Pure Actuality

Many scholastic theologians, most notably Aquinas, make the claim that God is "pure actuality." This is supposed to do a lot of philosophical and theological "work"; it is by showing that there exists a being which is pure actuality that Aquinas is able to deduce many of the divine attributes. However, it is not immediately clear what this even means if one is not familiar with the metaphysical context of medieval philosophy.

A charitable interpreter who has read some medieval philosophy may be able to see how scholastics use this claim and identify certain inferences from this claim as being valid and others not. But it'd be nice if we had a more precise characterization of what it means to say God is 'pure actuality', so that we can see if all that Aquinas says follows actually does follow from this claim. Moreover, once we have a precise characterization of what Aquinas is even asserting, we can begin to more clearly assess the plausibility of the claim itself and whether Aquinas has established it. I propose the following definition:

• x is pure actuality if and only if for all (intrinsic) P, if x is P then x is actually P.

For completeness and wider scope of application, I also propose the following definitions of a thing's being 'composed of' or 'having' actuality and potentiality:

• x is composed of potentiality if and only if for some (intrinsic) P, x is P and x is potentially P
• x is composed of actuality if and only if for some (intrinsic) P, x is P and x is actually P.

The Critique of 'The Critique of Pure Reason' II: Preface to the Second Edition

In this post I'll note some areas of concern I have from an Aristotelian-Thomistic (henceforth just 'Aristotelian') point of view with Kant's B-edition preface. Again, as I said in my first post, this isn't really meant to be a summary of Kant's views, but more along the lines of a set of notes.

One thing which already indicates Kant has a different conception of reality than an Aristotelian realist view is his description of logic toward the beginning. Kant says that logic is "the science that exhaustively presents and strictly proves nothing but the formal rules of all thinking." But a realist will want to ask why logic is defined in terms of its applicability to our thoughts rather than to mind-independent propositions or even objects. After all, since Kant's time, many different logics have been developed, and we can think in terms of any of these if we want to. But this says nothing about which one more correctly describes reality. Of course, what Kant will want to argue is that what I am calling "reality" is actually a product of human cognitive capacities. So the difference to note here between the two views is not so much of whether logic is to be applied to reality, but rather, what reality refers to.

A second point of interest is Kant's discussion of mathematical knowledge at Bxii, where he takes as his example that of a Euclidean triangle. Kant uses this point to illustrate how he thinks it is that we acquire mathematical knowledge. What I would focus on though is his view that, more generally, Euclidean geometry is necessary. For Kant, a judgment is necessary if and only if it is a priori. The problem is that we now know that Euclidean geometry is not, in fact, necessary, since it doesn't even accurately describe the physical universe. So either euclidean geometry is not a priori or Kant was wrong to include necessity as part of something's being a priori. But it seems rather clear euclidean geometry was formulated a priori if anything was. So it must follow that not all a priori cognitions are necessary. But this is okay for the Aristotelian. The Aristotelian method of doing metaphysics or science has never been equivalent to discovering necessary truths which are wholly a priori; rather, it is empirical. We can delineate what is metaphysically possible and impossible through a priori reasoning and we see whether our theories correspond to empirical reality.

Kant's view of the a priori goes with his view of metaphysics. He defines metaphysics as "a wholly isolated speculative cognition of reason that elevates itself entirely above all instruction from experience." Not according to an Aristotelian view however. As Aquinas states in 'De Veritate', "Whatever is in the intellect was first in the senses." Of course, the reason Kant wants to make metaphysics a wholly a priori discipline is because he wants the certainty which he thinks the method of previous thinkers cannot provide. In his own words Kant thinks that "up to now [i.e. up until Kant] the procedure of metaphysics has been a mere groping, and what is the worst, a groping among mere concepts." But the Aristotelian wants to ask why it has only been a "mere groping among concepts"? For one, the metaphysician does not need to limit the scope of his inquiry to concepts, at least if we don't hold to the view that metaphysics must be a priori. As regards "mere groping," admittedly, we cannot be absolutely certain our metaphysical theories are true; but this is a far too strict condition upon knowledge which, were it not for Descartes, we would not think was necessary.

