Aristotles Rational Empiricism: a Goethean

Interpretation of Aristotles Theory of Knowledge

Jakob Ziguras

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirement

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Philosophy

The University of Sydney

2010

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Abstract

This thesis offers an interpretation of Aristotles theory of scientific knowledge, particularly as this is

presented in the Posterior Analytics. The interpretation draws on the theory of knowledge and philosophy of science informing the scientific work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It is argued that

the interpretation of Aristotle as a rational empiricist in the Goethean sense helps to resolve many

central problems in Aristotles theory of scientific knowledge. The widely accepted view that Aristotle

is torn between incompatible empiricist and rationalist tendencies is describe; particularly in relation to

the problems associated with the interpretation of ejpagwghv as induction, and of nou`~ as an a priori intellectual intuition. Aristotles position is shown to be fully coherent when interpretated in terms of a

theory of knowledge that transcends the opposition between empiricism and rationalism. Goethes

rational empiricism is described and is shown to be precisely the theory of knowledge needed to

understand Aristotle. A Goethean account of Aristotles theory of knowledge is given, focusing on the

nature and role of the ajrcaiv that serve as the first principles of Aristotelian science. It is argued that Aristotles ajrcaiv are best understood as Urphnomene in the Goethean sense. A detailed interpretation is given of Aristotles concept of nou`~ in relation to his theory of knowledge. Aristotles account of the cognitive process in Posterior Analytics 2.19 is analysed, the interpretation of ejpagwghv as induction is criticized and an alternative account is offered. Finally, an account of Aristotles conception of

scientific method is presented, and it is argued that, contrary to some interpretations, the Posterior Analytics does contain a general account of the method of scientific discovery.

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Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my family and to my partner

Katarzyna Wajerowska, for their support through the long and often difficult process of

writing this thesis. I would like to thank my supervisor at the University of Sydney, Associate

Professor Rick Benitez, for his helpful and perceptive comments on my various drafts. He has

helped me to shape an initially very vague whole into something approaching a complete and

articulate whole. I would also like to thank my associate supervisor, Emeritus Professor Paul

Crittenden, who has generously been willing to read and comment on earlier and much

rougher versions of this work. I thank my longtime friends Luke Fischer and John Nijjem for

providing me with a true sense of artistic and intellectual community over many years of

stimulating philosophical discussion. I am also grateful to Luke Fischer for his help in tracking

down various references in the German editions of Goethes work, a task made difficult by the

fact that I have only begun to study German. I also thank the many authors whose works have

inspired and contributed to this thesis and have helped me to reach a far deeper understanding

of Aristotles thought than I could possibly have achieved alone. Whatever misunderstandings

remain, are my responsibility alone. Finally, I am also grateful to the University of Sydney for

providing me with three and a half years of funding on a UPA scholarship. Aristotle says that

philosophy needs leisure and I would not have had anywhere near as much free time to read

and think had it not been for the Universitys financial support. I also thank the examiners of

this thesis in advance for taking on the task of reading my work.

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Note on the Greek and on Abbreviations Used

Translations from the Greek are my own if not otherwise indicated in the footnotes. In most

cases, I have used existing translations, altering them slightly when this was necessary to

better communicate the meaning of the original.The abbreviations referring to relevant

German editions of Goethes works are given in the bibliography. I have given the German

references of all Goethe quotes in the foonotes, thus enabling readers with German to go

directly to the original sources instead of relying on the particular English translations I have

used. Citations from Aristotles works use the following conventions: I cite the full title in the

text; while in the footnotes I give the abbreviated title, followed by the book, chapter, and

Bekker page, column and line numbers. The abbreviations used are as follows:

APo. Posterior Analytics APr. Prior Analytics Cael. On the Heavens DA On the Soul EE Eudemian Ethics EN Nicomachean Ethics GC On Generation and Corruption HA History of Animals Insomn. On Dreams Int. On Interpretation Mem. On Memory and Recollection Met. Metaphysics Mete. Meteorology PA On the Parts of Animals Ph. Physics Poet. Poetics Pr. Problems Prt. Protrepticus Sens. On Sense and Sensibilia

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Contents

Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 4

Note on the Greek and on Abbreviations Used 5

Introduction 8

i. Preliminary Considerations 8

ii. Methodological Issues 13

iii. Broader Philosophical Concerns Relevant to the Thesis 15

Chapter 1. Rationalism vs Empiricism in the Posterior Analytics 19

Chapter 2. Goethe and Rational Empiricism 43

2.1 Introduction 43

2.2 Goethes Rational Empiricism 44

2.3 Goethes Scientific Method 55

2.4 Goethe and the Transformation of the Scientist 72

2.5 Goethe and Limits of Human Knowledge 77

2.6 Knowledge as the Perfection of Nature 85

Chapter 3. The Meaning of ejpisthvmh and the Need for ajrcaiv 88

3.1 Introduction 88

3.2 Aristotles Conception of Scientific Knowledge 92

Chapter 4. The Meaning of nou`~ 110 4.1 Introduction 110

4.2 Nou`~ as Pure Activity and as Self-Knowledge 115

4.3 Nou`~ and the Ontological Context of the Cognitive Process 121

4.4 The Simplicity of Divine Thinking and the Concept of ajiwvn 127

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4.5 Living Thinking: novhsi~ as zwhv 132 4.6 Simplicity and Indivisibility 133

4.7 The Goethean Conception of Oneness 136

4.8 Time, Indivisibility and Gods Knowledge of oujsivai 141

4.9 Novhsi~, Unity and Wholeness in Relation to Consciousness 145

4.10 Finitude and Perfection 147

4.11 Being and Becoming 151

4.12 The Meaning of nou`~ in Earlier Greek Thought 152 4.13 Kurt von Fritz on Nou`~ in Homer and the Pre-Socratics 154

Chapter 5. Aristotles Account of the Cognitive Process in Posterior Analytics 2.19 167

5.1 Introduction 167

5.2 The Meaning of e{xi~ 167 5.3 The Role of Perception in the Cognitive Process 173

5.4 The Role of fantasiva in the Cognitive Process 178

5.5 Experience as the Mediator Between Object and Subject 181 5.6 The Meaning of ejpagwghv 190 5.7 From Seeing to Seeing: From ejpagwghv to nou`~ 199

Chapter 6. Aristotles Conception of Scientific Method 204

6.1 Introduction 204

6.2 Understanding and Discovery 205

6.3 Posterior Analytics 2.19 or Physics 1.1? 216

6.4 From the Vague to the Complete Whole 225

6.5 The Dialectical Interpretation of Aristotles Scientific Method 234

Conclusion 239

Bibliography 247

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Introduction

i. Preliminary Considerations

This thesis presents a Goethean interpretation of Aristotles theory of knowledge and

philosophy of science, with particular focus on the Posterior Analytics. By a Goethean

interpretation I mean one deriving from the theory of knowledge and philosophy of science

informing the scientific work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. I argue that Aristotle is a

rational empiricist, a term used by Schiller to characterize Goethes approach to the study of

nature.

While the pairing of these two giants of Western culture would not seem out of place in a

literary study of, for example, the impact on Goethe of Aristotles Poetics,1 in a philosophical

work it may raise some eyebrows, especially since I am using Goethe to interpret Aristotle.

Goethe wrote no philosophical works strictly speaking and certainly no interpretations of

Aristotle; hence there is little prospect of explaining the similarity of their views on the basis

of Goethes limited study of Aristotle.2 What then are the motivations behind this study? This

is the question to which I will sketch an answer in this introduction. I will do this in two parts.

Firstly I will discuss the genesis of my theme briefly and discuss the more specific issues to

which this thesis responds, as well as presenting a general outline of my argument. Secondly, I

will mention briefly certain methodological issues.

