Junior Philosophy; Why isn't a Perfect Man Complete in Himself?

                      Why isn't a Perfect Man Complete in Himself?

Can a man be perfectly virtuous and happy without having friends? Aristotle draws out in the latter part of the Nicomachean Ethics that it is not that friends are a supplement or addition to a complete life of happiness, but that even to name this state of happiness is already to include others. These are others that are virtuous friends, and it is through such friends that a man not only is inspired to act virtuously, but that he can contemplate the goodness of human life as a whole. To know of the goodness of one’s own life is a prerequisite for delighting in that goodness – i.e. in being happy. Contemplating the fullness and completeness of the good life in another leads a man to be able to have it himself.

When Aristotle brings his idea of friendship into the Nicomachean Ethics, it is in context of a well established understanding of the life of virtue. The conjunction of these two ideas naturally give rise to the question; How can a perfectly virtuous man, seeming to be already complete in himself, need friendship, which looks to be something that only those who have a falling short in themselves could need? Namely, if friendship is lacking in one’s life, would that mean the life is incomplete? How can this be if being perfectly virtuous has been established as being perfectly happy and complete?  

The question’s premises are somewhat false. Aristotle has indeed emphasized self-sufficiency (1169b6), but that doesn’t mean the self-sufficient man is an island with everything he needs in his own self, for that would be to say that man when self-sufficient becomes a god. Rather, self-sufficiency means a man chooses his activities because they are intrinsically worthy and complete in themselves, and therefore he doesn’t care what else he can gain from them (1177b1-3). He isn’t grasping to fill up a lacking in himself. So since his life is already complete, Aristotle is not asking whether friendship is needed as a means of improving the happy life, but whether it is a key component of that life.  

            The complexity here lies in the apparent contradiction between perfect happiness and human needs. It seems that often when we speak of happiness we mean a fulfillment of all needs and desires. But Aristotle is pointing out that men are not gods, and part of what it means to be merely a man is to have weaknesses that can best be made perfections through a friendship. We should be thinking of friendships based on virtuous character between two who wish each other well, not friendships of utility or pleasure, those that Aristotle calls friendships only incidentally, through a likeness to true character-friendship (1157b3). Aristotle comes to the point where, by bringing in happiness in Books 8 and 9, he brings the discussion of friendship to its deepest level, and so it is important to think of this true character-based friendship if one is to understand the nature of friendship itself. Socrates works to understand the complexity found in this deepest of friendships in his dialogue Lysis;

     … “Or what could be done to it by its like that could not be done to it by itself? Can such things be prized by each other when they cannot give each other assistance? Is there any way?”

   “No, there isn’t.”

   “And how can anything be a friend if it is not prized?”

   “It can’t.”

   “What about this, though? Isn’t a good person, insofar as he is good, sufficient to himself?”

   “Yes.”

   “And a self-sufficient person has no need of anything, just because of his self-sufficiency?”

   “How could he?”[1]

Socrates concludes this part of his dialogue by leading his interlocutor to admit that a person who needs nothing would prize nothing, and also that what he didn’t prize he couldn’t love. It seems that one must treasure another to be able to love him, and must first need something from the other to be able to treasure him.

            Aristotle has an understanding of the reason why perfectly virtuous men need friends that is more profound than a cursory reading of the Ethics would seem to point to. For there is a reason his discussion of friendship precedes the final chapters on contemplation and happiness; friendship not only expands our awareness of our activities, but is actually the way we contemplate the perfect universal man and are able to then bring that universal into ourselves and fulfill our function as man.

            Aristotle progresses in his argumentation for why the happy man will need friends in the chapter devoted to this question[2] beginning with the most known and agreed upon arguments. The third argument of the chapter is the first of many from the nature of man. He says that since man is a political animal, it would be strange for even a perfect man not to have friends, because it is in his nature to live with others (1169b19). He then makes a helpful concession; it is true that the perfectly virtuous man will not need friends of utility. Strikingly, not only is the happy man free from needing useful friends, but even from needing pleasant friends (1169b28). What then could it mean to say he needs friends on any deeper level, if he is already living a life so full and pleasant?

The argument in [1169b28-1170a4] is that the good and happy man wants to study good actions, and that this is best accomplished by observing and understanding the actions of others.

For we have said at the outset that happiness is an activity; and activity plainly comes into being and is not present at the start like a piece of property. If happiness lies in living and being active, and the good man’s activity is virtuous and pleasant in itself, as we have said at the outset, and a thing’s being one’s own is one of the attributes that make it pleasant, and we can contemplate our neighbors better than ourselves and their actions better than our own, and if the actions of virtuous men who are their friends are pleasant to good men (since these have both the attributes that are naturally pleasant) – if this be so, the supremely happy man will need friends of this sort, since his purpose is to contemplate worthy actions and actions that are his own, and the actions of a good man who is his friend have both these qualities.

The unspoken premise here for why a good man would want to study good action is that a key foundation for the happy life is self-knowledge, and that the best way to gain objective knowledge is by studying actions of good men that are not ourselves. But Aristotle has spoken of the happy life as an activity, so it is not immediately evident why true self-knowledge would be relevant. But it seems reasonable to assent because to live one’s life well cannot merely mean to conform to one’s proper function, but for a man must also entail a seeking out, a conscious choosing of the life of virtue. If he was not self-aware, he would not be aware of his own happiness, but to be happy clearly includes a conscious delighting in the goodness of one’s life.

            Yet the full strength of Aristotle’s defense of friendship as necessary for good men is not brought out until we ask why it is so important for a man to have others to observe in order to such a self knowledge, and to ask more precisely what this knowledge would consist in.  Does it not seem that a man can just look at himself to gain self-knowledge? Let’s look again at Aristotle’s account of the complete life of virtue.

