Aristotle and Hume

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Away from IdealismAristotle and Hume

Introduction toPhilosophy


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Aristotle (384-322BCE) Stageira

Student of Plato and teacher of Alexander theGreat.

Prolific writer in various subjects, including physics,metaphysics, rhetoric, logic, politics, ethics, biologyand even zoology.

Member of Platos Academy 20years After going abroad, teaching Alex (13 yearabsence), he returns and is dissatisfied with thecurrent trends in the Academy

Lyceum - School in opposition to the Academy ofXenocrates Resident Alien so school in public gymnasium


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EpistemologyClassification of the Sciences Highest knowledge is for itself, not a means to anend

Philosophy is neither Dialectic (reasoning accurately

from given premises) nor Sophistry (one who earns aliving from apparent but not true wisdom)

Philosophy/Science reasons only from true premisesand is the disinterested employment of the

understanding in discovery of truth


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Speculative/ Theoretical vs. PracticalPhilosophy

Speculative/Theoretical: That which cannot be otherwise oruniversal truths i.e. metaphysics, physics, mathematics

Metaphysics Being qua Being or the concern with theuniversal characteristics which belong to the system ofknowable reality as such

Practical Philosophy Not an exact science as it deals with

things that can be otherwise, particulars vs. universals, i.e.ethics, politics, medicine.


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Plato Revisited

Plato Radical Difference between sense-perception and scientific/philosophical knowledge

A scientific truth is exact and definite, no definite

science about the material world, only probableopinion of the world of sense.

The IDEAS are not arrived at by any process ofabstraction from experience as all the particulars do

not reveal the universal but only approximations.

The Idea is Separate from EXPERIENCE, experiencereflects the IDEA


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Aristotle on Ideas

Ideas are poetic metaphors

All objects of knowledge are particular facts given in senseperception, the universal laws of science are mereconvenient way of describing the observed uniformities in

the behavior of sensible things. We cannot separate theFORM from the MATTER!

EMPIRICIST Senses first point the way toward knowledge

..BUT, sense experience cannot give us the cause ofthings, it does not explain the why Sense Experience notknowledge but ground for knowledge Knowledge of perception is immediate (anyone can do it) and

as such for knowledge of sense experience one must use


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Metaphysics: First Philosophy

Metaphysics Science which considers What Is simply in

its character of Being, and the properties it has as such.

All other sciences deal with some restricted property ofWHAT IS and thus considers its subject matter not

universally in its character of Being, or being real, but asdetermined by some special condition.

Metaphysics examines the MODES of Being What it is

and its qualities, actions

Substance What it is (apple) vs. its attributes (green,sweet) or actions (falling to the ground)


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Substance

Two Senses PREDICATE: Man, horse (special class of predicates) Socrates

is a man

Primary Sense This man, This horse

Only subjects of predication

Remains the same, regardless of predication

Processes go on in them, they are what run the gamete ofbirth and decay, what is the thing that can be predicatedinfinitely

Bearers of all qualities, terms of all relations, and agentsand patients in all interaction


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Matter and Form

Individual Thing Desk made of the same stuff as a housebut unlike in having a different shape

Two different components of SUBSTANCES: Matter and Form

Inseparably United

Matter is not just Physical or Corporeal things but the stuffwhich can receive FORM

Your character Impress a Form onto it

Matter The relatively indeterminate

Form What gives structure


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Potential and Actual

Matter and Form Potential to Actual

Living Organism Embryos of two animals

One has the potential to be a human being, while the other anape

A seed This is not yet an oak but has the potential

A person Right education brings out the potential for

reason

Process where a Form is realized Energeia

Realized Form Entelechy

Not unending process but everything has an END (TELOS)


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METAPHYSICAL WORLDVIEW

Universals exist only in things (in re), never apartfrom things. Unlike Plato we must study particularphenomena to discover the essence/form residing inthem.

Universal/Form is something identical in each of itsinstances. So all desks are similar in that there isthe same universal, desk, in each desk.

There is no Platonic Form of deskness, standingapart from all desks; instead, in each desk there isthe same form of desk which all desks possess inthemselves.

onc t Formation ocusin on ubstanc o


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Metaphysics

To know something is to know its CAUSE What are the causes of this world order?

Four Causes1. Material: Seed2. Formal: law of growth

2. Efficient: parent oak

3. Final: full adult oak

Matter is Potential, Power, Possibility to Receive Form

Form as Actuality, What it is

Substance Combination of Matter (potential) and Form

(actual) Matter and Form cannot be separated


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Hume1711-1776

Scottish Philosopher

Empiricist (Opposed to DescartesRationalism Rejection of Newtonian Physics)

Lost faith at an early age

Desire not Reason governs human behavior

Reason is and ought only to be a slave of thepassions.

