Aristotle Exam Notes

8/9/2019 Aristotle Exam Notes

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Aristotle wants to redesign a theory of nature and knowledge. This block of material is a reaction against

Plato. Aristotles concern is that since he is a biologist and he wants to be able to draw conclusions fromhis experiments. These conclusions mention that science is about necessity, but for Plato the only accessto necessity is through ideas and not by perception because of the constant change in the physical world.He wants a theory of the world that makes sense and a theory of the mind that has access to the sense that

it makes. He does this so that his scientific conclusions can have both necessity and universality. Hewants to be able to make statements that are bigger than his experiments.

Nature1) What does A. mean by nature and how is it (nature) made evident?

a. Things which have an internal principle of motion and being at rest aninnate impulse to change, and a source or cause of being moved andof being at rest.

b. Nature as exhibited in the process of growth, i.e., things that grow intothat towards which they tend. The predetermined direction of thegrowth indicates what kind of a thing it is that grows.

Natural objects contain an internal organizational principle that contains apattern for development and a drive to make that pattern natural. There is aplan and dynamic contained in a principle that organizes a thing.Nature is a cause that works towards a purpose; it is regular and predictable. The evidence forthis is the regularity. It is the fact that teeth come in a certain and same way. This cannot be

explained by chance.

2) A. claims that It is plain that nature is a cause, a cause that operates for apurpose. What evidence does he offer for this claim?

a. By continuous movementb. Originating from an internal principlec. Arrives at some completion

d. From a tendency in each toward the same end

Nature, as the organizing principle, physically organizes a thing in such a waythat it has certain capacities, and then it gives those capacities a target so itcan achieve that end. In the end is built the programming.

The activity of the agent actualizes the possibilities that are programmed intoits organizational principle that makes it whatever it is and able to achieve itspurpose. The common goal is the full flourishing of the agent. The purpose is why

the world makes sense.Things in this world are matter organized in a way that allows them to operate according to arule. These are quantities of matter organized in a certain way that enables it to do certain kindsof things and always be able to do those kinds of things.

3) Present the difficulty he raises against this theory and his solution to thedifficulty.

a. Why shouldnt (all) nature work without a purpose and just frommechanical (blind) necessity or pure chance?

b. That which is normal and invariable cannot be attributed to chance orspontaneity because the characteristics of the latter are the opposite.


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Aristotle asks question (a). He raises an objection to this. This is not the only way it islogically possible to think about nature. It is possible that the regularity is a coincidence. There

is no logical reason why that cannot be the case. There is no conceptual reason why things wesee happening on a regular basis are not operating that way by coincidence. He claims if you

examine the two concepts (*nature is a cause that acts towards a purpose, and *nature operates

by coincidence) and you ask, What are the peculiar properties of these two approaches? Theproperties of the first choice are regularity and predictability. The properties of chance orcoincidence are irregularity and unpredictability. Aristotle asks to look at nature and state what

you see; you see that nature is regular and predictable and that the second alternative is false;the world makes sense because it is regulated by an internal principle that moves development innature towards a predetermined end. His experiments have universal applicability. Observationrefutes the second theory.

He has set up nature as a knowable object.

Knowing1) What does A. mean by unqualified scientific knowledge and what is its

proper object and what is the manner or mode of this kind of knowledge?

a. Knowing the unambiguous cause that makes x necessary.b. That which cannot be otherwise than it is.c. The demonstration, i.e., the syllogism (give an example), the grasp

which is eo ipso scientific knowledge.i. Eo ipso=without any words; looking at the language form you

can see that makes necessity evident.

What is science looking for? Science is concerned with the inner causes of nature which have to

be accessed by the mind.Scientific consists in explanations; in determining what is necessary about the event (notdescribing the event). Explanations are always in terms of causes (Why is it necessary that thingsoccur in this manner?). Science wants to know how to explain the facts. Extract the principle by

observation and experimentation. Then, convert the principle into a concept or definition. With adefinition, one enters intellectual realm and is able to infer. Inferences constitute scientificliterature. Ultimately, one goes from a specific experiment to a universal statement.