My initial intention was to write about the relationship between Aristotles theology and his

theory of knowledge. As I became more familiar with Aristotle and the literature on his work,

I began to see links between Aristotle and the Goethean tradition, with which I was already

somewhat familiar. I also came across a few scholars of Goethes scientific work who note a

similarity between Aristotle and Goethe. Henri Bortoft, for example, writes,

1 A very recent study by Ellwood Wiggins does just this. Cf. Ellwood Wiggins, Dramas of Knowledge: The

Fortunate Event of Recognition, Goethe Yearbook 17 (2010), pp. 203-222. Wiggins argues that Goethes significant description of his meeting with Schiller in 1794 shows the explicit influence of Aristotles Poetics. As Wiggins puts it (p. 204): The structure of this narrative as Goethe frames it in Glckliches Ereignis bears a

striking resemblance to the classical drama of reversal and recognition as described by Aristotle. 2 This thesis is not an examination of Aristotles influence on Goethe, although this would be a fascinating topic

in itself. If there were some significant influence, I could argue that Aristotle is a rational empiricist, because

rational empiricism is in certain regards Aristotelianism under a different name. However, the direct influence of

Aristotles writings on Goethe seems slight, and there is certainly nothing in Goethes work like a sustained philosophical interpretation of Aristotle, or for that matter any other philosopher. For a general examination of

Goethes relationship to Greek thought and culture see, Humphry Trevelyan, Goethe and the Greeks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1942). Of course, in the case of a seminal thinker like Aristotle it is virtually

impossible to determine the extent of his indirect influence on Goethe.

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Aristotle is usually thought of as an arch-rationalist who proceeded by deductive reasoning from

first principles. In fact, he was a master observer of nature. He was an experientialist but not an

empiricist, because he did not limit experience to the senses. On the other hand he was not an

analytical rationalist who limited the mind to logical thought and denied it the possibility of

experience through perceptive insight. His scientific work involved detailed sensory observation

and insight into what is not visible to the senses as such by what he called intuitive induction

. . . . Because Goethe worked by observation and intuition, it may well be that his way of science

can provide the kind of experience which is needed to understand this philosopher . . . 3

Jeffrey Barnouw also notes that Goethes conception of science is . . . strikingly

reminiscent of the epistemology and logic of science presented in Aristotles Posterior

Analytics.4 R. H. Stephenson writes that The tender empiricism which critics have ascribed

to Goethe in his scientific work turns out, in all probability, to be derived, directly or

indirectly, from Aristotle.5 Stephenson also speaks of Goethe assimilating Aristotles

intuitive induction to his own outlook.6 Finally, Hjalmar Hegge, argues that

Goethe is altogether closer . . . to the Aristotelian tradition in science than to the Galilean-

Newtonian. His view of induction recalls Aristotles intuitive induction, though Goethe has

also applied his view extensively in practical research, and at the same time formulated it more

precisely than did Aristotle on just this point.7

Nevertheless, these scholars do not go beyond such brief and intriguing statements. As I

continued my research I came to realize that there is nothing, at least in English, even

approaching a close philosophical study of the relationship between Goethe and Aristotle as

regards their theories of knowledge and science. As I shifted the focus of my research to the

Posterior Analytics I came to realize that many of the central problems involved in the

interpretation of Aristotles theory of knowledge and science are amenable to a Goethean

resolution. In other words, I came to believe that a Goethean approach can help to clarify deep

problems in the interpretation of Aristotle. This thesis is the first result of my attempt to

interpret Aristotle from a Goethean perspective.

Aristotles Posterior Analytics is difficult to categorise. It seems simultaneously to be work

of logic, philosophy of science and epistemology. I will be focused mostly on the

epistemological and philosophy of science aspects. The Posterior Analytics does not

present a fully articulated epistemology. Although it does contain crucial elements of

3 Henri Bortoft, The Wholeness of Nature: Goethes Way of Science (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 2007), p. 349.

4 Jeffrey Barnouw, Goethe and Helmholtz: Science and Sensation, in Goethe and the Sciences: A Reappraisal,

ed. Frederick Amrine, Francis J. Zucker and Harvey Wheeler (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1987), p. 54. 5 R. H. Stephenson, Goethes Conception of Knowledge and Science (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,

1995), p. 57. 6 Ibid., p. 57.

7 Hjalmar Hegge, Theory of Science in the Light of Goethes Science of Nature, in Goethe and the Sciences: A

Reappraisal, p. 213.

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Aristotles theory of knowledge, it also presupposes a broad understanding of other aspects of

his philosophy. With Aristotle it is not possible to separate epistemology from ontology and

theology. Aristotles conception of knowledge differs from the mainstream contemporary

view not only in detail, but in its fundamental assumptions. Aristotle does not simply have a

different theory of knowledge (where knowledge means what it is typically taken to mean

today), but a different understanding of what knowledge is. Stated generally, for Aristotle,

knowledge in its primary sense is not a matter of believing in the right sort of representation of

reality. Rather, knowledge is a participation in the thing known. Aristotle has what might be

called a participatory conception of knowledge.8 As Charles Kahn writes:

The framework of modern epistemology, whether based upon a Cartesian concept of

consciousness or a Humean notion of belief, does not provide an adequate basis for

understanding Aristotles view of the radical cognitive distinction between sense and intellect,

and the interaction between the two in perceptual judgment and conceptual knowledge. . . .

Instead of systematically translating Aristotle into the terms and issues of contemporary

epistemology or philosophy of mind, we might be well advised to make sense of him in his own

terms, which are those of the ancient-medieval tradition, and to use this unfamiliar vantage point

to criticize our own assumptions inherited from the 17th century.

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Making sense of Aristotle in his own terms is difficult because the philosophical tradition to

a large extent obscures the experiential roots of Aristotles conception of scientific knowledge.

There is a broad tendency to interpret Aristotle as presenting a theory of knowledge in the

sense of a system of propositions involving reference to various explanatory entities (e.g.

nou`~) designed to account for scientific knowledge. This is certainly the case in relation to

contemporary philosophical interpretations of Aristotles science of nature. The Aristotelian

tradition of science is generally seen as having been utterly refuted by the modern scientific

revolution. Very few philosophers today have any sense of what an Aristotelian-style science

of nature would look like in practice. This strengthens the tendency to interpret Aristotles

science as a kind of speculative Naturphilosophie, historically significant no doubt, but

scientifically irrelevant.10

Hence, one can still find Aristotelian metaphysicians and moral and

political philosophers, and perhaps even a few Aristotelian philosophers of nature, but one

would be hard pressed to find any Aristotelian natural scientists.

Goethe is, in certain crucial ways, close to the ancient-medieval tradition both in his

8 For a discussion of the participatory conception in a Thomist context cf. Fergus Kerr, After Aquinas: Versions of

Thomism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), p. 27: In short, the difference between the prevailing modern conception of the self and that which we find in Thomas may be put in terms of a contrast between a subjectivist-observing

perspective and an objectivist-participant one. 9 Charles H. Kahn, The Role of Nous in the Cognition of First Principles in Posterior Analytics II 19, in

Aristotle on Science: The Posterior Analytics, ed. Enrico Berti (Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1981), p. 387. 10

This is precisely how Goethes science of nature has often been interpreted. Cf. Ronald H. Brady, The Idea in

Nature: Rereading Goethes Organics, in Goethes Way of Science: a Phenomenology of Nature, edited by David Seamon and Arthur Zajonc (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), pp. 83-84.

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theory of knowledge and in his conception of the nature and goals of the science of nature.

Goethe, like Aristotle, has a participatory conception of knowledge. Goethes science of

nature has often been misunderstood because of a failure to grasp that he has a conception of

the nature and goals of science much closer to that of Aristotle than to anything in the

mainstream modern tradition. For this reason Goethe can help us make the difficult journey

into the Aristotelian Lebenswelt, and can help us to understand the phenomenological

character of Aristotles science of nature.

The idea that the central difficulties involved in understanding the Posterior Analytics

derive from the apparently incompatible rationalist and empiricist tendencies in the text is

widely represented in the literature. I argue that neither empiricism nor rationalism alone is

adequate to understanding Aristotles position and that the appearance of incoherence is a

result of the attempt to understand Aristotle through various dualisms inadequate to his

thought. As Joe Sachs writes, Much of Aristotles thinking involves finding a path that steers

between two alternatives that seem to exhaust the possible ways of understanding

something.11

The idea of finding a mean between extremes is a commonplace of Aristotles

ethics. I argue that a middle way between empiricism and rationalism needs to be found in the

epistemological context. There is in fact some awareness in the literature of the need for a

middle way. James D. Madden, for example, writes:

Whether Aristotle is an empiricist or rationalist is an interesting issue. My own inclination is that

he is neither in the traditional way of construing the distinction because it seems that knowledge

of the natural world is fundamentally dependent on rational principles, which themselves cannot

be divorced from experience.12

Similarly, Paulo C. Biondi writes:

Aristotle proposes a middle way. On the one hand, he is a through and through empiricist. We

learn through experience (ejmpeiriva, empeiria). There is no such thing as a priori knowledge. On the other hand, he also avoids an extreme empiricism. The mind is not a passive recipient of

sense impressions but a creative, dynamic power that can make knowledge. Knowledge is born

of an interaction between the mind and the empirical world.13

However, such exceptions notwithstanding, a clear sense of what such a middle way would

involve is not widespread in the literature. I argue that the rational empiricism developed by

Goethe provides us with the middle way we need to make sense of Aristotles theory of

11

Joe Sachs, trans., Aristotles On the Soul and On Memory and Recollection (Santa Fe: Green Lion Press, 2001), p. 20. 12

James D. Madden, Aristotle, Induction and First Principles, International Philosophical Quarterly 44 1 (2004), p. 38. 13

Paolo C. Biondi, Aristotle, Posterior Analytic II.19: Introduction, Greek Text, Translation and Commentary Accompanied by a Critical Analysis (Saint-Nicolas: Les Presses de l Universit Laval, 2004), p. 405.

