Being Measured

Truth and Falsehood in Aristotle's Metaphysics

Mark R. Wheeler

• Editore: SUNY Press
• Anno: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781438476865
• Argomento: Filosofia
• Categoria: Epistemologia in filosofia

On the basis of careful textual exegesis and philosophical analysis of Aristotle's Metaphysics, Mark R. Wheeler offers a groundbreaking interpretation of Aristotle's theory of truth in terms of measurement. Wheeler demonstrates that Aristotle's investigation of truth and falsehood in the Metaphysics is rigorously methodical, that Aristotle's conceptions of truth contribute to the main lines of thought in the treatise, and that the Metaphysics, taken as a whole, contributes fundamentally to Aristotle's theory of truth. Wheeler provides not only an excellent introduction to the main problems in the theory of truth but also provides contemporary truth theorists with a rigorous explanation of Aristotle's theory of truth.

PART I

PHILOSOPHICAL WISDOM AND TRUTH

Chapter 1

The Demands of Philosophical Wisdom

In books Α, α, and Β, Aristotle announces his principal purpose in the Metaphysics—to investigate philosophical wisdom—and he prepares us for this investigation. Truth emerges early on as an important element in the investigation. In all three books, Aristotle identifies difficulties that can only be resolved through an understanding of the nature of truth.

Aristotle begins Metaphysics Α with a summary overview of his own previously expressed views about philosophical wisdom. He reviews and refines common opinions and his predecessor’s views about philosophical wisdom. He details the difficulties involved in discerning philosophical wisdom, and he identifies the two main parts of his investigation into it in the Metaphysics: a defense of the first principles of argument and an inquiry into the first principles and causes of being insofar as it is being. The rest of the Metaphysics is devoted to these two efforts.

Aristotle’s first statement in the Metaphysics—that all human beings by nature yearn to know [πάντες ἄνθρωποι τοῦ εἰδέναι ὀρέγονται φύσει]—identifies a principal theme of the treatise: knowledge. In the first chapter of book Α, Aristotle digests the genetic relations among (and the comparative cognitive worth of) sensory perceptions, memories, experience, art, demonstrative understanding, and philosophical wisdom. By the end of the first chapter of book Α, at 982a1−3, Aristotle has focused our attention on the species of knowledge he hopes to investigate in the treatise: philosophical wisdom.

Aristotle’s lead assertion in the Metaphysics is not a throwaway line. Our love of wisdom is a species of our natural yearning to know: we could not love wisdom if we lacked the natural capacity to desire knowledge. As Aristotle would put it, we are by our very nature moved to know. But for what purpose do we yearn [ὀρέγονται] to know? Aristotle has a ready answer—we yearn to know because we crave truth.

Someone might think that human beings seek truth in order to acquire knowledge and that we pursue knowledge—not truth—for its own sake. Philosophers, on this view, are first and foremost lovers of knowledge and not lovers of truth. This is not Aristotle’s view. Aristotle does grant the unexceptionable point that truth is a constitutive part of the essence of knowledge: no truth, no knowledge. And he would not wish to deny that we desire to know only if we desire truth.1 But Aristotle does not think we pursue truth because it is a means to knowledge. He reverses the order of this explanation: according to Aristotle, we desire knowledge for the sake of possessing truth. Truth is the final cause—the τέλος—of knowledge. Knowledge is prized because it is a stable way of having truth. Philosophical wisdom is a particularly valuable kind of knowledge because it is the most secure way to possess truth and because it involves truth about the most important things.

Let me provide some justification for these claims. In distinguishing the modes of human cognition in Metaphysics Α 1, Aristotle refers us to the more elaborate taxonomy he articulates in book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics. There, at 1139b15−17, Aristotle lists philosophical wisdom among the five ways the psyche possesses truth by means of affirmation and denial: technical knowledge [τέχνη], demonstrative knowledge [ἐπιστήμη], practical wisdom [φρόνησις], philosophical wisdom [σοφία], and noetic comprehension [νοῦς]. Each of these modes of cognition, according to Aristotle, essentially involves the psyche possessing truth by means of acts of assertion. Two consequences of this fact are fundamentally important to our discussion of truth in the Metaphysics.

First, Arisotle understands all of the modes of knowledge in terms of psychological acts of true assertion. In the passage from the Nicomachen Ethics, Aristotle explicitly specifies the genus of knowledge. Knowledge is, generically, the activity of the psyche by means of which it possesses truth by way of affirmation and denial. Each of the five kinds of knowledge listed at NE VI.1139b15−17 and subsequently defined in NE VI are species of this genus—each is a different way that the psyche possesses truth by means of acts of assertion. Therefore, understanding the nature of the kind of truth that belongs to assertions is essential to understanding the nature of the various species of knowledge.