In the next post I will focus on the second half of the preface, examining Kant's solution to the problem of metaphysical knowledge as he sees it.

Aristotelian-Thomism vs. Quineanism on Ontological Commitment

I recently got the Chalmers volume dealing with the foundations of ontology. I've been interested in this question for the last few months, and here are some of my thoughts on the matter.

Most philosophers these days accept the Quinean view that one is committed to whatever one quantifies over. If I say there are colors, i.e. (Ex)(x is a color),  and I think my saying is true, then I am committed to the existence of colors, end of story. Most contemporary debates as in the Chalmers volume are between those who hold to this Quinean view and a few people who want to revive some of the distinctions of Carnap.

From an Aristotelian-Thomistic perspective, the dominant Quinean view is incorrect for a few reasons. First of all it is wrong to say that metaphysics is just about finding what there is or listing an ontology. As this volume shows, many if not most philosophers these days accept this definition. Rather, ontology is just one part of metaphysics, the ultimate purpose of metaphysics being, in the spirit of Aristotle, the study of being qua being, i.e. the study of the fundamental nature of reality. This involves not only ontology, but also finding the essences of things and finding the various relations of ontological dependence these things stand in to each other.

Also, I think there is some confusion in the modern Quinean conception of existence, where being quantified over is taken to be being simpliciter (in Thomistic terms). On the contrary, there is being simpliciter, then the various diminished senses of being (being secundum quid, in Thomistic terms), as for example the being privations have or being in potentiality. Many of the things we quantify over might have being in one of these imperfect and diminished senses, but just because we quantify over them doesn't mean we have to conclude they have being simpliciter. This makes ontological questions quite trivial. For instance, of course there are numbers and numbers have being; one need only observe the fact that 2 is a number. The real question is finding out whether they have being simpliciter or being secundum quid, what categories of being they fall under, and in what relations of ontological dependence do they stand? Interestingly, in this volume, Kit Fine and Jonathan Schaffer seem to come to similar conclusions, though I don't think Fine is rigorous enough to be convincing to other philosophers already steeped in Quineanism. I'd like to write a paper on this at some point so as to make the Aristotelian position a bit more clear than Fine does.

Adam, Eve, Darwin, and Aristotle

There has been a lot of brouhaha lately over an article by John Farrell regarding the doctrine of original sin as understood by Catholics (and I suspect most conservative non-Catholic denominations) and its compatibility with modern theories of the origin of humans. Edward Feser has posted a response which documents the fracas and describes a very good Aristotelian answer to the whole ordeal. I'd suggest it as prerequisite reading for my own post here, as he lays out more fully the metaphysical presuppositions I'm working with.

In the combox of Feser's post, a commenter lays out the following dilemma. Granted what Farrell says about genetics, either
(1) Adam and Eve both mated with non-humans, and all of the organisms we now consider humans are descended from either Adam or Eve
or
(2) Some of the organisms who we now consider human are not in fact metaphysically human. They are merely biologically human.

I think the first option would be the way to go, though I wonder if the existence of certain of Dr. Feser's detractors provides evidence for the second suggestion. ;-) In seriousness though, it seems hard to accept the idea that some people are not metaphysically human. Agere sequitur esse--"action follows being"--and the fact is that, in the absence of any physical deformation, everyone we know of acts like a normal human being, or at least the vast majority of people do. There's not a significant part of the population which is truly brutish. Moreover, we might use the idea that Adam and Eve's descendents mated with non-humans to explain some supposed discrepancies in the Bible. For instance, in Genesis 4:17 Cain has children by his wife. But if Cain and Abel are the only listed descendents of Adam and Eve, where did the woman come from? Well, maybe from some of the hominids who had not been given rational souls. Since it is most consistent with everyday facts as well as theology, the first claim seems the more reasonable view.

