“Other than Omniscient: An Interpretation and Defense of Kant‟s Rejection of Aristotle‟s Notion of Finite Reasoning” BY Copyright 2011 Nathan R. Colaner Submitted to the graduate degree program in Philosophy and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Scott Jenkins_____________ Chairperson Thomas Tuozzo___________ John Bricke_______________ James Woelfel_____________ Lacy Johnson_____________ Committee members Date Defended: _________________4/22/11_________ ii The Dissertation Committee for Nathan R. Colaner certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: “Other than Omniscient: An Interpretation and Defense of Kant‟s Rejection of Aristotle‟s Notion of Finite Reasoning” _________Scott Jenkins_________ Chairperson Date approved:__________4/22/11_________ iii Table of Contents Title Page……………………………………………………………………………… I Acceptance Page………………………………………………………………………. ii Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………… iii Dissertation Abstract………………………………………………………………….. v Project Introduction…………………………………………………………………… vi Chapter Contributions……………………………………………………………......... xi Part One: Aristotle‟s Doctrine of Finite Reasoning (or, The Meaning of Aristotle‟s Divinity Thesis) Chapter One: “A Divine Life” Chapter Summary/Goals……………………………………………………………. 2 A. The Difficulty of the Divinity Thesis……………………………………………. 3 B. The Two Excellences…………………………………………………………….. 4 C. Two Excellences, Two Lives…………………………………………………….. 8 D. The Problem with Incompatibilism……………………………………………… 12 E. Beasts, Humans, Gods: Life Inside and Outside the Polis……………………….. 16 Chapter Two: “Aristotle on the Human Intellect” Chapter Summary/Goals……………………………………………………………. 25 A. Introduction………………………………………………………………………. 26 B. Laying the Groundwork: Observations About Nοῦρ as a Substance…………….. 27 C. An Account of Tὸ Nοεῖν………………………………………………………..... 31 D. An Account of Tὸ Θευπεῖν……………………………………………………… 36 E. The Non-Identity of Tὸ Διανοεῖζθαι and Tὸ Θευπεῖν…………………………… 38 F. The Non-Identity of Tὸ Διανοεῖζθαι and To Nοεῖν…………………………….... 41 G. The Mind Insofar as It Makes…………………………………………………..... 43 H. Traditional Translations, Traditional Problems, New Solutions………………… 46 I. The Life of Contemplation………………………………………………………... 49 Chapter Three: “The Nature of Divine Contemplation” Chapter Summary/Goals……………………………………………………………. 52 A. Introduction…………………………..………………………………………….. 53 B. The Meaning of the Self-Contemplation Model…………………………………. 53 C. Traditional Arguments for the Self-Contemplation Model………..…………….. 56 D. Traditional Arguments for the Omniscience Model……………………………... 58 E. Does Omniscience Compromise God‟s Ontological Status as the HighestBeing? 61 F. Does Omniscience Contradict Immutability?…………………………………..... 64 G. Conclusion………………………...……………………………………………... 68 Part Two: Kant and Aristotle on Intuition Chapter Four: “The Origin of Kant‟s Doctrine of Non-Omniscience” Chapter Summary/Goals…………………………………………………………….. 70 A. Introduction……………………………………………………………………… 71 B. The Empiricists and the Quid Juris Question……………………………………. 71 C. The Rationalists and the Quid Juris Question…………………………………… 75 D. Creative Intuition and the Quid Juris Question………………………………….. 82 iv E. Spontaneity, for the First Time…………………………………………………... 84 F. Kantian Finitude………………………………………………………………….. 86 Chapter Five: “Kant and Aristotle in Dialogue” Chapter Summary……………………………………………………………………. 91 A. Introduction……………………………………………………………………….. 92 B. Kant‟s Intellectus Archetypus…………………………………………………….. 92 C. Aristotle and Kant‟s Doctrine of Omniscience………………………………….... 94 D. The Importance of Intellectual Intuition……………………..……………..…….. 99 E. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………. 102 Part Three: The Superiority of Kant‟s Interpretation of Non-Omniscience Chapter Six: “The Meaning and Attempted Justification of Kant‟s Doctrine of Legitimate Judgments” Chapter Summary…………………………………………………………………… 105 A. Introduction…………………………………………………….………………… 106 B. That Extra-Intuitive Judgments Must Be Conditioning Judgments………………. 107 C. The Conditioning Judgments Must Not Be of the Unconditioned………………… 114 D. Should We Believe Kant‟s Doctrine of Legitimate Judgments?.………………… 117 Chapter Seven: “The Antinomial Attack on Metaphysics” Chapter Summary……………………………………………………………………. 124 A. The Role of the Transcendental Dialectic……………………………………….. 125 B. The Aesthetic Attack on Metaphysics in the First Critique………………….…… 126 C. The Logic of a Dialectic Argument………………………………………………. 129 D. Antinomial Arguments as Dialectical Conflicts…………………………………. 131 E. Antinomial Arguments as Apagogical Arguments………………………………. 133 F. Antinomial Arguments as Arguments Rooted in Experience……………………. 