/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17085365]

I'm torn on Aristotle's approach towards philosophy, which makes both complete sense and no sense to me. His methodical, scientific approach makes sense to me when it comes to forming a coherent, logically rigorous argument, properly analysing and thinking about the world, and in general getting to the root of something. However, I cannot shake this feeling of annoyance and frustration with the degree to which he takes it, to where it almost makes philosophy more of a science than, well, philosophy. What do, friends?

[Anonymous No.17085450]

>>17085365
I don't understand how this is a problem.

[Anonymous No.17085620]

You have to understand how primitive his world was. He didn’t know all the things we now know

[Anonymous No.17085976]

>>17085450
It's like if someone cared so much about optimising their car and fine tuning every little thing about it such that the actual driving is not as fun.

[Anonymous No.17086693]

>>17085365
At the time, philosophy, science and even math were intimately tied to one another. If you're reading Aristotle, you can't (read: shouldn't) separate those things into disparate fields like we would today.

[Anonymous No.17087249]

>>17085365
I'm torn on his philosophy which makes sense when you accept his assumptions but where does he demonstrate his assumptions? ie why should one believe such a thing as a final cause or a formal cause actually exist?

[Anonymous No.17087261]

>>17087249
or substance or essence or any of these terms. what is the aristotelian argument for assuming these things? i've read somewhere that they construct it from "common sense" such as that everybody knows what change and motion is, but do they really?

[Anonymous No.17087268]

>>17085365
Are you actually reading his complete works or are you just randomly jumping to muh metaphysics and other well-known works? Cuz if you are doing the latter, obviously it isn't going to make sense. Start with the organon (boring as fuck but just force yourself to say the words out loud, not important to understand them at a conscious level), you shouldn't get to metaphysics until you're over 50% throug his entire corpus

[Anonymous No.17087455]

>>17087268
>1. The Categories (Latin: Categoriae) introduces Aristotle's 10-fold classification of that which exists: substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, situation, condition, action, and passion.

Is there any reason to accept this over some other formulation? Shouldn't we first ask ourselves how can we know that something exists, what does this precisely mean, and whether it is universal or dependant on any given individual man's ability to ascertain these (or other) facts and whether this is reliable in the first place.

[Anonymous No.17087462]

>>17086693
Thanks anon, I try not to, will keep this in mind more often.
>>17087268
Read Organon, Nicomachean Ethics, all the important works, and making my way through Metaphysics, but I'll be damned if Aristotle still isn't a little extreme with his approach.

[Anonymous No.17087477]

>>17087455
You're getting hung up on trying to understand Aristotle analytically. The organon should be viewed like a hypnotic induction. Just read it aloud, force yourself to say the words, don't try to understand it. You're right, the choice of that specific formulation is totally arbitrary, it's just an excuse for the hypnotic language, a scaffolding if you will.

[Anonymous No.17087482]

>>17087462
It sounds like you skipped the physics and biology stuff. "Metaphysics" literally means "After Physics". You're doing it wrong.

[Anonymous No.17087491]

>>17087477
If his categories are arbitrary that his critical implications for his metaphysics and everything else that he derives from metaphysics. That's why I'm asking how do Aristotelians defend their choice of these categories, I'm sure they have an argument. I know a classic Aristotelian would never say "well yeah, all initial axioms are assumptions bro". That's a more modern reply.

[Anonymous No.17087498]

>>17087491
>his
has

[Anonymous No.17087524]

>>17087491
His categories are his platonic boast. It's his way of taking centre stage in the academy to quiet down the chaps. This is it's source. This is obviously just opinion and there's no science in this. Aristotle was a boaster and no true philosopher the categories are just plays on platonic opinions to appear knowing and do not correspond to nature at all.

[Anonymous No.17087529]

>>17087491
Stop reading Wikipedia articles and getting your panties in a bunch. Aristotle is like a movie filled with tons and tons of amazing scenes loosely tied together by some basic character development (the Organon), and while there is an overarching plot, said overarching plot is not really the important part. The important part is all those individual scenes. And when you go to Wikipedia of course their synopsis just tells you about the overarching plot (which is just a clothesline really, to hang the beautiful clothes on) and obviously it sounds retarded and stupid

[Anonymous No.17087536]

>>17085365
Forms are inherently irrational. This why Plato points out the inconsistencies in the theory of form, yet the form is inescapable and very real. Philosophy too is a form. Aristotle tried to formalize all of philosophy, which is brilliant and mad.

