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Is Spinoza a monist or a dualist? It’s not that clear cut.

LECTURE 4: SPINOZA’S MONISM

What is a monist?

You’re a monist if you think that there’s only one TYPE of thing in the universe.
OR
You’re a monist if you think that there’s only one particular THING in the universe.

The latter entails the former, but not vice versa.

For Descartes, God is the only substance in the strict sense that exists in itself and is conceived through itself. Minds & bodies (the physical universe) are substances in a distinct & weaker sense. A body is a mode of Space & you cannot have this without the whole of Space. God can destroy a body but not its substance without destroying all other extended things. In contrast, a Cartesian finite mind is distinct & independent of all other finite minds.

Spinoza denies these Cartesian distinctions. Substance is one & indivisible:

P1 = “A substance is prior in nature to its affections.” – evident from D3 & D5. – we can grant the conditional – IF a substance exists, THEN it is the case that it’s prior to its affections - but we haven’t been persuaded of the actual existence of anything that corresponds to the definitions.

P2 = “Two substances having different attributes have nothing in common with one another.” – evident from D3. Each substance must be conceived through itself or the concept of one substance cannot involve the concept of another. – why do the attributes not overlap? He seems to be helping himself to an assumption.

P3 = “If things have nothing in common with one another, one of them cannot be the cause of the other.” – evident from A5 & A4. – this comes from Spinoza’s causal rationalism. For Spinoza, a cause = intelligible connection = one that can be ‘seen’ = rationally intuited by sufficiently enlightened mind. This is the basic model of causal containment; the effect is somehow contained in the cause.

P4 = “Two or more distinct things are distinguished from one another, either by a difference in the attributes of the substances or by a difference in their affections.” – There is nothing outside the intellect apart from substances & their affections (modes). Therefore, outside the intellect there is nothing through which a number of things can be distinguished apart from substances & their affections. – similar to Leibniz’s famous Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles; there’s no differentiation without difference/numerical distinction. If there are two things, there must be a way in which they’re different/discernible from each other.

P5 = “In Nature there cannot be two or more substances of the same nature or attribute.” – If there were two+ substances, then they’d have to differ in their attributes or affections (P4). Can’t distinguish between them because we can only conceive of each substance through itself i.e. no comparison can be made. – the proof seems awkward. This is a pivotal proposition; if it doesn’t work, then Spinoza has a significant problem. It turns on the requirement that two substances be really distinct.

P6 = “One substance cannot be produced by another substance.” – because of P5 two substances can’t share attributes & by P2 two substances have nothing in common. According to P3 if two substances have nothing in common, they can’t cause each other. From this, it can be reasoned that a substance can’t be produced by anything else. Since only substances & their affections exist & substances cannot be caused by other substances, then nothing caused the substance’s existence. – this proof better expressed as a dilemma – If S1 causes S2, then EITHER they share an attribute (violates P5), OR they don’t (violates P3). This is metaphysical proof against creationism – God can’t have created the world.

P7 = “It pertains to the nature of a substance to exist.” – since nothing else can cause a substance to exist, existence must necessarily reside in its essence. – we are still stuck with the conditional from P1. IF a substance exists, THEN it pertains to its nature to have existence as its essence. Spinoza claims that if man truly put his mind to the nature of substance, he would put P7 in amongst the axioms. (this supports the idea that the Ethics could be rewritten and that the geometric order is not necessary to his theory).

P8 = “Every substance is necessarily infinite.” – For a substance to exist, it must exist either finitely or infinitely. It can’t be finitely, as that would mean it must be limited by something else of the same nature (by D2). This would mean that there would be two substances of the same attributes that exist necessarily. By P5, this is absurd. Being finite is a negation, an absence of something. To say that a substance is finite would be to deny existence in its nature in some way, which is absurd.

Goes on to say that if someone properly asserted their mind & considered substance, etc., they would see that P7 is correct. To say otherwise would be absurd. Asserts some other propositions – i)the true definition of a thing involves nothing other than the nature of the defined thing, ii)no definition involves any certain number of individuals, iii) there must be a cause for each existing thing, iv) this cause must either be contained in the nature of the existing thing or outside of it. Principle of explanatory rationalism; there must be a cause for the individuals that do exist & a reason for why a different number doesn’t exist. Not enough just to show the cause of something, have to explain why it wasn’t a different way. So there can’t be number in the definition of substance (by ii) & there cannot be a number of substances. – Spinoza is treating ‘infinite’ as equal to ‘unlimited’. Based on the idea that every determination is a negation; once something is finite, it negates/limits something else/possibilities.

