the inter-relational, consciousness is, ontologically speaking, a hybrid of the two under rubric of Aristotelianism? — ucarr

Aristotle does not divide things as we do. His "matter" (hyle) is not our "stuff," and his concept of the physical is that it is changeable being, i.e. being that has the potential to be something else. Once we come to understand intelligibility, that understanding cannot change. We can add to it. We can deny it. Still, it, itself, is just what it is and can never be something else. So, it is immutable and non-physical.

On the other hand, it is two kinds of completion (entelecheia) -- the completion of the object's capacity to be understood, and of the subject's capacity to be informed. So, you could say it is a hybrid, but Aristotle does not. He thinks of it in terms of union.

Is the agent intellect a synonym of the self; does the agent intellect possess matter and form? — ucarr

Aristotle is not very concerned with the issue of personal identity. It became an issue for Christians, especially given the doctrine of resurrection of the body (not the soul!). (That, the hypostatic union, and the Trinity lead Christian theologians to elaborate a theory of person as a rational subject of attribution).

Aquinas was very concerned with the agent intellect, as he saw it as the immortal aspect of humans, and so argued against Avicenna's interpretation that identified it with the Prime Mover. In Aquinas view, humans are intrinsically physical and so the surviving "soul" is not the self, but the incomplete residue of a human being. So, he sees resurrection as needed for a complete afterlife. Alternatively, one could see death is a metamorphosis to a "higher" form.

Wayfarer — Wayfarer

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

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.

How would your respond to the suggestion that to return to Aristotle from the vantage of the 21st century is to filter his ideas through the entire lineage of Western philosophy that came after him and transformed his concepts? — Joshs

I think the way to avoid this is to stand beside Aristotle, look at what he is looking at, and try to see what he sees. This can never get us into Aristotle's mind, but it can result in seeing reality in a fresh and important way.

Of course, this is grounded in my interpretation of the mystical basis of Parmenides vision of 'to be' - Parmenides and the other early Greek sages are much nearer in spirit to the Buddhist and Hindu sages than modern philosophers generally (cf. Peter Kingsley, Thomas McEvilly). — Wayfarer

I also think that the mystical strain in Greek philosophy is under-explored.

I also agree with the gist of the 'fundamental abstraction', although again, I differ somewhat in my analysis of it. — Wayfarer

I have no problem with your elaboration. My central point is that abstractions leave data on the table.

Metaphysician Undercover — Metaphysician Undercover

There is no point in continuing to respond to you.

Somehow, your intelligence knows all of your qualia, but they are completely separate concepts and things. — Leftist

They have to be united in the act of knowing.

If an object exists physically then it is affected by physical matter.

And if an object is physical matter then it can affect physical matter.

By observation, thought can affect physical matter and be affected by physical matter so thought is physical matter." — Mark Nyquist

First, this line of thought does not preclude intentional realities from acting on physical reality.
Second, it does not show that purely physical operations have intentional effects. We can and do know physical things and events, but we do not know them without first turning our attention to them. So, knowing physical things requires a prior intentional act, i.e. choosing to attend to them, and that choice is an act of will.

Would it be fair to say you sympathize with social conservative perspectives on many matters? — Joshs

No, I respect the human person, so, I am socially liberal except for abortion, where the problem is complex. I see a distinction between being alive and being a person, and rights as prospective.

I do not think that there is a universal exemplar idea to which persons should conform. Rather, I think that each individual is unique, as is their self-realization (which I see as the basis of morality).

I just reviewed the entire thread, didn't find any reference to the microscopic instantiation of macroscopic properties (other than when you brought it up just now). — Pantagruel

That is because we were not discussing entropy, or even order per se.

Where does Aristotle demonstrate this? We can distinguish between the final and formal cause but they are always at work together within a being. — Fooloso4

Exactly.