           

Now if the function of man is an activity of the soul which follows or implies reason, and if we say ‘a so-and-so’ and ‘a good so-and-so’ have a function which is the same in kind, e.g. a lyre-player and a good lyre-player, and so without qualification in all cases, eminence in respect of goodness being added to the name of the function (for the function of a lyre-player is to play the lyre, and that of a good lyre-player is to do so well): if this is the case [and we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life, and this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle, and the function of a good man to be the good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate virtue: if this is the case], human good turns out to be activity of soul exhibiting virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.[3]

The function of the life of man is activity – specifically, rational activity – i.e. thought and perception, including sensation. But Aristotle has also said that the function of man is good and pleasant. So awareness of our activities is an awareness of our function, and that same awareness will be good because the function of man’s life is good.  Further, a true friend stands to one as another self. This means that not only will the happiness of one’s life be augmented by the good life of a friend, but also if one can perceive the actions of the friend as a whole – a full and complete function – that will be the way one can best see the function of man. A man becomes realized by fulfilling the activities that are proper to his nature. A friend displays man’s nature as a complete whole in a way that mere self-reflection cannot, and so shows one the function of man and gives him inspiration to perform the same rational activities that will fulfill this function.

            According to Aristotle, one can become a whole and complete man through contemplating the concept of humanity, because he says the mind becomes the form of what is thought.[4] The mind does not just become similar to the form, but becomes the form itself. In the very act of contemplating what is essential, one becomes the very same whole that he is contemplating – a man leading a complete and perfect life. Contemplating is the best activity and a man is actualized through contemplating his own species.

            Aristotle devotes a deep analysis to friendship because it is better and easier to contemplate the species of man through a friend. Friends, when they are virtuous, accord their life with reason, giving due time and significance to different activities as is fitting, and it’s easier to objectively perceive their virtues than our own (1169b33-34). When sharing a life in common, including sharing in discussion and thought,[5] friends together decide what is worthwhile. When we perceive life and decide together with them what is significant it must be against the schema of life as a whole, to be able to prioritize nobler activities or have any sort of system of comparison. So contemplating the life of a virtuous friend is to contemplate the life of man as a whole. But to contemplate man as a whole is to contemplate the species and function of man, and this contemplation leads to our own awareness of our lives as happy unified wholes. And since in true friendships we are interested in the well being of our friend for his own sake, it is easy for us to look at what is truly good for him. By our contemplation of a friend, we take pleasure in his very existence, not just each individual action, but in his life as the continual activity of the soul in accordance with right reason. Through friendship we move from taking pleasure in actions to being happy with our lives at the level of being aware and happy about our similarly continual activity of our existence.

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[1] Socrates’ Lysis, 214e-215b

[2] Book 9, Chapter 9

[3] 1098a10-20

[4] De Anima, III-5

[5] 1170b13

Junior Theology; The Universal Necessity of a Mover Derived from the First Way

Caitlin Griffith

Dr. John Goyette

Theology

4 November 2012

The Universal Necessity of a Mover Derived from the First Way

In Thomas’ first way, he argues to a necessary first mover using the more immediate knowledge of potency and act taken from the Aristotelian definition of motion. With these terms he determines two principles; everything moved must have a mover, and the thing actualizing the potency must be separate from the thing being actualized. Though it seems that one could counter Thomas’ proof with examples of self-movers, it is not so, because to be in motion, these apparent self-movers must also abide by these two principles, and therefore they too need their respective movers.

Thomas begins what he calls the most manifest of the five ways by stating that it is clear that some things in the world are in motion. This is motion in the sense of all change in nature – everyone can induce from the rising and setting of the sun, the change in the color of the trees, and man’s own change over his own life, that there is motion in nature. He speaks of this change in nature in terms of potency and act because he wants to use these terms of the Aristotelian definition of motion to establish a case for the first mover. He wants to start with two terms whose definitions don’t already imply motion because their non-motive nature makes them better known and more immediate in the science than motion of itself. An analysis of this first premise results in two middle terms of the full argument, one, that everything moved must have a mover, and two, that this mover must be a separate one.  

It is important for the soundness of the conclusion of the whole first way to understand how these middle terms of the argument follow from the Aristotelian definition of motion, ‘the act of that which exists in potency insofar as it is such’ (Physics 3.1). This definition that distinguishes potency and act is what lets Thomas argue that potency cannot actualize itself, i.e. nothing can be its own mover. For from this distinction between potency and act that underlies Aristotle’s definition of motion, one can know that motion necessitates a conceptual difference between what is in act, the mover, and what is in potency, the object moved. In the concept of motion, there must always be something reducing the potency to act, and something being reduced from potency to act.

Now Thomas must establish that these two factors must be separate, i.e. that the mover and moved cannot be one in the same respect. So he says that the potency cannot actualize itself because to actualize anything, it would have to already be in act. But clearly from the Aristotelian understanding of the term, potency is not something that ever actually exists. Therefore, by its own nature, potency cannot actualize itself. This idea is behind Thomas’ comment that

nothing can be reduced from potency to act, except as being in act, as the hot in act, such as fire, makes wood, which is hot in potency to be hot in act, and thereby moves and alters it.

 Motion necessitates a potency that is capable of being actualized (because there must be somewhere/something to move toward), and the actual state and the potential ‘after motion’ state remain separate without a mean to bring them together. This mean is motion, the imperfect act that shares in both the act and the potency of the thing.