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knowledge. Many of the problems isolated by interpreters of the Posterior Analytics are

symptoms of the failure to recognize that Aristotle is neither an empiricist, nor a rationalist,

but a rational empiricist in the Goethean sense.

The general structure of my argument will be as follows. In Chapter 1, I present a general

overview of some of the main problems of interpretation associated with the Posterior

Analytics. I focus on a cluster of problems associated with the view that the Posterior

Analytics is torn between incompatible rationalist and empiricist tendencies. Two key themes

that emerge in this context are: firstly, the interpretation of ejpagwghv as induction, and hence

the view that Aristotle has a problem of induction; secondly, the view that the role of nou`~

in the grasping of first principles is inconsistent with Aristotles empiricism. This latter view is

connected with the idea that nou`~, if understood as a form of intellectual intuition, implies that

we should be able to gain knowledge independently of experience.

In Chapter 2, I provide a sketch of Goethes approach to the study of nature, focusing on his

conception of knowledge and of the nature of science. Firstly, I discuss the origins and

meaning of the label rational empiricism. Secondly, I consider Goethes relationship to

induction, arguing that Goethes method is non-inductive.14

Thirdly, I discuss the idea that for

Goethe the student of nature acquires a developed capacity to intuitively discern the

necessary in nature15

by means of a cognitive training that presupposes a long dwelling with

the phenomena of nature. Finally, I consider the question whether Goethe thought that there

are limits to human knowledge.

In Chapter 3, I present an initial sketch of Aristotles conception of scientific knowledge or

ejpisthvmh. I affirm both the phenomenological character and the ontological status of the

ajrcaiv that serve as the starting points of ejpisthvmh, in opposition to interpretations that see

them as merely logical or linguistic principles (e.g. basic propositions or axioms).

In Chapter 4, I turn to a detailed consideration of the place of nou`~ in Aristotles philosophy

as this relates to his theory of knowledge. My focus in Chapter 4 is twofold: Firstly, I attempt

to describe the ontological context of the cognitive process leading to the noetic seeing of the

ajrcaiv. I argue that the cognitive process, as presented by Aristotle, presupposes God as the

active ground of the potential intelligibility of the sensible world. In other words, it is divine

nou`~ that ultimately makes possible the cognitive process as Aristotle describes it. Secondly, I

consider the meaning of nou`~ in the context of earlier Greek thought, as discussed in the work

of Kurt von Fritz. The purpose of this discussion is to forestall an overly intellectual and

metaphysical understanding of nou`~. I argue that Aristotles conception of nou`~ emerges in the

context of a tradition in which nou`~ is not as radically opposed to sense perception as a

translation such as intellectual intuition may suggest. In the course of describing Aristotles

14

In fact, as subsequent chapters argue, Goethe and Aristotle are non-inductive in a very similar way. 15

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, Letter to Goethe 23/08/1794, in Correspondence Between Schiller and Goethe: From 1794-1805, Vol. 1, ed. L. Dora Schmitz (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1914), p. 6.

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conception of the relationship between divine nou`~ and the sensible world I draw attention to

what I refer to as an organicist element in Aristotles ontology.

In Chapter 5, I return to the Posterior Analytics and present an interpretation of 2.19, since

it is here that Aristotle gives his fullest account (apart from the parallel account in Metaphysics

1.1) of the cognitive process leading from sense perception to the grasp of the principles of

science. In this chapter the resources prepared in earlier chapters are brought together to

provide a rational empiricist reading of the origins of scientific knowledge in the noetic seeing

of the ajrcaiv. I also discuss and criticize the interpretation of ejpagwghv as induction and offer

an alternative Goethean interpretation.

Finally, in Chapter 6, I do three things: Firstly I discuss some more concrete examples taken

from the Posterior Analytics in order to flesh out my interpretation of Aristotles scientific

method. Whereas Chapter 5 focuses on the cognitive process mediating between sense

perception and the noetic seeing of the first principles in a general sense, Chapter 6 looks at

some more specific examples in order to argue that, contrary to some views, the Posterior

Analytics does include a conception of how scientific truths about the world are discovered.

Secondly, I offer a resolution of the apparent incompatibility between the accounts of

scientific method given in the Posterior Analytics and in Physics 1.1. Thirdly, I briefly discuss

and criticize the dialectical interpretation of Aristotles scientific method.

ii. Methodological Issues

The main methodological issue facing this work has been Goethes ambiguous relationship

to philosophy. Goethe sometimes gives the impression of being averse to philosophy as such.

He writes, for instance: I have never possessed any receptivity for philosophy in the proper

sense.16

On another occasion, writing to Schiller concerning his meeting with Schelling,

Goethe states that he would like to spend more time with the philosopher, but finds that

. . . philosophy destroys poetry, and that because it confronts me with an object. I can never

relate to anything in a purely speculative sense, but must always seek out some corresponding

intuition for every claim, and that is why I flee immediately to Nature.17

Goethes relationship to philosophy is complex. While Goethes scientific work certainly

has great philosophical substance, it does not take a systematic philosophical form. In

attempting to draw from Goethes scientific work an implicit theory, we need to be aware of

the distinctive meaning theory has for Goethe. It has been said that the Goethean notion of

theory is fundamentally more akin to the ancient Greek notion of qewriva, than to the

16

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Letter to Schiller 19/02/1802, in Rdiger Bubner, The Innovations of Idealism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 239 (FA V (32): 226).

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modern understanding of theory.18

Theory, understood in the modern way, is a human artifact,

a representation of the world. It is a system of logically inter-related propositions about the

world. As William McNeill has said, drawing on the work of Martin Heidegger, in modernity

theoria becomes world representation for the subjectivity of the subject.19 In the ancient

Greek sense, qewriva is seeing, but this seeing retains a crucial ambiguity that is progressively

lost as seeing comes to be understood more and more as the activity of a subject (or for that

matter the effect of the causal activity of an object). In the original Greek sense, the look . . .

is not the activity of a subject but the way in which another being (whose presence is

likewise not reducible to that of an object) . . . emerges and comes towards us.20

Qewriva is

a seeing of the divine, a participation in the self-disclosure of worldly divinity.21

An

account of Goethes theory of knowledge, of nature, of scientific method, must, if it is to be

true to its theme, remain aware that what it describes is, ultimately, not a set of propositions,

but a phenomenological practice. In view of this, it will not do to reduce Goethes qewriva to a

few axiomatic concepts and attempt to construct on this basis a systematic Goethean theory,

whether of knowledge, nature, or scientific method.

Indeed, many of the most pregnant points22

in Goethes work take the form of short, highly

condensed expressions that contain much philosophical substance. Michael Beddow has

discussed the importance of this form of expression in relation to Goethes overall aims:

Although . . . any maxim is an abstraction from raw experience, the type of abstraction

involved maintains a peculiarly close link to the stuff of concrete experience. Unlike more

expansive forms of abstract discourse, the maxim is . . . concentrated, gnomic. Its brevity and

concision actually invite expansion and elucidation, which normally happens through reflection

upon concrete situations from which the maxim finds its import.23

This feature of Goethes work has affected my general approach. While I certainly present

17

Goethe, Letter to Schiller 19/02/1802, in Bubner (2003), p. 239 (FA V (32): 226). 18

Dennis L. Sepper, Goethe Contra Newton: Polemics and the Project for a New Science of Colour (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 17: It has not been widely understood that theory does not have the same meaning for Goethe and Newton, and therefore direct comparisons based on the assumption that they are (or

should be) guided by similar principles and methods and concerned with identical domains are misleading.

