Demonstration of God's Existence I: an Aristotelian proof
I will be making several threads in the near(-ish) future about the general proofs of God's existence argued by Edward Feser in his new book, Five Proofs for the Existence of God so we can discuss them and hopefully learn something. First up is his "Aristotelian" proof. In summary:
1.) Change occurs (and this cannot be coherently denied - the denial of change is itself a form of change, for example)
2.) Material objects that change can only do so because they have potentials that have been actualized; a cup of coffee has the potential to cool down, an acorn has the potential to grow into a tree. Change is just the actualization of a potential.
3.) A potential cannot be actualized except by something already actual.
4.) Things exist in hierarchies; a cup of coffee rests on a table, which rests on the floor, which is supported by the ground, which is held together by gravity, etc. The cup of coffee cannot hold itself up - it must rest on the table. But the table cannot hold itself up either - it must rest on the ground. Each member of a hierarchical system has derivative causal power conferred on them by other things. It cannot be infinitely long.
5.) Things can only change, however, if they exist in a hierarchical system; a cup of coffee cannot grow cold unless it exists, for example.
6.) Things can only exist, however, if it has the potential to exist which is actualized.
7.) Therefore there must be a purely actual actualizer of everything that exists.
8.) There cannot be more than one purely actual actualizer, as differences between them would entail some difference in potential, which cannot be since it is actualized.
9.) Since it it pure actuality, it cannot change, so it is immutable.
10.) Since it cannot change, it does not exist in time, and is thus eternal.
11.) If it were material, it would exist in time and could change, but it does not. Thus is must be immaterial.
12.) If it was corporeal, it would be material, but since it is not material, it is not corporeal.
13.) Since it has no unactualized potentials, it must be perfect.
14.) A privation is an unactualized potential, which corresponds to evil; a fully actualized being, the purely actual actuality must not have any privations, and thus must not be at all evil, thus is must be purely good.
15.) The purely actual actualizer confers power onto the rest of the hierarchical system - i.e. every material object that has power to actualize potential derives this power from this purely actual actualizer. But to have all the power is to be omnipotent.
16.) Whatever is an effect must be in some way in its cause; since the purely actual actualizer causes everything, everything that exists must in some way be in it.
17.) The forms/patterns of material objects cannot exist in this actualizer in the concrete way they exist in the world, so they must exist as abstracta. Thus the purely actualizer is an intelligence, a mind, of sorts.
18.) There is nothing outside these abstracta, the thoughts in the mind of the purely actual actualizer - this entails it is omniscient.
19.) Thus what we have been referring to as the purely actual actualizer is unified, immutable, eternal, immaterial, incorporeal, perfect, good, omnipotent, and omniscient.
20.) But these are the characteristics of what we call God - therefore God exists.
I've butchered things a bit, as I'm only summarizing things. Each step has several other steps and background information that purport to support them.
Discuss.
1.) Change occurs (and this cannot be coherently denied - the denial of change is itself a form of change, for example)
2.) Material objects that change can only do so because they have potentials that have been actualized; a cup of coffee has the potential to cool down, an acorn has the potential to grow into a tree. Change is just the actualization of a potential.
3.) A potential cannot be actualized except by something already actual.
4.) Things exist in hierarchies; a cup of coffee rests on a table, which rests on the floor, which is supported by the ground, which is held together by gravity, etc. The cup of coffee cannot hold itself up - it must rest on the table. But the table cannot hold itself up either - it must rest on the ground. Each member of a hierarchical system has derivative causal power conferred on them by other things. It cannot be infinitely long.
5.) Things can only change, however, if they exist in a hierarchical system; a cup of coffee cannot grow cold unless it exists, for example.
6.) Things can only exist, however, if it has the potential to exist which is actualized.
7.) Therefore there must be a purely actual actualizer of everything that exists.
8.) There cannot be more than one purely actual actualizer, as differences between them would entail some difference in potential, which cannot be since it is actualized.
9.) Since it it pure actuality, it cannot change, so it is immutable.
10.) Since it cannot change, it does not exist in time, and is thus eternal.
11.) If it were material, it would exist in time and could change, but it does not. Thus is must be immaterial.
12.) If it was corporeal, it would be material, but since it is not material, it is not corporeal.
13.) Since it has no unactualized potentials, it must be perfect.
14.) A privation is an unactualized potential, which corresponds to evil; a fully actualized being, the purely actual actuality must not have any privations, and thus must not be at all evil, thus is must be purely good.
15.) The purely actual actualizer confers power onto the rest of the hierarchical system - i.e. every material object that has power to actualize potential derives this power from this purely actual actualizer. But to have all the power is to be omnipotent.
16.) Whatever is an effect must be in some way in its cause; since the purely actual actualizer causes everything, everything that exists must in some way be in it.
17.) The forms/patterns of material objects cannot exist in this actualizer in the concrete way they exist in the world, so they must exist as abstracta. Thus the purely actualizer is an intelligence, a mind, of sorts.
18.) There is nothing outside these abstracta, the thoughts in the mind of the purely actual actualizer - this entails it is omniscient.
19.) Thus what we have been referring to as the purely actual actualizer is unified, immutable, eternal, immaterial, incorporeal, perfect, good, omnipotent, and omniscient.
20.) But these are the characteristics of what we call God - therefore God exists.
I've butchered things a bit, as I'm only summarizing things. Each step has several other steps and background information that purport to support them.
Discuss.
Comments (222)
What is left unmentioned is that this is just a philosopher's god. It might as well be a bishop and knight checkmate or a game of Sudoko.
"3.) A potential cannot be actualized except by something already actual."
I would argue this point.
What do we mean when we talk about actualization? If the actualization of an oak tree includes the whole process that starts with an acorn lying on the ground at time t0 and ends with a fully developed tree at t1 then 3.) is wrong in my opinion.
At t0 there are many events needed to the actualization of the tree and, which events exist potentially but not actually (like specific weather conditions). These events will or will not become actual somewhere between t0 and t1 but they are not actual at t0. This shows that proper actual world states are necessary but not sufficient conditions for the actualization of complex systems.
If we assume that the actual reality at t0 determines what possible events will become actual in the future then 3.) becomes true but we pay the price of assuming hard determinism.
A weaker claim is that 3.) is true only in infinitesimally short time periods. That is still arguable but much more acceptable.
You are making a metaphysical argument with respect to a temporal series, whereas the argument I have presented is with respect to a hierarchical series. Hierarchical dependencies are more fundamental than temporal series, since a thing has to exist (with potentials) in order for a thing to be able to change in time, and to exist (according to this argument) requires that there be a hierarchical dependency relationship that ultimately derives all its power from what we call God.
Is there any detail in the book on how things come to exist in hierarchical relationships with each other? And also what hierarchy means when applied to arbitrary sets of entities?
Quoting fdrake
Not sure what you mean here.
The cup has a relationship of 'is held up by' the table, the table 'is held up by' its legs, which 'is held up by' the floor which 'is grounded in gravity', the hierarchy presented has the possibility of different relations between successive entities/relata. A hierarchy is typically constructed of elements under a ordering relation, like a lattice of sets under inclusion. If this is possible, is there a recipe to take an arbitrary set of entities, say 'my laptop', 'my granny's house's front door' and 'Donald Trump's hair' and organize them into a hierarchy such that every step is done through the same binary relation and has the character of 'derivative causal power'?
Now a substance allegedly has a potential to exist or not exist. To be or not to be? Well, perhaps it's our choice whether we want to keep living, but what constitutes our living right now, i.e. our existence, has to do with the fact that other things are keeping us alive. Our bodies are working "properly". The environment is not too hostile. Etc. But these things are also existing. How do they exist? This chain of hierarchical causality does not requires time, but it's more of a logical entailment.
I guess? I'm not sure where this is going, sorry.
Well I want to understand the logic by which these hierarchies are constructed. Depending on how successive elements in the hierarchy are allowed to relate to each-other there can be violations of the sense of logical priority which is suggested in the OP.
Say we allow two partial orders, and we say that an element is prior to another iff it is prior under at least one of the partial orders. So take the cup and gravity. The cup is logically before the action of the earth's gravity to it, but the action of the earth's gravity on the cup is also determined by the cup's mass and therefore the cup. The cup's resting on the table is 'notionally after' the idea of gravity keeping it there but is 'physically prior' to the theory of gravity since it is instantiated in terms of the cup's mass and the earth's. Then cup
This means there have to be restrictions on the number or types of relation which are used in constructing these hierarchies, otherwise there are going to be examples that show a hierarchy cannot be constructed using those concepts.
The purpose of my questioning was twofold, in the first sense I wanted to know if the book had any recipe for constructing such hierarchies after the fact or whether it contained any metaphysical justification for how things will always stand in some relation of derivative causal power. The second was to see if constructing these hierarchies is self consistent.
It also just isn't the case that there aren't infinite hierarchies without precluding certain classes of objects. The natural numbers are ordered by < but there is no greatest element, thus there is an interminable sequence. I suppose this is why there is a restriction to material objects standing in hierarchies (but then why would the inclusion of an immaterial being in the hierarchy be allowed?).
At this very moment the actualities of the world are the only factors relevant to my life at the next moment. But this is not what 3.) Says imo. (At least if we want actualization to be a useful concept)
At this moment there is a possibility (or potential) that I will die of a heart attack tomorrow or I will die of cancer a year later. These events exist only as potentials and not as actualities. So the "last scene" of the actualization of my death exists only as a potential and not as an actuality.
Saying that these events, namely the potential causes of my death -one of them will turn out to be true and all others will turn out to be false- are actualities -which is a consequence of 3.)- is just like hard determinism.
And the general statement 3.) is exactly hard determinism.
Same old Craig cosmological argument. Same old First Mover argument. Same old false argument.
Consider the following model of causation. Let E(n) stand for Event n where n is an integer.
..., E(-4), E(-3), E(-2), E(-1), E(0), E(1), ...
Suppose each event is caused by the event immediately to its left. Then we have a model of events in which:
* Every event is caused; and
* There is no first cause.
In your version of this fallacious argument you have swapped in the word "actualized" for cause. So think of this model as saying that every event is "actualized by" the event immediately to its left. Now every event is actualized yet there is no un-actualized actualizer.
Your thesis is refuted.
By the way this example is known as ?* in the literature. ? (lower case Greek letter omega) is the order type of the positive integers. ?* is the reverse order. By extending the causality chain to the right, the model I presented is described as ?* + ?. Philosophers already know all about this.
First, line 1: What is meant by 'change'? In a practical, everyday situation we know what that means, but the creation of the universe, including time itself, is not a practical, everyday situation. From the block-universe perspective, change does not occur in the 4D block.
Now line 2: What is 'potential'. This seeks to trade on the everyday notion of the words 'possible' or 'can'. But the everyday notion of these words is epistemological, not metaphysical. Again when we move from the everyday to the metaphysical, the definitions no longer work. It is not clear that 'possible' means anything in the context of the universe as a whole, rather than viewed through an epistemological lens. Some worldviews assert that there is no 'can' - everything that happens must have happened and could not have been otherwise.
He then ploughs on using more and more terms that are outside their scope of validity 'cause', 'material', 'corporeal'.
The question is, does Edward Feser reallty think that it is arguments like this that found his belief in God? If so, he's almost certainly kidding himself. If he's like most believers, he believes for entirely different reasons that have nothing to do with Aristotle or syllogisms. Those real reasons are no less valid - in fact in my view they are more so - but perhaps he doesn't want to admit to them because they don't sound as Sciency.
Baseless assertion with no argument given.
Is it, though? What 'nice' attributes of God are included in the package? Do we get a pleasant afterlife and cosmic justice? Do we get a loving Father or Mother who feels our pain and sees our struggle from within our very souls?
'God' gets content (seems to me) from the predicates we attach. I can't see into your motives, but I imagine that most 'logical' proofs of God are there to support belief in a far more anthropomorphic and 'irrational' God. Unless all the desirable anthropomorphic attributes are also somehow proved, though, it seems that only a vague philosopher's god-object is established (at best.)
That's the next step. God's existence is usually demonstrated prior to his simplicity, which demonstrates why he has the attributes he does.