[Anonymous No.17087538]

>>17087529
>>17087491
Or, you know, it's a free country, you could ignore my sage advice and just go read 50 Shades of Grey instead. What do all those intellectuals over the past 2500 years know, anyway

[Anonymous No.17087555]

>>17087249
>>17087261
Start with Plato. You don't have to read his works necessarily, but get acquainted with his ideas and understand where the arguments arise from. Also read the greek skeptics to get an idea of what typical arguments centered around then (arguments still retain the same form today).

[Anonymous No.17087558]

>>17087491
>go to fancy restaurant
>look at their menu
"I demand to speak to the chef. How did he determine that this specific menu was the right menu, rather than any of the innumerably many other permutations he could have chosen?! I am offended!"

[Anonymous No.17087577]

>tell zoomies to start with the greeks
>they instead ask why they should blindly follow what this Ancient Greek man says over someone else
It's like people don't know how to think for themselves anymore. Everything has to have an immediate value judgement so it can decided whether it should be integrated into the personality or not and whether it should be followed or not.

[Anonymous No.17087587]

>>17087529
So you're saying Aristotle is just an aesthetic experience?

I'm interested in truth myself. I'm not going to spend hundreds of pages on fiction-philosophy that builds its entire structure on first principles that are utterly arbitrary if not outright false. No matter how "amazing" the scenery. I could read fiction for that. Now, seeing as that I am sure Aristotelians have an actual defense for selecting those axiom, I'd rather hear their argument for it than your sensuous nonsense.

[Anonymous No.17087596]

>>17087558
this is not philosophy, neither Aristotle nor Aristotelians would defend their philosophy in this way. kill yourself.

[Anonymous No.17087615]

>>17087577
I find no reason to believe that Aristotle's arbitrarily selected axioms which simply assert themselves is a convincing argument without spending time on underlying assumptions and the question of whether these are in fact reliable. I am sure Aristotelians can defend these "first principles" of theirs so I'd like to hear what that defense is like. In reality you shitheads who have no response other than "read the Greeks" are the ones lacking critical thinking skills.

[Anonymous No.17087625]

>>17087587
No, don't over-stretch the metaphor. The "scenes" of the "movie" are not just aesthetic, they are filled with very many profound truths.

Take Metaphysics for example, it contains many little profound truths which stand alone by themselves. Aristotle could have chosen to present them as just an unordered "sayings" list (like the Tao Te Ching) but instead he vaguely structured it into an overarching plot. But said plot is not important and you shouldn't focus so much on it.

It's like if you had to give a report on what you did over the summer. Well, you surfed, swam, boogie-boarded, rode a roller coaster, rode a ferris wheel, played carnival games, drove to California, drove to Nevade, drove to Oregon. But instead of just listing all those things like a grocery list, you decide to structure it a bit: "I basically did three things: beach, carnival, and roadtrip. Let me elaborate on each of those things."

Imagine if your teacher flew into a rage. "I demand you explain why you chose to categorize your experience into those specific three things. Why didn't you count the beach and carnival as being part of the road trip? Why didn't you separate the carnival into blah blah blah..."

That's what you sound like basically

[Anonymous No.17087646]

>>17087625
>Take Metaphysics for example, it contains many little profound truths which stand alone by themselves.

That's entirely dependant on whether you subscribe to Aristotle's terms out of which he builds his metaphysics. Sure there can be some value there even without you subscribing to his terms but then you can find that even in any retarded philosophy if you look hard enough.

[Anonymous No.17087652]

>>17087625
>Imagine if your teacher flew into a rage. "I demand you explain why you chose to categorize your experience into those specific three things. Why didn't you count the beach and carnival as being part of the road trip? Why didn't you separate the carnival into blah blah blah..."

Yes usually this is how metaphysics is done. Especially Aristotelian metaphysics, ironically. Like I said, I know Aristotelians have actual reasons for this, unlike the stupid aestheticization of Aristotle's philosophy that you present.

[Anonymous No.17087691]

>>17087646
Here's a specific example from the Metaphysics. Aristotle discusses the idea that some people have that there are "ideal" versions of certain numbers, i.e., the "ideal 1" and the "ideal 2". But, he argues, 2 is in some sense two 1's, and if there is a unique ideal 1, then which 1's comprise the ideal 2? They can't BOTH be the ideal 1, because there is only one ideal 1.

Obviously Aristotle does a better job of explaining that than I do. But whether you read it in Aristotle or here, it's an amazing observation which, in my experience, just gets deeper and deeper the more you think about it.