P9 = “The more reality or being each thing has, the more attributes belong to it.” – evident from D4. – so long as we can prove that there’s only one substance with all reality & all attributes.

P10 = “Each attribute of a substance must be conceived through itself.” – because an attribute is a way of conceiving a substance, it can only be conceived through itself. They express ways of being. – does this commit him to panpsychism? Spinoza is a monist about substance, but a dualist about attributes.

Spinoza - revision.

Pretty sure I missed out some crucial stuff on this one, but the lecture notes were just…incomprehensible. I reckon this is probably the basic structure.

LECTURE 3: SUBSTANCE, ATTRIBUTE, MODE

Substance

D3 = Substance: something that’s conceived through itself. Its concept doesn’t require another concept to form it.

What is conceived through itself is what exists in itself.

Substance could be:

The ultimate subject of predication
A substratum of change (Aristotle)

Hume would criticise Spinoza, claiming that he has confused logical and causal dependence. Spinoza could argue that they aren’t completely distinct. To understand a physical mode is to understand how to construct it. This is a causal analysis, which claims that finite things are properly conceived through their proper causes.

Attribute

D4 = Attribute: what the intellect perceives of a substance’s essence.

Wolfson favours a subjective reading of Spinoza’s attributes, but this has attracted criticism: surely the intellect perceives that something is the essence of a thing because that thing’s essence is that perceived something. The intellect doesn’t make it so, it only mirrors the reality of things.

However, if the objective reading is more preferable, then Spinoza is vulnerable to Descartes inference to substance dualism. Descartes claims that extension and thought are the essences of two distinct kinds of substance. If Spinoza intended the objective reading, why did he include the subjective clause? So it seems that one substance must have many essences.

Mode

D5 = Mode: the affections of a substance (e.g. my body is a mode of substance).

Modes are modifications of a substance, generally conceived through one attribute or another. He distinguishes between infinite and finite modes. Infinite modes include the universal laws of motion and rest and the laws expressing how the attribute works. These can be derived from a proper understanding of the attribute, but you cannot do this for the finite modes. There is no derivation from ‘God exists’ to ‘Amy exists’. Does this block Spinoza’s necessitarianism, as there’s no proof for finite modes?

So I am a mode, not a substance:

My body = a mode of substance, conceived under the attribute of extension
My mind = a mode of substance, conceived under the attribute of thought

These two are one and the same thing conceived/described in different ways.

Spinoza - revision.

LECTURE 2: THE GEOMETRICAL METHOD

Spinoza’s Ethics is written in a geometric form using dry language & is based on Euclid’s Elements. This method is pretty off-putting and risky – if you don’t accept a certain Axiom, then the following argument & proof will be ineffective. So how seriously should we take this format?

Pure Rationalism = the axioms possess the special property of self-evidence. The theories follow deductively from these, so evidential support is top down.
Weak/Pragmatic Rationalism = the axioms are propositions that Spinoza thinks his readers will accept. The theories follow deductively from these, so evidential support is top down.
Hypothetico-deductive System = the axioms are arbitrary. The theories follow deductively from these, but the evidential support is bottom up – our only reason for accepting the axioms is because of the theories that they entail.
The geometrical method is a rhetorical ‘distancing’ device to get us thinking objectively about the passions, etc.

Steven Nadler = the geometrical method mirrors the order of Spinoza’s doctrines. As the human mind comes to better mirror the divine mind, the necessity of the theorems following from the necessary axioms become apparent. So the geometrical method produces an ‘emendative therapy’ in the human mind (it corrects as it critically observes).

The Euclidean order = a synthetic order to enable the reader to understand. The geometrical method is a teaching device. Spinoza may have come up with the doctrines in a different way, but laying them out this way makes them appropriate for a textbook. If this is so, then how does the mind arrive at the first principles? What would a Spinozist version of the Meditations look like?

So what is the status of the axioms? Some of the axioms in Part 2 are clearly empirical and Parts 3-5 follow deductively from these arguments in Part 2, so they’re obviously not entirely a priori. This offers support for the weak/pragmatic rationalist reading of the Ethics – no one is really going to deny that man thinks. However, Part 1 might still be meant to be 100% a priori.