Oh. Ok. But I agree with andrew that it's hard to imagine such a demonstration being the actual cause of belief. Not long ago I read After Finitude. It's creative and exciting, but Q.M. himself admits that his reasoning is just a hair away from sophistry. He also believes that a God could begin to exist. Anything is possible except that something should be impossible. A God may spring into being and resurrect the dead. This is the only way that a God could justify our world, in his view. But it's all presented very logically, not convincingly but carefully, deductively. I bring it up because I find it so strange, in the same way that I find it strange that such proofs are taken seriously as proofs. There's an 'emotional' sense that seems to missing attended by an unrealistic picture of why we believe what we believe.
*I think I've put my finger on it. Reaching for a proof suggests a lack of visceral experience of the divine on the one hand or a banalization of this experience on the other. If God is intensely there, then one might expect a person to drop the theoretical pretense and have the courage describe this experience poetically, musically, etc. Or maybe remain silent. In any case, such proofs strike me a desiccated, artificial, vaguely false.
It is a reflection of the utter shame upon which we have to view the mind tainted with the myth of theism that this risible bit of flim-flam is still lifting its head above the barricades.
Therefore nothing that is not an effect can exist.
Not sure if Feser ever puts it that way, but I haven't read that book in particularly, because...
I think something's a miss in these steps:
6.) Things can only exist, however, if it has the potential to exist which is actualized.
7.) Therefore there must be a purely actual actualizer of everything that exists.
I'm not sure why it follows there must be a pure actualizer. It could be the case that the world contains potency and act from the beginning to the end (or in other terms needs both product and productivity in its mix). Product because we see the conclusion of forces at play reaching a temporary state of equilibrium in which we see trees, plants, grass, mountains reach an end product. Productivity, because we need a fundamental striving-towards those ends. So the change is intrinsic to the world instead instead of relying on something outside of it.
:-}
Honestly? The interesting thing about this thread isn't whether there is a God or isn't one. It's in what metaphysical assumptions generate that conclusion, and how those metaphysical assumptions are justified. Only on the basis of analysing the argument in terms of its metaphysical background can it be established as sound and valid anyway.
So when you read something like:
There's a wealth of metaphysical background that could be explored, and its relationship to the argument would be the next step of analysis. Saying that it's 'just false' is completely uninteresting and you don't learn much from that.
More interesting responses to (3) might be:
a) do potentials actualise themselves?
b) in light of (a), is it true that material objects change through the 'actualisation of potentials by actuals' or 'the actualisation of potentials' in general?
c) what does it mean to be actual and what does it mean to be a potential? are potentials actual? material? corporeal? incorporeal? immaterial?
d) can potentials be included in hierarchies?
Yadda yadda. Being an atheist doesn't just mean you rebut theistic arguments on the internet, as if dialogue was a competition to be the most right, it means you have to reject theological baggage in how you think.
No, the world in Aristotlean-Thomstic metaphysics is such that nature contains both potency and act. So, in order for something to have potency it must also exist (be actual).
What's the difference between potency and actuality here? I'm genuinely asking 'cos I'm curious, not for some 'destruction through Socratic method' of the original argument.
I didn't understand the role of 'Therefore, both exist' in the post. Is it because acorns and lighters have some 'real potential' that they can be said to exist?
Take another example: In order for you to climb a mountain safely, you will need equipment that can get to the top -- otherwise that climb is impossible. That equipment needs to exist.
I try to suspend all common sense when asking for clarifications on metaphysics.
I think it's a stretch to say that Aristotle's metaphysics is a good description of what humans believe as a matter of common sense.
Yeah, idk why charleton is being such a douche then. I'm agnostic by the way, but for some silly reason I'm being associated with theism simply because I'm entertaining a theistic argument...?
No idea brochacho.
I've felt this discussion is lacking a Thomist to defend, or at least elaborate on, the argument. Perhaps you are such a Thomist? If so, you will be providing a useful service, as Thomists that have contributed to discussions in the past are absent here.
My question for the Thomist - be it you or somebody else - about the above sentence, is
"what does the sentence mean, beyond the everyday notion that 'I would not be surprised if this acorn became a tree', and if it does mean something more, can that thing be explained in a non-circular manner, ie without using synonyms for 'potential' like 'can', 'possible', 'may', 'might'.
Cultural misotheism. It does push buttons. It was worse on the old forum, if that's any consolation.
I do read Feser's blog, and am meaning to read some of his books. But this text, taken from the blog, does provide some further detail (in the context of a discussion of 'brute fact').
From here
In the case of every existing thing, the potential for that thing is prior in time to its actual existence. "The potential for that thing" means that at this time, prior to the actual existence of the thing, the thing may or may not come into existence. We say that its existence is contingent. Whether the thing actually comes into existence or not is dependent on a cause. A cause is necessarily something actual. Therefore there is something actual which is prior to every existing thing.
Quoting andrewk
Quoting 0rff
I guess I would be one of those who is almost certainly kidding myself. How would you know that, and could you help to bring me out of my delusion?
...and convert to Protestantism.
Not possible. You are either kidding yourself or you are not. The 'almost certainly' is an estimate that the majority of people who think they believe in god because of a logical syllogism rather than, for instance, personal experience of her, are kidding themselves. But each of those people who thinks that is either kidding themselves or they are not. I think most are. If you think you're one of the minority, I'm not going to dispute it with you since I know almost nothing about you. You may be right.
If one heads in the quantum direction in trying to define the term, an impassable boggy marsh lies ahead with the welter of conflicting interpretations available - in some of which everything is completely determined so the only role 'potential' can play is an epistemological one..
it’s a philosophical issue not strictly speaking a question of physics. That’s what makes it both relevant and interesting. And it is being proposed specifically as a bridge across the boggy marsh.
Do you think Feser or Aristotle would be happy to accept that purely epistemological meaning of 'potential'?
Actually Feser takes pains to show how a hierarchical dependency is metaphysically more fundamental than a temporal one. The argument presented here is not really a cosmological argument at all, it's an argument based on the sheer existence of contingent material things right now, as in, not really why do things exist but why do they continue to exist, since this argument is meant to demonstrate that God is the supreme and eternal sustainer of existence (and not that he caused the world to begin).
I would think that the solution proposed in that paper would obviate the requirement for Everett’s theory, but you’re right, we shouldn’t let Schrödinger’s cat out of the bag.
Quoting darthbarracuda
The ‘first cause’ in an ontological sense, i.e. the origin, rather than in the sense of temporal priority or first in a sequence.
Aristotelian potential is ontological on the Many-Worlds interpretation.
For a concrete example, consider a photon about to enter a beam splitter. The photon has the potential to be split into two photons by the beam splitter. When the photon enters the beam splitter that potential is actualized. There is subsequently a reflected photon on one world branch and a transmitted photon on the other world branch.
Note that there are no epistemic unknowns here prior to the split. There is no uncertainty about which branch the photon will end up on since there will be a future version of the photon on both branches.
So, interpreting 'potential' ontologically rather than epistemologically, if we are in the 'split' world there is not only 'potential' but 'inevitability' that the photon will split, and if we are in the 'reflect' world there is no potential that the photon will split - it is inevitable that it will be reflected. That goes against intuition and that is why the epistemological interpretation of 'potential' is more natural.
Doesn't this say that there is a photon prior to it being measured? That is exactly what is at issue in all of this. Whereas the Aristotelian view that Kasner is talking about seems to be that there is a potential for a photon, which is then actualised by the act of measurement. But up until that measurement, the photon as such doesn't exist, it is only real as 'potentia'.
Yes, that is exactly the point of the cosmological argument. It takes the evidence, that there are contingent material things in existence right now, at the present moment in time, and demonstrates that there must be a cause of this, which is other than the material things themselves. The example of the op appears to be a complex representation of the cosmological argument.
When we consider the nature of a contingent thing, we see that any such thing can be caused to cease to exist (be annihilated) by something such as an act of free will, at any moment in time, if one removes what you call the hierarchical support. This demonstrates that a thing's existence must be as you say, "sustained" at each passing moment in time. The support must be asserted at each moment or collapse occurs.
Newton's first law of motion, the law of inertia takes this cause, the sustainer of existence, "the support", for granted, assuming that this support will naturally continue unless interfered with. Once it is taken for granted, we disregard it, as is the case in physics. But the cosmological argument demonstrates that the support is not necessary. The support exists as the relationship between what potentially exists, and what actually exists, and it is the nature of this relationship, that of everything which potentially exists, nothing is actualized necessarily. Therefore the continued existence of material things is not necessary, so it is not something which any metaphysician ought to take for granted.
But most cosmological arguments take the form of, A causes B, B causes C...etc but what caused A? = God, not A sustains B, B sustains C,...etc but what sustains A? = God. Really, the latter argument is actually implicit in the former arguments, even if proponents of cosmological arguments don't recognize this. For a thing has to exist in order to be the effect of something, and there seems to be the question of what it means to exist, which of course is going to include how a thing exists and continues to exist.
No (at least, I haven't come across that view).
Quoting andrewk
I think you meant "transmit" not "split" above? After the world splits there is a photon on the transmission path and a photon on the reflection path (in different world branches).
Though, given that, I'm not clear on your intuition here. A vase has the potential to break. If it is hit with a hammer, it will break. Similarly, the photon has the potential to split. If it enters a beam splitter, it will split. And each subsequent version of the photon will have the same potential to split.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes.
Quoting Wayfarer
Their suggestion seems to be that the potential is real apart from any particulars that would have that potential. Which would make it a Platonic view not an Aristotelian view.
Yes, I agree, it is implicit, and that's basically the same argument. The original, from Aristotle, does not use "cause", though Aristotle is clearly familiar with cause. What he demonstrates is a counter-intuitive temporal priority of actuality over potency, despite the fact that we understand the potential for things to be prior to the actual things..
What I think is that anyone who understands the cosmological argument will produce a version of it using ones own terminology, this demonstrates one's understanding. It's like when our teachers used to tell us in school, do not plagiarize, explain it using your own words.
Quoting darthbarracuda
If you recognize that to exist means to be present in time, then you can proceed to ask, what allows something to exist, to be present in time. Notice that by asking "what allows something to exist?", it is implied that existing is having a special position, a privilege. So when existing is seen as a privileged position, not something to be taken for granted, but something contingent rather than necessary, then the cosmological argument comes into focus because the nature of time requires that existence, or "to exist", be "sustained", meaning to have temporal extension. It is this temporal extension which is focused on here.
Therefore we have a different meaning to the word "cause" here. In its average usage, as efficient cause, "cause" implies a separation between that which is prior and that which is posterior, as cause and effect. We might pinpoint a separation between cause and effect, as a point in time. In this case, "cause" implies a unity between that which is prior (the past), and that which is posterior (the future), within the concept "to exist", which is to be present in time. It is this unity of cause and effect, rather than a separation between them, which allows for an understanding of temporal extension.
Not to be pedantic, but the vast majority of acorns probably never become oak trees, so in a sense it would be surprising if any given acorn became an oak tree, just on probablistic grounds. Of course, any given oak must come from some acorn, so it would be not at all surprising to learn that a given oak tree came from an acorn.
Oh pleeeese. You cannot say anything about those assumptions and conclusions if you are not prepared to say what/which god/s you are talking about.
If you are not willing to say what you mean by god then the thread is empty.
I'd rather see what conception of God is engendered by the assumptions than attempt to shoehorn in a totally irrelevant conception for the sole purpose of refutation.
It doesn't pretend to prove God. The point of the thread is to examine the argument. If the OP was filled with ridicule of atheists and had 'checkmate atheists' at the end, maybe your responses would be more appropriate.
Any argument that purports to prove the existence of God could be called a demonstration of God's existence. That doesn't mean the person detailing the argument believes the conclusion of the argument, nor does it mean that the demonstration is successful.
"God is said to be the purely actual actualizer, and is unified, immutable, eternal, immaterial, incorporeal, perfect, good, omnipotent, and omniscient."
Well that is one version. Was that so hard to type?
To be omniscient and omnipotent it would have to be omnipresent too.
Here's one problem omnipresent and good would mean that no evil can exist.
Here's another: it cannot be incorporeal AND actual.
It cannot be immutable and an omnipresent, since there is such a thing as change.
In fact it cannot be an actualiser and immutable.
Have you god a more usable version of god?
I put it in the OP, literally copy-pasted it into the previous reply.
Quoting charleton
Lots of assertions, no arguments though.
Why? God exists outside of space and time. This isn't an argument for pantheism.
Quoting charleton
Well, according to this argument, evil is a privation of goodness and has no positive existence itself.
Quoting charleton
Why?
Quoting charleton
But it doesn't have to be omnipresent, it just has to sustain everything that exists.
Quoting charleton
Why?