And then there’s Nietzsche’s take on causation: — Joshs

Aquinas says that we cannot know essences (including our own) directly, but infer them from the actions flowing from them. Nietzsche (or maybe his sister) seems to want to do more, saying that there is nothing out of which what we observe to be dynamically continuous flows. I think that is metaphysically impossible, as potential acts are not yet operational. So, they cannot operate to make themselves actual. Consequently, something already actual must be the source of our phenomenological acts.

Maybe I'm just naive, but how is the well-documented physical phenomenon/fact of negentropy not in and of itself sufficient evidence of this? — Pantagruel

I think you two are defining "order" differently. Metaphysician Undercover means determinate form, and you are referring to the number of ways macroscopic properties can be microscopically instantiated -- for that is what entropy describes.

I saw supporting the rejection was the passage I quoted, where you moved from a rejection of the Fundamental Assumption (a rejection unsupported in principle), to a rejection of both property and substance dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover

I do not reject the FA. It has led, inter alia, to the science of physics. I only reject its adequacy in studying mind.

Within Aristotle's conceptual space, as explained in his "Metaphysics", this type of actuality is necessarily prior in time to the material existence of that body, as cause of its existence as an organized body. — Metaphysician Undercover

You continue to be confused. First actuality is being operational. Second actuality is operating. While something actual must effect a change, the first actuality of organisms (their form) is being alive, and it is concurrent with them being able to act as they do.

So I ask you, how do you proceed within this conceptual space, to reject dualism? — Metaphysician Undercover

As I said in the article and in my earlier response to you: by not treating psyche as a thing, but as a kind of actuality, we avoid Cartesian dualism.

This is completely unsupported and wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

I referred you to my hyle article, where it is supported. I have no interest in repeating my explanations.

Material cause is simply indeterminate possibility. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is the common view. It is not what Aristotle said. See my hyle article.

Aristotle's dualism — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not arguing against having more than one principle in an organism (not against matter and form) as Aristotle recognized, but against having two things (res cogitans and res extensa) as Descartes thought. I've told you this a number of times before.

one created by the human mind as formulae — Metaphysician Undercover

Aristotle does not say that the human mind creates forms, but that it actualizes the intelligibility belonging to the form of the sensed object. He even says that in doing so, the nous becomes, in some way, the thing it knows. Thus, the known form is the form of the known.

you to recognize that Aristotle's conceptual space necessitates this duality of actuality (form) — Metaphysician Undercover

I have not proposed such a duality. Again, the known form is the form of the known.

In my taxonomy, beings are differentiated from things precisely because they are animated (by soul, in Aristotle’s terms.) And you can see it in that even the simplest organisms embody intentional actions even if not conscious in any real sense, although that will sound too near vitalism for most. — Wayfarer

This seems reasonable. I think Aristotle's idea of form is more applicable to organisms than the inorganic world.

At best you have pointed to Aristotle's idea of the active intellect, which he says is immaterial. It is not a process because it is unchanging. — Fooloso4

I made no such claim.

By leaving out an essential feature you are misrepresenting it. — Fooloso4

Asked and answered.

what if anything are you actually explaining with regard to consciousness? — Fooloso4

That it is not reducible to a physical process.

“The novelty was the notion of a single inner space in which bodily and perceptual sensations ("confused ideas of sense and imagi­nation" in Descartes's phrase), mathematical truths, moral rules, the idea of God, moods of depression, and all the rest of what we now call "mental" were objects of quasi-ob­servation. Such an inner arena with its inner observer had been suggested at various points in ancient and medieval thought but it had never been taken seriously long enough to form the basis for a problematic. But the seventeenth century took it seriously enough to permit it to pose the problem of the veil of ideas, the problem which made epistemology central to philosophy. — Joshs

I agree that neither Aristotle nor the Scholastics focused on issues of personal identity, and that I am concerned with them. So, to that extent, I am post-Scholastic. I also deal with modern science more than "Thomists" do.