Second, it is important that philosophical wisdom is one of the ways the psyche possesses truth by means of acts of assertion. Aristotle distinguishes the various species of knowledge in Nicomachean Ethics book VI by differentiating among the acts of assertion they involve (acts of definition, acts of demonstration, etc.) and among the kinds of objects these acts of assertion are about (necessary beings, non-necessary beings, etc.). He defines philosophical wisdom in NE VI 7, first at 1141a18−20 and then again at 1141b2−3. He tells us that it is “demonstrative knowledge combined with noetic comprehension, of the things that are highest by nature.” He explains demonstrative knowledge in NE VI 3. Demonstrative knowledge is a psychological capacity to demonstrate, from first principles, true assertions about necessary beings. Demonstration itself is the activity of the psyche asserting affirmations or denials (the conclusions of demonstrations) on the basis of other affirmations or denials it has asserted (the premises of the demonstrations) all of which demonstrative activity involves the psyche possessing truth by means of acts of assertion. Aristotle defines noetic comprehension in NE VI 6. Noetic comprehension as a state in which the psyche grasps [λείπεται] the first principles of demonstrative knowledge. A first principle of demonstrative knowledge is a definition that expresses the essence of the subject matter known. These definitions are a kind of assertion. When the psyche grasps the first principles of demonstrative knowledge, it does not grasp them on the basis of other assertions—its grasp of first principles is not mediated by other acts of assertion. In cases of noetic comprehension, the psyche immediately grasps the nature of essences by means of acts of true assertion. When the psyche grasps principles in this way, Aristotle tells us, it possesses truth [ἀληθεύομεν] and it never has falsehood [διαψεϒδόμεθα].

These relatively terse accounts of philosophical wisdom, demonstrative knowledge, and noetic comprehension in book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics recapitulate the gist of the extended discussions of these sorts of knowledge in the De Anima and the Analytics, to which latter work Aristotle explicitly refers us at Nicomachean Ethics VI.1139b31ff. The Posterior Analytics confirms that true assertion is essential to Aristotle’s accounts of demonstrative knowledge and noetic comprehension and, hence, his conception of philosophical wisdom. That true assertion is essential to all forms of knowledge is also evident from Aristotle’s account of sensory perception and thinking in De Anima III. There Aristotle tells us that when the psyche perceives and thinks—which latter activity includes all of the species of knowing—it discriminates by means of assertions which are either true or false.

Aristotle also develops his logical methods in order to secure truth. We have just seen how Aristotle’s methods of demonstration and definition employ and aim at true assertions. Aristotle defines both demonstration and definition in terms of affirmative and negative assertions (see APr. I 1.24a10−b17; APo. I 1.71b17−26; Top. I.1.100a27−30) which he in turn defines in terms of truth and falsehood (see Int. 4.17a2−3 and 6.17a25−6). Aristotle defines dialectic as a method for reasoning without contradiction about generally accepted beliefs (see Top. I.1.100a18−21). Since Aristotle defines contradiction in terms of affirmative and negative assertions and, hence, in terms of truth and falsehood (see Int. 17a31−35), he understands the method of dialectic in terms of truth and falsehood, and one of the chief aims of dialectic—as specified in the Topics—is to secure true first principles. Aristotle also defines rhetoric (at least insofar as it is concerned with enthymemes made up of affirmative and negative assertions) in terms of true and false assertion and, hence, in terms of truth.

Aristotle thus conceives of philosophical wisdom, demonstrative knowledge, and noetic comprehension in terms of psychological acts of true assertion. True assertion is also constitutive of the remaining modes of knowledge, the sensory modalities, memory, and experience.2 We need to understand the nature of true assertion, then, if we wish to understand the nature of philosophical wisdom.

In summary, from what Aristotle tells us in the Metaphysics and other treatises, he conceives of philosophical wisdom as follows:

Philosophical wisdom is a state of the psyche wherein, by means of affirmation or denial, (1) it noetically comprehends, and is never deceived about, the first principles and causes of the necessary beings that are by nature highest and (2) it has the capacity to demonstrate on the basis of these first principles.

Philosophical wisdom, therefore, is essentially a complex state of the psyche in which noetic comprehension of true definitions about things that are highest by nature is combined with the power to demonstrate from these other true assertions about those same things. The noetic acts of assertion partly constitutive of philosophical wisdom are acts by means of which the psyche immediately possesses truth about the essences of the things that are highest by nature. These are the first principles or the immediate definitions of essence that the psyche noetically comprehends. The power to demonstrate other true assertions about the things highest by nature—which power is constitutive of the remaining part of philosophical wisdom—is the psyche’s potential to possess true assertions, mediated by means of inferential acts of assertion, about those same things.

Aristotle is thus quite explicit about the relationship between philosophical wisdom and truth in the various treatises where he has already discussed the cognitive powers constitutive of philosophical wisdom—noetic comprehension and demonstrative knowledge. In the first chapter of Metaphysics book Α he harks us back to those other discussions before undertaking the difficult work of explaining what was left unexplained by those earlier discussion: What are the things highest by nature, i.e., what is substance, and which are the first principles and causes of substance that are the proper objects of philosophical wisdom? And how is noetic comprehension of the true definitions about these highest things, and how is demonstration from these true definitions, possible, i.e., how are the true assertions about the essences of the proper objects of philosophical wisdom possible?