134 G. The Antinomial Attack on Metaphysics on the Third Critique………………….. 136 H. Does the Antinomial Argument Present a Problem for Aristotle?………………… 139 I. Is the Antinomial Argument Successful as a Defense of Transcendental Idealism? 141 J. A Return to the Intellectus Archetypus…………………………………………….. 143 K. Conclusion: Two Theories of Non-Omniscience………………………………… 146 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………. 148 . v Dissertation Abstract Although actual human omniscience is unimaginable, it is not obvious what it means to be limited with regard to thought. One of Kant‟s significant contributions to epistemology was his redefinition of the limits of thought. He is explicit about this when he contrasts human, receptive intuition, and the creative intuition that an infinite being would have. Importantly, judging and reasoning are only necessary for a mind that is first affected by an object through sensibility, which is not the case for a being with creative intuition, since this kind of intuition creates its own object. This means that the intellect of Kant‟s God is distinct from the human intellect in kind, since judging and reasoning are essentially finite (or what I will call „non- omniscient‟) activities; they are already evidence of a finite, human cognition.1 In contrast, Aristotle argues that human cognition - beyond its capacity for discursivity - is able to contemplate; as we will see, Aristotle argues that contemplation is divine, and so a limited intellect can become more or less like an omniscient intellect depending on the quality of one‟s contemplative life. In this work, I want to 1) establish that Kant and Aristotle have incompatible conceptions of non-omniscience, 2) trace the epistemological commitments that motivate their rival positions on non-omniscience, 3) show that their particular views on the legitimacy of metaphysical judgments presuppose their particular interpretations of non-omniscience, and 4) argue that Kant provides a superior analysis of non-omniscience. 1 For reasons that will become clear in Chapter 5.D, it is important that judging and reasoning are the only ways for human cognition to be active. vi Project Introduction The West has a long tradition of associating human reason and divinity. Plato‟s Socrates recommended that “…we should make all speed to take flight from this world to the other, and that means becoming like the divine so far as we can, and that again is to become righteous with the help of wisdom” (Th 176b).2 Aristotle believed that „the intellect is divine,” and so “the life in accordance with it is divine” (NE 1177b30-1).3 Two millennia did not change the intellectual culture much, for Spinoza expresses a similar sentiment: “[i]t is in the nature of reason to regard things as necessary… But this necessity is the very necessity of God‟s eternal nature. Therefore it is in the nature of reason to regard things in this light of eternity” (Ethics II.44).4 They were of course not trying to say that human intellect might become similar to a divine intellect, but that divine cognition operates as an ideal for human cognition. It makes no difference that this goal is unattainable; what is important is that some are closer than others. This type of thinker would believe that I may become omniscient in the same way that I may run faster than the speed of sound. The inevitable failure to become omniscient is simply a way to express the condition of frail, human reason. Although it is now out of fashion to be this theologically explicit, Henry Allison observes that this model of knowledge is possible without a belief in the existence of God because the knowledge that a hypothetical God would have can still be used as a measuring stick: “human knowledge is judged by the ideal standard of divine knowledge and found wanting” (22).5 Allison calls this the theocentric view of knowledge; this classification is reasonable because on 2 The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton University Press; Princeton, New Jersey, 1985 ed. Theaetetus translated by F.M. Cornford. 3 The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Edited by Jonathan Barnes. Volume Two. Bollington Series LXXI.2; Princeton University Press. Nicomachean Ethics translated by W.D. Ross. 4 Spinoza, Baruch. The Ethics (II, prop 44, Proof of Corollary II). Translated by Samuel Shirley. Hackett Publishing Company; Indianapolis/Cambridge, 1992 ed. 5 Allison, Henry. (1983). Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 22. vii this model, human knowledge is divine knowledge writ small; conversely, divine knowledge is human knowledge writ large. Allison points out that Kant interprets knowledge differently. Kant‟s alternative model becomes clear