Theory for Goethe is not a set of propositions or a mathematical modelling; rather it is more akin to something

suggested by the root meaning of ancient Greek theoria, which was the activity of the spectator, a seeing and recognising, a sense conveyed by the German Anschauung (onlooking, a perhaps simpler and more faithful rendering than the usual intuition). 19

William McNeill, The Glance of the Eye: Heidegger, Aristotle, and the Ends of Theory (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), p. 241. 20

Ibid., p. 307. 21

Ibid., p. 245. 22

The phrase pregnant point is taken from Goethe, Significant Help Given by an Ingenious Turn of Phrase,

in Scientific Studies, ed. Douglas Miller (New York: Suhrkamp, 1988), p. 41 (HA XIII: 40). 23

Michael Beddow, The Fiction of Humanity: Studies in the Bildungsroman from Wieland to Thomas Mann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 77.

15

arguments in a more typically philosophical way, I also engage in extensive expansion and

elucidation of certain central statements. This close attention to particularly exemplary

formulations is also characteristic of my approach to Aristotles work. I also make use of the

method of building up a kind of cumulative picture of a position by the presentation of many

characteristic examples. The reason for this has to do with the distinctive character of the

Goethean perspective. I am convinced that really grasping the Goethean method involves a

kind of aspect shift, and this can be mediated either through an exemplary instance, or by a

kind of symphonic presentation of ideas. This also explains the occasionally baroque growth

of my footnotes. Rather than simply providing page references to illuminating statements

made by other authors, I will typically quote the relevant passage. This is because I want the

reader to have these illuminating perspectives at their fingertips. Such citations contribute to

the overall picture I am painting. For similar reasons, I will often repeat the same ideas

throughout the course of the thesis. This is because the same central statements acquire a

different and fuller sense in the context of the developing whole.

Although I shall rely primarily on Goethe to explain Aristotle, I will sometimes use either

one to illuminate the other. The purpose of these comparisons is not to presuppose the identity

of the ideas in each given instance, but to facilitate in the reader an initial perception of

similarities. In the course of the thesis as a whole this initial view will hopefully develop into a

more articulated vision of the relationship between the two thinkers.

While I draw widely on Goethes own statements, I also make free use of interpretations of

his work to explicate his ideas in more philosophical detail than he himself does. Since the

primary focus of this thesis is the interpretation of Aristotle, I do not defend my interpretation

of Goethe against possible objections. Similarly, I do not make any sharp distinction between

Goethean science as a tradition, and Goethes science; although I recognize that in a work

more heavily focused on Goethe it would be necessary to distinguish more clearly between

those views that can definitely be ascribed to Goethe himself, and those aspects of the

Goethean tradition that derive from the work of subsequent interpreters.

iii. Broader Philosophical Concerns Relevant to the Thesis

While this thesis is intended primarily as a contribution to scholarship on Aristotle, and to a

lesser extent on Goethe, it does have a relationship to broader philosophical concerns. I

consider the phenomenological tradition emerging from Husserls pioneering work to be the

most significant development in 20th

century philosophy. Although the subsequent

development of the phenomenological tradition is very complex, I consider certain features to

be particularly significant. Firstly, there is the attempt, found particularly in the work of

Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger, to think the being of nature in a way free from the distortions

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of metaphysical dualism, including its most recent form: modern scientific naturalism and

modern technology. Secondly, there is the attempt, found particularly in Heidegger, and

thinkers influenced by him, to uncover a pre-metaphysical understanding of nature by

engaging with Greek thought. Thirdly, there is the awareness, again particularly in Heidegger

and his interpreters, of the importance of the poetic as a guide to the recovery of a non-

metaphysical relationship to nature. Nature, as Heidegger put it, has been doubly

. . . de-natured. Once through Christianity, whereby nature was, in the first place, depreciated to [the level of] the created . . . Then . . . through modern natural science, which dissolved nature

into the orbit of the mathematical order of world commerce, industrialization, and in a particular

sense, machine technology.24

Goethe, living at a time when science and technology had not yet given rise to the

environmental crisis we face today, already wrote: The nature with which we must work is no

longer nature it is an entity quite different from that dealt with by the Greeks.25

As

Heidegger saw so clearly, the poetic experience of the world offers a way back to primordial

nature. Quoting Heidegger, Bruce Foltz writes:

If we are to speak, along with the poet, of the primordial nature that was disclosed and brought

to language by the Greeks, of nature strictly speaking [Natur im engeren Sinne] we must leave aside the modern representation [Vorstellung] of nature.26

The following three elements are present in a unique way in Goethes scientific work: a

deep concern to defend primordial nature against the depredations of the materialists,

mechanists and mathematisers, a fundamentally poetic approach to nature, and a

phenomenological methodology. That Goethe is a phenomenologist has been argued by a

number of interpreters, going back at least to Fritz Heinemann.27

Goethe expresses his

phenomenological impulse in Italian Journey when he writes, I shall never rest until I know

that all my ideas are derived, not from hearsay or tradition, but from my real living contact

with the things themselves.28

In an article comparing Goethe and Husserl, Eva-Maria Simms

writes,

Phenomenology, after Husserl, always has had a double task: to unearth the cultural

sedimentations and hidden motivations in our habitual assumptions about reality and to return to

24

Bruce V. Foltz, Inhabiting the Earth: Heidegger, Environmental Ethics and the Metaphysics of Nature (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1995), p. 63. 25

Goethe, Selections from Maxims and Reflections, in Scientific Studies, p. 304 (HA XII: 372). 26

Foltz (1995), p. 64. 27

Fritz Heinemann, Goethes Phenomenological Method, Philosophy 9 33 (1934), pp. 67-81. 28

Goethe, Italian Journey, trans. W. H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer (San Francisco: North Point Press), p. 343 (HA XI: 352).

17

a faithful exploration of the fullness of being as it discloses itself to human experience.29

Heidegger saw that, to paraphrase Simms, the freeing of the fullness of being from the

cultural sedimentations that obscure it, involves working our way back to the origins of

Western metaphysics in ancient Greece. The idea that the path back to the things themselves

might lead through Greece has as its flipside the idea that phenomenology is particularly

suited to understanding Greek thought. Robert Sokolowski is quite right when he says:

Because of its understanding of reason and truth, phenomenology allows us to reappropriate

the philosophy of antiquity and the Middle Ages.30

Phenomenology and the study of ancient

philosophy have much to offer each other. On the one hand, ancient philosophy enables us to

see beyond many modern assumptions. As Gadamer has argued,

. . . the Greeks have something over us, for we are entangled in the aporias of subjectivism. They

did not try to base the objectivity of knowledge on subjectivity. Rather, their thinking always

regarded itself as an element of being itself.31

On the other hand, phenomenology can enable us to understand the experiential roots of

Greek thought, by freeing us from the distorting lens of later dualisms. I believe that in the

dialogue between phenomenology and Greek thought, particularly with regard to the

understanding of nature, Goethe has a crucial role to play. Simms has seen clearly the

significance of Goethes phenomenology of nature in relation to the mainstream

phenomenological tradition. She writes:

Husserls phenomenology places the problematic of human consciousness and its world-

constitution at the centre of phenomenological inquiry, and most phenomenologists in the past

century have done so as well. Goethe, on the other hand, offers a phenomenological method for

a qualitative study of nature. It seems to me that phenomenologys humanism has reached its

limits and that, once again, we are called to look beyond the human realm into life forms that are

different and non-human.32

Here Simms puts her finger on something essential. The subjectivism of modern thought

makes it difficult for us to understand the realism of ancient thought without interpreting it in a

dualistic and objectivistic manner. The idea of a phenomenological science of nature that is

simultaneously realist and rigorously experiential seems almost like a contradiction in terms. It

is precisely in relation to non-human nature that we tend to harbor the most inveterate, if not

necessarily conscious, scientistic assumptions. We may be convinced that scientific naturalism

29

Eva-Maria Simms, Goethe, Husserl, and the Crisis of the European Sciences, Janus Head 8 1 (2005), p. 166. 30

Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 203. 31

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (London: Sheed and Ward, 1989), p. 460. 32

Simms (2005), p. 171.

18

is incapable of giving a satisfying account of e.g. human consciousness, but still find it hard to

extend this view to cover non-human nature, because the inner being of nature, as opposed to

its everyday sensible manifestation, is to a large extent a closed book to us.

Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty seem to be of the view that the step beyond our current

predicament requires more than just another theory. What is needed is a transformation of

thinking, a development of new cognitive capacities.33

The great significance of Goethes

work lies precisely in the fact that he offers a concrete response to the predicament diagnosed

with such comprehensiveness and precision by Heidegger and others. To what extent the

Goethean approach to the study of nature is akin to the new style of thinking Heidegger was

working towards is an open question. What is clear is that Goethe presents one path towards a

transformation of the cognitive capacities of the human being that opens up a transformed

relationship to nature. Goethes phenomenology of nature is not primarily a philosophy of

nature, but a phenomenological science of nature, and as such it challenges the hegemony of

modern scientism in precisely that place where the latter seems to reign undisputed. I believe

that a Goethean reappropriation of Aristotelian thought, particularly in relation to the study of

nature, would represent a significant and necessary counterbalance to the more general,

philosophical responses to the problems associated with thinking nature beyond the confines

of the metaphysical tradition.

33

Martin Heidegger, The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking, in Basic Writings, trans. David Farrell Krell (London: Routledge & Paul, 1978), p. 431: The title designates the attempt at a reflection that persists in

questioning. Questions are paths toward an answer. If the answer could be given it would consist in a

transformation of thinking, not in a propositional statement about a matter at stake. Cf. also p. 442, where

Heidegger actually quotes Goethe: It is necessary for thinking to become explicitly aware of the matter here

called clearing. We are not extracting mere notions from mere words, e.g., Lichtung, as it might easily appear on

the surface. Rather, we must observe the unique matter that is named with the name clearing in accordance with

the matter. What the word designates in the connection we are now thinking, free openness, is a primal

phenomenon [Urphnomen], to use a word of Goethes. . . . Goethe notes (Maxims and Reflections, no. 993):

Look for nothing behind phenomena: they themselves are what is to be learned. This means the phenomenon

itself, in the present case the clearing, sets us the task of learning from it while questioning it, that is, of letting it

say something to us. Cf. Mauro Carbone, The Thinking of the Sensible: Merleau-Pontys A-Philosophy (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2004), p. 32. Carbone speaks of Merleau-Pontys use of the term

Voyance to characterise the sort of new thinking of nature towards which he was moving: Voyance literally means clairvoyance, the gift of double sight, . . . . Voyance which, in the mutual referring of perception and

the imaginary, renders present to us what is absent (OE 41/132) therefore characterises seeing in Merleau-

Pontys conception. . . . With voyance, we discover that seeing is complying with the showing of the sensible universe itself, within which we find ourselves and through which runs the power of analogy. Carbone also

speaks (pp. xiv-xv and pp. 29-30) of the influence on Merleau-Pontys late thought of the Goethe-inspired

biologist Jakob von Uexkll. According to Carbone, von Uexkll played an important part in Merleau-Pontys

attempt to develop a new, non-Platonic theory of ideas, including those of natural species.

19

Chapter 1. Rationalism vs Empiricism in the Posterior Analytics

In this first chapter I present some of the main problems associated with the interpretation

of the Posterior Analytics. The purpose of this brief survey is twofold. Firstly, I want to

substantiate my claim that the idea of a conflict between empiricist and rationalist tendencies

in the Posterior Analytics is widely endorsed. Secondly, I want to give the reader a rough

sketch of the terrain, to highlight some of the main problems to which I will be responding in

subsequent chapters.

A number of scholars have seen a tension in the Posterior Analytics between empiricist and

rationalist elements. James H. Lesher presents his own assessment of the familiar and widely

accepted picture of Aristotles account34

as follows: Aristotle is faced with the problem of

providing foundations for his demonstrative view of science. The first principles cannot be

demonstrated since Aristotle rejects both circular demonstration and demonstration involving

an infinite regress.35

However, the principles cannot merely be assumed. If we do not know

the principles in a way more basic than demonstration, then we do not know what follows

from them. In Posterior Analytics 2.19 Aristotle argues that we know the first principles

through nou`~36 rather than ejpisthvmh.37 However, his postulation of nou`~ seems hopelessly ad

hoc: we possess nou`~ of first principles because we must have some knowledge of them, and

no other kind of knowledge seems possible.38

Here, Lesher expresses the common view that nou`~ is a theoretical postulate designed to

solve the problem of how we know the first principles, on the assumption that they cannot

be demonstrated. This view insists on reading Aristotle as providing a theory of nou`~ in the

modern sense, i.e. a discursive account; and it assumes that nou`~ is a theoretical posit that

Aristotle wants us to accept on the strength of discursive arguments.39

However, as I will argue, Aristotle makes it very clear that discursive thinking is in

principle incapable of accounting for its own origins in what Stanley Rosen has called a pre-

34

James H. Lesher, The Meaning of NOUS in the Posterior Analytics, Phronesis 18 1 (1973), p. 45. 35

APo. 1.3. 36

Providing an adequate account of the meaning of nou`~ is one of the goals of Chapter 4. For now, the least misleading translation of this term is intuitive thinking. 37

This word refers to the discursively mediated scientific knowledge gained through demonstration from first

principles. 38

Lesher (1973), p. 44. Cf. EN 6.6.1141a3-7: If, then, the states by which we have truth and are never deceived about things that cannot or can be otherwise are knowledge [ejpisthvmh], practical wisdom [frovnhsi~], philosophic wisdom [sofiva], and comprehension [nou`~], and it cannot be any of the three (i.e. practical wisdom, scientific knowledge, or philosophic wisdom), the remaining alternative is that it is comprehension that grasps the

first principles. (Ross). 39

Joseph Owens, Aristotle Cognition a Way of Being, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 6 1 (1976), p. 6: In this regard one may note that the whole Aristotelian reasoning about cognition is based upon the tenet of

the unity of knower and known in the actuality of cognition. No reasoning or attempt at proof is offered for this

tenet. It seems to be accepted on what is stronger than proof and is the source of proof, namely, immediate

intuition.

20

discursive (or antepredicative) seeing of formal structure.40

To paraphrase Rosen, Aristotle

does not give a theory of intuition (nou`~); rather, he calls attention to the intuitive dimension

of theories.41

Lesher also discusses another well known problem:

. . . first principles are said to be known through induction (ejpagwgh`/); i.e., from a series of observations of particular cases, but nou`~ is generally thought of as a faculty of intuition (or intellectual intuition or intuitive reason) and it is difficult to see why we should need to

proceed by induction when we possess such a faculty. Thus, in spite of the empiricism which

characterizes much of his account . . . Aristotle seems to revert to a faculty which, at least as

described by Plato, operates independently of sensory observation and yet enjoys an immediate

and infallible vision of the real world.42

Aristotles position seems inconsistent because it is not clear how induction (ejpagwghv) and

nou`~ fit together. If we reach the first principles by induction then what can nou``~ add to this

process? If we possess intellectual intuition why cant we just directly intuit truths about the

world independently of sense perception? If nou`~ is immediate insight, how does it relate to

the cognitive process that purportedly leads up to it?43

Two assumptions are evident here. The first is that ejpagwghv means induction in the

modern sense, and hence is a process that involves inference from repeated sense perceptions,

independently of any form of intellectual intuition. Thus if Aristotle claims that we reach the

first principles by induction this ought to be comprehensible independently of nou`~. This is

an empiricist assumption. Secondly, there is the assumption that nou`~ is a purely intellectual

intuition operating independently of the senses and yet supposedly able to grasp truths about

the world. If we have such an intellectual intuition it should be possible for us to gain

knowledge about the world a priori. This is a rationalist assumption.

In fact, the problems Lesher describes are constituted by the incompatibility between these

assumptions. These problems dissolve if the following are true: firstly, ejpagwghv is not

induction in the modern sense, and is inseparable from nou`~; secondly, nou`~ is not an a priori

intellectual intuition, but rather a developed capacity to see the intelligible in the sensible that

40

Stanley Rosen, The Limits of Analysis (New York: Basic Books, 1980), pp. 52-53. 41

Ibid., p. 54. 42

Lesher (1973), pp. 44-45. 43

W. D. Ross, Aristotle (London: Routledge, 1923), p. 55. According to Ross ejpagwghv is . . . the passage from particulars to the universals implicit in them. This is . . . a process not of reasoning but of direct insight,

mediated psychologically by a review of particular instances. Cf. Kwon Chang-un, Aristotles Epagoge as

Logos, in The Philosophy of Logos: Volume 1, ed. Konstantinos Ioannou Voudouris (Athens, 1996), p. 120. Kwon Chang-un criticizes Ross description of induction as a process . . . of direct insight as follows: It is

doubtful . . . that the expression, the process of direct insight, itself is meaningful, because any process implies

the sense of duration which cannot be attributed to the direct insight.

