based on the properties we choose to attend to. — Dfpolis

Agreed. Both those we include and those we exclude.

I know very little about schools of interpretation, but I do not see how interpretation can be avoided. If you are satisfied with your interpretation and wish to produce a video that is your business. I assumed, however, that if you were posting here you were looking for some response.

I agree that we will not resolve the issue. I pointed to some problems regarding your claim of continuity. Do with them as you want or will.

But this doesn't make them the same in any significant sense. — Ciceronianus

Not the same, but rather, my argument is that there is a politics of knowledge which apparently from the quote Cato failed to understand.

Cicero on the other hand, following Plato, wrote his own Republic and Laws.

Cicero famously said that Socrates was the first to call philosophy down from the heavens. Socrates' concern was with how we are to live, both in public and in private.

@Ciceronianus {Added

A few lines later he says:

... we have followed that school particularly, or that manner particularly, which we believe Socrates had used (namely, the dialogical) in order to conceal our opinion ... (Tuscan Disputations V. 6.10-11)

The importance of concealing one's opinion is something Cato failed to learn.

When reading Plato it is importance to keep this practice in mind.}

As treated by Plato this is both the politics of the soul and the politics of the city.

Statesmanship is not only the knowledge of how to rule effectively but how to rule well. What it means to rule well, so too how to live well, raises several philosophical questions.

Cato, said Cicero, "gives his opinion as if he were in Plato's Republic, not Romulus' cesspool." — Ciceronianus

Do you interpret this as an indication of the difference between politics and philosophy? In what way?

In Plato's Apology Socrates says:

... a [man] who really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public life if [he] is to survive for even a short time (32a).

There is a difference between what one says in the political arena and what one says in private. But, of course, when one writes books the boundaries between them are porous. When writing philosophy there must always be political considerations, both, on the one hand, with regard to what may happen to you and your work, and, on the other, the good or harm it may cause.

My intent is not to attribute some claim to you but to clarify for the reader.

The standard translation 'actuality' is misleading. It can be understood to mean something real or existing. The Greek term enegeia, from ergon, is to be at work. It is not as if dunamis is not real or does not exist.

In one sense, the eidos or form is what acts on the hyle or matter to form an ousia.

In another, what it is to be the thing it is, its essence, is the form of an ousia. Man is the form of Socrates. But this is not just an idea, not just a way of categorizing, not just an answer to the question what. In order to answer that question, 'man' must be by nature something that distinguishes itself from all else.

You see no thread in terms of the logic of language that goes from his early thinking to his later thinking? — Sam26

No. What I see is a disjunction. From PI:

107. The more closely we examine actual language, the greater becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not something I had discovered: it was a requirement.) The conflict becomes intolerable; the requirement is now in danger of becoming vacuous. We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction, and so, in a certain sense, the conditions are ideal; but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!

108. We see that what we call “proposition”, “language”, has not the formal unity that I imagined, but is a family of structures more or less akin to one another. —– But what becomes of logic now? Its rigour seems to be giving way here. But in that case doesn’t logic altogether disappear? For how can logic lose its rigour? Of course not by our bargaining any of its rigour out of it. The preconception of crystalline purity can only be removed by turning our whole inquiry around. (One might say: the inquiry must be turned around, but on the pivot of our real need.

... the logic of our language is misunderstood — Sam26

For the later Wittgenstein it is the logic of our language as presented in the Tractatus that is misunderstood.

It's the logic of language and how it connects with the world of facts. — Sam26

It is the logical structure or scaffolding that underlies both language and the world and thus their connection:

The logical scaffolding surrounding a picture determines logical space. (3.42)

The proposition constructs a world with the help of a logical scaffolding (4.023)

I'm not sure why you keep using the term "transcendental logic — Sam26

Because Wittgenstein says so:

Logic is transcendental. (6.13)

It is transcendental both in the Kantian sense of the conditions of the possibility of language and world, and in the sense of what transcends or stands outside of the world.

Without too much exaggeration, the only thing they have in common is the word 'logic'. The transcendental logic of the Tractatus is not simply the logic of language, it is the logic of the world. According to the later Wittgenstein, the rules of grammar (logic) are arbitrary (PI 497). There is no necessary or non-contingent connection between logic, language, and the world.

How should we define knowledge? In context.

The latter Wittgenstein rejects the transcendental logic of the Tractatus. This is not a continuation but a repudiation.