Even this much reveals the importance of truth for Aristotle’s account of philosophical wisdom. But he gives truth a more exalted status than merely being a part of the essence of philosophical wisdom. Truth, he tells us, is the natural purpose and the ultimate good of philosophical wisdom—truth is the final cause of philosophical wisdom.

In the Nicomachean Ethics VI 1, at 1139a27−31, after summarizing his discussions of the differences between the excellences of character and the excellences of the intellect—in Nicomachean Ethics I 13 and II 1—Aristotle lays out his view that truth is the proper function and the good of the intellect:

τῆς δὲ θεωρητικῆς διανοίας καὶ μὴ πρακτικῆς μηδὲ ποιητικῆς τὸ εὖ καὶ κακῶς τἀληθές ἐστι καὶ ψεῦδος (τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι παντὸς διανοητικοῦ ἔργον)· τοῦ δὲ πρακτικοῦ καὶ διανοητικοῦ ἀλήθεια ὁμολόγως ἔχουσα τῇ ὀρέξει τῇ ὀρθῇ.

Of the theoretical intellect, and not the practical nor the productive intellect, the good and the bad state are truth and falsehood (for this [truth and falsehood] is the function of everything intellectual); while of the practical and intellectual the good state is truth in agreement with right desire. (trans., mine, following Ross)

Here Aristotle emphasizes that the function of everything intellectual is to secure the truth. As a consequence, the function (or work) of the contemplative intellect is truth, and the good state of the theoretical intellect is truth. Then, on the basis of these claims, he explains at NE 1139b12−13 why a given state of the intellect is an excellence: it is an excellence of the intellect because it enables the intellect to realize truth:

ἀμφοτέρων δὴ τῶν νοητικῶν μορίων ἀλήθεια τὸ ἔργον. καθ’ ἃς οὖν μάλιστα ἕξεις ἀληθεύσει ἑκάτερον, αὗται ἀρεταὶ ἀμφοῖν.

The function, then, of both parts of the intellect is truth. Therefore, the states that best enable each part to secure the truth are the excellences of both parts. (trans., mine, following Ross)

Aristotle here repeats that the function (or work) of the intellect—whether theoretical or practical—is truth. He infers that those states (or habits3) that “secure truth” [ἀληθεύσει] are the excellences of the intellect. In other words, the virtues of the intellect aim at truth.

He makes the same point in the Eudemian Ethics. First, at 1215a35−b5, he notes that the philosopher is concerned with the contemplation of truth:

τρεῖς ὁρῶμεν καὶ βίους ὄντας, οὓς οἱ ἐπ’ ἐξουσίας τυγχάνοντες προαιροῦνται ζῆν ἅπαντες, πολιτικὸν φιλόσοφον ἀπολαυστικόν. τούτων γὰρ ὁ μὲν φιλόσοφος βούλεται περὶ φρόνησιν εἶναι καὶ τὴν θεωρίαν τὴν περὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν, ὁ δὲ πολιτικὸς περὶ τὰς πράξεις τὰς καλάς (αὗται δ’ εἰσὶν αἱ ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρετῆς), ὁ δ’ ἀπολαυστικὸς περὶ τὰς ἡδονὰς τὰς σωματικάς.

We see there are three lives, which all those who have power happen to choose: the political, the philosophical, the pleasurable. Of these, then, the philosopher chooses to concern himself with practical wisdom and the contemplation of the truth, the political man with what is practical and noble (i.e., those actions that relate to the virtues), the epicure with bodily pleasures. (trans., mine)

Then he emphasizes, at 1221b27−30, that truth is the function of all intellectual activity:

εἰλημμένων δὲ τούτων, μετὰ ταῦτα λεκτέον ὅτι ἐπειδὴ δύο μέρη τῆς ψυχῆς, καὶ αἱ ἀρεταὶ κατὰ ταῦτα διῄρηνται, καὶ αἱ μὲν τοῦ λόγον ἔχοντος διανοητικαί, ὧν ἔργον ἀλήθεια, ἢ περὶ τοῦ πῶς ἔχει ἢ περὶ γενέσεως.

Having grasped these things, after this one should say that since there are two parts of the soul, and the virtues of these are divided, those of the rational part are the intellectual virtues, whose function is truth, whether about a thing’s nature or genesis. (trans., mine)

In the ethical works, therefore, where Aristotle endeavors to prove that the essence of human flourishing is the activity of philosophical wisdom or—depending on how we interpret Aristotle’s account of human flourishing—the activity of philosophical wisdom combined with the activity of practical wisdom, he asserts that truth is the function and ultimate good of all intellectual activity. By implication, truth is the function and ultimate good of philosophical wisdom and, hence, of the activity that defines human flourishing...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Stating the Puzzles
• Part I Philosophical Wisdom and Truth
• Part II Truth and the Logical Axioms
• Part III Truth and Being
• Part IV Truth and Measurement
• Conclusion: The Subsequent Free Play of Thought
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Index Locorum
• Back Cover