21

arises in response to perception.44

Charles Kahn has noted a tendency among scholars to see the Posterior Analytics as torn

between empiricist and rationalist elements. Kahn recognizes that this problem arises when

scholars insist on reformulating Aristotles doctrine in terms of post-Cartesian

epistemology.45

From this modern perspective Aristotles

. . . emphasis on the indispensible starting point in sense perception seems to ally him with the

empiricists, whereas the ultimate appeal to nous then takes on the air of a last-minute betrayal, a sellout to the rationalists particularly if nous is understood as an infallible intuition of self-evident truths.

46

Jonathan Barnes also points to an apparent incoherence in the Posterior Analytics, although

he ultimately comes down on the empiricist side and attempts to reduce nou`~ to a

philosophically insignificant role by claiming that intuition as a mode of discovery is absent

from the Posterior Analytics.47 The idea that the Posterior Analytics deals only with how the

results of scientific research are to be systematized and taught, an idea defended by Barnes

among others, is influential. Michael Ferejohn, for example, writes:

In fact, the two Analytics on the whole seem to have very little to say about the investigatory methods of science in general, much less about any differences among those of the special

44

A few scholars have suggested that Aristotles ejpagwghv is different from induction in the modern sense, although their reasons vary. See, for example, T. Engberg-Pedersen, More on Aristotelian Epagoge, Phronesis 24 3 (1979), p. 305: If the schema is adequate, clearly Aristotelian epagoge will be different from the modern concept of induction: while this concept includes the idea of an inference from particular to universal and hence raises the question of the validity of the inductive procedure, there is no trace of these ideas in the schema as given. Cf. Jaakko Hintikka, Aristotelian Induction, Revue Internationale de Philosophie 34 (1980), p. 423. Hintikka notes that the translation of ejpagwghv as induction is . . . highly misleading if used without explanations. Cf. also, Richard D. McKirahan Jr., Aristotelian Epagoge in Prior Analytics 2.21 and Posterior Analytics 1.1, Journal of the History of Philosophy 2 (1983), pp. 1-2: It would be fundamentally wrong to assume that Aristotles notion is the same as any modern notion of induction. This kind of anachronism would

only lead to the conclusion that Aristotle did a wretched job of describing induction. For a very clear and

comprehensive account of the difference between the Aristotelian and the modern notions of induction, see

especially: Louis Groarke, An Aristotelian Account of Induction: Creating Something from Nothing (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2009). Although Groarke retains the word induction he presents a devastating

case against the modern understanding of induction, arguing instead for a traditional conception founded in

Aristotle and medieval philosophy. 45

Kahn (1981), p. 386. As noted in the introduction, Kahn believes that post-Cartesian epistemology is not

adequate to the task of understanding Aristotle. Cf. Charles H. Kahn, Aristotle on Thinking, in Essays on Aristotles De Anima, ed. Martha C. Nussbaum and Amlie Oksenberg Rorty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 359. Here, Kahn responds affirmatively to Miles Burnyeats question whether an Aristotelian philosophy of mind

is still credible. Kahn argues that the value of Aristotles philosophy of mind lies precisely in the fact that

Aristotle stands outside of the post-Cartesian tradition and thus allows us to free ourselves from this tradition and

from the dead ends to which it leads. He writes that . . . Aristotle offers us the best alternative to the dualist and

anti-dualist philosophies of mind that have plagued philosophy with persistent and fruitless conflict for more than

three centuries. 46

Kahn (1981), p. 386. 47

Jonathan Barnes, trans., Aristotles Posterior Analytics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975b), p. 259.

22

sciences. Instead, these works proceed from the standpoint of a finished science whose

research is complete, and are largely focused on questions about the characteristic patterns of

reasoning through which one might prove, or demonstrate (ajpodeivknumi), that certain independently discovered particular facts of interest follow from, and thus are explained by,

general scientific principles already in hand.48

Referring to Posterior Analytics 2.19 (the chapter where Aristotle gives his account of the

cognitive process leading to the first principles) Barnes describes the tension in the work as

follows:

B 19 is Janus-faced, looking in one direction towards empiricism, and in the other towards

rationalism. The principles are apprehended by induction (epagg) in an honest empiricist way; but they are also grasped by nous, or intuition as it is normally translated, in the easy rationalist fashion. It is a classic problem of Aristotelian scholarship to explain or reconcile these

two apparently opposing aspects of Aristotles thought.49

The contrast between honest empiricism and easy rationalism does more than reveal

Barnes own philosophical sympathies; it also highlights a characteristic attitude to intuition

on the part of many contemporary philosophers, namely, the view that it is somehow

intellectually disreputable. Intuition, on this understanding, is a faculty for discovering truths

about the world a priori, without any need to engage in actual empirical study. Philosophers

tend to be more tolerant of the notion in mathematics.50

What really bothers some

philosophers is the idea that intuition may be a mode of discovery in the empirical sciences.

If nou`~ is understood as a faculty able to discover truths a priori it becomes difficult to

avoid the view that whatever truths one has access to by nou`~ will be accessible from the

beginning and independently of any research. Given Aristotles rejection of innate ideas and of

knowledge as Platonic recollection, a nou`~ of this a priori kind seems fundamentally

incompatible both with the rest of Posterior Analytics 2.19, and with the strongly empirical

character of other parts of Aristotles philosophy.

Aristotle distinguishes sharply between the activity of nou`~ per se and its discursive

realization in the ensouled body.51

Our conscious, discursive thinking is indivisibly linked to

48

Michael Ferejohn, The Origins of Aristotelian Science (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 2. 49

Barnes (1975b), p. 249. 50

Arguably, even in relation to mathematics the notion that intuition is easy is a misrepresentation of the facts. The source of this false stereotype may lie in a failure to understand the relationship between the discursive

activity that prepares for intuition, and the intuitive act itself. Intuition may be effortless in the sense that when it

happens no discursive activity is involved. This by no means implies that the moment of insight is not hard won

by long struggle with a certain problem. But even apart from this, the idea that the state of insight is lacking in

activity is simply not true to the phenomenology of the experience. If anything, insight is characterized by

heightened activity, although the characteristic ambiguity between activity and receptivity in intuition

distinguishes it from the effort involved in discursive thinking. 51

Kahn (1992), p. 375: We are of course often aware of our mental activity of reasoning or discursive thinking.

But this awareness . . . is for Aristotle the proper function of sentience, even though in our case it is the enriched

sentience of a noetic animal.

23

mental images, and so is dependent on experience.52

The view that nou`~ is an intellectual

intuition that sees intelligibles independently of any experience must mean that it is

independent also of discursive thinking. If this is the case then no clear account can be given

as to why such a faculty does not have complete access to the realm of intelligibles from the

beginning. Since neither sense perception, nor discursive thinking, can in any way prepare for

such an intuition, there is no explanation as to why one person does intuit some truth while

another does not. Given these assumptions nou`~ must seem to be a more or less miraculous

capacity for gaining knowledge without having to work for it.

There are thus two further interpretations to keep in mind, both of which I will subsequently

bring into question: firstly, there is the assumption that if nou`~ is a form of intuition distinct

from sense perception then it must be a capacity for gaining truths about the world a priori;

and secondly, that as an a priori faculty nou`~ cannot be developed by cognitive engagement

with the world.

The perceived incompatibility between ejpagwghv and nou`~ leads to various subordinate

problems and a variety of attempts to resolve them. Although there are tendencies here and

there towards a higher synthesis of rationalism and empiricism, for the most part the

resolutions offered are reductive, in the sense that they attempt to downplay or deny the

importance of either ejpagwghv or nou`~, or to reduce one to the other.

These subordinate questions include, among others, the following: Is nou`~ operative at all

stages of the process leading to the grasp of the first principles? Does the term ejpagwghv

describe the whole process or only a portion of it? Is nou`~ only the culmination of the

cognitive process? If nou`~ is the culmination of the cognitive process what is its purpose?