You and I need to learn to adopt Sappy's stoicism and let such things go >:O
Now, on a different note... I had a quick skim through them, and they're really well set out. Which argument did you find the strongest?
We can conclude that only an illogical god is engendered by the proof.
Yes a bias that has no respect for logic.
Hah! Interesting. I thought the Augustinian one was the strongest, though I've always favored Aristotle over Plato :P
It's more of an aesthetic bias than an argumentative one. Stop grasping at straws, you fool.
The following section of the proof (from Feser's book) is interesting:
But why should this actualizer be purely actual and thus immutable? The argument (where A is the initial actualizer and S is a substance being actualized) is:
Feser reasonably argues against (a) and concludes (b):
But the implication of 9(a) being false is simply that A's existence is necessary for S to be actualized. That doesn't imply the absence of potentials for A and, consequently, doesn't imply A's pure actuality or immutability. And so the subsequent conclusions that assert specific attributes of A (immaterial, omniscient, etc.) don't follow since they require that A be purely actual and immutable.
So the key premise is 9 and it seems to me to be false.
Effectively, Feser argues that if the actualizer had parts of itself that were unactualized potentials, then the actualized parts are what are really the purely actualized actualizer.
On that page Feser says, "So, suppose this first actualizer had some potentiality that had to be actualized in order for it to exist." But this misses the criticism. It is already granted that the first actualizer A necessarily exists and so does not have unactualized potential for its own existence. But it may nonetheless have unactualized potential for, say, causing substance S to exist.
If A subsequently does cause S to exist, then it has actualized a potential and thus has changed per premise 2:
I don't think this is true. Just because change requires the actualization of a potential doesn't mean causing the actualization of a potential requires change. Indeed it would lead to an infinite regress if we tried to explain change by reference to something that, itself, changes.
It would, but that doesn't describe the scenario. Causing substance S to exist just is the actualization of a potential.
So, for example, suppose Alice has the potential to construct a chair (i.e., to cause a chair to exist). If Alice subsequently does construct a chair then she has actualized a potential. Thus, per premise 2, she has changed.
The proof, from premise 9 onwards, is about the nature of the first actualizer and isn't assumed to be immaterial. It could be a hylomorphic substance that necessarily exists and has potentials for causing other hylomorphic substances to exist. Premise 9 doesn't eliminate this possibility and Feser's discussion on p66 doesn't consider it.
Sure, but what I'm saying is that the proof fails to demonstrate that the first actualizer is a purely actual being. As I argued initially, the problem is with premise 9 of Feser's proof.
What notably distinguishes the first actualizer from other substances is that it necessarily exists. But there is no reason why it can't be material and mutable and have potentials just as other substances do.
That said, I would hazard to suggest that the argument as presented by Darth is not quite right (no offense Darth). For instance, I can't imagine that Feser would accept premise 6 as stated, because it implies that a purely actual substance cannot exist.
As others have noted, this argument is not about temporal causation. What Feser seems to be saying is that at any moment every substance is either dependent for its actualization on something else that is "lower" in the existential hierarchy, or it is not. A coffee cup could not exist as it does (i.e. "in act") without the molecules that make up the styrofoam existing in the way that they do, and those molecules could not exist without the atoms that make up the molecules, etc. He is arguing that there must be something purely actual at the "bottom" of this hierarchy that does not depend for its actuality on anything else, otherwise the hierarchical chain of existential dependency relations that are necessary for the actualization of being in each moment could never be "instantiated". In other words, "being" could never get off the ground if the actualizer at the bottom had any potency that needed to be actualized by something more fundamental.
That said, I haven't read the book, so my interpretation may be off. Perhaps Darth can point out how what I've said differs from Feser's intent.
This is going in the the neo-Platonic demonstration, but if this material being had both actuality and potentiality, then it would be a complex composite with parts, and a composite necessitates the existence of a simpler entity. This is again meant in the stronger hierarchical sense. It seems that by the nature of composites, they cannot be necessary. The fact that there are contingent composites leads the way to the existence of a non-composite, simple entity.
Though I do agree with you to some extent, I think Feser did not explain this well enough/failed to consider this particular objection.
Yes. So the pivotal issue is whether the first actualizer is purely actual. Feser doesn't assume it, he concludes it in statement 14. I argue why I think that conclusion doesn't follow from its premises .
Quoting Aaron R
Yes, to avoid any interpretational issues I've been directly referencing the argument statements in Feser's book which Darth links to in the OP.
Quoting Aaron R
Agreed. So I reject the idea that the first actualizer has potential for its own existence which is why I've said that it necessarily exists. However it doesn't follow that it doesn't have potentials for the existence of other substances.
Basically it's not clear to me how anything else could come into existence if there weren't potential for them to exist in the first actualizer.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I agree with the rest of your analysis, but I think this conclusion assumes dualism. A hylomorphic substance has both form and matter without being ontologically separable into form and matter. I would argue the same for actuality and potential. So the first actualizer could be a hylomorphic and mutable simple.
But there are several concrete ways around this:
Sorry, I am not a Thomist, really. But I'm not really sure you would have to be in order to believe in concepts like potency and act which I find to originate in Aristotle, and again to be revitalized in the organicism of the Romantic philosophers.
I'll also add that it doesn't seem to be clearly the same thing as possibility, as I've said earlier but, more of a "constrained possibility" contained immanently within organisms. There are also two types of potencies within Aristotle I think that are good at making sense of the world. The first at rest, and the rest in action.
Just a classic stock example by Sachs: Take a blind man. It would be the case that a blind man does not have the potency to see anymore, while a man with his eyes closed does have the capacity to see, and in fact a capacity that is furthermore at rest. When the non-blind man opens his eyes, his potential to see is not removed, but is in an active process (Aristotle's word for entelecheia or being-at-work-staying-itself ). In this sense, what we are not talking about something that surprises us or not but something intrinsic to the blind man.
Entelecheia seems to be a phenomenological observation that is indicative of all organisms in the world. Each organism strives towards certain ends, from certain means. To use Schelling's terms again, a unity of both product and productivity which are both needed in the world.
The argument here, from Aristotle, is to demonstrate that the powers of the soul, the potencies, (the powers of self-subsistence, self-movement, sensation, intellection) exist as a form of potential. Since these powers are not active all the time, but continue to exist as potencies, we must assume that their essence is to be found in potential. When any such potential is active, this does not negate the potential, so we cannot properly describe the activity relating to such potencies as the actualizing of a potential.
Potential is passive, as that which is partaken of. And as Socrates describes in Plato's Parmenides, there is a way that the passive thing is partaken of without loosing anything of itself. This is like time, as Socrates says, "the day". No matter how many different places take part in the day, this changes nothing of the day. So this is the way that a passive potential can be taken part of, without changing or loosing anything of itself.
So I wonder if we're mixing up a couple of different concepts here: conservation and creation. My understanding is that Feser's argument concerns conservation. That is, we assume that the natural universe already exists and show that it depends on God's conservative act in order to remain in existence. It is in the act of conservation that God must play the role of the unactualized actualizer, whereby the changes occurring in the natural world find their causative ground in Him.
Creation is (perhaps) a different thing altogether in that it is ex nihilo. We have to remember that in the Aristotelian tradition potency has no reality apart from act. To create is not to draw actuality out of potentiality, but to cause something new to exist, along with its potentialities, where nothing existed previously. You might inquire as to how creation ex nihilo is possible, but I don't think that is the point of Feser's argument.
I just purchased Feser's book and have started reading the chapter in question. Interested to see where this goes.
But in this case the potentials belong to the other substances, not to the unactualized actualizer. If the unactualized actualizer, even if it were to exist necessarily, had potencies of its own then it wouldn't truly be an unactualized actualizer because its potencies would require actualization from something more fundamental. See also the above comments regarding conservation and creation.
Would I be correct in guessing that Sachs ia an Aristotelian.
The trouble with so many Aristotelian expositions is that they often use an example rather than a proper definition to explain a term. That might be fine if they were reasoning about the everyday, but it fails completely when they are trying to reason about non-everyday things like the source of the universe, because the example is everyday but what they try to apply it to is not.
When we take the blind man example away from the everyday context it becomes inapplicable, because (as only one example) we can easily imagine the creation of electronic eyes connected to the optic nerve of a previously blind person.
It seems to me that to be an Aristotelian one has to make an act of faith that various undefined terms, like potential, essence, entelechia and eudaimonia (even though I quite like that last one), mean something objective and tangible and can be used in the course of logical reasoning.
The consequence of that is that an Aristotelian argument (and hence also most Thomist arguments) are never going to be accepted by non-Aristotelians because they are not prepared to make that act of faith.
Feser's writing pullulates with such undefined terms, which is OK for him because he has faith, but it is meaningless to an infidel like me.
Well, this would be my guess: there's some problems there. When Aristotle speaks about organisms he'll basically appeal to them as acting as totums, as opposed to composites or artifacts. The totum, as opposed to a composite is basically an organism that is self-organizing, self-determining, and functions according to its whole which determine its parts. When we insert such an eye it isn't a part of that process, and it seems completely fair to me for the sciences to attempt to find what is intrinsic to a blind man. What is the immanent causation that occurs within such an organism.
When that function is lost the body generally has said to lose the potency as a whole. However, if we replace it with electronic eyes, there begins to be a sense where the capability of its function is said to be externally gotten instead of it being immanent to the organism itself. The organism would never produce an electronic eye.
The trouble is that this requires yet another Aristotelian leap of faith, to believe that the word totum means something exact and objective that can be used for reasoning. I wonder whether Aristotle would call a coral, which is a symbiosis between two different organisms, a totum. Or a hive of bees.
If something inserted into the totum is not part of the totum then nearly all of a person is not part of their totum, since, other than the initial two cells that came together to form a zygote, a person is made up entirely of things inserted from outside - food, water, oxygen etc. I wonder how Feser would seek to include food but exclude artificial eyes. Having considered those, one could then consider things like transplanted organs and skin grafts.
I must re-emphasise that I'm not trying to persuade Aristotelians, Thomists or Feserians out of their beliefs. We all make leaps of faith in something or other, so making it towards Aristotle is as good as to anywhere else. I'm just pointing out that the arguments they see as so powerful mean nothing to somebody that is not prepared to take the Aristotelian Leap of Faith. So it would be unreasonable for them to expect the arguments to mean anything to a non-Aristotelian.
Aristotelian terms like "matter", "form", "potential", and "actual", are developed through volumes of consistent usage. The key point here is consistency. So as one reads the usage in different books of Aristotle, in different fields of study, the meaning of the terms starts to come through, from these various applications of the same terminology.
Quoting andrewk
What is required, rather than an act of faith, is an act of intense study. You might argue that to embark on such an extended task, such as to understand Aristotle's writing, would require faith that this would be a worthwhile venture. But I don't think it's a matter of faith, rather it's a matter of interest. Some are interested, some are not
Quoting andrewk
So I think that you are quite wrong here to call this a "Leap of Faith". It is a matter of having an interest in something and having the commitment and perseverance to follow through and develop an understanding of that thing which interests you.
It is odd that you have no problem differentiating the hive of bees as being consist of many organisms, each with their own particular totum, and a coral, each with different totums working in a symbiosis. It's true, however, that you can go and see larger wholes. That's why I'm a fan of top-down causation.
I don't know how Feser would, but the way in an artifact differs from a totum is that the artifact's whole is determined by the concept - it's logocentric. We will create an electronic eye when we conceive of such a product, and put it into action according to the principles we wish.
However, organisms aren't imparting just a concept when they are producing something. Either to their offspring or immanently when the organism is going through a process of division, expansion, or some sort of immanent function. (This is a work of physis) The offspring receives the prior organism in such a way that it will act in accordance to its parents genes - though no completely. Unlike the concept which is external to it.
Sorry, but this is crap. The key point isn't consistency, but the fact that these terms originated through an effort to understand different aspects of reality. If you go back to the process, you will understand the genesis of the terms, and so you will understand that they make sense and refer to real aspects of the world.
The point is, that if you want to understand what Aristotle meant by "potential", or "matter", or some other word, you must read how he used that word. It is only by using that word in many different instances, in a consistent way, that he gave the word an intelligible meaning.
Attempting to understand "the genesis of the terms" is pointless if what one is interested in is the meaning which Aristotle gave the terms. Why would you look at all the different usage in the time around Aristotle, if what you are interested in what Aristotle meant by those words? Why would someone look at how you and various other people use a word if what they are interested in is what I mean when I use that word. So really, what you said is what is crap.
