Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics

E. Feser

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780230360914
• eBook ISBN: 9781137367907
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Philosophy

Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics is a collection of new and cutting-edge essays by prominent Aristotle scholars and Aristotelian philosophers on themes in ontology, causation, modality, essentialism, the metaphysics of life, natural theology, and scientific and philosophical methodology.

1

Introduction: An Aristotelian Revival?

Edward Feser

Modern philosophy began with a rebellion against the Aristotelianism of the Scholastics and has, to a large extent, always been defined by it. To be sure, even in the work of the early moderns, the rejection of Aristotelian ideas was not always thoroughgoing. For instance, the Scholastic holdovers in the systems of Descartes and Locke are well-known, and Leibniz was keen to synthesize as much of previous thought as he could. But the obsolescence of the core doctrines of Aristotle’s metaphysics and philosophy of nature – such as hylemorphism, the theory of act and potency, and the doctrine of the four causes – would eventually become something like settled wisdom in post-Cartesian Western thought.

In recent decades, there has been within academic philosophy a small but growing challenge to this anti-Aristotelian near-consensus. The revival of Aristotelian themes in ethics in the work of thinkers like Alasdair MacIntyre (1981), Martha Nussbaum (1986), Philippa Foot (2001), and Michael Thompson (2008) is, of course, well-known. But neo-Aristotelian ideas have been getting attention even in the philosophy of science and in metaphysics. In the former discipline, there is the “new essentialism” of writers like Brian Ellis (2001, 2002) and Nancy Cartwright (1992, reprinted in 1999). In the latter there is the revival of the notion of causal powers and the manifestations toward which they are directed in the work of thinkers like George Molnar (2003), C.B. Martin (2008), and John Heil (2003). (Not that these developments are entirely independent. See Mumford 2009 for a useful overview of the history and themes of both lines of thought.)

There are also, in general metaphysics, the revival of interest in Aristotelian conceptions of substance, essence, and the like in the work of writers like Kit Fine (1994a, 1994b) and E.J. Lowe (2006); and in Aristotelian teleology in writers like John Hawthorne and Daniel Nolan (2006), Andre Ariew (2002, 2007) and Thomas Nagel (2012). Even a full-throated Aristotelian-Scholasticism is not without representatives in contemporary analytic philosophy (Haldane 2002; Oderberg 2007; Novak, Novotny, Sousedik, and Svoboda 2012).

While it would certainly be an overstatement to say that a full-scale revival of Aristotelianism is currently underway, it does seem that some of the various strands of thought alluded to are at least beginning to coalesce into something like a self-conscious movement. That, at any rate, is something one might reasonably infer from the titles and contents of the recent anthologies Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics, edited by Tuomas Tahko (2012), and Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The New Aristotelianism, edited by Ruth Groff and John Greco (2012); and from major conferences like Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic, held in Prague from June 30 – July 3 in 2010, and Aristotelian Themes in Contemporary Metaphysics, held at Boise State University in Idaho, from April 16–18 in 2011.

If there is such a movement underway, perhaps the present volume can contribute something to it. Though grounded in careful exegesis of Aristotle’s writings, the book aims to demonstrate the continuing relevance of Aristotelian ideas to contemporary philosophical debate.

The first three chapters in the volume are concerned with the questions of what metaphysics is and what method is appropriate to it. In “The Phainomenological Method in Aristotle’s Metaphysics,” Christopher Shields considers the role that appearances (phainomena) – what seems to be the case – play, for Aristotle, in determining what is the case, whether in metaphysics or in other contexts. As Shields explains, Aristotle is committed to a “Principle of Phainomenological Conservatism” according to which the fact that something appears to be true provides considerable evidence for believing that it is true, though not infallible evidence.

Stephen Boulter’s “The Aporetic Method and the Defence of Immodest Metaphysics” defends the traditional view that metaphysics is indispensible to philosophy, that at least some substantive metaphysical claims can be justified without appealing to science, and that some accepted interpretations of mature scientific theory can justifiably be rejected on metaphysical grounds. Central to his defence is an appeal to what Aristotle called “aporia” – real or apparent conflicts between claims that we have independent reason to accept, and which must therefore be resolved in some way.

In “Metaphysics as the First Philosophy,” Tuomas E. Tahko addresses the question of what it is for metaphysics to be “the first philosophy” (as the Aristotelian tradition characterizes it), and examines its relationship to natural science. He considers the notion that metaphysics is “first” insofar as it deals with what is fundamental in the sense of being ontologically independent or not grounded in anything else, but argues that it is the notion of essence rather than fundamentality that is key to the priority of metaphysics.

The next several chapters examine some of the central notions of Aristotelian metaphysics – being, essence, substance, necessity, and the like. Robert Bolton’s “Two Doctrines of Categories in Aristotle: Topics, Categories, and Metaphysics” argues that there are two different and incompatible doctrines of categories in Aristotle. Bolton maintains that this is not because of a development in Aristotle’s thought, but instead reflects the different needs which these doctrines were intended to meet, in one case the needs of the practice of dialectic and in the other the needs and practice of metaphysical science.

In “Grounding, Analogy and Aristotle’s Critique of Plato’s Idea of the Good,” Allan Silverman examines the ways in which Aristotle and some contemporary Aristotelians have spelled out the idea that some entities are grounded in more fundamental, foundational, or basic entities. He appeals to the notions of focal meaning and analogy, particularly as these are applied by Aristotle in explicating his notion of energeia or actuality and in critiquing Plato’s Idea of the Good, as a way of making sense of grounding relations.