The continuity is on the other side of the "what cannot be said" formulation: what can be shown, what can be seen, what can be experienced. Although he drops the terminology, the ethical/aesthetic.

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

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

It is equally reasonable to assume that this body [primary body] will be ungenerated and indestructible ... (270a)

The reasons why the primary body is eternal and not subject to increase or diminution, but unaging and unalterable and unmodified, will be clear from what has been said to any one who believes in our assumptions. (270b)

We must show not only that the heaven is one,’ but also that more than one heaven is impossible, and, further, that, as exempt from decay and generation, the heaven is eternal. (277b)

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)

What is it that I am counting there? — Heiko

That is the question. There is no count unless you know what you are counting. In response to the question "how many" is the question "how many what?"

The idea of "twoness" which makes two things countable — Heiko

It is not the idea of twoness, it is the identification of the unit or one and the determination of how many of that unit are present or taken.

Aristotle's eidos ("form") has two meanings. One is a being's actuality (as opposed to its hyle/potency), — Dfpolis

Form is the being at work of an ousia. Form acts on, it actualizes a thing's potential. The form, the "what- it -is" of Socrates is not Socrates. Socrates is the ousia, not the form. The form, the what it is of Socrates, is man.

That is not simply the concept man but what he is by nature.

[Added:

The term "being" ... denotes first the " what " of a thing, i.e. the individuality ... when we describe what it is, we say ... that it is "a man" or "a god" (1028a)]

Whose concept would that be you are talking about? — Heiko

The ancient Greeks. Two key points:

No concept of zero.

One is not a number. The first number is two. One is the unit of the count. We retain something of this in that when we say that there are a number of things it is never one thing.

Counting them actualizes the potential.
— Fooloso4

As to me this sounds like a duplication of the idea. — Heiko

You might look at it this way: there are some items we cannot see or touch in a dark room. How many items are there? Potentially there might be any number of things.

You create a space of number potentials waiting to be turned into numbers. — Heiko

No, you have things. They are not waiting to be counted but can be.

I am not arguing in favor of their concept of number, only trying to explain it. It has well known limits and problems.

The problems of philosophy include just about every subject one can imagine, including ethics ... — Sam26

Wittgenstein believes that if we understood the logic of our language, that this will put an end to philosophizing. — Sam26

Although the problems of philosophy include the problems of ethics, Wittgenstein does not regard ethics as a philosophical problem, which is to say he does not put an end to ethics.

those who accept the Forms — Metaphysics, 1071b12–22, translated by C.D.C Reeve

We might assume Aristotle is talking about Plato and this is not entirely wrong, but the argument in the Timaeus acknowledges the problem of the Forms and:

some starting-point that is capable of causing change. — Metaphysics, 1071b12–22, translated by C.D.C Reeve

In the discussion of astronomy in the Republic Socrates says:

Perhaps your belief is a fine one and mine innocent. (229c)

This echoes Socrates' discussion of the inadequacy of the Forms in the Phaedo, where he calls the hypothesis "innocent".

So, by those who accept the Forms I think he means those who accept them and are unaware of the problems Plato raises.

On the issue of the starting point Plato and Aristotle take opposite sides, but agree that it:

must be grasped by argument and thought, not sight. (529c-d)

Aristotle's argument is:

There must, therefore, be such a starting-point, the very substance of which is activity. — Metaphysics, 1071b12–22, translated by C.D.C Reeve

A reasonable argument, but reasonable and true are not necessarily the same.

Timaeus says:

So then, Socrates, if, in saying many things on many topics concerning gods and the birth of the all, we prove to be incapable of rendering speeches that are always and in all respects in agreement with themselves and drawn with precision, don’t be surprised. (29c)

The question is whether Aristotle accepts what is reasonable as true. Surely he is aware of the problem of giving an account of the arche.

I started a discussion of the limits of knowledge in Aristotle's Metaphysics.

There is a 1 potential which must always have existed actually as I can count to 1.
There is a 2 potential which must always have existed actually as I can count to 2. — Heiko

For the Greeks "2" is always two of something counted. In order to count there must be the unit, some one, some "what" of the count.There is no count unless and until it is known what it is that is being counted - apples or bananas or pieces of fruit.

There is a potential for "1" or "2" or any number of things only as long as you or someone else is able to count and there is something to be counted and those things are visible and each one distinguishable. Counting them actualizes the potential.