Does it grasp the first principles (in which case it is not clear what ejpagwghv contributes)? Or

does it only validate the principles which are provided by induction? Is nou`````~ (understood as a

state of insight coming at the end of the inductive process) caused by ejpagwghv? In other

words, is nou`````~ a product of ejpagwghv? Or is ejpagwgh only a preparation for an act of insight

quite distinct from it?

What is common to all of these questions is the assumption that there is a fundamental

explanatory gap between ejpagwghv and nou`~. This assumption is a consequence of two main

things: firstly, that ejpagwghv is interpreted as induction; and secondly, that nou`~ is interpreted

as an innate, a priori intellectual intuition.

Induction is typically understood as a form of argument where one infers from the

perception of a certain number of particular cases to a universal claim. A classic example is

the statement that all swans are white. What Murat Aydede calls the notorious frailty53

of

52

Ibid., p. 365: . . . what we call empirical consciousness is located for Aristotle in the primary aisthtikon, the common power accompanying all the senses. . . . 53

Murat Aydede, Aristotle on Episteme and Nous: The Posterior Analytics, http://www.philosophy.ubc.

24

induction derives from the supposed fact that any such claim can be falsified by the

subsequent perception of even one counterexample. The idea that an inductive generalization

is vulnerable to subsequent observations is connected to the idea that induction involves

prediction. In claiming, on the basis of past observations, that all swans are white, I am also

predicting that all swans throughout future time will be white. Induction is typically seen as in

principle incapable of leading to necessary and universal truths of the kind Aristotle requires

as the first principles of demonstrative science. This implies that there is some gap to be

bridged between induction proper, and the grasp of the principles.

Aydede criticises the assumption that Aristotles epistemology, like post-Cartesian

epistemology, attempts to defend knowledge claims against the sceptic. On the view Aydede

criticizes, the Posterior Analytics is an attempt to defend the possibility of scientific

knowledge against a sceptic who will accept nothing less than a conclusive defense of the

possibility of scientific knowledge. Since, for Aristotle, scientific knowledge depends on

knowing the first principles, he needs to present a conclusive defense of our ability to know

the first principles. This is the reason for introducing nou`~. In relation to this interpretation,

Aydede writes:

On this view, Aristotle introduces nous as an intuitive faculty that grasps the first principles once and for all as true in such a way that it does not leave any room for the skeptic to press his

skeptical point any further. Thus the traditional interpretation views Aristotelian nous as having an internalist justificatory role in Aristotelian epistemology.

54

Nou`~ does something that neither demonstration nor induction can do it provides an

absolutely unshakable foundation for the claim to know the first principles. One representative

of this interpretation is T. H. Irwin, who writes:

The knower must grasp self-evident principles as such; for if they are grasped noninferentially,

without any further justification, they must be grasped as true and necessary when considered in

themselves, with no reference to anything else. If first principles are to meet all Aristotles

conditions, they must be grasped by intuition that certifies [italics added] that they have the relevant properties.

55

In other words, nou`~ serves as the ultimate justification of the claim to knowledge of the

first principles. On this view, Aristotles position in the Posterior Analytics, despite the

apparently thoroughgoing empiricism of the bulk of 2.19, ends up as a form of rationalist

foundationalism, since the ultimate ground of all claims to scientific knowledge is a form of

purely intellectual intuition.

ca/faculty/aydede/Aristotle.pdf, p. 5. This is a revised and longer version of a paper which appeared in Southern Journal of Philosophy 36 1 (1998), pp. 1546. 54

Ibid., p. 1.

25

The tendency to view Aristotle through the prism of post-Cartesian epistemology leads to

another problematic understanding. Central to the modern epistemological tradition is the idea

that knowledge requires justification. Lloyd P. Gerson has presented a powerful case for the

view that classical Greek thought generally does not subscribe to the view that justification is

required for knowledge. Knowledge does not require justification because knowledge is not a

matter of justified true belief. Rather, knowledge, while not a physical state, is as much a real

state of the knower as being pregnant, or having a fever; whether or not one is in this state is a

fact quite independent of whether or not one can justify the claim to be in this state.56

A good

example of the sort of problematic understanding the anachronistic epistemological reading

of Aristotle leads to leads to is provided by G. R. Morrow, who responds tartly to Aristotles

view that our knowledge of first principles is independent of demonstration:

There is a certain disingenuousness in Aristotles rather smug solution. To affirm that not all

knowledge is demonstrable is to reject what he has given every show of affirming in the

precedent chapter of this very treatise. Worst of all, the necessity which he says compels us to

assert that knowledge of immediate premises is independent of demonstration is itself a

consequence of the assumption that knowledge in the strict sense is possible which is the very

point at issue.57

Morrows suggestion that Aristotle is being inconsistent is another symptom of the desire to

force Aristotle into the categories of modern philosophy. Indeed there are parallels here with

the way some interpreters respond to the place of nou`~ in On the Soul. Charles Kahn has

commented on the view that Aristotles psychology is rendered inconsistent by his

introduction of nou`~. Kahn writes:

I want to suggest that this is not so much an inconsistency in his theory as a systematic attempt

on his part to do justice to our split nature as human beings . . . his theory of human psuch requires both the hylomorphic definition and an account of incorporeal nous. . . . So the lack of unity in Aristotles account of the soul can be seen as an accurate reflection of the complex,

paradoxical structure of the human condition.58

Kahn is exactly right here Aristotle is not inconsistent, he simply has a richer conception

of the human being than is typically the case in contemporary philosophy of mind, and his

position is therefore not fully comprehensible in terms of that philosophy. His account is

driven by a more fundamental demand than mere consistency, namely, faithfulness to the

phenomena. The same can be said for the Posterior Analytics the introduction of nou`~ is not

55

T. H. Irwin, Aristotles First Principles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), p. 134. 56

Lloyd P. Gerson, Ancient Epistemology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 2. 57

G. R. Morrow, Plato and the Mathematicians: An Interpretation of Socrates Dream in the Theatetus, The Philosophical Review 79 3 (1970), p. 333. 58

Kahn (1992), pp. 361-362.

26

inconsistent in Aristotles own terms, it is only inconsistent when seen through an inadequate

interpretative approach.

The second part of Morrows statement displays a misunderstanding connected to the view

that Aristotle is attempting to justify knowledge. Morrow in effect argues that Aristotle has

begged the question in simply assuming that knowledge in the strict sense is possible.

However, if we consider Aristotles own views on begging the question, we find that one can

only beg the question in relation to matters that are not self-evident.59

Since the principles (and

nou`~ as the active state of knowing the principles) are maximally self-evident, it is in principle

impossible to beg the question in regard to them. Implicit in Morrows criticism is the

assumption that Aristotle should prove, i.e. justify discursively, that knowledge is possible.

What Morrow doesnt seem to recognize is that this is precisely what Aristotle is explicitly

denying; namely, that all knowledge is able to be demonstrated. Morrow is assuming that the

claim that there is a non-demonstrable knowledge should itself be demonstrable. This is

because he assumes that Aristotle postulates nou`~ as a theoretical solution to a problem and

that he intends it to be accepted on the strength of discursive arguments.

This problematic understanding is also found to some extent in the cases of Lesher and

Grene. Lesher, for example, criticizes Aristotles first argument for the view that not all

knowledge is demonstrable by claiming that the argument shows only that knowledge of first

principles (if we have it) must be indemonstrable, not that we actually possess such

knowledge.60

Again, the implication here is that Aristotle is trying to prove, or justify, that

we have knowledge that is not dependent on demonstration. Grene offers a similar criticism:

It is, on the face of it, a most unconvincing argument. How do we know there is knowledge of conclusions? Because there is knowledge of premises. How do we know there is knowledge of

premises? There must be, if there is to be knowledge of conclusions. And if there are two sources of certainty, nous and episteme, and one of these is the source of inferential certainty, then the other must be the source of the certainty of the starting-points of inference. But how do

we know there are two such sources? Presumably because if there were not, there could not be

the whole premise-inference-conclusion structure we have been describing. . . . The existence of

nous seems to be hung simply and solely on the demand that, to have Aristotelian science, we must have it, and so we do.61

Grene seems to forget that nou`~ and the first principles it grasps are not the conclusions of

an argument they are what argument starts from. Implicit in Grenes criticism is the idea that

we start in a position where we have no justified knowledge and we must prove that we do in

59

APr. 2.16.65a23-25: For we have explained the meaning of begging the question, viz., proving that which is not self-evident by means of itself. Cf. also Apr. 2.16.64b34: . . . since we get to know some things naturally through themselves, and other things by means of something else (the first principles through themselves, what is

subordinate to them through something else), whenever a man tries to prove what is not self-evident by means of

itself, then he begs the original question. (Jenkinson). 60

Lesher (1973), p. 44.