Thus, motion has an intrinsic antagonism between what is in act and what is in potency. If they can never be one in the same respect at the same time, then for anything to be moved, there must be always be something other. Motion can not begin itself; it is essentially reactive. This understanding of its reactive nature follows from the Aristotelian term of potency and act.

Objectors to the first way may raise may say that there are examples of self-movers like the will and the projectile once it has left its source of motion. But the distinction between what is in potency and act also applies in these cases, and therefore Thomas’ first way withstands such objections.

It appears that some things, like animals, can move themselves, for from experience it seems that we move ourselves. A man’s actions will stem from the impetus of the will. Still, the will, which appears to be at rest (and thus an unmoved mover) compared to that which it moves, cannot actualize itself.  One can know this because we see first of all that the will can and does move, because animals discern and choose between different options. But anything that moves has to have a beginning (potency to act) and an end (actuality of potency) of motion. If the will were self-actualizing, it would always be in act, because the end and the beginning of the motion would be united in itself. But clearly the will is not always in act, because it does not always will one way or another, but changes. Therefore the will is not self-actualizing. It still seems one can call animals self-movers in a less strict sense though because an animal’s motion can be traced back to the will as a source of desire in the animal. But again, to claim the source and end of the desire are really one is to face a contradiction, so one can conclude there is necessarily a distinction in the animal between the part that moves and the part that is moved.

            So then what can one say about projectile motion? Once a ball takes flight and leaves the hand, it seems that it continues to move due to no power but its own. It is clear at least that the person throwing is no longer keeping it in motion. For one, the person cannot affect or change the motion with his will the way he could clearly begin the motion with his will. One also knows from experience that the thrower could be destroyed and the mobile would still continue in its movement. It is very hard to know what is actually moving the projectile once it has left its source of motion. Building upon the modern understanding of this motion as a state named inertia, Einstein has a per se causal theory that involves the idea of the projectile body pushing the space in front of it out of the way, which in turn continues to propel the body through the air.  This is a notion that says that bodies don’t need a first mover because a part (ball) and a part (space) can just move each other over and over.

However, it is not necessary to know the per se cause of the continuance of the body through the air to know that in this motion, too, there must be a first mover. The same principles of act and potency that say that all motions must have a mover and that this mover must be some other mover are enough to defend Thomas’ proof. One must first see that a projectile in motion is in a state contrary to its natural state. Somehow it has been moved into the air and continues to stay there even when it naturally abides on the ground, tending towards the center of the earth. Therefore all projectile motions need a projector, just as other motions need their acting movers. Now, one may hold that this phenomenon of the ball flying through the air is the semi-natural state of inertia rather than the imperfect act of motion. This allows for the argument that if the body can be coaxed into having this state, then it is moving of its own power, just as analogously it could be resting of its own power. Thus one may say that it only stops moving when something impedes it, and an account of an outside mover/impeder only needs to be given after the motion is slowed or stopped. But even if motion is a state of the body, it needs a projector to bring it into that state, and this projection is not caused by the body itself.

In speaking of motion as a state, objectors are actually denying that inertial motion is true motion. For a change in the movement necessitates a cause extrinsic to the ball, like an impeding wall or acceleration from the wind. And objectors and Thomists would mostly agree at least on this. Objectors would differ in regards to simple inertial motion in saying that it does not need any outside cause. But to say it does not need an extrinsic cause is to say it is not a motion. To reiterate, that is because motion requires both a potency to act and an actualization of the potency, and potency cannot actualize itself, so motion is essentially dependant upon an outside source to do the actualizing. Objectors acknowledge that all motions need a mover, because they say if inertia does not need a mover, then it is not a motion, and therefore it must be something contrary to motion - a state. So even this objection points to the universal understanding that everything that moves needs a mover. It seems that objectors might think of the mover more abstractly, though, because ‘mover’ implies foresight of the end more than a term like ‘cause.’ But at the very least almost all would agree every motion needs a cause.

            It should be noted in regards to those who hold that inertia undermines Thomas’ first way, that Thomas is not dealing simply in terms of the contained physical world and energy within the world that modern physics is limited to. Thomas concludes that there is a first mover, and when he says that this first mover is put in motion by no other, he is transcending the physical realm of to speak of its cause. If, as he argues, there can be no infinite chain of (per se) movers, then there must be a first mover put in motion by no other. And the first mover must be actual (not in potency), but not with the actuality of moving, rather, it itself must remain unchanged and non-moving. For if it was moving, it in its own turn would need a mover, but the premise is that it is the original motion. Even though Thomas begins from the materially observable phenomenon of motion, if the first mover must remain unchanged then it must transcend the physical world, because everything tied to matter changes.

Thomas is giving an account of the true being of motion that says it is essentially reactive and dependant on a separate mover, while the theory of inertia is a description of the phenomenon of bodies moving in space and time. If objectors view inertia as an aspect of the principle that the physical world’s changes always need a cause (even if they don’t see inertial motion as one of those changes), then this view is actually compatible with the account of the being of motion as essentially dependant. This, then, seems to be a principle of Thomas’ argument that is quickly understood and easily supposed by all, and perhaps that is why Thomas dubs his first way ‘the most manifest.’

Sophomore Theology; Augustine and Tychonius on Figurative Passages in Scripture

Caitlin Griffith

Mr. Kuebler, Section 2

Theology

10-16-11

If it is determined that [a passage] is figurative, it is easy to examine it in every way, having applied the rules concerning things which we have discussed in the first book until we come to the lesson of truth, especially when piety assists a practice fortified by effort.