How do you give a definition to everything? We don't. We don't have enough time. A bad joke loosely based on a salacious joke about cows and an enthusiastic bull.

Aristotle's astronomy tried to account for how beings found within the 'sublunary sphere' had anything to do with those observed outside of it. Now that we understand that they are not different kinds of beings, the view of all beings belonging to a single cosmos is strengthened by our increase in knowledge. — Paine

The question of our relationship to the heavens is an interesting one.

In the Republic Socrates says:

It is the "fourth study" after solid geometry. It is the study "which treats motion of what has depth" (528e)

Glaucon says "astronomy compels the soul to see what's above and leads it there away from the things here". Socrates corrects him. When studied in this way it causes the soul to look downward. (529a)

He calls the stars "decorations in the heavens embroidered on a vaulted ceiling". The image of the starry night, is the opposite of the image of Good in the sun. Astronomy when studied as Socrates proposes is not the study of visible things in the heavens, it is about "what must be grasped by argument and thought, not sight" (529d)

Aristotle calls the heavenly bodies divine. He may have regarded our relationship to them as one of distance, the difference between divine and imperfect being. Or perhaps just the opposite, our closeness to the divine through our perception of them. I suspect this is addressed in On the Heavens. @Wayfarer.

That they are not different kinds of beings might be regarded, at least by some, as nothing special. But the ability to see the night sky without light pollution is, despite what Socrates said, an awesome experience. The images of the Webb telescope may also have bearing on how one regards and feels in relation to the cosmos.

There is still a great deal of interest in Aristotle, and not just historical interest. Although my guess is that interest does not extend to his astronomy.

Wouldn’t the claim of the existence of such a bodily substance be an empirical claim? — Wayfarer

That the heavenly bodies exist is an empirical claim. That they are imperishable is also an empirical claim, by the standards of the time. Generation after generation they stay the same neither coming into being or passing away. Since they are visible they are bodies, but since they do not change they must be a body that is different from terrestrial bodies.

It is not clear to me what you are asking. If these philosophers had to flee that is an indication that they have touched a political nerve. Ideas matter. As far as a paycheck, it often works as a constraint on agency. Tenure worked against that constraint but there is both a political and economic push to make it a thing of the past. While ideas matter in the short term money seems to matter more. But the philosopher plays the long game.

How can you guys stand it? — god must be atheist

I pick and choose and have fairly low expectations.

On the positive side, it has given me occasion to do some reading and writing that I might otherwise not have done.

I guess we can make all sorts of claims about gods — Tom Storm

And devils.

When my son was young he used to blame "the little Santa".

This vaguely reminds me of arch-elitist Leo Strauss' advocacy of indispensible "political myths" & "noble lies". — 180 Proof

This is, of course, from Plato's Republic. See the quote from Cicero above.

It is also standard political practice today even in democratic regimes such as the U.S. Whether it is possible or advisable for a government to be transparent is both an ideological and practical question. A social experiment whose consequences are unknown and unpredictable.

Strauss continues to be a polarizing figure. It is as if his critics and advocates are talking about several different people. Elitist? Yes, in the sense that he maintains that with regard to both philosophical and active pursuits, some are better suited to lead than others. But this does not translate into matters of privilege or degrees of worth.

From The Intellectual Legacy of Leo Strauss:

At the root of all specifically modern obstacles to understanding Strauss is the suspicion that his thought endangers liberalism and liberal democracy. Is not liberal democracy a product of modern thought? Does not questioning the superiority of modern thought lead to questioning the goodness of liberal democracy and the importance of the innovations in politics that allowed its emergence? Does not Strauss's thought involve “a radical critique of liberalism” (Strauss 1965, p. 351)? What Strauss's critics do not grasp is that this critique enabled, not hindered, Strauss's defense of liberal democracy against its enemies, at a time when many intellectuals yielded to the attraction of modern tyrannies because of their dissatisfaction with liberal democracy.

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)
— Fooloso4

A bodily substance is not immaterial. — Dfpolis

Right. What MU won't accept is Aristotle's claim that there is "some bodily substance other than the formations we know". Why? I don't know. Maybe an inability to admit he is wrong. Maybe some need for things to be "just so". In any case, I think it points to the reason Plato wrote dialogues. The character of interlocutors, that is, psychology, is not separate from philosophy.

This is very consistent with what I've been telling you. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

I read the whole section and did not find it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Out of concern that others might be reading this and be misled, I will give you the benefit of doubt and not assume that your inability to find it is due to willful blindness.