So what about the status of his definitions? Spinoza favours the constructive definition of ‘circle’ because it shows really possibility by showing how the thing is to be constructed. If Spinoza intends his definitions to be stipulative, then they can’t be denied, as he’s stating that that is how he’s going to use those terms, so they can’t be false. However, then it seems that he’s just creating a palace of ideas. Perhaps Spinoza means the definitions to be real, applicable to the real world and capture the essence of the defined terms. However, this begs the question of why other philosophers haven’t used the same definitions, if these are the correct ones.

DEFINITIONS:

D1 = Cause: something that has an essence involving existence. It cannot be conceived except as existing. – existing things have existence in essence.

D2 = Finite: when something can greater can be thought of in something of it’s own kind. (eg, a body is finite because we can conceive a greater body, but it’s NOT finite because it is limited by a thought.) – so bodies are limited by other bodies and thoughts are limited by other thoughts?

D3 = Substance: something that’s conceived through itself. Its concept doesn’t require another concept to form it. – contrast of things and properties of things. Properties only conceived through the thing it is a part of.

D4 = Attribute: what the intellect perceives of a substance’s essence. – this is subjective. The intellect perceives these attributes or the person or are they the same thing?

D5 = Mode: the affections of a substance (eg, my body is a mode of substance).

D6 = God: absolutely infinite being, a substance consisting of infinite attributes. Each attribute expresses eternal & infinite essence. (says absolutely infinite because if it was just infinite, we could conceive of attributes that do not pertain to it.) – but we only know of two attributes, thought & extension. Bennett says that Spinoza is using ‘infinite’ to equal ‘all’. Perhaps ‘infinite’ can mean 2 in this case.

D7 = Freedom: something that exists only from its own necessity. It determines its own actions. – this implies that only God acts freely, since our actions and existence depend on other things.

D8 = Eternity: existence itself.

AXIOMS

A1 = “Whatever is, is either in itself or in another.”

A2 = “What cannot be conceived through another, must be conceived through itself.”

A3 = An effect must necessarily follow a determinate cause. If there’s no determinate cause, it is impossible for an effect to follow. – this is the strong version of determinism.

A4 = “The knowledge of an effect depends on, and involves, the knowledge of its cause.” – but this seems false. There are many effects that occur without knowledge of the cause. Presumably Spinoza has a higher definition of ‘knowledge’ in mind.

Spinoza - revision.

And so begins the revision. *sobs*.

LECTURE 1: WHAT IS RATIONALISM?

Although 17^th and 18^th century philosophers has traditionally been grouped into either the rationalists or empiricists camps, it has been criticised that they are not to clearly distinctive. There are elements of theories from both groups that are more like the other, e.g. Descartes’ claim that a priori knowledge can only show that the universe is mechanistic & can’t provide detailed knowledge of these mechanisms suggests that empirical experimentation would be required to provide this knowledge. Locke employs the a priori cosmological proof to prove the existence of God.

Lisa Downing suggested that there shouldn’t be a divide between the two concepts at all. They should be viewed as opposite ends of a sliding scale.

This blurring of the lines begs the question whether the term ‘rationalist’ is any use? John Cottingham says yes. He views the concept of rationalism as a cluster concept – there are a group of common conditions and factors that seem to appear in most things that we consider rationalist, though it’s impossible to determine which are necessary or sufficient. He gives a list of 6 characteristics that mark a rationalist:

Distrust of senses as a source of knowledge.
Trust in reason as a source of knowledge.
Belief in innate ideas/principles.
Belief in a rational order of Nature that the human mind grasps & ‘mirrors’.
Belief that causal relations are necessary.
Reliance on a mathematical model for human knowledge.

The presence of a sufficient number of these traits is enough to warrant calling someone a ‘rationalist’.

So is Spinoza a rationalist?

Distrust of senses – he claims that the senses can never provide an understanding of why p is true. He puts sensory knowledge at the bottom of his 4 kinds of knowledge.
Trust in reason – the 3^rd type of knowledge, rational intuition, is the highest type of knowledge. He claims that the 2^nd type of knowledge, deduction from common notions/demonstration, is aspiring to the 3^rd.
Belief in innate principles/ideas – our minds are modes of the divine mind itself, so it has the tools to identify what is c&d; there isn’t room for scepticism.
Belief in rational order of nature – he claims that every intelligible ‘why’ question has an answer. Spinoza uses explanatory rationalism to address questions of existence & non-existence.
Belief that causal relations are necessary – Axiom 3! = An effect must necessarily follow a determinate cause. If there’s no determinate cause, it is impossible for an effect to follow.
Reliance on mathematical model for human knowledge – Spinoza’s Ethics is based on Euclid’s Elements.