2) Present the problem imbedded in the mode or form of this kind of knowledgeand A.s solution.

a. The open ended regress entails either scientific knowledge is notpossible or all truths are demonstrable.

b. Not all knowledge is demonstrable, i.e., knowledge of the immediatepremises is indemonstrable (originative source which enables us torecognize the definitions.)

The problem has to do with language. Depending on what you want to do or what you want toexpress, that determines the language form you are going to use. He claims that you have to getthe language form that makes necessity evident; the syllogism. Syllogism is a form of proof. The

difficulty with the language form that pertains to science is that it is indefinitely regressive. Thenecessity that shows up in the conclusion of a syllogism originates in the first line of theargument. The regression consists in the question, where does the first line of that argument getits necessity? The first line of that argument is the bottom line of a prior argument (If you keep

asking that question, and continue to go backwards indefinitely, then you cannot get the


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knowledge process started). The solution to that problem is to stop that regress. You stop thisregress with a rational intuition (i.e., there is some necessity that the mind can access intuitively,

and, therefore, without depending on the prior argument). The necessary something is in theorganizing principle; it gives you the defining characteristics of the thing.We are quantities of matter with an organization that gives us a distinct, definable advantage innature; intelligence. We are able to outthink the rest of the animals on the planet. Our line has

developed a capacity that gives us a competitive advantage on this planet.The defining characteristic is what the mind accesses through rational intuition. Once you have

that defining characteristic (i.e., rational animality), you can put that into a definition (i.e.,human beings are rational animals), and you can pull out all the things you want to say about

human beings out of that definition (i.e., human beings are political by nature). With access tothat principle and putting that into the definition, then you can proceed to an inference. This

gives you the science (all the body of knowledge) of being human.

3) What does A. mean by essential attribute and what is its role indemonstrative knowledge?

a. Essential attributes:i. Demonstration is an inference from necessary premises;

ii. Necessary premises = essential attributes;iii. Essential attributes = attributes which are elements in the

essential nature of the subject (e.g., line/triangle, point/line).b. Essential attributes attach necessarily to their subjects. These

necessary connections serve as the premises of the demonstrativesyllogism.

All scientific knowledge consists in a network of inferences drawn fromprimary premises.

4) A. claims that scientific knowledge is not possible through the act ofperception. What does this mean and present A.s case for this claim?

a. Mere sensing as such cannot serve as the basis of knowing that whichis necessary about the object.

b. The characteristics of sense knowledge vs. those of scientificknowledge.

KNOW QUESTION #1

He has talked about what knowledge is aimed at scientifically. He has talked about the languageform, the problem with the language form, the solution to problem of the language form, and the

target of rational intuition.He then presents the problem: sci. knowledge is not possible through the act of perceptionbecause perception by its very structure is always about particulars (i.e., this, here, and now). So,there is no universality. Perception always produces descriptions, not definitions. You cannot get

anything necessary about descriptions. The solution to this problem is critical to his wholephilosophical enterprise. If perception cannot deliver necessity, then his whole philosophy isdead. In spite of the both the limitation of perception (here and now) and the role of perception(as our only access to the physical world), there has to be some way for our mind to access

necessity to have science.

5) If scientific knowledge is not possible through the act of perception, then howdoes it come about? Present A.s answer.


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a. Aristotles account of the grades of data control:i. Sensing without a trace / sensing with a traceii. Systematizing, memoryiii. Experienceiv. Science

His solution this problem is that if you look at nature that has consciousness, you will see ahierarchy in the sophistication of data control. At the bottom you will have things that are aware

of things that are around them, and once the contact is broken that is the end of it. At this level,the organism cannot do anything except react to an immediate event. Then you have things thatkeep a trace of contact after contact has been broken. This is the beginning of a memory databank; that allows for comparison. This comparison allows for systematization, which is the

control that allows for memory. Memory can now be accessed indiscriminately; it has a planningcapability. Frequently repeated memories results in experiences.

He claims that this hierarchy of data control, you have a level of sophistication that involves thecapacity of not only comparing and cataloguing data, but also comparing the categoriesthemselves. Once you have this level of sophistication, you have an agent that knows what it isdoing; and it is able to understand the cataloguing process which is the beginning of a concept.