De Caelo

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. (269b 14)

... and so we ignore the achievements of the Enlightenment at our peril. — Steven Pinker

I read this as a warning rather than complacency. The success we enjoy against

war, scarcity, disease, ignorance, and lethal menace — Steven Pinker

is not a permanent victory. Although the Enlightenment program, the conquest of nature, is not unproblematic, it is only by continued concerted effort that the progress that has be made against war, scarcity, etc. will be sustained.

A picture emerges of a world that can be poetically described in Empedocles’s words
as a world of Love and Strife. In Aristotle’s more prosaic but no less inventive terms, a world in the constant movement he calls in his neologism ‘entelechia’. It is the never ending activity or work of an ousia to persist or continue to be what it is or is to be. The constant active struggle of the telos of a living being against its dissolution.

I am moving the discussion of chance causes here

No doubt it will ruffle the feathers of those who desire a "just so" universe.

In both the Physics and Metaphysics Aristotle introduces accidental causes. What are the implications of Aristotle’s accidental cause?

One implication is that teleology is not determinism. All that happens in the world does not come to be as the result of a determinate end. The teleology of the acorn is to become the oak tree, but not every acorn becomes an oak. To ask why is to examine accidental causes.

More generally, the implication is that the cosmos cannot be understood simply as teleological. The world is not as it is because it acts to fulfill some end. Because there are accidental causes, the world is indeterminate and does not yield a final account.

Aristotle is in agreement with Plato’s Timaeus in making the distinction between two kinds of cause, one intelligible and one unintelligible.

You have either forgotten why the question of accidental causes arose or you are moving the goal posts. You claimed:

It is made very clear by Aristotle, that accidents are part of a thing's form ...

If the difference were not formal we could not perceive them as differences ...

So chance is not a cause at all, it's just the way we portray and represent our own ignorance. — Metaphysician Undercover

You went from denying that chance is a cause at all to saying it is not a proper cause to quoting Aristotle that it is an incidental cause.

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.

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.

Heidegger — Heiko

Heidegger is an important figure in helping to shape our current understanding of Aristotle. He taught a generation of students how to do a close reading of an ancient text, paying careful attention to the original language rather than relying on Latin translations.

For first the substance of each thing is special to it, in that it does not belong to anything else. — Metaphysics, 1038b9, translated by CDC Reeve

As I understand this, in simplest terms, one ousia or being is not any other. The translation "substance' easily misleads us unless we keep in mind that a substance means a particular being. It can also be misleading if we think of a substance as being of a thing, as if they are not the same.

When I say "For every natural number X there exists a number X+1" — Heiko

If we are still talking about Aristotle then there is no natural number "X". An number is always a number of something, a number of what it is that is being counted. The shift to symbolic notation occurs later.

Once, I received a big protest from a female interlocutor because I a had used the word "he" . — Alkis Piskas

Once, a student came up to me after class and complained because I had used "she". As if just another example of women being blamed by men. I pointed out that I had been switching back and forth between 'he' and 'she' so as to be inclusive. If this had occurred more recently I might have used 'they'. I read somewhere that this was at one time accepted usage but fell out of favor.

But it is still used in that sense. — Alkis Piskas

It is. What has changed is that some now assume that the term 'man' is sexist and so whoever uses it is sexist.

In fact, "a human" is even the first meaning that you find in some dictionaries. — Alkis Piskas

Even the term 'human' retains 'man'.

For that reason, a professional and/or serious translator, would chose "people" over "men". — Alkis Piskas

In the not too distant past, the term 'man' was not assumed to be used in a gendered way. For example, 'mankind' is not used in distinction from 'womankind'. But even the term 'woman' retains a trace of sexism. Most would not accuse someone of sexism for using the term woman.

There was, and maybe still is, a contentious argument about changing the gendered language of the story of Genesis.

And God saith, `Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness , and let them ...
And God prepareth the man in His image; in the image of God He prepared him, a male and a female He prepared them.

Attempts to neuter the language hide some of what is at issue. The word translated as man is Adam. Note that there is a switching back and forth between between the singular 'man' and dual 'them', male and female. But it is not just the human beings who are talked about in this way but God as well.

The issue here is whether there is some bodily substance other than the formations we know. MU says no, Aristotle says yes. The underlying issue is the eternity of the heavens.