That's what I'd call an example of a profound truth which stands alone by itself. It does NOT depend at all on the terms out of which Aristotle builds his metaphysics. This is philosophy, not mathematics, if you read the above idea and start asking "hurr durr define what 'ideal' means and enumerate your axioms like fucking Euclid" then you need to change the approach you're taking to philosophy

[Anonymous No.17087704]

>>17087691
>if you read the above idea and start asking "hurr durr define what 'ideal' means and enumerate your axioms like fucking Euclid" then you need to change the approach you're taking to philosophy

no, that is just philosophy.

[Anonymous No.17087758]

>>17087704
Well, shit, I guess Plato was just a writer of fiction then, because in all his dialogues there are barely ever any axioms, or geometry-style definitions

[Anonymous No.17087759]

>>17087691
>But, he argues, 2 is in some sense two 1's, and if there is a unique ideal 1, then which 1's comprise the ideal 2?

This is impossible to answer unless you clarify what you mean by "2 is in some sense two 1s". Because to me it seems that even a pratical/not-ideal 2 is NOT made up by two different entities of 1 rather it is simply by positing the same entity, the number 1 and using addition to arrive to 2, this could well be a byproduct of numbers existing as mathematical language rather than having an actual existence that is "counted" together. In effect, I don't even see any reason to think that anything except "ideal" numbers actually exist, there are no un-ideal numbers.

[Anonymous No.17087767]

>>17087758
You're actually losing track of the argument. I'm asking you precisely what is Aristotle's reasoning for using axioms and terms which he does use (see:>>17087455). It is Aristotle who is notoriously axiomatic, therefore given how hard HIS philosophy rests on axiomatic assumptions, it is right to question these assumptions, because his entire project is built upon them. Now, if Aristotle had a philosophy that was different, then you *could* make an argument that it shouldn't be approached from this perspective (a bad argument, but at least an understandable one).

[Anonymous No.17087772]

>>17087759
What you say is perfectly reasonable coming from a 21st century perspective, but you have to realize, when you're talking about Metaphysics, you have to unlearn what you think you know. How do we know there isn't some place far out in outer space, far away from earth, where 1 is a tangible physical object floating out there, and somewhere else 2 is another tangible physical object? Nowadays we would scoff at such a ridiculous idea, but that's *because* the arguments of people like Aristotle (like the idea I posted about above) have been ingrained into us. "Seinfeld isn't funny"

[Anonymous No.17087780]

>>17085365
Kant obliterated metaphysics 200 years ago, son. Get on with the times.

[Anonymous No.17087792]

>>17087767
Have you actually read Aristotle? He does NOT generally base his arguments on axioms, in the same way that (e.g.) Euclid or Archimedes do. There are occasionally places where he does that, but he generally doesn't. I mean, he basically formalized the rule of induction, whereby a general fact is inferred from specific examples, e.g., "/lit/ loves asian waifus. /r9k/ loves asian waifus. /pol/ loves asian waifus. Clearly, 4chan loves asian waifus." There is nothing axiomatic about that. (And yes, obviously you could mis-use it to prove falsities. The whole point of philosophy, as opposed to mathematics, is that we're all agreeing to sit at the grownups' table now and NOT misuse induction even though we all are aware it can be misused)

[Anonymous No.17087796]

>>17087772
There are 21st century Aristotelians who defend Aristotle credibly. I'm interested in how his axioms are defended. To me it seems like you are actually doing a disservice to Aristotle by aestheticizing and historicizing him. But in reality, there are 21st century Aristotelians who actually have a coherent account that credibly defends his assumptions, that's what I'm interested in. I think you are unjustly relegating him to an aesthetic experience and limiting him by placing him into a historical box. Aristotelianism is alive and working today.

[Anonymous No.17087854]

>>17087796
Link me to a paper or webpage or something where someone enumerates Aristotelian definitions and axioms and then uses them to prove things, Euclid-style. I don't believe you.

[Anonymous No.17087871]

>>17087792
his metaphysics is clearly axiomatic in that it is built on terms such as substance, essence, potentiality, actuality, first principles, cause etc. is there a convincing reason to believe that these terms should be used and not others? do these things actually exist? are these things actually evident? can all arrive to knowledge of these things? do some? how do they know they are not mistaken or that this is reliable? if someone arrives to different terms is he mistaken? if somebody questions how can he even know anything before arriving at any metaphysical axiom or postulation is he mistaken? if his answer to that question is different than Aristotle's is he mistaken, by which standard is he mistaken?