That's a strawman. To understand the genesis of the term means exactly to understand the process through which Aristotle went to come up with the term.
I can agree with that. I have not read Aristotle's physics or metaphysics for the same reason that I have not read any astrology texts - because the evidence that has been presented to me about them indicates that the ideas therein are outdated and have no application other than to the understanding of what sorts of things people used to believe a long time ago.
For somebody with an interest in those, it is an excellent idea for them to spend the hours and days necessary to read it and get a sense of what Aristotle was thinking. But I have no interest in it. If I'm going to read translations of Ancient Greek texts for reasons other than historical interest, I'll read Aristotle's logic or ethics, as they have not become outdated.
But it makes no sense to describe an argument that Aristotle or one of his followers makes as a 'proof', when it does not conform to the accepted rules of logic, one of which is that all terms used must be well-defined. 'Getting a sense of what Aristotle was getting at' from reading hundreds of pages can never substitute for a definition, because all those pages can contain is a finite number of examples of how he used a word, and examples - be they ever so many - are not a definition.
Creation ex materia is the natural assumption if we observe how things come into existence in ordinary experience. For example, a builder constructs a house using existing material such as wood and bricks.
If creation ex materia of other substances is not ruled out for the first actualizer then statement 9 of Feser's argument remains at issue. Creation ex nihilo is just as in need of demonstration as pure actuality, immateriality, etc., are.
Quoting Aaron R
Agreed. It's good to see the argument clearly laid out such that it can be evaluated.
Quoting Aaron R
The potential that the first actualizer has to create other substances would be actualized by the first actualizer itself. To use the builder/house analogy, the builder has the potential to construct a house. The builder actualizes that potential when he constructs a house.
Note that the builder is a hylomorphic substance, so the material of the builder also contributes to the construction of the house as well as the wood and bricks. This is taken to its logical conclusion in the first actualizer since there is no external material.
Whether a definition makes sense is about whether one sees the reason for it, and how it might be used. That is different from the question of whether something is well-defined. In mathematics one frequently encounters definitions that one can see are well-defined, even though one has no idea (at first) of their motivation or use. It is the understanding of motivation and use that requires lots of reading and practice, not the determination of whether the definition is well-defined (non-nebulous).
Both quantum mechanics and general relativity could be fully defined and all the laws laid out in less than ten pages each, and a mathematically-literate reader could check that the definitions were well-defined, even if she had no idea what the purpose or applicability of any of it was. It's the purpose and applicability that accounts for the other few hundred pages of any relativity or QM text.
My assertion is that Aristotle's definitions are nebulous, not that they are hard to understand. That assertion is based on the observation that definitions that have been presented here (other than in his Logic and to some extent his Ethics) have always been nebulous. If there are any that are not nebulous, it should be able to be presented here in a short post, just as with the definition that a Hilbert Space is a vector space over the real or complex numbers, equipped with an inner product, that is also a complete metric space. For the Hilbert Space, a branching tree of definitions would ensue as necessary for readers that did not know the definition of vector space, real numbers, complex numbers, inner product, complete or metric space. But that tree would terminate in leaves within a few steps and at no stage would there be any concern that any of the terms was nebulous. Readers could see that the terms were all well-defined even though they may have no idea what the purpose of any of them were.
Then why did you say that what I said was crap? That was a senseless insult.
Quoting andrewk
It's a completely different form of argument from what you're used to. It's not deduction. It's not induction in the sense of scientific induction, but another form of induction concerning conclusions relative to the way that words are used. It's called dialectics. In dialectics we do not proceed by first defining words, we start with particular words and proceed toward determining the significance of those words. This requires putting those words into all sorts of familiar contexts. If consistency is maintained then a concept can be developed.
Quoting andrewk
I disagree with this. I find that there is a whole lot of ambiguity within commonly accepted definitions in physics. Why do you think that QM is subject to so many different "interpretations"? If there wasn't ambiguity as to what the applied terms really meant, there could not be multiple interpretations.
Quoting andrewk
The problem is not one of nebulous definitions, it is whether or not the definition corresponds with what the word really refers to.. So physicists can define "Hilbert Space" in a way that suits their purpose, but this does not necessarily mean that their definition represents anything real. In ontology and metaphysics, the intent is to describe reality so it is not a case of producing useful definitions, but a case of finding the correct words to apply to the appropriate aspects of reality. Describing something is a completely different endeavor from using mathematics to make predictions. Definitions are posterior to the former, but prior to the latter.
There is no ambiguity. You are misunderstanding what an interpretation of QM is. That's understandable, as the word is used differently there from how it is normally used.
An interpretation of QM is not about working out what is meant by the things QM says. Those things are beyond question, as all QM does is make predictions about observations. An interpretation of QM is about speculating about the things that QM does not talk about. It is essentially proposing a set of metaphysical hypotheses that is consistent with QM.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover say rather - 'from what one encounters in science or mathematics'. I am plenty used to encountering that form of argument around here.
I have nothing against dialectics, I think they're fine. It's only when people pretend a dialectic is something it isn't that I take issue. Calling a dialectic text a 'proof', as the OP does, and as some of Aristotle's disciples do, is pretending the dialectic is what it's not, and that is what I am criticising. For all I know, Aristotle may be rolling in his grave at the thought that there are people out there that are saying his dialectics are proofs.
Quoting ?????????????
Nebulous. Who is this 'one' to which it refers? What does it mean to 'start from' the beginning? What is the beginning of a triangle? What is the beginning of a wheel? What if different people would start first at different places - then there is no unique beginning, as it depends on who we're asking.
But whether this matters depends on whether you agree with MU that Aristotle's metaphysics texts contain dialectics rather than proofs. If so then definitions do not matter, nor does nebulosity. It's only when someone claims that it's a proof that we need to hold it to that higher standard. So far as I can see, neither you nor MU are making such a claim, in which case there is no disagreement.
Seems like just dismissal to me with how huge Aristotle was for the development of Philosophy.
Not at all. Nobody is denying he had a huge influence, just as Galen did with Medicine. The fact that medical schools no longer teach Galen's beliefs does nothing to deny his historical importance.
I presume you would not expect physics departments to still teach Aristotle's physics. But the fact that they do not does not belie the fact that his physics was influential right up to the time of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton.
Further, as I've said above, Aristotle's Logic and Ethics are still as applicable as ever and still play roles in real life - his Logic in both philosophy and mathematics departments, and his Ethics in how many people choose to live their lives.
Quoting Marty
The evidence does not support such a belief. Surveys have shown that large proportions of scientists are not theists, or part of any religion (eg here), and hence one would not expect them to believe teleological accounts. Yet they manage to continue to produce inspiring, useful science.
Fairly important.
Because you talked about the central importance of consistency - ie checking out that Aristotle uses the term with the same definition/meaning throughout. That's irrelevant.
I'm not sure what that's suppose to mean. Teleology is a metaphysical question, so I wouldn't expect scientists to know much about it, understand how it works, or even be aware that they use it all the time.
Not to mention, you don't have to be a theist in order to believe in teleology.
Science looks for patterns and makes models to describe them. One does not need to postulate a telos to do that, any more than one needs a telos when one looks for interesting shapes in clouds or star constellations. One may overlay a telos on it, if one's philosophical disposition encourages that - and some do. But such an overlay is strictly optional, and plenty don't.
Even amongst the ancients there was a split between those that believed in telos, like Aristotle, and those that did not, like Democritus and Epicurus. One either accepts telos as an axiom or one does not. Hence any proof that relies on teleology should make it clear that it relies on acceptance of an axiom of teleology rather than being presented as a proof that any reasonable person should accept.
These two things seem to be in conflict.
Also: I mean, practicing scientists have made this claim. Many of them.
E.S.Russell, Colin Pittendrigh, Ernst Mayr, Paul Weiss, Robert Arp, Hans Jonas, Francisco J. Ayala, J. B. S. Haldane, etc.
Yeah, anybody that thinks telos is necessary doesn't think it is optional. I know a lot of people think that it is optional, but I'm not sure what it means to say that things aren't directed, or dont have a means-end framework.
Not to mention the philosophers Hegel, Schelling,
This explanation of what QM says is nebulous. Making mathematical predictions about observations is doing nothing more than saying that if we put two groups of two things together, then we'll have four things. Unless we know something about those things which we are dealing with, then the mathematics with all of its axioms and definitions, is meaningless. And to know something about those things, we refer to descriptions rather than definitions.
Understanding the mathematics without understanding the thing which the mathematics is being applied to, does not constitute a complete understanding. I can predict that the sun will rise tomorrow, and even the time at which it will rise, without understanding anything about the solar system. The predictions are derived from definitions. To understand the thing which the prediction is concerned with, requires descriptive speculation, and this is a hit and miss operation, with much trial and error. The use of this trial and error activity, along with its descriptive terms, and the assessment of this process, is just as important toward understanding the object, as is the use of mathematical definitions.
So it is wrong to dismiss an activity which is an attempt to understand, as less important, or not as reliable, as an activity which uses clear definitions, simply because it takes into account the many different ways in which specific words are used rather than adhering to clear definitions. They are simply aimed at different aspects of understanding. Mathematics and predictions are used to understand the activities of things. Descriptive words are used to understand the things themselves.
Quoting Agustino
If there is no consistency in word usage then there is no conceptual structure, and the work is unintelligible. It's quite clear to me that consistency is extremely relevant. If you think that you could read any material, philosophy, science, fiction, or whatever, in which the author does not maintain some degree of consistency in word usage, and find that work to be intelligible, I think you're fooling yourself.
To a certain extent I would argue that one of the things allowing "scientism" to run rampant in many scientific circles is the loosening of importance of philosophical reflection in scientific reasoning. As science is taught (at least from my experiences), philosophy is not taken seriously, sometimes to the point of hostility. Many scientists, it would seem, fail to understand the metaphysical assumptions underlying their research, which leads them to assume something is the case (because of their general intellectual environment, probably most often) without actually arguing for it.
It used to be the case that great scientists were also great philosophers, or at least respected the importance of philosophy. They understood that science has limitations and works within a pre-established metaphysical framework. These metaphysical views were not assumed to be true, but they were approached in a more open-ended way. Many 20th century scientists took the views of Hume, Kant or Husserl seriously. Aristotle and Peirce are good examples of scientist-philosophers. etc.
Anyway, most scientists, like most people, believe there exists a real external world, that causality is real, that universals are real (re: natural kinds), that humans stand in a Cartesian relationship to the world, and, yes, that some form of teleology is real (even if most do not realize that teleology extends beyond intelligent-design babble). When you go into a specific field you see much more diversity of opinion in many metaphysical issues; neuroscience, psychology and the cognitive sciences have the representationalist theory of mind, and reductive materialism as paradigm ideas (yet there is a lot of disagreement, and I for one think they are wrong). QM leads us into theories of reality, realism and idealism or panpsychism or whatever. And biology is rife with teleological descriptions that, in most cases, are "reduced away" to mere mechanical laws with varying degrees of success.
So the point here is that science absolutely cannot operate without the use of metaphysical assumptions, whether scientists like it or not. Back in the day this was not controversial, but nowadays anything that threatens the monopoly, or hegemony, of science in our intellectual inquiry is immediately cast into doubt. We can't do science without metaphysical assumptions, but we can do science without metaphysics. But it just ends up cheap and uninteresting.
You're entitled to that view. I think you are taking too wide an interpretation of 'meaningless'. Science is useful and it is also beautiful, to those that understand it. You may not be in a position to find it beautiful but there is no question that you find it useful. If you don't also find it meaningful, be content that it is useful.Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You are forgetting how that discussion arose. It has nothing to do with dismissing any activity. You claimed that the proliferation of interpretations of QM imply that QM's definitions are nebulous. My response was that interpretations talk about things that QM does not even seek to address, and that they are completely different activities, not that one is more important than the other. To complain that QM does not address the issues with which interpretations concern themself is like complaining because biology tells us nothing about how stars are formed.
I don't understand the last para though, particularly the distinction between requiring metaphysics and requiring metaphysical assumptions. Perhaps you can elaborate on that. To me they seem the same, and I think one can do science without either. I sympathise with your feeling that science without those is uninteresting, but I do not agree. I see a beauty in the patterns one finds, regardless of whether one attaches them to any metaphysical assumptions. But these are aesthetic judgements and people will vary in how they feel about that.
