A Survey of Aristotle's Philosophical Worldview
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Does Aristotle’s Philosophy Offer Us a Viable Architectonic Account of the World? By Peter Jackson A thesis presented to UCL for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Declaration: I, Peter Jackson confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Peter Jackson Abstract: This thesis seeks to show the consistency and quality of Aristotle’s ontology in its treatment of worldly being(s) by examining how Aristotle treats a range of worldly phenomena. It does so by following Aristotle and considering (a) the structuring of worldly being in general by establishing that we exist as objects in a world of objects and that it is as determinate beings that we exhibit states and characteristics, (b) the structuring of our “physical” human engagement with the world through our exhibition of desire, choice, pleasure, and natural human biological development, (c) the structuring of our “mental” human engagement with the world through our human faculties for imagination, memory, and reason, (d) the structuring of organic being in accordance with the underlying concepts of limit (determinateness), priority (temporality), symmetry (duality), the “mean” (centredness), and proportion (dynamic wholeness), (e) the structuring of organic being as soul and matter, and (f) the meaning of “God” as the keystone of this system. It ultimately seeks to defend the value of Aristotle’s ontological or architectonic approach to the world and does so, implicitly and to some extent explicitly, vis-à-vis other philosophical approaches to the world. 2 Table of Contents: Abbreviations Used p 4 Preface p 5 1 Aristotle on Objective Reality p 12 2 Aristotle on Passion and Action p 38 3 Aristotle on Desire p 54 4 Aristotle on Choice p 63 5 Aristotle on the Activity of Pleasure p 73 6 Aristotle on Human Development p 82 7 Aristotle on Imagination p 88 8 Aristotle on Memory p 98 9 Aristotle on Rationality p 104 10 Aristotle on Limits, Boundedness, and Determinateness p 114 11 Aristotle on Priority and Posteriority p 130 12 Aristotle on Symmetry p 140 13 Aristotle on the “Mean” p 147 14 Aristotle on Proportion p 161 15 Aristotle on the Soul p 167 16 Aristotle on Matter p 190 17 Aristotle on Noetic Matter p 204 18 Aristotle on God p 230 Glossary of Greek Terms: p 242 Bibliography of Classical Resources p 247 Bibliography of Modern Resources p 258 3 Abbreviations Used: Names of Grouping Names of Aristotelian Texts Abbr. Used Nicomachean Ethics / Ethica Nicomachea N.E. Eudemian Ethics / Ethica Eudemia E.E. Politics / Politica Pol. Rhetoric / Rhetorica Rhet. Poetics / Poetica Poet. Physics / Physica Phys. Metaphysics / Metaphysica Met. On Coming-to-Be and Passing Away / On Generation and Corruption / GC. De Generatione et Corruptione On the Soul / De An. De Anima On Sense and Sensibles / On Sense and Sensibilia / Sens. De Sensu et Sensibilibus On Memory and Recollection / Mem. De Memoria et Reniniscentia On Sleep and Waking / Somn. De Somno et Reminiscentia Parva Naturalia On Dreams / De Insomniis Insomn. On Divination by Dreams / Div. De Divinatione per Somnum On Longness and Shortness of Life / Long. De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitae On Youth and Old Age [On Life and Death] / Juv. De Juventute et Senectute On Respiration / De Respiratione Resp. History of Animals / Historia Animalium HA On the Parts of Animals / PA De Partibus Animalium On the Motion of Animals / MA De Motu Animalium On the Generation of Animals / GA De Generatione Animalium On the Progression of Animals / IA De Incessu Animalum Categories / Categoriae Cat. On Interpretation / De Int. De Interpretatione Organon Prior Analytics Pr. An. Posterior Analytics Post. An. Topics Top. On Sophistical Refutations Soph. El. Meteorology / Mete. Meteorologica On the Heavens / De Cael. De Caelo On Breath / De Spiritu Spir. Magna Moralia MM Aristotelian Texts Used: Quotations from Aristotle are generally from the Oxford or Loeb translations with a few exceptional translations taken from specialist works. 4 Preface The objective of this work is to present Aristotle’s philosophical worldview and show the reader that it is valid, valuable, and even indispensable for a full and true understanding of the world. Despite the intuitive clarity of Aristotle’s “common sense” realism, however, we find that it is even difficult to get into a position in which we can properly engage with Aristotle since his pre-modern viewpoint is based upon the “metaphysics” and “ontology” which Leslie Jaye Kavanaugh explains as that: “Metaphysics… always implies an architectonic – an ontological structure that positions beings and Being within a complex composition1” and which Immanuel Kant explains as that: “By the term Architectonic I mean the art of ‘constructing a system. Without systematic unity, our knowledge cannot become science; it