However, the commenter brings up the interesting problem that this hypothesis could some day be falsified by genetics. First, we might simply bite this bullet, though as a matter of fact I'm not sure if it's entirely correct to say that we can test this genetically. (I honestly don't know, though I vaguely recall from a biology course this not being how modern genetics works.) But second, there's an interesting point I'd like to make which should make this a little less unappealing. I would say that our first parents could have been even earlier hominids and that this possibility should make our theory nice and unassailable again:

Consider Dr. Feser's conclusions. He shows that even if there were 10,000 members of the biological species homo sapiens, this wouldn't prove that they were all metaphysically human. But we can look at this another way as well:

For all we know, God infused the rational soul into an earlier biological species. Of course, it's open to analysis of the anatomy of earlier species whether it would have been possible to infuse a rational soul into them, since as Feser points out a certain amount of physical development is a necessary condition for having a rational soul. However, I'd suggest that the amount of physical development necessary may be less than one might suspect. Here's why: I think that for every biological species there is some particular form characteristic to that species; after all, the form is the principle of life for any living thing, and the natural ends of a given form determine how a particular organism will develop. Since homo sapiens members develop differently from, say, homo erectus members, it follows that in some sense they have different natural ends (at least with regards to physical development) and we should conclude that they have different forms. This isn't very controversial really. To quote Feser:

"In fact, some A-T philosophers would hold that the specific genetic and phenotypic traits typical of homo sapiens sapiens are not even essential to human beings considered as a metaphysical category: Anything that was both animal and rational would arguably be “human” in the relevant sense, even if it had a body plan radically different from ours. "


But what this means is that having the particular form that we have is not necessary for being a human being metaphysically speaking. The only things necessary and sufficient for being a human person is to be both rational and an animal.

This is an important point. Since having a homo sapiens form isn't strictly necessary for being a human being, this means that the amount of physical development necessary for exercising rational faculties will be different for each form. So having a smaller brain would be an impairment for a member of homo sapiens, since this is a defect relative to the homo sapiens form. But having a smaller brain may not be an impairment for a member of homo erectus. In fact, a brain the size of a very dysfunctional homo sapiens may very well be the brain size of a flourishing homo erectus. I think that this, in conjunction with the fact that the operations of a rational animal's intellect are primarily immaterial and suited by God particularly for that species' form, shows that there could have been fully functioning, rational animals in earlier hominid species. And we could have very well descended from a pair of these.

As an example to make my point clear, consider elephants (dolphins may be a similar case). These animals exhibit some of the most intelligent behavior in the entire animal kingdom. They'd seem to be ideal candidates in case God felt like endowing another species with intellect and will. Now, although elephants have much larger brains than we do (they weigh 11 lbs.!), God could endow them with an intellect which exercised the exact same functions we do, and metaphysically speaking we would all be on the same plane; we'd all be humans--homo sapiens, elephants, and all. In the same way, although we have larger brains, God could have endowed earlier hominid species with intellects particularly suited to their physical form which could have carried on rational functions just like ours do. Since they would have been both rational and animals, they would have counted as humans.

This is in many ways speculation. But in any case, I think the point still stands that we should be able to apply Feser's reasoning backwards. God could have infused rational souls into even earlier hominid species, and all human beings on this God's green earth could have descended from a pair of these hominids who were first endowed with that rational part of human nature. This line of reasoning might help to throw our theology back into the comfortable realm of unfalsifiability and consistency with modern genetics.

Aristotelian Relativism

On the Aristotelian account of ethics, what is "good" for an agent depends on that agent's essence/nature/form as well as that form's characteristic natural ends. For example, it is good for a dog to reproduce, eat and drink, and have fully working senses, the reason being that reproduction, internal equilibrium, and various types of perception are some of the natural ends (in Greek, 'teloi') of a dog. When it comes to us humans the general outline remains the same, though we will have some differences insofar as humans are essentially different from dogs, and hence characterized by different natural ends.

Now, it seems plausible to think that there are necessary ethical truths. For instance, it is always wrong for people to torture little children just for the sake of it. But could the above Aristotelian account contradict this? It seems that, given human evolution, the conditions whereby natural selection brought about the existence of humans might have brought about evil counterparts, call them "anti-humans." All of their natural ends would be inverse to ours. For instance, while it is good and fulfilling of our ends to protect others, for the anti-humans it might be good and fulfilling of their ends to commit murder. Similarly, it might be good for them to rape, torture children, commit genocide, etc. Hence, what is good or bad is simply relative to whether you are a human or anti-human. Call this idea "Aristotelian Relativism."