I disagree that there is a "veil of ideas." Aquinas's concept of intelligible species was an innovation that led to Locke's absurd notion that we only know our ideas, and so, on to Kant.

something other than our grasp of universal truths must serve as the mark of mind. — Joshs

I am writing an article for the Thomist community in which I argue that intellection is not essentially universal, that there are physical representations of universals and that we have concepts of individuals. I also think that the notion of universal exemplars underpins prejudice and undermines natural law ethics.

Here's the difference: I regard philosophy as inquiry into questions and problems. You think you have the answers. — Fooloso4

I think I have some answers. If answers were not attainable, there would be no point in inquiry. Philosophy is not a game.

We have been over this. The term 'agent intellect (νοῦς ποιητικóς)'. — Fooloso4

I have not misrepresented it. I said it was controversial and gave my understanding.

It does not take volumes to say deathless and everlasting. — Fooloso4

True. But, it is not relevant to my topic any more than the related discussion of the Unmoved Mover.

Sufficiently vague. Consciousness, the operation of the agent intellect, is the operation of our power of awareness. — Fooloso4

The quoted text is relating the agent intellect to phenomenology, not explaining its dynamics.

To say that the agent intellect is a deathless and everlasting power seems to be right in line with your metaphysics of God and Mind. But you side step — Fooloso4

Because it is best to deal with each issue in a focused, rather than in a convoluted, way.

Actually your claim was that Aristotelian conceptual space provides a means for rejecting dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, an Aristotelian approach is more than assuming an Aristotelian conceptual space.

I'm being hard on you on this point, because I believe that you ought to leave your intentions as open and revealed as possible. — Metaphysician Undercover

An introduction cannot exhaust intentions that take a full article to elaborate. It can only indicate the direction one intends to take. The article reveals my intentions.[quote="Metaphysician

Undercover;784927"]induces you to cherry pick Aristotle's writing[/quote]
This is utter nonsense, and a sign of bad faith. Any article citing Aristotle must make a selection from his voluminous corpus. If you think I have twisted his meaning, feel free to say why; however, my purpose was not to interpret the Stagerite, but to credit inspiration. So, I fail to see that you are making a relevant point.

I told you that Aristotle seems quite clear to me, to compare the coming into being of a natural article to that of an artificial object. In this case, the form comes from an external source, the mind of the artist, and it is put into the matter. You insisted that Aristotle allowed that the form inhered within the matter itself, in a natural object. But of course Aristotle's analogy of comparing a natural object to an artificial object does not really allow for that interpretation. — Metaphysician Undercover

You seem not to understand analogies. The analogues are partly the same and partly different, so one has to look beyond an analogy to understand its relevant aspect. Aristotle is careful to distinguish natural processes, in which change derives from natural or intrinsic principles (physis), from artificial processes in which change is imposed by an extrinsic agent. I explained this over 30 years ago in my hyle article, to which I refer you ("A New Reading of Aristotle's Hyle," Modern Schoolman 68 (3):225-244 (1991) https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=POLANR&u=https%3A%2F%2Fphilpapers.org%2Farchive%2FPOLANR.DOC).

by saying that the form of an object inheres within the matter, you interpret "form" as necessarily the property of matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

I did not say that "the form of an object inheres within the matter." I said that, in natural substantial changes, hyle is the potential to a determinate form. What is potential does not "inhere in" anything, nor is it a property (Aristotelian accident), because it is not yet actual.

This allows you to deny dualism — Metaphysician Undercover

No, what allows me to avoid Cartesian dualism is Arsitotle's definition of the psyche as the actuality of a potentially living body instead of as res cogitans.

and cling to emergence. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are confused. If the hylomorphism allowed me to "cling to emergence," I would see it in every case of substantial change. I do not. If you read carefully, you will see that my argument for the ontological emergence of cosciousness is based on far more modern considerations -- the nature of mathematical physics as limited by the Fundamental Abstraction.

it completely neglects Aristotle's "Metaphysics", especially his cosmological argument where actuality is shown to be prior to potentiality. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ultimately, it is. Proximately, it cannot be, because change requires a prior potential to new form. That is why the Unmoved Mover cannot change.