Yeah. I have no idea what what a nonteleological account of causation is without making your nature Humean. Does Andrew just deny a form of immanent causation in an organism? Does he think that blood pumps in a body by the heart for no reason? Or does the blood pump blood in virute of the preservation of oxygen and nutrients. If it's the latter than you have end-directed activity (telos). Surely the heart isn't self-preserving and merely mechanical, but has an intended use outside itself for-the-sake-of-which of pumping blood.
If it pumps for no reason, then I do not see how you're just not saying the same thing as the organ is working indeterminately. But that just seems to me to say it has no function. If determinately, then it works for a reason.
Or like, I'm not even sure how you can talk about processes like homeostasis without then referring to, "the attempt to regulate an internal environment."
I'm not sure what work the concept/idea is doing here (when the mind is investigating) other than to determine the immanent process of any biological object we experience.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I find science to be meaningful, and beautiful, as well as useful. But I believe all these things are dependent on context.
Quoting andrewk
No, you are the one forgetting how the discussion arose, only going back part way, and not to the beginning. What I took issue with was your claim that a good argument requires clear and concise definitions, rather than demonstrating the meaning of words through examples. You claimed that the latter form of argumentation, demonstrating meaning through examples, required a leap of faith, that the words actually have a meaning which could be used in reasoning.
You gave QM as an example of a science with clear definitions in comparison with the nebulous definitions which are derived from philosophical works like Aristotle's which demonstrate meaning through examples of usage. I made no complaint, but I confirmed your statement of "completely different activities". My claim was that one of these forms of reasoning is not more important than the other, and each, to be meaningful is dependent on the other. So I'll reassert my point. To dismiss one of these types of reasoning, that which speculates and reasons about the meaning of descriptive terms through the use of examples, as inadequate for reasoning about the nature of the universe, is a mistake.
It is a mistake because to understand the nature of anything requires both of these forms of reasoning. The one proceeds from clear definitions. The other determines whether the definitions correspond with reality. To proceed from clear definitions is pointless if the definitions don't describe reality. So we have to turn to the reality of how the terms are actually used in describing things to determine whether the definitions are accurate or not. If one produces a clear definition of a word like "potential", and proceeds to make a logical argument based on this definition, the logical argument is useless if the word potential cannot be actually used in this way to describe anything real. That is why we must turn to examples of usage, in which the terms are used to describe different aspects of reality, to determine whether the definitions being used represent anything real.
We resolved that already. Arguments can be proofs or dialectics. Proofs have to meet that higher standard of definition. Dialectics do not. The Aristotelian argument in the OP is a dialectic, not a proof. I thought that was all agreed. If not, which part do you disagree with?
Quoting Marty I'm not sure what it means to 'make nature Humean', but I love Hume's writing as much as the Aristotelians appear to love his, so that sounds good to me.
Quoting Marty Nor am I. Nor do I know what it means to say that things 'are directed, or do have a means-end framework', unless one follows a 'God designed it that way' approach, which is not what I am sensing you are proposing.
Quoting Marty
In biology, largely for historical reasons, it is common to talk about things in a teleological fashion. This is a residue of the science's history, not a logical necessity, and is a feature not shared by most other sciences. Every teleological statement can be rephrased non-teleologically if one wants to. One usually doesn't bother, for the same reason that one doesn't bother to rephrase 'sunrise' as 'earth-turn'.
I still remember thinking, in high-school chemistry classes, how weird it sounded when the teacher told us that Chlorine 'really wants to gain another electron' and Sodium 'really wants to get rid of its outer electron'. It was many years later that I finally made sense of these weird-sounding statements by figuring out the non-teleological version of them.
A non-teleological description of homeostasis is 'the body has processes that regulate its internal environment'.
I was surprised that, based on a quick scan of the wikipedia page on homeostasis, it appeared to make few if any teleological statements. But all that tells us is that the writer was likely more Humean in disposition than Aristotelean.
That's not non-teleological. Because you have the means of which are in the body (in the case of homeostasis), for the end of regulating its internal environment. Otherwise, what is the process describing? You've just presupposed a totum, form, etc - and smuggled in Aristotlean concepts without thinking about it.
Body's processes = form
Regulation of internal environment = telos
At least one of it's teleological behaviors, any way.
The one bit I did understand is 'what is the process describing?'. My answer to that is that the process does not describe anything, it just does things. If the body gets too hot, sweating and other temperature-lowering processes take place. If it gets too cold, shivering and other temperature-raising processes take place. Over millions of years and genetic variations, the ones that survived were those that had such features, or their precursors, in place, and that is what we see today.
All I'm asking is how does your previous sentence escape teleology. Because it seems to me the body is being used as a type of organism that functions for-the-sake-of - at least in part - homeostasis.
That is your interpretation, which you are entitled to make. But I do not make that interpretation. I am content to simply describe the processes that occur within the body. If somebody asks how the body came to have those processes, it can be explained in terms of evolution, again without teleology.
It is not necessary to make a teleological interpretation in order to learn about or research homeostasis.
:-|
And what? I didn't say the processes occur outside the body. The process is immanent in the body.
And the process itself is functioning to do things, yes? The process doesn't work indeterminately, right? Homeostasis occurs because the body needs to work out an internal regulation of its temperatures and fluid balance, right? That is teleology.
No, I would not say that.
Quoting Marty
No, I would not say that. I don't even know what it means.
Quoting Marty
No, I would not say that.
No. None of those statements follow from what I wrote.
What, exactly, is the negation of the following statement?
'The process is functioning to do things'
It is not what you wrote.
Similarly, your alternate version of the third statement is not its negation.
There you go again with your insistence on particular definitions, wanting to define terms in ways other than how they are used in reality. So long as an argument is sound, it is a proof. So why are you saying that there is a type of argument, the dialectical argument, which cannot be a proof? That's contradiction. There is nothing essential to the definition of "proof" which dictates that a particular type of argument, so long as it is sound, is not a proof. You are clearly biased toward one particular type of proof, thinking for some reason, that other proofs, such as dialectical proofs, are not real proofs.
4) "It cannot be infinitely long." Is there a way to demonstrate this, other than by Occam's Razor?
6.) "Things can only exist, however, if it has the potential to exist which is actualized." I don't think this is possible. It seems to me that before a thing exists, then neither does its properties, including the property of potential existence. But we can reach the same conclusion that there must be an actualizer (7) from the premise "everything that begins to exist requires a cause that exists".
8.) "There cannot be more than one purely actual actualizer, as differences between them would entail some difference in potential, which cannot be since it is actualized." This assumes both things have the same potential, which is not necessary (or not demonstrated to be). One thing could be fully actual with respect to its own potential, and similarly for the other thing. Thomas Aquinas comes to the same conclusion from the premise of full perfection, but I can't recall how he demonstrates full perfection in God.
14.) "A privation is an unactualized potential, which corresponds to evil" This is interesting. Could you expand on this? I have trouble imagining that a lamb, having the un-actualized potential of being a sheep, must have evil.
If you want to put a cup on a table, the table has to be stable and relatively motionless, which requires that it be on the floor, which requires it to be on the ground, etc. Each element in this series has derivative power, but derivative power is just simply power that is derived from something with ultimate power.
Quoting Samuel Lacrampe
Things come into existence, as we usually see them, from other things that are already existing. And furthermore, it seems to me that, if material things are contingent, then this means they do not have to exist, which means that they have the potential to not exist. If this potential is not "part" of the material thing (since it does not exist), then it still exists as a possibility (perhaps in a mind).
Quoting Samuel Lacrampe
I'm not very confident about this notion either, I'm more sympathetic to the undefinability of goodness a la Moore and the British moral philosophers. But if we're going to Aristotelian route, it's that goodness has a lot of similarities to that of functioning "as it should". A lamb might not be bad if it's functioning as it should, i.e. to develop into a sheep. But it may be a bad lamb if it fails to develop. I don't really like this way of putting goodness, it doesn't seem very moral in nature.
Well, the most popular account of causation nowadays is probably counterfactual dependence, which seems to be as far from teleology as you could get. Causal processes, causal powers - those aren't obviously teleological either. Not that I necessarily subscribe to any of those accounts - just pointing out that a nonteleological account of causation isn't something unheard of - not by a long shot.
Quoting andrewk
There may be good objective reasons for teleological language in biology, other than it being a holdover from the prescientific era. This is most obvious in behavior science: behavior is, pretty much by definition, goal-directed. But, less obviously, it has been argued that even in other biological contexts we find features that are isomorphic to goal-directedness.
And yes, I'm aware that the enlightenment sciences attempted to remove teleology, but that was mostly because of the a-priori assumptions of those type of sciences, and the dualism created between the mind and body, such that, they wanted to place directionality in place of only something the mind can do. This isn't true of all modern sciences, though.There's plenty of scientists, whom I just mentioned, that still use teleological accounts. Not to mention the enlightenment could not sustain its reduction of the world to merely material or efficient causes. Even with the advent of Newton's gravity, the project of rendering everything as being explicable to only two causes was highly questionable, particularly at the dawn of the chemical-electrical revolutions where we saw mechanical motion just wasn't fit to describe all physical processes, particularly biology.
Also, I don't believe Hume or Kant's account of causation work. Hume because causation is most certainly not a habit, certainly not two events that are clear and distinction - which I took to be a skeptical interpretation of Hume. Or Kant because I don't think teleology is a regulative function of the mind. The entire point of late German Idealism was to overcome Kant's idea that teleology was merely a regulative feature. There were great pains to overcome this idea that we're merely projecting these type of experiences into the world, and I feel like this is a problem created by the noumenal-phenomenal distinction Kant had, and regulating experience to be just "in the mind".
But even Kant had problems, which became obvious during the end of his career. His late Philosophy of Nature already anticipated the system of Naturphilosophie, and the organicism implicit in it. Organicism, imho, was a fair account of nature that was inbetween vitalism and mechanism.
But what I was saying is that I don't think saying, "modern science got rid of teleology" is really a fair representation of philosophy or science.
As I recall reading, and this was actually mentioned in Edward Feser's Scholastic Metaphysics, powers are just formal-final causes under a different name. As for counterfactual dependence, I'm not sure what it means to say “If A had not occurred, C would not have occurred” without wondering why that claim is the case. In virute of what?
That's so childish: "you have to use the words my way, or I don't want to talk to you". Is "compromise" not in your vocabulary?
Really, I think you're just upset because I demonstrated that your position is contradictory. Now look what you've done. First, you say that an argument must proceed from a clear definition. Then, when I define "proof", and make such an argument proving that you contradict yourself, you decide that you do not like my definition of "proof". Your hypocritical actions are just proving my point, which is that there must be a method to determine how terms ought to be defined. And, that this type of reasoning, which makes these determinations, is just as important as the reasoning which proceeds from these determinations.
I read Feser's chapter and I was wrong: he is talking about the actualization of a substance's existence, not just the actualization of its potencies. Your response is to deny the dichotomy presented in proposition 9 and affirm the possibility of a substance that both exists necessarily and yet is a composite of act and potency. Feser will deny this possibility.
That's because Feser accepts the real distinction between essence and existence (Thomistic Proof) and also the contingency of composite substances (Neo-platonic Proof). In the Thomistic model, a being is necessary if only if its existence is identical with its essence. Not only is such a being absolutely simple (because there's no distinction between its existence and essence), but since existence is the purest and highest form of act, it is also pure act. As such, a being that is a composite of potency and act could not exist necessarily.
That makes sense to me. I wonder if an objector might say that it is logically possible to have an infinite loop, where the one derivative power is passed down in circle, like a game of hot potato; but this seems so absurd that it would be a last-resort hypothesis.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes, good point. It is true that contingent existing things have the potential to not exist; and the potential of 'x' implies the potential of 'not x' at some point; and therefore contingent existing things must have the potential to exist at some point.
Quoting darthbarracuda
How about this:
In man-made things, it is evident that a thing is good if it actualizes its nature, its design. E.g., a paper-cutter is called good if it actually cuts paper correctly, which is its nature. And the nature of a thing is synonymous to its essential potential. E.g., the paper-cutter does not have the potential to cut paper if there is no paper to cut at this time, but once there is, then the potential appears, and a good paper-cutter will actualize it. Therefore a thing is good if it actualizes its essential potential; which means that an un-actualized essential potential corresponds to evil. As is the case of man-made things, so it would be for non-man-made things if these also have essential potential, that is, a nature, a design, a purpose, a final cause.
