Sunday, May 2, 2010

Aristotle's 'Metaphysics', Book I, Chp. I

I've begun to work through several key sections of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Not so much for the sake of getting any unique thoughts out, or for the sake of readers, but more for the sake of retaining the information myself, I've decided to record some of the key points as blog entries. So, here goes.

Book I, Chp. I of the Metaphysics seems to be constructed to argue for the following conclusion: That all men, by nature, desire to know (as he says in the first sentence of the work). In favor of this conclusion, as I see it, he offers (roughly) the following three justifications: (1) The pleasure we take in our senses, (2) the end for which our cognitive faculties seem to be constructed, and (3) the fact that the human race exalts knowledge for it's own sake as being the truest sort of wisdom.

In defense of (1) Aristotle notes that we enjoy our senses, and especially sight, for their own sake. That is, even when we're not planning on using any of our senses for a particular practical end, we would still prefer to have them "up and running", so to say. Aristotle implies that this delight in our senses is because in the act of sensing, we are coming to a knowledge of the things around us. He also says that, in addition to this, sensing allows us to make real distinctions between things, and that this act of making distinctions (construed as an act of coming to know them) is part of what we enjoy.

Aristotle's defense of (2) seems to be offered in a sort of round-about way. He talks about how, unlike various other animals (he uses bees as an example), our cognitive faculties are endowed with memory. The end for which memory seems to exist is to produce what Aristotle calls "experience" (that is, experiential knowledge). This experiential knowledge, then, leads to the generalized areas of knowledge he calls "art" (what we'd probably just call a "discipline" or "science"). So, then, it seems that our cognitive and perceptual faculties aim at knowledge, showing that the "desire to know" is innate and natural to the human species.

Aristotle, anticipating (I think) the objection that this knowledge is nonetheless aimed only at practical ends, argues the following: Although it is true that art, and experience, are equally valuable and essential to "getting things done" (e.g., a doctor needs experience and technical medical knowledge to operate on someone), nonetheless we as a species appear to value art over experience. Art, Aristotle says, entails a knowledge of universals (or general principles), whereas experience entails a knowledge of particulars (how this or that specific object behaves). Another way he expresses this is by saying that knowledge of universals is knowledge which is aimed at causes (the "why"s of things), whereas knowledge of particulars is aimed at instances (the fact that something is such and such, as opposed to why it is). Aristotle argues that art, this knowledge of universals, is not only valued over experience, but it is most highly valued when utterly divorced from experience. This, he says, is why we say those people are most wise and to be honored who strive to acquire knowledge for it's own sake, and no other end. As he puts it, it is theoretical knowledge which is valued most by humanity. And this (the proposition expressed by (3) above), he takes to be further evidence that humanity desires, and loves, knowledge simpliciter; knowledge for no other end but itself.

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