As such, [t]he reality of "potential" which Aristotle argued for, is derived from introspection. It is subjective, mental. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is incorrect. First, the Metaphysics presupposes the analysis in the Physics and other works on nature. That analysis shows the necessity of prior potentials in natural processes. Second, nowhere does he "derive" potency from introspection. In De Anima he applies the distinction of potency and act to the analysis of sensation and intellection, based on a combination of first and third person data.

You very clearly use the type-token distinction as the basis of your rejection of dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover

As the first paragraph you quote shows, I use the type-token distinction only to show why introspective data is methodologically acceptable. It is the end of a previous line of thought. The second and third paragraphs you quote do not summarize the first paragraph, as can be seen from the fact that neither mentions introspection.

There are certain necessary conditions, essential aspects of what constitutes a "knowing subject". One of these necessary conditions is the FA, (that there is a distinction between known and knower) as an a priori principle. — Metaphysician Undercover

You misunderstand the FA. It is not the fact that "there is a distinction between known and knower," but the methodological choice to attend to the object to the exclusion of the subject.

we cannot get access to the being without the thinking — Metaphysician Undercover

More fundamentally, we cannot think without existing. The order of knowing is not the order of existence.

Within Aristotle's conceptual space this is an act of creation — Metaphysician Undercover

"Creation" is an imprecise word. We need to distinguish between making what was potential actual, and making something with no prior potential (true creation).

So in the case of "discovering" ideas, the form, which is the essence of the idea, comes from the mind of the geometer in an act of creation, and this is an act of creation by the agent intellect. — Metaphysician Undercover

I cannot agree. If known content came from the mind, rather than reality, there would be no reason to expect it to apply to reality. The reason prior concepts apply to new instances is that the new instance is able to elicit the same, prior concept. If a new instance can elicit the concept, it can to so even when the concept it did not already exist.

If the intelligible object had actual existence in some mode independent of the mind which "discovers" it, then it would have to be the passive intellect which receives it into the mind. The passive intellect is posited as a receptor, because it is necessary to have something which can receive the forms of sensible objects through sensation. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is: our brain is informed by sensation. When a neural representation is actually understood (which is done by the agent intellect), no new representation is formed. If it were, it would not be the neural representation that is understood. It would be a different representation, the new one (which Aquinas calls the "intelligible species"). Since to understand a new representation is not to understand the neural representation, the passive intellect is the neural representation, not simpliciter, but as understood. Therefore, the passive intellect receives its content physically, and its being understood intentionally.

the reality of such independent potential is denied. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree. The intelligiblity is neurally encoded in the mind.

Therefore the Christian theologians posited independent Forms, as prior to material existence, to account for the forms of natural objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not quite. Augustine had exemplar ideas in the mind of God. Aquinas reduced them to God's intention to create whatever He creates (see my "Metaphysics and Evolution: Response to Critics," Studia Gilsoniana 10 (4):847-891 (2021) https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1005583).

You are assigning to matter special powers to act which are inconsistent with the concept in Aristotle's conceptual space. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you read my hyle article, you will find citations supporting my view.

It has no actuality, therefore no act, and the becoming of material objects cannot be accounted for because there is no act as causation. That matter cannot have such special power is the reason why the cosmological argument is so powerful. — Metaphysician Undercover

We need to distinguish secondary causality, which is the causality found in nature, from metaphysical actualization, which is what the cosmological argument relies upon. Aristotle is clear that hyle is a kind of physis (an intrinsic principle of change), a "source of power," and that it "desires" the new form in a substantial change. Thus, it is an active tendency, and not passively receptive, in the case of natural changes. In artificial changes, it is passively receptive.