There are a couple of ways an Aristotelian could get out of this relativism. First off, there is the theistic route. Given God's existence and the idea that goodness is grounded in his nature, this would provide an objective basis for the good which holds across all possible worlds. This prevents the instantiation of any species whose ends include raping and murdering their young, or something of that sort, thus making the anti-human scenario strictly speaking impossible.

There are also a couple of ways for a non-theist Aristotelian to respond. The first is to bite the bullet and say that such things which appear horrendous to us (and indeed are horrendous for us) would not be horrendous for some other kind of thing. It's not a reply we might like, but that's exactly what we should expect given that it is contrary to our nature to do these sorts of actions. When we see rape, cannibalism, and slaughter in the lower animals, though we are likely to be disturbed, we nevertheless admit that it is natural to those animals to bring about and flourish from these types of suffering.

A second and maybe more satisfying way to respond is to say that such a scenario is not metaphysically possible for a species of rational animals. Remember, though they may disturb us, we already acknowledge that cannibalism, slaughter, and forced sex can be fulfilling for some lower animals, as there are examples of this found in the natural world. But with rational animals it is different. Aristotle understood the essence of man not to consist in our purely biological properties, but rather in our rationality; hence, "rational animals". It is from this that he derived the virtues and goods that we already acknowledge. But that means that for anything which can be classified as a rational animal, it will be wrong for it to do the things such as murder, rape, and torture. Hence, the idea of an "anti-human" turns out to be contradictory. If anti-humans are rational animals, and Aristotle's derivation of the natural ends of rational animals is correct, then it's metaphysically impossible for murder, rape, and torture to be good for such creatures. Anti-humans, then, are metaphysically impossible, and the things we understand to be good for persons are necessarily good after all.

Essences and Truthmakers

After reading David Oderberg's book Real Essentialism I've been concerned with getting a clear understanding of what "essences" are. Essences are not substances in themselves, over and above the entities which have them. On the other hand, they are supposed to provide explanatory power for the objects that have them, and they are supposed to have a specific sort of causal importance, in Aristotle's terms what is called "formal causation". In trying to make sense of these notions I have found truthmaking to be somewhat helpful (provided of course we have a good account of truthmaking). Here's an analysis:

Essence: For any entity X the essence of X is the truthmaker of the proposition that the real definition of X is [such and such].

To begin with, let's be clear about what exactly a truthmaker is. A truthmaker is some fact or aspect of reality in virtue of which a truthbearer, such as a proposition, statement, belief, etc., is true. How exactly is truthmaking helpful here? Well, it describes a real aspect of a thing.

Kit Fine provides a popular neo-Aristotelian definitional account of essences, saying that we can give real definitions of not only words, but entities, in order to explain what they are. These real definitions of objects are their essences. More work needs to be done on getting to the heart of what real definitions are and how we come to know them. (A possible account of what they are, which I am now somewhat doubtful of, is here.) But provided we have a clear understanding of this, Fine's account certainly seems to be on the right track, especially in the face of the failure of some modalist accounts. But according to the classical account, essences not only make things to be what they are; they provide explanations for causal powers. Definitions, which are linguistic entities, obviously do not.

As Kathrin Koslicki puts it in her paper "Essence, Necessity, and Explanation", "A definition, according to Aristotle, is a formula or statement of the essence, i.e. of what it is to be a certain kind of thing." She continues, "On Aristotle’s way of thinking, then, the explanatory power inherent in definitions, in their role as the linguistic correlates of essences, is a direct reflection of the causal power of essences." Since real definitions are the linguistic correlates of essences, truthmaking provides a way to get back to the essence itself.

Aristotelianism and the Christian Worldview

Originally posted here.

Introduction:
Throughout the centuries the Christian tradition has had a love-hate relationship with Aristotle. His logic and metaphysical categories provided strong tools for developing and formalizing such classic doctrines as the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity. On the other hand, he famously held that the universe was eternal and that there was no first man such as Adam, putting him at odds with Christian belief. Yet in the midst of this conflict, there is much to be gathered and adopted by the Christian. Here I’d like to examine a few of Aristotle’s ideas about the essences of things and see how they relate to the Christian view of man.

