Logos in Aristotle
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THE MIDDLE INCLUDED series editor John Russon REREADING ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY THE MIDDLE INCLUDED Logos in Aristotle Ömer Aygün NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS • E VA N S T O N , ILLINOIS Northwestern University Press www.nupress.northwestern.edu Copyright © 2017 by Northwestern University Press. Published 2017. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data are available from the Library of Congress. Except where otherwise noted, this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. In all cases attribution should include the following information: Aygün, Ömer. The Middle Included: Logos in Aristotle. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2017. For permissions beyond the scope of this license, visit www.nupress.northwestern.edu An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high-quality books open access for the public good. More information about the initiative and links to the open-access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org. Canım annemle babam Güzin ve Birol Aygün’e CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations xi Preface xiii Introduction: The Question and the Method 3 Chapter 1: Being (Logos in the Categories) 23 1. Homonymy 23 2. Synonymy 30 3. Recapitulation and Reorientation 40 Chapter 2: Potentiality (Logos in On Interpretation) 43 1. The Inherence of Logos 43 2. Potentiality 51 3. Recapitulation and Reorientation 61 Chapter 3: Natural Motion (Logos in the Physics) 63 1. The Natural 63 2. The Organic 75 3. Recapitulation and Reorientation 86 Chapter 4: Animal Motion (Logos in On the Soul) 89 1. Sensation 90 2. Locomotion 101 3. Recapitulation and Reorientation 110 Chapter 5: Action (Logos in the Nicomachean Ethics) 113 1. Habit 114 2. Positive State 123 3. Character 130 4. Recapitulation and Reorientation 142 Chapter 6: Speech (Logos in the Politics) 145 1. Animal Communication 146 2. Human Speech: From “Letters” to “Words” 155 3. Human Speech: From “Words” to “Sentences” 168 4. Logoi: Definition, Account, and Law 178 Conclusion 189 1. Overview 189 2. The Human Condition: The Cycloptic and the Oedipal 194 3. Nous 208 Notes 211 Bibliography 249 General Index 261 Index Locorum 267 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the Department of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University, which provided me an educational and therefore philosophi- cal environment between 2001 and 2005, the Fulbright Foundation which granted me optimum work conditions for research in 2005– 6, and the Proj- ects of Scientific Research at Galatasaray University which enabled me to turn my dissertation into this book. I am deeply grateful to Robert D. Metcalf and Eli Diamond for their detailed notes and fair criticisms concerning the text in its manuscript form; to the members of the committee of my dissertation on which this book is based, Daniel Conway, Veronique Fóti, Christopher P. Long, and Mark Munn, for their suggestions and encouragement after reading the earliest version of this book; and also to Rémi Brague, Pierre Pellegrin, Jean- Louis Labarrière, and Annick Jaulin for their insightful remarks during my presen- tations of parts of it. I am also very much indebted to my friends, Katherine Loewy, Eric Sanday, Hakan Yücefer, Sean D. Kirkland, David Bronstein, Gregory Recco, William Harwood, Refik Güremen, Ali Çakır, and Michael Schleeter, for their companionship and challenges. I cannot express enough my indebtedness to John Russon who directed my dissertation with immense philosophical motivation and genuine friend- ship, and honored my work by including it in its present form in the series “Rereading Ancient Philosophy” at Northwestern University Press. I am also grateful to Maggie Grossman, Henry Lowell Carrigan, Anne E. Gendler, and Nathan MacBrien at the Northwestern University Press for their help during the editorial preparation of the book in its published form. Finally, I am most indebted to my wife, Ayşenur Nuhoğlu, for the con- stant support and diligent criticism she brought to these pages. Indeed, none of the above is to be held responsible for any shortcomings in the following, but the rest of it could not be written without them. ix ABBREVIATIONS Works by Aristotle (for complete bibliographic information, see pages 249–52) APo. Posterior Analytics APr. Prior Analytics Cael. De Caelo, On the Heavens Cat. Categories DA De Anima, On the Soul De sensu On Sense and Sensible Objects EE Eudemian Ethics GA Generation of Animals GC On Generation and Corruption HA History of Animals MA On the Movement of Animals Metaph. Metaphysics Mete. Meteorology NE Nicomachean Ethics On Int. On Interpretation PA Parts of Animals Ph. Physics Po. Poetics Pol. Politics