Still, hyle is not self-sufficient. Its striving for new form can be traced causally upward to the Unmoved Mover, which is its ultimate source of power.

And, by the law of identity the object must be what it is, it cannot be something other than it is. — Metaphysician Undercover

At any moment, it is what it is. Potentially, corporeal being can be something else. It is because of this that we need a source of potentiality, i.e. hyle.

Therefore when the object comes into existence as an orderly thing, its form must be prior to its material existence, to account for it being what it is rather than something else — Metaphysician Undercover

Its form must be determined by a prior potential, viz. its predecessor's hyle. Also, it must be actualized by something that is already operational/actual. That line of actualization can be traced to the Unmoved Mover. Still, the form cannot exist prior to the being, because the form is the being's actuality, and it is not actual before it exists.

Why is it an example of the Enlightenment instead of an expression of Scholastic philosophy? — Paine

I did not understand that claim either.

The category 'b' must exist in order for 'a' to be an instance of it. — Fooloso4

Only potentially. The intelligibility of a must include notes that elicit the concept <b>, as I explained in my paper. It is because of need to elicit <b> that we must be aware of a to categorize it as an instance of b.

if you are an Aristotelian, as you say you are, then what you claim about Aristotle should be supported by citing Aristotle. — Fooloso4

If Aristotle deserves credit for my position, I try to cite him. I do not cite him as an authority.

In any case, an attempt to understand Kant does not make me a Kantian. — Fooloso4

Quite true. It is citing Kant as an authority against my position that makes you seem a Kantian.

What is categorized are the manifold of sense intuitions. — Fooloso4

No matter what you call the categorized content, the act of categorizing is an ace of judgement, requiring awareness, and hence knowledge, of those contents. Different sensory processing (e.g. of visual vs auditory signals) is not categorization. Only judgement of type is categorization.

Based on your claim that our power of awareness is agent intellect, and that according Aristotle the agent intellect is deathless and everlasting, then it can only be ours as long as we are living beings. It is then separable from us. — Fooloso4

So, you conclude that our intellect is immortal. I think the conclusion requires more reflection.

The claim that the categories are the a priori conditions for knowing and that knowledge is not of how things are in themselves but how they are for us. — Fooloso4

So, you are a Kantian, holding "that the categories are the a priori conditions for knowing." As far as I can see, Kant's position is unjustified. It is certainly irrelevant to my paper unless you wish to use Kant to attack scientific knowledge -- saying that science cannot study reality.

I do not recall any claim in Aristotle or Aquinas that we know the object beyond its relation to us. In fact, Aquinas is quite clear that we do not know the essences of things, except indirectly. Further, both insist that knowledge comes via sensation, which is to say via our physical interactions with the object.

So, again, what did Kant add of value?

You made the distinction between neural signal processing and a recognition of meaning. A variation of your claim that we can't get there from here, that we will never understand consciousness by studying neural signal processing, that conscious is not the result of neural activity. — Fooloso4

None of that says neural signal processing is simple. Further, I did not say "conscious is not the result of neural activity" without further qualification. I said that the contents of consciousness are neurally processed, but that such processing does not explain our awareness of those contents.

You are using his terminology but have neglected to indicate that you are using in in ways that differ from his. — Fooloso4

Do you have an example in mind? Note that not stating his entire position is not abusing his terminology. To state his entire position would take volumes, and no one has yet done so to universal satisfaction.

mind cannot categorize without first knowing — Dfpolis
That is an opinion stated as a matter of fact. — Fooloso4

No, it is based on understanding, from experience, how we judge -- for categorization is a judgement, <a is an instance of b>. As Paul Churchland pointed out, there are no neural structures corresponding to propositional attitudes.

According to Kant there cannot be knowing without the mind's categories. — Fooloso4

This is the worst case of an argument from authority -- citing Kant in support of Kantianism.