In Aristotle’s thought, the notion of essence plays both a definitional role, specifying what it is for a thing to belong to a certain natural kind, and an explanatory role, accounting for why a thing has and must have certain properties. In “Essence, Modality and the Master Craftsman,” Stephen Williams and David Charles consider why essence should play both roles, how the explanatory role figures in Aristotle’s account of essence, and how essences might be said to explain why things of a kind necessarily have certain properties. In doing so, they make use of the notion of what the “master craftsman” or artisan uncovers about the natural materials he works with.

Gyula Klima’s “Being, Unity, and Identity in the Fregean and Aristotelian Traditions” compares the understanding of the notions of being or existence, identity, and unity operative in post-Fregean logic and metaphysics, on the one hand, and in the work of Aristotelian thinkers like Buridan and Aquinas on the other. In Klima’s view, precisely because these respective notions of being, identity, and unity are so different and address different questions, we are not forced to choose between them, and in any event we ought not to suppose that the post-Fregean notions are “the” right ones merely because they are modern.

According to the Aristotelian doctrine of hylomorphism, unified wholes (for example, organisms) are composites of matter and form. Substances, in Aristotelian thought, are taken to be ontologically independent in the sense of not being “said of” or “in” anything else. In “Substance, Independence and Unity,” Kathrin Koslicki considers the apparent tension that exists between these doctrines insofar as hylomorphism might seem to make substances dependent on their matter and form, and explores some possible resolutions.

E. J. Lowe’s “Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics: A Brief Exposition and Defence” examines how a complete metaphysical foundation for modal truths can be provided by combining a neo-Aristotelian account of essence with Lowe’s neo-Aristotelian “four-category ontology” of individual substances, modes, substantial universals and property universals. Lowe argues that such an account avoids any appeal to “possible worlds” and renders modal truths mind-independent but humanly knowable.

The next two chapters in the volume examine the relationship between Aristotelian metaphysical ideas and some key issues in modern science. In “Synthetic Life and the Bruteness of Immanent Causation,” David S. Oderberg provides an exposition and defence of the Aristotelian doctrine that living things are distinguished from non-living things by virtue of exhibiting “immanent” causation, causation that originates with an agent and terminates in that agent for the sake of its self-perfection. He argues that life, so understood, cannot be given a purely naturalistic explanation, and argues against claims to the effect that synthetic life has been, or is bound to be, created in the laboratory.

Edward Feser’s “Motion in Aristotle, Newton, and Einstein” considers whether the Aristotelian principle that whatever is in motion is moved by another is incompatible with Newton’s principle of inertia, or has been falsified by Einstein insofar as the latter is sometimes held to have shown that change is an illusion. Feser argues that the Aristotelian principle (better expressed as the thesis that any potential that is being actualized is actualized by something already actual) is not only compatible with Newton’s, but that there is a sense in which the latter presupposes the former; and that relativity at most affects how we apply the Aristotelian principle to the natural world, not whether it is applicable.

The final two chapters in the volume raise questions about ultimate explanation and Aristotelian natural theology. In “Incomposite Being,” Lloyd P. Gerson examines Aristotle’s notion of a divine Prime Unmoved Mover which just is perfect actuality without any potency, which is thinking itself thinking of itself, and yet which is in no way composite. Gerson considers the views of later Platonists who objected that thinking cannot be attributed to that which is incomposite, and discusses the difficulties facing possible responses to this objection.

Fred D. Miller, Jr.’s “Aristotle’s Divine Cause” considers whether Aristotle’s Prime Mover is supposed to be merely the final cause of motion or also its efficient cause, and if the latter, then what the relationship is between the Prime Mover’s final and efficient causality. Miller examines various approaches to these issues that have been defended over the centuries, and concludes that the main interpretations all present difficulties.

References

Ariew, André. 2002. “Platonic and Aristotelian Roots of Teleological Arguments,” in André Ariew, Robert Cummins, and Mark Perlman (eds) Functions: New Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology and Biology (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Ariew, André. 2007. “Teleology,” in D. Hull and M. Ruse (eds) The Cambridge Companion to the Philosophy of Biology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Cartwright, Nancy. 1992. “Aristotelian Natures and the Modern Experimental Method,” in John Earman (ed.) Inference, Explanation, and Other Frustrations: Essays in the Philosophy of Science (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press).

Cartwright, Nancy. 1999. The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Ellis, Brian. 2001. Scientific Essentialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Ellis, Brian. 2002. The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism (Chesham: Acumen).

Fine, Kit. 1994a. “Essence and Modality,” in J. Tomberlin (ed.) Philosophical Perspectives 8: 1–16.

Fine, Kit. 1994b. “A Puzzle Concerning Matter and Form,” in T. Scaltsas, D. Charles, and M. L. Gill (eds) Unity, Identity, and Explanation in Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Clarendon Press: Oxford).

Foot, Philippa. 2001. Natural Goodness (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

Groff, Ruth and Greco, John(eds) 2012. Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The New Aristotel...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 Introduction: An Aristotelian Revival?
• 2 The Phainomenological Method in Aristotles Metaphysics
• 3 The Aporetic Method and the Defense of Immodest Metaphysics
• 4 Metaphysics as the First Philosophy
• 5 Two Doctrines of Categories in Aristotle: Topics, Categories, and Metaphysics
• 6 Grounding, Analogy, and Aristotles Critique of Platos Idea of the Good
• 7 Essence, Modality, and the Master Craftsman
• 8 Being, Unity, and Identity in the Fregean and Aristotelian Traditions
• 9 Substance, Independence, and Unity
• 10 Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics: A Brief Exposition and Defense
• 11 Synthetic Life and the Bruteness of Immanent Causation
• 12 Motion in Aristotle, Newton, and Einstein
• 13 Incomposite Being
• 14 Aristotles Divine Cause
• Index