Though Augustine and Tychonius both have comprehensive rules used to understand figurative passages, the end of this understanding is different for each of our authors. Augustine believes charity is the end of an understanding of Scriptures, while Tychonius is pursuing the understanding for its own sake. Due to these different ends, the way the rules are applied are different, and Augustine’s way is exemplified by the above passage – first he determines if a passage is figurative, then he applies his rules to it. Tychonius believes his rules will be key to any part of Scripture interpreted. Tychonius’ view might ostensibly lead him to a more superficial understanding of figurative passages, as his end does not exceed Scripture itself, while Augustine’s does, but it is Augustine who does not explore the relationship between signs and things to thoroughly discuss the thing which can be both the signified and the sign of another.

            Augustine sees Scripture as a formidably obscure work, yet it also manifests the will of God.[1] God is the author whom he calls “unchangeable wisdom”[2] and so it must also be the most profound work in history. He attempts to standardize a method of approaching this formidable work in order to make obscure passages intelligible. His method is founded on an understanding of the relationship between signs and things.  “A sign,” he explains, is a thing which, over and above the impression it makes on the senses, causes something else to come into the mind as a consequence of itself.”[3] So a sign indicates a reality, and he further explains that this reality can be either spiritual or comprehensible, i.e., something we can know in the world. His example of smoke signifying fire is a basic sign-thing relationship. But when he moves onto figurative signs, the thing signified is now more than the sign, exceeding it in some way, to the point where the understanding based on the sign is not immediately intuitive. Augustine gives the example of the word ‘bos’ representing the reality of ‘ox,’ but ‘ox’ is also a figurative sign since it indicates the spiritual reality of evangelist. The sign causes the mind to connect the reality to the sign because there is some similarity between the sign and the signified. He says one can increase one’s understanding of signs and things through mastery of many languages, a grasp of literary devices,[4] and an knowledge of comprehensible things like the things of natural science, numbers, and history.  

Tychonius’ rules also use the relationship between signs and things to understand the figurative in Scriptures. However, it is the different end of each method that causes differences in the methods themselves. Augustine believes the end of the understanding of Scriptures is charity. It is clearly manifested throughout On Christian Doctrine that he thinks charity is the end, and he says, “we should clearly understand that the fulfillment and the end of the Law, and of all Holy Scripture, is the love of an object which is to be enjoyed, and the love of an object which can enjoy that other in fellowship with ourselves.”[5] Thus, errors are relativized as long as the end goal of charity is achieved. He says

If a man draws a meaning from them that may be used for the building up of love, even though he does not happen upon the precise meaning which the author whom he reads intended to express in that places, his error is not pernicious, and he is wholly clear from the charge of deception.[6]

For a similar reason, Augustine explains that interpreting passages in many varying ways is acceptable, because charity may be achieved by many different means. He says,

If a man, in searching the Scriptures endeavors to get at the intention of the author through whom the Holy Spirit spake, whether he succeeds in this endeavor, or whether he draws a different meaning from the words, but one that is not opposed to sound doctrine, he is free from blame so long as he is supported by the testimony of some other passage of Scripture.[7]

Scripture may be used to explain itself since the Holy Spirit guides the whole of Scripture, and therefore the end of the whole will be the end of all passages. This end can even relativize Scripture itself. “Thus,” he says, “a man who is resting upon faith, hope and love, and who keeps a firm hold upon these, does not need the Scriptures except for the purpose of instructing others.” After all, if the end is accomplished, the means is no longer necessary. This is reinforced in Christ who tells us to relativize passing realities since,

…so far as He has condescended to be our way, is willing to detain us, but wishes us rather to press on; and, instead of weakly clinging to temporal things, even though these have been put on and worn by Him for our salvation, to pass over them quickly, and to struggle to attain unto Himself, who has freed our nature from the bondage of temporal things, and has set it down at the right hand of His father.[8]

Tychonius’ goal of understanding is simply that very understanding of Scriptures, both as a whole and in specific passages. Thus he does not utilize doctrine, being somewhat outside Scriptures, as Augustine does. Augustine says “Whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative.” In this text one sees that Augustine identifies a figurative passage by its literal contradiction to doctrine, and that he limits the figurative in Scriptures to specific passages. His method is to first determine if a passage is figurative or not, and then to apply the rules on sign-thing relationships that he has created. Tychonius, on the other hand, thinks his rules are the keys that must be known to draw a spiritual, eternal meaning out of all of Scripture – thus seeing all of Scripture as potentially figurative.

Tychonius claims that his rules are not just guidelines or mere examples of proper interpretation, but the very keys to open the secrets of Scripture.[9] So although Augustine says they are too specific to be applied to all passages,  and so fall short of truly laying everything open, this is not what Tychonius would say about his rules. Rather, as mortal tongues perpetually change and modify their languages, the Divine language preserves the integrity of the whole of Scriptures because it is regulated by these rules – which clearly must also be of Divine origin, since it’s not as if God is applying his thoughts to rules that preceded Him. These rules preserve the unity of the message of Scripture from the Old Testament through to the New. Tychonius says, “For there are certain mystical rules which hold the key to the secret recesses of the whole law, and render visible the treasures of truth that are to many invisible.” This strong claim leads one to think it must be the rules themselves which unify Scriptures, in order that the whole law can indeed be known through them. If one think of these rules as the same rules with which the Holy Spirit wrote the Scriptures in the first place, and as those rules around which the whole of Scripture was built, then not only is his claim legitimate, but the notion of Tychonius trying to obtain an understanding of Scripture for its own sake holds good. If an understanding of Scripture were the end, it would follow that the way of knowing how its signs and things related would be shown from within. Unlike Augustine, who is creating a standard method first to determine what should be figurative and then to interpret them accordingly based on patterns he sees in sign-thing relationships, Tychonius believes his rules arise organically out of the text itself. Augustine speaks of obscurities being placed in the text by God to foster charity, as he says one finds something worthier if it is harder to understand. Tychonius, whose goal is only to understand the meaning of the Divine author, would say that they are not obscurities any more than other passages if one could only manage to see these seven pillars of Scriptures in them, which constitute and direct all the truths of Scripture.