Ancient Philosophy

This is my second essay and my last! I will never write a formal essay like this for my degree. Ever. EVER. Wow, that’s weird. Anyway, this one is on Aristotle’s account of phantasia/imagination. Enjoy!

Explain Aristotle’s account of phantasia in De An. III.3. What is the point of the famous sun example?

Aristotle’s method of defining phantasia in III.3 is to first state what it is not, before providing an account explaining what it is. Although phantasia is commonly translated as imagination, this is questionable. For the purposes of this essay, I shall simply use the term phantasia and not attempt to use an English translation, thereby avoiding inaccuracy. As one of our cognitive faculties, Aristotle shows that phantasia is not one of those faculties that we might call ‘supposal’. This includes knowledge, belief and understanding. Phantasia is distinct from this category and he shows this through argument in III.3. The famous sun example is used to demonstrate his argument that phantasia is not a combination of belief and perception. I shall explain the progression of Aristotle’s arguments in III.3, providing Schofield’s interpretation of this account alongside. Ultimately, I shall claim that Schofield’s account only provides what we might deem a sub-category of phantasia and cannot be thought of as the complete definition in itself.

He begins his account by distinguishing the two characteristics that are thought to define the soul: motion and thought. Aristotle goes on to resist the ancients’ notion that thinking and understanding are a form of perception. He claims that if this were so, then all animals that perceive would have understanding and this is clearly not the case; whilst all animals perceive, not all can understand. Thinking is not the same as perceiving, because the perception of special-objects is always true, whereas one can think something falsely. Aristotle then states that whilst phantasia is different from both thought and perception, it does not occur without perception, whereas thought does not occur without phantasia. Phantasia and supposal are linked, but ontologically distinct.

In the next passage, Schofield finds what he has stated are two marks of phantasia. Aristotle claims that phantasia is at the mercy of our will; we can conjure images before our eyes as we wish. He also states that when we experience phantasia, we are affected in the same way as if we were viewing a picture. Whilst Schofield claims that phantasia should not be thought of as imagination simpliciter, he uses these criteria as support for his assertion that we should not abandon all connections to the concept of imagination. Indeed, these two characteristics are arguably central to our notion of imagining. When I imagine myself at a beach with a cocktail, that act is completely within my control. Of course, it might be too simple to claim that I am affected in the same way as I would, were I viewing a picture; however, this does not entail that the second criteria is misguided. We can interpret Aristotle’s claim as analogous; it is not the same as viewing a picture, but it is the passivity of the act that should draw comparison. It seems reasonable to claim that imagination should at least be included in the concept of phantasia.

At this point in III.3, Aristotle sets up his investigation into whether phantasia can be identified with perception, belief, knowledge or intellect. He then goes straight on to provide five reasons why phantasia should not be equated to perception. Firstly, something may appear to us when we are not seeing. He clarifies that perception is either a potentiality, like sight, or an actuality, like seeing and when we dream, for example, neither of these are present. Therefore, they are not the same thing. Secondly, if perception and phantasia were identical, then animals would have phantasia. Aristotle claims that whilst all animals perceive, not all have phantasia. Thirdly, there are perceptions that are always true, i.e. special perceptibles. This is not the case for phantasmata, as they can be and usually are false. The fourth reason Aristotle provides is that phantasia involves doubt and perception does not. It is not when we accurately perceive that we say that ‘it appears to be…’ this is said when we don’t clearly perceive. The fifth and final reason against identifying phantasia with perception is that you can have visual perceptions with your eyes closed. One might consider this to be a restatement of the first reason that Aristotle provides.

Schofield uses the fourth of these arguments to claim that phantasia is not perception. Schofield claims that phantasia is not simply imagination, sensory-perception or a faculty for creating mental images. He argues that phantasia is what happens when we doubt our perceptions or feel sceptical of their validity. For Schofield, it is non-paradigmatic perceptions that define phantasia.The fourth of Aristotle’s reasons states that phantasia involves doubt that forces us to state that something ‘appears to be…’ rather than confidently stating what it is. This supports Schofield’s characterisation of phantasia, as doubt and scepticism are precisely what characterise phantasia on his account.

