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Where does Aristotle claim man has x-ray vision?

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Aristotle's theory of universals has been characterized as one which places the universals in the particulars, placing "essences" [ti en einai, what it is for something to be] entirely out there in objects. Whereas Plato placed Forms in another world, Aristotle places them in the particulars. Still absent from this theory is the role of the human mind--rather than a theory of concept-formation and abstraction, he supposedly claims man has a power of "x-ray vision" to see the essences of things. And this, according to Objectivism, is where Aristotle goes wrong.

My question is this: What is the basis for claiming Aristotle holds this view. I have read some Aristotle (On the Soul, Physics, Metaphysics, Poetics, Nichomachean Ethics, Rhetoric, Parts of Animals, Politics) and have been looking at the original Greek lately, and the more I read, the more uncertain I become that he does. So can someone make the argument to me, complete with citations?

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I cannot provide the specific form of answer you seek. However, I was recently transcribing some of my notes from Dr. Peikoff's lectures on the History of Western Philosophy and recall mention of something which might help point you in the right direction. Dr P comments on Aristotle's ideas about the process by which reason operates - the process distinctive to man of abstract rational conceptual thought.

Dr. P says Aristotle modeled his understanding of the process on the process of the senses:

In thought, just like in sensation, you 'suck in', you absorb, you imbibe, you receive, the forms of things into your mind (the abstract essences or universals) and they become part of the mind - just as with your sense experience, the sensory qualities enter into your organs and become part of the organ.

Furthermore, Aristotle contrasted thinking with eating:

- in eating, one takes in the matter of things, incorporating it into one's body. The form is irrelevant here. It is spit out or otherwise expelled.

- in thinking, one does the reverse. One takes in the forms of things (the abstractions) and incorporates them into one’s mind, while the matter itself is discarded/ignored.

So in a very literal sense, for Aristotle, thinking is a process of becoming IN-FORMED (which is actually the source of the term information).

--

Im not sure if that will help, but it might ring a bell for you and lead you to the source material you seek.

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If I recall correctly, Allan Gotthelf has suggested that there is some reason to think that Aristotle's view is much closer to the Objectivist view than many people have thought. I don't recall exactly where he said this, though, so I can't give a reference, and I don't think he gave any details anyway.

If you happen to read this, Dr. Gotthelf -- since I've seen you post on here before -- any chance of a comment on this issue?

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  • 1 month later...

I need an answer to this, too. Well, let me be more specific. I need the citations so that I can put together some brief readings for my epistemology class this semester. Daniel, I took a quick look on Philosophers Index and it seems like some guy who published in The Thomist in 1976 shares your view of Aristotle. The title of the article is something easy like "Aristotle on Universals," and the abstract describes a view that goes against the "orthodox" view. Although now that I think of it, he may be arguing that Aristotle is some sort of subjectivist or nominalist. I think I've been on the computer for too long. :blink:

As best I can tell there are some passages in Physics, and some in Metaphysics, that are relevant. I remember that Aristotle mentions Plato's theory of forms in NE, but I don't recall him giving any positive view there. Somewhere on the many web sites I've visited this evening I saw someone mention Categories 5 (maybe I, 5?) as relevant. It has to do with his view of substance. Finally, there's a book by Gail Fine called "On Ideas," where she discusses Peri Ideon, which deals with the theory of forms. However, that book is checked out of UT's library AND on request by someone else, and it costs $45 at either BN or Amazon, and from the squib it seems like it might not be concerned with Aristotle's view, only with Plato's.

Can any Aristotle scholars help here? Is Greg Salmieri on this forum? :lol:

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Daniel, I took a quick look on Philosophers Index and it seems like some guy who published in The Thomist in 1976 shares your view of Aristotle.  The title of the article is something easy like "Aristotle on Universals," and the abstract describes a view that goes against the "orthodox" view.  Although now that I think of it, he may be arguing that Aristotle is some sort of subjectivist or nominalist.

Amy, I checked out the 1976 Thomist from the St. John's library and read the article you mentioned.

I don't think the article argues that Aristotle is a subjectivist. He seems to describe the very beginnings of an Objectivist account: knowledge begins with sense perception, and, by identifying common attributes among things, the mind forms universals. The universals, he says, exist in the mind on the basis of common attributes that we identify in the particulars.

I find the article very interesting and have sympathy for the thesis, but it has a few key problems:

1.) It is overly polemical, relying largely on refutations of interpretations of short Aristotle passages.