We just need to demonstrate this last part. Unfortunately, I don't know how yet. I am not even sure if demonstrating that things have essences is sufficient to prove that they must have a purpose, for even Aristotle seems to make a distinction between formal cause (essence) and final cause (purpose). I suspect Aristotle was wrong in making this distinction.
Interesting. I disagree that there is any ontological separation between existence and essence as Feser argues for in his discussion (from p117).
Feser gives the example of a lion and a unicorn and argues that one could, in principle, know their essences without knowing whether they existed or not.
In my view, part of the essential nature of a lion is that it lives in the world that we inhabit, whereas a unicorn is a merely a fictional creature represented in books and pictures. So for someone to mistakenly talk about lions as if they were fictional entities would be for them to entirely misconceive the essential nature of lions.
That's because real things and representations belong to different logical categories. It's not that a real lion and a fictional lion share the same essence where one exists and the other does not. Instead they are essentially different things.
I'll leave it there for now. I'll just add that I don't dispute that the first actualizer is a simple (non-composite) substance. However, as with existence/essence and form/material, I don't see that act/potency should be understood as ontologically separate parts or aspects of a substance.
So... if someone genetically engineered a horse to become a unicorn, then the unicorn would be fictional? :s
Quoting Andrew M
What makes them different, apart from existence? If existence is what makes them different, then you're granting Feser's point that existence is a property, and denying Kant's.
That is false. Part of understanding a thing is understanding that thing within a particular context. There are no context-less things out there. So when I understand the heart in the context of the body, I need teleology. Otherwise how will I understand it?
So please take this simple example, of the heart pumping blood, and give me a non-teleological explanation of it. You won't be able to do so without appealing to the larger context in which the heart works (the body), and hence without appealing to the heart's telos - which just is an explanation of how it fits in within its larger context.
And those processes don't affect each other, and don't function together to create effects that they couldn't by themselves?
For example, is a match not directed towards the production of fire when you strike it on the right side of the match box? If it wasn't so directed, then why does it start burning?! Is this a miracle that every time, or almost every time, the match starts burning instead of turning into a cute buterfly?
The fact that we notice that particular things are directed towards particular effects - and not to any effect at all - shows us that they are goal-directed. Putting a sharpened pencil on a regular paper is directed towards producing a mark on that paper. It's not directed towards turning into a cute hamster that proceeds to eat the paper, is it? Why does it never turn into the cute hamster? Because that's not its telos.
This thread has petered out. It became apparent - after a long discussion - that if one accepts the Aristotelean view of the world, in which notions like 'potential, 'essence' and 'directed' are believed to have meanings beyond their everyday pragmatic meanings, then the OP argument has some bite, and if one doesn't, then it has none.
I like to learn wherever I can from discussions, and the lesson from this one has been that the gulf between Aristoteleans and non-Aristoteleans is immense. I am starting to think that it is bigger than that between theists and anti-theists.
I don't think you're correct in this analysis. The Aristotelian notions are signposts which signal to some relevant aspects of reality. Do those aspects of reality exist? If they do, then the notions are valid. I haven't seen a relevant argument from the non-Aristotelians which show that those aspects of reality don't exist - maybe I've missed it cause I haven't read all posts here, so I'd appreciate if you could point me to it.
It goes straight back to the A vs non-A divide. The As believe that reality has those aspects and that they have objective meanings, and the non-As do not. The As have no proof of their view, and the non-As have no proof of theirs. It comes down to core beliefs. They seem to be what Alvin Plantinga calls 'properly basic beliefs'. One either believes them or one doesn't. There are no arguments for or against them.
Even though the referenced aspects are open to observation? Take the case of the match. We observe that it consistently produces fire when we strike it in the right place on the matchbox in favourable conditions. Why is that? Is that even a valid question?
If it is, then what is the answer? If your kid asked you "Daddy why does the match always light up when you strike it on the right side of the match box?", what would you answer?
If it's not a valid question, why isn't it?
Plus, being a pedant (sorry) I'd probably correct the child's use of 'always' and point out that sometimes it doesn't catch fire, and there can be various reasons why that happens (e.g. strike speed too slow, combustible material layer too thin, matchbox side worn smooth).
Right, but that's not the question I was asking. I wasn't asking why it catches fire in this or that particular instance. Clearly, it does because of the friction which produces heat. I was asking why does it always and consistently catch fire in that particular set of circumstances?
The question can be moved further too - why does friction always produce heat?
Quoting andrewk
Sure, I preempted you being a pedant, that's why I said:
Quoting Agustino
Every particular set of circumstances happens only once. Each match strike is different. There is no 'always and consistently' to explain. For a particular strike, current scientific theories predict that, If certain conditions are met, ignition will almost certainly occur.
I'm still not seeing the A-connection.
Why will it occur if certain conditions are met?
Quoting Agustino
Quoting andrewk
Friction always produces heat because it is directed towards the production of heat. That's part of its nature, what being friction is in the first place.
There will be a straightforward explanation involving physics and chemistry and the interactions of particles of certain types. I'm afraid this is getting beyond my area of expertise. I haven't done any Chemistry since high school.
What I do know is that, if one is not an A, there is no need to use the concept of being 'directed towards' in the explanation, which is just as well, because I don't know what that concept means.
It means, for example, that friction always produces heat. It doesn't one time produce heat, and the next time produce butterflies. It always produces heat, and only heat. That's what the concept of "being directed towards" means.
I don't know, I am not a fan of powers and propensities on the one hand, and I don't know what Feser's argument is. Maybe he proposes a reduction to final causes, but that wouldn't mean that the two accounts are actually one and the same.
Quoting Marty
Well, you could pose the same question in response to any account of anything whatsoever, couldn't you? But to address your question more directly, counterfactual accounts of causation are more conceptual analysis than metaphysics. "What we talk about when we talk about causation."
Is the following a fair rendition of your concept of 'is directed towards'.
We say that an object of category C1 (e.g. a match) is 'directed towards' phenomena of category C2 (e.g. ignition) if there exists a set of conditions S that include at least one condition relating to an object of class C1, such that our current scientific theories predict that, whenever conditions S are satisfied, an event of class C2 will occur with probability p, where p is very close to 1 [we would need to specify an exact value to complete the definition. Let's say 0.99999].
We agree. Fancy that. The Aristotelean / non-Areistotelean division is deeper than the theist /atheist division. I see the theist /atheist division as a manifestation of the other, like a symptom of the illness.
Quoting andrewk
Actually, as I demonstrated in this thread, this is not the case. You simply redefine "proof" in such a way that the A's proof does not qualify as proof under you restrictive definition of proof. That's the problem with your mode of argumentation, which is to make definitions and produce "proofs' as logical conclusions from these definitions. You can "prove" whatever you like, by tailoring your definitions.
That difference in standard of proof is part of the divide. It appears that the As and non-As differ in that respect. There's no point in arguing over definitions. I expect we can at least agree on the following statements.
1. The OP would be considered by an A to be a proof.
2. The OP would not be considered by a non-A to be a proof.
No, see again what I said about real lions and fictional lions.
Engineering a horse to become a unicorn would involve natural processes. It doesn't assume that fictional unicorns have essences, let alone an immaterial essence that just lacks the property of existence.
Quoting Agustino
One can eat you, the other can't. You find one in a jungle and the other on a bookshelf. One has an evolutionary history, the other is a product of humans.
Lions have an essential nature, as do books, which is what it means to exist. Unicorns and fictional lions do not.
This has been our difference of opinion from the beginning. I believe that it is very important to argue over definitions. This process is sometimes called platonic dialectics, and it is through this process that we determine correct definitions. You seem to think that all reasoning and proofs, begin with definitions and proceed to conclusions, but I think you are completely excluding the ostensive proofs, and reasoning which are necessary for giving us correct definitions.
Quoting andrewk
Actually I can't offer an opinion on this. I find the OP to be a very long argument, and at the same time overly condensed, summarized. I am simple minded and need things to be well spelled out in order to understand them, and I cannot judge something as a proof or not without adequately understanding it.
Maybe that's another key A vs non-A difference. My non-A position is that there's no such thing as a correct or incorrect definition. For a non-A the worth of a definition is determined solely by its usefulness and clarity.
I'd be interested to hear what other Aristotelians think about the importance of arguing over definitions.
Two observations: in Feser's original text, I think the move from how 'the table supports the coffee cup' to 'how things are supported in being' is pretty weak. It seems obviously an analogy, based on the way that one thing is supported by another - coffee cup>table>floor>building>earth - but I find the move from that analogy, to the description of what 'holds things in being' pretty hard to fathom, on the basis of this text alone - for instance, the description of why hydrogen and oxygen are bonded in the particular way to form water, when they could be bonded in some other way.
I'm sure that most modern naturalists would say that the casual sequence that enables the coffee cup to sit on the table can easily be explained in terms of a sequence of material causation; I can't quite see how this argument counters that. But I will read it again, there might be something I am missing.
The second observation is that in Feser's other book, on Aquinas, he starts the text with a reference to the Parmenides, and how the 'problem of becoming' was given in that seminal text of Western metaphysics. Then he starts on elaborating how the Parmenidean 'problem of becoming' was addressed by the subsequent development of the Greek tradition. But, the point of all this is that it frames such concepts as 'potential' and 'actualisation' in a way which is no longer at all familiar in our culture. Whereas for those who were schooled in the Greek tradition, those concepts would naturally be considered in those terms, as they presented a solution to a particular metaphysical conception.
I think that is the source of the disconnect that AndrewK is referring to. When viewed from outside the cultural form of classical metaphysics, the terms themselves don't have any traction, for the modern point of view (something that Feser comments on). So in some ways, you have to learn to think in their terms, in order to understand the cogency of the argumentation - and I don't know how many people will want to do that.
I think that in metaphysics your principles would take us around in a circle. You say, that to prove something requires clearly defined terms. And, the worth of the definitions is determined by their usefulness. So it appears to be as I stated, you would produce your definitions according to what is useful to prove your point. And your point would be well proven because you would have produced the definitions which are useful to prove that point. So we would never make any progress toward actually understanding reality, we'd just be making up various different definitions to prove various different points
2-Begging the question- given the idea of 'god' is acquired knowledge, built on ideas of acquired knowledge which are assumed as true.
3. By definition God can not be known, so any argument build on the premise of "things known about God" are by nature, false because the premise for the argument is false.
4. If God is "Good" then God cannot be evil as perfection does not exist in a state of contradiction.
5. If something is omnipotent then it embodies that which is evil and by relation is evil.
6. Perfection is a state of existence without flaw.
7. Fallacy is flaw.
8. To be omnipotent is to be flawed and be flawed as part of the definition
9.If God is not perfect, the idea of God is flawed.
10. God is omnipotent God cannot be Perfect.
11. If God is perfect, God can not be omnipotent.
I could go on but why beat a dead horse.
based on your argument, God cannot exist and the idea itself is flawed being a contradiction of its iwn terms of existence even by its own definition ergo your argument in invalid.
Side note:
Just for a fun thought experiment redefine "God" as the creator of a virtual reality that we are in.
"For those who believe, no proof is required. For those who don't, none will suffice."
- I forget
Who creates the "we" who are in this virtual reality?
A definition can't enable or disable the proof of a point of any interest, as any proof that uses the defined term can be converted to one that doesn't by simply replacing every instance of the defined term by that which it is defined to mean.
For instance, if I have a proof about bachelors, and I have defined bachelor to mean 'Live, adult, male human that has never married', I can change the proof to one that does not use the defined term, simply by replacing the term by those italicised words, wherever it occurs.
The purpose of a definition is to enable one to write shorter, more intuitive proofs. Semantically, introducing or removing a definition cannot change the provability of anything.
A useful definition is one that shortens a proof or attempted proof in a way that makes it easier to find a way through the logical maze.
You tell me, i dont presume to know in reality let alone in a hypothetical. Besides that's why it's an interesting proposition some entity created a virtual reality that we are in and that is the only stipulation, so if that is the question then follow the logical process. There are a finite number of considerations to take.
That's irrelevant, because all those other words would need to be defined as well, according to your stated principles of reasoning, which requires definitions. So these words could just be defined in a way which suited the purpose as well.
Quoting andrewk
This seems to contradict what you were saying earlier, that reasoning requires exact, objective definitions. Your objection against Aristotelianism was that it didn't provide clear definitions which are required for proof. Now it appears like you are saying that definitions are not required for proof, they just make the proof easier.