Aristotle’s next step is to argue against the idea that phantasia is the same as knowledge or the intellect. He claims that phantasia isn’t “any of those things which are always correct, e.g. knowledge or intellect,” (III.3 428a17-18) because imagination can be false. It is clear that Aristotle is considering knowledge and intellect to be states of cognitive success. This characterisation of knowledge and intellect is similar to that of accepting an axiom. It is neither true nor false, it is simply that you either successfully grasp the information or you do not. This disjunction is different from the nature of phantasia, which is usually considered to be false.

The next claim that Aristotle sets out to refute is that phantasia is identifiable with belief. He claims that it is not, even though belief can be true or false like phantasia. Belief implies conviction, which in turn implies persuasion. According to Aristotle, persuasion requires rationality. Whilst some creatures possess phantasia, they may not also have rationality. If they do not occur simultaneously, then they cannot be thought of as the same.

So far, Aristotle has refuted the identification of phantasia with perception, knowledge and intellect, and belief. He moves on to consider whether phantasia could be a combination of belief and perception, since both of these can be true and false like phantasia. Here we have the famous sun example. If belief and perception are to be the same as phantasia, then they must have the same content. It must be “the blend of the belief in white and the perception of white,” (III.3 428a29) that will be phantasia. If this were the case, then we must believe that our perceptions are correct. However, Aristotle claims that this is not always the case and uses the sun as a counterexample. Whilst we perceive the sun to be small in size, we believe that it is not, that what we see is not representative of the true nature of the object. In this case, our belief and perception do not match, so they cannot have the same content. Therefore, this shows that we can have beliefs and perceptions about the same thing that are not the same, so phantasia cannot be identified with a blend between the two.

Schofield claims that the sun example is an instance of phantasia because it is expressed in language that implies doubt. Aristotle writes that “the sun appears a foot across, although we believe it to be bigger,” (III.3 428b3-4) which employs the attitude of doubt that Schofield believes to be necessary for his account of phantasia. This example falls under the category of a non-paradigmatic perception and so should be viewed as an example of phantasia.

The rest of III.3 depicts what some call Aristotle’s ‘causal’ analysis of phantasia. Having shown that phantasia is not identical to perception, knowledge and intellect, belief or a blend of belief and perception, Aristotle provides an account of what phantasia is. Since phantasia is not the same as thought, it must be a type of movement that does not occur without sense-perception. We know this as he began by defining the two characteristics that define the soul, movement and thought. As this is the case, phantasia can only occur in that which perceives. The phantasmata may be either true or false, although it is usually false. Aristotle then goes on to define the three different types of perception. A perception of a special-object is always true. A perception of an incidental-object that harnesses the special-object can be either true or false. We are not mistaken in our perception of their being white; it is the object that has this property of white that we may mistake. A perception of a common-object that belongs to the incidental-object, such as movement or magnitude can also be either correct or incorrect. Movement comes as a result of these perceptions and will itself vary, depending on the type of perception that inspired it. Since phantasia can be either true or false, it must be inspired by sensory perception of either the second or third kind.

This account could challenge Schofield’s claim that phantasia is a non-paradigmatic perception. Aristotle has claimed that phantasia is necessary for movement, showing this through animal movement: beasts move via phantasia because they lack reason, humans move via phantasia because their reason is obscured. If it is necessary for movement, then how can it only be defined by cases that include caution or doubt? In response to this, Schofield claims that there are different types of phantasia, depending, it seems, on species. Non-rational animals can visualise, therefore they have phantasia. Whilst it seems entirely plausible that Aristotle included a spectrum of phenomena in his account of phantasia, Schofield has resolutely claimed that phantasmata are the result of doubt. It seems ad hoc and incompatible with his characterisation for Schofield to claim that Aristotle viewed phantasia as different depending on faculties.

I have explained Aristotle’s account of phantasia, whilst avoiding identifying it directly with imagination. Although Schofield’s characterisation of phantasmata seems plausible, I do not think it can be a satisfactorily comprehensive account of phantasia. Whilst non-paradigmatic perceptions that invoke doubt certainly seem to fit the two marks of phantasia that Schofield identifies, I do not think he successfully defends his account against the objection involving movement as a necessary condition of phantasia. This is detrimental to his argument.