There is nothing incoherent in the idea that there are innate categories of mind. — Fooloso4

It is not the existence of categories that is incoherent -- that is merely an baseless conjecture. It is categorization without knowing what one is categorizing that is incoherent.

The bottom line is that I did not discuss Kant in my article, so this discussion does not relate to the topic.

Or your claim that the active intellect is consciousness and thereby the consciousness of human beings is deathless and everlasting. — Fooloso4

My article made no claim about immortality. So, are you concluding that our capacity to be aware of contents makes us immortal? In my view, we need more premises to reach that conclusion.

To the extent seeing and knowing are not independent of the seer and knower, yes. — Fooloso4

Aristotle argued that two millennia earlier. Aquinas concurred. So, what of value did Kant add?

I did not say signal processing was simple. That is twisting my words. — Dfpolis — Fooloso4

I wrote "simply neural signal processing," meaning nothing more than neural signal processing, not that neural signal processing is simple.

First of all, whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive has direct bearing on what you are addressing. It relates to the question of the activity of the active intellect. — Fooloso4

I have given my view of what the agent intellect does. If you think my view is wrong, please say why. If not, we need not continue in this direction. I am not arguing that my view is Aristotle's view, I am only crediting Aristotle with inspiring my view. So, what Aristotle actually thought about the agent intellect is not relevant, unless it provides an argument against my view.

Sensation cannot impose abstract categories. — Dfpolis
It doesn't, the mind does. — Fooloso4

That is my point. Categorization cannot be a sensory function, and mind cannot categorize without first knowing, so Kant's theory is incoherent.

According to Kant the categories of the understanding are a priori. — Fooloso4

That is hardly a cogent argument for Kantianism.

You are confusing the attempt to understand Kant and my stance on naturalism. — Fooloso4

Okay. I am not concerned with understanding Kant, but with understanding reality. So, do you think his theory contributes to understanding reality? If not, let's not waste more time on Kant.

I doubt that neuroscientists studying neural signal processing regard it as "simple". — Fooloso4

I did not say signal processing was simple. That is twisting my words.

It should be: The question is whether ... — Fooloso4

Okay. But, that is not the question I am addressing in my article.

Metaphysician Undercover — Metaphysician Undercover

Thank you for taking the time to read and comment upon my article.

So I think your basic premise, that dualism can be rejected through an appeal to Aristotle's hylomorphic dichotomy, is fundamentally misguided. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is not my premise. I agree with your observations in one way, and disagree in another, more relevant, way. I agree that any distinction of one thing into two aspects may be called "dualistic." I disagree if you are denying that the Aristotelian approach disposes of Cartesian dualism, which was my actual claim. Identifying Cartesian dualism with dualism in the first sense equivocates on "dualism." Aristotle does not see the psyche as necessarily thinking (res cogitans), or even as a thing (res). Thus, he is not a Cartesian dualist.

Therefore he proposed a duality of matter/form for physics, which would accommodate the duality of potential/actual derived from subjective introspection. — Metaphysician Undercover

While it is peripheral to my article, I think you are looking in the wrong direction for the source of the concept of potency (dynamis). As I note in my hyle article, (https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=POLANR&u=https%3A%2F%2Fphilpapers.org%2Farchive%2FPOLANR.DOC), the source of the concept is medical, referring to the hidden healing power of medicinals. A. then applied it to the argument against the reality of change in order to go between the horns of being and non-being. Thus, the origin and original application of the concept are physical, not mental.

we cannot realistically exclude the Fundamental Abstraction — Metaphysician Undercover

We can, as shown by the fact that Aristotle does in De Anima, as I and others have noted.

The "Fundamental Abstraction" can be apprehended as the a priori, and since the a priori is very real, and supported by real introspective analysis, we cannot simply reject it just because we desire to absolve ourselves from dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not sure what you are saying here. We are able to know from experience, and so a posteriori, that all knowing involves a known object and a knowing subject. Whether we focus on one (as the FA does) or attend to both, is a matter of methodological choice. If attend to both, we are not employing the FA.