2.) This leaves the middle of the article as the only real argument in favor of the author's position. There, he first describes the battle metaphor at the end of the Posterior Analytics, observing, I think rightly, that it alone is not very helpful. Therefore, he brings in a quote from the Topics that is supposed to help: "it is by induction of particulars on the basis of similarities that we infer the universal." This shows, says the article, "that only repeated perceptions o findividuals can give rise to a universal." With this, he begs the question. The battle rout metaphor was insufficient precisely because it wasn't clear how the "induction" it described woks. The author then brings in another quote that merely uses the word induction, but it really adds nothing. Furthermore, he translates epagoge as induction and takes that to mean that repeated perceptions of particulars give rise to the universal. But why translate epagoge as induction in the first place? Joe Sachs argues that it is better translated as example, and that one example is sufficient for one to grasp the universal.

3.) The conclusion of the article, while meant to be contrary to the ordinary interpretation, is actually not so very different. "Universals are the correlates in the mind of that which is common to many individuals in reality." But what if that which is common to many individuals in reality is precisely an essence that exists in the particular? We would grasp two men as both men, for instance, because manness is common to them. This is really the ordinary interpretation, and is not ruled out by the article's argument.

By the way, my language class is currently studying logic. So far, my tutor is doing things very much like you did, with some important differences (especially in the use of primary sources). I'll post in the next couple days about the class, since you might be interested, especially if you'll be teaching the logic class again.

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I'll post something positive on this later tonight, but I'd just like to add a consideration against the translating epagoge as "example". Very literally epagoge is a "leading up" or something like that. Example is too static, it better renders "paradeigma". If we translate epagoge as example, then what will be do with the bit in the beginning of the A.Po. where Aristotle says that rhetorical arguments through paradeigmata are a type of epagoge?

Still there is a point here, IMO. There is a danger of reading too much into the translation "induction".

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Thanks for the link, Daniel. I tried to find it online last night but found only a web site that mysteriously skipped certain years of The Thomist. I'm just reading the beginning of the piece now and I like the sound of it. Why? Because he includes the words "entire corpus," which means I'll get the citations I'm looking for and probably learn something new in the process. I haven't read your evaluation of his article yet. I'll read it first and then chime in later.

Amy (who, in the wake of the Time-Warner cable outage in Austin, is roughing it with dial-up -- dial-up accessed via wireless airport, mind you, but dial-up nonetheless)

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I think the key to understanding Aristotle's view on most epistemological subjects is that he doesn't yet distinguish metaphysics and epistemology, or at least he doesn't realize the import of this distinction. That's not where his focus is. In part the reason is that a certain amount of method (of logic) needs to be developed before one can really start thinking about what its status is.

For example, in The Parts of Animals, Aristotle is concerned with the fact that birds and fish don't form a single kind, and that the species of fish ought to be defined by a certain method. But he is just not concerned with the issue of whether these classifications and definitions are metaphysical (intrinsic) or epistemological (objective) -- whether they exist independently of us, or whether they are the ways we need to classify and define in order to achieve knowledge.

Sometimes he does talk as though they are epistemological, but other times, and more often, he speaks about them as though they were metaphysical. I don't think it's right to say that he had a position on this issue. I think he simply didn't see it. He is a realist by a sort of default. He argues against Plato's view and he takes it as obvious that concepts have a basis in reality. But the distinction between their being real and their having a real basis, simply doesn't come up for him. So he's not explicitly on one side of it or the other. But, I think, in the end, it is correct to classify him as a sort of qualified case of a moderate realist. I don't have time to argue for this here, but I will cite some of the relevant text for people who want to pursue the issue further.

The best example of Aristotle glimpsing the objectivity of concepts is the first book of the Parts of Animals. Here he is concerned with biological methodology including issues of how to classify and study animals and their parts. He is talking about how we should classify and is on the premise that the human mind is active in grouping, that there is a basis in reality for grouping, and that groupings can therefore be evaluated. Chapter 4 is the essential chapter here. He says that people (properly) "bring together" species animals under "one kind" (e.g. "bird") for a reason, viz. that they differ "in the more and the less" rather than being the same only by analogy (as birds and fish are similar). This is, BTW, the closest he ever comes to measurement-omission, and this doctrine of difference in the more and the less is important to his biology. But equally interesting to is that on his view: *people* seem to do the "bringing together" and Aristotle is here interested in the *norms* that they should follow in doing so. The point isn't that you should name the real universals that you find, but rather that you should bring things together when they differ only in the more and the less. Other parts of the book strongly imply that the reason why we should classify and inquire in certain ways rather than others is that it will make it possible to study and learn about things economically -- if, he thinks, we studied animals one by one, rather than studying the parts that are common to many animals (e.g. stomachs) we would needlessly reduplicate our efforts.