Though Augustine’s purpose for reading Scripture is more profound,  while Tychonius is approaching Scripture a bit like a rhetorician, it is Tychonius who explains more thoroughly complex sign-thing hybrids, those things that also signify something else. In light of charity as the end of Scriptures, Augustine only provides a method of understanding spiritual realities, which plays into charity, by signs. He omits, however, offering a method of understanding the signs of the Old Testament as prophecies of Christ.  

Augustine says that a thing is that which is not used to signify anything else, like wood, stone, and cattle, and he says they are not the things like the wood Moses threw into the water, the stone Jacob slept on, or the ram Abraham sacrificed in place of Jacob.[10] Later, however, he undermines this with the example of ‘bos,’ ‘animal ox,’ ‘evangelist,’ because in this example the animal ox doubles as both the thing signified and the signifier of something else. It is a sign that is both literal and figurative. But in an attempt to dispel confusion between carnal and spiritual realities, he says, “Whatever there is in the word offered either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative,”[11] and there is left to the reader the decision to read a passage as one of two possibilities; literal or figurative. It seems where the literal sense fails, the figurative sense must be employed.

This is derived from his desire to come to understanding about general spiritual realities that will lead one to charity. For this reason he does not present a method of interpreting a sign of the Old Testament so that it prophesies something about Christ and His Church, though it is clear he understands how one could do so. For example, he says, “(Christ) healed on the Sabbath, and the people, clinging to these signs as if they were realities, could not believe that one who refused to observe them in the way the Jews did was God, or came to God.” Here Christ is shown to be both he who rests by coming to God, and God himself, in who man finds rest. Christ is both the thing signified by the prophecy of the Old Testament and the signifier of a Divine reality, namely, his own divine nature. The omission of a method to understand Christ and His Church as both sign and signified is obvious when Augustine refuses to explore how the wood of Moses prophesies the cross of Christ, or how the stone or the ram prophesy something of Christ and His Church. He may be unsure of how to apply Christ as the core of sign-thing relationships because he is unsure of how Christ can be the end of Scriptures along with charity.

This is why Augustine employs Tychonius heavily at the end of Book 3, which completes the discussion of understanding Scriptures. Tychonius, who believes his rules can be applied to any part of the Scripture to derive a figurative meaning, is unhesitant to show an Old Testament sign as a prophesy of a New Testament thing of Christ or His Church, for example when he portrays the carnal nation of Israel as a prefigurement of the spiritual reality of the Church. While Augustine determines if a passage is figurative based on its contradiction to doctrine, and then applies his method, Tychonius is only concerned with using the rules that Scripture is built upon to achieve an understanding of Scripture as a whole. While Augustine sees the Old Testament relating to the New because they both share in spiritual realities, like when he describes the signs in Genesis as a means to an understanding of heaven[12] (the goal in some way of charity itself[13]), Tychonius would tend toward using signs of the Old Testament as a means to an understanding of the realities of Christ in the New.

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[1] 3.1.1 “The man who fears God seeks diligently in Holy Scripture for a knowledge of His will.”

[2] 1.8.8

[3] 2.1.1

[4] 3.29

[5] 1.35.39

[6] 1.36.40

[7] 3.27.38

[8] 1.34.38

[9] 3.30.42

[10] 1.2.2

[11] 3.10.14

[12] Book 1, Chapters 1-4

[13] 1.4.4 - “in order to reach that fatherland where our enjoyment is to commence”

Sophomore Philosophy; Extraordinary Alteration; the Suffering of Coming to Be Able to Sense and the Suffering of Sensing Simply

Caitlin Griffith

Ms. Day, Section 2

Philosophy

4-16-12

Extraordinary Alteration; the Suffering of Coming to Be Able to Sense and the Suffering of Sensing Simply

            In 178 of Chapter 5 of Book II, Aristotle lays out two kinds of suffering. One, he says, is a kind of destruction due to the contrary, while the other is the preserving of a being in potency by a being in actuality. Later in this chapter he defines the sense power when he says ‘The sensitive in potency, however, is like the sensible now in actuality, as was said. Therefore, not being like, it suffers, while, having suffered, it has been made like and is such as is that [sensible].’ His conclusion is that between the two kinds of suffering that sensing might be, sensing is the preserving of a being in potency by a being in actuality. He wants to complete the idea that the sense power is in potency, that it is acted upon by the sensible objects, and that it has the potentiality to take on the forms of these sensible objects. Though it is tricky to work out what kind of suffering sensing is because Aristotle does not speak of act and potency simply, and while it may at first seem that the suffering of sensing is a standard alteration, what is evident is that sensation is a suffering not of destruction and replacement, but of an actualization and preservation, of the capacity of the sense power itself. And while coming to have sense power in the first place may be loosely said to be an alteration, the movement from the having the sense power to actually sensing is really a fulfillment of the nature of the soul, and so this kind of suffering cannot be called an alteration at all or it can be said to be a strange sort of alteration.

            Though actuality and potentiality have been treated on fairly thoroughly throughout Book 2, Aristotle introduces two complex kinds of potency in 176 of Chapter. In Chapter 1, Aristotle brings up potentiality and actuality often, even making the distinction between the thinking and considering kinds of actuality. Yet it is only after he speaks of the sense power as a passive potentiality that it is important for him to make further distinctions that one sees in Chapter 5. He lays out the sense power as potentiality in 171 when he says;

“It is clear therefore, that the sensitive is not in act, but only in potency; whence it does not sense, just as what can be ignited does not ignite itself through itself, without what can ignite.”