Essences:
The first thing to note is that humans, along with every other kind of thing, have “essences” or “natures”. An essence is simply that in virtue of which a thing is what it is. It’s what makes the definition of a thing true. It’s also the grounding of a thing’s essential properties, i.e. those properties which are intrinsic to that type of thing. Without essences we could not form inductive laws, we could not differentiate between kinds of things, and we couldn’t even properly define our concepts.

Essences entail that things have natural ends or functions (what Aristotle calls the “telos”). It would be incorrect to understand “function” in terms of the functions of human artifacts such as wheels or fishing rods. Rather, things have functions in the sense that they function in a certain natural way. So we can see clearly that by their very essences things like dogs or snakes have natural functions, including sensory perception, reproduction, self-change, and sustenance. This is what makes it good for them to pursue certain goals, like eating food or reproducing. To generalize, it is good for them to fulfill their functions.

This may seem irrelevant, but it has truly significant consequences for us as well. It gives medicine a normative structure, making sense of the strong and reasonable intuition that things such as broken bones or tumors are defects, while other things such as firmness of muscle or thorough digestion are indicators of health. It means that we all have certain functions which it is objectively good for us to fulfill. This can provide a foundation for objective morality and a guide to living our lives. Thus understood, essences are both indispensable and significant.

The Christian Picture:
So what is essential to humanity? Well, recall that essences are what differentiate things from entities of other kinds. In attempting to discover our essence then, it would be useful to see how we differ from other things. We share some characteristics with non-living things because we too are made of matter and have mass. But we are different from them precisely in virtue of the fact that we are alive. We are different from some living things like plants due to our sensory capabilities which we have in common with other animals. Yet we humans can be distinguished even from these creatures by our rationality. Unlike other animals, we can abstract from concrete particulars to general universal truths. Thus, humans are by their very essence rational animals.

How well does this fit into the Christian view of things? Consider the idea that God is a being with infinite knowledge, and thus an intellect. In Romans 11:33 for instance, Paul the Apostle praises God’s omniscience: ” O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God!” Aristotle’s view confirms precisely what the believer says, that is, that humans are by their very essence endowed with an intellect and will like God’s. As Genesis 1:27 says: “God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.” Every human, male and female, is essentially made in God’s image.

We can also conclude from Aristotle’s view that, because humans have an essence with natural ends, there are some things that are objectively good for all of us, and that these objective moral truths are available to anyone who uses his or her reason and conscience. This confirms what we find in Romans 2:14-15: “For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these, having not the law, are a law to themselves. Who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them.”

Much more could be said about all of these ideas. Yet it becomes clear how strongly these Aristotelian theses can be used to support what the Christian affirms. Hence, there is much fruit to be found by the Christian in the Aristotelian tradition, making the ancients very worthy of our attention.

Real Definition

In attempting to define things we can end up with a large amount of vagueness. For example, take the case of a kitty. When someone asks "what is a 'kitty'?" it is clearly insufficient to simply list properties which hold truly of it. For instance, in reply one might say that it is something small, furry, and cute. This would all be true. But that doesn't really help us to get at what a kitty is, does it? What we need here is not a mere nominal definition. We need a real definition.

The most precise and clear way of getting to a real definition is by what is called "genus-species classification". One must not confuse this with something like "biological species" which are these days based off of evolutionary lineage. In terms of giving real definitions of things, it usually has very little to do with that. The easiest way to understand this is with set theory and venn diagrams. In terms of set theory, a genus is just a type of superset and a species is a type of subset. A superset counts as a genus when all of the members of its subsets share certain particular attributes in common. A subset counts as a species when its members all have some special attribute which demarcates them from the members of the other subsets. This difference is called the "specific difference". So with the case of the kitty, the genus is "cat", since kitties have all of the attributes necessary to be included in the genus (superset) of cats. However, a kitty is different from other cats insofar as it is young. So the specific difference is the attribute of its youth. This creates a separate species from other cats, such as adult ones who have the specific difference of mature age. Maybe the venn diagram above is illuminating.

So to get a real definition of kitty we take the species and genus, giving us "young cat". Hypothetically, one could do this with any given natural kind of thing.