Concepts are category controls, and categories are data controls. The agent is now able to set upexperiments. In science you have a theory which is a category, and on the basis of this, you set upyour experiments.

QUICK REVIEWA discriminating principle is sense perception.

The beginning of real knowledge is retention capacity.The next stage is systematization. The essence of systemization iscomparison.Out of sense perception comes memory and out of frequently repeatedmemories comes experiences.Universal is a category. The catalogue in which we organize particulars is

universal.Cataloguing is the beginning of a concept. With concepts, you can compareconcepts.With the comparison of concepts, you can begin scientific experimentation ofparticulars.

Mind1) A. claims that mind (by mind I mean that whereby the soul thinks and

judges) is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing. Present his defense ofthis claim.

Aristotle claims that mind has the capacity to process information on the bottom level, so it is

sensitive to what is going on around it. The bottom level is open to influence. On the top level,mind has a light and consists in an insight on what it means to understand something. This light

knows the difference between descriptions and definitions. Definitions involve insights.Descriptions involve perceptions. The mind is born with an insight on what it means tounderstand something. This is observed through the fact that we ask questions. We understandwhat it means to understand.

The next thing he says about mind is that it has no form of its own. Form is the principle of theway a thing functions. If the mind is able to know anything and everything it follows, than it


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cannot have a form of its own. IF it had a form, than the form would determine all and what itcan know. Mind is not anything when it is not actually knowing something because it does not

have a form. Real is to be some kind of a thing. You cannot have something real that is not somekind of a thing. Once mind understands something, it takes on the form of the thing it understandsand it becomes a knowable object to itself. (Once it borrows the form from something that isunderstood (i.e., it gets the form that makes the thing what it is) and has a duplicate of it the

mind, it now becomes some kind of a thing). As such, it can become an object of its ownknowledge. Mind can watch itself know something. When it does this, it becomes the most

interesting thing to which it has access.The bottom line is: why is all this important to Aristotles ethics? Mind is the best thing that we

have: it can do anything (it can know anything), it is immaterial (it cannot die), it is alive, and itis the best object to which it has access in this world. Therefore the lifestyle that makes sense will

be organized around the primacy of intelligence. What is unique about a human being as anagent is that it can act on insight rather than instinct; it can act because it has understoodsomething rather than because it has felt something. This makes us free; we are not like the otheranimals. The human is different from any other animal because it has the ability to act on reason.

Mind

1) It cannot have a nature of its own since, if it did, it would not be possible foreverything to be an object of thought. Explain why this is so.

*** previous answer

Ethics1) What does Aristotle mean by the function of man and what is the role of

this concept in his theory of happiness?a. The goodb. Ranking of ends; the chief goodc. Happiness=the highest of all goods achievable by actiond. Happiness=the end that is final without qualification (always desirable

in itself and never for the sake of something else)e. Happiness=something final, self-sufficient, and the end of actionf. The problemg. The solution: in general, for all things that have a function or activity,

the good and the well is thought to reside in the function.h. The function of mani. The appropriate excellence

j. Perfect happiness=activity in accordance with the best thing in us, i.e.,our natural ruler and guide (reason)

k. The contemplative activity of reason (to understand) has thecharacteristics of complete happiness:

i. Pleasure proper to itself (that is self-energizing)

ii. Self-sufficiencyiii. Leisurelinessiv. Unweariedness

l. The life of reason is the best, most pleasant, and happiest becausereason is each man himself, and that which is the proper to each thingis by nature best and most pleasant for it.

Humans beings are things in nature that act for a purpose.


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What is the natural purpose of a human being? Happiness. This is the ultimateachievement/desire of human life. What constitutes the ultimate achievement of human

life? To be good at what it is. The ultimate goal of being happy consists in the function ofthe human being; the act of life of the rational element. Our defining function is ourrationality; having the ability to understand that it makes the maximum sense to act thisway. What defines us is our intelligence. Being good at that is the ultimate flourishing of

the human being. There are two features to this: one is the basic capacity (acting oninsight rather than instinct), and the other is the attitude towards that capacity. It is the

attitude of never cheating on insight: integrity. It is combination of the ability to act oninsight + integrity that constitutes being good at being human; happiness. It is a life in

which you have class/style; it is a life that is guided by insight and is free.

