SUO: Re: Axes
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Elijah,
After a couple of days of random reflections
I am feeling much refreshed, but now I have
been brought up short on time remaining to
relax and rest and recreate while I can --
but there is one liitle thought that is
rattling and rolling around in my brain
that I reckon I might just have time to
toss out for us to start up with on the
morrow, so I will try to pitch that.
One of the things that I keep on dimly glimpsing or darkly spying
in Aristotle's 'Psychology' is a certain dialectic tension between
the "possession" and the "exercise" of knowledge, which strikes me
as the precursor of what we have lately come to call the distinction
between "competence" and "performance" -- but that distinction is often
liable to get itself fixed into a "dyadic", or as I think that it might
be better to say, a "dichotomous" opposition -- and there is this hint
of a "tertium quid" that infuses Aristotle's perspective, not in the
sense of anything that would violate classical logic, of course, but
in the sense of the triadic synthesis or the compound nature of the
animation that integrates form and matter into a "living entelechy".
There are passages here and there throughout Peirce's work where
he appears to be intrigued -- if not just a little bit mystified,
as we all are! -- by what in the heck Aristotle might be trying
to say by means of, in terms of this concept of entelechy, that
quick-sliver homuncular entity that appears almost as if trying
to peck its way out of the shell of "chicken or the egg" (COTE)
ways of thinking.
So what is the most fitting thing, in a word, to call that third something
that is called to fill out the spectrum through competence and performance?
Its name is legion, but I will suggest "articulation" as perhaps the fittest.
All I Have Time For Now,
More, Later,
Jon Awbrey
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Aristotle wrote:
a. The theories of the soul (psyche)
handed down by our predecessors have
been sufficiently discussed; now let
us start afresh, as it were, and try to
determine (diorisai) what the soul is,
and what definition (logos) of it will
be most comprehensive (koinotatos).
b. We describe one class of existing things as
substance (ousia), and this we subdivide into
three: (1) matter (hyle), which in itself is
not an individual thing, (2) shape (morphe) or
form (eidos), in virtue of which individuality
is directly attributed, and (3) the compound
of the two.
c. Matter is potentiality (dynamis), while form is
realization or actuality (entelecheia), and the
word actuality is used in two senses, illustrated
by the possession of knowledge (episteme) and the
exercise of it (theorein).
d. Bodies (somata) seem to be pre-eminently
substances, and most particularly those
which are of natural origin (physica),
for these are the sources (archai)
from which the rest are derived.
e. But of natural bodies some have life (zoe)
and some have not; by life we mean the
capacity for self-sustenance, growth,
and decay.
f. Every natural body (soma physikon), then,
which possesses life must be substance, and
substance of the compound type (synthete).
g. But since it is a body of a definite kind, viz.,
having life, the body (soma) cannot be soul (psyche),
for the body is not something predicated of a subject,
but rather is itself to be regarded as a subject,
i.e., as matter.
h. So the soul must be substance in the sense of being
the form of a natural body, which potentially has life.
And substance in this sense is actuality.
i. The soul, then, is the actuality of the kind of body we
have described. But actuality has two senses, analogous
to the possession of knowledge and the exercise of it.
j. Clearly (phaneron), actuality in our present sense
is analogous to the possession of knowledge; for both
sleep (hypnos) and waking (egregorsis) depend upon the
presence of the soul, and waking is analogous to the
exercise of knowledge, sleep to its possession (echein)
but not its exercise (energein).
k. Now in one and the same person the
possession of knowledge comes first.
l. The soul may therefore be defined as the first actuality
of a natural body potentially possessing life; and such
will be any body which possesses organs (organikon).
m. The parts of plants are organs too, though very
simple ones: e.g., the leaf protects the pericarp,
and the pericarp protects the seed; the roots are
analogous to the mouth, for both these absorb food.
n. If then one is to find a definition which will apply
to every soul, it will be "the first actuality of
a natural body possessed of organs".
o. So one need no more ask (zetein) whether body and
soul are one than whether the wax (keros) and the
impression (schema) it receives are one, or in
general whether the matter of each thing is
the same as that of which it is the matter;
for admitting that the terms unity and being
are used in many senses, the paramount (kyrios)
sense is that of actuality.
p. We have, then, given a general definition
of what the soul is: it is substance in
the sense of formula (logos), i.e., the
essence of such-and-such a body.
q. Suppose that an implement (organon), e.g. an axe,
were a natural body; the substance of the axe
would be that which makes it an axe, and this
would be its soul; suppose this removed, and
it would no longer be an axe, except equivocally.
As it is, it remains an axe, because it is not of
this kind of body that the soul is the essence or
formula, but only of a certain kind of natural body
which has in itself a principle of movement and rest.
r. We must, however, investigate our definition
in relation to the parts of the body.
s. If the eye were a living creature, its soul would be
its vision; for this is the substance in the sense
of formula of the eye. But the eye is the matter
of vision, and if vision fails there is no eye,
except in an equivocal sense, as for instance
a stone or painted eye.
t. Now we must apply what we have found true of the part
to the whole living body. For the same relation must
hold good of the whole of sensation to the whole sentient
body qua sentient as obtains between their respective parts.
u. That which has the capacity to live is not the body
which has lost its soul, but that which possesses
its soul; so seed and fruit are potentially bodies
of this kind.
v. The waking state is actuality in the same sense as the
cutting of the axe or the seeing of the eye, while the
soul is actuality in the same sense as the faculty of
the eye for seeing, or of the implement for doing its
work.
w. The body is that which exists potentially; but just as
the pupil and the faculty of seeing make an eye, so in
the other case the soul and body make a living creature.
x. It is quite clear, then, that neither the soul nor
certain parts of it, if it has parts, can be separated
from the body; for in some cases the actuality belongs
to the parts themselves. Not but what there is nothing
to prevent some parts being separated, because they are
not actualities of any body.
y. It is also uncertain (adelon) whether the soul as an
actuality bears the same relation to the body as the
sailor (ploter) to the ship (ploion).
z. This must suffice as an attempt to determine
in rough outline the nature of the soul.
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Jon Awbrey wrote:
Here is a study aid to assist with the reading of
the text. What I think is especially relevant to
our purposes -- aside from the content of these
fundamental categories or "basemental concepts"
that echo in the everyday constitutions of our
minds and still support, if a bit contingently,
the greater parts of our thinking even today --
is the method that Aristotle uses, working through
analogy and prototype, or the well-chosen example,
to articulate, build, construe, derive, and apply,
in a recursive process, his system of abstractions.
So consider the following "Alignments of Capacities"
as you read Aristotle's text:
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Matter | Form
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Potentiality | Actuality
Receptivity | Possession | Exercise
Life | Sleep | Waking
Wax | Impression
Axe | Edge | Cutting
Eye | Vision | Seeing
Body | Soul
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Ship? | Sailor?
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