will be an aggregate, and not a system2”. Moving back to Aristotle we find that he insists upon the need for a philosophical architectonic on the basis that: “There is a science which investigates being as being and the attributes which belong to this in virtue of its own nature (ἔστιν ἐπιστήμη τις ἣ θεωρεῖ τὸ ὂν ᾗ ὂν καὶ τὰ τούτῳ ὑπάρχοντα καθ᾽ αὑτό). Now this is not the same as any of the other so-called special sciences; for none of these others treat universally of being as being. They cut off a part of being and investigate the attribute of this part; this is what the mathematical sciences for instance do (Met. Γ 1003a21-26)” and that: “It is evident…that it belongs to one science [i.e. philosophy] to be able to give an account of these concepts [i.e. opposites, plurality, unity, negation, privation etc.] as well as of substance (οὐσία)…and that it is the function of the philosopher to be able to investigate all things (Met. Γ 1004a32-1004b1)”. In short, then, we see that Aristotle insists that we need philosophy in order to represent the ontology of the world 1 Kavanaugh, Leslie Jaye The Architectonic of Philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz (Amsterdam, 2007) p 2. 2 Kant, Immanuel Critique of Pure Reason (London, [orig. 1781]1934) p 471 5 around us and this position assumes that the world is, indeed, a system which can be represented systematically3. As regards why we have to defend and discuss such a basic precept of “traditional” philosophy as that the world can and should be understood philosophically – this being held by such various thinkers as Aristotle and Kant – I suggest that we need to do so because there are sceptical philosophers who do not (strangely enough) believe in philosophy and they are people who have a popularity which requires us to defend the very existence of philosophy from their prejudices if we wish to take (Aristotle’s) philosophy seriously. As regards the basic principles of this “antiphilosophy” we find that David Hume asserts such things as that: “…upon the whole, there appears not, throughout all nature, any one instance of connexion which is conceivable by us. All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined but never connected…the necessary conclusion seems to be that we have no idea of connexion or power at all, and that these words are absolutely without any meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings or common life4” and that: “Our idea…of necessity and causation arises entirely from the uniformity observable in the operations of nature, where similar objects are constantly conjoined together, and the mind is determined by custom to infer the one from the appearance of the other. These two circumstances form the whole of that necessity, which we ascribe to matter. Beyond the constant conjunction of similar objects, and the consequent inference from one to the other, we have no notion of any necessity or connexion5”. I add that an updated version of Hume’s antiphilosophy is the antiphilosophy of Richard 3 I note that Leslie Jaye Kavanaugh observes regarding Kant’s architectonic that: “...the method of the architectonic of pure reason constitutes the construction of a schema wherein the parts are arranged as to first principles. This schema, originating from an idea, is an architectonic unity rather than a technical unity (The Architectonic of Philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz (Amsterdam, 2007) p 5)” and I suggest that the critical distinction between Kant and Aristotle here is that Kant’s philosophy centres upon our thought seeking to discern the supposed a priori and formal laws of nature whereas Aristotle’s philosophy is concerned with being (which encompasses our thought) and seeks to carve nature at its joints. 4 Hume, David An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1757) §58 5 Hume, David Ibid. §64 6 Rorty who argues regarding “…the idea that we have ontological intuitions which make the notion of “mind” more than just a blur6” that: “We no more know “the nature of mind” by introspecting mental events than we know “the nature of matter” by perceiving tables. To know the nature of something is not a matter of having it before the mind, of intuiting it, but of being able to utter a large number of true propositions about it7” and that: “…we do not start with visual images. We do not “start” with anything. We are just trained to make reports – some perceptual, some introspective – as part of our general training in uttering true sentences, our learning of the language8” and with Rorty concluding that: “Functionalism comes down to saying that anything you want to say about persons will have an analogue in something you can say about computers, and that if you know as much about a person as a team consisting of the ideal design engineer and the ideal programmer know about a computer, then you know all there is to know about the person9”.