Further, I see no reason to think we know anything in a truly a priori way.

you refer to a type/token distinction, which is an ontological distinction, then you draw the invalid conclusion: " Thus, the consciousness impasse is a representational, not an ontological, issue". Only one side of the distinction is representational, the type side. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, we do not represent token observations?

The context of these remarks is methodological, not ontological. I am saying that the objection that introspective data is inadmissible because it is private is misguided. It misunderstands the methodological requirements of science. There is no requirement that observations be public, only that they be type-repeatable.

The conclusion you cite is not based on the type-token distinction. That is only used to justify the use of introspection. The conclusion is based on the Hard Problem being an artifact of a dualistic (in the Cartesian sense) representation or conceptual space.

And your claim that the type/token distinction is representational rather than ontological — Metaphysician Undercover

I did not discuss the basis of the type-token distinction in this article. So, it makes no such claim. If you want to see what I think about the relation between universals and instances, see my "Metaphysics and Evolution: Response to Critics," Studia Gilsoniana 10, no. 4 (October–December 2021): 847–891 (http://gilsonsociety.com/files/847-891-Polis.pdf). There, I discuss the relation of the species concept (a type) to individual members of that species (tokens) (pp. 849-63).

The difficulty that the Scholastics, like Aquinas had, was to explain the reality of the passive intellect. — Metaphysician Undercover

I address that in the article I am currently working on. I have fundamental problems with Aquinas's rational psychology. I think his notion the agent intellect does is flawed. I see the passive intellect as neural representations (the phantasm) being understood.

he agent intellect, as the creative source of imagination and conception, — Metaphysician Undercover

The agent intellect does not create content. It actualizes (makes known) prior intelligibility, which is the source of known content.

And under Aristotle's conceptual structure, passivity, and potential, are the defining features of matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is the standard Scholastic view. My view is more complex, and is given in my hyle article. Briefly, hyle plays a passive role in cases where there is an intelligent agent informing a result, but not in natural substantial change, where it is a "source of power."

So one could interpret Aristotle as demonstrating that the human intellect depends on the material brain for its capacity to receive sense impressions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Exactly! He also insists that the phantasm, a sensory, and so a material representation, is necessary to thought.

Thank you for your informed and intelligent comments.

I think it would be more useful to copy and paste or at least summarize the article so that it could be part of this discussion. — Fooloso4

They are available online and some are quite long.

The basis for categorizing sensory intuitions, not facts, is the a priori categorical structure of the human mind. — Fooloso4

Sensation cannot impose abstract categories. It can only modify of our prior neural state. To categorize we must judge that we are dealing with an instance of a category, and judgements are propositional attitudes which, as Churchland notes, have no neural counterpart. Are you now abandoning naturalism?

Kant would argue that in order for there to be recognized content the mind must organize and make sense of what is given to it, that is, sensory intuitions. — Fooloso4

But it cannot do so at the sensory level, which is simply neural signal processing, not on a recognition of meaning -- which is required for categorization. So, you must either abandon Kant, or explain how neural processing can impose abstract a priori categories. (Connectionism assumes training, which may establish a posteriori patterns or associations. As I point out in my article, associations are not judgements.)

You may not agree but that does not mean the theory is incoherent. — Fooloso4

The theory is not incoherent because I disagree with it. Rather, I disagree because it is incoherent. Categorization requires judgement, which is not a sensory function.

It coheres quite nicely. — Fooloso4

Only if one does not reflect on the mechanisms it proposes.

The question of whether seeing and knowing are receptive or conceptive, passive or constructive. — Fooloso4

This is not a complete sentence, and I cannot complete it in a sensible way. Sensing and knowing are similar, but essentially different, as sensation does not involve concepts, which require awarenss of content.