2) What does A. mean by practical wisdom and how can it be ruined?a. Practical wisdom=to be able to deliberate well about what is good and

expedient for oneself about what sorts of things conduce to the goodlife in general.Practical wisdom=be able to calculate with a view to some good endwhich is not the object of any art.

Practical wisdom is not about the invariable (the necessary) or thatwhich is impossible for one to do, since these are not objects ofdeliberation.Practical Wisdom=a true and reasoned state of the capacity to act withregard to things that are good or bad for man.

b. Temperance preserves practical wisdom because it preservesjudgments about what is to be done (i.e., not theoretical judgments)since these are based on the end as the originating cause of what is tobe done, and a person ruined by pleasure or pain fails to see suchoriginating cause.

The ultimate practical goal of life is the good life; to flourish. A successful life has to be

now. Practical wisdom consists getting out of life all you want minus conflicts ofinterests; putting it all together in an orchestrated way (or being able to deliberate well).He makes a point of motivation. The human being lives on two levels: intelligence andinstincts (all that animals have). Our instincts do not care at all about our thinking. The

emotions are forces and have the tendency to take over our decision making process;they conflict with our intelligence. Motivation provides the moral energy to control thoseforces. The moral energy derives from having the mind focus on the good life; knowingwhat you want and not letting anything interfere with this (i.e., practical wisdom). If a

person takes their eye off that goal, the goal will not be attractive because you cannot beattracted to something that is not on your mind. You have to stay focused. Self-discipline

preserves function. When you take your eye off that goal, it ceases to motivate, therefore,something else steps in and fills the gap; something else grabs your attention and

becomes the ultimate in your life.

3) What is the difficulty concerning the objectivity of the good and how does A.respond to it?

a. Some may say that all men desire the apparent good, but have nocontrol over the appearance, i.e., the end appears to each man in aform answering to his character. Therefore, no one is responsible forhis own evil doing.


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b. If each person is responsible for his state of mind, he is responsible forthe appearance. Aiming at the end is not self-chose. We are born withan eye by which to judge rightly and choose what is truly good. Theend appears and is fixed by nature, and it is by referring everythingelse to this that men do whatever they do.

The good is relative to the person making the judgment of what is good. There is no suchthing as the objective good. He claims that there are two things that are wrong with this:

1) If its true, then you have no way of doing evil things. This goes against commonsense. Therefore, the good cannot all be relative. 2) The second reason this is wrong isbecause it denies a basic fact about the human being; namely that we come into lifeendowed by nature with the capacity to distinguish between what makes sense and what

does not make sense. Animals do not have that capacity and are merely opportunistic.Human beings have that capacity. The ability to make sense is the best gift that nature

has given us. You cannot claim that all good is relative, because it is not. There is also aquestion of moral fatigue. Human beings recognize that the tension between the twolayers of our nature is permanent. Eventually one begins to gain control over the lowerpart of ones nature through habits, but one never removes the tension. There is a

temptation to give up. Feelings influence the way we think, but we must keep ouremotions under control, because our emotions are not us. You keep up the fight foryourself. The voice of reason is me talking to me. My emotions are not me. The voice ofreason is me. The ultimate motivation for persevering in a life of virtue/goodness is

loyalty to ones self. Each person is meant to be his own or her own very best friend;because of this, one listens to the voice of reason.Aristotle will state that we need a successful personal life and standard of living in oursociety.

4) Present A.s description of perfect friendship.a. Perfect friendship=friendship between people who are good, similar in

virtue. They wish each other well because they are good, and they are

intrinsically good.True friends=people who wish well to their friends for their friendssake, for they have this attitude because of what their friends reallyare and not because of something incidental.

Therefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good, and goodnessis enduring.

b. The following qualities belong to friendship between good people invirtue of the character of the friends themselves:

i. the friends are good without qualification to each other,ii. they are useful to each other,iii. they are pleasant without qualification to each other,iv. they act in similar ways,

v. their friendship is based on a certain resemblance.These are the most lovable qualities.Therefore, love and friendship are found most and in their best formbetween such people.