Ancient Philosophy

So this is one of my formative essays for my unit on Aristotle. I warn you, I think it’s pretty poor - I haven’t even read it through yet. Of course, it doesn’t contribute towards my final grade, so I’m less than motivated. Anyway, enjoy!

Are Aristotle’s four causes in fact four becauses?

In chapter 3 of his Physics, Aristotle identifies four causes. He is attempting to investigate the nature of knowledge and claims that we cannot know something unless we can answer the question “’on account of what?’” (II.3 194b20-21, p.98) when considering something. In other words; Aristotle states that we must find the primary cause of something in order to know that thing. He then goes on to identify different types of causes, which famously consist of Aristotle’s four-cause account. Many have claimed that the translation of ‘aitia’ to ‘cause’ is an uncomfortable one. The modern usage of the term ‘cause’ is very specific and when considering Aristotle’s account, one should not think that Aristotle is using the term in the same way. So this leads to the question of what exactly are the four causes if they are not, in fact, causes? In this essay I will argue that the four causes are better thought of as explanatory factors, like Moravcsik claims. The question regarding ‘becauses’ is an allusion to Hocutt’s reading of Aristotle’s account. Although I agree that the best way of considering Aristotle’s usage of ‘cause’ is as an explanation, I will support Mure’s challenge of Hocutt’s justification.

I will first outline Aristotle’s theory. For convenience, I shall still use the term ‘cause’. The material cause refers to what constitutes a thing. Aristotle considers a bronze statue and states that the bronze is what the statue came out of; this is its material cause. Moravcsik correctly points out that this particular aitiai is poorly labelled; something of the same category could be neither a cause nor material, as something may have an abstract cause and be abstract itself. He claims that this particular cause is better thought of as a constitutive explanatory factor. It refers to what constitutes the thing in question.

The articulation of a thing’s essence is what is commonly called the formal cause. This is the expression of the form of something; in building a table, you have realised the form or ‘blueprint’ of that table and this is its formal cause. Again, Moravcsik clarifies that this cause should not be identified with the definition of a thing, as this implies that the formal cause can be separated from the thing in question. Moravcsik reasons that a thing’s form or essence can be based on structural specifications; he gives the example of a species, whose essence includes its functional aspects that depend on the structural features of that type. A biped’s function of walking relies on the biological arrangement and structure of the body, which enables walking to take place. Thus, Moravcsik claims that the formal cause is more accurately thought of as the structural explanatory factor.

The efficient cause is that which brings a thing to rest or inspires motion. It is reasonable to suppose that this is the nearest account to the modern use of the term ‘cause’. Aristotle uses the example of a father being the cause of his child, referring to the fact that the father helped make the child come into existence. All examples that Aristotle uses refer to the immediate cause, rather than acknowledging a chain of causal events that lead to the change occurring. This is similar to the modern notion of a ‘cause’. Moravcsik claims that this aitia is best characterised as the motion-initiating explanatory factor.

The last cause is known as the final cause. Aristotle is here referring to the end or the purpose of a thing. He states that “health might be what a walk is for” (II.3 194b35, p.98), showing that the final cause is that for the sake of which a thing is done. Since the final cause is concerned with goals, ends and functions, Moravcsik reasons that this can be thought of as the functional explanatory factor. It is a broad category that could refer to potential actions, the completion of a specific action, or the essence of a thing. As Moravcsik states, there is no separate ontological class for causes of this type.

Aristotle states that one thing can have more than one of the different types of cause, but it need not have all four. He refers again to the example of the bronze statue, claiming that both the bronze and the sculptor are causes of the bronze statue. This claim supports the notion that the term ‘cause’ is a misguided translation. Whilst something may have more than one cause, it fits the example better if we consider the causes to be explanatory factors that culminate in a complete explanation for the statue.