Myself, I would rather read hundreds of pages of examples of usage of the terminology to make sure that I grasp a firm understanding of the meaning, rather than a few words of definition. The former ensures that I have a clear understanding of the things being proven, the latter only ensures that I can associate some words with some other words.
I am wondering, are we part of the virtual reality, or are we real? If we are real, then I am real, and you are real, so you cannot be part of my virtual reality, you are real. If we are not real, then what difference does it make, even to ask your question?
The point is the logical process one can attend.
Questioning reality is the foundation of philosophy...
If substantive, yes, if merely about word symbols, no.
For an Aristotelian, a definition signifies what it is to be something. For example (per the Oxford dictionary), an apple is a round fruit of a tree of the rose family, which typically has thin green or red skin and crisp flesh.
Note that this is not merely defining the word "apple". It is describing something in the world, namely, those objects we call "apples". The definition serves to distinguish those objects from other objects, such as pears (a different kind of fruit) and rocks (not a kind of fruit at all), and so can be considered a valid definition.
What is required is that any defined terms used in the proof have exact, objective definitions. However it is not mandatory to use any defined terms. One can write a proof without any defined terms, in which case no definitions are needed.
There can be a grey area in that axioms that refer to a particular item in the Domain of Discourse may in some circumstances be considered as in a sense constituting a 'definition' of that item. For instance, the axioms that refer to the item '0' in Peano Arithmetic might be interpreted as constituting a definition of '0'. But there are various complexities about that, which I think it would not be fruitful to delve into now, as I don't think they relate to the topic under discussion.
@Metaphysician Undercover
On one hand it is reasonalbe to expect a "proof" to be logical, which requires complex concepts to be well-defined. On the other hand one can argue that metaphysics is more general than logic because it adresses everything while logic investigates only a fraction of reality. (Concepts like "everything" have different meaning in logic and in meaphysics.)
I think your debate clearly shows the continental-analytic disagreement and won't be resolved anytime soon.
It doesn't matter. This doesn't save you in any way. We're still back to the same square. Take radioactive decay which is probabilistic by nature.
Is an atom of whatever - say Uranium - going to decay with a specific probability of x%? Sure. This means that that specific atom (or type of atom) is directed towards decaying into the following components (X, Y, Z) with this, and only this probability.
Whatever causes there are out there, they have to be directed towards producing whatever their range of effects happen to be (even if those effects are probabilistic), otherwise, why is it that they always produce only that range of effects and not just any effect imaginable?
Goodness me, do I need saving? From what? My original sin perhaps? Oh dear. Or am I to be punished by a posse of Aristotelians, for having the unmitigated temerity to decline to adopt their worldview?
I'm afraid I don't understand the assertions and questions in your post. Perhaps they mean something to Aristotelians.
OK, I think I understand, if a definition is used, it must be unambiguous. An ambiguous definition would not qualify as a proof because the conclusion may be the result of equivocation or misunderstanding. But a proof can be made without any definitions.
In the case of making a proof without definition, the meaning of the terms must be properly demonstrated in order to avoid ambiguity. This is the case in Aristotelian metaphysics. The meaning of the important terms is demonstrated by numerous examples through many pages of text. This requires attentive study and dedication from the student. You called that a leap of faith, but "faith" here would imply that the student believes that the effort is worthwhile. That is the nature of ostensive demonstration, it requires effort to learn, and one must have faith in the authority of the teacher. It is only discovered after the practise, whether the effort was worthwhile or not.
You seemed to be saying earlier in the thread, that this type of argumentation, through a demonstrating of the meaning of terms rather than a clear definition, does not constitute a proof. Now I see that you believe that it may constitute a proof. And whether or not it actually constitutes a proof is not a judgement which you can make until after you've put in the effort to understand the terms.
But even my sort of ostension is prone to error. It's possible that I've got the wrong idea of what other people mean by 'dog' and our success in communicating about dogs thus far has been a happy coincidence of the fact that the animals we were talking about lay in the intersection between my understanding of dog and yours.
My understanding of language use is mostly WIttgensteinian, so I see my use of 'dog' or 'potential' as elements of a language game that often, but not always, works in everyday life. But it all falls apart as soon as we move away from everyday life into metaphysics.
I don't know what Aristotle would have made of Wittgenstein but my guess is that he'd have been appalled, since describing categories of objects as simply moves in a language game is like the antithesis of believing that a category has an essence.
It sounds like becoming an Aristotelian involves a process of initiation into a new language game, that involves a lot of reading. I am not inclined to do that because, while that language game may be fun (Feser certainly seems to enjoy it), it doesn't seem to lead anywhere.
As a wise member of the previous forum once said:
"Fancy piles of words cannot oblige the universe to be thus and so'
(or something like that).
No, "ostensive" means learning by direct demonstration, and that's what giving examples is, just like drawing triangles is demonstrating the meaning of "triangle". The difference we are discussing here is the difference between giving the meaning of a word by definition, and giving the meaning of a word by demonstration. You seem to be of the opinion that definition is the preferred method for presenting the meaning of a word. My claim is that demonstration gives one a better understanding of what the word means.
Quoting andrewk
Yes, that's what I said about this type of learning, it is a matter of "faith", in the sense that one must have faith that the teaching authority is truly an authority. And the problem, as I explained, is that you cannot make the appropriate judgement on this until after you have learned what the teacher is teaching, until after it's been taught to you. You may have an opinion, that the supposed authority is truly an authority, or not, prior to the procedure, but just like going to a movie, you don't know for sure whether you will like it until after you see it.
Quoting andrewk
That's odd, I find the very opposite is the case. I found that everyday use of words was very odd, with the way that many words are used being strangely inconsistent and ambiguous. I am one who has always had difficulty communicating. Communication does not come easy for me, so my word use is deliberate. When I studied metaphysics I found that word usage suddenly started to make sense to me. Word usage was always a puzzle to me, and in ancient philosophy such as Plato and Aristotle, with all the demonstrations, I found that the pieces of the puzzle started to fit together. So I see everyday word use as very fragmented, but metaphysics makes sense of that fragmentation.
Quoting andrewk
I can speak from experience, and tell you that all the reading does lead somewhere, it leads to an understanding. "The way the universe is" is not what is at issue here, what is at issue is understanding. Anyone can make statements defining "the way the universe is", but what's important is understanding. And we all desire to understand, that's human nature. But this is where you're very clearly lacking faith. You do not believe that the alleged authority is really an authority, you have no faith in that proposition, so you dismiss the endeavor as a waste of time.
I do not, and would not dismiss it in that way without qualification.
I am confident that reading Aristotle would be a waste of my time. It sounds like you have found it an enriching experience, so it was not a waste of your time, nor of that of any other enthusiastic Aristotelian. If his writings on metaphysics bring joy to some people, and they do not induce them to harm others, then that is a good thing (IMHO).
The (possibly unintended) irony of that observation, is that the idea of a philosophy as 'something that works for you' is a sentiment that no Aristotelian philosopher could ever entertain.
I don't think "joy'" is the best word to use here. As I explained, what it brings is understanding. And because we desire to understand, then satisfying that desire with actual understanding brings joy. So "joy" is not incorrect. But "joy" has a very broad, ambiguous meaning, when the more specific word "understanding" is proper according to what I explained. To argue in a way which replaces more specific, well defined terms, with the more general, ill-defined terms is counter-productive. That's the way you are going.
It's like if we were discussing the nature of moral virtue, and we realized that being virtuous is a pleasure, so we switch "virtue" with "pleasure", and you say, if it brings you pleasure, and doesn't induce harm to others, then virtue is a good thing. This would completely miss the essence of virtue, which is concerned with doing good, replacing it with pleasure that doesn't harm others.
So you have removed the virtue from my description, the particular good, which is referred to with "understanding", and replaced it with "joy that doesn't involve harm to others", implying that anything which brings joy is equally good so long as it doesn't cause harm to others. Then understanding is of no more value than masturbation.
I think we're loosing objectivity here. Do you agree that understanding is inherently subjective, meaning that it is always a subject which understands? And do you agree that the judgement of whether or not an argument constitutes a proof is dependent on that argument being understood?
It depends on what one means by 'understood'. There are proofs that I have followed step by step, and validated each step, yet I am still unable to visualise the big picture, as to why the proof works. There is a formal understanding but not an intuitive one and it is the latter that is ultimately most important to me. So I would say that there are proofs that I have verified to be valid even though I do not really understand them. But in such cases I have suffiicient understanding to recognise that my failure to fully understand the proof is a deficiency in my cognitive capabilities rather than a deficiency in the proof.
I suppose that's a 'No' then. One can judge that something is a proof without understanding it.
Perhaps a helpful parallel is a chess game. One can look at the moves in a Fischer vs Spassky game and verify that Fischer did indeed do a sequence of legal moves that resulted in Spassky being in an unwinnable position. But that is not the same as understanding the strategy by which Fischer achieved that.
If the essence of being a lion included its existence, then lions could never cease to exist. What you are arguing implies that lions have always existed and will always exist just in virtue of what they essentially are.
How can you be sure that such a proof is actually a proof then, without any understanding? You claim that you can verify the proof to be valid, without understanding it, and I question whether this is really true. Understanding come in degrees, and any such verification, I believe would require some degree of understanding. So I disagree with your distinction between a formal understanding and an intuitive understanding. I think that within any system of logic, there are different depths of understanding, different degrees to which one understands.
For example, if I multiply two numbers, 7 and 8, I get 56. I can verify this by taking 56 and dividing it by 8, to see if I get 7. Such a demonstration requires some understanding, an understanding of the relationship between multiplication and division. I could also proceed to take eight groups of seven, put them together, and count them all up. This demonstrates an understanding of the procedure of multiplication. We can propose that someone could learn multiplication by memorizing times tables or something like that, so that this person could multiply without understanding anything. This would be just an association by recognition. But how would that person "prove" that what they are doing is multiplying, without some understanding of what it means to multiply. So I think that any type of verification, i.e. a judgement that a so-called proof is actually a proof, requires some degree of understanding. The depth of understanding demonstrated by the verification relates to the quality of that judgement.
Quoting andrewk
That's a similar example to mine. To determine "legal moves", and "unwinnable position" requires some understanding of the game, a rather shallow understanding. To be able to produce strategies within the game is to have a deeper understanding. I do not agree to your distinction of formal and intuitive understanding, because I think that there are just degrees of depth to this type of understanding, which is specifically understanding the rules of the game.
However, in the case of a competitive game, there is a matter of anticipating the moves of the competitor, and that requires a completely different type of understanding which is unrelated to understanding the rules of the game. We could assume that there are some type of (intuitive?) rules here, which are rules for application. Understanding application is a completely different type of understanding from understanding the rules of the game We could say that there are similar "rules" for application of logic and mathematics as well. This would be such as what qualifies as "8", what qualifies as "7", how do we judge an object as fulfilling the conditions of the definition. Understanding the rules for application is a completely different matter from understanding the rules of the logical system.
But I don't think that there are any such rules, in reality, there is only some sort of intuition. We can't have rules for the application of rules, or we'd need rules for the application of those rules, ad infinitum. So these are definitely two distinct types of understanding. One is concerned with relating rules to each other, and this you call a formal understanding. The other relates rules to other things, opponents in games, and physical objects in science. Of the latter type of understanding, the intuitive one that relates rules to things, do you not agree that there is a better and a worse intuition? So judging by statistics or something like that, the person who wins the game more often could be said to have a better understanding of how to apply the rules.
I would partially agree, but I expect it would not be the sort of agreement you would wish.
First, the agreement is partial because I would see the set of intuitions about relationships of rules to phenomena ('things') as a partially ordered set. In such a set, for some pairs of intuitions we can say one is better than the other, but for other pairs we cannot.
But we also need a definition of 'better'. The one I would instinctively reach for is 'more useful'. One intuition is 'better' than another under my interpretation if it enables more accurate predictions.
Based on past posts, I have the feeling that you would reject using 'usefulness' as a benchmark for quality of an intuition. But that then begs the question of what definition of 'better' you would like to use in its place. Again I might guess that you would prefer a definition that had something to do with 'truth'. Personally, I would reject such a definition, as I do not believe in Absolute Truth.
Now my understanding is that Aristoteleans form a proper subset of those who believe in Absolute Truth. So there should be no difficulty finding a non-Aristotelean that believes in Absolute Truth, who thus could continue down that line of discussion, by accepting 'truth' as a measure of the quality of an understanding. But I am not such a person.