[Anonymous No.17087898]

>>17087854
>A first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption.
>Book I or Alpha outlines "first philosophy", which is a knowledge of the first principles or causes of things.

What evidence is there that we should at all speak of things such as Aristotelian causes or substances? Since they are obviously axiomatic terms used by Aristotle to develop his metaphysics.

[Anonymous No.17087902]

>>17087871
Those aren't axioms, they're definitions. You can delete that whole section from the Metaphysics and the rest of it still works fine. It is as if he is providing a mini dictionary for the reader's convenience. Nothing more.

A definition looks like this: "By a circle, we mean a set of points in the plane equidistant from a point in the plane."

An axiom looks like this: "Two lines in the plane are either parallel or else they intersect in exactly one point."

[Anonymous No.17087909]

>>17087898
See >>17087902

[Anonymous No.17087928]

>>17087854
>Book V or Delta ("philosophical lexicon") is a list of definitions of about thirty key terms such as cause, nature, one, and many.
>Book Zeta begins with the remark that ‘Being’ has many senses. The purpose of philosophy is to understand being. The primary kind of being is what Aristotle calls substance.
>Chapters 4–12 are devoted to Aristotle’s own theory that essence is the criterion of substantiality. The essence of something is what is included in a secundum se ('according to itself') account of a thing, i.e. which tells what a thing is by its very nature.

The entire Aristotelian metaphysics are just series of axiomatic assertions that are then used to reason with. My question is simple, what is the Aristotelian defense for asserting these terms and not others and whether the Aristotelian questions how his mind/intellect/reason or whatever you want to call it can ascertain these axioms and whether all can do that and whether that is reliable.

[Anonymous No.17087949]

>>17087928
He defines terms which he uses and which he thinks might be ambiguous or liable to misinterpretation.

It's like this. Suppose I want to write: "I like sunsets". But then I realize some people might not know what that means. So I preface it like this: "By a 'sunset', I mean the moment when the sun is perceived to dip below the horizon. I like sunsets". There's literally nothing more to it than that. I can hardly believe how much you're overreading into it. You might as well ask "How do modern-day Aristotelians defend Aristotle's decision to write in Greek? Why didn't he write in Phoenician instead? What are the theoretical justifications for using Greek?"

[Anonymous No.17087955]

>>17087902

This is an axiom:
>The primary kind of being is what Aristotle calls substance.

Let's not pretend Aristotle isn't full of shit like this. At the end of the day it's an interesting intellectual exercise but there is simply no reason to think that any of these terms and assertions and relations between terms have any actual meaning.

[Anonymous No.17087966]

>>17087955
No, that is not an axiom, that is a definition. Rephrased: "By 'substance' I mean 'primary kind of being'". Rephrased even dumber: "Look you barbarian, everywhere I write 'substance', you can scratch it out and replace it with 'primary kind of being'. I literally just gave it a name in order to save ink."

[Anonymous No.17087986]

>>17087949
Unlike sunsets, almost nobody actually knows that substance or essence exist. It's simply taken as a given by Aristotle as sunset in your example. But it is not at all clear that this is actually the case. If there can be no convincing argument made that these terms actually mean something and have some sort of logical primacy over other possible terms, then Aristotle's entire metaphysics which is reliant on these terms is meaningless. You have to show *how* substance, essence etc. actually make sense if you want to derive metaphysical conclusions from them. And if you actually examine the definitions of these terms as Aristotle uses them, which are by no means simple, you realize that they're loaded with assumptions that aren't either obvious or evidently true.

[Anonymous No.17088015]

>>17087986
One can define things without those things existing. In fact, it is routine for mathematicians to define something, only to then prove that no such thing exists. Anyway, almost everyone *does* agree that substance and essence exist. Only a true rainman would get in a philosophical hiffy in response to you saying "I think the essence of 4chan is lonely men who appreciate anime". The question isn't whether they exist, it's what they are. And Aristotle talks at great length about what they might be (but ultimately, at least as I understood him, his final answer amounts to "lol who knows, but at least we got to discuss cool stuff like whether there is really an 'ideal 1' and an 'ideal 2'")

[Anonymous No.17088026]

>>17088015
>Anyway, almost everyone *does* agree that substance and essence exist.

Are you actually serious?

[Anonymous No.17088046]

>>17088015
>The question isn't whether they exist, it's what they are.

The question isn't whether they exist actually, the question is whether they exist as meaningful terms that aren't ladden with shaky underlying statements that make conclusions derived from their usage totally questionable if not worthless.

[Anonymous No.17088068]

>>17087482
This really applies to his works as a whole.