No innate knowledge, all knowledge gainedvia experience


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On PhilosophyEnquiry 1

It seems then that nature has pointed out a mixedkind of life as most suitable to the human race, andsecretly admonished them to allow none of thesebiases to draw too much, so as to incapacitate them forother occupations and entertainments. Indulge yourpassion for science, says she, but let your science behuman, and such as may have a direct reference toaction and society. Abstruse thought and profoundresearches I prohibit, and will severely punish, by thepensive melancholy which they introduce, be theendless uncertainty in which they involve you, and bythe cold reception which your pretended discoveriesshall meet with, when communicated. Be aphilosopher; but, amidst your philosophy, be still aman.


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Enquiry Book 2: On the Origin ofIdeas1. Impressions (Sensations) vs. Ideas (Memory andImagination)

A. Perception/Sensation is more lively thanMemory/Imagination (Being burnt vs.

Remembering/Imagining being burnt)

B. Being angry vs. Remembering the Feeling

All the colors of poetry can never paint naturalobjects in such a manner as to make thedescription be taken for a real landscape. Themost lively thought is still inferior to the dullestsensation


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Book 2

Empiricism Perception/Sensation is the cause of allideas

But the mind can take us anywhere? Even to what

we have never experienced? Unbounded Libertyof Thought? No!

1. Ideas result from compounding (gold

mountain, mermaid), transposing (virtuoushorse), augmenting and diminishing

2. Without impression Ideas are meaningless (God

and Self)


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All Ideas from Impressions

Complex Ideas God is a compound and not a reality as such

Berkeleys All Perceiving God No direct impression of this

Self is a compound of experiences and not a reality as such No Dr. Layne without my experiences, i.e. no essence/soul

separate from the hundreds of impressions compounded toform the Idea of Dr. Layne

Complex Ideas from Association of Ideas

Resemblance Contiguity in Time and Space

Cause or Effect

All Associations are not REASONABLE and Do not reflectREALITY as such.


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DESIRE VS. REASON

It is not reason which engagesus to suppose that the pastresembles the future, and to

expect similar effects fromcauses which are, to

appearance, similar or toassume that conjoined eventsare causally related.


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The Problem of Induction

Induction and Cause/Effect is only a HABIT/CUSTOM

Deduction Going from general principles toparticular conclusions. All people who have a cough are sick. You have a cough You are sick

Induction Going from particular (impressions) to

general (unobserved Ideas) The sun came up today, the sun came up yesterday thus the

sun will come up everyday Assuming that there is a pattern in the behavior of objects that

will be the same in the future or when unobserved.

UNIFORMITY OF NATURE


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The Problem of Induction

Inductive Reasoning from observed to unobserved

Inductive reasoning goes beyond the present testimony of thesenses, and the records of our memory.

We believe that things behave in a regular manner; i.e., that patternswill persist into the future, and throughout the unobserved present.

Principle of the Uniformity of Nature.

No justification that nature will continue to be uniform.

Two kinds of Justification (1) Demonstrative reasoning

Uniformity principle cannot be demonstrated, as it is "consistent and

conceivable" that nature might stop being regular (2) probable reasoning.

Circular


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Custom

The great guide of human life without which we would be at aloss

All belief of matter of fact or real existence is derived merelyfrom some object, present to the memory or senses, and acustomary conjunction between that and some other object. Orin other words; having found in many instances, that any twokinds of objectsflame and heat, snow and coldhave alwaysbeen conjoined together; if flame or snow be presented anew tothe senses, the mind is carried by custom to expect heat or coldand to believe that such a quality does exist, and will discoveritself upon a neared approach. This belief is the necessary resultof placing the mind in such circumstances. It is an operation ofthe soul, when we are so situated, as unavoidable as to feel thepassion of love, when we receive benefits; or hatred, when wemeet injuries. All these operations are a species of naturalinstincts, which no reasoning or process of the thought andunderstanding is able either to produce or invent.


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Heidegger (1889-1976)

The Question of the Meaning of Being Being vs. beings

Examine Dasein (being-there, being in the world)

What is Dasein1. A being whose Being is an issue for it

2. Human being aware of Being as Existence

3. Awareness of Being-toward-death (Angst)

Losing the I in the they, becoming part ofthe crowd vs. freedom

Inauthentic vs. Authentic


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Introduction to Metaphysics

The Fundamental Question Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?

First Question (not chronologically)

1. BroadestNot beings but Being

Limited only by Nothing, but it is something

2. Deepest

What is the ground for Being?3. Originary

Human being who poses the question

Why question challenges the Being of the whole

Why the why?


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Misunderstanding of Philosophy

ForgetfulnessThe question why something rather than nothing is the

grounds of Science

Religious (Cannot authentically question withoutsuspending faith

Without the exposure to unfaith, the faithful is not infaith but a convenient indifference)

Misunderstanding of Philosophy

All essential questioning is untimelyThe few philosophers/the unsettlers

Supports Culture

Doesnt make things easier but more difficult

You cant do anything with philosophy? It can only do


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Greek Philosophy

Phusis Nature (origin meaning lost)

The emergence, the opening up

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Not a physical question, limited to such beings but all ofBeing

Metaphysic Beyond beings

Are we asking the question or willing the question?

Knowing is to be able to stand in the truth

Truth is the openness to beings


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Nothing

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Aristotle and Hume