The key concept is the concept of the good person. Goodness is an enduring thing and isattractive. The perfect friendship is only possible between people who are good. The

good person has an uncompromising commitment to reason. Perfect friendship is


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possible only between people who have that commitment, because only people who havethis commitment are good in the complete sense. The relationship that Aristotle is talking

about is a relationship between people who have a common commitment to the samething; the voice of reason. Since the voice of reason is the source of our freedom, perfectfriendship is the collaboration of being free. Wherever you have people committed toreason, you have people who can communicate. Perfect friendship is a place of freedom

and clarity. Human beings have to see what they have made of themselves. In a perfectrelationship, you have a mirror of yourself, allowing you to sense who you are in a

relationship than by yourself.

5) Present A.s theory of broken friendships.a. Deception:

i. by the other personii. by oneself

b. Moral deterioration on one side of the relationshipc. Unequal moral, intellectual development on one side of the

relationship

1) Deception: leading on the other person to set that person up for use, or self deception (i.e., asituation in which one person tries to impose an interpretation on a relationship that the otherperson has never agreed to and may not have interest in. 2) Their moral character changes (i.e.,

moral deterioration). 3) The one person simply outgrows the other morally or intellectually. Thecommon denominator of all three is realism. If things change in the way that he is describing,then friendship is not possible. One should not continue that relationship when it goes past theline where there is any reasonable expectation of salvaging it or turning it around for self

protection.

6) Why is the evil person incapable of friendship?a. The self-destructive orientation of wickednessb. The strategy of distraction

c. Self-alienationd. Destruction of the basis of friendship as such.

The evil person is not capable of friendships; with somebody else or himself/herself. Because they

are evil (they are not acting on reason), there is nothing in them to love. Therefore, they hatethemselves and the only relationship they can have with other people is to use them as a

distraction to hide from themselves. He places another call for motivation; if this is the case,then it is the end of the line and it means alienation from yourself and alienation from everybodyelse. One must make every possible effort to maintain the supremacy of reason in ones life andnot let feelings take over.

7) Why should a person love herself or himself most of all, and under what

conditions is self-love not selfishness?a. The questionb. The case against primacy of self-lovec. The case for the primacy of self-loved. lover of self as a term of reproach

lover of self in its true and correct sense gratifies the mostauthoritative element in oneself which is the self of the rationalprinciple=the principle of real agency


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There is distinction between self-love that is based on the gratification of ones irrationalcomponent, and self-love that is focused on ones rational/intellectual component. He

claims that in the first case, you are not loving yourself anyways because the irrationalcompartment is not the I, or the person; you are gratifying the non-personal non-free

component in your nature. You are doing this in a way that is stupid, i.e., one is

confusing the means with ends. Ends have value in themselves. Means do not have valuein themselves. The two things that are wrong with first kind of selfish love is that it is nothitting the target, i.e., me, and it is not making any sense. True self-love consists ofgetting all the good things for ones self. The voice of reason is the person, and you dothis for yourself.

8) Why will the supreme happy man need friends?a. The various characteristics of happiness:

i. Living and being active, but the good persons activity isvirtuous, and therefore most pleasant

ii. The possessing of things is pleasantiii. The contemplation of worthy actions is pleasant, and it is the

goal of the supremely happy person, but we can contemplateour neighbors actions better than our own

iv. And the actions of friends are alike in this respectTherefore, the supremely happy person needs friends of this sort.

The human being in virtue of its intelligence is a seer. For the human being, it is notenough to become something; it is essential to see what I have become. We are too closeto ourselves to do that with any objectivity. In the context of that successful personalrelationship, we see what is best in ourselves in the other person. The fundamental

response to the question is the mirror effect in a successful relationship; it is confirmedby that fact that in a relationship that works, one has a clearer sense of ones identitythan one does all by ones self. There is a clarity that comes from the environment of a

successful relationship that is impossible in solitude.

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Aristotle Exam Notes