Prob. Problems Protrep. Protrepticus Rh. Rhetoric SE Sophistici Elenchi, Sophistical Refutations Top. Topics Secondary Works DK Diels and Kranz, 1956 KRS Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, 1983 LSJ Liddell, Scott, and Jones, 1996 xi PREFACE The project of this book originated from my fascination with quite a humble natural phenomenon. I will explore this issue at length in chapter 6, but let me briefly talk about it just so that the reader may have an idea about where this book came from. A scout honeybee sees flowers to exploit in a certain field. She returns to the hive, and describes her firsthand experience of the location and quality of the bounty to the other bees. Of course, these bees understand the message, since they will fly off to the exact location and exploit the field. And indeed, when they return to the hive, they too can convey their new firsthand experi- ence to still others. But before they have this firsthand experience, they do not or cannot relay to others what for them is not a firsthand experience. Honeybees seem capable of understanding what is for them a non- firsthand experience, but not of relaying it. There are indeed animal species that are capable of relaying non- firsthand experience, especially animals that imitate. But while these species are capable of relaying this non-firsthand experience, they seem to do so without understanding it.1 Is there an animal species that has the capacity for both understanding and relaying non- firsthand experiences? Of course. We, humans, indulge in this capacity. We understand non- firsthand experience as honeybees do, but we can also relay it. We relay non- firsthand experience like, say, imitating bird species do, but we do so while understanding that of which we never had, do not have, or may never have, a firsthand experience. A sentence like “I feel great today” is comparable to the message the scout honeybee con- veyed to the other bees: I convey my firsthand experience to you who are capable of understanding what, for you, is not a firsthand experience. But when you say to others, “Ömer is feeling great today,” something different is happening: like honeybees and unlike imitating birds, you are understanding a non- firsthand experience, but, like those bird species and unlike honeybees, you are also relaying that content to others. Since your audience may also relay the same information to still others, this capacity boosts the speed with which information is propagated. As there is no relay among honeybees, only the scout honeybee can inform other bees. Hence, the rate of propagation of that information will follow a linear growth. Among humans in everyday life, however, since the receiver can in turn relay the message to still others xiii xiv preface without having to undergo the experience firsthand, the propagation of information can grow exponentially. But this capacity is not only ubiquitous in our everyday exchanges. It also sheds light on significant aspects of human experience. For it is this capacity that enables me to communicate, not only that I feel great today, but also that Socrates was executed in 399, that there are igneous rocks on the surface of the moon, and that the form “circle” can be instantiated in an infinite number of cases. I had understood these messages, as you just did, without ever need- ing to have a firsthand experience of Socrates’s death, of the surface of the moon, or, indeed, of the infinite instantiations of the form “circle.” Actually, almost all science, all fiction, all history, all news media, all edu- cation, all propaganda, all gossip, all utopian fiction, all sophistry as well as all philosophy structurally require that the message relayed be such that its content was not, is not, or even cannot be, experienced firsthand. Yet indeed, when I speak, I may be expressing my firsthand experience, but I may also be lying, I may be relaying something I heard from someone else who has heard it who knows where. Further, you may further propagate this dubious message without having to check its truthfulness. So I am exercising this capacity not only when I say that Socrates was executed in 399, but also when I say that Socrates was not executed in 399. Again, I am drawing on the same capacity when I say, regardless of their actual or potential truth-value, that Athenians will regret their execution of Socrates, or that his execution was ordained by fate, that he will converse with great poets in the afterlife, or that he will be resurrected. So, besides our everyday communications, it is the major human institutions and traditions that require this capacity for both understanding and relaying non- firsthand experience. And once the commu- nicating parties possess this capacity, there is no preestablished control over the truthfulness of the messages.