Hocutt argues that the four causes are best known as the four ‘becauses’. Using the word ‘cause’ as a translation leads to misguided criticisms of Aristotle. As we have seen, Aristotle explicitly states that these aitiai provide answers to ‘why’ questions and these answers, so Hocutt argues, usually begin with ‘because…’ He claims that ‘becauses’ is an awkward term, so ‘explanations’ is a more elegant and more accurate way to describe these distinctions. Hocutt goes beyond this claim, stating that Aristotle’s explanations are equal to syllogistic demonstrations and the evidence for this can be found in Aristotle’s logic. Here, Aristotle states that the middle term of a syllogism is often the cause; Hocutt uses the example of Socrates dying to demonstrate his point. If the question is ‘Why did Socrates die?’ and the answer is ‘because he drank hemlock,’ then, according to Aristotle, the ‘because’ statement follows the ‘why’ question and precedes the conclusion. It is the middle term:

“Those who drink hemlock die;

Socrates drank hemlock;

Therefore, Socrates died.” (Hocutt, p. 388)

So Hocutt’s claim is that the aitiai, commonly known as the four causes, are better thought of as components that complete syllogisms. He agrees with the claim already made, that the efficient cause is the only one of the four types that at least approximately befits the modern notion of the term ‘cause’.

Although I agree with Hocutt’s claim that since the aitia are supposed to answer ‘why’ questions, they would be better thought of as explanatory phenomena, I must concur with Mure’s criticism of Hocutt’s logical defence. For Aristotle, his account of knowledge and the four types of cause or explanatory factor are primarily ontological. Since this is the case, it would be strange for Aristotle’s theory of causation/explanation to be rooted in his logic. Mure claims that “causation is primarily a principle of Being.” (Mure, p. 356) He states that Aristotle’s theory of causation is closely connected with his theory of change and activity, hence why ‘cause’ or ‘explanation’ has four different shapes. So it seems that Hocutt’s justification for abandoning the term cause is misplaced. If the four causes are not, in fact, four ‘becauses’ that occupy the middle term of a syllogism, then Hocutt’s appeal to Aristotle’s logic is unfounded.

In addition to this criticism, Mure adds that abandoning the term ‘cause’ would lead to confusion. Mure claims that the primary meaning of aitia is not ‘explanation’, so this replacement would be misguided and inaccurate. He provides no argument for this claim, assuming that, I presume, translators have been well aware that there is no term in the English language that is a “perfect fit” (Mure, p. 356). Mure states that using ‘cause’ as an English replacement for aitia is conventional; philosophers are aware that it does not translate accurately, so Mure does not see the need to dispense with ‘cause’. It is difficult to resolve this dispute, since Hocutt claims that we must desist using ‘cause’, as it leads to unfounded criticism of Aristotle’s work, whereas Mure is claiming that commentators are aware of the ambiguous translation, thereby implying that they are not misguided by this term usage. Neither Mure nor Hocutt expand on this point, so I cannot argue that Hocutt is right in his attempt to re-characterise Aristotle’s theory in order to deflect misplaced criticism, nor can I contest that and agree with Mure’s argument. However, if ‘cause’ is not a perfect fit as Mure states, then perhaps we should be seeking to rephrase these four factors that Aristotle has highlighted.

It seems to me that whilst the four causes are not the four ‘becauses’, as characterised by Hocutt, it is perhaps necessary to reframe the way we view them. Moravcsik, like Hocutt focuses on Aristotle’s claim that the aitiai answer ‘why’ questions. He states that this causes us to view them as explanatory factors. This terminology is suitably vague to fit the ambiguity of translating aitia into English. At the beginning of his article, though he is not focusing on this part of Moravcsik’s argument, Bogen agrees that “’aitia’ is better translated as ‘explanation’” (Bogen, p. 19). It seems that we are unable to find a perfect translation for the four aitia, but ‘explanatory factors’ is better than Hocutt’s ‘becauses’ or the conventional ‘causes’.

Philosophy of Psychology

So this is my formative essay for the unit. I haven’t read through it, but it’s not due for another few weeks. Thought I’d stick it up since I haven’t posted in a while! Enjoy.

Which experiments best support the hypothesis that there is unconscious perception? What are some of the methodological difficulties of determining whether there is unconscious content?
Can they be overcome?

The existence of unconscious perception challenges the conventional Cartesian view of the mind; it is considered to be synonymous with our consciousness, hence the supposed validity of cogito ergo sum. There are several experiments that I will outline, which could strongly suggest the existence of unconscious perception. However, Fred Dretske raises some issues with these readings, claiming that it is possible to interpret the results of the experiments in an alternative way that does not require the commitment to unconscious perception. Dretske offers a solution and I believe that whilst it is definitely possible to question the validity of some experiments that claim to provide proof of unconscious perception, there are some experiments that still hold validity. I believe that it is possible to overcome the methodological difficulties involved in determining the existence of unconscious content, but that may come at the price of the validity of some well established experiments.