This determination will lead him to discuss how the sense power is moved or suffers later in Chapter 5. Before that, however, he will explain a more complete account of potentiality and actuality that he has in mind to apply use in his different kinds of suffering.

Knowledge is a good example to use when introducing ideas about kinds of potency and actuality because with knowledge one either A) has knowledge of something and uses that knowledge, B) has no knowledge, or C) has knowledge and does not employ it. It is useful for later to note that these are analogous to three ways a person may sense. A person may be brought from no knowledge, i.e, raw potency, to some knowledge. This new knowledge they gain still leaves them in a state of potency, because they have the potency to employ the new knowledge – to actually think about it. It is clear from experience that man doesn’t have to be thinking about the knowledge in order to retain it to think on later. Aristotle says in regards to knowledge of a specific letter of the alphabet at the end of 176 “the one already considering is being in actuality and is chiefly knowing this A.” So here we see that is it the knower who is in actuality, not the knowledge. The knowledge remains unchanged whether or not Man #1 thinks, just as the capacity to be heated remains unchanged whether or not Pot #1 is heated.

            Since there are two types of potency, there are two types of change from potency to act. Aristotle says in 177 of the two types of knowers in potency, “one is altered through learning and changing often from the contrary state, while the other, from having sensation or grammar, though not being at work {in act}, [changes] to being at work {in act} in another way.” The first kind of alteration is the change from raw potency to developed potency, because the man is brought from ignorance to knowledge. The second kind is from an already developed potentiality to the actualization of this potentiality. It’s a little tricky here to sort out the different uses of actualization, since it seems it can be applied both to the developed form of potentiality, and to the further employment of that potentiality (e.g. both to the man who knows how to read and to the man who is actually reading). The important thing to note is that the two types of change from potency to act are either 1) a change from not having to having or 2) a change from simply having to putting to use.

            These kinds of potentiality and actuality are not as simple as they were previously in Book 2, and appropriately, neither are the sufferings involved in the different kinds simple. This is where a key text comes in, where Aristotle says, “Neither is suffering simple, but one sort is a kind of destruction due to the contrary, while another sort is rather the preserving of a being in potency by a being in actuality and by something similar in the way that potency is related to actuality.”[1] It is good to note that right after that passage Aristotle brings up the question of whether these sufferings are alterations or not. The first suffering he described is not an alteration simply speaking because just as in his example from ignorance to knowledge, it seems the first quality is destroyed and the second quality is replaced. He also says in that passage of the first sentence of 179 that the second kind, the change from having knowledge to considering, is either not altering or is a different kind of alteration. This suffering is the preserving of a being in potency by a being in actuality that one can anticipate him applying to the sense power in 183. This suffering does not fit neatly into the existing definition of alteration because it is an actualization rather than a destruction, and it is an actualizing of a pre-existing capacity rather than a becoming other. The stricter account of alteration one may compare here is described in On Generation and Corruption; “When the change… is with respect to passion and being such and such, it is alteration.”[2] He also uses the example of the musical man passing away and an unmusical man coming to be, making sure to note that the underlying man must remain the same. It seems alteration is usually said in regards to the qualities of a thing, like when green replaces red in the apple, the red of the apple can be said to have been destroyed. We have to apply a looser understanding of alteration with something like coming to know or the capacity to sense, because in becoming an animal and gaining sense power or in coming to know, it’s not a transition between two contraries in the same genus, nor are they even passions in the way spoken of in On Generation and Corruption. This is why calling gaining sense or gaining learning merely a kind of destruction[3] makes sense.

            While this quasi-alteration can be said of the first kind of suffering of 178, the movement to gaining the sense power, the second suffering, the change from sense capacity to sensing is either not alteration or is a different kind of alteration than the standard concept. Aristotle emphasized why it is inappropriate to speak of this change as a normal alteration when he says “Whence, it is not well to say that the one judging, when he judges, is altered, as neither is the house builder when he builds.” Instead, it is when the house builder builds it is then that he is actualizing his capacity to build. Actualizing the capacity to build does not destroy or replace the capacity to build, as would be true for a standard alteration. Likewise actualizing the capacity for sense perception does not destroy that capacity, as we know that the sense power may receive sensible objects over and over. In a standard alteration, one something would have to be replaced by a contrary something in the same genus. Instead, with this second suffering, the builder seems even in some way to be renewing his capability to build by building, a fulfilling of the nature of ‘capable to build’.

           

To compare this strange way of alteration to the first suffering of 178, we know that in learning the state of ignorance is destroyed and the state of knowledge replaces it. But when the knower employs the knowledge, and similarly, when the one who is capable of sensing senses, it is a renewing or preserving of that which is employed. That is why Aristotle speaks of the second sort of suffering as the preserving of a being in potency.

Aristotle has used this idea of preservation before when speaking of the nutritive power. In 166 of Chapter 4, he says of the nutritive power, “Whence such a principle of the soul is a power such as to conserve the one having it, as such, while food helps it to be at work.” While the actualization of the nutritive power preserves itself in the life of the animal, which is its primary object, the actualization of the sense power preserves the soul in that it preserves the sense capability of life of the soul.

So both motions, from raw to developed potentiality and from developed potentiality to its exercise, cannot be called standard alterations. In the one, In the other, we see Aristotle presenting the alteration either as not an alteration at all or as a strange sort of alteration. He purposely includes these seemingly incompatible notions because we see that actualizing a capacity is not an alteration at all, yet if we do want to use the language of alteration, it has to be spoken of in the peculiar second way of suffering that he presents in 178, and not in the first way.