But even in the Parts of Animals, A. is talking about why trout and bass are classified as fish, not why a certain individual qualifies as a trout. The reason why a certain individual is a trout (or a member of whatever the most indivisible species is) seems to be that it shares a form with other trout. (Although re: forms and individuals, see 644a24 and the interesting comments that Balme and Lennox make on it in their respective translations of the PA).

The more traditional places to look for information on universals in Aristotle include Posterior Analytics II.19, and Metaphysics I.1. In both chapters he talks about the progression of knowledge from sense-perception to apprehension of universals. Also the chapters from De Anima III that Daniel cites in his paper. You might want to look at the beginning of A.Po. I.11, which could be taken as an endorsement of moderate realism. There are a number of other discussions of the issue in the A.Po. and the Topics, mostly in passing. Once can find them using a decent index.

Categories 5 is useful for the claim that no substance is *in* another substance. This means that man (which Aristotle calls a "secondary substance") cannot be *in* an individual man, it is not a *part* or *attribute* of him as some moderate realists think. Rather there is a distinct relationship between the universal man and particular men (the "said of" relationship). But is this a relationship between two mind-independent things? I don't think there is a clear answer there. That's not the question he's focused on.

Depending on how in-depth one wants to go, and how far one wants to get into the issue of definition, the A.Po. as a whole and the Topics are very relevant, but it is hard to narrow it down to individual chapters, especially with the A.Po. Much of Metaphysics Eta is also relevant, though, here the focus isn't on universals vs. particulars per se.

It is worth noting that Aristotle doesn't really have a word for "concept" and he doesn't talk much about "universals" in the since in which later philosophers use that term. (Again, signs that he's not focused on this issue, per se.) Most of the discussion in the passages cited is about "what things are" or what their forms or essences are. In one (maybe the) use of the concept "universal" it refers primarily to a sort of relationship. Certain things hold "universally" of others (see A.Po. I.4). And it is important to identify things that hold in this way for the purpose of demonstration. This context colors all the discussion of universals in the A.Po., and perhaps elsewhere as well.

All of these citations are pretty much as they occur to me, so I might be leaving out something important. But they should be a good starting-point.

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Yippee, thanks for the speedy and informative reply. As I said in my e-mail to you, I will want to assign something relatively basic, so I'll review these and figure out what excerpts to give.

And Greg, you've got mail -- a gift of love from Immanuel Kant :lol:

Daniel, I read the paper quickly, and didn't find it that problematic. The author seemed to be asking what Aristotle says about a series of issues, and to refute what he saw to be the wrong interpretations in each case. Perhaps he makes errors (I am not the one to judge this), but given the task, I didn't see the paper as overly polemical. In interpreting a classic figure, one will need to consider various reasonable interpretations and reject the incorrect ones. Scholars have had many years to put forth their interpretations and arguments for them, so it's only natural that there would be a lot to refute by the 1970s.

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OK, I switched my login. No one else gives their real name in their posts, so why should I? :lol: The way I got here, after all, was through a Google search. And the post showed up by page 2 of the search.

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Oh one more thing...

Allan Gotthelf is teaching a course now that goes through different historical figures theories of concepts and essences. Here is the list of Aristotle readings included in the table of contents. It might be more useful as a reading list for anyone who wants to pursue this than my scattered suggestions are. And there is even a suggested order of reading built in to the table of contents. :-)

Metaphysics, I.1,6

Topics, IX.22 (Topics IX is the same as "Sophistical Refutations")

Categories, 1-5

Topics, I.5

Metaphysics, IV.1, 3-4

De Anima, II.4-5

Metaphysics, VII.4,17

Physics I.1

De Interpretatione, 1

Posterior Analytics, II.8-10, 19

Parts of Animals I.1 (640a10-641a33), 2-4

-Greg

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I can see that Daniel. Perhaps he meant to stress that the moderate realist position and his view were the only two possible reasonable interpretations? Then, refuting the moderate realist position is the only thing that need be done? I'd have to go back and read it carefully, but does he lay this out when he talks about the 4 alternatives at the beginning?

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I can see that Daniel.  Perhaps he meant to stress that the moderate realist position and his view were the only two possible reasonable interpretations?  Then, refuting the moderate realist position is the only thing that need be done?  I'd have to go back and read it carefully, but does he lay this out when he talks about the 4 alternatives at the beginning?

That might be part of his argument; even so, the refutation of a moderate realist interpretation of those passages did nothing to refute the moderate realist interpretation of a number of other passages that weren't even mentioned in the article.

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