Yes, surprisingly enough, I agree with this, but of course, there is a catch. As Aristotle distinguishes two types of knowledge in his Nichomachean Ethics, practical and theoretical, accordingly there are two distinct types of intuition. What I have described, and we seem to agree upon is practical intuition. At the other end of the spectrum is theoretical intuition
Consider practical intuition, as what is called for when we are apply theory to the physical world in practise. The farmer with good practical intuition will choose the best time to plant the crop. Theories of calendar date, soil moisture, weather forecasts, etc., all must be considered with the appropriate weight, to bring about the best result. In the case of theoretical intuition, this is inverted, such that knowledge gained from the world of practise is applied toward producing theories.
In theories, words are defined. Often in the form of hypotheses, the definitions need to be confirmed. Good intuition, in the sense of theoretical intuition, refers to the person who can foresee hypotheses which will be confirmed, and will produce theories which have a high probability of being verified. So for example, people like Isaac newton, and Albert Einstein had good theoretical intuition. Einstein for instance defined simultaneity in a particular way, giving examples to demonstrate exactly what he meant, and he had good theoretical intuition to stipulate that the speed of light is constant.
Quoting andrewk
With respect to "Absolute Truth" then, practical intuition is not at all concerned with truth in any absolute sense. The theories are in place, and they are applied to the best of one's ability, to get the best results, This is a matter of predicting outcomes according to what is necessary for the particular circumstances. In the case of theoretical intuition though, we may consider the possibility of absolute truth. The individual who is crafting the theory must be guided by certain principles. The theory must be the most practical as is possible, the best means the most practical. That is an ideal which the theoretician follows. It could be argued that this ideal, the "most practical", is equivalent with "absolute truth".
My view is that only existents have essential natures. Why would that imply an eternal existence?
I notice that this specific issue seems to mark a point of departure for Aquinas from Aristotle. From the SEP entry on Existence:
Right, but I don't believe that this is what is being called into question. What is in question is whether there is a real distinction between essence and existence within each existing thing.
Quoting Andrew M
Denying the real distinction between essence and existence within a being implies necessary existence. If the "what-ness" of something includes existence, then it exists simply in virtue of what it is. Such a being could not fail to exist insofar as it is what it is.
Quoting Andrew M
Yes and no. Aristotle recognized the distinction between what a thing is and that a thing is: in fact, his entire scientific methodology (posterior analytics) is founded upon the distinction. It's true that Aristotle never explicitly elaborated a theory of existence apart from essence, but the beginnings of such a theory are implied by much of what he wrote. One could argue that the failure to elaborate such a theory is a gaping hole at the heart of Aristotle's overall system. After all, if form is act with respect to the potency of matter, then form must be the principle by which any individual substance is. Yet, for Aristotle, form has no being in and of itself. But how can something that has no being in itself be the principle by which anything is? It doesn't add up.
I think it is. In "On Being and Essence" Aquinas says, "I can understand what a man is or what a phoenix is and nevertheless not know whether either has existence in reality."
Aquinas is saying that a phoenix has an essence (or, put differently, that there is a phoenix essence - "what a thing is") even though phoenixes don't exist. That becomes the basis for his distinction between existence and essence.
This would have been foreign to Aristotle, who held that valid (formal) distinctions can only be made on the basis of existents (particulars).
If only particulars have form (and an essential nature) then there is no implication of necessary existence. It is not the form that exists (or not), it is the particular.
Indeed, that is one of the arguments that is often given. I was trying to steer us away from that particular line of thought because it takes us pretty deep into epistemology. In scholastic terms, phoenixes do not have "subjective" existence - that is, they are not mind-independent subjects of existence. However, they do exist "objectively" - that is, mind-dependently. Qua objects of thought, phoenixes have a form all their own. Indeed, it is via such forms that we classify imaginary creatures into "this" or "that" type. When I imagine a particular phoenix, I am objectively instantiating the form "phoenix".
Quoting Andrew M
Yes, all formal distinctions trace their ultimate genesis in subjective reality as appropriated by the senses. A more metaphorical way to put it is to say that all distinctions are woven from the raw materials provided by the senses. That doesn't imply that every formal distinction is a real distinction, and I believe that Aristotle recognized that distinction to some extent.
Quoting Andrew M
If a particular's form (essential nature) does not exist in its own right, then a particular's existence cannot be identical with its form (essential nature) and there must be a real distinction between a particular's essential nature and its existence. This is exactly what Aquinas is arguing for.
1. His Principle of (Aristotelian) Causality: Every change is a change from potentiality to actuality brought about by something with the actuality in question.
2. His Principle of (Hierarchical) Sustaining Causality
3. His claim that the existence of anything is the result of the actualizing of the potential to exist by something already actualized as existent.
4. His claim that anything that already existing cannot continue to exist with out something sustaining that existence, continually actualizing the (so-called) potential for existing.
5. His claim that while there may be an infinite chain of (temporally extended) initiating causes, there can not be an infinite chain of simultaneous sustaining causes.
What I would like to know is whether there are any good arguments against these theses, especially #1 and #3. #3 seems to treat existence as a property that something may have as either potentially or actually, similar to the potential for hotness. And that just as something that is actually hot "activates" the potential for hotness in another object, so to something that exists activates the potential for existence in another.
The problem I have is with Feser's (Aristotle's and Aquinas's) view of causality. I'd like to think that it is not just a disagreement about the meaning of the term 'cause', but rather about what account we can give of the causal relation, viz., what makes the proposition ^A causes B^ to be true?
What is meant by #3 is that the existence of things are contingent, and that they are temporal, meaning that they have a beginning and ending in time. So for example. let's say that a particular thing came into existence at some time. Prior to that time, this particular thing did not exist. But in order for that thing to have come into existence, the potential for it to exist must have been there at that time. The potential for the thing does not necessitate the thing's existence though, because when there is the potential for something, it may or may not come into existence. So we need to assume something actual which necessitates (actualizes) the thing's existence, to account for the fact that it actually did come into existence.
The crucial distinction that Aristotle recognized here was between perception and imagination. Mythological writings and pictures exist (and can be perceived) and so we can classify the various ideas people had about phoenixes (e.g., Ezekiel the Dramatist said the phoenix had striking yellow eyes and Lactantius said that its eyes were blue like sapphires). That is, what we're actually investigating are people's (sometimes contradictory) ideas about mythical creatures, not the nature of mythical creatures.
"Mind-dependent objects" is really a metaphor that derives its meaning from the concrete (natural) particulars that can be investigated. But a metaphor doesn't imply anything about the literal notions of existence and nature as applied to concrete particulars.
Quoting Aaron R
A particular's existence is itself a formal notion (a universal). We distinguish in language between existence and form, but there is no such distinction in the particular. There isn't an apple that has form but does not exist, nor an apple that exists but lacks form.
Premise one can be coherently denied though; eternalism is such a philosophical view of time that denies the existence of change.
It seems like what premise 2 and 3 are saying is that change exists only if "actuality" and "potentiality" exist, but this does not seem obvious at all; consider this alternative: change is the inherent nature of the universe and that for every event there is a temporally precedent event that is its cause.
In this alternative explanation of change, change needs no explanation outside of itself since the existence of change is due to it being the inherent nature of the universe.
Quoting Mitchell
Yes, you are correct in your suspicion.
Aquinas, who Prof. Feser has been influenced by, also thought that essence and existence were two different things and that while everything not-God was a composite of these two things, God was non-composite and that his essence was identical to his existence. Thus, the argument is stating that there is pure existence (God) and that this pure existence bequeathed to the material world its existence.
I think that, since the time of Kant and Frege, we have good reason to doubt that existence is a property.
But this explanation does not describe "change", as the word is commonly used. "Change" refers to the difference between two states. If your two states are two different events, one following the other in time, as you describe, then to explain change requires that you explain why the two events are different from each other. To say that one is the cause of the other does not explain the change from one to the other, i.e. why the one is different from the other.
That is why "potentiality" and "actuality" are introduced. At the time of the prior event, when the prior event is actual, there is the potential for the latter event. The latter event only potentially exists at this time, because even if the prior event is known to cause the latter event, something could interfere, and prevent this from occurring. So the nature of "change" is much more complicated than just a series of events.
I don't think that is correct. Feser has stated that his argument is unaffected by whether the universe has always existed or not. If the universe is eternal or has existed for all time, then it had no beginning, but Feser believes that his argument still is sound.
If the universe is a "thing" then we conclude that it has a beginning in time, (requiring the potential for that thing to precede the actual thing) like all things do, as #6 of the op states;
Quoting darthbarracuda
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl3uoCi9VjI
@15:02 Prof. Feser argues otherwise.
Yes, belleiver like me aggree with conclusion but also no-believer say they charaterisic of reality. It demonsrate absoluttenes of any name and open 2 many conclusson. Me believe in God but have no seen propper argument, only own coclusion and is no fair to others.
I don't agree with Feser's argument on that point. Notice he refers to multiple universes, which implies that this universe, as a thing, does have a beginning, coming into existence from a previous universe. So instead of actually addressing the issue, that it is impossible that our universe, as a particular thing, doesn't have a beginning, he obscures it in "many universes", dismisses it, and proceeds to talk about his preferred way of understanding the relationship between potential and actual.
I already have a problem when we get to #2. (I'm fine with #1.)
I don't necessarily disagree with #2, but we need to be very careful re just what we're saying when we claim that potentials or possibilities "exist." We need to be careful not to reify potentials or possibilities as if they are "somethings that obtain." I'm fine with saying that "there are" potentials or possibilities, but only in the sense of it being a fact that particular things are not precluded from occurring ontologically. In other words, it's another way of saying, "No facts amount to x (some potential or possible) not being able to happen."
So then we'd need to also be careful with something like this:
Quoting darthbarracuda
So that we make sure that we're not saying that something actual can do something to a possible or potential, as if the possible or potential is somehow a "thing in itself." Possibles and potentials are not things in themselves. They're simply the fact that some state isn't prohibited from obtaining given ontological facts. Possibles and potentials are only "actualized" in the sense that the nonprohibited state at time T0 (not a thing-in-itself) is the obtaining state at time T1. The idea of something needing to "act on potentials or possibles" thus doesn't make sense, which makes the argument not work.
I think this forum has rules against soliciting.
What he doesn't understand is that in physics there is no such ordering. It is a three-body problem in Statics. In such problems, every body in the problem depends on every other body in the problem. There is no ordering or hierarchy. Remove any one of the bodies and the equilibrium is disturbed so that all bodies move until they find a new equilibrium. So in his example, the cup actualises the potential of the table and the Earth to be where they are, just as much as the table actualises the potential of the cup. There can be no ordered sequence of causes.
What is ironic about this is that in a sense Feser, as a representative of the Roman Catholic orthodoxy, is less spiritual in regard to this example than is physics. The physical analysis, which is that 'everything depends on everything else' is essentially similar to the M?dhyamaka notion of Emptiness and Dependent Origination.
it's debatable whether Feser is "less spiritual", but what he does do is remove the temporal connotations from the concepts of "potential" and "actual", allowing that what is actual, and what is potential, are equal in relation to reality, at the present moment. Classically, what is actual at the present moment is what is real, and potential, referring to future possibilities does not share equally in reality. In classical Christian theology, actuality is given priority, precedence over potentiality. It is only by removing this precedence, and assuming actual and potential to have equal status at the present, that Feser is able to transpose the temporal hierarchy of temporal order, to a physical hierarchy, an order of things.
The problem is that the precedence, or priority, of actual over potential is given, validated, or justified by the nature of time. Past existence is actual (real) while future existence is potential (requiring actualization to become real). When "actual" and "potential" are removed from this context, the validity of any order, and consequently the validity of Fesesr's hierarchy, is also removed. So Feser creates his hierarchy by referring to the priority of actual over potential, but by removing actual and potential from the temporal context he negates the validity of that priority.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A48zsMFodG4
Here is a debate between Prof. Ahmed and Prof. Feser over two different arguments for God. The first half of the debate goes over the argument of change; can anyone tell me what the definition of "actuality" and "potentiality" are? In the first half of the debate, time is spent trying to answer that question and it was still hard for me to grasp the definition.
Feser (after Aristotle) isn't using the terms "potential" and "actual" in any novel manner. The sticking point is that there are some unclear metaphysical claims going on re just what the reality of potentials is prior to them being actualized. It's basically the same question as whether unrealized possibilities exist and in what sense do they exist--what sorts of things are they supposed to be, exactly?