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[1] 178

[2] On Generation and Corruption, Chapter 4, 320a1.

[3] 178

Freshman Seminar; Achilles' Suffering and Destiny

Achilles’ Suffering and Destiny

The conflict of Achilles when he must decide between a destiny that will lead to his heroic glorification and one that will entail a long life, is more than a personal conflict. It characterizes the complexity and difficulty of a Homeric hero in action. The question of whether Achilles chooses the right destiny is based upon a deeper question about life, death, and the transition between the two. Though the hero hates and fears death, he chooses rightly when he chooses to face and accept it in battle, because but it is his mortality itself that makes him a hero, he dies not only for personal glory, but more transcendently, for the glory of a song that lives on.

            It is clear that Achilles does not want to fight and die. While he lives, the hero is god-like and loved by the gods. To die, in opposition to that, it “to have one’s knees and limbs ‘undone,’” and to “go into the dark.”[1] When a hero dies, he is seized by hateful darkness, and taken to a murky underworld about which little is know to mortals. This is what the hero faces every time he goes into battle, and Homer emphasizes that the soldier would prefer not to fight – the Achaeans rush for their ships, and Achilles, after considering that both the cowardly man and the man of action must die eventually, loses his incentive to fight. Death is always on his mind, and he describes his life, including the fighting and ravaging the Troad, ‘constantly exposing my own life in battle’.[2] When he is speaking to Lycaon he says “I too am subject to death and cruel fate: there will be a morning or an evening or a noon-day, when someone will take my life in battle, hitting me with a spear or arrow from the bow-string.”[3] No hero is exempt from fear. Achilles himself is frightened by Agenor’s spear, and later, seemingly facing an inevitable death by the River Scamader, he is told by Poseidon, “Do not tremble too much nor be afraid.”[4]

            In spite of this, that fear that accompanies the idea of inevitable death for Achilles and the Homeric hero, it is his mortality itself that makes him a hero, so Achilles choice to embrace death is inextricably linked with his identity, that of a hero. Sarpedon says to Glaukos, “… could we but survive this war to live forever deathless, without age, I would not ever go again to battle, nor would I send you there for honor’s sake! But now a thousand shapes of death surround us, and no man can escape them, or be safe. Let us attack – whether to give some fellow glory or to win it from him.”[5] One sees that if the hero really was god-like, as he is often described, he would be exempt from the pressures of death and age, which include incentive to live a virtuous and courageous life. This is also evinced by the actions of the gods, who are consistently less virtuous than mortals. They lack that awesome virtue of heroism, courage, because if they are wounded in battle they can be instantly healed, for example, (Athena). They don’t make sacrifices for each other, neither in the sense of offering up a sacrifice, as humans do, nor in the sense of allowing other gods to have their way, at least not out of charity or compassion.  Their relationships, romantic and otherwise, lack the depth and intensity of mortal relationships that set couples like Penelope and Odysseus apart. The hero will die a hero’s death, and it will be a dignified and glorious one, but that death haunts him during life and gives his life both purpose and limitation. In light of this understanding of mortality affecting virtue, Achilles acceptance of death and suffering is an intrinsic part of his being a hero.

            A great incentive to face death for the hero is personal glory. Throughout The Iliad, we hear about ‘deathless glory’ and ‘widespread glory’ over and over. When Lord Phoinix is attempting to coerce Achilles to fight with them, he tells a story about a hero of old who was coaxed out of his anger with gifts. At the end he says, “Value the gifts; rejoin the war; Akhains afterward will give you a god’s honor. If you reject the gifts and then, later, enter the deadly fight, you will not be accorded the same honor, even though you turn the tide of war!”[6]  Other Homeric heroes demonstrate the importance of personal glory; Hector is hoping to slay an Achaean champion who answers his challenge, because if he does, he plans to allow him to be buried by the shore of the sea, so that passing sailors will be able to say; “That is the grave of a hero of olden time, who bright Hector slew in combat.”[7] When Achilles learns Patroklos has been slain in battle, he exclaims, “Likewise, if destiny like his awaits me, I shall rest when I have fallen! Now, though, may I win my perfect glory and make some wife of Troy break down…”[8] Achilles chose a heroic destiny, short life, and eternal glory, rather than a long but inglorious existence, and when Patroklos is dead he accepts his own death.

            However, glory is not straightforward, simply existing to be won by the hero and playing the role of consoling the hero for his death. Helen sees herself as the cause of all the trouble, whose sin has produced suffering for everyone. She asks Hector to sit down, “Come here and rest upon this couch with me, dear brother. You are the one most afflicted by harlotry in me and by his madness, our portion, all of misery, given by Zeus that we may live in song for men to come.” Helen is a legendary figure, not because of great accomplishments, nor for feminine virtue, like Penelope’s loyalty, but for her guilt and suffering.  Suffering produces song, and by song man comes to understand that suffering is universal to all men, comes from the gods, and must be accepted. Achilles contributes to this overarching truth of suffering through his death both by accepting his death in accordance with the will of the gods, and providing material for song for future generations.

