sept19

Sept. 19

I have to admit, I felt like I was floundering a bit today: apologies. But your questions and observations are on target and showed that you were thinking and understanding and working, so maybe it worked out OK anyway!?!
Olivia thinks it's interesting that Aristotle thinks we cannot describe/talk about specific things and can only talk about general categories.

Well, he doesn't go that far. What he thinks is that we cannot have knowledge of individuals, by which he means that we cannot know them 'scientifically,' we cannot fully explain them. That is because individual have innumerable accidents that make them that individual, and we could never come to know all of those accidents for any individual. But we can know an individual qua human: we can fully know what human is as well as that this or that individual is human. We just can't know an individual qua individual.

Relatedly, Spencer wonders whether A views individuals as not important in the pursuit of knowledge.

Basically, A thinks science is about species and genera, not about specific individuals.
One thing to note and think about is whether we can think at all without generalities: isn't almost every single word and thought I have a generality? When I talk about 'words' or 'thoughts' or 'people,' don't I just have a sort of general concept in mind, not an individual? Can we help but think in stereotypes/generalities? even when we think of an individual???

Owen thought it was funny that Aristotle was basically talking about evolution at 198b25ish.

Yeah, it gets close to evolution, but it is not really evolution: Empedocles thinks that for a while in the beginning of the world there were all sorts of combinations of things, only some of which worked, and those survived and settled out into the species we know today. So he got the principle of survival of the fittest as a mechanism, but he did not include the idea that new species can come to be and that evolution is still ongoing.

Yes, very much so. St. Thomas Aquinas often reads like re-heated Aristotle, just spiced up with Christianity. Many others too: most of the medieval theologians had, to a greater or lesser degree, Aristotle as a springboard.
But often times the theologian's 'god' is not the 'god' of the average Jo.

I'm with you. It often seems to me like an impossible thought, a thing that can't even be a thing. How could matter not have any qualities? It's so completely abstract that it seems that it evaporates into a non-thought.

Beatrice G is not satisfied with A's 'for the most part' connected to necessity, and, I think, wonders what he would say about Hume's rejection of causality in favor of constant correlation.

I too wonder what Aristotle would have to say if he talked to Hume. The idea of causality is so intuitive and widespread that it is not surprising that Aristotle embraced it. But remember that Aristotle's 'causation' is at least partly 'explanation,' and I don't think that Hume was sceptical about explanation, was he?

Iris found Aristotle's analogy between the artificial and the natural interesting.

Very much so. What I also wonder at is that he rejected a designer: the argument by design seems so intuitive to so many. We should watch out for where he might say more about how you can have teleology/purposes in the world even where there are no agents.

The essential form of a thing can be separated from its matter in our minds, but we cannot separate a thing from its form or matter in reality without destroying that thing. So in our thoughts 'nature' in the sense of the form of something does not need 'matter', but it does in actuality.
Also, most essences/definitions/secondary substances have hidden in them something about matter: you can't have rationality without some matter or other: there must be some material substrate for rationality, and so the definition of human must include mention or imply some matter or other.

Asa notes that by questioning Aristotle our understanding of Aristotle improves but we also need to read Aristotle and understand him to question him.

It's a great virtuous circle: thought recurs upon itself via feedback and correction. It can be a self-improving merry-go-round.

Cameron suggests that animals can mate with intention to reproduce, but there is a lot of chance there too (male or female, etc.) but with gene design happening, that may be less true...

Just as 'nature' has different senses in English, so Greek words have different senses. for instance, generally he uses οὐσία for 'substance,' but it also means 'being,' and he also invents weirdisms: τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι (literally ' the what it was to be') for essence.
Some translators are extremely good at using the same word to translate each Greek word and not to mix them up, but that can make for some awkward prose, and so most translators vary a fair bit.

Mary Beth wanted more examples of accidental causes in the discussion in Physics.

We often want more examples. Aristotle often provides limited ones that can even be very problematic. As I've said, examples are a little treacherous, but also essential and important. In the end, if he cannot apply it and have it make sense, it is not helpful or likely to be right.