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fact have knowledge, or that it is in fact possible. The starting point is the worldless subject

who must first gain cognitive access to the world.

But Aristotle never says that nou`~ must exist if there is to be knowledge of conclusions.

Similarly, the existence of nou`~ is not hung simply and solely on the fact that we must have

it in order for Aristotelian science to be possible. Aristotle simply states that nou`~ exists. His

claim is descriptive. If nou`~ as described by Aristotle exists, then the only possible proof of

its existence and character would be an experiential one, i.e. actual noetic activity. It is in

principle impossible for nou`~ to be proved by anything other than nou`~. Rosen is definitely

on the right track when he writes,

At the risk of sounding anachronistic, I am tempted to suggest that the Aristotelian thesis of

intellectual intuition is an implicit transcendental argument. There is no possibility of the direct

demonstration of the act of intuition in the sense of a discursive analysis of that act. This is

because intuition is the necessary precondition for discursivity and, as an act, it has no

structure.62

While I wouldnt go as far as saying that Aristotle is presenting a transcendental argument,

Rosen is quite right that nou`~ is a precondition for discursive thinking, and as such is not

amenable to proof by means of discursive thinking. I will return to the question whether nou`~

has an internal structure when I discuss Aristotles views about divine nou`~ in Chapter 4.

Desiring to get away from the subjective, epistemological reading of the Posterior Analytics

Aydede argues that

. . . Aristotles project in the Posterior Analytics is not to answer the skeptic on internalist justificatory grounds, but rather to lay out a largely externalist explication of scientific knowledge, i.e. what scientific knowledge consists in, without worrying as to whether we can

ever show the skeptic to his satisfaction that we do ever possess knowledge so defined.63

Aydede is right that Aristotle is laying out an explication of scientific knowledge, but

calling it externalist is not helpful. The internalist/externalist dichotomy is ultimately no

more useful than the rationalist/empiricist one.64

The second part of the passage just quoted is

61

M. G. Grene, A Portrait of Aristotle (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1963), p. 111. 62

Rosen (1980), p. 63. I wouldnt go as far as saying that Aristotle is presenting a transcendental argument. My

agreement with Rosen here is restricted to the idea that nou`~ is a precondition for discursive thinking, and as such is not amenable to proof by means of discursive thinking. I will return to the question whether nou`~ has an internal structure when I discuss Aristotles views about divine nou`~ in Chapter 4. 63

Aydede, op. cit., p. 1. 64

One reason why this dichotomy is not helpful is because nou`~ is amenable to neither an internalist nor an externalist understanding. On the internalist side, nou`~ is not equivalent to the Cartesian idea of consciousness that dominates much epistemological discussion. On the externalist side, nou`~ is not some kind of reliable mechanism that puts the knower in the right kind of relationship with the external world, a relationship

describable independently of nou`~. For Aristotle, nou`~ is neither subjective nor objective, it is both: both the highest form of cognitive activity, and the highest form of reality. In this sense nou`~ is both internal and external

28

more problematic. Whether or not one agrees with Aydedes claim that Aristotle is not

concerned to offer a defense of scientific knowledge that will satisfy the sceptic ultimately

depends on what Aydede means. Specifically, it is unclear how he understands Aristotles

explication of the nature of scientific knowledge. If he means that Aristotle is explicating

solely what scientific knowledge should be, irrespective of whether it exists or not, then he is

mistaken. If he means that Aristotle is describing actual scientific knowledge, then he is

correct. The key to understanding the nature of Aristotles explication lies in the realisation

that it is phenomenological. Because phenomenological description involves the seeing of the

essential structure of the phenomenon, in this case scientific knowledge, a phenomenological

explication of scientific knowledge can be simultaneously descriptive and normative.

What is puzzling, from a modern point of view, is that Aristotle is engaging in a project

which is both descriptive and normative simultaneously. This puzzlement arises from

projecting modern epistemological assumptions onto Aristotles thought. There is insufficient

recognition of the fact that Aristotle does not share the dualist and representationalist

assumptions about knowledge that characterize so much post-Cartesian epistemology. It is not

that Aristotle opts for something less than a fully justified science, by simply opting not to

respond to the sceptic. Rather, he has no need to respond to the sceptic because the kind of

skeptical doubts that dominate modern philosophy get no purchase in the context of his theory

of knowledge.

The tension between empiricism and rationalism in the Posterior Analytics is also discussed

by Michael Frede, who ends up concluding that Aristotle is a rationalist.65

Frede begins by

presenting a fairly standard picture of the tension. On the one hand, Aristotle says that all

knowledge originates in sense perception and that the lack of a particular sense closes off

access to the corresponding domain of knowledge.66

In his own scientific practice Aristotle

recognizes the value of painstaking observation and the gathering of data pertaining to a given

scientific domain. This suggests that Aristotle is an empiricist. On the other hand, Aristotle

thinks that knowledge strictly speaking is either knowledge of basic principles or knowledge

by deduction from those principles. This view could perhaps be reconciled with empiricism if

Aristotle thought that the principles themselves owe their epistemic status as known truths to

simultaneously. 65

Michael Frede, Aristotles Rationalism, in Rationality in Greek Thought, ed. Michael Frede and Gisela Striker (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). 66

APo.1.18.81a38-81b9: It is also clear that the loss of any one of the senses entails the loss of a corresponding portion of knowledge, and that, since we learn either by induction or by demonstration, this knowledge cannot be

acquired. Thus demonstration develops from universals, induction from particulars; but since it is possible to

familiarize the pupil with even the so-called mathematical abstractions only through induction i.e. only because

each subject genus possesses, in virtue of a determinate mathematical character, certain properties which can be

treated as separate even though they do not exist in isolation it is consequently impossible to come to grasp

universals except through induction. But induction is impossible for those who have not sense-perception.

(Mure).

29

the fact that they can be justified by some kind of inference from what we observe.67

However, this is not Aristotles view.

According to Frede, Aristotles view is that we know the principles immediately, and their

epistemic status is in no way dependent upon their confirmation by what deductively follows

from them, let alone upon their confirmation by what we can observe.68

Hence, our

knowledge of these principles is not a posteriori but is a result of their being seen directly by

reason (nou`~). All knowledge in the true sense is knowledge a priori, purely by reason. From

this perspective Aristotle turns out to be an extreme rationalist.69

For Frede, this is deeply

puzzling. Why, if all knowledge is based on an a priori intuition of immediate truths, does

Aristotle say that knowledge has its origins in perception? Even more puzzlingly, Aristotle

sometimes speaks as if we could

. . . argue for these first principles, as if we could come to know them by inference, indeed, as if

we could come to know them by what he calls induction (epagoge), an induction at least sometimes based on perception.

70

Frede assumes the opposition between empiricism and rationalism as a given, and as

representing the full range of choices in the matter. According to Frede there is no knowledge

of the principles a posteriori. But as Fredes own account makes clear, Aristotle does not think

that the knowledge of the principles is a priori in the sense that they could be discovered

independently of perception and ejpagwghv. We are again forcibly struck by the possibility that

the problem is not with Aristotles position, but with interpretative paradigms of his readers.

Although Frede begins by assuming the opposition between rationalism and empiricism, he

subsequently makes a number of points that lead in the right direction. Frede states that instead

of dealing with the above puzzles, he wants to focus on clarifying the notion of reason

involved in Aristotles rationalism. I will return to this aspect of Fredes account in Chapter 6.

Unfortunately the rest of Fredes account is unsatisfying. He repeats the tired old clich that

Aristotles introduction of nou`~ seems to be an appeal to a mysterious quasi-mystical power

of the mind to intuit universals.71

We are given no reason why such a faculty is mysterious

other than the contention that it is. This common accusation is significant because it is one of

those cases where centuries worth of sedimented prejudice comes to the surface. Indeed, to

flesh out what is contained in this kind of claim would lead us too far astray. Nevertheless, a

few basic points need to be made, because although Frede wants to argue that Aristotle does

not have any such mysterious faculty in mind, his account goes astray at precisely this point.

67

Frede (1996), p. 157. 68

Ibid., p. 157. 69

Ibid., p. 158. 70

Ibid., p. 158. 71

Ibid., p. 167.

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The accusation derives what little force i