Personal glory is not enough of a consolation for the Homeric hero. Achilles chooses the heroic path, and is filled with bitterness as he thinks about Agamemnon’s treatment of him. Agamemnon tries to persuade him to come back and fight with great gifts that represent the honor he will bestow on him, as we see when Phoinix says, “If you return to battle without the presents, you will not be so highly honored, even if you repel the attack.”[9] For Achilles, though, the gifts have lost their symbolic value in light of the humiliation he received from Agamemnon. If he has been treated in such a way after fighting like a true hero, risking his life and fighting with his men, then here is no honor to be won, since the weak coward and the strong hero must die alike. From this mindset, the thought of inevitable death is no longer a stimulus for the hero, as it is how Sarpedon describes it to Glaukos. This is where Achilles is contemplates going home without glory, for it seems equally reasonable to die of old age in bed at that point. He is right to ask for impossibly large sums of gifts, because mere things cannot be worth a man’s life. Achilles doesn’t return for the gifts, nor does he ever shake this cynical attitude about heroism.  Speaking to Priam in the last book, one notes that he still sees war in an unheroic light. Similarly in the Odyssey, Achilles, who is in the underworld, rejects the compliment that he is the mightiest in the underworld, because he would rather be in the lowest position on earth than the highest in Hades. He bitterly asks, “what joy have I in it, that I have endured the war to the end?”[10] This view sees heroic accomplishments and virtues in the light of the suffering they bring about.

Achilles is right and true to choose death, because his identity as a hero cannot be without his mortality, and facing inevitable death is the greatest way to display and embrace his mortality.  He dies rightly for personal glory, but even more so, he sacrifices a long life for the sake of the glory of a song, which explains to mortals both the greatness and fragility of man.

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[1] 18.11; 23.51, The Iliad.

[2] 9.322.

[3] 21.110.

[4] 20.380; 21.288.

[5] 12.362-369.

[6] 9.525-530, The Iliad

[7] 7.105

[8] 18.140

[9] 9.401

[10] 11.570, The Odyssey.

Freshman Math; 'The Organization of Euclid's 'Elements'

                                'The Organization of Book One of Euclid's 'Elements'

Euclid’s method of organization contributes to the consideration of the truths he is trying to prove, and gives an example of how to organize information, quite a feat when one considers all the ways to approach the large body of knowledge of geometry which he pares down in his Elements. The name ‘elements’ indicates that which is more simple, into which the composite is divided. So things that are more like principles are elements of those things related to the principles as results, as postulates are elements of theorems. Euclid founds his investigation on common notions, to make them reasonable, and moves organically from the more simple to the more complex. To do this he orders the movement through each individual proposition similarly and he orders all the propositions within the book according to his preference, and therefore do not necessarily need to be ordered so to come to the same truths. Euclid’s method of organization reflects the pattern of organization that is natural to man.

            The propositions have a general order that can be seen in some way in all of them. At the beginning of each proposition, there is the enunciation, where he says what he wants to prove. Euclid sticks to embracing theorems in general terms, and this is seen in his enunciation. For example, in Proposition 2 of Book 1, the enunciation reads, “To place at a given point (as an extremity) a straight line equal to a given straight line.” To divide his demonstration of this theorem into something more specific would make it more difficult to understand, like if he actually gave a point at a certain location instead of calling it a given point, which indicates that any point one wants to use will be compatible with the truth of the theorem. In this way the truth of his propositions may be adapted in a broader setting, and this is important when he must build upon them in later propositions.

            After his enunciation, there is the ‘setting out,’ in each proposition,

in which he says what is given and adapts it beforehand for the audience. The definition comes next, in which he tells us how the given applies to the enunciation and shows what he needs to prove specifically.

            In the construction, Euclid adds what is needed to the given to find what is sought. He often speaks in a way that is reminiscent of creation, with the words, ‘let there be…’ For example, in Proposition 2, his construction reads, “From the point A to the point B let the straight line AB be joined; and on it let the equilateral triangle DAB be constructed.” God uses the same language of creation in the book of Genesis when he creates the world – the words that pronounce them so make them so.  

            After the construction, the machination draws the inferences needed by reasoning from previously acknowledged facts. In Book 1, the previously acknowledged facts are his definition, postulates, and common notions. One must assume these to be true before any more truths can be made manifest. Of course, as the book progresses, the truths from previous theorems may contribute to this body of knowledge. Finally the proof is stated, returning to the given to confirm it.

             Besides the general ordering within the propositions, there is a different sense of ordering within Book 1 of each of the theorems or constructions. Book 1 may be likened to a novel in which the Prop 47, the Pythagorean prop, is the climax of the plot. It seems that Euclid is pressing to prove the Pythagorean prop, which is why he begins his Elements with figures instead of, for instance, magnitudes. Book 1 progresses through each general understanding of geometry needed to understand and prove prop 47, but instead of sticking strictly with the bare minimum of theorems, he is willing to veer off slightly from this ‘plot’ to prove other theorems that will be useful in later books. For example, Proposition 41 is necessary, where he proves that ‘if a parallelogram have the same base with a triangle and be in the same parallels, the parallelogram is double of the triangle.’ Within this theme, he also explores relationships between parallelograms and triangles in the next few propositions following 41, and discusses truths about parallel lines, equal parallel lines, and parallelograms in the seven or so props before it. He does this though they are not immediately necessary for Prop 47.

            Euclid’s ordering of Book 1 and all his books imitate the way that man orders his world naturally. He begins with general manifest notions and postulates, as well as truths about figures that are immediately present to our sense of logic, and from there he dissects and divides the truths of geometry according to the pattern that he deems best. In a similar manner, man can order the animals he encounters into different species and genus’ and this division is far more immediate to our senses than the divisions into classes and orders, which are as arbitrary as Euclid’s decision to order his first book around the Pythagorean theorem. This is why Lineaus says in his Systema Naturae that ‘the classes and orders are arbitrary; the genera and species are natural.’ Euclid’s order is logical within each proposition, naturally built upon the first and most know things, and subjectively ordered by him in each book.